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-Short Attention Span Theater-
pope’s ambassador in Burundi, Carryed over from yesterday
2003-12-31
Lu Baihu Ask me to elaborate:

#2 Wonder what the vactican is going to do about it?
Now we are hearing(rumors)threats directly aginst Vatican City itself is this justification for declareing a Holy War. Anybody remember the Mary Knoll Nuns,killed in Sth.America.
Posted by: raptor 2003-12-30 3:05:23 PM

As most here at Rantburg already know the Islamist base this war on religious ideals. That makes this a religious war. It would seem to me that killing an Archbishop (remember this is a high member of the church hierarchy, not some lowly Preist or Nuns) plus direct threats to the Vatican would silence those that claim this is not a Holy War(even Pries. Bush says it is not a religious war). The question is what is the Catholic Church going to do about it? The Pope is too sick and feeble to do much, that leaves it up to the Councel of Cardinals. After the Maryknoll Nuns were raped, murdered, and the bodies desecrated and burned in El Salvadore, The Vatican’s respose amounted to "Shame on you".

I agree with the President — and the Pope, not that I pay much attention to him most of the time — that for us to play the holy war game descends to their level. As people living in the 21st century, we've put such stupidity in our past. They haven't.

Additionally, casting it in crusade-jihad terms is a propaganda move on their part, designed to suck the rubes into flocking to the Banner of Islam™ to defend the faith. We don't have to do that.

Those who want to can defend their faith, but I'm a lot more worried about our children and our culture. I don't want to see my grandchildren in turbans and burkas. I want to read Mark Twain and O. Henry and Henry Fielding and Burke and Hemingway and hundreds of other authors Islamists wouldn't approve of. I read the Koran once, when I was 19 or 20, and I've never looked at it since; I don't want to be required to read it over and over, nor do I want my children to be required to do so. I like drinking an occasional whisky, a cold beer, or a bottle of underpriced champagne. I like looking at pretty girls, the more comely and scantily clad the better. I enjoy my pipe. I like to tell jokes, often strangely colored. I enjoy the liberty to do all those things I like, and I would die — quickly — living in a society that banned them and replaced them with the requirement to bow down toward Mecca five times a day. Ptui!

We don't have to put things in holy war terms. We have enough to defend and cherish without adding in religion. Freedom of religion is one of the things we're defending, but only one.
Posted by:raptor

#6  Ptah - Ah, ignorance is bliss. You pick a nit (which I already happened to know) and think it significant. Crusaderwarcollege - I guess I should've expected the nitpick from you - but I certainly didn't expect your blindness. And I take exception to the tone of your response, since you provide zip for reasoning that stands outside of your limited perceptions. You see, I understand your Christian stuff very well. Do you have the capacity to step outside of it and percieve a non-ideological perspective?

Your comments make no rational sense. I know what we're fighting, probably better than you: Islamic slavery, stupidity, and barabarism. How, pray tell, does one side being stupid (ruled by blind faith in religion, not rational thought) mean that the other must be equally proud of its blind dogmatism, as well? That's crap - there is no such need.

I agree 100% with Fred - I'll fight these fuckers because I love my freedom - and yours, too. I am not against them because I've been indoctrinated to believe in some Hairy Thunderer Santa Clause thumbsuck in the sky whose Earthly representative is the Pope or some moron on cable TV with perfect hair.

Yes, it IS a war of civilization: freedom vs. blind robotic ideological totalitarianism. If any facet of civilization fails to see the value of fighting this war, i.e. to protect their freedoms as well as the freedoms of others, then they are as equally handicapped as the Islamists.

Christianity is not IT. No religion is. They are patterned behavior models that give you some peace of mind and help you sleep at night. FREEDOM is it. You are being intentionally obtuse. Your response does not, in any particular other than your tiny little historical reference, negate anything I said.

"Our bodies but not our understanding" - WTF? How specious. Why do you oppose the Islamists? Because you're a Christian? Or, I hope, because you love freedom? I would rather you were an ally because of your intellect and the recognition that freedom is man's best state than your dogma. What is in your heart and what you believe regards a creator or an afterlife or any other unprovable oogabooga are your personal choices. Period. "Your stuff is shit, my shit is stuff", indeed. George was making fun of YOU.

"We all do no end of feeling - and mistake it for thinking." Twain nailed it - and you're guilty. Believe anything you want - it matters not. Your motives are your own - I care only for your actions / inactions. How disappointing you either can't follow and accept such obvious truth - or won't, for whatever reasons. I did not think you so limited prior to this.
Posted by: .com   2004-1-1 12:31:05 AM  

#5  Your ignorance is showing, .com. The Crusaders fought to free their bretheren from Dhimmini status, while we fight to keep ourselves out of Dhimmini status.

And, like it or not, ONE side of this war thinks its a religious war. For the other side to refuse to see that reality is to look for the keys under the lamppost of your limited understanding. You'll be looking at the enemy through the same colored glasses and warped perspectives that Dimocrats see Bush, and will get the same results.

Tipper is right: this is a Civilization war, and it's going to take ALL the facets of our civilization working together to win it. Cut Christianity out of it, demanding our bodies but not our understanding, is for you to take the other extreme.
Posted by: Ptah   2003-12-31 11:36:40 PM  

#4  Sheesh. Tipper, et al, what a foolish and hypocritical position.

It's about freedom vs slavery.

If you're a Christian, great! Be a good Christian, knock yourself out, be happy, go to heaven, pass GO!, Collect $200. But, if you bring your religion (and it makes NO difference which it may be: Cosmic Muffin or Hairy Thunderer) into it as a justification for the fight against the Islamists, then OBL is/was right: you're Crusaders. And then, children, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND THEM. I'm just as opposed to Crusaders of any stripe as I am to the imposition of the Islamist Caliphate on the world. No religion has any fucking business in government or law or to be imposed on anyone and your pro-religion arguments are not only specious, but they justify the jihadi mentality of the Islamists. What you "believe" is no more true than what they "believe" - it's all based on "faith" and neither of you can prove dick. Keep a firm grip of the difference between what you believe and what you know -- they are NOT the same thing, folks. It should be entirely unnecessary to have to point this out.

Pure hypocrisy. BTW, THIS mindset is what George Carlin meant and was ridiculing when he said "your stuff is shit and my shit is stuff."

When you boil it down, it's about freedom vs. faith-based oogabooga. Believe whatever you want - but keep it to yourself, where it belongs. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Posted by: .com   2003-12-31 6:23:03 PM  

#3  tipper's right! If make your religion a compulsory and inseparable part of your culture, then a war against your culture is a war against your religion.

Perhaps this war is about destroying governments that claim their authority based on religion and not popular choice. If so it will take a couple of generations, and BTW Iraq was a very smart place to start.
Posted by: phil_b   2003-12-31 4:53:00 PM  

#2  The problem is, Raptor, it only takes one side to declare a "religious" or "holy" war. I've been in war - there's not much religious or holy about war - war is hell, pure and simple. Even when there's no actual fighting, it's hell. Just as it takes two to make a peace, but only one to make a war, it takes two to agree on the type of war, but only one to wage it. We need to put the pressure on the turbantops to understand that if they persist in trying to make this a holy war, there will only be one winner, and it won't be Islam.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2003-12-31 10:35:17 AM  

#1  I don't know if I want to go along with your analysis.
I view religion and culture as the same thing.
And I view culture as "civilisation"
So, yes I go along with the "Clash Of Civilisation" paradigm.
So it's irrevelant what you call it , culture or religion, both are admissable.
We are in a war, which has been going on for 1400 years.
What is happening at present is just the latest manifistation of that "War To The Death"".
The first rule is "know your enemy"
The information at
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/RealIslam.htm
should be made compulsory in all schools, so as to align the West, as to who the common enemy and destroyer of "civilisation" is.
Posted by: tipper   2003-12-31 10:16:42 AM  

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