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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 06/21/2007 : 23:49:36 [Permalink]
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Ricky said:
I'm sorry, but that seems like a non-sequitur. I made no statements that the Japanese or those in the Middle East are uneducated. They are trapped in their situations with no way out, and as such, they resort to drastic measures. Suicide bombings.
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So, you consider an architectural grad student, a guy on a military scholarship with a killer stipend, and a guy from a hard-working middle-class family to be trapped? Thats an interesting position to take.
Also, my point was not that they were poor. The Middle East was in turmoil long before 9/11. This was the situation I was referring to.
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These guys were Saudis, Lebanese, and UAE, who were able to go to school in Germany, to persue graduate degrees in atleast one instance. It seems they were minimally, if at all, effected by the "turmoil" in the middle east.
No, I can't say I do. Then again, I can't say I know of any society that is just evidence based, secular, natural rights, etc. So it should be no surprise that I can't name one that has suicide bombers as well.
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There are societies close enough to make comparison to. Where are the US suicide bombers? (we have probably had a couple, I can't think of any though) US religion is checked by secular forces. Rule of law and the natural rights philosophy of the founders.
Eugenics programs in the early 20th century in America and Germany.
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Did those programs kill people, or try to force them to convert to a science based worldview? Certainly they were misguided and obviously wrong. Germany's extermination of Jews was based on racism, not eugenics. Some people may have tried to use eugenics as a justification, but no one in Germany set out with the idea of exterminating 6million people to create the master race. They killed them because of racial prejudice.
We are talking about suicide bombers. Certainly there are those who murdered recently in the name of Christianity. But no suicide bombers to my recollection.
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Because of other secular forces working against the church. Science, law, etc.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 06/22/2007 : 09:49:33 [Permalink]
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These guys were Saudis, Lebanese, and UAE, who were able to go to school in Germany, to persue graduate degrees in atleast one instance. It seems they were minimally, if at all, effected by the "turmoil" in the middle east.
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Some cultures strongly care about not only where they are right now, but the place where they came from too.
There are societies close enough to make comparison to. Where are the US suicide bombers? (we have probably had a couple, I can't think of any though) US religion is checked by secular forces. Rule of law and the natural rights philosophy of the founders. |
No, it's not the US religion is checked. We see all the time that it isn't. Whether it be "In God We Trust" on our currency, judges putting the 10 Commandments on the court house steps, or the bombing of abortion clinics, we see time and time again that religion is still extremely prevalent in our country. That a non-Christian has almost no chance to win any kind of election is evidence enough. I do agree that religion is put in check to an exponentially greater amount in US than in the Middle East. However, I also think it's reasonable that if the US was in a similar social economic situation and smack dab in the middle of a political crisis, we would see suicide bombers in the US.
Did those programs kill people, or try to force them to convert to a science based worldview? Certainly they were misguided and obviously wrong. Germany's extermination of Jews was based on racism, not eugenics. Some people may have tried to use eugenics as a justification, but no one in Germany set out with the idea of exterminating 6million people to create the master race. They killed them because of racial prejudice. |
Just to be clear, I was not referring to Hitler. Hitler did not practice Eugenics, he practiced genocide. There is a huge difference between the two. I do not know of Germany's practices in Eugenics, but in America, many were forced to be sterilized. In an evolutionary perspective, that is a genetic death sentence and it is what I would call an atrocity. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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Sam Harris debate
