November 29, 2007
"Mrs Gibbons technically faces three charges - insulting Islam, inciting religious hatred and contempt for religious beliefs..."
Those who subject her to those charges are inciting contempt for religious beliefs.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 227 of 227I suppose pointing out fallacious arguments...
I suppose you think merely calling something fallacious makes it so. You can similarly call Khartoum civilized, but that doesn't make it so either.
And now that we've called each other's arguments fallacious, why don't you answer the question?
I think we certainly agree at this point you deserve to be ridiculed.
Because you don't have an argument.
You aren't mocking anything but your own stupidity.
And now that we've called each other's arguments fallacious, why don't you answer the question?
There are no fallacies in my argument. You don't have an argument; you have fallacies.
John: Except that isn't true. Some nations -- due to geography, not neglect -- can't control terrorists within their territory.
Bullshit excuse. They can ask NATO or UN or US for help.
Are you one of those Muslim net-propagandists we've heard so much about? Your not doing your side any favors.
They can ask NATO or UN or US for help.
They can, but the point is that requires outside help and funding, which means there is a middle ground. Some nations can be held to your standard; others need help to be up to being held to that standard. That's isn't bullshit, it's just a more accurate way of stating what you've already conceded.
"You don't have an argument"
Quite right.
I was instead posing questions, which you refuse to answer, out of concern for the "framing" or the flavor or the wrong shade of blue or something so stupid only a lefty intellectual would believe it.
It's a simple question, really:
Islamic nations routinely kill their own people for various infractions we in the West consider legal, such as being gay. We find that behavior barbaric.
Are those killings wrong or not?
Yes or no.
And why do you say so?
Your favorite stone-age religion (and the countries that enshrine its doctrine into their laws) execute faggots like me.
No, they don't. You live here.
John: They can, but the point is that requires outside help and funding, which means there is a middle ground.
More bs from you. There is NO REASON such nations can't request such help. Ergo, NO EXCUSE for nations that allow terrorist camps to operate freely inside their borders due to neglect. They are either with us or against us. There is no middle ground.
or something so stupid only a lefty intellectual would believe it
Yes. I am such a lefty I have a strong belief in state soveriegnty. I oppose universal jurisdiction because I am a lefty. I think theocratic, moarchical states have just as much right to exist as secular, socialist ones because I'm a leftist. But your questions aren't off-base. Oh no. Everything you say makes sense.
There is NO REASON such nations can't request such help.
That's not really true, either. It usually comes down to domestic politics in their country and domestic politics here. If we don't want to spend the money and they will look like American puppets to accept the help, it's not an easy Yes/No dichotomy. Soem countries are in a immediate position to choose. Others are not, meaning there are three positions: with us, against us, and with us or against depending on the current conditions. The third is the middle ground.
If you want to call reality bullshit, be my guest. But it's not easy to get up into and regularly police the mountain ranges of Tora Bora or the desert of North Africa, and people -- terrorists or not -- generally do whatever they want in those areas.
Islamic nations routinely kill their own people for various infractions we in the West consider legal, such as being gay.
Sodomy laws were struck down here only recently, so your question is incoherent. Not to mention Bush won in 2004 by pushing a Federal Marriage Amendment to ban gay marriage.
No, they don't. You live here.
Never mind John, that answers my question sufficiently.
"Sodomy laws were struck down here only recently,"
Ha ha. That's quite funny.
I knew you would refuse to answer the question.
Yes. I am such a lefty I have a strong belief in...
Theocratic monarchical states have a right to exist only until they start messing with the West. When they start exporting their violence, they lose that right. Too bad, really. We might have been friends. But it's your call.
Theocratic monarchical states have a right to exist only until they start messing with the West.
No, you don't support invading Islamic countries at all.
The point about sodomy laws here is that Islamic countries are not necessarily more homophobic than anywhere else. They just punish more harshly for it. But then again they punish more harshly for everything, so it really is question begging to point to the severity of punishment inflicted on homosexuals as proof of homophobia. We don't execute homosexuals, great. But there was a backlash against gay marriage that resulted in dozens of state constitutional amendments and state statutes, no? And that is homphobia imprinted in our legal system, right? Sharia law tends to govern the legal regimes of more punitive societies. Great. But I said at the outset that this argument was about severity of punishment.
No, you don't support invading Islamic countries at all.
If they mess with us, I support it totally.
The point about sodomy laws here is that...
Really John, there's no point evading the question by answering something I didn't ask in multiple posts, especially by repeatedly engaging the Tu Quoque fallacy.
It was a simple query, and you declined to answer. That is answer enough for me.
If you look at the time stamps for this "debate," it's obvious that our visitor from the 8th century is bound and determined to have the last word. This entity has gone on most of the night and now the morning answering comment for comment.
I suspect that this thread could go on for days, and the individual, or more likely group, behind the grotesque confection called "JohnTaylor88" will continue to state and restate the same points. They WILL have the last word and therefore have "won."
This insect-like relentlessness is a mirror of the religious practices and worldview being advanced. In the distant past this argument was elaborated with the sword. More recently it has been promoted with bombs and airliners crashed into New York skyscrapers.
So, please continue, "JohnTaylor88." And, please, everyone else who would understand Western apologists for Islamic barbarity, drop by and see for yourselves.
The trouble with Islam is that it adheres too closely to the Old Testament. Adulterers were stoned to death then, and they are stoned to death now. They really believe that to lie with a man as with a woman is an abomination. Eating prawns is about the only commandment that they violate. It is a fierce Middle Eastern religion.
And Kant believed in retribution, not revenge. Killing a member of society unbalanced the books, so to speak. Only by putting the perpetrator to death could the loss of the victim be cancelled.
there's no point evading the question by answering something I didn't ask in multiple posts, especially by repeatedly engaging the Tu Quoque fallacy.
I haven't made a tu quoque ad hominem anywhere on this thread. I didn't "answer" your question because it is loaded. It's a when did you stop beating your wife question.
The trouble with Islam is that it adheres too closely to the Old Testament.
Fine. But that isn't the same as the argument about Moslems being uncivilized brutes without a conception of equality that people were making before.
This insect-like relentlessness is a mirror of the religious practices and worldview being advanced. In the distant past this argument was elaborated with the sword. More recently it has been promoted with bombs and airliners crashed into New York skyscrapers.
Yes, Moslems are insects. We must crush them.
John: Yes, Moslems are insects. We must crush them.
Are you bipolar? First you defend Islam and draw false equivalence to the West, now you swing to the other extreme, implying we should kill all Moslems.
Any more strawmen you want to prop up?
And that you support invading Islamic countries.
And now you're making stuff up. Quote me supporting invading Islamic countries.
First you defend Islam and draw false equivalence to the West, now you swing to the other extreme, implying we should kill all Moslems.
This only makes sense if you accept that I defended Islam (rather than showed the specific critiques of it made in this thread were invalid), think that comparing two cultures in the same timeframe is drawing a false equivalence (where does the falsehood come in if the cultures are comparable), and cannot see the sarcasm in the "implication" that Muslims be killed. You'd have to be willfully distorting the meaning of my statements. Meaning, oh shit, you're projecting. You're the one knocking down strawmen.
Quote me supporting invading Islamic countries.
Do you think it is good that millions of women in Afghanistan and Iraq were liberated? Yes or no?
Moslems may not BE insects, but the fixated and relentless mentality on display today in Wahhabist-influencd Islam is indeed insect-like.
What a far cry from the sophisticated and, yes, "enlightened" Islam of the Middle Ages. That was the Islam where St. Francis and the Sultan could have a debate, and St. Francis not only emerge unscathed, but each with a better understanding of and respect for the other. That was the Islam where the Sultan could see in St. Francis his own Sufi mystics with similar ideas and practices. That was the Islam that presided over the unprecedented cultural and scientific efflorescence in Spain, contributed to not only by Moslems but by members of one of the most sophisticated Jewish communities that ever existed.
There are many more examples of how Islam was the leading force for civilization during the Western Dark Ages and beyond.
But look where we are today: The Wahhabi sect, reminiscent of the most extreme Calvinists in the West during the late 16th and 17th centuries, has garnered extraordinary influence over all of Islam. It has largely done this because of Saudi money, and because it maneuvered itself into control of Mecca and Medina.
This sect, with its fanaticism and extreme intolerance, has had a baleful influence. Other branches of Islam have had to follow its ways in order to compete. The situation is reminiscent of the Counter-Reformation in the mid-16th century, where the Catholic Church had to become much more rigorous, disciplined, and, it must be said, intolerant, in order to compete with its Protestant rivals. The most destructive of the Wars of Religion then followed, culminating in the Thirty Years' War. This ultimately set in train the European revulsion against religions extremism.
This revulsion itself helped produce philosophical movements in the 17th century, such as that of Spinoza, which influenced the later 18th century Enlightenment, and thus led pretty directly to the American Constitution's separation of church and state. We in the West are still living out the effects of our own 400-year-old flirtation with extreme fanaticism.
The barbarity on display in Sudan today is not the necessary consequence of Islam, but the consequence of one interpretation of Islam. It is unclear whether Islam would ever go through a Reformation, or, if it did, whether the world could afford it.
What is clear is that we must push back against religious fanaticism however it is expressed and wherever it is found. Imperfect and decadent as Western society may be, we have learned a few lessons along the way, and one of them is that neither God nor man is served by intolerance or cruelty.
John: think that comparing two cultures in the same timeframe is drawing a false equivalence (where does the falsehood come in if the cultures are comparable)
Sure. Stoning women to death for speaking their mind and burying gays alive is = criminals in the US getting raped in prison [by other criminals, which we prohibit and take action to prevent]
Idiot.
and cannot see the sarcasm in the "implication" that Muslims be killed. You'd have to be willfully distorting the meaning of my statements. Meaning, oh shit, you're projecting. You're the one knocking down strawmen.
Geez, just playing your own game, Troll. Can't handle the return serve?
John, do you think it was bad that millions of women in Afghanistan and Iraq were liberated? Yes or no?
Since you seem to think that the answer to this question determines whether or not one supports the invasion of other nations, I am quite curious to see your reply. Of course, you've ignored every other question I have asked you on this thread, so I expect that most likely, you'll evade this one, too.
And now you're making stuff up. Quote me supporting invading Islamic countries.
The accusation that Beth is some sort of neo-con is definitely one of the dumbest things I've seen in these comments.
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