This is a bit in the news right now, obviously, and it makes sense that it would be part serious discussion and part politics, so let's spin it out into it's own thread. Feel free to discuss the politics of the situation (only other thread outside of the Politics thread where you can do so), and the tension, media coverage, media hype, and other crap about the Iran situation. FOCUS: Iran stuff.
I have to say that the current 737 crash is a bit badly timed... some calling it a "mechanical failure", others saying it was shot down. The buzz I'm hearing from my friends in the aviation field is that it's highly unlikely that it was a mechanical failure, and it looks like it was probably shot down or had a bomb on board. Regardless, it'll be interesting, and I feel badly for the families of the 63 Canadians that were lost on the flight.
I saw a video of the plane going down last night. It seems like too much was going on in the region and probably took a missile. It’s just way to coincidental with the timing.
1) First the 737 MAX disaster and now this. Some executive at Boeing is about ready to off themselves. 2) Either God hates Ukraine, or Putin just likes dropping planes over Ukraine/from Ukraine as a hobby.
Yeah, that video is being questioned as its only source is a Saudi group known for fabricating bullshit in the past. It’s pretty much being disregarded at this point. What is interesting is crash scene photos showing tons of shrapnel in the airframe panels. It could be that Tehran’s AA defenses were wound a bit tight and made a mistake.
https://www.npr.org/2020/01/08/7945...-reveal-extent-of-damage-at-al-assad-air-base Photos showing the extent of the damage to the base. Crazy to think that there are high-res commercial satellites like this out there, and are able to provide this kind if info publicly.
Blaming an entire religion that seems to operate without much trouble anywhere else because people use it as a tool to attain power for themselves is about as idiotic as chopping your hand off because you have a splinter. The only difference between Islam and Christianity is that all of Christianity's atrocities are in history books and not on social media. In fact, I would argue that Christianity does more damage today than Islam does. The prosperity gospel, child rape, abortion clinic bombings, hate crimes against LGTBQ people, creationism, and list goes on. If we use your mutton headed logic, we all need to take everything with an internal combustion engine and drop them into the nearest volcano to stop climate change. Focus: I think the issue isn't so much Islam, it's the ego of a doddering germaphobe trying to distract from a trial in the Senate. Also, when the US is at war, the president tends to get re-elected. I think Iran did what they did so they didn't look like a bunch of punks to the rest of the Middle East. You'll note that there weren't any American casualties from this, and the Iranian Foreign Minister tweeted out they were defending themselves per Article 50 of the UN charter and weren't looking to escalate. I don't think anything else in terms of a sovereign nation firing missiles at another is going to happen. I do think there will be more sanctions until the current US president is replaced, then hopefully another nuclear treaty can be entered into.
His post was sloppily and offensively written, but Im not sure how accurate your response is. There are over 220 million people living under brutal Islamic theocracies, and many more living in nations where radical Islamic splinter groups have a ton of power and control (see: much of Africa and parts of Asia). The only Christian theocracy is Vatican City. 2 months ago the Ayatollah ordered the execution of over 1000 protestors. That type of thing just doesnt exist anywhere for Christianity in the modern world. Sure, countless terrible things have been done in the name of it throughout history (and still are), but the context of this thread is the unfolding events in Iraq and Iran, one of which is the world's most populated Islamic theocracy. And to be fair, his comment doesnt mean much either, because just lumping all of Islam together is like lumping together everyone who likes the color blue and making conclusions about them.
Potato, poh-tato. I grant that the misery of living under a theocracy, especially if you're a woman or a minority, is much greater than living in an otherwise Christian society. On the other hand, the misery being doled out in the name of Christianity affects a lot more people on a fundamental level. It's the difference between a single person being boiled alive and an entire race of people being forced into concentration camps. Both are awful, just different. In any case, I'm glad we agree that giving any credence to Islamophobia is stupid.
There is no fucking way that you can defend or validate that statement with facts of any kind. All religions have a shitty impact on a certain segment of the population, to varying degrees, but you can't make a sweeping bullshit statement like that and expect anyone to just accept it at face value.
You should recognize that 99% of the exposure most westerners have to Islam is awful shit being done in its name on the news, but maybe you should also recognize that very isolated incidents of Christian fundamentalist terrorism in secular states vs dozens of terror regimes, ongoing genocides in multiple regions of the world, and several theocratic dictatorships that codify in law hatred towards entire groups of people is not potato, poh-tato.
Christians are directly responsible for millions of unwanted children all over the globe thanks to abstinence only sex education. You know, assuming they get any sex education at all. And who doesn't love taking care of a bunch of people with antibiotic-resistant chlamydia? Christians vilify abortions to the point that any clinic that performs them, in addition to the other services they provide, are shut down or essentially criminalized. This leads to coat hangers and worse sexual health outcomes for the population. Those that can't or won't get an abortion end up giving birth to children that they can neither care for or afford. Especially since these children are typically born to single teenage mothers with next to no social net to support them. What sort of impact does that have on not only the parents of these unwanted children, but on a society that doesn't want a bunch of dead children laying in gutters? The cost of all these unwanted children is billions of dollars in food aid, health care, education, and If we're being real, prisons and police. So many of the societal ills that can be attributed to poor sexual education would significantly increase. For example, the availability of women's health clinics would be much more available, especially to those who need it the most. Fewer people means less of a drain on the state and the planet's resources. These are all net positives for everybody. Shall I continue with Evangelicals believing that climate change isn't real and how that affects the rest of us? Or their continued interference into the United States education system? I already said that living under a theocracy sucked. I'm not disputing that. What I am saying is that Christianity sucks more because it affects a lot more fucking people. If we got rid of all of the theocracies tomorrow, it still wouldn't stop Joel Osteen from bilking Meemaw out of her retirement. It wouldn't prevent the Catholic church from preaching that if you get an abortion, you're a murderer damned to hell. It wouldn't prevent the unhinged from blowing up Planned Parenthoods. I fail to see why this is difficult to understand.
Because the debate on climate change is increasingly one sided within any predominantly Christian nation where you could care to check the polling. Because questionable sex education, and stoning a young woman to death for having premarital sex are quite different. Because more people have died from Islamic Fundamentalist attacks in the last century than by Christian attacks on abortion clinics by a factor that exceeds 1,000,000:1.
I don't know how you managed to both miss my point while making it for me at the same time, but here we are. It is impossible for me or anyone really to quantify direct responsibility. But I like to think we are smart enough to connect the dots between 2.4 billion Christian believers following doctrine in regards to sex education, in countries around the world, and how that doctrine is a huge contributor to human misery. Even if you disagree with me, it's derailing the thread so I'll shut up about it.
As someone who is generally against religion in all its forms and manifestations, I can say with absolute certainty that some of the kindest people I have ever met have been very religions followers of both Islam and Christianity. I don’t want to derail this thread, but in as much as it is pertinent to any Iran/Iraq discussion, I just wanted to add that. The religion doesn’t make the quality of the person any more than the color of their skin. It is a part of them, certainly, and for some people it is a large part, but it is not something on which to base an assumption about that type of person. That being said, those who do horrible things in the name of Islam (or Christianity, or any religion) are absolutely trash humans. Killing in the name of Islam or Allah goes fundamentally against what that religion teaches. I think it’s an important thing to consider when viewing what’s going on in the Middle East. It is a war using the auspices of religion to justify the atrocities committed. It’s a tactic those fuckheads have used long before the US became involved there, and a it’s the method they’ll use long after our troops return home.
The primary difference between Christianity and Islam is that secularism broke Christianity's back in the 18th century, and it has hobbled on as a cripple ever since. Islam is still hale and hearty.
Islam is a cancer upon society, and I think it should be abolished, but Christians have done more to fuck up my daily life than any other religion. Do y'all think I would have had a kid at 18 if my girlfriend was on the pill/ had it easily available? I'm not even going to get started on all the stupid-ass liquor/ drug laws on the books here in Texas (and we don't even have it the worst!). I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure I've been passed over for jobs that I was qualified for because I wasn't Catholic (down here in the Asshole of Texas, Catholics run everything, to an extent). ANYWAY, here's my question/ discussion topic: Let's say Trump doesn't want the rest of the world to think he's got a small dick, and he decides to step up the game with Iran further. Juice has mentioned that Kharg Island is their Achilles' Heel, and would cripple them economically if it were bombed. That seems easy enough, but here's my question: How would the rest of the world take that? As I understand it, we don't buy any oil from Iran, but a lot of other countries do, so we would be fucking with their supply, and that would most likely cause prices for everyone, including us, to go up. Because of that, a lot of countries would be pretty pissed off at us.