lowenz on 26/10/2023 at 20:25
Quote Posted by Qooper
The same could be said about politics. Like I mentioned earlier, I hear this statement a lot about religion being the root of all evil, in exactly this kind of general form as a blanket statement. However, this thread is about Hamas' attack on Israel,
so let's not go too deeply into religion here.
With no "believes" (religious or whatever people want to believe to ease their desperation / build hope) you can't drive people (we're talking about Qassam Brigades of Hamas) in killing frenzy.
No one kills "for fun", still there's someone who enjoys make the pawns kill and the "believes" are just a part of a strategy of (sometimes really destructive) moves sequence in what you can see as a perverse game.
What really strikes me it's the abysmal eventuality to hide all of this behind the "freedom values" protected and even promoted by the "rights" mechanism so, in the end, you get the soccer teams hooligans scenario (Palestine supporters vs Israel supporters) on top of the tragedy (a side effect that makes the puppetmasters even more happy.....until they loose control over the situation and then the collapse)
Nicker on 26/10/2023 at 20:35
Quote Posted by Qooper
The same could be said about politics. Like I mentioned earlier, I hear this statement a lot about religion being the root of all evil, in exactly this kind of general form as a blanket statement. However, this thread is about Hamas' attack on Israel, so let's not go too deeply into religion here.
I don't think they are equivalent. Perhaps you meant ideology. To me, politics is the art and science of getting things done together. It can be done well or poorly, for lofty aims or for lowly ones.
Ideology often uses politics to achieve ends, but it uses religion in the same way. That's how we can have the "Religion Of Peace" commit atrocities and the "Prince Of Peace" lead bloody crusades.
Besides, I purposefully said that
belief in an afterlife is the source of great evil. I did not say that religion is the source of ALL EVIL. There's a huge difference. I will defend the former but I would not even utter the latter.
SD on 26/10/2023 at 22:17
Quote Posted by Nicker
There are also more Israelis.
Statistics. Use them sparsely and wisely.
What about the fact that both sides are engaged in violent crimes to advance their ideology? You know, substance.
It's not comparing like with like. Most of the population growth in Israel is due to migration; most Israeli Jews are descended from Jews who were expelled from Arab countries (another of those historical injustices people like to ignore). Eighty years later the number of Jews in the world still hasn't recovered to pre-Holocaust levels. Because genocide.
In more or less the same time period, the number of Arabs in Palestine/Israel has gone from 1.3 million to 7.5 million, with millions more Palestinians living elsewhere as "refugees". Yet we're supposed to believe these people are suffering a genocide too? It just cheapens the term.
I really despair of this false equivalence between Hamas's genocidal intentions, specifically outlined in its charter and which it put into practice on a small scale less than three weeks ago, and the repressive behaviours of Israel, which are not in the same league of awful.
Qooper on 26/10/2023 at 23:37
Quote Posted by Nicker
I don't think they are equivalent. Perhaps you meant ideology. To me, politics is the art and science of getting things done together. It can be done well or poorly, for lofty aims or for lowly ones.
Ideology often uses politics to achieve ends, but it uses religion in the same way. That's how we can have the "Religion Of Peace" commit atrocities and the "Prince Of Peace" lead bloody crusades.
Besides, I purposefully said that
belief in an afterlife is the source of great evil. I did not say that religion is the source of ALL EVIL. There's a huge difference. I will defend the former but I would not even utter the latter.
True, the term 'ideology' would've been a better fit, I was a bit hasty with my writing. And you're right, you did say belief in an afterlife, not religion in general. I made the assumption because most religions contain a belief in an afterlife, but not all. This is a very intriguing topic and I'd really like to discuss it further, but I still feel this is the wrong thread for it. Or maybe it fits, I'm not sure.
And lowenz, I get what you're saying, but I think you're simplifying too much.
Nicker on 27/10/2023 at 02:23
Quote Posted by SD
I really despair of this false equivalence between Hamas's genocidal intentions, specifically outlined in its charter and which it put into practice on a small scale less than three weeks ago, and the repressive behaviours of Israel, which are not in the same league of awful.
And yet the casualty rate of Palestinians vs Israelis is about 20 to 1 in favour of the "non-genocidal" Likud party. Actions speak louder than words.
Why do you refer to the Palestinian people as Hamas but the Likud party as Israelis? Seems a tad biased. Let's properly identify the combatant parties here. The civilians on both sides are the victims here, remember.
Nicker on 27/10/2023 at 02:47
Quote Posted by Qooper
This is a very intriguing topic and I'd really like to discuss it further, but I still feel this is the wrong thread for it. Or maybe it fits, I'm not sure
A few years ago I might have conflated the two so I fully understand your presumption. I apologise for being testy.
Belief in an afterlife is pretty much a touchstone for all religions but not all religions treat it with equal conviction, at least not at this time in history. I feel it is the driving dogma that pushes people to irrational violence. Firstly because it is the ultimate us & them dichotomy, secondly it cheapens this life (justifying atrocities in the name of the next one) and, more importantly, it often promises an express ride to paradise for martyrs. Young men don't fly planes into buildings as a political statement.
Got Mit Uns, and all that.
So I think it is relevant to this topic but only as context for the depth of hatred on both sides. Because somehow, knowing that your enemy is doomed to an eternity of torture, at the hands of your god, just isn't enough. The Jews have been Yahweh's chosen for millennia until he changed his name to Allah and switched sides a few centuries after sacrificing his son/self for mankind, because somehow that didn't work either...
Fucking madness and stupidity.
As long as you can convince people that either of these perverse myths is reality, then you can make them commit atrocities forever.
If a fraction of the resources expended in this forever war had been spent on desalination plants and bringing the desert to life, there'd be nothing to fucking fight about, other than the aforementioned monstrous myths.
Starker on 27/10/2023 at 09:41
Quote Posted by Nicker
Belief in an afterlife is pretty much a touchstone for all religions but not all religions treat it with equal conviction, at least not at this time in history. I feel it is the driving dogma that pushes people to irrational violence. Firstly because it is the ultimate us & them dichotomy, secondly it cheapens this life (justifying atrocities in the name of the next one) and, more importantly, it often promises an express ride to paradise for martyrs. Young men don't fly planes into buildings as a political statement.
I'm not so sure about that. Sure, there isn't a plane example that I know of, but people will go to killing sprees that are very likely to end up with them being gunned down without them seemingly being particularly religious or doing it for religious motives. That bastard in Norway comes to mind, there is the Christchurch shooter, and of course there are all those white supremacist ideology induced killing sprees that have targeted jews, latinos, and black people in the US.
Sulphur on 27/10/2023 at 10:23
Yeah, I think Nicker is (somewhat obliquely) referring to the tendency of a certain kind of ideology, usually religious, to radicalise people - often adolescents, because that's typically the age when they're psychologically perfectly placed to be weaponised by dogma - and not speaking about all irrational acts of mass violence. I think it's not easy to generalise what's happening here with that specifically, though it's obviously a contributor, possibly even a key one. But I've always believed that the real problem isn't religion or ideology, it's the basic human tendency to weaponise them in service of control and power, which is why neither is really going to die out because they can always serve as a means to several ends.
Starker on 27/10/2023 at 15:44
Sure, religious fundamentalism definitely plays a part, but I've also read of cases of individuals where radicalisation came first, largely through political motives, and the conversion to a religious mindset way later, so I wouldn't really underestimate the role politics and non-religious ideology play in this process. And I wouldn't really call these non-religious mass killing sprees irrational either -- they were clearly motivated by ideology and had a rationale.
Sulphur on 27/10/2023 at 16:26
Well, I agree with all of that, so without getting into semantics, there's reasons why I said 'often' and 'usually'. As for the kinds of irrational violence outside of politics and religion that exist, there are people who we'd term as psychologically imbalanced - and, sure, their actions would make sense from inside their own heads, but we wouldn't normally be judging the consequences from that perspective.
