Ok, so what the hell happened in Germany in NYE?

Great Debates
361

This makes no sense at all. Christianity must be the one “that covers 1/3 of the worlds population, including some very poor, blighted regions that have endured decades of war." Islam is then “a relatively small elite club of wealthy nations, predominantly enjoying access to education, healthcare, and decades of social reform." Can’t say it resonates with my experience with Islam, and the millions of Muslims immigrants trying to escape the Muslim world into Christian Europe.

The West has come to see crimes committed on the basis of racism as worse than crimes committed for other reasons (like financial gain, power grabs, sexual gratification). Thus when Muslims commit genocide against Yazidi and various Christian communities in Iraq/Syria – because they’re Yazidi/Christians, it’s seen as worse than when one Christian group goes rampage on another Christian groups in S. America or Africa. And when Muslims migrants deliberately target German girls in Cologne or Muslim immigrants deliberately seek out and rape ethnic English children in Rotherham then this is seen as worse that when S. Africans rapes each other. Do you really think that if it had been the other way round, white English Christians seeking out and raping Muslim children in the thousands, that this would have resulted in less soul seeking that what is the case?

And speaking of Catholic Latin America. We’ve got millions of immigrants from those countries in Europe too. Why don’t we see them behave like monkeys in central places of Europe? We got a bunch of Chileans fleeing Pinochet in the 70s and 80s. There were a few problems the first years; there are no problems today. Meanwhile we’ve got Muslim immigrants going coming in during the same period, and some even before, some now going on the 3rd and 4th generation and still fucking around being a nuisance to everybody around them: not getting an education, not getting employed, committing crimes, etc.

In any case, the reason the more recent Muslim migrants are behaving like monkeys in Cologne (& other places) is that they have an inferior culture than the native Europeans that have graciously given them refuge, as far as that culture is formed by religion they also have an inferior religion.

Here’s an interview with one of the victims btw.

362

What you originally replied to specified “in the Western world” which the LRA definitely is not.

363

You appear to be confusing Christianity with The West. In fact, you just appear confused. Perhaps you could advise what didn’t make sense in my original post, and I’ll try to clarify things for you.

364

So now we get to compare Islam as a worldwide religion, and Christianity under a set of conditions determined to suit the prejudice at hand.

Good game that. From now on we can only consider terrorist attacks by Islamic groups if they were committed by drone strike. Seem reasonable? Or is it ok only to add filters if they back up our side?

365

All I’m saying is that you didn’t answer his question so it’s not exactly fair to say he’s moving the goal posts. LRA would be a fair comparison to ISIL if the Islamic State wasn’t actively calling for/claiming terror acts in Western countries which afaik LRA never did.

366

I take it we are discussing the definition of “bigot” here, since it was in relation to that word that I quoted Ambrose Bierce.

So no, I do not accept that at all. The very definition you are using has no application to Muslims. Muslims are NOT a racial or ethnic group. There are blond, blue-eyed Muslims and blue-black African Muslims. There are Chinese Muslims. They speak dozens of different languages and have an array of national customs.

I suppose Muslims are “members of a group” if you still want to cling to that part of your definition, but if a bigot is anyone who hates any group, then the term “bigot” becomes so watered down as to be useless.

According to your definition, I fully admit I am a bigot in that I treat the members of the following groups with “hatred and intolerance”.

People who sue other people at the drop of a hat
Dictators who murder and terrorize their own people
People who don’t have their kids vaccinated for some idiot “natural” reason and allow diseases like measles to make a comeback
People who don’t pay their taxes while honest citizens like me pick up the slack.
Governments like Saudi Arabia that murder and torture people to impose religious views
Religions that kill people if they want to leave.
People who beat their kids
People who pollute
etc. etc. etc.

Hell, since the word “group” can mean anything, you might say that Republicans are anti-Democrat bigots and vice-versa.

I realize Geller is harsh in her criticism, and frankly I do not like her much.

But that is beside the point.

What we are seeing here is the intellectual bankruptcy of Islamic apologists. Confronted with massacre after massacre, shooting of policemen, organized mass rape, demands for Sharia law in our western democracies and an endless, full frontal assault of fascistic Islam against our western freedoms and values, these apologists are reduced to two or three old chestnut arguments and to yelling “bigot” and “racist” against those who are ringing the alarm bells.

367

Let me ask a question. Let’s say I go around assaulting anyone I see wearing a cross on the grounds I think all Christians are inferior scum with a tendency towards child abuse. Just how would you define that particular sort of prejudice? Me, I’d call that religious bigotry. Why heck, there’s all manner of examples I can point to of religious bigotry over the years. The word bigot even has it’s routes from a person who was a religious hypocrite.

So I’m going to quite happily go with that title for Ms Geller. But if you’ve got another suitable label for “a vile idiot who discriminates against 1/3 of the world’s population on the ground of their belief system” then feel free to supply options.

368

Kumquat mon cher, this is the person who wrote this OP in seriousness: Hate literature placed in my hotel room by the Gideons…what should I do? so the idea of rational or internally coherent use of llanguage is not to be expected, it is not new but it is a tradition…

369

Neither did the DAESH until the Western air strikes to support the Iraqis, only after.

Since the Western nations have not done much on the LRA, some symbolic ‘training’ advisors to the Ugandan army but no strikes, it is more comparable to the DAESH before.

Of course the “LRA not killing any white people or threatening the oil fields” ruler is useful.

370

I would indeed apply the term “religious bigot” to someone who assaults anyone they perceive to be a member of a given religion. No argument there.

Now, would you please tell me when Ms Geller has assaulted individual Muslims that she meets? Can you give me the names of her alleged victims that she has allegedly assaulted? Has she been convicted of assault?

Oh no, wait. It is Ms Geller who must have bodyguards, just like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Salman Rushdie, the Danish Cartoonists, Charlie Hebdo staff and others too numerous to mention. All for the “crime” of criticizing Islam and its attack on our values.

371

Excellent, we’ve got progress.

So you’re now arguing that it only becomes religious bigotry when a physical assault is involved? Please confirm.

372

Well they were allied with al Qaeda for about 10 years. Regardless, it doesn’t effect my point.

373

no, some of the members were elements in local al Qaeda, the DAESH as a group did not exist ten years ago.

374

I am not in the least ashamed of that “Hate literature placed in my hotel room. . . .” thread. I wanted to start a discussion as to whether people in a secular society should have to accept religious tracts placed automatically in the hotel room they are paying for. Indeed, I have noticed an increase in religious texts besides the Bible. I see examples of the Book of Mormon and the Koran. I still think that discussion is as relevant as protests against manger scenes on public property and the ten commandments in court houses.

So you are convinced I wrote that thread “seriously”? I did on fact adopt a tone of mock panic in writing that thread, as a device for getting the discussion going.

Look at this line, where I say: " . . . including some from a guy named Paul (who) seems very sexist as well as homophobic."

Now come on, lady, do you seriously think I did not know who St. Paul was before I opened the Gideon Bible in that hotel room in 2008? Do you think I was really noticing Paul’s sexist and homophobic positions for the first time? I received 13 years of Catholic education!!!

I will try to explain the concept of serious/comic satire. I imagine it will not be easy for you to understand because your Muslim background probably gives you very little grounding in concepts of free speech and satire.

For example, you have the Anglo-Irish author Johnathan Swift (no, I am not comparing myself to him, just giving you an example) who wrote in “A Modest Proposal” that the Irish should eat their children. It was bitter satire, it was darkly comic, and it was made to underline the exploitation of the Irish by the English.

His subject was serious but his “proposal” was not.

I adopted a slightly comic “panic” tone in my OP, as if I had just discovered the sexism and murderous homophobia in the Bible. But the fact remains that the commandment to kill homosexuals is clearly there in the Book of Leviticus.

Similarly, the Koran is filled with exhortations to violence and torture, sexism, homophobia. It rants and raves incessantly about “infidels” and the terrible fate that awaits them. It gives men the right to beat their wives. I have NO objection to the hotel making religious books available to those who request them. But why should I have those objectionable tomes put in my hotel room whether I asked for them or not?

As a gay person, I have to regard Islam as an ideology that fuckin’ wants to KILL me! How tolerant must I be of people who want my death?

So yes, you and others can keep throwing that 2008 thread about Gideon Bibles at me all you want. I stand by it.

375

Unfortunately, until they actually assault you, apparently it’s not bigotry.

376

DAESH is generally considered a descendant group of al Qaeda in Iraq, though I understand your point that it’s more complicated than that.

377

Perhaps you can make some progress yourself, if you put your mind to it. I did NOT say that it only becomes religious bigotry when a physical assault is involved.

You said that you would define it as “religious bigotry” if someone assaulted every person he saw wearing a cross (presumably “people wearing crosses” means Christians).

I agreed and expanded the definition to say that it would indeed be religious bigotry for a person to automatically assault members of any religion.

I was giving an example of behaviour that I would certainly consider “religious bigotry.” I never said that religious bigotry could only take this form and no other.

Other actions may or may not be judged “bigotry” depending on circumstances. Refusing to rent a room to someone because he is a Muslim is in my opinion religious bigotry. Opposing state funding to Muslim schools, especially when all public schools in a state or province are secular, is NOT bigotry. Refusing to hire a woman as a teacher because she is a Muslim IS bigotry. Refusing to let that woman wear a veil when she teaches little kids is NOT bigotry, in my opinion. It is a complicated question, as you see.

378

Read my other post and you will see that I never said that. YOU are trying to say that I said that.

Besides, when someone believes he has a command from Allah to kill me, whether or not his homophobia qualifies as bigotry becomes rather academic, don’t you think?

379

See Kumquat, I told you.

Oh what a surprise.

Yes indeed, as I imagine being an overly dramatic gay person makes it hard to understand rational calm people who are not gay. This is obviously not a irrational prejudiced or hateful opinion…

380

Yes it is not a direct descent, not by organization or even by ideology in very core aspects.