What is ironic is that Dr Kalam was going to receive an award for his service to humanity And the Americans broke protocol to frisk him at the airport. His Muslim name being a handicap he could not avoid.
Why don't you join a pro-palestinian group and put your energy into good works? Or write a book about the beauty of religion and the dangers of atheism or maybe you can join a lobby group to have the U.S sent to some international court for war crimes. Why not use the energy in some way that might actually change something in real time instead of obsessing about it here? Believe me working for towards social change would take up a lot of your time and at least you would be actively engaged.
You will change nothing from here. This is a place for sparring, passing the time. Whatever ideas people have they have, if they disagree they will continue to disagree. You aren't 'shedding light' from here and you are certainly not changing anything in terms of these issues from here. You're delusional if you believe you are.
Arundhati Roy is a good example of a woman who sacrificed a good ten years she could have dedicated towards literature fighting for what she believed in. She has since gone back but she did put her passion into action.
I admire Arundhati Roy. She is good at what she does. She writes. I disagree that its pointless to discuss here. I think the internet is a space where everyone has a voice, I've seen for myself how people have adjusted their thinking here. I don't aim to change all minds, even one is enough for me.
Well then continue on your crusade. But I assure you that the people who agree with you always agreed with the point of view. You are not changing anyone's mind. In fact your insistence makes you look like someone with a strange agenda or obsession as it amounts to badgering. Changing minds is something that happens when someone comes to understand something and then goes out in the world and actually DOES something. You are not changing Israeli policy and neither are we. I will give you an example, you think you are here to change minds, an atheist for example also thinks he can reason with you to change yours. Has it changed any? Do you feel any differently about your religious views or disposition? Has anyone convinced you that all Jews do not represent Israel? Its like saying that my lengthy arguments with Brian Foley would change his stance on abortion or euthanasia or assisted suicide or that he would change my mind. Its ridiculous. You fail to understand the nature of this site is or the internet, people seek out what they already believe. They fight what they don't. And even if someone has alters their point of view by being presented with one piece of information or another they rarely if ever, if EVER will do something tangible with said information other than 'think' what they 'think'. Thoughts and actions are truly two different things, most people here if they do have any kind of social change activity outside of this forum would be doing it anyway. I actually asked another member tonight why no one suggests that you actually do something, my post 102 was actually what I was wrote to this other member in relationship to you. Then I decided that since no one would take the time to put it forth that I would. Frankly you are not really very persuasive as you even manage to alienate those who share your point of view by your arrogance. I suggest you try having influence in the real world in face to face interaction to learn how to build bridges and not burn them, to learn the more subtle cues to communication and persuasion and listening and having some insight into what makes some people feel or think the way they do without all the arrogant condescending posturing you bring to the table. This is just my opinion of course and at the end of the day I really don't care, but I thought I would put this out there to you since you spend so much of your time here doing what you do. Meanwhile life's awaiting. Goodnight.
I hear you. But I have to say that when I was polite and building bridges, I was subjected to some of the worst abuse I have ever had from people I did not even know. Now I still am, but I don't care any more. So thats one positive aspect of discussion here. Being offended only works so long before it becomes redundant. I see that it really does not matter if anyone is offensive or offended.
But don't you see the same goes for your message? It is redundant. Don't you realize that your message is so redundant we know how you are going to react or what you think before you even post anything. We know the rant. There isn't anything fresh to it. We know what you think of jews, on palestine and Israel on the U.S on secular culture, atheism etc etc etc. You are beating a drum we are all too accustomed to. This isn't the place to build bridges in the way you are trying to do, that is the role of true real time, in the community activism, not with a bunch of people who care a little or maybe not at all or who already agree with you over the internet and will add their two cents and then go off to do absolutely nothing about it one way or another as they go about their regular lives. The work is being done out there not in here, this is a place of hot air and sparring and entertainment, this doesn't mean that we are not actually intellectually engaged we are at least some of the time but this place has limits and you seem to take it all too seriously and think you are actually 'doing something', you are not, neither am I. All it is is text which doesn't even amount to a good novel. We focus on something until Varda creates a thread about fluffy chickens or someone starts the abortion thread or the 'is it ok to marry a dog' thread or whatever.
Why? because people care more out in the real world than they do online? I've been to Iran peace meetings, Palestinian meetings even anti-Zionist meetings. And then there was Gaza and it was all the same. So maybe its possible to change things, but I'm no longer trying to. I just express my opinions now.
Yes, unless they have an absolutely dismal life the answer is yes. I know that the real world is not here on sciforums, I'm a little like Varda in that sense, I take it half seriously. You express your opinion, I express mine, joe blow his and it all amounts to the same thing, an opinion. No one is saying you shouldn't express your opinion. I am saying that if you really CARE about these issues you are wasting time that could be best spent engaging with them directly. I rarely if ever bring what I really care about to this place because it is so important that I wouldn't waste it with online banter. What I really care about has to be lived not ruminated over.
True. Which is why I made the point that I don't care anymore. I just express my opinions. It makes little difference to others maybe, but I get to express my viewpoint.
Not in any objective sense. I don't see my viewpoints as making a difference. You have educated people here who think racists have a right to defend themselves so that they can practice active violent racism against unarmed civilians. You have strange young men who feel discriminated against by a verbal comment and have two war tours in a country his people actively destroyed with the help of soldiers like him. You have secular humanists defending the murder of one year olds who are "terrorists" There is little you can do to change things with thinking like that rampant. Everyone has their own little bubble where anything can be justified if presented well enough.
True which is why I prefer poetry, at least it makes sense. Accurate scholarship can unearth the whole offence from luther untill now that has driven a culture mad. From what occured at linz what huge imago made a psychopathic god. i and the public know what all schoolchildren learn those to whom evil is done do evil in return. W. H. Auden US (English-born) critic & poet (1907 - 1973)
Well despite Auden's cautions I don't see too much evil around sciforums. Again you fail to see the difference between the world and the peculiar reality of text on a screen. Its out there you fight evil or wrongdoing or whatever it is you wish to call it, sciforums is just a sophisticated romper room. Believe me there are many who do not see your beliefs as any wiser nor any more moral nor correct than you see theirs. So at the end of the day it all doesn't really amount to too much save that each one has an opinion.
Maybe in the past yes, but now, no I personally don't think so. There's nothing wrong with being a "WASP" it's just a label some academic made up and then milked to get funding Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Ahhh, now you're talkin'. Though I much prefer Stevens to Auden: I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw or heard or felt came not but from myself; and there I found myself more truly and more strange. "Tea at the Palaz of Hoon"
