My point is that in liberal western democracies can freethinker movements such as RRS survive. Folks like Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens can freely speak out their atheism in western nations. This is not the case in authoritarian Islamist regimes. That is why I'm pro-west.

In regards to Iran, I am not exonerating the crimes committed by the United States. In fact, the current administration has learned well the brutal mistakes of the past and chooses not to meddle in the internal affairs of Iranian election politics. I would also cry foul of the Bush administration over Iraq. But does that mean Islamist authoritarianism is therefore okay? In Iran no one could ever question the regime's imprisonment or execution of Bahai's, homosexuals, apostates. The fact that in the west we can question the brutal mistakes of the United States does indeed make me say "you're damn right I claim moral superiority."

To be fair, you should notice that out of the twenty-odd forums available, only one has anything to do with politics.  This is by design.  The idea here is that espousing a particular political ideology is unnecessarily divisive when the goal of the site is to promote rational thought with regard to faith, god, and religion.  Admittedly, religion and politics are close bed buddies, but we've always tried to focus on the method of rational thinking.  The underlying assumption is that if people start thinking more critically, the nastier parts of politics will somewhat cure themselves as the population becomes better able to examine and discuss their own situation.

As you know, we make every effort not to censor any relevant topic.  In this case, it turns out that the people interested in discussing this topic seem to have approximately the same views.  Remember that these are discussion forums.  We're not here to argue world politics, but we provide the facilities for people who would like to.  

I think you're just over-reacting to a pet issue.  A couple of months ago, everybody was talking about abortion.  Now everybody's talking about what's in the news.  When something more interesting comes up, that's what everybody will talk about.

I haven't been discussing the Middle East because I don't like discussing it.  I'm not a West-hater, and I think in most parts of the world, I'd be considered a moderate.  I'm definitely not leftist in the traditional political sense of the word.  Even so, I just don't feel particularly motivated to jump into any of these talks.  It doesn't mean I'm implicitly agreeing or disagreeing with anybody.  When you look at these threads, consider that all the posters who haven't joined the discussion might not even remotely fall into the "standard stereotype" that you're portraying.

Most of our members are not noted for their sense of outrage when someone badmouths their country.  I'd say the muted response is probably indifference.  That's the case for me.

I haven't spoken with Brian in a couple of months, but last time we did speak, he was working full time.  He's got a lot of real world stuff going on right now.  Kelly pretty much stopped being active sometime last year.  

Part of the trouble with a website like this is that it becomes quite difficult to maintain a level of fervor for things you've already said a thousand times.  We've got our three or four theists, but none of them are fond of arguing for Christianity itself.  I'm mainly interested in the science of human behavior, and frankly, I just don't have the patience for long drawn out debate with theists anymore.  

In short, websites, just like humans, change over time.  The beauty of an open forum setting like this one is that the members can talk about whatever they like.  The downside to that is that sometimes, they get into ruts.  From where I sit, it's difficult for me to muster up a pithy post on the absurdity of god belief because... well... you can just read the dozen or so great ones in the RRS Authors section.

Never fear, though.  I'm digging through two weighty books on sexual diversity in the animal kingdom.  Maybe when I get done with them, we can get us some good old fashioned queer bashing Christians to hate on us and get the juices flowing again.

Me, too.

666th post    HAIL SATAN!

Actually Kevin, it has been my reading on the matter.

First of all, speaking out against Israel is in no way supporting Hamas any more than speaking out against the U.S or say Gitmo bay is supporting Al-Qaeda.

Second of all, maybe if the British/French could have handled it better, there wouldn't have been any wars period.

Third of all, Isreal's excessive aggression is what is helping the terrorists recruit. Ragdish said that even if Israel wasn't aggressive people would still want to kill them, even if this is true, without Israel's barbaic actions, the terrorists would have little support.

Um.....

Quran 5:51- "O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people."

Hadith - Sahih Muslim Book 041 [i]"The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: "Muslim (or the servant of Allah) there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him"[i/]

No link to poverty and terrorism in islam. It's just a death cult.

Oh, and all the various religions come off as mind control bullshit, islam is my current fav, with scientology a close second.

That doesn't explain the PFLP, the PLO, who are secular groups and have been attacking Israel well before Hamas even existed.

Mia Bloom has an interesting chapter on this.

lolwut

The PLO is secular like the Westerboro Baptist Church is secular.

Even if it was, though, how does that somehow cancel-out the message portrayed in the Koran?

I second that. You, Luminon, are either wildly underinformed or practicing taqquiya. Which ever it is you are part of the problem.

Keeping for refference

The Pre-election Hamas, did indeed "provide public services" , however... A "school" (even calling it a school is an insult to the very concept of learning) created by Hamas, do you know what that entails? Sure the children are taught to read and write... maybe some arithmatic (all very well and good) but for the sole purpose of indoctrination (thats technically bad). These Hamas "schools" are used as god damn weapon storehouses and strong holds for fuck sake. No ones gonna blow up a childs school right? (very good tactic) Its Extremist's Day-care!  

Pre-election Hamas also policed the territory they laid claim to... go figure, right? in a shattered, lawless country... a powerful militant organization decided to protect itself, and those it laid claim too...

So thats schools and policing that Hamas has to its credit... how about... meals on wheel? yep! they got that as well! the holdings of ambushed supply trucks, and UN relief efforts, get spread out over city blocks as a show of charity! ... or maybe just as a bribe to the populace, as to not turn them in *shrug* (effective!)

Post-election Hamas? Just wormed their way into control over every aspect of the country, by democratic means (and i believe honest means as well, no vote rigging)

Hamas can now effectively do any thing it wants, as its the undisputed law (gratz?)

Now that the terrorist organization that launched countless assaults on Israel and launched countless more rockets, mortars, and missle strikes... controls a country thats right on Israels border, and still continues to attack it... people whine about Israels heavy hand? fuck me... /facepalm

(should be noted that i favor neither Israel or Hamas, i admire the acts of cruelty and subversion on both sides)

lastly, Luminon... dont read magazines for news on world affairs >.<

(was there a scratch a sniff coupon for Ode'de Carnage?)

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) split from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in 1968, claiming it wanted to focus more on fighting and less on politics. Opposed to Arafat's Palestine Liberation Army (PLO), the PFLP-GC is led by Ahmad Jabril, a former captain in the Syrian Army. The PFLP-GC maintains close ties to both Syria and Iran.

The PFLP-GC carried out dozens of attacks in Europe and the Middle East during the 1970s-80s. Known for cross-border terrorist attacks into Israel using unusual means, such as hot-air balloons and motorized hang gliders, PFLP-GC's recent primary focus is on guerrilla operations in southern Lebanon, small-scale attacks in Israel, West Bank, and Gaza.

The PFLP-GC has an estimated several hundred adherents, and is headquartered in Damascus with bases in Lebanon. They receive support from Syria and financial support from Iran.

I'd say they were a non-political, islamic group.

I started this thread as a critique of those who are slanted towards support of groups who have been victims of the United States and/or Israel. And I got the flavor that such support had a veiled tacit agreement of the ideology of the victims. The Palestinians' greatest problem is not the Israeli occupation or their supporters ie. the United States and Britain. Their greatest problem is Islamic fundamentalism. What is the solution? They should be pro-western.

Now, what I define as pro-western is not what immediately comes to mind. I am not implying pro-US or for that matter pro-Israel. In fact, I agree that one can be rightfully anti-American and anti-Israeli in regards to their respective rightwing governments' foreign policies. I am instead referring to a pro-western mindset based on rational, liberal and secular principles which forms the foundation of atheist sites such as Rational Responders. By pro-western, I am echoing folks like Sam Harris who are anti-dogma. For Palestinians to be liberated this is the only path wherein they can win.

Let's take the following scenerio. Supposing a liberal muslim like Irshad Manji or an atheist like Salman Rushdie, Ibn Warraq or Taslima Nasrin were running for political office in Gaza and West Bank. They put forth a platform guided by the principles of a liberal secular democracy. Furthermore, they support policies of freedom of speech, freedom of religion (or lack of), gender equality, non-violence and freedom of sexual orientation. With their new constitution, they go so far as to even allow a Jew to become prime minister if that person has popular support. Let's now assume a complete cultural transformation has taken place and a democratic, pluralistic, multicultural, non-violent, secular society has emerged with someone like Irshad Manji as prime minister.

Now for all of those who show sorrow to the Palestinians and are critical of Israel and the United States, do you in principle support the society I described above? Do you agree that ultimately this is the end point or something similar that Palestinians should strive for? If so, my hat's off to you and we are on the same page. If not, then you are part of the problem and you likely do tacitly support Islamism. If Pineapple, Ken G, Luminon and others are indeed the former it certainly is not implied in your threads.

Which are what? 

What are you basing that on?

Why bother with balance when there's a worldwide plot of Jews and Zionists against everybody for every possible reason?

After all, who's really killing most Arabs, and Muslims. Surely, they're not!
LOL!

You do realize the worldwide wide plot is inspired by Jews that convince people's of all other religions towards their own Jewish Zionist goals. Namely, worldwide Jewish Zionist goals.

The result of the Jewish Zionist plot is that the Jews control the world throuhg threir Newspapers, worldwide Zionist TV stations (like Fox), the Banks, the entire monetary systme, presidential cabinet appointments to financial positions, blowing up the World Trade Center and blaming the Arabs, the whining about a holocaust, ...

Let's see....

Did I leave anything out?

Oh yeah. Hitler never invade anyone that didn't deserve it.

Yeah. RRS is sa well balanced as a crack-baby. And deserves
none of my attention to respond to their moronic and incessant babbling under the guise of idiotic UserIDs with nothing of an value to anyone, except as a spring board for their other moronic vacant UserIDs created for the exact same purpose.

Ah, but you said you though you noticed something unbalanced about the threads here on topics like the Middle East, Arabs, Muslims, Jews, Zionists, Hitler, anti-western "atheist" pro-Islamists, and who runs the world?

The Jews and their Zionist cronies, of course.

Hope that helped clarify what you won't find much of on RRS.

Ah yes... unless my memory fails me, your actual concern is exactly the opposite. But that's a frequent conversation starter for the morons enjoying 180's about stuff they couldn't possibily be taken seriously about.

Setting sarcasm aside, I do think that a site devoted to rationalism deserves a diversity of voices. It is what separates us from the fundies. I would be equally miffed if this site presented the Israelis as holier than thou and the Palestinians as wholly evil. Whenever a thread on the Middle East is presented, it is usually filled with emotions tainted by a specific ideologic agenda that splits the world into 2 camps. And on a site dedicated to rationalism such a dichotomy is in the same category as intelligent design. The most genuine critiques of the Middle East are from muslim dissidents such as Salman Rushdie who have more nuanced views of Palestinians and Israelis. What I find is that anyone who is naive of either Arab or Israeli culture are driven by strong emotions to prop up one side as unfortunate victims. And usually those who are ideologically slanted to the left will side with the Palestinians and those on the right will side with Israelis. And when I say pro-west, I am not referring to pro-US or pro-Israel. I am referring to pro-Salman Rushdie. It is folks like him who fully acknowledge how much religion is interwoven into the fabric of both sides. Thus when emotions run wild with posts about x number of Palestinians were killed by an air raid or y number of Israelis were killed by a rocket, the author blinds himself/herself to the irrationalism of both sides. Solidarity to one side or the other doesn't really solve the underlying problem which is heavily rooted in religion. Thus far, among the Palestinian supporters, Pineapple has acknowledged this.

I work in a secular academic environment wherein muslims and jews co-exist. We have a number of jews who are assistant professors and the department head is a muslim full professor. And I ask, why can't a secular muslim be prime minister of Israel and a secular jew be prime minister for the Palestinians? And I pose this question whenever I read anything about that region of the world and my sorrow and criticisms are nuanced by reason. It is nuanced by a mindset influenced by reading books by Ayan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Salman Rushdie, Irshad Manji, etc... Now I call that mindset "pro-west". And maybe, that word has negative connotations of imperialism and colonialism. But the reality is that all of these authors live and speak freely in the west. Maybe I should use a different word ie. "pro-reality" or "pro-reason"?

Before when I came here to RRS long ago I left because it seemed to be dominated by right-wing libertarians like much of the “atheist movement“ outwardly appears here in the US. I hope that there has been a shift to the left here at RRS, not to disgusting liberalism, but rather to a scientific and revolutionary perspective that is needed to emancipate all of humanity from the slavery imposed on us by the capitalist ruling class and mind control brought about by one class having overwhelming control of the public opinion-molding machine.

And you said uniting atheists of all stripes, but this is not true. A large portion of atheists in the world cannot afford Internet nor/or have the time to take away from securing their survival to comment on Internet forums. So just keep that in mind if you’re trying to gauge where atheists or anyone really stands on political issues.

Now I don’t support the RCP, but this quote by their chairman is very informative regarding the issues raised here:

That's to say that supporting the genocidal terrorist state of Israel (which US citizens are forced to do through paying taxes) is supporting Islam as well in the sense that the aid we give to Israel to buy bombs and bullets to kill poor people simply inflames the anger of the oppressed that manifests itself under an Islamic banner in Palestine, because those are the interests of those largely in control of the public opinion-molding machine in Palestine. In other areas where people who put humanity above all other, like Nepal, these movements rally against their oppressors under the banner of a scientific revolutionary approach. These are the movements that need strengthened to destroy this viscous cycle of wars between imperialism and Islam, and indeed to emancipate all of humanity from the dictatorship of the capitalist ruling class.

I hope you read my response to treat2.

On a personal level, I like Marxism as an ideal. I love Marxist scifi fantasies of idyllic Shangri-La utopias unencumbered by the chains of concentrated wealth, property and greed. Star Trek is probably the best space opera with underlying Marxist principles. I've been trying to take a stab at this myself. My story involves a time traveller who goes back in time to meet Marx and then take him further back in time to meet Christ. Christ becomes a messianic atheist who tries to liberate the Roman proletariat. My stumbling block in this tale is to somehow have the Roman emperor Constatine embrace Marxism. Of course, the end point will be a complete transformation of the world and humanity thousands of years into the future. Marxism will easily conform with transhumanism. Humans will shed their biology and download their minds into self-replicating neural networks which leave the cradle of earth and migrate into space. I hope someone will take this corny idea and fly with it. But if you make untold millions off of the novel you will of course distribute it equally amongst the working class poor in New Orleans.

But as an ideology as the basis for a nation, I have yet to see Marxism work. And I would remind you that Theodore Herzl's original vision of Israel indeed had a socialist and some would even argue a Marxist character. Even if Israel were an ideal Marxist state today, do you think that the Palestinians would be happy as clams?

And BTW, in my story Christ does not get nailed to a cross with a hammer in one hand and a sickle in the other. So how should he get nailed and to what? And I'm not referring to Mary Magdalene here Ha!Ha! And how would I work in the Marxist motif? As you see, I haven't thought this fully through.

I NEED IWBIEK!!!!!!!!!!

Pardon me for mentioning it, but the Country's run by Muslims are far more genocidal against Muslims.

I don't find it curious that you made this blatant omission from your post, as it indicates the ignorance which is typical of RRS.

In point of fact, your response indicates that you are far more akin to RRS members than you claim to be.
Your ignorance doesn't surprise me.

Again, that you omit the US military and humanitarian aid given to Muslim n which in the case of the humanitarian aid is also diverted into military aid to oppress, tortured, kill masses of Muslims by their own oppressive regimes in the vast number of Muslim nations is (again) not an unexpected omission from your post, and again atests to your ignorance and kinship with the website you claim is so territories dissimilar from your own heartfelt ignorant views.

Ah! But at the end of it all when the communist society is achieved do you promise to every loyal proletarian 72 young nubile Marxist virgins who look like this:

I'm sorry. That was straight out of the gutter. A pitiful attempt at humor adopting the decadent capitalist tool of sexual commodification. It perpetuates sexual perversion in bourgeous societies whose only aim is the exploitation of women and men's bodies for masturbation. Masturbation is an evil capitalist social construct which needs to be stamped out. In a true socialist utopia no man or woman will spill their seed!!!! All porn of any kind will be banned!!!! All sexual energy will be diverted towards party rallies and execution of thought criminals!!!! IMAGINE A BOOT STAMPING ON A HUMAN FACE FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!

Oops. Sorry, there I go again. I was having a Stalinist Orwellian orgasm. Have you ever had one of those? It's fun in the bedroom with the wife. You know "Me Stalin!! You Trotsky traitor who needs to be punished!!". It's over now.

Now back to the matter at hand. We need to expropriate the wealth from the evil bourgeousie. We must begin with the lemonade stands. You know little Billy charges a dollar for each glass of lemonade and it only costs him a dime to make it. And myself and Eugene slave for him all day making a batch. What do we get? Each of us get a fucking dime!!! Billy's a fucking capitalist whore!!!! A day of reckoning shall come when all lemonade stands will be liberated by the proletarians who will make the lemonade and consume it. LEMONADE WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!!!!!