This is becoming a very sad regular event in Pakistan, Lebanon, Sudan, now Yemen ... http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...1230/ap_on_re_mi_ea/yemen_americans_killed_28
Americans murdered in Yemen Guess what? More Christians are murdered in the USA and Europe than in these countries. Of course, that's usually by other Christians... So, have you converted to a peaceful religion like buddhism yet?
The question though, much as I dislike Christian missionaries, is what good does killing doctors do? Were the doctors only saving the lives of Christian Yemenis? I understand (though I don't agree with) political assasination, and I wouldn't be surprised to see someone take a run at a Western Ambassador to Yemen because they thought it would make a statement, but I don't get the statement behind killing people who were there for basically good reasons. Again, I'm not a fan of Christian missonaries, but they were doctors. If all aid organizations pull medical assistance out of countries that hate the US, where does that leave the needy people of those countries with no access to healthcare? Dead, one would think. Is this statement really worth that?
See, this is your problem - you actually tried to assume that there was some kind of reasoning process in the mind of whoever committed these murders. If the stupid, motherless cocksucker who killed those doctors actually HAD a brain and used it for even a nanosecond, they'd never have done it. This kind of atrocity is done out of unthinking, irrational fear and hate. The same kind of animal fear and hate that causes murders based on race, sexual preference, religion, ethnicity, etc. Not that killing and terrorizing people to increase your bank account balance is any better, mind you (Got that, you CEOs? I thought not. *sigh*), but at least conquistadors usually have enough sense to realize that genocide is generally counterproductive to the economics of conquest as you still need someone to work your land or toil in your sweatshops. Anyway, the cumstain who killed these doctors wasn't exactly doing a cost/benefit analysis on the impact of their deaths to his own people's well-being before he decided to pull the trigger.
Re: Americans murdered in Yemen Is that the one that forbids beer, Shakespeare, and evening strolls? No thanks. I prefer one a little less dogmatic.
This guy was probably instructed to do this at his university. It's extra credit for an Islamic Studies major.
Re: Americans murdered in Yemen Wait a minute...I thought we had all thrown away Christianity for secular hedonism???? :shakes head, confused:
Re: Re: Americans murdered in Yemen The lack of dogmatism is exactly the great thing about buddhism. Which Christian denomination could count among its great spiritual masters a guy who wrote this poem about his girlfriend's vagina: "It has the original mouth but remains wordless; It is surrounded by a magnificent mound of hair. Sentient beings can get completely lost in it But it is also the birthplace of all the Buddhas of the ten thousand worlds." This was Japanese Zen master Ikkyu. Sure as hell beats all this joy-killing Christian "no sex before marriage" crap, huh? Stories of drunken yet still razor sharp Zen masters are too numerous to go through here. Those guys could've drunk you under the table. As for Shakespeare, you might also like reading R.H. Bylthe's book "Zen andZen Classics". Besides being a first-class smart-ass, Blythe punctures the myth of buddhism as some joyless sterility with much humor and wit. A damn good and occasionally hilarious read. You really should learn something abuot buddhism before you go making inaccurate assumptions.
OK, now on a serious and regrettably bloodthirsty note...I've been saying this for a while. I don't think Americans are fully cognizant of the extent to which large elements of Islam are at war with Christianity, and even larger elements of Islam tolerate it. The Philippines, The Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Kashmir, and on and on...Muslims are killing non-Muslims in the name of their religion. We need to face up to that, and deal with it. I don't see a war against an atheist Arab state as being a good idea in that context.
Re: Re: Americans murdered in Yemen From the Department of Utterly Missign the Point: You know how judo uses the opponent's own energy against him? No? Well, it does, trust me. That's sort of what I did to monop_poly. I applied his faulty labelling to another situation to show how wrong it was. If you still don't get it, ask Mike for help. Thanks. Mike makes my point in a more obvious way. The doctors were killed because they were American, not because they were Christian. They could have been American Muslims, buddhists or atheists but the ass-hole would still have killed them, sad to say.
Physician, heal thyself. Didn't your founder say "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"? Not that many self-described "Christians" give a flying crap what Y'shua actually said, mind you, but when Christianity fixes its own house first, then it can go around casting stones. So what are YOU doing right now to get the Christian Identity folks and other less marginal but still hate-filled Christian fundamentalists like Falwell and Roberston to stop creating more hate against Muslims - and those "Christ-killing" Jews and gays and uppity women and "liberals" and anyone else who doesn't believe exactly like they do?
In this event, maybe. But there are cases where the reverse is true ... or where the Christians attacked are not American.
Re: Re: Re: Americans murdered in Yemen Said the man just after he shook his head, trying to recover his sense of balance, and trying to figure out exactly how he ended up on his back.
Re: Physician, heal thyself. Does this mean that you won't talk any more s*** about Christianity until you're perfect yourself? Could you BE any more hypocritical????? Wanna play "Body Count over the Last 5 Years?" You're guilty of the worst kind of over-intellectualizing and Jesus-hating if you're gonna equate Falwell and Robertson with mass murderers. But back on topic...this is a sad but unfortunately common event.
Re: Re: Re: Americans murdered in Yemen This is your premise. But it is unlikely to be tested due to a dearth of American atheist hospitals established in places like Yemen and staffed by American atheists with a desire to serve fellow humans at the risk of their own safety.
And Islam is hardly unique in accepting things that we now consider "bad". Many white American Christians used the Bible to justify slavery and considered killing the Indians to be of no consequence becasue they were "heathen savages". Many conservative Christians continue to use the Bible to justify their desire to deny women social equality and keep them as second-class citizens. The Indians themselves accepted practices that we would now consider "barbaric", as did the Aztecs, Polynesians, etc., etc., etc. Buddhism and other non-dualistic belief systems may have helped stopped PRIV in most of Asia but it didn't stop horrible wars of economic conquest or dynastic conflict. It also was generally unsuccessful in stopping rampant male chauvinism in Asia left over from traditional pre-buddhist Asian society. My point here (and I think your religion's founder would back me up) has been that evil is hardly unique to Muslims. ALL societies wrestle with evil because they're all made up of stupid, greedy, horny, finite human beings. Trying to paint Islam as somehow uniquely evil (with the hidden assumption snuck through the back door that Christianty is somehow free from any such evil) merely adds to the hate and does little to add anything positive to the situation. It allows cretins like Ann Coulter to call for a new Crusade as if the medieval ones weren't bad enough. It allows Christians like Falwell, Robertson and many others to spew more hate, as if there's some kind of shortage.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Americans murdered in Yemen My premise is hardly without precedent. The 9/11 fartsniffers didn't exactly discriminate in who they killed. I'm also willing to bet that the various suicide bombers in Israel accidently martyred a few of their co-religionists.
Re: Re: Re: Americans murdered in Yemen Jesus Ache Cristo, joe, go pick up a copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover or Anais Nin or Playboy or something and whack yourself a good one.
Re: Physician, heal thyself. As bad as Falwell and Robertson are, at least they don't incite their followers to murder. Alex
What kind of a moral cripple are you? Yeah yeah yeah, sexism sucks. But if there are conservative Christians advocating the random murder of women, I'm not aware of it. joseph, the first step to enlightenment is to stop hating Jesus. He loves you, why can't you at least stop hating Him? What was it Nixon said in his farewell speech to his staff? From memory: "Others will hate you, but you mustn't hate them back. Because if you do, that hate will destroy you." That's you and conservative Christians. And you have seemingly lost any ability to distinguish between the small minority of hardcore Christian conservatives, and the much larger group of conservative Christians, and Christians as a whole. I mean, I'm not doing something moronic and trying to equate all of Islam with the actions of a few nutjobs. I'm merely pointing out that those nutjobs are disturbingly common, and are disturbingly tolerated. Anyway, I don't think there are too many here espousing your straw man view of Islam as evil. My point (and I think alot of people here agree with the general gist) is that it is a fact that there are many nations and many sub-cultures of Islam where random massacres of the infidel are practiced TODAY. NOW. And I think we are not sufficiently aware of this fact. Look, I'm all about liberalism. I'm even kinda sorta into moral relativism. But if you take that moral relativism and run with it, not stopping at any of the "Bridge Out Ahead" signs, you're like the guy who dropped acid once and loved it and decided to take it every friggin' day. You've lost the ability to perceive reality.
Re: Re: Physician, heal thyself. I'm not tied to the words of your founder. You are. When you start actually doing something crazy like, oh, I don't know, imitating your savior, then you can open your yap about "hypocrites". But nah, all that "turn your cheek" and "cast not the first stone" stuff just ain't no fun, is it? Far better to ignore Y'shua and do as you damn well please, especially when Y'shua's teachings become inconvenient to you and conflicts with your desires for vengeance and material gain. Awfully selective of you, isn't it? Wanna play "Body count over the last 2,000 years"? Heck, wanna play "Body count over the past 500 years" between Christianity and Buddhism? Throw down. *sound of crickets chirping* Wise choice, grasshopper. Jesus was probably an OK dude. Of course, it's hard to tell since we have no reliable account of what he said and did. Now, I wouldn't have wanted to go bar hopping with him on a Saturday night, mind you, but even in the synoptic gospels he seems OK, if a bit uptight and dogmatic. The Sermon on the Mount is cool, too. It's his self-appointed followers over the past 2,000 years who can't seem to stop themselves from killing everyone, including each other, over who has the best invisible friend or "who loves Jesus best" who need to clean up their act. They may wish to start by reading the aforementioned "sermon on the mount". It will shock the bejesus out of them, that will. Maybe someday they can even advance past the radical absolute dualism that causes so much trouble, if they really work at it. But, hey, baby steps for now.