Larian LeQuella Said December 22nd, 2008 at 7:09 am :

“StevoR, well said. While Joker IS a joke, at least he qualified his slam on islam with the “at present”. Of course if we take history at its entirety, his joke falls apart. I know my views are universally unfavourable in regards to religion though, so I freely admit my bias.”

Thanks. Me too.

Religion – certainly organised religion does seem to cause a lot of the wars and bigotry and suffering around the globe. It has I think alot to answer for.

@ QuietDesperation :

“@SteveoR: You forgot “RESOURCES” (as oppose to simple territory grabs), and I personally consider “RELIGION” and “POLITICS” to be pretty much the same thing.

You are correct. Mecca could just as easily be destroyed with completely conventional explosives.”

*I* never advocated the annhiliation of Mecca and its thousands or millions of inhabitants – that was Joker. Any such action would cause awave of bloodshed of staggering proportions and lead to utter disaster for Humanity. I hope you aren’t seriously advocating that either!

I covered RESOURCES under territory – meaning much the same thing! Territory comes with Resources .. But I spose you could say territory is a resource too!

As for religion & politics being the same I’d have to disagree there. There aresubtle differnces between them thatmake political and religious conflicts different.

Religon is about worhsipping a god or gods for which the followers will kill and die for irrationally and with a fantatical blind zeal.

Politics is a bit more pragamatic, a bit more open to reason and to consequences. Political leadesr can be easily changed or manipulated out of doing things -or out of power. Bush & the neo-cons were responsible for the political campaign to invade Iraq. They’ve been voted out. Christianity was responsible for the Crusades – its still around.

A political solution for the plight of the post-Shoah (nazi holocaust) Ashkenazi jews was to resettle back in Germany or EasternEurope or Uganda but for *religious* reasons they choose to take over Palestine – a land extremely hostile and foreign to them which placed them in more danger of future (present now) extermination than the many alternatives – it was areligiously motivated decision leading to a conflict that would have been avoided if the Ashkenazi jews had simply returned to their old homes as would have been the best ( & IMHON most ethical*) option. Thsi has led to the major Israeli-Palestinean & Israeli-Muslim world conflict that in turn has taken us into the so-called “War-of-Terror’ today.

Politics is influenced by religion and religion is exploited by polticians but these are I’d say separate things.

@ Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum Thanks!

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* In many ways Isreal’s creation was a victory for Hitler – the Jews were out of Germany as Hitlerahd wished and the Israelis have adopted a nazi-like mindset towards “the other”. Without Hitler, Israel would NOT have come into existence – and the fascists would recognise and approve of much of the Israeli conduct towards the Palestineans and Israel’s neighbours. Israel also is far, far more vulnerable to destruction in the SouthWest Asian-Islamic world region than if it had been created at the heart of Germany instead – and having the Germans and East Europeans responsible for the Shoah lose their land as a result of their actiosn seems vastly fairer and more reasonable than taking away the land of the Palestineans -who after all did nothing to merit their loss to slave Western consciences!

Also – 2% for future of aviation? What’s wrong with these people?

Wars are ALWAYS about resources….

Simplistic answers are always BS.

Always-always, or just sometimes-always?

Norman, correlate!