madlee wrote:muslims = christians = jews

they all worship the same god, love to beat up on women and gang up on the weak. they all have the same value system. why they hate each other, I do not know, but perhaps it has something to do with whether or not they have fully integrated into global capitalism (the true religion of the world) which is what think is the real issue.

if you want to see a christian version, go drive thru kansas with one of those evolving fish on your car.

I agree in a way with what you are saying. Another factor to consider is who is violating whom in the pecking order. Not that I think that if anyone else was on top they'd treat the rest any better.

I'm drunk at 2:25 PM.

What happened to Hassan I Sabbah? I miss that crazy fuck, did he get eaten by invisible demons like Al-Hazred?

madlee wrote:muslims = christians = jews

they all worship the same god, love to beat up on women and gang up on the weak. they all have the same value system.

Please tell me that is meant in jest! (or is at least in reference to the slim ignorant minority which steals the headlines from otherwise wonderful people)

madlee wrote:I like to comfort myself by believing as long as there are wealthy people living there, they won't want to be killed.

those in positions of power only use religion to coalesce power around them. They are entirely invested in living.

This is really fucked up. Our best hope is that the ruling elites and their oppressive military establishment continue to hold a nation hostage to their interests. 'Cause if not, some poor death-lovin' Islamix gets to power and the Islamix will put nuclear bombs in shipping containers because they are poor and love death.

What. the. fuck.

The conclusions of the above position--that a military strongman is always best for the USA--are precisely the position of the State Department.

The crisis began with the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who stopped the regime from selling off the Pakistani Steel Mills (at a tenth of their value) and who deemed the Hasba bill, which sought to outlaw certain non-Islamic practices, unconstitutional.

The fact that the Chaudhry suspension precipitated a general strike suggests that there's considerable popular and progressive sentiments being mobilized and not merely fundamentalist religious machinations. It's complicated beyond my grasp, I'm sure, but the de facto rally 'round the military dictator position seems needlessly reactionary to me.

Tariq Ali, meanwhile, had a good piece on Musharraf and Pakistan more broadly here.

Andrew. wrote:Tariq Ali, meanwhile, had a good piece on Musharraf and Pakistan more broadly here.

This link doesn't appear to work for me. I also can't seem to locate it using their GDSF. What's it titled?

Andrew. wrote:This is really fucked up. Our best hope is that the ruling elites and their oppressive military establishment continue to hold a nation hostage to their interests. 'Cause if not, some poor death-lovin' Islamix gets to power and the Islamix will put nuclear bombs in shipping containers because they are poor and love death.

What. the. fuck.

dude, I wasn't implying that at all. what I was implying that wealthy people are the ones in power and encouraging people to go to war in order to increase their market share. that's war 101. always has been and always will be. the war with the west or whatever we should call the war of the wealth in these regions reasserting market rights vs. the west's interests, (we call it the war on terror, which is ironic, no?) will not get to that point as long as the true purpose of the war (money) never loses control of the manipulation (religion) that they use to rile up the poor people to fight.

Andrew. wrote:The conclusions of the above position--that a military strongman is always best for the USA--are precisely the position of the State Department.

not my position. it's like pouring salt on the wound. want to diffuse the situation in pakistan? then be on the level. no more of this puppet leader bullshit. maybe for once, actually have the cia do some good and have a democratically elected leader put in power. if we do that now, I guarantee that they won't hate our freedoms anymore.

e.g. look at Iran. They have every right to hate our guts. Yet, just prior to Bush, they were ready to open up to the west. There was going to be a peaceful revolution there. Same with north korea by the way. Bush gets in office and immediately starts fucking with them. Of course the citizenry begins circling the wagons, because those zionists can't wait to bomb them.

Andrew. wrote:
The crisis began with the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who stopped the regime from selling off the Pakistani Steel Mills (at a tenth of their value) and who deemed the Hasba bill, which sought to outlaw certain non-Islamic practices, unconstitutional.

The fact that the Chaudhry suspension precipitated a general strike suggests that there's considerable popular and progressive sentiments being mobilized and not merely fundamentalist religious machinations. It's complicated beyond my grasp, I'm sure, but the de facto rally 'round the military dictator position seems needlessly reactionary to me.

Tariq Ali, meanwhile, had a good piece on Musharraf and Pakistan more broadly here.

want to radicalize and foster political organization? start oppressing people works all the time. musharraf is a thug. fuck him.

Andrew. wrote:.

Welcome back, Andrew.

madlee wrote:muslims = christians = jews

they all worship the same god, love to beat up on women and gang up on the weak. they all have the same value system. why they hate each other, I do not know, but perhaps it has something to do with whether or not they have fully integrated into global capitalism (the true religion of the world) which is what think is the real issue.

if you want to see a christian version, go drive thru kansas with one of those evolving fish on your car.

If you don't know why they hate each other than you probably should not generalize. The only thing they have in common is their Abrahamic roots.
That is like saying all burger joints are the same when Burger King has onion rings, Wendy's has the best value menu, and McD's has the straws with the largest circumference. Saying that they all beat up on women and gang up on the weak (as if this is an institutionalized practice) is about as ignorant as somebody in Kansas freaking out over an evolving fish. There
is not just one type of Jew, there are three major divisions of Muslims
and more denominations of Christianity than there are flavors of Jelly
Belly jelly beans. People who freak out over things like evolving fish badges are like the nasty purple ones (not grape that weird licorice flavor)
But their are some Catholics who believe in evolution....they are like the
super tasty tangerine jelly beans that seem to be too few in the bag.
for the sake of discussion why generalize?
your equation is as useless as George w. Bush's idea on creation.

Your paragraph reminds me of a page in this zine an old band mate of mine did. It had a picture of a dude skinning a deer. Next to the picture it said........description of a hunter.....killed a deer....beat his wife...drank a six pack of bud. good stuff! He was fifteen and didn't really read.
Come on dude.

El Flaco wrote:If you don't know why they hate each other than you probably should not generalize. The only thing they have in common is their Abrahamic roots.
That is like saying all burger joints are the same when Burger King has onion rings, Wendy's has the best value menu, and McD's has the straws with the largest circumference. Saying that they all beat up on women and gang up on the weak (as if this is an institutionalized practice) is about as ignorant as somebody in Kansas freaking out over an evolving fish. There
is not just one type of Jew, there are three major divisions of Muslims
and more denominations of Christianity than there are flavors of Jelly
Belly jelly beans. People who freak out over things like evolving fish badges are like the nasty purple ones (not grape that weird licorice flavor)
But their are some Catholics who believe in evolution....they are like the
super tasty tangerine jelly beans that seem to be too few in the bag.
for the sake of discussion why generalize?
your equation is as useless as George w. Bush's idea on creation.

Your paragraph reminds me of a page in this zine an old band mate of mine did. It had a picture of a dude skinning a deer. Next to the picture it said........description of a hunter.....killed a deer....beat his wife...drank a six pack of bud. good stuff! He was fifteen and didn't really read.
Come on dude.

I do know the differences. To me they are minute.

Jews believe in the torah/old testament. Christians believe in the old testament but believe in christ as son of god. They add the new testament to their book collection. Muslims believe in all that went before via the koran, except, they don't believe that jesus was the son of god, but merely a prophet, they believe in joseph, moses, etc. maybe a big deal between them, but for me, it's like two metal heads, who love beer, weed and camaros, yet debate about who's the hardest metal band, sleep or metallica. From my vantage point, they look the same.

we can argue incessantly whether or not there truly are differences or not. they all believe in the same value system. There are of course liberal/leftist/humanist periods of all three religions, but by far more oppression has been caused by these rejectors of science.

you may be confusing these lay religious people as being in your fold. they are not. they are political people who are sitting on the fence, knowing that it's probably best for their self interests to have membership to both groups. These are your good religious people.

divying up the groups as you have, in your little example is nonsense. roman catholics and protestants are different, in only that protestants are mostly only interested in jesus. but that's the main reason why they are both called christians. they believe in christ. this is how they refer to themselves and differentiate themselves from muslims and jews.

madlee wrote:

El Flaco wrote:If you don't know why they hate each other than you probably should not generalize. The only thing they have in common is their Abrahamic roots.
That is like saying all burger joints are the same when Burger King has onion rings, Wendy's has the best value menu, and McD's has the straws with the largest circumference. Saying that they all beat up on women and gang up on the weak (as if this is an institutionalized practice) is about as ignorant as somebody in Kansas freaking out over an evolving fish. There
is not just one type of Jew, there are three major divisions of Muslims
and more denominations of Christianity than there are flavors of Jelly
Belly jelly beans. People who freak out over things like evolving fish badges are like the nasty purple ones (not grape that weird licorice flavor)
But their are some Catholics who believe in evolution....they are like the
super tasty tangerine jelly beans that seem to be too few in the bag.
for the sake of discussion why generalize?
your equation is as useless as George w. Bush's idea on creation.

Your paragraph reminds me of a page in this zine an old band mate of mine did. It had a picture of a dude skinning a deer. Next to the picture it said........description of a hunter.....killed a deer....beat his wife...drank a six pack of bud. good stuff! He was fifteen and didn't really read.
Come on dude.

I do know the differences. To me they are minute.

Jews believe in the torah/old testament. Christians believe in the old testament but believe in christ as son of god. They add the new testament to their book collection. Muslims believe in all that went before via the koran, except, they don't believe that jesus was the son of god, but merely a prophet, they believe in joseph, moses, etc. maybe a big deal between them, but for me, it's like two metal heads, who love beer, weed and camaros, yet debate about who's the hardest metal band, sleep or metallica. From my vantage point, they look the same.

we can argue incessantly whether or not there truly are differences or not. they all believe in the same value system. There are of course liberal/leftist/humanist periods of all three religions, but by far more oppression has been caused by these rejectors of science.

you may be confusing these lay religious people as being in your fold. they are not. they are political people who are sitting on the fence, knowing that it's probably best for their self interests to have membership to both groups. These are your good religious people.

divying up the groups as you have, in your little example is nonsense. roman catholics and protestants are different, in only that protestants are mostly only interested in jesus. but that's the main reason why they are both called christians. they believe in christ. this is how they refer to themselves and differentiate themselves from muslims and jews.

I am not going to go too much into this because it is obvious that we are approaching things from two distinct points of view. You are attacking my stance with fervor and a poorly informed secular modernist viewpoint that assumes I am some faith driven believer whose mind is warped by an obsession with Jesus and being "born again." I am attacking you with a historical critical method that assumes you are a modernist secular materialist more concerned with doing Mr. Wizardesque installation pieces than reading about cultural histories. It's cool....! But, I saw him do that shit with the dixie cup and the LP. Just saying.
The differences are not minute.

You say I am confused about some lay religious people and their fence straddling viewpoints. Unfortunately for you I am speaking of a Roman Catholic clergyman. In fact he's one of the preeminent paleontologists of the 20th century. He happens to be a Jesuit Priest and a scientist! Can you wrap your head around that?

Science, philosophy, and religion used to be inseparable.

For the record I know you think that religion is responsible for all evils in this world. However, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin both executed their tyranny from the top of governments which professed atheism as the more "enlightened" position. Just think how much more bloody the middle ages would have been without religion.