Race, Gender and Identity

[Mole]

Oh I responded to what you said. I said you lack perspective if you think embracing Buddhist philosophy is an allegiance or support of violence of certain groups of people who happen to call themselves Buddhists.

Hope that clears it right up for you.

My dear Marmotini, my dear marmot, I am happy you are here and I am not going to have a stand up fight with you.

 

[Thalassa]

My dear Marmotini, my dear marmot, I am happy you are here and I am not going to have a stand up fight with you.

Thanks Victor. But I'm not trying to fight.

 

[Mole]

It's almost as if you're on an MBTI discussion forum....

This may come as a surprise to you but it makes no difference to a critical thinker where they are.

On a MBTI forum they will critique MBTI, and on a Quantum Mechanical forum they will critique Quantum Mechanics.

Of course critical thinking does produce cognitive dissonance, and cogitive dissonance is emotionally painful.

And usually the naive thinker will blame their emotional pain on the critical thinker. Their motto is, "Blame the messenger, take no responsibility for my own emotional pain".

 

[Thalassa]

This may come as a surprise to you but it makes no difference to a critical thinker where they are.

On a MBTI forum they will critique MBTI, and on a Quantum Mechanical forum they will critique Quantum Mechanics.

Of course critical thinking does produce cognitive dissonance, and cogitive dissonance is emotionally painful.

And usually the naive thinker will blame their emotional pain on the critical thinker. Their motto is, "Blame the messenger, take no responsibility for my own emotional pain".

Actually I was calling you out on YOU not thinking critically, not experiencing emotional pain, Victor.

You aren't thinking critically if you think embracing a doctrine or belief system somehow is in support of sects of people who did bad but human things in the name of that faith.

The way you go on about Islam tells me a lot, and it tells me you aren't really thinking clearly, but polarizing and demonizing that which you don't understand.

If you were brave enough to peer something like Islam in the face, and try to empathize with and understand why those people believe what they believe, you may be surprised at what you learn not only about Islam, but about a chain of other seemingly unrelated things.

 

[Mole]

Actually I was calling you out on YOU not thinking critically, not experiencing emotional pain, Victor.

You aren't thinking critically if you think embracing a doctrine or belief system somehow is in support of sects of people who did bad but human things in the name of that faith.

The way you go on about Islam tells me a lot, and it tells me you aren't really thinking clearly, but polarizing and demonizing that which you don't understand.

If you were brave enough to peer something like Islam in the face, and try to empathize with and understand why those people believe what they believe, you may be surprised at what you learn not only about Islam, but about a chain of other seemingly unrelated things.

You see, by criticising me personally, you put me on the defensive, and tempt me to criticise you personally. And personal criticisms feed on themselves and lead to a flame.

So rather than criticising me or anyone else personally, I invite you to criticise ideas instead of criticising persons.

So critical thinking is about critiquing ideas, it is not about criticising persons.

 

[Thalassa]

You see, by criticising me personally, you put me on the defensive, and tempt me to criticise you personally. And personal criticisms feed on themselves and lead to a flame.

So rather than criticising me or anyone else personally, I invite you to criticise ideas instead of criticising persons.

I'm criticizing your entire framework approach, which is why it feels like a personal attack, because your entire approach is the problem. I am criticizing the way you think about this stuff, yeah.

It's so black and white.

You never get past the phase where you polarize, you don't separate ideas or doctrines from the actions of some of the people who practice them.

This is a common enough human trait, but really, I think the way you go around doing it constantly is pretty offensive, yet you don't want anyone to criticize you for doing it.

I'm trying to point out flaws in your analysis, not say you're a bad person, Victor.

 

[Mole]

I'm criticizing your entire framework approach, which is why it feels like a personal attack, because your entire approach is the problem. I am criticizing the way you think about this stuff, yeah.

It's so black and white.

You never get past the phase where you polarize, you don't separate ideas or doctrines from the actions of some of the people who practice them.

This is a common enough human trait, but really, I think the way you go around doing it constantly is pretty offensive, yet you don't want anyone to criticize you for doing it.

I'm trying to point out flaws in your analysis, not say you're a bad person, Victor.

I may or may not be a bad person. But freedom of speech means nothing without the freedom to offend.

And indeed I do think in black and white just as the printed word is in black and white. I seek out the two poles. Usually only one pole is mentioned in order to persuade so I mention the other pole. Naturally this is felt as undermining by the persuader.

The problem criticising the way I think is that I am tempted to criticise you back, and this leads to a flame, which is anti-social.

The solution is to realise I am intelligent with integrity, and step up to the plate, and leave personal criticism behind.

Remember I am fond of you and I am fond of ideas, but I will only criticise ideas, I won't criticise you.

With a bit of luck.

 

[Thalassa]

I may or may not be a bad person. But freedom of speech means nothing without the freedom to offend.

And indeed I do think in black and white just as the printed word is in black and white. I seek out the two poles. Usually only one pole is mentioned in order to persuade so I mention the other pole. Naturally this is felt as undermining by the persuader.

The problem criticising the way I think is that I am tempted to criticise you back, and this leads to a flame, which is anti-social.

The solution is to realise I am intelligent with integrity, and step up to the plate, and leave personal criticism behind.

Remember I am fond of you and I am fond of ideas, but I will only criticise ideas, I won't criticise you.

With a bit of luck.

I'm criticizing cognitive bias.

You can't take up what I'm saying into consideration at all? That JUST MAYBE you conflate religions too much with extremist groups, rather conveniently?

It was really freeing for me to learn about how differently the Muslim faith manifests in different countries, when it's divorced from certain archaic cultural ways existing in Central Asian countries that has very little to do with Islam.

And Buddhism frees many people from their inner suffering and gives them enlightened perspectives; all Buddhists aren't murderers any more than all middle school gym teachers are pederasts.

Maybe some Buddhists are murderers, but then they aren't actually following Buddhist teaching in the slightest. And being a middle school gym teacher has zero to do with wanting to inappropriately touch or rape adolescents who are not yet sexually mature, but it may be a convenient hide out for some pederasts.

Do you see what I am saying Victor?

 

[Nicodemus]

[MENTION=18064]Valiant[/MENTION] probably isn't mentally ill just because you don't agree with him; entire countries of people are racist nationalists, white nationalism is not comparable to a serial killer in San Francisco thinking a homeless man was a Biblical prophet who told him to murder.

I don't support his views at all, but describing him as psychotic is probably not at all true.

Just to put this into perspective: Not long ago you said you probably knew only one sane person; you constantly attribute mental illnesses to people on and off the forum, usually on the basis of no more evidence than already provided in this case; but Valiant, who believes age-old and well-refuted conspiracy theories and obvious more recent lies, who dedicates all his efforts to a hateful cause, and engages in mono-themed discussions with the apparent intent to recruit soldiers for an army in pursuit of a racist war across Europe - he just has a different opinion.

The only constant here is that you are arguing strange points.

 

[Thalassa]

Just to put this into perspective: Not long ago you said you probably knew only one sane person; you constantly attribute mental illnesses to people on and off the forum, usually on the basis of no more evidence than already provided in this case; but Valiant, who believes age-old and well-refuted conspiracy theories and obvious more recent lies, who dedicates all his efforts to a hateful cause, and engages in mono-themed discussions with the apparent intent to recruit soldiers for an army in pursuit of a racist war across Europe - he just has a different opinion.

The only constant here is that you are arguing strange points.

I don't think I've SERIOUSLY attempted to diagnose ANYONE on the forum with anything, however I may have attributed malicious motives to people when there were none in certain incidents.

I do know a fair number people with personality disorders, and I never said I only knew one sane person, I know A TON of people, and I just happen to talk about maybe three people with personality disorders, which actually isn't the same thing as being psychotic, personality disorders are common in people abused as children, or who experienced extreme loss or neglect.

I said the sanest people I know are some of my yoga instructors, and that's because of their level of enlightenment mentally and spiritually that they have relatively lower neurosis (although all people are neurotic) than many other people.

That doesn't mean they're the only sane people I know.

I'm not actually arguing anything strange at all. I think I'm one of the few people not spewing their moral bias all over this and translating it into "omgz you're insane."

I've noticed that people don't like for others to change or grow, either. I've noticed it a lot on this forum, like if you didn't know something last year, how could you know it now.

People grow. The only thing that stays the same is that things change.

 

[TheStarchDefenders]

Just to put this into perspective: Not long ago you said you probably knew only one sane person; you constantly attribute mental illnesses to people on and off the forum, usually on the basis of no more evidence than already provided in this case; but Valiant, who believes age-old and well-refuted conspiracy theories and obvious more recent lies, who dedicates all his efforts to a hateful cause, and engages in mono-themed discussions with the apparent intent to recruit soldiers for an army in pursuit of a racist war across Europe - he just has a different opinion.

The only constant here is that you are arguing strange points.

God I love you Nico.

 

[Thalassa]

God I love you Nico.

So you guys trolling now or what?

Or would you like to be alone together?

 

[TheStarchDefenders]

So you guys trolling now or what?

Or would you like to be alone together?

First post in the thread and you assume im trolling. I was talking to Nico. Shoo.

 

[Mole]

I'm criticizing cognitive bias.

You can't take up what I'm saying into consideration at all? That JUST MAYBE you conflate religions too much with extremist groups, rather conveniently?

It was really freeing for me to learn about how differently the Muslim faith manifests in different countries, when it's divorced from certain archaic cultural ways existing in Central Asian countries that has very little to do with Islam.

And Buddhism frees many people from their inner suffering and gives them enlightened perspectives; all Buddhists aren't murderers any more than all middle school gym teachers are pederasts.

Maybe some Buddhists are murderers, but then they aren't actually following Buddhist teaching in the slightest. And being a middle school gym teacher has zero to do with wanting to inappropriately touch or rape adolescents who are not yet sexually mature, but it may be a convenient hide out for some pederasts.

Do you see what I am saying Victor?

You are saying I am conflating extremist groups within a religion with the religion itself? Is that right?

Well if you go and see the documentary out now in theatres called, "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God", you will find that the cover up was ordered by the Vatican and the Pope. This is not an extremist group, this is the whole church.

And if you read the Koran and the Hadith and join a Muslim Student Society as I did, you will find that Jihad, violent holy war, is essential to Islam along the inferiority of women and the abuse of children. You will be horrified by the 1930's style anti-semitism that is taken for granted in Islam from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia. And you will be alarmed to discover you are either a dhimmi and a second class citizen, or you are an infidel who can be killed. And you will be alarmed to discover that should you try to leave Islam, you are an apostate who can be legally killed by any good muslim. You will be further alarmed by Taqiyya in the Koran which teaches a good muslim can lie to a non-muslim.

If you move beyond the Walt Disney view of Buddhism in the West, you will find Buddhists led by Buddhist monks killing Tamils in Sri Lanka, and you only have to turn on you TV to find Buddhists led by Buddhist monks burning and killing and ethnically cleansing Burmese. These are not extremists, these are normal Buddhists in the normal world.

But they ask us to have faith in Christianity, in Islam and in Buddhism - what do they take us for?

 

[Thalassa]

First post in the thread and you assume im trolling. I was talking to Nico. Shoo.

Yes, I presume you're trolling because your first post in the thread is in direct response to Nico saying something about me which is completely off topic.

And your tone in this post indicates further trolling.

I also know you both hang out in Vent.

Try harder next time.

 

[TheStarchDefenders]

Yes, I presume you're trolling because your first post in the thread is in direct response to Nico saying something about me which is completely off topic.

And your tone in this post indicates further trolling.

I also know you both hang out in Vent.

Try harder next time.

Derp.

 

[Thalassa]

Derp.

I see that you have many meaningful things to contribute to this thread.

 

[TheStarchDefenders]

I see that you have many meaningful things to contribute to this thread.

I am tying you up from further postings. Doing my part.

 

[Thalassa]

You are saying I am conflating extremist groups within a religion with the religion itself? Is that right?

Well if you go and see the documentary out now in theatres called, "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God", you will find that the cover up was ordered by the Vatican and the Pope. This is not an extremist group, this is the whole church.

And if you read the Koran and the Hadith and join a Muslim Student Society as I did, you will find that Jihad, violent holy war, is essential to Islam along the inferiority of women and the abuse of children. You will be horrified by the 1930's style anti-semitism that is taken for granted in Islam from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia. And you will be alarmed to discover you are either a dhimmi and a second class citizen, or you are an infidel who can be killed. And you will be alarmed to discover that should you try to leave Islam, you are an apostate who can be legally killed by any good muslim. You will be further alarmed by Taqiyya in the Koran which teaches a good muslim can lie to a non-muslim.

If you move beyond the Walt Disney view of Buddhism in the West, you will find Buddhists led by Buddhist monks killing Tamils in Sri Lanka, and you only have to turn on you TV to find Buddhists led by Buddhist monks burning and killing and ethnically cleansing Burmese. These are not extremists, these are normal Buddhists in the normal world.

But they ask us to have faith in Christianity, in Islam and in Buddhism - what do they take us for?

Because Americans have never done horrible things? Do you know about Japanese internment camps in the U.S. during WWII? How about the fact that Guantanamo Bay exists? What about the Civil War? Why are prisons predominantly filled with African American males?

Victor why did people in the oh-so-awesome Roman empire molest children?

People do heinous things. Yes, some forms of thought are superior at creating peace and human rights than others, but funnily enough, those forms of thought are often based in Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism as well as Western respect for rights of the individual.

 

[Mole]

Rome and Slavery

Victor why did people in the oh-so-awesome Roman empire molest children?

Rome, both the Republic and the Empire, were based on institutional slavery.

So a Roman could legally kill their own slaves, or legally torture their own slaves, or legally break up slave families, or legally rape their own slaves, men, women and children, and they could legally work their slaves to death.

Jesus lived under the Roman Slave Empire and said not a word against institutional slavery. And Christianity supported institutional slavery right up to 1833 when the House of Commons abolished institutional slavery for the first time in history and sent the Royal Navy out into the Atlantic with orders to sink American slave ships.