Race versus culture

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dorothea
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by dorothea »

I don't think you need anything very sophisticated to explain the power and spread of Islam. Mohammed was, like Jesus, a Jew with a belief in his own special place in God's heart. As the earlier bits of the Koran show, he tried to persuade other Jews to follow him. He failed and resorted to compulsion and a combination of stick and carrot. Thomas Aquinas knew more about Islam than anyone alive today, Muslim or no, and he attributed Islam's success to its appeal to violent and concupiscent men. Then as now, the same applies. Islamic State was in no material way different from much that goes on openly or under wraps in the 50 odd states that are Muslim ruled. The mystery, to me, is why the Muslims who live in the West and enjoy liberty and tolerance, (despite, in the UK, their co-religionists having murdered 150 British people since 2000) don't rise up against the repressive regimes that govern in their name. Isn't that what brave folks did when Franco began his war against civilisation in Christian civilisation's name. (By way of balance, why are no Catholics not raging against the bestial Catholic regime in El Salvador - where, among other horrors, raped teenagers are jailed for life if the have a miscarriage?)
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Arising_uk
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Arising_uk »

dorothea wrote:... (despite, in the UK, their co-religionists having murdered 150 British people since 2000) ...
Where do you get this figure from?
... don't rise up against the repressive regimes that govern in their name. ...
Because they're British? What do you mean by 'rise up'?
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Arising_uk
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Arising_uk »

dorothea wrote:... Mohammed was, like Jesus, a Jew ...
:?:
Belinda
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Belinda »

I understand Dorothea's feeling but really most people are not very interested in religious beliefs or in rising up. The best way to "rise up" is join a political party ; I guess that Dorothea will be a labour supporter at heart, since she hates Franco.

I have never been to a service in a mosque and suppose that , like in churches, the man who preaches has to include everybody which does not make for a rising-up ambience.
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Seleucus
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Seleucus »

dorothea wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 5:34 pmThe mystery, to me, is why the Muslims who live in the West and enjoy liberty and tolerance, (despite, in the UK, their co-religionists having murdered 150 British people since 2000) don't rise up against the repressive regimes that govern in their name.
There are multiple levels this question has been approached on:

1. We've already looked at it from the level of anthropology. Kuran found that cultures are interdependent wholes in which parts are multiply reinforced by one another. Barth found cultures are negatively created against those around them.

2. At the sociological level, identity maintenance is achieved through groupthink. Janis was very influential in the birth of the concept, claiming groupthink occurs when a community is isolated and dominated by a powerful center. This view has however been challenged: Turner and Pratkanis found lack of support for Janis's conception and instead find groupthink as a self-esteem deference mechanism.

3. At the psychological level, something similar has been proposed, identity maintenance is a form of narcissism, a finding that won't surprise those familiar with Buddhistic ideas of ego. In this model factors such as mother tongue use, identification with the home country, and participation in the ethnic community have been identified as significant, see Feuerverger. Farrington and Robinson add realistic pathways for crossing out of one and into another identity.
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Seleucus
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Seleucus »

dorothea wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 5:34 pmI don't think you need anything very sophisticated to explain the power and spread of Islam. Mohammed was, like Jesus, a Jew with a belief in his own special place in God's heart. As the earlier bits of the Koran show, he tried to persuade other Jews to follow him. He failed and resorted to compulsion and a combination of stick and carrot.
I see the very early expansion of Islam as a pan-Arab movement. Muhammad's first moves were uniting the Arabian Arabs, following, the so-called rightly guided caliphs expanded, unifying the Arabs of the Levantine interior and Mesopotamia, see image: link. Subsequently all Semitic peoples were united under Islam. When Muhammad smashed the three-hundred-and-sixty pagan idols in 631, he birthed a unified ethnolinguistic state, something which needs a monotheistic god, previously the Semites had been largely either pagans or else had the pan-European religion impressed on them, something which they naturally found alien and resisted hence the Monophysite schism, originating in Alexandria. Despite the pretentions of Islam to globalist internationalism, it is essentially a Semitic expression and hence it radically altered by the Persians, and vomited out by the Iberians, Slavs and Greeks. A major exception to that rule is Pakistan which might be explained by British divide and conqueror tactics pitting South-Asians against South Asians, the same mechanism accounting for the so-called Rohingya as well. The Malay were an exceedingly backward people and the coastal princes were easily wooed by the sophistication of the peoples to their West, forced conversion and invasion did the rest. Islam, like any imperialism, must always be on guard against localistic spiritual expressions, local dialects becoming called languages, and nationalistic sentiment in general. This is a big part of why globalists so love Muslims and so hate "nazis".
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Seleucus
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Seleucus »

Arising_uk wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 7:26 pm
dorothea wrote:... (despite, in the UK, their co-religionists having murdered 150 British people since 2000) ...
Where do you get this figure from?
The figure must be enormously higher. In Colin Wilson's Criminal history of mankind it is argued that crimes should not be categorized into political versus common and instead all crime is an expression of fundamentally common factors. All crimes committed in the UK by Muslims are Islamic terrorism, be those bomb and machine gun attacks, auto theft, drug dealing or jay walking. While Muslims make up 4% of the British population they represent 15.5% of prison population, link. But the situation is even worse since of prisoners in maximum security a full one in five are Muslims, link. Add to that political correctness and the fear of being called "racist" means Muslims are vastly under-prosecuted, link. Therefore, Muslims can probably be considered responsible for roughly 4000 killings of British people since 2000, link.
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Seleucus
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Seleucus »

Belinda wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:20 amAll societies harbour folk tales of heroes.
Spiderman and Obama are not Heroic. Heroic has two rather different meanings, one meaning is the normative English usage, the other is the warrior culture of our ancestors and which some today still celebrate.

1. "heroic"

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... ish/heroic

2. "Heroic"

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/ ... ic-culture
dorothea
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by dorothea »

Thanks for the interesting responses folks. Just to clear up questions - the 150 figure is public domain, about 120 killed in the UK and 30 Brits overseas - plus thousands maimed in various ways of course. By 'rise up' (OK a bad phrase) I meant, for instance, make more of a fuss - delegations to Saud, Iran, Pakistan etc pointing out that we can co-exist as we do in the west, and that is so even though some our foolish brothers and sisters insist on dressing like the talibs or wearing burkas. Brit Muslims could push for similar openness abroad - are any praising Salman's tiny steps to progress in Saud for example? Or did they think it was all just fine as it was? As for being a Labourite because opposed to Franco - oh no you don't - Franco's fascism, like Hitler's was in no material way different from Stalin's or Mao's communism (or Iran's theocratic nastiness). Dictatorial regimes are not just similar in their cruelty, repression and intolerance of mild criticism never mind opposition - but the personality disorders involved are the same too. I used to be in the UK labour party, but left as it has become more authoritarian and bigoted. Conservative values are more live and let live, stay with the devil you know, cautious, and tolerant of individual liberty and eccentricity - but that would be another discussion.
A personal note. I was brought up a strict RC, but priests in my high school who defended IRA tactics led eventually (it was a long process)to my rejecting all religion. I guess I expect religious people to question themselves, but that's faith for you.
Belinda
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Belinda »

Dorothea wrote:
A personal note. I was brought up a strict RC, but priests in my high school who defended IRA tactics led eventually (it was a long process)to my rejecting all religion. I guess I expect religious people to question themselves, but that's faith for you
I'd rather say "that's religion for you". It's divisive. Usually it divides by stealth tactics not outright jihad.Religious people (Abrahamic religions) tend not to question because they are conservatives. They and their priests conserve the status quo of social class which is what religions are mainly for. I understand that Muhammad himself saw that the tribal rule by vendetta was ineffective particularly for trade. Religions are for keeping law and order and supporting the powers of the upper classes. In the olden days the upper classes were the landowning aristocracy who were Muslim, RC or Protestant.Everybody had to be a religious' believer'. The rise of middle classes with the Protestant work ethic and industrialisation did not dilute the usefulness of religion except for certain of the nonconformists such as Quakers and Unitarians who were never very influential in the capitalistic societies.
Religion was used for furthering the processes of political exploitative colonisation when the lesser 'race' was demonised or declared non-human.

Throughout all the politicisation and corruption of Abrahamic religions the socialistic message of the Golden Rule was preserved, and still is. Pope Francis is a notable preserver of the Golden Rule he just has to be prudent. You were RC, Dorothea; one of my favourite heroes is Oscar Romero of San Salvador.

"Religion versus Culture" is misleading; religion is a part of a society's culture, including the mishmash that passes for popular secular style religions today in Europe.
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Arising_uk
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Arising_uk »

Seleucus wrote:...
1. We've already looked at it from the level of anthropology. ...
Does this explain why the Yank Irish didn't rise-up against the Irish terrorists killing and bombing in the UK?

Does it explain why the Yank Irish funded terrorism in my country?

Should we have driven out all the Irish and Americans in my country at the time?

Should we have nuked Boston and New York?
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Arising_uk
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Arising_uk »

dorothea wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:56 am Thanks for the interesting responses folks. Just to clear up questions - the 150 figure is public domain, about 120 killed in the UK and 30 Brits overseas - plus thousands maimed in various ways of course. ...
Thousands of Brits?
By 'rise up' (OK a bad phrase) I meant, for instance, make more of a fuss - delegations to Saud, Iran, Pakistan etc pointing out that we can co-exist as we do in the west, and that is so even though some our foolish brothers and sisters insist on dressing like the talibs or wearing burkas. ...
People are allowed to wear what they like in my country.

Why do you think the Sauds and Pakistanis will take any note of British Muslims?

Do you think we should have made the Irish living here do such things during the IRA terrorism?
Brit Muslims could push for similar openness abroad - are any praising Salman's tiny steps to progress in Saud for example? Or did they think it was all just fine as it was? ...
What business is it of ours what other countries do?
As for being a Labourite because opposed to Franco - oh no you don't - Franco's fascism, like Hitler's was in no material way different from Stalin's or Mao's communism (or Iran's theocratic nastiness). Dictatorial regimes are not just similar in their cruelty, repression and intolerance of mild criticism never mind opposition - but the personality disorders involved are the same too. I used to be in the UK labour party, but left as it has become more authoritarian and bigoted. Conservative values are more live and let live, stay with the devil you know, cautious, and tolerant of individual liberty and eccentricity - but that would be another discussion.
A personal note. I was brought up a strict RC, but priests in my high school who defended IRA tactics led eventually (it was a long process)to my rejecting all religion. I guess I expect religious people to question themselves, but that's faith for you.
What on earth are you talking about?
dorothea
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by dorothea »

For the topic of ethics you seem to have some difficulty, unless your remarks are merely persiflagery. I don't know what your country is, but people do not wear what they like in autocratic/theocratic countries (in Saud even hairstyles have been proscribed, though that's trivial compared to rape not being a crime there). It is disrespectful of western values to seem to identify with oppressive regimes through aping their dress. (The 1937 law against such behaviour, used to stop Moseley's marches, is not applied, but should be) As to the effectiveness of protesting about cleric and govt behaviour in Pakistan et al - any action, however small, is better then none, and it would also have an educational effect on Muslim youth in the UK if their elders demonstrated displeasure with supremacist intolerance. (There's a special issue in the UK as Labour depend on a couple of million Muslim votes - hence easy-going attitudes to Jew-hate, and indulgence towards the intransigent Palestinians and the terrorist thugs they have elected.) There's also the responsibility we have under the UN's R2P surely.
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Seleucus
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Seleucus »

I see my remarks on Katya Zashtopik have also been deleted. I'm not willing to participate in a group that defends idiotic name-calling but censors discovery. This is my last reply here.
Belinda
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Re: Race versus culture

Post by Belinda »

Seleucus wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:25 am
Belinda wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2017 10:20 amAll societies harbour folk tales of heroes.
Spiderman and Obama are not Heroic. Heroic has two rather different meanings, one meaning is the normative English usage, the other is the warrior culture of our ancestors and which some today still celebrate.

1. "heroic"

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... ish/heroic

2. "Heroic"

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/ ... ic-culture

Good.
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