The anniversary
Never forget.
Never forgive.
posted by Infidel753 at 7:10 AM
11 September 2011
About Me
- Name: Infidel753
- Location: Portland, Oregon, United States
Individualist, pro-technology, pro-democracy, anti-religion. I speak only for myself and not for any ideology, movement, or party. It has been my great good fortune to live my whole life free of "spirituality" of any kind. I believe that evidence and reason are the keys to understanding reality; that technology rather than ideology or politics has been the great liberator of humanity; and that in the long run, human intelligence is the most powerful force in the universe.
Previous Posts
- Link round-up for 11 September 2011
- The right and the debate
- Libertarians and liberals
- Teabaggers of the left
- Videos of the week -- O'Reilly rocks!
- Link round-up for 4 September 2011
- Quote for the day -- Perry's prayerfest
- Video of the week -- Portland!
- On not having a choice
- Blog guarantee of quality
God doesn't exist
Evolution happened
Global warming is real
Homosexuality is normal
Aging is a curable disease
The election was not stolen
Everything "spiritual" is a lie
US out of UN, UN out of US
Free speech is for everybody
Humans do not have "souls"
Men can't become women
Fetuses are not persons
Words are not violence
Taiwan is a nation
Pluto is a planet
10 Comments:
Religious wars have been going on since the friggin crusades. This crap will never end. The only thing that we can change is ourselves and how we view those different than us.
We (secularists) already understand tolerance of those different from us. It's the religious crazies (like al-Qâ'idah) that need to learn tolerance of people different from them.
As a secularist, I get it too, and many Christian friends of mine do as well m'dear. It's the religious fanatics, that come in sizes...aka all religions that don't friggin get it and never will.
religion is just the excuse. money and power are the real motivators.
DHMVB: Notice I'm not arguing with you -- I've posted plenty on this blog about Christian fanatics too.
Nonnie: I know that's a common view on the secular Western left, but it's not true. The actual perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks knew they would not survive, so money and power were not their goals. Bin Laden was already wealthy before he became a terrorist, and certainly didn't gain more wealth or an easier life as a result. It's simply difficult for secular people to grasp the hard-core religious mind-set, whether Muslim or Christian. See Sam Harris.
Infidel...I never thought you were arguing w/me. So sorry if it came off that way. ;-)
A few people have tried to point out that the motivation and provocation for those men to take such a monumentally violent act was much deeper than George Bush's "They hate our freedom" quip.
Was this specifically a religiously motivated act, or do people in the middle east, particularly on the Arabian peninsula, have more complex issues with pervasive western influence over their lives/government/leaders? Maybe their religious beliefs assuaged their fear of dying, but was that alone their motivation?
American and European self-interests have influenced the area. Look at the Shaw of Iran, as just one example.
This is a very unpopular point and those who try to make it are vilified and labeled as traitors and unpatriotic. But these attacks against us didn't happen in a vacuum and I don't believe their religion solely was the prime motivator.
Such interventions were a contributing factor, but the nature of the response was shaped by Islamic doctrine, and was thoroughly predictable in light of that doctrine. Remember, Islam was what I studied in academia. When the September 11 attack happened, I'd been expecting for years that some jihadist group would do something like that, although I'd half expected it to be nuclear.
Western imperialist intervention happened in most of the non-Western world, but only the Islamic world has produced a terrorist/jihadist war -- and note that that war also targets non-Western societies like Russia, India, and Thailand.
Even if there had been no Western imperialism, if Israel had never been established, and if we imported no oil from the Middle East, we'd probably be facing more or less the same kind of problem. The only long-term solution is for secularism to prevail in the Islamic world.
The only long-term solution is for secularism to prevail in the Islamic world. Spot on, and isn't there such an Islamic country? Isn't Turkey a secularist-run govt?
Isn't Turkey a secularist-run govt?
Basically, yes, though the Islamists have been getting assertive there lately. What I was really thinking of was this.
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