29-Mar-14 World View -- Christians versus Muslims in CAR

[John]

29-Mar-14 World View -- Christians versus Muslims in Central African Republic

Russia's Vladimir Putin calls Obama to discuss Ukraine

** 29-Mar-14 World View -- Christians versus Muslims in Central African Republic
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e140329



Contents:
Christians versus Muslims in Central African Republic
Who's at fault for the Holocaust?
War and Peace
Russia's Vladimir Putin calls Obama to discuss Ukraine


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Central African Republic, Bangui,
Christians, Muslims, Seleka, anti-balaka, Hitler, Holocaust,
Osama bin Laden, Pakistan, Syria, Myanmar, Burma,
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, Russia, France, Napoleon,
Vladimir Putin, Ukraine

[Anon]

I have often encountered such circular reasoning as regards many popular ideas, and very often the reasoning is exactly as you stated, "these people would not do this if they were X, therefore they were not X because they did this". The very popular "democracies don't fight each other" meme is an example of this, one needs look no further than the American Civil War to find a very vicious war waged by two democracies with elected governments.

I suppose it is all due to people just believing what they want to believe. And a lot of playing fast and loose with definitions.

As for Russia, I think Putin has made a very accurate calculation as to just what he can do without pressuring the West into a huge reaction. He's very likely to sit right where he is for several years, and the leaders of the Ukraine will come to understand they'll do what he says or he'll move against them.

[Augustine]

You are right that this is a matter of definitions. A proper definition includes three parts:
1) A claim that a thing exists.
2) A description of that thing.
3) A term for that thing.

There is also evidence, which I will define as a test to determine whether a thing meets the description of a certain definition. In light of this let us discus the terms an hand.

Christianity makes a distinction between the "true" Christians and those who practice claim Christianity and practice its rituals but are not "true" Christians. This taxonomy is one of the dogmas of Christianity, as it was prophesied by Jesus and and the Apostles that there would be many false disciples that "were not of us" and the Lord "never knew" them. According to Christian doctrine "true" Christians who are eternally saved and "false" Christians who are eternally damned can be distinguished by their deeds, but this is the evidence not the cause of their spiritual status.

Islam makes no such distinction. There can be "good" Muslims and "bad" Muslims, but anyone who claims Islam and practices its symbolic rituals is considered part of the house of Islam. According to Islam, eternal salvation depends not only upon being a Muslim but also upon one's deeds. There are "apostate" sects of Islam whose beliefs and rituals differ from those of standard Islam, but even these are usually considered "Muslims" by Muslim authorities.

Thus the following categories are discussed:

General Christianity -- This includes people who claim to be Christians and practice the rituals of Christianity.

"True" Christianity -- This is a subset of General Christianity Including people who are spiritually redeemed. Non-Christians usually do not recognize the existence of this category.

Islam -- This includes people who claim to be Muslims an practice the rituals of Islam.

There are other categories that can be defined but these will do for a start.

[vincecate]

The Muslim jihadists are killing some Christians, but they're mostly killing other Muslims -- millions and millions of Muslims. The same is true of Bashar al-Assad's genocide against Sunni women and children. You can claim that the Koran justifies these killings, but it doesn't. The Koran may or may not justify killing Christians (it's debatable) and other "infidels," but what the jihadists and al-Assad are doing is killing Muslims -- and that's clearly a violation of the Koran.

A Shia Muslim can think that a Sunni Muslim is "not a true Muslim" and therefore an infidel. As long as many Muslims think the Koran is telling them to fight infidels, it does not matter what debaters say. Millions will keep fighting, killing, and being killed. If you had a contest for "book responsible for the most killings", the Koran is certainly in the top 3, if not number 1.

Evolution made it so that children just accept what their parents or leaders tell them. So when a child was told, "don't play by the cliff", "don't go swimming with the crocodiles", "pull the weeds out", the kids that just accepted what their elders told them had a higher survival and reproductive success than those that did not. Religion then acts like a virus exploiting this human characteristic and is mostly passed down from parents to children. After enough religious killing, I expect this human characterisitc will be reduced and religion to be reduced, and religious killing to be reduced. But evolution takes time.

[Augustine]

A Shia Muslim can think that a Sunni Muslim is "not a true Muslim" and therefore an infidel. As long as many Muslims think the Koran is telling them to fight infidels, it does not matter what debaters say.

This is quite true. There are many extremist groups that consider other sects to be non-Muslims and thus infidels. For example the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Pakistan has released this statement.

We have the fatwa and signatures of the revered ulema in which the Shias have been declared kaafir [infidel]*. Just as our fighters have waged a successful jihad against the Shia-Hazaras in Afghanistan, our mission [in Pakistan] is the abolition of this impure sect and people, the Shias and the Shia-Hazaras, from every city, every village, every nook and corner of Pakistan. Like in the past, [our] successful Jihad against the Hazaras in Pakistan and, in particular, in Quetta is ongoing and will continue [in the future].

It is not clear, however, whether this is the motive or merely the excuse. The different sects of Islam serve as identity groups and thus potential targets for genocidal hatred. If members of one sect wish to exterminate members of another sect the claim that they are infidels may serve as a useful excuse.

[vincecate]

We have the fatwa and signatures of the revered ulema in which the Shias have been declared kaafir [infidel]*.

I think there are hundreds of thousands of Ulemas. Any one of them can interpret the Koran and issue a fatwa, which is sort of like a court ruling. Given what is in the Koran, and the huge number of Ulemas, there will always be some Ulemas issuing rulings that people should fight. So the fighting will go on. What any debate decides has nothing to do with anything.

[Guest]

I lived in the Russian Federation both before and after Putin came to power.

Russia is worse off in many ways today. I could write for hours about what has been /is going in Russia, but I will try to be brief. Russian economic growth is tied directly to oil and other commodity prices. Russia has not reformed its economy at all. Russia's last decade of economic growth was simply a reflection of sky rocketing oil and commodity prices-nothing more. Much (if not most) of the money generated was stolen. The average Russian remains extremely poor.

Russia is still a gangster state. The Oligarchs are still holding on to much of the nation's wealth. Putin displaced a few because they stood in his way to achieving virtually absolute power. The big three oligarchs of the 1990s have all been aside: Vladimir Gusinsky is living inexile in Israel. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was released a couple of months ago after ten years of hard labor in Siberia. Boris Berezovsky is dead (officially he committed suicide). All three are /were spent political forces. But the rest of the oligarchs remain. Putin has stolen billions (some reports say tens of billions). Russia doesn't have much of an economy in western terms because of the unbelievable level of corruption. Russia's leaders are intrinsically corrupt (and murderous). If someone does create a highly successfully company, it will either be stolen from him by corrupt government officials/gangsters or he will have to hire a string of vice-presidents and pay them extremely high salaries (to do nothing) and also award them a large percentage of the company's stock (if he wants to stay alive/avoid prison, etc.) . What kind of business can flourish in an environment like that?

Russians are brutes. The Russians have committed genocide in Chechnya, and gotten away with it. They supported Serbia/Montenegro in the genocidal wars of mass rape and mass death in the Balkans. And got away with it. Now they are continue to operate all over the Middle East. The Russians torture and murder their kind. Even some ethnic Russians living in the Crimea are packing up and leaving. They are moving to western Ukraine. One Russian explained that he had lived in Russia and said that Russians in Russia were poorer, had an even worse government, and zero freedom. He wanted nothing to with Russia. He wanted to head west and rebuild Ukraine in a better way. He didn't believe the Russian propaganda about the Ukrainians being a pack of Nazis.

[Guest]

And I have to add one more observation: The alternative media's embrace of Putin and Russian aggression. A lot of the financial blogs (like King World News), and other alternative sources have swallowed Russia's propaganda hook, line, sinker. That 9/11 Truthers buy into it neither surprises nor concerns me. What does concern me is people like ex-Reagan Cabinet members like Paul Craig Roberts buying into it. I'm surprised how many hedge fund managers are buying into it. I guess the alternative press (granted, many of them are kooks) have been so anti-American for such a long time that virtually any nation that opposes the United States is automatically "good". How can some of these people be so naïve?

The average blogger and you tuber has probably never been to Russia. They don't know any better. It seems RT (Russia Today) is getting through to a few lost souls. I assume that the gold and silver companies are just trying to whip up hysteria to sell their products. I'm glad the MSM (main stream media) gets it.

The irony of the Russians calling everyone Nazis is jarring. For those who don't know: Stalin had a pact with Hitler for several years and even agreed to invade and divide up Poland together with Hitler and the Nazis. The Soviets and Nazis were combat comrades for a time before Hitler decided to turn on them. It drives me up the wall to listen to Putin talk about the Soviets stood up to the Nazis. The Russians did no such thing. They only fought the Nazis after they were attacked. Ugh.

So here we are again. 1938-Sudentenland (or is it 1936 Austria?). I know this: The Russians only understand brute force.

Use brute force financial and crush Russia's economy (which is easy to do) or prepare for a brutal (real) war.

[solomani]

On your Christian comments. I think it’s not fair to say they are not Christians in all the examples you list. It is fair to say they are acting inconsistently with their stated belief system. This inconsistency puts doubt on if they are capital C Christians or lower c Christians, or cultural Christians. Those specifics are between them and Jesus though.

What is there about this particular point in history that makes Muslims the most massacred group in the world? From the point of view of generational theory, that's a very interesting question. Muslims are the most massacred people in the world today. Why is that?

I am sorry this is patently untrue. The most persecuted religion in the world by number of deaths is Christianity. This doesn't include Christians tortured for their faith or denied the ability to worship freely or denied some other thing – like employment or the ability to pick and choose customers – for their beliefs.

And most of that killing is done by Muslims.

Speaking of the CAR situation it really seems it’s more a racial thing than a religious thing. It just so happens that those tribes also share different religions – which just further antagonizes and highlights their differences.

[Augustine]

[quote=solomani]I think it’s not fair to say they are not Christians in all the examples you list. It is fair to say they are acting inconsistently with their stated belief system. This inconsistency puts doubt on if they are capital C Christians or lower c Christians, or cultural Christians. Those specifics are between them and Jesus though.[/quote]

Christianity is one of the few religions in the world that makes a distinction between what you call "capital C Christians" and "lower c Christians, or cultural Christians." Whithin Islam, a cultural Muslim is a Muslim. Those declared infidels are declared so for not being culturally Muslim enough.