Bagdad Falling

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
581

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
Bomb the hell out of them. Air strikes and drones.
[/quote]

Bombing the hell out of them is not always the most prudent course of action. ISIS are salafists. The only reason they have support amongst relatively moderate Hanafi Sunnis in Iraq is due to the Iraqi Sunnis’ disenfranchisement and the sectarianism that is rife there.

Jordan does not have any Shia and the vast majority of Sunnis there are not hardcore Salafists. They may be able to carry out operations there but they are not a threat to the sovereignty of Jordan. Bombing the shit out of ISIS strongholds in Iraq will kill scores of Iraqi Sunnis and will further alienate them driving them towards ISIS.

[quote]

This is not conjecture. These are their statements. Bomb them back to the Stone Age. [/quote]

The prudent course of action is to stop support for Malarkey - the Shia can hold Baghdad and the South on their own - prop up the Kurds and help them gain oil contracts(Iraqi Kurdistan is already a fait accompli.) And extend Kurdish separatist operations into Iran and Syria. If we’re going to bomb anything it should be Iranian nuclear facilities.

582

That sounds logical and rational, BUT you are proposing logical and rational solutions to an unrational people. Unfortunately these folks understand only the Saddam Method: control w brute force. That’s the only thing they respect: strength.

583

to quote myself:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Should America and other nations wage war with it or should they wait until they are threatened to do so? [/quote]

they threatened the world:

584

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
to quote myself:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Should America and other nations wage war with it or should they wait until they are threatened to do so? [/quote]

they threatened the world:

So you are in favor of US forces being deployed in offensive operations against ISIS in Iraq?

585

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
That sounds logical and rational, BUT you are proposing logical and rational solutions to an unrational people. Unfortunately these folks understand only the Saddam Method: control w brute force. That’s the only thing they respect: strength. [/quote]

All Muslims/Arabs are irrational? On what grounds? If you state their religion is the cause, the remaining Abrahamic faiths must also be lumped into this irrational categorization.

586

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
That sounds logical and rational, BUT you are proposing logical and rational solutions to an unrational people. Unfortunately these folks understand only the Saddam Method: control w brute force. That’s the only thing they respect: strength. [/quote]

All Muslims/Arabs are irrational? On what grounds? If you state their religion is the cause, the remaining Abrahamic faiths must also be lumped into this irrational categorization.[/quote]

One could argue Islam is inherently irrational. Since, you know, convert or kill typically isn’t a tenant in the remaining Abrahamic faiths. But I digress. I say-- it’s the radical faction of this religion that is irrational. Do you think a significant proportion of their faith is tolerant? It’s a fact that a swath of these folks are violent. Just take a peek at Africa or the Mid East. Again, how do think a gay pride parade would go down in Tehran? Serious question Bismark. I don’t know if the religion makes them crazy/violent or of these crazy/violent animals just happen to gravitate toward a religion they try to twist and justify their barbarism. I’m just pointing out the fact that if you insult their profit, you will find a bomb in your car.

587

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
That sounds logical and rational, BUT you are proposing logical and rational solutions to an unrational people. Unfortunately these folks understand only the Saddam Method: control w brute force. That’s the only thing they respect: strength. [/quote]

All Muslims/Arabs are irrational? On what grounds? If you state their religion is the cause, the remaining Abrahamic faiths must also be lumped into this irrational categorization.[/quote]

One could argue Islam is inherently irrational. Since, you know, convert or kill typically isn’t a tenant in the remaining Abrahamic faiths. But I digress. I say-- it’s the radical faction of this religion that is irrational. Do you think a significant proportion of their faith is tolerant? It’s a fact that a swath of these folks are violent. Just take a peek at Africa or the Mid East. Again, how do think a gay pride parade would go down in Tehran? Serious question Bismark. I don’t know if the religion makes them crazy/violent or of these crazy/violent animals just happen to gravitate toward a religion they try to twist and justify their barbarism. I’m just pointing out the fact that if you insult their profit, you will find a bomb in your car.[/quote]

In liberal cuckoo land Islamic fundamentalists are the same as Orthodox Jews and evangelical Christians. Didn’t you know?

588

Do rabbis believe in genital mutilation? Do Muslims have ex-wives? I know they have axed-wives. Cheating on your spouse? Do Methodists support child brides? Curious.

589

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
That sounds logical and rational, BUT you are proposing logical and rational solutions to an unrational people. Unfortunately these folks understand only the Saddam Method: control w brute force. That’s the only thing they respect: strength. [/quote]

All Muslims/Arabs are irrational? On what grounds? If you state their religion is the cause, the remaining Abrahamic faiths must also be lumped into this irrational categorization.[/quote]

I like a lot of your posts…but this is extreme bullshit.

Radical Islam…estimates peg it at 10% of the worldwide 2.5 billion Muslim population… are fucking INSANE.

And they run countries.

Sweet jeebus, the devils advocate goes only so far graduate student.

590

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
to quote myself:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Should America and other nations wage war with it or should they wait until they are threatened to do so? [/quote]

they threatened the world:

So you are in favor of US forces being deployed in offensive operations against ISIS in Iraq?[/quote]

Yes.

591

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
Do rabbis believe in genital mutilation? [/quote]

If a clitoral hood is analogous to a foreskin (it is), and the cutting of either is to be considered “mutilation”, then yes. A bris is mutilation, and both rabbis and imams “believe in it” because God commands it. Female circumcision is not commanded in either Islam or Judaism: it is an Arab and African pre-Islamic cultural practice. Interestingly, in Kenya, the majority of girls who have full clitordectomies are Christian.

Yes. If a Muslim man and his wife get divorced, she becomes his ex-wife.

If they marry them, I imagine they are obliged to support them.

But seriously, folks…

NorCal, at what age do you consider a girl to no longer be a child?

Legally, a man may marry an “underage” (under 18) woman in every state of the union, provided her parents agree to the union.

Most states set the minimum age for girls to marry at 16, although it’s 15 in Georgia, Utah, New York and Hawaii, 14 in New Hampshire, North Carolina, Texas and Pennsylvania, with parental or judicial permission.

In Arizona, Colorado, Mississippi, and (ooh, looky here!) California, there is no minimum marriage age for marriage. Just like in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Burma.

So yes, a Methodist man from Mississippi may legally marry a 13-year-old girl, provided both her parents and the church are okay with it.

Would the church forbid it? Well, looking at the Methodist Book of Discipline, paragraph 161F, we find the following passage:

"[i]We affirm that sexuality is God’s good gift to all persons. We call everyone to responsible stewardship of this sacred gift.

Although all persons are sexual beings whether or not they are married, sexual relations are affirmed only with the covenant of monogamous, heterosexual marriage.

We deplore all forms of the commercialization, abuse, and exploitation of sex. We call for strict global enforcement of laws prohibiting the sexual exploitation of children and for adequate protection, guidance, and counseling for abused children. All persons, regardless of age, gender, marital status, or sexual orientation, are entitled to have their human and civil rights ensured and to be protected against violence.[/i]"

So as long as the marriage was monogamous and heterosexual (as a marriage between one man and one girl would be), and judged by both parents and pastor to be neither commercial, abusive nor sexually exploitative, then yes, the Methodist creed would support such a union.

592

Arizona, Colorado, Mississippi, and (ooh, looky here!) California have “age of consent” laws for sexual relations, a functioning criminal justice system as opposed to Sharia courts and a culture that abhors child molestation as opposed to a culture that practices it as a matter of course. Also, I believe in the United States women are allowed to leave their houses unaccompanied by their male relatives, drive cars, work, sing, dance, wear dresses as opposed to tents and kiss men they’re not married to without being stoned to death.

593

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

Arizona, Colorado, Mississippi, and (ooh, looky here!) California have “age of consent” laws for sexual relations, a functioning criminal justice system as opposed to Sharia courts and a culture that abhors child molestation as opposed to a culture that practices it as a matter of course. Also, I believe in the United States women are allowed to leave their houses unaccompanied by their male relatives, drive cars, work, sing, dance, wear dresses as opposed to tents and kiss men they’re not married to without being stoned to death.[/quote]

Sure, but the question was specifically about Methodists and child brides.

“Age of consent” laws are in many cases trumped by marriage laws allowing for parental or judicial consent.

Fuck a 13-year-old girl? Statutory rape. Go directly to jail, do not collect $200.

Fuck a 13-year-old girl and get her pregnant? No crime in four states as long as you marry her. Just like in Deuteronomy 22:28-29.

594

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

Arizona, Colorado, Mississippi, and (ooh, looky here!) California have “age of consent” laws for sexual relations, a functioning criminal justice system as opposed to Sharia courts and a culture that abhors child molestation as opposed to a culture that practices it as a matter of course. Also, I believe in the United States women are allowed to leave their houses unaccompanied by their male relatives, drive cars, work, sing, dance, wear dresses as opposed to tents and kiss men they’re not married to without being stoned to death.[/quote]

Sure, but the question was specifically about Methodists and child brides.

“Age of consent” laws are in many cases trumped by marriage laws allowing for parental or judicial consent.

Fuck a 13-year-old girl? Statutory rape. Go directly to jail, do not collect $200.

Fuck a 13-year-old girl and get her pregnant? No crime in four states as long as you marry her. Just like in Deuteronomy 22:28-29.[/quote]

That was a veiled reference to the dear Mohammad. Aisha was 6 (fucking 6!) when he married her! And 9 (??) when he consummated the marriage!!!

What a gentleman.

You can debate teenage age of consent years, but please try to defend a 6 year old.

595

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:

That was a veiled reference to the dear Mohammad. Aisha was 6 (fucking 6!) when he married her! And 9 (??) when he consummated the marriage!!!

What a gentleman.

You can debate teenage age of consent years, but please try to defend a 6 year old.
[/quote]

I won’t try to defend the marriage of a six-year-old girl to a fifty-year-old man.

What I will do, however, is look a bit askance at the numbers.

Muhammad’s daughter Fatimah was born to his first wife Khadija in Mecca at the about the time the Ka’aba was being rebuilt, circa 604 or 605, or five years before the first Qur’anic revelation. According to Ibn Hajar, Fatimah was five years older than Aisha, which would put Aisha’s birth at 609 or 610.

Khadija died ten years after the first revelation, at which time Muhammad approached Abu Bakr to ask for Aisha’s hand. That would make Aisha ten or eleven at the time. The hijra to Madinah took place three years after Khadija died, and Aisha came into the household of Muhammad two years after the hijra. Adding it all up, she was more likely fifteen than six.

The difference between fifteen and fifty is still a pretty big discrepancy for twenty-first-century sensibilities, who consider it “creepy” for thirty-five year-old men to sleep with twenty-year-old girls, but it’s not at all unusual when viewed in the context of other famous religious patriarchs of antiquity, such as Abram, who was 86 when he fathered Ishmael by Sarai’s young Egyptian handmaiden, or Joseph, who (according to accounts in the Apocrypha) was also in his 80s when he married Mary, who was 12 or 14 at the time.

Of course, this is all speculation. None of these numbers are verifiable: nobody kept what we would consider to be accurate records in those days. The Bible never mentions the ages of the young virgins, only the old goats. Neither, however, it must be said, does the Qur’an. All we have is the commentary, much of it apocryphal, most of it in dispute.

596

But the fact that 50-year-old men today still marry 6-year-olds lends my post some credence. And while I do appreciate what you cut-and-pasted from www.muslimtoday.com, I’m sure I can put up a bunch of link noting that Aiesha was a few years out of diapers before the profit married her. This is according to traditional Hadith sources.

And with Methodist today, you cite an example where something can be technically lawful through a legal loophole, but is this common practice? Do we see Methodists walking around married to multiple elementary school girls? Serious question.

597

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
All we have is the commentary, much of it apocryphal, most of it in dispute. [/quote]

Oh really?

Prophet married Aisha when she was 6-years-old and consummated his marriage with her when she was 9. He was then, 54 years old.

These are from islamic scriptures

Sahih Muslim Book 008, Number 3310:
'A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house when I was nine years old.

Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64
Narrated 'Aisha:
that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).

Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 65
Narrated 'Aisha:
that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old. Hisham said: I have been informed that ‘Aisha remained with the Prophet for nine years (i.e. till his death)." what you know of the Quran (by heart)’

Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88
Narrated 'Ursa:
The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).

598

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
That sounds logical and rational, BUT you are proposing logical and rational solutions to an unrational people. Unfortunately these folks understand only the Saddam Method: control w brute force. That’s the only thing they respect: strength. [/quote]

All Muslims/Arabs are irrational? On what grounds? If you state their religion is the cause, the remaining Abrahamic faiths must also be lumped into this irrational categorization.[/quote]

I like a lot of your posts…but this is extreme bullshit.

Radical Islam…estimates peg it at 10% of the worldwide 2.5 billion Muslim population… are fucking INSANE.

And they run countries.

Sweet jeebus, the devils advocate goes only so far graduate student.[/quote]

I believe that poverty is the swamp that must be drained for terrorism to be curtailed. If Chistians and Jews were as equally disenfranchised we would likely observe a comparable ratio of extremists within such societies. I believe contemporary terrorism to be more indicative of socio-economic conditions rather than purely religious.

599

You’re referring to Jews of course?

600

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

[quote]Bismark wrote:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
to quote myself:

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Should America and other nations wage war with it or should they wait until they are threatened to do so? [/quote]

they threatened the world:

So you are in favor of US forces being deployed in offensive operations against ISIS in Iraq?[/quote]

Yes.[/quote]

What forces, and in what capacity? Someone responding to the affirmative should have sufficient knowledge to offer more than a simple yes.