"God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

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Kirbmarc
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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#481

Post by Kirbmarc »

jimhabegger wrote:Kirbmarc, if I'm understanding you correctly, what arouses your concern and seeing a need for some kind of action, is not people wanting to reshape society according to some version of Islam, in itself, but the ways that some people are going about it. Is that right?
When we're talking about legal action, of course every religion has the right to try and spread their message through legal means.

When we're talking about criticism and mockery everything is fair game. There are no boundaries to criticism and mockery. I don't believe in political correctness, or in limiting one's speech to protect offended feelings or for reasons of a "noble social lie".

Basically when I say that I want to prevent people from "reshaping society" I mean reshaping society so that civil rights of others are curbed, or people are targeted by bullying or discrimination, or so that freedom of speech and opinion is curbed.

If you convince some people to freely follow some rules that's not "reshaping society", that's expanding your own private club (religious or not).

As long as other people can freely mock and criticize your religion, leave your religion, or simply not follow its rules without repercussion, and you don't promote violence, harassment, bullying and discrimination you're free to argue in favor of your church and to ask people to join.

You're free to say "Hi, I'm Jim Habegger, this is what I believe, and this is why I think my religious beliefs are the best way to achieve world peace and happiness. Would you like to join my religious congregation?" People are free to answer "yes" or "no". If they answer "no", the proper behavior on your part is to say something along the lines of "I'm sad I haven't convinced you, and I hope you'll reconsider, but I will respect your choice. Here's my number if you want to call me".

As long as this is the extent of your actions (i.e. promoting your beliefs, arguing in favor of them, and asking people to join in) it's all protected speech, and I see nothing wrong with it, even though I might not like your beliefs. I might keep an eye on your activities, criticize you or mock you but you have the right to do what you do.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#482

Post by jimhabegger »

Kirbmarc, again, I agree with everything in your post #481 above.

I still see a possible disagreement between us about generalizations, which I'd like to discuss further. I'd like to illustrate what I mean by trying put what I've seen you saying, about issues revolving around outrageous things people are doing in the name of Islam, into my own words, without any generalizations about Islam or Muslims, or any of the other popular ways of dividing people into groups and categories, by ideology or any other way. It seems possible to me, that if you try it, you'll like it.

Did you know that I'm nearly half Swiss?

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#483

Post by jimhabegger »

Kirbmarc wrote:
jimhabegger wrote:Kirbmarc, a lot of what I see people passing off as "criticism of Islam" looks to me like camouflage for malicious and malevolent defamation campaigns against Muslims, and I see race prejudice as part of the reason for the popularity of those defamation campaigns. Do you really not see any truth in that at all?
Have you read the article which I have quoted? Have you read Shadi Hamid's article on the supposed incompatibility between Islam and liberal democracy? Both Razib Khan and Shadi Hamid offer ideas about criticism of Islam which aren't really tied to race, nor are they malicious and malevolent campaigns against Muslims. Razib Khan is an atheist from a Muslim family. Shadi Hamid identifies as a deist-partially agnostic version of a liberal interpretation of Islam.
I've now read Is Islam ‘Exceptional’? by Shadi Hamid, and There Is No Exception in Islam by Razib Khan. Are those the articles you mean?

I don't see what that has to do with what I said. I don't see either one of those writers making generalizations about Islam and Muslims that stigmatize Muslims, and trying to pass that off as "criticism of Islam." I've never heard of either one of them being accused of Islamophobia.

The only kind of behavior I've ever seen being denounced, and then defended as "criticism of Islam," is people continually injecting generalizations about Islam and Muslims that stigmatize Muslims, into discussions about outrageous things that people do in the name of Islam. That behavior, continually injecting generalizations about Islam and Muslims that stigmatize Muslims, into discussions about outrageous things that people do in the name of Islam, and defending that as "criticism of Islam," looks dishonest, irresponsible and despicable to me, not only because it helps perpetuate and intensify hostilities that are threatening to blow up the world, but because it gives criticism a bad name, and makes it harder for honest and responsible criticism to be heard and taken seriously.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#484

Post by jimhabegger »

Kirbmarc, this article, The Brussels attack and liberal Islamophobia discusses the smear campaigns against Muslims that I've been seeing, and the complicity of the media in promoting them. I object to the term "Islamophobia," and to some other things in the article, but it brings out some points that seem important to me. For example:
A 2011 Gallup poll found that American Muslims were the least likely of all polled American religious groups to accept vigilante violence against civilians. In all, 26 percent of American Protestants, 27 percent of Catholics, 22 percent of Jews, 19 percent of Mormons, 23 percent of atheists, but just 11 percent percent of Muslims said that it is "sometimes justified" for an "individual person or a small group of persons to target and kill civilians".
I don't trust opinion polls at all, because I see the same corruption in the poll industry that I see in every other industry. I consider them worse than useless as sources of knowledge about what people think. The reason I'm quoting that is as example of poll reports being ignored if they don't stigmatize Muslims more than people of other religions.


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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#486

Post by jimhabegger »

It's the same story, again and again: Global monopoly interests support and finance terrorism against their adversaries, then when that same terrorism is very predictably turned against the West, blame it all on Islam and Muslims.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#487

Post by Steersman »

jimhabegger wrote:It's the same story, again and again: Global monopoly interests support and finance terrorism against their adversaries, then when that same terrorism is very predictably turned against the West, blame it all on Islam and Muslims.
More self-serving horse shit, entirely typical of your garden variety godbot, particularly notable in the subgenus, Islamic. Case in point, a recent - hot-off-the-press - post from the Godless Spellchecker:
Asad Shah Murder: the disturbing support for ‘blasphemy’ killing in a British court

Back in April I reported on the tragic murder of Asad Shah, a Muslim shopkeeper from Glasgow. The usual regressive types could barely contain their excitement when faced with the prospect of an ‘Islamophobic’ hate crime – until it was revealed that the killer himself was also a Muslim. ...

The victim and their attacker did not know each other. Shah’s killer, Tanveer Ahmed travelled from Yorkshire to Scotland via train solely to carry out what has been described as an ‘execution’.

Shah, an Ahmadiyya Muslim, was deemed to have ‘disrespected the prophet Muhammad’ according to Ahmed in some of the video content Shah had posted online. “Listen to this guy. Something needs to be done. It needs nipped in the bud” Ahmed was reported to have said whilst watching the clips on his train journey. ....

According to Sky News:
James Matthews, Sky News’ Scotland Correspondent, said: “Inside court, a section of the public gallery was filled by supporters of Tanveer Ahmed.

“As he was led away from the dock he faced them, raised his hand to the air, and shouted in Arabic.

“One told Sky News he said: ‘Muhammad is the prophet, he is the only one’.

“They returned the sentiment, with a collective voice, as the killer was forced down stairs into the holding cells beneath court.”
....

Let me spell out what is happening here. A particular group of people experience no fear, shame or reluctance in sitting in a British court in 2016 and openly supporting the murder of an innocent man for ‘blasphemy’. These people do not arise from a vaccum. They are a product of deeply conservative Muslim communities. ....
Pray tell, how does that have anything at all to do with your "Global monopoly interests support and finance terrorism" blathering?

Classy bunch you share beliefs with, particularly that the Quran is "the words of Gawd Himself". Piss on your "holy book" [ha!], and on your Prophet. #BanIslam Deport the fucking lot.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#488

Post by jimhabegger »

Kirbmarc wrote:Basically when I say that I want to prevent people from "reshaping society" I mean reshaping society so that civil rights of others are curbed, or people are targeted by bullying or discrimination, or so that freedom of speech and opinion is curbed.
Do you think that there can't be any Muslims whose understanding of the kind of society prescribed by the Quran would serve your values as well liberal democracies do, or even better?

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#489

Post by Steersman »

jimhabegger wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:Basically when I say that I want to prevent people from "reshaping society" I mean reshaping society so that civil rights of others are curbed, or people are targeted by bullying or discrimination, or so that freedom of speech and opinion is curbed.
Do you think that there can't be any Muslims whose understanding of the kind of society prescribed by the Quran would serve your values as well liberal democracies do, or even better?
Yes. Not until y'all start speaking out against the barbarisms your "holy book" underwrites and condones. Which, of course, you are congenitally unable to do - at least as long as you're unable to admit that it is largely or substantially the ravings of a mad man.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#490

Post by Kirbmarc »

jimhabegger wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:Basically when I say that I want to prevent people from "reshaping society" I mean reshaping society so that civil rights of others are curbed, or people are targeted by bullying or discrimination, or so that freedom of speech and opinion is curbed.
Do you think that there can't be any Muslims whose understanding of the kind of society prescribed by the Quran would serve your values as well liberal democracies do, or even better?
Since Islam is a partisan view of the world I highly doubt it. Do you think that there can be a team, no matter how well intentioned, that can be trusted to be their own referees better a neutral referee?

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#491

Post by Kirbmarc »

Of course. That's what I was talking about when I was talking about the "covert war" between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The "West" doesn't exist as a coherent whole. It's some precise people and movements who allowed this to happen, specifically:
“THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION… THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME…”.
The Saudi and Turkish lobby in the US and in the UK, and Israel in a certain way, are closely tied to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis want to keep OPEC under their control and were wary of a potential alliance between Siria and Iran, which would have threatened their supremacy. The "West" in this case means Hillary Clinton and some American and British think-tanks who are financed by the "Gulf Countries" that the document talks about.

The mistake is to assume that the West are in control of Saudi Arabia and the petro-countries, when it's other way around. Saudi Arabia and the petro-states claim to be "allies" of the US and the UK but are actually blackmailing both countries, and influencing their policies, in exchange for oil and the control of OPEC. The petro-states are all Muslim theocracies which are spreading Muslim supremacy ideas: Salafism is a tool for the Saudis to counter the influence of the other powerful theocracy in the Middle East, Iran.

It's up to people who live in the liberal democracies to get rid of the Saudi shills and to vote for people who aren't willing to play second fiddle to the interest of authoritarian theocracies who love to promote themselves as "moderates" when they're anything but. In this respect Hillary Clinton is a much worse choice than Donald Trump, even though he's far from flawless.

Trump is far less likely to do the Saudi's bidding and to tolerate Salafist preachers in the West. Some of his opinions, if taken at face values, are highly authoritarian, but even if he wins he's going to be restrained by other power and by the US constitutions. Pragmatically speaking he's the lesser evil in the US election.

Out of the US other liberal democratic countries can choose people who are wiling to control immigration and promote integration, like the Liberal Party of Switzerland, instead of either fascists or people who are Saudi shills or ally themselves with or have sympathies for Muslim terrorist groups (like Jeremy Corbyn, who has expressed opinions sympathetic and has ties with Hamas and Hezbollah).

The Saudi dynasty and their petro-country allies aren't allies of liberal democracy, no matter how much they've tried to tell us. They're usurers and blackmailers, who use oil to live as kings while they promote Muslim theocracy everywhere, even in the "West". The leaders of the US and the UK have made terrible choices in allying with them and in toppling every regime which tried to start reforms, like Mossadegh in Iran.

The mistake that many make is to assume that the leaders of liberal democratic countries actually care about liberal democracy. Not all of them do. Many care more about the money of some influential lobbies.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#492

Post by Kirbmarc »

jimhabegger wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:
jimhabegger wrote:Kirbmarc, a lot of what I see people passing off as "criticism of Islam" looks to me like camouflage for malicious and malevolent defamation campaigns against Muslims, and I see race prejudice as part of the reason for the popularity of those defamation campaigns. Do you really not see any truth in that at all?
Have you read the article which I have quoted? Have you read Shadi Hamid's article on the supposed incompatibility between Islam and liberal democracy? Both Razib Khan and Shadi Hamid offer ideas about criticism of Islam which aren't really tied to race, nor are they malicious and malevolent campaigns against Muslims. Razib Khan is an atheist from a Muslim family. Shadi Hamid identifies as a deist-partially agnostic version of a liberal interpretation of Islam.
I've now read Is Islam ‘Exceptional’? by Shadi Hamid, and There Is No Exception in Islam by Razib Khan. Are those the articles you mean?

I don't see what that has to do with what I said. I don't see either one of those writers making generalizations about Islam and Muslims that stigmatize Muslims, and trying to pass that off as "criticism of Islam." I've never heard of either one of them being accused of Islamophobia.
Those articles (among many others) are what I mean by "rational criticism of Islam". The authors haven't been accused of "Islamophobia" because they're not "white" . If a "white" person have wrote those articles many SJWs would have accused them of "Islamophobia".

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#493

Post by Kirbmarc »

jimhabegger wrote:It's the same story, again and again: Global monopoly interests support and finance terrorism against their adversaries, then when that same terrorism is very predictably turned against the West, blame it all on Islam and Muslims.
The monopoly interests who created this mess are dominated by people who are support the idea of Muslim supremacy (more specifically of Salafi supremacy) either because they believe in them or because they see them as useful tools.

Those monopolies are headed by the Saud dynasty, other petro-states tyrants, and their shills and lobbies (including their shills in the US, like Hillary Clinton).

People, however, are listening to Muslim supremacist ideas spread by the Salafis and financed by the Saudis. It's up to Muslim reformers to denounce those movements, to stop blaming the West for all the flaws of Islam and start understanding that if those people find fertile grounds for those preaching it's largely because they're finding support for their ideas in the Quran.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#494

Post by Kirbmarc »

Steersman wrote:
jimhabegger wrote:It's the same story, again and again: Global monopoly interests support and finance terrorism against their adversaries, then when that same terrorism is very predictably turned against the West, blame it all on Islam and Muslims.
More self-serving horse shit, entirely typical of your garden variety godbot, particularly notable in the subgenus, Islamic. Case in point, a recent - hot-off-the-press - post from the Godless Spellchecker:

<snip a lot of troubling shit>

Classy bunch you share beliefs with, particularly that the Quran is "the words of Gawd Himself". Piss on your "holy book" [ha!], and on your Prophet. #BanIslam Deport the fucking lot.
Thanks for the articles Steers. Have you noticed that the first target of these Muslim supremacist, likely a Salafist or inspired by Salafists, was another Muslim of a different denomination? I'm not saying that Islam is "off the hook" but you need to understand the effects of Salafi propaganda. The Salafis love to make everyone believe that they represent all Islam, or "the true Islam". They're a danger to liberal democracy, and need to be stopped. But by throwing together all Muslims, including those who are the victims of the Salafi, you're only giving more power to the Salafi themselves.

You need to integrate those who want to integrate, and expel those who make it clear that they don't. You need to tell apart people according to their actions. In the case you presented, for example, the police would be well within its rights to record the name of those who have supported the killer (which isn't just "expressing an opinion", it's supporting violence for religious means), keep them under control, and find out who are their imams, which websites they're visiting, and what they're up to.

If they're involved in violent projects they need to be dealt with, preferably by deportation. This includes the imams who justify and promote acts of violence. The support for the killer didn't arise from nowhere.

But starting a witch hunt on "all Muslims", instead of focusing on those who defend and support religious violence, is counterproductive. It's targeting people not for their support for violence but for their religious ideas. It's sending the message "We're against Islam" when the real message you should send is "If you promote religious violence or violate the laws you will be dealt with" and "Anyone is free to express their religious ideas and non-religious ideas unless they're promoting violence or violating the laws".

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#495

Post by jimhabegger »

Kirbmarc, have you looked at any list of the top net worth players recently?

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#496

Post by jimhabegger »

Kirbmarc, if you haven't done it recently, I suggest you study the composition and rankings of the top 100 net worth players.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#497

Post by jimhabegger »

KIrbmarc, take a look at this. In particular, look at the breakdown by religious background.

Demographic breakdown of the world's top 50 billionaires

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#498

Post by Kirbmarc »

jimhabegger wrote:Kirbmarc, if you haven't done it recently, I suggest you study the composition and rankings of the top 100 net worth players.
I have. But the top 100 net worth players don't control everything in the World. People like Bill Gates or Carlos Slim can still lose lawsuits, have to obey the laws of they land where they live and have specific interests to protect in specific fields. Money aren't everything: it's the combination of money and power that really counts. Vladimir Putin has FAR less money but is more powerful than Bill Gates. Gates can't order invasions or have access to a nuclear arsenal. Barack Obama himself is slightly less powerful than Putin, since his hands are tied by the US constitution. The only real limits to Putin's power are the possible repercussions from other countries and the possibility of attempts on his life if he displeases certain people too much (both of which he's able to deal with, at least to a certain degree).

If you like lists, you should take a look at Forbes' list of the World's Most Powerful people: Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud is number 14, and Ali Hosseini-Khamenei is number 18. But lists of single people are by and large meaningless. What matters more are networks, alliances, lobbies and spheres of influence.

In the Middle East the biggest powers are Saudi Arabia and its cronies against Iran and its allies. The US have traditionally sided with Saudi Arabia, as Israel (another long time US ally) recently has. Russia now supports Iran. Turkey is trying to keep a hard balance between the Saudis and Russia.

In general the most powerful people and networks in the US care about two things in the Middle East: a) that oil is pegged to the dollar, and not another currency and b) that Israel is allowed to go on with its policies. They don't really care about the ideology of their allies as long as they don't oppose their goals. Then there are the lobbies, which are incredibly powerful and can influence foreign policy as long as it doesn't go against the "oil for dollars" and "free Israel" goals. In the US the Israeli lobby and the Saudi lobby are extremely powerful.

Nobody at those levels really cares about the civil rights of Middle Eastern people, and they're far too busy protecting their personal and corporate interests to care about the security and stability of liberal democracies.

The Saudis more or less indirectly financed Al-Qaeda, which attacked the US on 9/11, and yet the US policy wasn't to scold or restrain them, but to go to great lengths to hide their involvement and even to "never upset" them. The Saudis have the third largest reserve of US dollars in the world, and have threatened repercussions if the US congress probed more into the possibility of al-Qaeda-Saudi ties.

Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State and the main figure behind the US support for rebels in Lybia and for anti-Assad forces in Syria, has several ties to the Saudi lobby in the US.

I'm not saying that everyone in the US is dependent on the Saudis: recently John Kerry and Barack Obama have tried to slowly disentangle themselves from the excesses of the results of the Saudi policies and to open a line of dialogue with Iran, and Donald Trump is more or less independent from the Saudi lobby (even though, like many other businessmen, he had several business transactions with the Saudis in the past).

But it would be naïve to think that "the US rule the world" and the most rich people in the world are the only players in the game.

In general I don't think that the Saudi dynasty personally care about religion that much: they probably see Westerners as "degenerate", but they don't mind a slice of degeneration on their own. However they're eager to use Salafism to control the Middle East, their subjects, Sunni Muslims in general and indirectly OPEC. They also rule a country which is a Muslim theocracy, where Somali immigrants are treated as slaves, women have little to no rights and which is not so different from the Islamic State in ideology and laws.

US citizens should be fed up with playing into the hands of people who finance groups which attack liberal democracies and non-Salafis in general and which advocate Muslim supremacy by any means. The citizens of other "Western" countries should also try to loosen ties with those people, too.

Salafi groups, financed by the Saudis and the other petro-states, are a threat to democracy and to the safety of everyone who isn't a Salafi (including non-Salafi Muslims, especially Shia and Ahmadi). It's time for liberal democracy to stop allying themselves with people who are nurturing their enemies.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#499

Post by jimhabegger »

Kirbmarc, now you're making a lot more sense to me.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#500

Post by Kirbmarc »

jimhabegger wrote:Kirbmarc, now you're making a lot more sense to me.
[youtube]T3iYzyDQ3hQ[/youtube]

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#501

Post by jimhabegger »

I mostly agree with what you said, except for a few points.
Kirbmarc wrote:Vladimir Putin has FAR less money but is more powerful than Bill Gates. Gates can't order invasions or have access to a nuclear arsenal.
He can buy Putin.

Is that what you mean by "power"? The destructive capacity of the military forces that are currently following a person's orders?
Barack Obama himself is slightly less powerful than Putin, since his hands are tied by the US constitution.
:lol: You think that the US president's hands are tied by the US constitution? Where have you been the last few decades? You honestly, seriously think that Obama's hands are tied more than Putin's, that he has less destructive capacity at his disposal than Putin does, for any purpose he chooses?
If you like lists, you should take a look at Forbes' list of the World's Most Powerful people
I will.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#502

Post by jimhabegger »

I looked at that list of the worlds most powerful people, and I still didn't see where you're getting the idea that the global monopoly interests that have been encouraging and supporting terrorism in the name of Islam, all revolve around Saudi interests. Is it because global monopoly interests revolve largely around oil, and they can't easily subjugate Saudi Arabia because it has The Bomb, so they have to accommodate its interests, to have access to the oil under its protection?

Do you think that without Islam as an excuse, there would be less struggle for control over the world's human and natural resources, or that it would be less violent? You don't think that the escalation would continue unabated, with some new ideological banner replacing "Islam," as easily as "Islam" replaced "Communism"?

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#503

Post by Kirbmarc »

jimhabegger wrote:I mostly agree with what you said, except for a few points.
Kirbmarc wrote:Vladimir Putin has FAR less money but is more powerful than Bill Gates. Gates can't order invasions or have access to a nuclear arsenal.
He can buy Putin.

Is that what you mean by "power"? The destructive capacity of the military forces that are currently following a person's orders?
That's one form of power. There are many others. The ability to have people obey you is power, whether it comes from money, religion, ideology, manipulation, status, force, being at the top of an institution, personal charisma, discipline, or many other reasons.

[youtube]FpL6Fwu0wkw[/youtube]

And Gates very likely can't buy Putin. Putin has something which money can't buy: a pretty much guaranteed hold on the political institutions of Russia, and the favor of the Russian people. Many Russian like Putin. Fewer Americans like Gates. ;)
Barack Obama himself is slightly less powerful than Putin, since his hands are tied by the US constitution.
:lol: You think that the US president's hands are tied by the US constitution? Where have you been the last few decades? You honestly, seriously think that Obama's hands are tied more than Putin's, that he has less destructive capacity at his disposal than Putin does, for any purpose he chooses?
As I said: slightly. He can't get himself elected to a third time, he can't play games with his cronies like Putin does, and he needs subterfuges to act like Putin can do more or less openly. He also can't order journalist who criticize him or his policies killed.

US presidents can be removed from office if they overplay their hand: it's happened before with Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton came close to being forced to resign over a trivial matter like marital infidelity and possible perjury about infidelity. They can also lose elections.

Russian elections are a sham, and good luck getting Putin to step down, even if he was caught strangling an old lady in the street.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#504

Post by Kirbmarc »

jimhabegger wrote:I looked at that list of the worlds most powerful people, and I still didn't see where you're getting the idea that the global monopoly interests that have been encouraging and supporting terrorism in the name of Islam, all revolve around Saudi interests. Is it because global monopoly interests revolve largely around oil, and they can't easily subjugate Saudi Arabia because it has The Bomb, so they have to accommodate its interests, to have access to the oil under its protection?
Global monopoly interests are at odds with each other. Muslim supremacist terrorism is a tool, and a very powerful one, especially if it's combined with Salafi preaching.

I've written about this before. It's all about OPEC. The Saudis and the other leaders of petro-countries control it, and decide that oil should be paid in dollars, and the price of oil. Iran has been trying to subvert Saudi control of OPEC for quite a while, by forging alliances with Syria or attempting to do so with Lybia.

"Strangely enough" Ghaddafi is overthrown and Assad's regime is in shambles just after they got closer to coming to a deal with Iran. And Shia Muslims, believed (not entirely without reason) to be a fifth columns for Iran, are oppressed in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and fought against in Iraq. Curious, isn't it?

The allies of the Saudis have no interests to subjugate Saudi Arabia because the Saudi leadership over OPEC is good business for them, and because the Saudis owe a lot of dollars and could wreck the system if they wanted to. The Saudis have also created a shield of Sunni Muslims who would be willing to go to war if Saudi Arabia were attacked militarily by a Western power. Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, after all, and Salafi leaders everywhere are radicalizing Muslims so that they'd be willing to sacrifice themselves if the "Western crusaders" attacked the heart of Islam.

Not that anyone in the West would attack Saudi Arabia anyway, since the Saudis have been busy investing in many Western companies and buying Western debt.

The only powers which are openly opposed to Saudi Arabia are Iran and Iran's protector, Putin's Russia. And the Saudis are fighting them, openly and covertly.
Do you think that without Islam as an excuse, there would be less struggle for control over the world's human and natural resources, or that it would be less violent? You don't think that the escalation would continue unabated, with some new ideological banner replacing "Islam," as easily as "Islam" replaced "Communism"?
Who knows? All I know is what's happening right now, and the negative consequences of what's happening right now. It's hard to speculate of what would happen in a different world, especially when you're asking me to remove one of the key parts of international politics right now.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#505

Post by jimhabegger »

Kirbmarc, all that looks very plausible and reasonable to me.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#506

Post by Steersman »

Kirbmarc wrote:
Steersman wrote:
jimhabegger wrote:It's the same story, again and again: Global monopoly interests support and finance terrorism against their adversaries, then when that same terrorism is very predictably turned against the West, blame it all on Islam and Muslims.
More self-serving horse shit, entirely typical of your garden variety godbot, particularly notable in the subgenus, Islamic. Case in point, a recent - hot-off-the-press - post from the Godless Spellchecker:

<snip a lot of troubling shit>

Classy bunch you share beliefs with, particularly that the Quran is "the words of Gawd Himself". Piss on your "holy book" [ha!], and on your Prophet. #BanIslam Deport the fucking lot.
Thanks for the articles Steers.
De nada; glad to be of service. :-) Ready always to illustrate the perfidy and the barbarism of a rather too large segment of so-called Muslims. Somewhat apropos of which, and closer to your bailiwick:
Invaders: Forced Marriage in Switzerland

Nonwhite immigration to Switzerland has caused a surge in the number of forced marriages in that country, with at least 119 reported cases this year already.

The Center of Competence against Forced Marriage, or Zwangsheirat, reports that the perpetrators and victims are all from Eritrea, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. ....

According to a report in The Local’s Switzerland news service, of the 119 cases reported so far, 26 cases involved females under the age of 16, with some as young as ten years old.

According to Zwangsheirat’s director, Anu Sivaganesan, the latest figures are a “marked rise,” given only five cases involving victims under 16 were discovered between 2005, when the center began its work, and 2015. ...

In June this year, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas announced that his country would “not recognise polygamy or marriages involving minors.”

“No one who comes here has the right to put his cultural values or religious beliefs above our law,” he told the Bild newspaper. ....
Probably the tip of a rather odious iceberg, with outcroppings thither and yon. One that may yet sink the ship of state known as the EU.
Kirbmarc wrote:Have you noticed that the first target of these Muslim supremacist, likely a Salafist or inspired by Salafists, was another Muslim of a different denomination? I'm not saying that Islam is "off the hook" but you need to understand the effects of Salafi propaganda.
Kind of looks that way, particularly as I don't see that you've addressed, directly or not, that Quillette article on how "moderate" religion fuels fundamentalism.
Kirbmarc wrote:You need to integrate those who want to integrate, and expel those who make it clear that they don't. You need to tell apart people according to their actions.
As Flew argues, paraphrasing Warraq, that Islam is fundamentally and "flatly incompatible" with democracy one might reasonably argue that any "Muslim" that goes to a mosque is, ipso facto, "making it clear" that they have absolutely no desire to integrate. Ergo, by your logic, close the borders, deport the fucking lot of them.
Kirbmarc wrote:But starting a witch hunt on "all Muslims", instead of focusing on those who defend and support religious violence, is counterproductive. It's targeting people not for their support for violence but for their religious ideas.
And if those "religious ideas" intrinsically support and condone violence, as clearly seems the case with Islam, then what? Apropos of which, a site I ran across as a result of "conversation" with another Islamic godbot that was trying to justify killing people for apostasy. Although I will concede that it made some effort to differentiate between killing by the state, and killing by individuals. However, given the Asad Shah case described above, and things like Orlando and Nice, it's hard not to conclude that a rather large number of "Muslims" are unclear on the difference. And I don't see many Islam apologists, godbots, and imams doing much to disabuse such wackos of their delusions - probably because they're equally deluded. Ergo, equally guilty. In any case, a salient quote or two:
Understanding the punishment for apostasy in Islam

Many people believe that capital punishment for apostasy in Islam is a problem. There are some so-called modernist and liberal Muslims who will perhaps like to add “alleged” in the above sentence. ...

The thought of capital punishment for apostasy being a problem springs from the failure to understand the essence of Islam. What is Islam? Is it just a “religion” like Christianity or Hinduism? Far from it! Islam is something more comprehensive. It is church and state united. To the faithful Islam is veritably a “portable fatherland”. However, people do not realize a “religion” can be such comprehensive an idea so as to govern every domain of human interest. The division of state and church has struck the minds in a way that any thought against it seems weird and causes consternation. ....
You really seriously think that anyone supporting that view should be allowed into Western countries or be allowed to stay?

In any case, one might reasonably wonder whether Jim-the-godbot's Baba-yabba-dabba-doola has ever explicitly rejected such barbarisms.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#507

Post by jimhabegger »

Kirbmarc, I'm not sure this will mean anything to you, but I'm not sure it won't, so I'll try it.

Does it mean anything to you to say that the racial categories that are commonly used today are meaningless and useless for any beneficial purpose that can't be served better some other way? It might be possible that some kinds of grouping based on external physical features could possibly be useful for some beneficial purposes, but if so, the best grouping for any beneficial purpose would certainly *not* be the race categories that are commonly used today.

The reason for that is that those categories were never devised for any constructive, beneficial purposes in the first place. They were devised for the purpose of excusing and camouflaging cruelty and injustice. It would be an unthinkable coincidence if those same categories could be useful for any beneficial purposes.

I'm saying the same thing about the ideological categories that are commonly used for grouping people today, including for example "Christian," "Jew," "atheist," "Muslim" and even the lines people draw between "religions" and other kinds of ideologies. Grouping people by ideology in those terms obscures every issue, creates needless confusion and distractions, and helps perpetuate and intensify animosities and hostilities, without serving any beneficial purpose that can't be better served some other way.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#508

Post by Steersman »

jimhabegger wrote: <snip>

I'm saying the same thing about the ideological categories that are commonly used for grouping people today, including for example "Christian," "Jew," "atheist," "Muslim" and even the lines people draw between "religions" and other kinds of ideologies. Grouping people by ideology in those terms obscures every issue, creates needless confusion and distractions, and helps perpetuate and intensify animosities and hostilities, without serving any beneficial purpose that can't be better served some other way.
More horse shit, more blathering, more papal encyclicals. People draw lines between all sorts of things for quite good reasons - kind of important to know the difference, for example, between edible and poisonous plants.

You might try reducing your rather profound ignorance - must be the wacko ideology that you call a religion - by reading, for a start, the article on taxonomy:
Taxonomy (from Ancient Greek: τάξις taxis, "arrangement", and -νομία -nomia, "method"[1]) is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. ....

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#509

Post by Kirbmarc »

Steersman wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:Have you noticed that the first target of these Muslim supremacist, likely a Salafist or inspired by Salafists, was another Muslim of a different denomination? I'm not saying that Islam is "off the hook" but you need to understand the effects of Salafi propaganda.
Kind of looks that way, particularly as I don't see that you've addressed, directly or not, that Quillette article on how "moderate" religion fuels fundamentalism.
Salafis who don't openly advocate violence are often described as "moderate" when they're anything but.

I reject the whole distinction between "moderate" and "extremist". It's all a matter of accepting liberal democratic values. Which is something that Christians didn't use to, either, at least the ones who really believed in their religion instead of those who believed out of conformism and/or cultural ties. Christianity has reformed in a way that is more compatible with liberal democratic values only relatively recently, and this has caused schisms and the creation of isolationist Christian groups.
Kirbmarc wrote:You need to integrate those who want to integrate, and expel those who make it clear that they don't. You need to tell apart people according to their actions.
As Flew argues, paraphrasing Warraq, that Islam is fundamentally and "flatly incompatible" with democracy one might reasonably argue that any "Muslim" that goes to a mosque is, ipso facto, "making it clear" that they have absolutely no desire to integrate. Ergo, by your logic, close the borders, deport the fucking lot of them.
Flew isn't a neutral observer. He's a Christianity apologist. He argues that Christianity was never about literalism and all about belief, when it clearly wasn't. And Islam isn't a monolith, either: Sufis, Ahmadis or Ismailis are all about belief and not so much about literalism. Not that this makes them perfect, mind, but it shows that Flew's point about the "fundamental incompatibility" isn't entirely accurate.
Kirbmarc wrote:But starting a witch hunt on "all Muslims", instead of focusing on those who defend and support religious violence, is counterproductive. It's targeting people not for their support for violence but for their religious ideas.
And if those "religious ideas" intrinsically support and condone violence, as clearly seems the case with Islam, then what?

<snip an article about an interpretation of Islam as a political doctrine>
Do you realize that those ideas were and are promoted by several Christian philosophers and scholars, too? That the matter of law is defining "harm", and if you seriously believe that you're "saving souls" and protecting the afterlife then apostasy is interpreted as rebellion, no matter your religion?

Read the Syllabus of Errors by Pope Pius IX, issue in 1864, and you'll find the same conclusions. Read Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan and Georg Hegel's "Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts" (Elements of the Philosophy of Right) and you'll find the exact same argument about how individual choice doesn't matter and what matters is the "organic development" of a society towards "the common good" guided by the state, which punished those who don't comply severely.

Communism, Fascism and Nazism have bought borrowed extensively from Hegel and Hobbes.

The only reason why (Western) Christianity is relatively better those days is that they've been forced to reform after the fall of authoritarian nations like Franco's Spain, or the Ustacia regime in Croatia, or (more recently) Pinochet's Chile all of which weren't much better than Muslim authoritarian theocracies, and all of which used the exact same arguments against individual rights for the "common good" and the "protection of society".

Hell even the SJWs, as dumb as they are, use the exact same argument ("this is harmful to our goal to build the Perfect Society!") when it comes to admittedly more trivial matters like freedom of speech on Twitter.

The author of the blog is simply convinced that Islam is somehow superior to all the other authoritarian projects.

Should we exile all the communists or SJWs, too?
In any case, one might reasonably wonder whether Jim-the-godbot's Baba-yabba-dabba-doola has ever explicitly rejected such barbarisms.
Good question. I'll turn it over to you, Jim: do you allow people to live their undisturbed by private or public repercussions if they leave your church?

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#510

Post by Kirbmarc »

jimhabegger wrote:Kirbmarc, I'm not sure this will mean anything to you, but I'm not sure it won't, so I'll try it.

Does it mean anything to you to say that the racial categories that are commonly used today are meaningless and useless for any beneficial purpose that can't be served better some other way? It might be possible that some kinds of grouping based on external physical features could possibly be useful for some beneficial purposes, but if so, the best grouping for any beneficial purpose would certainly *not* be the race categories that are commonly used today.
Racial categories, while to a certain degree real, are by and large something which works only on a statistical level. Individuals work much better in a society when they don't identify with this or that race, when they're considered as individual. Furthermore, racial categories aren't something which is chosen, they're a consequence of being born with a certain DNA. You can't change your genetic makeup.
I'm saying the same thing about the ideological categories that are commonly used for grouping people today, including for example "Christian," "Jew," "atheist," "Muslim" and even the lines people draw between "religions" and other kinds of ideologies. Grouping people by ideology in those terms obscures every issue, creates needless confusion and distractions, and helps perpetuate and intensify animosities and hostilities, without serving any beneficial purpose that can't be better served some other way.
The situation isn't the same. People group themselves by ideology or religion, by choosing to follow a certain ideology or religion. You can change religions or ideology: many people have done it and still do it all the time.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#511

Post by jimhabegger »

Kirbmarc wrote:
In any case, one might reasonably wonder whether Jim-the-godbot's Baba-yabba-dabba-doola has ever explicitly rejected such barbarisms.
Good question. I'll turn it over to you, Jim: do you allow people to live their undisturbed by private or public repercussions if they leave your church?
Your question looks to me like a completely different question from the one you quoted. The question you quoted is whether Baha'u'llah explicitly rejected some unspecified barbarisms. Your question is whether I, or maybe you mean Baha'is, allow people to live their lives undisturbed by private or public repercussions if they leave the Baha'i community. Those are two entirely different questions to me. I'll answer both of them.

Since I'm not sure precisely what barbarisms the question you quoted are referring to, I'll give some examples of what God prohibits or denounces, according to Baha'u'llah, that might possibly cover them.

According to Baha'u'llah, God prohibits arson, murder, theft, backbiting, calumny, entering a house without the owner's permission, and contention and conflict; and prescribes penalties for wounding or striking a person. Here's one example of those prohibitions:
Ye have been forbidden in the Book of God to engage in contention and conflict, to strike another, or to commit similar acts whereby hearts and souls may be saddened.
(Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 72)
Conflict and contention are categorically forbidden in His Book.
(Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 220)

To answer the question about people who leave the Baha'i community, here's what the Baha'i Universal House of Justice, the supreme council of Baha'i communities all over the world, said about it in 2002, in a message to the world's religious leaders:

"It may be objected that, if all the great religions are to be recognized as equally Divine in origin, the effect will be to encourage, or at least to facilitate, the conversion of numbers of people from one religion to another. Whether or not this is true, it is surely of peripheral importance when set against the opportunity that history has at last opened to those who are conscious of a world that transcends this terrestrial one—and against the responsibility that this awareness imposes. Each of the great faiths can adduce impressive and credible testimony to its efficacy in nurturing moral character. Similarly, no one could convincingly argue that doctrines attached to one particular belief system have been either more or less prolific in generating bigotry and superstition than those attached to any other. In an integrating world, it is natural that patterns of response and association will undergo a continuous process of shifting, and the role of institutions, of whatever kind, is surely to consider how these developments can be managed in a way that promotes unity."

In April 2001, in a message to all Baha'i national councils, the Universal House of Justice wrote:
One's beliefs are an internal and personal matter; no person or institution has the right to exert compulsion in matters of belief.
Acceptance of the Faith is the voluntary act of an individual and is registered by the appropriate Bahá'í institution unless it has good reason not to do so. Likewise, a Bahá'í is free to leave the Faith voluntarily. When a member of the community informs the Assembly of his wish to withdraw, it would try to help him overcome whatever problems seem to be the cause of his desiring to take such a step. If he persists in his intention, the Assembly would normally accept the withdrawal unless there were grounds for suspecting that he is acting insincerely out of some ulterior motive, such as to violate a Bahá'í law with impunity.

In spite of loving encouragement given by their Assemblies, not all Bahá'ís are active in the work of the community. This does not, of course, necessarily indicate withdrawal. An Assembly should carefully distinguish between those who are not active but still identify themselves with the Faith, and those whose inactivity indicates complete lack of interest and a wish to have nothing more to do with the Cause.

Once a person's resignation from the Faith has been accepted, his status is that of a non-Bahá'í and - except as noted below - his relationship with Bahá'í institutions and individual believers is the same as that of any other non-Bahá'í. As in all human relationships, the closeness of this connection, and the warmth of friendship, depend upon personal factors.
That's what the supreme council of the world's Baha'i communities says about it. The attitudes and behavior of members of the Baha'i Faith diverge as widely as the attitudes and behavior of people in all the rest of society, so there are likely to be many individual Baha'is, and possibly even some local Baha'i councils, that habitually treat people unfairly and unkindly when they withdraw from membership in the Baha'i community.

Personally, in all my life, I've never thought of people who withdrew from membership in the Baha'i Faith any differently from anyone else who was not a member, and years ago I stopped even making any distinction between members and non-members, in my attitudes towards them.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#512

Post by jimhabegger »

Kirbmarc wrote:
In any case, one might reasonably wonder whether Jim-the-godbot's Baba-yabba-dabba-doola has ever explicitly rejected such barbarisms.
Good question. I'll turn it over to you, Jim: do you allow people to live their undisturbed by private or public repercussions if they leave your church?
Your question looks to me like a completely different question from the one you quoted. The question you quoted is whether Baha'u'llah explicitly rejected some unspecified barbarisms. Your question is whether I, or maybe you mean Baha'is, allow people to live their lives undisturbed by private or public repercussions if they leave the Baha'i community. Those are two entirely different questions to me. I'll answer both of them.

Since I'm not sure precisely what barbarisms the question you quoted are referring to, I'll give some examples of what God prohibits or denounces, according to Baha'u'llah, that might possibly cover them.

According to Baha'u'llah, God prohibits arson, murder, theft, backbiting, calumny, entering a house without the owner's permission, and contention and conflict; and prescribes penalties for wounding or striking a person. Here's one example of those prohibitions:
Ye have been forbidden in the Book of God to engage in contention and conflict, to strike another, or to commit similar acts whereby hearts and souls may be saddened.
(Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 72)
Conflict and contention are categorically forbidden in His Book.
(Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 220)

To answer the question about people who leave the Baha'i community, here's what the Baha'i Universal House of Justice, the supreme council of Baha'i communities all over the world, said about it in 2002, in a message to the world's religious leaders:
It may be objected that, if all the great religions are to be recognized as equally Divine in origin, the effect will be to encourage, or at least to facilitate, the conversion of numbers of people from one religion to another. Whether or not this is true, it is surely of peripheral importance when set against the opportunity that history has at last opened to those who are conscious of a world that transcends this terrestrial one—and against the responsibility that this awareness imposes. Each of the great faiths can adduce impressive and credible testimony to its efficacy in nurturing moral character. Similarly, no one could convincingly argue that doctrines attached to one particular belief system have been either more or less prolific in generating bigotry and superstition than those attached to any other. In an integrating world, it is natural that patterns of response and association will undergo a continuous process of shifting, and the role of institutions, of whatever kind, is surely to consider how these developments can be managed in a way that promotes unity.
In April 2001, in a message to all Baha'i national councils, the Universal House of Justice wrote:
One's beliefs are an internal and personal matter; no person or institution has the right to exert compulsion in matters of belief.
Acceptance of the Faith is the voluntary act of an individual and is registered by the appropriate Bahá'í institution unless it has good reason not to do so. Likewise, a Bahá'í is free to leave the Faith voluntarily. When a member of the community informs the Assembly of his wish to withdraw, it would try to help him overcome whatever problems seem to be the cause of his desiring to take such a step. If he persists in his intention, the Assembly would normally accept the withdrawal unless there were grounds for suspecting that he is acting insincerely out of some ulterior motive, such as to violate a Bahá'í law with impunity.

In spite of loving encouragement given by their Assemblies, not all Bahá'ís are active in the work of the community. This does not, of course, necessarily indicate withdrawal. An Assembly should carefully distinguish between those who are not active but still identify themselves with the Faith, and those whose inactivity indicates complete lack of interest and a wish to have nothing more to do with the Cause.

Once a person's resignation from the Faith has been accepted, his status is that of a non-Bahá'í and - except as noted below - his relationship with Bahá'í institutions and individual believers is the same as that of any other non-Bahá'í. As in all human relationships, the closeness of this connection, and the warmth of friendship, depend upon personal factors.
That's what the supreme council of the world's Baha'i communities says about it. The attitudes and behavior of members of the Baha'i Faith diverge as widely as the attitudes and behavior of people in all the rest of society, so there are likely to be many individual Baha'is, and possibly even some local Baha'i councils, that habitually treat people unfairly and unkindly when they withdraw from membership in the Baha'i community.

Personally, in all my life, I've never thought of people who withdrew from membership in the Baha'i Faith any differently from anyone else who was not a member, and years ago I stopped even making any distinction between members and non-members, in my attitudes towards them.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#513

Post by Steersman »

jimhabegger wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:
In any case, one might reasonably wonder whether Jim-the-godbot's Baba-yabba-dabba-doola has ever explicitly rejected such barbarisms.
Good question. I'll turn it over to you, Jim: do you allow people to live their undisturbed by private or public repercussions if they leave your church?
Your question looks to me like a completely different question from the one you quoted. ...

Since I'm not sure precisely what barbarisms the question you quoted are referring to, I'll give some examples of what God prohibits or denounces, according to Baha'u'llah, that might possibly cover them.
It was apostasy and the punishment meted out for it in some jurisdictions. Which you could have easily found out by reading my post.
jimhabegger wrote:Personally, in all my life, I've never thought of people who withdrew from membership in the Baha'i Faith any differently from anyone else who was not a member, and years ago I stopped even making any distinction between members and non-members, in my attitudes towards them.
Good for you. But that you continue to insist that the Quran is "the words of God Himself" doesn't really let y'all entirely off the hook for being fellow-travelers with those who use the same claim to justify those punishments.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#514

Post by Steersman »

Kirbmarc wrote:
Steersman wrote:
Kirbmarc wrote:Have you noticed that the first target of these Muslim supremacist, likely a Salafist or inspired by Salafists, was another Muslim of a different denomination? I'm not saying that Islam is "off the hook" but you need to understand the effects of Salafi propaganda.
Kind of looks that way, particularly as I don't see that you've addressed, directly or not, that Quillette article on how "moderate" religion fuels fundamentalism.
Salafis who don't openly advocate violence are often described as "moderate" when they're anything but.
Yes, and that's part of the reason why many people, myself included, put "moderate" in quotes to emphasize that point.
Kirbmarc wrote:I reject the whole distinction between "moderate" and "extremist".
Even if it's not particularly useful when it comes to Islam, it still, in general, seems like a useful dichotomy, a useful term for "defining groups of [ideological proponents] on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups". So to speak.
Kirbmarc wrote:It's all a matter of accepting liberal democratic values.
That is also another useful one, although it's not particularly relevant to Islam as it intrinsically rejects those values.
Kirbmarc wrote:Which is something that Christians didn't use to, either, at least the ones who really believed in their religion instead of those who believed out of conformism and/or cultural ties. Christianity has reformed in a way that is more compatible with liberal democratic values only relatively recently, and this has caused schisms and the creation of isolationist Christian groups.
Yes, and as you said, Christianity has evolved; Islam seems intrinsically incapable of doing that.
Kirbmarc wrote:....
Steersman wrote: As Flew argues, paraphrasing Warraq, that Islam is fundamentally and "flatly incompatible" with democracy one might reasonably argue that any "Muslim" that goes to a mosque is, ipso facto, "making it clear" that they have absolutely no desire to integrate. Ergo, by your logic, close the borders, deport the fucking lot of them.
Flew isn't a neutral observer. He's a Christianity apologist.
Don't see that that holds much water:
However, in 2004 he stated an allegiance to deism, more specifically a belief in the Aristotelian God.
Seems deism, an "Aristotelian God", is rather a long distance from the Old Testament gods of the Bible and the Quran.
Kirbmarc wrote:...

Do you realize that those ideas were and are promoted by several Christian philosophers and scholars, too? That the matter of law is defining "harm", and if you seriously believe that you're "saving souls" and protecting the afterlife then apostasy is interpreted as rebellion, no matter your religion?

Read the Syllabus of Errors by Pope Pius IX, issue in 1864, and you'll find the same conclusions. Read Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan and Georg Hegel's "Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts" (Elements of the Philosophy of Right) and you'll find the exact same argument about how individual choice doesn't matter and what matters is the "organic development" of a society towards "the common good" guided by the state, which punished those who don't comply severely. ....

Hell even the SJWs, as dumb as they are, use the exact same argument ("this is harmful to our goal to build the Perfect Society!") when it comes to admittedly more trivial matters like freedom of speech on Twitter.

The author of the blog is simply convinced that Islam is somehow superior to all the other authoritarian projects. ....
Yes, a reasonable argument - in its essence. So to speak. But it seems quite a reasonable premise that societies, in general, have a right to impose some degree of conformity on their members - "for the greater good". However, as per my "in general", not all societies are predicated on the same values, or wish to impose the same things on their members. More specifically, a salient if not profound difference between Islam - a theocracy - and most western democracies is that the former is predicated on an untenable and unevidenced, not to say barbaric and psychotic, belief in a deity of a particular and odious nature. You can't really be seriously arguing that they are on par and that the same benefits or rights extended to the latter can and should be extended to the former?

You might consider T.H. Huxley's delineation of that difference:
The truth is that the pretension to infallibility, by whomsoever made, has done endless mischief; with impartial malignity it has proved a curse, alike to those who have made it and those who have accepted it; and its most baneful shape is book infallibility. For sacerdotal corporations and schools of philosophy are able, under due compulsion of opinion, to retreat from positions that have become untenable; while the dead hand of a book sets and stiffens, amidst texts and formulæ, until it becomes a mere petrifaction, fit only for that function of stumbling block, which it so admirably performs. Wherever bibliolatry has prevailed, bigotry and cruelty have accompanied it. It lies at the root of the deep-seated, sometimes disguised, but never absent, antagonism of all the varieties of ecclesiasticism to the freedom of thought and to the [x] spirit of scientific investigation. For those who look upon ignorance as one of the chief sources of evil; and hold veracity, not merely in act, but in thought, to be the one condition of true progress, whether moral or intellectual, it is clear that the biblical idol must go the way of all other idols. Of infallibility, in all shapes, lay or clerical, it is needful to iterate with more than Catonic pertinacity, Delenda est.
Indeed, Delenda est.
Kirbmarc wrote:Should we exile all the communists or SJWs, too?
Again you are eliding or trying to whitewash away a salient difference: their authoritarianism is at least predicated on something more than "book infallibility", than "bibliolatry", than the supposed existence of "biblical idols"; they don't insist on the existence of unprovable deities who just happen, mirabile dictu, to have left behind commandments written in stone that are supposedly beyond disproof. That is, I think, the crux of the matter, although you seem to be in more or less good company in that modus operandi:

Rizvi, along with many others - at least along with the 50-odd people who liked his tweet or retweeted it, seems to be of the view that just because there are significant similarities between Christianity and Islam there can be no salient or essential differences that might well preclude the same evolutionary process in Islam that took place with Christianity. And it seems to me that a central one is that, as the Bible (I think) puts it somewhere, "render unto Caesar that which is Caesars": seems to be an intrinsic acceptance of a rather important difference between Church and State. Which is, of course, largely if not entirely absent from Islam.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#515

Post by Kirbmarc »

Steersman wrote:Don't see that that holds much water:
However, in 2004 he stated an allegiance to deism, more specifically a belief in the Aristotelian God.
Seems deism, an "Aristotelian God", is rather a long distance from the Old Testament gods of the Bible and the Quran.
I didn't say he was a Christian. I said that he is a Christianity apologist. While Flew has professed a personal belief in a "philosophical Aristotelian God" (whatever he meant by that is unclear) he has routinely offered excuses to Christianity based on false or arbitrary historical interpretations.

For example in the passage you quote he said that all is needed to be a Christian is "the Nicene creed" while Islam offers a series of rules and regulations. That's a statement which is at best disingenuous and at worst a huge distortion of history and reality. The Nicene creed itself comes with several variations, and Christians of different denominations have changed or edited it for their purposes, and no denomination of Christianity comes without a long series of rules and regulations: most famously Catholics have to obey to what is written in the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. Until very recently violating one of the rules in the Cathechism meant that punishment was meted out through (at best) ostracism and bullying.

Christianity isn't much better than Islam when it comes to regulating its follower's lives. The only reason why today Christianity is more tame is that today a large part (and in many countries a sheer majority) of Christians are Cafeteria Christians, who cherry pick which rules to follow and which they don't, or even simply nominal Christians who care little for their religion except for a few specific cultural expressions.

This is because the power of Christian churches has been greatly reduce by secularization, a process which started with the Enlightenment, followed its course through the American and French revolution and culminated with the Second Vatican council. "Modernism" (a "tamer" version of Christianity, more compatible with modern values) was still denounced as heresy until the 1950s-1960s. Many Christian sects still denounce it.

Flew has become pretty dishonest in general when it comes to religion. He's also claimed, for example, that Bertrand Russell never mentioned the "Aristotelian god" in his writings (which is blatantly false) and has made claims in favor of pseudo-scientific ideas which look like a mish-mash of several Intelligent Design and Creationist tropes.

I wouldn't trust him on Christianity, and I would trust him even less on Islam.
Yes, a reasonable argument - in its essence. So to speak. But it seems quite a reasonable premise that societies, in general, have a right to impose some degree of conformity on their members - "for the greater good". However, as per my "in general", not all societies are predicated on the same values, or wish to impose the same things on their members. More specifically, a salient if not profound difference between Islam - a theocracy - and most western democracies is that the former is predicated on an untenable and unevidenced, not to say barbaric and psychotic, belief in a deity of a particular and odious nature. You can't really be seriously arguing that they are on par and that the same benefits or rights extended to the latter can and should be extended to the former?
Here you equivocate between theocracy (the legal supremacy of a religion over others) and religion itself. The only conformity that liberal democratic societies demand on their members is to accept the neutrality of laws and institutions, to accept that their religion shouldn't be legally and institutionally privileged over others. Liberal democratic states have no position about the reality of religion itself.

If you're banishing religions because they're untenable and unevidenced (and let's face it, all religions are untenable and unevidenced) you're not supporting a liberal democracy, you're supporting State atheism, which is an authoritarian idea. People have a right to believe in untenable and unevidenced ideas. What they don't have is the right to impose their untenable and unevidenced ideas onto others who don't believe in them.
Indeed, Delenda est.
Biblical inerrancy is an idea still popular among American evangelicals. Do we exile them, too?
Rizvi, along with many others - at least along with the 50-odd people who liked his tweet or retweeted it, seems to be of the view that just because there are significant similarities between Christianity and Islam there can be no salient or essential differences that might well preclude the same evolutionary process in Islam that took place with Christianity. And it seems to me that a central one is that, as the Bible (I think) puts it somewhere, "render unto Caesar that which is Caesars": seems to be an intrinsic acceptance of a rather important difference between Church and State. Which is, of course, largely if not entirely absent from Islam.
The tendency to interpret "render unto Caesar that which is Caesars" as a different between Church and State is a modern interpretation. Historically that passage was interpreted first as a claim that Christians should pay taxes to Roman authorities (acquiesce to political power rather than recognize a distinction between Church and State), then (by Tertullian among others) as a warning that Christians shouldn't be overly concerned with worldly possessions and that they should give themselves to their god.

Speaking of Islam, some Muslim denominations (like the Ahmadi) accept the idea of separation of Church and State. Of course other Muslim denominations say that they're "not real Muslims" exactly for this reason.

It's all a matter of interpretation. Nobody, not even the fundamentalists, takes every single word of their Holy Books literally. They can't, because those words are often vague and contradictory. All believers, no matter how much they think they're "following God's word", are actually cherry pickers who tailor their religion according to their other ideas.

The real problems rarely come from single, isolated believers. They come from the messages which the clergy and religious intellectuals spread. In the case of Islam the biggest threats come from the so-called "Muslim revivalism", a theocratic ideology which is anti-democratic, anti-modern and anti-liberal because it's anti-western. It's all about preaching "modern decadence" and the veneration for the old, including myths of Muslim unity (which never really existed on a large scale) and of a "pure Islam" of the origins (which is actually a modern myth).

Islam can be tamed, just like Christianity can be tamed, by integrating single Muslims into a liberal democratic setting, by fighting legally against those who preach violence and culturally against those who preach against integration.

It's the progressives who should do the second part, by offering service to Muslim women and Muslim LGBT people to defend their rights against pressure from their "communities", by defending the rights of ex-Muslims (who are far too often left alone to fend off by themselves), by insisting on the respect of the laws and principles of liberal democracy, by criticizing Islam without ifs and buts and by never giving up secularism in the name of "multiculturalism".

The religious conservatives of a different religion don't care about those values. They oppose Islam simply as a rival religion.

It's the progressives who should recognize the cultural threat that conservative Islam poses to a progressive society. Again, this is a cultural war. People who don't preach or support violence or violations of laws cannot and should not be legally persecuted, but they can and should be criticized if they promote ideas which go against the principles of secularization and of defense of human rights.

The first obstacle to an effective cultural war against Islamic religious conservatism is the Regressive Left, i.e. the authoritarians who preach a neo-communist anti-democratic message and naively see conservative Islam as an ally against "Western corruption" (which means the liberal democratic values which all authoritarians hate).

Progressives need to distance themselves from it, to criticize it, mock it and reduce its social impact. Once the Regressive Left is restrained it'd be easier to address the issues within Islam in a more effective way.

However another threat to liberal democracy is the authoritarian right, which seeks to impose its (often religiously inspired) laws to ban Islam not because of its issues with liberal democracy, but because of a matter of "Western identity" or "Christian identity" which is as extraneous from real liberal democracy as conservative Islam. It's stupid to fight authoritarian Islam only to promote a mish-mash of authoritarian Christianity and "white identity".

Ali Rizvi is a much better figure in the cultural fight against conservative, authoritarian Islam than Sean Hannity.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#516

Post by Kirbmarc »

Boiled down to its basics every religion is simply "this is what we have to do because our god(s) tell us to do it, and it's good because our god(s) demand it, and we're too weak to think for ourselves", which in practice means "obey these religious authorities without questions" Boiled down to its basic every authoritarian ideology is "this is what we have to do because our ideas tell us to do it, and it's good because our ideas are what creates the perfect society, and we're too weak to think for ourselves" which in practice means "obey these ideological authorities without questions".

The problem with these paradigms is that they disempower people, inhibit questions and criticism and block a free and rational exploration of morality, of social issues, of economics, etc.

However religions and ideologies are never going to disappear for two very simple reasons. The first is that many if not most people don't have the time and energy to devote to in-depth debate and explorations on the nature of social issues and of economics. The second is that a rational exploration of morality doesn't provide us with definite answers. Frequently coherently constructed moral systems clash with the "intuitive" understanding of morality by different social groups.

This is because morality didn't emerge as the result of rational discovery: it's the by-product of some traits which increased the chances of some genes been passed on. Empathy for one's family and loved ones and in-group morality and out-group hostility are in-built in our brains (well, in most of us anyway) because they were huge evolutionary advantages.

Cultural constructions (like religions) have often built themselves in a similarly organic way: some traits which advantaged a certain group, like inter-group co-operation, virtue signaling, obedience, respect for the elderly, absorption of tradition, self-sacrifice for the group, cohesion and dehumanization of the enemy offered advantages to certain tribes and to their leaders over others.

The problem is that in today's society, where the Internet exists and free flow of people and information is economically viable, no group can legitimately establish itself as the only dominant tribe in a specific territory. Groups need to develop a way to co-exist: the alternatives are growing tension and eventually civil wars and genocides. The best way for groups to co-exist is to establish and accept institutions and laws which are as much neutral as possible and don't privilege one group over another, and then keep group practices as private practices within the group.

Many Muslims have bought into the myth of a Muslim takeover of the world, largely due to the preaching of Muslim supremacists, who ground their ideas on some demographic trends. However the ideology of Muslim supremacy leads inevitably to growing tension and eventually to civil wars and genocides. The alternative is to adopt a separation of private religious practices and the public sphere.

If Muslims are smart they will realize that liberal democracy, separation of church and state and freedom of opinion are what protects them, along with anyone else, from becoming targets of persecutions and genocide. Muslim supremacists who preach the idea of a Muslim takeover of society are playing with fire.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#517

Post by jimhabegger »

I've been doing a walking photo tour of Guilin, China, for my family and friends around the world. This is a video is part of a series on Guilin's Two Rivers and Four Lakes.


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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#518

Post by jimhabegger »

The reasons I haven't been posting here are partly because of other interests, and partly because when I do drop in, I can't think of anything I want to say about any of the discussions here, other than to repeat what I've already said:

1. I think that the corruption, folly, cruelty, brutality and ugliness that we're seeing in media stories will continue to grow and spread, for a few more generations at least, regardless of what anyone does.
2. I think that what will eventually turn things around is more and more people valuing all people everywhere, and all of nature, more and more, and caring more about what happens to them.
3. What I'm trying to do about all that, and hoping to see other people doing more, is learning to help reduce and counteract the damage, and to help rebuild civilization from the ground up.
4. The examples of counterfeit social justice activism that I see people discussing here seem to me to revolve around prejudice and discrimination against white men. I'm trying to learn what more I can do to help reduce and counteract the damage from that, not only to white men and boys, but to all of society.
5. I see some possible benefit in support groups like this, for people who are being oppressed by popular cruelty towards white men. What's happening here doesn't all look beneficial to me, for that purpose, but some of it does, and I'm hoping to see more of that. I would like to help that happen, but at this point I see very little I can do about it.

I'm working on another video from my walking photo tour of Guilin's rivers and lakes, which I'll post here when it's ready.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#519

Post by jimhabegger »

For the elections, I'll be trying to find out what I can about the best qualities and capacities in each candidate, and then decide which one looks best to me from that point of view.

After considering what Clarence and others have said about the possibilities of increasing violence if Trump is not elected, I can see it going either way. In fact, if he is elected, there might be more violence from people who are putting their hopes in him, than if he isn't. If he isn't elected, they might continue to be pacified by the hope that he will be elected next time. If he is elected, and he does as little as I think he will to change the character and conduct of the US government, then there will be no more false hopes to pacify them.

I think that the amount of violence will continue to increase, either way. Maybe more one way than the other, but that difference might be insignificant compared to the amount of violence there already is and will be, either way.

The violence and potential violence that I see threatening to blow up the world is the violence revolving around rapacious global monopoly interests, and as far as that's concerned, I don't see any reason to think that either Trump or Clinton would do any more to stop that, than any other president has. There might not be anything any of us can do to help stop it either, but I see ways that anyone who wants to can help reduce and counteract the damage from it.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#520

Post by jimhabegger »

I see a lot of harmfulness and self-destructiveness in what people do in Internet discussions, and I'm trying to learn to help promote more healthy practices. I'd like to exchange ideas with anyone who's interested, about how to do that. Some examples of what I'm trying to learn to do:
- Practice more healthy habits myself.
- Welcome my antagonistic thoughts, feelings and impulses, and use them in healthy ways.
- Offer the kinds of encouragement and support that really help, to people around me.
- Support and promote healthy topics of discussion.
- Encourage and support other people who are trying to help promote better practices.

Feel free to PM me or email me, if you'd rather discuss it privately.

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Re: intuition and knowledge

#521

Post by jimhabegger »

Some thoughts about intuition and knowledge:

What interests me is the question of what to do when there's a conflict between what our reasoning says and what our intuition says. My first reaction is to critically examine both of them, and try to resolve the conflict, but there are practical limits to how far that can go, before a decision has to be made, and what if the conflict is still not resolved? One simple way to choose might be according to a person's own history. Which has been right more often, his reasoning or his intuition?

That could possibly be refined in a variety of ways. For example it might depend on the possible benefits, and the possible consequences, of being wrong either way, and the possibilities of repairing the damage either way. Actually I don't know how I decide which way to go when I have to make a decision before I can resolve the conflict. Some times I go with my intuition, or someone else's, and sometimes I go with my reaoning. I'll be pondering that.

Even when our reasoning and our intuition agree with each other, they can both be wrong. Regardless of how we choose between them each time, we still need to find ways to improve the overall results of our decisions making, and reduce and counteract the damage from our mistakes.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#522

Post by jimhabegger »

What happens sometimes when Patty's intuition conflicts with my reasoning, is that I have a hunch that this is one of those times when it's better to go with her intuition. :lol:

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#523

Post by jimhabegger »

For most of my life I've been practicing and promoting fellowship across the widest ideological divides. Some years ago I participated in an Internet forum where I saw people practicing that. Eventually it was abandoned, and sometimes I miss it. Yesterday I found most of the people I've missed the most, of those that I knew there, and gotten back in touch with them. I'm feeling happy about that.

https://c5.staticflickr.com/6/5465/2975 ... 10ee87.jpg

Bridge at Xiqing Lake by Jim Habegger, on Flickr

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#524

Post by jimhabegger »

I just posted this on Facebook, and I decided to post it here too.

----

Some random thoughts for anyone who is trying to help rebuild civilization from the ground up, or might like to:

- Part of it might be in the character training of children, and arousing in them a passion for trying to help make the world better for everyone. That might be something a lot of people would be interested in. We can have a lot better influence on children in those directions, if we are making systematic and sustained efforts to improve our own personality, character and conduct, for those purposes.

- Part of it might be in learning to help build healthy communities at the level of neighborhoods and villages.

- Part of it might be in learning to find other people who are doing all that, near and far, and give them the kinds of encouragement and support that really helps.

- All of that, besides helping to rebuild civilization, might also help reduce and counteract the damage from all the corruption, cruelty, brutality and ugliness around us and around the world, and other natural disasters.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#525

Post by Steersman »

jimhabegger wrote:I just posted this on Facebook, and I decided to post it here too.

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Some random thoughts for anyone who is trying to help rebuild civilization from the ground up, or might like to ....
I hope you're also letting everyone know - though I doubt it - that you think that the Quran is "the words of God Himself", and that your ultimate goal is, apparently, to see the Quran as the law of the land:


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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#526

Post by jimhabegger »

The reason I haven't been posting here is mostly because of Godus, and Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. I gave up Minecraft, and WoW.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#527

Post by Kirbmarc »

jimhabegger wrote:The reason I haven't been posting here is mostly because of Godus, and Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. I gave up Minecraft, and WoW.
Heresy! :lol:

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#528

Post by jimhabegger »

I'm not sure how much of that is true, but it all looks plausible to me.
piginthecity wrote:So how did Rebecca go from attractive and interesting pretty-nerdy-geeky party girl to embittered victim feminist living alone with no furniture ?

I see it as a sort of Macbeth-style Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor process in several stages. Each of which was caused by the wicked evil gods whispering in her ear.

First - she is a lovely, slightly scatty sceptic who all the boys fancy.

Then, she becomes the unofficial social secretary to the young and beautiful atheist people.

Next she finds she enjoys the power and the frisson of being the centre of this attention.

Now, she's full on Queen Bee and can't resist lording it over the poor drones and worker bees.

She discovers feminism as the perfect cover for bullying behaviour towards the men, and to protect herself from criticism from other women. The 'guys don't do that' stage.

But she gets some pushback from this (Stef McGraw for example) and she has to ramp up the victimhood part in order to overcome this. The page-o-hate is born.

Now, she's in the victimhood trap. There's no such thing as an ex-victim. The rape and death threats have to go on and on and get more extreme and frightening to keep the attention.

Everything else goes away and she's on the train to Denver Colorado ...

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#529

Post by HunnyBunny »

Kirbmarc wrote:
jimhabegger wrote:The reason I haven't been posting here is mostly because of Godus, and Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. I gave up Minecraft, and WoW.
Heresy! :lol:
He should be cast out, bloody disgrace.

Having said that I have stopped playing WoW & minecraft in favour of Civilization 6, although it is quite a disappointment after Civ 5.

Jim, have you played Civilization?

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#530

Post by jimhabegger »

I haven't played Civilization, but maybe I'll try it. I'll see what Patty thinks. I mostly only play what she plays.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#531

Post by jimhabegger »

I want to say what I think, and what I'm doing, about the damage that's being done under the banners of feminism and social justice.

There are some things which have happened in the past, and might still be happening, under the banners of feminism and social justice, that I approve of, but if they are still happening, we see very little or none of it in media stories. Most or all of it that we see in media stories, just like everything else we see in media stories, looks to me like excuses and camouflage for people to indulge their worst impulses.

What I'm doing about all that is the same as what I'm doing about all the other cruelty, treachery, corruption, brutality and ugliness around us and around the world, and about other natural disasters:
- Trying to learn to help facilitate and enrich the lives of people around me and around the world, in everything I do, everywhere all the time.
- Trying to learn to help with the growth and spread of healthy community development, in neighborhoods and villages around the world.
- One way I see of doing all that is with sustained and systematic efforts to improve my own personality, character and conduct for those purposes. Another way is by encouraging and supporting people I see doing all that, around me and around the world.

I see the Slymepit as partly a support group for oppressed white men, and I would have like to help with that, but I haven't found any way to do that yet.

I see a lot happening here that looks unhealthy to me, and poisonous to everyone here. All I can think of to do about that is to continue practicing and promoting more healthy ways of using Internet discussions.

More generally, I've wondered a lot about what I can do, if anything, to help reduce and counteract the oppression of white men and boys in general. Being a white man myself might make that more fruitful for me than for some other people. One way I see of doing that is to continue encouraging and supporting Patty in her mentoring.

I've done some searching on the Web, to see if anyone else sees the oppression of white men and boys that I see, and is trying to do something constructive about it, but I haven't found anything else besides mentoring, that looks promising to me.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#532

Post by jimhabegger »

I see that Civilization is only on computers, and not available for phones. Patty only plays phone games now, so that's all I want to do too.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#533

Post by jimhabegger »

Frederik Pohl's Gateway series.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#534

Post by jimhabegger »

This is from my walking photo tour of Guilin's rivers and lakes. In this video I mistakenly called the lake "Qixing Lake," but actually it's "Xiqing Lake."
[youtube][/youtube]

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#535

Post by jimhabegger »

Oops! Once again:

[youtube][/youtube]

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#536

Post by jimhabegger »

If the mass of Earth, or of Mars, or of any other body allegedly orbiting the Sun, changed, the orbit of that body would change, because the "r" in the equations would change. Ignoring all the complications of more than two bodies, and just considering Mars and the Sun, Mars is not actually orbiting the Sun. Mars and the Sun are both orbiting around the center of gravity of both of them combined. Of course, the difference might be imperceptible if the mass of mars were only doubled, tripled or even multiplied by 1000, but it wouldn't be zero.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#537

Post by jimhabegger »

Oops! I see that Shatterface said that already.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#538

Post by jimhabegger »

bigfoot

I just wanted to see how that works, for myself.

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#539

Post by jimhabegger »

free thoughtpolice wrote:So bahai don't believe in allah?
Some do and some don't.
Jim, trying to figure out what you believe is like trying to nail jello that is constantly moving to the wall.
Sorry. I thought I had made it clear that my God is pure fiction. I see now that I never said that in those words. What I said was that He is metaphorical, which to me obviously meant that He is purely fictional.

Fri Jun 03, 2016 3:00 pm:
What I mean, when I say "God," is a metaphorical person ...
Post 354

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Re: "God-centered community building" / "Jim's closet"

#540

Post by jimhabegger »

I'm happy about the SJW collectible card game.

Locked