Manchester Terrorist Attack

nickie on 23/5/2017 at 18:52

Quote Posted by SD

If precedent is any indication, this was probably an attack by Islamists, and it was probably perpetrated by someone who was born here, not immigrants.

Born in Manchester, apparently.

Gryzemuis on 23/5/2017 at 20:45

Quote Posted by henke

Yeah, that's the problem with media these days. Not enough speculation. They shouldn't wait for official word about what the investigation yields, they should just print what they guess happened!

Seriously, Gryz. :tsktsk:

"The children of Manchester are pulling pieces of other humans' flesh out of their hair and people are worried about following proper procedures of reporting news".

(I didn't come up with (https://twitter.com/clairlemon/status/866841509257031680) that).

N'Al on 23/5/2017 at 20:57

"We can mourn the dead, despise ISIS and maintain proper procedures of reporting news at the same time. Don't spread the idea we're not capable of complex thought."

(I didn't come up with that either).

Tomi on 23/5/2017 at 21:05

Quote Posted by Gryzemuis

"The children of Manchester are pulling pieces of other humans' flesh out of their hair and people are worried about following proper procedures of reporting news".

What happened is of course sad and tragic, but it's still not a reason to forget the facts. Whenever something like this happens, all the terrorist organisations crawl out of their holes and claim responsibility for the attack, even if they have nothing to do with it. Daesh may or may not be behind the Manchester terror strike, we can't say that for sure yet, but I think it'd be really stupid to give them free publicity without checking the facts first, because that's exactly what they want.

heywood on 23/5/2017 at 22:29

Quote Posted by Gryzemuis

Thor is making the mistake that many people make. They mix the cause of terrorism (in this case the (exteme) ideas taken from Islam) with the fix (ban all immigrants). That's no good. It won't help much to ban all immigrants. Someone who wants to cause harm could just get a vacation-visum for 3 months. Or enter illegally via Greece. Or marry a cousin in Europe. Whatever. And, if you want to keep up the appearance of impartiality, you can't say "let's ban all muslim immigrants".

But what to do then ?

I think the first step would be to stop considering religion as something innocent. Stop thinking of it as an individual spiritual experience. We've taken away a lot of the power of the christian churches during the twentieth century. And if you didn't know any better, you'd think that christianity has always been about old people going to church on Sunday morning, singing a few songs to praise their lord, and reading a chapter from their own fairytale-book. But that's not what religion is about. Christianity has not always been like that.

Religion is a political force. It's goal is to acquire power, dominance, wealth, influence. Christianity went out into the world to convert everybody to become a christian. Some forces in Islam are doing the same thing today. Everybody bend for Allah, submit yourself to Islam law. Or else you are a heathen and you deserve no better than to die. This is politics. This is power-play. This is a war. I consider myself left from left. I don't understand why it is exactly the left-wing political parties that keep defending religion. Religion is not a hobby. Religion is the biggest conservative power in the world. Religion is the enemy.

And again, for the majority of followers of religion, it's not like that. They are not aware. They are not responsible for what others do. You can't blame them individually. But the ideas that they get implanted in their heads do matter. Look at Indonesia and what is happening there. Islam forces are trying to turn the country back to the middle ages. Look at Turkey. Look at how Saudi-Arabia is spreading Wahabism in Europe.

This has nothing to do with Islamophobia or xenophobia. It's not about white supremacists or white racists. It's not about whether our own homegrown Christianity is better than other religions. The struggle is between humanitarianism and retarded old backwards religions that want us to turn away from universal human rights, equality, fraternity and liberty. How the fuck can a modern human being support religion in any form ?

Yeah, going after terrorists isn't good enough. Can't stop at radical Islamism either. Not even a war on all of Islam, that won't do. It's got to be a war against all religious people, to eradicate all religion! Why not just nuke the entire planet Gryz? Since obviously the root of the problem is HUMANS!

Sulphur on 24/5/2017 at 04:23

Yep. Even if we don't have religion, we'll find something else ostensibly good to use in horrifying ways, don't you worry.

Nicker on 24/5/2017 at 04:50

Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula

At this point I've become somewhat cold to this kind of thing, because the only thing we're going to get out of this is sanctimony as everyone rushes to show off how much they care.

Europe has made their bed, let them enjoy sleeping in it.

fuck

you

tony

Muzman on 24/5/2017 at 06:51

It'd be interesting to see if he would have thought the US had 'made it's bed' when the Gallianists were running around.

Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula

Caveat is that it's fairly clear when that changed: it changed after the Renaissance saw secular nobility become the dominant force over shaping social values and promptly rolled back many of the civil rights that had existed when the church dominated social value.

This is about the most simplistic reading of that period of history possible. There was the Reformation and the numerous wars of religion during this period and none of it was particularly secular. We tend to think of Protestants as the kinder gentler Christianity now, but they were the ones stripping the paint off churches for being too colourful. By our standards they basically represent fundamentalist religious insurgency, with the added bonus of the doctrine being almost roll-your-own for a while there. (although looking at a good chunk of US religion today all of this is less surprising really)

PigLick on 24/5/2017 at 08:29

Hey Muz, you still making films and such?

Gryzemuis on 24/5/2017 at 08:56

Quote Posted by heywood

I asked: But what to do then ?

I am a child of the seventies. In those days people had this idea that everything was slowly going to be better. The idea was: lets get rid of income-inequality slowly, so that the poor become less poor. So that the poor have time to do more than just survive. Get everybody educated. Have free and good education for all children. Raise our children to be smarter. More open-minded. Be free-thinkers. Teach them about the world. About other people and other cultures. Teach everybody about history. When the general population is educated, smart, open, enlightened even, then we will see less hatred, less oppression, less fighting, less war.

That was the idea.

I think just hoping for that won't work. Capitalism has won (think the capitalists). And ultra-capitalism and economic globalization is doing its work for 27 years now. Income and wealth inequality is growing again. There is less money for public education. Privatization of public means doesn't do us a lot of good. It looks like everything has to be "for profit", or else it is considered useless. And religion is crawling out of the garbage dump back into society. Now I don't like Christianity, but at least they stay low profile here in Europe. (USA is another story. Not a single atheist amongst 535 members of congress. That's a sure sign something is not right). But Islam is very obviously trying to spread its influence all over the world. Very noticeable in Islamic countries. Turkey and Indonesia are new members. But life in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan has been getting worse for decades. And Saudi-Arabia has terrible since forever.

Maybe we should treat religion like we treat smoking: you're allowed to fuck up your own life, if you really want to. But you are not allowed to fuck up your children's life.

So you can go to church. But you can't bring your kids until they are 21 years old. Special schools (catholic schools, islamic schools, even jewish schools) are forbidden. All schools must be public schools with no religious curriculum. Just one hour per week lesson in different world-views, religions, philosphy, etc. No brain-washing, no indoctrination. Children get a chance to grow up unbiased, and make up their own minds when they are 21.

A bit like smoking weed in my country. You are allowed to smoke it. You can grow a few plants for you own usage. You can carry a few grams for you own usage. But you're not supposed to encourage others to smoke. You can't produce in large amounts, you can't sell to others, you can't do advertising. You wanna mess yourself up, fine. But don't spread your dumb attitude.

I'm sure half the planet would hate such a policy. Because they are brainwashed believing in their own spaghetti-monster. And they were told they have to brain-wash their own children too. Or even worse, they are told to spread their religion to the heathens. Or even kill all those heathens (if they would get the opportunity).

But in the end, there is a simple fact: there is no god. All religion is without foundation. It's all bullshit. But how do we get rid of it ?

Got a better plan ?