I think you bring up some great points. I'm going to respond a few things I disagree with.
To be fair, the system they were revolting against was as bad as Russia under the czars.
This overstates the point, I think. Russia had no burgeoning middle class, throwing new-found political clout around. There was nothing approaching the salons and political involvement of the common man. The system was still feudal, but gradual evolution in Western Europe had pulled far away from the sort of primitive serfdom that would continue to dominate Russia until the Bolshevik revolution.
Similarly, if the French Revolution had not succeeded, then Napoleon would not have arisen, and would not have swept Europe with his armies, and would not have invaded Russia, so Russia might have remained in slumber, or at least been much less paranoid about invasion from the west.
There were continuing animosities with Sweden regarding the disposition of Poland and Lithuania, as well as tensions with the Ottoman Turks, that held Russia's interest in Europe. Combined with Tsar Alexander's interventionist stance, Russia's continuing involvement in Europe could not have been avoided. Indeed, he was committed to ending the French experiment a decade before a disappointed Napoleon finally arrived on his charred doorstep. Now, to be sure, the Napoleonic Wars granted Russia a level of prestige among continental powers it had theretofore not enjoyed, but I think even this was simply a matter of time and recognition.
Don't you think it would be a shame to judge all Protestants based on the actions of the KKK?
Yes.
But I *DO* think that mid-20th-Century southern churches and their members absolutely bear blame. Where they were not cowardly silent in opposition to racism, they were full-throated in its support. There were exceptions, but by and large the faith organizations of the deep south were less concerned with the gospel of grace, and more concerned with the good-ol'-boy social network church provided and the hyper-partisan Dixiecrat politics it advanced. This didn't really start changing until the late 70's, and didn't complete until the early 90's.
They attacked Black churches because they considered them false churches (they had to be in their thinking because black people weren't of God).
I think you're wrong in the parenthetical, because the truth is much, much worse. They absolutely DO think black Christian are of God, and they can't stand it and hate those black people even more for it.
Before the Civil War there were some states that had laws stating that a literate slave was subject to hanging, for the reason that if he could read the Bible, he could be saved. And if he could be saved, he could no longer be a slave (according to their self-serving interpretation of Titus, which prohibited the used of slaves by *any* Christian). And that simply would not do. This reveals the cognitive dissonance of unregenerate racists who claim Christianity. They cannot countenance sharing a religion with black people, to the extent of actively ignoring or cherry picking the doctrines of the faith to which they espouse.
This is the reason, by the way, why many Christians use the "no true scotsman" argument when talking about people who perpetuate evil acts on others: they view the racist who proclaims Christianity the same as a self-proclaimed vegan eating a steak.
Your reading of history seems, to me, to be a bit facile. As I understand it, Christian pilgrims had been repeatedly harassed and attacked by Muslim raiders over the course of centuries while on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land.
And why did the European monarchs suddenly start caring? It had been going on for centuries, and no one gave a crap.With the rising affluence of European monarchs, however, and the sudden demand for goods from the silk road, the Holy Land became a crucial trade hub, and its control was a source of great wealth.
Understand that the symbology of the KKK was not exclusively Christocentric; rather, like most other "secret" societies of the time (including more innocuous ones), they borrowed a myriad of religious symbols (the "mystic cross" and yin-yang most predominantly) and the trappings of occultism to attract followers with the promise of "secret mysteries." These trappings were dropped when secret societies lost cachet in popular society. It must also be noted that the number one target of race terrorists are churches or other places of worship, and their chief opposition in the 1950's and early 60's came from deeply religious evangelicals (both black and white).
You make the wild, unsubstantiated claim, the onus is on you; I don't have to Google shit. Also, you apparently didn't read your own links. So let's just all admit you were talking out of our ass when you talked about rampant truck-dragging of gays in Texas, eh?
The French were neither the first, nor the most successful at transitioning towards and equitable society. The French Revolution was a complete, murderous fuck up. It was so bad that the French put off democracy for another 50 years.
The KKK was founded principally as a partisan political organization against Reconstruction, not unbelievers. It's irrelevant to the religion argument.
I grew up in Texas, and gays weren't thrown off buildings. They were dragged behind pickups until dead. Something common until a provably straight guy was killed in that manner after being grabbed outside a gay bar in a misunderstanding.
This is so out of touch it's painful to read. If Christianity is inherently peaceful, why did the crusades happen?
For the acquisition of land and resources by secular European monarchs.
Why did the Spanish Inquisition happen?
For the acquisition of land and resources by the secular Spanish crown.
Why does the Klu Klux Klan exist?
For the acquisition of land and resources by secular Southern Democrats during Reconstruction (at the time, evangelical "extremist fundamentalism" was abolitionist [e.g. John Brown, and others]).
I'm not doing the point by point to be passive aggressive, or snarky, but to make the point that all conflict in history, even those ostensibly for religion (indeed, even Al Qaeda and ISIS) are actually about the acquisition of capital in some form or another. Everyone rationalizes in their own way. Primitives use God.
If someone dennounced Christianity as a religion of hatred based on the actions of the KKK, would you accept that? If not, then why the hell are terrorists claiming to represent muslims different?
Because the tenants of the KKK, the Crusades, and Spanish Inquisition, from their very inception, ran completely counter to the plainly understood doctrine of the religion they claimed to follow. Now, not being Muslim, I cannot opine on whether jihadi terrorists are actually apostates of Islam, but so far I haven't seen any such arguments quoting their holy scripture. Just platitudes ("religion of peace", etc.). Someone more familiar with the Qu'ran can correct me, to be sure.
After 10 years, they went straight back to monarchism under Napoleon, after all the revolutionary Jacobins were dead. Whether that was a good thing or bad thing is left as an exercise to the reader. Code Napoleon was great; losing a generation of men to war was not.
You eventually reach 0%? Or, maybe you can pick someone you like, and we'll stop culling right before it hits them? That's how people always expect these things to work. Robespierre learned the hard way that it does not.
That's why talking about killing the rich and powerful is absolutely retarded. You'd be the second guy up against the wall.
Because the committee in question is about national media, and not local Michigan politics? And since when to Slashdot get so laissez faire about public advertising?
That's what the submitter is saying. I agree with him. I am WTF'ing about the (-1, Flamebait) GGP saying you're not a "real" coder if you're not just brimming to full with ideas of what to code.
You're bosses tell you to write a shit ton of assembly code for a bunch of different types of computers. If you had some imagination, you might come up with the idea to create a programming language and compilers that turn programs written in that language into assembly understandable by any number of different computers.
Well, yeah. That's what programmers do, right? They come up with elegant solutions. That's where all my imagination goes. But who provided the task? In your example, "bosses" provided the problem domain.
WTF kind of solipsistic zen bullshit is this? In the real world, real programmers write whatever the fuck their boss tells them to write. We're fuckin' code monkeys. When I get a spare moment on my weekends to do hobby coding, I get coder's block. I'm not an idea guy; that's for marketroids and designers. I just want to be pointed in a direction and I'll code my ass to it. Any creativity I have is spent on figuring out solutions, not problems.
A committee hearing isn't a court, and it doesn't press charges. People that come before a committee hearing don't have to play nice, either. Usually these hearings offer the committee members themselves a chance to hash out their own bickering and rivalry, using the guest as a proxy. In this case, arguing among themselves about bias in media.
Disclaimer: everything I know is hand-me-down knowledge. Don't make any legal decisions based on it.
Lasers for the purpose of blinding are illegal. The CCCW basically codifies our understanding of the original Hague Conventions and Geneva Protocol, which laid down the idea that no weapons should be created whose sole purpose is to blind of maim. The problem with gas, shrapnel, and exploding bullets (as banned in the original protocols) wasn't that they were too deadly; it's that they weren't deadly enough. After the Great War the world had a huge population of poor, permanently crippled veterans whose lives were ruined by these weapons.
If it's anti-vehicular, many of these rules don't apply. For instance, 50 cal guns are banned from anti-personnel use; but we mount them on humvees and designate them as anti-armor weapons.
Slashdot Mirror
Hi HiThere,
I think you bring up some great points. I'm going to respond a few things I disagree with.
To be fair, the system they were revolting against was as bad as Russia under the czars.
This overstates the point, I think. Russia had no burgeoning middle class, throwing new-found political clout around. There was nothing approaching the salons and political involvement of the common man. The system was still feudal, but gradual evolution in Western Europe had pulled far away from the sort of primitive serfdom that would continue to dominate Russia until the Bolshevik revolution.
Similarly, if the French Revolution had not succeeded, then Napoleon would not have arisen, and would not have swept Europe with his armies, and would not have invaded Russia, so Russia might have remained in slumber, or at least been much less paranoid about invasion from the west.
There were continuing animosities with Sweden regarding the disposition of Poland and Lithuania, as well as tensions with the Ottoman Turks, that held Russia's interest in Europe. Combined with Tsar Alexander's interventionist stance, Russia's continuing involvement in Europe could not have been avoided. Indeed, he was committed to ending the French experiment a decade before a disappointed Napoleon finally arrived on his charred doorstep. Now, to be sure, the Napoleonic Wars granted Russia a level of prestige among continental powers it had theretofore not enjoyed, but I think even this was simply a matter of time and recognition.
Don't you think it would be a shame to judge all Protestants based on the actions of the KKK?
Yes.
But I *DO* think that mid-20th-Century southern churches and their members absolutely bear blame. Where they were not cowardly silent in opposition to racism, they were full-throated in its support. There were exceptions, but by and large the faith organizations of the deep south were less concerned with the gospel of grace, and more concerned with the good-ol'-boy social network church provided and the hyper-partisan Dixiecrat politics it advanced. This didn't really start changing until the late 70's, and didn't complete until the early 90's.
They attacked Black churches because they considered them false churches (they had to be in their thinking because black people weren't of God).
I think you're wrong in the parenthetical, because the truth is much, much worse. They absolutely DO think black Christian are of God, and they can't stand it and hate those black people even more for it.
Before the Civil War there were some states that had laws stating that a literate slave was subject to hanging, for the reason that if he could read the Bible, he could be saved. And if he could be saved, he could no longer be a slave (according to their self-serving interpretation of Titus, which prohibited the used of slaves by *any* Christian). And that simply would not do. This reveals the cognitive dissonance of unregenerate racists who claim Christianity. They cannot countenance sharing a religion with black people, to the extent of actively ignoring or cherry picking the doctrines of the faith to which they espouse.
This is the reason, by the way, why many Christians use the "no true scotsman" argument when talking about people who perpetuate evil acts on others: they view the racist who proclaims Christianity the same as a self-proclaimed vegan eating a steak.
Your reading of history seems, to me, to be a bit facile. As I understand it, Christian pilgrims had been repeatedly harassed and attacked by Muslim raiders over the course of centuries while on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land.
And why did the European monarchs suddenly start caring? It had been going on for centuries, and no one gave a crap.With the rising affluence of European monarchs, however, and the sudden demand for goods from the silk road, the Holy Land became a crucial trade hub, and its control was a source of great wealth.
Understand that the symbology of the KKK was not exclusively Christocentric; rather, like most other "secret" societies of the time (including more innocuous ones), they borrowed a myriad of religious symbols (the "mystic cross" and yin-yang most predominantly) and the trappings of occultism to attract followers with the promise of "secret mysteries." These trappings were dropped when secret societies lost cachet in popular society. It must also be noted that the number one target of race terrorists are churches or other places of worship, and their chief opposition in the 1950's and early 60's came from deeply religious evangelicals (both black and white).
You make the wild, unsubstantiated claim, the onus is on you; I don't have to Google shit. Also, you apparently didn't read your own links. So let's just all admit you were talking out of our ass when you talked about rampant truck-dragging of gays in Texas, eh?
The French were neither the first, nor the most successful at transitioning towards and equitable society. The French Revolution was a complete, murderous fuck up. It was so bad that the French put off democracy for another 50 years.
The KKK was founded principally as a partisan political organization against Reconstruction, not unbelievers. It's irrelevant to the religion argument.
I grew up in Texas, and gays weren't thrown off buildings. They were dragged behind pickups until dead. Something common until a provably straight guy was killed in that manner after being grabbed outside a gay bar in a misunderstanding.
Quite frankly, I don't believe you.
This is so out of touch it's painful to read. If Christianity is inherently peaceful, why did the crusades happen?
For the acquisition of land and resources by secular European monarchs.
Why did the Spanish Inquisition happen?
For the acquisition of land and resources by the secular Spanish crown.
Why does the Klu Klux Klan exist?
For the acquisition of land and resources by secular Southern Democrats during Reconstruction (at the time, evangelical "extremist fundamentalism" was abolitionist [e.g. John Brown, and others]).
I'm not doing the point by point to be passive aggressive, or snarky, but to make the point that all conflict in history, even those ostensibly for religion (indeed, even Al Qaeda and ISIS) are actually about the acquisition of capital in some form or another. Everyone rationalizes in their own way. Primitives use God.
If someone dennounced Christianity as a religion of hatred based on the actions of the KKK, would you accept that? If not, then why the hell are terrorists claiming to represent muslims different?
Because the tenants of the KKK, the Crusades, and Spanish Inquisition, from their very inception, ran completely counter to the plainly understood doctrine of the religion they claimed to follow. Now, not being Muslim, I cannot opine on whether jihadi terrorists are actually apostates of Islam, but so far I haven't seen any such arguments quoting their holy scripture. Just platitudes ("religion of peace", etc.). Someone more familiar with the Qu'ran can correct me, to be sure.
You did not understand the message of Jonah, then. God was telling Jonah he was wrong to be uncompassionate to his enemies.
After 10 years, they went straight back to monarchism under Napoleon, after all the revolutionary Jacobins were dead. Whether that was a good thing or bad thing is left as an exercise to the reader. Code Napoleon was great; losing a generation of men to war was not.
If we buy you a plane ticket, will you go tell them in person?
You eventually reach 0%? Or, maybe you can pick someone you like, and we'll stop culling right before it hits them? That's how people always expect these things to work. Robespierre learned the hard way that it does not.
That's why talking about killing the rich and powerful is absolutely retarded. You'd be the second guy up against the wall.
It's called a "typo." Get the fuck over yourself. Better yet, post under a UID so we can inspect your past posting for spelling.
Ever met a Christian who sold up all their stuff, gave the money away to the poor, and hit the road to spread the good news?
Yes?
Because the committee in question is about national media, and not local Michigan politics? And since when to Slashdot get so laissez faire about public advertising?
Pirate more music that has no reason being disseminated in the first place? IMHO any music worth listening too is already free.
Actually, the whole submission is in German, so any correct English is purely accidental, anyway.
That's what the submitter is saying. I agree with him. I am WTF'ing about the (-1, Flamebait) GGP saying you're not a "real" coder if you're not just brimming to full with ideas of what to code.
You're bosses tell you to write a shit ton of assembly code for a bunch of different types of computers. If you had some imagination, you might come up with the idea to create a programming language and compilers that turn programs written in that language into assembly understandable by any number of different computers.
Well, yeah. That's what programmers do, right? They come up with elegant solutions. That's where all my imagination goes. But who provided the task? In your example, "bosses" provided the problem domain.
WTF kind of solipsistic zen bullshit is this? In the real world, real programmers write whatever the fuck their boss tells them to write. We're fuckin' code monkeys. When I get a spare moment on my weekends to do hobby coding, I get coder's block. I'm not an idea guy; that's for marketroids and designers. I just want to be pointed in a direction and I'll code my ass to it. Any creativity I have is spent on figuring out solutions, not problems.
To be fair, the "fairness doctrine" that required equal time for both sides was promulgated by democrats and eliminated by Reagan.
A committee hearing isn't a court, and it doesn't press charges. People that come before a committee hearing don't have to play nice, either. Usually these hearings offer the committee members themselves a chance to hash out their own bickering and rivalry, using the guest as a proxy. In this case, arguing among themselves about bias in media.
Disclaimer: everything I know is hand-me-down knowledge. Don't make any legal decisions based on it.
Lasers for the purpose of blinding are illegal. The CCCW basically codifies our understanding of the original Hague Conventions and Geneva Protocol, which laid down the idea that no weapons should be created whose sole purpose is to blind of maim. The problem with gas, shrapnel, and exploding bullets (as banned in the original protocols) wasn't that they were too deadly; it's that they weren't deadly enough. After the Great War the world had a huge population of poor, permanently crippled veterans whose lives were ruined by these weapons.
If it's anti-vehicular, many of these rules don't apply. For instance, 50 cal guns are banned from anti-personnel use; but we mount them on humvees and designate them as anti-armor weapons.
I was quoting "Office Space". ;)