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Diploid
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Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber
#6606620 - 02/24/07 07:47 PM (16 years, 11 months ago) |
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Are you ready? Tomorrow you will be in Paradise . . .
AT DAWN, when the three men heard the morning call to prayer from a mosque in the village below their hideout in the hills, they knelt and uttered the traditional invocation to Allah that Muslim warriors make before setting off for combat. They put on clean clothes, tucked the Koran into their pockets, and began the long hike over the hills and along dry riverbeds to the outskirts of Jerusalem.
In the Palestinian neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem, they walked in silence so that their accents, the guttural vernacular of Gaza, would not arouse suspicion. It was June 1993, and they were members of the Palestinian fundamentalist group Hamas. Along the way, they stopped to pray at every mosque. At dusk, they boarded a bus that was heading toward West Jerusalem, filled with Israeli passengers. When the driver thwarted their attempt to hijack the vehicle, they tried to detonate the homemade bombs they were carrying.
The bombs failed to go off, so they pulled out guns and began firing wildly. The shots injured five passengers, including a woman who later died. The young men fled the bus, hijacked a car at a red light, and forced the driver to take them toward Bethlehem. Israeli security forces stopped them at a military checkpoint, and in a gun battle two of the young men and their hostage were killed. The third hijacker, whom I will call S, was struck by a bullet in the head; he lay comatose for two months in Israeli hospitals. Finally, he was pronounced brain-dead, and the Israelis sent him back to his family in the Gaza Strip to die.
But S recovered, and when we met, five years later, he told me his version of the events. By then, he was married and the father of three sons. Each of them had been named for shaheed batal — “martyr heroes”.
In Gaza, S is celebrated as a young man who “gave his life to Allah” and whom Allah “brought back to life”.
He was polite as he welcomed me into his home. The house was surrounded by a high cement wall that had been fortified with steel. We sat down in a large, simply furnished room whose walls were inscribed with verses from the Koran. On one wall was a poster showing green birds flying in a purple sky, a symbol of the Palestinian suicide bombers.
S had just turned 27. He is slight, and he walked with a limp, the only trace of his near-death. He invited his wife to join us, and he answered my questions without hesitation.
I asked him when, and why, he had decided to volunteer for martyrdom. “In the spring of 1993, I began to pester our military leaders to let me do an operation,” he said. “It was around the time of the Oslo accords, and it was quiet, too quiet. I wanted to do an operation that would incite others to do the same. Finally, I was given the green light to leave Gaza for an operation inside Israel.”
“How did you feel when you heard that you’d been selected for martyrdom?” I asked.
“It’s as if a very high, impenetrable wall separated you from Paradise or Hell,” he said. “Allah has promised one or the other to his creatures. So, by pressing the detonator, you can immediately open the door to Paradise — it is the shortest path to Heaven.”
S was one of 11 children in a middle-class family that, in 1948, had been forced to flee from Majdal to a refugee camp in Gaza, during the Arab-Israeli war that started with the creation of the State of Israel. He joined Hamas in his early teens and became a street activist.
In 1989, he served two terms in Israeli prisons for intifada activity, including attacks on Israeli soldiers. One of his brothers is serving a life sentence in Israel.
I asked S to describe his preparations for the suicide mission. “We were in a constant state of worship,” he said. “We told each other that if the Israelis only knew how joyful we were they would whip us to death! Those were the happiest days of my life.”
“What is the attraction of martyrdom?” I asked.
“The power of the spirit pulls us upward, while the power of material things pulls us downward,” he said. “Someone bent on martyrdom becomes immune to the material pull. Our planner asked, ‘What if the operation fails?’ We told him, ‘In any case, we get to meet the Prophet and his companions, inshallah.’
“We were floating, swimming, in the feeling that we were about to enter eternity. We had no doubts. We made an oath on the Koran, in the presence of Allah — a pledge not to waver. This jihad pledge is called bayt al-ridwan, after the garden in Paradise that is reserved for the prophets and the martyrs. I know that there are other ways to do jihad. But this one is sweet — the sweetest. All martyrdom operations, if done for Allah ’s sake, hurt less than a gnat’s bite!”
S showed me a video that documented the final planning for the operation. In the grainy footage, I saw him and two other young men engaging in a ritualistic dialogue of questions and answers about the glory of martyrdom. S, who was holding a gun, identified himself as a member of al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas, which is one of two Palestinian Islamist organisations that sponsor suicide bombings. (Islamic Jihad is the other group.) “Tomorrow, we will be martyrs,” he declared, looking straight at the camera. “Only the believers know what this means. I love martyrdom.”
The young men and the planner then knelt and placed their right hands on the Koran. The planner said: “Are you ready? Tomorrow, you will be in Paradise.”
SINCE 1982, I have been an international relief worker. In 1996 I was posted to the Gaza Strip during one of the most vicious cycles of suicide bombings. To understand why certain young men voluntarily blow themselves up in the name of Islam, I began, without official sponsorship, to research their backgrounds and the beliefs that had led them to such extreme tactics.
I was warned that my interest in trying to understand the suicide missions was dangerous. But eventually, when the people who were observing me had assured themslves of my credentials — an important one was that I am Muslim and from Pakistan — I was allowed to meet members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad who would help me. “We are agreeing to talk to you so that you can explain the Islamic context of these operations,” one man told me. “Even many in the Islamic world do not understand.”
From 1996 to 1999, I interviewed nearly 250 people involved in the most militant camps of the Palestinian cause: volunteers who, like S, had been unable to complete their suicide missions, the families of dead bombers, and the men who trained them.
None of the suicide bombers — they ranged in age from 18 to 38 — conformed to the typical profile of the suicidal personality. None of them was uneducated, desperately poor, simple-minded, or depressed. Many were middle-class and held paying jobs. Two were the sons of millionaires. They all seemed entirely normal members of their families. They were polite and serious, and in their communities were considered to be model youths. Most were bearded. All were deeply religious.
I was told that to be accepted for a suicide mission the volunteers had to be convinced of the religious legitimacy of the acts they were contemplating, as sanctioned by the divinely revealed religion of Islam. Many of these young men had memorised large sections of the Koran and were well versed in the finer points of Islamic law and practice. But their knowledge of Christianity was rooted in the medieval crusades, and they regarded Judaism and Zionism as synonymous.
Most of the men I interviewed requested strict anonymity. The majority spoke in Arabic and they all talked matter-of-factly about the bombings, showing an unshakeable conviction in the rightness of their cause and their methods. When I asked them if they had any qualms about killing innocent civilians, they would immediately respond, “The Israelis kill our children and our women. This is war, and innocent people get hurt.”
They were not inclined to argue but they were happy to discuss, far into the night, the issues and the purpose of their activities. One condition of the interviews was that, in our discussions, I not refer to their deeds as “suicide”, which is forbidden in Islam. Their preferred term is “sacred explosions”. One member of al-Qassam said: “We do not have tanks or rockets, but we have something superior — our exploding Islamic bombs.”
My contacts told me that, as a military objective, spreading fear among the Israelis was as important as killing them. Anwar Aziz, an Islamic Jihad member who blew himself up in an ambulance in Gaza, in December 1993, had often told friends: “Battles for Islam are won not through the gun but by striking fear into the enemy’s heart.”
Military commanders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad remarked that the human bomb was one of the surest ways of hitting a target. A senior Hamas leader said: “The main thing is to guarantee that a large number of the enemy will be affected. With an explosive belt or bag, the bomber has control over vision, location, and timing.”
As today’s weapons of mass destruction go, the human bomb is cheap. A Palestinian security official pointed out that, apart from a willing young man, all that is needed are such items as nails, gunpowder, a battery, a light switch and a short cable, mercury (readily obtainable from thermometers), acetone, and the cost of tailoring a belt wide enough to hold six or eight pockets of explosives. The most expensive item is transportation to a distant Israeli town. The total cost of a typical operation is about US $150 (£85). The sponsoring organisation usually gives between $3,000-$5,000 (£1,700- £2,830) to the bomber’s family.
I met an imam affiliated with Hamas, a youthful, bearded graduate of the prestigious al Azhar University in Cairo. He explained that the first drop of blood shed by a martyr during jihad washes away his sins instantaneously. On the Day of Judgment, he will face no reckoning. On the Day of Resurrection, he can intercede for 70 of his nearest and dearest to enter Heaven; and he will have at his disposal 72 houris, the beautiful virgins of Paradise. The imam took pains to explain that the promised bliss is not sensual.
There is no shortage of willing recruits for martyrdom. Hamas and Islamic Jihad generally reject those who are under 18, who are the sole wage-earners in their families, or who are married and have family responsibilities. If two brothers ask to join, one is turned away.
The planners keep a close eye on the volunteer’s self-discipline, noting whether he can be discreet among friends and observing his piety in the mosque. During the week before the operation, two “assistants” are delegated to stay with the potential martyr at all times. They report any signs of doubt, and if the young man seems to waver, a senior trainer will arrive to bolster his resolve.
A planner for Islamic Jihad said that his organisation carefully scrutinises the motives of a potential bomber: “We ask this young man, and we ask ourselves, why he wishes so badly to become a human bomb. What are his real motives? Our questions are aimed at clarifying first and foremost for the boy himself his real reasons and the strength of his commitment. Even if he is a long-time member of our group and has always wanted to become a martyr, he needs to be very clear that in such an operation there is no drawing back. Preparation bolsters his conviction, which supports his certitude. It removes fear.”
A member of Hamas explained the preparation: “We focus his attention on Paradise, on being in the presence of Allah, on meeting the Prophet Muhammad, on interceding for his loved ones so that they, too, can be saved from the agonies of Hell, on the houris, and on fighting the Israeli occupation and removing it from the Islamic trust that is Palestine.”
I asked one planner about the problem of fear. “The boy has left that stage far behind,” he said. “The fear is not for his own safety or his impending death. It does not come from lack of confidence in his ability to press the trigger. It is awe, produced by the situation. He has never done this before and, inshallah, he will never do it again. It comes from his fervent desire for success, which will propel him into the presence of Allah. It is anxiety over the possibility of something going wrong and denying him his heart’s wish. The outcome, remember, lies in Allah’s hands.”
Al-khaliyya al-istishhadiyya, which is often mistranslated as “suicide cell” — its proper translation is “martyrdom cell” — is the basic building block of operations. Generally, each cell consists of a leader and two or three young men. When a candidate is placed in a cell, usually after months, if not years, of religious studies, he is assigned the lofty title of al-shaheed al -hayy, “the living martyr”. He is also referred to as “he who is waiting for martyrdom”.
Each cell is tightly compartmentalised and secret. Cell members do not discuss their affiliation with their friends or family, and even if two of them know each other in normal life, they are not aware of the other’s membership in the same cell. (Only the leader is known to both.) Each cell, which is dissolved after the operation has been completed, is given a name from the Koran or from Islamic history.
The young men undergo intensified spiritual exercises, including prayers and recitations of the Koran. Usually, the trainer encourages the candidate to read six particular chapters of the Koran: Baqara, Al Imran, Anfal, Tawba, Rahman, and Asr, which feature such themes as jihad, the birth of the nation of Islam, war, Allah’s favours and the importance of faith.
Religious lectures last from two to four hours each day. The living martyr goes on lengthy fasts. He spends much of the night praying. He pays off all his debts, and asks for forgiveness for actual or perceived offences.
In the days before the operation, the candidate prepares a will on paper, audiocassette or video, sometimes all three. The video testaments, which are shot against a background of the sponsoring organisation’s banner and slogans, show the living martyr reciting the Koran, posing with guns and bombs, exhorting his comrades to follow his example, and extolling the virtues of jihad.
The wills emphasise the voluntary basis of the mission. “This is my free decision, and I urge all of you to follow me,” one young bomber, Muhammad Abu Hashem, said in a recorded testament before blowing himself up, in 1995, in retaliation for the assassination of Fathi Shiqaqi.
The young man repeatedly watches the video of himself, as well as the videos of his predecessors. “These videos encourage him to confront death, not fear it,” one trainer told me. “He becomes intimately familiar with what he is about to do. Then he can greet death like an old friend.”
Just before the bomber sets out on his final journey, he performs a ritual ablution, puts on clean clothes, and tries to attend at least one communal prayer at a mosque. He says the traditional Islamic prayer that is customary before battle, and he asks Allah to forgive his sins and to bless his mission. He puts a Koran in his left breast pocket, above the heart, and he straps the explosives around his waist or picks up a briefcase or a bag containing the bomb. The planner bids him farewell with the words “May Allah be with you, may Allah give you success so that you achieve Paradise.”
The would-be martyr responds, “Inshallah, we will meet in Paradise.”
Hours later, as he presses the detonator, he says, “Allahu akbar” — “Allah is great. All praise to Him.”
The operation doesn’t end with the explosion and the many deaths. Hamas and Islamic Jihad distribute copies of the martyr’s audiocassette or video to the media and to local organisations as a record of their success and encouragement to other young men. His act becomes the subject of sermons in mosques, and provides material for leaflets, posters, videos, demonstrations, and extensive coverage in the media. Graffiti on walls in the martyr’s neighbourhood praise his heroism. Aspiring martyrs perform mock re-enactments of the operation, using models of exploding cars and buses. The sponsoring organisation distributes cassettes of chants and songs honouring the good soldier.
The bomber’s family and the sponsoring organisation celebrate his martyrdom with festivities, as if it were a wedding. Hundreds of guests congregate at the house to offer congratulations. The hosts serve the juices and sweets that the young man specified in his will. Often, the mother will ululate in joy over the honour that Allah has bestowed upon her family.
But there is grief, too. I asked the mother of Ribhi Kahlout, a young man in the Gaza Strip, who had blown himself up in November 1995, what she would have done if she had known what her son was planning to do. “I would have taken a cleaver, cut open my heart, and stuffed him deep inside,” she said. “Then I would have sewn it up tight to keep him safe.”
* Nasra Hassan works in Vienna. She has compiled a database of more than 200 profiles of Muslim suicide bombers and has just completed a book on the subject. A version of this article originally appeared in The New Yorker
timesonline.co.uk
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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BlueCoyote
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6613022 - 02/26/07 03:14 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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These guys are no martyrs. Martyrs were killed by others. These guys are murderers of innocent, and if they believe in a GOD, then they will go to hell, for sure. Allah will not justify murder, especially not those of innocent. That is why one goes directly to paradise, if you were murdered (not if you murder) for your believe in their own religions. But these guys pervert even their own religion with their brainwashed deeds that will lead them to hell, directly.
That must have been said.
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Diploid
Cuban


Registered: 01/09/03
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: BlueCoyote]
#6613153 - 02/26/07 03:48 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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But these guys pervert even their own religion
You do realize that they say the exact same thing about you, they believe it as fervently as you do, and since all mystical beliefs are in things not in evidence, their position is supported by the same evidence and rationale you use to support yours.
That's the problem with mysticism and religion and the reason the world is on a slippery slope toward eventual nuclear jihad: each side is absolutely certain that their infallible, invisible friend in the sky agrees with them no matter what they make up.
Religion and mysticism are a plague on the Earth.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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BlueCoyote
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6613172 - 02/26/07 03:54 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Killing innocents is simply the shit and I think even an Arab (who is not brainwashed) knows that. There is not much believe, mystery or religion necessary from my side for this insight  And, this I think is written in the Koran also. Not religion or mysticism are the plague itself. Brainwashing and utilizing them for political reasons is what is the real plague behind.
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Fospher
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6615601 - 02/27/07 04:18 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: That's the problem with mysticism and religion and the reason the world is on a slippery slope toward eventual nuclear jihad: each side is absolutely certain that their infallible, invisible friend in the sky agrees with them no matter what they make up.
Religion and mysticism are a plague on the Earth.
Wouldn't it be great then if we all had someone real to look up to, someone that was proven to have lived? Everyone would march towards the bright future with all religions left behind.
It's kind of strange then, that the two empires, one following Nietzsche's Antichrist, and another Marxist' Das Kapital have killed more than any other war or conflict in the history of civilization. Both did a really great job at blowing up churches, temples and mosques. You can even see the living proof of one the prophets mummified at the Mausoleum. Your utopia?
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Seuss
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6615966 - 02/27/07 08:31 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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> Both did a really great job at blowing up churches, temples and mosques.
Thus, once again, religion is shown to be at the center of conflict...
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Diploid
Cuban


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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher] 1
#6615996 - 02/27/07 08:50 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Your utopia?
Wow, way to put words in my mouth.
A world free of absolutists irrational beliefs COULD be utopian, but there are more things wrong with humans than just belief in invisible friends. This is why secular conflicts can happen too.
However, secular conflicts are few and far between compared to religious conflicts.
Cases in point:
-Torture at the hands of the Inquisition
-Witch burnings at the hands of the Catholics
-Endless killing in Northern Ireland
-Genocide in Rwanda
-War in Bosnia-Herzegovina
-Civil war in Sudan
-Extreme, radical fundamentalist Muslim terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq
-Fragile peace in Bosnia holding only due to the presence of UN peacekeepers
-Ivory Coast murders of Muslims at the hands of the government
-Fragile peace in Cyprus holding only due to the presence of UN peacekeepers
-Ongoing conflict in India among Animists, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs
-Sporadic conflicts between Christians and Muslims in Ambon Province in India
-Hindus and Muslims at each other's throats in Kashmir
-South Africa where hundreds of people accused of being witches are still murdered each year.
-Kosovo, Kurdistan, Macedonia, West Bank, Israel, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Philippines, Chechnya, Vojvdina Province in Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tibet, Uganda, Iraq, Afghanistan...
I could go on all night, but my fingers are getting tired. All these conflicts are, at least in part, religious in nature.
Don't believe me? Religion even recognized ITSELF as the source for much of the world's suffering when a group of world religious leaders from Buddhist, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim and many other faiths met in Geneva in 1999 to issue a document, The Geneva Spiritual Appeal, asking political and religious leaders and organizations to ensure that religions are not used to justify violence in the future.
Delegates believed that the then-current 56 conflicts around the world all had religious elements.
56!
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Redstorm
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6616107 - 02/27/07 09:59 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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I don't disagree with you that religion is hindering mankind, but many of those situations you state have a spurious relationship between religion and violence. Many of them, including the cases in Africa, have more to do with fighting over resources (ivory, land, and diamonds), nationalism, and ethnic differences than religion. While some of them certainly share the core cause being religion, don't accept immediately that just because two groups of people have different religion, that's why they're fighting.
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Basilides
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Redstorm]
#6617607 - 02/27/07 06:01 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Well said.
Wars are motivated for many reasons - but when there is an element of groups fighting and dying, they tend to inject their religions into the equation to give their causes and their fallen a purpose.
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    "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."
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trippindad82
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Basilides]
#6618155 - 02/27/07 08:27 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Basilides said: Well said.
Wars are motivated for many reasons - but when there is an element of groups fighting and dying, they tend to inject their religions into the equation to give their causes and their fallen a purpose.
Although a very said thing indeed.
-------------------- Trying to explain a journey to someone who has never experienced it is like trying to explain what a zebra looks like to blind person who has never seen a horse. ^^^The above matter may be a complete fantasy that I concocted out of possible boredom.^^^ --------------------------------------
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Fospher
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6618256 - 02/27/07 08:52 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: Your utopia?
Wow, way to put words in my mouth.
Certainly, if the proverbial plague of religion is removed from the organism, would it not in a harmonious state of being?
Quote:
A world free of absolutists irrational beliefs COULD be utopian, but there are more things wrong with humans than just belief in invisible friends.
Make it a world free of absolutist beliefs, period, then I might agree with you. Is Marxism a religion? Kapital does follow quite a logical structure of the steps to ultimate Communism. Can one not have a philosophy in the place of a religion, in fact, is it even possible to do otherwise?
I'm not surprised at the number of religious conflicts confirmed by the Geneva Spiritual Appeal, either. As a survival tactic, human beings have always tried to force their way of life onto their neighbour. Hey man, if the guy next door has the same axioms of life as you, it'd definitely make everything a lot easier. If the Albanians shared the Orthodox faith of the Serbs, would the Kosovo conflict even emerge?
And no need to point out witch burnings or religious sectarian violence, because as I have said before, Stalin's paw and Hitler's dystopia have killed more human beings than all those conflicts combined.
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Fospher
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Seuss]
#6618276 - 02/27/07 08:57 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: > Both did a really great job at blowing up churches, temples and mosques.
Thus, once again, religion is shown to be at the center of conflict...
The Jesus Christ icons just got replaced by portraits of V.I. Lenin, and instead of prayer, there were fear driven nationalistic rallies. Humans need myths to drive us forward, by taking away the common unconscious world of dreams and symbols of religion, you're putting rationalism as the final arbiter of an objective reality, which, needless to say, it is not.
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Seuss
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6619452 - 02/28/07 03:44 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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> you're putting rationalism as the final arbiter of an objective reality,
I'll take rationalism over "make believe" anyday... perhaps I am misreading your position... As a scientist, I don't need myths about fairies and pixie dust to help me find something to research and I am certainly going to base my beliefs off of rational observation rather than some outdated myth that explained how the Earth is the center of the universe.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Luddite
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6620733 - 02/28/07 02:43 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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This looks like a good book.

Stephen Adams: Former Muslim explains why jihadists hate us
Stephen Adams, The Examiner
Feb 27, 2007 3:00 AM (16 hrs ago) Current rank: # 826 of 16,100 articles
WASHINGTON - “Why We Want to Kill You: The Jihadist mindset and how to defeat it,” by Walid Shoebat, Top Executive Media, 2007
If only someone could come up with a vaccine to counteract the outrageous lies, myths and delusions plaguing the Islamic world, it would be a major step toward world peace. Former Palestinian terrorist Walid Shoebat has done perhaps the next best thing with his new book, “Why We Want to Kill You.”
Shoebat writes that years ago as a young member of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, he carried out missions including the bombing of an Israeli bank with an explosive device in a loaf of bread.
He also describes ambushing an Israeli soldier and beating his head until the club broke. After becoming a Christian in 1993, he looked back with shame at this violence, racism and deceit. “I must confess that lying was our nature,” he writes.
That story is more the subject of his first book, “Why I left Jihad,” whereas “Why We Want to Kill You” exposes this pattern of mass deception. Most of these deceptions concern Israel and the Jews — that the Jews have spread poisons among Palestinians, damaged and desecrated the Temple Mount, used infant blood in matzoh, even created artificial earthquakes.
Shoebat recalls an incident when he and his fellow students nearly killed an Israeli truck driver who accidentally struck a Palestinian girl. Leading the riot was a man blind from birth, who claimed it was no accident.
“Recalling the scene 20 years later,” writes Shoebat, “I wonder why an entire school followed a blind man who obviously could not have seen what really happened.”
Some of these falsehoods concern America: It was really American planes and American pilots, for example, who defeated the Arabs in the 1973 Six Day War, not Israelis. Conversely, Shoebat notes, a survey shows “65 percent of Indonesia’s Muslims today do not believe that the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States were carried out by Arabs.”
The list goes on: Accusing others of what you yourself are guilty of (“reversalism”); making treaties designed to be broken (hudna); sanctioning lying to non-Muslim “infidels” (taqqiya). Even the Quran speaks with its fingers crossed and is interpreted according to a convoluted system of what did the Prophet say and when did he say it (“law of abrogation”).
Shoebat has a useful concluding chapter of recommendations — though some (“remove all fanatical leaders” and “stop importing Saudi oil”) could use a little refinement. More helpful: “Declare the extreme Islamic view as a political movement and not simply a religion” and “Establish TV programs with opposing views, present the truth, and air it throughout the Muslim world.”
For the truth is that radical Islam is a form of brainwashing. As Shoebat says, “Terrorist groups use cult-like conditioning techniques to convert normal individuals into remorseless killers.”
And if there’s one thing most effective against lies, myths and delusions, it’s the truth — in massive doses.
Stephen Adams is associate editor of Citizen magazine and author of “The Middle East Conflict,” from Alpha, 2003.
http://www.examiner.com/a-589248~Stocks_Have_Worst_Day_Since_9_11_Attacks.html
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Silversoul
Rhizome


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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6621612 - 02/28/07 06:47 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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The real plague on the earth is the idea that others must believe as you do. This goes for religious people and atheists alike.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

Registered: 04/21/05
Posts: 4,587
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Silversoul]
#6625203 - 03/01/07 05:19 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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The real problem is that there are billions of sophisticated apes living on a gigantic rock that is floating around in a damn near infinite amount of nothingness.
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Basilides
Servent ofWisdom


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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#6625363 - 03/01/07 05:56 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
MushmanTheManic said: The real problem is that there are billions of sophisticated apes living on a gigantic rock that is floating around in a damn near infinite amount of nothingness.
I think Einstein withdrew his theory of a static universe
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    "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."
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Fospher
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Seuss]
#6625755 - 03/01/07 07:36 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: I'll take rationalism over "make believe" anyday... perhaps I am misreading your position... As a scientist, I don't need myths about fairies and pixie dust to help me find something to research...
Speaking of fairy tales, have you seen Pan's Labyrinth? It's a movie that recently came out about a girl living in the midst of the Spain Nazi Franko/Communist conflict in the 1940s. I'm not going to go into the synopsis of the movie, but see it if you get the chance, it'll show you how much power fairies and pixie dust reside over your rationalist thinking. 
Quote:
...and I am certainly going to base my beliefs off of rational observation rather than some outdated myth that explained how the Earth is the center of the universe.
It's kind of funny how the so called 'skeptics' (you) and religious fundamentalists take the same viewpoint on the Bible and accuse each other of doing the same thing: You both cant read between the lines. Read Genesis - it confirms the ideas of both evolution (fish appearing, then mammals, and finally - man) and the Big Bang. In fact, when the Big Band theory was publicized, the Vatican agreed with it as well.
C'mon! Believing in a God is pro-evolution. I can understand the Grand Canyon getting formed by random precipitation. or maybe some earthworm living pathetically due to carbon formation and water on this planet, but tigers? Dinosaurs? Homosapiens? A little bit more complex than a fucking water-eroded hole in the ground. The real fairy tale here is believing that all these creatures, including ourselves just evolved with nothing but blind chance.
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Viveka
refutation bias


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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6626050 - 03/01/07 09:20 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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What does God mean? Is there any word more fraught with meaning? Tigers, dinosaurs, homo-sapiens, the idea that you cannot fathom how the biological world came up with these forms speaks only of your incredibly limited perspective. I don't mean you personally, I mean your capacity as a human to grasp the scope of billions of years of life is miniscule. Why is it "blind chance" versus "God"?
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Basilides]
#6626137 - 03/01/07 09:40 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
I think Einstein withdrew his theory of a static universe
Sorry, but I do not understand what this has to do with what I said or why a smirk had to be involved.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6626226 - 03/01/07 10:00 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Read Genesis - it confirms the ideas of both evolution (fish appearing, then mammals, and finally - man) and the Big Bang.
I sure as hell don't see anything in Genesis that confirms biological evolution and I have read it many times. If you want to interpret that section of scripture in that way, thats your prerogative, but as it is written, it blatantly negates the current theory of evolution.
The problem with reading between the lines is that there is nothing there to read. You're projecting your own interpretation onto the text.
Quote:
I can understand the Grand Canyon getting formed by random precipitation. or maybe some earthworm living pathetically due to carbon formation and water on this planet, but tigers? Dinosaurs? Homosapiens?
There is a mountain of evidence, including a vast taxonomy of fossil records that shows simpler organisms appearing before more complex organisms, that supports the current theory of evolution. It can also easily be observed at the bacterial level, where evolution happens relatively quickly. (This is how biological weapons are created.) The theory of evolution is the best supported theory only after the theory of gravity. Its practically a tautology.
On the other hand, the only thing that supports the existence of God or creationism is faith.
Quote:
The real fairy tale here is believing that all these creatures, including ourselves just evolved with nothing but blind chance.
Which is more of a fairy tale? A scientifically supported theory or some unprovable superstition that you were raised with?
('Chance' has absofuckinglotely nothing to do with it.)
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6626340 - 03/01/07 10:23 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
I can understand the Grand Canyon getting formed by random precipitation.
That is good... not everyone can.
Just for some comic relief:
Quote:
For years, as a Colorado River guide I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time scale of millions of years. Then I met the Lord. Now, I have "a different view" of the Canyon, which, according to a biblical time scale, can't possibly be more than about a few thousand years old. Come and view the Grand Canyon with 23 creation scientists and theologians from around the world. This 10" X 8", 104 page hard cover book is filled with informative essays and stunning photos, many by Canyon guide Charly Heavenrich. Grand Canyon, a different view will take your breath away, stimulate your imagination and presents the facts about the Grand Canyon from a Biblical perspective. Though educational enough for a home school book, it is equally beautiful as a gift or coffee table book.
What do some of the contributors say about the Grand Canyon?
It is not just an icon of beauty. It is a solemn witness to the mighty power of God. -- Dr. Henry Morris
The Grand Canyon is one of the greatest memorials of God's work that we possess. If only the Christian church took God at His Word, it could be used as one of the great reminders of His power. -- Ken Ham
The Bible says that the evidence of God's existence is seen in the things that He has made, and I confirm that in my studies as a scientist.-- Dr. Andrew Snelling
Where did the Grand Canyon itself come from? The Flood may have stacked the rock like a giant layer cake, but what cut the cake? One thing is sure: the Colorado River did not do it.-- Dr. Gary Parker
Man continues to marvel at the monument God has left. The Canyon is a testimony of our Lord's judgment and mercy.-- Dr. Kurt Wise
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Fospher
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#6626599 - 03/01/07 11:40 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
MushmanTheManic said: I sure as hell don't see anything in Genesis that confirms biological evolution and I have read it many times.
It's all in there - depending on the size of your Bible, most likely on the first page.
On Evolution:
"20 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness"
Fish > Mammals > Man. Where have I seen this before? 
On the Big Bang:
"3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. "
Quote:
If you want to interpret that section of scripture in that way, thats your prerogative, but as it is written, it blatantly negates the current theory of evolution. The problem with reading between the lines is that there is nothing there to read. You're projecting your own interpretation onto the text.
If I could prove God to you, point to something and say,
"Hey man - told you! There She is!"
We would probably cease to be, as I dont think our human brain could incapacitate such an experience. You're a smart guy, do you really expect to get some Manual from Godtm telling you step by step instructions on how to get God, a la building an Ikea shelf? Understanding God is like understanding a painting, it is a mystical (and simultaneously paradoxically life-affirming) ordainment. It's not a fortune cookie you can crack and see what the real meaning is, and perhaps get your lucky numbers.
Also, you have to interpret the Bible. Think of it this way: You have to write a letter to a mysterious person who is in the need of help. This person could or could not be your age. Or your race, or kinship. Or born in the same time period that you are. Many people are going to read this letter, many of them having absolutely nothing to do with each other. Write this letter with an objective purpose of giving advice to this person, which applies directly to each and every person and span it out ... say 800 pages. If you truly can achieve this feat, then I will accept your point and learn. If not, you're a hypocrite.
Quote:
There is a mountain of evidence, including a vast taxonomy of fossil records that shows simpler organisms appearing before more complex organisms...
Um, you're not understanding what Im saying whatsoever. I didnt say I was against evolution, in fact quite the converse. Im saying that it is illogical to think that complex organisms such as ours could form just by mutations of bacteria, such as examples we can see in modern epidemics such as HIV/AIDS.
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Which is more of a fairy tale? A scientifically supported theory or some unprovable superstition that you were raised with?
First of all, science does not prove anything. Only through the acception of axioms (which are irrational), for example in Geometry can you make rational judgements afterwards. Secondly, I spent the first 10 years of my life in an predominately (a good 80%) Atheist nation.
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('Chance' has absofuckinglotely nothing to do with it.)
Arrangement of our chromosomes, our DNA including hair color, body type and a plethora of different personal features are all tied in with chance. And how can you be so absolute in your wording anyway? Not even the Human Genome Project understands evolution/makeup of DNA thoroughly.
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Fospher
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#6626611 - 03/01/07 11:45 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
MushmanTheManic said:
Just for some comic relief:
Quote:
For years, as a Colorado River guide I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time scale of millions of years. Then I met the Lord. Now, I have "a different view" of the Canyon...
Just because someone is a clergy or a scientist does not give them authority or understanding of the Christian religion. They might know the rituals and the scriptures, which is far from understanding the meaning. Christianity is the biggest religion in the world, and a lot of average-minded people believe in it. In the words of Robert Anton Wilson - the average guy is really stupid. But what's scary is that half the population is even stupider than he is!
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Basilides
Servent ofWisdom


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Posts: 7,059
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6626613 - 03/01/07 11:46 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
"20 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness"
Fish > Mammals > Man. Where have I seen this before?
Interesting.
But I'll have to wait until James Cameron comments on the matter.
--------------------
    "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."
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Diploid
Cuban


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6627169 - 03/02/07 06:29 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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The real fairy tale here is believing that all these creatures, including ourselves just evolved with nothing but blind chance.
Wow, where did you study biology? You should ask for a refund.
Evolution is about selection. It has nothing to do with chance.
It's this acceptance of their pastor's ignorance and misconceptions about evolution that keeps creationists in the dark about the beauty of nature. That and their steadfast refusal to actually read a biology book to understand what evolution is before pooh poohing it away as nonsense.
This is not unlike how bone-headed government people (George Bush, for example) insist that marijuana is dangerous, highly addictive, and has no medical uses of any kind (this is what DEA Schedule 1 means) while refusing to read the giant pile of evidence that clearly says otherwise.
Bush and mystics/superstitious/religious people around the world are all similar when it comes to ignoring evidence in favor of dogma. And look where it's gotten us. 
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

Registered: 04/21/05
Posts: 4,587
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6627675 - 03/02/07 10:48 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
You're a smart guy, do you really expect to get some Manual from Godtm telling you step by step instructions on how to get God, a la building an Ikea shelf?
That would be nice. I don't see why this God person would make it any more complex than that, unless he is an elitist schmuck.
Quote:
Understanding God is like understanding a painting
I can see a painting. God, on the other hand, is something that has to be accepted on the basis of faith. No amount of sensory information could ever confirm (or refute) the existence of a God, since God is supposedly a 'supernatural' being - conveniently outside of the universe. Why should I believe in this unobservable God? Just because my culture tells me to? If I were in another culture, I'd be expected to believe in yet another God.
Quote:
Think of it this way: You have to write a letter to a mysterious person who is in the need of help. This person could or could not be your age. Or your race, or kinship. Or born in the same time period that you are. Many people are going to read this letter, many of them having absolutely nothing to do with each other. Write this letter with an objective purpose of giving advice to this person, which applies directly to each and every person and span it out ... say 800 pages.
Why is God constrained by such arbitrary limitations? I thought this guy was omnipotent.
Quote:
If you truly can achieve this feat, then I will accept your point and learn.
As far as helping others goes, A Rational Guide to Living by Albert Ellis pwns the Bible and is about 600 pages shorter.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

Registered: 04/21/05
Posts: 4,587
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6627682 - 03/02/07 10:50 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
In the words of Robert Anton Wilson - the average guy is really stupid. But what's scary is that half the population is even stupider than he is!
That originally was said by our Living Slack Master, J.R. Bob Dobbs.
"You know how dumb the average guy is? Well half of them are even dumber than that!"
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Diploid
Cuban


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#6627724 - 03/02/07 11:04 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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A Rational Guide to Living by Albert Ellis
A GUIDE TO Rational Living by Albert Ellis. 
A classic.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6627726 - 03/02/07 11:06 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Oopsy.
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Diploid
Cuban


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6627833 - 03/02/07 11:48 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Read Genesis - it confirms the ideas of both evolution (fish appearing, then mammals, and finally - man) and the Big Bang.
Either you've never read Genesis or you're deliberately leaving inconvenient things out.
Genesis actually starts off like this:
1 First God made heaven & earth 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, "Let there be light";
In other words, the Earth existed BEFORE the "Let There Be Light" Big Bang part.
Also:
11 And God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth." And it was so.
then 10 verses LATER:
21So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.
In other words, contrary to the fossil record, Genesis says fruit trees existed BEFORE any animals did.
And all these mistakes are in the first tiny fraction of Genesis. There are many more.
The Bible creation myth, apart from disagreeing with equally (in)valid creation myths of other cultures, contains GLARING non-truths as evidenced by the geologic and fossil record found all across the Earth.
So, why believe it if not simply for the sake of supporting dogma even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it's not true?? In the words of my former Creationist neighbor: "the fossil record is a lie fabricated and placed in the ground by Satan to mislead people and send them to hell".
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Icelander
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#6627844 - 03/02/07 11:55 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
MushmanTheManic said: The real problem is that there are billions of sophisticated apes living on a gigantic rock that is floating around in a damn near infinite amount of nothingness.
I think the real problem is these apes aren't nearly as sophisticated as they would like to believe.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Fospher
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6627916 - 03/02/07 12:26 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Diploid said: Evolution is about selection. It has nothing to do with chance.
Check your name - a diploid organism implies that it's allele frquency in genetic drift, from one generation to the next, are a statistical effect of chance.
Quote:
It's this acceptance of their pastor's ignorance and misconceptions about evolution that keeps creationists in the dark about the beauty of nature. That and their steadfast refusal to actually read a biology book to understand what evolution is before pooh poohing it away as nonsense.
Read my previous post to answer that question.
Quote:
This is not unlike how bone-headed government people (George Bush, for example) insist that marijuana is dangerous, highly addictive, and has no medical uses of any kind (this is what DEA Schedule 1 means) while refusing to read the giant pile of evidence that clearly says otherwise.
Oh I know what you dopefiends are like. I am not able to see your eyes because of tea shades. Your knuckles are white from inner tension and pants will be crusted with semen from constantly jacking off when you can't find a rape victim.
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Diploid
Cuban


Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 19,274
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6627965 - 03/02/07 12:46 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Oh I know what you dopefiends are like. I am not able to see your eyes because of tea shades. Your knuckles are white from inner tension and pants will be crusted with semen from constantly jacking off when you can't find a rape victim.
Uh... what?? 
You've been smoking marijuana, haven't you.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Fospher
Crime FightingMaster Criminal


Registered: 02/09/05
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Loc: The Netherlands
Last seen: 12 years, 3 months
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#6627966 - 03/02/07 12:46 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
MushmanTheManic said:
That would be nice. I don't see why this God person would make it any more complex than that, unless he is an elitist schmuck.
LOL, there's no step-by-step instruction for enlightment my friend, unlike many religions would like you to believe (Judaism & Islam most of all).
Quote:
I can see a painting. God, on the other hand, is something that has to be accepted on the basis of faith.
There's a painting by our good friend Vincent van Gogh which depicts a pair of worn-down peasant's shoes.

Now you can say, Gogh just painted a pair of shoes, however, as Heidegger implies, these shoes are not just footwear, but the 'equipmental equipmentability' of their use, implying us to delve into the life of the peasant and hard work. What you dont understand is that believing or disbelieving in God is not a circle that you bubble in with a #2 pencil, but a hardwired connection to the abstract. You see and live with God through mystic revelation, it's not following a set of rites or proving or disproving his existence.
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guri
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6628006 - 03/02/07 01:03 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Fospher said:
Also, you have to interpret the Bible.
interpret the bible? kinda sounds like interpreting the koran. It's this sort of thought process that leads to the violence in the first place. Although both these books have thier violent sections both also have thier peacefull sections.
Because of these contrasts, i propose a new MAN LAW: If your religion contradicts itself, go with the less violent of the two choices. Or just decide its bunk from the start, and take up science fiction writting and start your own religion.
For a pretty good way of explaining the differences between natural selection, evolution, genetic drift and that sorts of things check out this website, its pretty easy reading. http://www.utm.edu/departments/cens/biology/rirwin/391/391DriftFlow.htm
-------------------- "If you don't believe drugs have done good things for us, then go home and burn all your records, all your tapes, and all your CDs because every one of those artists who have made brilliant music and enhanced your lives? The Beatles were so fucking high, they let Ringo sing a few songs." --Bill Hicks
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Basilides
Servent ofWisdom


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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6628080 - 03/02/07 01:34 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Creation in Islam is probably the most science-friendly
--------------------
    "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."
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BlueCoyote
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6628261 - 03/02/07 02:31 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Diplo, evolution is about selection AND mutation.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

Registered: 04/21/05
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6628489 - 03/02/07 03:49 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
a diploid organism implies that it's allele frquency in genetic drift, from one generation to the next, are a statistical effect of chance.
Chromosome crossover during meiosis does not happen by chance, it is part of the survival mechanism of genes.
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MushmanTheManic
Stranger

Registered: 04/21/05
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6628538 - 03/02/07 04:03 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Now you can say, Gogh just painted a pair of shoes, however, as Heidegger implies, these shoes are not just footwear, but the 'equipmental equipmentability' of their use, implying us to delve into the life of the peasant and hard work. What you dont understand is that believing or disbelieving in God is not a circle that you bubble in with a #2 pencil, but a hardwired connection to the abstract. You see and live with God through mystic revelation, it's not following a set of rites or proving or disproving his existence.
(Heidegger was a Nazi bastard... interesting philosopher though. ) That is still a matter of interpretation and speculation. Just about anyone can come along and interpret that painting in whatever way they prefer.
Abstraction implies phenomenal non-existence. If God is an abstraction, just a confusing way of viewing reality, then we shouldn't need to believe in him for any reason other than aesthetics. God doesn't seem to have any physicals effects that can be observed.
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Luddite
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#6631825 - 03/03/07 03:55 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Make sure your diapers are secure.
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MushmanTheManic
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Luddite]
#6634458 - 03/04/07 02:10 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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What the fuck are you talking about? Care you explain yerself?
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Fospher
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: guri]
#6642821 - 03/06/07 07:24 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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guri said: interpret the bible? kinda sounds like interpreting the koran. It's this sort of thought process that leads to the violence in the first place.
You cannot take things at face value, because most of the time they are not what they seem. As humans, we interpret everything, from the Bible, Qur'an, to saying that you have green shoelaces, because as we all know, everyone sees a different green.

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Although both these books have thier violent sections both also have thier peacefull sections.
Just referring to the New Testament, which is the culprit of Christianity, the only violence was the ones caused by those against the teachings of the religion. Mohammed on the other hand was a warlord who preached religious warfare.
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Because of these contrasts, i propose a new MAN LAW: If your religion contradicts itself, go with the less violent of the two choices.
Christianity does not advocate violence. It's just that, a good 95% of all Christians take everything literally (ironically in the same way as the "skeptics"), arguing some useless facts that the Bible never proposed in the first place.
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Or just decide its bunk from the start, and take up science fiction writting and start your own religion.
Why would I decide something is false when it makes more logical sense than any other argument I've encountered, and makes me understand life more?
I've also got a big golden framed picture of J R Dobbs at my office at work. Alternative "so much of a joke it's fucking serious" religions quench my satire fix.
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Fospher
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#6642994 - 03/06/07 08:07 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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MushmanTheManic said: (Heidegger was a Nazi bastard... interesting philosopher though. )
Heidegger was overall a weird son of a bitch. He was one of those people who made a many interesting writings, but that intrinsic personality didn't project itself externally.
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That is still a matter of interpretation and speculation. Just about anyone can come along and interpret that painting in whatever way they prefer.
Paintings are symbols, and symbols are made when our thought is not enough to express the message. A symbol is something beneath the picture, not the picture itself, however anyone sees it.
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Abstraction implies phenomenal non-existence. If God is an abstraction, just a confusing way of viewing reality, then we shouldn't need to believe in him for any reason other than aesthetics.
All knowledge is confusing until you get it. However, not all can be understood in the sense that, say, science is understood, by reading a bunch of different colored lines, or smashing shit against each other.
All you skeptics are trying to understand what a church is, and since it is made out of bricks, you think the bricks are what the church is all about. You take apart the church, and you have a bunch of bricks, but still have no idea what the church is. And then someone really smart comes along, has a eureka and says, "Ah, but it's what's inside the bricks that counts!" So everyone tries smashing the bricks to even smaller pieces thinking that somewhere inside those bricks they'll find the meaning for church, religion, or God.
Whether it be bricks, or protons/anti-protons, you're smashing together, it's a great way to understand bricks, but dont expect to, as Einstein put it, know the Mind of God inside those specks.
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Fospher
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6643412 - 03/06/07 09:38 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Diploid said: 1 First God made heaven & earth 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, "Let there be light";
In other words, the Earth existed BEFORE the "Let There Be Light" Big Bang part.
Notice how it says, the earth was "without form and void", meaning that it's not referring to the planet, as The Earth (notice how you capitalized it while the Bible does not referred to it in a different sense) has a definite shape (an elliptical sphere). The earth was simply the structure of this existence at the time. It was without form and void indeed, as the high energy state of the birth of this universe probably even split apart the cohesion of quarks.
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11 And God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth." And it was so.
then 10 verses LATER:
21So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.
In other words, contrary to the fossil record, Genesis says fruit trees existed BEFORE any animals did.
First of all, nowhere does it say that apples were created before tigers or bears, the crux of the meaning is that indeed trees and vegetation were created before animals. Vegetation makes 21% of the planet's oxygen, so of course it's preceding animal and fish life. Take also into account that this book was written three thousand years ago, before any scientific or evolutionary theories sprang into place. A thousand years before Aristotle even.
Edited by Fospher (03/07/07 12:23 AM)
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Basilides
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6643437 - 03/06/07 09:46 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think for anyone to truly interpret religious writ and their meanings need to have some understanding of the original language of the writ. In regard to Semitic languages at least, many words have root meanings attributed eons ago. When interpreters carry on the original message into other languages, "dirt" might suddenly become "earthen" in one interpretation and "Earth" in another.
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    "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."
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Phred
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6643595 - 03/06/07 10:43 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Gentlemen, this is getting closer and closer to S&P material with every post.
The original post had to do with suicide bombers. That DOES have some relation to politics, activism, and law. Let's try to bring the discussion back in that direction, shall we?
Phred
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Fospher
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Phred]
#6643805 - 03/07/07 12:09 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Considering the originator of the thread brought the discussion in this direction with his first retort, can you just move it?
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MushmanTheManic
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6654534 - 03/09/07 11:16 PM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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All knowledge is confusing until you get it. However, not all can be understood in the sense that, say, science is understood, by reading a bunch of different colored lines, or smashing shit against each other.
All you skeptics are trying to understand what a church is, and since it is made out of bricks, you think the bricks are what the church is all about. You take apart the church, and you have a bunch of bricks, but still have no idea what the church is. And then someone really smart comes along, has a eureka and says, "Ah, but it's what's inside the bricks that counts!" So everyone tries smashing the bricks to even smaller pieces thinking that somewhere inside those bricks they'll find the meaning for church, religion, or God.
Whether it be bricks, or protons/anti-protons, you're smashing together, it's a great way to understand bricks, but dont expect to, as Einstein put it, know the Mind of God inside those specks.
If God cannot be known through the use of the senses, how can he/she/it be known? The majority of religious persons use ancient writings, such as the Bible, the Vedas, etc, to become better acquainted with their cultural stereotype of God. Why should I trust these archaic books over my own personal sensory experience? How can we know that the Bible, or any other 'holy' book, is actually inspired by God and not merely a natural product of philosophical evolution?
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it stars saddam
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6654863 - 03/10/07 01:51 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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What sucks worse, having a hammer slammed into your face or listening to religious people misinterpret Einstein?
I'm going to have to go with the latter.
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Silversoul
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#6654903 - 03/10/07 02:39 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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MushmanTheManic said: If God cannot be known through the use of the senses, how can he/she/it be known?
I would say a better way of putting it is that God cannot be known through the five physical senses. There are higher states of awareness beyond what we sense in our everyday lives.
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How can we know that the Bible, or any other 'holy' book, is actually inspired by God and not merely a natural product of philosophical evolution?
I contend that the two are not mutually exclusive. I feel that God is progressively revealed in a context which can be understood by the culture at the time. When we look at the Bible from the Torah to the prophetic books to the New Testament, we find an increasingly sophisticated understanding of God.
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MushmanTheManic
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Silversoul]
#6655236 - 03/10/07 09:13 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Silversoul said:
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MushmanTheManic said: If God cannot be known through the use of the senses, how can he/she/it be known?
I would say a better way of putting it is that God cannot be known through the five physical senses. There are higher states of awareness beyond what we sense in our everyday lives.
... but, what makes you believe there are higher states of awareness beyond what we sense?
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zappaisgod
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Silversoul]
#6655238 - 03/10/07 09:15 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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Silversoul said:
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MushmanTheManic said: If God cannot be known through the use of the senses, how can he/she/it be known?
I would say a better way of putting it is that God cannot be known through the five physical senses. There are higher states of awareness beyond what we sense in our everyday lives.
Oh there are, huh? I don't suppose you'd like to provide an example of this Easter Bunny or what eggs it may have laid for the supposedly "Enlightened Ones". A statement of fact that is utterly unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. But have fun with it, it's your toy.Quote:
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How can we know that the Bible, or any other 'holy' book, is actually inspired by God and not merely a natural product of philosophical evolution?
I contend that the two are not mutually exclusive. I feel that God is progressively revealed in a context which can be understood by the culture at the time. When we look at the Bible from the Torah to the prophetic books to the New Testament, we find an increasingly sophisticated understanding of God.
Well you might somehow dredge something like that up from your "understanding". Rational students find an increasing agglomeration of nonsense piled on top of other nonsense that continues on through the Koran and also has parallel manifestations in Buddhist and Hindu texts and whatever other nonsense systems you care to name.
I ask again, Where are the eggs? Surely there must be some unique accomplishment assignable to these Higher States that could not otherwise have been. And don't bother telling me the unique product of nonsense is nonsense, because I am willing to stipulate that.
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MushmanTheManic
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Fospher]
#6655248 - 03/10/07 09:18 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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And, to illustrate my point (yes, you guessed it), Robert Anton Wilson:
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I peeked at the G.O.P. convention a few times and concluded that we still live in the neurolinguistic Dark Ages.
Let me enlarge on that perhaps gnomic remark. I distinguish between information, all that humans can check by experience, as distinct from noise, those "things" [or non-things, or nothings] that they can only make noises or chatter about.
Examples: (A) I can say "If you open that box on the table, you will find three chocolates inside." Going to the box and opening it, in the sensory-sensual continuum, will quickly confirm or refute my statement, because you will inevitably find (1) less than three chocolates, or perhaps none at all, (2) exactly three chocolates, or (3) more than three chocolates. Results (1) and (3) refute my statement; (2) confirms it.
But (B) I might also say "Opening God for similar investigation, you will find three persons inside," as in fact Romish Magick does say. No investigation of the sensory-sensual manifold can ever confirm or refute this. Scientific philosophers generally describe such statements [about things beyond conformation or refutation] as "meaningless". Following Korzybski, I call them noise, and I venture that we cannot fathom our situation in space-time if we habitually confuse ourselves by mixing type (A) statments, information, with type (B) statements, noise. We may never achieve Total Clarity [short of infinity] but we should at least have the ability to distinguish between what humans can experience and what they can only blather about.
Distinguishing between these two types of statements seems necessary for sanity and survival, because all forms of illusion, delusion, mob hysteria, hallucination etc., dogma, bigotry, "madness," intolerance etc. "idealism," ideology, idiocy, obsession etc. depend upon confusing them. The people who released poison gas in the Tokyo subways, the Nazis, the Marxists, nut-cults like Objectivism, Heaven's Gate, Scientology, etc. represent some of the horrors and curses unleashed by mixing Class (A) statements with Class (B) statements.
I don't expect any better of the Democrats when their convention rolls around. Politics, like theology, consists of much noise and no information.
Edited by MushmanTheManic (03/10/07 09:32 AM)
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zappaisgod
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#6655271 - 03/10/07 09:28 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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What year was that from?
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Basilides
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#6655272 - 03/10/07 09:28 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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This thread is begging to be locked/moved
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MushmanTheManic
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: zappaisgod]
#6655276 - 03/10/07 09:30 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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'98 or '99
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Huehuecoyotl
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Re: Chilling Look Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber [Re: Diploid]
#6655502 - 03/10/07 11:21 AM (16 years, 10 months ago) |
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A portrait of a very highly disciplined, but ultimately misguided individual. I respect their will, but they are deluded.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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