Reply to: Explosion Liverpool

[vetran]

Are you 100% sure about that?

It is written!

[NotAllThere]

Being absolutely certain you're right is a dangerous thing for people on the 'wrong' side.

Are you 100% sure about that?

[d000hg]

I can't just blame religion, people's beliefs make them do strange things. As you said the aliens knew no better.

Being absolutely certain you're right is a dangerous thing for people on the 'wrong' side.

[vetran]

That too but more coming from the angle of being able to justify extreme behaviour. Your god requires you to circumcise subdued enemies, or "pain purifies" so you're actually helping someone by torturing them to death.

As a weirder scenario, in "Speaker for the Dead" we have people being tortured to death by aliens simply because they don't understand our biology is different - they genuinely think they are doing something to help.

I can't just blame religion, people's beliefs make them do strange things. As you said the aliens knew no better. One of my favourites is this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming

Cargo cult programming is a style of computer programming characterized by the ritual inclusion of code or program structures that serve no real purpose. Cargo cult programming is symptomatic of a programmer not understanding either a bug they were attempting to solve or the apparent solution (compare shotgun debugging, deep magic).^[1] The term cargo cult programmer may apply when anyone inexperienced with the problem at hand copies some program code from one place to another with little understanding of how it works or whether it is required.

Many times I tried not to laugh when programmers did the above.

Many of these were not actual religions, you still got abuse:

https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/cul...eadly-history/

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/enterta...-cult-stories/

[d000hg]

adding fanaticism (religious or otherwise) to the mix tends to remove reason.

That too but more coming from the angle of being able to justify extreme behaviour. Your god requires you to circumcise subdued enemies, or "pain purifies" so you're actually helping someone by torturing them to death.

As a weirder scenario, in "Speaker for the Dead" we have people being tortured to death by aliens simply because they don't understand our biology is different - they genuinely think they are doing something to help.

[vetran]

There's an argument soldiers who really believe in their cause might be more extreme, or able to quell their conscience? The difference between merely killing your adversary and torturing them to death, etc?

adding fanaticism (religious or otherwise) to the mix tends to remove reason.

[d000hg]

There's an argument soldiers who really believe in their cause might be more extreme, or able to quell their conscience? The difference between merely killing your adversary and torturing them to death, etc?

[vetran]

I guess it depends on your definition. But under modern definitions, I think not. Murdering vicious b.stards, yes. Terrorists, no as they weren't exactly using terror for the purposes of political power, rather the domination of the enemy, and self-enrichment. The crusaders even went against Constantinople.

I'm sure the distinction would have made a huge difference to the victims of course.

Were the Christian soldiers any more vicious or wrong than the invading turks they were repelling at the request of the Byzantine Christians who had been there since 330?

https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/crusades

However, Byzantium had lost considerable territory to the invading Seljuk Turks. After years of chaos and civil war, the general Alexius Comnenus seized the Byzantine throne in 1081 and consolidated control over the remaining empire as Emperor Alexius I.

In 1095, Alexius sent envoys to Pope Urban II asking for mercenary troops from the West to help confront the Turkish threat. Though relations between Christians in the East and West had long been fractious, Alexius’s request came at a time when the situation was improving.

In November 1095, at the Council of Clermont in southern France, the Pope called on Western Christians to take up arms to aid the Byzantines and recapture the Holy Land from Muslim control. This marked the beginning of the Crusades.

Its not like the Crusades were unprovoked or a case of the west building empires.

Mediaeval war was horrific on all sides.

[NotAllThere]

We can call those horrific but is it accurate to describe them as terror groups?

I guess it depends on your definition. But under modern definitions, I think not. Murdering vicious b.stards, yes. Terrorists, no as they weren't exactly using terror for the purposes of political power, rather the domination of the enemy, and self-enrichment. The crusaders even went against Constantinople.

I'm sure the distinction would have made a huge difference to the victims of course.

[d000hg]

There were, recall the inquisition and the 30 years war etc, but we've got over it on the whole and it must be stated that no matter how hard it's views, Christianity no longer promotes terror.

We can call those horrific but is it accurate to describe them as terror groups?

[Gibbon]

I'm sure there must be actual hard-core Christian terror groups but I struggle to recall any.

There were, recall the inquisition and the 30 years war etc, but we've got over it on the whole and it must be stated that no matter how hard it's views, Christianity no longer promotes terror.

[vetran]

Wasn't like 3 other people arrested for planning it as well? If they're Islamic terrorists then it's fair to say this guy probably wasn't legitimately converting... if they are christians then it's fair to say it's Christian terrorists... if they are a mix... then who knows?

Why do the professed religion of the other people arrested (and subsequently released without charge) matter? But if they were all failed asylum seekers an the conversion was a hail Mary is it unfair to doubt it?

There are a lot more conversions to Christianity amongst asylum seekers (those at church how many who are Muslims who aren't claiming asylum have converted recently? Maybe because it allows the to claim they are persecuted. Going Gay s also a good move. How many christians have converted to Islam?

Its reasonable to question items like these after multiple refusals.

[d000hg]

Possible but unlikely. How many Christian terrorists do we get? The NI troubles were mainly about national differences, don't recall the minor religious differences between Catholic and Protestant faiths being mentioned much.

Indeed NI seems to be about labels. I'm from a Protestant family, you from a Catholic family... reds Vs blues rather than cleansing heretics for bad doctrine.

I'm sure there must be actual hard-core Christian terror groups but I struggle to recall any. You could imagine a group like Westboro Baptists getting armed up and bombing abortion clinics, and I suppose a lot of the Trump insurrectionists are ardent church-goers so neither are too far away from it.

[WTFH]

Possible but unlikely. How many Christian terrorists do we get? The NI troubles were mainly about national differences, don't recall the minor religious differences between Catholic and Protestant faiths being mentioned much.

You obviously weren't listening to Paisley, etc. "For God and Ulster" is probably one of the lingering rally cries.

[xoggoth]

if they are christians then it's fair to say it's Christian terrorists

Possible but unlikely. How many Christian terrorists do we get? The NI troubles were mainly about national differences, don't recall the minor religious differences between Catholic and Protestant faiths being mentioned much.

One wonders why this man was here after so many failed asylum applications. Presume the uncertainty of his origin meant no country would take him.