Random Politics & Religion #00

This is so gonna play into people's paranoia(and those horrible politicians that abuse it).

Some days ago I was in the town square and sat on a bench to eat my sandwich; I placed my bag to the side of the bench and some lady started running away staring at me cause I put my bag on the floor.
Like, ok be wary of strangers but calm the *** down I'm just eating a sammich!

And I don't even look of arabic descent at all lol, imagine if someone with darker skin did it!

Those finites are for people who can't process duality.

It might be that "You're-A-Pirate!" vibe you give off, you know... :p (Dragon Pirate...?) 9_-;;


Yah, it's a bit too-wide a brush to paint generalities on all religions (to that degree), I think. Mahāyāna Buddhism--the one that suggests assisting others towards their own paths to Enlightenment--is quite altruistic and laid-back in terms of conflicting with anyone (including cosmic sources of conflict), while the original Siddhartha Buddhism even espouses needing no others at all to achieve a state of spiritual Enlightenment (and, by extension, no conceptual external conflicts with anyone or their ideologies.)

Christianity blatantly tells you to stone ***.

Christianity blatantly tells you to slaughter people who have sex with animals.

But yet Islam only says to defend yourself against attackers of the faith and or your person and all of a sudden muslims are murdering savages. Thats cool, not that the whole of Catholicism(And general Christianity) was only interested in tangible wealth for a large portion of its existence and murdered many a jew/muslim to maintain the holy land either. But hey: Jesus, so its okay.

As josi said, humanity has flaws and those flaws do not represent the whole of a culture, religion, or a specific subset of the whole.

Big difference from 600 years ago to today though. I agree not all Muslims are terrorist but the majority of terrorist are Muslim.

I think that was PETA...

/sarah mclachlan music

Do you actually think that Christianity does not promote violence now? Look at Christian terrorist groups in Africa to see that as wrong.

American and European societies function on different moral and common sense ideas than other areas. These Middle Eastern ideas are clashing with European ideas as the immigrant population rises.

Not my point.

I'm talking about the messages, not how they are conveyed.

/logout

Am I talking about religion exclusively?

Ecclesiastes 11 King James Version

Which is the KJ english way of saying what goes around comes around.

Not all of them.

Quakers, Mennonites, Jain.... Buddhism isn't really a religion, its a philosophy, but there are religions with Buddhist philosophy at their core. Several of those have no conflict.

Where?

In the middle east and the EU? Sure.

In the Americas the vast majority are, at least nominally, Christian.

There was a time Christianity was just as brutal, when the Roman Catholic Church ran things and had near absolute power over everyone. Religion was used as an excuse to get things done using violence in way that made the deed seem righteous. During the Crusades, Spanish inquisition and so forth. Eventually this power was broken during the reformation movement when England, for very different reasons, declared the English King was above the Church and effectively the head of the Church of England. There was then a wave of Christians converting from hard line Catholicism into various brands of what we today call Protestants. That denial of central moral and legal authority is what caused the Christianity, as a whole, to become more tolerant and less prone to extreme violent acts.

That movement hasn't yet happened in the Islamic religion. Even the more modern first world variations still recognize the moral and legal authority of extremest clerics. They may chose to ignore it, but that authority is still recognized and not actively opposed. There is no Shia Muslim in the USA standing up and loudly saying to the world that the declarations of the Shia clerics in the middle east are incorrect and making their own moderate opposing declaration.

Until that happens, until there is a big opposition movement that creates a popular alternative to the common extreme interpretations, we will continue to live with extremist Islamic terrorists doing horrible things in the name of those senior recognized clerics.

More workplace violence.


I dunno what people have to be paranoid about. It's not like Muslims are running around Europe blowing things up...

From Politico:

Here’s How You Know 2016 Is Already Decided

The most decisive phase of the election has passed; and it’s not looking good for the GOP.

Not going to copypasta, TLDR:

Lots of GOOD analysis on why it will be Hill vs. the Donald. More good analysis on why that means we will have the first woman president.

But why THIS woman?

Article is heavily biased in Democrats favor, Hillary most certainly won't be elected president. That article makes a slew of bad assumptions regarding trump supports, labeling them as "old white dumb racists!", which is a huge mistake to make. Most trump supports are just regular people who are disillusioned with the current political system and tired of special interests carefully controlling the outcome of elections via candidate selection. They know there isn't much of a chance of change when both parties candidates have been carefully selected and groomed by those same special interests. There is also a huge block of voters who are absolutely tired of the progressive thought police going around brow beating them for not falling in line. Liberal Progressives have dug their own grave here by automatically labeling anyone who disagrees with them as "racists / bigots / idiots / ect.." and using social pressure and shame to silence and oppress dissenters.

Democrats will vote for whatever Democrat candidate is chosen as they aren't voting "for" someone but rather "against" the enemy team. Republicans will vote for whomever is chosen, again for the same reason as the democrats. This leaves the silent majority remaining who mostly don't vote. Typically Presidential elections focus around wooing that silent middle group to vote for them for also energizing as many of their own party to vote.

Donald Trumps biggest support base is that silent majority. The same voters who decide the general election are already supporting Trump. Core conservative extremists who normally dominate the GoP don't like trump, he's not religious nor traditional enough for them, instead they throw their support behind Cruz and other traditional "I pray to Jesus to tell me what to eat for breakfast" types. And yet Trump is crushing the GoP candidacy right now while spending a mere fraction of the competition.

Now lets skip to a general election, Trump as the Republican candidate and Hillary as the Democrat one. The core conservative Republicans are going to vote for trump, not because they like him but because they are voting against their enemy. The silent majority, who the Democrats have spent the last eight years brow beating, are also going to vote for Trump. They will do this because they are tired of having liberal Political Correct "right think" *** shoved down their throats and told that they are horrible people if they don't accept it. They will vote against Hillary because her actions and public persona as Secretary of State has labeled her "Obama 2.0" and the general public doesn't want that anymore.

The worst thing Hillary did for her 2016 election bid was accept a position inside the Obama administration. If she had stayed out and remained a Senator then she would be in a better position to convince those swing voters she's "different" then the unfavorable previous administration.

A thing about previous administrations, they are almost always seen as "unfavorable" near their end due to peoples tendency to remember bad stuff over good, provided they aren't emotionally invested in a political sports team.

Somehow I don't think the silent majority supports building a wall, banning all Muslims, not supporting Israel, or any of Trump's other delusional proposals. I don't see any minorities voting for Trump, and I don't see anyone winning the election with that large of a deficit in the minority vote, it certainly didn't work for Romney. I would also expect Obama's approval rating to continue to increase especially given the pathetic stance the Senate has taken on the Supreme Court nominee. So I don't know where this idea that he is unfavorable comes from, just because the GOP hates him doesn't mean he is unfavorable.

Now a word about the methods Trump is using to identify and attract swing vote supporters who normally don't participate in the political process.

Trump is giving a master class on how to use social power dynamics to present yourself as better then your competition. Knowing when and how to defend a position, and knowing when to agree and amplify are key to this.

If your in a group of six people, and one of them accuses you of being a "racist" because you disagree on something, the absolute worst thing you can do is to defend your position. This validates the accusation and puts the accuser in a power position over yourself. Instead you ridicule them via escalation to absurdity. They call you a racist, you agree and mention how you can't go a week without lynching someone from a tree. Since no one in the group seriously believes you do this, it takes power from the accuser and paints them as petty and jealous. The harder they insult you, the weaker and sillier they appear to the other members of the group.

Now same situation but instead of someone using an emotionally charged insult in an attempt at bullying, they actually present a rational argument. In this situation you counter with your own rational argument but in a superior tone. The goal here is to maintain the high road as the other person breaks down and results to emotionally charged arguments, then you agree and go full troll as before. If they don't break down, then you eventually reach an impasse where you agree to disagree. There can be a whole bunch of concealed insults but an impassive front must be maintained, a lion doesn't concern themselves with mice. The first person to become emotionally invested and use an emotional argument loses power.

The true judges of a power event are not the two people wrestling for points, but the third party observers and how they emotionally connect with each participant. The goal isn't to have them rationally agree with you, but rather to have them emotionally connect and identify with you and thus they will rationalize themselves into agreeing with you.

Thats really fascinating, none of it explains how Trump overcomes the huge support Clinton has among minority voters, nor does it explain why swing voters would vote for Trump over Clinton.

Duality exists, so does evil.

More PC posturing. You could be Keri Strug if these were actually acrobatic skills in stead of PC acrobatic skills.

You don't get to call it paranoia when 30+ people are dead today. There is absolutely zero irrationality here. Something actually happened today.

Paranoia is thinking the next christian crusade is JUST around the corner.

I see, so 30 is the magic number for something to require action? Not twenty six?


Yeah,
that's
totally
ridiculous

Every religion has crazies, and violence can come from anywhere. Politicians using tragedies to seize power have a circle of Hell waiting for them. Don't spout off about liberty on one topic, and then gleefully cave to police state nonsense as soon as it suits your agenda.

Not even just every religion. Every viewpoint has its crazies. Everyone has their flavors of crazy that they point out and flavors that they turn a blind eye to. I mostly just have a problem with those who are too dumb to notice that they're doing it.

Wow, Trump cruised to victory in Arizona, I thought it would be a little closer than that.

Considering Independent are voting in Trumps favor in every single primary by a rather large margin? Or Considering Every state is breaking Republican Voting records by rather large margins? Or considering that the Democrat turnout for primary's is nothing close to 2008 or even 2012?

I just have not seen this "huge support" among any voter group in favor of Clinton.. Bernie on the other hand at least has a following of crazies.

Oh and this.
Not if you have been paying attention. I bet another voting record got smashed as well...............

And when I speak of Records. He isn't just smoking Republican records, Obama in 2008 didn't have these numbers. It is kinda insane tbh.. Won't find this information getting reported in the mainstream media though.