Paris Attack

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

Totally incorrect.

There have been Muslims in the U.S. for decades; many have come here to flee the repression in the middle east. Many are more secular than religious.

Religions are basically moral codes; they have different cultural backgrounds, but most preach clean living.

The problem is with a very tiny group of radicals and a slightly larger group who condone them. They must be stopped at all costs.

We must make perfectly clear that all citizens have to respect religious, racial, gender and other differences in their fellow citizens. No one faction can dominate. No religious creed like Sharia can replace the constitution or other laws passed by Congress and states.

Assimilation is important. But not only Muslims are slow to assimilate. We've seen this with other ethnic groups over our history. People must open their hearts and minds to different races, cultures and nationalities.

This is America. Out of many one nation of Americans.

I would agree, but it's worth reinforcing that this problem, that mirrors the problems of previous ethnic immigrant cohorts, possesses the additional complexity of incompatible ideology for strict adherents.

[DSpencer]

Re: Paris Attack

All you on the left who once again trot out the same apologetics for Muslim atrocities, every time another one occurs...

..."We killed millions in Iraq"
..."Christians committed atrocities hundreds of years ago"
..."White men had slaves hundreds of years ago"
..."We aren't welcoming enough to Muslims, that's why they get frustrated and kill us"
etc
etc
etc

To you I ask my question again, which I notice all of you have ignored:
How many more of us have to die before you admit that Islam is incompatible with Western civilization?

When there's another Muslim atrocity with several dozen more innocent people, will that do it?
How about a few hundred more deaths?
A few thousand?
Would it help if they came all in a bunch like the 3,000 on 9/11? Maybe when they're spread out, with one or two or ten or twenty every few months or so, that isn't dramatic enough to get your attention?

What's it going to take?
Or is there no number, no limit, no point at which you say, "I am weary of defending Islam. It has no place in our society. We do need to be separated from it in order to be safe. Let the Muslims reform Islam in their own lands, and then maybe some time in the future we can allow them into ours."

How many more deaths are you willing to accept so that you can feel morally good about how "tolerant" you are?

And a related question: is there no ideology so anti-human, so depraved, so barbaric, so alien to our culture, that you won't welcome it into our nations as long as it is non-Europeans who practice it? If you will accept Islam, what else will you accept?

Please, be courageous. If this is what you believe, have the guts to write it out: "I will never say that Islam does not belong in the West, no matter how many more people are killed by Muslims."

Pointing out that Christianity has a history of violence makes me a leftist?

How many people have to die before we give up on freedom of religion? How many people have to die before we start rounding up our Muslim friends and co-workers and putting them in camps to separate and protect ourselves? Is this essentially what you're asking us?

If we're just talking immigration, I'm already there. Not because of Islam but because I don't want any more mouths to feed.

[Mega]

Re: Paris Attack

Well, its over (for the time being) & it ended in a Bloodbath........
So, the A-rab spring becomes the Blowback autum........

Mike

[Raz]

Re: Paris Attack

No, it's not okay to insult Christians and the NYT never published any recognizable image of Mary covered in elephant dung. This is a mental construct that exists outside of the actualities of the events it purports to reference. People who accept this tale as reality and catalog its memory as an affront to Christianity are victims of a repulsive political cynic and opportunist named Rudy Giuliani. He fabricated religious controversy where none existed over a painting he never actually saw.

You left out a few relevant facts in your diatribe. Let me help you out with at least a few of them that may shed some light on this “right wing mythology”.

You seem to be claiming that only Rudy or at most only a handful of political types were deeply “offended” by this particular piece of “art”. It didn’t begin with Giuliani, a politician like all politicians who profess outrage and inflate an issue to gain electoral currency. I have little regard for any of Giuliani’s professions of “Catholic sensibility” since he’s a “cafeteria catholic” who had no problem openly flaunting his adultery on television, and amazingly find myself in agreement with what Charley Rangel said at the time: "No one likes to see the Virgin Mary degraded," Rangel said. "As a former altar boy, I'm insulted by that. But I just don't believe my Mayor has lived that type of a spiritual life to direct what should happen in our museums”.
I agree.

But it wasn’t Giuliani who first claimed it showed the Virgin Mary “covered in elephant dung”. And he certainly wasn’t going to the exhibition to take in the beauty of this “art”. It began with outraged Catholic laity, moved on to the Bishop of Brooklyn, then to Cardinal O’Connor and eventually reached the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization.

“While the press reported that the piece was "smeared", "splattered" or "stained" with elephant dung, Ofili's work in fact showed a carefully rendered black Madonna decorated with a resin-covered lump of elephant dung. The figure is also surrounded by small collaged images of female genitalia from pornographic magazines; these seemed from a distance to be the traditional cherubim.

New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who had seen the work in the catalogue but not in the show, called it "sick stuff" and threatened to withdraw the annual $7 million City Hall grant from the Brooklyn Museum hosting the show, because "You don't have a right to government subsidy for desecrating somebody else's religion." Cardinal John O'Connor, the Archbishop of New York, said, "one must ask if it is an attack on religion itself," and the president of America's biggest group of Orthodox Jews, Mandell Ganchrow, called it "deeply offensive". William A. Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said the work "induces revulsion".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensation_%28art_exhibition%29#New_York

In fact, most people who accept this right wing mythology have never seen the image. Personally, I'd doubt anyone who saw it cold and unprompted would ever once associate the picture with any mental reference they carried of Mary. But then what is faith if not believing without seeing and knowing without understanding? Doubting Thomas that I am, I sought out the offending image.

Steel yourselves, friends.




Now pause and reflect on it so that the silliness of it all might sink in deep - the original events, the mythological force it took on, and the self-righteous ignorance of those who persist in seeing it as a political totem. That the painting now hangs in Hobart among the collection of a Tasmanian professional gambler and vintner seems perfect. God may work in mysterious ways, but His sense of humor at the folly of His creation is self-evident.

Yes, let us “pause and reflect” upon some of the details of this “art”.

In the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in the Orthodox Church worshipers are those who “mystically represent the cherubim” and we sing it every Sunday as the rite for Holy Communion begins. This “good catholic artist” uses pictures of female genitalia from porno magazines to surround the Virgin Mother of Christ. How could any Catholic or Orthodox Christian be offended by this since it is only art and can have as many meanings as the grains of sand on the seashore? Yeah, sure.

Detail-pornographic cut-outs.jpg




As for not recognizing this to be a depiction of the Virgin Mary one only had to look at the supports that held the painting.

I'm an artist and I think I've learned a few things about producing art and about art criticism. For the past several years, I've drawn mostly portraits and my work is of the generally banal and representational variety most people feel comfortable mislabeling as "art." I don't have enough skill as yet (and so consequently little interest) for abstraction and after Rothko I'm left wondering what's the point of it anyway, although mine is a minority opinion among professionals and academics.

That's not to say I don't value abstraction and expression or have any misapprehensions about the point and place of the approach. I also don't expect that any work either of representation or abstraction has to be "about" anything at all. And the longer I work, the less I believe that anything meaningful about art can be effectively communicated with the debased currency of art critics - words. Then again, I can talk about art and making art for hours, so go figure.

Sometimes the "about" of a work is obvious and sometimes I'm clueless unless the artist tells me. And in the case of Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virgin Mary" the blessed virgin does not immediately come to mind, thank you. Someone had to point out to me the words "virgin" and "Mary" rendered colored pins, I must admit.

Well you know I’m from the South and we’re not too bright down heah, so the first thing I looked for was a name for this work of “art”, and gauuaaa-lee, there it was – right at the bottom where I thought it might be! And being sorta slow it took me a little while to figger out what all them thar floaty thangs wuz. I bet it didn’t take a smart yankee like Rudy very long to figure it out like it done me.

But what did the artist have to say about his painting?

"There's something incredibly simple but incredibly basic about it," Ofili said. "It attracts a multiple of meanings and interpretations."

Okay, that's nice and vacuous and content free. Clearly Mr.Ofili knows his way around critics. Yet is he purposely "desecrating somebody else's religion," as Giuliani claimed at the time?

Maybe, but I doubt it. He’s likely just another secularist who is clueless about the faith he chooses to be identified with, a nominal catholic like so many nominal Orthodox or nominal Jews who are in reality secularists and believe in nothing greater than the genius of man. And a phony by identifying with a faith he really doesn’t believe.

And what's his religious perspective, if any?

"I was brought up a Catholic and was an altar boy," he said. "I believe in God, but I'm not dominated by it. We all studied math, but we don't go around spewing numbers. Religion should be used in the appropriate way." "The church is not made up of one person but a whole congregation, and they should be able to interact with art without being told what to think," he continued. "This is all about control," he added. "We've seen it before in history. Sadly, I thought we'd moved on."

Hitler was “brought up a Catholic”, sang in a choir and related how as a young boy he fantasized about entering holy orders. Stalin as a child was educated by Greek Orthodox priests and at sixteen entered the Orthodox Seminary in Tbilsi. Mao was raised a Buddhist. Lucifer “believes in God”.
Big, fat deal.

Mr. Ofili plainly says that he “isn’t dominated” by his “faith”. According to him any catholic, since the church is made up of a whole congregation, shouldn’t be told what is or isn’t inappropriate or even blasphemous. And by implication he seems to be saying the church doesn’t possess the faith once delivered and his opinion in these matters is as good as any bishop.

Being a self-proclaimed agnostic I’d imagine you sympathize with this idea.
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php/showthread.php?p=245731#poststop

Ofili asserts that "elephant dung in itself is quite a beautiful object" and as a man of Nigerian descent his work is replete with elements of African folk art. African art has always incorporated dung without meaning to be offensive -- near where Ofili's painting hung in Brooklyn, there is an African mask made of wood, honey, metal and dung. Elephants in Africa represent power. Dung is meant to suggest fertility. Old Master painters used mummy brown, a pigment consisting of pulverized Egyptian mummies, but no one complains about the shadows in 18th-century European paintings of the Virgin being made out of dead people. And the same show that featured the image of Mary also presented another similarly crappy painting named "Afrodizzia", only this one had balls of dung with the names Miles Davis and Cassius Clay written on them.

You might find the following to be the triumphalism of Greek or Byzantine clerics but I don’t. I believe it to be in the main truthful and accurate as I have no taste for Western religious art. I didn’t when I was a Protestant and I care for it even less after being Orthodox for the past sixteen years. Seeing how easily you explode you might need to take a valium or two before reading this entire document. (It’s attached as a PDF.)

On the Differences of Western Religious Art and Orthodox Iconography

Figure 1 I I would like to discuss, as an Orthodox iconographer, why the religious art that comes from Western secular societies seeks to simply portray images of Christ, Mary, the Theotokos, and His saints as naturalistic beings, bereft of any special dignity, or divinity, that is, their depiction of these holy men and women, ignorance of the true theology of what Christian art really is and how it is achieved. These secular works of such men as the German artist, Mathias Grunewald (1475-1528), depicted images of Jesus Christ, and the Theotokos, in such a naturalistic manner that they suffer having no spirituality whatsoever, (I use "spiritual" in the Orthodox sense of the word), no sanctity, and no grace. Their bodies are not transfigured as they are in Orthodox iconography, but they are simply painted in purely human and aesthetically pleasing form, often to the point of revulsion, [figure 1], by Grunewald, for example, while, as Kontoglou says, "Liturgical art, on the other hand, has a spiritual, symbolic and supernatural character." "The ecclesiastical art of the Orthodox Church does not strive to delight our senses, but rather to sanctify our senses by offering us the same holy nourishment which we partake of during our holy services. This nourishment comes to us through hymnology, iconography, architecture, and even through the art of the sacred utensils, vestments and every other man-made object in the temple. All these, with their reverent and elevating character work together for the purpose of lifting the souls of the faithful to praise and thanksgiving, but not in the aesthetic manner which the secular art serve. It is, rather, accomplished in an entirely different manner, a manner which is spiritual in itself." Yet, as in figure 1, pleasing the senses is not always what the secular artist strives for. Often they will create art that is corruptible and vulgar for the sake of shock value. Secular art arouses the emotions, it stimulates the senses, and the passions, such as anger, envy or lust. It can also horrify. It can be repulsive. …

If Giuliani and the right wing ideologues think the work is expressive of anti-black or racist sentiment, they have yet to speak out.

Well in fact at least one of them has on a similar issue. Donohue is a loud-mouthed blow hard and I usually find him hard to take, but I actually agree with what he said below:

Myth:In an unprecedented move, the Catholic League sought to censor an art exhibit.

Fact: The Catholic League never sought to censor anything and its protest of an art exhibit was hardly unprecedented. We made it clear that Charles Saatchi, the collector of the paintings, could always find some “fat cat bigot” to foot the bill in the private sector (as our communications director, Pat Scully, put it, “do it on your own dime”). What we objected to was public funding of hate speech. It is worth recalling that in 1988, six months after Chicago mayor Harold Washington died, an artist portrayed him in women’s underwear and hung his masterpiece in the Art Institute of Chicago. The City Council immediately voted to defund the museum and a cop literally snatched the painting off the wall. Yet no one in the artistic community screamed “censorship.” And what did the museum do? It took out full-page ads in two newspapers apologizing for what it did. So why the radically different reaction now? Because Harold Washington was African American and so were the aldermen who protested the painting. Indeed, the museum capitulated so much that it even promised to launch an affirmative action plan to hire more blacks. Fat chance Catholics will ever be extended like treatment.

Myth: ”The Holy Virgin Mary” is the work of an African artist, Chris Ofili, who is “a devout Catholic”; we should respect his culture.

Fact: Ofili is not African—he is British (his parents were born in Nigeria). Moreover, it never fails that when a Catholic trashes his religion, the media dub him to be “devout.” From reading what Ofili has said about his religion, it would be more accurate to describe him as a “self-hating Catholic.” And it is he who brought his art to our culture, therefore he needs to be more respectful of our cultural traditions.

Myth: Elephant dung in Africa has a positive connotation (it means “regeneration”) and that is why Ofili chose to use it; he also placed dung on portraits of black celebrities such as Miles Davis, Diana Ross and Cassius Clay.

Fact: This is a racist argument. The African Catholics that I have taught (as recently as last summer) have never indicated that they show their love for Our Blessed Mother by throwing a lump of feces on her portrait. Only some multicultural white freak in this country would believe such bull. Is it also an African tradition to put pictures of vaginas and anuses on pictures of revered persons? If so, Ofili needs to explain why he didn’t surround his black heroes with porn pictures.

As it is, the painting is insubstantial as an artistic or social expression. There's just not much to it and were it not for the efforts of right wing politicians and the reactionary ideologues that comprise their power base, the painting would have none of the notoriety and potency ascribed to it. It would be exactly what it is, a big, expensive, semi-abstract collage, eight feet high and six feet wide, resting on two balls of resin-covered elephant dung with pins stuck into them.

So one alter boy who grew up to be political entrepreneur looking for votes and donations says its "sick stuff." Another altar boy who grew up to be an artist say's it's all about control. Mr. Ofili seemed clear on that point, too. Speaking at the time he said of the tempest: "It's like a play, and somehow I got mentioned in the script. I think there's some bigger agenda here."

Indeed there is another agenda here, perhaps “far bigger” though not a directly organized conspiracy. It’s more an unorganized groupthink of post-christian culture. An Orthodox priest speaks about this in an excellent article from 2002:

“Back in 1999 artist Chris Ofili smeared elephant feces and pasted pornographic photographs on an image of the Virgin Mary and hung it in the Brooklyn Museum of Art. It caused a firestorm of protest. Ofili's detractors were outraged at the sacrilege. His defenders retorted with the predicable arguments citing freedom of expression and artistic autonomy but avoided any serious engagement with the real meaning of the piece.

Ofili's desecration is nothing new. In recent years we have seen "Piss Christ" where a crucifix was submerged in a jar of urine, Neonazis painting swastikas on synagogues, even Madonna simulating sex acts in a set designed as a church.
Shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin ordered soldiers into Russian villages that resisted the imposition of the Communist yoke. Lenin discovered that religious faith informed much of the resistance. Especially troublesome was the teaching that the statutes governing human affairs were subject to the higher judgment of God. It repudiated the Marxist denial of the ideal and everything it implied including the establishment of the state as the final arbiter of all human affairs.

Religious faith was a grave threat to Marxism and Lenin knew it. The soldiers struck at the heart of this faith by striking at the symbols that defined it. Churches, when not burned, were turned into the village dump -- a kind of lasting testimonial of desecration. Soldiers urinated in chalices and defecated on altars. Almost all priests were killed. The offense caused by this desecration ran deep. It proclaimed that a new way of ordering the universe -- a new faith -- had entered the world.

The word symbol in the Greek means the place where two realities come together. Religious symbols have a particular power because religion speaks of the higher unseen things like meaning, purpose, value, and destiny, and thus represent a moral comprehension about how the universe is ordered and how man ought to live within it. In fact, the symbol itself can be said to contain this view. The symbol in other words, functions as a placeholder in space and time of eternal and timeless truths.”

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/JacobseSymbols.php

But I’m only an ignorant hick from red-state fly over country, and I cannot possibly see anything in this “art” other than what an artist like you or Chris Ofili tells me I should see. And neither should Cardinal O’Connor, Bishop Thomas Daily of Brooklyn or certainly Fr. Johannes Jacobse, none of whom are artists and all of whom are obviously right wing idealogues.

In the same way we may doubt Giuliani's sincerity, we may doubt the artist's sincerity and aesthetic vision. Ofili is far from the first artist to contemplate the sacred and profane and had he named his painting "The Virgin Mildred", Guiliani might have had to choose another stunt.

While it takes no great judge of character to note the same cynical opportunism among the art entrepreneurs represented in the Brooklyn Museum's "Sensation" exhibit - never mind Charles Saatchi for his brilliant and highly profitable exploitation of the entire affair - it is a matter of proportionality. The artist merely harm the bank balances of credulous collectors while the politician does genuine harm to humans everywhere.

No, they actually harm far more than that. As Fr. Jacobse points out:

“When the dominant religious symbols in the culture are desecrated, the beliefs and values that define and shape culture are weakened and can be overthrown. The overthrow of culture is why Lenin destroyed churches and Hitler destroyed synagogues (and why the Taliban blew up a 5000 year old Buddha). This is why a crucifix was submerged in urine and an icon of the Virgin Mary was smeared with feces.

There is contempt of the past, a senseless denial of any possibility of enduring meaning, in desecration art. Desecration art functions like the parasite; it destroys the heritage from which it draws its meaning. Ofili's piece illustrates this. The icon gives the piece meaning, yet the icon is what the piece seeks to destroy. Destroy the meaning of the icon and the meaning of the piece is destroyed with it like the parasite that dies with its host. The artist is vandal and the museum the gate to this cultural barbarism.

If the artist succeeds in destroying the heritage of western culture, the precepts that give his desecration meaning will die along with it.”

In the end, it's all shit in the worlds of high politics and high art. Artists like Ofili smear shit and sell it for millions, the politicians talk shit and sell it for millions, and we eat shit in large, malodorous helpings. For any connection with the events in Paris, political correctness, the moral courage of the Times, or the alleged persecution of Christians, is shit too. Bull shit.

Quite a fascination you have with scatological references. At any rate it’s right out of Alinsky’s playbook: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon”; combine that with another of his rules: “If you push a negative hard enough it will push through and become a positive”. Well I guess one can hope that gratuitous and unnecessary filth and vulgarity can at least morph into some kind of useful fertilizer.

FRED, since the thread has moved from reporting and discussion on the on the tragic Paris event and has become a debate on political correctness, religion and morality, it seems destined for Political Abyss. Might we move it there now and tone down the noise before it gets too loud?

You mean before you have an even bigger tantrum?

Bravo, Woodsman. Bravissimo. On Section A, page 1 you construct and grossly inflate (minus quite a few facts) a controversy about “right-wing cynics”, characterize it with four heapings of profanity – perhaps sufficient to disturb the iTulip bouncer - and then request it all be relocated so any reply will then be relegated to Section E, page 34.

To your honorary title “Slayer of Right-Wing Dragons” perhaps we can add “Grand High Censor”.
Maybe FRED will offer to make you his deputy.

[Master Shake]

Re: Paris Attack

I am 110% in favor of freedom of thought & you should be free to express what you wish. I am very sorry for those killed, but with freedom comes re-sponce-abilty people. If i made false claims about someone.........they take action against me!

I could say nasty things to people about themselves or their children, it might be true but just because i have the freedom to say it & its true should i say it?......Yes he/she is fat & uglay sone of a bi*ch......but why look for trouble?

I read tonight that the now Dead French press people had just finished attacking Islam on Twitter that very morning.....not a very bright thing to do....there comes a point when hummor turns into haressment...........

Mike

With attitudes like that, it's easy to understand why the sun set on the British Empire.

The Prophet Mohammed was an evil sociopath and child rapist. That's what should be on the signs of the people gathering in Paris to show support for those who were killed, not Je Suis Charlie.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

block that metaphor: BOILS or ABSCESSES are lanced. cancers are not. cancers are excised, poisoned with chemotherapy and/or radiated.

Polyps and fibroids are often left alone and monitored if benign.

For me it was trying to find a physiological analogy where the majority of the time it's benign, but if left alone without treatment may metastisize.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

BINGO!

My facebook post this morning...

Hi Adeptus,

Internet memes are great for sharing, but don't really pass the Snopes Test.

But then again, memes are rarely about the truth are they? They're more often about "Rage!"

I'd like to ask you a few questions:

Do you care more about someone in your family killed or some unknown person 10,000km away?

Do you care more about your next door neighbor killed or some unknown person 10,000km away?

Do you care more about peers killed working in a different office or some unknown people 10,000km away?

----

Aren't feelings towards death held by most people due largely to physical/emotional/social proximity?

----

If that were not true, we would all randomly and coincidentally put in for bereavement leave daily every time a child dies of dysentery in Africa and yet another ferry sinks in Bangladesh killing another 1000 people.

----

Proximity matters

----

While I would agree that there is value in stopping the hypocrisy, it would be dangerously naive to think that alone will halt(or even substantially mitigate) this growing problem.

Or that voluntarily/involuntarily unwinding the consciously created problems will be quick, easy, and without associated and massive human casualties.

[astonas]

Re: Paris Attack

Raz, and Woodsman.

If you guys really do want to take this thread deeper into sarcasm, we can go there, and I might even do you one better.

I've just written a very long text that I've just decided not to post to this thread because it is considerably more scathing than any I've ever posted before. I suspect neither of you would like it very much. For now, let's just say that there's been a lot of strong views on this thread, and while everyone should be respected as people, their views do not have a similar intrinsic right to be respected. I was considering providing a forceful and broad demonstration of that principle.

I'm holding it back not because I don't think it's true or justified, but because I'd rather be able to return to this site later, and talk about other things. That's more important to me than making any one given argument. It is sometimes hard to tell, but I suspect the same goes for both of you.

Unless you are both really enjoying this escalation (I might be mistaken, and do feel free to ignore me if you both are!) we might be past the point where arguments are getting through.

What do you say we either make this one an agree-to-disagree, or maybe take it down a notch?

Just a suggestion.

[Raz]

Re: Paris Attack

Raz, and Woodsman. ...
Unless you are both really enjoying this escalation (I might be mistaken, and do feel free to ignore me if you both are!) we might be past the point where arguments are getting through.

What do you say we either make this one an agree-to-disagree, or maybe take it down a notch?
Just a suggestion.

I no longer enjoy ANY conversation with Woodsman.
I plan on using my block sender function so he may have the last explosive, foaming profanity laced word. I no longer care.

If you would like to carry on I suggest we take it private. I'll even share e-Mail addresses if you wish.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Paris Attack

With attitudes like that, it's easy to understand why the sun set on the British Empire.

The Prophet Mohammed was an evil sociopath and child rapist. That's what should be on the signs of the people gathering in Paris to show support for those who were killed, not Je Suis Charlie.

I've seen the Mohammed as child rapist/paedephile meme a bit(and a bit more lately).

I've always focused on the incongruity of rigid adherence has with progressive western women's rights, rigid caste(believer/non believer) disparity in rights, rationalization of unethical/immoral behavior, etc.

I don't know about rape, but as far as the child wife accusation thing goes with Mohammed, I think it's first worth having a look back at the common marriage ages of MY ancestors(or is that ALL ancestors?) to compare and contrast.

I wonder if there's much of a difference.

Different times and different rules when you're an old woman/man if you make it to 40.

Half the average life expectancy, half the average age of marriage perhaps?

[Woodsman]

Re: Paris Attack

Oh Raz, the Virgin Mary is fine. Nobody smeared her with anything.

Thanks for sharing the article on iconography. I'm a huge admirer of Byzantine art and have spent some time studying the transition from the Byzantine to the Gothic so I might point the author to the work of Duccio and Cimabue as rebuttal.

That's pretty much all I have to say about it since I don't accept the author's premises and won't argue within his closed system. I do wonder how someone of faith could fail to see the "spiritual, symbolic and supernatural character" of say Caravaggio's liturgical paintings, but I understand that the author is engaging in theology rather than art criticism or art history and has closed his eyes and shut his ears.

I do like the idea of you granting me honors but suggest you have me wrong if you think I want to censor anyone. I simply agree with EJ's recent statements that interminable, no win, contention for contention's sake arguments should be moved to forums appropriate for that sort of stuff. It's just so tiresome to wade through the noise and the rage.

Your idea of blocking my posts is a good one and I encourage you not to see it as any sort of defeat. Not caring is a virtue in this instance and I'd urge you to care even less. I came to a similar conclusion myself not too long ago. I meant what I said a few post back about different universes where no communication is possible and where objective facts are forever disputed. What I read in this latest post only reaffirms that conclusion.

So when I point out some favorite right wing trope is bollocks, be assured that I certainly don't do it with a mind to influence your thinking in any way. King Canute had better luck with the tides and I have a life to savor and enjoy.

[jk]

Re: Paris Attack

joe sacco in the guardian on "satire"

[click or double click to expand- for me the first time it expands only a little, then i need to click AGAIN to make it readable]

the "free speech" argument may be more complicated than you think.

joe sacco on satire1200.jpg

[Mn_Mark]

Re: Paris Attack

How many people have to die before we give up on freedom of religion? How many people have to die before we start rounding up our Muslim friends and co-workers and putting them in camps to separate and protect ourselves? Is this essentially what you're asking us?

First let me note that again you avoided answering the question. You did not say how many deaths it would take for you to decide Islam does not belong in the West. I take that to mean that there is no limit to the number you will accept. Apparently, as far as you are concerned, we can continue on like this, with spasms of ten, fifty, and the occasional hundreds and even thousands of fellow Westerners dead from attacks by Muslims who decided to take the violent commands of their prophet seriously, so that you can stick to your idealism about not distinguishing between people based on their beliefs.

Would you have any problem if Nazis were moving into our country by the hundreds of thousands and taking over parts of cities and holding Nazi rallies? I'm sure that the great majority of people in the Nazi party in Germany were nice folks who wouldn't dream of killing anyone for their beliefs in the superiority of Aryans and their destiny to rule the earth.

If so, how is the influx of Muslims any different?

I am saying we need to recognize that the Islamic worldview is incompatible with Western civilization and cannot be allowed to get a toehold here. It is no particular problem if there are a tiny, tiny minority of Muslims in a country, and no immigration of additional Muslims, and they understand that the country is not Muslim and will never be Muslim. It is another story when there are so many that they can fill entire neighborhoods and make them no-go zones for non-Muslims.

One way of looking at it is to recognize that Islam is not a religion in the sense that the Founders thought of religion. Religion is supposed to be about love, peace, God, spiritual awakening, enlightenment. Following a religion is supposed to lead one to a feeling of peace and oneness with all mankind. To my understanding, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and perhaps Judaism (not sure) are about that. When the Founders talked about religious freedom they were saying that people should be able to seek their own path to spiritual enlightenment, not that we had to allow those who intended to subjugate us by the sword into our countries. The very last thing that following a religion should do is lead one to decide to kill other people, but Islam is full of such commands.

As for what I would recommend: I would declare that Islam is not a religion within the sense the Founders meant, since it is at least significantly, if not primarily, a sort of cult that commands its followers to subjugate the world, by killing if necessary, and force everyone to become Muslim. You cannot allow people who believe that sort of thing to set up shop in your country. You just can't. It doesn't matter if there are many people who call themselves Muslims but don't go for the violence part of it. When you have enough Muslims in your country, the extremist Muslims, who are just following the more violent commands of their prophet, intimidate the 'moderate' Muslims into silence and conformity.

France is now 10% Muslim and there are large areas of the cities where the police simply don't go anymore. That means that Islam has conquered those areas. It will continue to spread to larger and larger areas. How do you think Muslims will treat the rest of the population when they are 25% of the population? 50%? Do you think they are going to become more and more progressive and less and less Muslim as their percentage of the population grows? Or will they become more and more insistent that the country's norms, customs, and laws conform to their Muslim beliefs?

We don't need to set up camps, we just need to (1) stop immigration from all Muslim countries and of all Muslim people; (2) deport Muslims who are not citizens; (3) remove religious protection from Islam and begin to treat it as we would treat a hostile, seditious cult that advocated conquest of the country; (4) adopt cultural norms that are as unfriendly to Islam as our current norms are unfriendly to Naziism. It's not illegal to be a Nazi, but it isolates and marginalizes you. It should be the same for those who want to practice Islam here. If they don't like it, there are plenty of Muslim countries in the world. There is no need for us to enable Islam in our Western countries too.

It's all very nice to talk about E Pluribus Unum and all that when you're talking about a population of white Christians who only differ in the ways that Germans differ from Englishmen or Swedes, and Protestants differ from Catholics (which was bad enough!) But you have to look at reality and stop drinking the progressive Kool-Aid: diversity + proximity = war, not love and harmony. It's a matter of degree, and Muslims are just too different from us to live with us peacefully when their numbers reach a certain level.

The only question is how many more of us have to to die in Muslim attacks, and how many more of our cultural norms and laws have to be altered to appease Muslims demands, before the progressive idealists wake up to reality.

And, still, no liberal has answered my question: how many more Westerners have to die in Muslim attacks before you say enough? Or is there no limit to the deaths you will tolerate? Why is it so difficult for you to put a number on it, or to honestly state that no amount of killing will change your mind?


Edit: Here is a link to someone who collected the results of polls done in Muslim countries to see what percentage of the populations agreed with terrorist attacks against the West. It is not a tiny minority.

[jpetr48]

Re: Paris Attack

We don't need to set up camps, we just need to (1) stop immigration from all Muslim countries and of all Muslim people; (2) deport Muslims who are not citizens; (3) remove religious protection from Islam and begin to treat it as we would treat a hostile, seditious cult that advocated conquest of the country; (4) adopt cultural norms that are as unfriendly to Islam as our current norms are unfriendly to Naziism. It's not illegal to be a Nazi, but it isolates and marginalizes you. It should be the same for those who want to practice Islam here. If they don't like it, there are plenty of Muslim countries in the world. There is no need for us to enable Islam in our Western countries too.

Your point is taken. No one wants to see one life lost. BTW I am not a liberal and i think categorizing people will further divide our nation. This is one of the consequences of evil acts which attack one's liberty, beliefs and values- division from within one' family and country.

Second, we have freedom of religion from the state. That was intended not only to protect Christians but all religions to have freedom of will to practice your religion. That is the love of God in the Christian religion that He loved us so much he gave us free will to accept or reject His Son. Where we run into problems is when your religion is against the moral conscience of atheists as well as against laws of our country. Man inherently knows good and bad when he is born. It’s called a conscience. I chose the atheist not to disparage but even they understand good and bad acts.

Third, this gets to the problem at root. Some of these people's conscience has been filled with an interpretation that violates the conscience of atheist. They believe firmly two commandments. It all begins and ends with a man named Mohammad. The Hadith (another "holy" book of Islam) says that Jihad, or holy war, is the second best thing to believing in Allah and his apostle (Muhammad).
Allah's apostle was asked, "What is the best deed?" He replied, "To believe in Allah and his Apostle." The questioner then asked, "What is the next?" He replied, "To participate in Jihad in Allah's cause." (Hadith vol. 1, no. 25).

Contrast that with the two greatest commandments of Christianity (To love God and to love your neighbor). As a Christian, the OT has examples of stoning, throwing spears thru people and destruction of villages and families. However because all authentic Christians and I know that these slaughters nation of nation were a result of sin and God's holiness, we don't go out and take out our neighbor or someone we don't like.

You have to know your enemy is the often-repeated "expert" commentator opinion. Why you will continue to have people evade your question and your sound thesis (not your recommendations) is that this is not only a war of flesh and blood. Flesh and blood is not the enemy. This is a spiritual war- something you can't see nor fight with a Navy seal team.

Thank you for posing the difficult questions and for your passion.

[jk]

Re: Paris Attack

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
H. L. Mencken