Shooting reported at Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo

[AthenaAwakened]

I don't know if anyone has posted this but no one knows the truth about anything until Hannity and his hand picked guest tell us.

 

[TSwizzle]

Looks like all three have been martyred. Scum.

 

[repoman]

I despise Hannity.

That being said, young men who have no job prospects and a lot of time on their hands and who also have the cushion of the welfare backstop are dangerous.

It is emasculating to be a young man who is jobless - so they overcompensate with the power fantasy of religion.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I despise Hannity.

That being said, young men who have no job prospects and a lot of time on their hands and who also have the cushion of the welfare backstop are dangerous.

It is emasculating to be a young man who is jobless - so they overcompensate with the power fantasy of religion.

Well, I'm certainly glad we don't have poverty and welfare in the US!

Is there ever a case where somebody does something bad because of their religion telling them to?

I don't think anyone has ever read a holy book and then waged a one-man war. It usually involves some person in higher power, within a particular religion sending a person off to wage jihad. The leaders of these men never seem to get themselves involved with the actual jihad.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I despise Hannity.

That being said, young men who have no job prospects and a lot of time on their hands and who also have the cushion of the welfare backstop are dangerous.

It is emasculating to be a young man who is jobless - so they overcompensate with the power fantasy of religion.

ehe...what? What's the logic behind that? It makes no sense? Why would giving a person financial security lead to them becoming more dangerous? What welfare typically does is give the poor more second chances. There's a reason the American Dream, ie social climbing, is more true of Europe than USA. It's obviously due to the welfare state. It's empowering. It makes people less locked into dead-end shit jobs because they have to. That is a fact of a welfare state. Calling that emasculating, I think, ranks about one of the dumbest things anybody has ever said on this forum. Sorry if I sound harsh or you feel offended by my comment, but it just had to be said.

There's plenty of valid reasons to criticise the welfare state. Especially that it is very expensive, and about 30% of the value cycled back to the taxpayers is destroyed. But calling it emasculating is like saying that up is down. It's crazy talk.

 

[Archimedes]

I despise Hannity.

That being said, young men who have no job prospects and a lot of time on their hands and who also have the cushion of the welfare backstop are dangerous.

It is emasculating to be a young man who is jobless - so they overcompensate with the power fantasy of religion.

What else can we blame these events on or use as a launching point for irrelevant political hobby horse rants? I was going to suggest having a go about how gun control doesn't work but I see that's already been taken care of in post #41 in this thread.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I despise Hannity.

That being said, young men who have no job prospects and a lot of time on their hands and who also have the cushion of the welfare backstop are dangerous.

It is emasculating to be a young man who is jobless - so they overcompensate with the power fantasy of religion.

What else can we blame these events on or use as a launching point for irrelevant political hobby horse rants? I was going to suggest having a go about how gun control doesn't work but I see that's already been taken care of in post #41 in this thread.

You know, this attack occurred in a country with a UHC system. Can we use that as juxtapositioning criticism of Obamacare on the shootings?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I despise Hannity.

That being said, young men who have no job prospects and a lot of time on their hands and who also have the cushion of the welfare backstop are dangerous.

It is emasculating to be a young man who is jobless - so they overcompensate with the power fantasy of religion.

and a young man with no money, welfare or otherwise, will bash you in the head and take yours.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

So will an old woman.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is being reported the sieges are over and the suspects are dead. The only question remaining is the collateral damage.

 

[dismal]

I despise Hannity.

That being said, young men who have no job prospects and a lot of time on their hands and who also have the cushion of the welfare backstop are dangerous.

It is emasculating to be a young man who is jobless - so they overcompensate with the power fantasy of religion.

I believe people who actually study this sort of thing find that Islamic terrorists tend to be middle to upper middle class and disproportionately engineers.

 

[Shadowy Man]

That being said, young men who have no job prospects and a lot of time on their hands and who also have the cushion of the welfare backstop are dangerous.

And young men with no job prospects, a lot of time on their hands, and no welfare backstop are less dangerous?

 

[bigfield]

Are you kidding?

Even if the other people who claim the same religion condemn the actions and say the actions are not justified by the religion, how do we know they're right about what the religion justifies, and also, if it's true that all religions are a grab-bag big book of multiple choice, then one interpretation is as good as the next, so you've got no claim on saying someone's interpretation is wrong.

Fine. Then nobody can claim the shooters represent the "true" Islam or a reasonable interpretation of Islam.

Finally, even if someone's 'interpretation' is wrong, that doesn't mean they weren't motivated by religion.

They were motivated by something of their own making not the religion.

They murdered a bunch of cartoonists who published offensive pictures of Mohammed, the prophet of Islam. There are plenty of Muslims who want to kill cartoonists for exactly that, so there is no doubt that it is an Islamic belief.

The fact that it is not a belief held by the majority of Muslims is irrelevant. The religious beliefs of extremists and fundamentalists do not cease to be religious beliefs because there are more people under the same religious banner who believe otherwise.

It would surprise me if you were just looking for a way to blame this all on the USA and its allies for invading the Middle East.

 

[Sarpedon]

"Islamic Belief." Bah!

Religious believers believe a variety of things, some come from their holy books, and some don't. To say that something is an 'islamic belief' buys into the idea that somewhere there's a 'real islam.'

No, there isn't. It is all lies. Which lies are used depends on the goals of the liar and the propensities of those lied to. There is no more to it than that.

 

[TSwizzle]

It would surprise me if you were just looking for a way to blame this all on the USA and its allies for invading the Middle East.

That allah's holy warriors were holed up in a Kosher deli was pure coincidence.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

"Islamic Belief." Bah!

Religious believers believe a variety of things, some come from their holy books, and some don't. To say that something is an 'islamic belief' buys into the idea that somewhere there's a 'real islam.'

Exactly. Anecdotal and all, but I work with a Muslim and he is aghast of these attacks, whether in France or the attack of a school in Pakistan. So the call to violence can't be that central of a tenet in Islam.

 

[bigfield]

"Islamic Belief." Bah!

Religious believers believe a variety of things, some come from their holy books, and some don't. To say that something is an 'islamic belief' buys into the idea that somewhere there's a 'real islam.'

No it doesn't.

Islam is no different from any other religion: it is comprised of subsets of people who believe different things. Young Earth Creationism is a Christian belief rejected by most Christians. The holy trinity is a Christian belief, rejected by non-trinitarians. The Catholic pantheon of saints is rejected by non-Catholic Christians. Death to those who draw cartoons of Mohammed is an Islamic belief rejected by most Muslims, but still an Islamic belief.

No, there isn't. It is all lies. Which lies are used depends on the goals of the liar and the propensities of those lied to. There is no more to it than that.

Which is why religion is a force for evil. Islam is no exception.

 

[Archimedes]

The fact that it is not a belief held by the majority of Muslims is irrelevant.

Agreed. There seems to be a lot of oddball arguments that do the rounds whenever an attack like this happens with people falling over themselves to blame anything but extremist religious beliefs being responsible in any way at all.

It's a ludicrous line of reasoning to think that because Islamists have an extremist interpretation of Islam that therefore they aren't Muslims. The fact that someone has a minority viewpoint within a larger religion doesn't single them out for exclusion, must because it happens to be a minority viewpoint that espouses violence or hate.

Are Jehovah's Witnesses not Christian because their dangerous beliefs about transfusions aren't held by the majority of Christians? Was Ian Paisley not a Christian because he touted a vehemently anti-Catholic form of Protestantism held by a minority of Christians? Was the Catholic Church not Christian in medieval times because of their generous use of violence and terror (Crusades, Inquisitions, etc.)? To follow this line of thinking leads to words like Muslim and Christian becoming entirely devoid of meaning.

- - - Updated - - -

"Islamic Belief." Bah!

Religious believers believe a variety of things, some come from their holy books, and some don't. To say that something is an 'islamic belief' buys into the idea that somewhere there's a 'real islam.'

So to say that believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ is a Christian belief would be to commit a fallacy as it would imply there's a "real Christianity"?

Wouldn't be equally fallacious to call what was done in France non-Islamic as it would imply a "real Islam" somewhere? Again, this line of argument leads to absurd conclusions where you can't actually call anything Islamic or Christian or Buddhist or whatever.

 

[Archimedes]

"Islamic Belief." Bah!

Religious believers believe a variety of things, some come from their holy books, and some don't. To say that something is an 'islamic belief' buys into the idea that somewhere there's a 'real islam.'

Exactly. Anecdotal and all, but I work with a Muslim and he is aghast of these attacks, whether in France or the attack of a school in Pakistan. So the call to violence can't be that central of a tenet in Islam.

Something doesn't have to me a central tenet of a religion to still fall under that religion.

Is the Church's anti-abortion teachings not an actual Catholic tenet because of how many Catholics disagree with it?

 

[TSwizzle]

The Paris attackers hijacked Islam but there is no war between Islam and the west

It is particularly important to be clear about where we stand, for the attackers said things that cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. They said they were avenging the prophet. That was wrong. In fact, it is the message of Islam, our principles and values, that have been betrayed and tainted.

Guardian

Things must be bad when even the Guardianistas blanch at this nonsense.