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Reporter Shares Experience of Visiting a Flat Earth Convention (vice.com)
Tom Usher, reporting for Vice: I arrived at the venue -- a Jurys Inn hotel -- on a wet Saturday morning, to discover that the event was essentially a small carpeted convention room boasting a few cameras, some stalls selling merchandise, and 70 or so attendees watching PowerPoint presentations beamed onto a wall. As I entered, I was offered a gift of "fluoride-free" toothpaste. This made perfect sense, given the location. A popular conspiracy theory states that governments across the world have been putting fluoride in our water supply to tranquilize the masses, despite the fact the only piece of "evidence" for this theory -- which involves both the Nazis and the Communists -- has been widely discredited. With the tone set for the day, I sat down to watch some speeches.
The speakers all seemed well aware of how "globe-earthers" view the idea of a flat Earth, i.e. ludicrous, and their talk of the current scientific establishment felt very "us versus them" -- a nice bit of truther tribalism. One speaker talked at length about the moon, and how its orbit proved the Earth couldn't be spherical, which seemed a little counterintuitive. Another talked about how the Egyptian pyramid structure points toward clues that the Earth is a flat diamond shape, supported by pillars. Between sounding off about the Vatican and the fact that the establishment has indoctrinated us to believe all sorts of things, including that the Earth is a sphere, a third speaker suggested that cancer is caused by negative emotions and argued that dinosaurs didn't exist. The story also explores why some people still believe these long-debunked theories. Further reading: The bizarre tale of the flat-Earth convention that fell apart (CNET).
The speakers all seemed well aware of how "globe-earthers" view the idea of a flat Earth, i.e. ludicrous, and their talk of the current scientific establishment felt very "us versus them" -- a nice bit of truther tribalism. One speaker talked at length about the moon, and how its orbit proved the Earth couldn't be spherical, which seemed a little counterintuitive. Another talked about how the Egyptian pyramid structure points toward clues that the Earth is a flat diamond shape, supported by pillars. Between sounding off about the Vatican and the fact that the establishment has indoctrinated us to believe all sorts of things, including that the Earth is a sphere, a third speaker suggested that cancer is caused by negative emotions and argued that dinosaurs didn't exist. The story also explores why some people still believe these long-debunked theories. Further reading: The bizarre tale of the flat-Earth convention that fell apart (CNET).
Don't know what you are talking about. Christians did wholesale mass-murder in the crusades, for example, in pretty much the mode you describe. There is no larger religion that has not done atrocities and justified them afterwards.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The worst religion inspired violence in the world today is the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya. The perpetrators are Buddhist, not Muslim.
Were they shouting "Save the unborn" and bombing abortion clinics, because that's what the religious zealots do here. Before that, they shouted "Die Ni**er" and bombed black churches and neighborhoods.
Never seen a Muslim do either of those.
** Lameness Filter is Lame.
What planet you been on? Cuz the color of your sky ain't blue.
Here are the 10 countries where homosexuality may be punished by death
Here are the 10 countries where homosexuality may be punishable by death:
Yemen: According to the 1994 penal code, married men can be sentenced to death by stoning for homosexual intercourse. Unmarried men face whipping or one year in prison. Women face up to seven years in prison.
Iran: In accordance with sharia law, homosexual intercourse between men can be punished by death, and men can be flogged for lesser acts such as kissing. Women may be flogged.
Mauritania: Muslim men engaging in homosexual sex can be stoned to death, according to a 1984 law, though none have been executed so far. Women face prison.
Nigeria: Federal law classifies homosexual behavior as a felony punishable by imprisonment, but several states have adopted sharia law and imposed a death penalty for men. A law signed in early January makes it illegal for gay people countrywide to hold a meeting or form clubs.
Qatar: Sharia law in Qatar applies only to Muslims, who can be put to death for extramarital sex, regardless of sexual orientation.
Saudi Arabia: Under the country’s interpretation of sharia law, a married man engaging in sodomy or any non-Muslim who commits sodomy with a Muslim can be stoned to death. All sex outside of marriage is illegal.
Afghanistan: The Afghan Penal Code does not refer to homosexual acts, but Article 130 of the Constitution allows recourse to be made to sharia law, which prohibits same-sex sexual activity in general. Afghanistan’s sharia law criminalizes same-sex sexual acts with a maximum of the death penalty. No known cases of death sentences have been meted out since the end of Taliban rule in 2001.
Somalia: The penal code stipulates prison, but in some southern regions, Islamic courts have imposed sharia law and the death penalty.
Sudan: Three-time offenders under the sodomy law can be put to death; first and second convictions result in flogging and imprisonment. Southern parts of the country have adopted more lenient laws.
United Arab Emirates: Lawyers in the country and other experts disagree on whether federal law prescribes the death penalty for consensual homosexual sex or only for rape. In a recent Amnesty International report, the organization said it was not aware of any death sentences for homosexual acts. All sexual acts outside of marriage are banned.
Notice anything in common among those countries?
You have the balls to answer? I'm guessing no.
You're a fool. A stupid fucking fool. Was elementary school the best decade of your life.
Don't know what you are talking about. Christians did wholesale mass-murder in the crusades, for example, in pretty much the mode you describe. There is no larger religion that has not done atrocities and justified them afterwards.
Totes adorbs, TODAY'S Islam:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation
You need to grow a brain.
There were massive wars in Europe over which brand of Christianity was correct up until the 18th century and this included burning people alive, often on the flimsiest of evidence with torture used to extract confessions.
Then there is the violence against Jews and Romi which, especially in the case of the Romi is still being perpetrated, and various forms of cultural and real genocide practiced by various Christians in the America's against the natives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The vast majority of the worlds Buddhists are moderate! Buddhism is a religion of peace!
You understand that what's going on with the Rohingya is essentially a civil war, right? It's not like they're some peaceful group that just happened to be randomly attacked. Muslim militants in Myanmar have been carrying out attacks for a long time. The Buddhist government is responding to that; they're just not as queasy about group-punishment as the western world is.
I can't speak for others, but I certainly voted "against" Hillary and not "for" Trump.
There's no such thing as voting against Hillary and not for Trump. Your attempt to wash your hands clean of your actions is symptomatic of you and your ilk's unwillingness to take responsibility for any of your actions.
Not everyone who voted for Trump wears a MAGA hat. However, I would gladly wear a Hillary for Prison hat.
That's understandable. What's not understandable is putting even scummier scum into the presidency because of your petulance.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Bull. This may have been a tribal practice once, but it has been wholeheartedly endorsed by imams and absorbed into their faith. Ever heard a Catholic bishop in Nigeria praise FGM? Imams do, and by condoning it they too become guilty.
It was never Christian land in the first place. The first crusade was to aid the Byzantines who had lost lands to the Turks. Christian Franks recaptured the land and didn't return it, went on to conquer Jerusalem, set up some puppet states and left. After that they got messier. The more things change ...
If you want to look at a cleaner example of pure faith-on-faith killing with the Christians as the prosecutors, try the Albigensian crusade from which we (supposedly) get the wonderful "Kill them all. God will know his own."
The problem is that while the average soldier may be faithful and sold on the idea of god, that's often cynically manipulated by leaders more bent on land and money. With the perspective of history that becomes more obvious. The same Muslims you claim kill for a difference of opinion will, seen through the same lens of time, turn out to be no different from the soldiers of the crusades - pawns whose faith was used to drive them to a war for land and money.
War. War never changes.
My point isn't that they're right, but they have an idea.
It's an idea which has been disproven. That makes clinging to it dumb.
So let's ALL make some predictions and observations and see what works. [...] Spontaneous generation might still be proven right,
Yeah, if your experiment was dumb enough. That's the problem with listening to EVERYONE. Some people you clearly don't listen to about anything. For example, if they think the earth is flat, you clearly don't need to listen to their theories on fluoridation. Even if fluoridation did turn out to be a commie plot, they wouldn't have been saying so for any logical reasons. They would have been accidentally right, and it still would have been dumb to listen to them. And god forbid ;) that you should get into the habit of listening to them because they were accidentally right, because then just imagine how far down the rabbit hole you could get!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When you refer to "moderate muslims" you are still talking about people who would ban gay relationships and use the force of law to punish homosexuals. The number of christians who support those sorts of laws is vanshingly small.
Maybe where you live. In the United States, it's pretty close to 50%.