The USA and Israel

[Immanuel Can]

But as you say, I don't think the sane solution is one that is going to come about. I'd be surprised and happy if it did, but I think it won't.

Agreed...

New information...first hand and recorded information of various types, have come out about how Hamas used rape and slaughter as weapons against the women of Israel. Much of the information is actually so vile that it cannot be reported on any news explicitly, without being immediately censored; but even what can be reported is so vile that it can only be delivered with the severest content warnings. I don't recommend you investigate any of it, because it's so disgusting you probably won't be able to sleep afterward, and will have permanent scars on your imagination; but much of it you can deduce from even the limited footage available.

If it is true information (and it certainly appears to be authentic) that anybody could do what Hamas did to any women anywhere, anytime, for any reason, is so far beyond the bounds of decency that no extenuation of Hamas is even remotely possible. And anybody who sees this information would be convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that Hamas is an implacable enemy whose hatred of Jews reaches monstrous proportions.

Such actions make it very clear what position Israel is really in: they are faced with an enemy who would joyfully butcher and slaughter them without compunction, and would revel in the brutal rape and slaughter of their women and children. And this makes it all the more pressing that some means be found whereby they can be taken out of the bind in which Hamas has put them...namely, unable to stop a war they did not start, because their opponent is beyond any point of negotiating, compromising or being trusted at all.

Whatever faults Israel has (and, as a Christian, how could I not know it genuinely has some, and in some very important areas?), those faults cannot possibly justify what Hamas has done. Nothing can. And there is clearly no simple solution to the present conflict.

[Immanuel Can]

But it will come. And when it does, you can be quite sure that all the injustices involved will be remedied...and the very last drop of blood or uttered curse-word will be answered for.

And every time I blatantly used a salad fork to eat the main course, I'm sure. Our ideas of justice appear to be very different.

I was speaking of the Israel-Hamas conflict: but if you want to extend that principle to other areas, I leave that with you.

However, justice is actually very simple, as a concept: all it means is that a person gets "just what he deserves," so to speak -- no excess of negative, and none of positive. Just what's coming. It's deciding what that should really look like that requires omniscience. The fulfilling of justice could be very straightforward, after that.

[attofishpi]

Are you ever sober? I think not.

..by about 99 cups of tea I get to the point where I real eyes..indeed, I am surrounded by a planet of stupid miserable kunts. Then I have my 100th cup of tea and start drinking coffee (with whiskey)


99 of 'em
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiwgOWo7mDc

Whatever gets you through life.

Whatever gets me thru life? Beyond the confusion of knowing that REALITY IS A CONVOLUTED APPARITION OF THE TRUTH

..beyond that?

yeah, tad confused, yet I still find all the death that u lot ("philosophers") waste your time talking about...strangely hilarious.

[Immanuel Can]

I came across an interesting group of essays: The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence.

Here's the problem with such treatments: they treat all "religions" as one thing. The minute anybody does that, you can be certain you're dealing with a skeptical editor. So we know that whoever put all this stuff together imagines that "religions" are all of-one-piece, ultimately, and all erroneous, and that secular skepticism is a "neutral" and "truthful" position from which to view this mass of stuff.

But a tiny bit of thought exposes the mental error entailed. For one can rewrite his presupposition as follows:

"There are many religions in the world. These appear, when regarded together, as violent (or errant, or superstitious, or wrong, or delusory, or mythological, or fabricated...choose your own pejorative, to taste). Therefore, all religions are violent.

"There are many mathematical answers in the world. Put them all together, and there are infinitely many wrong answers to the question, "what is 2+2?" Therefore, we are safe to assume that there is no such thing as an answer to 2+2, and all mathematics are equally false.

The same logical sequence is implicated in both cases: "if many, therefore all."

But now, the error is obvious. It might be that all members in a set of elements (the set of mathematical questions, or the set of 'religions,' for example) are false. But it isn't at all necessary that they are. And it certainly isn't deduceable that they are. Many errors do not indicate the impossibility of a truth.

Then there is a second problem underlying any such treatment, and one much more serious, conceptually: namely, that by the lights of this sort of putatively "neutral" or secular skeptical position, there is nothing wrong with violence. Skepticism itself does not provide us with any warrant for insisting that religions are "wrong" or "bad" for being violent. So it stops being clear at all what they indictment is intended to be.

Except we're not so much at sea as that: because the truth is that we know the Judeo-Christian ethic is actually RIGHT: and violence is objectively wrong. We may not want to admit that's what we know, but we are drawing on that supposition when we try to indict "religions" for being "violent." So what we're actually doing is assuming the truth of the Judeo-Christian ethic in order to argue that the Judeo-Christian (and other religious ethics) are all unethical. We're like a man who's trying to lift himself off the ground by pulling on his own shoelaces. We need the assumption of the truth of Judeo-Christian morality, in order to get the indictment against "religion" off the ground; but the purpose we have in doing so is to try to say that the Judeo-Christian morality is wrong.

It's an irrational mess, as you can see.

[attofishpi]

It's an irrational mess, as you can see.

Look at this fuckstain of "intelligence" ..a fundamental dunce. ..an embarrassment to any sage or God.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

It's an irrational mess, as you can see.

Look at this fuckstain of "intelligence" ..a fundamental dunce. ..an embarrassment to any sage or God.

He knows what he's talking about in this, minus any religious nonsense. Have you not noticed that the 'palestinian' side on here has no argument? Go back and have a look. Where is it?

[attofishpi]

It's an irrational mess, as you can see.

Look at this fuckstain of "intelligence" ..a fundamental dunce. ..an embarrassment to any sage or God.

He knows what he's talking about in this, minus any religious nonsense. Have you not noticed that the 'palestinian' side on here has no argument? Go back and have a look. Where is it?

Have you not noticed, there is no side with ME?

I want Lucifer in..but "they" won't allow that side of the debait out.

[promethean75]

"Do any of U have any idea wot it's like, being stuck at home because your dog gets fucked up when fireworks go BANG!! ...?"

Have u considered purchasing a thundershirt?

I think Donnie would look adorable in a thundershirt.

8awxcd.jpg

[Alexis Jacobi]

As an aside: how can empathy be 'fraudulent'?? It is what it is. You can say that someone is 'pretending to be empathetic', but to say that 'empathy is fraudulent' is nonsensical. Poor guy must be American. They have a lot of trouble with the English language.

I am glad you begin to think things through a bit more. I can easily explain. And I will a bit later.

I would not suppose your empathy is pretended, I would say it is partial and also it comes from a stance of prejudice: you refuse to see the entire, larger context.

I respect vaginal reasoning but in this case try to reason with an imagined mental man-thing.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

"Do any of U have any idea wot it's like, being stuck at home because your dog gets fucked up when fireworks go BANG!! ...?"

Have u considered purchasing a thundershirt?

I think Donny would look adorable in a thundershirt.


8awxcd.jpg

People who have squish-faced dogs are fucked in the head and should be banned from ever having a pet.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Here's the problem with such treatments: they treat all "religions" as one thing.

You start from a bad premise. You have no idea what “they” do or don’t do. You’ve not read any of the essays.

And your position is religious zealotry — and this we know at 100% certainty.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Just look at these decadent kunts. Their barber bill alone would be more than a Gazan earns in a year.

[Dubious]

I have not engaged in debate with you. And I do not think you are really interested in debate as exchange of perspectives or comparison of perspectives. You’ve only made emotional statements: reactive.

...a typical IC response. Most responses are "reactive", i.e., they react to the opinion of others as do yours. Also, you didn't have to respond to me now. I, as so many others on this site aren't much interested in your usual long-winded replies.

You also seem unaware that Hamas is not fighting against Jews but against Israelis.

I wonder if they made any such distinction when they attacked!

Since you don't wish to engage with me in debate realizing that as usual IC is your preferred choice, feel free to kindly fuck off.

[Atla]

Meanwhile everyone knows that neither Israel nor Islamic countries even remotely meet the bare minimum of human decency. Nor will they, as long their religions exist.

[promethean75]

"Just look at these decadent kunts. Their barber bill alone would be more than a Gazan earns in a year."

I been tryna tell u guys that organized religion and capitalism is the dynamic duo that allows guy like that to have a heavenly bank account