Don't most of you know that Christians are required to murder you if you don't worship properly, or try to leave Christianity?

How about Deuteronomy 17:
Deuteronomy 17
If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; 17:3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; 17:4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; 17:5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.
Or Deuteronomy 13:
6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. 9 You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.
12 If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in 13 that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), 14 then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, 15 you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely, both its people and its livestock. 16 You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt.
Or Numbers 31, where God commands the Israelites to attack Midian and kill all the men, all the married women and all the male children but to keep the virgin females as the spoils of war and distribute them among the soldiers. The reason offered for that barbarism? Two Midianite women had allegedly “tempted” two Israelite men to worship other gods.

Christians consistently ignore the inconvenient parts unless they work to further their current prejudices. I've never heard of a Red Lobster or Gap being firebombed for selling shellfish or mixed fabrics, but gays..stone em, burn em, bomb em, and stone them some more over the same instructions they otherwise ignore. Mowing your lawn on Sunday is actually worse than homosexuality by my reading, but no one gets harassed for that.

radical islamic terrorism is the usage of a rigid fundamentalist interpretation as a justification predicated on abysmal politics.

ill-thought and short sighted politics is the tinder.
hyper-extremist fundamentalism is the match.

ISIS would never even have existed without al qeada,who themselves would not have existed without US interventionism into:iran,egypt and saudi arabia.

and this is going back almost 70 years.

so lets cut the shit with apologetics towards americas horrific blunders in regards to foreign policy.actions have consequences,there is a cause and effect,and when even in the 50's the CIA KNEW,and have stated as much,that there would be "blowback" from americas persistent interventionism in those regions.which stated goals (in more honest times) was to destabilize,dethrone (remove leaders not friendly to american business) and install leaders more pliant and easily manipulated (often times deposing democratically elected leaders to install despots.the shah and sadam come to mind).

see:chalmers johnson-blowback
see: Zbigniew Brzezinski-the grand chessboard.

or read this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-created-al-qaeda-and-the-isis-terror-group/5402881

so to act like islamic radicals just fell from the fucking sky,and popped out from thin air,due to something that has been boiling for almost 70 years is fucking ludicrous.

radicalization of certain groups in populations have long been understood,and well documented.

and religion,though the most popular,and easiest tool to motivate and justify heinous acts of violence for a political goal,is not the SOLE tool.

nationalism is another tool used to radicalize a population.
see:the nazi party.

but it always comes down to:tribalism of one kind or another.

@transmorpher

so when you use this "ISIS themselves, in their own magazine (Dabiq) go out of their way to explain that they are not motivated by the xenophobia or the US fighting wars in their countries. They make specifically state that their motivation is simply because you aren't muslim. You can go an read it for yourself. They are self confessed fanatics that need to kill you to go to heaven. "

to solidify your argument,all i see is someone ignoring the history and pertinent reasons why that group even exists.

you may recall that ISIS was once Al qeada,and they were SO radical,SO fanatical and SO violent in their execution of religious zeal..that even al qeada had to distance themselves.

because,again...
religion is used as the justification to enact terrorism due to bad politics.
but the GOAL is always political.

you may remember that in the early 90's the twin towers were attacked and it was the first time americans heard of al qeada,and osama bil laden.

who made a statement back in 1993 and then reiterated in 2001 after 9/11 that the stated goal (one of them at least) was for the removal of ALL american military presence in saudi arabia (there was more,but it mostly dealt with american military presence in the middle east).

but where did this osama dude come from?
why was he so pissed at america?
just what was this dudes deal?

turns out he was already on the road to radicalization during the 80's.coming from an extremely wealthy saudi arabian family but had become extremely religious,and he saw western interventionism as a plague,and western culture as a disease.

he left the comforts of his extremely wealthy family to fight against this western incursion into his religious homeland.he traveled to afghanistan to join the mujahideen to combat the russians,who were actually fighting the americans in a proxy war.and WE trained osama.WE armed him and trained him in the tactics of warfare to,behind the scenes,slowly drain russia of resources in our 50 year long cold war.

how's that for irony.

osama was not,as american media like to paint the picture "anti-democratic or anti-freedom".he saw the culture of consumerism,greed and sexual liberation as an affront to his religious understandings.

this attitude can be directly linked to sayyid qtib from egypt.who visited the united states as an exchange student in 1954.now he wasnt radicalized yet,but when he returned to egypt he didnt recognize his own country.

he saw coco cola signs everywhere,and women wearing shorts skirts,and jukeboxs playing that devils music "rock and roll".

he feared for his country,his neighbors,his community.
just like a southern baptist fears for your soul,sayyid feared for the soul of his country and that this new "westernization" was a direct threat to the tenants laid down by islam.

so he began to speak out.
he began to hold rallies challenging the leadership to turn away from this evil,and people started to take notice,and some people agreed.

change does not come easy for some people,and this is especially true for those who hold strong religious ideologies.
(insert religion here) tends to be extremely traditional.

so sayyid started to gain popularity for his challenge if this new "westernization",and this did not go un-noticed by the egyptian leadership,who at that time WANTED western companies to invest in egypt.(that whole political landscape is totally different now,but back then egypt was fairly liberal,and moderately secular).

so instead of allowing sayyid to speak his mind.
they threw him in prison.
for 4 years.
in solitary.

well,he wasn't radicalized when he went IN to prison,but when he came OUT he sure was.

and to shorten this story,sayyid was the first founder of the muslim brotherhood,whose later incarnation broke off to form?

can you guess?
i bet you can!
al qeade

@Fairbs ,@newtboy and @Asmo have all laid out points why radicalization happens,and the conditions that can enflame and amplify that radicalization.

so i wont repeat what they have already said.

but let us take dearborn michigan as an example.
the largest muslim community in america.
how many terrorists come from dearborn?
how many radicals reside there?
how many mosque preach intolerance and "death to america"?
how many imams quietly sanction fatwas from the local IHOP against american imperialistic pigs?

none.

becuase if you live in stable community,with a functioning government,and you are able to find work and support your family,and your kids can get an education.

the chances of you become radicalized is pretty much:zippo.

the specific religion has NOTHING to do with terrorism.
religion is simply the means in which the justifications to enact violent atrocities is born.

it's the politics stupid.

you could do a thought experiment and flip the religions around,but keep the same political parameters and do you know WHAT we find?

that the terrorists would be CHRISTIAN terrorists.

or do i really need to go all the way back to the fucking dark ages to make my point?

it's
the
politics
stupid.

He was on the verge of making a point about the radicalization of US Muslims. Remember Anwar al-Awlaki, US citizen killed by drone? Guess which other country he lived in? The countries on the list, with the exception of Iran, all have weak central governments that are unable to prevent large groups of terrorists operating in their country and spreading radical islamic beliefs. I think Egypt and Saudi Arabia should probably be there too just based on their history, but maybe diplomatic considerations were made. Obviously Trump had no concern over diplomatic relaions with Iran.

The notion that guns and mercenaries from the west are flooding in is simply untrue. You have the curious responsibility of explaining how the US has been incapable of removing Assad if it has provided such overwhelming support as you claim. What is true, is that Assad overreacted to the Arab Spring protests, unlike say Jordan decided to fire on protests almost immediately and brought a civil war on his hands.

Meanwhile, we also know the origin of the trajectory of the Sarin rockets fired were from areas of government control. We know Assad had a chemical weapons program. We know the volume of the attacks was almost certainly unattainable by anyone other than a state actor. We know that most of the victims were either civilians or the opposition. It's also a curious that these attacks only seemed to occur in Syria.

Again your idea that oil is still a motivation for US involvement in the Middle East is an outdated concept. The US surpassed Saudi Arabia as the largest global producer in the world thank to shale oil. The price of oil has crashed as a result and will likely remain low for a prolonged time as a result. The only beneficiary who stands to gains from revisiting the conflict between the US and Russia is Putin because it boosts his domestic popularity to be locked in a struggle with the US.

Many governments in the Middle East regularly throw out the excuse that anything that goes wrong (and is usually their fault) is a result of a US conspiracy. Egypt has regularly done it, Turkey has just recently blamed the attempted coup on the US even though the incentives for the US are clearly for a stable government there to provide a base from which to attack ISIS in Iraq. You should not be so gullible as to believe this is always the case just because the US has intervened covertly in the past.

I was just out at a store where they showed a trailer on a TV for some upcoming shitfest named "Gods of Egypt". All white cast as far as I can tell. Shameful.

Oh, I do LOVE the inclusion of every Jesus ever. Poignant.

@newtboy
If it was about safety, they would have illegally immigrated to the multiple neighboring countries

Right, as if you don't know how well fleeing from Germany to neighbours like Poland or France or Italy would have worked out for them... Seriously?

If the Syrians all went to Belgium, installed their own laws and government supplanting the local Belgians', made the Belgians non-citizens, took their lands and properties, pushed them into one small corner ghetto, then complained about how bad the Belgians are...

Are you suggesting that Jews did all this prior to the outbreak of civil war in Palestine? That doesn't reflect reality in any way shape or form.

it was close to 5% before the invasion.

When do you count Jewish immigration to Palestine as becoming an invasion? Palestine was already 8% Jewish by demographics in 1890. That's enough time for almost a 3rd generation to be born by 1940. Slowest, invasion, ever.

The leap was from 1930-1940, with an additional 450k Jewish Palestinians. In that same time the Arab population grew by 420k, so I guess they were both invading???

The alliance of Arab nations that fought them was much SMALLER militarily, you know this.

Right, Israel's initial standing army was 10k, matching Egypt's 10k. But Egypt wasn't the only one in the alliance of course, Jordan had that many as well. Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the remaining alliance members represented another 10k together too. Sure, in hindsight we know they don't jointly commit their entire forces to the task an outnumber the Jewish military 3 to 1. I'm not quite sure how the Jewish people planning a defense were supposed to anticipate that and 'hold back' accordingly.

Honestly, I just can not comprehend what you expect Jewish people fleeing Europe to have done instead. Fleeing to other parts of Europe still left them in Nazi controlled territory and on a train back to Poland. Standing to fight in other European countries meant getting shot at, defeated, and then on a train to Poland. Crossing the ocean was a far sight harder than going to the middle east. Of all the middle east countries, Palestine was the most promising so I find it hard to fault the folks leaving Europe and setting up shop there. Once arrived there, I again find it hard to condemn them for demanding fair treatment and being willing to fight for it.

I said those illegally invading in the 30's had little to flee (unless you are saying they had a time machine and KNEW what was coming).

Mein Kampf was first published in 1925, it had sold nearly a quarter million copies by 1933 when Hitler took power. How could they ever have seen anything bad coming their way I wonder...

The formation of Israel and the question of stealing land can be debated, but at this point it is history and cannot be changed. At some point a nation needed to arise out of the ashes of the Ottoman empire. The problem was, when one did it didn't encompass the entire area. Arab Palestinians didn't vote to accept the border, but neither did they declare war on Israel in 1948, how could they if they weren't even a state? The root of today's problems have to do with the taking of land by act of war. Palestinians are punished for the acts of the other arab nations.

I found it highly surprising the video didn't mention the countless UN resolutions condemning Israel's acts of land confiscation, usually with the USA and Israel the only ones opposing it. In war you can defend yourself, even invade the enemy's territory. But when it's over you have to go back your home, you can't keep a permanent army presence on the captured land and slowly allow your citizens to start living in the captured territory. The fact that the land wasn't part of Jordan made it easier for people to give Israel a pass since they weren't stealing land from a nation, just a nation-less people. That doesn't make it any more justifiable. Israel should have occupied the territory until the end of hostilities and then completely withdrawn.

The video mentions the land they grabbed from Egypt, the almost empty Sinai peninsula that was an incredible strategic value. They were plenty happy to hand it back for a peace treaty, mainly because the hardcore Zionists weren't determined to expand the state of Israel there as they are in the west bank, which has much more history for their people. Notice how they went out of their way to establish a salient to Jerusalem during the 1948 war.

The only reason at some point in the last 40 years Israel hasn't just put up a fence and closed the border permanently(surely the safest choice if you're really worried about suicide bombers) is they wouldn't be able to move beyond that border and capture more land, which is what the orthodox Jews demand. People living in the west bank live under different laws based on their religion. Israeli civil code if they're settlers, military rule if they're Palestinians. How ironic that Israel is lauded as the great democracy in the middle east, yet deny the right of representation to millions under their control.

Hrm...

"whatever you humanist fuckheads are arguing for"

"I'm sorry, did I trigger you? Did I piss in your safe space? Aww."

Why is it that people that go out of their way to offend suddenly complain when it comes back at them?

I had a pretty reasonable response brewing to the post where you came up with the fuckhead bit, and trashed it because reasonable didn't seem what you were interested in. So why waste my time trying to reason with a person who is unreasonable right?

And hey, that's my presumption. Mebbe I caught you on a bad day, mebbe I'm being the ass here, it's entirely possible.

But this conversation is pretty much as pointless as vocal 3rd wave feminism. It's going around in circles, people occasionally getting mad, and the majority of the sift probably peaked in and decided they couldn't be fucked wading in among the 10 or so people dedicated to perpetuating the "conversation"... And of course it's not really accomplishing anything, we're all still being relatively civil to each other even if a bit terse...

The battle for equality isn't won, but it's pretty close (well, at least in the west, just forget about the majority of the worlds women who still live in conditions that make the 50's seem blissful...). 3rd wavers aren't fighting massive social injustice anymore, they are battling things like #gamergate and feedback against Sarkeesian, Tucker Max or that Return of Kings mob (who seem to be the biggest trolls on the planet but w/e).

Seriously, they are spending a lot of time and energy arguing with the lowest common denominators (who by and large love the attention). There used to be a time you could safely ignore the village idiot because, hey, he's a fucking idiot. Now, any dumbass can post on the internet and people will descend on them like the proverbial plagues of Egypt, followed shortly by supporters showing up. Not because those one offs are indicative of even a significant minority in broader society, but because it generates plenty of online hype to see "some guy" say something fucking awful and then the sides line up to start yelling at each other...

So I'm not overly concerned if we end up agreeing because in the grand scheme of things, it's also fairly pointless. We're both entitled to our opinions and they seem to be vaguely in the same park aka "equality good, hate and oppression bad", seems like a good place to stop.

I would even have said North Africa was a different region to the Middle East

I don't really see the need to hold it back. It is close, in the sense of only the entire country of Saudi Arabia between the filming location and Egypt, but it's not as if it was filmed at Sharm El Sheikh.

Actually I would argue against holding it back even if it was filmed there, or in the Sinai.

The name Rome and Greece must be changed, because those symbols (names are symbols) are offensive...so must Egypt, Russia, pretty much every country in the world. Native Americans need to get rid of their symbols as well--all that scalping and such...Lets not even talk about anything related to men--who have been nothing but rapist control freaks, especially in places like India where women are burned alive with their husbands...God, we have a lot of symbols to kill bud--nearly every symbol made by humans...

Lmao. Do you live in Egypt, Lantern? Because clearly you're in.. Denial!

Who exactly are those assholes "protecting"? The elevator?

How do you know those kids are criminals?
What crime did they commit while waiting for the elevator?

And why the hell would the city settle a lawsuit for $50,000 if Jaleel Fields, the young man arrested, was some known dangerous thug/drug dealer those officers were "checking up on"?

Did you even read the article Radx post? You know, for like.. facts and context surrounding the video?

No? cause:

In the lawsuit, Fields accused the city and the two officers of violating his civil rights by falsely arresting and maliciously prosecuting him and using excessive force.

..after the video was shown to the DA, all Jaleel's charges were dismissed.

First: disorderly conduct. Police claimed he obstructed "pedestrian traffic" by blocking the elevator doors, which is interesting because the only thing this audio-free New York City Housing Authority video shows absolutely for sure is that Jaleel Fields went out of his way to let people off the elevator.

The second offense? According to Grieco, the police cited Jaleel for telling one of his friends that he didn't have to talk to the police. They called this "obstructing governmental administration."

So "OGA" here presumably would be 5'7", 130-pound Jaleel Fields intimidating the two brawny officers out of performing the "official function" of messing with two other kids in the elevator of their own building.

A spokesman for the New York City Law Department.. declined to comment on the specifics of the case, saying only..

"After reviewing all the evidence, we determined that a settlement was in the best interest of the city."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/videos/a-bad-arrest-on-video-jaleel-fields-20150526#ixzz3bH56yN17

Hah! So right, tell me again about how you're somehow totally-not-a-racist..

Even tho every assumption you just made here was based on stereotypes, prejudice, and your bias toward fellow boys in blue.

Did I mention that the city dismissed all charges and settled a lawsuit for $50,000 after seeing video evidence that literally everything those two officers said was a lie?

But incidence like this aren't worth talking about or being upset about because..
black people kill black people and Barack Obama is president, right?

lol, you asshat.

@radx

Nothing really new I can say again in response.

It's natural that France and Germany being major decision makers in the eurozone will suggest bailouts that also help their own banks, no surprise at all. Witness the US's about turn post WWII from rebuilding Germany into a de-industrialised agricultural state to an industrial powerhouse to counter Soviet influence in about a year.

I think you have to look, not at Troika funding with or without pension cuts and the like, but with or without the funding. See my post above for what I think would happen in a disorderly collapse. I think honestly we can both be certain that the effect on output and unemployment would have been far worse in a disorderly collapse.

Like I said to oritteropo, I'm not debating that the IMF estimates were correct or even that the IMF has a particularly good history of reform (although you could certainly argue that Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia economically at least were successes). As far as low/middle class Greeks suffering, yes I agree it sucks. Most who risk being indicted for corruption are sure to have emigrated permanently to their vacation homes purchased on stolen money, but that doesn't unfortunately change the reality.

I never said weak nations 'should' be invaded, but instead that they would, it's a distinct difference. I very much disagree with what human nature leads to more often than not, but I won't deny it is as it is. If a nation has anything valuable and isn't willing and able to fight to keep it, any nation that is willing and able to fight to take it will take it the moment they judge that the taking will gain them more than they lose fighting for it.

I think it is important also to note that the original fighting in 1948 was not Israel vs. Palestinians, but instead a civil war between Jewish Palestinians and Arab Palestinians. It was a war over land and rights. It was a war both sides thought they could win. When the UN proposed a two state solution, the Jewish side declared it's independence and accepted the borders. The Arab side though gained the backing of every neighboring Arab state who all jointly committed to driving the Jews into the sea. This was in 1948, just after the holocaust, and each Arab country badly outnumbered the newly declared state of Israel. Israel none the less triumphed in the war. Some of it through straight up fighting, but most of it was simply agreement with the neighbouring states of Syria, Jordan and Egypt to simply not try and fight to protect large portions of Palestinian territory along their borders. As in, Syria, Jordan and Egypt happily seized and picked up portions of land for themselves at the expense of the Arab Palestinians too.

The relationship between Israel and it's neighbours is layered beyond belief. I still stand by the observation that they absolutely do face a life/death decision in maintaining military superiority. They must walk the line of having enough ability and will to fight to make it simply not worthwhile for it's enemies and neighbours to try and attack it. To suggest or claim otherwise is simply absurd and in contradiction to all of human history.

Who let the torch passed fall in the tall grass?
Fire alarm wire’s disarmed, what do you call that?
Call it predictable political cliche
So when the movie ends, the revolution’s dead. Replay
the sequence of events that led to these deep divisions;
I’ve realized that all the wrong people are in prison.
The children wanna know if I believe in the Reptilians!
I tell em ‘I don’t know’ but on the TV I see lizards.
When action was in fashion you were such an easy mimic!
Bumpersticker quote lifting, crib note statistics,
Grasp for the straw man, born again cynics
Fair-weather firebrand; spark my suspicion.
We knew you were the type to take the fight like a gimmick,
and rock the t-shirt when your sweat wasn’t in it.
The clock is still ticking for the victim of the future,
You’re waiting til’ they look like you to ever choose but–
Chorus:
Which Side Are You On?
Which Side Are You On?
(Damn)
Which Side Are You On?
(Ask the Industry.)
Which Side Are You On?
(Ask an Emcee.)
Verse 2:
Who wrote the greatest lines of our generation,
but couldn’t get from under their own small-minded hate trip?
The same rappers say they’re trooping the frontlines,
and casually use the word ‘Faggot’ as a punchline.
That’s not a man, that’s not a tough guy.
That is a sucker and a fraud to the culture!
Hip Hop is folk music grown from the struggle and
half these fools could put the mic down and run as a Republican.
Fuck ‘em then; they learn from their own wrong.
Homophobes don’t go to my shows, we too strong!
And if you’re in the front row, harassing girls during a song
I will reach and ask you exactly–
Chorus:
Which Side Are You On?
Which Side Are You On?
Verse 3:
I’m on the side of poor people getting organized;
I’m on the side of Choice where it is in short supply;
I’m on the side of those the system doesn’t authorize;
L-G-B-T We are on the side of Pride,
Justice and Equality;
Egypt to Wisconsin when they march against the Policy;
If you bringing down a King I’m on your side probably.
Kids’ll give me shit for this it really doesn’t bother me.
They were not around when we were wrestling with poverty.
So I follow none and ask no-one to follow me
Use your own mind, use your heart and your anger
Check yourself because Apathy is a cancer
And let your action be the answer.
Chorus
Which Side Are You On?
(Ask your government)
Which Side Are You On?
(Ask your media)
Which Side Are You On?
(Ask yourself)
Which Side Are You On?
Sample:
Don’t scab for the bosses,
Don’t listen to their lies.
Us poor folks haven’t got a chance
Unless we organize.