Do you wonder why they used the whole f16 montage and dead children prior to the burning in their footage? They use collateral damage as a recruitment tool and link everything from f16’s to drones as a type of cowardly weapon. [/quote]
I’m glad they took the time to execute unarmed helpless civilian hostages, and cartoonists in France. I’m glad they set off bombs in market places swarming with civilians. Great that they murdered 2000 + unarmed Christians in Nigeria and shot up a Mall also killing unarmed Christians. The Boston bombing was also a nice touch as well…
Nice to show us how a brave holy warrior fights as opposed to someone who uses a cowardly weapon.
[/quote]
It’s very analytically lazy to lump several distinct terrorist organizations into “they”.
Feel free to compare and contrast the various Muslim terrorists across the globe if you wish. But the ones in Africa are fighting as part of the Islamic State I believe or at least are considered part of Al-Qaeda.
To a Catholic, everyone who isn’t a Catholic is a heretic. And vice-versa: an astounding number of Protestants of my acquaintance vociferously deny that Catholics are Christians.
[/quote]
That’s not true Varq. We don’t not consider our Evangelical brothers and sisters heretics. We may have considered their leaders, Luther, Calvin, to be such but not the people themselves. After all, we do agree more than we disagree.
And yes, there are Protestants motivated by hatred for the mother church, but most understand and respect us. Those who know their history know that there is no Christianity without Catholicism. Christianity didn’t start in the 16th century. The Apostolic traditions were the first Christians.
The success of Protestantism is wholly dependent on technology and education. You had to have Bibles and the ability to read them. This was a luxury not afforded early Christians as the texts were hand written and scarcely available and most people couldn’t read. Hence, most people’s exposure to scripture was only during Mass, where it was read publicly. Had it not been for the printing press and the wide availability of Bibles, Protestantism would have smoldered and died with Martin Luther.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Feel free to compare and contrast the various Muslim terrorists across the globe if you wish. But the ones in Africa are fighting as part of the Islamic State I believe or at least are considered part of Al-Qaeda.[/quote]
ISIL and al-Qai’da are rival organizations, not allies. Ansar al-Sharia is allied with al-Qai’da in the Islamic Maghreb and ISIL. Same for Boko Haram. A faction of Al-Shabaab was allied with al-Qai’da in the Arabian Peninsula, while another faction merged with al-Qai’da Central. Infighting ensued. It’s a mistake to lump these groups into a united entity.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Feel free to compare and contrast the various Muslim terrorists across the globe if you wish. But the ones in Africa are fighting as part of the Islamic State I believe or at least are considered part of Al-Qaeda.[/quote]
ISIL and al-Qai’da are rival organizations, not allies. Ansar al-Sharia is allied with al-Qai’da in the Islamic Maghreb and ISIL. Same for Boko Haram. A faction of Al-Shabaab was allied with al-Qai’da in the Arabian Peninsula, while another faction merged with al-Qai’da Central. Infighting ensued. It’s a mistake to lump these groups into a united entity.[/quote]
They’ve all got one thing in common though don’t they?
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Feel free to compare and contrast the various Muslim terrorists across the globe if you wish. But the ones in Africa are fighting as part of the Islamic State I believe or at least are considered part of Al-Qaeda.[/quote]
ISIL and al-Qai’da are rival organizations, not allies. Ansar al-Sharia is allied with al-Qai’da in the Islamic Maghreb and ISIL. Same for Boko Haram. A faction of Al-Shabaab was allied with al-Qai’da in the Arabian Peninsula, while another faction merged with al-Qai’da Central. Infighting ensued. It’s a mistake to lump these groups into a united entity.[/quote]
They’ve all got one thing in common though don’t they?[/quote]
My thought exactly.[/quote]
Yes, all are religious terrorist organizations, but an understanding of their idiosyncrasies is of great importance to intelligence officers.
To a Catholic, everyone who isn’t a Catholic is a heretic. And vice-versa: an astounding number of Protestants of my acquaintance vociferously deny that Catholics are Christians.
[/quote]
That’s not true Varq. We don’t not consider our Evangelical brothers and sisters heretics. We may have considered their leaders, Luther, Calvin, to be such but not the people themselves. After all, we do agree more than we disagree.
And yes, there are Protestants motivated by hatred for the mother church, but most understand and respect us. Those who know their history know that there is no Christianity without Catholicism. Christianity didn’t start in the 16th century. The Apostolic traditions were the first Christians.
The success of Protestantism is wholly dependent on technology and education. You had to have Bibles and the ability to read them. This was a luxury not afforded early Christians as the texts were hand written and scarcely available and most people couldn’t read. Hence, most people’s exposure to scripture was only during Mass, where it was read publicly. Had it not been for the printing press and the wide availability of Bibles, Protestantism would have smoldered and died with Martin Luther. [/quote]
Varq missed out on the whole Vatican II thing.
I wonder how many of the terrorists have actually read a Koran? Or could actually read for that matter?
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Ever read what Friar John of Pian de Carpine said about the Mongols? I was going to post it, but changed my mind. Among their own people they were very Christian-like, not Christians, but they had a lot of their traits.
In the thirteenth century Catholics considered Dualists and Shamanists heretics. If you believe in the Bible yet have a very different interpretation of it, does that make you a Christian?
Here’s more about what the Cathar’s believe, though I may have gotten them mixed up with the Bogomils, sorry:
“There were two doctrines at the beginning. The moderate dualist Cathars believed that God created all spiritual beings and that Satanael rebelled and was thrown out from heaven. He then created the material world and imprisoned some Angels in physical bodies, human or from animals, which are the jails of divine beings, who want to be delivered. Christ was sent on earth, in a body made of light, to teach the people the way of liberation. Those people who fail to reach spiritual perfection during their lifetime continue to be reincarnated until they do. In the more radical version, the evil creator of the world was thought to be Godâ??s eternal enemy, rather than a rebel Satanael.”
So, what your saying is during the Crusades Christians killed Christians?
If a belief in Jesus and a basic belief in the books of the Bible & Apocrypha is all you need to be considered a Christian, I guess the Crusaders DID kill a lot of Christians because under your definition, that makes Muslims Christians.[/quote]
That is not my definition.
Muslims believe in the existence of a person named Jesus, who was immaculately conceived by a union of the Virgin Mary and the angel Gabriel. They believe this person was a prophet, and many actually refer to him as “al Masih” (the messiah). They believe that he was NOT actually crucified, but ascended to heaven unkilled. They do NOT believe, therefore, that he was a vicarious sacrifice for the crimes of mankind, and it would be anathema for any Muslim to think that Jesus is, was, or ever will be “God”. Ergo, not Christian.
The Cathars were far more Christian than the Mormons, and about as Christian as the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They were also about as threatening in 1320 as either the Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Mormons are today. And yet the pope considered them to be “more dangerous than the Saracens” for their refusal to toe the line of official dogma. Which just backs up what my history professor always used to say: no infidel is ever hated as much as a heretic.
Muslim thought regarding Christ was taken largely from the Gnostic texts since a lot of them did not believe Christ was a real being and he did not actually die on the cross (see the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter for example).
also see this: it explains Gnostic duality and also some of what you said Muslims believe above:
You might consider Gnostics Christians but they had a different cosmology and do not believe the same as Christians today.
For example, how many Christians today do you know who believe in Barbelo? How many even know who Barbelo is?
All I can say is Christianity went through a lot of changes in 700 years. Muslims have been fighting the same war for over 1300.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Muslim thought regarding Christ was taken largely from the Gnostic texts since a lot of them did not believe Christ was a real being and he did not actually die on the cross (see the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter for example).
also see this: it explains Gnostic duality and also some of what you said Muslims believe above:
You might consider Gnostics Christians but they had a different cosmology and do not believe the same as Christians today.
For example, how many Christians today do you know who believe in Barbelo? How many even know who Barbelo is?
All I can say is Christianity went through a lot of changes in 700 years. Muslims have been fighting the same war for over 1300.[/quote]
Christianity went through a lot of changes due to the secularisation of society following the Enlightenment, which resulted in a diminishment of political power for the clergy.
One might congratulate an eighty-year-old rapist for not having raped a woman in the last three decades, but one should consider that one reason for this may just be that he’s been impotent for at least that long.
The odds against Islam ever undergoing a similar secularisation and Enlightenment are at least as slim as they were for Christianity in the 14th century, but if it ever happens, then I think that Islam will evolve into a faith very much like another Abrahamic religion that was birthed in blood and iron and conquest and intolerance and meticulous adherence to a multitude of what we might now consider barbaric, misogynistic and ridiculous laws, but is now all about peace and understanding and social justice.
To a Catholic, everyone who isn’t a Catholic is a heretic. And vice-versa: an astounding number of Protestants of my acquaintance vociferously deny that Catholics are Christians.
[/quote]
That’s not true Varq. We don’t not consider our Evangelical brothers and sisters heretics. We may have considered their leaders, Luther, Calvin, to be such but not the people themselves. After all, we do agree more than we disagree.
And yes, there are Protestants motivated by hatred for the mother church, but most understand and respect us. Those who know their history know that there is no Christianity without Catholicism. Christianity didn’t start in the 16th century. The Apostolic traditions were the first Christians.
The success of Protestantism is wholly dependent on technology and education. You had to have Bibles and the ability to read them. This was a luxury not afforded early Christians as the texts were hand written and scarcely available and most people couldn’t read. Hence, most people’s exposure to scripture was only during Mass, where it was read publicly. Had it not been for the printing press and the wide availability of Bibles, Protestantism would have smoldered and died with Martin Luther. [/quote]
Two questions:
One: what does the Mother Church think of people who consider themselves to be Christians, but who believe that the Eucharist does NOT actually become body and blood of Christ, that holy water is NOT any different, in any way, from ordinary water, the Mary was NOT herself immaculately conceived, that she did NOT remain a virgin throughout her life, that she was NOT assumed into heaven, body and soul, that dead saints do NOT intercede on behalf of the living, and that the Pope is NOT the infallible vicar of Christ on earth? Are these people NOT, in fact, heretics?
And two: you seem to consider the Protestants spreading the word through their printing of books to have been a good thing. So tell me: what happened to Tyndale and Wycliffe, and to everyone in London found with a Bible printed in English in their possession, and why?
I know, I know. Vatican II changed everything, and just like the “born again Christian” wants everyone to look at him now rather than remember what a belligerent rapacious drunk he used to be, we are to judge the Catholic church only by its new, tolerant, all-inclusive post-Vatican II self rather than look at those inconvenient nineteen and a half centuries that preceded it.
Which is what I do for the most part, by the way. Of all the thousand or so flavours of Christianity around today, I think I find the Roman Catholic Church to be the most reasonable, with the Eastern Catholic and the various Orthodox Churches taking a close second and third. Not that I have any intention of joining their number anytime soon, but I am more sympathetic to a religious organisation that advances scientific inquiry than I am to an organisation that opposes it. Mother Church has seen the light, in other words, while many other spin-offs are still wallowing in the dark.
The fact that Catholics and Orthodox Christians do not agitate to have Creation and The Flood taught in schools as viable scientific theories gives these religions immeasurable credibility in my book, for whatever that’s worth.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Muslim thought regarding Christ was taken largely from the Gnostic texts since a lot of them did not believe Christ was a real being and he did not actually die on the cross (see the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter for example).
also see this: it explains Gnostic duality and also some of what you said Muslims believe above:
You might consider Gnostics Christians but they had a different cosmology and do not believe the same as Christians today.
For example, how many Christians today do you know who believe in Barbelo? How many even know who Barbelo is?
All I can say is Christianity went through a lot of changes in 700 years. Muslims have been fighting the same war for over 1300.[/quote]
Christianity went through a lot of changes due to the secularisation of society following the Enlightenment, which resulted in a diminishment of political power for the clergy.
One might congratulate an eighty-year-old rapist for not having raped a woman in the last three decades, but one should consider that one reason for this may just be that he’s been impotent for at least that long.
The odds against Islam ever undergoing a similar secularisation and Enlightenment are at least as slim as they were for Christianity in the 14th century, but if it ever happens, then I think that Islam will evolve into a faith very much like another Abrahamic religion that was birthed in blood and iron and conquest and intolerance and meticulous adherence to a multitude of what we might now consider barbaric, misogynistic and ridiculous laws, but is now all about peace and understanding and social justice.
[/quote]
I’m a little surprised that you would spin out the same narrative as Obama on this; namely, yes they’re bad but Christians were bad too, what the hey. I would expect something more sophisticated from a student of history. So firstly, why are Christians today sheep when once they were wolves? Of course, there are many reasons but there is a main reason: We were pacified by the state.
In Paleolithic times all men were warriors and hunters. The most effective killers had more wives and more children and their children inherited aggressiveness. As you probably know geneticists have identified a “warrior gene” associated with aggression, impulsiveness and higher levels of testosterone. The impulsive trait is suited to a nomadic hunting lifestyle where no planning ahead is required. Game was hunted and they would feast on the meat before it rotted and start all over again the next day.
With the rise of agriculture in the Indus Valley, Mesoptamia, Egypt and China men adapted to plan ahead for sowing, reaping; cooperation for farming; long term planning; knowledge of the seasons etc, storage of surplus grain and trade etc. Along with agriculture there was also livestock rearing. Livestock rearing does not require the same skills nor adaptive biological response. It is little different from the Paleolithic warrior / hunter gatherer lifestyle.
Peoples who have historically reared livestock have been the most warlike the world over. These two lifestyles(farmers and shepherds) are often categorised as “hill people” and “plains people” or “lowland people”. The hill tribes were largely nomadic animal rearers and the lowlands people farmers. The world over it can be seen that the most warlike people are hill tribes / animal rearers.
The next point to understand is the emergence of the state. The state crushes all violent opposition and those who are submissive to the state’s authority have more children. Those who aren’t are killed and have less or no children. However in places like the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan/Afghanistan, the tribal regions of the Arabian peninsular etc, they have never been subdued by the state. They formed their own tribal authority and customs and violently resisted any attempts to rule over them. Essentially, this is why the Islamists are the way they are. Or at least, it’s the most important reason.
In many of these tribal areas in the Muslim world violence is still the norm and the way men establish their authority and prestige. Indeed, the tribal chiefs are essentially the men who have killed the most number of people. They have more wives; more wealth; more power; more children. And over generations they have bred a population of psychopaths. And when I say psychopaths I mean quite literally. If you were to give a professional psychological assessment of these men they would be classed unequivocally as clinical psychopaths.
Of course this is all anathema to the leftist mindset: a population of biological psychopaths who can only be tamed by culling. Sounds awefully non-PC. So what is the answer? Really, the only solution is the process of pacification that Europeans went through over the last thousand odd years. And who is going to do that? Certainly not us. Certainly not their own governments who are afraid to touch them.
At the time of the crusades Western Europeans were savage barbarians, the Byzantines were highly cultured and the heirs to the Greco-Roman legacy and the Saracens were on their way to their own mini-renaissance. However, the warrior class of jihadists; the shock troops, were the same people who are causing all the trouble today. The Swat Valley for example, has been the birthplace of the most warlike people on earth since recorded history. Alexander fought them and described them as the toughest warriors he had ever encountered. This is what we are dealing with.
This is an essay entitled The Roman State and Genetic Pacification that describes the process in talking about in relation to Rome. It’s a good read.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Muslim thought regarding Christ was taken largely from the Gnostic texts since a lot of them did not believe Christ was a real being and he did not actually die on the cross (see the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter for example).
also see this: it explains Gnostic duality and also some of what you said Muslims believe above:
You might consider Gnostics Christians but they had a different cosmology and do not believe the same as Christians today.
For example, how many Christians today do you know who believe in Barbelo? How many even know who Barbelo is?
All I can say is Christianity went through a lot of changes in 700 years. Muslims have been fighting the same war for over 1300.[/quote]
Christianity went through a lot of changes due to the secularisation of society following the Enlightenment, which resulted in a diminishment of political power for the clergy.
One might congratulate an eighty-year-old rapist for not having raped a woman in the last three decades, but one should consider that one reason for this may just be that he’s been impotent for at least that long.
The odds against Islam ever undergoing a similar secularisation and Enlightenment are at least as slim as they were for Christianity in the 14th century, but if it ever happens, then I think that Islam will evolve into a faith very much like another Abrahamic religion that was birthed in blood and iron and conquest and intolerance and meticulous adherence to a multitude of what we might now consider barbaric, misogynistic and ridiculous laws, but is now all about peace and understanding and social justice.
[/quote]
I’m a little surprised that you would spin out the same narrative as Obama on this; namely, yes they’re bad but Christians were bad too, what the hey. I would expect something more sophisticated from a student of history. So firstly, why are Christians today sheep when once they were wolves? Of course, there are many reasons but there is a main reason: We were pacified by the state.
In Paleolithic times all men were warriors and hunters. The most effective killers had more wives and more children and their children inherited aggressiveness. As you probably know geneticists have identified a “warrior gene” associated with aggression, impulsiveness and higher levels of testosterone. The impulsive trait is suited to a nomadic hunting lifestyle where no planning ahead is required. Game was hunted and they would feast on the meat before it rotted and start all over again the next day.
With the rise of agriculture in the Indus Valley, Mesoptamia, Egypt and China men adapted to plan ahead for sowing, reaping; cooperation for farming; long term planning; knowledge of the seasons etc, storage of surplus grain and trade etc. Along with agriculture there was also livestock rearing. Livestock rearing does not require the same skills nor adaptive biological response. It is little different from the Paleolithic warrior / hunter gatherer lifestyle.
Peoples who have historically reared livestock have been the most warlike the world over. These two lifestyles(farmers and shepherds) are often categorised as “hill people” and “plains people” or “lowland people”. The hill tribes were largely nomadic animal rearers and the lowlands people farmers. The world over it can be seen that the most warlike people are hill tribes / animal rearers.
The next point to understand is the emergence of the state. The state crushes all violent opposition and those who are submissive to the state’s authority have more children. Those who aren’t are killed and have less or no children. However in places like the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan/Afghanistan, the tribal regions of the Arabian peninsular etc, they have never been subdued by the state. They formed their own tribal authority and customs and violently resisted any attempts to rule over them. Essentially, this is why the Islamists are the way they are. Or at least, it’s the most important reason.
In many of these tribal areas in the Muslim world violence is still the norm and the way men establish their authority and prestige. Indeed, the tribal chiefs are essentially the men who have killed the most number of people. They have more wives; more wealth; more power; more children. And over generations they have bred a population of psychopaths. And when I say psychopaths I mean quite literally. If you were to give a professional psychological assessment of these men they would be classed unequivocally as clinical psychopaths.
Of course this is all anathema to the leftist mindset: a population of biological psychopaths who can only be tamed by culling. Sounds awefully non-PC. So what is the answer? Really, the only solution is the process of pacification that Europeans went through over the last thousand odd years. And who is going to do that? Certainly not us. Certainly not their own governments who are afraid to touch them.
At the time of the crusades Western Europeans were savage barbarians, the Byzantines were highly cultured and the heirs to the Greco-Roman legacy and the Saracens were on their way to their own mini-renaissance. However, the warrior class of jihadists; the shock troops, were the same people who are causing all the trouble today. The Swat Valley for example, has been the birthplace of the most warlike people on earth since recorded history. Alexander fought them and described them as the toughest warriors he had ever encountered. This is what we are dealing with.
This is an essay entitled The Roman State and Genetic Pacification that describes the process in talking about in relation to Rome. It’s a good read.
My point was merely that the Church could no longer wield the tremendous power it once had, neither to persecute and control the lives of people within its jurisdiction, nor project its political and military power on people outside its borders, when it stopped being the State. And that this loss of power really started to happen at the time of the enlightenment, culminating with the birth of the world’s first secular constitutional republic.
As you said elsewhere, the Vatican has been de-fanged. It did not surrender these fangs voluntarily. It had them ripped from its jaws by an increasingly secularised society.
Is there any doubt in your mind that a one-billion member Catholic Church with the political and military power it had in the 13th Century (but with 21st Century technology) would behave very differently than how it does now?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
It would behave in accord with its nature. The Catholic Church adopted the radical egalitarian agenda in the 60’s hence Vat II.[/quote]
The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must.
The Catholic Church could no longer impose its will on others through political or military force, hence its adoption of the radical egalitarian agenda in the '60s, hence Vatican II.