Lifted from another group.
Here's what I do not understand. There are fundamentalist Muslims who
believe that Americans are evil, non-believers, and that they should be
killed. These religious zealots see no wrong in killing innocent people in
the U.S., Madrid, France, etc.
Specifically, I do not understand why there are no Americans doing the same
thing to Muslims? Why aren't there radical Americans going out and blowing
up mosques full of innocent people? Why aren't there groups of radical
Americans dismembering Muslim captives and sending the video to television
stations worldwide?
I do not suggest that the reason is that Americans are somehow morally
superior, and that is why they do not commit these acts. I really am curious
why such groups have never formed, and I wonder, if such groups ever did
form, and take action, what the response would be from the Islamic world.
Imagine that a secretive group of private Americans takes a group of vocal
British or French Muslim extremists hostage, and then proceeded to either
dismember them, or say, douse them with gasoline and light them on fire,
captured on video. What if that group broadcast such acts as a warning to
young Muslims who believe in killing non-believers in the name of Islam?
What if that group began blowing up radical mosques, while filled with
worshippers of course? What would the response be? Would moderate Muslims,
those who do not believe that all non-believers should be eliminated, do and
say about such an event.
I believe that the U.S. response to terrorism poses no general threat to
those who seek to terrorize the rest of the world. On the other hand, if for
every hostage taken and mutilated on TV by Muslim extremists, a whacko group
from the US in turn mutilated an innocent Muslim, I wonder what the response
would be.
I wonder if there are Americans out there who are crazy enough to do such a
thing. Why is it that the Muslim world is so full of persons willing to
commit such insane actions, but there are no US and European groups who
retaliate on the same level?
How many Jihadis would continue their insane struggle against the western
world if they feared that they might be taken hostage by a secret US/Euro
group of crazies, have their genitals cut off and shoved into their mouths,
then while chained, be doused by gasoline and set on fire, all of which is
videotaped for Al Jezeera, NBC, ABC, CNN, and SkyNews?
Why isn't this happening?
I am interested in your reply
"Mark & Juanita" <[email protected]> wrote in message > Keep repeating
the lie often enough, someday somebody may actually
> believe it. [Hint, you kind of forgot to remove the insurgent deaths
from
> the total above].
Kind of like the NYT reporting recently that 36 civilians were killed by
suicide bombers. What they failed to mention (I'm sure it was an honest
mistake) was that 8 of the "civilians" were the suicide bombers themselves.
todd
On 2 Feb 2005 11:07:51 -0800, [email protected] wrote:
>Note crossposting and follow-ups.
>
aaargh
>Mark & Juanita wrote:
>> On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 20:33:00 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
... snip
>> >That's because the Americans and Brits have different methods.
>Instead of
>> >beheading or shooting a captive, they prefer torture, sexual
>humiliation,
>>
>> oh yeah, that's the same as slicing somebody's head off. Except
>the
>> victim is still alive afterwards. ... and probably gets to go home
>in the
>> future. Other than that, sure, it's just as bad or worse --yeah,
>same
>
>Well then consider the incident a while back in which the US
>fired on a disabled US vehicle, while the vehicle was surrounded
>by a crowd of civilians. Seventeen were killed, meaning they were
>no longer alive afterward.
>
That depends upon what your definition of "civilian" is. If you mean
people who are dancing, celebrating, and waving the flag of an insurgent
group on a just-disabled, burning M2 Bradley, then I suppose the US fired
on civilians. OTOH, most people saw that as the insurgents being penalized
for excessive celebration in the end zone.
... snip
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety
Army General Richard Cody
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
> Here's what I do not understand. There are fundamentalist Muslims who
> believe that Americans are evil, non-believers, and that they should be
> killed.
And there are fundamentalist Americans (both Christian and Jewish) who
believe Muslims are evil, non-believers, and that they should be killed. So
what? No one group of religious extremists has a monopoly on hate.
> Specifically, I do not understand why there are no Americans doing the
> same
> thing to Muslims? Why aren't there radical Americans going out and blowing
> up mosques full of innocent people?
All you need to do is look at Iraq. No shortage there of Americans killing
Muslims. Plenty have been blown up.
> Why aren't there groups of radical
> Americans dismembering Muslim captives and sending the video to television
> stations worldwide?
That's because the Americans and Brits have different methods. Instead of
beheading or shooting a captive, they prefer torture, sexual humiliation,
and beating to death. Some even took photos which have been published
worldwide. Different methods, same result.
The taking of a human life is appalling, no matter which side commits the
crime. So far the west is ahead, with estimates of more than 100,000 Iraqi
civilians killed.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:44:04 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>Nobody here is pretending that it never happened. You're pretending that the
>>actions of the Nazis were somehow predicated on Christian teaching, without a
>>shred of evidence (as usual).
>
> For centuries most of Europe was dominated by religious states
> that condoned, supported, and fomented persecution of jews and
> muslims. But folks like you like to pretend that christians were not
> responsible.for any of it.
Nobody said that Christians were not responsible for it, only that Christian
*teaching* was not responsible. You may have noticed by now that not everyone
who calls himself a Christian actually follows Christ's teaching a majority of
the time.
>poppycock.
The poppycock is all yours in this thread. Assertion upon assertion, none with
any foundation whatever. When challenged to back up your claims, you change
the subject.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 02:21:59 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>>
>> I gave you the site. You can take it from there,
>> or you can ignore it if you wish.
>
>No, you didn't.
Yes I did. Now you're simply prevaricating. I guess that
means you're not really a Christian :-)
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 02:21:59 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>>>
>>> I gave you the site. You can take it from there,
>>> or you can ignore it if you wish.
>>
>>No, you didn't.
>
> Yes I did. Now you're simply prevaricating. I guess that
> means you're not really a Christian :-)
No, you did not. Go back and read what you wrote. There's no URL there. You
referred to "the Fordham site" whatever that is, but you did *not* cite a
site.
I'll do you the courtesy of assuming that you're simply mistaken, instead of
accusing you of lying, while I await your apology.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:44:04 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>
>Nobody here is pretending that it never happened. You're pretending that the
>actions of the Nazis were somehow predicated on Christian teaching, without a
>shred of evidence (as usual).
For centuries most of Europe was dominated by religious states
that condoned, supported, and fomented persecution of jews and
muslims. But folks like you like to pretend that christians were not
responsible.for any of it.
poppycock.
> oh yeah, that's the same as slicing somebody's head off. Except the
> victim is still alive afterwards. ... and probably gets to go home in the
> future. Other than that, sure, it's just as bad or worse --yeah, same
> thing.
>
>>and beating to death.
>
> ... and this happened how often? ... and it was a matter of policy when?
> ... and the perpetrators were not prosecuted, when?
I was referring to the beating deaths at Abu Ghraib and other US detention
facilities. I don't recall exactly how many have been reported, but I
believe it was a dozen or two.
No, I don't think the torture, beatings, sodomy with glow sticks, other
forms of sexual humiliation are an "official" policy of the US, but
nonetheless the torture and abuse still took place. Not just in Iraq, but in
Afghanistan and Guantanamo as well. Please don't even try to suggest that it
was an isolated incidence or two. The number of victims ranges in the
hundreds, maybe even in the thousands.
The only "perpetrators" who are being prosecuted are the minions who took
orders from above. If it wasn't for world outrage I doubt very much anyone
would have been charged.
>> Some even took photos which have been published
>>worldwide. Different methods, same result.
>>
> Yeah, same result, except of course, the victims are still alive.
Again, I was referring to the beating deaths of detainees in US custody.
You've seen the photo's, haven't you? Some showed bodies packed in ice, some
had smiling US soldiers posing beside corpses. While not nearly as dramatic
as being decapited, the end result is the same.
> Now, how many of Saddam's torturers did he put on trial? How many of
> the insurgents have been tried and executed by their brethren for
> beheading their victims?
You're assuming the insurgents are the bad guys, and the insurgents are
assuming the US military, contractors, and collaborators with the US are the
bad guys. It's simply a matter of perspective depending which side you're
on. They're fighting the occupation and they have every right to do so. If
another country invaded and occupied the US you'd probably fight back,
wouldn't you? Who would be the bad guys then?
> What happened to those prisoners in our hands was dispicable. When
> Saddam and the insurgents do the same thing it is also dispicable. Are
> you suggesting then that Saddam and the insurgents should get a pass
> on moral outrage because we already know they're bad guys?
No, and only an idiot would suggest it.
> And what about the fact that we are at least trying to bring the
> perpetrators to justice where Saddam and the insurgents either cover
> up their crimes or boast about them?
That's just plain silly. The prosecution of a few lower level military
personnel is simply the result of a face saving effort in response to world
outrage. Without the abuse photos being published no military personnel
would have been charged.
> In contrast, Iraq Body Count, an anti-war site dedicated to putting
> together an accurate number of those killed estimates that since the
> war ended between 14,000 and 17,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed
> by violence.
Iraq Body Count does not refute the Lancet report. Their quote:
"The Lancet study's headline figure of "100,000" excess deaths is a
probabilistic projection from a small number of reported deaths - most of
them from aerial weaponry - in a sample of 988 households to the entire
Iraqi population."
Iraq Body Count only includes deaths that they can verify and cross check,
such as those reported by the media and from information gathered by morgues
and hospitals. In their words "We have always been quite explicit that our
own total is certain to be an underestimate of the true position".
Many Iraqi civilian deaths have gone unreported for a number of reasons. In
Muslim countries the deceased are buried as soon as possible. In Iraq many
of the dead have been buried in the streets where they fell, in fields,
stadiums and other public places. Hospitals and morgues have experienced
times when they were full and could not accept any more casualties. People
have been buried at times when it was too dangerous or too far to travel to
a hospital. In some cases even the hospitals themselves have been bombed.
The Iraq Body Count numbers are an accurate record of verifiable deaths, but
their numbers cannot in any way be taken as an accurate record of all
war-related civilian deaths in Iraq. No one really knows. The actual number
of deaths could be double, triple, quadruple, or even more than stated in
the Lancet report.
> So the insurgents are the ones killing civilians. Interesting, no?
While the exact number is up in question, it has been well reported that
insurgents have been killing Iraqi civilians. Mostly police, translators,
and others that are working for the US forces. Seems those people are viewed
as traitors collarborating with the enemy (and I'm not saying in any way
that their deaths are justifiable).
> You're assuming I'm falling into the same moral equivalence swamp that
> you are. Who's the good guy or who's the bad guy is irrelevant. We're
> dealing with actions here and the actions of one side are far worse,
> demonstrably worse than the actions of the other -- in spite of your
> attempts at whitewash.
Bullshit. You can make arguments for either side. You can't tell me after
Abu Ghraib that the US and the Brits hold a moral high ground over the
Iraqis.
> Labelling people as good guys or bad guys is at best irrelevant and at
> worst demonstrates and inability to deal with the issue.
If you want to get down to the real heart of the issue, the invasion,
according to Secretary Annan "was not in conformity with the UN charter from
our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal." So now
we know who the bad guys are.
> So in other words declaring yourself a combatant automaticlly entitles
> you to commit every kind of crime and excess against the people around
> you? (And please note it is the ordinary Iraqis who are bearing the
> brunt of this campaign. Not the Americans, not the allies and not even
> the officals of the Iraqi provisional government.)
I don't see any evidence that the insurgents, or civilian army, if you will,
are behaving any worse than the US army. Suicide bombings and beheadings are
gruesome, but so is prisoner abuse, the slaughter in Fallujah, and the
thousands who've been blown to smithereens by one ton bombs. You can't pick
and choose here and declare one side as behaving any better than the other.
>> beheadings are gruesome, but so is prisoner abuse, the slaughter in
>> Fallujah, and the thousands who've been blown to smithereens by one ton
>> bombs. You can't pick and choose here and declare one side as behaving
>> any better than the other.
>
> Well, in fact you can. The Iraqi people CLEARLY chose which side they
> think
> is "behaving" better.
Care to clarify that misstatement?
>>> So far the west is ahead, with estimates of more than 100,000 Iraqi
>>> civilians killed.
>>
>>Would you mind providing evidence of that statement?
>
> See previous posts. The number is probably bogus to begin with and
> he's mis-applying it to boot. It is an estimate of _total_ war-related
> civilian deaths in Iraq since the start of the war and it explictly
> doesn't distinguish between those killed by the allies and those
> killed by the insurgents.
Read the statement again, with particular emphasis on the word "estimates".
The Lancet report doesn't claim to be a exact figure, but an extrapolation
based on interviews of a number of families who had members killed. A lot of
careful effort went into the report, and Lancet deemed it credible enough to
warrant publication.
The report has no way of knowing the ratio between those killed by the US
and those killed by the insurgents. The numbers in their report are those
that have been killed by violence in the current conflict, in other words,
as a result of the invasion.
> However even allowing for the deaths of 'collaborators', the
> insurgents are killing a lot more uninvolved civilians than the allied
> forces.
We can debate this forever, but there's not really much solid information to
go on. One thing that needs to be kept in perspective though is that at the
start of the invasion, especially during the first year or so, almost all of
the civilians deaths were caused by the invading forces. As the occupation
continues and the insurgent forces gather in numbers and in force, the
numbers of civilians (collaborators) killed will continue to rise. As to the
ratio of which side is killing more innocent people, that will continue to
change as well.
> As long as we are saying "could be", it could also be said, "The actual
> number
> of deaths could be half, 1/3, 1/4, or even less than stated in the Lancet
> report."
The numbers certainly won't be less than those posted on IBC. The
information in the Lancet Report was compiled with interviews from 998
families throughout Iraq, which is a statistically significant sample. The
Lancet report authors, who conducted the interviews on the ground in Iraq,
pegged the estimates at around 100,000. We can argue back and forth about
their methodology and how they arrived at their numbers, but in the end they
presented what they consider to be a reasonable, credible, estimate. As far
as I'm aware the Lancet report is the most comprehensive to date. If you're
aware of anything better I'd be interested in hearing about it.
>>> Well, in fact you can. The Iraqi people CLEARLY chose which side they
>>> think
>>> is "behaving" better.
>>
>> Care to clarify that misstatement?
>
> Four words for you...
> election
> eight million voted
The election had nothing to do with choosing sides and doesn't in any shape
or form legitimize the occupation. Most Iraqis want the Americans to leave
as soon as possible.
>>You can't tell me after Abu Ghraib that the US and the Brits hold a moral
>>high ground over the
>>Iraqis.
>
> I am telling you that the US and its allies have commited far, far
> fewer atrocities than either Saddam or the insurgents and they have at
> least tried to minimize them. That's plain fact and no amount of
> waltzing around it brandishing a moral equvalence broom is going to
> wipe it out.
I don't know what you'd consider an atrocity, but to me that would include
torture or death. I don't care to draw any distinctions between how a person
dies. It doesn't matter whether a person has been decapitated (very few in
number) or blown up by a one tomb bomb. Tens of thousands of dead Iraqi
civilians, who would otherwise be alive if the US hadn't invaded under false
pretences, would probably agree with me.
>>If you want to get down to the real heart of the issue, the invasion,
>>according to Secretary Annan "was not in conformity with the UN charter
>>from
>>our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal." So now
>>we know who the bad guys are.
>
> And this makes the US worse than the insurgents and Hussein?
They started the war.
> I also hate to break it to you, but the UN is not the dispositive body
> in the case of the laws of war.
The US is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Read the charter.
> Yeah, I think the news reports the truth. The UN initially stated that
> the
> casualties would be around 500,000. Now the Lancet has it at 100,000.
> There's a source you can really believe in. I think I will go with Iraq
> Body Count, which I have been monitoring since the beginning of the war.
> Although the IBC admittedly says there numbers are on the low side, their
> methodology is much more scientific. The currnet numbers ar 15,000+ to
> 17,000+, while the Lancet says it is over 100,000. Big discrepancy if you
> ask me.
> Maybe you should do your homework, huh?
I have. IBC lists only deaths that have been reported by hospitals, morgues,
and in the media, and their numbers are accurate. However, and this is the
difference between the two, IBC cannot account for all deaths as a large
number, for various reasons, go unreported. The Lancet report attempts to
account for all deaths, not just those that have been brought to a hospital.
> Yeah, and Dan Rather and CBS deemed their story warranted as well. Their
> job is to sell publications...now you tell me what sells more papers; US
> invasion kills 100,000, or; The war in Iraq kills 17,000. Are you stupid
> or
> something?
Rather, CBS, and your insults are irrelevant. And speaking of stupid, I
guess you're not aware that CBS and Dan Rather's primary role isn't the
newspaper business.
Note crossposting and follow-ups.
Mark & Juanita wrote:
> On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 20:33:00 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> Umm, no. At least as far as fundamentalist Christians -- they want
the
> muslims to be converted, not killed. Killing others for their faith
is not
> part of Christian doctrine.
>
Nor IIUC, is it part of Islamic doctrine. Historically persons
calling themselves Christian or Muslim have had no qualms about
claiming the contrary and killing in the name of ther respective
faiths, the human capacity for hypocrisy is nearly limitless.
...
> >
> >That's because the Americans and Brits have different methods.
Instead of
> >beheading or shooting a captive, they prefer torture, sexual
humiliation,
>
> oh yeah, that's the same as slicing somebody's head off. Except
the
> victim is still alive afterwards. ... and probably gets to go home
in the
> future. Other than that, sure, it's just as bad or worse --yeah,
same
Well then consider the incident a while back in which the US
fired on a disabled US vehicle, while the vehicle was surrounded
by a crowd of civilians. Seventeen were killed, meaning they were
no longer alive afterward.
>
>
> >and beating to death.
> ... and this happened how often? ... and it was a matter of policy
when?
> ... and the perpetrators were not prosecuted, when?
Who has been charged in the beating deaths of those prisoners
at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan?
Back in December, 2001, when Rumsfeld was asked about accusations
that US personell had beaten civilians in Afghanistan what was his
reply?
How many death certificates had been issues for detainees killed
in custody prior to the release of the Abu Ghraib photos and how
many afterward?
>
> > Some even took photos which have been published
> >worldwide. Different methods, same result.
> >
>
> Yeah, same result, except of course, the victims are still alive.
Except of course, for the dead ones.
>
>
> >The taking of a human life is appalling, no matter which side
commits the
> >crime. So far the west is ahead, with estimates of more than 100,000
Iraqi
> >civilians killed.
> >
> >
>
> Keep repeating the lie often enough, someday somebody may actually
> believe it. [Hint, you kind of forgot to remove the insurgent
deaths from
> the total above].
>
How many is that?
If your argument is that our troops are not as bad as the insurgents
I heartily agree. Indeed, their officers and our political leaders
aren't as bad either. 'Not as bad', is not the same as 'good enough.'
That the Bush administration is not as bad as the Saddam Hussein regime
is a pretty poor defense, right?
--
FF
Note follow-ups and crossposting.
Doug Miller wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, "mp" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
> >That's just plain silly. The prosecution of a few lower level
military
> >personnel is simply the result of a face saving effort in response
to world
> >outrage. Without the abuse photos being published no military
personnel
> >would have been charged.
>
> You're evidently unaware that the abuses were first made public by
the U.S.
> Army.
>
Indeed. The photos were NOT released by the US Army. They were
'leaked' by one serviceman acting on his own initiative in view
of what he perceived as an inadequate response by official channels.
Also, Senator John McCain has said he has seen far worse photos
that are still being suppressed.
--
FF
Note crossposting and follow-ups.
Doug Miller wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, GregP
<[email protected]> wrote:
> >On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:47:47 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
> >wrote:
> >
> >>>
> >>> Not part of the Christian doctrine ??? Christians have killed
> >>> more people because of their supposed faith than any
> >>> adherents of any other religion in the history of the world.
> >>
> >>That may or may not be true... but it definitely is *not* part of
Christian
> >>doctrine.
> >
> > And many Muslims make the same point regarding fundamentalist
> > Muslims. Regardless of whether it is part of a religion's
"doctrine"
> > (and the reality is that destruction of non-believers was very much
a
> > part of official Christian doctrine for a number of centuries)
>
> This is an absolute falsehood. "Destruction of non-believers" has
*never* been
> part of Christian doctrine, and I challenge you to cite a source for
that
> claim.
>
How about if I cite the Spanish Inquisition?
> >the
> > fact of the matter is that people professing to be part of one
> > religion or another, have used that religion or taken advantage of
> > it, to justify maiming, torturing, and killing people. And I do
not
> > see the religious mainstream of *any* religion formally disavowing
> > or apologizing for such behavior on the part of the extremists and
> > in many cases sick people in their midst.
>
> We certainly don't see that disavowal in the mainstream of Islam. But
if you
> don't see it in the mainstream of Christianity... you haven't been
looking.
>
But there are fringies like Angley, Faldwell, Robertson and so on
who periodically come out with hatefull statements that get a lot
more publicity than any mainstream source. So, do you ever wonder
if the press treats Islam the same way?
--
FF
> Faulty intelligence does not equal false pretenses.
The "faulty intelligence" excuse is rather weak. There was plenty of
intelligence proving otherwise. All of the rounds of weapons inspections
reported Saddam was disarmed, the British dossier was proven to be a
forgery, as well as the Niger yellowcake fiasco. How is it possible that
every single piece of evidence provided by the Whitehouse as proof of WMD's
has turned out to be false? How can the Bush admin, with the most
sophisticated intelligence network in the world, turn out to be 100% wrong?
> How many more Iraqi civlians would have been killed, tortured, raped,
> and/or dismembered in the past two years by Saddam's regime had we not
> invaded?
Who knows? Probably far less than those that have been killed since the
invasion, but it's a moot point, anyway as that was never the reason for the
invasion.
> Our country is very fortunate that people holding your views did not have
> a voice during WWII -- we'd all be speaking German now if they had since
> we'd be trying to understand *why* the Germans, Italians, and Japanese
> were
> behaving as they were rather than concentrating on stopping them.
Totally different scenario and totally irrelevant to the situation in Iraq.
>> I guess you're not aware that CBS and Dan Rather's primary role isn't the
>> newspaper business.
>
> Okay then, the New York Times...as in media, of which the Lancet, CBS, and
> the New York Times are all a member.
Ted, you need to do some more research. Lancet is a prestigious, well
respected, and very credible medical journal, not a commercial media outlet.
That's why many people, media outlets included, took the Lancet report
seriously.
"Doug Miller"
> GregP
> >(Doug Miller)
> >
> >>Ummm, no, I think you missed the point. Someone (you, perhaps?) had cited the
> >>atrocities committed by the Nazis as supposed examples of Christian, or
> >>Christian-inspired, behavior. rcook was correcting this absurdity by pointing
> >>out that the Nazis were very definitely *not* Christian.
> >
> > A lot of them were, whether you like it or not.
>
> Their behavior would seem to indicate otherwise... whether you like it or not.
>
> >And the Nazi
> > slaughter of Jews was prepped by anti-Semitic propaganda
> > spanning a decade or so.
>
> And that ties into Christianity how...?
>
> >And that was built on centuries of
> > anti-Jewish hatreds and actions that at times were fomented by,
> > and most of the time condoned by, the prevalent Christian
> > hierarchies. To pretend that the Nazis evolved and set forth
> > their campaigns in a vacuum isnot too far from pretending that
> > they never happened.
>
> Nobody here is pretending that it never happened. You're pretending that the
> actions of the Nazis were somehow predicated on Christian teaching, without a
> shred of evidence (as usual).
GregP is an excellent example of what the Nazis did best. Propaganda.
He uses some basic facts in order to appear credible to the casual
or uninformed reader, then slips in his opinion as fact to acheive his
objective. People like this almost never quote a source, in the rare
case they do it's an op-ed piece by someone who says what they want
to be true. They never research for themselves because facts are
unimportant, something to be downplayed rather than investigated.
http://college3.nytimes.com/guests/articles/2002/01/13/894638.xml
According to Baldur von Schirach, the Nazi leader of the German
youth corps that would later be known as the Hitler Youth, "the
destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose
of the National Socialist movement" from the beginning, though
"considerations of expedience made it impossible" for the movement
to adopt this radical stance officially until it had consolidated
power, the outline says.
http://college3.nytimes.com/guests/articles/2002/01/19/895698.xml
To the Editor:
Re "The Case Against the Nazis; How Hitler's Forces Planned to Destroy
German Christianity" (Week in Review, Jan. 13):
I was a lieutenant in the Office of Strategic Services and joined with Gen.
William J. Donovan at the Nuremberg trials. My title was chief of the field
branch in the Document Division. We maintained document collection
centers around Europe with staffs of lawyers and investigators.
We sifted through millions of documents to determine which were suitable
for trial, verifying authenticity and informing the trial lawyers about our findings.
The trial strictly followed the rule of law. We also realized that historians would
study the transcripts. We did everything to show that this trial was not one of
revenge.
We were overwhelmed by the amount of material that proved the German
planning of the destruction of both Christianity and Judaism.
MARVIN FLISSER
Monroe Township, N.J., Jan. 14, 2002
no spam wrote:
> Lifted from another group.
How about you keep it there?
> I am interested in your reply
OK: Take it elsewhere. Unless said muslims are launching a Jihad to take
bring planes in to the fold, or the various warring factions are
normite's vrs. neanders, it has no place here. There are plenty of
groups which will offer you debate on these topics happily.
If you really must do it here, then please at least stick to only a
thread or two, so we don't have to keep banging 'k' all the time.
PK
Larry Jaques wrote:
>> Umm, no. At least as far as fundamentalist Christians -- they want the
>>muslims to be converted, not killed. Killing others for their faith is
>>not part of Christian doctrine.
>
> Uh, can you say "Salem, MA", "Spanish Inquisition" and "Crusades"?
> I thought you could.
Well, in the case of the Salem witch trials what they really were was a land
grab scheme. Religion and witchcraft were used as a pretext - as is often
the case.
One has to learn to discern between the pretexts and the real goals - which
are usually power:
Lenin didn't care about the people, for example - he wanted power.
--
Saville
Replicas of 15th-19th century nautical navigational instruments:
http://home.comcast.net/~saville/backstaffhome.html
Restoration of my 82 year old Herreshoff S-Boat sailboat:
http://home.comcast.net/~saville/SBOATrestore.htm
Steambending FAQ with photos:
http://home.comcast.net/~saville/Steambend.htm
In news:mp <[email protected]> typed:
> So far the west is ahead, with estimates of more than 100,000 Iraqi
> civilians killed.
Would you mind providing evidence of that statement?
--
Ted Harris
http://www.tedharris.com
In news:mp <[email protected]> typed:
>> You're assuming I'm falling into the same moral equivalence swamp that
>> you are. Who's the good guy or who's the bad guy is irrelevant. We're
>> dealing with actions here and the actions of one side are far worse,
>> demonstrably worse than the actions of the other -- in spite of your
>> attempts at whitewash.
>
> Bullshit. You can make arguments for either side. You can't tell me after
> Abu Ghraib that the US and the Brits hold a moral high ground over the
> Iraqis.
Sounds to me like you need to move over there...and why aren't you over
there with YOUR moral highground trying to make a difference?
> I don't see any evidence that the insurgents, or civilian army, if you
> will, are behaving any worse than the US army.
Perhaps you should open your ears and close your mouth then.
> Suicide bombings and
> beheadings are gruesome, but so is prisoner abuse, the slaughter in
> Fallujah, and the thousands who've been blown to smithereens by one ton
> bombs. You can't pick and choose here and declare one side as behaving
> any better than the other.
Well, in fact you can. The Iraqi people CLEARLY chose which side they think
is "behaving" better.
--
Ted Harris
http://www.tedharris.com
In news:mp <[email protected]> typed:
>> Well, in fact you can. The Iraqi people CLEARLY chose which side they
>> think
>> is "behaving" better.
>
> Care to clarify that misstatement?
Four words for you...
election
eight million voted
--
Ted Harris
http://www.tedharris.com
In news:mp <[email protected]> typed:
>>> So far the west is ahead, with estimates of more than 100,000 Iraqi
>>> civilians killed.
>>
>> Would you mind providing evidence of that statement?
>
> Geez. It's been all over the news. Do you want me to do your research for
> you?
Yeah, I think the news reports the truth. The UN initially stated that the
casualties would be around 500,000. Now the Lancet has it at 100,000.
There's a source you can really believe in. I think I will go with Iraq
Body Count, which I have been monitoring since the beginning of the war.
Although the IBC admittedly says there numbers are on the low side, their
methodology is much more scientific. The currnet numbers ar 15,000+ to
17,000+, while the Lancet says it is over 100,000. Big discrepancy if you
ask me.
Maybe you should do your homework, huh?
--
Ted Harris
http://www.tedharris.com
In news:mp <[email protected]> typed:
> Read the statement again, with particular emphasis on the word
> "estimates". The Lancet report doesn't claim to be a exact figure, but an
> extrapolation based on interviews of a number of families who had members
> killed. A lot of careful effort went into the report, and Lancet deemed
> it credible enough to warrant publication.
Yeah, and Dan Rather and CBS deemed their story warranted as well. Their
job is to sell publications...now you tell me what sells more papers; US
invasion kills 100,000, or; The war in Iraq kills 17,000. Are you stupid or
something?
--
Ted Harris
http://www.tedharris.com
In news:mp <[email protected]> typed:
> I guess you're not aware that CBS and Dan Rather's primary role isn't the
> newspaper business.
Okay then, the New York Times...as in media, of which the Lancet, CBS, and
the New York Times are all a member.
--
Ted Harris
http://www.tedharris.com
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> How many more Iraqi civlians would have been killed, tortured, raped,
> and/or dismembered in the past two years by Saddam's regime had we not
> invaded?
>
And how many more are being killed, etc. in Sudan, N. Korea,
etc.,etc.,etc..
We're not invading them.
--
Homo sapiens is a goal, not a description
On Fri, 4 Feb 2005 10:50:43 -0800, Larry Blanchard <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
>> How many more Iraqi civlians would have been killed, tortured, raped,
>> and/or dismembered in the past two years by Saddam's regime had we not
>> invaded?
>>
> And how many more are being killed, etc. in Sudan, N. Korea,
> etc.,etc.,etc..
> We're not invading them.
Yet. And if/when we do, there'll be liberals complaining about that, too.
Probably some of the same ones complaining we're _not_ invading them
now.
"GregP" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Not part of the Christian doctrine ??? Christians have killed
> more people because of their supposed faith than any
> adherents of any other religion in the history of the world.
>
I take it you have brown eyes?
Islam was deliberately spread by the sword. Not empire-building -
religion-building.
I take exption to "true fundamentalist Christians" statement. Thats like
saying all "fill in the blank" are bad. Like any group, a few bad eggs ruin
the soup. Mostly people can't accept that Christians belief things that more
black and white than shades of grey. And people who have different secular
opinions can't accept that. Two different examples, a person cheats on a test,
their justification is that everybody does it. The fact that a significant
percentage of students do it doesn't correct that fact that it is wrong. To a
Christian it's wrong, there is no justification to cheat, cheating is lieing
and that breaks a commandment. Sex for example, a fundamentalist Christian
believes the act homesexuality is a sin, they also believe sex outside of
marriage is a sin, they also believe lusting after another woman is a sin..
They base those beliefs on the Bible. But that same book says all humans are
sinners, there is no difference between the sins. It's just that a Christian
stives to live a life that God wants them to, and that when they sin they
should know its a sin and in their heart be truely sorry for commiting that
sin, and that Christ was crucified to give eternal life to those who believe in
him and seek his help in living a life that pleases him. Virtually no
different than what a parent wants from a child.
GregP wrote:
> On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 02:02:20 +0100, "no spam" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >Here's what I do not understand. There are fundamentalist Muslims who
> >believe that Americans are evil, non-believers, and that they should be
> >killed. These religious zealots see no wrong in killing innocent people in
> >the U.S., Madrid, France, etc.
>
> The US "sees no wrong" in wreaking havoc on Iraqi people
> with killings such the perverted "Shock and Awe." We're
> doing it for their own good. They're nothing but "sand niggers"
> anyway, eh ? I am willing to bet that there are literally millions
> more people in *this* country that think that way than there are
> fundamentalist Muslims in Iraq who think the way you describe.
> Fundamentalists of any religion are bad for human beings and
> other living things.
Ok GregP,
Is there right and wrong? And if so, what is right and wrong based on?
Phil
GregP wrote:
> I said, in the quote you included, "fundamentalists of any religion."
> And your statement confirms, for me, my view, with your claim that
> only Christians understand sin and morality. That's a fundamentalist
> extemism that is matched by your couterparts in other religions, and
> there is very, very little difference between any of you.
>
> On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 16:36:15 -0600, Phil <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >I take exption to "true fundamentalist Christians" statement. Thats like
> >saying all "fill in the blank" are bad. Like any group, a few bad eggs ruin
> >the soup. Mostly people can't accept that Christians belief things that more
> >black and white than shades of grey. And people who have different secular
> >opinions can't accept that. Two different examples, a person cheats on a test,
> >their justification is that everybody does it. The fact that a significant
> >percentage of students do it doesn't correct that fact that it is wrong. To a
> >Christian it's wrong, there is no justification to cheat, cheating is lieing
> >and that breaks a commandment. Sex for example, a fundamentalist Christian
> >believes the act homesexuality is a sin, they also believe sex outside of
> >marriage is a sin, they also believe lusting after another woman is a sin..
> >They base those beliefs on the Bible. But that same book says all humans are
> >sinners, there is no difference between the sins. It's just that a Christian
> >stives to live a life that God wants them to, and that when they sin they
> >should know its a sin and in their heart be truely sorry for commiting that
> >sin, and that Christ was crucified to give eternal life to those who believe in
> >him and seek his help in living a life that pleases him. Virtually no
> >different than what a parent wants from a child.
> >
> >GregP wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 02:02:20 +0100, "no spam" <[email protected]>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> >Here's what I do not understand. There are fundamentalist Muslims who
> >> >believe that Americans are evil, non-believers, and that they should be
> >> >killed. These religious zealots see no wrong in killing innocent people in
> >> >the U.S., Madrid, France, etc.
> >>
> >> The US "sees no wrong" in wreaking havoc on Iraqi people
> >> with killings such the perverted "Shock and Awe." We're
> >> doing it for their own good. They're nothing but "sand niggers"
> >> anyway, eh ? I am willing to bet that there are literally millions
> >> more people in *this* country that think that way than there are
> >> fundamentalist Muslims in Iraq who think the way you describe.
> >> Fundamentalists of any religion are bad for human beings and
> >> other living things.
"Mike Marlow" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Larry Jaques" <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > > >
> > >Lenin didn't care about the people, for example - he wanted power.
> >
> > True, and many millions died learning that the hard way.
> >
> > Nonetheless, all of that was done in the name/under the guise of
> > religion. The outcome, not the intent, is key here.
> >
>
> Lenin - religion?
> --
What else do you call systematized belief? The party had its baptism,
confirmation, confession (no absolution, as we know), and pursued heretics
with a fervor that made Torquemada look a piker.
As far as greatest number killed in support of a belief system - Communism
has it all over any other....
"John Emmons" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> it makes one wonder why they painted those crosses on their tanks...
>
Same reason we use stars, blokes use circles and Japanese the meatball -
distinguish them from their foes.
What fiction would you propose?
Reality has been covered.
"John Emmons" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> hmm....an interesting idea. Not buying it, but it's interesting.
>
> John
>
> "George" <george@least> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> >
> > "John Emmons" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > news:[email protected]...
> > > it makes one wonder why they painted those crosses on their tanks...
> > >
> >
> > Same reason we use stars, blokes use circles and Japanese the meatball -
> > distinguish them from their foes.
> >
> >
>
>
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 15:55:19 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> In contrast, Iraq Body Count, an anti-war site dedicated to putting
>> together an accurate number of those killed estimates that since the
>> war ended between 14,000 and 17,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed
>> by violence.
>
>Iraq Body Count does not refute the Lancet report.
No, and IBC sure doesn't support the Lancet report either. IBC
explictly says that in their statement. In fact you're left with a gap
of more than 5 times between the IBCs more careful, accurate method
and the Lancet's extremely crude estimate. Granted the IBC number is
probably an undercount, but the gap is just about unbridgable.
Now here's a more interesting question: Who's killing all those 14,000
or 100,000 or whatever people? Here IBC did a very good job. They have
a database listing the circumstances surrounding almost all the deaths
they report -- how many were killed, how and where, etc.
Guess what? The vast majority of those killed were killed by the
insurgents. And by vast I mean 90 percent or more, judging by a quick
scan down the last month or so. And note that while this is likely to
be fairly accurate for Iraqis killed by the allies, it is certainly a
vast underestimate for those killed by the insurgents since reports
from insurgent areas are much harder to get.
So the insurgents are the ones killing civilians. Interesting, no?
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
On Thu, 3 Feb 2005 00:34:28 -0800, "ted harris"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>In news:mp <[email protected]> typed:
>> So far the west is ahead, with estimates of more than 100,000 Iraqi
>> civilians killed.
>
>Would you mind providing evidence of that statement?
See previous posts. The number is probably bogus to begin with and
he's mis-applying it to boot. It is an estimate of _total_ war-related
civilian deaths in Iraq since the start of the war and it explictly
doesn't distinguish between those killed by the allies and those
killed by the insurgents.
So far on the evidence the insurgents are way ahead in the civilian
death derby.
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:53:27 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>And this relates to your claim how, exactly? Remember, you claimed that
>>"official Christian doctrine" was the "destruction of unbelievers." Even
>>assuming that the statement above is accurate, it doesn't do a thing to
>>support your claim. Did you even read it before you posted it? In no way is it
>>an instruction to kill unbelievers; it's a declaration that those who are
>>killed *by* unbelievers will obtain remission of their sins.
>
>
> What it says is go out and kill "pagans" to your heart's content
> because your sins before God will be forgiven by this very human
> person.
It manifestly says nothing of the kind. That is _your_interpretation_ of what
you think it means, but that is not what it says. So I ask again: did you read
it before you posted it?
> And a lot of Good Christian Folk did exactly that, in the
> name of God, Jesus, and who knows who else.
No, actually, those who did that were, by definition, _not_ "Good Christian
Folk", as Christianity definitely does not teach, and never did teach, to
commit murders in the name of God. Despite what you think.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
On Thu, 3 Feb 2005 16:55:05 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>You can't tell me after Abu Ghraib that the US and the Brits hold a moral
>>>high ground over the
>>>Iraqis.
>>
>> I am telling you that the US and its allies have commited far, far
>> fewer atrocities than either Saddam or the insurgents and they have at
>> least tried to minimize them. That's plain fact and no amount of
>> waltzing around it brandishing a moral equvalence broom is going to
>> wipe it out.
>
>I don't know what you'd consider an atrocity, but to me that would include
>torture or death. I don't care to draw any distinctions between how a person
>dies. It doesn't matter whether a person has been decapitated (very few in
>number) or blown up by a one tomb bomb. Tens of thousands of dead Iraqi
>civilians, who would otherwise be alive if the US hadn't invaded under false
>pretences, would probably agree with me.
>
Faulty intelligence does not equal false pretenses.
How many more Iraqi civlians would have been killed, tortured, raped,
and/or dismembered in the past two years by Saddam's regime had we not
invaded?
Our country is very fortunate that people holding your views did not have
a voice during WWII -- we'd all be speaking German now if they had since
we'd be trying to understand *why* the Germans, Italians, and Japanese were
behaving as they were rather than concentrating on stopping them.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety
Army General Richard Cody
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
They are not fighting the occupation, most of them are fighting because they
lost the right to rule. The insurgency is 2 pronged, Sunis that can not
accept that the Shiites are now in power and run of the mill terrorists that
are doing this because it is another group of infidels to kill. That they
are Americans are just a huge bonus.
"mp" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>> Now, how many of Saddam's torturers did he put on trial? How many of
>> the insurgents have been tried and executed by their brethren for
>> beheading their victims?
>
> You're assuming the insurgents are the bad guys, and the insurgents are
> assuming the US military, contractors, and collaborators with the US are
> the bad guys. It's simply a matter of perspective depending which side
> you're on. They're fighting the occupation and they have every right to do
> so. If another country invaded and occupied the US you'd probably fight
> back, wouldn't you? Who would be the bad guys then?
>
>> What happened to those prisoners in our hands was dispicable. When
>> Saddam and the insurgents do the same thing it is also dispicable. Are
>> you suggesting then that Saddam and the insurgents should get a pass
>> on moral outrage because we already know they're bad guys?
>
> No, and only an idiot would suggest it.
>
>> And what about the fact that we are at least trying to bring the
>> perpetrators to justice where Saddam and the insurgents either cover
>> up their crimes or boast about them?
>
> That's just plain silly. The prosecution of a few lower level military
> personnel is simply the result of a face saving effort in response to
> world outrage. Without the abuse photos being published no military
> personnel would have been charged.
>
On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 03:43:51 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
wrote:
>On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 21:37:36 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>Ummm, no, I think you missed the point. Someone (you, perhaps?) had cited the
>>atrocities committed by the Nazis as supposed examples of Christian, or
>>Christian-inspired, behavior. rcook was correcting this absurdity by pointing
>>out that the Nazis were very definitely *not* Christian.
>
>
> A lot of them were, whether you like it or not.
Nope.
While some individual Nazis were Christians, Nazi ideology in general
was profoundly anti-Christian. This is especially notable in the Nazis
most directly concerned with with extermination of the Jews --
starting with Himmler and Hitler. The Nazis regarded Christianity as a
Jewish-inspired weakness that sapped the strength of the German
people. See for example:
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/imt/nca/nca-02/nca-02-16-responsibility-07-01-02.html
In case you missed the reference "The Myth of the 20th Century" was
one of the central works of Nazi ideology. So much so that its author,
Alfred Rosenberg, was tried at Nurenberg and hanged.
Of course Hitler purused the same policy toward the Christian church
that he did toward all of his enemies -- divide and conquer and lull
them with promises until the time was right to strike. To see this in
action -- and how it can be misinterpreted by credulous bigots -- see:
http://www.nobeliefs.com/speeches.htm
> And the Nazi
> slaughter of Jews was prepped by anti-Semitic propaganda
> spanning a decade or so. And that was built on centuries of
> anti-Jewish hatreds and actions that at times were fomented by,
> and most of the time condoned by, the prevalent Christian
> hierarchies. To pretend that the Nazis evolved and set forth
> their campaigns in a vacuum isnot too far from pretending that
> they never happened.
And to claim that European anti-Semitism in general was equivalent the
Nazi extermination campaign equally wrong-headed.
At best you're grasping at straws to support an insupportable comment.
At worst your response is a symptom of a deeper problem. In either
case you're verging on parody.
--RC (who is not a Christian)
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit;
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad
-- Suzie B
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 23:27:51 -0700, Mark & Juanita
><[email protected]> wrote:
>> Umm, no. At least as far as fundamentalist Christians -- they want the
>>muslims to be converted, not killed. Killing others for their faith is not
>>part of Christian doctrine.
>
> Not part of the Christian doctrine ??? Christians have killed
> more people because of their supposed faith than any
> adherents of any other religion in the history of the world.
That may or may not be true... but it definitely is *not* part of Christian
doctrine.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 00:49:45 -0600, "Todd Fatheree" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>"Mark & Juanita" <[email protected]> wrote in message > Keep repeating
>the lie often enough, someday somebody may actually
>> believe it. [Hint, you kind of forgot to remove the insurgent deaths
>from
>> the total above].
>
>Kind of like the NYT reporting recently that 36 civilians were killed by
>suicide bombers. What they failed to mention (I'm sure it was an honest
>mistake) was that 8 of the "civilians" were the suicide bombers themselves.
>
>todd
>
Actually if you include the suicide bombers, the number killed during
the elections rises to 44. As was widely reported.
As to the number of civilians killed in Iraq: It's bogus -- or at
least highly unlikely.
The number comes from a report in "Lancet", a British medical journal,
and is derived from a survey of something under 1,000 Iraqi
households. The methodology has been criticised on a number of
grounds, not the least of which is that the authors themselves admit
that 'many' of the deaths may have been combatants. Further, the
number is an extrapolation of the number of 'excess' deaths obtained
by comparing the number of deaths in a 14 month period before the war
with the number of deaths in the 17 months during and after the war.
The total number of deaths reported in the post-invasion sample was
just over 140. From this the researchers derived a death rate and then
applied that to the entire country. Using this derived death rate they
estimated the total number of 'excess' deaths.
In other words, this thing is about as far removed from a hard number
as it is possible to get. It may be a praiseworthy effort, but even
the study's authors say a much more extensive survey is needed.
Note also that by its very nature the report is unable to separate
civilian casualities caused by Allied forces from those caused by the
insurgents. And unlike the US and its allies, the insurgents have a
deliberate policy of killing large number of Iraqi civilians.
In contrast, Iraq Body Count, an anti-war site dedicated to putting
together an accurate number of those killed estimates that since the
war ended between 14,000 and 17,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed
by violence. Again, there is no breakdown on the number killed by the
insurgents and those killed by the Allies. Nor on how many of those
fatalities were in fact insurgents.
(As an aside, based on some of the information on the IBC site, I
suspect they are significantly over-estimating deaths as well. But
that's a suspicion, not hard fact.)
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 23:54:49 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> oh yeah, that's the same as slicing somebody's head off. Except the
>> victim is still alive afterwards. ... and probably gets to go home in the
>> future. Other than that, sure, it's just as bad or worse --yeah, same
>> thing.
>>
>>>and beating to death.
Much relativist nonsense snipped as we watch someone's moral compass
swing aimlessly.
Now, how many of Saddam's torturers did he put on trial? How many of
the insurgents have been tried and executed by their brethren for
beheading their victims?
Where was your moral outrage when Saddam was running rape factories or
dumping victims in mass graves?
What happened to those prisoners in our hands was dispicable. When
Saddam and the insurgents do the same thing it is also dispicable. Are
you suggesting then that Saddam and the insurgents should get a pass
on moral outrage because we already know they're bad guys?
And what about the fact that we are at least trying to bring the
perpetrators to justice where Saddam and the insurgents either cover
up their crimes or boast about them?
Feh! It's arguments like this that make it hard to take you seriously.
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 10:50:50 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>
>>
>>A particularly poor example of moral relativism since the people who
>>masterminded that little escapade were quite explictly anti-Christian.
>>Wade through Rosenberg's "The Myth of the 20th Century" some time.
>
> Great, now we're using a Nazi to defend the behavior of Christians.
>
Ummm, no, I think you missed the point. Someone (you, perhaps?) had cited the
atrocities committed by the Nazis as supposed examples of Christian, or
Christian-inspired, behavior. rcook was correcting this absurdity by pointing
out that the Nazis were very definitely *not* Christian.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 04:42:45 GMT, Rick Cook
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>With pleasure. The original exchange was:
>
>(ME) On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:43:57 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
> >Not part of modern Christian doctrine, no. A thousand years ago the
> >Muslims were the liberal, tolerant folk who really could claim that
> >their religion promoted peace.
> >
> >Amazing how much growing some things can do in a thousand years. And
> >equally amazing how little growing other things do.
>
>(YOU) ... as shown by the concentration camps in Poland in WW II.
>
>So that's the actual truth. In your own words.
That's right. How does that convert to your claim that I
"accuse[d] Christianty of supporting the Holocaust." ????
The fact is that you played the right-wing hate-everyone-but-
christians game that justifies death and carnage to a lot of
untermensche outside of our holy shores and didn't like my
view that no religion is better than any other in promoting
human values.
>> YOU have created "the indefensible." and conveniently ascribed it
>> to me.
>I have repeatedly tried to get you to address your nonsensical statement
>and you have repeatedly tried to change the subject. But yeah, from your
>standpoint I guess that is indefensible.
>
I have addressed what I said but since you didn't *like* what
I said, you pretended otherwise. Just like anti-evolution bible
thumpers.
> Is this how you read your bible ?
>
>For the third time, Greg, I am NOT A CHRISTIAN!
There are very, very few actual christians, so in that respect I
accept your claim. So you've never read the bible ?? I have.
It is a great collection of literature, a combination of sagas,
history filtered through oral tradition, and a fair amount of
propaganda. It would be worth your while to spend some time
with it.
But again, you're so
>blinded by your prejudices and preconceptions you cannot see beyond them
>to the plain words of simple declarative sentences.
>
>--RC
GregP wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 04:42:45 GMT, Rick Cook
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>With pleasure. The original exchange was:
>>
>>(ME) On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:43:57 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>>
>>>Not part of modern Christian doctrine, no. A thousand years ago the
>>>Muslims were the liberal, tolerant folk who really could claim that
>>>their religion promoted peace.
>>>
>>>Amazing how much growing some things can do in a thousand years. And
>>>equally amazing how little growing other things do.
>>
>>(YOU) ... as shown by the concentration camps in Poland in WW II.
>>
>>So that's the actual truth. In your own words.
>
>
> That's right. How does that convert to your claim that I
> "accuse[d] Christianty of supporting the Holocaust." ????
1) Otherwise why did you even mention the concentration camps? The only
reason I -- or apparently anyone else -- can think of was to attack
Christianity.
2) When challenged on the point your defense was to refer to the long
and dishonorable history of anti-Semitism among Christians in Europe
(and elsewhere.) Which is, of course, true, but it does not make
Christians the perpetrators of the Holocaust.
In short you not only said it, but you tried to defend it by changing
the subject to Christian anti-Semitism.
You're simply unwilling to take responsibility for what you said.
> The fact is that you played the right-wing hate-everyone-but-
> christians game that justifies death and carnage to a lot of
> untermensche outside of our holy shores
You're still trying to change the subject. This time by simply making up
stuff.
and didn't like my
> view that no religion is better than any other in promoting
> human values.
This suggests a rather complete ignorance of all religions, not merely
Christianity.
>
>
>
>>> YOU have created "the indefensible." and conveniently ascribed it
>>> to me.
>>
>>I have repeatedly tried to get you to address your nonsensical statement
>>and you have repeatedly tried to change the subject. But yeah, from your
>>standpoint I guess that is indefensible.
>>
>
> I have addressed what I said but since you didn't *like* what
> I said, you pretended otherwise. Just like anti-evolution bible
> thumpers.
Forgive me, but you have not addressed the issue. Like the
anti-evolution Bible thumpers
>
>
>> Is this how you read your bible ?
>>
>>For the third time, Greg, I am NOT A CHRISTIAN!
>
>
> There are very, very few actual christians, so in that respect I
> accept your claim.
For the record, Greg. I am an agnostic.
>So you've never read the bible ?? I have.
> It is a great collection of literature, a combination of sagas,
> history filtered through oral tradition, and a fair amount of
> propaganda. It would be worth your while to spend some time
> with it.
Trying to change the subject again.
For the record I have read the Bible -- also the Koran, the Talmud, the
Analects, many of the Sutras, Gnostic texts and a fair amount of
material relating to less common relgions and world views. I have an
interest in anthropology, comparative religions and how people think
about the world.
It is in keeping with your rather twisted world view to assume that no
one but a Christian -- and yourself -- has read the Bible.
But of course that's irrelevalant to your original -- and indefensible
-- claim.
>
> But again, you're so
>
>>blinded by your prejudices and preconceptions you cannot see beyond them
>>to the plain words of simple declarative sentences.
>>
>>--RC
--RC
>
it makes one wonder why they painted those crosses on their tanks...
John Emmons
"Fletis Humplebacker" <!> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> GregP is an excellent example of what the Nazis did best. Propaganda.
> He uses some basic facts in order to appear credible to the casual
> or uninformed reader, then slips in his opinion as fact to acheive his
> objective. People like this almost never quote a source, in the rare
> case they do it's an op-ed piece by someone who says what they want
> to be true. They never research for themselves because facts are
> unimportant, something to be downplayed rather than investigated.
>
>
>
> http://college3.nytimes.com/guests/articles/2002/01/13/894638.xml
>
> According to Baldur von Schirach, the Nazi leader of the German
> youth corps that would later be known as the Hitler Youth, "the
> destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose
> of the National Socialist movement" from the beginning, though
> "considerations of expedience made it impossible" for the movement
> to adopt this radical stance officially until it had consolidated
> power, the outline says.
>
>
>
>
> http://college3.nytimes.com/guests/articles/2002/01/19/895698.xml
>
> To the Editor:
> Re "The Case Against the Nazis; How Hitler's Forces Planned to Destroy
> German Christianity" (Week in Review, Jan. 13):
>
> I was a lieutenant in the Office of Strategic Services and joined with
Gen.
> William J. Donovan at the Nuremberg trials. My title was chief of the
field
> branch in the Document Division. We maintained document collection
> centers around Europe with staffs of lawyers and investigators.
>
> We sifted through millions of documents to determine which were suitable
> for trial, verifying authenticity and informing the trial lawyers about
our findings.
> The trial strictly followed the rule of law. We also realized that
historians would
> study the transcripts. We did everything to show that this trial was not
one of
> revenge.
>
> We were overwhelmed by the amount of material that proved the German
> planning of the destruction of both Christianity and Judaism.
>
> MARVIN FLISSER
> Monroe Township, N.J., Jan. 14, 2002
>
>
In article <[email protected]>, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>That's just plain silly. The prosecution of a few lower level military
>personnel is simply the result of a face saving effort in response to world
>outrage. Without the abuse photos being published no military personnel
>would have been charged.
You're evidently unaware that the abuses were first made public by the U.S.
Army.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
GregP <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
> On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 00:49:45 -0600, "Todd Fatheree" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>Kind of like the NYT reporting recently that 36 civilians were killed
>>by suicide bombers. What they failed to mention (I'm sure it was an
>>honest mistake) was that 8 of the "civilians" were the suicide bombers
>>themselves.
>
>
> That is not true.
>
There you go again, confusing them with facts.
"Fletis Humplebacker" <!> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
...
> GregP is an excellent example of what the Nazis did best. Propaganda.
...
You may not agree with Greg's point of view, but I have yet to see him
accuse you as an example of Nazism. I think there's a fundamental
difference there.
On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:53:27 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>
>And this relates to your claim how, exactly? Remember, you claimed that
>"official Christian doctrine" was the "destruction of unbelievers." Even
>assuming that the statement above is accurate, it doesn't do a thing to
>support your claim. Did you even read it before you posted it? In no way is it
>an instruction to kill unbelievers; it's a declaration that those who are
>killed *by* unbelievers will obtain remission of their sins.
What it says is go out and kill "pagans" to your heart's content
because your sins before God will be forgiven by this very human
person. And a lot of Good Christian Folk did exactly that, in the
name of God, Jesus, and who knows who else.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:53:27 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>"Attributed to." Cite, please?
>
>
> I gave you the site. You can take it from there,
> or you can ignore it if you wish.
No, you didn't.
I see that you also snipped the part where I pointed out that, even if you've
given that quotation accurately, it still doesn't come anywhere close to
supporting your claim (and thus its accuracy is irrelevant).
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 21:35:24 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>This is an absolute falsehood. "Destruction of non-believers" has *never* been
>>part of Christian doctrine, and I challenge you to cite a source for that
>>claim.
>>
>
> You might want to spend some time on Fordham's web site.
>
> I thought that this statement attributed to Pope Urban II is a bit
> ironic, given the attention payed to promises of 7 virgins, etc:
"Attributed to." Cite, please?
>
> "All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle
> against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins.
> This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested.
> O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships
> demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent
> God and is made glorious with the name of Christ."
And this relates to your claim how, exactly? Remember, you claimed that
"official Christian doctrine" was the "destruction of unbelievers." Even
assuming that the statement above is accurate, it doesn't do a thing to
support your claim. Did you even read it before you posted it? In no way is it
an instruction to kill unbelievers; it's a declaration that those who are
killed *by* unbelievers will obtain remission of their sins.
>
> And, as eye witness accounts testify, the Brave Holy Crusaders
> felt perfectly justified murdering thousands of Jews who they
> happened to encounter along the way.
Whether true or not, that does not in any way support your claim that this was
a part of "official Christian doctrine."
>
>>We certainly don't see that disavowal in the mainstream of Islam. But if you
>>don't see it in the mainstream of Christianity... you haven't been looking.
>
> You're right, I haven't. How about some examples ?
For starters, you might look at the *repeated* condemnations by the
current Pope of violence *everywhere*.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
On Fri, 04 Feb 2005 20:44:25 -0500, the inscrutable gregg
<[email protected]> spake:
>Larry Jaques wrote:
>
>>> Umm, no. At least as far as fundamentalist Christians -- they want the
>>>muslims to be converted, not killed. Killing others for their faith is
>>>not part of Christian doctrine.
>>
>> Uh, can you say "Salem, MA", "Spanish Inquisition" and "Crusades"?
>> I thought you could.
>
>Well, in the case of the Salem witch trials what they really were was a land
>grab scheme. Religion and witchcraft were used as a pretext - as is often
>the case.
>
> One has to learn to discern between the pretexts and the real goals - which
>are usually power:
>
>Lenin didn't care about the people, for example - he wanted power.
True, and many millions died learning that the hard way.
Nonetheless, all of that was done in the name/under the guise of
religion. The outcome, not the intent, is key here.
AFAIC, the world would be a better place without any organized
religions.
--
The clear and present danger of top-posting explored at:
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote2.html
------------------------------------------------------
http://diversify.com Premium Website Development
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 00:49:45 -0600, "Todd Fatheree" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>Kind of like the NYT reporting recently that 36 civilians were killed by
>suicide bombers. What they failed to mention (I'm sure it was an honest
>mistake) was that 8 of the "civilians" were the suicide bombers themselves.
That is not true.
On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 20:53:41 -0700, Mark & Juanita
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Our country is very fortunate that people holding your views did not have
>a voice during WWII -- we'd all be speaking German now if they had since
>we'd be trying to understand *why* the Germans, Italians, and Japanese were
>behaving as they were rather than concentrating on stopping them.
Within the context of your comparison here, we *would*
have been speaking German now because if Roosevelt
behaved like GWB II, FDR would have blamed Peru for
the attack on Pearl Harbor, and then invaded that country
to find all of those hidden fighter bombers he just absolutely
positively knew that were poised to strike NY and LA on
moment's notice.
On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 23:27:51 -0700, Mark & Juanita
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Umm, no. At least as far as fundamentalist Christians -- they want the
>muslims to be converted, not killed. Killing others for their faith is not
>part of Christian doctrine.
Not part of the Christian doctrine ??? Christians have killed
more people because of their supposed faith than any
adherents of any other religion in the history of the world.
Rob Mitchell wrote:
> >
> > How do these threads end up in wood working groups?
> >
> >
> > -- Log
> >
>
> They are tolerated because the thread starts with OT, and your
> newsreader should be able to filter those posts out if you don't want
to
> see them.
I disagree. They are tolerated becuase the people who post OT are
either trolls trying to start a flame war, who are best ignored, and
folks who just can't take a hint and insist on posting here instead
of where they should. Ignoring the latter keeps the level of dischord
here to a minimum.
While it may be true that some newsreaders can filter, it is also
true that EVERY newreader can read groups other than rec.woodworking.
Posting Off-topic with "OT" in the subject line is the Usenet
equivalent
of parking in a fire lane with the blinkers on.
--
FF
Followups
Dave Hinz wrote:
> On 16 Feb 2005 13:44:41 -0800, [email protected]
<[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > While it may be true that some newsreaders can filter, it is also
> > true that EVERY newreader can read groups other than
rec.woodworking.
>
> Some people prefer to argue with a known collection of friends,
> than an unknown assortment of whackos in some random group. Larry
> and I disagree on most things, but he's a known quantity and isn't
> going to send me death threats or something when I tell him he's
wrong.
> Some random person in some .advocacy group? Not such a sure bet.
>
> > Posting Off-topic with "OT" in the subject line is the Usenet
> > equivalent
> > of parking in a fire lane with the blinkers on.
>
> No, because the fire hydrant can't easily avoid the car if it
> wants to. More like a group of guys off in the corner at a party,
> arguing loudly. Once you hear what it's about, you can choose
> not to go over to that corner.
>
If you and Larry want to have a private discussion there is email.
Rec.woodworking cannot easily avoid Off-Topic postings anymore than
a fire truck can avoid a car parked in a fire lane.
The point is that parking in a fire lane and posting OT are both
wrong and turning on the blinkers or putting "OT" in the subject
line do nothing to change that.
--
FF
Followups:
Dave Hinz wrote:
> On 16 Feb 2005 14:27:54 -0800, [email protected]
<[email protected]> wrote:
> > Followups
> >
> > Dave Hinz wrote:
> >>
> >> Some people prefer to argue with a known collection of friends,
> >> than an unknown assortment of whackos in some random group. Larry
> >> and I disagree on most things, but he's a known quantity and isn't
> >> going to send me death threats or something when I tell him he's
> > wrong.
> >> Some random person in some .advocacy group? Not such a sure bet.
> >>
> >> > Posting Off-topic with "OT" in the subject line is the Usenet
> >> > equivalent
> >> > of parking in a fire lane with the blinkers on.
> >>
> >> No, because the fire hydrant can't easily avoid the car if it
> >> wants to. More like a group of guys off in the corner at a party,
> >> arguing loudly. Once you hear what it's about, you can choose
> >> not to go over to that corner.
> >>
> >
> > If you and Larry want to have a private discussion there is email.
>
> I was using Larry as an _example_. I could just as easily have said
> Bob, or Keith, or Paul, or GregP, or whoever.
>
> > Rec.woodworking cannot easily avoid Off-Topic postings anymore than
> > a fire truck can avoid a car parked in a fire lane.
>
> Readers of rec.anything can easily setup an automated filter to
> ignore posts with OT: starting the subject line (or, Re: OT: ).
> Or, you can even ignore it manually.
>
> > The point is that parking in a fire lane and posting OT are both
> > wrong and turning on the blinkers or putting "OT" in the subject
> > line do nothing to change that.
>
> Yeah, because it's _exactly_ like putting someone's life in danger
> by making a fire hydrant inaccessable, is that it?
>
> It's clearly marked. You can easily avoid it. Seems to me that
> someone bitching about something they go out of their way to read,
isn't
> too much unlike someone listening to Howard Stern hoping to hear him
> say something they can then complain to the FCC about.
>
So why are you doing that?
--
FF
Followups:
Dave Hinz wrote:
> On 16 Feb 2005 18:15:40 -0800, [email protected]
<[email protected]> wrote:
> > Followups:
>
> Followups fixed. Again.
> >
> > Dave Hinz wrote:
> >>
> >> Yeah, because it's _exactly_ like putting someone's life in danger
> >> by making a fire hydrant inaccessable, is that it?
> >>
> >> It's clearly marked. You can easily avoid it. Seems to me that
> >> someone bitching about something they go out of their way to read,
> > isn't
> >> too much unlike someone listening to Howard Stern hoping to hear
him
> >> say something they can then complain to the FCC about.
>
> > So why are you doing that?
>
> I'm not, Fred,
First, you are, else you would not have posted the article to
which I am replying.
> because I see it as pointless and as stupid as what
> you're doing - going out of your way to see something you claim not
> to want to see, so you can bitch about it.
Second, if it is pointless, why are you doing it?
Third, I never said I didn't want to see it, I said it doesn't
belong in rec.woodworking.
The UseNet heirarchy was organised the way it is for very good
reasons that are obvious to most. The simplest of rules of
courtesy, that is netiquette, is to respect that organisation.
Ever read Emily Postnews.
I do not recall your position on the topic in the subject
line but I'll guess that you support peopel liek Bush and
CLinton since, like them, you act with utter disdain for
established rules, your argument being that you will do
what ever you can do where 'can' is defined as 'no one
can stop me.'
--
FF
"GregP"
> (Doug Miller)
> wrote:
>
> >
> >Nobody said that Christians were not responsible for it, only that Christian
> >*teaching* was not responsible.
> That little distinction appeared quite recently in these exchanges.
> From my point of view, if I were a black male being eviscerated
> and burned to death with a good church-going crowd in attendance,
> as happened hundreds of times in this country well into the last
> century, I sure as hell wouldn't give a damn whether christian
> teaching was not in concert with many christians' behavior. I
> suspect that you in a similar situation would take a similar view.
The little distinction is all yours. You clearly were putting quite alot of
blame of WW2 attrocities on *Christianity* not some Christians
acting in the wrong. You even went to far as to imply that it layed the
groundwork for it.
You said:
"For centuries most of Europe was dominated by religious states
that condoned, supported, and fomented persecution of jews and
muslims. But folks like you like to pretend that christians were not
responsible.for any of it.
poppycock."
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Doug Miller) wrote:
>In article <[email protected]>, GregP
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:08:51 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>No, you did not. Go back and read what you wrote. There's no URL there. You
>>>referred to "the Fordham site" whatever that is, but you did *not* cite a
>>>site.
>>>
>> I did "cite a site" as you just said.
>
>*Now* I'm going to call you a liar. Look up your post in Google. You most
>certainly did *not* cite a site. You made a vague reference to one. A Google
>search on Fordham turns up some one-point-seven million hits.
>
>> If you don't know what
>> Fordham is, you can ask.
>
>Or you could actually provide the URL; assuming you have one, anyway.
.. and on top of that... the quotation that you claim to have pulled from
whatever site this might have been, doesn't support your ridiculous claims
anyway!
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
On 16 Feb 2005 13:44:41 -0800, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> While it may be true that some newsreaders can filter, it is also
> true that EVERY newreader can read groups other than rec.woodworking.
Some people prefer to argue with a known collection of friends,
than an unknown assortment of whackos in some random group. Larry
and I disagree on most things, but he's a known quantity and isn't
going to send me death threats or something when I tell him he's wrong.
Some random person in some .advocacy group? Not such a sure bet.
> Posting Off-topic with "OT" in the subject line is the Usenet
> equivalent
> of parking in a fire lane with the blinkers on.
No, because the fire hydrant can't easily avoid the car if it
wants to. More like a group of guys off in the corner at a party,
arguing loudly. Once you hear what it's about, you can choose
not to go over to that corner.
Dave Hinz
On 16 Feb 2005 14:27:54 -0800, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
> Followups
>
> Dave Hinz wrote:
>>
>> Some people prefer to argue with a known collection of friends,
>> than an unknown assortment of whackos in some random group. Larry
>> and I disagree on most things, but he's a known quantity and isn't
>> going to send me death threats or something when I tell him he's
> wrong.
>> Some random person in some .advocacy group? Not such a sure bet.
>>
>> > Posting Off-topic with "OT" in the subject line is the Usenet
>> > equivalent
>> > of parking in a fire lane with the blinkers on.
>>
>> No, because the fire hydrant can't easily avoid the car if it
>> wants to. More like a group of guys off in the corner at a party,
>> arguing loudly. Once you hear what it's about, you can choose
>> not to go over to that corner.
>>
>
> If you and Larry want to have a private discussion there is email.
I was using Larry as an _example_. I could just as easily have said
Bob, or Keith, or Paul, or GregP, or whoever.
> Rec.woodworking cannot easily avoid Off-Topic postings anymore than
> a fire truck can avoid a car parked in a fire lane.
Readers of rec.anything can easily setup an automated filter to
ignore posts with OT: starting the subject line (or, Re: OT: ).
Or, you can even ignore it manually.
> The point is that parking in a fire lane and posting OT are both
> wrong and turning on the blinkers or putting "OT" in the subject
> line do nothing to change that.
Yeah, because it's _exactly_ like putting someone's life in danger
by making a fire hydrant inaccessable, is that it?
It's clearly marked. You can easily avoid it. Seems to me that
someone bitching about something they go out of their way to read, isn't
too much unlike someone listening to Howard Stern hoping to hear him
say something they can then complain to the FCC about.
Dave Hinz
On 16 Feb 2005 18:15:40 -0800, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
> Followups:
Followups fixed. Again.
>
> Dave Hinz wrote:
>>
>> Yeah, because it's _exactly_ like putting someone's life in danger
>> by making a fire hydrant inaccessable, is that it?
>>
>> It's clearly marked. You can easily avoid it. Seems to me that
>> someone bitching about something they go out of their way to read,
> isn't
>> too much unlike someone listening to Howard Stern hoping to hear him
>> say something they can then complain to the FCC about.
> So why are you doing that?
I'm not, Fred, because I see it as pointless and as stupid as what
you're doing - going out of your way to see something you claim not
to want to see, so you can bitch about it.
On 17 Feb 2005 10:53:57 -0800, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
> Followups:
Followups fixed, again again, Fred.
> Dave Hinz wrote:
>> On 16 Feb 2005 18:15:40 -0800, [email protected]
><[email protected]> wrote:
>> > Followups:
>>
>> Followups fixed. Again.
>> >
>> > Dave Hinz wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Yeah, because it's _exactly_ like putting someone's life in danger
>> >> by making a fire hydrant inaccessable, is that it?
>> >>
>> >> It's clearly marked. You can easily avoid it. Seems to me that
>> >> someone bitching about something they go out of their way to read,
>> > isn't
>> >> too much unlike someone listening to Howard Stern hoping to hear
> him
>> >> say something they can then complain to the FCC about.
>>
>> > So why are you doing that?
>>
>> I'm not, Fred,
>
> First, you are, else you would not have posted the article to
> which I am replying.
You are the one bitching about people writing in OT posts here,
fred, not me. You have an easy way to avoid it, and you choose
to read them and bitch about them, instead. Oddly enough, you
hypocritically both complain about, and participate in, such
threads.
>> because I see it as pointless and as stupid as what
>> you're doing - going out of your way to see something you claim not
>> to want to see, so you can bitch about it.
>
> Second, if it is pointless, why are you doing it?
My hypocrite detector is overloading.
> Third, I never said I didn't want to see it, I said it doesn't
> belong in rec.woodworking.
Well, lucky for you, it's easy to avoid.
> The UseNet heirarchy was organised the way it is for very good
> reasons that are obvious to most. The simplest of rules of
> courtesy, that is netiquette, is to respect that organisation.
> Ever read Emily Postnews.
Yes, I have. Do you _know_ what the OT: means in the subject
line? Do you think you can dictate a change in the culture of
a group just because you want to get your undies in a bundle
about how the group has evolved?
> I do not recall your position on the topic in the subject
> line but I'll guess that you support peopel liek Bush and
> CLinton
You're right on half of those.
> since, like them, you act with utter disdain for
> established rules,
...but not established norms in this group...
> your argument being that you will do
> what ever you can do where 'can' is defined as 'no one
> can stop me.'
Actually, it's "get a freaking sense of what's important, Fred,
and don't go out of your way to complain about things you have
to go out of your way to read".
"Mark & Juanita" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 17:18:33 GMT, "John Emmons" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >it makes one wonder why they painted those crosses on their tanks...
> >
> >John Emmons
>
> Suspect that was a throw-back to the WWI era, part of the Prussian Eagle
> and Crosses motif
>
> Here are a couple of other reasons, as George indicated, distinguishing
> them from the enemy was one reason:
> http://www.achtungpanzer.com/t34.htm in which the comment is made,
> "Captured T-34/76 was designated by the Germans as Panzerkampfwagen T-34
> 747(r). Large number of T-34/76 tanks was captured and pressed into
service
> contrary to few T-34/85 tanks. T-34/76 was more often captured since from
> 1941 until mid 1943, Germans were still firmly established on the Eastern
> Front, while T-34/85 appeared on the battlefield in the winter of 1943,
> when Germans were already retreating westwards after successful Soviet
> offensives.
SNIP
It has to do with "protections" assured to combatants. They have to be
clearly distinguishable from civilians. Think, but can't find, the accepted
symbols for countries' military were established by the Hague conventions.
Imagine an intercept over Kashmir, where one MiG 21 meets another. Or Iran,
where a US jet or two may still fly.
When I was in Enid, a friend used to talk of how he was rejected for the
RAAF for color blindness - his of the worst type. He was told he could not
distinguish the roundels from meatballs. His retort carried little weight -
" I know _our_ bloody aircraft, you know."
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:08:51 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>No, you did not. Go back and read what you wrote. There's no URL there. You
>>referred to "the Fordham site" whatever that is, but you did *not* cite a
>>site.
>>
> I did "cite a site" as you just said.
*Now* I'm going to call you a liar. Look up your post in Google. You most
certainly did *not* cite a site. You made a vague reference to one. A Google
search on Fordham turns up some one-point-seven million hits.
> If you don't know what
> Fordham is, you can ask.
Or you could actually provide the URL; assuming you have one, anyway.
>>I'll do you the courtesy of assuming that you're simply mistaken, instead of
>>accusing you of lying, while I await your apology.
>
> I do not owe someone playing word games an apology.
Who's playing word games?
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
GregP wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:31:42 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:04:58 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
>>wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:44:04 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Nobody here is pretending that it never happened. You're pretending that the
>>>>actions of the Nazis were somehow predicated on Christian teaching, without a
>>>>shred of evidence (as usual).
>>>
>
> No, I said that the Nazi campaign against Jews was not constructed
> in a vacuum, but originated from long-standing Christian prejudice
> and persecution of Jews.
And this amounts to Christian support or justification for Auschwitz?
That was your original claim.
> Do you honestly believe that the Nazis
> would have been successful at this if such prejudice and persecution
> had never existed ? They also went after gypsies and homosexuals,
> people who were also subject to persecution.
>
>>>For centuries most of Europe was dominated by religious states
>>>that condoned, supported, and fomented persecution of jews and
>>>muslims. But folks like you like to pretend that christians were not
>>>responsible.for any of it.
>>>poppycock.
>>
>>Poppycock indeed.
>>I don't think anyone here would maintain that Christians did not
>>persecute Jews and Muslims at some times and places. I certainly
>>wouldn't.
>>
> We are finally beginning to make some progress !
If you want to construe your recognition that I never said differently,
then yes we are.
Now if
> "some times and places" is advanced to "many times and
> places," we will start to get closer to the truth.
>
Many times and places then. But that doesn't make your original claim
about Auschwitz any more true -- or plausible.
>>But that wasn't your claim. Your claim was that Christians were
>>responsible for the holocaust or, as exemplified by Auschwitz.
>
>
> I did not say that christians were responsible for the holocaust.
Nonsense.
Here's the original exchange:
=====
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:43:57 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>Not part of modern Christian doctrine, no. A thousand years ago the
>Muslims were the liberal, tolerant folk who really could claim that
>their religion promoted peace.
>
>Amazing how much growing some things can do in a thousand years. And
>equally amazing how little growing other things do.
>(YOU SAID):... as shown by the concentration camps in Poland in WW II.
====
You're simply trying to rewrite your personal history rather than admit
you made a stupid remark off the cuff.
>
>>Your predjudices led you to make an utterly insupportable statement
>>and rather than realizing it and retracting --
>
>
> Until this message, *your* prejudices, and those of other
> people, have led you to make utterly unsupportable statements
> without any evidence or even basic logic.
And the citations, the references and the rest of it were -- what?
> What evidence
> have *you* provided, other than to point out that there were
> key Nazis who hated religion > as much as many christians hated Jews (and as many still do) ?
Those 'key Nazis' were the architects of the Holocaust. Which utterly
belies your original claim.
>>or at least ignoring
>>comments on it -- you continue to try to defend it, first by claiming
>>the Nazis were Christians (when their ideology was explictly
>>anti-Christian)
>
>
> I said *many* Nazis. That is a very significant difference
> from *the* Nazis.
Yet as you admit above, the key Nazis were anti-Christian. As I and
others have demonstrated with references, Nazi ideology was explicitly
anti-Christian. So, again, your attempt at a defense fails and your
original claim is again shown to be nonsense.
>
>
>>and then by equating the holocaust with European
>>anti-Semitism in general.
>
>
> I think that you are quite naive or simply in denial that the
> two are independent of each other.
Obviously they are not independent. But your claim is that they were
equal and you can defend your assertion about concentration camps by
reference to European anti-Semitism. That is nonsense.
> But I am glad that you're owning up to the existence of both.
I'm afraid your reading comprehension has been severely impacted by your
prejudices -- or outright fantasies. Where did I ever say anything
different.
You're so eager to condemn a religion you obviously hate that you can't
even think straight on the subject.
>
>>You're just digging yourself in deeper, trying to change the subject
>>and then hoping no one will notice.
>
>
> I believe that the real problem is that you have been modifying
> what I said through some religious defense filter.
Wrong again. As it happens I'm an agnostic.
I suspect your own religious prejudices simply won't let you acknowledge
what you've actually written. Go back and re-read your original post.
>
>>Guess what? We noticed.
>
>
> So have I.
No you haven't. What you've done is substitute some kind of weirdly
filtered mental construct for what you said.
>
>
>>--RC
>>Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit;
>>Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad
>>
>> -- Suzie B
>
--RC
GregP wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 11:32:16 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
> wrote:
>
>
>>Nobody said that Christians were not responsible for it, only that Christian
>>*teaching* was not responsible.
>
>
> That little distinction appeared quite recently in these exchanges.
> From my point of view, if I were a black male being eviscerated
> and burned to death with a good church-going crowd in attendance,
> as happened hundreds of times in this country well into the last
> century, I sure as hell wouldn't give a damn whether christian
> teaching was not in concert with many christians' behavior. I
> suspect that you in a similar situation would take a similar view.
>
>
>>You may have noticed by now that not everyone
>>who calls himself a Christian actually follows Christ's teaching a majority of
>>the time.
>
>
> Really ? I will take it further: it is very rare that you can make
> any assumption about the professed religiosity of a person
> by observing his/her behavior off church/synagogue/mosque
> premises.
>
>
>>>poppycock.
>>
>>The poppycock is all yours in this thread. Assertion upon assertion, none with
>>any foundation whatever. When challenged to back up your claims, you change
>>the subject.
>
>
> I haven't seen a shred of evidence from you backing up yours.
>
None so blind.
You've been presented with more than enough evidence that your original
claim was nonsense. You simply refuse to acknowledge it.
Look Greg, I don't know what your problem is with religion, but it's
obviously so severe it has utterly warped your not merely your judgment,
but your reasoning ability where the subject is concerned.
You remind me of nothing so much than those anti-evolution religious
fanatics that inhabit the paleontology new group.
Which is fine. Hating religion is better than hating people. But in the
future if you intend to post on the subject you'd better include copious
references to back up your claims. Otherwise you'll simply be dismissed
as a kook on the subject.
--RC
I not to step on toes here, but have come to the conclusion that people
intrupert (sp?) things in ways that thier
personal mindsets want. In many cases the he said she said stuf is so
misinterpitated to the point of fighting when
the actual statement when looking at the statement comes out clearly and as
meant. Which negates the ability to fight
logically...
The Christaian dislike for Jews may have allowed the Nazi's to start in,
with some Christians turning thier backs in denial or not caring.
funny how many "Christians" hate thier brothers and sisters so much, which
goes against the bible's teaching. In day to day
living many many "Christians" show hatered for people that made a mistake or
commited a crime and the want to crucify
the person rather then look at the person and not judge but say hey you made
a mistake lets go from here. The Christian and
Jews views differ and are still the same.
How do these threads end up in wood working groups?
-- Log
opinions are like as@#wholes everyone has one including me.... I just try
not to be one :)
"GregP" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:31:42 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:04:58 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:44:04 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Nobody here is pretending that it never happened. You're pretending that
>>>>the
>>>>actions of the Nazis were somehow predicated on Christian teaching,
>>>>without a
>>>>shred of evidence (as usual).
>>>
>
> No, I said that the Nazi campaign against Jews was not constructed
> in a vacuum, but originated from long-standing Christian prejudice
> and persecution of Jews. Do you honestly believe that the Nazis
> would have been successful at this if such prejudice and persecution
> had never existed ? They also went after gypsies and homosexuals,
> people who were also subject to persecution.
>
>>> For centuries most of Europe was dominated by religious states
>>> that condoned, supported, and fomented persecution of jews and
>>> muslims. But folks like you like to pretend that christians were not
>>> responsible.for any of it.
>>>poppycock.
>>
>>Poppycock indeed.
>>I don't think anyone here would maintain that Christians did not
>>persecute Jews and Muslims at some times and places. I certainly
>>wouldn't.
>>
>
> We are finally beginning to make some progress ! Now if
> "some times and places" is advanced to "many times and
> places," we will start to get closer to the truth.
>
>>But that wasn't your claim. Your claim was that Christians were
>>responsible for the holocaust or, as exemplified by Auschwitz.
>
> I did not say that christians were responsible for the holocaust.
>
>>Your predjudices led you to make an utterly insupportable statement
>>and rather than realizing it and retracting --
>
> Until this message, *your* prejudices, and those of other
> people, have led you to make utterly unsupportable statements
> without any evidence or even basic logic. What evidence
> have *you* provided, other than to point out that there were
> key Nazis who hated religion as much as many christians
> hated Jews (and as many still do) ?
>
>>or at least ignoring
>>comments on it -- you continue to try to defend it, first by claiming
>>the Nazis were Christians (when their ideology was explictly
>>anti-Christian)
>
> I said *many* Nazis. That is a very significant difference
> from *the* Nazis.
>
>>and then by equating the holocaust with European
>>anti-Semitism in general.
>
> I think that you are quite naive or simply in denial that the
> two are independent of each other. But I am glad that you're
> owning up to the existence of both.
>>
>>You're just digging yourself in deeper, trying to change the subject
>>and then hoping no one will notice.
>
> I believe that the real problem is that you have been modifying
> what I said through some religious defense filter.
>
>>Guess what? We noticed.
>
> So have I.
>
>
>>--RC
>>Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit;
>>Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad
>>
>> -- Suzie B
>
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 11:32:16 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>Nobody said that Christians were not responsible for it, only that Christian
>>*teaching* was not responsible.
>
> That little distinction appeared quite recently in these exchanges.
> From my point of view, if I were a black male being eviscerated
> and burned to death with a good church-going crowd in attendance,
> as happened hundreds of times in this country well into the last
> century, I sure as hell wouldn't give a damn whether christian
> teaching was not in concert with many christians' behavior. I
> suspect that you in a similar situation would take a similar view.
Beside the point. You made various claims, all false, about what Christianity
supposedly teaches. We've been discussing the inaccuracies of those claims.
All you've come up with so far in support of them has been to point out
various instances in which people whom you allege to be Christian have,
individually or in groups, acted reprehensibly. You have so far utterly failed
to show any connection between their behavior and Christian teaching.
>
>> You may have noticed by now that not everyone
>>who calls himself a Christian actually follows Christ's teaching a majority of
>>the time.
>
> Really ? I will take it further: it is very rare that you can make
> any assumption about the professed religiosity of a person
> by observing his/her behavior off church/synagogue/mosque
> premises.
I'm sorry that your experiences have been so unpleasant. Mine have been very
much the opposite.
>
>>>poppycock.
>>
>>The poppycock is all yours in this thread. Assertion upon assertion, none with
>>any foundation whatever. When challenged to back up your claims, you change
>>the subject.
>
> I haven't seen a shred of evidence from you backing up yours.
I'm sorry, it didn't occur to me that it would be necessary to point out the
Bible as the source of my claims about what Christianity teaches, but since
you asked, here are my sources:
- The Gospels, particularly the Gospel According to St. Matthew
- The Catechism of the Catholic Church
- The Imitation of Christ [Thomas a' Kempis]
- To Know Christ Jesus [Frank Sheed]
Read those through, and you'll have a much better idea of what Christian
teachings really are than you have now.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
Doug Miller wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, Rob Mitchell <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>I've pretty much stopped lurking on this thread because the fact level
>>has dropped pretty low.
>
>
> You're a major contributor to that dropping fact level, starting with your
> post in which you referred to the Soviet puppet government in Afghanistan as
> the "legitimately constituted government of a sovereign nation".
>
>>For those still interested in the subject, there is a book called
>>"Hitler's Pope" which documents the relationship between Catholicism and
>>Nazism during the period.
>
>
> And the fact level continues to drop.That book is well known to have at best a
> passing acquaintance with anything resembling the truth. In an effort to raise
> the fact level a bit in this respect, I offer:
>
> http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0028.html
> http://sycophants.info/piusxii.html
> http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2000/jul2000p9_237.html
>
>
>>My opinion is that the Nazi leadership were not Christians, even if some
>>of them happened to be nominally Protestant, or Catholic or use
>>religious arguments to justify their actions. At one time, the Catholic
>>church in Germany forbade their members from joining the Nazi party, and
>>threatened ex-communication. German Catholic priests actively spoke out
>>against the Nazis. There was even a Catholic political party which
>>actively went against the Nazis. And of course there are examples of
>>true Christian love, in those people that helped Jews to escape
>>persecution.
>
>
> That part you got right at least....
>
>>Unfortunately there are some examples of collaboration as well,
>>especially in the Balkans (against the Orthodox Christians) and in Italy
>>against the Jews.
>
>
> I'm sure you can find examples of collaboration anywhere, but you picked a
> particularly poor one here: the Jewish survival rate in Italy *far* exceeded
> the survival rate anywhere else that the Nazis or their allies were in power.
I didn't claim that there were more Jews killed in Italy than elsewhere.
>
>>The Nazi leadership rounded up millions of innocent people, Communists,
>>Roma, Jews, homosexuals, and handicapped and systematically exterminated
>>them. They may have justified it in many ways, but it would be pretty
>>hard to justify it based on the teachings of Christ.
>
>
> Finally something we agree on.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
>
> Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
> And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
Hey, at least we're back off topic again. Thanks for the references,
I'm always interested in another point of view.
In article <[email protected]>, Rob Mitchell <[email protected]> wrote:
>Doug Miller wrote:
>> In article <[email protected]>, Rob Mitchell
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>Unfortunately there are some examples of collaboration as well,
>>>especially in the Balkans (against the Orthodox Christians) and in Italy
>>>against the Jews.
>>
>> I'm sure you can find examples of collaboration anywhere, but you picked a
>> particularly poor one here: the Jewish survival rate in Italy *far* exceeded
>> the survival rate anywhere else that the Nazis or their allies were in power.
> I didn't claim that there were more Jews killed in Italy than elsewhere.
No, you just cited Italy as an example of "collaboration ... against the
Jews". I'm sure there's a big difference somewhere, but I haven't found it
yet.
My point is that Italy is a poor example of that, as proportionally far
*fewer* Jews were killed in Italy than almost anywhere else.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
"Doug Miller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>, GregP
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 11:32:16 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>Nobody said that Christians were not responsible for it, only that
>>>Christian
>>>*teaching* was not responsible.
>>
>> That little distinction appeared quite recently in these exchanges.
>> From my point of view, if I were a black male being eviscerated
>> and burned to death with a good church-going crowd in attendance,
>> as happened hundreds of times in this country well into the last
>> century, I sure as hell wouldn't give a damn whether christian
>> teaching was not in concert with many christians' behavior. I
>> suspect that you in a similar situation would take a similar view.
>
> Beside the point. You made various claims, all false, about what
> Christianity
> supposedly teaches. We've been discussing the inaccuracies of those
> claims.
> All you've come up with so far in support of them has been to point out
> various instances in which people whom you allege to be Christian have,
> individually or in groups, acted reprehensibly. You have so far utterly
> failed
> to show any connection between their behavior and Christian teaching.
>>
>>> You may have noticed by now that not everyone
>>>who calls himself a Christian actually follows Christ's teaching a
>>>majority of
>>>the time.
>>
>> Really ? I will take it further: it is very rare that you can make
>> any assumption about the professed religiosity of a person
>> by observing his/her behavior off church/synagogue/mosque
>> premises.
>
> I'm sorry that your experiences have been so unpleasant. Mine have been
> very
> much the opposite.
Oh he is soo right here not all but many so called Christian have thier
sunday I believe face on every sunday morning once church is over they
change back to the real people they are much like Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde.
This is factual and seen every sunday at my restaurant which is less then a
block away from a church where many of the parishners come to my place to
eat atfer services and the way they treat my crew and me sometimes blows my
mind.
I don't allow my crew to react the way we all want to for obvios reasons it
a business. How ever we are people and for the most part our opinion is
yeah church is out ready for the jerks?
-- Log
>>
>>>>poppycock.
>>>
>>>The poppycock is all yours in this thread. Assertion upon assertion, none
>>>with
>>>any foundation whatever. When challenged to back up your claims, you
>>>change
>>>the subject.
>>
>> I haven't seen a shred of evidence from you backing up yours.
>
> I'm sorry, it didn't occur to me that it would be necessary to point out
> the
> Bible as the source of my claims about what Christianity teaches, but
> since
> you asked, here are my sources:
> - The Gospels, particularly the Gospel According to St. Matthew
> - The Catechism of the Catholic Church
> - The Imitation of Christ [Thomas a' Kempis]
> - To Know Christ Jesus [Frank Sheed]
> Read those through, and you'll have a much better idea of what Christian
> teachings really are than you have now.
>
> --
> Regards,
> Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
>
> Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
> And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
In article <[email protected]>, Rob Mitchell <[email protected]> wrote:
>I've pretty much stopped lurking on this thread because the fact level
>has dropped pretty low.
You're a major contributor to that dropping fact level, starting with your
post in which you referred to the Soviet puppet government in Afghanistan as
the "legitimately constituted government of a sovereign nation".
>
>For those still interested in the subject, there is a book called
>"Hitler's Pope" which documents the relationship between Catholicism and
>Nazism during the period.
And the fact level continues to drop.That book is well known to have at best a
passing acquaintance with anything resembling the truth. In an effort to raise
the fact level a bit in this respect, I offer:
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0028.html
http://sycophants.info/piusxii.html
http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2000/jul2000p9_237.html
>My opinion is that the Nazi leadership were not Christians, even if some
>of them happened to be nominally Protestant, or Catholic or use
>religious arguments to justify their actions. At one time, the Catholic
>church in Germany forbade their members from joining the Nazi party, and
>threatened ex-communication. German Catholic priests actively spoke out
>against the Nazis. There was even a Catholic political party which
>actively went against the Nazis. And of course there are examples of
>true Christian love, in those people that helped Jews to escape
>persecution.
That part you got right at least....
>
>Unfortunately there are some examples of collaboration as well,
>especially in the Balkans (against the Orthodox Christians) and in Italy
>against the Jews.
I'm sure you can find examples of collaboration anywhere, but you picked a
particularly poor one here: the Jewish survival rate in Italy *far* exceeded
the survival rate anywhere else that the Nazis or their allies were in power.
>
>The Nazi leadership rounded up millions of innocent people, Communists,
>Roma, Jews, homosexuals, and handicapped and systematically exterminated
>them. They may have justified it in many ways, but it would be pretty
>hard to justify it based on the teachings of Christ.
Finally something we agree on.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
"Log" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
> I not to step on toes here, but have come to the conclusion that
> people intrupert (sp?) things in ways that thier
> personal mindsets want. In many cases the he said she said stuf is so
> misinterpitated to the point of fighting when
> the actual statement when looking at the statement comes out clearly
> and as meant. Which negates the ability to fight
> logically...
...
I think your sentiments are exactly right. At least that's the way I read
it, too.
>
> How do these threads end up in wood working groups?
>
>
> -- Log
>
They are tolerated because the thread starts with OT, and your
newsreader should be able to filter those posts out if you don't want to
see them. I find them interesting because woodworkers are pretty
average people, drawn from many walks of life. For the most part the
contributers are reasonable if opinionated, whereas the purely political
groups rapidly turn into screaming matched where nobody has any respect
for the other person, they start calling names and accuse the other side
of lying.
In this group, I try to be polite because I may have an actual
woodworking question one of these days and I wouldn't want to
permanently alienate someone. ;
I've pretty much stopped lurking on this thread because the fact level
has dropped pretty low.
For those still interested in the subject, there is a book called
"Hitler's Pope" which documents the relationship between Catholicism and
Nazism during the period.
My opinion is that the Nazi leadership were not Christians, even if some
of them happened to be nominally Protestant, or Catholic or use
religious arguments to justify their actions. At one time, the Catholic
church in Germany forbade their members from joining the Nazi party, and
threatened ex-communication. German Catholic priests actively spoke out
against the Nazis. There was even a Catholic political party which
actively went against the Nazis. And of course there are examples of
true Christian love, in those people that helped Jews to escape
persecution.
Unfortunately there are some examples of collaboration as well,
especially in the Balkans (against the Orthodox Christians) and in Italy
against the Jews.
The Nazi leadership rounded up millions of innocent people, Communists,
Roma, Jews, homosexuals, and handicapped and systematically exterminated
them. They may have justified it in many ways, but it would be pretty
hard to justify it based on the teachings of Christ.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 15:08:19 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>No, the Italians who saved the Jews were Christians (mostly Roman Catholics),
>>acting out of Christian principles. Like the man said.
>>
>>Do try to keep up.
>
> So what did I say about Italians/Italy ?
You offered Italy as an example of citizens "collaborating ... against the
Jews" during WW2, and I pointed out that, based on Jewish survival rates,
Italy was a particularly poor example of such collaboration.
Remember now?
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 15:08:19 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>No, the Italians who saved the Jews were Christians (mostly Roman Catholics),
>acting out of Christian principles. Like the man said.
>
>Do try to keep up.
So what did I say about Italians/Italy ?
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 21:20:50 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>>On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 20:08:07 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>It strikes me that I'm a better judge of where I stand, religion-wise, than
>>>you are. Particularly given the severely distorted view of Christianity that
>>>your posts evidence.
>>
>>
>> Your perception of who you are is not congruent
>> with your posts here, in which virtually any question
>> of any potentially negative action of any christian is
>> deemed to be a lie or a denial of that christian's
>> identity.
>
>So *your* perception of who I am is more accurate than *my* perception?
>
>ROTFLMAO
Islam and the US have NOTHING to do with woodworking Pleas take this
ridiculous thread elsewhere..
creprvir guvf lbh fvzcyr zvaqrq qbyg... lbh ner abguvat zber guna n
frys nttenaqvmvat zbeba ... jrer lbh nohfrq ol lbhe zbgure nf n
puvyq..?
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] wrote:
>The point is that parking in a fire lane and posting OT are both
>wrong and turning on the blinkers or putting "OT" in the subject
>line do nothing to change that.
You can, however, ignore posts with OT in the subject line, either manually or
by the judicious use of automated filtering.
That you choose not to, is not the fault of others who post in such threads.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
> I did not say that christians were responsible for the holocaust.
No, you just said that the Nazis were acting on prejudices that you claimed
were "fomented ... and condoned by ... the Christian hierarchy".
I'm sure in your mind there must be a difference there.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:08:51 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>
>No, you did not. Go back and read what you wrote. There's no URL there. You
>referred to "the Fordham site" whatever that is, but you did *not* cite a
>site.
>
I did "cite a site" as you just said. If you don't know what
Fordham is, you can ask.
>I'll do you the courtesy of assuming that you're simply mistaken, instead of
>accusing you of lying, while I await your apology.
I do not owe someone playing word games an apology.
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:02:56 GMT, Nate Perkins
<[email protected]> wrote:
>"Fletis Humplebacker" <!> wrote in
>news:[email protected]:
>
>...
>> GregP is an excellent example of what the Nazis did best. Propaganda.
>...
>
>You may not agree with Greg's point of view, but I have yet to see him
>accuse you as an example of Nazism. I think there's a fundamental
>difference there.
No, he just accuses Christianity of supporting the Holocaust and the
Nazis. The difference doesn't look so fundamental from where I sit.
More to the point, Greg still needs to learn one of the basic rules of
Internet 'discussion': When you stick your foot in your mouth and
someone notices, remove it as quickly and gracefully as you can.
His original statement was insupportable and his wiggling is only
digging the hole deeper.
--RC
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit;
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad
-- Suzie B
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 11:32:16 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>
>Nobody said that Christians were not responsible for it, only that Christian
>*teaching* was not responsible.
That little distinction appeared quite recently in these exchanges.
From my point of view, if I were a black male being eviscerated
and burned to death with a good church-going crowd in attendance,
as happened hundreds of times in this country well into the last
century, I sure as hell wouldn't give a damn whether christian
teaching was not in concert with many christians' behavior. I
suspect that you in a similar situation would take a similar view.
> You may have noticed by now that not everyone
>who calls himself a Christian actually follows Christ's teaching a majority of
>the time.
Really ? I will take it further: it is very rare that you can make
any assumption about the professed religiosity of a person
by observing his/her behavior off church/synagogue/mosque
premises.
>>poppycock.
>
>The poppycock is all yours in this thread. Assertion upon assertion, none with
>any foundation whatever. When challenged to back up your claims, you change
>the subject.
I haven't seen a shred of evidence from you backing up yours.
On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 17:18:33 GMT, "John Emmons" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>it makes one wonder why they painted those crosses on their tanks...
>
>John Emmons
Suspect that was a throw-back to the WWI era, part of the Prussian Eagle
and Crosses motif
Here are a couple of other reasons, as George indicated, distinguishing
them from the enemy was one reason:
http://www.achtungpanzer.com/t34.htm in which the comment is made,
"Captured T-34/76 was designated by the Germans as Panzerkampfwagen T-34
747(r). Large number of T-34/76 tanks was captured and pressed into service
contrary to few T-34/85 tanks. T-34/76 was more often captured since from
1941 until mid 1943, Germans were still firmly established on the Eastern
Front, while T-34/85 appeared on the battlefield in the winter of 1943,
when Germans were already retreating westwards after successful Soviet
offensives. Germans were always more than happy to employ as many captured
examples as they could and many served with various units. T-34/76
employment by German formations was not always temporary but sometimes
permanent until the end of the war. First examples of T-34/76 were in
service with 1st, 8th and 11th Panzer Division during the summer of 1941.
Although it was considered to utilize captured T-34/76 tanks dangerous
because many gunners fired on silhouette instead of markings. In order to
prevent such mistakes to take place, crews painted large-dimension crosses
or even swastikas. It was very common to paint a cross or swastika on top
of the turret in order to prevent the Luftwaffe from attacking ... "
>
>"Fletis Humplebacker" <!> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>
>> GregP is an excellent example of what the Nazis did best. Propaganda.
>> He uses some basic facts in order to appear credible to the casual
>> or uninformed reader, then slips in his opinion as fact to acheive his
>> objective. People like this almost never quote a source, in the rare
>> case they do it's an op-ed piece by someone who says what they want
>> to be true. They never research for themselves because facts are
>> unimportant, something to be downplayed rather than investigated.
>>
>>
>>
>> http://college3.nytimes.com/guests/articles/2002/01/13/894638.xml
>>
>> According to Baldur von Schirach, the Nazi leader of the German
>> youth corps that would later be known as the Hitler Youth, "the
>> destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose
>> of the National Socialist movement" from the beginning, though
>> "considerations of expedience made it impossible" for the movement
>> to adopt this radical stance officially until it had consolidated
>> power, the outline says.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> http://college3.nytimes.com/guests/articles/2002/01/19/895698.xml
>>
>> To the Editor:
>> Re "The Case Against the Nazis; How Hitler's Forces Planned to Destroy
>> German Christianity" (Week in Review, Jan. 13):
>>
>> I was a lieutenant in the Office of Strategic Services and joined with
>Gen.
>> William J. Donovan at the Nuremberg trials. My title was chief of the
>field
>> branch in the Document Division. We maintained document collection
>> centers around Europe with staffs of lawyers and investigators.
>>
>> We sifted through millions of documents to determine which were suitable
>> for trial, verifying authenticity and informing the trial lawyers about
>our findings.
>> The trial strictly followed the rule of law. We also realized that
>historians would
>> study the transcripts. We did everything to show that this trial was not
>one of
>> revenge.
>>
>> We were overwhelmed by the amount of material that proved the German
>> planning of the destruction of both Christianity and Judaism.
>>
>> MARVIN FLISSER
>> Monroe Township, N.J., Jan. 14, 2002
>>
>>
>
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety
Army General Richard Cody
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:31:42 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:04:58 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
>wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:44:04 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>Nobody here is pretending that it never happened. You're pretending that the
>>>actions of the Nazis were somehow predicated on Christian teaching, without a
>>>shred of evidence (as usual).
>>
No, I said that the Nazi campaign against Jews was not constructed
in a vacuum, but originated from long-standing Christian prejudice
and persecution of Jews. Do you honestly believe that the Nazis
would have been successful at this if such prejudice and persecution
had never existed ? They also went after gypsies and homosexuals,
people who were also subject to persecution.
>> For centuries most of Europe was dominated by religious states
>> that condoned, supported, and fomented persecution of jews and
>> muslims. But folks like you like to pretend that christians were not
>> responsible.for any of it.
>>poppycock.
>
>Poppycock indeed.
>I don't think anyone here would maintain that Christians did not
>persecute Jews and Muslims at some times and places. I certainly
>wouldn't.
>
We are finally beginning to make some progress ! Now if
"some times and places" is advanced to "many times and
places," we will start to get closer to the truth.
>But that wasn't your claim. Your claim was that Christians were
>responsible for the holocaust or, as exemplified by Auschwitz.
I did not say that christians were responsible for the holocaust.
>Your predjudices led you to make an utterly insupportable statement
>and rather than realizing it and retracting --
Until this message, *your* prejudices, and those of other
people, have led you to make utterly unsupportable statements
without any evidence or even basic logic. What evidence
have *you* provided, other than to point out that there were
key Nazis who hated religion as much as many christians
hated Jews (and as many still do) ?
>or at least ignoring
>comments on it -- you continue to try to defend it, first by claiming
>the Nazis were Christians (when their ideology was explictly
>anti-Christian)
I said *many* Nazis. That is a very significant difference
from *the* Nazis.
>and then by equating the holocaust with European
>anti-Semitism in general.
I think that you are quite naive or simply in denial that the
two are independent of each other. But I am glad that you're
owning up to the existence of both.
>
>You're just digging yourself in deeper, trying to change the subject
>and then hoping no one will notice.
I believe that the real problem is that you have been modifying
what I said through some religious defense filter.
>Guess what? We noticed.
So have I.
>--RC
>Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit;
>Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad
>
> -- Suzie B
GregP wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 01:32:21 GMT, Rick Cook
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >>
> >Ah, but a large percentage of those people were Christians acting
out of
> >Christian principles. If you're an anti-Christian bigot like Greg
you
> >can't admit that.
>
> So what were the Italians ? Muslims ??
Catholics and Jews, mostly the former.
I am reminded of the friend of a friend, a teacher, who many years
ago lost her job as a teacher in a public school down South
because the administration found that she had lied about her
religion on her application. She had indicated she was Christian,
but in reality she was Catholic.
Then there was the friend who told me he came home from school
one day and found his mother in tears because a Mexican family
had moved in next door. His mother was not upset that they
were Mexican, she was upset that they were Catholic. Ten
years later, he came home and again she was in tears. This
time it was because the family, including the mother who was
now her best friend, was moving away.
--
FF
On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 01:32:21 GMT, Rick Cook
<[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>Ah, but a large percentage of those people were Christians acting out of
>Christian principles. If you're an anti-Christian bigot like Greg you
>can't admit that.
So what were the Italians ? Muslims ??
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 20:08:07 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>
>It strikes me that I'm a better judge of where I stand, religion-wise, than
>you are. Particularly given the severely distorted view of Christianity that
>your posts evidence.
Your perception of who you are is not congruent
with your posts here, in which virtually any question
of any potentially negative action of any christian is
deemed to be a lie or a denial of that christian's
identity.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 20:08:07 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>It strikes me that I'm a better judge of where I stand, religion-wise, than
>>you are. Particularly given the severely distorted view of Christianity that
>>your posts evidence.
>
>
> Your perception of who you are is not congruent
> with your posts here, in which virtually any question
> of any potentially negative action of any christian is
> deemed to be a lie or a denial of that christian's
> identity.
So *your* perception of who I am is more accurate than *my* perception?
ROTFLMAO
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 01:32:21 GMT, Rick Cook
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>>
>>Ah, but a large percentage of those people were Christians acting out of
>>Christian principles. If you're an anti-Christian bigot like Greg you
>>can't admit that.
>
> So what were the Italians ? Muslims ??
>
No, the Italians who saved the Jews were Christians (mostly Roman Catholics),
acting out of Christian principles. Like the man said.
Do try to keep up.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 17:15:01 -0500, "George" <george@least> wrote:
>
>Not now, though I still remember my college years prior to Vatican II when
>the weekly "Religious Bulletin" they stuffed under the doors every Thursday
>divided the world into "Catholic" and "Pagan."
And it's Catholic bishops, many of whom are guilty
of aiding and abetting felonious behavior, who
attempt to demonize individuals who do not abide
by their beliefs in the matters of abortion and sexual
preference.
In article <[email protected]>, novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com wrote:
>On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 23:27:51 -0700, the inscrutable Mark & Juanita
><[email protected]> spake:
>>
>> Umm, no. At least as far as fundamentalist Christians -- they want the
>>muslims to be converted, not killed. Killing others for their faith is not
>>part of Christian doctrine.
>
>Uh, can you say "Salem, MA", "Spanish Inquisition" and "Crusades"?
>I thought you could.
What part of Christian doctrine approved those? Cite examples. Be specific.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
I said, in the quote you included, "fundamentalists of any religion."
And your statement confirms, for me, my view, with your claim that
only Christians understand sin and morality. That's a fundamentalist
extemism that is matched by your couterparts in other religions, and
there is very, very little difference between any of you.
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 16:36:15 -0600, Phil <[email protected]> wrote:
>I take exption to "true fundamentalist Christians" statement. Thats like
>saying all "fill in the blank" are bad. Like any group, a few bad eggs ruin
>the soup. Mostly people can't accept that Christians belief things that more
>black and white than shades of grey. And people who have different secular
>opinions can't accept that. Two different examples, a person cheats on a test,
>their justification is that everybody does it. The fact that a significant
>percentage of students do it doesn't correct that fact that it is wrong. To a
>Christian it's wrong, there is no justification to cheat, cheating is lieing
>and that breaks a commandment. Sex for example, a fundamentalist Christian
>believes the act homesexuality is a sin, they also believe sex outside of
>marriage is a sin, they also believe lusting after another woman is a sin..
>They base those beliefs on the Bible. But that same book says all humans are
>sinners, there is no difference between the sins. It's just that a Christian
>stives to live a life that God wants them to, and that when they sin they
>should know its a sin and in their heart be truely sorry for commiting that
>sin, and that Christ was crucified to give eternal life to those who believe in
>him and seek his help in living a life that pleases him. Virtually no
>different than what a parent wants from a child.
>
>GregP wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 02:02:20 +0100, "no spam" <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Here's what I do not understand. There are fundamentalist Muslims who
>> >believe that Americans are evil, non-believers, and that they should be
>> >killed. These religious zealots see no wrong in killing innocent people in
>> >the U.S., Madrid, France, etc.
>>
>> The US "sees no wrong" in wreaking havoc on Iraqi people
>> with killings such the perverted "Shock and Awe." We're
>> doing it for their own good. They're nothing but "sand niggers"
>> anyway, eh ? I am willing to bet that there are literally millions
>> more people in *this* country that think that way than there are
>> fundamentalist Muslims in Iraq who think the way you describe.
>> Fundamentalists of any religion are bad for human beings and
>> other living things.
On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 20:33:00 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Here's what I do not understand. There are fundamentalist Muslims who
>> believe that Americans are evil, non-believers, and that they should be
>> killed.
>
>And there are fundamentalist Americans (both Christian and Jewish) who
>believe Muslims are evil, non-believers, and that they should be killed. So
>what? No one group of religious extremists has a monopoly on hate.
Umm, no. At least as far as fundamentalist Christians -- they want the
muslims to be converted, not killed. Killing others for their faith is not
part of Christian doctrine.
>
>> Specifically, I do not understand why there are no Americans doing the
>> same
>> thing to Muslims? Why aren't there radical Americans going out and blowing
>> up mosques full of innocent people?
>
>All you need to do is look at Iraq. No shortage there of Americans killing
>Muslims. Plenty have been blown up.
>
... and who can argue with this kind of twisted logic?
>> Why aren't there groups of radical
>> Americans dismembering Muslim captives and sending the video to television
>> stations worldwide?
>
>That's because the Americans and Brits have different methods. Instead of
>beheading or shooting a captive, they prefer torture, sexual humiliation,
oh yeah, that's the same as slicing somebody's head off. Except the
victim is still alive afterwards. ... and probably gets to go home in the
future. Other than that, sure, it's just as bad or worse --yeah, same
thing.
>and beating to death.
... and this happened how often? ... and it was a matter of policy when?
... and the perpetrators were not prosecuted, when?
> Some even took photos which have been published
>worldwide. Different methods, same result.
>
Yeah, same result, except of course, the victims are still alive.
>The taking of a human life is appalling, no matter which side commits the
>crime. So far the west is ahead, with estimates of more than 100,000 Iraqi
>civilians killed.
>
>
Keep repeating the lie often enough, someday somebody may actually
believe it. [Hint, you kind of forgot to remove the insurgent deaths from
the total above].
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The absence of accidents does not mean the presence of safety
Army General Richard Cody
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:04:58 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
wrote:
>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:44:04 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>Nobody here is pretending that it never happened. You're pretending that the
>>actions of the Nazis were somehow predicated on Christian teaching, without a
>>shred of evidence (as usual).
>
> For centuries most of Europe was dominated by religious states
> that condoned, supported, and fomented persecution of jews and
> muslims. But folks like you like to pretend that christians were not
> responsible.for any of it.
>poppycock.
Poppycock indeed.
I don't think anyone here would maintain that Christians did not
persecute Jews and Muslims at some times and places. I certainly
wouldn't.
But that wasn't your claim. Your claim was that Christians were
responsible for the holocaust or, as exemplified by Auschwitz.
Your predjudices led you to make an utterly insupportable statement
and rather than realizing it and retracting -- or at least ignoring
comments on it -- you continue to try to defend it, first by claiming
the Nazis were Christians (when their ideology was explictly
anti-Christian) and then by equating the holocaust with European
anti-Semitism in general.
You're just digging yourself in deeper, trying to change the subject
and then hoping no one will notice.
Guess what? We noticed.
--RC
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit;
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad
-- Suzie B
On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 01:28:39 GMT, Rick Cook
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> You're right: I mixed them up and who's king the myth of the
>> yellow star came from.
>
>Greg, that star is called the "Mogen David" (the Shield of David) -- it
>is an ancient symbol of Judaism which originated with the Jews.
>
>Once again your ignorance and bigotry is showing.
What the hell does this verbal masturbation have to do
with King Christian of Denmark, the subject here ?
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 21:35:24 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>
>This is an absolute falsehood. "Destruction of non-believers" has *never* been
>part of Christian doctrine, and I challenge you to cite a source for that
>claim.
>
You might want to spend some time on Fordham's web site.
I thought that this statement attributed to Pope Urban II is a bit
ironic, given the attention payed to promises of 7 virgins, etc:
"All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle
against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins.
This I grant them through the power of God with which I am invested.
O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships
demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent
God and is made glorious with the name of Christ."
And, as eye witness accounts testify, the Brave Holy Crusaders
felt perfectly justified murdering thousands of Jews who they
happened to encounter along the way.
>We certainly don't see that disavowal in the mainstream of Islam. But if you
>don't see it in the mainstream of Christianity... you haven't been looking.
You're right, I haven't. How about some examples ?
"Larry Jaques" <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> > >
> >Lenin didn't care about the people, for example - he wanted power.
>
> True, and many millions died learning that the hard way.
>
> Nonetheless, all of that was done in the name/under the guise of
> religion. The outcome, not the intent, is key here.
>
Lenin - religion?
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:46:53 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
wrote:
>On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 10:50:50 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>
>>
>>A particularly poor example of moral relativism since the people who
>>masterminded that little escapade were quite explictly anti-Christian.
>>Wade through Rosenberg's "The Myth of the 20th Century" some time.
>
> Great, now we're using a Nazi to defend the behavior of Christians.
You got it backwards. Others were using the actions of Nazis like
Himmler, who were explictly anti-Christian, to attack Christians.
--RC
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit;
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad
-- Suzie B
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:43:57 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>
>Not part of modern Christian doctrine, no. A thousand years ago the
>Muslims were the liberal, tolerant folk who really could claim that
>their religion promoted peace.
>
>Amazing how much growing some things can do in a thousand years. And
>equally amazing how little growing other things do.
... as shown by the concentration camps in Poland in WW II.
"GregP"
> , "Fletis Humplebacker"
>
> >
> >The little distinction is all yours. You clearly were putting quite alot of
> >blame of WW2 attrocities on *Christianity* not some Christians
> >acting in the wrong. You even went to far as to imply that it layed the
> >groundwork for it.
> >
>
> It did.
No, 'it' didn't. The Catholic hierarchy did not and has never
represented all of Christianity. Furthermore, one can say you
are laying the groundwork for Christian persecution if we are
you use your logic. But accuracy obviously isn't your goal.
> >You said:
> >"For centuries most of Europe was dominated by religious states
> > that condoned, supported, and fomented persecution of jews and
> > muslims. But folks like you like to pretend that christians were not
> > responsible.for any of it.
> > poppycock."
> Good. Are you claiming that this is not true ? And if not,
> what do *you* have that disproves it ?
You never bothered to support it. I don't bother with baseless
opinions.
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 22:59:15 GMT, Rick Cook
<[email protected]> wrote:
>GregP wrote:
>> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:31:42 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:04:58 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:44:04 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Nobody here is pretending that it never happened. You're pretending that the
>>>>>actions of the Nazis were somehow predicated on Christian teaching, without a
>>>>>shred of evidence (as usual).
>>>>
>>
>> No, I said that the Nazi campaign against Jews was not constructed
>> in a vacuum, but originated from long-standing Christian prejudice
>> and persecution of Jews.
>
>And this amounts to Christian support or justification for Auschwitz?
>That was your original claim.
>
It is *your* claim, not mine.
>
>>>But that wasn't your claim. Your claim was that Christians were
>>>responsible for the holocaust or, as exemplified by Auschwitz.
>>
>>
>> I did not say that christians were responsible for the holocaust.
>
>Nonsense.
>Here's the original exchange:
>=====
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:43:57 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>
> >Not part of modern Christian doctrine, no. A thousand years ago the
> >Muslims were the liberal, tolerant folk who really could claim that
> >their religion promoted peace.
> >
> >Amazing how much growing some things can do in a thousand years. And
> >equally amazing how little growing other things do.
>
> >(YOU SAID):... as shown by the concentration camps in Poland in WW II.
>====
>
That's right: 1,000 years after Europe, dominated by christians -
after they killed and/or drove out all of the muslim Moors, that is -
we ended up with the holocaust. And you call that "growth ?????"
In what way did the influence of christianity produce any more
"liberal, tolerant folk who really could claim their religion
promoted peace," when a continent controlled by christians
was embroiled in almost endless internal wars for a thousand
years, culminating in the wonderfully "liberal, tolerant" WWII ??
Your primitive hatred for Muslims comes through loud and
clear.
>
>You're simply trying to rewrite your personal history rather than admit
>you made a stupid remark off the cuff.
After the "stupid remark [you made] off the cuff" above, I can see
why you would try to transfer the idiocy onto me.
>>>Your predjudices led you to make an utterly insupportable statement
>>>and rather than realizing it and retracting --
You need to replace "My" for "Your" and "me" for you. But
you went one step further: not only did you fail to retract,
you made me your scapegoat. Hmmm...sounds familiar...
>
>> What evidence
>> have *you* provided, other than to point out that there were
>> key Nazis who hated religion > as much as many christians hated Jews (and as many still do) ?
>
>Those 'key Nazis' were the architects of the Holocaust.
Not really, but it is oh so nice and simple if you want
it to be, eh ?
>
>Yet as you admit above, the key Nazis were anti-Christian. As I and
>others have demonstrated with references, Nazi ideology was explicitly
>anti-Christian. So, again, your attempt at a defense fails and your
>original claim is again shown to be nonsense.
But "Nazi ideology" played on the prejudices of christians,
plain and simple.
On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 15:16:14 -0800, "Fletis Humplebacker" <!> wrote:
>
>The little distinction is all yours. You clearly were putting quite alot of
>blame of WW2 attrocities on *Christianity* not some Christians
>acting in the wrong. You even went to far as to imply that it layed the
>groundwork for it.
>
It did.
>You said:
>"For centuries most of Europe was dominated by religious states
> that condoned, supported, and fomented persecution of jews and
> muslims. But folks like you like to pretend that christians were not
> responsible.for any of it.
> poppycock."
Good. Are you claiming that this is not true ? And if not,
what do *you* have that disproves it ?
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 01:08:32 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>In article <[email protected]>, GregP
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> I did not say that christians were responsible for the holocaust.
>>
>>No, you just said that the Nazis were acting on prejudices that you claimed
>>were "fomented ... and condoned by ... the Christian hierarchy".
>
> No, I said that they took advantage of prejudices
>"fomented ... and condoned by ... the Christian hierarchy".
What is the difference between "acting on prejudices" and "took advantage of
prejudices"? Either way, it's tantamount to blaming Christians for the
Holocaust.
>>I'm sure in your mind there must be a difference there.
>
> The former is your statement, the latter is mine.
I can't see any other differences either. From here, they both look the same.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 01:08:32 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I did not say that christians were responsible for the holocaust.
>
>No, you just said that the Nazis were acting on prejudices that you claimed
>were "fomented ... and condoned by ... the Christian hierarchy".
No, I said that they took advantage of prejudices
"fomented ... and condoned by ... the Christian hierarchy".
>I'm sure in your mind there must be a difference there.
The former is your statement, the latter is mine.
On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 01:08:32 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I did not say that christians were responsible for the holocaust.
>
>No, you just said that the Nazis were acting on prejudices that you claimed
>were "fomented ... and condoned by ... the Christian hierarchy".
No, I said that they took advantage of prejudices
"fomented ... and condoned by ... the Christian hierarchy".
>I'm sure in your mind there must be a difference there.
The former is your statement, the latter is mine.
GregP wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 22:59:15 GMT, Rick Cook
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>GregP wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:31:42 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 23:04:58 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
>>>>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 12:44:04 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>>>>>wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Nobody here is pretending that it never happened. You're pretending that the
>>>>>>actions of the Nazis were somehow predicated on Christian teaching, without a
>>>>>>shred of evidence (as usual).
>>>>>
>>> No, I said that the Nazi campaign against Jews was not constructed
>>> in a vacuum, but originated from long-standing Christian prejudice
>>> and persecution of Jews.
>>
>>And this amounts to Christian support or justification for Auschwitz?
>>That was your original claim.
>>
>
>
> It is *your* claim, not mine.
Then why did you introduce the concentration camps into the discussion?
What was your purpose if not to blame the Christians for the Nazi action
in setting up and running them?
>>>>But that wasn't your claim. Your claim was that Christians were
>>>>responsible for the holocaust or, as exemplified by Auschwitz.
>>>
>>>
>>> I did not say that christians were responsible for the holocaust.
>>
>>Nonsense.
>>Here's the original exchange:
>>=====
>>On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:43:57 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Not part of modern Christian doctrine, no. A thousand years ago the
>>>Muslims were the liberal, tolerant folk who really could claim that
>>>their religion promoted peace.
>>>
>>>Amazing how much growing some things can do in a thousand years. And
>>>equally amazing how little growing other things do.
>>
>>>(YOU SAID):... as shown by the concentration camps in Poland in WW II.
>>
>>====
> That's right: 1,000 years after Europe, dominated by christians -
> after they killed and/or drove out all of the muslim Moors, that is -
> we ended up with the holocaust. And you call that "growth ?????"
So you are blaming the Christians for the Holocaust. Thank you for
finally admitting it.
> In what way did the influence of christianity produce any more
> "liberal, tolerant folk who really could claim their religion
> promoted peace," when a continent controlled by christians
> was embroiled in almost endless internal wars for a thousand
> years, culminating in the wonderfully "liberal, tolerant" WWII ??
> Your primitive hatred for Muslims comes through loud and
> clear.
Wrong again. I greatly admire Islamic culture for the things it produced
and the things it transmitted. A thousand years ago it was one of the
most liberal, enlightened cultures on Earth. But it hasn't moved much
since then and other cultures have.
Meanwhile you're still trying to avoid the consequences of a stupid,
thoughtless remark.
>>You're simply trying to rewrite your personal history rather than admit
>>you made a stupid remark off the cuff.
>
>
> After the "stupid remark [you made] off the cuff" above, I can see
> why you would try to transfer the idiocy onto me.
You really can't accept responsibility for your actions, can you? You
have to put them off on others. Fascinating.
>
>>>>Your predjudices led you to make an utterly insupportable statement
>>>>and rather than realizing it and retracting --
>
>
> You need to replace "My" for "Your" and "me" for you. But
> you went one step further: not only did you fail to retract,
> you made me your scapegoat. Hmmm...sounds familiar...
Once again, you're the one who introduced the subject of concentration
camps to the discussion, touching off this whole exchange. And once
again you try to avoid responsibility for what you have said.
>
>>> What evidence
>>> have *you* provided, other than to point out that there were
>>> key Nazis who hated religion > as much as many christians hated Jews (and as many still do) ?
>>
>>Those 'key Nazis' were the architects of the Holocaust.
>
> Not really, but it is oh so nice and simple if you want
> it to be, eh ?
So you're claiming that people like Hitler, Himmler and Rosenberg were
not the architects of the Holocaust.
Proof? Evidence? Cites? Or are you simply a Holocaust denier?
>
>>Yet as you admit above, the key Nazis were anti-Christian. As I and
>>others have demonstrated with references, Nazi ideology was explicitly
>>anti-Christian. So, again, your attempt at a defense fails and your
>>original claim is again shown to be nonsense.
>
>
> But "Nazi ideology" played on the prejudices of christians,
> plain and simple.
>
Wrong again, both factually and logically. First, Nazism's ideology, and
the principal Nazis involved in the Holocaust, were anti-Christian, as
has been repeatedly demonstrated. Second, 'playing on the prejudices' of
Christians is a long way from Christians architecting the holocaust. In
anyone else the logical disconnect would be staggering.
--RC (who hopes that everyone who isn't intensely interesting in this
sort of thing has long since killfiled this thread.)
On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 10:50:50 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>
>A particularly poor example of moral relativism since the people who
>masterminded that little escapade were quite explictly anti-Christian.
>Wade through Rosenberg's "The Myth of the 20th Century" some time.
Great, now we're using a Nazi to defend the behavior of Christians.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:20:06 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>I'm sure you can find examples of collaboration anywhere, but you picked a
>>particularly poor one here: the Jewish survival rate in Italy *far* exceeded
>>the survival rate anywhere else that the Nazis or their allies were in power.
>>>
> Holland.
>
Huh?
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
In article <1108768018.f28600c123cbe07bf48f26cf1a88e6ea@teranews>, Abe Normranson <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>honestly, Abe
>
>plaid wooddoctor and bon vivant
<sigh> another one for the killfile....
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
"GregP" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:20:06 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
> wrote:
>
> >
> >I'm sure you can find examples of collaboration anywhere, but you picked
a
> >particularly poor one here: the Jewish survival rate in Italy *far*
exceeded
> >the survival rate anywhere else that the Nazis or their allies were in
power.
> >>
>
>
> Holland.
>
Denmark.
"Doug Miller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>, GregP
<[email protected]> wrote:
> >On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:20:06 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
> >wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>I'm sure you can find examples of collaboration anywhere, but you picked
a
> >>particularly poor one here: the Jewish survival rate in Italy *far*
exceeded
> >>the survival rate anywhere else that the Nazis or their allies were in
power.
> >>>
> > Holland.
> >
> Huh?
He implied that the Jews of Holland suffered less than those of Italy.
I corrected both by noting the effort of the Danes.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 17:46:58 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>Huh? Dogma and beliefs, fundamentalist or otherwise, were never under
>>discussion. And, for the record, I'm not a "fundamentalist" of any sort.
>>>
>
> Well, I think you are.
Think what you want. You're wrong. As usual.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 17:46:58 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>Huh? Dogma and beliefs, fundamentalist or otherwise, were never under
>discussion. And, for the record, I'm not a "fundamentalist" of any sort.
>>
Well, I think you are.
>> And I then looked this up, found a site that I cited (since you
>> obviously are incapable of doing such things for yourself)
>> and stated that you were right. So what's the frothing about
>> now ?
>
>Whaaaaaat?
On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 13:15:56 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
wrote:
> You're right: I mixed them up and who's king the myth of the
> yellow star came from. But as far as this grizzly statistic goes,
> Doug is right if you look at countries with the more significant
> populations of Jews, at least according to this source:
>
> http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/HolocaustAppendices.html
On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 00:20:06 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>
>I'm sure you can find examples of collaboration anywhere, but you picked a
>particularly poor one here: the Jewish survival rate in Italy *far* exceeded
>the survival rate anywhere else that the Nazis or their allies were in power.
>>
Holland.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 21:07:56 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>You offered Italy as an example of citizens "collaborating ... against the
>>Jews" during WW2, and I pointed out that, based on Jewish survival rates,
>>Italy was a particularly poor example of such collaboration.
>>
>>Remember now?
>
> What I remember is that I said no such thing and that I am the
> second person you are accusing of that statement.
I apologize. It wasn't you, it was Rob Mitchell. With two habitual
bullshitters posting in the same thread, sometimes it's hard to tell them
apart.
> And of
> course you twisted the original quote by the original poster.
> First, he said "some collaboration." Secondly, he gave an
> example of such collaboration against christians in one case
> and jews in another.
The exact words of the post were:
>>>Unfortunately there are some examples of collaboration as well,
>>>especially in the Balkans (against the Orthodox Christians) and in Italy
>>>against the Jews.
>But a religious extremist such as you cannot
> tolerate any dissension from your dogma and twisted this into an
> attack on your fundamentalist beliefs.
Huh? Dogma and beliefs, fundamentalist or otherwise, were never under
discussion. And, for the record, I'm not a "fundamentalist" of any sort.
>
> And I then looked this up, found a site that I cited (since you
> obviously are incapable of doing such things for yourself)
> and stated that you were right. So what's the frothing about
> now ?
Whaaaaaat?
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 21:07:56 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>
>You offered Italy as an example of citizens "collaborating ... against the
>Jews" during WW2, and I pointed out that, based on Jewish survival rates,
>Italy was a particularly poor example of such collaboration.
>
>Remember now?
What I remember is that I said no such thing and that I am the
second person you are accusing of that statement. And of
course you twisted the original quote by the original poster.
First, he said "some collaboration." Secondly, he gave an
example of such collaboration against christians in one case
and jews in another. But a religious extremist such as you cannot
tolerate any dissension from your dogma and twisted this into an
attack on your fundamentalist beliefs.
And I then looked this up, found a site that I cited (since you
obviously are incapable of doing such things for yourself)
and stated that you were right. So what's the frothing about
now ?
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 21:10:48 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
wrote:
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:43:57 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>
>>
>>Not part of modern Christian doctrine, no. A thousand years ago the
>>Muslims were the liberal, tolerant folk who really could claim that
>>their religion promoted peace.
>>
>>Amazing how much growing some things can do in a thousand years. And
>>equally amazing how little growing other things do.
>
>... as shown by the concentration camps in Poland in WW II.
As shown by the Christian world's reaction to them when we found about
them.
A particularly poor example of moral relativism since the people who
masterminded that little escapade were quite explictly anti-Christian.
Wade through Rosenberg's "The Myth of the 20th Century" some time.
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 22:20:34 GMT, Rick Cook
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>Perhaps you missed the references to Nazi ideology, the citations of Web
>sites, etc.? You have been offered plenty of counter evidence, logically
>presented.
>
What the hell does "Nazi ideology" [whatever the cites you posted
have to do with that] have to do with what I said ? Once again, you
are playing with straw.
>You, on the other had, still haven't produced a single fact to support
>your claim. All you have done is attempt to wiggle off the hook by
>changing the subject to European anti-Semitism (which no one denies).
European anti-semitism existed and exists, You pretend that that
has nothing to do with the course of European history for the last
1,000 years. up through the present time. So you have no recourse
but to deny that anything I said is "fact." You are like one of
those christian nuts who claim that god exists because the bible says
so, and the bible is true because god wrote the bible.
GregP wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 22:20:34 GMT, Rick Cook
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> I most certainly did not "accuse Christianity of supporting the
>>> Holocaust." I'm beginning to see how easily the Bible gets
>>> twisted to support all sorts of harbrained notions.
>>
>>Oh, then what was your purpose in introducing Auschwitz into the
>>discussion of Christianity?
>>
>
>
> I see that you are backing off from your former statement that
> I "accuse[d] Christianty of supporting the Holocaust."
Evasion Greg. Answer the question.
And no, I am in no way backing off my statement. If your purpose in
introducing the concentration camps into the discussion was not to
accuse Christianity of supporting the Holocaust, then what was your purpose?
> That is a DIRECT quote of what you said.
I said it and I stand by it. Unless you've got some _really_ creative
explanation for your comment about concentration camps. In which case
let's hear it.
> Now you are nicely falling back
> on "introduucing Auschwitz into the [what is with the "the" again ?]
> discussion of Christianity." You are constructing another strawman.
> Why don't you lay out the actual truth here ?
With pleasure. The original exchange was:
(ME) On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:43:57 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>Not part of modern Christian doctrine, no. A thousand years ago the
>Muslims were the liberal, tolerant folk who really could claim that
>their religion promoted peace.
>
>Amazing how much growing some things can do in a thousand years. And
>equally amazing how little growing other things do.
(YOU) ... as shown by the concentration camps in Poland in WW II.
So that's the actual truth. In your own words.
>
>>>>More to the point, Greg still needs to learn one of the basic rules of
>>>>Internet 'discussion': When you stick your foot in your mouth and
>>>>someone notices, remove it as quickly and gracefully as you can.
>>>
>>>
>>> Strawmen are an integral part of usenet discourse.
>>
>>So, alas, are people who refuse to recognize when they've said something
>>silly and continue to try to defend the indefensible. It wastes a great
>>deal of everyone's time and it does nothing to enhance the defender.
>>
>
> YOU have created "the indefensible." and conveniently ascribed it
> to me.
I have repeatedly tried to get you to address your nonsensical statement
and you have repeatedly tried to change the subject. But yeah, from your
standpoint I guess that is indefensible.
Is this how you read your bible ?
For the third time, Greg, I am NOT A CHRISTIAN! But again, you're so
blinded by your prejudices and preconceptions you cannot see beyond them
to the plain words of simple declarative sentences.
--RC
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 22:20:34 GMT, Rick Cook
<[email protected]> wrote:
>> I most certainly did not "accuse Christianity of supporting the
>> Holocaust." I'm beginning to see how easily the Bible gets
>> twisted to support all sorts of harbrained notions.
>
>Oh, then what was your purpose in introducing Auschwitz into the
>discussion of Christianity?
>
I see that you are backing off from your former statement that
I "accuse[d] Christianty of supporting the Holocaust." That is a
DIRECT quote of what you said. Now you are nicely falling back
on "introduucing Auschwitz into the [what is with the "the" again ?]
discussion of Christianity." You are constructing another strawman.
Why don't you lay out the actual truth here ?
>>
>>>More to the point, Greg still needs to learn one of the basic rules of
>>>Internet 'discussion': When you stick your foot in your mouth and
>>>someone notices, remove it as quickly and gracefully as you can.
>>
>>
>> Strawmen are an integral part of usenet discourse.
>
>So, alas, are people who refuse to recognize when they've said something
>silly and continue to try to defend the indefensible. It wastes a great
>deal of everyone's time and it does nothing to enhance the defender.
>
YOU have created "the indefensible." and conveniently ascribed it
to me. Is this how you read your bible ?
GregP wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 22:20:34 GMT, Rick Cook
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>Perhaps you missed the references to Nazi ideology, the citations of Web
>>sites, etc.? You have been offered plenty of counter evidence, logically
>>presented.
>>
>
>
> What the hell does "Nazi ideology" [whatever the cites you posted
> have to do with that] have to do with what I said ?
You're the one who introduced concentration camps into the discussion
with the clear intent of blaming them on Christianity. Then when you
were called on your nonsense you tried to change the subject.
>Once again, you are playing with straw.
I'm citing the facts. Facts you simply can't accept.
>
>>You, on the other had, still haven't produced a single fact to support
>>your claim. All you have done is attempt to wiggle off the hook by
>>changing the subject to European anti-Semitism (which no one denies).
>
>
> European anti-semitism existed and exists,
Which has never been the issue. Where's your evidence that Christianity
is responsible for the Holocaust?
> You pretend that that has nothing to do with the course of European history for the last
> 1,000 years. up through the present time.
Absolutely untrue. I not only never said any such thing, I have said the
exact opposite. But that doesn't make Christianity the driving force
behind the concentration camps.
> So you have no recourse but to deny that anything I said is "fact."
See above. You're the one who insists on pretending that you never tried
to blame Christianity for the Holocaust.
I'm sorry your bigotry makes you confuse Nazis with Christians, but
that's an issue you're going to have to deal with eventually.
>You are like one of
> those christian nuts who claim that god exists because the bible says
> so, and the bible is true because god wrote the bible.
And you're like one of those Holocaust deniers who will wiggle and
squirm endlessly even when faced with a mountain of evidence.
Since you're clearly established you're incapable of discussing the
subject rationally, the logical thing to do is just killfile you. But
instead I think I'll keep at this, just to see how far you will go to
keep from admitting that your initial comment was wrong.
--RC
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:47:47 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>>
>> Not part of the Christian doctrine ??? Christians have killed
>> more people because of their supposed faith than any
>> adherents of any other religion in the history of the world.
>
>That may or may not be true... but it definitely is *not* part of Christian
>doctrine.
And many Muslims make the same point regarding fundamentalist
Muslims. Regardless of whether it is part of a religion's "doctrine"
(and the reality is that destruction of non-believers was very much a
part of official Christian doctrine for a number of centuries) the
fact of the matter is that people professing to be part of one
religion or another, have used that religion or taken advantage of
it, to justify maiming, torturing, and killing people. And I do not
see the religious mainstream of *any* religion formally disavowing
or apologizing for such behavior on the part of the extremists and
in many cases sick people in their midst.
On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 23:16:17 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>>On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 22:08:51 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>No, you did not. Go back and read what you wrote. There's no URL there. You
>>>referred to "the Fordham site" whatever that is, but you did *not* cite a
>>>site.
>>>
>> I did "cite a site" as you just said.
>
>*Now* I'm going to call you a liar. Look up your post in Google. You most
>certainly did *not* cite a site. You made a vague reference to one. A Google
>search on Fordham turns up some one-point-seven million hits.
>
I assumed that "Fordham" would mean something to you, but I
guess that you're neither into basketball nor educational
institutions.
>> If you don't know what
>> Fordham is, you can ask.
>
>Or you could actually provide the URL; assuming you have one, anyway.
>
Forham is a venerable Jesuit institution in NYC (I suppose the
latter taints it for bible-thumpers. Probably the former as well)
The URL:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/
There is a lot of stuff hanging off of that, a lot of it very
interesting, regardless of your personal persuasions.
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 20:17:04 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> You're assuming I'm falling into the same moral equivalence swamp that
>> you are. Who's the good guy or who's the bad guy is irrelevant. We're
>> dealing with actions here and the actions of one side are far worse,
>> demonstrably worse than the actions of the other -- in spite of your
>> attempts at whitewash.
>
>Bullshit. You can make arguments for either side.
You still don't get it, do you? This isn't about 'sides' and it isn't
about 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. It is about actions.
>You can't tell me after Abu Ghraib that the US and the Brits hold a moral high ground over the
>Iraqis.
I am telling you that the US and its allies have commited far, far
fewer atrocities than either Saddam or the insurgents and they have at
least tried to minimize them. That's plain fact and no amount of
waltzing around it brandishing a moral equvalence broom is going to
wipe it out.
>> Labelling people as good guys or bad guys is at best irrelevant and at
>> worst demonstrates and inability to deal with the issue.
>
>If you want to get down to the real heart of the issue, the invasion,
>according to Secretary Annan "was not in conformity with the UN charter from
>our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal." So now
>we know who the bad guys are.
And this makes the US worse than the insurgents and Hussein?
I also hate to break it to you, but the UN is not the dispositive body
in the case of the laws of war.
>> So in other words declaring yourself a combatant automaticlly entitles
>> you to commit every kind of crime and excess against the people around
>> you? (And please note it is the ordinary Iraqis who are bearing the
>> brunt of this campaign. Not the Americans, not the allies and not even
>> the officals of the Iraqi provisional government.)
>
>I don't see any evidence that the insurgents, or civilian army, if you will,
>are behaving any worse than the US army.
You're kidding, right?
>Suicide bombings and beheadings are
>gruesome, but so is prisoner abuse, the slaughter in Fallujah, and the
>thousands who've been blown to smithereens by one ton bombs. You can't pick
>and choose here and declare one side as behaving any better than the other.
No, you're not kidding. You're so morally obtuse you can't see the
difference between beheading people or deliberately blowing up
thousands of civilians at random and abusing prisoners or killing some
innocent people in the course of a military operation aimed at
legitimate targets.
Try this. US and allied policy is to minimize civilian casualties. The
insurgents policy is to cause as many of them as possible.
Not that it matters. You've apparently completely lost the ability to
reason about these things. You're reduced to 'you're another' as a
defense and you simply don't seem to be able to go beyond that. When
you're challenged on it all you can do it repeat 'you're another' in
slightly different colors.
I got news for you jack 'you're another' is a logical fallacy. It is
also the defense of the 14 year old kid who's been caught with his
hand in the cookie jar.
This is simply pointless. I'd do better arguing with one of the
Islamist fanatics. Then we could at least bandy texts.
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
On Thu, 3 Feb 2005 00:22:31 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> So far the west is ahead, with estimates of more than 100,000 Iraqi
>>> civilians killed.
>>
>> Would you mind providing evidence of that statement?
>
>Geez. It's been all over the news. Do you want me to do your research for
>you?
>
Translation: I can't be bothered to support this stuff.
It would take you about 20 seconds to DAGs for him. Or is it simply
that you have such a total contempt for facts you can't be bothered?
I'm going to quit now. I'm getting nasty and that's not good for
anyone.
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 02:02:20 +0100, "no spam" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
>Here's what I do not understand. There are fundamentalist Muslims who
>believe that Americans are evil, non-believers, and that they should be
>killed. These religious zealots see no wrong in killing innocent people in
>the U.S., Madrid, France, etc.
The US "sees no wrong" in wreaking havoc on Iraqi people
with killings such the perverted "Shock and Awe." We're
doing it for their own good. They're nothing but "sand niggers"
anyway, eh ? I am willing to bet that there are literally millions
more people in *this* country that think that way than there are
fundamentalist Muslims in Iraq who think the way you describe.
Fundamentalists of any religion are bad for human beings and
other living things.
On Sat, 5 Feb 2005 16:38:19 -0500, the inscrutable "Mike Marlow"
<[email protected]> spake:
>
>"Larry Jaques" <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> > >
>> >Lenin didn't care about the people, for example - he wanted power.
>>
>> True, and many millions died learning that the hard way.
>>
>> Nonetheless, all of that was done in the name/under the guise of
>> religion. The outcome, not the intent, is key here.
>>
>
>Lenin - religion?
Follow the original post, not just the snippet. But, yeah, Lenin
killed religious folks for practicing religion, too. That's 180°
from the original thought re: religious folks killing others.
--
The clear and present danger of top-posting explored at:
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote2.html
------------------------------------------------------
http://diversify.com Premium Website Development
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 19:51:20 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> So the insurgents are the ones killing civilians. Interesting, no?
>
>While the exact number is up in question, it has been well reported that
>insurgents have been killing Iraqi civilians. Mostly police, translators,
>and others that are working for the US forces. Seems those people are viewed
>as traitors collarborating with the enemy (and I'm not saying in any way
>that their deaths are justifiable).
>
That's irrelevant to the immediate disucssion, which is focused on
total number of deaths.
However even allowing for the deaths of 'collaborators', the
insurgents are killing a lot more uninvolved civilians than the allied
forces.
That's one of the problems with car bombs and IEDs. They don't
discriminate. By their nature they kill a lot of people who are just
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:26:12 -0800, Larry Jaques
<novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote:
>
>Uh, can you say "Salem, MA", "Spanish Inquisition" and "Crusades"?
>I thought you could.
.... the desruction of millions of "savages" and "pagans" in the New
World in the 16th through 18th centuries, about half the wars in
Europe throughout the Middle Ages, pogroms in Eastern Europe
in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, etc...
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 15:55:19 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>The Iraq Body Count numbers are an accurate record of verifiable deaths, but
>their numbers cannot in any way be taken as an accurate record of all
>war-related civilian deaths in Iraq. No one really knows. The actual number
>of deaths could be double, triple, quadruple, or even more than stated in
>the Lancet report.
As long as we are saying "could be", it could also be said, "The actual number
of deaths could be half, 1/3, 1/4, or even less than stated in the Lancet
report."
Tom Veatch
Wichita, KS USA
On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 23:28:47 GMT, Tom Veatch <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
>As long as we are saying "could be", it could also be said, "The actual number
>of deaths could be half, 1/3, 1/4, or even less than stated in the Lancet
>report."
... he says, hiding behind his monitor, a god 4,000 miles away from
the carnage. "Who me ? I'm just a Good Patriotic American Standing
Firmly Behind Our Troops. But not too close, mind you: wouldn't
want to get hurt."
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 13:58:43 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
wrote:
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:47:47 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Not part of the Christian doctrine ??? Christians have killed
>>> more people because of their supposed faith than any
>>> adherents of any other religion in the history of the world.
>>
>>That may or may not be true... but it definitely is *not* part of Christian
>>doctrine.
>
> And many Muslims make the same point regarding fundamentalist
> Muslims.
By 'fundamentalist Muslims' I assume you mean Islamist terrorists.
(Fundamentalism is a very slipper term when applied to Islam.) Those
people are the Muslim equivalent of the Branch Davidians
Regardless of whether it is part of a religion's "doctrine"
> (and the reality is that destruction of non-believers was very much a
> part of official Christian doctrine for a number of centuries) the
> fact of the matter is that people professing to be part of one
> religion or another, have used that religion or taken advantage of
> it, to justify maiming, torturing, and killing people. And I do not
> see the religious mainstream of *any* religion formally disavowing
> or apologizing for such behavior on the part of the extremists and
> in many cases sick people in their midst.
Then you simply haven't been listening very carefully. Hint: What has
been the reaction of mainstream Christianity to the "Christian
Identity" movement and people like Timothy McVeigh?
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 21:37:36 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>Ummm, no, I think you missed the point. Someone (you, perhaps?) had cited the
>>atrocities committed by the Nazis as supposed examples of Christian, or
>>Christian-inspired, behavior. rcook was correcting this absurdity by pointing
>>out that the Nazis were very definitely *not* Christian.
>
> A lot of them were, whether you like it or not.
Their behavior would seem to indicate otherwise... whether you like it or not.
>And the Nazi
> slaughter of Jews was prepped by anti-Semitic propaganda
> spanning a decade or so.
And that ties into Christianity how...?
>And that was built on centuries of
> anti-Jewish hatreds and actions that at times were fomented by,
> and most of the time condoned by, the prevalent Christian
> hierarchies. To pretend that the Nazis evolved and set forth
> their campaigns in a vacuum isnot too far from pretending that
> they never happened.
Nobody here is pretending that it never happened. You're pretending that the
actions of the Nazis were somehow predicated on Christian teaching, without a
shred of evidence (as usual).
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
"GregP" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 07:32:40 -0500, "George" <george@least> wrote:
>
>
> >He implied that the Jews of Holland suffered less than those of Italy.
> >
> >I corrected both by noting the effort of the Danes.
> >
>
> You're right: I mixed them up and who's king the myth of the
> yellow star came from. But as far as this grizzly statistic goes,
> Doug is right if you look at countries with the more significant
> populations of Jews, at least according to this source:
>
> http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/HolocaustAppendices.html
>
Grisly.
You can set up and demolish whatever straw man you like. Seems to be your
habit, if this thread is an indication.
I'll stick by the body count and percentage. And praise the humanity of the
people who sheltered and shuttled them to safety.
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:37:20 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>>
>> Well, I think you are.
>
>Think what you want. You're wrong. As usual.
... said line accompanied by the usual fundamentalist
backup: "I said so."
"Doug Miller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I'm sure there a few fundamentalist Christians in this group. I'm equally
sure
> that most of them would be quick to agree with me when I say that you
won't
> find too many fundamentalists inside a Roman Catholic church.
>
Not now, though I still remember my college years prior to Vatican II when
the weekly "Religious Bulletin" they stuffed under the doors every Thursday
divided the world into "Catholic" and "Pagan."
Immediately afterward, Fr. Lengerman used to draft this (Pagan) Episcopalian
boy to help serve mass....
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:37:20 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Well, I think you are.
>>
>>Think what you want. You're wrong. As usual.
>
> ... said line accompanied by the usual fundamentalist
> backup: "I said so."
It strikes me that I'm a better judge of where I stand, religion-wise, than
you are. Particularly given the severely distorted view of Christianity that
your posts evidence.
Anyway... here's where I go to church, Greg.
http://www.stmonicaparishindy.org/
I'm sure there a few fundamentalist Christians in this group. I'm equally sure
that most of them would be quick to agree with me when I say that you won't
find too many fundamentalists inside a Roman Catholic church.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
George wrote:
> "GregP" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>
>>On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 07:32:40 -0500, "George" <george@least> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>He implied that the Jews of Holland suffered less than those of Italy.
>>>
>>>I corrected both by noting the effort of the Danes.
>>>
>>
>> You're right: I mixed them up and who's king the myth of the
>> yellow star came from. But as far as this grizzly statistic goes,
>> Doug is right if you look at countries with the more significant
>> populations of Jews, at least according to this source:
>>
>> http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/HolocaustAppendices.html
>>
>
>
> Grisly.
>
> You can set up and demolish whatever straw man you like. Seems to be your
> habit, if this thread is an indication.
>
> I'll stick by the body count and percentage. And praise the humanity of the
> people who sheltered and shuttled them to safety.
>
>
Ah, but a large percentage of those people were Christians acting out of
Christian principles. If you're an anti-Christian bigot like Greg you
can't admit that.
Greg really is pathetic in his unreasoning hatred of Christianity. I'm
almost tempted to ask what tragic events scarred him so badly. But
frankly I'm not that interested.
Fortunately Greg is an extremely rare type. Televangelists trolling for
contributions to the contrary, anti-Christian bigotry is rare in this
country.
--RC
Rick Cook <[email protected]> wrote in news:bJRRd.1232$873.880
@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net:
> GregP wrote:
>> On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 07:32:40 -0500, "George" <george@least> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>He implied that the Jews of Holland suffered less than those of Italy.
>>>
>>>I corrected both by noting the effort of the Danes.
>>>
>>
>>
>> You're right: I mixed them up and who's king the myth of the
>> yellow star came from.
>
> Greg, that star is called the "Mogen David" (the Shield of David) -- it
> is an ancient symbol of Judaism which originated with the Jews.
>
> Once again your ignorance and bigotry is showing.
Rick,
I think it's your ignorance that may be showing. GregP most probably knows
what a Star of David is. He is referring to the legend of Christian X of
Denmark and his opposition to the Nazi-decreed armband ... popularized
lately in a children's book by Carmen Deedy, "The Yellow Star: The Legend
of King Christian X of Denmark."
GregP wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 07:32:40 -0500, "George" <george@least> wrote:
>
>
>
>>He implied that the Jews of Holland suffered less than those of Italy.
>>
>>I corrected both by noting the effort of the Danes.
>>
>
>
> You're right: I mixed them up and who's king the myth of the
> yellow star came from.
Greg, that star is called the "Mogen David" (the Shield of David) -- it
is an ancient symbol of Judaism which originated with the Jews.
Once again your ignorance and bigotry is showing.
--RC
On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 07:32:40 -0500, "George" <george@least> wrote:
>He implied that the Jews of Holland suffered less than those of Italy.
>
>I corrected both by noting the effort of the Danes.
>
You're right: I mixed them up and who's king the myth of the
yellow star came from. But as far as this grizzly statistic goes,
Doug is right if you look at countries with the more significant
populations of Jews, at least according to this source:
http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/HolocaustAppendices.html
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 21:10:48 -0500, GregP wrote:
> ... as shown by the concentration camps in Poland in WW II.
Whoops! Timeout.
Hitler had members of several religions sent to prison camps. In
fact, they were among the earliest of the detainees ... before,
even, the mass imprisonment of the Jews. Puleeeze don't claim that his
actions represented religious doctrine of ANY stripe. Not Christian, not
Muslim not ANY except, possibly, Satanism and allied religions.
NO Christian faith could have supported what Hitler did and remain
faithful to Christian ideals. IF you object to what was done, at least
recognize that what occurred was a perversion of what Jesus taught ... not
something done with his blessing and support. You cannot try God with evil
... his hands are clean.
Bill
--
Uptimes below for Linux machines. One desktop, one web server.
17:39:00 up 29 days, 4:15, 3 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 21:37:36 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>Ummm, no, I think you missed the point. Someone (you, perhaps?) had cited the
>atrocities committed by the Nazis as supposed examples of Christian, or
>Christian-inspired, behavior. rcook was correcting this absurdity by pointing
>out that the Nazis were very definitely *not* Christian.
A lot of them were, whether you like it or not. And the Nazi
slaughter of Jews was prepped by anti-Semitic propaganda
spanning a decade or so. And that was built on centuries of
anti-Jewish hatreds and actions that at times were fomented by,
and most of the time condoned by, the prevalent Christian
hierarchies. To pretend that the Nazis evolved and set forth
their campaigns in a vacuum isnot too far from pretending that
they never happened.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 17:48:33 -0500, Anonymous
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>>NO Christian faith could have supported what Hitler did and remain
>>faithful to Christian ideals.
>
> Ok, so you are one of thousands who claim that if a Christian
> does something that you personally do not believe in, that
> individual is not a Christian. Nice try at the Pontius Pilate bit,
> but I don't believe it.
Go back and read what he wrote again. Repeat as necessary until it sinks in,
because you *clearly* didn't understand it the first time around.
>
>>IF you object to what was done, at least
>>recognize that what occurred was a perversion of what Jesus taught ... not
>>something done with his blessing and support.
>
> I doubt that anyone on this planet right now has the foggiest
> notion or understanding of what "Jesus taught." But there are
> a hell of a lot of people who lay a claim to such telepathy to
> justify themselves and their actions.
Speak for yourself. :-) There's a written record, you know, and telepathy
isn't necessary to comprehend most of it. And even those who don't accept it
as a reasonably accurate account, but *have* read it, recognize that it
teaches humility, kindness, mercy, and charity. Those seem to me to be good
principles by which to live one's life, *regardless* of where they derive.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:53:27 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>
>"Attributed to." Cite, please?
I gave you the site. You can take it from there,
or you can ignore it if you wish.
On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 17:48:33 -0500, Anonymous
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>NO Christian faith could have supported what Hitler did and remain
>faithful to Christian ideals.
Ok, so you are one of thousands who claim that if a Christian
does something that you personally do not believe in, that
individual is not a Christian. Nice try at the Pontius Pilate bit,
but I don't believe it.
>IF you object to what was done, at least
>recognize that what occurred was a perversion of what Jesus taught ... not
>something done with his blessing and support.
I doubt that anyone on this planet right now has the foggiest
notion or understanding of what "Jesus taught." But there are
a hell of a lot of people who lay a claim to such telepathy to
justify themselves and their actions.
>You cannot try God with evil ... his hands are clean.
Christianity and most other religions have nothing to do with God.
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 09:04:22 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Now, how many of Saddam's torturers did he put on trial? How many of
>> the insurgents have been tried and executed by their brethren for
>> beheading their victims?
>
>You're assuming the insurgents are the bad guys, and the insurgents are
>assuming the US military, contractors, and collaborators with the US are the
>bad guys.
You're assuming I'm falling into the same moral equivalence swamp that
you are. Who's the good guy or who's the bad guy is irrelevant. We're
dealing with actions here and the actions of one side are far worse,
demonstrably worse than the actions of the other -- in spite of your
attempts at whitewash.
Labelling people as good guys or bad guys is at best irrelevant and at
worst demonstrates and inability to deal with the issue.
>It's simply a matter of perspective depending which side you're
>on. They're fighting the occupation and they have every right to do so. If
>another country invaded and occupied the US you'd probably fight back,
>wouldn't you? Who would be the bad guys then?
So in other words declaring yourself a combatant automaticlly entitles
you to commit every kind of crime and excess against the people around
you? (And please note it is the ordinary Iraqis who are bearing the
brunt of this campaign. Not the Americans, not the allies and not even
the officals of the Iraqi provisional government.)
And what does this have to do with murdering, torturing, kidnapping
civilians?
>> What happened to those prisoners in our hands was dispicable. When
>> Saddam and the insurgents do the same thing it is also dispicable. Are
>> you suggesting then that Saddam and the insurgents should get a pass
>> on moral outrage because we already know they're bad guys?
>
>No, and only an idiot would suggest it.
Yet you become incensed over American crimes and ignore the crimes of
the insurgents and the previous regime. You seem to lack all sense of
proportion in the matter. If that isn't giving them a pass on moral
outrage, what is?
>> And what about the fact that we are at least trying to bring the
>> perpetrators to justice where Saddam and the insurgents either cover
>> up their crimes or boast about them?
>
>That's just plain silly. The prosecution of a few lower level military
>personnel is simply the result of a face saving effort in response to world
>outrage.
In other words, your answer is to just explain it away -- somehow,
anyway.
> Without the abuse photos being published no military personnel
>would have been charged.
>
Incorrect as it happens. There was a serious investigation already
underway when those pictures were released.
More generally, the United States has repeatedly charged, prosecuted
and convicted soldiers for crimes in Iraq. For example two soldiers
were charged with homocide for killing a couple of civilians.
Show me the counter examples from Hussein or the insurgents.
Your moral equivalence argument is nonsense. But what I find really
interesting is that you seem to be unable to rise above it. You can
only defend the indefensible by reiterating irrelevancies (who's the
'good guy' and who's the 'bad guy') and ignoring the facts of who has
committed crimes on a massive scale and who has at least tried to
mitigate the suffering and bloodshed.
But then I suppose that's why they call it defending the undefensible.
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 02:02:20 +0100, "no spam" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>Lifted from another group.
>
>
>Here's what I do not understand. There are fundamentalist Muslims who
>believe that Americans are evil, non-believers, and that they should be
>killed. These religious zealots see no wrong in killing innocent people in
>the U.S., Madrid, France, etc.
>
>Specifically, I do not understand why there are no Americans doing the same
>thing to Muslims? Why aren't there radical Americans going out and blowing
>up mosques full of innocent people? Why aren't there groups of radical
>Americans dismembering Muslim captives and sending the video to television
>stations worldwide?
>
>I do not suggest that the reason is that Americans are somehow morally
>superior, and that is why they do not commit these acts. I really am curious
>why such groups have never formed, and I wonder, if such groups ever did
>form, and take action, what the response would be from the Islamic world.
>
>Imagine that a secretive group of private Americans takes a group of vocal
>British or French Muslim extremists hostage, and then proceeded to either
>dismember them, or say, douse them with gasoline and light them on fire,
>captured on video. What if that group broadcast such acts as a warning to
>young Muslims who believe in killing non-believers in the name of Islam?
>What if that group began blowing up radical mosques, while filled with
>worshippers of course? What would the response be? Would moderate Muslims,
>those who do not believe that all non-believers should be eliminated, do and
>say about such an event.
>
>I believe that the U.S. response to terrorism poses no general threat to
>those who seek to terrorize the rest of the world. On the other hand, if for
>every hostage taken and mutilated on TV by Muslim extremists, a whacko group
>from the US in turn mutilated an innocent Muslim, I wonder what the response
>would be.
>
>I wonder if there are Americans out there who are crazy enough to do such a
>thing. Why is it that the Muslim world is so full of persons willing to
>commit such insane actions, but there are no US and European groups who
>retaliate on the same level?
>
>How many Jihadis would continue their insane struggle against the western
>world if they feared that they might be taken hostage by a secret US/Euro
>group of crazies, have their genitals cut off and shoved into their mouths,
>then while chained, be doused by gasoline and set on fire, all of which is
>videotaped for Al Jezeera, NBC, ABC, CNN, and SkyNews?
>
>Why isn't this happening?
>
>I am interested in your reply
>
One of the reasons it isn't happening is because our government at all
levels is doing everything in its power to keep it from happening. For
example acts of terrorism against Muslims in the US are harshly
punished.
We had one case here in Phoenix where a drunken yo yo shot a guy in a
turban in retaliation for 9-11. The victim was a Sikh, not a Muslim.
Last I heard the yo yo was doing life.
Another reason is that the people who are moved to murderous rage by
perceived injustices in the US take their anger out on other targets.
Witness Timothy McVeigh.
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
hmm....an interesting idea. Not buying it, but it's interesting.
John
"George" <george@least> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "John Emmons" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > it makes one wonder why they painted those crosses on their tanks...
> >
>
> Same reason we use stars, blokes use circles and Japanese the meatball -
> distinguish them from their foes.
>
>
On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 23:27:51 -0700, the inscrutable Mark & Juanita
<[email protected]> spake:
>On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 20:33:00 -0800, "mp" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> Here's what I do not understand. There are fundamentalist Muslims who
>>> believe that Americans are evil, non-believers, and that they should be
>>> killed.
>>
>>And there are fundamentalist Americans (both Christian and Jewish) who
>>believe Muslims are evil, non-believers, and that they should be killed. So
>>what? No one group of religious extremists has a monopoly on hate.
>
> Umm, no. At least as far as fundamentalist Christians -- they want the
>muslims to be converted, not killed. Killing others for their faith is not
>part of Christian doctrine.
Uh, can you say "Salem, MA", "Spanish Inquisition" and "Crusades"?
I thought you could.
>>The taking of a human life is appalling, no matter which side commits the
>>crime. So far the west is ahead, with estimates of more than 100,000 Iraqi
>>civilians killed.
Not civilians, all Iraquis. But think how many new terrorists that, in
itself, just caused.
We need to let our "leaders" know that we're -not- behind them in
this kind of witch hunt BEFORE the angry Muslims reach critical
mass...if it's not already too late. If Shrub goes into Iran or Syria,
civilization as we know it is _history_.
--
The clear and present danger of top-posting explored at:
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote2.html
------------------------------------------------------
http://diversify.com Premium Website Development
On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 12:39:48 -0500, GregP <[email protected]>
wrote:
>On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 23:27:51 -0700, Mark & Juanita
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>> Umm, no. At least as far as fundamentalist Christians -- they want the
>>muslims to be converted, not killed. Killing others for their faith is not
>>part of Christian doctrine.
>
>
> Not part of the Christian doctrine ???
Not part of modern Christian doctrine, no. A thousand years ago the
Muslims were the liberal, tolerant folk who really could claim that
their religion promoted peace.
Amazing how much growing some things can do in a thousand years. And
equally amazing how little growing other things do.
> Christians have killed
> more people because of their supposed faith than any
> adherents of any other religion in the history of the world.
And your proof for that is? Please cite your sources and the
appropriate numbers.
--RC
"Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. It just yells
'can't you remember anything I've told you?' and lets
fly with a club.
-- John W. Cambell Jr.
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:26:26 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:02:56 GMT, Nate Perkins
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>"Fletis Humplebacker" <!> wrote in
>>news:[email protected]:
>>
>>...
>>> GregP is an excellent example of what the Nazis did best. Propaganda.
>>...
>>
>>You may not agree with Greg's point of view, but I have yet to see him
>>accuse you as an example of Nazism. I think there's a fundamental
>>difference there.
>
>No, he just accuses Christianity of supporting the Holocaust and the
>Nazis. The difference doesn't look so fundamental from where I sit.
I most certainly did not "accuse Christianity of supporting the
Holocaust." I'm beginning to see how easily the Bible gets
twisted to support all sorts of harbrained notions.
>More to the point, Greg still needs to learn one of the basic rules of
>Internet 'discussion': When you stick your foot in your mouth and
>someone notices, remove it as quickly and gracefully as you can.
Strawmen are an integral part of usenet discourse.
>His original statement was insupportable and his wiggling is only
>digging the hole deeper.
The interesting part of this is that you really haven't read -
I mean *read* a word that I've said, and that neither you
nor any other of the apologists have presented a shred
of logic or evidence to support your views.
GregP wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:26:26 GMT, [email protected] wrote:
>
>
>>On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 05:02:56 GMT, Nate Perkins
>><[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Fletis Humplebacker" <!> wrote in
>>>news:[email protected]:
>>>
>>>...
>>>
>>>>GregP is an excellent example of what the Nazis did best. Propaganda.
>>>
>>>...
>>>
>>>You may not agree with Greg's point of view, but I have yet to see him
>>>accuse you as an example of Nazism. I think there's a fundamental
>>>difference there.
>>
>>No, he just accuses Christianity of supporting the Holocaust and the
>>Nazis. The difference doesn't look so fundamental from where I sit.
>
>
> I most certainly did not "accuse Christianity of supporting the
> Holocaust." I'm beginning to see how easily the Bible gets
> twisted to support all sorts of harbrained notions.
Oh, then what was your purpose in introducing Auschwitz into the
discussion of Christianity?
>
>>More to the point, Greg still needs to learn one of the basic rules of
>>Internet 'discussion': When you stick your foot in your mouth and
>>someone notices, remove it as quickly and gracefully as you can.
>
>
> Strawmen are an integral part of usenet discourse.
So, alas, are people who refuse to recognize when they've said something
silly and continue to try to defend the indefensible. It wastes a great
deal of everyone's time and it does nothing to enhance the defender.
>
>>His original statement was insupportable and his wiggling is only
>>digging the hole deeper.
>
>
> The interesting part of this is that you really haven't read -
> I mean *read* a word that I've said, and that neither you
> nor any other of the apologists have presented a shred
> of logic or evidence to support your views.
Perhaps you missed the references to Nazi ideology, the citations of Web
sites, etc.? You have been offered plenty of counter evidence, logically
presented.
You, on the other had, still haven't produced a single fact to support
your claim. All you have done is attempt to wiggle off the hook by
changing the subject to European anti-Semitism (which no one denies).
--RC
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 17:47:47 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Not part of the Christian doctrine ??? Christians have killed
>>> more people because of their supposed faith than any
>>> adherents of any other religion in the history of the world.
>>
>>That may or may not be true... but it definitely is *not* part of Christian
>>doctrine.
>
> And many Muslims make the same point regarding fundamentalist
> Muslims. Regardless of whether it is part of a religion's "doctrine"
> (and the reality is that destruction of non-believers was very much a
> part of official Christian doctrine for a number of centuries)
This is an absolute falsehood. "Destruction of non-believers" has *never* been
part of Christian doctrine, and I challenge you to cite a source for that
claim.
>the
> fact of the matter is that people professing to be part of one
> religion or another, have used that religion or taken advantage of
> it, to justify maiming, torturing, and killing people. And I do not
> see the religious mainstream of *any* religion formally disavowing
> or apologizing for such behavior on the part of the extremists and
> in many cases sick people in their midst.
We certainly don't see that disavowal in the mainstream of Islam. But if you
don't see it in the mainstream of Christianity... you haven't been looking.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.
On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 23:20:30 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
wrote:
>
>.. and on top of that... the quotation that you claim to have pulled from
>whatever site this might have been, doesn't support your ridiculous claims
>anyway!
I disagree.
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 23:20:30 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
>wrote:
>
>>
>>.. and on top of that... the quotation that you claim to have pulled from
>>whatever site this might have been, doesn't support your ridiculous claims
>>anyway!
>
> I disagree.
Disagree all you want; the facts are plain to anyone who can understand
English. We can argue all day long over what we think it *means*, but it very
clearly does *not* *say* what you claimed it *says*. That's an interpretation
that you read into it; it's your *opinion*. But the plain language of the
quotation says the exact opposite of what you claimed it says.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt.
And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
In article <[email protected]>, GregP <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 02:02:20 +0100, "no spam" <[email protected]>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>Here's what I do not understand. There are fundamentalist Muslims who
>>believe that Americans are evil, non-believers, and that they should be
>>killed. These religious zealots see no wrong in killing innocent people in
>>the U.S., Madrid, France, etc.
>
>
> The US "sees no wrong" in wreaking havoc on Iraqi people
Reality check time: wreaking havoc on the Iraqi *army*. Most people are
capable of understanding the moral difference between attacking military
targets, and murdering civilians.
--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.