eriksank wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:30 pm

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:02 pmI presume you're talking about 1.6 billion Muslims. A very small percentage of whom are radicals. There may well be even more Christian radicals out there.

I am not sure whether the radicals are useless or useful. They may actually disturb the main trend in the form of extra background noise.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:02 pmA lot of Muslims I have met, don't take the religious laws/ rules at face value.

It is not about taking religious law seriously. It is about discrediting man-made law. In this context, the only point concerning religious law, is that it is the natural alternative. Hence, there is no need to promote it. Just sink man-made law, and religious law will emerge automatically. It is just like sinking the dollar and the euro. It automatically props up bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies. So, the strategy is to take a long position in crypto and then find ways to sabotage the dollar and the euro. Shut it down!

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:26 pm Here's a couple. The link contains more examples

Spoiler:

10 of the Worst Terror Attacks by Extreme Christians and Far-Right White Men
Most of the terrorist activity in the U.S. in recent years has come not from Muslims, but from radical Christianists, white supremacists and far-right militia groups.

. Wisconsin Sikh Temple massacre, Aug. 5, 2012. The virulent, neocon-fueled Islamophobia that has plagued post-9/11 America has not only posed a threat to Muslims, it has had deadly consequences for people of other faiths, including Sikhs. Sikhs are not Muslims; the traditional Sikh attire, including their turbans, is different from traditional Sunni, Shiite or Sufi attire. But to a racist, a bearded Sikh looks like a Muslim. Only four days after 9/11, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh immigrant from India who owned a gas station in Mesa, Arizona, was murdered by Frank Silva Roque, a racist who obviously mistook him for a Muslim.

But Sodhi’s murder was not the last example of anti-Sikh violence in post-9/11 America. On Aug. 5, 2012, white supremacist Wade Michael Page used a semiautomatic weapon to murder six people during an attack on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Page’s connection to the white supremacist movement was well-documented: he had been a member of the neo-Nazi rock bands End Empathy and Definite Hate. Attorney General Eric Holder described the attack as “an act of terrorism, an act of hatred.” It was good to see the nation’s top cop acknowledge that terrorist acts can, in fact, involve white males murdering people of color.

2. The murder of Dr. George Tiller, May 31, 2009. Imagine that a physician had been the victim of an attempted assassination by an Islamic jihadist in 1993, and received numerous death threats from al-Qaeda after that, before being murdered by an al-Qaeda member. Neocons, Fox News and the Christian Right would have had a field day. A physician was the victim of a terrorist killing that day, but neither the terrorist nor the people who inflamed the terrorist were Muslims. Dr. George Tiller, who was shot and killed by anti-abortion terrorist Scott Roeder on May 31, 2009, was a victim of Christian Right terrorism, not al-Qaeda.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-r ... -white-men

AE86 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:48 pm

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:26 pm Here's a couple. The link contains more examples

Spoiler:

10 of the Worst Terror Attacks by Extreme Christians and Far-Right White Men
Most of the terrorist activity in the U.S. in recent years has come not from Muslims, but from radical Christianists, white supremacists and far-right militia groups.

. Wisconsin Sikh Temple massacre, Aug. 5, 2012. The virulent, neocon-fueled Islamophobia that has plagued post-9/11 America has not only posed a threat to Muslims, it has had deadly consequences for people of other faiths, including Sikhs. Sikhs are not Muslims; the traditional Sikh attire, including their turbans, is different from traditional Sunni, Shiite or Sufi attire. But to a racist, a bearded Sikh looks like a Muslim. Only four days after 9/11, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh immigrant from India who owned a gas station in Mesa, Arizona, was murdered by Frank Silva Roque, a racist who obviously mistook him for a Muslim.

But Sodhi’s murder was not the last example of anti-Sikh violence in post-9/11 America. On Aug. 5, 2012, white supremacist Wade Michael Page used a semiautomatic weapon to murder six people during an attack on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Page’s connection to the white supremacist movement was well-documented: he had been a member of the neo-Nazi rock bands End Empathy and Definite Hate. Attorney General Eric Holder described the attack as “an act of terrorism, an act of hatred.” It was good to see the nation’s top cop acknowledge that terrorist acts can, in fact, involve white males murdering people of color.

2. The murder of Dr. George Tiller, May 31, 2009. Imagine that a physician had been the victim of an attempted assassination by an Islamic jihadist in 1993, and received numerous death threats from al-Qaeda after that, before being murdered by an al-Qaeda member. Neocons, Fox News and the Christian Right would have had a field day. A physician was the victim of a terrorist killing that day, but neither the terrorist nor the people who inflamed the terrorist were Muslims. Dr. George Tiller, who was shot and killed by anti-abortion terrorist Scott Roeder on May 31, 2009, was a victim of Christian Right terrorism, not al-Qaeda.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-r ... -white-men

Those are isolated over sensationalised incidences, and really don't compare to the atrocities radical Muslims are commiting, even in countries like the Philippines or Indonesia.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:42 pmReligious law was a man made invention to make everybody feel better when they looked up at the stars, or had an earthquake etc. Scary stuff if you haven't​ got science. As far as I know religion has two main roots into men's dualistic nature: The stars and drugs. The Christian narrative has been played out at least six times already according to the researchers..Exactly the same narrative - star, wise men. Burning bush, flood, etc etc.

eriksank wrote: ↑Fri Jun 16, 2017 12:03 am

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:42 pmReligious law was a man made invention to make everybody feel better when they looked up at the stars, or had an earthquake etc. Scary stuff if you haven't​ got science. As far as I know religion has two main roots into men's dualistic nature: The stars and drugs. The Christian narrative has been played out at least six times already according to the researchers..Exactly the same narrative - star, wise men. Burning bush, flood, etc etc.

That is a very simplistic view on religion. For example, Aristotle's take on the first cause -- the origin of the universe -- is perfectly sound math. For math, it does not matter how old it is. Euclid's elements is 2300 years old, and you will still not be

Try to discover the proofs by yourself. I can guarantee that unless you are really good at geometry, that you will spectacularly fail. In another example, around the same time, Eratosthenes pretty much correctly computed the circumference of the earth just by measuring the size of the shadow of two poles; one in Alexandria, and one in Syene. I don't know of one expat in Cambodia today who would be able to do that, let alone, originally discover this. They are just not smart enough. Seriously, calling the ancient civilizations backward, is mostly inspired by ignorance.

Religion is a useful tool, but just like any other tool, you need to learn how to use it. There's an entire class of politicians incessantly inventing new man-made law. So, now we use religion, just like a screwdriver, to put a stop to that. There are so many other useful applications for religion. You just have to know how to do it.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Fri Jun 16, 2017 1:03 amI post this ... And you post this.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Fri Jun 16, 2017 1:03 amOf course, I'm forgetting you believe the world to be how old?

eriksank wrote: ↑Fri Jun 16, 2017 7:11 am It is not possible to experimentally test ("science") the age of the universe. What experiment would confirm it anyway? Therefore, the answer will always be conjectural, which is all there will ever be.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Fri Jun 16, 2017 10:06 amThe uncertainty of 21 million years has been obtained by the agreement of a number of scientific research projects, such as microwave background radiation ...

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:59 pm You have schools in America that are not allowed to teach Darwinism, only creationism. You have Christian scientists, the same as you have Muslim scientists.
Both groups involve themselves with what you were accusing Trapper of, namely disinformation.
Most people believe there is still a missing link because of their underhand rhetoric.

juansweetpotato wrote: ↑Fri Jun 16, 2017 10:06 am ...and measurements of the expansion rate of the universe can be used to calculate its approximate age by extrapolating backwards in time.