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The War on Fundamentalism

a_unique_person

Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
a_unique_person
Joined
Jul 19, 2002
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Waiting for the pod bay door to open.
The real war, as far as I can see, is not a war on terrorism. It is a war on fundamentalism and ignorance. There is plenty of evidence that both these qualities are present in many countries around the world, including the US and Australia, and it is these qualities of individuals that lead to the current conflicts around the world.

Educated Muslims are no more a threat, as far as I can see, than educated Xians or any other group. Fundy Muslims, who want to wage a jihad using terrorism, are just as dangerous as the Zionist extremists who believe the Messiah will turn up to fight a great war to create Israel, or the Xians lining up for their trip into the sky to meet Jesus, and enjoy the spectacle of watching us miserable heathens fighting the war that they started so the rapture would happen.

This is the real battleground. If the fundies win, we will be forced to choose which group of fundies we will side with in the hope that we pick the right group, the one that will win a bloody and relentless war on humanity, on purely pragmatic grounds, self preservation.
 
It`s a war on people as far as I`m concerned.
The US government`s support for barbaric regimes and criminally damaging big business enterprises all over the world. Let`s remember the Bhopal disaster and the Nicaraguan holocaust for example.

Oliver North and his cronies...their spirit is alive and well.
Under the auspices of "anti-Communist" they did their deeds, now they do it under the auspices of "humanitarian intervention". However, the basic formula remains the same today. The latest foray into Haiti, now blithely consigned to the "memory hole" - is a good example.

Now that the humanitarian rhetoric used by Bush and Blair to justify the assault on Iraq has proved just as hollow as the WMD rhetoric and the links-to-9/11 rhetoric, the US and other assorted elites tend to further their own interests behind a smokescreen of pious sentiments.

Being fooled into the belief that "we" - the governments of the US and Britain - are serious about justice, just because we say so. For example, as far as I'm aware, the Taliban did not, in fact, refuse outright to extradite Osama bin Laden - they merely asked the US on what evidence his extradition was being demanded. It seems very likely that the US government, far from being "outraged" into bombing Afghanistan, launched a calculated assault for which the Taliban's "refusal" was merely the first available pretext.

Surely, in light of the deplorable history of the United States' relations with weaker and poorer nations - a history which encompasses brutal assaults on practically every country in South and Central America, as well as further afield, always "justified" with impeccable moral verbiage, and always coincidentally benefiting the interests of US business elites - a little more healthy scepticism would be in order from people?
For example, the next time a US government - elected or otherwise - and its British helper decide to bomb or invade a country in the name of peace, freedom, humanitarianism, general niceness or whatever, let`s hope that it won`t be fifteen months after the assault for people to start pointing out awkward facts about its legitimacy.
 
Anyway we can have a war on Christian fundamentalists in America while we're at it?
 
We could consistently pry them out of their government seats, assuming the elections aren't crooked. If the GOP discovers that the fundies are not as popular as they had hoped, they will probably quit putting up with their nonsense. Of course, Gore said atheists 'aren't real Americans' too.

U.N. observers requested for U.S. election
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39255

Of course, if we get much more fundy than 'Dubya', the state will be mandating Christian church attendance with prison (also containing mandatory church services) for anyone who doesn't comply and have receipts to show they've been at a state approved churches every sunday.

Ahh, remember back when people thought the U.S. government was honest? Well when Americans did, anyway. Some of them. When it wasn't tax season.... Heck, this sort of headline used to always be attached to those 'struggling' little nations that could never quite get two elections in a row without a bloodbath.

What to do? They have quite a foothold. Loyal, followers who'll do or vote whatever their clerics say on TV. Lots of untraceable cash. Lots of power.

I appreciate that question because I, in the state of Texas, had heard a lot of discussion about a faith-based initiative eroding the important bridge between church and state.
-- George W. Bush, January 29, 2001, quoted from Jacob Weinberg, "The Complete Bushisms"
Click to expand...

I am not a spokesperson for the church and the church is not a spokesperson for the United States of America. I'm running for president and I'm running to uphold the Constitution, which has a strict separation of church and state.
-- John Kerry
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Hmmm....
 
I appreciate that question because I, in the state of Texas, had heard a lot of discussion about a faith-based initiative eroding the important bridge between church and state.
-- George W. Bush, January 29, 2001, quoted from Jacob Weinberg, "The Complete Bushisms"
Click to expand...

That's just too scary to be funny.
 
If you want to break the fundamentalists, regardless of their religious stripes, your first goal is not to belittle them, but to provoke them to THINK. Once you can get them to do that, you have a chance.

On the other hand, once you get into belittling them, all you do is drive them deeper into their myths and legends, leaving them to wail about how you're just a heretic/infidel/pagan/Ed-hater. You do not draw them out and change them by such tactics, you make them worse. And, in turn, you make them more dangerous.
 
a_unique_person said:
The real war, as far as I can see, is not a war on terrorism. It is a war on fundamentalism and ignorance. There is plenty of evidence that both these qualities are present in many countries around the world, including the US and Australia, and it is these qualities of individuals that lead to the current conflicts around the world.
Click to expand...
So it is "fundamentalism and ignorance" in A-m-e-r-i-c-a and Australia which leads to the current conflicts in Dafur Sudan, or Kashmir Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Myanmar or Chechnya....interesting hypothesis a_u_p.

a_unique_person said:
Fundy Muslims, who want to wage a jihad using terrorism, are just as dangerous as the Zionist extremists who believe the Messiah will turn up to fight a great war to create Israel, or the Xians lining up for their trip into the sky to meet Jesus, and enjoy the spectacle of watching us miserable heathens fighting the war that they started so the rapture would happen.
Click to expand...
Except for the large and important difference that "Zionist extremists" and "Xians lining up for their trip into the sky" ARE NOT blowing up trains in Madrid or buses in Israel or civilian complexes in Saudi Arabia or Iraqis in Iraq or office towers in New York. Nor have they ever, but alas they are as bad as the "Fundy Muslims" who do.....another interesting hypothesis a_u_p.



Just come out and say it a_u_p; Zionist extremists and Xians, like Bush and the "zionist lobby", who live in America are responsible for all the current conflicts around the world. See?.. your three paragraphs can be neatly summarized into one sentence.
 
zenith-nadir said:
So it is "fundamentalism and ignorance" in A-m-e-r-i-c-a and Australia which leads to the current conflicts in Dafur Sudan, or Kashmir Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Myanmar or Chechnya....interesting hypothesis a_u_p.

Except for the large and important difference that "Zionist extremists" and "Xians lining up for their trip into the sky" ARE NOT blowing up trains in Madrid or buses in Israel or civilian complexes in Saudi Arabia or Iraqis in Iraq or office towers in New York. Nor have they ever, but alas they are as bad as the "Fundy Muslims" who do.....another interesting hypothesis a_u_p.



Just come out and say it a_u_p; Zionist extremists and Xians, like Bush and the "zionist lobby", who live in America are responsible for all the current conflicts around the world. See?.. your three paragraphs can be neatly summarized into one sentence.
Click to expand...

The xian fundies will be quite happy to see a global war start, it means the rapture will be here, and they won't have to suffer then consequences, except they will of course, but by then the genie will be out of the bottle.

I don't see how blowing up people with military weapons is different to use non military weapons, they both produce death and injury. Dubya couldn't give a tinkers cuss about the people of Iraq.

Ignorance present in the US and Australia? Unfortunately, it is so.

If you look at the link I provided in anther topic, there are a lot more dead Palestinian children, for example, than Israeli children. Not as newsworthy, maybe, but still dead.

Fundamentalism is the real problem. A belief in a god who tells people to do stupid things, that cannot be questioned rationally.
 
Fundy Muslims, who want to wage a jihad using terrorism, are just as dangerous as the Zionist extremists...

...like, for instance, the two-year-old who was killed in a Hamas suicide bombing, which you claimed was an "Extremist" because he was an "ultra-orthodox jew". Anyway, whatever you think of "zionist extremists", they are hardly a world-wide problem, unlike the international jihadi movement to make the world a chalifate under sharia law.

The fact that you "allow" the global jihad movement to be, in your view, "as dangerous" as zionism is a bit like saying that Ted Bundy, the serial killer of women, might be "as dangerous" as, say, Gloria Steinmen (sp?) the radical feminist leader. It shows your priorities: zionism is in your view the greatest world danger, which other threat might be "as bad as" but, God forbid, never worse.
 
I'm behind the title of this thread 100%. However, as destructive as I consider homegrown fundamentalists, they don't belong in the same sentence with Islamist jihadists in terms of threat to civilization.

Not only futures. The Islamist threat has already been realized not only in lives lost, but in the deterioration of our liberties.
 
varwoche said:
I'm behind the title of this thread 100%. However, as destructive as I consider homegrown fundamentalists, they don't belong in the same sentence with Islamist jihadists in terms of threat to civilization.

Not only futures. The Islamist threat has already been realized not only in lives lost, but in the deterioration of our liberties.
Click to expand...

Forgive me, bro, but I think we're yet to see what our homegrown fundamentalists are capable of. Don't forget: we've got Eric Rudolph sitting in a jail cell awaiting trial.
 
We have a new word, er, term: 'Christian Supremacist'. Just like a 'White Supremacist', except 'Jesus' is their bigger fetish, instead of skin color. I thought of it just this morning, but apparently others have been using it for some time.

I think we should begin to use this term to properly separate 'Christian Supremacists' from 'Christians', as you can be Christian and not 'Christian Supremacist', just as you can be of European descent and not 'White Supremacist'.

It's important to have precise terms and definitions, and this seems like a useful term, that some of the fundies even self-identify with. I think this is an appropriate label, and we should make sure it sticks to those it is applicable to.
 
We have a new word, er, term: 'Christian Supremacist'.

I thought of it just this morning,

I think we should begin to use this term

It's important to have precise terms and definitions, and this seems like a useful term,

I think this is an appropriate label,

we should make sure it sticks to those it is applicable to.

Hmmmmm. I think you want us to use this term. Am I wrong?

(laughing)

I don't actually disagree about the term, EY, but, my God, it's hilarious on how you instantly fell in love with a term becuase you thought of it, and how quickly you start "demanding" that everybody follow suit and use it.

you're like the man from the Monty Python sketch:

"The term to use, which is my term, that is to say it is mine and no one else's, is as follows (and is mine): 'Christian Supremacist'. That's my term, and it's mine."
 
As I pointed out, it's already in use. Like so many 'good ideas', someone has thought of them before.

One could say that 'great minds think alike', or one could simply say that liking ideas helps in actually having ideas. There is a lot more persperation in making an idea a reality than many would credit.

Having thick enough skin to admit ideas are probably not original, is a requirement to consistently having ideas. After all, if you 'invent' something that does a job for you, and it turns out that someone thought of it before, does that mean it is less valuable to you? Does it automatically stop working? It's my job to invent things all day, every day as a computer programmer. Many of these wheels have already been 'invented' by others, but it's a lot quicker to re-invent many of them than to find out if someone's published theirs.

Voicing a thought is pretty much automatically opening one's self to ridicule and attack. It's the ugly climate we've allowed to grow (and many have even cultivated) in the arena of public dialog.

Remaining silent and complacent would be more comfortable to many, but for some being abusive and dismissive is more their style.
 
As I pointed out, it's already in use. Like so many 'good ideas', someone has thought of them before.

One could say that 'great minds think alike',

...but you're just too modest to suggest that.

Voicing a thought is pretty much automatically opening one's self to ridicule and attack.

Try voicing smarter thoughts.
 
Why? I suspect the most morons wouldn't know the difference, and attack any idea with equal vigor.
 
I sare a similar view

Dubya has turned this war into a war between fundamentalisms. It's a war between to American crusaders an and Arab world's Jihadis with oil thown in to make it a lot more volitile.

CDR
 
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