| From: | pradtf (70.67.160.177) | |
| hmmm | ||
| September 22, 2008 at 1:11 pm PST | ||
In Reply to: Well, that's really a big load of crap posted by LL on September 22, 2008 at 11:48 am:
ll,
you keep saying you won't bother replying or playing or arguing or whatever, but then you keep coming back.
btw, i'm disappointed you didn't like my "analysis of why I might not wish to continue this discussion". i thought it was actually quite clever. there is humor in humus you know.
your application of legal terminology in latin is commendable, but it doesn't provide you with any better an escape path than the other vernacular terms of varying lengths you disperse throughout your posts (eg crap, mishmosh, gobbledygook - i rather like the middle one).
now let's see where you're at presently:
"I never said ALL people who call themselves Muslims are peaceful. I never said all people of ANY religion are good practitioners of that religion."
all this is fine and remarkably parallels much of what soliel has been saying too (eg all muslims are not bad etc). and i thought the two of you were so far apart!
now let's get to the point of all this.
you have acknowledged that you are not clearing anyone of blame for their actions. that's great!
however, you seem to think that the acts are not rooted in the religion itself. while this is partly correct, you are not taking into account the metamorphosis of a religion by virtue of its practice. this unfortunately, leads you to think that my statement about "simply walk away" has no basis in logic.
consider, for instance, pre-paulian christianity (the essenes do a good job of explaining this in case you want to look it up). sprung from a very different form of judaism that the tanakh expounds, there was non-violence, there was equality, there was vegetarianism, there was even the concept of reincarnation. these were the ebionites or "first christians".
but after paul gained control, christianity became a different beast - rather hydralike with catholicism, then protestants, baptists, etc. the bible was translated and rewritten over and over again (the latest version i think was in 1985), to be more 'accessible' and provide the right 'slant'. and throughout this development, the bible and its 'religion' was repeatedly used as a justification of acts of violence as you well know.
so when you say "the acts are not rooted in the religion itself", just what religion are you talking about? do you mean the original creation or one of the hydra's heads (that's still attached to the body, btw).
does this mean that the religion has developed into a violent one? to some extent it obviously has since certain practioners are engaging in violence (i'm sure you don't need me to provide you with the myriad of examples).
does it mean that if one is a practioner of this religion, one is necessarily violent or will necessarily engage in violence? of course not!
does it mean that some people who have experienced violence from practioners of this religion will harbor some suspicion towards other practioners of this religion? you bet they will!! and this is despite your attempt to present "The existence of some small number [we haven't presented any numbers] of people who are violent says absolutely nothing about the vast majority who are not."
you can call this bigotry all you want (and i would agree with you at some point for sure), but it's not going to change a thing!
a couple of weeks ago, i got stung by some wasps who have taken up residence under our porch. being an ar advocate i didn't destroy their nest - i just put some screening up so they entrance and exit paths wasn't in the line of traffic. however, i'm certainly going to keep my wits about me whenever i hear a buzz. i might even carry apple bits as peace offerings! :D
