Robert Ariail for August 12, 2014

Since the dawn of religion we have had religious wars.

“Guns don’t kill people, people with guns kill people.” Hmmm…

Religion is obviously a disease, but not my religion, of course.

The argument that the killings are only done by extremists is weakened by the silence of the so called Moderates. The Moderates even support the killing of Moderates by extremists and that strikes me as quite odd.

The reason for the diaspora was the Hebrews wouldn’t stop killing people. The Inquisition killed and tortured most of the population (especially the Jews), the Reformation led to centuries of Catholic vs Protestant hatreds and wars.

The current hatred of Muslims by Christians and Jews doesn’t mention that the largest population of Muslims is in Indonesia, not the Middle East, and that of the 1.5 BILLION folks represented, the vast majority seem no more “radical” than your average Christian sect, and no more restrictive than Orthodox Judaism.

Buddhism actually teaches peace, but not total pacifism is others attack them; FIRST. It takes the teachings of the bible it seems to make “preemptive homicide”, “defense”.

And here I thought it was radical extremism …

sw10mm. when the “good Christians” took Jerusalem in the crusade, they killed everyone, and everything, in the city. When Muslims took it back, they allowed the crusaders to leave with their concubines, children,livestock, and lives. Yes that was different, and no guns were required.

As a Group, the Moderate Muslims do not actively oppose the violence. I’m retired and watch a lot of news. No Moderate Muslim group has ever agitated for large scale protests against the extremists. In doing nothing, the Moderates allow, if not support, the violence.

No, Robert. No No No No No, a THOUSAND times No. As I said in a post yesterday (which I accidentally erased. My bad.); ISIS/ISIL is not Islam, nor is it “Islamist”. ISIS/ISIL is a bunch of nihilists in the guise of Islam who want to burn the world while dancing around in the flames as they are consumed along with it. (And there are plenty of so-called "Christians’ who would happily do the same if they thought that they could get away with it!)

What makes you think I’m a Christian? I’m not associated with any belief system.

Right on the heels of that other virus that spread so ubiquitously: Christianity. Serbian genocides, inquisitions, attacks on gays throughout Africa and Eastern Europe, anti-Semitism, the irish “troubles”… isn’t it about time we tried atheism? (And no, the problem in Russia and China isn’t atheism, it is Communism and dictatorships. Their “atheism” was forced on them, not brought about through rational thinking.)

“Religions” are based in that ingrained human commonality; fear, especially of death. Maybe that’s why so many “bible types” say Buddhism is “philosophy” not a “relgion”??

Echoraven: just a note. the best teachings that Christ DID have to offer the world were based on the fact he was perhaps profoundly liberal, and challenged the dogma of “the church”, and preached kindness and forgiveness, not persecution of those who thought “differently” or provided for the poor and disadvantaged… (While so many in today’s “TEA party” want to claim him, I don’t think he’d claim many of them.)

martens misses all her friends said: “I’m not sure ISIS are nihilists. They strike me as being more more like Nazis in both their aims and methods. Their “caliphate” doesn’t look that different from the Third Reich. They do purposely use and publicize their use of atrocities to intimidate the populations they are attempting to conquer more obviously than the Nazis did, but I’m not sure the end result isn’t very similar.”

I won’t disagree that ISIS/ISIL is acting like Nazis. But they seem to be skipping straight to the “Götterdämmerung” portion of their plan (i.e. make the World hate you enough that it makes your destruction THE A-#1 priority) rather than trying to build a viable state. (i.e. Establishing diplomatic relations with neighbors, gather allies, etc.) Not a particularly life-affirming philosophy/policy if you ask me…

“This kind of behavior is, unfortunately, a human characteristic that can turn up in any time or place. We are not a very nice species…”

QFT.