Ongoing Terrorism/ISIS/al Qaeda Thread

[RougeUnderoos]

These discussions always end up focusing on the crazed motivations of the Head Nut. Who the hell knows what that guy believed, or what that crazy ideology was supposed to lead to?

There were 65 million people in Germany in 1933, and the folks who got on board with the Head Nut followed one religion, and they did the dirty work.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

These discussions always end up focusing on the crazed motivations of the Head Nut. Who the hell knows what that guy believed, or what that crazy ideology was supposed to lead to?

There were 65 million people in Germany in 1933, and the folks who got on board with the Head Nut followed one religion, and they did the dirty work.

The religion they followed was the religion of nationalism, and revenge against everyone who screwed Germany and destroyed that county's economy.

And the French.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

There were 65 million people in Germany in 1933, and the folks who got on board with the Head Nut followed one religion, and they did the dirty work.

They also ate a starchy diet and drank a lot of beer. Correlation isn't causation.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

These discussions always end up focusing on the crazed motivations of the Head Nut. Who the hell knows what that guy believed, or what that crazy ideology was supposed to lead to?

There were 65 million people in Germany in 1933, and the folks who got on board with the Head Nut followed one religion, and they did the dirty work.

All the nations surrounding them followed the same religion too...

[nik-]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

They also ate a starchy diet and drank a lot of beer. Correlation isn't causation.

Angry cuz gassy

[blankall]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

These discussions always end up focusing on the crazed motivations of the Head Nut. Who the hell knows what that guy believed, or what that crazy ideology was supposed to lead to?

There were 65 million people in Germany in 1933, and the folks who got on board with the Head Nut followed one religion, and they did the dirty work.

These discussions always end up in the same place because:

1) You have people who make generalizations about Islam; and
2) You have people, who in the name of cultural relativism, always feel the need to drag all religion down to the level of radical Islam.

2 is partially the result of 1, but neither is overly helpful to the goal of creating honest discussion.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The religion they followed was the religion of nationalism, and revenge against everyone who screwed Germany and destroyed that county's economy.

And the French.

No, the religion they followed was Christianity, and it wasn't briefly replaced with nationalism or revenge for those years. 10s of millions of people who grew up Christian and called themselves Christians were involved.

This is not controversial or an indictment of anyone, any religion, or anything. It's got nothing to do with correlation = causation, their starchy diet, what religion their neighbours (and the Allies for that matter) followed, or moral relativism. It's just true about the German people at the time.

I shouldn't even have responded in the first place, because I think it's a pretty silly derail off the topic, which is Islamic lunatics in the world right now, and I continued (and continue to continue) the derail.

It just rubs me the wrong way when I read "Hitler believed X, he didn't like the Pope, and the Nazis had some crazy religious ideas" and while that may all be true, the people who got behind it all and carried it out were Christian people. It had to be, because that's who lived there.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

No, the religion they followed was Christianity, and it wasn't briefly replaced with nationalism or revenge for those years. 10s of millions of people who grew up Christian and called themselves Christians were involved.

This is not controversial or an indictment of anyone, any religion, or anything. It's got nothing to do with correlation = causation, their starchy diet, what religion their neighbours (and the Allies for that matter) followed, or moral relativism. It's just true about the German people at the time.

I shouldn't even have responded in the first place, because I think it's a pretty silly derail off the topic, which is Islamic lunatics in the world right now, and I continued (and continue to continue) the derail.

It just rubs me the wrong way when I read "Hitler believed X, he didn't like the Pope, and the Nazis had some crazy religious ideas" and while that may all be true, the people who got behind it all and carried it out were Christian people. It had to be, because that's who lived there.

Then you agree. The religion was completely irrelevant in what happened

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Then you agree. The religion was completely irrelevant in what happened

No.

[Flash Walken]

The religion is definitely important as is an accurate description of other details and facts as it pertains to the historiography of the subject.

It's not a dictating factor but AFC brings up a great point that maybe if all those beautiful Germans worshipped the flying spaghetti monster and didn't have a creation myth that specifically points to the Jews as jerk faces maybe everyone wouldn't have been AS gung-ho about licking them all up.

[activeStick]

Not sure if this has been discussed already but my friend tonight (white female) pointed out how everyone did the France flag profile update when the Paris attacks happened yet no flags for Iraq or Turkey across social media to remember these victims.

Interesting observation / discussions for sure about the selective importance of victims of terrorism.

[Dan02]

Originally Posted by activeStick

Not sure if this has been discussed already but my friend tonight (white female) pointed out how everyone did the France flag profile update when the Paris attacks happened yet no flags for Iraq or Turkey across social media to remember these victims.

Interesting observation / discussions for sure about the selective importance of victims of terrorism.

Well I think part of that is that we could see ourselves being one of those people in Paris, wouldn't you love to visit Paris? Could have been me on vacation. Baghdad on the other hand, I don't think many people here ever plan on visiting. I certainly don't any time soon.

Levels of gun violence are absolutely insane in central america yet we have the ongoing americans shoot each other thread, why is there no thread about the number of people murdered in Guatemala? Because we can see ourselves visiting the US, not many people can see themselves in central america.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by activeStick

Not sure if this has been discussed already but my friend tonight (white female) pointed out how everyone did the France flag profile update when the Paris attacks happened yet no flags for Iraq or Turkey across social media to remember these victims.

Interesting observation / discussions for sure about the selective importance of victims of terrorism.

As Dan02 points out, most Canadians can more easily put themselves in the shoes of people targeted at a nightclub in Paris than people shopping at a Baghdad mall. Many Canadians have been to Paris. Or they have friends and family who have been there. Or they've wanted to go.

Hundreds of awful things happen in the world every day. We're only capable of paying attention to a fraction of them. The filter most of us use is proximity. Physical proximity, social proximity. And yes, cultural proximity. I don't think it's bigoted to recognize we have stronger empathy for people who are like us.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

The religion is definitely important as is an accurate description of other details and facts as it pertains to the historiography of the subject.

It's not a dictating factor but AFC brings up a great point that maybe if all those beautiful Germans worshipped the flying spaghetti monster and didn't have a creation myth that specifically points to the Jews as jerk faces maybe everyone wouldn't have been AS gung-ho about licking them all up.

Like I said before, it wasn't just Jews who were the victims of the holocaust. Also the main reasons for the Nazis going after Jews was their perceived control of the world and racial inferiority. If you read Nazi literature on Jews it's mainly obsessed with plots to control the world and doesn't really mention the death of Christ.

Nazi philosophy was very much based on separating people based on perceived racial lines. With or without the Christ stuff, they would not have allowed a large Jewish population to live in their reich.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Hundreds of awful things happen in the world every day. We're only capable of paying attention to a fraction of them. The filter most of us use is proximity. Physical proximity, social proximity. And yes, cultural proximity. I don't think it's bigoted to recognize we have stronger empathy for people who are like us.

If so, I don't know how to explain the much stronger empathy for gorillas and lions. It seems to me that it's a matter of expectation. Peoples' intuitions about horrible violence taking place in the Middle East, Africa, etc. is that "this stuff happens there all the time".

[blankall]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

If so, I don't know how to explain the much stronger empathy for gorillas and lions. It seems to me that it's a matter of expectation. Peoples' intuitions about horrible violence taking place in the Middle East, Africa, etc. is that "this stuff happens there all the time".

It's also an issue of victim blaming and seeing it as middle eastern people inflicting the violence on themselves. Realistically many of the victims were young children, and I'm not sure how you can say a child in any way willingly participated in the political instability and violence.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

If so, I don't know how to explain the much stronger empathy for gorillas and lions. It seems to me that it's a matter of expectation. Peoples' intuitions about horrible violence taking place in the Middle East, Africa, etc. is that "this stuff happens there all the time".

True enough. But I think that's a case of a lot of people being a) misanthropes who regard animals as being more deserving of sympathy because they're not awful like people are, and b) there are far fewer publicised cases of people doing bad things to gorillas and lions, so we haven't experienced compassion fatigue yet. If a dozen gorillas a year were being shot dead at zoos, people would eventually grow resigned to it and move on.

Regardless, the news has to be filtered somehow. We're not capable of taking in everything terrible that happens in the world. Empathy, novelty, proximity, expectations, scope all play a part. I don't see how useful it is to point out our filters as some kind of moral failing.

[firebug]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

If so, I don't know how to explain the much stronger empathy for gorillas and lions. It seems to me that it's a matter of expectation. Peoples' intuitions about horrible violence taking place in the Middle East, Africa, etc. is that "this stuff happens there all the time".

But we have different levels of empathy regarding the suffering of animals not necessarily correlated with the animals ability to 'feel' pain, but based on our opinion of how cute the animal is (Save the Pandas!).

As far as the racial basis for empathy, here is the study that many are referring to:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3108582/

...we found that Caucasian observers reacted to pain suffered by African people significantly less than to pain of Caucasian people. The reduced reaction to the pain of African individuals was also correlated with the observers’ individual implicit race bias.

I believe the study has been replicated to confirm that African's empathy towards caucasian suffering is similarly reduced, demonstrating that this is as 'human' characteristic rather than a caucasian one.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by blankall

Like I said before, it wasn't just Jews who were the victims of the holocaust. Also the main reasons for the Nazis going after Jews was their perceived control of the world and racial inferiority. If you read Nazi literature on Jews it's mainly obsessed with plots to control the world and doesn't really mention the death of Christ.

Nazi philosophy was very much based on separating people based on perceived racial lines. With or without the Christ stuff, they would not have allowed a large Jewish population to live in their reich.

How is this different from ISIS/Al Quada, they target the west for its perceived domination of the Middle East and support of Israel. None of this is religious per say, fourty years ago these guys grandfathers were doing pretty much the same things in the name of Leon Trotsky and the PLO

The leaders of both the nazis and Isis used common themes in their peoples culture to unleash the elemental xenophobic violence in all humans but without that history of anti semitism from the church there wouldn't have been that dog whistle for the Germans, in the U.S. it will be race, the fear of Blacks, in the Middle East it's jihad against Isreal

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

How is this different from ISIS/Al Quada, they target the west for its perceived domination of the Middle East and support of Israel. None of this is religious per say, fourty years ago these guys grandfathers were doing pretty much the same things in the name of Leon Trotsky and the PLO

The leaders of both the nazis and Isis used common themes in their peoples culture to unleash the elemental xenophobic violence in all humans but without that history of anti semitism from the church there wouldn't have been that dog whistle for the Germans, in the U.S. it will be race, the fear of Blacks, in the Middle East it's jihad against Isreal

Isis' and Al Quaeda's goal is 100% religious. They are trying to bring Mohammed's law and they are establishing a Caliphate, not a Reich. In fact, Isis swarn goal is to usher in the end of days. All religious