http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/4/26/122125/438
http://news.google.com/news?hl ... =UTF-8&ncl=1115740579

Some hippies planted a bomb at an abortion clinic. It is funny, they preach that it is murder to have an abortion but they kill the doctors who carry them out...

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Some hippies planted a bomb at an abortion clinic. It is funny, they preach that it is murder to have an abortion but they kill the doctors who carry them out...

Also known as extremist logic.

I'd say bloodthirsty idiots is a better word for them

Quote from wheel4hummer :

I don't see anything about terrorists attacking Austin, Texas...

You know there are also other kinds of terrorists than only those light-brown skinned people wearing a towel in their head yealling "Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!"?

Quote from Krane :

You know there are also other kinds of terrorists than only those light-brown skinned people wearing a towel in their head yealling "Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!"?

Do tell more of this stereotype you know so well

Quote from Tweaker :

Do tell more of this stereotype you know so well

Well I know they watch Fox "News" if they happen to watch news at all.

Poor domestic terrorists. Their Bronze Age magic book might be confusing them and I'm not really that surprised. First it says "an eye for an eye" then it says "thou shalt not kill". Dang it, what's a Bibled-up halfwit meant to do? Decide for himself what's right? Hell no, that's why you have magic books in the first place - so, if the magic book tells you to exact revenge you better dang well hop to it. But what about the second bit about not killing people? Well, that came later I guess so it's not as important, plus there's that whole forgiveness thing that comes even later than that. So kill away, pray for forgiveness later. Too easy.

Quote from Hankstar :

Poor domestic terrorists. Their Bronze Age magic book might be confusing them and I'm not really that surprised. First it says "an eye for an eye" then it says "thou shalt not kill". Dang it, what's a Bibled-up halfwit meant to do? Decide for himself what's right? Hell no, that's why you have magic books in the first place - so, if the magic book tells you to exact revenge you better dang well hop to it. But what about the second bit about not killing people? Well, that came later I guess so it's not as important, plus there's that whole forgiveness thing that comes even later than that. So kill away, pray for forgiveness later. Too easy.

Also don't forget "Turn the other cheek". Plus "an eye for an eye" only relates to acts inflicted on you, so doesn't apply here. Just a bunch of retards blowing shit up.

Just retards who like explosions? It figures. Works for Mythbusters (I love that show)

Why are the things you shouldn't do always said lastly and shortly, and never explained thoroughly.

If you're taking direction (or think you're taking direction) from a magic book or a holy man or a god, you don't have to explain anything ... apparently ...

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Some hippies planted a bomb at an abortion clinic...

Yes, the long antipathy between hippies and freely available abortions is well documented. Not. WTF?

Quote from Hankstar :

First it says "an eye for an eye" then it says "thou shalt not kill".

These two aren't in conflict with each other.. one is a law, and the other is a statute of limitations. It doesn't say "a life for a life". It stops a long way short of it. Apparently, people assume it's a sentence you're supposed to complete. I tell them it's the bible, not a puzzle book FFS!

And no, I'm not a Christian.. I'm a scathing ridiculer of religious morons who take their sacred handbook and superimpose their own pervese political rhetoric on it

Quote from Krane :

You know there are also other kinds of terrorists than only those light-brown skinned people wearing a towel in their head yealling "Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!"?

Yes and many of the brown-skinned people wearing a towell on their head yelling "Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!" are insurgents or freedom fighters, not terrorists. But it is much easier to justify their violent anihilation by re-labeling them to "terrorists". If I plant a bomb at an abortion clinic am I a terrorist or a mad bomber? If I kill a murderer am I a terrorist or a reactionary or a vigilante, or just a murderer?

We should do away with the word "terrorist" since it is so widely misused that nobody even has a clue for what cause people are fighting or dying.

Quote from SamH :

These two aren't in conflict with each other.. one is a law, and the other is a statute of limitations. It doesn't say "a life for a life". It stops a long way short of it. Apparently, people assume it's a sentence you're supposed to complete. I tell them it's the bible, not a puzzle book FFS!

And no, I'm not a Christian.. I'm a scathing ridiculer of religious morons who take their sacred handbook and superimpose their own pervese political rhetoric on it

Never fear Samuel, I'd never have picked you as a religionist. Your sense of humour is too highly evolved for that Scathe away!

But, unfortunately, filling in the blanks of scripture is precisely what people do: read a line like "eye for an eye" and say "if it applies to situation (a), logically it must apply to situation (b)", then off they go.

My point, notwithstanding my understandable lack of scriptural knowledge, remains: somewhere in their magic scroll (or in the sermons of their priests) they're finding justification for nailbombing doctors, just as other varieties of whack-job in other parts of the world find similar justifications in their own mythology for killing the innocent. You don't see atheists blowing up churches after selectively interpreting Darwin's On The Origin Of Species or Gray's Anatomy ...

Anyway, on to semantics. Terrorism is defined by the US State Department as: "the unlawful use of -- or threatened use of -- force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives." So, basically, attacking or threatening to attack someone in order to get your way, make your point, etc (the US ought to know as they're quite good at it themselves, especially lately, but we're talking about non-state terrorism here so that can wait). Going by that State Department definition, the bombers of abortion clinics are clearly terrorists. They're using attacks (or threats) and the fear they generate to make their point and get their way, which is to stop people exercising what are their legal rights. But those rights conflict with the terrorists' religious views, which they hold above the law of the land they call home, which apparently makes it okay to kill people.

So what happened to "judge not, lest ye be judged" or "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" or "do unto others" anyway? Sam?

Quote from Hankstar :

Poor domestic terrorists. Their Bronze Age magic book might be confusing them and I'm not really that surprised. First it says "an eye for an eye" then it says "thou shalt not kill". Dang it, what's a Bibled-up halfwit meant to do? Decide for himself what's right? Hell no, that's why you have magic books in the first place - so, if the magic book tells you to exact revenge you better dang well hop to it. But what about the second bit about not killing people? Well, that came later I guess so it's not as important, plus there's that whole forgiveness thing that comes even later than that. So kill away, pray for forgiveness later. Too easy.

Well, that's a pretty serious over simplification of issues that really only seem to relate to each other, combined with a gross misunderstanding of scripture. If this is truly the way you choose to think (clearly) without performing the research due to qualify a statement like that, then you're doing the exact same thing mentally that the misguided morons do when they (mis)use scripture* to justify attempting to "die in a holy war" to go to heaven.

*the Koran, not the Bible BTW.

Quote from Taavi(EST) :

Why are the things you shouldn't do always said lastly and shortly, and never explained thoroughly.

What do you mean by this?

Quote from Hankstar :

Never fear Samuel, I'd never have picked you as a religionist. Your sense of humour is too highly evolved for that Scathe away!

I always thought my sense of humour was pretty evolved! I don't know if you would label me as "religionist", I suspect you probably would based on what I beleive. I guess I better stop making (what have hopefully for the most part been) intelligent posts, and cease all attempts at humour? (no more clutch damage threads?)

Quote :

But, unfortunately, filling in the blanks of scripture is precisely what people do: read a line like "eye for an eye" and say "if it applies to situation (a), logically it must apply to situation (b)", then off they go.
...
So what happened to "judge not, lest ye be judged" or "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" or "do unto others" anyway? Sam?

People misunderstanding the Bible has nothing to do with the message of the Bible itself. How can you possibly conclude that people's ignorance and their actions are rooted in scripture? That makes no sense at all. Unfortunately, you are completely right about what people do with it. People can also use a hammer to kill people; I guess hammers have no suitable purpose - even if they exist to pound nails into wood?

If you're prepared to learn a lot of history, a little hebrew, a decent amount of greek and a number of good commentaries, then you'll have a much better understanding of what the Bible represents, what it is, where it came from and what it teaches.

You can take any document, conversation, or literary piece whatsoever and warp it into saying whatever you want. This is nothing new, and it shouldn't be shocking to anyone that it happens with the Bible. The fact that this happens has nothing to do with the accuracy and/or truth of the said subject material.

Just incase some people didnt know exactly wat a terrorist is, its a person who tries to frighten people or governments into doing what he/she wants by using or threatening violence.

So pretty much anyone could be a terrorist, technically...

Example.. a person on the street who comes up to you and points a gun or knife and says hand over your phone or i will shoot/stab you.. is an example of a terrorist, a person who uses "terror" to get what he wants..


and looks like hankster already gave a definition.. my bad!

Fair play BBT :up:

My scriptural knowledge is by no means detailed but it's certainly serviceable, having been raised semi-Christian (more from my parents' wish to have us learn some morals in early life rather than anything else) until I gave the game away at around 15, when I discovered I didn't actually need ancient scripture in order to know right from wrong, and didn't need permission from any heavenly entity to do exactly what I felt like.

Anyway, I'm well aware of the message of the bible as I grew up having it thrust upon me at primary school by a "subject" called RI or Religious Instruction, which was basically Sunday School at proper school (this was in a small country town in the early 80s, no surprise), then having it thrust upon me further at high school (to my displeasure) in so-called Religious "Education" Seminars, which were quite fun as they'd usually devolve into evolution debates (my science teacher father would have been proud ).

Anyway, autobiography aside, it seems you're taking personally what I meant generally, but which I still stand by. People from all three sides of the "good" book used, and still use it (or bits of it) to justify their bigotry & violence towards those of the other side and even toward those of their own side - you only need to look at the Protestant-Catholic and Sunni-Shiite schisms to realise how destructive a disagreement on theological detail can be.

It's not the highly questionable historical veracity or philosophical detail (the core of which seems to mirror practically every other mainstream religion and isn't all that unique) of the bible that I'm questioning - that would take some time and there are many more able scholars than me producing books and articles at a rate of knots on the subject right now - rather its usefulness to humankind as an instruction manual for life. If it (or any holy book) was definitive and totally black & white about what it requires from its adherents (as you may expect if it were the words of a supreme being), the fact is that there wouldn't have been, and wouldn't be, any religious wars, disagreements or inquisitions between religions or their factions. There wouldn't be any half-hearts, moderates, strict observers and fundamentalist murderers because everyone would have the same playbook and the same rules and everyone would worship in the same way. The fact that there are so many different varieties of Muslim & Christian and Jew (to name only the big three) says to me that noone has the definitive version of the word of god, precisely because no such version exists. These scriptures and the religions they support are human inventions, designed by humans long ago for purposes that can't be fully understood. They survived, in the same way many irrational beliefs & superstitions survive, by being passed on through stories and conversations and popular culture. We've all heard the ones about how black cats, broken mirrors, chain letters, opening umbrellas inside etc. can all bring you bad luck. We've all heard stories about witches and boggarts and leprechauns and bunyips and The Force and the sasquatch but we (mostly) don't believe them. Our societies grew out of them, just like kids grow out of leaving cake for Santa Claus. Eventually I believe our societies will leave religion behind (or merely leave it on the sidelines) as we discover it's not generally all that useful to our species, but it could take a while for us to get to that point of artificial de-selection. In the short term I think it's high time it was allowed a lot less influence than it has in several parts of the world right now, including (but not limited to) Washington, London, Canberra (it's not that bad now but give it time), Baghdad, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Kabul (don't discount the Taliban just yet), Riyadh, many Third World countries where AIDs is rampant but, unfortunately, so is the "no condoms" doctrine ...

However, while I don't subscribe to it, I find religion and its evolution fascinating and I wish to buggery I had cable TV so I could soak up documentaries about it like a sponge

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

Well, that's a pretty serious over simplification of issues that really only seem to relate to each other, combined with a gross misunderstanding of scripture. If this is truly the way you choose to think (clearly) without performing the research due to qualify a statement like that, then you're doing the exact same thing mentally that the misguided morons do when they (mis)use scripture* to justify attempting to "die in a holy war" to go to heaven.

*the Koran, not the Bible BTW.



What do you mean by this?



I always thought my sense of humour was pretty evolved! :scrachch I don't know if you would label me as "religionist", I suspect you probably would based on what I beleive. I guess I better stop making (what have hopefully for the most part been) intelligent posts, and cease all attempts at humour? (no more clutch damage threads?)



People misunderstanding the Bible has nothing to do with the message of the Bible itself. How can you possibly conclude that people's ignorance and their actions are rooted in scripture? That makes no sense at all. Unfortunately, you are completely right about what people do with it. People can also use a hammer to kill people; I guess hammers have no suitable purpose - even if they exist to pound nails into wood?

If you're prepared to learn a lot of history, a little hebrew, a decent amount of greek and a number of good commentaries, then you'll have a much better understanding of what the Bible represents, what it is, where it came from and what it teaches.

You can take any document, conversation, or literary piece whatsoever and warp it into saying whatever you want. This is nothing new, and it shouldn't be shocking to anyone that it happens with the Bible. The fact that this happens has nothing to do with the accuracy and/or truth of the said subject material.

yeah.... that

Uh here's a more local take on it. read the comments on it below the article as well.

http://www.chron.com/disp/stor ... adline/metro/4752415.html

All religions, even the atheist ones have their lunatic fringe.
yeah, it's a religion too. When some moron starts preaching to me over and over about how there's no God and how ignorant people that think so are,
they sound almost identical to the preacher that goes on and on about how there is a God and ignorant people that deny God are.
And you know, they both always seem to want money.... hmmm.

Overall, the concept of abortion is completely over my head as to whether it is morally OK or not. I just wish we never had the need for or the technology for it.



My wife and I went to a free pregnancy testing place. whe she was having our first born. The home kits hadn't came out yet. It was ran by this Pro-lifer bunch. the sick thing was was while you were waiting for the results, they made you watch this anti-abortion video that showed all kinds of sick crap relating to abortions like third trimester fetuses and grossed out stuff like that.
When they realized we fully intended on keeping our baby, they were all kinds of nice to us. Hell, they even gave us a car seat. Being the @sshole that I was (am?) I just had to mention to my wife as we were leaving it was a shame they didn't offer any popcorn - loud enough for them to hear it. I dunno when someone shows me some video of a mangled fetus, it really ain't much better than showing kiddie porn IMHO.

Atheism (generally defined as not believing in or worshipping a god or gods) is a religion? "Atheist religions"? That's the most gigantic oxymoron I've ever seen. To be perfectly, unambiguously clear, "atheist" means "non-theist" which means "not a believer in gods" - gods being necessary for religion to exist at all.

You have to understand that atheism isn't a structured system of beliefs like a religion. It's not some rival faith attempting to convert people to its philosophy (because there really isn't one). I may have crapped on a lot in my previous post but I'm not some atheist evangelist. I don't actually care if people choose religion or not (honestly, you could run naked to the top of Mt Olympus screaming about Zeus for all I care) - what I do care about is that religion has an influence on peoples' lives (and on some governments) that sometimes overrides rational thinking and morality, which can be dangerous.

Religion offers certainty to the faithful (e.g., martyr yourself and become a gangsta pimp in the afterlife; be sinful and go to Hell). Atheism, not being any kind of centralised, organised system of belief or behavioural control, offers, honestly, nothing except what you already have. It's the absence of faith and the presence of honest inquiry and open-mindedness. Atheism is basically relying on your own mind and your own morality rather than taking someone else's word for it, be they Pope or village medicine man. For example, I don't believe in evolution because I think Darwin was a prophet and I have faith that he speaks the truth. I believe in evolution because it's been demonstrated, to my satisfaction, that it's basically a fact of life in the universe - or at least the best possible explanation for everything humans know about life on this planet. Show me a better explanation that can be verified and I'll burn Darwin's Origin myself

btw Racer, that clinic sounds like a horror show

Religion has been the root cause of innumerable bloody murders in man's history. It is evil, QED.

Thank God Britain has mostly abandoned religion

I can't have kids.

My doctor says I need a boyfriend first.

Quote from Becky Rose :

I can't have kids.

My doctor says I need a boyfriend first.

Best post of the week, and sort of on target....

The problem imo is not religion as such as all the major 3 are pretty set on no killing etc.
The problem is that nobody follows the guidelines.

If people actually obeyed the rule, "treat your neighbour as yourself" instead of flogging his oil, screwing his wife & doing unmentionable things to his ass then the world would be a much better place.

So the problem is, as always, peoples inability to accept that someone else's point of view is as valid as their own.

As a buddhist my opinion is that whatever people choose to believe in or of is their problem, however it is up to me to choose how I relate to my reality and I should never harm, or by inaction harm any sentient living being.

This is my choice and I never expect anyone else to choose this, however if you claim to follow a religion then you should also be aware of what it is u believe in and how you are expected to relate to others. ( not killing them !)

I love the expression religious extremists as they are generally the least religious people you can meet.

Kudos, Buddism is the flaw in my argument above (closely followed by gnostic Christianity)