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I suspect that KK was filling in the term the WBC uses for (what we know to be) the benign Flying Spaghetti Monster. To their hateful eyes he is an Abominable Pasta Fiend. [shakes head] Blessed be his Noodly Appendage.

Frazzled wrote:Evidently they also don't like
Jews
Chinese communists
Catholics
Eastern Orthodox
Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Baptists
Islam,
Hindus
and Italians (Italians???, really???)
No word on the great speghetti monster though.

At least they don't discriminate.

Kilkrazy wrote:Heretic!

Penne and Fusilli will take their holy vengeance upon the unbelievers.

Bring it! Whether prepackaged or fresh you pasta heretics will be shown the error of your ways. Repent for the Holy Pasta Bowl draws nigh!

Kilkrazy wrote:

Ravenous D wrote:Take a vacation to Mecca for me while you're gone. They are real tolerant of non muslims there

This is what astonishes. Do you think that western civilisation is better than Muslim?

If not, why are you complaining about them?

If yes, why are you behaving like them?

I like how I can call Westboro and scientologists nutjobs, but I cant say anything about Tamilis, a UN classified terrorist group known for using child soldiers and suicide bombers. That and being called ingorant against muslims because Im not allowed in Mecca or I will be killed.

Obviously not eveyone in these groups are bad, and that includes Westboro and scientologists, or any other strange group.

Westboro protests against the government for supporting homosexuality, we are apparently allowed to call them Nut Jobs.
Scientologists ruin lives and use brainwashing, we are apparently allowed to call them nut jobs.
Muslim faith allows you to murder without question, and totally disallow women from doing anything, but its not okay to say anything bad about them.
A few thousand Tamils use children as a human shield against riot police on a major highway because they wanted support for their Civil war. But no no, I cant say a damn thing.

Western Civilization is clearly better, I dont remember last time I saw any women get dragged into the streets and stoned to death for expressing an opinion. We also bend over for everyone's beliefs, thats fine its a free country, but I support my freedom not to have my country changed by their IMO backwards beliefs. I think we should put prayer rooms in every office for the followers of the Giant Spaghetti monster, but thats a whole other issue.

Oh and thanks for the warning, next time you disagree with someone dont use your given power to try and scare people into silence, isnt that what this thread is about? Taking away peoples freedom of speech? You might as well give a warning to every single person on this thread that said Westboro are crazy and call them ignorant because they lumped them into one group. Im sure they arent all bad, same as any group, but to say nothing about bashing one group but disallowing another is absolutely hypocritical.

Ravenous D wrote:I like how I can call Westboro and scientologists nutjobs, but I cant say anything about Tamilis, a UN classified terrorist group known for using child soldiers and suicide bombers. That and being called ingorant against muslims because Im not allowed in Mecca or I will be killed.

I'm guessing it's because your understanding of Islam in general, as illustrated by the rest of your post, is pretty weak. Mainstream Islam does not "allow you to murder without question."

Also, stop saying that Tamils are a terrorist group. Tamils are an ethnic and linguistic group, not a terrorist organization. The actual name of the group you're describing is the Tamil Tigers. That's like saying saying Muslims or Arabs are a terrorist group and using those terms instead of referring to Al Quaeda.

Ravenous D wrote:
I like how I can call Westboro and scientologists nutjobs, but I cant say anything about Tamilis, a UN classified terrorist group known for using child soldiers and suicide bombers. That and being called ingorant against muslims because Im not allowed in Mecca or I will be killed.

Obviously not eveyone in these groups are bad, and that includes Westboro and scientologists, or any other strange group.

Westboro protests against the government for supporting homosexuality, we are apparently allowed to call them Nut Jobs.
Scientologists ruin lives and use brainwashing, we are apparently allowed to call them nut jobs.
Muslim faith allows you to murder without question, and totally disallow women from doing anything, but its not okay to say anything bad about them.
A few thousand Tamils use children as a human shield against riot police on a major highway because they wanted support for their Civil war. But no no, I cant say a damn thing.

Western Civilization is clearly better, I dont remember last time I saw any women get dragged into the streets and stoned to death for expressing an opinion. We also bend over for everyone's beliefs, thats fine its a free country, but I support my freedom not to have my country changed by their IMO backwards beliefs. I think we should put prayer rooms in every office for the followers of the Giant Spaghetti monster, but thats a whole other issue.

Oh and thanks for the warning, next time you disagree with someone dont use your given power to try and scare people into silence, isnt that what this thread is about? Taking away peoples freedom of speech? You might as well give a warning to every single person on this thread that said Westboro are crazy and call them ignorant because they lumped them into one group. Im sure they arent all bad, same as any group, but to say nothing about bashing one group but disallowing another is absolutely hypocritical.

1. The Tamils aren't muslims. The ethnic group is predominately Hindu.

2. You can't lump an entire ethnicity into one big bag of nut jobs. The word Tamils describes almost 10% of the population of Sri Lanka, and that 10% is further subdivided into Tamils of Sri Lankanian origin and those who emigrated from India. Now, it is certainly fair to judge the very specific group of individuals who fostered a 26 year communist revolution and invented suicide bombing (i.e. the Tamil Tigers) as a bit loony. Point is, if you're going to blast people, be specific or expect to be shown how ignorant a statement is.

3. The Muslim faith certainly does not permit murder without question. In fact, the Qu'ran is quite specific that you are not allowed to kill Muslims and "People of the Book" (i.e. Christians and Jews, the spiritual predecessors to Mohammed). Taking the twisted interpretations of a few terrorists and plastering them onto possibly the world's largest religion is extremely ignorant.

Im not allowed in Mecca or I will be killed.

You would not be killed for being in Mecca as a non-Muslim, why would you think that? It's not even a thing, much less a real thing.

You could go in and walk around the Kaaba, do it all, nobody is going to kill you. If you start badmouthing Islam while you're walking around the Kaaba, I guess you might get beat on a bit, but again, probably not killed.

Obviously not eveyone in these groups are bad, and that includes Westboro and scientologists, or any other strange group.

Actually I think we can be pretty well assured that every single member of the Westboro Baptist Church is a bad person. There are only, like, 75 of them, and they're all inbred scum.

Muslim faith allows you to murder without question, and totally disallow women from doing anything, but its not okay to say anything bad about them.

It's really a matter of scope and diversity.

There are a LOT of Muslims in the world, and their traditions are many and varied. To generalize them is simply inaccurate. Among there numbers are people FAR worse than anybody in the WBC. There are also very wonderful people. You can't generalize them.

By comparison, WBC is about 75 people. You could meet every single one of them, chat with them, and confirm that they're an evil lunatic. You wouldn't have to generalize, you'd know for a fact that every last one was scum.

Scientology is much larger, but it's still relatively contained, and has a centralized authority. It's understood how it works, it's a scam and a brainwashing operation. It's not like there's a "legitimate" branch in Turkey or something. It's all controlled by a core of people, and it's entirely full of people who are either evil or being misled by evil. It's not a small organization, but it's still small enough, recent enough, and centralized enough, that it can be understood as a single entity.

You can't do that with Islam. It's just too many people, too many cultures, too many traditions to treat it as a single thing.

Western Civilization is clearly better

You'd have to define "better" for me to agree fully, but in general, I agree. I don't really attribute that to Islam vs. Christianity, though, I attribute it to wealth and privilege vs. squalor and oppression.

It's not "west is better than Islam." It's people who live in western Europe, Scandanavia and North America are wealthier, better educated, and have a more developed sense of justice and morality than the rest of the world.

There was a time when the wealthiest, most educated people in the world were Muslims, and the Christians were the dark age savages. That's not the case anymore, but it shows that the religion isn't really critical. It has more to do with social conditions, geopolitical strength, etc. etc.

Phryxis wrote:You'd have to define "better" for me to agree fully, but in general, I agree. I don't really attribute that to Islam vs. Christianity, though, I attribute it to wealth and privilege vs. squalor and oppression.

It's not "west is better than Islam." It's people who live in western Europe, Scandanavia and North America are wealthier, better educated, and have a more developed sense of justice and morality than the rest of the world.

There was a time when the wealthiest, most educated people in the world were Muslims, and the Christians were the dark age savages. That's not the case anymore, but it shows that the religion isn't really critical. It has more to do with social conditions, geopolitical strength, etc. etc.

Yeah, that's really the sum of it. Well put.

Also, that claim that within Islam you can murder without question... what the hell?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PanzerLeader wrote:1. The Tamils aren't muslims. The ethnic group is predominately Hindu.

Yeah, it was a Hindu minority fighting against a Buddhist majority. Which clashed against the stereotypes the West likes to place on those religions, so was removed from the reported narrative.

2. You can't lump an entire ethnicity into one big bag of nut jobs. The word Tamils describes almost 10% of the population of Sri Lanka, and that 10% is further subdivided into Tamils of Sri Lankanian origin and those who emigrated from India. Now, it is certainly fair to judge the very specific group of individuals who fostered a 26 year communist revolution and invented suicide bombing (i.e. the Tamil Tigers) as a bit loony. Point is, if you're going to blast people, be specific or expect to be shown how ignorant a statement is.

You then also have to look at the context of the war there. Now, there's no doubting the way the Tamils went about their war was awful, but if you look at their treatment at the hands of the majority it's hard not to feel some sympathy with their desire for independance. Life's complicated like that.

Who said, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"?

People of all kinds have engaged in so-called asymmetric warfare.

If they are on what we define as our side we applaud, no matter how horrible or illegal the acts may be.

People of all kinds have engaged in so-called asymmetric warfare.

If they are on what we define as our side we applaud, no matter how horrible or illegal the acts may be.

Meh.... There's a big difference between targetted attacks on military material and personel, and blowing off a suicide bomb in a civilian market. There's a big difference between capturing your enemy, and torturing your enemy to death. There's a big difference between enlisting willing volunteers, and kidnapping child soldiers.

There's nothing emperically immoral with asymmetric warfare, but there's a big difference between moral and immoral conduct of warfare.

Ultimately I'd disagree that a freedom fighter can always be fairly called a terrorist (though I recognize that it's not your quote).

sebster wrote:
Yeah, it was a Hindu minority fighting against a Buddhist majority. Which clashed against the stereotypes the West likes to place on those religions, so was removed from the reported narrative.

Fun fact, the Tamils are also the world's most prolific suicide terrorists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Phryxis wrote:
There's nothing emperically immoral with asymmetric warfare, but there's a big difference between moral and immoral conduct of warfare..

Maybe, but defining what constitutes moral warfare is far from easy, and very rarely clear. For example, there were many, many attacks on civilian targets during WWII.

Phryxis wrote:

People of all kinds have engaged in so-called asymmetric warfare.

If they are on what we define as our side we applaud, no matter how horrible or illegal the acts may be.

Meh.... There's a big difference between targetted attacks on military material and personel, and blowing off a suicide bomb in a civilian market. There's a big difference between capturing your enemy, and torturing your enemy to death. There's a big difference between enlisting willing volunteers, and kidnapping child soldiers.

There's nothing emperically immoral with asymmetric warfare, but there's a big difference between moral and immoral conduct of warfare.

Ultimately I'd disagree that a freedom fighter can always be fairly called a terrorist (though I recognize that it's not your quote).

You're right. I have several things in mind;

1. Attacks by civilians on military targets are illegal under the laws of war.

2. The west has supported some pretty nasty groups such as the Contras and the Taleban, who had no regard for limiting their attacks to military targets.

3. We have supported and continue to support a number of governments who have scant regard for human rights.

4. We strongly oppose insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan who carry out attacks against our own military.

All in all it is hard to say we don't hew to the line of the quotation.