Apparent Islamic Terrorism Strikes Sydney

An anonymous reader send this link to a developing situation in Sydney, Australia, being reported on via live feed at the Guardian, and covered by various other news outlets as well. According to CNN's coverage, "CNN affiliate Seven Network said that at least 13 people are being held at the Lindt Chocolate Cafe. It published a photograph of people inside the cafe holding a black flag with Arabic writing on it. The flag reads: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God." From The New York Times' coverage: The police have shut down parts of the city’s transport system, and closed off the mall area. They would not confirm how many people were being held hostage inside the cafe, nor whether those inside are armed. Local media reports said that the airspace over Sydney had been closed and the famed Sydney Opera House evacuated. Television images showed heavily armed officers with their weapons trained on the cafe.

Comments

Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

Color me shocked.

Re:Muslims?

[B33rNinj4]

To be perfectly honest, does anyone have statistics (recent) on the number of terrorist acts that are committed by Christians? I'd like to compare them with Islamic terrorist acts, because it seems to me that Islamic apologists need a wake-up call.

Re:Muslims?

[JoshuaZ]

Getting data on these issues is complicated. If one restricts to the US, then about 10% of all terrorist attacks are Islamic. See http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/05/muslims-only-carried-out-2-5-percent-of-terrorist-attacks-on-u-s-soil-between-1970-and-2012.html. But not only is this restricted to the US, it uses a very broad notion of what counts as terrorism. If one weighs in the US by total deaths, then Islamic terrorism swamps everything else primarily due to 9/11. Worldwide, about 70% of all terrorist attacks are by Sunni Muslims but this varies from year to year. See for example the 2011 report NCTC report http://fas.org/irp/threat/nctc2011.pdf. Again, definitional issues can move this number up or down by a lot.

Re:Muslims?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Some people consider it a "hate site" for some reason, but so far, nobody explained away the list.

Re:Muslims?

[JoshuaZ]

I don't know what "hate site" means in general, but that's at minimum a source that has very much already decided on their bottom line http://lesswrong.com/lw/js/the_bottom_line/, which means one shoudl already take it pretty skeptically. But that list isn't very helpful for a simple reason that it just shows that there are a lot of Islamic terrorist events which isn't terribly helpful: we already know that. The question being asked is how common are they compared to terrorist events motivated by other ideologies or religious traditions.

Re:Muslims?

[p51d007]

I love it when people say Christians did things just as bad as the mooslims, and bring up the Crusades. The Crusades were IN RESPONSE to the mooslimmss terrorizing the entire middle east, northern Africa & southern Europe. The Crusades were a DEFENSIVE action. http://gatesofvienna.blogspot....

Re:Muslims?

[misexistentialist]

They would likely rise if the Australian government was carrying out airstrikes on the Vatican

Re:Muslims?

[Mashiki]

Some people consider it a "hate site" for some reason

It contains facts that doesn't fit with their world view.

Re:Muslims?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Be sure to tell the Albigensians. I'm sure they'll be glad to know this.

Re:Muslims?

[PixetaledPikachu]

I love it when people say Christians did things just as bad as the mooslims, and bring up the Crusades. The Crusades were IN RESPONSE to the mooslimmss terrorizing the entire middle east, northern Africa & southern Europe. The Crusades were a DEFENSIVE action.

Well, Bush Jr. considered their unjust war on the middle east a crusade, and he also considered it as a preemptive DEFENSIVE move. It seems that you guys has a history of using those terms loosely :)

Re:Muslims?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the "bottom line", but the list itself is backed by evidence; it's not an opinion piece, just a summary of facts. Comparing it to terrorist events motivated by other ideologies or religious traditions seems like a good idea, although the conclusion could easily be that pretty much any ideology or religious tradition is undesirable. I'd like to see a list like that for other religions, really.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking a report citing data reaching back to 1970 isn't pertinent to the situation now. Muslims made up a tiny fraction of the US population (and are still a small minority today) so it's not exactly apples to apples being compared.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

It also depends whether you count warfare as an act of terror. Considering the West has essentially been invading other countries non stop since WW2. Since 1990 it likes to go and kill thousands of Muslims. I'm not an apologist for any perspective. Those that kill and do violence are evil full stop.

These days, if you murder someone and are Muslim, you are a terrorist. Good old WASPs are allowed to do this, even when it is unilateral action not sanctioned by the UN and pretty much illegal under all international treaties. Ah who cares, The Empire has 11 Air craft carriers and a bunch of grovelling satellite states, may the Fourth Reich reign forever.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no surprise when a story about Islamic terrorism is on Slashdot, the rabid Christophobes foam at the mouth about Christians.
Can't you just get out of the basement once in a while? You might actually experience some life, instead of wallowing in your distorted little world.

Re:Muslims?

[7-Vodka]

What's a terrorist act?

Are we counting the US drone program when they blow the shit out of a civilian wedding? Do we count the ~1,000,000 people the US killed in Iraq? Or the hundreds of thousands of kids they killed with sanctions?

Re:Muslims?

[mjwx]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the "bottom line", but the list itself is backed by evidence; it's not an opinion piece, just a summary of facts

Nope, the site presents a conclusion and cherry picks soundbites to suit their agenda.

What the "the bottom line" means in this context is that they started with a conclusion and went out to prove it. That alone makes the site extremely untrustworthy (a proper study starts with a question and seeks to answer it, junk science starts with a conclusion and seeks to support it).

The article the GP linked to can be summed up in this sentence. People who are dead set in a belief will look for evidence to support it no matter how irrational and ridiculous it is.

BTW, the site you linked to contains no facts, it is an opinion piece with poorly presented soundbites to make it look factual but really presents a pre-baked conclusion.

I'd like to see a list like that for other religions, really

-Northern Ireland.
-Anders Breivik,
-The Lords Resistane Army (Uganda, child soldiers, sex slaves and all that stuff you like to whinge that Muslims do).
-The Army of God (USA, bombed abortion clinics and attacked doctors).

These are just the recent non-islamic religious* motivated violence (the conflict between the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland alone is enough to prove you're just ignorant). You've then got all the terrorist groups in South America which is decidedly Christian.

*Not picking on Christians mind you, Like Muslims I know the majority are not terrorists but these are just the most prominent examples in recent times.

Re:Muslims?

[LifesABeach]

Was Win8 the reason for their violence?

Re:Muslims?

[Crashmarik]

Well, Bush Jr. considered their unjust war on the middle east a crusade, and he also considered it as a preemptive DEFENSIVE move. It seems that you guys has a history of using those terms loosely :)

Troll. flamebait, or just plain stupid ? Gotta go with flamebait, to be followed with and endless stream of pavlovian programmed responses.

Re:Muslims?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm still talking about the list of attacks. That is a summary of facts. I've randomly sampled some of the attacks some time ago and none of them was made up; all of them happened. It's not a "soundbite" or a "pre-baked conclusion" "made to look factual" that a policeman was beheaded by Muslims for religious reasons on this December's first day, BBC reports on it. And if the authors of that web site indeed only "cherry-picked" some of them, as you insinuate, I'm not sure I want to see the rest.

At this point in history, arguing that perhaps religion doesn't make people utterly stupid really sounds almost like arguing that perhaps the Earth is hollow.

Re:Muslims?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Oh, by the way, the Breivik argument is just hilarious. He's the one guy who tripled Norway's homicide statistics for one year. That alone should tell you something about Norway. And the fact that Breivik is even newsworthy after three years when something like six acts of Muslim religious violence on average end up with death daily really drives my point home. The same week that Breivik killed 77 people, Muslims around the world killed at least another 95 (just for religious reasons, mind you - that's what we're counting here). But one Breivik is newsworthy only because it's such a rare occurrence. Norway doesn't have low homicide rate because it's Christian - it really isn't, it has a low homicide rate because it's not chock-full of crazy brainwashed wackos.

Re:Muslims?

[bloodhawk]

That would be fine if the muslims were the only people they mass slaughtered during the crusades (well not really fine, mass slaughter is never fine) but the crusades slaughtered everyone that wasn't Christian, not just muslims.

Re:Muslims?

[mjwx]

Oh, by the way, the Breivik argument is just hilarious.

Actually it's not.

This just demonstrates you didn't understand the argument.

Norway doesn't have low homicide rate because it's Christian

You're the one arguing about religion, more specifically that one religion makes you unsafe.

I never said Norway was unsafe, I said Breivik was religiously motivated (he wrote a manifesto about it, his notion that the Christian church was being usurped was a big part of it).

Re:Muslims?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

And where are all the other Breiviks? Can't you find any other? At least one per week, please.

This just demonstrates you didn't understand the argument.

Please explain the argument to me, then.

You're the one arguing about religion, more specifically that one religion makes you unsafe.

I'd argue that one religion specifically actually makes me unsafe, but all religions make me feel unsafe - we know how much damage even non-murderous theists cause. Just look at the widespread US notions of natural history.

Re:Muslims?

[mjwx]

At this point in history, arguing that perhaps religion doesn't make people utterly stupid really sounds almost like arguing that perhaps the Earth is hollow.

But that isn't your argument.

Your argument is that Islam is inherently violent (which is what the site you linked to is trying to say). Dont try to change the argument to all religions because you've been proven wrong (you want a list of attacks, the IRA did over 10,000 bombings on its own).

Extremism is bad and causes people to do irrational things. Your brand of extremism is as bad as any other.

Re:Muslims?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

My argument is that theism increases the chance of a person turning violent where there wouldn't have been a reason otherwise. So your logic is that if we remove theism, the murders the list I quoted would have happened anyway, for a different, non-religious reason? As to the IRA, those bombings could have been either religiously or politically motivated. In the former case, it supports my argument, although I'm sort of dubious that this is the case for the majority of the bombings.

Re:Muslims?

[mjwx]

And where are all the other Breiviks? Can't you find any other? At least one per week, please.

Moving the goal posts means you've lost the argument.

You said it yourself, this guy trippled Norways yearly homicide rate in 3 days. How many of the Muslim incidents you allude to occur in war zones or countries that have an open revolution? Most of them. It's like saying all Christian nations are unsafe by Colombia as an example. The difference between us is that I can recognise BS and you cant.

Norway is an extremely safe country and a rational one. The way Norway picked up and carried on After Breivik is a shining example to us all. No fear mongering or revenge wars.

But where are the extremist Islamic attacks in Norway... at least one per week please.

I'd argue that one religion specifically actually makes me unsafe

And this makes you a xenophobe.

Which was the point of my argument, you aren't interested in the truth, you're interested in things that agree with you.

Now here's the kicker, I'm an Australian, I live in Australia and I know a hell of a lot more about this than you do considering how biased and inaccurate your sources are.

This guy is simply not right in the head. It's not that he's a Muslim that caused this, its the fact he's mentally ill. He's already lost 5 of his hostages (they escaped out the back door) he's that incompetent. This is more an indication of Australia's failing mental health care than the rise of Islamic extremism.

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

For someone who "knows more" about this you seem as ill informed as anyone else who reads watches or listens to mainstream press.

4 hostages walked out the FRONT door. Only one snuck out the side.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure all the Jews, Cartharists, islamists and many other religious groups that were also slaughtered during the crusades will rest peacefully knowing it was just and righteous because muslims a few hundred years prior had killed and raped their ancestors.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to know where you got your information that the US had killed more than a million people in Iraq. Of all the surveys done for casualties in Iraq (including internal Iraq surveys) have placed the number closer to 120,000 for the entire war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

If you're getting your 1M+ number from the widely discredited Opinion Research Business (ORB) poll then you're just trying to sensationalize the numbers for some reason.

.

Re:Muslims?

[PixetaledPikachu]

Troll. flamebait, or just plain stupid ? Gotta go with flamebait, to be followed with and endless stream of pavlovian programmed responses.

well, the parent did refer to islamic extremist as "mooslimmss". Why didn't you have the same response to his post? Troll. Flamebait, or just plain stupid? I think I'll go with "plain stupid" on you. Now, since I see no benefit on extending the use of my grey cells for the lots of you, this is good bye :)

Re: Muslims?

[cyber-vandal]

Depends if you count the invasion of Iraq or not.

Re:Muslims?

[ChunderDownunder]

Christians too.

Like the time the western church was on the way to palestine, took a wrong turn and conquered the Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople. (4h crusade)

Re:Muslims?

[Opportunist]

It all depends on your definition of terrorist attack. You know the saying, war is the terror of the rich, terror the war of the poor. So, is it a terrorist attack when a smart bomb "accidentally" levels a civilian building and kills a few hundred because someone had a hunch that there might have been someone he wanted dead?

Re:Muslims?

[Opportunist]

Can I just think that taking orders from your invisible imaginary friend is a case for a shrink, no matter what you call him?

Re:Muslims?

[martin-boundary]

at minimum a source that has very much already decided on their bottom line, which means one shoudl already take it pretty skeptically.

Why on earth would you say that? That's not a logical argument. If someone tells you some facts, and they happen to have already made up their mind on what those facts imply, that's still a perfectly valid source of knowledge to use.

You're not obliged to accept their conclusion, unless it logically follows from the facts. And if you don't accept their conclusion even when it follows logically from the facts, then you're a fool. So either way, whether someone else already followed the facts to some logical conclusion before you is irrelevant. You should accept the conclusion if and only if it follows from the facts.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

Christians can just join their armed forces to kill Muslims, Jews get to join the IDF to kill Muslims, but there is not ONE army that allows Muslims to join in order to kill Christians.

Re:Muslims?

[abies]

Crusades were bad. Same bad or worse than current muslim terrorism. But they were almost 1000 years ago!
I don't think that anybody defends 12th century christianity as being more 'enlightened' than islam. This comparison is especially bad if you compare it to islam back then, which was a lot more 'modern' than christianity.
But we have moved on since then. We have even moved on since XX century age of dictators. Compare muslims to IRA if you need to, but not to crusades.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the first paragraph of your link:

The [Albigensian] Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crown and promptly took on a political flavour,"

So, not the best example of Christian intolerance.

Re:Muslims?

[bloodhawk]

Really the crusades were just mass rape, pillage and murder with no regard or care for who they were killing. It is amusing when some try to justify it, people have always done shitty things in the names of the various religions and as long as religions continue to dominate a large proportion of the planet I am sure it will continue indefinitely.

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

4 hostages walked out the FRONT door. Only one snuck out the side.

That factual correctiond doesn't do much to counter the argument --"This guy is simply not right in the head ... He's already lost 5 of his hostages ... he's that incompetent" --does it?

Re:Muslims?

[tburkhol]

If someone tells you some facts, and they happen to have already made up their mind on what those facts imply, that's still a perfectly valid source of knowledge to use.

If someone has made up his mind what the facts will show, then separates violent activities into those considers to be religiously motivated and those he considers simply criminal or mental-health related, then one should be suspicious that his list propagates a No-True-Scotsman fallacy. One should be suspicious that his bias prevents an impartial presentation of facts.

Many of the 'Islamic terrorist' attacks happen within conflict zones or occupied regions. Many Catholics violently opposed occupation by Nazi Germany: are their bombings terrorism?

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be perfectly honest, does anyone have statistics (recent) on the number of terrorist acts that are committed by Christians? I'd like to compare them with Islamic terrorist acts, because it seems to me that Islamic apologists need a wake-up call.

Do we include the US government among the terrorist acts perpetrated by Christians?

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

> It contains facts that doesn't fit with their world view.

Where the definition of "facts" is actually "half-truths" and the hate part is because of the facts that are deliberately excluded from that site.

Re:Muslims?

[CanHasDIY]

"X happened" is a fact.

"All Muslims are evil, because X happened" is an opinion.

The difference is glaringly obvious.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

> To be perfectly honest, does anyone have statistics (recent) on the number of terrorist acts that are committed by Christians?

Well, according to Europol's numbers, 99.6% of terrorist incidents in Europe are committed by non-muslims. I'm sure they aren't all christians, but given Europe's demographics, seems safe to say that it is the overwhelming majority.

Re:Muslims?

[marcello_dl]

If somebody drone bombed my land, tortured me as a simple suspect, and then released me, and let me immigrate to his places without much fuss, I'd first wonder if I am being set up.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be perfectly honest, does anyone have statistics (recent) on the number of terrorist acts that are committed by Christians? I'd like to compare them with Islamic terrorist acts, because it seems to me that Islamic apologists need a wake-up call.

I don't know about world-wide, but in Mexico extremists in the cult of Santa Muerte are out of control.

"A recent United Nations report estimated nearly 9,000 civilians have been killed and 17,386 wounded in Iraq in 2014, more than half since ISIL fighters seized large parts on northern Iraq in June. It is likely that the group is responsible another several thousand deaths in Syria. To be sure, these numbers are staggering. But in 2013 drug cartels murdered more than 16,000 people in Mexico alone, and another 60,000 from 2006 to 2012 — a rate of more than one killing every half hour for the last seven years. What is worse, these are estimates from the Mexican government, which is known to deflate the actual death toll by about 50 percent.

Statistics alone do not convey the depravity and threat of the cartels. They carry out hundreds of beheadings every year. In addition to decapitations, the cartels are known to dismember and otherwise mutilate the corpses of their victims — displaying piles of bodies prominently in towns to terrorize the public into compliance. They routinely target women and children to further intimidate communities. Like ISIL, the cartels use social media to post graphic images of their atrocious crimes."

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

> If someone tells you some facts, and they happen to have already made up their mind on what those facts imply, that's still a perfectly valid source of knowledge to use.

A lie of omission is still a lie. The question is at least as important as the answer and the questions that site asks are explicit in their goal to produce intellectually dishonest answers.

Re:Muslims?

[imatter]

The IRA is a good point but you should not have listed only the number of bombings you should have the number of fatalities as well. The total number of bombings sounds much worse than the total number of fatalities, for a 40+ year conflict. I don't know the true number but I have seen accounts that put the deaths at somewhere between 1700 - 1800 over 40 years, 911 was 2900 in one day.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy is simply not right in the head. It's not that he's a Muslim that caused this, its the fact he's mentally ill.

This was caused BECAUSE he is a Muslim and he "is not right in the head" BECAUSE he is a Muslim... that he may also be "mentally ill" is irrelevant, especially if you think about all those Muslims that while not "mentally ill" (but "not right in the head" also...) do what they do EVERY FUCKING DAY - i am a Christian and i don't do what those "not right in the head" Muslims do EVERY FUCKING DAY, and i know that many Buddist may be "mentally ill" but they don't do what those "not right in the head" Muslims do EVERY FUCKING DAY...

He's already lost 5 of his hostages (they escaped out the back door) he's that incompetent.

My Greek ancestors fought the Muslims that had conquered us and won - those Muslims proved "incompetent" in keeping us conquered but their religion and what they did to us is still evil.

This is more an indication of Australia's failing mental health care than the rise of Islamic extremism.

Since you wrote that you are an Australian, and since you have many of my fellow Greeks there, maybe more than what you may wanted, can you write to me if you personaly fear the rise of the "Greek-Orthodox-Christian extremism"?

Re:Muslims?

[magarity]

And then there's the difference between when a Christian commits some terror act for whatever political or personal motivation but not specific to Christianity vs a Muslim who commits a terror act specifically in the name of Islam. Motive does count for something when trying to determine and work with mediating root causes.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be perfectly honest, does anyone have statistics (recent) on the number of terrorist acts that are committed by Christians?

Why is Islam always opposed to Christianity? How about you compare them whit all the murder Israel is doing in the name of the holy land and Judaism faith.

All faith are stupid, all monotheism faith are dangerous. Stop defending islam. Nuke Mecca, Vatican and Jerusalem.

Re:Muslims?

[gnasher719]

Consider this: These people are not muslims. They are total fuckwits who lost their minds and got their hands on some guns. If the religion that they claim to "support" is correct in what it teaches, then these guys will end up in hell for what they are doing. If other religions are correct in what they teach, they will end up in a slightly different but equally terrible place. That's one of the few negative aspects of being an atheist, knowing that these guys won't get the punishment they deserve.

Re:Muslims?

[Archangel Michael]

IRA was as much about Nationalism as it was about religion, making it hard not to conflate the two. The fact that England is protestant and Ireland is Catholic makes it hard to distinguish between the motivations.

Re:Muslims?

[mariox19]

Would only that the Muslim world advance to the 18th century—never mind the 21st!—that would be a huge improvement.

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of the "Islamic terrorist" groups are also formed around nationalism or tribal disputes, whether it be Palestinian nationalism, Pakistani nationalism, Afghan tribes, Iraqi Sunnis, etc. How many "Islamic" attacks are completely independent of any geographical or tribal conflict? Not Afghanistan or Iraq, or the backlash attacks those conflicts inspired. Not 9/11, which bin Laden himself said was motivated by US troops being deployed to Saudi Arabia to prop up the dictatorship there. Is there any real difference between an Iraqi Sunni planting a bomb in Baghdad, and an Irish Catholic planting a bomb in London?

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

You wouldn't really like to see a list like that for other religions, because if you did, then you would claim it was unfair! Take the Holocaust for example - carried out by a Christian nation, survivors of concentration camps reported that the guards wrote belts with the inscription "In God we trust", Jews were blamed for the deaths of Christian children, blamed for being " Christ killers" etc. For hundreds of years Germany society was Christian and anti Semitic, culminating in the Holocaust. When a Palestinian kills a Jew it's called Islamic terrorism, but when a Christian kills a Jew, it's called ...?

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nearly all terrorism is nationalism. Seriously, if you look at the FBI numbers for terrorist incidents in the US and Europol's numbers for terrorist incidents in Europe, 90%+ of them are all about nationalism and seperatism. Basques in Spain, Puerto Ricans (seriously), white nationalists, etc. All the "terrorism" in the middle-east is really tribal conflicts. ISIL wouldn't exist if the Shia majority in Iraq hadn't decided they could just piss all over the Sunnis because they were dominating the government. Religion is just a uniform for tribes.

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the same logic Holocaust deniers use to defend their hate sites.

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody said that all Muslims are evil. Nice strawman though, dipshit. You automatically are wrong since you clearly cannot dispute what was stated.

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Christians invading other lands, killing all the people of other religions, and forcing the survivors to convert to Christianity, is not an example if Christian intolerance, then you can't argue that Islamic State's actions in Iraq are an example of Muslim intolerance.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm familiar with this site, and agree with it. Also, when people say 'Christian terrorism' or 'Jewish terrorism' or 'Hindu terrorism' or any other, they fail to mention whether $RELIGION's precepts inspired the said terror, or whether it was done for reasons other than that.

But with Muzzies, all incidents of terror - be it 9/11, 3/11, 7/7, 11/26, Bali and now this Lindt Cafe incident - were done by people who did it in the name of Jihad

Re:Muslims?

[Tom]

Extremism is bad and causes people to do irrational things. Your brand of extremism is as bad as any other.

Like it or not, there are different types of extremism.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6ccC...

That's half a joke, and half true. In some circles, you are considered an extremist if you are rude to others while addressing whatever the issue is. In other circles, you're not an extremist if you kill people over the issue, only if, say, they were children.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not chock-full of crazy brainwashed wackos.

I beg to differ...they eat lutefisk in Norway...codfish cured with lye!!

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of the "Islamic terrorist" groups are also formed around nationalism or tribal disputes, whether it be Palestinian nationalism, Pakistani nationalism, Afghan tribes, Iraqi Sunnis, etc. How many "Islamic" attacks are completely independent of any geographical or tribal conflict? Not Afghanistan or Iraq, or the backlash attacks those conflicts inspired. Not 9/11, which bin Laden himself said was motivated by US troops being deployed to Saudi Arabia to prop up the dictatorship there. Is there any real difference between an Iraqi Sunni planting a bomb in Baghdad, and an Irish Catholic planting a bomb in London?

Palestinian nationalism is a disguised attempt at claiming Arab/Islamic hegemony over Israel. Note that before 1967, the term Palestinian, did not exist, and before 1948, it referred to Jews. Until 1967, the perception around the world was that the conflict was between Israel and Arabs, which was correct, since while all of Israel's neighbors were at war with it, the rest of the Arab League backed Israel's enemies. As a result, world opinion (outside dar al Islam) was with Israel. In 1967, the PLO started using the term 'Palestinians' to describe Arabs from the region, and managed to shift world perception to their side, even though the ground facts remained unchanged.

Pakistan too - historically, there was no such country, and it was purely a separatist demand by Muslims, who couldn't stand the thought of co-existing with Hindus as a minority. So they forced - through riots - the creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Otherwise, there is no difference between Pakistanis and Muslims in India, and ethnically, little difference between Sindis and Panjabis vs Gujratis, Punjabis, Rajputs, Marathas and so on.

I don't support IRA terrorism, but at least in their case, they were fighting to get the Protestand Brits out of Northern Ireland. Whereas in Israel, the Arabs wanted to subjugate or expel the Jews, while in Pakistan, the Muslims wanted to expel all Hindus out of parts where they had a majority. Difference? The English/Scots didn't belong in Ulster, but the Jews & Hindus were native to Palestine, Sind, Panjab and Bengal.

Re: Muslims?

[unixisc]

You have to go back to WWII to even make, much less prove, a point about 'Christians' (even though Hitler did nothing in the name of Catholicism) whereas the GP was making his point using current events - events since 2000!!! Can we stick to this millenium? If you want to go back before that, how about we start in 1AD?

Re:Muslims?

[unixisc]

There is a difference between saying 'all Muslims are evil' vs 'all evil people are Muslims'.

Re:Muslims?

[Lord Apathy]

I'm not up to date on which religion has actually killed more people. Christianity ran up a pretty impressive body count during the middle ages. Then there was the witch burnings and inquisitions, as well as was happened in the new world with the church there.

Muslims seem to have a more blood thirsty run lately though.

One would think that by the 21 century we would have at least stopped killing each other because we all don't want to believe in the same fairy tales.

Re:Muslims?

[jmd]

I am not an apologist for any group. But can ask what we call it when the US Gov't (CIA especially) pulls off a coup or destabilizes a country fostering civil war.

I ask that as a serious question because if it is state sanctioned it appears as acceptable. If not state sanctioned then it is terrorism.

Remember the US Constitution clearly has avenues to redress the government up to and including overthrowing it. But if you choose to overthrow the government you'll likely spend a lot of time in jail or be dead.

Re:Muslims?

[unixisc]

You make it sound like countries like Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, et al have no armies

Re:Muslims?

[unixisc]

It's come out that the gunman was a refugee from Iran, who converted from Shiite to Sunni Islam. Question - why did he get refuge in Australia? If he was just unhappy about following Shiite Islam, he could have moved to Afghanistan or Pakistan and happily converted to Sunni Islam. And had only Muslims around him, instead of having to live amongst so many Infidels

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to not understand what was written and create your own strawman.

And I thought the schools weren't teaching anything these days.

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Obama is a Christian then Houston, we've got a problem. The scale and scope of American terrorist attacks dwarf al Quaeida's most soggy wet dream.

Re:Muslims?

[dell623]

Seriously? What do you call the gunning down of a civilian airliner carrying 270+ passengers from the flag carrier of a muslim country? Are you telling me that if muslim rebels in the middle east not attached to a government gunned down an Israeli El Al aircraft and then some claimed that they thought it was an American military Hercules or something, we would not be calling it terrorism. Can you even imagine a single media outlet in the west, anyone, who would not call that terrorism and the biggest terrorist incident since 9/11, 9/11 part II etc. You really think excuses of 'accidentally' shooting down a civilian airliner would wash in that situation?

Stop thinking with that blinkered attitude where terrorism is defined according to your cultural or social background, yet you consider that definition to be universal, sui generis, and a binary classification. A lone gunman is a lone gunman until he unfurls a muslim flag and then suddenly it's terrorism. I am not saying this isn't terrorism. But how much you identify this incident with lone gunmen going nuts posting hate online and then going on a shooting spree, and how much you identify it with a distant conflict in Syria that this guy was influenced by but had no direct affiliation with, is down to perspective. At least try to understand there is some fucking nuance involved.

To all the 'insightful' commenters about how Islam is inherently evil, and it is impossible to practice it without being violent, fuck you, Sydney will get through this, just stay the fuck away from my city. I am not going to tell the Turkish muslim lady who I get my lunch from, 100m (~110 yards) from Lindt cafe in Martin Place that her religion is inherently violent because some posters on a forum said so, that she is not practising it correctly by waking up at 5 am every day, getting her family to work and running a little hole in the wall shop all on her own that sells the cheapest and best lunch I can find, and that she needs to either un-convert (whatever the fuck that is meant to be) or leave this country. Or by sending her daughter to the best school she can afford and soon to university. No, she's doing it all wrong, this fucking nutcase is the one who is doing it right, and she needs to hand in her muslim card. Slashdot told me so.

I am not a fan of twitter, but I will gladly stand with the #illridewithyou crowd than be identified with you lot. There is a lot that needs to be figured out, and the way the IS ideology has appealed to hundreds of muslims in Sydney is clearly a serious issue. But no solution involve a suspension of basic human rights or officially classifying hundreds of thousands of residents of this city as inherently suspicious. Call it a cliche if you want, but that would be un-Australian.

Re:Muslims?

[Some_Llama]

" Christianity ran up a pretty impressive body count during the middle ages. "

I think you meant to say Catholicism.

I am a christian but not a catholic.

in a related note, I also never killed anyone in the middle ages, maybe we should just consider the acts of violence rather than the justifications of those who commit the acts, as the justifications are rather moot.

I would care less about why someone is killed my family than the actual act, and if i took revenge on that act it would have less to do with my hatred of their reasoning and more about the act they committed against me.

Re:Muslims?

[Some_Llama]

Really the crusades were just mass rape, pillage and murder with no regard or care for who they were killing. It is amusing when some try to justify it, people have always done shitty things in the names of the various religions and as long as religions continue to dominate a large proportion of the planet I am sure it will continue indefinitely.

wish i could mod you up but i got swept up in the commenting :)

Re:Muslims?

[Some_Llama]

so jesus was imaginary and invisible?

Re:Muslims?

[Opportunist]

Depends entirely on who you ask. The "proof" for his existence is flimsy at best, and recent research suggests that the stories about him are more likely a collection of various things and "miracles" that were performed by various people considered prophets by their contemporaries. It's entirely possible that there has been a crucifixion of someone by this or a similar name in the area of Jerusalem around the year 30, actually, it would be a rather odd coincidence if one could just for this regioun NOT find some indication that various people were crucified around that time. It was a rather common form of capital punishment back then. But being crucified doesn't make the story in any way special either, it's like trying to create a religion about someone who gets executed in a contemporary US prison. Has there been such a person? By far more than one! Is he something special? Well... not really.

I would even go as far as say that it's not too unlikely that there has been someone who fought with wit and charm against the Roman occupation and the complacent religious and aristocratic elite that arranged itself with the occupying force for their own gains, oppressing the population. It's very likely that such a man would gather followers, and that he would be fought by the powers that are as someone who tries to upset the "order of things".

But that doesn't make such a man a God. Was Gandhi a God?

Re:Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

Critical thinking is clearly not your strong suit. Too many times have I witnessed some "facts" that are incomplete, embellished, and often just made up on the spot. 100% of the time, it's from someone who has already made up their mind on the subject, and cannot be dissuaded even by contradictory and more reliably sourced facts. Skepticism is necessary.

Re:Muslims?

[Mr. Shotgun]

Can I just think that taking orders from your invisible imaginary friend is a case for a shrink, no matter what you call him?

My headmate is Dr. Freud, and for some strange reason he tells me I like cigars. Your move.

Re:Muslims?

[Opportunist]

As long as you smoke them in your home and don't pester anyone with it, have fun.

I don't mind people having a mental condition. I mind people trying to force their mental illness on others. I.e. religious fanatics.

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Lancet paper (peer reviewed, respected medical journal) attributed 655,000 deaths. British government experts appraised it as accurate and well researched. 'the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust". Another expert agreed the method was "tried and tested".'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6495753.stm

If someone killed 655 thousand people in Texas you'd be furious. So why be an apologist unless you believe foreign lives don't matter?

Re: Muslims?

[TheJMan]

but it addressed the "I live in Australia and I know a hell of a lot more about this than you do" malarkey

Not knowing a simple widely reported and easily verifiable fact that hostages escaped out the front door, not the back, puts into question any claim of superior local knowledge

Re:Muslims?

[Augury]

This guy is simply not right in the head. It's not that he's a Muslim that caused this, its the fact he's mentally ill. He's already lost 5 of his hostages (they escaped out the back door) he's that incompetent. This is more an indication of Australia's failing mental health care than the rise of Islamic extremism.

I'm also Australian and I'm afraid I have to disagree with you here.

As you'll no doubt have now heard from the ongoing media coverage, this man also sent a number of offensive letters to the families of killed Australian armed service personnel, using rhetoric such as "A Jewish man who kills innocent Muslim civilians is not a pig, he is a thousand times worse".

He was an active participant in Muslim protests during the recent anti-terror raids in Sydney and Brisbane. At the time, he said: "Islam is the religion of peace, that’s why Muslims fight against the oppression and terrorism of USA and its allies including UK and Australia"

You can read a good summary of his progress to radicalisation here: http://www.theaustralian.com.a...

You'll note I've specifically excluded his alleged sex crimes, the charges of being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife and other elements of his sordid past. He certainly seems to be mentally disturbed, but equally there is no doubt that the Muslim faith, his belief in it, the recent rise of Islamic extremism internationally (he specifically asked for an ISIL flag to be delivered to the cafe) and his willingness to act on its behalf materially contributed to these events.

I think it's fair to say that he was vulnerable to the influence of potentially radicalising agents due to his mental health and that radical Islam acted on that vulnerability. It's not reasonable to say that radical Islam had no influence or played no part in this man's actions.

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look you are so dumb, so crusades from the past were bad ?

So you'll agree the fucking terrorists in Pakistan and causing problems in the Middle East are as bad ?

Thanks you just proved we should bomb them to oblivion. They are just as mad as barbarians from the past but they live now. At least now we have a way to stop these fanatics by sending them to their heaven.

Thanks for proving than they are retarded

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who gives a shit about the crusades, you have barbarians acting like morons, killing now. Not a millennia ago, but now and now you cry like a baby about what happened a millennia ago ?

You just proved that you are an apologist and at the same time that these people are retarded ... Retarded by a millennia ! Let them go back to dust, to avoid repeating the mistake of a millennia ago

Re:Muslims?

[__aalrse5226]

You want a blow by blow? This NOT apparent just Muslims, the butchers, it is them. It's on the 6 o'clock news asshole EVERY DAY. Don't try to compare this with any other battle. Let's reason together we say. Meanwhile they are planning how to kill more of us. Are you a soldier? Ready to stand on the wall? you fag. I'll head south to my Atlanta friends. Just start thinking how you will answer, recant Christ and be Muslim OR die. Rebut? shit, kind of hard with an AK pointed at your sergeants head. Do I lie? The whole squad dies? If you, or anyone on this forum has the balls to protect his family and country, STAND THE FUCK UP. The rest of you sheep fatten up now... My email is here.

Re: Muslims?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was them or us, it is enough for me

Re:Muslims?

[Optali]

How many killings of abortionists doctors and buildings blown up did you have in the USA by Right Wing Militias, the KKK, etc?
Well, these are all Christians.

Recall Rwanda? That was a civil war among the Catholic and Protestant Hutus and the Tutsie based on the assumption that these were left wing socialists and both the CAtholic and Protestant churches were main instigators. The conflict broke a few historical records of people murdered in less time. This alone leaves even ISIS look like a friendly bunch.

Right now there is a conflict in de Central African Republic were Christians are doing some very nasty things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

And in the way things are developing in your country everybody is expecting that there will be an outbreak of violence from ultra-Christian groups such as the Hutaree or similar.

I think that all you religious apologists need a wake-up call.

Re:Muslims?

[Pseudonym]

But one Breivik is newsworthy only because it's such a rare occurrence.

THANKYOU!

I'm glad someone said it. Breivik was a rare occurrence. 9/11 was a rare occurrence. Fort Hood was a rare occurrence. The random nutter with a gun in Sydney is a rare occurrence. All crimes of this nature are rare occurrences. That is why they are remarkable, and that is why we take note of them.

When drones take out a whole street in Pakistan, nobody pays attention, because this is not a rare occurrence.

Re:Muslims?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I'm glad someone said it. Breivik was a rare occurrence. 9/11 was a rare occurrence. Fort Hood was a rare occurrence. The random nutter with a gun in Sydney is a rare occurrence. All crimes of this nature are rare occurrences. That is why they are remarkable, and that is why we take note of them.

That's actually not correct, several such crimes happen every. But as you say, that's why few people notice them: It's been like that for a very long time, and people become desensitized.

Don't worry guys...

[Mashiki]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this. And in Canada we had two terrorist attacks(one in Quebec), and another on Parliament Hill in two days.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[RevGregory]

Sudden Jihad Syndrome, it could happen to anyone.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[fj3k]

I'm skeptical of the peaceful nature of a religion founded by a warlord; but at this stage we don't know that it's not some nut-job who is trying to capitalise on the ISIS popularity.

(I'm writing from one of the buildings currently in lock-down because of this situation)

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent should be modded up, if I could do it.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Once the western world abandons the middle east, then this shit will stop happening. Sigh, when will we ever learn.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why extremists just went out of their way to do this.

FTFY.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[BitterOak]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this. And in Canada we had two terrorist attacks(one in Quebec), and another on Parliament Hill in two days.

Well, Christianity is a peaceful religion too. Perhaps that explains the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[countach]

Perhaps it will stop happening here, but it will still happen in the middle east. It's not like the middle east is a peaceful place without the west butting in. The Muslims have still got plenty to do blowing each other up.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, two terrorist attacks from people promoting the peaceful religion. And people (this is you Amnesty International) are condemning Canada for cherry picking Syrian refugees based on religion (religious minorities like Coptics are getting preferential treatment over peaceful Sunni Muslims). Because all Sunni Muslims are peaceful (except those belonging to ISAL and the Taliban and Khorasan and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hezbollah and al-Nusra and al-Shabaab). And of those mentioned, less than 80% believe that non-believers should be put to death. The rest believe that they should try to convert non-believers first, and only then be put to death. I should point out what others have pointed out: Islam is a peaceful religion in that they want your peaceful conversion to Islam to be a peaceful one. No need for swords or stabbing or blood so long as you go along with the conversion right away (the peaceful way). It's only when your conversion meets resistance does the need for the swords and stabbing come into play.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Mashiki]

Sorry that'd be muslims. Even here in Canada, half a dozen muslim groups came out stating muslims after the terrorist attacks. At least two groups posted something similar to this. Oh, of course they were attacked by...did you think muslims? Haha no, by elitists for putting "muslim" in there.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[BarbaraHudson]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this. And in Canada we had two terrorist attacks(one in Quebec), and another on Parliament Hill in two days.

By mentally ill Canadians who converted for all the wrong reasons.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Once the western world abandons the middle east, then this shit will stop happening. Sigh, when will we ever learn.

Sorry, but you have a simple-minded idea about the motivations of Islamic jihadists. They hate the West, not just the West's apparent meddling in their nations' affairs. ISIS rose as the West withdrew.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

didn't expect that...

Re: Don't worry guys...

[jedidiah]

Learn? Learn? LEARN?

Crack open a book sometime. Islam has been trying to take over the rest of the world pretty much since the day it was founded. Liberal fantasies about Western colonialism are flatly contradicted by the entire rest of history. From Charlemange to Dracula the rest of the world was actively under siege.

This is just the next chapter in a very long history that's not pretty if you actually bother to pay attention to it.

Being able to ignore their oil really wouldn't change the situation all that much.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Falconhell]

Yeh peaceful just like the catholic IRA. Any citation for your pile of lies?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[MrKaos]

I'm skeptical of the peaceful nature of a religion founded by a warlord; but at this stage we don't know that it's not some nut-job who is trying to capitalise on the ISIS popularity.

(I'm writing from one of the buildings currently in lock-down because of this situation)

Absolutely! It's a fine line we have to walk because on one side we have Islam with significant human rights abuses and on the other intelligence agencies carrying out false flag operations and blaming it on them.

The enhancements to the National Security Act passed in October and was supposed to stop this sort of thing. It was passed on the back of a media shitstorm over some 15 alleged assailant who were all released without charge and one on minor charges. Meanwhile 99.99999% of the population bares the cost.

Best of luck getting out of there - looks like it's going to be a shitfight on the trains later.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam is based on a confusing book, that's why there are extremists.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Moridineas]

Nice of you to be able to speak for the adherents of other religions and to blindly through the "mentally ill" label around. I daresay that might earn you the label of orientalist.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[quantaman]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this. And in Canada we had two terrorist attacks(one in Quebec), and another on Parliament Hill in two days.

My interpretation is that Islam is just like any other religion. A bunch of people who think their religion wants them to be perfectly nice and peaceful, and a bunch of others who think it demands they cleanse the Earth of non-believers.

If you followed the attacks in Canada you noticed that the attackers were recent converts to Islam. Their attacks weren't motivated by Islam, they were motivated by ISIL's culture of terrorism and enabled by whatever personal demons caused them to jump headlong into a new religion. Islam is just the language that ISIL uses to communicate that culture.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Mashiki]

Well, Christianity is a peaceful religion too. Perhaps that explains the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition.

Crusades are easy, that would be a response to 100 years of Muslim rape, slaughter, and forced conversion in Spain. The Spanish Inquisition gets interesting, because it was a direct result of that. Surprise right? You're dealing with an entire group of extremists that responded to extremists in kind. Then again, that's not what they teach in school anymore is it. Rather many paint it as "it was all the christians fault."

Re:Don't worry guys...

[cheesybagel]

The Crusades were a backlash against Muslim invasion nitwit.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it a higher priority to broadly define who the 'bad guys' are than it is to make sure innocents remain uninvolved? Is it so they're easy to identify? Do you really not understand the shitstorm you're going to bring down on yourself and everyone else by not being a little more educated on who is mad about what?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[phantomfive]

Look man, even Bush said, "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam.....Islam is peace." He was something of a warmonger, but even he realized that you shouldn't go to war against an entire religion. The enemies are easy to recognize, they're the ones who are trying to kill us, no matter what religion they profess.

Seriously, when you're more irrational than Bush, it's time to stop and think if you have a problem in your head.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

And to a large extent the Inquisition too. But yeah, Christianity was a little rough in the middle ages.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

What false flag operations?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[misexistentialist]

How many Muslims had Canada and Australia bombed to death previous to that for undisclosed reasons?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[mi]

Perhaps that explains the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition.

There is nothing in attributed to the Christian god himself — nor any of his prophets — that required Crusades or the Inquisition.

On contrast, Koran — which purports to be the word of god verbatim — mandates that the faithful convert or kill the pagans and (tax the Christians and Jews). The prophet himself — whom Muslims world-wide adore — was an illiterate warlord, who used genocide centuries before it became cool.

Bible has plenty of warlords too, but none of them are His prophets. King David is described as a hero, but he killed too many people to found the Temple — the task was left to his son. Not the sort of quibbles, Muslims would consider...

The Crusades ended in the 14th century. Spanish Inquisition (a secular institution, BTW — ran by Spanish Crown) is also many centuries in the past. Since then the Western world has created the First Amendment, among other things. If you have nothing contemporary to contrast the ongoing craziness of the "religion of peace", you've lost your argument...

Re:Don't worry guys...

[cheesybagel]

You can get enlightened here. I quote:

The First Crusade (1096–1099) ... ended as a military expedition by Roman Catholic Europe to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquests of the Levant (632–661), ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem in 1099. It was launched on 27 November 1095 by Pope Urban II with the primary goal of responding to an appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who requested that western volunteers come to his aid and help to repel the invading Seljuq Turks from Anatolia.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

A better example of Christian violence is against the Albigensians.

Or the Thirty-years war if you want internecine fighting.

However, the Crusades certainly had their share of that among Christians, and plenty of other examples of Christian violence. You can make it stretch from the Baltic to the Mediterranean without much trouble, and pulling in the Americas is not hard.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Livius]

And in Canada we had two terrorist attacks

Those were hate crimes. Terrorism has a political message.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we send in Team America to handle this? Fuck yeah.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Harlequin80]

And is EXACTLY the same as Christianity.

Both are religions that base their entire structure around "we are the one true correct path and all others are wrong". Both have been used to dominate other populations.

That said religion is just a tool to control the masses. It is no different to other ideologies in that case.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hope only the terrorists and the left-wing liberals who actively or passively support terrorists are killed in this affair.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it a higher priority to broadly define who the 'bad guys' are than it is to make sure innocents remain uninvolved?

Because as we can see from todays actions it is not possible for innocents to be uninvolved no matter how hard you try?

Better the innocents "involved" be members of the Muslim religion to bring extra motivation for Muslims to police their own ranks, they are best able to judge who are extremists and who are not.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sudden Jihad Syndrome, it could happen to anyone.

You just can't trust those dune coons. They can't even get along with each other let alone us.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the religion of peace*

*peace is defined as righteous striving for Allah aka jihad aka killing infidels aka violence

Re:Don't worry guys...

[styrotech]

didn't expect that...

Nobody does.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[khallow]

Might be referring to the numerous sting operations bordering on entrapment where the prime impetus for a group of would-be terrorists turns out to be an undercover federal agent encouraging them to cause trouble.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[TropicalCoder]

He is not speaking for the "adherents of other religions", nor is he "blindly throwing the mentally ill label around". Rather, he is speaking about two individuals known to be mentally unstable drug addicts.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[MrKaos]

What false flag operations?

If you weren't an AC I might tell you.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[cold fjord]

Clarifying question: To what degree do you fear that the Pope will declare a new Holy War and call upon Christendom to launch armies against some opponent?

Zero?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Zontar The Mindless]

In at least one of those cases, Muslim friends had expressed concern that the new "convert" wasn't really a convert because he wasn't in his right mind. Pretty sure I saw this mentioned by the BBC.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, being able to ignore their oil would change the game in a huge way. Their economies would collapse and they would have to go back to living in 1920's Middle East society. Not as much travel, immigration, and breeding would be taking place like it is now.

It is why I have cut my gasoline usage by 60% and still working on reducing it even more for the past 8 years. I don't like funding eco-terrorists (the real ones - oil cartels), and religious fanatics..

Re:Don't worry guys...

[BarbaraHudson]

Both of the people were mentally ill. Bibeau, the homeless Ottawa killer, had a history of violence, drug addiction, and mental instability, including 12 convictions in Quebec between 2001 and 2011 for crimes including drug possession, impaired driving, weapons offences, assault causing bodily harm, theft, and possession of break-in tools, which started long before he converted to islam.

Rouleau, the Quebec killer, had been taken to a psychiatric hospital by his father, but they couldn't keep him when he said he wanted to leave. He had drug problems, had to be in a special school for kids with discipline problems when he was younger, his personal life had fallen apart, his business had failed and last year at 24 he turned to islam, looking for something to cling to where he wouldn't feel like an inadequate failure, and was attracted to the extremists on the net and in the media.

Most people are able to make the distinction between a nutbar using a religion as a smokescreen to their using violence to escape their own failures or shortcomings, and the majority who peacefully practice that same religion. This applies equally to muslims, christians, atheists, or whatever your personal preference or poison.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Harlequin80]

To which I answer the same degree that I am concerned that the leader of the largest sections of Islam will do. Zero.

The degree to which I fear that splinter section of the Christian faith will take up arms against Islam is about on the same level as my concern of splinter Islamic groups taking up arms against the west. Christian extremists are the ones that will fire bomb paediatrician offices remember. I would not want to be of Islamic faith in America at the moment because I think even walking down the street could put you at risk.

What degree of risk would you associate with the KKK, a predominately Christian organisation, may start targetting muslins? I would say it is non-zero.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[MrKaos]

Might be referring to the numerous sting operations bordering on entrapment where the prime impetus for a group of would-be terrorists turns out to be an undercover federal agent encouraging them to cause trouble.

The police here were using illegal spyware to infiltrate peoples computers to capture data, instead of using the legal processes available to them, to reveal some "potential" attacks.They then whipped up a media frenzy to garner support to pass new security legislation that would legalize the use of such methods. Of the 16 "suspects" 15 were released without charge and a 16th on a minor charge.

This sort of thing is what that legislation was supposed to prevent.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[EuclideanSilence]

And is EXACTLY the same as Christianity.

No, it really isn't.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

For you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

Christianity advocates persuasion and being an example. "Fundamentalist" christianity is actually very peaceful. That doesn't prevent very unpeaceful people from trying to commandeer a philosophy's good reputation and use it for to try to conquer others, but those types of people will use anything they can get their hands on.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

And is EXACTLY the same as Christianity.

One of these things is not like the other "Feed the hungry" "Heal the sick" "Put the apostate to the sword". The tenets of Christianity are to spread the faith with love and charity. Politicians and kings have used Christianity as a dressing for violent acts, but the tenets disavow violence. Islam's tenets are to spread the faith with love, charity, and failing that, kill the apostates and atheists. The violence is baked in to the religion.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Jane Q. Public]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this. And in Canada we had two terrorist attacks(one in Quebec), and another on Parliament Hill in two days.

While it may be true that many Muslims have been terrorists, not all Muslims are terrorists and not all egregious crimes or even hostage-taking constitutes "terrorism".

Despite the fact that politicians have grossly mis-used the term, Terrorism has an actual definition. One essential part of that definition is that the terrorists are making (usually political) demands in exchange for ceasing their terror.

Unless and until they make demands, and especially political demands, they aren't "terrorists". If they do so, and they also meet the other qualifications, THEN they are terrorists. Not before.

Some crazy with a bomb is not a "terrorist" until he proves himself to be.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Parafilmus]

I'm skeptical of the peaceful nature of a religion founded by a warlord

Me too! A religion founded by a warlord sounds like a terrible idea.

But are we talking about Islam(muhammad), Judaism(moses), or Christianity(constantine)?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[NoKaOi]

I'm skeptical of the peaceful nature of a religion founded by a warlord

Are you referring to Catholicism, which was founded by Constantine?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hope only the terrorists and the left-wing liberals who actively or passively support terrorists are killed in this affair.

Let's hope that you or your friends and close members of your family are killed in a similar situation some time in the near future.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're referring to Canada's current involvement in the campaign against ISIS, then none. We hadn't even started air patrols yet.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Grishnakh]

Hey, I'm not a big fan of Judaism, but working to free your people from slavery does not make you a "warlord". Also, I don't remember anything in Exodus about Moses or his people resorting to violence; the story just has them fleeing the Egyptian army, and the Egyptians being swallowed by the Red Sea after they tried to follow the Jews through it. Of course, this story also claims the Red Sea was parted somehow so they could walk across, so it's highly questionable just how accurate this story is....

Also, I'm not sure how you give credit to Constantine for founding Christianity; I thought that honor went to Jesus, or perhaps Paul or even Peter.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Tablizer]

Christianity started out violent but eventually mellowed out for the most part. Islam is just several ticks behind the times.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Rick in China]

One guy with a gun in a cafe equates to "followers" of "Islam"?

Since when did a guy or a couple guys creating havoc turn into terrorism? You're the result of the current state of media. Any lone person who self-associates with any muslim state or islamic religion and acts aggressively suddenly becomes a terrorist, rather than a run of the mill criminal.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

The leader of (one of) the largest sections of Islam? You mean the Ayatollah of Iran? In case you haven't noticed, hes actively seeking the nuclear bomb, is hated by his neighbors and let the spokesperson for his country talk about 'wiping Israel from the map' numerous times on the international stage.

Islam is a militant organization.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[cold fjord]

If that is what you believe then you believe a lot of nonsense.

Iran considers itself at war with the US, and you may recall that it is ruled by Shia Islam clerics.

Radical Islam has been at war with the West and Israel for decades. Invidual factions have had tens of thousands of members. Something on the order of 100,000 Jihadis are believed to have gone through al Qaida's training camps in Afghanistan alone. You would think that by now if there was going to be a "Christian extremist" splinter group take up arms against Islam you would have seen that by now. Do you have any canidates?

The claim that "Christian extremists" are fire bombing paediatrician offices as a practical matter is nonsense. There are few incidents over decades, and one of the most prolific and dangerous attackers, Eric Rudolf, wasn't even a Christian, he was an atheist.

The KKK isn't a Christian organization despite its propaganda, and it is a tiny threat today that is still watched by law enforcement. I doubt it would go after Muslims since they both hate the Jews.

Your imagination is running away with you.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Dutch Gun]

I'm hopeful that someday we all can learn to peacefully cohabit this planet, and maybe even stand up for and protect each other.

Some people use religion as an excuse to hurt or kill, while others use it as inspiration to improve their own and others' lives. I think it has more to do with the person than the religion.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[ShieldW0lf]

It's called running amok. It's caused by an evil tiger spirit that enters the body and causes us to commit evil acts.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[DigiShaman]

No it's not. The Crusades came about because of Islamic terrorism in the past. If it wasn't for Islam, there wouldn't be any Crusaders. Christianity is predominately about showing people the door, but only they can walk through it of their own freewill. Islam OTOH is about spreading the word by force. Ever wonder why they have a sword on the flag? It's for offense, not defense.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

When you are in power, this tactic is not necessary. Proportion of 1st world nations vs 3rd world nation that are Western (Still Christian dominated even if secular) vs Islamic?

The West is heading for a fight with the entire rest of the world, and unfortunately hasn't managed to convince Russia to join it which is what is required to win. China will be smart and remain neutral and no doubt come out on top.

Islam and islamic terrorism are very small components of this global machine.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Grishnakh]

If you don't live in the Middle East, then it's not so much of a problem for you.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Shakrai]

Of course, this story also claims the Red Sea was parted somehow so they could walk across, so it's highly questionable just how accurate this story is....

Manbearpig.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[currently_awake]

Are you refering to the Roman Catholic Church? The one the Romans rebuilt into their state religion?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Parafilmus]

I don't remember anything in Exodus about Moses or his people resorting to violence

Have a look at the book of numbers. Here are some of the best parts: http://www.thebricktestament.c...

Also, I'm not sure how you give credit to Constantine for founding Christianity

Here ya go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: Don't worry guys...

[aardvarkjoe]

What degree of risk would you associate with the KKK, a predominately Christian organisation, may start targetting muslins? I would say it is non-zero.

Well, maybe, but as long as they stick to targeting muslin and don't attack wool or polyester, I think we'll be OK.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[DigiShaman]

Right. And Bush also said of Vladimir Putin "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country." back in 2001.

Bush was many things, but certainly he's been known to say diplomatic BS if only to placate your advisory. Pussyfooting doesn't work too well in the long-run, does it?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[donaldm]

I'm skeptical of the peaceful nature of a religion founded by a warlord; but at this stage we don't know that it's not some nut-job who is trying to capitalise on the ISIS popularity.

I think you should get your facts right Muhammad was not a warlord in fact he was a merchant until he became a religious leader at age 26. Of course since it is very easy to interpret the Quran for personal reasons and many splinter groups of Islam have done just that so I can understand why many non-muslins would think Muhammad was a warlord.

The flag that is being shown is not associated with ISIS however it is what is called The Black Standard . The writing you can see on the flag is means "There is no god but the God, Muhammad is the messenger of the God", however this same writing does appear on many flags and some of those are associated with Muslim terrorist groups.

This incident is classified as a terrorist act however even the top Muslim Cleric in Australia has condemned this so it basically boils down to one or two extremists who have their own agenda. Basically this act will achieve nothing except to alienate Muslims from Australian society which I suppose is what the terrorists really want.

BTW. A simple search would have found the information I have given. I do live in Sydney as some of my previous posts have attested too however I am not a Muslim nor have I any intention of being one but lets get the "facts" correct.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hope your buddies cut your head off after doing the same to your children.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Crusades are easy, that would be a response to 100 years of Muslim rape, slaughter, and forced conversion in Spain."

Yes! Christians never forced conversions unlike the evil Muslims. Oh wait...

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you do support terrorism? I thought that the previous AC's statement was over the top and here you are providing proof.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[meglon]

I think, mayhaps, you need to do a little more learning on things you attempt to speak about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

Some of the crusades came about from the Catholic churches desire to expand their empire, others came about because the Catholic church decided it needed to kill some Christians that weren't giving the church enough money.

Christianity and Islam are the same... the masses defer to the few leaders "interpretations" of massively convoluted texts, while the most radical use convoluted interpretations of those texts to justify their personal hatreds and bigotries. Your opinion of Christianity is warped because YOU claim to be Christian, and YOUR side can do no wrong. You want to claim anything THEY do is terrorism, when if YOUR side did the same thing, it's not terrorism. It's called fucking hypocrisy.

As for "their flag"... who's? There's all sorts of flags by all sorts of groups and countries that are predominantly Muslim... and they mean different things. Your logic is just stupid on this.... by your logic, everyone in Mississippi is an anti-American insurrectionist that needs to be hung because their state incorporates the confederate battle flag. See... stupid.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Microlith]

This sort of thing is what that legislation was supposed to prevent.

So what you're saying is... false flag! /s

Re:Don't worry guys...

[bloodhawk]

The inquisition was over 4 centuries later, you can hardly equate that to the forced conversions. actually you had a forced conversion of all Jews and Muslims in spain as well between the crusades and the inquisition which is rather ironic as saving the Jews is one of the many excuses for the crusades, yet the crusades actually slaughtered many Jews as well.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Microlith]

"Fundamentalist" christianity is actually very peaceful.

Which is all well and good, except for the idiocy that goes along with it.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Moridineas]

Both of the people were mentally ill. Bibeau, the homeless Ottawa killer, had a history of violence, drug addiction, and mental instability, including 12 convictions in Quebec between 2001 and 2011 for crimes including drug possession, impaired driving, weapons offences, assault causing bodily harm, theft, and possession of break-in tools, which started long before he converted to islam.

Mentally ill by what standards? You (or others) didn't like the way he acted? I can find no evidence of any clinical diagnosis of any mental illness for Bibeau-Zehaf, though he was a convert (though his father was Muslim and Libyan). Your claim is that despite his Islamic family heritage, despite the fact that he had converted to Islam for "all the wrong reasons" over decade ago, and despite the fact that he had family members fighting for jihad abroad, he was was just misguided due to some previously non-diagnosed mental illness or possible drug use? That does not seem logical to me.

Rouleau, the Quebec killer, had been taken to a psychiatric hospital by his father, but they couldn't keep him when he said he wanted to leave. He had drug problems, had to be in a special school for kids with discipline problems when he was younger, his personal life had fallen apart, his business had failed and last year at 24 he turned to islam, looking for something to cling to where he wouldn't feel like an inadequate failure, and was attracted to the extremists on the net and in the media.

Your argument for Rouleau is perhaps more apt, since you avoid the unverifiable claims of mental illness, but you make a huge error. You assume that converting to a new faith due to some kind of adversity is "all the wrong reasons" and implies (or infers) metal illness! I think you are perhaps not very clear on how religions tend to start and spread. Founders, missionaries, and other zealots always target the margins of society. Look at who Jesus hung out with--the disaffected. Look at who Muhammad hung out with--those whose power was distinct from the dominant tribal structures (and look at how he targeted the weaker Jewish clans after several military setbacks). Look at Buddha and his life as an ascetic. Look St Francis. Look at how both Christianity and Islam spread in South Asia--starting from the dalits--the disaffected. Almost universally, the most powerful religious symbols, figures, and acts, involve those who are somehow disaffected. To trivialize this is a huge mistake.

That brings us to today. Despite what you might want to believe, Muslim belief in what we in the West would call "militant Islamism" is pretty darn popular and pretty widespread. There are many opinion polls covering Islamicate countries across the world that back this up. There is a strong militant missionary movement. Giving the religion/ideology a pass and writing off incident after incident as "merely" a lone wolf makes absolutely no sense.

Most people are able to make the distinction between a nutbar using a religion as a smokescreen to their using violence to escape their own failures or shortcomings, and the majority who peacefully practice that same religion. This applies equally to muslims, christians, atheists, or whatever your personal preference or poison.

I disagree with this incredibly strongly. Religion, ideology, and violence are so tightly intertwined they almost cannot be decoupled. Today, Islam clearly holds a siren's song appeal to some disaffected members of society. You give the religion/ideology a complete pass. Have you not considered that the religion/ideology places a major role in motivating these individuals to commit their heinous actions?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Moridineas]

As an areligious bastard, it seems to me that anybody who cares enough about religion to convert "isn't in his [or her!] right mind."

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

that is actually a pretty good description of Putin. He is deeply devoted to his country, which quite often means he will do shit that pisses everyone else off if he thinks it is in the best interests of his country. Putin is very straightforward with what he thinks (especially for a politician)

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Crusades are easy, that would be a response to 100 years of Muslim rape, slaughter, and forced conversion in Spain.

That's an odd thing to say, as the causes of the Crusades are well known.

What makes it an especially odd thing to say is that Christian Spain expelled or converted or murdered any Muslims, and expelled or converted (at sword point) Jews. Muslim Spain, immediately prior to that, let Jews and Christians practice their faith in peace, as long as they didn't do it in public.

The Christians just killed anybody who wasn't Christian.

Then there's the temple at Philae, the one remaining temple that practiced the Egyptian religion. They were minding their thing, worshipping Isis, and a bunch of peace-loving Christians came along and murdered them all then burned the temple, because it was an abomination before God.

These days, Christians kill doctors, judges, brown people, white people, pretty much anybody. They don't do much admitting of it because then people might realise they're not actually the religion of peace but a religion of liars and warmongers.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Parafilmus]

In retrospect, I should not have posted the "brick testament" link. It was needlessly snarky.

Here are a few passages about Moses' military exploits, without the snarky lego commentary.

The slaughter of women and children at Midean: http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=28...

The slaughter of women and children at Bashan: http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=28...

The slaughter of women and children at Heshbon: http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=28...

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

When visiting the Islamic museum in Istanbul I was struck by the vast number of weapons that had been owned by the prophet.

He was certainly well-armed, for the founder of the "religion of peace".

Re:Don't worry guys...

[pitchpipe]

... but at this stage we don't know that it's not some nut-job who is trying to capitalise on the ISIS popularity.

There's a difference?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[dryeo]

Are we going to consider every crackhead cracking to be a terrorist attack? Especially when they've been begging for help, even being thrown in jail.
Out of the terrorists I've actually met, most have been members of a Christian sect (mostly blew up train tracks, power lines, burnt stuff and took of their clothes) and Sikh (does blowing up a wedding because your daughter is marrying a christian count) including one of the accused in the Air India bombing.
Most of the victims of terrorism I've met have been terrorized by the government and church working together but being native it was considered acceptable to remove them from their families and terrorize them into being good Christians..

Re: Don't worry guys...

[MrKaos]

Learn? Learn? LEARN? Liberal fantasies about Western colonialism are flatly contradicted by the entire rest of history.

Liberalism was pointing to Islam for human rights abuses that you didn't care about many years before it was attached to any terrorism threat. The issue is how legislators react to it and clamp down on civil rights for all citizens that achieve the goals for the terrorists.

This narrative unfolds because of a black flag with arabic writing in white. Instead of being handled by the normal criminal codes and all the things we learned from the UK forces interacting with the IRA as 'some loony holding people hostage', all of the new terrorism protocols are activated and it becomes a global news event.

If you stop playing politics for a moment you will see that this is the obvious outcome of how we deal with these situations and how easy it is to manipulate our feeble politicians into pushing our democracies into a full police state.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and The Troubles, and the gunpowder plot.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Harlequin80]

So it is no different to Islam then.

The core Islamic faith does not promote violence. It is co-opted to do so. There are a load of sections of the bible which when taken out of context sound like they promote violence. The Koran is the same.

“When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace. If it agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you. However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike all the men in it with the edge of the sword. Only the women and the children and the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you. Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes” (Deuteronomy 20:10-17)

Taken out of context I could easily use this to show that the Christian god has told me to invade other cities and only leave them alive if they become my slaves. The biggest difference is that currently Christian dominated countries tend to make up the wealthier and more educated parts of the world (and this has nothing to do with Christianity it was just a fluke of history). People who are educated, comfortable and happy are less likely to want to kill other people. Simple proof is that no nation states that have a McDonalds have yet been to war with each other (and by that I mean a true war not supporting insurgents aka Ukraine).

If the people recruited into these organisations were happy, well fed, safe and educated we wouldn't be seeing this problem. But their infrastructure is destroyed, their life expectancy is low, their education is non-existent but they have access to arms and a finger pointed at the west that it is the wests fault that they are poor and miserable. Unfortunately in a lot of cases they have a good argument for that.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[gl4ss]

if the general plan to free "yourself from slavery" from the book is to pretty much utilize the same dogma as Ur Quan, then yeah, it sort of makes you a warlord if the preferred plan to deal with other tribes is to conquer them, kill them and put in slavery. actually the plan is even worse than the green ur quans plan of action, because according to the books(tm) you're not supposed to offer them the possibility of being a vassal/slave state.

Islam, as it spread wide originally, had provisions for slave tribes(who need pay tribute), turning the conquered into Islam(assimilating them) and such - you know, basic empire building provisions in the general plan. Judaism does not. this might explain why the other spread regionally fast and the other did not.

besides, historically speaking, who were they slaves to? I thought there was no evidence of them actually being in egypt to build the pyramids like claimed? and parting the seas and whatever.

so both Islam and Judaism are pretty much warlord religions.

anyhow, you should note that all religions can be used as tools for conquering, through terrorizing, war etc. even budhism. many of the budhist nations are strangely patriotic and militaristic and proud of their military prowess(even if it is mostly made up).

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Zontar The Mindless]

All religion is false religion. Doesn't alter what I said, though.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you do support terrorism?

When the victims are left-wing liberals? Sure.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[dgatwood]

Are you referring to Catholicism, which was founded by Constantine?

Constantine did not found the RCC. He just changed Roman law so that it would be legal. The RCC predates Constantine, and was solidly entrenched in Roman society by the time Constantine made it a legal religion. Constantine's change in Roman law wasn't proactive; it was reactive.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[cold fjord]

Might be referring to the numerous sting operations bordering on entrapment where the prime impetus for a group of would-be terrorists turns out to be an undercover federal agent encouraging them to cause trouble.

How much "encouragement" would it take to convince you to:
- Walk into a building with a suicide bomb vest and attempt to detonate it
- Park a van full of explosives at a public event and push the detonator in the middle of the ceremony

The stings offered them the opportunity to engage in terrorism, nothing more. They had the intent.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[BarbaraHudson]

Try this on for size (there's more).

All indications are that Martin Couture Rouleau, who rammed his vehicle into two Canadian soldiers on Monday, killing one, and Michael Zehaf Bibeau, who is alleged to have shot dead a soldier guarding the National War Memorial on Wednesday, each acted on their own. They were also reportedly recent converts to an extremist fringe of Islam, and suffered from chronic psychological problems.

---

Gijseghem suggested that such behaviour might even be schizophrenic in nature, but Lafleur disputed that idea.

"People suffering from schizophrenia are very disorganized and they act in totally unexpected ways, and in extremist groups they are rarely tolerated," Lafleur said.

Rather, he contended, such individuals probably suffer from either borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder (both of which can be characterized by impulsive, even psychotic behaviour), have grown isolated from their friends and families, and are suffering from an identity crisis.

When you write:

Today, Islam clearly holds a siren's song appeal to some disaffected members of society.

... you can switch Islam with anti-abortionists bombing clinics, the Branch Davidians at Waco, Timothy McVeigh against "the gubbermint" over Waco, Hindu Inderjit Singh Reyat bombing Air India flight 182, Protestants vs Catholics in Northern Ireland, and pretty much some members of any disaffected group will be attracted to violence. The recent violence in the US over police shooting blacks does not have its' roots in religion.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Moridineas]

Try this on for size [montrealgazette.com] (there's more).

It appears that at least some of the information in this article is factually incorrect and has been superseded--notably regarding Bibeau-Zihaf's conversion. Beyond that, you have some theorists who never met--and have no firsthand knowledge of--the two terrorists (viz. "This is my hypothesis, as I am not saying with certainty that these two young men were seized by this pathology, but the theory that emerges the most strongly is that these two young men — the both of them — were suffering from a severe lack of identify"). They're engaging in pure speculation that doesn't really change any of the facts.

... you can switch Islam with anti-abortionists bombing clinics, the Branch Davidians at Waco, Timothy McVeigh against "the gubbermint" over Waco, Hindu Inderjit Singh Reyat bombing Air India flight 182, Protestants vs Catholics in Northern Ireland, and pretty much some members of any disaffected group will be attracted to violence. The recent violence in the US over police shooting blacks does not have its' roots in religion.

This is the best thing you've written! You're absolutely correct. I wholeheartedly and without any reservations condemn violent anti-abortion activists and ideology. I condemn the Branch Davidians and their ideology. I condemn Timothy McVeigh and his ideology. And so on. Why do you find it so hard to condemn militant Islam and instead pretend that it is merely an aberration bought into by a few mentally unwell individuals?

It's an extremely easy cop out to explain away unpopular behavior as merely being the result of mental illness. Most of the time it's also incorrect.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Moridineas]

See the other discussion in this thread that I'm involved in. I see no evidence that either terrorist was ever diagnosed with a mental illness that would substantively change the facts. At least one was specifically cleared as competent. Merely being disaffected, unhappy, or down on your luck does not make you mentally ill. Likewise, neither does participating in unpopular behavior--in this case terrorism--necessitate mental illness.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Umayyad Al-Andalus was actually a golden age for the Iberian peninsula, certainly compared to the rest of Europe at the time where urban centers were in marked decline and literacy virtually absent, and particularly if you were Jewish. Also, there were Muslim states in the peninsula for 700, not 100, years.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Opportunist]

Just one question, do you slam Christianity, too, because some loonie fringe groups turn it into a tool of oppression?

Just asking, not that I'd want to defend any religions, far from it...

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Opportunist]

It's just a subset. Not every nutjob is with ISIS.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[ZeRu]

Also, I'm not sure how you give credit to Constantine for founding Christianity; I thought that honor went to Jesus, or perhaps Paul or even Peter.

But none of them was a warlord so it kinda ruins the message. Stop ruining the party for anti-theists, parent! You're supposed to correct them by quoting some silly shit from The Old Testament, not by mentioning something they just don't pretend to know!

Re: Don't worry guys...

[sonamchauhan]

Well I'm not, so speak on please ...

What false flag operations?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[dskoll]

That is precisely the danger of Islam. The vile aspects of it appeal to the mentally ill and unstable and turn them into jihadis.

I'm not sure if BarbaraHudson is herself "t" in LGBTt, but perhaps she should study Islamic response to homosexuality and transgenderism before defending Islam.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[dskoll]

the majority who peacefully practice that same religion

You cannot peacefully practice Islam. It is simply not possible. Islam divides the world into Muslims (dar al Islam) and non-Muslims (dar al harb, literally house of war) and Muslims are commanded to convert non-Muslims by force. This is a fundamental tenet of Islam.

Those millions of peacful Muslims we all hear about are simply choosing to ignore or rationalize away the parts of Islam they choose not to practice.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[dskoll]

Bush was spinning; it was all PR to avoid fanning the flames. But he was wrong. Islam is not peace; it is war by definition, since Muslims are commanded to convert non-Muslims by force.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Falconhell]

Yeh, I remember the history of one particularly nasty lot, genocide, rape, killing every last woman and child etc. it's called the bible.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite. Quitting Christianity isn't a crime. If you try to leave Islam it's a crime punishable by death in most muslim countries - read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam#Civil_liabilities.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[khallow]

The stings offered them the opportunity to engage in terrorism, nothing more. They had the intent.

You still have yet to ask why is it the job of law enforcement to offer the opportunity to engage in terrorism?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

The christian church existed, but it was not catholic. Catholic means unified, which is what Constantine did. He unified all the different Roman religions and placed them all under the one umbrella which from then on was called the catholic church. The words Holy roman Catholic Church literally means Complete Roman Unified Church.

The word church or kirk, or kerk, goes back to the Greek wizard Circ who lived on an island and who had an impressive house. You can read about her in Homer's Illead and Odyssy.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Christianity started out violent but eventually mellowed out for the most part. Islam is just several ticks behind the times.

Excuse me? Do you really mean that? Seriously?!? Christianity started out with a jewish rabbi who got nailed to a cross. Are you suggesting that he started a violent movement that needed "mellowing"? That strikes me as crossing well over the line of victim blaming.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[ArmoredDragon]

A false flag would be something completely made up. In this case there was actual mal-intent but nothing of the criminal sort.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of the terrorists I've actually met, [...]

Just out of curiosity, exactly how many terrorists have you met? Have you reported any of this to the police? Just asking.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why so much anger, dude?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[ArmoredDragon]

You still have yet to ask why is it the job of law enforcement to offer the opportunity to engage in terrorism?

Because it's also their responsibility to be proactive in addition to being reactive, much the same as any other sting operation. What you're suggesting is tantamount to saying that law enforcement should never be allowed to place bait cars to catch car thieves. Much the same with bait cars, they never told the thief to go attempt to steal it, rather they simply placed the car there, hence providing the opportunity.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[LynnwoodRooster]

You got the founder of Islam right, but Judaism is considered as founded by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...">Abraham who precedes Moses by multiple centuries. And Christianity was founded by this guy named Jesus, called "the Christ". He predated Constantine by about 300 years or so... Abraham and Jesus were most assuredly NOT warlords.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[dunkelfalke]

Bullshit. The pope has started crusades on the (christian) Czechs for five bloody times.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[dunkelfalke]

Crusades are easy, that would be a response to 100 years of Muslim rape, slaughter, and forced conversion in Spain.

Eh, never knew that Novgorod was muslim and in Spain. Or Prague, for that matter. Maybe Latvia? No?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[jklovanc]

Because these people with the intent to do terrorism might find someone who will supply them with actual bombs. It is much the same way people are caught hiring hit men when the hit man is actually a police officer.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[thegarbz]

A bunch of people who think their religion wants them to be perfectly nice and peaceful

People who haven't read the Koran. We'll call them Diet Islamic, or Islamic Zero.

and a bunch of others who think it demands they cleanse the Earth of non-believers.

People who have read the Koran.

What people do in the name of their God, and what their God commands them to do are two fundamentally different things. Most religions do horrendous things in the name of their God, most of which goes against the word of that God as written. Quite the opposite for Islam.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[thegarbz]

Bush has never uttered a coherent and correct thought during his entire presidency, why do you assume he's right in this case?

By the way he's not. He speaks in his usual ignorance knowing nothing about the topic and I guarantee he's read the Bible back to back but hasn't even read one page of the Koran. If he had he may find over 100 pages where their God literally orders their disciples to war against non-believers.

Personally I like this one the best, but I don't understand why you would cut off infidels fingers after beheading rather than before:

Quran (8:12) - "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them"

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Richard_at_work]

Wow, that's quite a rewrite of history you have there...

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Richard_at_work]

Does that mean we can describe the Muslim invasions as a backlash against the prior Roman occupations?

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Begemot]

If you don't live in the Middle East and do not depend on supply of rotten dinosaurs in barrels, then it's not so much of a problem for you

Corrected it for you.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

the majority who peacefully practice that same religion

You cannot peacefully practice Islam. It is simply not possible. Islam divides the world into Muslims (dar al Islam) and non-Muslims (dar al harb, literally house of war) and Muslims are commanded to convert non-Muslims by force. This is a fundamental tenet of Islam.

Those millions of peacful Muslims we all hear about are simply choosing to ignore or rationalize away the parts of Islam they choose not to practice.

This is a "no true Scotchman" fallacy like no other I've seen. Who's to say the fundamental tenets of "the True Islam" are not what the peaceful majority of followers understand as the meaning of their sacred texts?

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

If ISIS took over the world tomorrow the right would fall in line right behind them. Same goals (fascism) different religion.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[khallow]

And what happens when, not if, actually crime happens because of law enforcement involvement or because the sting contributed in some significant way to the crime? We already have an example of the latter with the "Fast and Furious" operation by the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) contributing just over a couple thousand firearms (they assisted in getting those firearms smuggled over the US border to Mexico untraced and with who knows what else included in the package) to the Cartel wars in Mexico. Those firearms then showed up in numerous murder scenes (over 200 deaths by 2011, as I recall), including the death of a US border agent. The end result was that after two years, some minor characters in the smuggling operation were arrested, but not any important figures in a cartel.

The main problem here is that without the agency of the uncover agent, the crime might not have happened in the first place. But even when we know crime happens, the sting can actually make it worse in various ways (such as creating an easy, predictable route by which to commit additional crimes or enabling criminals to do worse than they could before).

Re: Don't worry guys...

[DigiShaman]

Pakistan has the nuke (with a tenuous pro-western political regime and an anti-western Islamic population). Iran is in the midst of creating one. With regards to Iran, how much of their effort is religious zealotry? How much of it is pure political brinkmanship under the auspicious of Islam?

Sleep tight.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[TropicalCoder]

Taken out of context I could easily use this to show that the Christian god has told me to invade other cities and only leave them alive if they become my slaves

Umm - no. Your quote is from the Old Testament. That is not about Christianity. Christianity is based on one thing - the teachings of Christ. He was a radical who's fundamental message was Love.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[khallow]

I think you should get your facts right Muhammad [wikipedia.org] was not a warlord in fact he was a merchant until he became a religious leader at age 26.

Exactly. He became the religious leader first, then the warlord, not the other way around.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[TropicalCoder]

I disagree with this incredibly strongly. Religion, ideology, and violence are so tightly intertwined they almost cannot be decoupled. Today, Islam clearly holds a siren's song appeal to some disaffected members of society. You give the religion/ideology a complete pass. Have you not considered that the religion/ideology places a major role in motivating these individuals to commit their heinous actions?

Let's take a poll here... Select from...

1.) I strongly agree

2.) I somewhat agree

3.) I neither agree nor disagree

4.) I strongly disagree

5.) I disagree incredibly strongly.

Sorry - couldn't resist having a little fun with your expression. As to your argument, I might suggest that these wackos would have fallen for any number wacko world views or philosophies, but in these instances happened to have found the Muslim religion close at hand. However, saying that is not to deny that "Islam clearly holds a siren's song appeal to some disaffected members of society". I am compelled to agree with you.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[BarbaraHudson]

I have no problem condemning extremists who resort to violence. That includes muslims, christians, and political extremists.

What does that have to do with the vast majority of muslims, who are not extremists?

You probably don't have any muslim friends. As an atheist, I treat all religions identically, which makes it easier to have friends of different religions, including christians, jews, and muslims. But I treat the individuals as individuals, not as stereotypes.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[CanHasDIY]

I'm skeptical of the peaceful nature of a religion founded by a warlord;

So, then, would you consider it fair to be skeptical of the honesty of Australians, considering the nation was founded by criminals? Or are we promoting double standards today?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Much the same with bait cars

Bait cars aren't even close. This is more like parking the car in front of the guy, filling it up with gas, handing the keys to him and asking him to drive it to your buddy who owns a chop-shop.

> Because it's also their responsibility to be proactive in addition to being reactive, much the same as any other sting operation.

Even more than that, it is their responsibility to do competent risk evaluation. So far their evaluation of the risks has been piss-poor. The guys they lure into their schemes completely lack the means on their own - not just the physical resources but the ability to plan and execute. Catch some people who actually pose a risk and then we can talk.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[TropicalCoder]

That is precisely the danger of Islam. The vile aspects of it appeal to the mentally ill and unstable and turn them into jihadis.

I would suggest that the number of jihadis who are mentally ill and unstable is no greater than what could be expected statistically within any group. I suspect the vast majority jihadis were raised up in a Madras type of upbringing, whether they were actually sent to a Madras when they were young or simply taught to hate from an early age.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[TropicalCoder]

Unless and until they make demands, and especially political demands, they aren't "terrorists".

From Google: "terrorist" - a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims.

Slightly different than "making demands". Perhaps merely making a political statement would fit the definition. In the specific instances, it is not clear there were making a political statement. I'm not sure they actually said anything, so you may well be right that they weren't terrorists. Good point.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[BarbaraHudson]

I'm not sure if BarbaraHudson is herself "t" in LGBTt, but perhaps she should study Islamic response to homosexuality and transgenderism before defending Islam.

In 1983 Ayatolla Khomeini issued a fatwa declaring that transsexuals should be allowed to get surgery, live as their target gender, have their legal documents updated, and be allowed to marry as their new sex. Iran is now, depending on statistics, either #1 or #2 for sex change surgery in the world.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for other members of the LGBT.

BTW, I do not "defend Islam," or any religion. I'm an atheist. What I *will* defend is that most muslims are not extremists, any more than, say, most christians are not extremists, and people should get to know a few of them before casting rocks. Most muslims see the extremists as perverting Islam.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

My interpretation is that Islam is just like any other religion. A bunch of people who think their religion wants them to be perfectly nice and peaceful, and a bunch of others who think it demands they cleanse the Earth of non-believers.

It is worth mentioning the cultural revolution in china and the khmer rouge in cambodia. Both "non-religious" idealogies that were used as excuses to slaughter a significant portion of the population in each country. Humans don't need religion to murder, they just need extremism in any form.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

He reminds me of Dick Cheney. Seriously. Both utterly confident that they know what's best for their own countries, and willing to do anything they think is necessary and anyone who disagrees is a weak-willied hater.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
The bible is just as full of similar shit.

If your understanding of a religion is limited to quotes that someone else pulled for you, then you don't understand the religion at all.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Dragonslicer]

Of course, this story also claims the Red Sea was parted somehow so they could walk across, so it's highly questionable just how accurate this story is....

Nope, it doesn't make that claim. Somehow "Sea of Reeds" got turned into "Red Sea". If I remember correctly (I'd have to double-check the names on a map), the Israelites weren't even near the Red Sea at the time.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[BarbaraHudson]

the majority who peacefully practice that same religion

You cannot peacefully practice Islam. It is simply not possible. Islam divides the world into Muslims (dar al Islam) and non-Muslims (dar al harb, literally house of war) and Muslims are commanded to convert non-Muslims by force. This is a fundamental tenet of Islam.

And what about all those witch-burnings and forced conversions to "save your soul" even if it killed you? And the Crusades? Christianity has a long history of violence against non-christians.

Those millions of peacful Muslims we all hear about are simply choosing to ignore or rationalize away the parts of Islam they choose not to practice.

And how is that any different from the majority of christians who use birth control? And those christians who don't condemn those of other faiths. And those who are members of the LGBT or openly welcome them?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[tburkhol]

No, a false flag would be the intelligence agency itself going out and bombing a train or hijacking an airplane while masquerading as Islamic terrorists. ie: committing atrocities while waving a false flag. Intelligence agents badgering an otherwise unwilling suspect into meeting with someone selling a "bomb" is entrapment.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Moridineas]

You probably don't have any muslim friends. As an atheist, I treat all religions identically, which makes it easier to have friends of different religions, including christians, jews, and muslims. But I treat the individuals as individuals, not as stereotypes.

This is the same canard you've been relying on since the beginning of the thread! You're again playing armchair psychiatrist (I've tried before--it's awfully difficult to diagnose people through Slashdot comments) and you seem to believe that since I disagree with you, it must not be an honest difference of opinion, but rather due to some deficiency in my character and experience. You don't need to make any excuses for me and my beliefs--I'm comfortable with myself!

For what it's worth, my undergraduate degree was in history with a focus on Islamic history. I speak Turkish, limited Persian (Farsi), and my Arabic has decayed to a point where I can just say I have a basic reading knowledge of the language. I also have a Master's degree in Middle Eastern studies. My primary areas of research were in the development of fiqh (Arabic for jurisprudence) in the 15th and 16th century Ottoman empire, and the interaction between colonial powers and Islamic nations/empires (again, primarily the Ottoman Empire) before 1900. I have many Muslim friends--some agree with me, some do not. I have--and would again--argue harder than anybody else that there is nothing inherent or unique in Islam that breeds violence and terrorism. Here's a bit of neat trivia--without googling, do you know where the modern concept of terrorism originated?

Despite all this, I will condemn militant Islamism completely and without reservation. Why won't you?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Moridineas]

Sorry - couldn't resist having a little fun with your expression.

:-)

s to your argument, I might suggest that these wackos would have fallen for any number wacko world views or philosophies, but in these instances happened to have found the Muslim religion close at hand.

You said it better than I have. Humans by and by are a susceptible lot. That doesn't mean that militant Islamism should get a free pass!

Re:Don't worry guys...

[BarbaraHudson]

Despite all this, I will condemn militant Islamism completely and without reservation. Why won't you?

What part of "I have no problem condemning extremists who resort to violence. That includes muslims, christians, and political extremists. " don't you understand?

Troll away, but you just look stupider with each post.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Culture20]

Christianity started out violent but eventually mellowed out for the most part. Islam is just several ticks behind the times.

Excuse me? Do you really mean that? Seriously?!? Christianity started out with a jewish rabbi who got nailed to a cross. Are you suggesting that he started a violent movement that needed "mellowing"? That strikes me as crossing well over the line of victim blaming.

There was that one time that Peter cut the High Priest's slave's ear off, and Jesus was all like "Peter, chill bro!" Although Christianity didn't start until after that.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Moridineas]

What part of "I have no problem condemning extremists who resort to violence. That includes muslims, christians, and political extremists. " don't you understand?

There's a huge difference. You might condemn individuals (who you also excuse by nature of their "mental illness"--thus the genesis of this conversation), but you seem to be very consciously avoiding condemning the IDEOLOGY. That's what I'm curious about--how hard is it to say "I condemn militant Islamism"?

Troll away, but you just look stupider with each post.

Come on, this conversation has been perfectly cordial, there's no need to resort to that kind of nonsense.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Moridineas]

Here's a bit of neat trivia--without googling, do you know where the modern concept of terrorism originated?

Just since you didn't reply to this part of my post, but I thought it was interesting, the culprit behind the creation of modern terrorism--

Russians.

In all seriousness, Russian nihilist revolutionaries really developed the concepts behind modern terrorism. They wanted to bring about revolution by any means necessary, including spectacular assassinations and usage of explosives. They employed tactics like walking into a room full of people, walking right up to the target, putting a gun to the target's head and shooting point blank. They wanted their enemies to know that they could never be safe. Like Horatio and Lars Porsena--if you know your enemies will do literally anything to kill (including burning off a limb!) you, your decision making process is necessarily altered!

You can see how these tactics have echoed down over the last 150 years--does the method of assassination of Archduke Ferdinand show any similarities with this?

These tactics today have almost entirely been adopted by militant Islamists around the world.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Simple proof is that no nation states that have a McDonalds have yet been to war with each other (and by that I mean a true war not supporting insurgents aka Ukraine).

Not true, there was the conflict between Russian and Georgia as well as the Israel and Lebanon conflict in 2006 all of whom had McDonalds at the time of fighting. Also in doing some digging it appears that there was the NATO bombing of Serbia (sure seems like war) that happened shortly after the book with that statement was published.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[s.petry]

No, a "False Flag" does not mean completely fabricated (made up). False Flags relate to the Hegalian Dialectic, problem reaction solution. The problem does not have to be fabricated, and in fact these events work better when they are not. Stand down police to allow something to occur, then capitalize on the aftermath. In nearly all of the high profile FBI busts in the US in the last decade, the FBI acted as facilitators to recruit "terrorists", provided plans and direction for bombings, and even the fake bombs. They did not do the dirty work themselves, it would be too easy to trace. The term "patsy" should suffice for the normal.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[s.petry]

Wrong, see the comment above. Read and understand Hegal before trying to correct people.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

As if you're better! Have you actually READ Deuteronomy? That was one city destroyed after another because they wouldn't convert. And that was Muslims either!

Re:Don't worry guys...

[BarbaraHudson]

As an atheist, all religions have no basis. However, as long as the people following a religion behave civilly, where's the beef? And my blanket statement, that I condemn extremists who resort to violence, including muslims, christians, and political extremists, obviously includes condemning militant Islamism. Same as condemning militant christianity, etc. Your purposefully and continuously ignoring the obvious is trolling.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

military expedition by Roman Catholic Europe to regain the Holy Lands

launched on 27 November 1095 by Pope Urban II

Urban sprawl is not new, I guess.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[BarbaraHudson]

I ignored it because it's a distraction from your principal point - that you are trying to claim that because I condemn all violent extremists of any religious or political stripe, I'm somehow not willing to condemn Islam. Once again, what I wrote:

I have no problem condemning extremists who resort to violence. That includes muslims, christians, and political extremists.

is inclusive, not exclusive. Go troll elsewhere.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Moridineas]

As an atheist, all religions have no basis. However, as long as the people following a religion behave civilly, where's the beef? And my blanket statement, that I condemn extremists who resort to violence, including muslims, christians, and political extremists, obviously includes condemning militant Islamism. Same as condemning militant christianity, etc.

No, there is a very large difference between condemning an individual (and that individual's actions) and condemning an ideology. Condemning an individual is not condemning the whole. Believe me, your perspective here is not unique to me. Over the years, I've discussed similar issues (most frequently the topic comes up with Palestine) with many people who say they condemn suicide bombers, killing of innocents, etc.--and rightfully so!--but who just can't quite bring themselves to condemn the organization/ideology behind it all. As I said earlier, it's stupid to try to be an armchair psychiatrist on Slashdot, and I have no particular interest in trying. I don't know what you believe, I can only read what you write.

Your purposefully and continuously ignoring the obvious is trolling.

I'm of the general opinion that calling an ideological opponent a troll is a cheap and easy cop out. Seems that way to me now. If you're not interested in discussing the topic in a respectful way, you can just stop replying. I don't really know that much is left unsaid at this point.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Moridineas]

is inclusive, not exclusive. Go troll elsewhere.

That's just the problem, though, it's really not inclusive. Ideologies and their adherents are not simple structures. Just to be clear--I'm not asking for your opinion of the following, just take it as an example--Hamas. Hamas builds hospitals. Hamas provides social services in many areas where there are no other social services. Hamas also targets civilians and kills children with suicide bombings. I have talked to many people who will condemn at least some of the suicide attacks on civilians, but refuse to condemn Hamas. The part is not the whole. Even if one was to say "I condemn the violent extremists in Hamas" you give the ideology and the belief a free pass. You ignore the elders who incite and rabble rouse while eschewing violence themselves--they act through proxies. You know the trite quote about evil triumphing when good people do nothing? Well, a lot of good people are willing to ignore an awful lot.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[bugs2squash]

I would definitely characterize Eric Rudolf as a christian religious bigot. From wikipedia...

Rudolph has made it clear in his written statement and elsewhere that the purpose of the bombings was to fight against abortion and the "homosexual agenda". He considered abortion to be murder, the product of a "rotten feast of materialism and self-indulgence"; accordingly, he believed that its perpetrators deserved death, and that the United States government had lost its legitimacy by sanctioning it. He also considered it essential to resist by force "the concerted effort to legitimize the practice of homosexuality" in order to protect "the integrity of American society" and "the very existence of our culture", whose foundation is the "family hearth".[6] After Rudolph's arrest for the bombings, The Washington Post reported that the FBI considered Rudolph to have "had a long association with the Christian Identity movement, which asserts that Northern European whites are the direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, God's chosen people."[24] Christian Identity is a white nationalist sect that holds that those who are not white Christians can not be saved.[25] In the same article, the Post reported that some FBI investigators believed Rudolph may have written letters that claimed responsibility for the nightclub and abortion clinic bombings on behalf of the Army of God, a group that sanctions the use of force to combat abortions and is associated with Christian Identity.[26] In a statement released after he entered a guilty plea, Rudolph denied being a supporter of the Christian Identity movement, claiming that his involvement amounted to a brief association with the daughter of a Christian Identity adherent, later identified as Pastor Daniel Gayman. When asked about his religion he said, "I was born a Catholic, and with forgiveness I hope to die one."[27][28] In other written statements, Rudolph has cited biblical passages and offered religious motives for his militant opposition to abortion.[6] Some books and media outlets have portrayed Rudolph as a "Christian Identity extremist"; Harper's Magazine referred to him as a "Christian terrorist."[29] The NPR radio program On Point referred to him as a "Christian Identity extremist."[30] The Voice of America reported that Rudolph could be seen as part of an "attempt to try to use a Christian faith to try to forge a kind of racial and social purity."[31] Writing in 2004, authors Michael Shermer and Dennis McFarland saw Rudolph's story as an example of "religious extremism in America," warning that the phenomenon he represented was "particularly potent when gathered together under the umbrella of militia groups,"[32] whom they believe to have protected Rudolph while he was a fugitive. In a letter to his mother from prison, Rudolph has written, "Many good people continue to send me money and books. Most of them have, of course, an agenda; mostly born-again Christians looking to save my soul. I suppose the assumption is made that because I'm in here I must be a 'sinner' in need of salvation, and they would be glad to sell me a ticket to heaven, hawking this salvation like peanuts at a ballgame. I do appreciate their charity, but I could really do without the condescension. They have been so nice I would hate to break it to them that I really prefer Nietzsche to the Bible."[33]

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Dog-Cow]

Obviously you didn't read it either.

Jews have never fought wars to convert a populace. All the wars in Deuteronomy are over revenge or simply territory. Such was life in the ANE. The ancient Jews were nomads who wanted to settle. Whether an escape from Egypt ever happened or not is irrelevant.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Zontar The Mindless]

I think causing harm to others who are doing you none is a definite sign of mental illness.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post has convinced me that all muslim converts are mentally ill. Success!

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason that fresh converts are more zealous is that religion isn't really about the surface truth.

Eventually an adherent realizes it's more like Santa Clause, than Satan Clause. So they learn to fake it. Fresh adherents don't know this.

- worm paroxysm

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

some nut-job who is trying to capitalise on the ISIS popularity

WTF does Archer's employer have to do with terrorism?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that to the victims of the Albigensian Crusade. The Cathars were a pacifist religious group who believed in peaceful coexistence, and yet the Catholic Church declared their beliefs heretical and launched a Holy War killing an estimated 1 million people.

Tell it to the victims of the Northern Crusades where the Catholic church launched a vicious campaign to conquer and subjugate the native people of northern Europe.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[unixisc]

Only problem - yours is what is a tu-quoque argument that attempts to change the subject when the subject is Muslims. A Muslim gunman takes hostages in Sydney, and you climb on to a soapbox condemning Muslims AND Christians/Jews/Buddhists/Zoroastrians/Conficians/Hindus/Taoists/Sikhs/Pagans

How about only condemning the offending group in this case - Muslims? Since we don't currently have Christian or Taoist terrorists on the loose, without going back to the Crusades.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[DigiShaman]

I don't like it, but there are certain fundamental truths of life; one of them being that "the world is governed by the aggressive use of force". Always has been. Always will be.

What side are you on?? Oh yes...there are sides. There are always sides. If you don't pick one, one will be chosen for you. Yeah, another undeniable truth of life.

Again. I'm not telling you what you want to know. I'm telling you what you NEED to know.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Harlequin80]

So why is Leviticus used as the reason homosexuals are bad?

While I agree with you that the New Testament is much nicer than the Old they seem to be taken as a combined "Word of God" and lots of groups pull sections they want for the goal they want.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[porjo]

Islam(muhammad), Judaism(moses), or Christianity(constantine)?

No, in fact the founders of those religions were: Muhammad, Abraham and Jesus respectively.

Judaism existed prior to Moses. Christianity as an organised religion existed prior to Constantine (albeit under other names). Islam did *not* exist prior to Muhammad. Abraham and Jesus can not accurately be describe as warlords. Please get your facts right.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Harlequin80]

Given I have a large number of friends who are Iranian (there are a lot of Iranian migrants in Australia) I would say that it is the actions of a smaller nation that is being pressured by a much larger one. Iran is one of the few reasons ISIS has failed to over-run Syria and hence a larger section of the middle-east.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[DigiShaman]

I agree with that assessment; Sunni vs Shia and all that. In the end, doesn't really matter? They're only at each others throat insomuch as vying (ostensibly) for world domination via Islamic caliphate. The best thing that could happen is that Iran dominates the Islamic community. This would theoretically contain the Islamic threat to a specific region of the world vs the global Sunni. Shia believe in following the line of Ali (Muhammad's son-in-law), so that leaves them more philosophically vulnerable whereas Sunni believe in predestination. I mean, if you believe that God already knows the outcome and that Islam isn't going anywhere, you really have nothing to fear.

I'm not taking sides, but as a Christian, as least there's a point of convergence with Shia (and Judaism) that could finally put all this BS behind us. May take another thousand year or so...but...

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hope only the terrorists [sic] and [hostages whose political views are different to mine] are killed in this affair.

Well you got dead hostages, and with a bit of luck (and given the popularity of the current conservative govt in Australia that's a better than even bet) they are the dead hostages you were hoping for. You must be pleased.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Harlequin80]

I would also add to this that people in power are nothing if not pragmatic. Iran is working hard at modernising its economy and increasing the standard of living of its people. Unfortunately for it it ended up on the wrong side of an argument with the US. The US then went on to support its bitterest rival in the form of Iraq for a long time and, then when that went bad, the two Iraq invasions destabilised the region.

If I was running Iran I would want as modern a military as I could manage and I would want to have as advanced an economy as possible.

The problem with nukes in Iran is not so much whether they are pursuing building a bomb or not. It is more about the fact that they want complete internal power security. Iran has no coal but lots of oil, it makes sense to build nuclear power stations to free up more oil for export. The problem with the deals being offered to Iran so far have been that they cannot have a full internal nuclear fuel cycle. It has always been that someone would supply them with the fuel and given Iran has seen the winds of support and geo-politics change dramatically in their region can you blame them for saying no thanks

It wasn't that long ago that Saddam was the poster child of the West. Even more recently Assad. Both of those two did some dodgy things but their western support disappeared overnight and there is no way you would build your economy around something that could be taken away on a whim.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Capsaicin]

Judaism is considered as founded byAbraham who precedes Moses by multiple centuries.

You can argue that either way. Your link is too garbled to discuss your source, but if it's the wikipedia article on Judasism that reads "Abraham is hailed as the first Hebrew and the father of the Jewish people ..." Whereas "God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai" for which reason it is Moses that is usually considered the legendary "founder" of Judaism.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[BarbaraHudson]

How about only condemning the offending group in this case - Muslims? Since we don't currently have Christian or Taoist terrorists on the loose, without going back to the Crusades.

Really? Since the crusades, we haven't had Christians killing abortion doctors or bombing abortion clinics. Waco never happened? Every Sunday some pulpit somewhere preaching about how wrong it is to be LGBT, and that the Bible teaches that these people deserve to die, but that's not preaching hate?

People who want to limit the subject to just Muslim extremists don't want the inconvenient truth - that their belief system is equally flawed, and continues to produce extremists. The KKK is a good case in point - they use the Bible to justify their hate.

A list of just some of the contemporary incidents of non-muslim violence in the USA from 1984 to 2012, mostly committed by christians and/or white supremists:

Frank Silva Roque. Four days after 9/11, murdered Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh immigrant from India who owned a gas station in Mesa, Arizona. Roque, a racist, mistook him for a Muslim.

On Aug. 5, 2012, white supremacist Wade Michael Page used a semiautomatic weapon to murder six people during an attack on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Page’s connection to the white supremacist movement was well-documented (do you consider white supremists who kill as "non-terrorists")

On May 31, 2009, Dr. George Tiller, who was shot and killed by anti-abortion terrorist Scott Roeder , was a victim of Christian Right terrorism.

On July 27, 2008, Christian Right sympathizer Jim David Adkisson walked into the Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee during a children’s play and began shooting people at random. Two were killed, while seven others were injured but survived. Adkisson said he was motivated by a hatred of liberals, Democrats and gays.

July 29, 1994. The murder of Dr. John Britton. One Christian Right terrorist with ties to the Army of God was Paul Jennings Hill, who was executed by lethal injection on Sept. 3, 2003 for the murders of abortion doctor John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett. Hill shot both of them in cold blood and expressed no remorse whatsoever; he insisted he was doing’s God’s work and has been exalted as a martyr by the Army of God.

Eric Rudolph, who is serving life without parole for a long list of terrorist attacks committed in the name of Christianity. Rudolph is best known for carrying out the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics—a blast that killed spectator Alice Hawthorne and wounded 111 others. His bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama in 1998 caused the death of Robert Sanderson (a Birmingham police officer and part-time security guard) and caused nurse Emily Lyons to lose an eye, and bombing the Otherwise Lounge (a lesbian bar in Atlanta) in 1997 and an abortion clinic in an Atlanta suburb in 1997.

Oct. 23, 1998 Charles Kopp fired a single shot into the Amherst, NY home of Barnett Slepian (a doctor who performed abortions), mortally wounding him. Slepian died an hour later.

1994, John C. Salvi attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts, shooting and killing receptionists Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols and wounding several others.

Feb. 18, 2010,Joseph Stack flew a plane into the Echelon office complex (where an IRS office was located), killing IRS employee Vernon Hunter.

June 18, 1984, Alan Berg killed with an automatic, Berg, a liberal Denver-based talk show host, was a critic of white supremacists. Members The Order (a white supremist group) members David Lane (a former Ku Klux Klan member who had also been active in the Aryan Nations) and Bruce Pierce were both convicted in federal court on charges of racketeering, conspiracy and violating Berg’s civil rights and given what amounted to life sentences.

April 19, 1995. Timothy McVeigh an

Re: Don't worry guys...

[TropicalCoder]

Again you confuse Christianity with the Old Testament. The Book of Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew Bible, and the third of five books of the Torah (or Pentateuch). It has nothing to do with Christianity. If lots of groups pull sections from the Old Testament for the goal they want, for evil ends, they are not Christians. Christians believe in Love Thy Neighbour and Do Unto Others, etc. If you have a problem with that kind of philosophy, then you have a problem. Please don't equate Christianity with Islam. It is a radical new philosophy that parts with the older philosophies. How could anybody not have respect for his teachings? He was a humble man who taught about love. He wouldn't have hurt a flee. Now I don't buy into miracles and sky daddies and all that paraphernalia, and I am not religiously trained. I am an ordinary person with no religious affiliation. But when I read what he said, I have no choice but to respect what he said. It is that simple.

btw: I am not a Christian, but I have the greatest respect for the teachings of Jesus. I also respect Mahatma Gandhi and the Deli Lama, among many others. That doesn't mean I am a Hindu or a Buddhist either.

For sure there are a lot of Bible thumping assholes out there, but that is a statement about what kind of person they are, not what kind of person Christ was.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Capsaicin]

Judaism existed prior to Moses.

Balderdash. Judaism proper didn't yet exist in the days of David or Solomon. Prior to the days of Moses, yhvh was likely unknown to the Hebrew people.

During the monarchy there was worship of yhvh, and of Elohim (aka El Shadday ... El *) (possibly even the notion central to Judaism that the two were identical) and clearly also other deities. Judaism, as we would understand it, needed to to wait till after the composition of the Torah, which didn't really coalesce until exilic/post-exilic times.

Abraham and Jesus can not accurately be describe as warlords.

Jesus certainly not. As far as Abram/Abraham is concerned, he is clearly described as a warlord in Gen 14.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[porjo]

Judaism proper didn't yet exist in the days of David or Solomon

To think that is to misunderstand what Judaism is all about. Have a read of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

he is clearly described as a warlord

You're trolling now, right? Abraham was provoked into intervening in someone else's war, in order to rescue his cousin...and that makes him a warlord?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Capsaicin]

To think that is to misunderstand what Judaism is all about.

Solomon at least (and most likely David too) was (were) clearly polytheistic. Judaism, as opposed to ancient Hebrew religion, requires monotheism and it requires the Torah, which did not exist at that time.

You're trolling now, right? Abraham was provoked into intervening in someone else's war, in order to rescue his cousin...and that makes him a warlord?

No trolling no, I'm quite serious about biblical scholarship.

Abram is said to have "called out the 318 trained men born in his household." That makes him a warlord. Elsewhere the figure of Abram/Abraham that emerges from the text appears at times like a defenceless refugee, however, in Gen 14 he is explicitly described as a warlord (i.e. having a retinue of trained men).

Re: Don't worry guys...

[EuclideanSilence]

So why is Leviticus used as the reason homosexuals are bad?

The reason Leviticus is used as an excuse to persecute homosexuals is because people are inherently uncomfortable with sexual concepts, and being homosexual is the current taboo. The bible repeatedly makes it clear that any whitelist/blacklist of rights/wrongs (slashdot should understand those words) is not the intent of the laws or any acceptable standard of behavior. Unfortunately, this doesn't prevent people from saying "hah! look there! that's not ok!" or "well nothing says I'm not allowed to do this..." as if somehow the authors of the books were trying to present some kind of uncaring legalistic code of conduct. For example:

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

You can go your whole life without killing someone, and still be guilty of murder according to biblical philosophy. Basically, anyone who tries to use the bible as a way to slander homosexuals is only airing their own prejudices and has misunderstood the entire biblical presentation of what makes a person decent, which is your intentions and caring (not as easy a standard as you might think though), but nothing like "do X and you'll be a good/bad person".

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Far, far too few.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[jrumney]

This incident is classified as a terrorist act however even the top Muslim Cleric in Australia has condemned this

I'm not sure what the word however is doing in that sentence. Doesn't the top Muslim Cleric in Australia consistently condemn every terror attack performed in the false name of his religion, like top Muslim Clerics all around the world?

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to say it, but you make a very valid, often ignored point. you can't liberals to even look at people lower than them in their own society as human beings, but reactionaries of all stripes see them as prime recruitment material.

captcha: re-insert.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, every single thing you said is ridiculously easy to disprove. The cognitive dissonance has always been strong in cold fjord.

Just a reminder, there are right wing Christian neo-nazi groups in the US actively attacking and killing Muslims. They definitely outnumber the number of Muslim groups in the US actively attacking and killing Christians. Do just a little bit of googling, and enlighten yourself. Yes, Fox News will tell you it's all untrue and to not listen to the evidence, but to deny easily ascertainable facts because they don't fit your worldview will keep you a very small person.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[dgatwood]

The First Ecumenical Council was not about uniting the RCC. It was about reducing divisions between the Apostolic Sees—Rome (the RCC), Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Except for the Roman Catholic Church, the others on that list are Orthodox churches, which are autocephalous, and thus have their own popes that are separate and distinct from the Catholic pope. More to the point, although they were part of the Roman Empire at the time, they were not part of the Roman Catholic Church, and to the best of my knowledge, with the exception of one branch of the Church of Alexandria that joined the RCC in 1442 (a thousand years after Constantine), none of those other churches have joined with the RCC in the nearly two thousand years since.

More to the point, out of the two or three hundred bishops at that council, as I understand it, only about five were from the Latin rite (Roman Catholic) Church. That council had a far more significant impact on the Orthodox churches than the RCC. Its main achievement was disavowing the teachings of Arius (from the Alexandria Church, not the RCC).

Further, even if you were correct, the first Roman Catholic Pope was still the pope of the Roman Catholic Church hundreds of years before Constantine was even born, which means it clearly was, in fact, founded long before Constantine. Certainly, Constantine strengthened the Roman Catholic Church—particularly by recognizing it as a legal religion—but he most certainly did not found it, and any suggestion to the contrary is utterly absurd.

To put it another way, saying that Constantine founded the RCC is roughly like saying that FDR, by uniting the country with other nations against a common enemy, founded the United States of America.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[TropicalCoder]

That's a total crock of shit! Where do you get such malarkey? The Iranian government is a corrupt theocracy. Their main interest is domination of the part of the world they are in, not modernizing their economy and increasing the standard of living of its people. They couldn't give a shit about their people. All they care about is subsidizing their proxies. They are trying to close a circle around Israel, with their proxies Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas, though lately they have become discouraged with Hamas. It doesn't make any sense to develop nuclear technology when they are awash in oil, of which they have enough for both domestic use and exports to last a hundred years. There are endless option to modernize their economy without sinking all their eggs into one basket - the nuclear technology. And for nuclear energy, they certainly don't need breeder reactors that happen to make materials for nuclear bombs as a byproduct. They could use the same technology Canada employs and exports around the world, for example. Canadian-invented, pressurized heavy water reactors cannot make material for bombs.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[quenda]

There is no known founder of Judaism - Moses and Abraham are in the realm of mythology.
Christianity as a religion was founded by St Paul. Jesus is the prophet and god. Christianity as we know it today was created by Constantine.
Mohammed, we know a lot more about. And what we know is not pretty.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[Harlequin80]

But this is what I am trying to get at. The teachings of Jesus in the bible are great. However the organised religion that is Christianity, in its many forms, does not only push the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament.

Religion and the books that are its foundations are able to be twisted to pursue the goals of whoever is doing the twisting. When I referenced Leviticus it was to show that the Old Testament is used by people all the time to justify actions under Christianity. The fact that that doesn't sit with what you think Christianity should be, just based on the New Testament, doesn't change that people will use which ever part of the bible they want to support their position and call it Christianity.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[TropicalCoder]

I get what you are saying, and it is absolutely true that people will use which ever part of the bible they want to support their position and call it Christianity. What I am saying is that you still can't compare Christianity with Islam. Even if there is a bunch of crap in the Old Testament, it still doesn't compare with the violent, sexist crap in the Quran. The fundamental difference is, people with a corrupted view of Christianity really have to stretch to find a rationalization for their behaviour. They have to reach beyond the teachings of Christ into the Old Testament that was composed several thousands of years ago and carried all that time by oral tradition before finally being written down. They also need to ignore the New Testament's spirit and meaning, which is the book they should be reading instead of the Old Testament. On the other hand, for Muslims, that violent, sexist Quran is their principle book. They don't have to stretch because the violence is right there waiting for them in the text.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[RyoShin]

"Fundamentalist" christianity is actually very peaceful.

Matthew, Chapter 10 (NIV), Jesus commanding the Twelve Apostles to spread the word about the Kingdom of Heaven:

16 "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
21 "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.
34 "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to turn "'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--
36 a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'

Sure, these days Fundamentalist Christians are relatively peaceful, having found that social pressure and legislation is easier and safer than violence, but any who want to can easily find verses to support their own holy war, some from Jesus himself.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Augury]

There is nothing in attributed to the Christian god himself — nor any of his prophets — that required Crusades or the Inquisition.

And here, you've arrived at the very heart of the issue. There are many authorities around the world and throughout history which motivate action from human beings - it is a combination of the intent of the authority, the desires of humans and resulting interpretations that are the issue here. You say there is nothing attributed to the Christian god that required Crusades or the Inquisition - and yet they happened, in his name, under authority of the highest power in Christendom (the Pope).

Equally, there are Muslims who will say that Islam is the religion of peace and who will quote the Quoran and Mohammed in support of this position. And yet terrorism and other atrocities are being committed in the name of Islam, with the support of some Islamic leaders.

Rather than arguing which religion is less damaging today or which was more damaging yesterday, I feel we should subject all religions equally to scrutiny and subjugate all religious authority to the cause of bettering all mankind.

Perhaps then, we can begin sensibly to actively support stem-cell research as truly the most remarkable and promising area of medical research in decades, offering potential cures to our most deadly diseases. Perhaps then, we can agree that condoms are a sensible approach to combating the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Perhaps then, we can agree that "God told me to" was not a good reason for Bush to invade Iraq.

Re: Don't worry guys...

[EuclideanSilence]

There is no ambiguity in Matthew 10. It is clearly stating that the violence will be directed against the disciples, not encouraging the disciples promote violence. It is absolutely crystal clear. Just read it for yourself.

The actual fundamentals of christianity are peaceful. It is a 100% peaceful religion. The fact that some people can lie about the writings of christianity doesn't change it into a violent religion. Since when has lying about a subject been acceptable grounds for recharacterizing the subject? Would you apply this same standard to anything else?

And as far as legislation goes, legislation is never peaceful. It is always violently enforced. It was a nation of protestants that wrote "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" -- that is, preventing legislation. Modern day crusaders who try to enforce their own beliefs through legislation know nothing of christianity.

Re:Don't worry guys...

[Tablizer]

I was thinking Spanish Inquisition, Crusades, vicious fights between Catholics and Protestants, Galileo, etc. True, that's more of a mid-point than a "start".

Christianity "matured". Islam seems to still be in the middle stage.

Airspace isn't closed

[jonwil]

The airspace over Sydney isn't closed, nor is its airport. Flights are being diverted around the CBD (both by order from the authorities and voluntarily from the main domestic airlines agreeing to divert).

Re:Airspace isn't closed

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not voluntary. Aircraft are directed by air traffic controllers.

Re:Airspace isn't closed

[AK Marc]

So the airspace isn't "closed" but nobody (commercial) is using it. To 99% of the population, that's the same thing.

Re:Airspace isn't closed

[Anonymous Coward]

if flights are diverted around an area by order from authorities isn't that the same as closing the airspace?

Trigger Happy

[Anonymous Coward]

Say hello to the SAS

On the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is no God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God."

Well, they got the first 4 words right.

Re:On the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they screwed up the whole thing:

"[Drawing in the sand] There is only one God, and Mohammad is his prophet."

That guy is trying to come off as a 13th Warrior fan, but he's totally coming off like a jackass.

Antonio Banderas would kick his ass.

Re:On the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

Worshiping a genocidal asshole sounds like a wonderful pass of time.

Re:On the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I know. Try reading the Koran, all it says is "Kill all Christians. Kill all Jews" over and over and over and over.... Some prophet.

Re:On the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

So pretty similar to every religious text, including the bible. You would think in this day and age people would get past worshipping mythological creatures and slaughtering people in their name.

Re:On the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only judging all Muslims but all religions ever by the actions of a few sounds very informative.

Political correctness is taking some strange turns...

Re:On the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they got the first 4 words right.

I'm polytheistic, you insensitive clod!

Re:On the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't cut yourself on your own edge.

Re:On the bright side

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. Why should non-religious people abstain from criticising religion? Really, why? Saying that some sort of sensitivity is needed and that religious people shouldn't be offended is nonsense. It's just as offensive - or more - that religious people around us worship imaginary genocidal maniacs and read religious texts which literaly incite violence against those with a different view. And a bunch of other horrible stuff as well. Obviously most religious people don't follow that crap but the fact that they nevertheless claim to do so by saying that they believe in it and think they follow it, is pretty offensive, if you're sensitive. However, the non-religious have developed a thicker skin and it's about time that the religious do so too - in fact, they should've done it first considering all the nonsense persecution they often claim to be victims of. If I say "your holy book is full of shit!" is that more offensive or less offensive than you praising a "holy" book which instructs you to kill me to be virtuous or you telling me that I will burn in hell for all eternity?

Airspace isn't closed

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, completely voluntary.

Time for one more crusade

[Applehu Akbar]

And this time, we do it right.

Re:Time for one more crusade

[Anonymous Coward]

Only when energy autarky is achieved, sovereign debts are retired, and demographic controls are imposed.

Wrong...

[MinamataHG]

There is only a Spaghetti Monster! He is going to meat ball you!

Re:Wrong...

[MinamataHG]

Or SkyCake. Whatever...

Re:Wrong...

[tom17]

Or Jibbers!

Re:Wrong...

[davester666]

Jibbers Crabst!

Copied from elsewhere...

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you are in Sydney, do NOT tweet or post news of what Police are doing around Martin Place. Assume jihadists follow social media"

Re:Copied from elsewhere...

[Irate Engineer]

Too bad the major news networks are probably airing this from every angle, live. I bet the jihadis know how to use TVs too.

Re:Copied from elsewhere...

[Anonymous Coward]

A quick glance: cnn has a show on Dinosaurs, msbnc on Cannabis, Al-Jeezera on Jimmy Johns ! wtf ? really?

Re:Copied from elsewhere...

[Anonymous Coward]

The police requested that the news networks not broadcast live footage to prevent this. This was done at around 10:00AM this morning Sydney time half an hour after this all started.

Re:Copied from elsewhere...

[donaldm]

"If you are in Sydney, do NOT tweet or post news of what Police are doing around Martin Place. Assume jihadists follow social media"

In Sydney it has become a media circus since the start of the siege. Just that alone has pandered to the terrorist(s). It must be very frustrating for the police.

Re:Copied from elsewhere...

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, if the police were bothered about it they'd just increase the size of the police cordon so that the press et. al. couldn't get close enough to film anything.

If it's one guy who cares? They could probably drop him with a rifle round at a moments notice if they need to, just Australia, like New Zealand, the UK and so forth actually give a shit about catching suspects for justice and interrogation unlike America that just wants them dead ASAP.

Re:Copied from elsewhere...

[Augury]

Actually, the media were very responsible in their handling and coverage of the siege - working very closely with police.

The Guardian did some analysis which provided some insights into the maturity of the networks and broadcasters during the crisis: http://www.theguardian.com/aus...

Check your math.

[khasim]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this.

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.

1 of them is committing this crime.

Re:Check your math.

[Mashiki]

That's why there were raids at 149 locations this morning in Australia too. It's only one...yep. And that's why if you go look at the studies on "who supports fundamentalism" and "jihad to install islam" you'll find that in western countries 8-25%(sometimes more) support the use of violence to do so, that includes suicide bombings.

Just a few links:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories...
http://pewresearch.org/assets/...
http://www.pewforum.org/upload...

Re: Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the other 499,999 will defend the ideology that's motivating the nutcase.
Moderates always have to beware of extremists hijacking their beliefs, lest it poison everything. "But it's only a few outliers!" only works when there's a few. Let too many slip by, and everyone else starts seeing you as a threat.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.

1 of them is committing this crime.

umm, and of the roughly 22 million non-Muslims, none of them are committing the crime.
Though as has been stated elsewhere in this thread, there is no certainty that this person is a Muslim yet. Let's wait and see the truth of the matter in a day or two. There's been all sorts of conflicting information so far.. (a different person sat in one of the lockdown buildings)

Re: Check your math.

[Falconhell]

You forgot to mention that not one thing was found in those raids, just another scare tactic from the worst Australian government in living memory.

Re: Check your math.

[Mashiki]

You mean you already know the results of the raids from ~4 hours ago? Amazing, post doxss.

Re:Check your math.

[mi]

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia. 1 of them is committing this crime.

There are 14.5 million Christians in Australia (61% of the population). None of them is committing a crime in the name of his religion.

Re: Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey idiot... the links are from news sources around the world. You make it seem like this is a tiny fraction much less than 1%. Although the majority of muslims are peaceful, the stats support a much larger than 1% radicalism of the religion.

Open your eyes liberal.

Re:Check your math.

[Electricity Likes Me]

Last time 8000 police raided anything they were able to charge precisely 0 people with any crimes whatsoever.

Re:Check your math.

[DoofusOfDeath]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this.

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.

1 of them is committing this crime.

And there seem to be about 499,999 who claim terrorists don't represent true Islam, but don't clearly, publicly articulate why the terrorists' theology is less supported by the Koran than their more peaceful interpretations.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but I wonder how many Muslims in Australia would feel particularly bad if the hostages (assuming none of them are Muslim themselves) end up dead.

I'm sorry, but given the vast number of terrorism incidences and terrorist groups around the world are being perpetrated in the name of Islam as opposed to any other religion, you can't really blame people for losing faith (pun intended) in trying to remain open-minded with regards to Muslims. It's a sick, hateful, intolerant and violent religion. Most religions have their issues but none-so as much as Islam.

Re: Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

And quite possibly what precipitated this event to occur. Raiding another 149 locations after a similarly fruitless raid a few months ago kind of sends a message in a similar way to throwing rocks at a hornets nest.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this.

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.

1 of them is committing this crime.

That we know about...

Re:Check your math.

[quantaman]

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.

1 of them is committing this crime.

There are 14.5 million Christians in Australia (61% of the population). None of them is committing a crime in the name of his religion.

Because they don't have to.

If you're a religious fanatic in the Middle East and want to kill Christians you become a terrorist.

If you're a religious fanatic in the West (or Australia) and want to kill Muslims you join the army.

I'm not trying to equate soldiers with terrorists, just pointing out why the comparison isn't valid.

You're always going to have a subset of people who will dedicate their lives to fighting and killing whom they perceive to be enemies. If they identify as Christian they simply join a western military and get to fight Muslims without sticking out, if they identify as Muslim they become terrorists because that's the only way to join the war.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this.

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.

1 of them is committing this crime.

It doesn't matter how many peaceful Muslims there are. What matters is that, in comparison to all other religions on earth, theirs produces the greatest number of terrorists per capita. The remaining "silent majority" either silently support their actions, or are afraid to speak out against it or are apathetic. Either way does us no good.

I'm not saying that all Muslims are extremists, but to imply that Islamic extremists are in any way similar in style or number to extremists from other cultures is factually inaccurate.

We should be supporting moderate Muslims by cracking down super hard on their extremists. The fact that they don't crack down on their own extremists (as other societies do) is a major problem that they need to fix (and one which requires us to pressure them to do so).

Re:Check your math.

[PPH]

1 of them is committing this crime.

In the name of his religion.

What they need is a local Imam to get on a megaphone and tell this guy that this is not in keeping with Islam and that he (the Imam) will personally supervise his body being fed to pigs if he doesn't come out RIGHT NOW.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

And there seem to be about 499,999 who claim terrorists don't represent true Islam, but don't clearly, publicly articulate why the terrorists' theology is less supported by the Koran than their more peaceful interpretations.

So? What follows from this? Nothing. Zero. Nada. It is a simple excuse to continue the bigotry.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Abbott is committing some pretty huge crimes in the name of his religion. Add in Morriscum and his loonie church and there are 2 "christians" right of the bat causing terror, murder, hate and inequality.

Re:Check your math.

[mi]

If you're a religious fanatic in the West (or Australia) and want to kill Muslims you join the army.

Citations...

I'm not trying to equate soldiers with terrorists, just pointing out why the comparison isn't valid.

The comparison is valid. Those 500K Muslims in Australia — their shops, kindergartens, restaurants, etc. — would've been juicy low-hanging fruits for any Christian terrorist — had there been one among the 14.5 millions...

That's probably because Christianity does not require believers to spread the faith — at the point of a weapon, if necessary. It has happened in the past, but not because anything in the scripture mandates it. Unlike in Koran... So a Christian fanatic, who wishes to live by the word of his god is not compelled to convert or kill anyone. A Muslim fanatic, unfortunately, is...

Re:Check your math.

[Harlequin80]

Rubbish. One of the things I can say about the Islamic organisations here is that they have worked very hard to prevent radicalisation of their communities. There have been numerous times they have been on TV here showing how their faith and their interpretation of the koran does not fit with the actions of the extremists.

And as for being more or less supported by the Koran the Christian Bible can be used to push what ever you want as well. It's hardly like it is a particularly peaceful document.

What I find terrifying is how quickly supposedly intelligent people descend into clumping massive groups of people together and scream terrorist. If all Muslims were part of terrorist organisations or it was particularly main stream we would be involved in WW3 right now. But we aren't.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this.

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.

1 of them is committing this crime.

More important: How many of the 499,999 are denouncing the 1?

Re:Check your math.

[quantaman]

If you're a religious fanatic in the West (or Australia) and want to kill Muslims you join the army.

Citations...

The Iraq war?

I'm not saying they launch terrorist attack from the military. I'm saying that they're motivated by the same clash of civilizations desire to defend their culture and religion. Some might be perfectly good soldiers not doing anything wrong, and some might be responsible for some of the really ugly atrocities that Western militaries sometimes perpetrate.

The US army is steeped in Christianity, if the tables were turned do you think all of those soldiers would be content to stay on the sidelines while a Muslim superpower exerted its will over the West?

I'm not trying to equate soldiers with terrorists, just pointing out why the comparison isn't valid.

The comparison is valid. Those 500K Muslims in Australia — their shops, kindergartens, restaurants, etc. — would've been juicy low-hanging fruits for any Christian terrorist — had there been one among the 14.5 millions...

That's probably because Christianity does not require believers to spread the faith — at the point of a weapon, if necessary. It has happened in the past, but not because anything in the scripture mandates it. Unlike in Koran... So a Christian fanatic, who wishes to live by the word of his god is not compelled to convert or kill anyone. A Muslim fanatic, unfortunately, is...

You think the guy in the Cafe is preaching? He's fighting and promoting, same way the IRA did. And asking why Christian terrorists aren't attacking the West is like asking why Wall Street bankers aren't mugging people at gunpoint. They aren't using those methods because they've got far less costly ways to get what they want.

Re: Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the other 499,999 will defend the ideology that's motivating the nutcase.

Yes, as NOT being the cause for the violence, but rather the own individual's choice to engage in violence.

You know, like Christians do when one of their own goes off.

Moderates always have to beware of extremists hijacking their beliefs, lest it poison everything. "But it's only a few outliers!" only works when there's a few. Let too many slip by, and everyone else starts seeing you as a threat.

And yet you can't get rid of them all, and even if you do criticize them, nobody notices when the next one goes off, because it's much easier to claim a narrative that has no basis in truth than one that is nuanced and rational.

See for example, the War on Christmas.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol wut?

Lemme guess you're a new-england educated liberal?

Re:Check your math.

[_merlin]

Yeah, but they managed to piss a lot of people off mightily. You can't expect no backlash if you do shit like that.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.

1 of them is committing this crime.

umm, and of the roughly 22 million non-Muslims, none of them are committing the crime.
Though as has been stated elsewhere in this thread, there is no certainty that this person is a Muslim yet. Let's wait and see the truth of the matter in a day or two. There's been all sorts of conflicting information so far.. (a different person sat in one of the lockdown buildings)

Hahaha you think the media is interested in telling you the truth. That's funny. We tell our children there is a Santa Claus, and our adults that mass media corporations exist to dispense uncompromised objective truth. That TV is powerful. Three words for you: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis or Problem, Reaction, Solution. Occam's Razor doesn't work for social phenomena, in which motives are carefully concealed.

Re: Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean you already know the results of the raids from ~4 hours ago?

Very clearly he was speaking of the massive co-ordinated raids which took place a few weeks back and netted a single arrest for possession of a plastic sword ...

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they cared enough to not be associated with the extremists, they'd add a qualifier to their religious affiliation, much like the different denominations of Christianity did.

Re: Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Legislation introducing radical new police powers for AFP and ASIO coming in 4... 3... 2...

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

The charged one, I believe. Still amazing given the scale of this operation.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

20 000 000 christian in Australia

0 of them are committing this crime.

your point ?

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

And as for being more or less supported by the Koran the Christian Bible can be used to push what ever you want as well. It's hardly like it is a particularly peaceful document.

The New Testament - you know, that thing that makes the person a Christian and not a Jew - nowhere advocates violence or any other use of force, no not even slightly. Nowhere does Jesus ever advocate force, aggression, or unkindness of any sort. Someone practicing those things is simply not practicing the teachings of Christ in that instance. Christianity itself would then call for a genuine realization, a sense of remorse, so profound and complete that it causes the person to see why such practices are wrong and then to actually take steps to stop practicing them. An inward change takes place that necessarily also changes outward behavior.

But someone using violence, especially unprovoked violence, and then going out of their way to do so in the name of Christianity simply has a fucked-up, inaccurate, brainwashed "understanding" of what Christianity actually teaches. Even the most cursory reading of the words of Christ would rapidly contradict such a notion. This isn't some edge case - this sort of nonviolence and peaceful love of one another is a cornerstone teaching of Christianity. There is no teaching of Jesus that can be reconciled with unprovoked violence. Someone claiming otherwise is perverting the name in a rather Orwellian fashion.

Re:Check your math.

[gwstuff]

Can you find and post comparable surveys for other religions? Or if they aren't any, then what meaning do surveys of this type have? If you carried out a survey amongst practicing Christians, "Jesus or Nation" then is it not conceivable that many would pick the former?

Oh, and by the way, such conservative Christians not only wish for Christian law, they lobby and work for it to be applied and are frequently successful. Anti-abortion laws, and anti-gay marriage, and the fact that these issues are highly politicized are outcomes of such thinking.

Religion, and letting religion govern how you think is the problem, not any specific religion. The reason Islam shows up on the radar with terrorism so often is because it happens to be the religion mixing badly with explosive geopolitical crises around the world.

Re:Check your math.

[Namarrgon]

Quote from your Pew Research link:

Overall, 8% of Muslim Americans say suicide bombings against civilian targets tactics are often (1%) or sometimes (7%) justified in the defense of Islam.

Emphasis mine. This does not support the claim of jihads or fundamentalism, unless you interpret the "defense of Islam" to mean "spread Islam everywhere". Might be interesting to compare that against a similar poll for Christians; I suspect you'd have similar results.

We could maybe try just leaving their religion alone? Then not only the great majority of peace-loving Muslims would be happier, but most of the rest too. Save the aggressive response for the nutjob violent individuals, treat them for the mentally ill criminals that they are, and leave religion out of it.

Re:Check your math.

[mi]

The Iraq war?

The Iraq war what? Do you have any data supporting the claim, that Americans have joined their military because of their Christian beliefs, which compelled them to kill Muslims? Put up or shut up...

The US army is steeped in Christianity, if the tables were turned do you think all of those soldiers would be content to stay on the sidelines while a Muslim superpower exerted its will over the West?

Once again, nothing in Christian scripture compels Christians to fight other faiths. On contrast, Koran does so compel its followers. That's the fundamental asymmetry..

You think the guy in the Cafe is preaching?

I said nothing about "preaching". I said, Muslim faithful are compelled — by their religion — to fight for spreading Islam world-wide and to establish a Califate.

There is nothing of the kind in the Bible.

He's fighting and promoting, same way the IRA did.

IRA's fight was purely secular — nothing in Catholicism insists nor mandates the sort of things they've done. Muslims, once again, must fight other religions — in order to remain good Muslims. Because Koran — which they believe to be the word of God verbatim — says so.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but I wonder how many Muslims in Australia would feel particularly bad if the hostages (assuming none of them are Muslim themselves) end up dead.

I assure you, there are quite a few Muslims in Australia who are feeling terrible about this right now.

Re:Check your math.

[cold fjord]

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.

1 of them is committing this crime.

The latest one.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

That we know about...

Correct. And what about the hundreds of Christians who are holding and torturing under-age sex slaves in specially constructed dungeons under churches that we don't know about?

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tony Abbot wants to subsidise the costs of higher study if you intend to enter the clergy to become a Priest.

Which is discrimination based on my religion (or lack thereof).

Christians don't need to blow up buildings to send their messages, instead, they are the ones building them.

----
(lets ignore the fact for the moment that this is the same person who wants to increase the cost of achieving a higher education for the public in general)

Re:Check your math.

[mjwx]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this.

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.

1 of them is committing this crime.

This.

Its a lone wolf.

And given that his demand is a live debate with the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott its a fair assumption to say that this is directly tied to the anti-islamic raids that took place earlier this year.

Re:Check your math.

[Sardaukar86]

Three words for you: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis or Problem, Reaction, Solution.

Hmm. I was pretty sure my maths was sketchy - but now I have actual proof!

Re: Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

We know the results of the hundreds who went to the Syria and Iraq to kill and rape. Fortunately, many of those are getting killed too.

Let's say there are 10-15% of psychopaths in society, including in Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Atheism, etc. all spread out about equally. Islam (the Scientology of Olde) is written in such a way that it fully justifies the good and evil of humanity. So the psychopaths in Islam are fully compliant since the inventor, the false Prophet, was a murdering warlord. The friendliest muslim is a good muslim and the murdering Taliban are also good muslims.

Of course, the other religions have their excesses too. Conservative Christians (ie. not real christians) try to destroy the schooling system in Western countries with ridiculous legal challenges. But hopefully, time and education will eliminate most religions in the coming centuries...

Re:Check your math.

[NoKaOi]

you'll find that in western countries 8-25%(sometimes more) support the use of violence to do so

Versus the 51% in the US who support violence by Christians? (as shown by those who voted for Bush's 2nd term)

Re:Check your math.

[theskipper]

None? Is civil disobedience a crime? By its very nature it is. So lots of Christians have committed lots of crimes over the years in the name of their religion. Over issues like civil rights, gays, school prayer, to name a few.

Now the shooting of abortion providers in the name of Christianity is of course an actual indisputable crime. Only a few, but in fairness you did express the extremist view and say none.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

What good could a local Imam do? It wouldn't be the -terrorist's Imam-.

Even if they did find the guy why would the guy who most likely encouraged him to do this suddenly tell him to stop?

Islam is a very fragmented religion compared to Christianity or even Judaism.

Re:Check your math.

[TapeCutter]

You obviously haven't heard of Tony Abbot's humanitarian fighter jets.

Re:Check your math.

[Grishnakh]

Conservative Christians do indeed suck, but I can't think of any serious terrorist or even violent activity by Christians in a very long time, except for a couple cases of some lone wacko shooting an abortion doctor. Muslims, however, are infamous for organizing to do violent deeds. Advocating for various laws (which aren't very successful BTW, gay marriage is becoming more and more accepted in America now and is becoming legal all over; these days I think most ultraconservatives are more worried about illegal immigration, gun control, and various other issues than about gay marriage) is not similar to carrying out violent, terroristic acts.

Re:Check your math.

[DigiShaman]

Will NEVER happen. That Imam would have a fatwa for his head the instant he speaks up.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

with all due respect you really don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

you are spouting garbage and doing damage. stop.

Re:Check your math.

[dbIII]

And given that his demand is a live debate with the Prime Minister

Pointless too - all he can do is humiliate Abbott in front of the world which Abbott has been doing himself when he gets out of reach of his handlers - "brave Japanese submariners in Sydney Harbour in world war two" and so on.
It looks like a lone wolf who has shot his cause in the foot.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Had any murders due to someone being homosexual, or anything like that which kind of gets swept under the carpet in America?

It may be that it's actually common enough that the media doesn't report it, because it's not a big story.

LMAO: I kid you not the capcha is sultan.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only 25%? I think a lot more American fundamentalists than that support violence...

Re:Check your math.

[cold fjord]

The US has a secular government, and US government actions aren't in support of the Christian religion. Your claim is nonsense.

Re:Check your math.

[oh]

It depends on your definition of a crime.

Staging a sit-in prayer meeting in Julie Bishop's office is arguably a crime, yet what they were protesting about is apparently not.

        http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-n...

If "Christians" are capable of sitting on both sites of the immigration debate, why can't Muslems.

Of course, the obvious thing to point our are groups like the LRA, or those operating in the Central African Republic. You will probably be quick to deny that these people are Christians, in just the same way many Australian Muslims are saying the Martin Pl The siege is un-Islamic.

Re:Check your math.

[mjwx]

Pointless too - all he can do is humiliate Abbott in front of the world which Abbott has been doing himself when he gets out of reach of his handlers

Abbott's handlers would never let him.

Tony Abbott's statement on this couldn't have been more generic if it were written in beige.

But as soon as this is over, you can bet the poo is going to be flung in all directions in parliament and the media.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's about as likely as Obama denouncing Holder for race-baiting.

Re:Check your math.

[mi]

Only a few, but in fairness you did express the extremist view and say none.

There were two incidents of violence against abortion-clinics in Australia, neither of them obviously motivated by Christian faith.

You don't have to be a Christian to consider fetus a human — it is a rather common opinion, even I personally do not share it.

Re:Check your math.

[mi]

You will probably be quick to deny that these people are Christians

I will deny, that it is their faith, that compels them to commit the crimes — and I'm not talking "sit-ins" or jaywalking.

Of course, there are plenty of Christian criminals. But nothing in the Christian scripture compels its followers into it.

Koran is rather different...

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

fucking 499,999 too many , whatever the number.

Re:Check your math.

[cold fjord]

You've got the wrong country. The topic is Australia.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

> That's probably because Christianity does not require believers to spread the faith

Well, not any more... crusades anyone? This is *still* blowback from that little period of history. Of course the bible thumpers have changed their book over time to be less blood thirsty despite it supposedly being the word of sky daddy. Now it's turning the other way... turn the other cheek, "no way!".... vengence is mine sayeth the lord, "nope, too slow, we'll do it ourselves"... sheesh,, both sides are as disgusting as the other.

We need to start treating religion, even moderate, as a mental health issue.... ie: amend the loopholes in the standard definitions of insanity that says imaginary friends are crazy unless that imaginary friend has a certain name.

Re:Check your math.

[rtb61]

Just a warning about the quality of that survey data. Exactly how do you expect people to answer questions in a country with Sharia law about Sharia law, when for a Muslim under Sharia law, it is akin to blasphemy to critique that particular rather obnoxious book, not that it is obnoxious on it's own, other religious works also should face public criticism for their content, most well known being the bible and Torah. The biggest problems with Sharia law are of course once implemented it is a death penalty to attempt to remove or change them making it extreme undesirable and of course it's laws being subject to religious rather than literal interpretation and subject to extreme corruption.

Tony Abbott has a shocking history of attempting to manipulate circumstance for political advantage no matter how distasteful. So the first group of targets rather disturbing aligned with with rapidly collapsing political popularity and he wanted conflict to attempt to drive popularity. This second series of raid seems to be an identical effort. One wanders if the person wasn't a victim of the first set of raids and after being victimised that individuals likely unstable mental state was pushed over the edge. You can bet the slime is hoping for the exact opposite outcome of what he is publicly claiming. Just like he new found silence on the Ukraine incident when it is looking more and more like a false flag event that went totally out of control.

Re:Check your math.

[Capsaicin]

Hmm. I was pretty sure my maths was sketchy - but now I have actual proof!

It's not that difficult: You choose either (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) or (Problem, Reaction, Solution). Either was you end up with three words. :)

Re:Check your math.

[khasim]

Conservative Christians do indeed suck, but I can't think of any serious terrorist or even violent activity by Christians in a very long time, except for a couple cases of some lone wacko shooting an abortion doctor.

The difference is the power structure.

You don't have to personally beat someone for your beliefs if you can have the police do it for you because your beliefs are the law.

Muslims, however, are infamous for organizing to do violent deeds.

The same can be said (and has) about the black "rioters" and the current protests here.

Advocating for various laws (which aren't very successful BTW, gay marriage is becoming more and more accepted in America now and is becoming legal all over; these days I think most ultraconservatives are more worried about illegal immigration, gun control, and various other issues than about gay marriage) is not similar to carrying out violent, terroristic acts.

The difference is whether the majority view them as "legitimate" exercises of violence.

Passing a law that will be used more against X than Y will not be seen as a problem by Y. And the Y's will tend to view any X that complains as being a problem.

100 years ago blacks could not marry whites. And violence against a black man accused of sex with a white woman was "justified".

20 years ago gay marriage was illegal. And it wasn't a "hate crime" to beat someone just because you thought he was gay. I remember online arguments just 10 years ago.

Right now there are states where it is legal to have an abortion BUT it is almost impossible due to the legal restrictions placed upon it. Even if the woman's life is in danger.

Those with the power to make and enforce the laws do not need to personally take hostages.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the US Commander in Chief called the Iraq war a "crusade", although it is unclear whether he knew what that meant.

Re:Check your math.

[Crashmarik]

The US has a secular government, and US government actions aren't in support of the Christian religion. Your claim is nonsense.

It isn't nonsense if you understand his world view.

In his world President Bush is the incarnation of the antichrist and and staged the 9/11 attacks so he could wage war on the peaceful and progressive Saddam Hussein.

Once you understand his worldview you realize the correct term isn't nonsense, it's ravings.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a citation for you...

Re:Check your math.

[quantaman]

The Iraq war?

The Iraq war what? Do you have any data supporting the claim, that Americans have joined their military because of their Christian beliefs, which compelled them to kill Muslims? Put up or shut up...

I didn't claim that. I claimed that some Americans were joining the military for the same reasons that some Muslims become terrorists, to defend their religion and culture against its perceived enemies.

And yes, this occurs:
Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.

...

This is hardly the first time something like this has happened. We’ve had soldiers painting Bible verses on turrets of tanks and on bombs on airplanes. We’ve had soldiers handing out Bibles to the locals. The Pentagon and the American government seems to understand that this is very, very bad for American credibility in the Muslim world because it sends the message that this is a religious war of Christianity vs Islam.

And don't forget Ann Coulter

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

That sounds a hell of a lot like terrorist ideology to me except she's able to carry out her religious war via army instead of suicide bomber. Don't you think there were a few people who thought like Ann Coulter and joined the military? Enough to rival the number of Muslim terrorists?

I'm not saying Iraq war=terrorism or Drone attacks=terrorism, but I will say that a lot of people who turn to terrorism in the Middle East would be able to fulfil those urges as soldiers in the West.

I said nothing about "preaching". I said, Muslim faithful are compelled — by their religion — to fight for spreading Islam world-wide and to establish a Califate.

There is nothing of the kind in the Bible.

He's fighting and promoting, same way the IRA did.

IRA's fight was purely secular — nothing in Catholicism insists nor mandates the sort of things they've done. Muslims, once again, must fight other religions — in order to remain good Muslims. Because Koran — which they believe to be the word of God verbatim — says so.

Crusades? Residential schools? Inquisitions? The mechanisms are different but Christianity has it's own long history of aggressive attempts to spread the faith.

Re:Check your math.

[Capsaicin]

... except for a couple cases of some lone wacko ...

Isn't that very possibly what we are dealing with here? Some lone wacko in the Lindt cafe? I don't think it has been established (yet) that there are any accomplices, much less any organisation behind this.

IMO the high level of publicity given to this, fueled no doubt by our fear of Islam, is itself dangerous. Sure the fact that it's happening in Martin Place was always going to amplify it next to the more usual suburban day(s) hostage dramas. But hang out an Islamic flag and you get to shut down the entire heart of the city? ... international press ...

What's does that telling serious terror groups? Not it was preventable ... reporters will report.

And there's still the possibility that said lone wacko (and friends imaginary or otherwise) could still kill someone of course.

Re: Check your math.

[Concerned Onlooker]

"Let's say there are 10-15% of psychopaths in society..."

That number is WAY too high. If it was that high we would be in much worse shape than we are. The estimate is 3-5%. Isn't it amazing? It only take 3-5% of the population to really give a good go at ruining it for everyone.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Muslim faithful are compelled — by their religion — to fight for spreading Islam world-wide and to establish a Califate.

Bullshit. You can keep claiming this all day long, it will not become true.

Muslims, once again, must fight other religions — in order to remain good Muslims. Because Koran — which they believe to be the word of God verbatim — says so.

Koran allows you to defend yourself, not actively start wars/fights to gain goods or force people to convert.

Koran 2:256
There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion

Every religion has their nut-jobs once in a while, are we still holding all the crusades against christians?

Re:Check your math.

[dryeo]

Didn't Bush claim that God told him to attack Iraq and also compare it to the crusades? Can a non-christian get elected President and in most of the country elected to pretty well anything? I mean in practice rather then theory.

Re: Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm yes your numbers are more correct than mine. I was thinking about the 15-17% of various crazy types that infect society, of which 3-5% are psychopaths (including the white collar ones).

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can a non-christian get elected President and in most of the country elected to pretty well anything? I mean in practice rather than theory.

yes, yes, and yes.

There have been numerous presidents with "no official affiliation," too, for what it's worth.

Re:Check your math.

[medoc]

Actually, I think that the Christian rules are even a bit stronger, and I'd correct your phrase as follows:

- So a Christian fanatic, who wishes to live by the word of his god is not compelled to convert or kill anyone

+ So a Christian fanatic, who wishes to live by the word of his god is compelled not to kill anyone

Re:Check your math.

[dryeo]

Well Jews are pretty accepted now as being honorary Christians. The list of atheists is pretty slim when limited to successfully elected politicians, especially at the Federal level, which is why I mentioned most of the country rather then all the country.

Re:Check your math.

[Sardaukar86]

That's certainly true, however at first blush that post does seem to proffer a little more than 'three words for you'.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

1 of them is committing this crime.

In the name of his religion.

What they need is a local Imam to get on a megaphone and tell this guy that this is not in keeping with Islam and that he (the Imam) will personally supervise his body being fed to pigs if he doesn't come out RIGHT NOW.

But it IS in keeping with islam. That's the problem...

Re:Check your math.

[Opportunist]

Fundamental Christians don't need to bomb anything. They ARE already in power, why bomb away your own power structure? They can change the legal landscape of the land by simply changing laws "legally", from abortion to marriage laws, they have a power structure set up. Bombings happened back when they didn't have that, today, why bother bombing, you can install your invisible friend's laws in simpler ways.

Re: Check your math.

[Falconhell]

No, but their form is terrible, and I don't believe a word they say, quite justifiably given their record.

Re:Check your math.

[Rick in China]

What? Your argument started off by saying, essentially, no it's not just 1 it's 149 locations this morning... I would like to see links to that, not links from 2006 about 'jihadi support' or whatever nonsense you're trying to inject into the thread.

Here's some additional information, ie. busting your obvious bullshit and towing of the line, with facts:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/mart...

Re:Check your math.

[Opportunist]

At first I thought it's a sarcastic comment, then I saw who made it.

Sorry. But you don't. If in every speech some politician gives he has to invoke god in some way, you do NOT have a secular government. If there is any doubt, just one look into your laws dispels it quickly.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's probably because Christianity does not require believers to spread the faith — at the point of a weapon, if necessary. It has happened in the past, but not because anything in the scripture mandates it. Unlike in Koran... So a Christian fanatic, who wishes to live by the word of his god is not compelled to convert or kill anyone. A Muslim fanatic, unfortunately, is...

Actually, Christians are encouraged to spread the faith. It is called the Great Commission. In spite of what happened during the Crusades, you are correct that christianity does not insist that this be done at the point of a weapon if necessary. In fact, Christians are supposed to turn the other cheek and pray for their enemies. More precisely, according to the Bible Christians are supposed to spread the good news (gospel). Conversion is supposed to be left up to the Holy Spirit. Of course, that doesn't mean that there aren't at least a few Christians—some perhaps well-meaning, some quite a bit less so—who want to help the Holy Spirit along to "do the right thing". But I think of that as being motivated by human frailty and over-zealousness, not by anything written in the Bible.

Re:Check your math.

[dskoll]

Most Muslims are peaceful, but Islam itself is a noxious brew of racism, hatred and barbarity. The only reason most Muslims are peaceful is that they're human enough to reject the horrible parts of their religion.

What's really needed is an Islamic reformation that purges the Qu'ran and other Islamic religious texts of all the disgusting passages. But that, alas, is blasphemy and will never happen. Instead, Islam will continue infecting vulnerable people and turning them into killers, just like some sort of infectious mental illnes.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfff, as an atheist I just lump all religions together. Seems like religious nutjobs are doing all kinds of things and declaring they do them for or because of their religion. I know there are some terrorists that were atheists, but I can't remember any who did it to spread or defend not-believing-in-gods.

Re:Check your math.

[dskoll]

What I find terrifying is how quickly supposedly intelligent people descend into clumping massive groups of people together and scream terrorist.

Look, Islam itself is quite objectively disgusting. There are so many horrible things in the religion that I don't really want to enumerate them here for you; just do a Google search.

The only reason most Muslims are not violent is that most Muslims reject or rationalize away the disgusting parts of Islam. However, the underlying vile philosophy persists and periodically infects the minds of vulnerable losers, turning them into jihadis. At some point, the Western world has to ask itself it can tolerate this dangerous ideology to spread within our societies or if we need to take proactive action ourselves to monitor what's being taught and expel those who preach extermism.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

149 MORE attempts top get someone, ANYONE, angry enough to do something stupid, like maybe: take over a CAFE in Sydney ?
The more Muslims that are terrorized by police raids and islamaphobia, the more Muslims will react back.
There are FAR more than a lousy 25% of NON-Muslims that now "condone" violence against Islam, based purely on anti-muslim rhetoric like this in the media. But, hey, you pick stats to support your racist, xenophobic beliefs and I'm sure you'll get noddies to agree with you.
Many Australians get held by police, without charge, for a much longer time than these "hostages", but it's never called "terrorism".

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

The very fact that you guys are arguing about this crap is testament to how religion adversarial is to society. STOP FIGHTING

Re:Check your math.

[jeti]

Do you have any idea of what you're talking about? The US army employs numerous muslim chaplains and has been doing so since 1993.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Muslims, once again, must fight other religions — in order to remain good Muslims. Because Koran — which they believe to be the word of God verbatim — says so.

Koran allows you to defend yourself, not actively start wars/fights to gain goods or force people to convert.

Somehow, it doesn't feel like that message has filtered down to the jihadis. Actually, in too many cases it would appear that this message has not gotten through to many who would deign to think of themselves as spiritual leaders within Islam.

Koran 2:256
There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion

Are you familiar with the idea of abrogation?

Every religion has their nut-jobs once in a while, are we still holding all the crusades against christians?

Actually, considering the number of times the Crusades are brought up in these sorts of discussions, I would say the answer is yes.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been ample examples of Mosques burnt, Muslims bashed and hijab wearers publicly abused in Australia, as well as abortion clinics attacked, so NO there ARE indeed many examples of Christians committing crimes in the name of their religion.
I have NEVER had a Muslim bash on my door to "convert" me, but I have had SCORES of "Christians" attempt to proselytize at my door.
As an Irish catholic descendant, I well remember the christian "feud" in Northern Ireland, which has not yet seen it's last days in my view.

Re:Check your math.

[ihtoit]

yes, he absolutely did.

"George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month." (emphasis mine - I mean, Blues Brothers much?) http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

"President Bush's reference to a "crusade" against terrorism, which passed almost unnoticed by Americans, rang alarm bells in Europe. It raised fears that the terrorist attacks could spark a 'clash of civilizations' between Christians and Muslims, sowing fresh winds of hatred and mistrust." http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/...

Non-Christian Presidents of the United States:

(Unitarian)
W. H. Taft
M. Filmore
J. Q. Adams
J. Adams

(No formal affiliations)
A. Johnson
A. Lincoln
T. Jefferson

(Source: Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia)

Re:Check your math.

[KiloByte]

Except, have you read his holy book? He's doing exactly as commanded, that's why his imam finds it hard to protest. The whole idea that "jihad" might mean something else than murdering and subjugating non-believers is an invention of an 11th century scholar, with no basis in the Koran.

There's a large amount of people who self-identify as Muslims yet find jihad to be abhorrent. That doesn't make the Koran any better, though -- it just makes those people not evil, unlike what their holy book demands. You're confusing the Koran with the Bible -- the latter is a large collection of often unrelated works, with hardly any internal consistency. Try for example Psalms 82:1 which says "Jahveh sits on the court of the God of Gods, and passes judgmements to other gods in his name." -- it's really interesting how various translations try to wiggle this statement around towards the current religion. The Koran has no issues of this kind: it's a highly consistent work edited by one man (Uthman) (ok, ok, plus a bunch of scribes doing his bidding). It does deliver a consistent message -- and I really don't like what the message says.

More reading: Skeptic's Annotated Koran, an analysis of references to "jihad" in the Koran.

Re:Check your math.

[Xest]

"Once again, nothing in Christian scripture compels Christians to fight other faiths. On contrast, Koran does so compel its followers. That's the fundamental asymmetry.."

It doesn't matter. There are about 1.3 billion muslims in the world and the fraction causing problems in practice is minimal however you try and spin it.

Groups like the LRA and many other African Christian groups, Mexican cartels justifying their actions using Christianity and so on and so forth could make ISIS look tame with the amount of people they've killed and the manner in which they've killed them. ISIS beheads a single Westerner and it's headline news, a Mexican drug cartel beheads 40 people and you've really got to fucking dig to find any news on it.

"IRA's fight was purely secular â" nothing in Catholicism insists nor mandates the sort of things they've done."

How old are you 10? Were you even around when the troubles in Ireland were at their worst? I just don't understand how else someone can be this fucking ignorant. You're so utterly oblivious to what the Irish troubles were really about that you think the IRA's fight is secular? You really don't know about the whole Catholics vs. Protestants thing? How can you even begin to join a discussion like this when you're so profoundly lacking a clue on it?

"Muslims, once again, must fight other religions â" in order to remain good Muslims. Because Koran â" which they believe to be the word of God verbatim â" says so."

The Bible says an awful lot of things that aren't particularly nice either, but guess what? most Muslims like most Christians have learnt that some of what these texts say are plain fucking stupid and opt not to pursue them. This is why we're finally starting to see women bishops in the UK as but one example - because it turns out that although the bible preaches misogyny it's not actually cool in this day and age. We hear about Islamic fundamentalism more in the West because it's currently the biggest threat, 30 years ago in the UK though it was the IRA, a wholly Christian conflict.

You can try and justify this how you want but you'd still be wrong. South and Central Africa is ravaged by Christian fighting but the focus is wholly on the Middle East/North Africa because the West has largely given up on the West of Africa and the middle east is where we're primarily trying to interfere nowadays.

It seems that there are violent thugs from every walk of life and the proportion seems similar whatever they purport their cause to be. Whether it's leftist guerillas in South America, Mexican drug cartels in Central America, Far right fascists in Northern and Eastern Europe, Russian Orthodox imperialists in Russia and surrounding states, Christian fundamentalists in Europe and Africa, Islamic fundamentalists in the middle east, Buddhist fundamentalists in Burma, or whatever else- bad people find reasons to kill, pretending that one group of bad people is somehow worse than another is stupid. There's not even really a metric by which the worst of the worst, ISIS or Al Qaeda can compare to the Mexican drug cartels in terms of amount of kills and level of violence - groups like La Familia and Knights Templar cartels claim religion as being key parts of their foundations just as ISIS do, so you cannot simply claim one is secular whilst the other is not.

What about individual acts of terrorism in the West? Well in recent years Anders Breivik killed more kids in the name of Christianity in Norway than the Ottawa shootings, the current Sydney situation, the London 7/7 bombings, and a few French anti-semitic incidents combined. 9/11? small fry. Want to know what real horror sounds like? Try the Srebrenica massacre of 1995 where Russian backed Serbian Orthodox fighters thought it would be fun to kill roughly 10,000 muslims in a single massacre often using things such as hammers to beat them to death so as not to waste bullets and then dumping them all in mass graves.

So you can say things like "the IRA is secular" or w

Re:Check your math.

[cold fjord]

Is it your thinking that a reasonable way to register your discontent with anti-terrorism raids is to engage in terrorism?

Re:Check your math.

[thegarbz]

Which is helping precisely whom?

Last time 8000 police raided anything it was seen as abuse of power, an overreaction, and a colossal waste of time not to mention caused protests in the streets due to marginalising Muslims.

Now? Well now they've been legitimised in the mind of the people. The watercooler talk today was all Muslim hate, a stark contrast to what happened just a couple of months ago.

Way to go religions, you're really winning the crowds!

Re:Check your math.

[Richard_at_work]

So the fact that Peter James Knight was a fanatical Christian who strongly believed in the Bible and his faith, and was described during his trial as "obsessive, fanatical about certain matters [...] including your faith" means his action wasn't at all motivated by his faith...?

Re:Check your math.

[_merlin]

How does this legitimise the raids? They didn't get anyone connected to this incident when they conducted the raids. They didn't obtain any information allowing them to predict or prevent today's incident. They didn't even manage to charge anyone. All they did was piss off a significant proportion of the population by harassing people who, as far as we can tell, were innocent (lack of charges points to this). For all we know, today's incident could be a direct result of the raids. Harassing innocent people tends to radicalise them.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.
1 of them is committing this crime.

Ah, statistics. The good thing about statistics is that you can use it to argue either way, depending on what numbers you choose to look at.

There are dozens of religions out there. Of all the murderous acts carried out against innocents in the past decade, in the name of a religion, that religion was the Islam just about EVERY* time.

* For varying definitions of "just about"

Re:Check your math.

[theskipper]

No, I don't.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asi...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/sto...

Re:Check your math.

[tehcyder]

The US has a secular government, and US government actions aren't in support of the Christian religion.

So how come the official US motto that appears on your banknotes is "In God We Trust"?

If you try to say that this is some general, non-Christian god, no one will believe you.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

George W Bush announced a "crusade" against various Moslem States (in response to 9/11). "Crusade" is not a bad translation of "jihad". Whether you believe the motivation for US military involvement in those States is religiously motivated or not, the USA has declared to the Moslem world that it is.

Re:Check your math.

[mi]

means his action wasn't at all motivated by his faith

It means neither that nor the opposite. The Wikipedia page about Mr. Knight — my source of the information — has no word "christian" on it (nor is "fanatic" present). To me, this is a sign, he was driven not by his Christianity — which does not call for armed opposition to anything — but by personal (and secular) disgust with abortions.

A deeply held (fanatical) religious feeling does help one do non-survivable things, yes. But not all religions compel people into doing them. Christianity does not. Islam does...

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

20 years ago ... it wasn't a "hate crime" to beat someone just because you thought he was gay. I remember online arguments just 10 years ago.

But it was "a crime". If it wasn't prosecuted, that's a fault of corruption, not lack of a law.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lenin. Stalin. Mao. Killed a lot to promote atheism.

Re:Check your math.

[Pumpkin Tuna]

The "lone wackos" targeting abortion providers aren't alone. Do a little research and you will find that they have help, ideological reinforcement and cheerleaders among the larger group of anti-abortion protestors.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

> I can't think of any serious terrorist or even violent activity by Christians in a very long time

Haven't been paying much attention to South America, have you? Extremist catholics have killed tens of thousands over the last decade.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately for your logic, time extends in both directions beyond the present moment.
Others of those 500,000 have been involved and will be involved in violence - if you want
to do a couple minutes of research.

Re:Check your math.

[bugs2squash]

Well it would happen to to be the same god as the Muslims and Jews worship, so yes... not specific to Christianity at least.

Re:Check your math.

[Tom]

This.

Or maybe someone should just fork islam and create a non-violent branch that kicks out all the "kill them for..." parts. OTOH, that is also long overdue for christianity.

Re:Check your math.

[Tom]

That's probably because Christianity does not require believers to spread the faith

Semantically correct, but the step is so thin it's not a surprise so many christians throughout history thought otherwise.

If you know (not suspect or think, but know by divine message from the creator himself) that everyone who doesn't join your faith is doomed to eternal suffering in this world and the next, and their children and their children as well, you either feel a strong impulse to teach them the "truth", or you're not really serious about it.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's probably because Christianity does not require believers to spread the faith — at the point of a weapon, if necessary. It has happened in the past, but not because anything in the scripture mandates it. Unlike in Koran... So a Christian fanatic, who wishes to live by the word of his god is not compelled to convert or kill anyone. A Muslim fanatic, unfortunately, is...

Actually, a Christian is required to spread the faith. Matthew 28:19, 20 states, "Go, therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you. And look! I am with you all the days until the conclusion of the system of things."

Seeing as that's a direct command from Jesus, it's entirely valid to say that not preaching and teaching makes you not a Christian. Which means that precious few "Christians" are actually Christians, that is, followers of Christ in word and in deed.

Of course, Jesus also notably told his apostles to "return [their] sword to its place" and that "those who live by the sword will die by the sword". That was on the night of his death. If it had been God's will for humans to fight that sort of battle, there would have been no better time to act than that night and no nobler cause to fight for than the life of God's son.

Jesus also indicated that his followers would not fight in wars, either. They would be "no part of the world", having no involvement in the world's useless and inconsequential political squabbles, including any call to arms between human governments. A follower of Christ would be waiting on God's kingdom, with Christ as king. No other government would be legitimate in the eyes of a Christian, and no other government could legitimately call for the execution of an enemy, whether on the battlefield or in a judgement. (Just as a side note: Romans 13:1 indicates that Christians would tolerate human governments, but would only follow their laws as long as they do not conflict with God's requirements.)

But true Christians are also not pacifists. They look forward to the "war of the great day of God the Almighty", when Jesus, as the king of God's kingdom and the chief of the heavenly angelic army leads God's heavenly army into battle against the nations of mankind. Obviously, human governments will lose the battle, and the war too. Those who side with them (or simply refuse to follow Christ) will be executed at this time as well.

So no Christian is expected to ever rightfully harm another human. Ever. But proselytizing is part of the deal, too.

Re:Check your math.

[mi]

everyone who doesn't join your faith is doomed to eternal suffering in this world and the next, and their children and their children as well

Although so is frequently said by some Christians, the idea is not part of the doctrine and not found in the Bible either (certainly not as attributed to god or any prophets). The current Pope is on record saying the exact opposite, actually.

strong impulse to teach them

Proselytizing is one thing (though Judaism frowns even on that).

But Islam — uniquely — is not satisfied with mere teaching. Koran compels the faithful to fight non-believers (or denigrate and tax them, as a minimum). Because — uniquely — Islam was established to help create a theocratic empire (Caliphate) and justify all means used to that end...

Re:Check your math.

[mi]

I claimed that some Americans were joining the military for the same reasons that some Muslims become terrorists, to defend their religion and culture against its perceived enemies.

Well, in that case our participation in Korean war is evidence, we are full of Buddhist terrorists.

Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company

None of the references cited on that page actually promote fighting or armed struggle. They were put there to comfort the soldiers — all religions help followers do non-survivable (or hard-to-survive) things. But only Islam requires that.

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity

Ann Coulter was, quite obviously, trolling — she is very good at it. Just last week she wrote, that the Rolling Stones reporter, who falsely accused some college students of rape, received an award from Rape Hoax Monthly. Are you going to cite that as evidence, such a society exists? Her article simply reversed the tables — it expressed the sentiment written into "religion of piece".

The mechanisms are different but Christianity has it's own long history of aggressive attempts to spread the faith.

Secular leaders have used Christianity to justify conquests and subjugation, yes. But those aren't part of the scripture — neither Christian god, nor any of His prophets have ever called for anything of the kind.

Re:Check your math.

[Coren22]

they lobby and work for it to be applied and are frequently successful. Anti-abortion laws,

Most countries in the world consider murder to be wrong. You can choose to believe it isn't murder, but many disagree.

Re:Check your math.

[mi]

not actively start wars/fights to gain goods or force people to convert.

Yeah, 2:256. What came after that — and thus, by the rules with which the book is interpreted, takes precedence, is:

• Qur'an (8:39) - “And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism: i.e. worshipping others besides Allah) and the religion (worship) will all be for Allah Alone [in the whole of the world ]. But if they cease (worshipping others besides Allah), then certainly, Allah is All-Seer of what they do.”
• Qur'an (9:29) - "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."
• Qur'an (9:5) "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them..."
• Qur'an (9:11) - (Continued from above) "But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then are they your brethren in religion"

I would've said "dream on", but your pro-Islam propaganda endangers the rest of us...

are we still holding all the crusades against christians?

Why is it, that you have to go back 600 years to find anything against Christians to counterweight contemporary behavior of Islamists?

Re:Check your math.

[mi]

how religion adversarial is to society

Though a Soviet-raised atheist myself (where Communists could not afford to have any other teaching compete with their own), I must say, I prefer living in among religious folks — so long as they aren't empowered to convert me, of course.

You don't need as strong a lock on your house, nor do you have to fear as much, when your daughter walks home from the train.

Unfortunately, the alternative to an established monotheistic religion like Judaism, Christianity (most flavors), or even Islam, is not the theoretical atheism of the USSR or the sophisticated agnosticism of the educated elites. No, it is the superstitions and paganry — with vampires and werewolves, amulets and "lucky charms", "jinxing", and "bad karma" nonsense.

Re:Check your math.

[Pumpkin Tuna]

You mean like this?
http://www.news.com.au/national/the-grand-mufti-of-australia-joins-muslim-community-leaders-in-condemning-sydney-siege/story-fncynjr2-1227157148381

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Christians did the Holocaust.

Re: Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually every single major Muslim body in Sydney did just that, apart from the pigs part

Re:Check your math.

[mi]

There are about 1.3 billion muslims in the world and the fraction causing problems in practice is minimal however you try and spin it.

I don't need to spin it — ISIS and Al Qaeda do it themselves. Few of the Muslims are actually fighting, yes, but they are funded by the much larger group of people.

You really don't know about the whole Catholics vs. Protestants thing?

I know about it quite well — enough to understand, that nothing in the doctrine of either flavor of Christianity compels its followers into doing the things IRA has done.

The Bible says an awful lot of things that aren't particularly nice either

None of those things are attributed to Him or His prophets. Koran, on contrast, dispenses with such subtlety and purports to be entirely the word of God.

Yes, Christianity too has been used to justify all sorts of atrocities, but one had to pervert the doctrine to make it usable to that end. Islam, unfortunately, does not need any such creative interpretations. It is quite explicit.

Most conflicts have some religious twist to them

Yes, religion is a tool used by societies during conflicts to rally supporters, team up with allies, comfort its own, and help its fighters do non-survivable things for the rest of us. But only Islam compels its followers into spreading itself.

In particular, Koran is incompatible with the First Amendment, which represents an interesting paradox for the US. On the one hand, Muslims swearing to respect the Constitution must denounce their religion. On the other, that very Amendment makes it impossible for us to force them into such denouncing...

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

nothing in Catholicism insists nor mandates the sort of things they've done.

Not true. Catholicism has a long history of promising a trip to heaven for its followers who fight in "holy" wars, and there were a lot of Catholics who believed that the IRA were doing God's work by fighting against Protestant rule. Canon law defines holy war as being a good thing (same as Islam).. And on the opposing side, there were many Protestants who believed that the Pope was the anti-Christ. It was a common view: Watch The Moment Ian Paisley Called Pope John Paul II 'The Antichrist' "I refuse you as Christ's enemy and Antichrist with all your false doctrine." (Reverend Ian Paisley was a Protestant religious leader who was elected First Minister of Northern Ireland).

"Whoever joined the ranks of the crusaders gained spiritual immunity, Pope Urban II promised forgiveness of all sins to whosoever took up the cross and joined in the war. While there were additional motivations for taking up the cross—opportunity for economic or political gain, desire for adventure, and the feudal obligation to follow one’s lord into battle—to become a soldier for Christ was to express total devotion to God."

"By the pontificate of Urban II Western churchmen had in principle embraced the concept of holy war and viewed warfare as a positive value in the Christian life. "Such is the history of society," wrote Cardinal Newman, "it begins in the poet and ends in the policeman. " And one might paraphrase his observation by saying that the history of the medieval Church begins in the Gospel and ends in the Military Orders."

Re:Check your math.

[micahraleigh]

You are aware that most of the Muslim world was wildly celebrating on Sept 11, 2001, right?

Re:Check your math.

[gwstuff]

The point I made (conservative Christians, comparable surveys etc.) was in response to the statement "a large fraction of practicing muslims have opinions contrary to the principles of modern society", which in turn was somebody's rebuttal to the point "a minuscule fraction of muslims are violent, the vast majority are non-violent".

The surveys did not conclude that the large fraction -- 40% or whatever were violent suicide bombers. This is NOT about the few fuck ups who kill and destroy. It's about the overwhelming majority that doesn't.

You conflated the two and extrapolated my message to sound like I was comparing violent suicide bombers with people who disagree with gay marriage or abortion laws. NO - if you have trouble grasping logical statements with multiple clauses -- AGAIN, I was comparing peaceful muslims who are influenced by their religion with conservative [christians, jews, hindus, ...].

Of course, there's a good chance that you do understand this but would rather not acknowledge it, preferring to wriggle into a nook of defective logic to spread your message of hatred.

Re:Check your math.

[Grishnakh]

No, the Nazi leadership were big believers in Germanic paganism and the occult actually.

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Certain anti-Jewish violence and intimidation might be classified as crime in the name of Christianity, depending on what sect he's coming from, how religious he is, etc.

Re:Check your math.

[Harlequin80]

the Western world has to ask itself it can tolerate this dangerous ideology to spread within our societies

Please tell me you can see how dangerous a concept this is?

Re:Check your math.

[Tom]

I agree that there's the difference of book or not, but frankly speaking, most christians known only the summary version of their holy book and never actually read it, so the difference is, again mostly semantical.

That christians today don't want to kill unbelievers and heretics anymore has little to do with christianity itself and a lot with the enlightenment and the secularisation of society and politics.

Re:Check your math.

[thegarbz]

Everyone is connected when someone does something in the name of their imaginary friend.

What you and I think is irrelevant. What is important is that 5weeks ago Muslims felt marginalised and Australians agreed. Now Muslims are on the defensive and Australians show little sympathy (even though from the looks of it this wasn't a religious attack).

Be very careful with understanding what it means to "legitimise something" and what it means to "legitimise in the mind something". What actually happened is entirely irrelevant compared to what people think happened.

Re:Check your math.

[DoofusOfDeath]

the Western world has to ask itself it can tolerate this dangerous ideology to spread within our societies

Please tell me you can see how dangerous a concept this is?

Your right! the GP's idea is dangerous and cannot be tolerated!

Re:Check your math.

[jrumney]

That's probably because Christianity does not require believers to spread the faith

I don't know what bubble you're living in. I live in a Muslim majority country, and I still encounter Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses on their mission to spread the faith. I've never encountered such zeal from the local Muslims (when I lived in the UK, there were evangelical Muslims with a table in the town square every weekend, so they do exist, but it seems to be more about recent converts taking an aspect of Christianity over into their new faith than anything fundamental to Islam itself).

Re:Check your math.

[oh]

I would say the vast majority of Australian Muslims are horrified how this turned out, if only because it makes their lives so much harder. Most of them want to get on with their jobs and raise their families somewhere safe.

#illridewithyou

Re:Check your math.

[Xest]

"I don't need to spin it â" ISIS and Al Qaeda do it themselves. Few of the Muslims are actually fighting, yes, but they are funded by the much larger group of people."

Yes, just like the IRA were funded by Catholics in America, just like leftist guerillas in South America are supported by local farmers and so on and so forth. What is your point still? It's not like there's a higher level of funding amongst muslims for this sort of thing than any other group. You might want to think that or pretend there is to satisfy your apparent hatred for this group of people but the problem there is your hatred, not the group of people in question.

"I know about it quite well â" enough to understand, that nothing in the doctrine of either flavor of Christianity compels its followers into doing the things IRA has done."

That depends who you ask. Many members of the IRA would disagree, just as many members of ISIS would disagree with many muslims on it being a religion of police. It doesn't really matter what the books say only the actions of the people, and there's no more Islamic fundamentalists than there are extremists of many other groups.

"Yes, Christianity too has been used to justify all sorts of atrocities, but one had to pervert the doctrine to make it usable to that end. Islam, unfortunately, does not need any such creative interpretations. It is quite explicit."

Yeah, because it's not like the Bible has anything like that is it? -

âoeSlaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel.â (1 Peter 2:18)

âoeWives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.â (Ephesians 5:22)

âoeI do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.â (1 Timothy 2:12)

âoeThis is what the Lord Almighty says... âNow go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.â(TM)â (1 Samuel 15:3)

The problem is you've fallen hook line and sinker to classic far right spiel just as Russian's have currently with Putin and just as Germans did with Hitler. You create an enemy, which can be easy when there are plenty of that group that give reason for themselves to be hated, and then you focus wholly on that enemy and claim them to be the source of all the world's ills. You ignore the hypocrisy of the fact that other groups are just as guilty and that the problem isn't the group, but bad individuals. Congratulations on being small-minded enough for fall for this type of thing, you're the perfect example of the "useful idiot". You don't have to be though, whether you continue to be is your choice, you sound proud of it, but you really shouldn't be- there's no pride in ignorance.

As for your final note well guess what? Turns out that the Bible similarly denies women freedom of speech if you're to adhere to the examples quoted above which is clearly a breach of the 1st amendment. Again, is that too inconvenient for you?

I get it, you're scarred from years of fighting and turmoil, you want someone to blame, and it's easier for you to take it out on a whole group than get your head round the fact that evil people exist everywhere in every group and every walk of life. They'll always find an excuse, but rather than realise it's an excuse you've simply fallen for their nonsense. You think they're the fools, but they're the ones peddling the excuse- you're the one gullible enough to buy it.

I don't know, maybe you're religious yourself, and this creates the irony that you've decided your religion is more flawless and more right and that they must be wrong. Personally? It's all nonsense, I grew out of fairy tales when I was about 8, which makes it easy for me to step back and see that they're all just stories, often used as excuses to do bad things. Judging by your focus on the constitution I guess you're American and I can see there

Re:Check your math.

[PPH]

Yeah right. Did they put the Grand Mufti on a megaphone outside the cafe?

The bit about pig food means: We aren't going to discuss who is reading the right verses. You come out now or we've got something we can do to you or your remains that keeps you out of heaven and those 72 virgins. There may be alternatives I haven't thought of that would have the equivalent effect and won't squick the general public out as much.

Re:Check your math.

[Augury]

Actually, our Prime Minister is doing just that.

In 2010, Tony Abbott, when asked about Asylum seekers arriving in Australia, he said "Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia" Source: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda...

He then legislated on this basis and proposed a range of immigration policy changes.

That proposed immigration policy has recently been found to be in contravention of UN human rights law. Source: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-...

So yes, at least one Christian person is committing international human rights violations in the name of his religion - unfortunately, it happens to be the most powerful man in Australia.

Re:Check your math.

[Augury]

1 of them is committing this crime.

In the name of his religion.

What they need is a local Imam to get on a megaphone and tell this guy that this is not in keeping with Islam and that he (the Imam) will personally supervise his body being fed to pigs if he doesn't come out RIGHT NOW.

They did more or less exactly that, to no effect: http://www.skynews.com.au/news...

I think what you're expecting with this comment is that the perpetrator will recognise the authority of leaders in his religious community and abide by their direction due to his faith. That they did exactly what you describe and it had no effect demonstrates that there is a disconnect here between the motivations of this individual and the control and authority of the religion.

This could be a disconnect between radical and moderate elements within the religion (i.e. a schism which allows him to declare that his interpretation of the religion is the "correct" one and that those other interpretations can be ignored) or a disconnect between the religion and this person's true motivations (i.e. he isn't actually directly and wholly motivated by the religion).

In either case, this is a good illustration that Islam and adherence to the faith isn't his only motivator. In fact, there is ample evidence from his past that he is a mentally unstable person and this may have more bearing on his actions than his proclaimed faith: http://www.theaustralian.com.a...

Re:Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

THe US gov is secular, but the xians still vote as they are told by their pastors. Go check how many fundamentalist xians support the freeweapons for israel program because its "goods will" to protect the holy land.

Color me surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

...if the gunman turns out NOT being mentally deranged.

Re:Color me surprised

[cold fjord]

Can we still color you if the gunman turns out to be an Australian that went to fight with ISIS and has now returned to bring the Jihad home?

Are all people that have different values from you "deranged" too?

Re:Color me surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

...if the gunman turns out NOT being mentally deranged.

Well, the gunman claims to be Muslim, so I don't think you'll be surprised.

Re:Color me surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we still color you if the gunman turns out to be an Australian that went to fight with ISIS and has now returned to bring the Jihad home?

Were it possible, I'd be willing to bet money against that.

More likely an untrained sympathiser, or sympathisers, someone affected by the recent spurious counter terrorist raids. Or perhaps the opposite, a grieving parent who holds the government responsible for failing to stop their child going off to fight with ISIL

Re:Color me surprised

[Opportunist]

You think someone wanting to fight and die because his imaginary friend told him it's a good idea is NOT mentally deranged?

Re:Color me surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

You think someone ... is NOT mentally deranged?

No ... he was very clearly betting that the gunman IS derranged. :p Perhaps not even exclusively on the basis of his religiousity.

Re:Color me surprised

[cold fjord]

Were it possible, I'd be willing to bet money against that.

"Were it possible"? You must not follow the news much.

Australia Is The Largest Per Capita Contributor Of Foreign Fighters To ISIS

I think your notion about the "spurious counter terrorist raids" is peculiar. The way to protest against anti-terrorism raids is to actually engage in terrorism? Your notion about grieving parents also seems off.

Re:Color me surprised

[CanHasDIY]

Perhaps he has faith in all the bullshit security theater one goes through when entering or leaving a country. Surely the Aussie PTB wouldn't allow a known terrorist to enter their country, right?

Is your response here an indication that Slashdot's resident statists are changing their tunes when it comes to bullshit "responses" to national security threats? I'll bet not.

Re:Color me surprised

[CanHasDIY]

That's... actually a really good point.

Although, to be fair, a lot of folks would consider volunteering to sacrifice your life so a handful of avaricious rich guys can get just a tiny bit richer to be a bit on the insane side, too.

Re:Color me surprised

[Archangel Michael]

I dunno, people kill for governments all the time, yet we don't call those people deranged. I know plenty of people who are atheists that are deranged, the fact that they don't have a unifying cause behind them is only temporary.

Re:Color me surprised

[Opportunist]

Your nick makes that answer kinda surreal.

Re:Color me surprised

[Augury]

You think someone wanting to fight and die because his imaginary friend told him it's a good idea is NOT mentally deranged?

I'm afraid if you look closely, you'll find that a great many people declare this as their motivation for major decisions - including those we elect to lead our sensible western democracies:

George Bush on starting wars, 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq': http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

Tony Abbott (Australian PM) on immigration policy, 'Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it is not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia': http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda...

So it's not really a sensible approach to just declare all such people mentally deranged. We need to look more closely at this motivation and work to eliminate, as far as possible, those elements of it which lead people to make decisions which are otherwise contrary to the accepted civil standards of our society - whether lone wolf acts of terror, political acts of policy-making, or declarations of war on our behalf.

Re:Color me surprised

[Opportunist]

Not? Look at the two nutjobs you picked as examples and tell me it ain't so.

Re:Color me surprised

[cold fjord]

I look forward to the day when you can correctly identify an actual national security threat instead of labeling all of them "bullshit." That makes for a striking contrast to your positions on the 2nd Amendment where to tend to have good positions.

ISIS is an American/Israeli invention

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't surprise me that their masters would send them around the world... even a chocolate factory... 10 days before xmas. Sadly even honey-pot terror organisations have a way to backfire. Remember the CIA funding Osama to fight Russians in Afghanistan. That turned out real fine in the end.

Re:ISIS is an American/Israeli invention

[amiga3D]

What in hell does Willy Wonka have to do with this?

Re:ISIS is an American/Israeli invention

[Anonymous Coward]

You are mistaken, the US didn't fund bin Laden.

Re:ISIS is an American/Israeli invention

[Anonymous Coward]

Chocolate Café... my bad.

Re:ISIS is an American/Israeli invention

[TropicalCoder]

It's the Americans who created ISIS. See this...

ISIS was Formed in US Prison Camp in Iraq...

Do you really trust CNN?

[Anonymous Coward]

Overblown, hysterical reporting by news agencies eager to fill their clickbait quota.
One gunman armed with a shotgun. Airspace is not closed. Links to any Islamic group unknown and only based on a flag held up to the window by 2 hostages.

 

Re:Do you really trust CNN?

[bugs2squash]

It's the solution for anyone planning to shoot up the mall as a cry for attention, but worrying it would only get local news coverage...

am I the only one confused

[Anonymous Coward]

at how media outlets can still be acting like it's unclear what happened in Fergueson (despite forensics) but hostage takers put up a flag that says: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God" but the prime minister & same media outlets say w/a straight face: "We don't know whether this is politically motivated"

it would be funny if the former didn't involve a death & the later certainly seems like even money at best...

Terroir

[vm146j2]

Fundamentalists. They hate us for our chocolate.

Re:Terroir

[phantomfive]

Fundamentalists. They hate us for our chocolate.

I understand, once I tried Lindt chocolate, too.

Re:Terroir

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't think they were thinking they were targeting Max Brenner chocolate shops and went to Lindt by mistake, do you?

Re:Terroir

[Anonymous Coward]

Fundamentalists. They hate us for our chocolate.

perhaps they went in looking for hallal chockies.
"what do you mean these turkish delights have gelatin !!!"

Re:Terroir

[hcs_$reboot]

As everyone know, Lindt is an Australian company.

Re:Terroir

[Archangel Michael]

Heretic!

Re:Terroir

[Anonymous Coward]

Right - take aim at all Fundamentalists, not just the particular ones that do terrorism every day, all over the planet.
How PC of you!

Re:Terroir

[tlhIngan]

Fundamentalists. They hate us for our chocolate.

I understand, once I tried Lindt chocolate, too.

Given the chemistry of chocolate, conching and termpering take place at VERY specific temperatures or you get poor results.

Notice how hot the middle east is? Well, it's so hot that chocolate just doesn't conch or temper at all without cooling, so if you keep chocolate outside, it gets nasty.

So yeah, they don't have good chocolate at all.

(While the actual temperatures are closely guarded, tempering is usually done around 31.5C, while conching times and temperatures are proprietary trade secrets for every company)

Re:Terroir

[AK Marc]

You get it from a store, not your belly-button.

Wolves among sheep

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to hear this unfolding :(

An unarmed populous is easier to terrorize. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia When being armed is illegal (or restricted to the point of being nearly that), only the bad guys will be armed in such situations. Waiting for the police to come save you is often an ineffective endeavor.

Re: Wolves among sheep

[Falconhell]

The armed population of the US seems very easy to terrorise, so I don't see your point. We in Oz don't want the thousands of deaths a year you well armed morons have.

Re:Wolves among sheep

[MavEtJu]

Because the social "everybody is allowed to wear guns" experiment is doing so great in the USA.

Re: Wolves among sheep

[Lord Kano]

And here, mass shootings tend to only take place in areas that prohibit or have severely curtailed the carrying of firearms.

LK

Re:Wolves among sheep

[Anonymous Coward]

Immigrant from Europe here (to Canada). Yes, it is doing great. The alternative is the mess in Ukraine, and former messes in the Balkans. Oh, and don't forget the holocaust, when unarmed Jews were sent to the camps. Looking at the last century, Europe is quite "progressive" with its bloodshed score compared to the USA.

Re:Wolves among sheep

[Anonymous Coward]

because gang members and other criminals get a concealed carry license, register, & follow all laws...

i thought australia was supposed to be a disarmed utopia where these crimes were unpossible.

Re: Wolves among sheep

[dbIII]

So you want to arm all those high school kids and see how it plays out? You've got to be joking or an utter sociopathic bastard.

Re:Wolves among sheep

[epyT-R]

It is actually.

Re: Wolves among sheep

[Falconhell]

We don't have mass shootings since we got sensible gun laws. It's not that complex man, more guns doesn't make anyone safer.

Re: Wolves among sheep

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and they don't really take place at all in countries where EVERYWHERE is an area that prohibits or curtails the carrying of firearms.

Funny that.

Re:Wolves among sheep

[Anonymous Coward]

The "good guys with guns" argument is appealing on its face but doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Well-meaning good guys too easily shoot themselves, other innocents, or nothing at all. It's easy to fantasize about being a cool-headed Dirty Harry with a big-ass weapon in hand, but faced with life-or-death situations, adrenaline kicks in, even seasoned officers can get it wrong.

Re:Wolves among sheep

[Tom]

I've heard that so often, it's time to burn the strawman.

In "such situations" (red flag right there - vague specification), only the pre-planned, very bad guys with proper resources and connections are armed like the military.

Most bad guys are lacking either the resources or the connections or the patience to jump through all the hoops that you need to jump through to acquire, say, an assault rifle illegally. In my country, which has strict gun controls, very few crimes involve weapons of any kind, and in those that do the weapon is almost always either a knife or a pistol. That means regular police can engage the criminal.

Re: Wolves among sheep

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, nah. You obviously don't understand our culture. See how the lunatic with the gun was killed? I don't see how the situation would have resolved any better by arming the best part of 25 million people...

Re:Wolves among sheep

[Augury]

What measure would you consider to be a reasonable indicator of a population terrorized by gun violence?

Number of armed hostage incidents per year?
Number of fatal shootings per year?
Number of shooting incidents per capita?

Just any other statistic whatsoever relating to gun crime in any way, shape or form?

Go ahead, pick one - anything that you think indicates that gun crime is rife in countries where there are gun controls. Take your time, think it through.

Now, go and check the statistics for whatever measure you have picked. Check Australia, where we have tight gun controls. Now check America, where you have laws and political pressure preventing gun control.

See how wrong you are?

Re: Wolves among sheep

[Anonymous Coward]

Got stats for that?

2GB

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can get through, 2GB has excellent rolling coverage on their radio station. Ray Hadley (the presenter) has had various calls throughout the morning from one of the hostages who speaking on behalf of the terrorist wants to speak to Tony Abbott (Prime minister) live on air.

http://2gb.com/listen-live

Re:2GB

[MavEtJu]

From all the stations you could come up with, you came up with the one which handles these kind of issues worst.

Go for ABC 702, it is mentally relaxing listening to this while my colleagues are shitting their pants around the various commercial TV station broadcasts: http://streema.com/radios/ABC_...

Re:2GB

[Darkling-MHCN]

Please don't listen to this station. It's listeners are like Australia's equivalent of the tea party voters.

If you want the worst possible impression of Australia, and want to hear our finest red-necks spout their racist, bigoted, hateful biol that passes for speech, go ahead and listen.

The last thing you're going to get is good coverage.

Re:2GB

[dell623]

For those not from Australia, three sources to follow the story which can lay some claim to being journalists (not bloody 2GB)

www.smh.com.au
www.theguardian.com/au (They have local reporters and a significant local presence)
www.abc.net.au

Re:2GB

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI
Ray Hadley is confirming he did speak with one of the hostages, so no he was not just making it up for his ratings as was suggested!

Re:2GB

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have been hostage swapped for one of those poor people for suggesting that people listen to Ray Hadley.

Should Allah be translated to God?

[stdarg]

It seems stupid to translate words that have become proper names for distinct concepts. David is David in English and David in French. Do you know what David is in German? David. In Arabic it's also David. Just because other cultures have similar sounding or meaning names doesn't mean you substitute them.. David is not Davide, it's not Davit, it's not Dawid, it's not Daud... it's David.

We definitely don't translate names like "Abdullah" to "Abdugod."

In English it's common to adopt words from other languages to express new concepts. The Muslim god is Allah, not God. Allah is too different from God to get the same name in English. Arabs can call God whatever they want in their own language, including Arab Christians who call the Christian god Allah.

It's just so stupid when things like "Allahu akbar!" are translated in news stories as "God is great" as if it means anything close to the same thing when Muslims say it as when Christians say it.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[MightyMartian]

Etymology isn't your strong suit, nor logic, nor much else.

BTW, what is Louis in German?

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[JoshuaZ]

Does it impact your opinion at all to learn that Jews and Christians when speaking Arabic use the word "Allah" to talk about their deity?

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[radtea]

Since the meaning of the gibberish on the flag is, "I am stupid! I am really really stupid!" it doesn't seem like there's much point in arguing about the conventions of translation.

In English "God" is sometimes rendered Yaweh or Jehova, but could as equally well be given as "Silly Bugger" or "Twit", and it wouldn't change the meaning of Christian gibberish, so there is no reason to quibble about how Muslim gibberish is translated. You could swap God for Allah in the translation and it would still mean: "I am stupid! I am really really stupid!"

Since God/Allah/Twit/etc is a word for something that the vast preponderance of the evidence suggests does not exist--all kinds of things are true that an all-powerful, all-loving, all-vengeful Supreme Being would not permit, and all kinds of things don't exist that such a being would create--anyone who believes in such a Being is necessarily stupid. As stupid as someone who believes in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. And since the translation should capture the gist of a sentence's meaning, "I am stupid! I am really, really stupid!" appropriately captures the gist of this one.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[Zombie Ryushu]

Allah is an Arabic Translatiteration of the term Elohah or Elohim, a term used to describe Yahweh in the old testament. Its actually a title.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[Anonymous Coward]

the vast preponderance of the evidence suggests does not exist

There is no evidence that a god doesn't exist. There can't be as god could create everything in a way that hides its existence. Then again there's no tangible evidence that a god does exist. Why argue about things that can't be solved?

If everyone around you tells you a fairy sneaks into your room and replaces your tooth with money, and then when you test it it happens, I'd hardly call that kid stupid. He trusts his family, why would they lie about something like that? Who would make up such crazy shit? Nothing is stupid with the right perspective.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know what Scheidenwischer is in English?
.
.
.
OH! Sorry! I meant Scheibenwischer!

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[Bite The Pillow]

TL;DR no, it should not have been translated, but whomever decided to had some damned reason or another, so you'll have to ask that person to see if this was justified.

It's an interesting question, and I'm on both sides of the fence. God and Allah are both the God of Abraham, spiritual head of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

"God" in western Christianity seems to be nameless, with the generic "god" becoming a proper name. We capitalize the word because there is only one god, and that is the god to which we refer by "God". Same with the difference between "his grace" and "His grace", only "his" is not a name.

But you suggest God is a proper name. It's more of a convention than a proper proper name, but whatever.

Why is the Muslim god called Allah?

A better question is, why would a Muslim and a Jew worship differently, have different beliefs, and want to blow each other up?

It is not the same God. There is your answer.

The Muslim God spoke through Muhammad - and the followers are Muslim. The Christian God spoke through Jesus - and the followers are Christian. The Jewish God spoke through Moses, without further distillation.

The worship of Allah is not the worship of the Christian God. The worship of the Jewish Lord is not the worship of either one.
Yes, it is the same God, but not the same religion. All 3 refer to the same God of Abraham, but God is not Allah because the followers are not the same.

If you are a Copt, dominated by Arabic culture, the proper translation is probably "There is no God but God," because this is very definitely not Allah. But clearly the second half, "Mohammed is the prophet of God," tells us that this is Allah, not God.

"Allahu akbar" does, in fact, mean "God is great" to both people. That is, if I translate for you so you can understand, it means that my God, who is also your God, is great. The key is in how you use translation. Do you mean that you literally translate without regard for idiom? Because most people don't do that. If I translate as "Allah, who is the God of these people but also in many ways the god of Christians and Jews, is great" it gets wordy, leaves lots of holes for questions and disagreements, and generally is worthless.

It is much closer in meaning and sentiment to say "God is great." It is not "God who hates Jews is great" or "God who thinks America is the Great Satan is great." It means "God of our faith is great", and is more clearly translated as you said.

Now to the quote in question: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God." Should that mean Allah instead? As I read it, it does in fact exclude the Jewish God and the Christian God, specifically because it excludes other prophets. BahÃ'Ã is out because they recognize many other prophets in addition to the one claimed in the quote. Mormonism obviously as well.

So this is the God of Muhammad, which can be summed up easily by saying "Allah" instead of God. Of course, this is redundant since the quote says that directly.

Since the quote comes from CNN, which cites Seven Network, we must consider whether Seven Network was right in translating it the way it did. I'm not going to go into the complexities of deciding who your audience is and whether you want to slant the news or appear unbiased, or whether someone put this much thought into the translation. Because they probably didn't. And no one cares by this point. And unless you majored in another language in preparation to be a translator, with formal education, the subtleties would be lost.

The choice is always to color someone's perceptions or avoid coloring - there is rarely neutral ground. So finally your question: Should Allah be translated to God? The answer of course is sometimes. Not in this case.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[DigiShaman]

“There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.” echoes a past in which Muhammad waged war against the polytheists of his birthplace. A cult that never died to this day.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[Anonymous Coward]

in German?

Was ist "in German"? Meinst du "auf Deutsch"?

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[epyT-R]

Excuse me, sonic the hedgehog does not like being referred to as 'twit'. I am heretoforthwitheth offended by thy satanist viewpoint. I will post on my tumblr accordingly.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[sconeu]

Actually, observant Jews would use a euphemism. They never use the word for G-d, but say, for example, "Hashem" (The Name), or "Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu" (The Holy One Blessed Be He).

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, observant Jews would use a euphemism. They never use the word for G-d, but say, for example, "Hashem" (The Name), or "Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu" (The Holy One Blessed Be He).

Indeed. Actually, an observant Jew would know that the name of God is YHWH, transliterated in English as Yaweh. But they rarely if ever use that name, out of reverence for The Holy One. I'm not sure, but I suspect that arabic-speaking Christians use Allah so as not to upset the sensibilities of their muslim neighbors. However, even that seems to have backfired. Of course, using any other name for God would absolutely enrage muslims who would instantly raise holy hell about it. This leads the more cynical side of me to the suspicion that this is just another way for muslims to tell Christians that they should just get it over with and convert to Islam.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[passwd]

So doesn't "The Name" become, in a sense, the name for god? Or is the word 'hasem' also used in non-religious contexts (eg "the hasem of that fellow is Jim")?

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[passwd]

er, *hashem

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[denzacar]

As I read it, it does in fact exclude the Jewish God and the Christian God, specifically because it excludes other prophets.

Nope. Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Isa (Jesus) and others are all prophets in Islam.
Same god. Different language.

In fact, had the popes been a little less dumb and less prosecuting of all flavors of Christianity other than Catholic and inclusive of others instead of constantly starting crusades against them - Islam could have easily been absorbed into Christianity.
It's no different than Mormonism or all those Evangelic flavors that would have been crusaded out had they sprouted when Islam did.
Just ask Cathars. Oh... wait... you can't.

Re: Should Allah be translated to God?

[Anonymous Coward]

If we didn't Anglicize names do you have any idea how many Johann Schmidts (John Smith) would be walking around the US right now?

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[JoshuaZ]

That's true in general for speaking in common contexts among Orthodox Jews. But even then, Orthodox people will simply sometimes say "God" in English or whatever the equivalent is in that language. And that's aside from the many less religious Jews who don't strongly have that taboo.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[stdarg]

This isn't about etymology. It's irrelevant how God and Allah were derived. What's relevant is how they're used today.

Louis in German is Louis, obviously.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[stdarg]

No because I already knew that, as I indicated in my post ("Arabs can call God whatever they want in their own language, including Arab Christians who call the Christian god Allah.").

The words people use in Arabic are different than the words people use in English. If they want to use Allah to describe both concepts they can do that. I'm talking about how some people translate Allah into God when speaking English. That doesn't make sense. We don't translate other religious names like Jesus and Muhammed. We transliterate them, but we don't come up with completely different sounding new names based on people in our own culture who play a similar role in some respect. Like, oh Muhammed is a really common name for Muslims, so that's like the equivalent of John. Let's call him John! Or, Muhammed was a prophet, let's just call him Moses because he was a prophet too, and they both start with M! That's dumb, we don't do that with names.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Actually, observant Jews would use a euphemism. They never use the word for G-d, but say, for example, "Hashem" (The Name)

And hipsters jews say "The G-word."

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems stupid to translate words that have become proper names for distinct concepts. David is David in English and David in French. Do you know what David is in German? David. In Arabic it's also David. Just because other cultures have similar sounding or meaning names doesn't mean you substitute them.. David is not Davide, it's not Davit, it's not Dawid, it's not Daud... it's David.

We definitely don't translate names like "Abdullah" to "Abdugod."

In English it's common to adopt words from other languages to express new concepts. The Muslim god is Allah, not God. Allah is too different from God to get the same name in English. Arabs can call God whatever they want in their own language, including Arab Christians who call the Christian god Allah.

It's just so stupid when things like "Allahu akbar!" are translated in news stories as "God is great" as if it means anything close to the same thing when Muslims say it as when Christians say it.

I agree. allah is a proper noun, and should stay untranslated: it means the muslim god, who always obeyed mohammed while the latter was alive. In case one doubts me, one can check what Malaysia did - ban local Malay-speaking Christians from using the word 'allah' for god, since allah is exclusively reserved for islam

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[Nidi62]

We definitely don't translate names like "Abdullah" to "Abdugod."

Because that would be translating only half the name. If you want to be correct, Abdullah would translate to "servant of God". You wouldn't translate the last name "Godwin" to "Allahwin", would you?

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[JoshuaZ]

That's almost the exact opposite argument than you made in your post. You really don't seem to have a coherent point here. Apparently Christians who speak Arabic are perfectly ok using the same word. If they thought that the words had different meanings then they'd try to use different words in Arabic. The fact that they don't shows that your entire claim doesn't work. You seem to be confused about whether "Allah" is a proper noun or a generic. Like the word "God" in English it is both.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[stdarg]

No, I explicitly differentiated between language customs in English and other languages. English has a tradition of adopting foreign words, many other languages do not and are more resistant to it.

The fact that Christian Arabs use the word Allah to name the Christian god and the Muslim god has *absolutely no bearing* on what the Christian god and the Muslim god are called in English.

The fact that you think my argument is "incoherent" when it's just pointing out some fairly obvious attributes of our shared language is very odd.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[stdarg]

I just had another conversation with someone about this topic and I wanted to add this because it came up.

You seem to be confused about whether "Allah" is a proper noun or a generic. Like the word "God" in English it is both.

I think it is a confusing concept, but one way to think of it is one word with two meanings. God can mean "the one monotheistic god" or it can mean "a deity." But when translating a word to another language, it's not true that every meaning gets translated the same way. As a concrete example, the word "set" has tons of English definitions. One translation of "set" to German is "Satz." That encompasses several of the same definitions as "set" including "a collection of things" and "a series of tennis games."

But another definition of "set" in English is equipment, like a TV set. In German that gets translated as "Gerat."

So even if it's true that one form of Allah (the generic form) should be translated as God, that doesn't hold that all meanings of Allah should be translated as God.

Re:Should Allah be translated to God?

[MightyMartian]

This isn't about etymology. It's irrelevant how God and Allah were derived. What's relevant is how they're used today.

You will find as much consistency in the Islamic world as in the Christian or Jewish worlds. If you look at the Monotheistic Abrahamic faiths, it is the Christian sects that, by and large, are the most deviated from the Old Testament norms; in particular as far as the Trinity goes. The Jewish and Muslim view of God is far closer to a pure monotheism.

Louis in German is Louis, obviously.

It's Ludwig, not Louis. Both names have their origins in Old Franconian; in which the name was Chlodowig. They are equivalent, but with various pronunciation changes over the last 1500 or so years. You see, a funny thing happens to words, they evolve in pronunciation and in meaning.

But the word "allah" is merely the Arabic word for "god", and etymologically is related to similar words in other Semitic languages, including the Hebrew "el". If you're an Arabic Christian, you will use the word "allah" for the same reason. For goodness sakes, mate, the Aramaic word for God is "elah".

Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

The religious nutso are at it again... and why is this on a tech website?

It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope.

[Anonymous Coward]

You dignify the human waste who perpetrate such idiocy by calling them "terrorists".

They are much more likely to be some loser who has no idea what else to do with
their miserable piece of shit lives, so they decide to do bad things.

Calling them an asshole is much more likely to be accurate. Calling them a terrorist
gives them more credit than all but a tiny fraction of such scum remotely deserve.

SQUASH THEM!

[p51d007]

Take them out like the TERRORISTS that they are, least they get a foothold in YOUR country. I don't care which political party, religious affiliation or what their "cause" is, if they take hostages, once you get the hostages out, SQUASH THEM.

Re:SQUASH THEM!

[davester666]

Excellent comment. Because we normally let hostage takers go in situations like this. Or just give them house arrest or community service for a couple months.

There is no god but Cthulhu

[Anonymous Coward]

And Mohammed fucks camels.

Re:There is no god but Cthulhu

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, didn't the cult of Cthulhu have something to do with fucking fish?

Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

I know that sometimes on Slashdot, we get 'stuff that matters,' but can't we at least talk about the police drones involved in the situation? Or even that Uber is reportedly charging users a minimum $100 to get out of Sydney CBD. At least attempt to make it seem relevant please?

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't have to be relevant. Important news stories tend to get posted here regardless of whether they have anything directly related to tech or geekiness at all.

Evidence: http://slashdot.org/hof.shtml - I'd say only about half (at best) of the "Most Active Stories" have anything that would be considered tech, nerd or geek-focused. Most are just general news stories, but things people want to talk about hence being on the Hall of Fame.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, did not know about Uber doing that! I agree, it is a bit of a hard sell for this to make the frontpage on slashdot without some tech angle. Perhaps they (editors) thought it may be a bit insensitive to talk tech when there are hostages in an unfolding situation.

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

Wow, did not know about Uber doing that!

I believe they have an automatic algorithm that adjusts based on supply and demand. So it's not like they're purposely trying to rip people off.

Re:Tech angle?

[dbIII]

Then whoever designed the algorithm is purposely ripping people off, which definitely sounds like slashdot story material if it's true.

Re:Tech angle?

[Jeremi]

Then whoever designed the algorithm is purposely ripping people off

Nobody is being forced to pay Uber's prices. There are still taxicabs in Sydney, are there not?

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

I'm not sure.....it sounds like it kind of, but wouldn't the higher prices draw more people in to act as Taxis? (or should I say, to "give rides?")

Re:Tech angle?

[Zontar The Mindless]

So they're just automatically ripping people off and this makes it all better?

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for others but one of the main reasons for my interest in science and technology ("News for Nerds") is that I see science and technology as the best tools to solve the world's big problems: poverty, disease, and conflict. Mostly I'm focused on the problem of disease (biomedical research). But my career has required me to travel, and live, overseas - where I've seen levels of poverty and socioeconomic dysfunction that will almost certainly haunt me for the rest of my life.

So I'm also interested in the question of poverty. A simplistic answer is that poverty exists because rich people are selfish. And that matches my experience as a scientist: there are far more people trained up and ready to do science (i.e. science PhDs) than there are jobs available. Scientific progress is not limited by lack of human capital/talent but instead by the demands of rich people that they be allowed to squander the world's resources on frivolous luxury items. It is heartbreaking to see such scientific talent wasted by the relentless greed of the rich.

Given the levels of socioeconomic desperation that I've seen throughout much of the world, what surprises me is how few "terrorist" attacks there are on wealthy western countries - countries that use their power mostly in banana republic fashion to facilitate exploitation of the poor local populations by a small handful of corporate cronies of the western politicians. It was deeply disappointing when Obama described the Islamic State guys as pure evil. Pure evil is when your life is good but you hurt people simply because you enjoy seeing people suffer. The Islamic State guys are more like a wounded wild animal that attacks the person trying to help it: tragic, misguided, ignorant, even stupid - but motivated by a level of socioeconomic suffering that is far beyond the experience of most Americans.

The number of lives that are lost in these "terrorist" attacks is so trivially small that it doesn't even amount to a rounding error. But what's interesting is how the socioeconomic despair and anger of extreme poverty is occasionally expressed in some (misguided) display of extreme violence. It would be nice to channel those powerful emotions into something more productive - like increasing taxes on rich people to alleviate poverty.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Islamic State guys are more like a wounded wild animal that attacks the person trying to help it: tragic, misguided, ignorant, even stupid - but motivated by a level of socioeconomic suffering that is far beyond the experience of most Americans.

The Islamic State guys have made pamphlets detailing why child rape is OK. They kill anyone who doesn't subscribe to their extremely narrow world-view. There are videos of them killing people in towns they occupy, executing young men (and kids) execution style - line them up, head shot, push their corpse into the river, bring on the next of the commended. There's no justification for any of this no matter where you come from, and you can't complain about the rich given their hordes of wealth from occupied oil fields and bank and other treasures they've taken along the way.

You completely sick fuck, thinking you can justify this shit simply because you're a scientist.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber is giving free rides http://blog.uber.com/sydneysiege

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

They heard the criticism and now it's free to leave the CBD:

http://www.cnet.com/news/uber-reaches-4x-surge-pricing-as-sydney-faces-hostage-lockdown/

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

You completely sick fuck, thinking you can justify this shit simply because you're a scientist.

No, not to justify - to understand.

Image that someone tied you a chair a read you some passages from the Koran that could be interpreted to advocate the killing of "unbelievers". Would you suddenly be like "Wow, I'm totally convinced now - gotta go out and kill me some unbelievers"? Obviously not - but that's one of the dominant hypotheses on Slashdot right now - essentially that there's this old religious book that's got this magic power that's convincing people to go out and do terrible things.

And what I'm saying is that most Americans are missing some important data - without which it's going to be totally impossible to make sense of this Islamic State stuff. Most Americans grow up in an environment that mostly makes sense - where if you avoid making any really bad decisions and are willing to work reasonably hard then you are very likely to have a comfortable secure life. And that's the lens through which most Americans see the world.

But that's not the case for most of the rest of the world. Until you've lived outside the cozy confines of the USA (and a small number of other wealthy countries) and actually seen the relentless arbitrary suffering and despair in which most of the people of the world are trapped, you're just not going to have the life experience that would allow you to understand what motivates the Islamic State guys.

I'm not saying the Islamic State guys are right or justified or anything like that - just that it's nonsense to propose that they're doing what they do because someone read them a few pages of some old religious book. You don't develop that level of hatred and anger without at least seeing first hand up close and personal, and in most cases being subjected to, stuff that is so bad that it's beyond the comprehension of most Americans.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually they stated they intentionally jacked up the prices to encourage more drivers on and it wasn't automated.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Supply and demand. Why do you hate capitalism?

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

Given the levels of socioeconomic desperation that I've seen throughout much of the world, what surprises me is how few "terrorist" attacks there are on wealthy western countries

Socioeconomic imbalance doesn't cause terrorism. That's a myth.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't tell if you're being snarky or not.

In case you're not:

Profit. Profiteering. Not the same thing.

Re:Tech angle?

[AHuxley]

None but some AC likes the Strategy of tension news reports. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Socioeconomic imbalance doesn't cause terrorism. That's a myth.

Well, there's socioeconomic "imbalance" and then there's socioeconomic dysfunction and suffering at a level that most Americans simply can not comprehend because it is so far outside their own experience. And there's the lone crazies like Anders Breivik and Adam Lanza versus organizations with thousands and thousands of members such as the Islamic State.

Any real explanation of the Islamic State's support will necessarily be based on the severe socioeconomic dysfunction and suffering that exists in that part of the world and elsewhere. But consider yourself lucky if you've managed to avoid the life experiences that would allow you to understand that.

Re:Tech angle?

[tehcyder]

So in your police drone example, we'd only be allowed to discuss the technical aspects of drones, and not be able to mention the context, i.e. they are being used to monitor a hostage situation involving (presumed) Islamic State supporting terrorists?
We'd just discuss the drones' battery life, top speed and stuff?

And after 9/11 we'd all just have stuck to technical analysis of the pilots' navigational skills or something?

Re:Tech angle?

[tehcyder]

Wow, did not know about Uber doing that!

I believe they have an automatic algorithm that adjusts based on supply and demand. So it's not like they're purposely trying to rip people off.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why big business wants Artificial Intelligence so desperately: nothing will ever be any human's fault ever again.

It's a tech take on "I was only obeying orders".

Re:Tech angle?

[tehcyder]

Are you a paid shill for Uber, or just a disgusting human being?

Re:Tech angle?

[tehcyder]

Given the levels of socioeconomic desperation that I've seen throughout much of the world, what surprises me is how few "terrorist" attacks there are on wealthy western countries

Socioeconomic imbalance doesn't cause terrorism. That's a myth.

Yeah, all terrorism is based on (Islamic) religious mania. So to be victors in the war on terror, we just have to kill all the Muslims.

It's all so simple.

Re:Tech angle?

[Rich0]

Then whoever designed the algorithm is purposely ripping people off, which definitely sounds like slashdot story material if it's true.

Apparently you favor an algorithm where people with the time to stand on a street corner for 3 hours get lucky and get a cab. Uber apparently prefers an algorithm where anybody who requests a cab gets one in 5 minutes every time, albeit at a higher cost than normal.

Either way exactly the same number of people are being driven where they want to go per hour. It isn't like they're limiting the supply of cabs. Indeed, if fares are going up chances are that every Uber driver in the city is headed for that area even if it means working all night to do it. The algorithm probably means that more people are going to get where they want to go per hour.

An auction is actually the most straightforward way of ensuring that supply and demand are balanced. Virtually every stock exchange on the planet works in this manner as a result. If more people want Microsoft stock than are selling it at the moment, the price goes up.

Re:Tech angle?

[Rich0]

I'm not sure.....it sounds like it kind of, but wouldn't the higher prices draw more people in to act as Taxis? (or should I say, to "give rides?")

Yup. For some reason people seem to prefer inefficient markets where the prices stay low but everybody stands around in lines waiting for rationed soap or whatever, to a market where the price gets set based on supply/demand and there are no lines and when the price of soap rises to $100/bar you find everybody with a pot and plastic containers making their own soap for sale, thus increasing the supply and satisfying demand.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the levels of socioeconomic desperation that I've seen throughout much of the world, what surprises me is how few "terrorist" attacks there are on wealthy western countries

Socioeconomic imbalance doesn't cause terrorism. That's a myth.

How do you know that?

Seriously, when it's pretty fucking clear that socieconomic imbalance at least feeds terrorism, it's very ignorant to dismiss it as a cause. Especially in Europe, refugees from the Middle East and their children are often young men with no jobs, no wife, no life and no hope. They feel like complete losers and see prosperity around them but if they join a terrorist organization, they suddenly have an identity and at least perceive their peers to respect them (the views of others don't matter that much then). Without such an imbalance, those men would not feel like such losers in the first place.

Re:Tech angle?

[sociocapitalist]

I know that sometimes on Slashdot, we get 'stuff that matters,' but can't we at least talk about the police drones involved in the situation? Or even that Uber is reportedly charging users a minimum $100 to get out of Sydney CBD. At least attempt to make it seem relevant please?

Uber is probably going to be irrelevant before long as they're being banned in more an more countries. France just announced that Uber will be banned starting in the new year.

Re:Tech angle?

[AmiMoJo]

Socioeconomic imbalance is a major cause of terrorism. In Afghanistan the Taliban pays more than most other available work, as does growing poppies. Low paid corruptible officials allow it to happen.

In developed nations young people with few prospects and little engagement in society due to their economic status are more easily radicalised and attracted to joining foreign jihad. For them it's a choice between unemployment/McJobs for 45 years or doing something that at least seems to have meaning, even if it is extremely misguided.

Re:Tech angle?

[jandrese]

Uber also turned it off once they read the news and instead gave everyone free rides out of the city, paying the drivers out of their corporate reserve.

Re:Tech angle?

[TropicalCoder]

The Islamic State guys are ... motivated by a level of socioeconomic suffering that is far beyond the experience of most Americans.

I really respect what you are saying in general, about greed and poverty, as it appears to come from a good heart and personal experience. However, I really doubt the Islamic State guys are motivated by socioeconomic suffering. I'm not sure what their motivation is but I can speculate on many other sources for motivation.

Re:Tech angle?

[gnasher719]

I really respect what you are saying in general, about greed and poverty, as it appears to come from a good heart and personal experience. However, I really doubt the Islamic State guys are motivated by socioeconomic suffering. I'm not sure what their motivation is but I can speculate on many other sources for motivation.

Well, look at the guys. Their religion tells them to dress and to behave towards women so that no woman would touch them with a barge pole unless forced to. The average bearded muslim looks ten times worse than the average Unix programmer and has a tenth of the brain, so they have no chance to get laid by any woman volunteering without getting paid.

And that just drives them nuts and hateful. Instead of shaving and getting a decent haircut and doing something to make themselves a bit attractive, they believe some fairy tales of virgins waiting for them in heaven. Sorry, guys, heaven is not where you are going! No virgins for you!

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the levels of socioeconomic desperation that I've seen throughout much of the world, what surprises me is how few "terrorist" attacks there are on wealthy western countries

Socioeconomic imbalance doesn't cause terrorism. That's a myth.

I wouldn't feel comfortable arguing for or against that premise without knowing some basic facts to back that up. Accordingly - citation needed.

Re:Tech angle?

[Jeremi]

Are you a paid shill for Uber, or just a disgusting human being?

Ad hominem attacks are tedious, so for the sake of argument let's take it as given that I'm both. Now that we've got that out of the way, I'll ask again: how are Uber's high prices ripping anyone off? Does anyone actually pay those prices? If so, why? Is Uber pointing a gun to their heads?

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a myth that you think it is a myth.

See, we can both post useless drivel!

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

Any real explanation of the Islamic State's support will necessarily be based on the severe socioeconomic dysfunction and suffering that exists in that part of the world and elsewhere.

Wow, it's not often you see people limiting their viewpoint and understanding so blatantly. You're wrong, and you'll never know it because you refuse to consider any other explanation to be 'real'

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

Given the levels of socioeconomic desperation that I've seen throughout much of the world, what surprises me is how few "terrorist" attacks there are on wealthy western countries

Socioeconomic imbalance doesn't cause terrorism. That's a myth.

How do you know that?

The original poster gave the evidence.....if economic imbalance caused terrorism, there would be much more of it.

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

If socioeconomic imbalances caused terrorism, there would be much more terrorism, both in the past and presently. Your 'low pay' hypothesis doesn't take into consideration that a higher proportion of terrorists are engineers.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then whoever designed the algorithm is purposely ripping people off

No, it just lacks demand spike smoothing.

The second-order layer that needs to be added is the ability for drivers to sell the supply several days in advance. If drivers can lock in a commitment to operate if the demand hits a certain level, the system won't need to spike beyond that until demand it has exceeded the reserve supply.

E.g
There is a 50% chance of Friday night. Driver sells a 4-hour commit-to-reserve for say, $10. If it rains, he has to drive for normal fares. If not, he stays home. Either way, he keeps the $10 (unless he is penalized for failing to honor the commitment). Uber charges the customers a much smaller premium and is able to publish the premiums in advance.

The third-order layer is letting additional market participants compete. An analyst monitors weather, concerts, sporting events, and traffic patterns and maintains an accurate demand model. He buys incorrectly priced commits and resells them. He can also sell virtual commits at the risk of being forced to rebuy them at a higher price. He competes against other analysts with other models and creates a market.

The end result is a system where riders can see an accurately modeled future price for their desired ride and buy it in advance or plan accordingly.

Re:Tech angle?

[AK Marc]

No, they are incenting Uber drivers to drive. That's their only stated goal with paying drivers more in peak/unusual times. This will allow more people to get rides, as more drivers drive.

Re:Tech angle?

[Zontar The Mindless]

It's an attempt to replace traditional carpooling/ridesharing with something Uber can skim off of. Inserting themselves as a middleman where none is needed.

Re:Tech angle?

[AK Marc]

IF none was needed, why is Uber doing so much better than ride sharing ever did? We've had decades to get ride sharing done right. It never happened. If ride sharing doesn't need a middleman, then nobody would use Uber.

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

Saying 'terrorists hate us for our money' is just as naive as saying 'terrorists hate us for our freedom.' However, some of them do hate Tony Bennett. Not necessarily because of his lyrics, but because it's music in the first place.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and if you look at much of the literature, you'll find that these terrorists are also UNEMPLOYED engineers.

Now, would you please explain to us how being unemployed is not a strong influencer on your socioeconomic status?

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

Plenty of people are unemployed and don't become terrorists.

The correlation between poverty and terrorism is probably weaker than the correlation between video games and violence.

Re:Tech angle?

[gnoshi]

Sure, because there is one and only one factor which determines the amount of terrorism that occurs in wealthy western countries.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

If socioeconomic imbalances caused terrorism, there would be much more terrorism, both in the past and presently.

Terrorism is so rare that you could apply that argument to pretty much any proposed cause (e.g. there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world so we can rule out any role for Islamic religion in causing terrorism). Not all traffic accidents are caused by drunk driving and not all drunk driving results in traffic accidents but we can still say that drunk driving is a cause of traffic accidents.

Trying to explain the rise of the Islamic State without reference to the underlying socioeconomic conditions (i.e. the USA's invasion and failed reconstruction of Iraq) is like trying to explain the rise of Hitler without reference to the Treaty of Versailles. One could debate whether the USA's invasion and failed reconstruction was the single factor making the rise of ISIL inevitable - but to deny that it was a major contributing factor is utterly absurd (but don't hold your breath that Obama and Bush will hold a joint press conference acknowledging their responsibility for the rise of ISIL - they are, first and foremost, politicians).

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

Trying to explain the rise of the Islamic State without reference to the underlying socioeconomic conditions (i.e. the USA's invasion and failed reconstruction of Iraq) is like trying to explain the rise of Hitler without reference to the Treaty of Versailles.

Not really. Furthermore the fact that you reference Hitler suggests you don't have the depth of knowledge to think of an example that isn't related to WW2, and thus your knowledge is rather shallow.

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

Of course there are more than one 'cause' of terrorism, but 'socioeconomic imbalance' isn't one of them.

Re:Tech angle?

[davydagger]

no, no, no. People can still convert to Islam, or hide the fact they are islamic. You can't smash an idea with a baseball bat, nor with a gun, or a nuke. The reason the west keeps fucking up, is that in a war of ideas, we haven't the faintest clue how to fight. Most of our "experts" don't have a faintest clue what people want beyond that the TV tells them. We have the faintest idea on how to keep the top %10 happy in the short run, and keep everyone else from scaring them. Thats it.

Re:Tech angle?

[dbIII]

There's an article here:
http://www.crikey.com.au/author/stilgherrian/
There's a quote of up to $184 for a trip to the nearby airport. It's spiked far beyond the point where most people are going to decline the service and wait for something else. That's a flawed algorithm since if it's capped at all it's capped beyond the point where it harmed the reputation of the company.
So somebody seriously fucked up.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

The original poster gave the evidence.....if economic imbalance caused terrorism, there would be much more of it.

1. Where's the link in that post to a credible source with some study showing that there isn't a link? Otherwise it's not evidence.

2. You say "much more". That's not even an argument. In order to make a comparison, you have to have something to compare with. If you could say "given that there was more/less terrorism between 19XX and 19XX when the socieconomic imbalance was greater/smaller" and show that other factors were the same, you would have a point. Otherwise you're just full of shit. And so you are.

Re:Tech angle?

[Mr. Shotgun]

Socioeconomic imbalance doesn't cause terrorism. That's a myth.

Of course not, extreme socioeconomic imbalance causes revolutions. And history is written by the winners so why would they call them selves terrorists?

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

1. Where's the link in that post to a credible source with some study showing that there isn't a link? Otherwise it's not evidence.

Who are you and why should I even care what you think?

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

Of course not, extreme socioeconomic imbalance causes revolutions

Revolutions are a different topic, but that would be an interesting angle to investigate.

Re:Tech angle?

[Rich0]

There's a quote of up to $184 for a trip to the nearby airport. It's spiked far beyond the point where most people are going to decline the service and wait for something else. That's a flawed algorithm since if it's capped at all it's capped beyond the point where it harmed the reputation of the company.

Whether most people decline the service is actually completely irrelevant. The question is whether Uber's services are 100% utilized or not. If they are, then the algorithm is doing exactly what it is supposed to do - match supply and demand. Now, if all of Uber's cars are sitting idle while there are crowds of people who would otherwise be using their services then the algorithm would be broken.

The reputation of the company is only harmed because most people aren't economists. :) They prefer waiting in lines for rations to orderly markets. This is why we spend so much of our time waiting in lines, waiting in traffic, and so on.

Economists prefer economic efficiency, and standing in lines of any kind is basically the opposite of efficiency. Any economist would tell you that there would be no point in capping the max price Uber charges, since the value of a service is whatever the supplier and customers agree it is. If people were buying $184 Uber rides and drivers were willing to provide the rides at that price, then that was the market value of the service. People who didn't want to pay the price would just have to wait until the riders with deep pockets were done buying rides, and then the price would fall. If Uber didn't raise their prices everybody would be standing around waiting anyway, but many drivers might see that huge traffic jam downtown and decide to just take the afternoon off.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was obvious from your first post that you don't care what anybody thinks because if you did, you would provide evidence for your claim. But since you keep posting nonsense, it's also obvious that you don't care that people think you're stupid.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

"plenty" is not a number or percentage.

If a larger percentage of people who become terrorists were unemployed before doing so than the total percentage of the general population that is unemployed, it's a clear indication of a link. Do you claim that a larger percentage of people currently involved in terrorism were employed in their respective countries of origin than the percentage of people employed in those countries? That would be a pretty fucking bold claim to make.

Re:Tech angle?

[dbIII]

The reputation of the company is only harmed because most people aren't economists

Thank Christ for that.
If you looked at the link you'd see the high prices did not become "market value" because everyone got a refund to defuse the poor reputation gained from this utterly stupid fuckup.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the term you're looking for is "revolution", not terrorism. Viva la France!

Re:Tech angle?

[Rich0]

The reputation of the company is only harmed because most people aren't economists

Thank Christ for that.
If you looked at the link you'd see the high prices did not become "market value" because everyone got a refund to defuse the poor reputation gained from this utterly stupid fuckup.

You're paying out the nose for the cab either way. You're just paying with your time instead of with your wallet.

Or I guess you can just pay somebody else to stand around and hail a cab for you, and then come pick you up once they have one.

I don't get why people are so opposed to auctions. If you auctioned off rush-hour driving permits for major highways you'd clear up traffic jams overnight. Carpooling would take off, public transit would take off, employers would allow for flexible hours, etc. It would take 15 minutes to drive what used to take 2 hours in some places.

I say all this and I don't really have a great deal of money to spend. I just don't like standing in line forever. If I could pay $1 and get a reserved seat in a movie theater I would.

Re:Tech angle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the levels of socioeconomic desperation that I've seen throughout much of the world, what surprises me is how few "terrorist" attacks there are on wealthy western countries

Socioeconomic imbalance doesn't cause terrorism. That's a myth.

True. Much as revolutions are not carried out by the poor and downtrodden; it's the middle classes who want to overthrow the ruling class, much as terrorists are largely middle class types of their nations trying to take a poke at the American middle class.

Re:Tech angle?

[dbIII]

I don't get why people are so opposed to auctions

I'm discussing an auction that was handled so badly that the PR folks had to give full refunds to clean up the mess.
I don't know what motive you have to try to apply it to all auctions.

Re:Tech angle?

[NewYork]

Socioeconomic imbalance does cause DISTRUST
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re:Tech angle?

[phantomfive]

That seems like something worth investigating, too.

Re:Tech angle?

[Rich0]

I don't get why people are so opposed to auctions

I'm discussing an auction that was handled so badly that the PR folks had to give full refunds to clean up the mess.
I don't know what motive you have to try to apply it to all auctions.

Ok, I don't get why people were so opposed to this specific auction. I'd say that it was handled just fine. The only reason that PR had to hand out refunds is that 95% of everybody else disagrees with me. I'd say that this is because most people are dumb. :)

Re:Tech angle?

[dbIII]

Dumb because of the idea of setting boundary conditions or some other reason?

The "most people aren't economists" comment is interesting - are you one and looking at it from the perspective of hard amoral economics as used as an excuse by some in Enron for the California electricity pricing scandal or is it just some comment on general understanding of supply and demand?

Re:Tech angle?

[Rich0]

I am not an economist, but I do appreciate it in general.

Free markets are very efficient at setting prices and balancing supply and demand.

Now, electrical utilities are about the opposite of a free market, at least as far as the last mile goes. Generation is arguably a somewhat-free market, but there are some issues with completely deregulating it. It could work on the basis of average rates, or on spot rates if actual consumers were the ones making the choice to buy electricity at spot rates (ie you program your rate to not pay above a certain rate, and if the rate goes about that your house just blacks out) - honestly, I don't think it would be worth the hassle in that case. The CA market was just a really dumb design - it allowed the generators to play games and bound the grid authority to play along. The big issue with generator choice (IMHO) is that it tends to drive everything to 99.999% utilization, which means that when anything goes wrong you have a huge grid collapse. Without some kind of system to prevent it free markets tend to drive races to the bottom.

In the case of Uber though there is a ton of demand and only so much supply. When you have a supply/demand mismatch your only real choices are auction or lottery. Most people seem to prefer the lottery (though they don't realize that this is what shortages really are), but an auction tends to be more efficient economically. A lottery gives the same opportunity to a man who needs to catch a plane out of town and a guy who wants to go sit in the park. An auction lets the guy who is desperate to catch a plane pay a bit more and be guaranteed a ride, while the guy who just wants to go sit in the park decides to watch TV for an hour and then try again. On the whole both end up happier than they would have had the one guy missed his plane (loses $300) and the other guy gone to the park (saves $10 because the cab price didn't go up).

There are lots of cases where general intution tends to be wrong. Another pet peeve of mine is the way almost all businesses run queues. Anybody who knows anything about queues knows that there is really only one way to do it right, and that is single queue, multiple tellers. People almost never self-organize into these systems, and I actually heard people complain when in a theater such a line happened to self-associate (people in the back of the line complained to a manager that everybody wasn't forming individual lines).

I'm far from a proponent of deregulation of natural monopolies, but I think that many cases that people consider "gouging" really do make the overall economy more efficient (as in it delivers the most value to everybody).

Re:Tech angle?

[dbIII]

The CA market was just a really dumb design

It was very clever for those that designed it, drafted the regulations and got their bought politicians to push it through. You are correct in that it's about as anti-capitalistic as things get in a nominally capitalistic system in that a serious loss of reputation did not mean a loss of customers.
I think there should be boundary conditions to prevent excessive predation on consumers in situations where choices are limited. The libertarian million dollar ticket for the last chopper seat out is akin to war profiteering, and society often turns upon people who exploit such situations.
An overly simplistic model with no cap has led to some people in Uber's new market hearing of them for the first time in a very negative context - that algorithm clearly sucks and has done damage.

Re:Tech angle?

[Rich0]

I think there should be boundary conditions to prevent excessive predation on consumers in situations where choices are limited. The libertarian million dollar ticket for the last chopper seat out is akin to war profiteering, and society often turns upon people who exploit such situations.

If the ticket for the last helicopter out didn't cost $1M, would there even be a last helicopter out? Do we punish anybody who owns a helicopter if they don't volunteer it for disaster relief? No. So, why should we punish somebody who charges an extremely high price for its use? It sounds noble to have laws that make it illegal to sell your own organs, but the result is that we end up with shortages, which is the result anytime you have price controls.

An overly simplistic model with no cap has led to some people in Uber's new market hearing of them for the first time in a very negative context - that algorithm clearly sucks and has done damage.

Whether it sucks depends on your goals. If you are the head of Uber and your goal is to make as much money as possible, then the algorithm sucks because the average idiot customer will turn on you over something like this. If you are the head of Uber and your goal is to be a humanitarian and get as many people out of harm's way as possible, then the algorithm worked great, because the high rates would have maximized the number of drivers turning out to help people in distress.

Yes, I'm serious. I realize it completely runs counter to "common sense" but what passes for common sense these days amounts to killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Re:Tech angle?

[dbIII]

If the ticket for the last helicopter out didn't cost $1M, would there even be a last helicopter out?

Yes. The guy that takes advantage is not the same one that has the power to provide the helicopter or not.


Things are getting very grey, even almost black here and considering the content of a historically set novel I'm reading I may start mentioning the modern version of pimps hanging around bus stations to recruit likely girls as an example of where your "pure" economics gets rejected by society. Are you really comfortable with that? Have you really considered such implications before posting something like what you have written above? Do you care that I consider you dangerously naive but have been hoping for some sort of insight from you anyway?

Re:Tech angle?

[Rich0]

If the ticket for the last helicopter out didn't cost $1M, would there even be a last helicopter out?

Yes. The guy that takes advantage is not the same one that has the power to provide the helicopter or not.

How do you figure? Since when does somebody other than the owner of a helicopter have the last word in what it costs to ride the helicopter? If you're trying to make some kind of reference to a government-run helicopter operation, most likely they wouldn't charge anyway. Of course, they'd probably get more people out if the millionaires could get quick service on private helicopters so that the free helicopters could focus on the people left who can't afford a ticket.

Things are getting very grey, even almost black here and considering the content of a historically set novel I'm reading I may start mentioning the modern version of pimps hanging around bus stations to recruit likely girls as an example of where your "pure" economics gets rejected by society. Are you really comfortable with that?

Am I comfortable with what? That society rejects prostitution? It seems about as effective as society's rejection of drug sales. Maybe if the industry were full of reputable companies instead of pimps and such there wouldn't be as many public health issues associated with prostitution.

Have you really considered such implications before posting something like what you have written above?

What implications? I am merely saying that what most people call "profiteering" is simply charging market rates, and it tends to get more services to people when they need them, since if you don't allow the charging of market rates then you get other behaviors like hoarding and shortages (if I can't sell you my cereal stockpile for $1000/box during a famine, maybe I'll just hide my stockpile in the basement since I'd rather not risk running out for a measly $1.50). Blocking free market trades doesn't magically turn everybody into an altruist.

I'm not suggesting that I don't agree with any government regulation whatsoever. In situations where there isn't a free market (large barriers to entry, limited information available to participants, etc) I'm fine with price controls. However, in many of those situations it is better to try to remedy whatever prevents the market from being free and then let the free market take over. For example, rather than trying to regulate the price of a tooth removal (the way this stuff typically happens), it would be better to have a central place where all dentists publish their tooth removal rates, and require them to charge that rate for everybody. Then anybody getting their tooth pulled can just check the website and aggregators could add value like reviews/etc and make it into a marketplace. Competition would quickly drive costs to an efficient level, so chances are your favorite doctor won't charge much more than the market rate anyway. On the other hand, something like trauma care probably would need to be price-controlled since people needing it rarely have the opportunity to shop around.

My point isn't that markets are the solution to everything. My point is just that markets are a very efficient way to align supply and demand and maximize the amount of sales/services/etc. If your service is getting people out of danger, then a market is going to tend to get more people out of danger than other systems. It might very well cost those people more in the process, but you'll get a lot more volunteers helping to rescue people when they stand to profit from it.

Do you care that I consider you dangerously naive but have been hoping for some sort of insight from you anyway?

Not at all. You're welcome to think whatever you want of me.

Re:Tech angle?

[dbIII]

If you're trying to make some kind of reference to a government-run helicopter operation,

Let's see now:

ticket for the last chopper seat out is akin to war profiteering

If it's not obvious from that context I'm going to laugh at you a great deal.

Am I comfortable with what? That society rejects prostitution?

I was very obviously providing an example of the unscrupulous preying on the desperate - the entire point of this thread as you know. I'm staring to think now that you are deliberately being obtuse and pretending to be far more stupid than you are just to try to pretend that there is no pressure from society, morality etc and jsut some form of "pure" economics. You are not fooling anyone, not even yourself I'm sure.

Re:Tech angle?

[Rich0]

If it's not obvious from that context I'm going to laugh at you a great deal.

On the one hand you're talking about war profiteering, and on the other hand I think you're talking about a government-run helicopter operation, which typically is provided free of charge. I honestly do not understand your analogy here. I'm not suggesting that the army should charge people to airlift them out of disasters. I'm saying that private individuals who have no duty to respond to disasters be allowed to charge for doing so, which results in more assistance being provided rather than less.

I was very obviously providing an example of the unscrupulous preying on the desperate - the entire point of this thread as you know.

Everybody is desperate. Without money we starve, freeze, and so on. The solution to that is basic income so that we can all afford to live, not to create shortages by pricing things below market value. There shouldn't be desperate people in the first place, and with taxes there is no reason we can't afford to take care of everybody.

Uber is doing their part to help

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber is reportedly charging its users in downtown Sydney a minimum $100, a result of surge pricing introduced in the midst of an armed hostage crisis, Mashable has learned.
http://mashable.com/2014/12/14...

Re:Uber is doing their part to help

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber is now offering free rides for anyone travelling out of the CBD. They've been doing this for at least an hour now.

Re:Uber is doing their part to help

[bloodhawk]

damage control after the media found out the price gouging they were engaged in.

Re:Uber is doing their part to help

[Anonymous Coward]

Once they realised this, they overrode the surge pricing and made all Ubers free

Re:Uber is doing their part to help

[tehcyder]

Glad to see Uber being cutting edge and disruptive. I'd even go so far as to say they've monetized a paradigm shift in being fucking stupid and evil.

Re:Uber is doing their part to help

[khallow]

Oh the drama. When something is so important that we're willing to pay well over its usual price, then it's a good thing we have do-gooders around to make sure we don't get it.

Re:Uber is doing their part to help

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like uber at all, but this isn't some evil scheme. When demand in an area rises the prices go up automatically. This is meant to get more drivers on the road during peak demand (obviously uber also likes the extra income).

In this case Uber was quick to inform users that their fares will be reimbursed.

Re:Uber is doing their part to help

[Anonymous Coward]

more like. When prick companies try to cash in on other peoples misery other stand up and call Bullshit on said company.

What's recent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does IRA count? You know... those 100 years or so of Catholics blowing up Protestants...
How about Timmy? Does he count?
How about them Russians shooting down planes and 'insurging' into Ukraine?

Or are you really saying that the issue with Islamic terrorism doesn't extend to cases of such historical and geopolitical magnitude?
I.e. Recently as in last couple od years? Days?

But does not that mean that Islamic terrorism is a very recent development?
An extremist one if you will?
At least historically, geopolitically and culturally.

I.e. That those 'Islamist' terrorists are NOT representative of the majority of Islamic people but an extremist deviation from the norm?
You know... like the way how not all Irish or Catholics are bombermen or how not all Italians are NOT in the Mafia.

What are you? Some kind of a Musie-lover?

Re:What's recent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not me. Because no one can truly love Mueslix. Well, birds maybe. Yeah, definitely birds.

Re: What's recent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually you will find Russia is supporting the bad guy terrorists in Ukraine. If you are Russian, then you are correct that " we" are supporting the terrorists in Russia.

Re:What's recent?

[Opportunist]

As far as I can tell, by definition, when supporting ANY side in the Ukrainian conflict, you're supporting the bad guys...

Re:What's recent?

[operagost]

He consider our society do not respect Islam, so violence is a normal outcome

Respect is earned.

Re:What's recent?

[gnasher719]

If you don't understand why Muslims are angry about drawings of Mohammed, then you are a big part of the problem.

Re: What's recent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. The IRA had political freedom - their political party (Sinn Fein) was allowed to exist and operate just like every other political party. The Catholic/Protestant dispute in Northern Ireland had more in common with the Sunni/Shia dispute in Iraq than you would like to admit.

Re: What's recent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Religion does not deserve respect and I do not want to respect any religion.
I don't discriminate, I consider all religions stupid.
I can understand why some people have the need to believe that their life matters, that someone/something can and will save/direct/lead/help/comfort them. But that should be a personal thing and not sonmething you force others to adjust their way of living to.

If I lived at the time of Jesus, I probably would have invented a god too, just to get people to behave.

Re:What's recent?

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be against Muslim practices to draw Mohammed. Well, guess what? We're not Muslims, so that law cannot apply to us. Otherwise, we'd not be allowed to eat pork, since Islam & Judaism ban pork. We'd not be able to eat shrimps, since Judaism forbids that. We wouldn't be able to eat beef, since Hinduism goes against that. And so on.

Problem with Muslims is that they expect Islamic law to be followed everywhere and by everyone. Like in Arab countries, non-Muslims aren't allowed to eat openly/publicly during Ramadan. Even though their religion(s) don't require them to fast during that month. But at the same time, in Muslim countries, they don't even tolerate, much less respect other religions. While they may claim the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, try asking them to allow a church or a Hindu/Jewish temple to be built at Mecca, and see what they say.

Re:What's recent?

[Anonymous Coward]

(((:~{>

There. I drew The Prophet.

Fatwah me, motherfuckers!

Re:What's recent?

[Coren22]

Timmy I believe is supposed to be Timothy McVeigh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Re: What's recent?

[unixisc]

You may be right, but just b'cos you don't respect any religion doesn't mean that they're all equally evil. Some are good, some are bad and some are quite evil.

Re:What's recent?

[Some_Llama]

"If you don't understand why Muslims are angry about drawings of Mohammed, then you are a big part of the problem."

I disagree, it is the observer of a belief that is charged with upholding that belief, people who are not muslim have NO OBLIGATION to uphold the teachings of islam.

If they are angry that is fine but misguided, if the think violence is a just response to that anger then they are wrong.

If you can't see where the road obviously leads when you expect other people who don't hold your beliefs to live a life that obeys your beliefs, then you are the problem.

Re: What's recent?

[Anonymous Coward]

No you are the problem useless idiot, I see people who do not respect the Christ and I do not behead them. I am tired of reading these apologists saying it is the fault of the West. We should bomb them to the Stone Age to show them the same respect than they show us and send them to heaven so they can fuck their virgins. Everything about this religion is wicked.

Martin Place = Matrix Agent Training Program

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who has seen the original Matrix movie will remember the water fountain with the woman in the red dress during the Agent Training Program.

That's part of Martin Place, fyi.

That's about the only "Slashdot" connection I can make from this incident.

As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former Muslim who lives in western country:

1. Islam is not a peaceful religion, and to believe so you must either be a Muslim or a very naive person. Peaceful Muslims exist of course, but simply because they do not follow Islam strictly enough.

2. Conservative western politicians who make use of terrorism to their own political benefit are not much better than the terrorists, in that both sides have no problem using people's safety to advance their own agenda. Typically they are also the ones that support wars worldwide.

Re:As a former muslim

[Dan East]

As a former Muslim

Congratulations on still being alive.

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former Muslim

Congratulations on still being alive.

Indeed. My guess is that he doesn't widely advertise his "former" status. Throughout much of the muslim world it is still very much taboo to commit apostasy. In that sense, Islam is very much like the mafia: the only way to leave is in a pine box.

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

Never before have I seen someone make such good use of AC-ness.

Re:As a former muslim

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Remember that in the middle, and late middle ages, the Islamic world was the advanced, progressive, cultured and tolerant civilization, far ahead of western Europe. Christian Europe was a place of endless war and bickering and of religious zealots.

Especially in Al-Andalus, under moorish rule, muslims, christians and jews lived peacefully together in what was perhaps the most advanced, safe and free place to live in the world, at the time.

It's not really about Islam or Christianity. Both holy books contain a lot of questionable, self-justifying violence. It's about the human beings who interpret and lay out the words. This, in my opinion, is one of the greatest problems with the abrahamic religions. The holy books contain so many contradictions and inconsistencies, you can justify just about anything by picking out the relevant parts that serve your cause.

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

> Conservative western politicians who make use of terrorism to their own political benefit are not much better than the terrorists

This. Over and over again. This should be framed in gold. It's always disgusting to watch that the extremists on *both sides* are the best allies, squeezing out the middle, those who want to live in peace and not harm anyone. Reminds one of Arundhati Roy, describing Bin Laden as Bush's doppelgÃnger.

To me, both sides are terrorists, because both use terror to further their political agenda.

Re:As a former muslim

[Kojiro Ganryu Sasaki]

But the issue about not following Islam strictly enough is also true for Christians.

The whole thing is really about the surrounding culture rather than the religion itself. If the culture supports violence then any religious scriptures will be interpreted as such as well.

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

No true scotsman huh?

They're not violent.. obviously they just aren't muslem enough, you can't see the fallacy here?

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

the only way to leave is in a pine box.

but but how? how is this possible? This is the religion of peace?!

I'm sure that the vast majority of terrorist acts committed are not by Muslims either, nope, definitely huge amounts of Buddhist terrorist acts.

Re:As a former muslim

[Bongo]

The trouble is, modern civilised life doesn't really come online until every individual has rights.

Any empire can create peace within its borders, and any Imam or Priest can declare, "when the whole world is under the One True God, then there will be peace."

Whether the empire's leadership is currently moving for aggression, or moving for non-aggression, whether they are attacking, or biding their time to gain political influence, these are merely strategic issues, the aim remains the same, that there is One and only one true way and everyone else who resists is damned to hell.

If you're gay, if you're a woman, if you're the wrong race, or hold the wrong beliefs, then off to hell you go. Because you haven't been given equal rights.

For reasons unknown, the West made it to some semblance of modernity.

Currently, there is a concerted and deliberate effort by the leaders in the Moslem world to push to an Islamic revival, and ISIL is just one branch. The point isn't that the extremists are only tiny a minority (thousands v. 1.6 billion), the point is that the extremists are in positions of leadership and are trying to drag the majority of normal people, including all the Moslems, into a world war. It includes emphasising all the violent doctrines at the expense of the peaceful ones.

The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, written to oppose "Western" notions of human rights, and which says, yes you have human rights, BUT ONLY the ones permitted by Islam", that was written by the leaders of these Muslim countries. It is the Islamic leadership in its various branches which is causing the problems and dragging the 1.6 billion Moslems into it.

Re:As a former muslim

[tehcyder]

1. Islam is not a peaceful religion, and to believe so you must either be a Muslim or a very naive person. Peaceful Muslims exist of course, but simply because they do not follow Islam strictly enough.

There are no peaceful religions. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and everyone else have all at various times been war-like groups.

Similarly, many non religious groups have been the opposite of peaceful, e.g. the Nazis or the Khmer Rouge, or more recently the PIRA or ETA.

You can't blame violence just on one particular religion.

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

> Peaceful Muslims exist of course, but simply because they do not follow Islam strictly enough.

Unsurprisingly that is true. You can say that about every religion (or really any ideology). It is the nature of fundamentalists - the more "strict" they are, the bigger assholes they are. See Cheney's recent demonstration of his fundamentalism regarding torture over this past weekend as another example.

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Conservative western politicians who make use of terrorism to their own political benefit are not much better than the terrorists, in that both sides have no problem using people's safety to advance their own agenda. Typically they are also the ones that support wars worldwide.

Hey dumbass, liberals have had control for 8 years. There hasn't been a conservative in the oval office in a very long time. Congrats on ditching your evil religion, perhaps you can make the next step and ditch your failed liberal ideology next.

Re:As a former muslim

[halivar]

But the issue about not following Islam strictly enough is also true for Christians.

For the last 2-300 years, the penalty for not being Christian enough is not being invited to the church potluck dinner. Now, I understand that, for some people, not having all-you-can-eat potato salad is a lot like torture, but I never really cared for the stuff anyway.

Re:As a former muslim

[TropicalCoder]

It's not really about Islam or Christianity. Both holy books contain a lot of questionable, self-justifying violence.

You can't confuse Christianity with the Old Testament, which is the book you seem to be referring to. Christianity is about the teachings of Christ, its founder. The teachings of Christ include no self-justifying violence whatsoever. Zilch - nada. To the contrary, the teachings of Christ are about Love. Just thought I might clarify that for you, as you seeme to be confused.

Re:As a former muslim

[bidule]

Remember that in the middle, and late middle ages, the Islamic world was the advanced, progressive, cultured and tolerant civilization, far ahead of western Europe. Christian Europe was a place of endless war and bickering and of religious zealots.

From 700 to 1400, roughly. Then they fell into obscurantism. We should be good for another 100 years before we fall too.

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

SInce you want to perform the proper PC ritual of equating all religions as equally bad,
but have the problem that only one of them is doing regular violence nowadays - you have to
bring ancient history into the picture, artificially.

Re:As a former muslim

[allcoolnameswheretak]

The teachings of Christ may be about Love. That didn't stop the Spanish Inquisition from exiling, torturing and burning heretics and unbelievers at the stake, all with the blessings of the catholic monarchs and the pope. The teachings of love didn't help Galileo and other scientists and deviants in the course of christian history.
It is only thanks to the Age of Enlightenment and the departure and emancipation from religious doctrines that western societies have earned the freedoms they enjoy today. It is certainly not thanks to any teachings of Jesus.

That's why, again, it's not so much about what is written in the books. It's about the people and how they choose to interpret them to further their own goals.

Re:As a former muslim

[allcoolnameswheretak]

I'm not equating all religions as equally bad. I think that most religions are a tool to exert power. That power can be used for good or for bad. The decision is up to the people who wield that power.
At the moment western societies are doing well also thanks to the comparatively little power that religion has over the people living in those countries. Power that unfortunately has historically mostly been used to oppress and control rather than to support people.
In the middle east, religion still plays a large role, and many people look towards a bleak, uncertain future. That makes it easy for madmen and hate preachers to abuse religion for manipulating people to further their own goals.

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

> you can justify just about anything by picking out the relevant parts that serve your cause.

Yeah, but it's not even religion per se at all. People will justify things in terms of *whatever is popular* at the time. It doesn't even seem matter what that *whatever* is... or whether what they're trying to justify is explicitly contrary to that, it's a justification, not a reason. You only gain popularity by attaching yourself to popular things.

You're already seeing this with pseudo-science today. That's because science is both popular and useful. And you notice how it doesn't matter that pseudo-science is explicitly contrary to science. You can expect this to continue as long as there are things which are popular. That's probably equivalent to 'as long as there are people.'

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is certainly not thanks to any teachings of Jesus." Can you be so sure that the teachings of Christ have not had a positive influence on history and the world as it is today? You think nobody has been touched by his message in a positive way? You are too cynical.

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

The teachings of Christ may be about Love. That didn't stop the Spanish Inquisition from exiling, torturing and burning heretics and unbelievers at the stake, all with the blessings of the catholic monarchs and the pope.

This is known as "tough love". Remember, just because I'm maiming you in preparation of your execution, doesn't mean I can't also love you.

Re:As a former muslim

[micahraleigh]

You think conquering the entire eastern half of the Roman empire and forcing the occupied residents to convert to Islam was peaceful and tolerant?

This is just Suleman "the Great" all over again.

And you think this is a problem with Judaism and Christianity? What happened after we conquered Iraq? We gave it back. Do you think an Islamic state would ever allow self-rule over a country they conquered?

You, sir, simply detest religion and present your aversion as if no interpretation was necessary.

Re:As a former muslim

[davydagger]

Remember that in the middle, and late middle ages, the Arab world was the advanced, progressive, cultured and tolerant civilization, far ahead of western Europe. Christian Europe was a place of endless war and bickering and of religious zealots.

ftfy. Make a big distinction between arab and persian cultures, and Islamic culture. Sure they were enlightened muslims, like there are enlightened christians. But back then, Europe where the headl/floor bangers, and it was Caliphate full of moderates, i.e. fairly seculary. Not to say they didn't have a few religious nuts, but all the great advances in the Arab/Persian worlds where done by keeping religeon in check. Very similar to the west.

If you look at the history of the caliphate, there is a negative correlation between how religeous it was at any given year, and how great it was doing technologically.

One more giant point, if you think that Islam, Christianity or Judiasm, grew up in a vaccum from eachother you are dead wrong. Islam is not a diffrent culture from christianity in practice. It is not. Many supposed "european" cultural ideas(such as chivilry), came from Islam, and vice versa, to the point, they are more of the same really.

Another point is that the Middle East was always an ass-backwards shithole, and the Arabs have no motivation for modernity or modern civilization, which is a giant lie. In the early 20th century most of the dominant political movements where modernist, secularist, and anti-imperialist. The problem? Most of them where also socialist, or communist, with a few nationalists(ba'athism, nasserism), so the CIA funded, organized, equipped, or otherwise enabled the fundimentalist religious movements to destroy them.

If there is any one thing we can do to help the Arab world, its "stop funding, training, enabling, organizing, fundimentalist religious nuts, peroid".

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

No its not.
Maybe it technically should be for Judaism.

Christianity's (though it has its roots in Judaism) rules do not ask or require that you conquer the pagan dogs by force, killing or enslaving them.

It's more like: Tell everyone that they don't have to go to hell if you believe Jesus is God. turn the other cheek. Love your neighbor as your self. Room for Jews and Gentiles. Don't cast the first stone. remove the plank from your own eye before judging the spec in your brothers. etc etc.

-turtle

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

Bearing false witness; how very un-islamic of you.

Re:As a former muslim

[Shalhav]

Ah, the old moral equivalence. "I know somebody in group X that also did Y just like Z. Therefore X is no different from Z." Such examples are pretty strained.

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

That's some wishful thinking. Unfortunately, that Jesus fellow in the new testament disagrees with you.

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven

Matthew 5:18 referring to Mosaic law from the old testament. You know, all that morally repugnant stuff Christians try to gloss over by pretending that Jesus somehow changed it. You're as bad as the Muslims when it comes to lying about the content of a religion.

Re:As a former muslim

[Anonymous Coward]

Fully agree with you. The main issue with religious terrorism is that the only rights people of certain cultures have is the right to follow and support the personal religious interpretations of some leaders, whose only aim is to serve their own material interests or ideologies.

Re:As a former muslim

[NewYork]

"Religion was born when the first con man met the first fool" --Oscar
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Re:As a former muslim

[Kojiro Ganryu Sasaki]

I'm saying that the surrounding culture shapes how people interpret religious scriptures.

You can have the most heinous religious scripture in the world but if that text is being interpreted and used in a peaceful culture, then most people will ignore the "bad" parts of the text.

Look at what The Lord's Resistance Army does with the bible.

Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Guns aren't allowed in coffee shops in Australia. News story must be fake.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Well we know it wasn't the US or everyone would have whipped out a 44 magnum and the running gun battle consuming the entire suburb would still be going on.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the time, buddy

Re:Fake

[FlyHelicopters]

Well we know it wasn't the US or everyone would have whipped out a 44 magnum and the running gun battle consuming the entire suburb would still be going on.

You jest... but in Texas, we have over 800,000 concealed carry permit holders... and gun battles don't break out, well, ever between them...

And I notice that they don't try this stuff here either...

You would be hard pressed to walk into a busy Starbucks here without a dozen people carrying guns, the terrorists wouldn't have hostages, they'd have a fight on their hands, and frankly they are cowards anyway, so they won't do that here.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a hot chocolate shop, guns are perfectly fine in those.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that the "cowards" were the ones that felt that they NEEDED to carry guns everywhere that they went ?

Re:Fake

[FlyHelicopters]

I thought that the "cowards" were the ones that felt that they NEEDED to carry guns everywhere that they went ?

So the hostages in Australia are brave and the police outside with guns are cowards?

Funny how when something like this happens, the first thing everyone does is call the guys with the guns.

I carry a gun so I don't have to call anyone, I'm already there.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

America. Where the solution to gun violence is more guns.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they revoke his firearms permit when they arrest him.

Re:Fake

[tehcyder]

Well we know it wasn't the US or everyone would have whipped out a 44 magnum and the running gun battle consuming the entire suburb would still be going on.

You jest... but in Texas, we have over 800,000 concealed carry permit holders... and gun battles don't break out, well, ever between them...

And I notice that they don't try this stuff here either...

You would be hard pressed to walk into a busy Starbucks here without a dozen people carrying guns, the terrorists wouldn't have hostages, they'd have a fight on their hands, and frankly they are cowards anyway, so they won't do that here.

The "terrorists are cowards" meme is absurd. Whatever their misguided reasons, someone who is prepared to risk death or lengthy imprisonment for a cause is not a physical coward.

The mistake is categorising courage as an absolute moral good. You might be a brave soldier and a Nazi paedophile, but the bravery itself doesn't make you a good person if you are also raping and murdering children.

Saying that a terrorist has physical courage does not mean you are endorsing their beliefs or actions.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Up until yesterday, Australia could have said "I notice that they don't try this stuff here", so your point is pretty poor. Maybe Texas tomorrow?

Re:Fake

[tehcyder]

I thought that the "cowards" were the ones that felt that they NEEDED to carry guns everywhere that they went ?

So the hostages in Australia are brave and the police outside with guns are cowards?

Funny how when something like this happens, the first thing everyone does is call the guys with the guns.

I carry a gun so I don't have to call anyone, I'm already there.

The same problem of facing likely armed opponents also applies in places like Iraq, Israel and Afghanistan The terrorists just use a big car bomb instead.

They aren't going to help fulfil your Wild West fantasies by standing in the coffee shop entrance and calling you out in a fast draw competition.

Re:Fake

[debrain]

There are lots of terrorist attempts in Texas. For example, just in the past few months:

JW Confirms: 4 ISIS Terrorists Arrested in Texas in Last 36 Hours OCTOBER 08, 2014 -- http://www.judicialwatch.org/b...

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/18/... 19 JUNE 2014 2 in Texas arrested in terror-related cases

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/... MARCH 28, 2014 FBI Smashes Alleged Radical-Right Terror Plot in Texas

You would be hard pressed to walk into a busy Starbucks here without a dozen people carrying guns, the terrorists wouldn't have hostages, they'd have a fight on their hands, and frankly they are cowards anyway, so they won't do that here.

It seems that many of these terrorists are largely unconcerned with their own death or the suffering of others.

Gun ownership does not appear to be, and it would not make sense if it were, a deterrent to terrorist attacks.

Re:Fake

[bluegutang]

You jest... but in Texas, we have over 800,000 concealed carry permit holders... and gun battles don't break out, well, ever between them...

You would be hard pressed to walk into a busy Starbucks here without a dozen people carrying guns,

Texas has about 26 million residents. And according to you 800k of them have permits, that's about 1 in 32.

Are you telling me that the average busy Starbucks in Texas has 390 people in it? I knew things were bigger in Texas, but... really?

Re:Fake

[XxtraLarGe]

The "terrorists are cowards" meme is absurd. Whatever their misguided reasons, someone who is prepared to risk death or lengthy imprisonment for a cause is not a physical coward.

It's absurd from the sense that the terrorist that is carrying out the attack is not a coward, however the terrorist leaders that order them to go out and carry out the attacks tend to be cowered away in safety.

Re:Fake

[Ksevio]

Here in Massachusetts we have far fewer ccp holders and practically no one carries guns outside of law enforcement, but we also don't have gun battles breaking out or people "trying stuff" that would be stopped by guns.

Basically, it's more due to us living in a safe country than the number of guns.

Re:Fake

[sociocapitalist]

You jest... but in Texas, we have over 800,000 concealed carry permit holders... and gun battles don't break out, well, ever between them...

Really?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
http://www.stoptheshootings.or...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2...
etc

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Slightly off topic but a quick search for gun related deaths show :

2010 Texas gun murders per 100000 people : 3.2
2011 Australia gun deaths per 100000 people : 0.11

I didn't look up deaths due to terrorism per 100000.

Re:Fake

[halivar]

Exactly. A real man would just fight hostage-takers off with a mug of coffee, am I right? Shooting back is just unsporting.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

The "terrorists are cowards" meme is absurd. Whatever their misguided reasons, someone who is prepared to risk death or lengthy imprisonment for a cause is not a physical coward.

And yet when they post videos of their brave and righteous struggle on Youtube they all have their faces covered.

Re:Fake

[Tom]

They may or may not be cowards, but unless they are stupid, they would simply choose a different target - a day care center or a school, for example.

If you think guns make you more safe, you're an idiot. The numbers are in and the differences between comparable countries are tiny. The main factors in safety have nothing to do with gun ownership.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

You ARE a coward, you have little to no penis, and jacking off your pistol is all the action you can get. Glad you're happy though.

Re:Fake

[FlyHelicopters]

The same problem of facing likely armed opponents also applies in places like Iraq, Israel and Afghanistan The terrorists just use a big car bomb instead.

Then at least they won't take any hostages, and frankly once car bombs get involved, the military tends to get involved. Once we surged and sent in enough forces to do the job, we started winning in Iraq, not that the media would have told you that. Now that we've left, look what happened.

They aren't going to help fulfil your Wild West fantasies by standing in the coffee shop entrance and calling you out in a fast draw competition.

No, of course not... but not all criminals are terrorists, the guy might be coming in to rob the place... if all he takes is money, I might let him go, a shootout is risky and not worth it over a few hundred dollars in the cash drawer, let the police go after him.

If he walks in and shoots someone, then I'd shoot him.

If you don't think that actually happens (and it does), consider one of the cases that helped get our concealed carry laws to pass. Guy drove his truck through the front window of a restaurant and started randomly shooting people. That is exactly the time when you need a gun, because the police are too far away and the guy clearly wants to kill people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Re:Fake

[FlyHelicopters]

Yes, really...

The first one happened a long time ago, before we had concealed carry laws...

The second one is about school shootings, we can't carry our guns anywhere near a school, but we're working on fixing that problem...

The last one was not a random coffee shop shooting, that was a targeted killing by someone who took the time to dress up as a FedEx employee, force his way into the front door, and executed people who otherwise were not ready for it.

------

If someone walks into a coffee shop to kill, and I'm their first target, my gun won't help me, I'm likely going to die.

The value in the gun is that if I'm *not* the first target, I can response after he kills someone and kill him. Yes, someone might still die, but the next 10 people won't.

Re:Fake

[FlyHelicopters]

No, of course not... but I also know people who don't have a concealed carry permit and carry anyway...

A lot of Texans think that we shouldn't need a permit to exercise our rights, imagine if we needed a permit to exercise our freedom of religion or speech?

Right now there is a push to get the laws changed and allow open carry, possibly without any permit at all.

Re:Fake

[Whorhay]

To some extent pretty much every participant in armed conflict is a coward to one degree or another. Just look at how the British troops felt about the tactics employed by American revolutionaries.

Terrorists, and everyone else, usually do some sort of risk analysis when deciding what to do. While a full on assault of a military base might be more ballsy, it is certainly less effective than attacking a completely soft target full of unarmed civilians. Is it cowardly to minimize your risk while attempting to maximize the productivity of your actions? I guess so, but that is the way that everyone from the top General to the lowliest grunt operates. The only big difference is that typically the US military tries to limit it's scope to just targeting enemy combatants, whereas the terrorists give themselves no such constraints.

Re:Fake

[DonCam]

I thought that the "cowards" were the ones that felt that they NEEDED to carry guns everywhere that they went ?

So the hostages in Australia are brave and the police outside with guns are cowards?

Funny how when something like this happens, the first thing everyone does is call the guys with the guns.

I carry a gun so I don't have to call anyone, I'm already there.

You can have some wrenches, but if your car breaks down I bet you'll call a tow truck to get it to a shop to fix. Sometimes it's better to let professionals do their thing.

Re:Fake

[FlyHelicopters]

And if I'm out in the middle of nowhere, I better be able to fix the car myself, yes?

It is a nice idea, and yes we need the police, but there is also something to be said for not being a victim.

Re:Fake

[gnoshi]

On the other hand, we in Australia also don't have the constant stream of *other* shootings that happen in Texas.

Re:Fake

[DonCam]

But now the analogy fails. You aren't in the middle of nowhere, you're at the Starbucks which means you are within easy reach of professionals. Be it the tow truck to take your car to the shop, or cops. The argument you make just doesn't work. You're better off comparing it to response times and liken it more to CPR or something like that. Let's be honest, guns are a tool and the only restrictions they need are just as with cars. Make sure people know how to use them, can demonstrate they can use them, and we're golden.

Re:Fake

[FlyHelicopters]

True... you just have a government that is infringing on your personal rights and freedom...

I'd rather have our problems than that problem...

Re:Fake

[FlyHelicopters]

Even at Starbucks, I can fix many things with my car (truck, whatever).

Just a few days ago, the handle broke off my kitchen sink... I can pay a plumber to come out and fix it, or I can go over to Home Depot and buy the $15 part it needs and fix it myself, which is what I did.

However, would you be in favor of "making sure that people know how to use their right to free speech?" Or how about requiring training and a permit to join a religion? Imagine the riots over that!

Guns are the same thing, we have the right to be armed, and no permit should be required. Those restrictions are wrong.

Re:Fake

[gnoshi]

Funny thing: most Australians don't share your view that the current licensing regimes (such as needing a valid reason for owning a gun, and 'self defence' is not considered a valid reason) in Australia are infringing on personal rights. We like to refer to it as 'good sense' (although you can always find some who will disagree).

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

They are cowards because it's not a fair fight to hold unarmed civilians hostage with a gun. If they were brave, they would choose military targets.

Re:Fake

[FlyHelicopters]

Yes, and many people once thought slavery was perfectly fine as well.

Ok, ok, you're going to say, "now that isn't the same thing at all".

Are you so sure? Go back 500 years to how it worked in England, with serfs and lords, and who owned land and who had political power... and tell me that viewpoints change over time?

The right to self-defense is a basic fundamental right that everyone has, regardless if you know it or not. Just like the right to free speech and the freedom of religion, it is yours.

The fact that the Australian government chooses to infringe on people's rights doesn't make it correct.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, they'd just change tactics from "take hostages and get the message out" to "blow the place up and get the message out".

Also, you're overlooking the obvious difference in culture between the two -- typical peaceful Australians don't *want* guns.

Also, gun-related violence is relatively through-the-roof in Texas compared to Sydney, so yes gunfights break out "all the time"

Re:Fake

[Mr. Shotgun]

You aren't in the middle of nowhere, you're at the Starbucks which means you are within easy reach of professionals

When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.

Let's be honest, guns are a tool and the only restrictions they need are just as with cars. Make sure people know how to use them, can demonstrate they can use them, and we're golden.

I would venture to guess more violence has been committed due to the spoken or written word than has ever been committed because someone possessed a weapon and felt an irrational drive to use it. Shall we also licence the first amendment as well?

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Well we know it wasn't the US or everyone would have whipped out a 44 magnum and the running gun battle consuming the entire suburb would still be going on.

You jest... but in Texas, we have over 800,000 concealed carry permit holders... and gun battles don't break out, well, ever between them...

And I notice that they don't try this stuff here either...

You would be hard pressed to walk into a busy Starbucks here without a dozen people carrying guns, the terrorists wouldn't have hostages, they'd have a fight on their hands, and frankly they are cowards anyway, so they won't do that here.

On the other hand, the increased person to person murder rate more than makes up the difference.
Guns for all folks are fond of telling us that mass murders are an infinitesimal fraction of the murder rate, which is true. But that implies that any attempt to reduce them which increases the general murder rate by even a trifle, such as Arm Everybody, doesn't pay off.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Well we know it wasn't the US or everyone would have whipped out a 44 magnum and the running gun battle consuming the entire suburb would still be going on.

You jest... but in Texas, we have over 800,000 concealed carry permit holders... and gun battles don't break out, well, ever between them...

And I notice that they don't try this stuff here either...

You would be hard pressed to walk into a busy Starbucks here without a dozen people carrying guns, the terrorists wouldn't have hostages, they'd have a fight on their hands, and frankly they are cowards anyway, so they won't do that here.

The "terrorists are cowards" meme is absurd. Whatever their misguided reasons, someone who is prepared to risk death or lengthy imprisonment for a cause is not a physical coward.

The mistake is categorising courage as an absolute moral good. You might be a brave soldier and a Nazi paedophile, but the bravery itself doesn't make you a good person if you are also raping and murdering children.

Saying that a terrorist has physical courage does not mean you are endorsing their beliefs or actions.

That's what got Bill Maher fired after 9/11; suggesting that instead of accusing "the terrorists" of every petty personality defect under the sun, it might be better to appraise them objectively; i.e. that deliberately flying your plane into a building was not more cowardly than firing rockets at people on the ground from your airplane.
For this sin, Maher became the only person who lost his job because of partial responsibility for 9/11.

Re:Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that the "cowards" were the ones that felt that they NEEDED to carry guns everywhere that they went ?

With all the news reports of staunch men at arms blowing holes in their feet, etc., it's definitely an act of bravery to carry a loaded gun.

Religion of peace?

[Anonymous Coward]

Deport the lot and erect barriers around their enclaves. Ready the nukes and just carpet bomb the fuck out of them. Enough is enough.

Re:Religion of peace?

[NoKaOi]

Deport the lot and erect barriers around their enclaves. Ready the nukes and just carpet bomb the fuck out of them. Enough is enough.

Wasn't there some dude in Germany some decades ago who tried something similar with an entire religion's people? How'd that work out for him?

Re:Religion of peace?

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't have nukes.

Re:Religion of peace?

[FirephoxRising]

The Australian muslim hierarchy will need to police their member really strictly now or face a backlash. I am proud of the tolerance shown by the "I'll ride with you" response on social media. This appears to be a nutjob who should have been in gaol in a psych ward, they are tightening the bail laws now.

Re:Religion of peace?

[FirephoxRising]

Sorry, here's the link. http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...

Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia doesn't have the 2nd Amendment.

Australia has confiscated most personal weapons and makes it near impossible for people to own a firearm.

How did Yet Another Muslim Terrorist (sorry that's redudant) get a gun?

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[Harlequin80]

Of FFS. Please stop spreading your ignorance.

You can easily obtain a firearm in Australia. In fact I own multiple. The thing is you have to be licensed and have a valid reason for owning one, and self defence is not a valid reason. You need to be a member of a club, pass a police check and have some character references. Then you need to wait a year after getting your license. It's a bit of a pain in the arse but it is far from impossible.

I own multiple semi-automatic pistols for competition shoots and a bolt action rifle for bench rest shooting.

Whether you agree with the gun laws in Australia, and as a shooter I do, to say they are near impossible to own is complete crap. What I would say is that Australia is a very safe place to live and your chances of getting shot here is almost zero. You don't ever hear about kids getting shot cause the knocked on the wrong house door during Halloween.

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[DogSqueeze]

It's a good thing Australia doesn't have a second amendment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[networkzombie]

My sister lives in Melbourne and her patio furniture is stolen every year. The thieves know how "safe" they are, so they do what they like. She chained it up but they took the chain too. I recently won a .380 auto in a poker game. I put it in my shotgun cabinet. No one has ever tried to steal from my patio. When you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[mjwx]

Of FFS. Please stop spreading your ignorance.

You can easily obtain a firearm in Australia. In fact I own multiple. The thing is you have to be licensed and have a valid reason for owning one, and self defence is not a valid reason. You need to be a member of a club, pass a police check and have some character references. Then you need to wait a year after getting your license. It's a bit of a pain in the arse but it is far from impossible.

This,

A thousand times this.

There's so much misinformation about firearms in Australia its not funny.

It's not hard to get guns in Australia unless you've got a criminal record. I used to have guns (I moved and it was just simpler to sell them) and my character reference was the administrator at my school (she was also a JP) and that was at age 18.

Only fully automatics and semi-automatics are banned here. That is a good thing because this tool walked into a cafe with a shotgun, not an AK47. At worst it's a double barrel sawn off.

What I would say is that Australia is a very safe place to live and your chances of getting shot here is almost zero

You've got a better chance of winning the lottery than being shot in Australia.

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! Fucking kill someone because they are trying to steal a couple of hundred bucks worth of shitty plastic. Are you for real? Guns, derp, USA!

I live in Australia and the gun laws here suit me just fine. I don't even lock my house and have had zero intrusions in 24 years, I moved here from Canada in my 20s and the no door lock habit came with me. No, I don't live in the bush... I live in a Sydney suburb, obviously I won't be more specific than that :)

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[Culture20]

Australia doesn't have the 2nd Amendment.

Not true. The second amendment to the Australian Constitution in 1910 amended Section 105 so that it read

The Parliament may take over from the States their public debts, or a proportion thereof according to the respective numbers of their people as shown by the latest statistics of the Commonwealth, and may convert, renew, or consolidate such debts, or any part thereof; and the States shall indemnify the Commonwealth in respect of the debts taken over, and thereafter the interest payable in respect of the debts shall be deducted and retained from the portions of the surplus revenue of the Commonwealth payable to the several States, or if such surplus is insufficient, or if there is no surplus, then the deficiency or the whole amount shall be paid by the several States.

Where previously it had read

The Parliament may take over from the States their public debts as existing at the establishment of the Commonwealth , or a proportion thereof according to the respective numbers of their people as shown by the latest statistics of the Commonwealth, and may convert, renew, or consolidate such debts, or any part thereof; and the States shall indemnify the Commonwealth in respect of the debts taken over, and thereafter the interest payable in respect of the debts shall be deducted and retained from the portions of the surplus revenue of the Commonwealth payable to the several States, or if such surplus is insufficient, or if there is no surplus, then the deficiency or the whole amount shall be paid by the several States.

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[Anonymous Coward]

What I would say is that Australia is a very safe place to live and your chances of getting shot here is almost zero. You don't ever hear about kids getting shot cause the knocked on the wrong house door during Halloween.

Off topic, but it's like that in the U.S. as well. Despite what you hear in the news.

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[Harlequin80]

Only fully automatics and semi-automatics are banned here. That is a good thing because this tool walked into a cafe with a shotgun, not an AK47. At worst it's a double barrel sawn off

Just to clarify this as it is a little more fine grained that an outright ban. To own a semi-automatic rifle you need to be in a career which requires it. So culling from a helicopter is one of the few occupations which allows you to own a semi-auto rifle. Semi-auto pistols though are a standard item in IPSC and ISSF competitions so you are able to own them without a problem but the size of the magazine is restricted to 10 shots. There is however no restriction on the number of mags you carry (odd I know).

Pistol ownership also requires you to actually use the weapons rather than just say that you do. So if you own just 1 pistol you must do a minimum of 6 competitive shoots with that weapon each year. If you own 2 or more you must do a minimum of 4 with each. I own a .22 semi an air and a .32 semi so I need to do a minimum of 12 competition shoots per year.

Fully automatic rifles or pistols are outright banned. As are self-loading and pump action shotguns.

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[Anonymous Coward]

if we had US style laws as practiced by the legal gun owning community outside NE US cities this would not happen. He would of had think harder about taking his victims. I noticed the priest who burnt Korans has not been attacked, no doubt due to his churches policy on carrying as many guns as possible. Terrorists are not soldiers and do not stand up fight. Locals used to nickname the IRA "I Ran Away" for this reason.

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently won a .380 auto in a poker game. I put it in my shotgun cabinet. No one has ever tried to steal from my patio.

So you mean to say that your shotgun is clearly visible from the outside? Aren't you more worried that someone will steal your gun and commit a much more heinous crime using it, than stealing patio furniture? Perhaps even against your family, since they're already there?

BTW, the solution for your sister's problems isn't to threaten violence. She has a miriad of options available to her: fences/walls around her property, alarm, video cameras, bringing the furniture in every day, stronger chains, a big dog, etc.
Those may not be cheap and/or convenient, but they sure beat the rosk of physical and legal harm that comes with taking the law into your own hands.

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[IronChef]

Thank you for explaining the details of the system.

I am curious, how do they track your participation in events? I understand the goal of the law but it seems like activity tracking could be a huge bureaucracy all by itself.

In the US, if we had a system like that there'd be a per-event and per-shot tax required to build a new block of office buildings full of a thousand Federal workers shuffling papers.

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it's just my American-ness showing, but the pump shotgun thing is surprising. It's just sort of the default type here, and not something that is even on the radar of people that want stricter gun laws (excepting those that favor an outright ban of everything). I get it after thinking about it, you can fire 5 (or 8 sometimes) shots in quick succession. But really, even politicians that might campaign on gun control will often give some sort of caveat about "not being after Grandpa's duck gun" which as often as not is a Remington 870 pump.

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[Harlequin80]

You cannot remain a member of a club unless you do the minimum number of shoots and you cannot own pistols without being a member of the club.

Given the shoots have to be at a competition level the clubs records the scores anyway and so at the end of March they have to supply a list of all members marked with those who comply with the clubs requirements and what they shot. It is all electronic and tied to your license no. so it will flag it straight away if you fall short. When you go in for your shoot you sign in to the book with your range pass and licenses number. Complete your shoot, record your score and have it signed by the range officer.

So I guess requirements fall back on the club to a large degree. Also people accept the laws here and are generally happy to work to comply. We are actually seeing a big increase in the number of sporting shooters at the moment, enough that a couple of full scale ranges are being constructed to meet demand.

Weapons licensing is also handled directly by the police. All weapon sales are registered and you are only allowed to sell weapons via a licensed broker. So even private sales between individuals are tracked via a broker.

I think the biggest problem instituting something like this in the states is the sheer quantity of weapons floating around (leaving out the rabid pro gun stance). I have seen photos of people collections where they have 50+ weapons. There is no real way you could own that amount here as you wouldn't be able to comply with the competition requirements.

For rifles hunting as a sport is another acceptable option. To do that you need to have a letter from someone who owns a compliant property to own the weapon AND be a member of SSAA (Sporting Shooters Association Australia). Rifles don't require minimum shoots. Pistols are not permitted when hunting.

Re:Australian Gun Laws are STRICT!

[IronChef]

Thanks for the explanation!

Let me guess

[Swampash]

Perp was religious? Fucking crazies.

Re:Let me guess

[micahraleigh]

Typical slashdot response to lump Christians with Muslims.

Those videos from Iraq where people get their heads cut off? Not the Christians doing that stuff.

Find Timothy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Apparent Islamic Terrorism Strikes Sydney Posted by timothy on Sunday December 14, 2014 @09:36PM from the serious-thoughts dept."

If Timothy posted this @ 9:36PM on Sunday, shouldn't we track him down, and find out what else he knew before this went down?

Are we going to do something?

[Anonymous Coward]

The day Muslims get their hands on nuclear weapons will be the beginning of the end. What remains of this century is going to be a struggle to the death between Muslims and the rest of the world, no matter their creed or political allegiances. For how much longer are we going to tolerate this barbaric superstition?

Re:Are we going to do something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pakistan has nukes.

News for nerds?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been coming to slashdot less and less these days.. stories like this are why. Incendiary comment-bait garbage that has nothing to do with technology.
 

Re:News for nerds?

[neilo_1701D]

Maybe not news for nerds, true. But it's Stuff That Matters.

And please explain how a breaking story where the facts are scarce gets classified as "Incendiary comment-bait garbage". A post like "Did the Orion craft just discover dark matter?" is nothing more than comment bait. But, from what we can see on TV, 'Apparent Islamic Terrorism Strikes Sydney' appears to be a very accurate title. In fact, the title allowed for doubt, in case the story changed.

So if you don't care for stories like this, don't fall for the bait click the link into the story. Life is so much more pleasant when you don't do crap like that.

If I gave a shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I gave a shit, I would be refreshing drudgereport; not slashdot.

It's all about the chocolate..

[Anonymous Coward]

Give the choc-a-holics the chocolate .. they'll calm down and it'll all be over.

Seriously?

[dbIII]

The Cronulla race riot station? I suggest trying the ABC, channel 7, channel 9, channel 10, sky, any newspaper website, any other radio station etc etc first. It may be less entertaining from another source but you'll get more accuracy.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is Ray Hadley on air not Alan Jones. The coverage has been fantastic and he is letting Muslims call in and wish the hostages well. He is criticizing Tony Abbott and the Libs for continuing their media conference on the budget. He is also taking calls from one of the hostages, so I think the coverage is actually really really good. He hardly has his blinkers on as you suggest.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its Ray Hadley on air, not Alan Jones...

Not sure if my last message worked.

Ray is taking calls from a hostage (not on air)

Ray is taking Muslims on air to send their solidarity and criticize the terrorists.

Ray has been criticizing Tony Abbott and the Libs for going on with their budget media thing.

So I think he is being unbiased and informative (not two things you would say about the Australian ABC).

Re:Seriously?

[dbIII]

Ray is taking calls from a hostage (not on air)

Do you really believe that? Illustrates my point perfectly. That's the sort of entertainment instead of news I'm talking about since the police apparently haven't been able to talk to a hostage yet.

Re:Seriously?

[epyT-R]

Accuracy from the mainstream media? Surely you jest.

Re:Seriously?

[dbIII]

Its Ray Hadley on air, not Alan Jones

So the wife beater (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Hadley#Domestic_violence ) instead of the guy that was thrown out of teaching twice for being a suspected pedophile (Jones - Qld State School system and Brisbane Boys College)? Class act that station and their footy boofheads on air.

Re:Seriously?

[dbIII]

More likely than accuracy from this footy boofhead who has legal form on several occasions for being inaccurate because it makes a better story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Hadley

Re:Seriously?

[RabidReindeer]

The Cronulla race riot station? I suggest trying the ABC, channel 7, channel 9, channel 10, sky, any newspaper website, any other radio station etc etc first. It may be less entertaining from another source but you'll get more accuracy.

Fox News?

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Class act that station and their footy boofheads on air.

For the non-Australians:

Footy
Footy = Australian rules football {the use of this varies in each region of Australian}

Boofhead(s)
From (obsolete) bufflehead (“buffalo-head, stupid person”). Boofhead was the name of a cartoon character in a Sydney newspaper during the 1940s.

Re:Seriously?

[uninformedLuddite]

You were there right? If people of many races coming together to protest a long ongoing problem is a race riot then I'm a pygmy hippo.

Countdown till someone traces this...

[Karmashock]

... back to some radical islamic mosque with some nutbar cleric preaching death against the people that built the society he intentionally decided to live in.

Ultimately, that should be the focus. Expose those guys. Hang them out so everyone knows who they are and what they're saying. If everyone knows, then we should see these guys coming.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[Livius]

They certainly aren't terrorists if they don't terrorize anyone beyond their immediate victims. They may well die utterly failing at their objective.

Man Up With Kerosene

[Anonymous Coward]

The SPD needs to man up with Kerosene flamethrowers aka WWII.

Just form up a caldron across the main street, use bik lighters to flame up and march down the street flaming up all the buildings and cars and stop to eat the burning flesh of a 1 year old for a Facebook selfie and even fuck a burning dog. That sends the correct message to Islam. "Fuck With US, We Burn You! All of YOU!"

Hay 300 with kerosene flamethrowers can make a bit mark in the Islam mind!

Re:Man Up With Kerosene

[Anonymous Coward]

Hay 300 with kerosene flamethrowers can make a bit mark in the Islam mind!

Hmm, that doesn't sound like a very safe combination. But I suppose the horse can eat some before the kerosene flows (once you've taken the bit from its mouth to hit the Muslim gentleman's head with of course).

Comparison equally valid on both sides

[SuperKendall]

If you're a religious fanatic in the Middle East and want to kill Christians you become a terrorist. ...

Or, you can join ISIS (the army killing and/or enslaving/raping everyone including Christians).

So there's an equal choice to be had, yet some are choosing to capture and harm non-military forces - those people doing so have been wholly Muslim.

Re:Comparison equally valid on both sides

[quantaman]

If you're a religious fanatic in the Middle East and want to kill Christians you become a terrorist. ...

Or, you can join ISIS (the army killing and/or enslaving/raping everyone including Christians).

So there's an equal choice to be had, yet some are choosing to capture and harm non-military forces - those people doing so have been wholly Muslim.

To be fair we are bombing ISIS territories and various Arab nations (via drones) and killing a crapload of non-military forces.

I'm guessing they're able to rationalize attacking our civilians without too much trouble.

I'm not trying to defend them, they're as ridiculous a caricature of villainy as you can get, but they're a product of the east west dynamic much more than a product of Islam.

Re:Comparison equally valid on both sides

[cold fjord]

I'm not trying to defend them, they're as ridiculous a caricature of villainy as you can get, but they're a product of the east west dynamic much more than a product of Islam.

Right .....

ISIS Jihadis Get ‘Slavery for Dummies’

One of the biggest problems the West has is recognizing them for what they are based on their actions and who they say they are as opposed to what the politically correct nonsense being published in the West says about them.

Unfortunately it isn't just ISIS, Al Qaida, and company.

Russian Blondes Wanted for Islamic Sexual Slavery
“I hope that Kuwait will enact the law forsex slaves”

Re:Comparison equally valid on both sides

[quantaman]

I don't deny Islam is the language they use to express their extremism, and to the extent that the Koran and Hadiths lay out some fairly brutal rules Islam does bear some blame.

But you can find justifications for slavery and sex slaves in the Old Testament as well.

Re:Comparison equally valid on both sides

[cold fjord]

So where are all of the officially sanctioned Christian slaves and sex slaves? That's kind of the way these discussions go. On one hand is the active and widespread activity of Isis, al Qaida, and other actors in the Muslim world, and on the other is someone pointing to a Bible verse and says, "See! See! Christians and Jews could do something like that hundreds or thousands of years ago too!" The problem at hand is what they are doing now.

Re:Comparison equally valid on both sides

[quantaman]

So where are all of the officially sanctioned Christian slaves and sex slaves? That's kind of the way these discussions go. On one hand is the active and widespread activity of Isis, al Qaida, and other actors in the Muslim world, and on the other is someone pointing to a Bible verse and says, "See! See! Christians and Jews could do something like that hundreds or thousands of years ago too!" The problem at hand is what they are doing now.

So was the US not practising Christianity in the 1850s? Because there were a lot of slaves with a lot of Christian endorsements of their condition.

So is the problem Islam, or the contemporary expression of Islam in specific regions and among specific populations?

The problem with just blaming Islam as a whole is you blame a whole lot of people with beliefs completely unrelated. It would be like pointing at the Westburo Baptist Church and saying Christians are homophobic.

Re:Comparison equally valid on both sides

[abies]

So was the US not practising Christianity in the 1850s?

I think that US is right now pretty much ashamed of the situation from before 1850s. Possibly muslims in 2170 will be also ashamed of what was happening today... but does really religion allow you to be 150-years retarded?

It is not that Islam is really that much worse than any other religion. It is that muslims are still living in 14th century, while rest of the world moved on.

Re:Comparison equally valid on both sides

[halivar]

I think that US is right now pretty much ashamed of the situation from before 1850s.

Not to mention, early abolitionists were devout evangelical Christians, and were accused of religious extremism at the time. And some were; John Brown, for instance. Now whether that extremism was warranted or not, I pronounce no judgement.

Re:Comparison equally valid on both sides

[AK Marc]

but does really religion allow you to be 150-years retarded?

The answer seems to be, "When it's us, yes. When it's them, no."

Re:Comparison equally valid on both sides

[SuperKendall]

To be fair we are bombing ISIS territories and various Arab nations (via drones) and killing a crapload of non-military forces.

I'm not going to defend the drone strikes, but I will point out that every one is absolutely an attempt to strike some military target, the question is what percentage they get wrong...

There is no chance that taking over a coffee shop is going to be a strike at a military target.

explain to me

[xmousex]

why every single major news organization is running garbage robo programming instead of covering this event?

fox is talking about the cia
cnn is talking about dinosaurs
msnbc is talking about pot
local news channels are talking about lions/vikings cowboys/eagles and who is tracking santa claus this year

i found one station - cnbc world - that is bothering to cover this finally after a few hours went by.

do we need half the planet to slide off into the sun before someone bothers to stop into the news station to push a live feed button?

Re:explain to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably because the West loves to go to war in the middle-east, yet still loves keeping the immigration doors open for those same people they're attacking and claiming "hate our freedom". You'd think someone with any interest in national security would put a stop to that, wouldn't you?

There's an agenda here, and exposing the national security issues sheds some negative light on the immigration policy. Hence, downplay it.

If something like this happened a few times with members of, oh, let's say, a white supremacy group, the government would have zero problems immediately rounding up all members of said group, even if they "didn't condone what those others did". Western governments are very selective and hypocritical when it comes to enforcing policies.

Re:explain to me

[spoot]

cbsn is running sky news, which is running some australian news (abc? maybe)

http://cbsn.cbsnews.com/

Re:explain to me

[Anonymous Coward]

The police explicitly requested no live news coverage. That should be respected in a situation like this, no?

How long ago did I post this?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5750985&cid=47993267
Sorry but these are the facts.

Meh.

[Guppy06]

It's not the World Trade Center, and it's not Bali. It's a single cafe and a maximum possible body count than your typical school shooting in the US (which can hardly hold the news media's attention for more than a week any more).

This news wouldn't have made it out of Australia (if even NSW) if it weren't for the Islamic bogeyman angle.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

But there ain't no reaction, like an over-reaction!

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the best Al Qaeda/ISIS/Taliban can pull off today is taking a few hostages in a cafe, then I'm not complaining. It's better (for us) than back in the day, when they had the brains and resources to seriously blow stuff up, like 9/11.

Re:Meh.

[mjwx]

It's not the World Trade Center, and it's not Bali. It's a single cafe and a maximum possible body count than your typical school shooting in the US (which can hardly hold the news media's attention for more than a week any more).

It doesn't even have the chance to get to that body count. The guy is armed with a shotgun, so thats two shots at best.

This news wouldn't have made it out of Australia (if even NSW) if it weren't for the Islamic bogeyman angle.

+1 sad indictment.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aww. Poor apologist. Facing more news cycles of downplaying islamist violence.

Re:Meh.

[FlyHelicopters]

The guy is armed with a shotgun, so thats two shots at best.

Depends on the shotgun... A decent one will hold 7 in the tube and 1 in the chamber:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

A really good one will up to 32 in a drum magazine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think "Islamic bogeyman" is being a bit silly given Islam seeks to wipe out all infidels and non-believers and is the only religion that actively pushes for violent means of doing so. Islam is a serious threat and pussy-footing about it is unwise.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me, Mr Guppy06, just what it will take to smack you out of your apathy?

Re:Meh.

[CrimsonAvenger]

The guy is armed with a shotgun, so thats two shots at best.

I take it Australian shotguns are really hard to reload, as well as being double-barrel only? And they only fire slugs?

Seriously, assuming one death maximum per shot with a shotgun is silly (yeah, it's quite possible, but betting on it is silly), assuming some archaic-ass 19th century shotgun is also silly (caveat: Australian gun laws may restrict access to weapons made after WW1, so it's possible that that's all that's available), and assuming that when the shotgun(s) start firing the patrons (surviving) will count shots and say, well, he can't shoot us anymore, let's all leave, is exceptionally silly.

In other words, the only thing that's going to keep the body count down to two is the SWAT team, if the bozo(s) decide to start shooting.

Re:Meh.

[tehcyder]

Australia has strict gun laws, so I imagine that it would be pretty hard to get hold of any sort of pump action shotgun.
As a comparison, here in the UK you can still get a shotgun licence reasonably easily (if you're not a convicted criminal) but you'd only be permitted a two shot standard sporting gun.

Presumably if you were a serious terrorist, you'd be using an illegal automatic weapon of some sort anyway?

Re:Meh.

[Bob the Super Hamste]

You are forgetting that this is Australia where firearm ownership is more heavily regulated than it is in the US. This likely isn't a pump action or semi auto shotgun so would likely be a breach loading one (single or double barreled) or bolt action. A bolt action one might have a capacity of 4.

Re:Meh.

[FlyHelicopters]

Fair enough... my only point is that better shotguns exist, and can be obtained legally and illegally in most of the world. Anyone willing to take hostages and kill people surely doesn't care about gun laws. :(

Re:Meh.

[FlyHelicopters]

Presumably if you were a serious terrorist, you'd be using an illegal automatic weapon of some sort anyway?

Yes, that was my thinking... if this was a real terrorist with an organization behind him, I would imagine he would have better weapons, or could anyway...

That being said, don't over rate the value of fully automatic weapons, they have their value, but if I were in this situation, I'd likely have mine set to single shot or three round burst at most.

Full auto is a waste of ammo in most cases outside of a real battlefield. And I've owned (legally) fully automatic weapons, in truth they are a good way to turn money into noise, which is why I sold them and now own only semi automatic weapons. Ammo gets expensive!

Re:Meh.

[porjo]

You'd have a point if the guy was holding his relatives hostage in suburbia, but to hold 17 random people in down-town Sydney is national news, Islamic angle or not.

Re:Meh.

[Sabriel]

It also helped that it was across the street from a Channel Seven studio; all they had to do for live coverage was turn the cameras.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true, there have been 25 police sieges in Australia, one 5 days before this and another 10 days before. Of the 25, 24 of them have been white Australians holding the gun, of the 25 only 1 has received significantly more coverage and air-time as well as a response from our PM.

Surprising amount of comedy posts voted up

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with this?.......

What's recent?

[Anonymous Coward]

IRA and Russian speaking Ukrainians are fighting for political freedom, not for a "God" (BTW, in Ukraine we are supporting the bad guys). As for "Timmy", I'm not fluent enough in English to know what you're talking about.

Islam is becoming a serious problem.

An anecdote... One of my friend is Muslim. He's really not a fundamentalist. His wife is not wearing a hijab, he shave every morning (not sure about his wife) and he drinks alcohol from time to time (although he refuse to eat pork and he celebrate Ramadan). When there was the terrorist attacks because of Muhammad drawings, he said he was against violence. But... he also said he understood why people who were angry about those drawings decided to use violence. He consider our society do not respect Islam, so violence is a normal outcome.

This point of view is shared with the vast majority of Muslims. That's the problem.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[TropicalCoder]

Calling them an asshole is much more likely to be accurate. Calling them a terrorist gives them more credit than all but a tiny fraction of such scum remotely deserve.

I've often had that same thought. Calling them "terrorists" is really glorifying them, at least in the eyes of the impressionable. They are thinking "hey - I want to be a brave terrorist just like him!" All news headlines should refer to them literally as "assholes" or "losers". Then watch how many people now are going to say "hey - I want to be an asshole and a loser just like him!".I don't think quite so many would want to emulate that behaviour.

December Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Tony Abbott readily admits it: “The whole point of politically motivated violence is to scare people.”

Re:2GB is not informative.

[mjwx]

2GB is about the worst place you want to hear about this from. ABC news is a far better source.

No true Scotsman

[TapeCutter]

Eternal damnation in the fires of hell was not mentioned in the old testament, it was introduced by gentle Jesus in the new testament.

Re:No true Scotsman

[Anonymous Coward]

Eternal damnation in the fires of hell was not mentioned in the old testament, it was introduced by gentle Jesus in the new testament.

What you're doing there is a propaganda technique simply called changing the subject. Another example: "I don't think we had just cause to fight another undeclared war in Iraq." "Saddam was a dictator! Do you want dictators to be in power?!" See, the original statement was never answered. The intention is obviously to manipulate by shifting the subject matter to something emotional that is therefore more difficult to factually disagree with. The intention is the same whether you know what you're doing or simply failed to understand how dishonest and soft-minded this really is.

The question is, and remains: did Jesus ever advocate that we deal with our fellow humans by violent methods? The answer to that is a simple "no", so simple you have to use propaganda techniques just to avoid it. The question of whether Jesus advised that people avoid judgement by God (and whether your puerile idea of "Hell" is valid, that it was not an allegory for "destruction" (i.e. Gehenna) and the like) is irrelevant.

Re:No true Scotsman

[Nostromo21]

You sure this is from a Gospel quote, and not just Jesus in fact quoting (or paraphrasing) from the OT? Or just one of the apostles or historians from another NT book...? Do you have a chapter & verse quote?

Jesus was very clever & careful not to say very much if anything at all on highly contentious topics, such as homosexuality, corporal/physical punishment or child discipline, women's rights, racial topics, etc. Hell, he even admonished his disciples to the point of "slaves obey your masters [with good grace]"!

In any case, he did also whip the Pharisees good & proper outside the temple, which they were using as a market stall area for profit; even though he did so in utter indignation & disgust & they well deserved it (according to their own rules in fact), one could argue that his intention, from a purely theological POV, wasn't to condone violence at all, rather to demonstrate its folly. Or it was simple justice, take yer pick. He certainly wasn't a pacifist - don't make that mistake.

Having said that, the AC you replied to is right on the money biblically, no pun intended, so I'm bemused he didn't use his real name/moniker. I guess this slashdot internet thingy makes it all too easy to post even wisdom anonymously, heh.

Re:No true Scotsman

[aevan]

Maybe, but also was stated to 'get over it, put the rock down, God will deal with it, not you'. Not to take matters in your own hands. Did say to pack a sword in self-defence though, I think. One of the later parts when going out being preachy was on the to-do list.

You don't know your Bible or your history

[Anonymous Coward]

In the book of Numbers, chapter 31, Moses orders the murder of every man, woman, and child in a city that was promised to his own people. When his army came back with children prisoners of war, he rebuked them, ordered them to slay the male children on the spot, and allowed them to keep the female children for themselves as spoils of war (there are plenty of other stories similar to this about the OT, and involving Moses specifically).

So, yeah, warlord.

And about Constantine founding Christianity...

When the religion was illegal by Roman law, there were many separate Christianities with very different beliefs (and they quarreled with one another, as well as with the Jews that wanted to stay Jewish). Once Constantine decided to make Christianity the official religion of Rome, he also picked the specific set of churches that he agreed with and established their representatives as the proper religious authorities. They promptly declared the other varieties of Christianity to all be heresy, had their books burned (some recently recovered in the Nag Hammadi library revealing just how different these Christianities were).

So, Christianity (or at least Catholicism) as we know it today was very much the work of Constantine.

Re:You don't know your Bible or your history

[Anonymous Coward]

When the religion was illegal by Roman law, there were many separate Christianities with very different beliefs (and they quarreled with one another, as well as with the Jews that wanted to stay Jewish). Once Constantine decided to make Christianity the official religion of Rome, he also picked the specific set of churches that he agreed with and established their representatives as the proper religious authorities. They promptly declared the other varieties of Christianity to all be heresy, had their books burned (some recently recovered in the Nag Hammadi library revealing just how different these Christianities were).

You might wish to contemplate that Christian churches had been declaring anathema on each other long before Constantine arrived on the scene. This may be skewing your view on how Constantine used his influence to uniquely shape the early Church.

Re:You don't know your Bible or your history

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, you seem to be very hateful of Jews and Christians, or ignorant of them except for when using select passages for deflection.

So, do any of these people believe or worship or perform the things that you stated?

Well, the closest is the case of Palestine, which I think is a pretty horrific situation. But even there Israel doesn't do what you said. In fact, Israel is probably the middle east country that causes the least Arab deaths every year..

Re:You don't know your Bible or your history

[Anonymous Coward]

Its ok if Moses did it because he was working for the American God, try to keep up.

Re:You don't know your Bible or your history

[Savage-Rabbit]

In the book of Numbers, chapter 31, Moses orders the murder of every man, woman, and child in a city that was promised to his own people. When his army came back with children prisoners of war, he rebuked them, ordered them to slay the male children on the spot, and allowed them to keep the female children for themselves as spoils of war (there are plenty of other stories similar to this about the OT, and involving Moses specifically).

So, yeah, warlord.

And about Constantine founding Christianity...

When the religion was illegal by Roman law, there were many separate Christianities with very different beliefs (and they quarreled with one another, as well as with the Jews that wanted to stay Jewish). Once Constantine decided to make Christianity the official religion of Rome, he also picked the specific set of churches that he agreed with and established their representatives as the proper religious authorities. They promptly declared the other varieties of Christianity to all be heresy, had their books burned (some recently recovered in the Nag Hammadi library revealing just how different these Christianities were).

So, Christianity (or at least Catholicism) as we know it today was very much the work of Constantine.

Let's not forget either that Constantine's personally approved proper religious authorities didn't just clamp down on Christians that didn't agree with them they embarked on a campaign of destroying, pillaging, desecrating, vandalising pagan temples, tombs and monuments as well as raping and murdering adherents of these religions who weren't willing to see the light and accept the state approved flavour of Christianity (i.e. the same basic package heretic Christians were treated to). Examples of Christian intolerance and willingness to subject minority religions and secular groups to extreme persecutions and violence (which is a base insult to everything Christ preached) are legion.

You can find examples of such violence and intolerance beginning at the moment Christianity became dominant enough to be able to afford committing such atrocities and they continue until today with one of the latest, worst and most frequently forgotten being the mass murder of Moslems in Bosnia by Christian Croats and Serbs. It pisses me off every time Christian fanatics in my community try to portray Christianity as the religion of love charity and peace while Islam is the religion of war and hate, yet whenever I bring up the subject of Bosnia and what was done there in the name of Christianity they are unwilling to even discuss the issue. The obvious conclusion is that Christianity is not an inherently violent religion any more than Islam is even if some of it's adherents have found clever ways to user these religions to rationalise acts of violence and downright inhuman criminal acts like blowing yourself up on a bus, sawing peoples heads off on camera, torching places of worship or setting up a concentration camp camp where the local Christian perverts can get their rocks off raping moslem women. I don't really see the difference between the way the Serbs behaved with their rape campaigns in Bosnia and the way ISIS is doing by selling Yazidi women in markets in Syria like cattle at an auction.

Re:You don't know your Bible or your history

[rossdee]

"So, Christianity (or at least Catholicism) as we know it today was very much the work of Constantine"

But Jesus Christ is still the Founder, and that was a couple hundred years before Constantine.

Re:You don't know your Bible or your history

[porjo]

Moses orders the murder of every man, woman, and child in a city...So, yeah, warlord.

Yes, Moses can be described as a warlord, but as he was not the founder of Judaism (or any other religion) I fail to see your point!

So, Christianity (or at least Catholicism) as we know it today was very much the work of Constantine.

There's a big clue in the name Christianity that points to the true origin of the religion. Constantine, the Catholic church et. al all came later. It's worth noting that Christianity was seeing explosive growth prior to Constantine (this despite enourmous persecution). It was only a matter of time before the "powers that be" co-opted it in some shape or form.

Re:You don't know your Bible or your history

[Capsaicin]

Yes, Moses can be described as a warlord, but as he was not the founder of Judaism (or any other religion) I fail to see your point!

Well the very historical existence of Moses can't be confirmed. However the character described as Moses, (ie as he appears in the Torah) is clearly the founder of henotheistic Yahwism (remember Abraham worshiped El instead). That is to say that strain of ancient Hebrew religious thought which would eventual win out over Hebrew polytheism (largely by authoring the text in exile) to become monotheistic Judaism.

So Moses can certainly be described as the legendary founder of Judaism.

ACTUAL Jewish terrorism struck Gaza- no story here

[Anonymous Coward]

The Jews of Israel carried out a literal HOLOCAUST in Gaza a few months back, with the full support of every member of the US Congress (where both Houses held special votes so the world could witness just how far US tongues are rammed up zionist arses). Funny how the zionist owners of Slashdot didn't consider the sickening Crimes against Humanity that slaughtered thousands, mutilated tens of thousands, traumatised literally ONE MILLION+ Humans, and laid waste to the infrastructure of Gaza, worthy of coverage on this TECHNICAL site.

The depraved acts of US torture were, as Cheney proudly boasts, on behalf of Israel and its interests too. And, of course, Israel and Saudi Arabia share pride of place in Washington. Not surprising then that the foul monsters of Israel provide every possible assistance to the ISIS butchers of Saudi Arabia in those lands the zionist depravities stole from the Syrians - in order to END the secular rule of the Assad regime and replace it with the ultra extremist Islamic rule of Saudi puppets.

And, of course, what about the endless Russia/Putin bashing the owners of Slashdot attempt almost every day. But no mention here, of course, of the US government's overthrow of the elected government of Ukraine, and its replacement with a neo-Nazi regime dedicated to terror acts on the Western flank of Russia. It's not as if we had leaked conversations from Obama's goons setting up the entire neo-Nazi coup- oh, wait a moment, that's exactly what we do have- but what is real EVIDENCE on a propaganda outlet like Slashdot?

The Gaza Holocaust included MULTIPLE 9/11 terror attacks, when the Jewish Israeli depravities targeted the tallest civilian buildings as a demonstration that the Jews will destroy anything of beauty owned by the non-Jewish Humans they call 'sub-Human' and 'cattle'. Four glorious constructions were blown to pieces by the Nazi-identical Jews, in an action of pure spite and absolute terror.

Muslims in the UK are now imprisoned for terms now approaching ONE DECADE simply for what they say on Facebook. The same British zionist government, in its first month, rushed through new laws giving Jews TOTAL IMMUNITY against previous Crimes against Humanity laws that operated in Britain, and scared of would be visitors from Israel. British Jews openly participated in the terrorist attacks against Gaza, but do not have to even worry about being investigated, let alone arrested or prosecuted.

The Jewish Israel architects of the 9/11 style attacks in Gaza, for instance, are free to enter the UK, give speeches glorifying acts of Jewish terrorism, and collect funds for future acts of terror. They can 'groom' as many British Jews as they so wish in their terror aims, all above British Law.

Of course, Britain was at the forefront of the NATO extermination of Libya, and the ruination of another secular and socially advanced Muslim society. The ruins of Libya now provide many of the ISIS forces fighting on behalf of Saudi Arabia (and Israel).

Russia brought secular rule to the urban areas of Afghanistan, and thus NATO forces waged proxy war until NATO brought the extremist Taliban to power, and drove the Russians out. The modern SECULAR regimes in Iraq, Libya and Syria were likewise targeted fro extermination, so Saudi trained clerics could step in and continue the growth of Saudi dominated ultra extreme Islamic rule in the region. The filthy zionist scum that own Slashdot will CLAIM the USA is for the Rights of women and gays, and yet the USA purposely EXTERMINATES West leaning regimes in Muslim nations, and replaces them with gay-hating, female-hating Saudi-leaning regimes.

Again, Saudi Arabia and Israel share EXTRAORDINARY influence in Washington. And these two stains of absolute evil on our planet are the firmest partners of one another. The House of Saud has always sworn its love of Israel and Judaism- a fact most Americans are far too ill-informed to realise.

Reading Slashdot teaches me what it would have been like living in Nazi Germany, reading the v

Fucking Gun Vultures circling already

[dbIII]

Hostage situations happen far more frequently in the USA so reality is not on your side.
Go use a different situation to push your barrow.

Re:Fucking Gun Vultures circling already

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. How about the increase in rapes and other crimes and the recent loss of the right to protest?

It's time to act!

[edibobb]

We should give up more of our constitutional rights NOW, before it's too late.

Re:It's time to act!

[rdnetto]

This is Australia. We don't have constitutional rights - our constitution merely codifies the relationship between the states, territories, federal government and the commonwealth.

Re:It's time to act!

[Anonymous Coward]

We should give up more of our constitutional rights NOW, before it's too late.

Yes you should, as we Greeks currently did by accepting the E.U. "anti-racist" law that forbits us from criticizing the foreigners that invated our nation - thank God (or should i say Allah?) for that because criticizing Muslims is dangerous...

You have missed one adjective

[Anonymous Coward]

You said:

I'm skeptical of the peaceful nature of a religion founded by a warlord

You forgot to put in a very important adjective. Please allow me to fill it in for ya:

I'm skeptical of the peaceful nature of a religion founded by a _PEDOPHILIC_ warlord

I dunno....

[Anonymous Coward]

How many middle easterners are driving those taxis? :)

Extremist news outlets

[bug1]

Its a lone gunman.

Police arent calling it a terrorism, it wasnt an IS flag being waved, airspace wasnt closed.

But hey, why not use criminal activity to drum commercial media activity.

If you want proper coverage journalism go to ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission), its govenment funded but independently operated.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...

Re:Extremist news outlets

[bug1]

(and when i say proper, i mean better than my grammer)

Re:Extremist news outlets

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! Nobody cares if a white Christian takes hostages. That and mass shootings are like a weekly event in the US. lol

Re:Extremist news outlets

[TropicalCoder]

Wow - Thanks for that link...

Sydney siege live: Loud explosions heard as police storm Lindt cafe

Updated 3 minutes ago Mon 15 Dec 2014, 10:51am

Police have stormed the Lindt cafe in Sydney after an intense period of loud explosions or gunshots and flashes of lights.

Re:Extremist news outlets

[AK Marc]

It was an Arabic flag (thus "Islamic" in many people's minds), and the officials (I'm not sure who) asked for clear airspace, and were given it, so the effect is the same as closed airspace, it was just closed by the police, rather than the CAA.

Re:Extremist news outlets

[micahraleigh]

If we can educate the police to use progressive labels, it will confirm the truth of our progressive political views.

Re:Extremist news outlets

[porjo]

Its a lone gunman.

True enough, however it is also yet another incident in a string of similar 'lone wolf' incidents across the globe, done outright in the name of Islam.

The media have totally beaten this thing up in a shameful way. I'm glad the police gave the media zero information throughout the day, as it would only have added fuel to the fire of wild speculation that was already occurring.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Same things were said of virtually any revolutionary. It's just we don't hear them spoken about the successful ones.

Idiots amongst posters.

[mjwx]

Sorry to hear this unfolding :(

An unarmed populous is easier to terrorize. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... When being armed is illegal (or restricted to the point of being nearly that), only the bad guys will be armed in such situations. Waiting for the police to come save you is often an ineffective endeavor.

Australia's gun laws are what has prevented this person from having an assault rifle. He's armed with a small single barrelled shotgun. Having more armed people will ensure that more incidents like this will occur and a lot more often.

And I am an Australian. Our gun laws have prevented things like this as criminals cant get easy access to guns.

We are not terrorised here I can assure you.

Re:Idiots amongst posters.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that its over, I'd like to see how many people were shot by the police in the raid vs being shot by the offender. It usually ends up with the police killing more innocent people. Watching the video, it looks like a disco when the police storm in, at least 50 shots fired. The offender had a shot gun, couldn't have shot more then once or twice in that time.

Re:Idiots amongst posters.

[Anonymous Coward]

> He's armed with a small single barrelled [sic] shotgun.

You say "small", the reporters say "sawed-off" - lol, I see what you did there. Funny how you can't produce an effective weapon by "sawing off" an assault rifle in order to conceal it and bring it to a, oh i don't know... how about a coffee shop in downtown Sydney.

He did a fine job killing two people, and wounding four others with his small shotgun though... shame. But it's a good thing you can sue the gun manufacturer in order to prevent these darned things from killing people. Oh, and while you're at it, put a large automobile manufacturer on your list to sue as well - they're responsible for all kinds of senseless death too.

"Police said a 50-year-old man, believed to be the attacker, was killed. Television pictures showed he appeared to have been armed with a sawn-off shotgun.

A man aged 34 and a 38-year-old woman were also killed, police said. The man was the cafe manager and the woman was a mother and barrister, local media reported. Four were wounded, including a policeman hit in the face with shotgun pellets."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/...

> We are not terrorised here I can assure you.

Well, we certainly know where you're NOT in Australia... most likely sitting around in some other coffee shop with a smug grin on your face. Perhaps you should just stick to speaking for yourself and not others...

That fraud prophet worshipped the Devil

[Taco Cowboy]

I think you should get your facts right Muhammad was not a warlord in fact he was a merchant until he became a religious leader at age 26

That false prophet had a grandpa who worked as a religious preacher, with the name of "Abdullah" (meaning, ' servant of Allah ' in the Arabian language)

He got bored with his own life and decided to do something different. He then went into a cave, came out and then proclaimed to anyone who would listen to him that the Archangel Gabriel came to him and told him the God had anointed him as a prophet

Afterward, that guy copied versus from the Jewish Torah and the Christian Bible, and then added / altered verses, to make himself "legit"

Since this has turned into a religious discussion, let us compare what the Koran said and what the Bible said:

In Koran:

Jesus, the son of Mary, said, "A messenger will come after me, named Ahmad." [ Koran 61:6]

Did Jesus ever say such a thing?

Nope! There was no mention at all within the many books which made up the Holy Bible that recorded Jesus ever uttered such a "speech"

That Koran verses was entirely a creation from that false prophet. It was Mohammad who insisted that Jesus had said something, several hundreds of years after the death of Jesus Christ !

We must never forget the warnings in Matthew 24:23-25

23"Then if anyone says to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ,' or 'There He is,' do not believe him"
24" For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect "
25"Behold, I have told you in advance"

... and also in Matthew 7:15-16

15" Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves "
16"You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?

In other words, that Mohammad guy was a FALSE PROPHET and that Koran is filled with innuendos, deceits and lies !

A book which is filled with innuendos, deceits and lies, no matter how you look at it, should never be considered as " holy " !!

Re:That fraud prophet worshipped the Devil

[Opportunist]

A book which is filled with innuendos, deceits and lies, no matter how you look at it, should never be considered as " holy " !!

I agree, so I really have to wonder why you quote from it.

Snide comments aside, you do know that what you consider your "holy bible" today is nothing but a selection of scriptures that someone who happened to have been in power when they were selected wanted to be "holy" while considering what didn't further his agenda was tossed aside as "apokryphic", i.e. "not holy", yes? That the oh so holy bible is nothing but a collection of those stories that fit into someone's power plan.

Not to mention that you're quoting the translation (and let's be blunt here, a rather bad one), don't make me start on that one.

But of course they were... nitwit.

[denzacar]

The Crusades were a backlash against Muslim invasion nitwit.

Which is why they started off with massacres of Jews. Nitwit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

Same reason, Muslim invasion, started later crusades up north, against "pagans" (Prussians, Slavs, Estonians... basically non-catholics). Nitwit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

Or those against Cathars in France. Muslims. Again. Nitwit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

It's almost as if religious goals were then, just as they are now, a pretext for validation of religious hatred against "them" and a carte blanche for looting.

You know... them. Others. Minorities. Those who are different.
Be they Jews, heretics, pagans, Muslims, black, Asian, gays, communists...
Nitwit.

Re:But of course they were... nitwit.

[TropicalCoder]

You make an excellent argument, fully backed with references. I don't think you needed the word "Nitwit" on top of that. Your argument stands on its own. Just sayin'

Re:But of course they were... nitwit.

[cheesybagel]

Those Jewish massacres were condemned by both the Catholic Church and the Kings at that time.

The so called Northern Crusades weren't even named Crusades at the time for obvious reasons. It was a retcon. I could also call them a backlash against prior Norse invasions on the Catholic Roman Empire.

The Cathar war was similar to the Reform Wars and it had nothing to do with external relations but it was about suppressing internal dissent.

So you think Jews, Heretics, Pagans, etc don't wage war either? You sure are naive.

This is an atrocity

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking savages. Attacking a Hershey's cafe I can understand, maybe even a Ghiradelli, but Lindt? That's a crime against humanity.

You have given them what they wanted

[Anonymous Coward]

To spread propaganda and to instill fear among the masses. He has set back his own cause. Lockdown the area and people panicing.

BUT

This is not the way to act for change, nor should we be given it unnecessary attention like on Slashdot, it is the wrong medium to report this on.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[davester666]

That's just it. The gov't and the media make sure EVERYBODY feels terrorized by some lone wack-job.

Here in Canada, where one of our wack-jobs was running around Ottawa killing one person, across the country in Edmonton, AB [3400 km away], schools were being locked down "just in case".

And of course there will be the "OMG. We just have to ram through a bunch of legislation making it easier for the police and the secret police to spy on everyone because we just have to catch every terrorist." Nevermind that it is either 100% likely we will find out about the wack job some other way [like say, the family calling the police saying "our son is a wack job"] or 0% likely to find the wack job in advance because they interact with nobody.

4 bombs

[drkim]

Update: terrorists claim to have 2 bombs in the cafe, 2 more in the financial district.
Say they will release 1 hostage if ISIS flag brought to cafe.
5 hostages released/escaped so far.

Mods on crack?

[orzetto]

Crusades are easy, that would be a response to 100 years of Muslim rape, slaughter, and forced conversion in Spain.

Aside from the fact that Christians did exactly the same when they reconquered the Iberian peninsula, and aside from the fact that in that time Muslim societies were far more liberal than any Christian society (Jews usually fled to Muslim countries from Christian countries), would you mind explaining why no bloody crusade ever went west to Spain, but all East to Jerusalem?

The crusades were the product of a fanatical Christian society, with the motivation of paradise for the soldiers and spoils of war for the commanders. They sacked, plundered, raped anything between Europe and Jerusalem, and that includes Costantinople that at the time was Christian. Which was expected of any serious army at that time. The pretext for war was the "liberation" of Jerusalem, and the real drive was a combination of poverty, ignorance, greed and religion. So the crusades were pretty much the ISIS of the second millenium.

Do read up some history lest you spout more of such nonsense.

Re:Mods on crack?

[TropicalCoder]

That was a long time ago, wasn't it?

Re:Mods on crack?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Spain was far from the only front against the Caliphates and Islam, there was also constant pressure on the east. If you think the crusades had a patch on what Islamic forces had been doing before and continued to do afterwards you're sorely mistaken. As for Constantinople, that was the doing of a crafty old Doge of Venice who had a long standing grudge against the city.

The real problem here is people start pointing at the crusades as an example of Christian warmaking as if they were something special, if you read the history of the times pretty much everyone was kicking the shit out of everyone else and kept at it right up until the middle of the 20th century. There's nothing unique or even notable about the crusades, Genghis Khan was causing much bigger problems for Islamic civilisation as he tore through it from the opposite direction. And that's before we start looking at warring between Islamic states after the reconquista.

So today

[Anonymous Coward]

Today I turned to the 10 network as usual and instead of the usual show got a picture of a heavily armed cop watching a glass door and 4 minute news spiel. Then there were interviews of the onlookers. I changed the channel. Before today, ongoing crimes were not broadcast for the viewer's entertainment.

I remember that 25 years ago, the 7 network broadcast a live hostage situation and promptly got their knuckles rapped for abandoning their daytime schedule. The 9/11 bombing was the last time I saw daytime programming cancelled. That day it was replaced with 5 hours of news reports. Sadly, I think people will be so busy today screaming "look, terrorist" to notice the profiteering of Australian television stations.

uh... can you say "false flag"?

[ihtoit]

someone tried claiming it's Islamic State, problem is it's not the IS flag and it's the wrong colour to be the Saudi flag.

  So pardon the previous pun, but this is either a flase flag or just a nutjob with a shotgun.

Re:uh... can you say "false flag"?

[bluefoxlucid]

Besides, wouldn't it read "There is no God but Allah"? This is ham-fisted.

A Godsend

[Capsaicin]

But as soon as this is over, you can bet the poo is going to be flung in all directions in parliament and the media.

This is the sort of event the government needs to leverage if are to have a chance to re-float their electoral prospects.

Re:A Godsend

[dbIII]

In a fantasy world where they have their shit together this is exactly the sort of thing they would run as a "false flag" operation to look "strong" as they take decisive action. Reality appears to be a violent idiot doing something counterproductive to his cause and a government with no clue what to do about it.

Re:A Godsend

[Capsaicin]

In a fantasy world ... the sort of thing they would run as a "false flag" operation to look "strong"

Fantasy indeed. While there's no chance, I trust, of the Australian government running this kind of thing as a "false flag operation," success in politics consists of exploiting those circumstance fate throws in your direction.

Reality appears to be a violent idiot doing something counterproductive to his cause ...

In the vaguest sense of 'cause.'

... and a government with no clue what to do about it.

It didn't end particularly well. Whether the LNP is able to extract any political capital from the event remains to be seen.

Check your math.

[Anonymous Coward]

Islam is a peaceful religion, that's why followers just went out of their way to do this.

There are about 500,000 Muslims in Australia.

1 of them is committing this crime.

How many of the 499,999 Muslims in Australia have so far been out on peaceful demonstration showing their support to the rule of law over the rule of ISIS?

Australia reaps what it sows

[Taco Cowboy]

This is what you get when you're short-sighted with your immigration policy

When they have the numbers, they will be up to their mischief

Look around the world, you'll see that this is not a new phenomenon -

They will first DOMINATE - becoming a very vocal minority

Then they will INTIMIDATE - and call anyone who disagree with them "racist" or "hater" and everything their opponents do as "hate speech", "hateful acts"
 
... and ultimately...
 
They will SUBJUGATE - the Middle East, Pakistan, Iran, North Africa, and so on, used to be places where the number of non-Muslims were larger than Muslims

Now?

In Pakistan they burned two Christians alive in a kiln

In Iraq / Syria they cut off the heads of Christians

In Northern Nigeria they kidnapped over 200 young girls and forced them to converted into Islam and then married them to much older Muslims

... and so on, and so forth

Re:Australia reaps what it sows

[Anonymous Coward]

They will SUBJUGATE - the Middle East, Pakistan, Iran, North Africa, and so on, used to be places where the number of non-Muslims were larger than Muslims

That argument contains no meaning at all.
Europe used to be a place where the number of non-Christians were larger than Christians. Now?
Same thing with Christians in america. Now animists live in poverty and subjugation on reservations.
And Hawaii? Man the christians fucked up the locals there.

Re:Australia reaps what it sows

[jandersen]

Well, to be honest, what you describe here is what we used to do not long ago - us Europeans, when we were playing more openly at imperialism. As you will note, Islam was not a dominant religion in Europe at the time. What I'm trying to say is, let's not get carried away by how evil the opposition is; chances are that they learned a good deal about it from us.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[tehcyder]

Calling them an asshole is much more likely to be accurate. Calling them a terrorist gives them more credit than all but a tiny fraction of such scum remotely deserve.

I've often had that same thought. Calling them "terrorists" is really glorifying them, at least in the eyes of the impressionable. They are thinking "hey - I want to be a brave terrorist just like him!" All news headlines should refer to them literally as "assholes" or "losers". Then watch how many people now are going to say "hey - I want to be an asshole and a loser just like him!".I don't think quite so many would want to emulate that behaviour.

Well, the problem with that is that the people involved don't call themselves "terrorists" in the first place, and they certainly don't care how the Western Media label them.

In their eyes, they are freedom fighters, holy warriors, God's Special Forces, or whatever.

A bit of name-calling really isn't going to stop them.

US gov't shill posting on a tech site

[Anonymous Coward]

No surprise.

Depends on when

[aepervius]

A few decades ago with the IRA and separatist activities in spain, the biggest terrorist threat in europe was "christian" of origin, and in the c ase of Ireland arguably religiously motivated (protestant versus catholic).

Re:Depends on when

[quenda]

A few decades ago with the IRA and separatist activities in spain, the biggest terrorist threat in europe was "christian" of origin, and in the c ase of Ireland arguably religiously motivated (protestant versus catholic).

You also had the Palestinian terror groups back then, but like the Irish and Spanish terrorists, they were not particularly religious. Some of the Arab terrorists back then were Christian.

  It is very different now. I would not compare the recent Islamist terror to any of those groups.

That is not that clear cut

[aepervius]

"Some historians see the Crusades as part of a purely defensive war against Islamic conquest; some see them as part of long-running conflict at the frontiers of Europe; and others see them as confident, aggressive, papal-led expansion attempts by Western Christendom." You can check the source link at encyclopedia or wiki , this is not a consensus. It was probably a mix of all. Plus how many crusade were they over how 2 hundred years ? It was not ONE crusade, it was like 7 or 8. And there is a huge political influx of the byzantine loss of land.

400 years is not a "defense"

[Anonymous Coward]

"The First Crusade (1096â"1099) ... Muslim conquests of the Levant (632â"661),"

There is a good reason why many contest the "crusade as defense", because 400 years have happenned... And frankly christianity DID their own conquest and encroachment. Ask the northern countries about how they were conquered.

wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

How this news is tech related?

Blogosphere

[Marquis231]

I'd just like to say that at 10hrs+ into the hostage situation here in metropolitan Australia facebook and twitter are in virtual meltdown

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[cascadingstylesheet]

Calling them a terrorist gives them more credit than all but a tiny fraction of such scum remotely deserve.

Er, only if you think "terrorist" means anything other than "asshole".

Darwin bait

[benjfowler]

Islam is merely a lens for losers to focus their rage through. The fact this is "terrorism" is only marginally relevant.

There will always be losers with a chip on their shoulder. There will always be people who are of below-average intelligence, or with poor judgement or impulse control, who will pull stuff like this. What makes Islam so incredibly dangerous, is that it allows this sub-human scum to wield their hate and anger like a weapon against other people.

With luck, this worthless drug-fucked piece of crap will be a piece of medial waste lying in a morgue somewhere. I shall not shed a single tear for him.

Re:Darwin bait

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to argue with here.

Islam is NOT a religion of peace and it never has been. Islam and allah are a false construct from a deluded, deranged desert rat camel jockey who killed thousands in his own lifetime and his ideas and dreams have killed hundreds of millions since.

The West is glad handing the effing muslims and it needs to stop. They disallow Christians and Jews from building worship temples in their own little third-world dirtholes, but get their panties in a twist when Westerners don't want an effing mosque in our neighbourhoods.

Time to make being a terrorist or terrorist sympathiser very expensive and very painful. Time to bring actual and true shock and awe to these people who would dare to come out of their caves. Sadly, we won't because the West has lost their will. I'm old enough to remember when the West still had a backbone of sorts. Those days seem to be receding very quickly in the rearview mirror of what was left of the West and her better way of life. We have let political correctness dictate terms in fear of offending. Let them be offended. Who are they? They are subhuman asshats who believe in a dead camel jockey and his false construct moon god.

Where is Golda Meir when you need her?

Neither do you

[Anonymous Coward]

The city was not simply promised to his people. Midians were slaughtered because their women had seduced Israelites, so that they worship their idols. 24000 Israelites that were involved in this were executed after it was discovered. Midians later disappeared from the face of earth, which confirms that indeed this was God's will, in case you think you're more qualified to judge Moses's actions at the time, about 3000 years ago.

Saint Constantine is known for the edict of Milan in 313, which protected from religious persecution Christians and followers of other religions, except for pagans that practiced human sacrifices. He didn't pick a specific set of churches, he convened the first council of Nicaea, which comprised Christian bishops representing the entire Christianity at the time, which declared the true Christian faith. Christianity was declared the official state religion by Theodosius I in 380.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the police and ABC radio have simply been calling him an 'Armed Offender'.

Which is exactly what he is. Nothing more than some idiot with a gun.

Neither do you

[Anonymous Coward]

The city was not simply promised to his people. Midians were slaughtered because their women seduced Israelites so that they worship their idols. 24000 Israelites that were involved in this were executed after it was discovered. Midians later disappeared from the face of earth, which confirms that indeed this was God's will, in case you think you're more qualified to judge Moses's actions at the time, about 3000 years ago.

Saint Constantine is known for the edict of Milan in 313, which protected from religious persecution Christians and followers of other religions, except for pagans that practiced human sacrifices. He didn't pick a specific set of churches, he convened the first council of Nicaea, which comprised Christian bishops representing the entire Christianity at the time, which declared the true Christian faith. Christianity was declared the official state religion by Theodosius I in 380.

they are the religion of peace man!!

[pablo_max]

Why, they are the religion of peace man!!
Just look here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12...

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[CrimsonAvenger]

I agree. "Armed robbers", "kidnappers", perhaps "gang-bangers" or some such.

Treat them like any other street thug committing a crime, and they'll be a lot less likely to do silly shit like this...taking a chocolate shop hostage, I mean really!

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[khallow]

Not ever idiot with a gun takes Australians hostage. Else it would be an exciting time in Australia.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[DigiShaman]

I'm perfectly fine with calling him an "Islamofacist" or "Islamic fanatic". Whatever, tag Islam in with his movement per the flag he raised. If that won't be done, then we have a bunch of cowards who just assume turn a blind eye to the evil that's being forged in the hearts of men.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[Anonymous Coward]

This works for CNN. They called the Indian guy running a popular pro-ISIS twitter account a workaholic, no lifer with no girlfriend.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to play Devil's advocate for a moment, and want to point out that I don't support Islamists or their agenda in any way.

This guy hasn't killed or seriously harmed anyone yet. He doesn't appear to want to fight, his demands are to talk to the man in charge. I assume he believes that Australia is involved in the murder of Muslims and extremely immoral (by Islamic standards) behaviour, and feels otherwise powerless to stop it. I don't know what Australia's democracy is like but if it's anything like the UK and US he is probably feeling unrepresented and unable to speak out freely because even speaking about these things can be considered a crime.

So, he takes extreme action. Not justified by our standards, but perhaps by his. He tries not to hurt people in the process, and allows them to use their mobile phones to contract family, social media, radio stations and the like. His demands are not unreasonable.

It's a shame it had to get this far, but at this point it looks more like a failure of democracy and foreign policy, or perhaps the actions of a misguided individual, rather than something done with extreme malice.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Even in the case of those that you apparently might consider worthy of the title "terrorist," I would still think twice before using that word, simply because of the dimension that the word has acquired in the mind of the populace. In fact, speaking for myself, I must say that (Godwin warning! Godwin warning! Godwin warning!) for the same reason I also object to the use of the word Holocaust, because it somehow kind of glorifies what those bastards did. The Holocaust was a bunch of animals in uniform murdering innocent people in huge numbers at the orders of a lunatic. That is what it was, government-sanctioned mass murder, period.

+1 funny

[TropicalCoder]

hallal chockies!

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[jandrese]

From what information the police have released since then, it looks like you're right on the mark. The guy is a violent nutjob that also happens to be an Iranian Muslem; and he has lived in Australia for almost 20 years now. I doubt he has much connection with Islamic State beyond their chat boards.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[gnasher719]

The ones that are already rolled in you won't stop easily. It's about the impressionable ones that are not enrolled.

Simply quit giving them media attention

[__aanbvm4272]

Why does the media seem shocked at what they have created? Want to get on TV? Just pull a horrific crime. Geez My solution? put it on the backpage of the newspaper, if at all. You know, like the information the government wants subdued or hard to find. Do not give the life story of the idiot pulling these crimes just call them "scumbags." And reassure people it is a rare action and we have nothing to be fearful of. Curse CNN and their "breaking news" coverage. They ought to be held accountable for the copy cat crimes. Make it shameful to cooperate with criminal coverage.

It is not Islamic terrorism

[Anonymous Coward]

This hostage situation is the act of a single nutcase. It is no different from hostage situations with other nutcases. Watch as the U.S. and AUS governments will use this to throw their hands in the air and further demonize muslims.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[argStyopa]

As PT Barnum is reputed to have said (OK I know he didn't say it but roll with the anecdote): "There is no bad publicity."

I've thought for years that the news coverage ITSELF is the problem.

If these individuals didn't know that they'd suddenly gain the attention of millions this would be a far less appealing strategy for them.

Now, imagine for a moment that news services voluntarily refused to share (during OR AFTER the incident):
- the names/identities of the perpetrators
- their "cause"
- their demands
- any details extrinsic to the safety of the public.

This story would hit the news as: "A hostage-event is taking place at a location in Sydney's CBD; several people are believed to be held by an individual, and police are evacuating the CBD as a standard precaution."

I know, it's a utopian idea that news stations actually stop reveling in the carnage they get to cover, and there's no question that crazy-bad people would still do bad things, but it would certainly discourage attention-seekers.

Or your low standards

[Anonymous Coward]

They must have realized you started using artificial flavoring in Lindt (such as vanillin). Tsk!

This is not a Muslim gunman

[ikhider]

This is just a gunman who happens to be Muslim. A troubled one at that.

Re:This is not a Muslim gunman

[Anonymous Coward]

Which explains why he flew a black flag with the shehada - the Islamic declaration of monotheistic belief in the allah/mohammed cartel - out of the windows of that cafe! Nope, him being Muslim had nothing to do with it!

Re:This is not a Muslim gunman

[BoogieChile]

As a fraudster who fled his home country, assaulted customers of his "spiritual healing" practice and may have arranged tomurder his ex-wife, he wasn't much chop as a Muslim, either.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, it's much better for our news outlets to give us LESS information and factual reporting than they already do. You really hit the nail on the head there - what this world needs is more ignorant cunts speculating and arguing about everything that happens.

You have a curious notion of what constitutes a utopia.

I mean, the niggeh has three Muslim names, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

At first take it sounds so incredibly ridiculous as to be unworthy of serious consideration, but the more you look into the matter, the more the conclusion becomes inescapable: Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim sympathizer who enables terrorism, aiding our enemies, and thus, he is worthy to be charged with treason.

In the beginning we should have read the signs: from the apology tour to bowing before the Saudi king, to the declarations in Cairo and refusing to directly reference a “war on terror,” this man has demonstrated preference for America’s enemies, denigrating the U.S. and her allies at every turn. The heart of Obama is measured in the words of his pastor for 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, who proclaimed: “God Damn America.”

Obama has orchestrated the leaking of classified information to hurt our country and help our enemies, making himself look good to retain power and forward the agenda: knock down American interests to build up global government.

Obama left Iraq prematurely and we see the resulting destruction: a country once poised to be a beacon of freedom in the Middle East, now a nexus of terrorism, a vassal of Iran. Telegraphing the end game, Obama has handed Afghanistan back to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Pouring weapons into Syria, he helps Jihad annihilate Christians, arming thugs who now murder women and children with great efficiency. These are not accidental failures. They are purposeful, calculated developments designed to shame the U.S., and forward the cause of Sharia in the world.

Obama just released $500 million to Hamas, a terrorist organization whose mission statement is the annihilation of Israel, a group thoroughly coordinating with Iran. That’s on top of $147 million he sent to Hamas last year.

Obama overthrew Mubarak in Egypt, unleashing violence, death and turmoil in that country for the last two years. Then he armed the Muslim Brotherhood, embraced their members, and appointed them to positions of authority in our own government.

Do we even have to mention Benghazi? And now the embassy retreat throughout the Arab world, showing cowardice and weakness, once again.

Add all this to the increase in attacks on the homeland, negligence in securing our borders, increases in homegrown terrorism, and efforts to promote Sharia in America, and the unbelievable becomes the unavoidable reality: the President of the United States is the enemy of the United States.

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[Anonymous Coward]

For those already involved, you are right. But it may make a difference for the potential recruits that are not yet involved.

Just another nut case

[Anonymous Coward]

Most nut cases are attracted to religion

Secularism in Muslim countries

[Anonymous Coward]

No Muslim regime, outside the Soviet stans, has ever been secular. Since you address Iraq, Syria and Libya, it's worth pointing each out.

Libya was never secular. Col Qadaffi just tried to use Islam as a vehicle for his nationalism, and tried what some Muslims have - a Qur'an only approach, that rejects all hadiths & tafseers. This got him into a head on confrontation with Islamic clerics, since mainstream Islamic opinion recognizes the hadiths, tafseer and sira as much a part of Islamic underpinnings as the Qur'an itself. But by no means does that make Qadaffi secular.

Iraq & Syria were both Baathist regimes, but it's important to understand what that meant. In any Muslim country, if it is declared an Islamic country, what it means is that the Islam of the majority sect would be the de-facto religion. Like Iran and Saudi Arabia are both Islamic states, but since in Iran, the majority is Shia, Iran being an Islamic state means that the Shiite clerics rule. Similarly, Saudi Arabia too is an Islamic state, but since the majority are Sunnis, Saudi Arabia's leading clerics are Wahabis. The same holds good in every Islamic country. For this reason, the Sunnis in Iraq, and the Alawites in Syria, couldn't allow their countries to become Islamic states. It's not that they are secular - they're not: it's that if their countries become Islamic states, they get to be a persecuted minority within those states. Which is why Sunnis in Iraq are perfectly happy with ISIS, as they would be in any Sunni Islamic state. But since Saddam couldn't make his state an Islamic state, the way it was, he united with the Baathist and other non-Kurdish minorities, like the Chaldean and Turkoman, and ran his regime. Similarly, in Syria, Hafez al Assad made a coalition around his Alawite base of Druze, Armenians and other Shia, and since they had control of the army, they maintained a 30 year long grip on power.

This also explains why Saddam and Assad - both Baathist Arab rulers, both very pro-Soviet, both virulently anti-Israel - hated each other, despite having so much in common. There was no way a Sunni regime persecuting Shia in one country was gonna make nice with a Shia regime persecuting Sunnis right next door. That's why Syria supported Iran in its war with Iraq, and also explains why Saddam wanted to annex Kuwait: it wasn't just the failure to conquer Khuzestan, but rather, the desire to make Iraq a Sunni majority country by annexing a Sunni neighbor.

As for the Soviet regime in Afghanistan, you are right, the Soviets did install a secular regime there. The West did support a Jihadi insurgency against it, finally causing it to collapse and come under the Taliban. However, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was installed by the Pakis, not on behalf of the West, as conspiracy nuts like to believe, but due to their own desire to have a client state from which Jihadi acts against India - like the hijacking of an Indian plane - could be carried out.

The only genuinely secular Muslim countries have been the ex stans of the Soviet Union. In the case of Kazakhstan, a good reason is that Russians were above 40% minority, and with Russia as their northern neighbor, the last thing Kazakhstan could do was piss them off. In Uzbekistan, president Karimov recognized Islam as a threat, and systematically stamped out all Islamic resistance in ways far worse than what you're complaining about in the West. Turkmenistan was for a good while more interested in promoting a Kemalesque cult of president Niyazov, which ended after his death. Tajikistan has been Islamizing, being more influenced by Iran, but since Tajikistan is Sunni and Iran is Shia, that's not been happening in a big way. Same goes for Azerbaijan vs Turkey. Kyrgyzstan has been Islamizing some more, ever since becoming more democratic.

Finally, your part about Gaza - Israel had vacated Gaza long ago, and the r

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[Anonymous Coward]

they certainly don't care how the Western Media label them.

I think they would care if we label them in such a way as to imply that we aren't taking them seriously. Now whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, I do not know.

No, they're cowards

[Dr. Evil]

It's harder to live for a cause than die for one.

It's especially easy to die for a cause if you've never amounted to anything.. You can take some comfort in believing that you'll be remembered as a hero, and you don't have to take any responsibility for your actions.

Moshe Dayan said otherwise

[Anonymous Coward]

We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is a Jewish state here. In considerable areas of the country we bought lands from the Arabs. Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalal arose in the place of Mahalul, Gevat â" in the place of Jibta, Sarid â" in the place of Haneifs and Kefar Yehoshua â" in the place of Tell Shaman. There is no one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.

Not Islamic State, though

[jandersen]

Much as I despise the so-called Islamic State, I think in the interest of truthfulness, it bears mentioning, that this incident is almost certainly not organised by them. By all accounts - including the official statements from the police - this is a mentally disturbed individual acting alone. Make no mistake - I would happily vote in favour of capturing the IS fighters, flaying them alive and rolling them in stale manure, but we only play into their hands if we refuse to know the facts.

Lol, "apparent"

[Anonymous Coward]

What will it take before it becomes "explicit" Islamic terrorism? Will they need to behead you literally as you write the headline, screaming "Allah Akhbar"?

It's a reference...

[denzacar]

...to original poster's style of presenting an "argument".

And more from the "Religion of Peace"

[Anonymous Coward]

More like the "Religion of Pieces" - body parts here, body pieces there, body pieces everywhere -

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30491435

Disgusting death cult!

And none of them were true Scots...

[denzacar]

Wow! You really are riding that fallacy train.
I mean, you cover no true Scotsman, ignoratio elenchi, tu quoque AND you finish off with an ad hominem, per your custom. Nitwit.
You know what? You should sit down on the floor when talking.
That way, you won't fall down on your face as much. Cause your "arguments" don't have a leg to stand on.

I mean... It's not only that you ignore that the sentiment which led ALL crusades was religious hatred of "others".
You are trying to weasel out of Catholics putting Nazis to shame cause "pope and king condemned it"? Riiiiight...
Which is why the pogroms and crusades kept continuing and why Inquisition was established.
Totally unexpectedly. I know, right?

And I just LOVE... no...
I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVEEEEEE!!!! how you've just justified jihad and terrorist activities and every single act of war or killing EVER because... let me get that in original stupid... "don't [they] wage war either?"
Beautiful! What it lacks in grarnrnar it makes up in stupid.

You know what?
You should print a large sandwich sign saying "NUKE NYC!" on one side and "BOMB USA!" on the other and parade with it in front of ground zero.
Followed by similar presentations at various war memorials and military bases.
Please record that for posterity when you do that.
There's never enough good laughs.

interesting how the Aussies are not calling this a

[Anonymous Coward]

... it's only the terror-driven US that are calling it 'terrorism'

Re:It's just some dipshit with weapons and no hope

[Anonymous Coward]

If this guy is a terrorist, and not just some psychopath, then is the guy who shot 6 people in Pennsylvania also a terrorist? Or does he have to be wearing a turban? (As if you can't predict what people will answer by their politics)

Everybody must follow TWO religions

[NewYork]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

Basic income

[NewYork]

I think https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... would DILUTE every type of terrorism world wide.

Happy and Comfortable life

[NewYork]

Everybody has right to live Happy and Comfortable life on Earth.
Never do anything against conscience even if the state/politics/religion demands it.

Muslims version

[NewYork]

I read somewhere in a blog.

Are Muslims responsible for 37 million casualities in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
Are Muslims responsible for 60 million casualities in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties