UN workers killed in Afghanistan

irishconvert wrote: »

Oh come on, the Preisdent of the US told the pastor people would die as a result of his actions and asked him not to do it. He knew full well his action would result in deaths.

No he knew full well that his actions would no doubt result in such anger in people that THEIR actions resulted in deaths. Muslims are not more special than other groups because they are more inclined to explode with provocation (and provocation it was).

Jakkass wrote: »

It holds up much better than the only hypothesis that you have to present.

What hypothesis is that? I don't have a hypothesis, nor did I offer one. We don't know what there was before the big bang. We may find out in the future, we may not. But it's a disgrace to reason and science that, with absolutely no evidence, you claim that you do have an answer to this question.

Jakkass wrote: »

Its lazy. It is also against independent and critical thought to just buy what other people say without thinking.

I didn't link to anyone else's argument, I linked to a video of someone reading out a list of all the deaths in the Bible that God is supposedly responsible for. Is the list untrue? And I had seen the video before this topic was even started - I didn't simply just google something and link the result here.

Jakkass wrote: »

The Bible understood properly cannot lead to atheism. This explains why most atheists haven't read it and / or choose to strawman what they have read and are indeed ignorant of what it says. Some are not, but they are the minority from experience.

Well I'm not sure how accurate your experience is. There was research done recently that found that atheists knew more about religion than most. Of course, it's hard to tell how detailed the 'research' was, but I disagree that atheists know less about the Bible than people of faith. Certainly you would be one of the more knowledgeable Christians considering (from experience) the vast majority of Christians know very little more about their faith than a vague outline of the ten commandments.

Jakkass wrote: »

Of course. Deism is about as useless as atheism in finding our purpose as human beings.

Why do you assume we have a purpose?

In your post you've touched on two of the three pillars that I believe religions have depended on:

1. Lack of knowledge. People throughout history have used supernatural explanations to explain anything that they could not understand, or did not have an answer to. Storms, earthquakes and natural disasters were blamed on God and his mood. Thankfully, science has since progressed and these can be quite easily explained. So science hasn't come to a conclusion on where everything came from - that doesn't mean you should fill this lack of knowledge with something that has absolutely no evidence or reasoning. Saying that the Universe must have come from God just because science does not have a better answer is as stupid as saying that the weather illustrates God's mood, just because one doesn't understand how the weather works.

2. Purpose. Meaning. People cling to the concept of a God because they refuse to acknowledge, or even contemplate, the idea that maybe, just maybe, they're not special. That maybe there is no meaning for their life. There is no purpose. Would you say the life of a dog has a purpose? Presumably not. A mouse? Again, presumably not. Even if there was a creator, there would be absolutely no reason to believe that we are any more special to this creator than other animals are. The idea that such a creator would pick out his favourite species in the corner of an incomprehensibly vast universe and tell us that we're not allowed to sleep with a member of the same sex is ridiculous.

3. Kind of related to point 2, but fear of death is another foundation that religion is based on.

Anyway, the reason why I'm an atheist isn't because because the concept is so ridiculous (which it is), nor that the movement of supernatural beliefs through the world can be easily historically tracked and is in no way related to critical examination of the belief (which it can be), but the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to support such claims.

irishconvert wrote: »

That's the answer if you are a sheep and believe everything hook line and sinker you see on Fox/Sky/BBC news.

:rolleyes:

I'll ignore your ability to critically analyse anything, given that you are clearly proud to proclaim your belief in an invisible all powerful being.

Let me guess, your a muslim so I'm going to say.... Zionist dogs? Mossad?

Or a false flag to humiliate the Islamic world? Or to invade Afghanistan for it's oil reserves? I've heard that alot, even though there is no oil there.

LondonIrish90 wrote: »

The real answer is because Afghanistan, Southern Afghanistan in particular, was a hot spot of terrorist recruitment and training. We are there to remove the taliban from any position of influence - as during their reign they were closely linked with many islamic terrorist organisations, including Al Qaeda, who they let train terrorists and plot atrocities in this region.

We are truly there to protect people on the streets of Britain.

Also, removing the Taliban will allow the building of schools for little girls, healthcare facilities, electricity, and running water. All outlawed by the taliban. I see this as a good thing too.

He may belong to a flock of sheep, but then again so do you, and you are equally as ill informed as those you talk of.

I have no problem going against the crowd if the evidence presented to me calls for it, I do take issue with people who disagree with the "official story" because being a consensus of the vast majority of people and experts somehow calls it into question in a fundamental sense. Thats some poor ass thinking.

I agree- the Taliban government have made no secret of their support for al Qaeda before or after 9/11, al Qaeda has made no secert of their responsibility for that attack or others. If people want to continue to believe it's all part of a conspiracy so that the world fits their neat little paradigm of Muslim/ people of a particular political persuasion/ those against Israeli agression = good, American government/ Israel/ CIA/ whatever = bad then they are intellectual midgets who practice the exact same inability to analyse their own opinions that this pastor is.

There really is no point in arguing about this anyway, if one is not convinced by the mountains of evidence that the official story is more or less the real one at this point, they are clearly motivated by something other than a pursuit of truth.

himnextdoor wrote: »

It's a little disingenuous of you to suggest that anyone has 'legitimised' the killing of the UN troops.

What people are saying is that pastor Terry Jones has a share of the responsibility for the killings.

I once saw a program, it might have been 'Jackass', where a guy dressed up as the devil and went for a walkabout in one of the southern states' towns in America; it wasn't long before he was punched in the mouth by an offended Christian.

Intolerance is not just a Muslim phenomena.

It is incredibly widespread in the Muslim world, here is some PEW polls ( not anecdotal evidence, which everyone is so fond of here) 98% of Jordanians said they held negative views of Jews. All Muslim countries polled held a solid majority that supported Osama Bin Ladin. In not one of the polled countries did a majority believe Arabs were responsible for 9/11. In every polled country negative percetions of Western people was in the majority.

Every civilization is not "equal", every religion is not equally conducive to a functioning and peaceful society. It certainly does not mean every muslim is going to be a jerk, but the inability to recognize the malaise in their own community is exactly why the problem is getting MORE not less pronounced.

So many chips on the shoulder of in that region of the world, they have a permanent inferiority complex.

SamHarris wrote: »

It is incredibly widespread in the Muslim world, here is some PEW polls ( not anecdotal evidence, which everyone is so fond of here) 98% of Jordanians said they held negative views of Jews. All Muslim countries polled held a solid majority that supported Osama Bin Ladin. In not one of the polled countries did a majority believe Arabs were responsible for 9/11. In every polled country negative percetions of Western people was in the majority.

Every civilization is not "equal", every religion is not equally conducive to a functioning and peaceful society. It certainly does not mean every muslim is going to be a jerk, but the inability to recognize the malaise in their own community is exactly why the problem is getting MORE not less pronounced.

So many chips on the shoulder of in that region of the world, they have a permanent inferiority complex.

Did you do these polls yourself? If not, then please link to them so we can see the figures and source ourselves.

RichieC wrote: »

Oh come on... the US invasion of both Iraq and Afghanistan were bloody coups for Al Qaeda recruitment.

Firstly it was a UN invasion, US led secondly you may not agree the outcome was a good thing (thats totally your call), but the reasons for the invasion are pretty unambiguous.

RichieC wrote: »

not really, 15 of the 19 hijackers were saudi's, the money the fronted the operation was saudi. yet for some reason most of this pertinent information was redacted by the Bush junta, why?

You can't ignore the gas pipelines motive for intervention, and if you can, well I don't know what to say.

Ok, and if they had hit Saudi no doubt you would say you can't ignore the oil. I'm sure everything in the region played into the descision. I'm afraid my world view allows for complex descisions to be made, which factors in many differnent things, including direct threats to the people of a country.

Whats your point? MY one is that it would not have happened had 9/11 not of.

If you do a simple google the people who planned, funded and took responsibility for the attack were in Afghanistan, acting with impunity under government protection. Note AFGHANISTAN. Saudi Arabian government, as disgusting as it is would not dare directly and so blatantly support an attack like that on American soil.

Really this isnt that complicated, and you can just google it.

RichieC wrote: »

not really, 15 of the 19 hijackers were saudi's, the money the fronted the operation was saudi. yet for some reason most of this pertinent information was redacted by the Bush junta, why?

You can't ignore the gas pipelines motive for intervention, and if you can, well I don't know what to say.

Are you Muslim, out of curiosity?

"Redacted by the Bush Junta"? would you like to qualify that somehow?

RichieC wrote: »

No I'm not, I'm an Atheist. I will refer to that murderous crowd of animals as anything BUT the Bush Junta.

Well we agree on something :P

I agree Bush was a disaster, and murderous but to many people have had their opinion of Afghanistan, and the thoughts, feelings and reasons that lead to that war tainted with the war in Iraq. So many of the crticisms that can legitimately be used to criticise THAT war are transposed on Afghanistan, without the evidence and reasoning required.