So what's your solution, prayer ?
Nothing will really change until the religious divide is broken down, let's just hope the next generation in[sic] non religious.
Oh come on, we both know how religions indoctrinate their young.
As I said, they will never solve this themselves. It's either world intervention or just let things carry on as they have been. Probably the latter is the preferred solution with most countries.
Value Collector said:I really think atheism is really the only key to world peace, all these "inter faith" discussions don't do anything except reinforce the positions of the charlatans who are causing this nonsense in the first place, they give undue credibility and lend a platform for religious fanatics to speak for the rest of free society, when all they really care about is their own brand of rubbish, and they wish to squash free society and enforce their own theocracy.
I think you're banging your head against a wall there.Nothing will really change until the religious divide is broken down, let's just hope the next generation in non religious.
Oh come on, we both know how religions indoctrinate their young.
As I said, they will never solve this themselves. It's either world intervention or just let things carry on as they have been. Probably the latter is the preferred solution with most countries.
Trouble is, even if you get rid of religion there is still tribalism.
The Aborigines and American Indians don't have a well structured religion but they still didn't like other tribes encroaching on 'their' land. Fortunately the Aborigines didn't have the weapons to drive the white man out, or there could have been bloodbaths like in North America- cowboys and indians.
Thanks for the reply. I read the first part - I didn't read the longer version.Call the Palestinian to the table, move back to the UN-Internationally recognised borders of 1967, possibly make some land-swap where settlements have now made it too difficult and let the Palestinian people go.
These, from just about all the observers and experts I've heard, are not only internationally legal and legitimate requirements, it's very very reasonable and it is what the Palestinians, from Arafat to even Hamas, wanted. They don't like it, who would like to lose 80% of their homeland, but they will accept it because the world accept it and because the Palestinian cannot hope to get anything more.
If you're Israel and have the arms and friends Israel has, you seriously think a little guy like Palestine - one without tanks, without jets, without a navy, ones whose leadership literally lived off of your money... you think Palestine have any leverage to demand anything really?
But no matter how weak or poor a people is, you cannot ask them to agree to a peace where they cannot have an airport, cannot freely move, where they cannot have a defense force, where their land have no water resources, where their territories are bisected by foreigners roads, where they cannot reach their own border.
Would you or anyone really settle for that?
--------------
LONGER VERSION:
Israel was, and is, an Imperial project of biblical proportion.
Part of the reason Truman agreed to its establishment was because he's an evangelical christian, he believes in the Bible and how Palestine was land promised to the Israelite by God; that Christ's second coming will only happen once the land is returned to the Jewish people etc. etc.
General George Marshall (who was then at the State Dept. i think) was against this, he correctly predicted that establishing Israel would cause a great deal of animosity among the Arabs against US interests, that the region will be in chaos. There's Turkey and Saudi Arabia etc. as American allies, you do not want to help the Jewish people and upset an entire region - it is not to US national interests etc.
That was ignored and so Israel was established.
It was not until the 1967 war when Israel took all the Arab states by surprise that the US start to notice that maybe Israel could be a useful military ally in the region... hence its increase military support.
Since then, most funding to Israel are from Military Aids at around $3 billions a year; hundreds of millions of tax-deductible charitable donations from (mainly US) evangelical Christians to help settlement development and expansion; the military and security/police industrial complex from both US and within Israel.
Military Aids from the US are so due to some cold-war thinking about Israel still being an asset. That might slowly be eroding as the US seek closer ties with Iran else the Chinese or Russian might get to them first, getting valuable fossil and geopolitically important assets back East. That and its pivot to Asia. So if the US do not get friendly with Iran, China and Russia will and they can very easily transfer nuclear technology for a piece of strategic and monetary interests.
That and Israel have very strong lobbyists in the US working towards it causes. So closer ties with Iran doesn't make Israel happy, and it might not make the new GOP Senate and Congress happy either... but if you read comments on news relating to Israel from the US, a lot of neutral Americans - ones who neither like or dislike Israel or Palestine... they all do not like their $3 billions a year aid to a rich country that is at war all the time. They might sway political opinions one day, especially when the older generation of Jewish people are less political influential and the younger general, ones more distanced from Israel as somehow representative of their Jewishness, one who would not be emotionally attached so would look at things more objectively... when they are more politically influential... American policies will change towards Israel.
The evangelicals with their hundreds of millions donations... they will keep on giving until all of Palestine belong to the Jews... so that their lord Christ will return, the world will end and all humanity (except for the good Christians a handful of Jews who turn to Christ in time) will die. So they'll keep on donating to help a greater goal of Armageddon.
Israel cannot stop its expansion because doing that will not only mean the loss of this funding, but mean less land and a lot of headache and maybe assassination from ultra nationalists. Why would any good politician want to do something that courageous?
The third source is the military and police industrial complex.
Sher Hever (i think that's his name), estimate Israel spend around $10 billion a year on police and security forces on its settlements. That does not include the costs of war and national defence, just policing. Probably include costs of imprisoning terrorists and stone throwers too.
With each "Operation", the military tries out new weapons and new technology. These are then used by the manufacturers at its expos around the world. Demonstrating how effective the weapons are. The policing, the training, tactics, the surveillant technologies like drones and electronic/internet eaves dropping and metadata collection... these are also a major source of Israeli exports. They train Singaporean military; they train the Thai regime on how to control protests and set up barriers... and probably work together with US companies on metadata and electronic surveillance the world over.
These three forces has and will make it almost impossible for Israel to want any peace or any settlement. So the ongoing conflict is good for business and good for religious nuts... if a few Jewish die now and then, that's what the masters of war call an acceptable level of loss... especially when the gain is new land and new excuses for further annexation, stronger case for non-negotiation under "security" reasons.
The fourth and major force is the Israeli people themselves. In order to continue occupation and military presence, you have to indoctrinate your youth. You have to drum it into them that this is your land, the land of your ancestors thousands of years ago... that the Arabs will want to slit your throats, and now and then a few of them did do just that... So the youths are send on school excursions to Nazi concentration camps, to see how close their people were to extinction.
To be taught to see the world as your enemies, or at least the Arabs first... that cannot be healthy for the mind. To then be recruited into the army, spending every day treating the Arabs like animals - so that the Arab know who's boss... to get your youths to do that kind of thing cannot be good for your national psyche. To be taught that you're special because you're Jewish and it's in your blood, and others are not so special because they're not Jewish... that tend not to prepare you to see others are equal or have similar dreams and aspirations as you do.
That and living under constant threats of, and now and then a real, terrorist attack...
These are some of the reasons why observers and scholars like Chomsky or Finkelstein have long concluded that Israel is on the road to self-destruction.
The Europeans, who never was really that much in love with the Jewish people I don't think, are getting sick of having to pick up the tab each time Israel goes to war and destroy Gaza, sick of seeing their money being use to help pay for new settlement developments. So are the Americans... that and the Palestinian refugees who fled to the Western world might soon, if not already, are starting to be in some position of political influence.
No nation is ever going to fund another nation's perpetual war... it's both morally repugnant as well as financially draining.
What further benefits can Israel gain from the Palestinians that it hasn't already gained? It got all the land and resources it need; it already established itself... going further will just mean constant militarising the nation and the people... and how can your own nation advance when most of your resources and people are busy suppressing fire and resistance?
---
As an aside, it is quite stupid, really stupid... to go and spend money to entice new people to live in your land as citizens simply because their blood type is "pure" to your liking. To do that and right in your own home you have literally millions of people who grew up on the land, are already your citizens and desperate to be part of your country and want to help it and themselves grow... that you would make law and treat them as second class citizens doing menial work.
So on the one hand you expend money and forces to suppress some 20% of your own citizens (because they're not Pure), make it unbearable for them so they'd leave or commit terrorism and be deported enmass... then go and recruit new people to replace them.
The following is pretty long but well worth a read. It’s the perspective of an American who loves Australia and Australians, and urges us to hang on to what we’ve got.
Although I can see many changes for the worse since my childhood, I agree with the American that we’ve got a great country and a great lifestyle.
I implore each and every one of you to hang on as hard as you can to what we have in this great country Australia, and strongly resist religious fanatics who would change us into the sort of troubled countries they came from.
As the American said in his last line.... Just value in Australia what you have here and don't give it away.
David Mason is a Writer, a Professor, and a Poet Laureate of Colorado
There's a lot to admire about Australia , especially
if you're a visiting American, says David Mason.
More often than you might expect, Australian friends
patiently listening to me enthuse about their country
have said,''We need outsiders like you to remind us
what we have.'' So here it is - a small presumptuous
list of what one foreigner admires in Oz.
1.. Health care.
I know the controversies, but basic national health
care is a gift. In America , medical expenses are a
leading cause of bankruptcy. The drug companies
dominate politics and advertising. Obama is being
crucified for taking halting baby steps towards sanity.
You can't turn on the telly without hours of drug
advertisements - something I have never yet seen here.
And your emphasis on prevention - making cigarettes
less accessible, for one - is a model.
2.. Food.
Yes, we have great food in America too, especially
in the big cities. But your bread is less sweet, your
lamb is cheaper, and your supermarket vegetables
and fruits are fresher than ours. Too often in my country
America , an apple is a ball of pulp as big as your face.
The dainty Pink Lady apples of Oz are the juiciest I've had.
And don't get me started on coffee. In American small
towns it tastes like water flavoured with burnt dirt,
but the smallest shop in the smallest town in Oz can
make a first-rate latte. I love your ubiquitous bakeries,
and your hot-cross buns. Shall I go on?
3. Language.
How do you do it?
The rhyming slang and Aboriginal place names are
like magic spells. Words that seem vaguely English
yet also resemble an argot from another planet.
I love the way institutional names get turned
into diminutives - Vinnie's and Salvos - and
absolutely nothing's sacred. Everything is an
opportunity for word games and everyone has
a nickname. Lingo makes the world go round.
It's the spontaneous wit of the people that tickles
me most. Late one night at a barbie my new mate
Suds remarked: ''Nothing's the same since 24-7.''
Amen to that.
4.. Free-to-air TV.
In Oz, you buy a TV, plug it in and watch some
of the best programming I've ever seen - uncensored.
In America , you can't get diddly-squat without
paying a cable or satellite company heavy fees.
In Oz a few channels make it hard to choose.
In America , you've got 400 channels
and nothing to watch.
5. Small shops.
Outside the big cities in America corporations
have nearly erased them. Identical malls with
identical restaurants serving inferior food.
Except for geography, it's hard to tell one American
town from another. The ''take-away'' culture here
in Australia is wonderful. The human encounters
are real - people love to stir, and stories get told.
The curries here are to die for. And you don't
have to tip!
6.. Free camping.
We used to have this too, and I guess it's still free
when you backpack miles away from the roads.
But I love the fact that in Oz everyone owns the
shoreline and in many places you can pull up a
camper van and stare at the sea for weeks. I love
the ''primitive'' and independent camp-grounds,
the life out-of-doors. The few idiots who leave
their stubbies and rubbish behind in these
pristine places ought to be transported in chains
to the penal colonies.
7.. Religion.
In America , it's everywhere - especially where it's not
supposed to be, like politics. I imagine you have your
Pharisees too, making a big public show of devotion,
but I have yet to meet one here.
8.. Roads.
Peak hour aside, I've found travel on your roads pure
heaven. My country's ''Freeways'' are crowded,
crumbling, insanely knotted with looping overpasses - it's
like racing homicidal maniacs on fraying spaghetti! I've
driven the Hume Highway without stress, and I love
the Princes Highway when it's two lanes. Ninety minutes
south of Bateman's Bay I was sorry to see one billboard
for a McDonald's. It's blocking a lovely paddock view.
Someone should remove the MacDonald's Billboard.
9.. Real multiculturalism.
I know there are tensions, just like anywhere else,
but I love the distinctiveness of your communities
and the way you publicly acknowledge the Aboriginal
past. Recently, too, I spent quality time with the
Melbourne Greeks, and was gratified both by their
devotion to their own great language and culture and
their openness to an Afghan lunch.
10. Fewer guns.
You had Port Arthur in 1996 and got real in response.
America replicates such massacres several times a year
and nothing changes. Why? Our religion of individual
rights makes the good of the community an impossible
dream. Instead of mateship we have ''It's mine and
nobody else's''. We talk a great game about freedom,
but too often live in fear. There's more to say - your
kaleidoscopic birds, your perfumed bush in springtime,
your vast beaches. These are just a few of the blessings
that make Australia a rarity. Of course, it's not paradise -
nowhere is - but I love it here. No need to wave flags like
the Americans, and add to the world's windiness.
Just value in Australia what you have here
and don't give it away.
Tribalism can be dealt with easier once you take religion and racism out of the equation, the tribe could eventually grow until we just consider the whole human race our tribe, i mean we have grown from tribes of a few dozen, to villages, to cities, to whole nations, you can easily argue that our own self interest and quality of life relies on us working together and respecting each other, its hard to argue this though when someone has been taught this life is just a door mat for the next, and their quality of life in the next life relies on creating divisions in this one.
The Indians and aborigines had their own superstitions, land and resource wars can be negotiated, these days both sides will have better economies by trade rather than war.
Operation Snow White
Operation Snow White was the Church of Scientology's internal name for a major criminal conspiracy during the 1970s to purge unfavorable records about Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard. This project included a series of infiltrations and thefts from 136 government agencies, foreign embassies and consulates, as well as private organizations critical of Scientology, carried out by Church members, in more than 30 countries.[1] It was the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history[2] with up to 5,000 covert agents.[3] This operation also exposed the Scientology plot 'Operation Freakout', because Operation Snow White was the case that initiated the US government investigation of the Church.[3]
Under this program, Scientology operatives committed infiltration, wiretapping, and theft of documents in government offices, most notably those of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Eleven highly placed Church executives, including Mary Sue Hubbard (wife of founder L. Ron Hubbard and second-in-command of the organization), pleaded guilty or were convicted in federal court of obstructing justice, burglary of government offices, and theft of documents and government property. The case was United States v. Mary Sue Hubbard et al., 493 F.Supp. 209 (D.D.C. 1979).[4][5][6][7]
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White
HBO, the American TV station behind hit shows like Game of Thrones and Sex and the City, is not taking any chances on its newest controversial venture.
The hit-making network has hired 160 lawyers to oversee a new documentary based on Going Clear, a book about Scientology and Hollywood.
When the book was released last year, it wasn’t met fondly by the church, which rejected the author Lawrence Wright’s harsh claims about systemic abuse within Scientology ranks.
Many of Wright’s bombshell revelations come courtesy of Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis, a longtime senior member who publicly dumped Scientology in 2009.
The controversial religion has a legion of high-profile disciples in Hollywood, including Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
HBO is clearly expecting backlash from the church.
“We have probably 160 lawyers (looking at the film),” HBO Documentary Films President Sheila Nevins told the Hollywood Reporter.
The film, which is expected to air on HBO in 2015 after debuting at the Sundance Film Festival, will dig into the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, and his influence on believers.
Scientologists are a vocal group, and HBO has been in its crosshairs once before. Members of the religion protested in front of HBO’s New York headquarters in 1998 after the network aired a documentary that supported antidepressant drugs. The film contained no link to the church.
It’s taken them long enough to open their eyes, but finally the Catholic church has acknowledged that their ridiculous rule of insisting on celibacy from priests is a contributing factor in their priests sexually abusing children. It’s a good start, but I wonder how long it will take the silly old fuddy duddies in the Vatican to act on this finding by changing the rules so that Catholic priests are allowed to marry and have normal sex lives. My guess is that they won’t.
It’s taken them long enough to open their eyes, but finally the Catholic church has acknowledged that their ridiculous rule of insisting on celibacy from priests is a contributing factor in their priests sexually abusing children. It’s a good start, but I wonder how long it will take the silly old fuddy duddies in the Vatican to act on this finding by changing the rules so that Catholic priests are allowed to marry and have normal sex lives. My guess is that they won’t.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2870152/Catholic-priests-vow-celibacy-child-abusers.html
It’s taken them long enough to open their eyes, but finally the Catholic church has acknowledged that their ridiculous rule of insisting on celibacy from priests is a contributing factor in their priests sexually abusing children. It’s a good start, but I wonder how long it will take the silly old fuddy duddies in the Vatican to act on this finding by changing the rules so that Catholic priests are allowed to marry and have normal sex lives. My guess is that they won’t.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2870152/Catholic-priests-vow-celibacy-child-abusers.html
In the early hours of this morning, two innocent Australians died, when a siege initiated buy a religious fanatic hit a crunch point. The media is trying to down play the role of religion in an effort to prevent backlash against the Muslim community, however the links are clear. This mans faith lead him to have a lot of crazy ideas, and lead him to take hostages. If we want to live in a society that respects faith, and teaches children that these old morally bankrupt texts are the word of a god, we will have to live with a certain degree of religious extremism.
In the early hours of this morning, two innocent Australians died, when a siege initiated buy a religious fanatic hit a crunch point.
The media is trying to down play the role of religion in an effort to prevent backlash against the Muslim community, however the links are clear. This mans faith lead him to have a lot of crazy ideas, and lead him to take hostages.
If we want to live in a society that respects faith, and teaches children that these old morally bankrupt texts are the word of a god, we will have to live with a certain degree of religious extremism.
A religion whose doctrine promotes killing anyone who disagrees with you is bound to result in this.
.
You can't put all religions together but let's see if anyone buys into your straw man argument
Many atheistic regimes that have resulted in more deaths than any.
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