Pastor Terry Jones as a representative of American actions and values

What do you do for a living?
You could seriously make a living writing opinions like that post.
You ought to collect the good ones in an external blog somewhere, if you don't do so already.

Yeah, I didn't know that jive turkey Jones had fired up his barbecue grill again until I heard about the protest and killings.

 

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And the worst thing you can accuse him of is saying offensive things and burning a book. How does that score against the actual ongoing destruction of millions of lives by the reasonably rational secularists? Who is worse? The guy who holds irrational opinions and burns books? Or the ones who volunteer to and actively kill people in another country in a war of choice?

 

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IMO Pastor Terry Jones does represent a reasonable percentage of Americana - at least in some aspects. Especially Christian America. And I would agree that Islam is somewhat like Communism. It certainly lends itself well to such a narrative. Islam as the World's new boogyman? No. Islamic nations are to pathetically weak to fit into the role Communist Russia played. No, I'd say for most people it's pretty simple: Islam is equated with being violent and backwards. All nations have "Islamic" pasts. Histories of superstition and fundamentalism. IMO most people view Islam as well as Terry Jones - as backwards, regressive, superstitious and a somewhat primitive simple way of thinking.

That most GenXs are not so superstitious is a sign of progress.

Pastor Terry has a congregation of 30 people. That's pathetic. 30 people. Pffffff....


As for Afghanistan, militarily they had a choice and they chose to side with the Islamists and big surprize now matter how much they yelled "Allahu Akbar" no magical Gods came down from the High Heavens to side with them.
Nope.
Instead they royally got their asses kicked.
They lost.
America occupies and will continue to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq for as long as we need access to oil. It is that simple.

Luckily for them we are pretty decent rulers. We don't force them to convert to Christianity. We don't tax them for the privilege of being Muslim. While Americans loath it down to our core, we continue to let them practice Islamic polygamy. We continue to let some of them legally treat their women like second class citizens. Hell - we let them kill Christians for suggesting Mohammad was not a Prophet! Now come on. Have Muslims ever been as benevolent? I don't think so.

We Americans instead try to bring some sense of civilization to Afghanistan through building roads, schools, hospitals and providing stability and jobs.

But, make no mistake, as wonderful as we are there, we are there for our oil and we will remain there for as long as we like. The world entered peak oil when? 2008 wasn't it? While we're the third largest producer of oil and have nearly 1 billion barrels in reserve, we also have an insatiable appetite for oil and we're not at a billion reserve.... yet. But nearly

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How's Libya doing these days?

 

Who lost? When? Where?

Ahh now I see who lost.

So you think rational reasons for wars of choice make civilian deaths more palatable to those who prefer their lifestyle choices to the lives of other people?

But your lifestyle is unsustainable, while that of the Afghans appears to have more long term success. So who is the loser here? Is it people like Terry Jones or people like those who kill to sustain their gas prices and their SUVs?

Meanwhile, what does that say for the values of those people who engage in these wars of choice for material reasons? Is Terry Jones representative of those people who look down on others for being "backward" and "violent" even as they engage in lifestyle choices which destroy the planet and require the mass killing of innocent peoples?

 

Heh, will the REAL backward, violent, illiterate, uncivilised savage please stand up?:m:

 

Thank the Gods Terry wasn't imaginary - you might have gotten this thread locked

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She says sipping her Latte typing into her PC.

LOL... from an Australian! Oh, that's rich. How's your Gloria Jeans Latte? Aussie've equally as much blood on their hands (they're the fattest Western nation now as well - life is goooood Down Under when you're a rapen and a pillagen or a sellen wheat and iron ore to yer local dictator).


Yes, the USA and AU is in the ME for oil - is there ANYONE moronic enough to think otherwise? :bugeye: All so that we pretty little princes and princesses can sip our latte's and whine about something we saw on the news to our fellow netizens on Sciforums. Puuulease.

As for the OP and Terry the Qur'an Burner, his general position is much closer to SAM's. He's a fundamental monotheist. I OTOH opted for education. Remember, where we teach that ALL religions/supersitions are Equal. That no One God or Alien or Book or Prophet is any better than another God, Alien, Book or Prophet. And when people do, we criticize them - severely. But non-violently. But, oh no. no one likes that. Good. You guys win. We can all, sit back and roast a wieneror make a s'more we're in good company now.

 

She says as polishing off her latte.

LOL

 

So he burns books, and you support the mass killings of innocent people for resources. Not much of an endorsement for your values they seem much worse than his. His values only affect him and I don't see anything dangerous about having a difference of opinion on ideology as compared to indifference on mass killings because well, its a lifestyle choice. Both educated and free from dogma. So what? Being an educated sadist is much worse than being an irrational bigot.

I started a theoretical thread on the arguments here: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=107344

Not. Amul kesar milk. The point being, that I don't approve of killing people for their resources. I think it is better to scale down your lifestyle if it requires mass murder to support it.

 

Yes you do SAM. You're supporting it right now. It makes you happy to think you don't, but in reality you do. What is your thread count now? 1 million posts? Your cushy lifestyle comes at a cost SAM. A cost paid for in part by Afghans.

Speaking of Afghanistan. That land is now under US jurisdiction. It's effectively a US protectorate. After the US was attacked such was sanctioned by consensus (including India) via the UN which represents all nations. Obviously, unlike a minority of criminal elements in the Afghan protectorate the USA does not intentionally kill innocent women and children. Exactly the opposite. We protect them.

Stop and think about it logically. If the USA wanted to murder 10s of millions of men, women and children - they would have. They have not, because they do not want to. It's really simple. To come to any other conclusion is to live in lala fantasy land. You're ONLY taking cream with your tea I hope???

 

Just because a lot of people are involved in a stupid decision does not make it justified or meaningful. Was a war necessary in Afghanistan? No. Has ANYONE benefitted from it? Maybe a few mercenaries.

Eh? I live a very simple lifestyle which I owe only to my own efforts and the people who supported me. I have benefitted gratuitously from many things rooted in crime [the English language for one, in India] but that has not led me to endorse those crimes as a requirement for those benefits. But being a beneficiary of the system is not an excuse to embrace it.

As one of my favourite authors says:

"Once you've seen certain things, you can't un-see them, and saying nothing is as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence, that I'm sure about. There's no innocence and there isn't any sense in which any of us is perfect or not invested in the system. If i put money in the bank it's going to fund the bombs and the dams. When i pay tax, I'm investing in projects i disagree with. I'm not a completely blameless person campaigning for the good of mankind. But from that un-pristine position, is it better to say nothing or to say something? One is not powerful enough nor powerless enough not to be invested in the process. Most of us are completely enmeshed in the way the world works. All our hands are dirty."

-Arundhati Roy

So my question is, people look down on Terry Jones because he uses offensive ways of expressing his opinions. I say, he has a right to those opinions and if by some means he were to spend a couple of years in Afghanistan, he might very well find - to his surprise - that his thinking is not very different from theirs and that they have surprisingly common values where religion is concerned. He may even discover that Afghans have a well deserved reputation for tolerance and acceptance of others, one which allows even an enemy higher status than a friend - if he asks for aid. IOW, Terry Jones viewpoint is one of ignorance.

But, whats your excuse? I find the secular volunteers who endorse wars of choice much more dangerous than the oddball who burns a book.

I take it black and unsweetened actually. With two diabetics in the family sugar is a real luxury.

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I think my point is, if people were properly educated then there wouldn't be a Terry (or at least he wouldn't have an audience). Also, there wouldn't be Taliban or Fundamentalist Afghans playing off him either. I never read about towns of extremely devout Buddhist doing anything like this to Muslims after they blew up those two 2500 year old Buddhas. Think about the differences here. One dude burning a cheap book he bought in a "Christian" protest against it's teachings. Another blowing up Mecca.

This suggests to me that when taught to think properly, even very poor illiterate hungry people (which would be a lot of Buddhists) can maintain a relatively calm sense of civility when a douche bag acts like a douche. It seems to me that a large number of monotheists like Terry are being taught to thinking incorrectly.

Monotheists will never knowingly accept teaching their kids to think properly. As we both know. So, war war and more war it is.

Aerobic exercise up-regulates Glut4 (or was it Glut6) which transports glucose without the need for insulin. I would suggest doing a daily dose of aerobic workout to pull the sugar out of the blood into muscle stores.

I mainly only drink green tea. Although fermented red tea/black tea is nice ......without sugar or milk of course

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Oh, lemon grass tea is nice. And of course chai is great.

I recently made cream cheese - my Gods was that easy. It was sweet. I wondered what I should do with the whey? Maybe make bread?

 

Possibly. As I have stated before, the Taliban are the product of refugee camps, brought up in conditions of war, disease and extreme malnutrition without the support of social systems that dominate these communities. Terry Jones on the other hand is just a garden variety small town preacher, no different from small town mentalities across most of the world. His world view is dictated by ignorance and parochialism [as demonstrated by the statements issued by his daughter in the UK] and as Tiassa aptly reflects is common in certain closed communities in the US - both due to its size and due to its internal segregation of groups into like minded communities - I've seen villages in Saudi Arabia that were more cosmopolitan in their outlook.


The point it, that those volunteers from 50 countries who are occupying Afghanistan since the last ten years are not doing so because of what Terry Jones thinks. Their goals are more material and secular.

So even if we were to magically brainwash all the Terry Jones of the world - there would still be a war in Afghanistan.

I prefer to address the problem at the source. You have to pay for indulgence but moderation is its own reward.

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You can start a topic for the rest.

 

and... there are a lot more poor dirty suffering illiterate desperate Buddhists. WAY MORE. I mean, people who live under the Generals in Myanmar or lived under the Cambodian Khmer Rouge etc... AND YET, they did not act in the same manner as these Afghans did - chopping off UN workers heads. Whom are not even Taliban, they're your typical conservative Muslim Afghans.


You may want to think on that.



As for Terry, he's you're typical American conservative Christian with the exception he burned a Qur'an and made a big to do about it. Just like in Islam, when the Imam gets up and tells everyone about how the Bible was corrupted by the forces of evil and the Qur'an is perfect, well, conservative Christians tell their sheep that the Qur'an was inspired by Satan and Muslims are being led away from God and into evil. And the True word of god is the Bible (where do you think the Muslims got the idea from?). But, IMO, because there's a basic underlying message of forgiveness in Christianity, most Christian empathize with the fate of Muslims, being led off into hell and so instead try to "save" them, not chop their head off. I'm not sure when this developed. That could be interesting history. Anyway, so, they're less likely to chop off one of a Muslims' head (not to mention the Jesus protagonist would never had condoned such an act - unlike how the Mohammad protagonist does in mainstream-accepted Islamic lore).

That explains why Americans are so much more accepting of their subjugated Afghan protectorates values and beliefs (relatively speaking - I mean, no belief taxes yet).



AFAIK GlutR 4/6 is only up regulated upon skeletal muscle exertion. If not then insulin is required - putting a lot of physiological stress on the beta islet cells and they are always required to pump out insulin (and hence die off).

 

You misunderstand. Jones is a dickhead without much traction, making an absurd gesture as a response to terrorism in his view. Mawdudi - do you even know who he is? - along with Qutb is a major figure in Islamic religious politics responsible for a theological worldview that smacks not too lightly of Nazism. He does do the favour, compared to Jones, of at least being dead, but he leaved behind an interesting and dangerous philosophical legacy. Sam - amusingly - describes him as "eminent". Sort of a problem, nicht wahr?

Given that I didn't critique Sam's initial comparison, I think it probably reasonable to suggest that I agree that the representation of news is incredibly skewed. The 'yours is worse than ours' line refers to Jones - an isolated pedant - to Mawdudi, an "eminent" figure with considerable philosophical traction, not to the comparison of media coverage. Stop and think before you write something.

 

I've read this post twice and it doesn't seem to make a point?

Just trolling?


Anyway, the fact is the US and AU will remain in Afghanistan as long as oil is required to maintain a Western lifestyle. As for Terry Burner of Qur'an, he's a part of the Western lifestyle. If we started banning people like him, well, Islam wouldn't be far behind. So, onward and upward.

 

See, this is thing, poo hooing the Afghan war while enjoying your nice Cafe' Latte on an Australian beach strikes me as a bit insincere. You like the idea of poo hooing, but at the end of the day, greatly enjoy your Western lifestyle. It's like complaining about America and Australian obesity with a BigMac in one hand and SUV in the other.


Anyway, I already stated my idea for a solution: Education.

How about your solutions Bell's, SAM? Or is it more a case of could I supersize my side order of Prius with an iPad?