2nd Child Dies After Parents Choose Prayer

I would rather share ideas and have people come to their own conclusions than convince any one person of a specific viewpoint. I don't expect someone like Amandarius who is incapable of looking past his own self-interests to see the negative impacts that a dominant social group has on a minority group - but by responding to him I can provide resources to someone else who might not otherwise look for them. If that person takes an interest and looks up additional sources, then I feel that it's a win even if they don't make the exact conclusion I'm attempting to construct.

Yeah those have to be some pretty impressive blinders to not be able to see something that has gone on for centuries.

Those blinders must be made of old testaments, since they are so strongly tossed to the wind in favor of new testaments. Personally, i favor the old testaments.

While true that historically, in places where Christianity ascends to hegemony it has (or specifically, its ruling class followers have) become oppressive, itself Christianity is relatively non-militant institution so in places where it is marginalized by a more assertive ruling class Christians have been victims of pretty horrific oppression.

It's important to remember this.

I agree.

I was speaking more of religion in general terms, as the Muslims have been just as guilty as christians. not to mention India, a predominantly hindu country, whose leaders are doing a pretty awesome job of oppressing women.

I should've made the distinction

so have non religious groups... lol... people have slaughtered and raped and pillaged since the beginning of time in the name of their gods or whatever other reason they had to go about doing it... conquest... wealth... power... all kinds of things have driven humanity to commit acts that we today consider attrocities...

it's easier to rationalize when there's a reason.

A little tougher for people (in general) to understand a guy who just wants to burn & kill everything for the sake of it.

Is the world stuck on stupid? I just said what I was thinking when I put my original comment down and the reason why I said it. If you can't grasp the difference in suggesting something as oppose to simply giving the chain of thought behind it, then I might as well talk to the wall.

It's hard to separate class-level oppression from religiously motivated class-level oppression but there is a difference

It's the difference between

"We're going to treat these people as subhumans because they're different than us"

and

"We're going to treat these people as subhumans because a divine force has dictated that we are superior"

The former can be reasoned with - the latter stems from divine authority


An interesting study dealing with religious violence

I'm saying that having a terrible idea isn't even as good as having no idea at all... We're open to ideas here on how you would plan to prevent things like this from happening and how you implement those plans but for now all you did was throw out an idea that was completely unrealistic and then slam someone else for not having any ideas... when the status quo is already better than your idea you're not really contributing... just being open to something puts you on the same level as everyone else pretty much as I'm sure the majority if not all people are open to ideas to prevent tradgedies like this...

As sad as this is, I personally don't think there is a way to prevent something like this from happening again. Bottom line is, you can't fix stupid or in this case blind adhearence to religion.

Is one better than the other? I'm unsure of the point that you are trying to make...

You cannot reason with faith.

how did this get to 13 pages

Does that somehow make violence not related to faith better?

Why isn't it 26 pages?

How every other discussion gets to 13 pages... it splinters off into a bunch of other conversations...

Much better question!

Better? You could make that distinction if you really wanted to, but it oversimplifies it. It's harder to change, which makes it more difficult to stop. There could be benefits we don't see, but at face value, that's the negative.

I supposed one could also ask: is violence absent of hate any better? vs "hate crimes"?

Man, it feels like I am talking to the wall. For starters it's not my idea. Here is what I have already said "Ahh, Well the stuff you see makes me wonder. It's not like I don't see the huge conflict here or how would such a thing be implemented/enforced and all the potential problems that goes along with it." I also said this "I am not claiming to have the answer, it's not an easy topic and I not saying it should be done. I just said stuff like this makes me consider it." If this is too complicated to see where I am coming from which seems to be the case and the only thing you can harp on is the imaginary position you think I am taking when I stated my position several times already (talking to the wall) and the high horse you think you are riding by simply saying rights then say nothing can be done then you change that, then by all means run in the circle.

I feel the same way little buddy... I feel the same way... Personally I don't think you even listen to yourself speak...

run forest run

Sounds about right...

"Better" and "worse" are some of the first comparisons people try to make between things, but people use different metrics for concepts so there is no right answer. I try to avoid ordered reasoning in these cases, because assigning an order implies that one is more "okay" than the other and when you start to make that sort of distinction, I think it's dangerous.

I think the ultimate goal of discussing violence is to 1.) determine motivations and 2.) ultimately curtail it, and the idea is that 1.) helps us determine a route to 2.) (sort of like knowing the cause of a disease can help us lead to a cure or treatment).

Take views on homosexuality, for example. If someone doesn't like homosexuals because they don't understand them, negative stereotyping (pedophilia and/or promiscuity, disease), or have never met one are just generally xenophobic - they might eventually meet someone who is gay and does not fit these negative prejudices and realize that there was no reason for them to have negative opinions of homosexuals as a whole. The religiously motivated person, however, is operating under dictation from God that homosexuality is immoral and will be much more likely to adhere to their negative opinions.

In this manner, religious prejudices can act as water on the highway when braking a car (in this case "braking" refers to overcoming a prejudice or negative attitude). If the prejudiced, oppresive, or marginalizing religious attitude is backed up by hegemony (including feeling victimized by another class), hypernationalism, or violent scripture (as many are), it can aggravate susceptible people into committing pretty unspeakable acts completely uninhibited. We are seeing a deadly combination of this in modern militant Islam. (Whether or not extremist leaders are deliberately exploiting these catalysts, I cannot say but it's highly likely since at this point in time in some of the more "violent" places control every aspect of society including media and education, and the exposure and enforcement of religious ideas to the populace)

But really, no. One is not "better" or "worse" than the other. Violence is violence. It will always be around, and people are naturally inclined to segregate and distinguish classes of people - to the point of viewing outsiders as subhuman - at a subconscious level. Dehumanization almost always leads to violence and religion is just one of the more potent and untreatable means by which people classify - and ultimately - dehumanize each other.

I raise my glass to you sir.

ahhh so as long as I keep it simple and short you understand and can agree. Sweet.

Nice, you think an attempt at an insult will get you somewhere lol..