This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
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Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is Thunderdome, the unmoderated open thread on Pharyngula. Say what you want, how you want.
Status: UNMODERATED; Previous thread
Holy shitting fuck, fuck this Supreme Court.
Link
When will they stop tearing the Constitution to ribbons? I wonder how much damage this Supreme Court is going to do until we can finally replace one of the five Catholic wingnuts with someone remotely sensible.
David Marjanović
Not everyone else manages to do the same. While I used to remember conversations as if I had a transcript in my head, depression has largely gutted my memory of 2011~2013 and still causes issues recalling exactly what has been said/written, by whom, and where. I can usually recognize my writing style and hobbyhorse topics, but not necessarily from a one or two line snippet.
…versus copying the troublesome chunk of a comment, scrolling down to the reply box, pasting it, writing a response, scrolling back up to find where you left off, and moving on to the next comment?
It is a property of the thinking that a person decides to post to a thread. Why respond to other comments if not wanting to answer questions or correct misinformation? What is the best way to correct the proliferation of misinformation? Write a short correction to a tiny snippet of unattributed text buried alongside other text? Directly confront the person spewing the misinformation with reality and attempt to persuade them to stop spreading shit everywhere?
I get that CTRL+F exists and that lack of attribution is not as big an issue where you can get hundreds of searchable comments per page largely concerning a single topic or commenter. It may even just be my acclimation to conversations limited to 10~20 comments per page while having easy access to blockquotes with automatic inclusion of attribution. It just seems lazy to not add even a simple text delimiter indicating a change in authors. You manage to use the creationist blockquote when addressing medic0506’s willful ignorance and blatant lies, why not add a few text characters to differentiate between other commenters?
Grabbers is a very fun movie. Tentacles and drunk people!
Inaji,
I saw that recommendation in the other thread, and went over to look. On the way, I also found Severance.
Heh, I sent the link to my coworker who’s very enthusiastic about our team-building which she is in the middle of organizing.
Beatrice @ 504, yeah, I’ve seen Severance. It doesn’t have the same sense of fun as Grabbers, but it’s okay.
I find both of these methods cumbersome and now I’m wondering if I’m the only one using the two-tabs method. Every time I need to write a comment that requires replying as I catch up or copying and pasting several chunks of text, I open the page in another tab so that I have the thread I’m reading in two separate tabs. I then use the first tab to go through the comments and the second to write my reply, copying from the comments in the first into the comment box in the second, and replying to each quote as I do so. When I’m finished, I refresh the first tab to see if there are any new comments, edit the comment in the second tab if necessary, preview, submit, and close the first tab. No scrolling up and down and no external editor necessary, just switching between tabs. I’m curious, am I the only one who does it like this?
MattP,
I don’t think David uses the “creationist blockquote” the way you think he does. He doesn’t use it to differentiate between a creationist and everyone else in a given thread. Indeed, from what I’ve seen he’s well capable both of quoting anyone in Comic Sans and of quoting a creationist using normal blockquotes. It all depends on the content, not on the author.
Nightjar,
I also use two-tabs method.
anteprepro @ 501
I doubt we’re going to ever get the chance.
We’re going out for sushi.
The Host was absolutely awful. Pure dreck, all plot hole, rather than any coherent plot.
David Marjanović (#596 from the den of evil thread)
Well, imagine if you had as much or more difficulty following comments with lots of unattributed quotations. Seriously, I’m not being snarky. And I don’t like to do things without knowing why, but if someone I respect says it would be really helpful if I did a thing, accommodating them matters more.
There is a utility in asking people to follow conventions they don’t—and might never—understand. The obvious example is asking people not to say bigoted things. You’re not doing anything like that, of course, but I have seen so many racists/sexists/homophobes/etc refuse to stop saying harmful shit because it doesn’t make sense to them that they’re doing something wrong, even if they are given explanations. What matters more is minimizing the harm they do.
Not at all. I’m more likely to believe the woman near me in the restaurant I went to tonight was out to antagonize people with her excessive perfume than you want to antagonize people with comment formatting. And I’m sure she thought she smelled lovely.
~*~*~*~*~*~
MattP (#502 this thread)
I have similar difficulties. In fact, I might not have caught that plagiarist if the changes he made to my writing hadn’t included adding a nested parenthetical, which is something I usually go out of my way to avoid. I was so confused by the sudden appearance of a nested parenthetical in something I thought I’d written that I googled it to find the source. That’s how I came across the debate site. (And that was after I almost missed that he had quoted me at all.)
Triggered by another thread
.
and it seems that I cannot provide a link but do an image search for {wilt chamberlain willie shoemaker}
you may need to include {american express}
…
I saw this ad when it was first printed (I was an undergrad in Anthropology).
Even though the ad is for an evil corporation, it made me …. happy?
A century of abuse. link Disgusting.
It’s amazing all the cockroachs that are scurrying out from this inquiry.
Sweden’s Eurovision entrant for 2014. I first thought the text was ”Gargle upon my iPad” .
The video features leather, slow motion destruction, and a frozen pig’s heart exploding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N_hmzLU1_cc
The line of the chorus – “Undo my sad” – makes no sense. The lyric has since been changed to “Undo my sad love”. The runner-up, Busy Doin’ Nothing, would have been a much better choice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjGHFKHjniY
“It’s amazing all the cockroaches that are scurrying out from this inquiry”
Plenty of organ donors (sharpens scalpel)
Nightjar,
Maybe it’s my hardware, but I have not had great luck with large comments edited in the comment window. Losing what I wrote and what I wanted to write about it is something I find far more frustrating, * than copying and pasting a large comment from my text editor, so that’s still how I work. Still no scrolling and switching windows is as easy as switching tabs, so I think in terms of function what we do is largely identical.
* (maybe not Starfart level, but it pretty much knocks my enthusiasm for a thread right out)
From here:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/05/05/the-nra-version-of-play-time/comment-page-1/#comment-792331
Jafafa Hots,
That comment of yours bothered me. I didn’t want to derail, but now I’m inspired by Thomathy so I’m saying something.
You gave excellent rebuttals of stupidity of gun rights defenders in other comments, there was no need to shit on everyone not American who dares express an opinion about US.
PZ is American, most of his posts concern Americans, should I and others non-Americans just fuck off?
Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought, I’m supposed to bite Jafafa Hots.
birgerjohansson: Black guys dancing in prison uniform while a blond sings about not wanting to work is the better choice?!
Eurovision has a tendency to bring the worst in music, and then go downhill by bringing the worst in people when the international voting starts. “Country A didn’t vote for us” they say “they must hate us and the entire thing is bought and sold”.
Nothing personal against you, birgerjohansson. Just expressing my hatred for that whole event.
Beatrice: I understand Jafafa Hots. I also don’t like commenting on things that are exclusive to the US because I feel uncomfortable telling people what to do when it’s their culture and they’re the ones that have to enact the change and live with whatever consequence. I know this is a bad argument because it’s just an expansion of “every person is an island”, but hearing ignorant things about the countries I’ve lived in makes me rather cautious when the discussion concerns a country I’ve never been to.
Is it the quality of the argument that matters or is it the passport behind it? If in knocking down bad arguments, you notice it probably has something to do with person not being familiar enough with the country they are talking about… point it out! That’s not what Jafafa Hots was doing.
Oh, and when it comes to US, often enough the rest of us have to live with their fuck-up decisions too. But hey, I wouldn’t dare tell no American what they should or shouldn’t do. How could I possibly provide a valuable opinion when it comes to someone so special, someone so very different from the rest of us that I couldn’t possibly relate.
What’s that about different experiences and learning from how other people in other places live? Nah, that’s just stupid. (and un-american (am I allowed to be sarcastic about this? Since it’s not my place and all.))
I got myself angry now.
I don’t have time for posting lately, and it feels all I do when I’m here is angry and confrontational. Sorry.
Dhorvath,
I know what you mean about losing large comments, it’s very frustrating. But I’ve found this add-on to be great at preventing such things, so that’s something I don’t worry about anymore. Even if the computer crashes or there’s a power shortage or something like that you can easily and reliably retrieve your comment. Also works if for whatever reason you delete a comment you’ve written and then regret having done so. Has saved me a lot of retyping.
I actually find it more comfortable to switch tabs than to switch windows, though I can’t really explain why. Probably just because I have it more automatized already.
Beatrice, Thomathy:
Jafafa Hots’ comment bothered me as well.
1. I find it bizarre to say “I shouldn’t comment about things that don’t affect me”. Does that line of reasoning mean I shouldn’t comment on abortion since I’m not a woman (heck, even though I’m not *directly* affected by abortion laws, these laws shape the society I live in and the people I interact with, so there is a ripple effect)?
2. There is a wealth of information online to overcome ignorance. One of the common responses to ignorance around here is “go educate yourself” (often followed by helpful links to do just that). MedicO506 is a perfect example of someone who really shouldn’t be pontificating about certain subjects-in his case, light or evolution. He is too poorly informed to discuss either subject.
I feel guilty because I am the one who originally mentioned that Zee Lo Brown might have a different perspective on what a “gun debate” involves because the “gun debate” in the U.S. seems to be significantly different. But I think it is obvious that there is nothing barring someone from being insightful and being informed when it comes to another nation’s domestic politics. And I think Jafafa Hots example of “I am ignorant about Australian politics, so you must be ignorant about U.S. politics” is bad because, aside from the more obvious illogic, American news coverage focuses on domestic coverage exclusively and international news coverage is minimal at best. This is not the case in many other, comparable countries. So it doesn’t make sense to assume that the average non-US-ian is as ignorant of the U.S. as the average U.S.-ian is of everything outside of the U.S.
I need to start planting the garden.
Why is it 4°C and snowing?
@
Bulbs tend to enjoy a little cold snap before the glorious onset of Spring. Persephone is smiling upon you.
@ Biologists, Zoologists, etc
I found this on the cat’s tail. It looks very animally, even though it does not move much. What could it be? A worm? A cyst? Maggot?
I am perplexed in my ignorance. Picture here.
(Note: Cross-posted to Lounge)
theophontes, my guess would be a sebaceous cyst (our dog has had several, which look(ed) if anything even more disturbing to the eye). Maybe do an image search and see if you think these look similar. If so, then internet “wisdom” suggests that (apart from looking ‘orrible – we thought it was some ghastly parasite first time we saw one) they aren’t usually a problem and may even go almost completely unnoticed, though they can be irritating and cause the animal to chew at them (and the chewing can of course cause a real problem). Some people get a vet to cut them out and put in a stitch or two. We decided that would be more traumatic to the dog than having a couple of cysts. Some animals are more prone to them than others and will continue to get them from time to time ::gesture of helpless ignorance::.
IANAVet, obviously, and IANADermatologist and IANAExpert of any kind whatsoever. Hope it doesn’t cause the cat any discomfort.
Thanks opposablethumbs.
I went out and bought deworming tablets for the kittehz. When I got back, I found a live one on the same cats tail. It is definitely some kind of worm.
The previous one was dead, and happened to look very much like a little sebaceous cyst.
I bought a piece of steak to put the medicine in, but they are having none of that. Next I try canned food. After that I’ll make it the vets problem. I don’t want to get chewed on by these ferocious beasts.
theophontes
I don’t even attempt, I let the vet get to it right away. :P I’m not brave enough to face those Four Paws of Lacerating Death. Good luck with the dewormification! (And for what it’s worth, I hope the non-vet intervention works.)
Thems are living thingies, not cysts….in particular a sebaceous cyst is in the skin, often covered by hair, round, fluctuating. Not that…thing.
Nightjar,
Cool, I have installed Lazarus.
@ rq
We are trying the medicine in food trick tomorrow. Thereafter the vet.
@ rorschach
Very much so. And very creepy they are.
@ chigau
The weather in Hong Kong has been very mild of late…
theophontes
Way cool!
Why didn’t you let the kitteh have a ride?
theophontes (#526)
It’s a tapeworm segment, all right. Usually you find them in the poop, but they can crawl out of the anus and hang out in the fur nearby. Or get stuck to other parts of the cat. Or fall off into your bed. *shudder*
If you do manage to get the de-wormer into the cats, you’ll probably want to check their poop for segments after you finish the course. Sometimes over the counter medicine isn’t strong enough and you’ll need a vet for something stronger. (Though, maybe that’s not the case in Hong Kong.) Also, tapeworms indicate a flea problem, and your cats can get reinfected so long as you still have fleas around.
@ chigau
Eeeuw, and get tapeworms stuck to my multirotor?
@ A. Noyd
Pretty creepy. I think it is time to get the vet involved.
Beatrice:
I agree with your logic completely. Like I said, it’s just an emotional response for me, not a proper conduct. What triggers this in me is when people offer actually good advice, one that I can’t simply dismiss out of hand, but one that I know is going to cause a civil war or something of the sort if it were implemented. In the end, I guess my emotion is more due to my colossal disappointment in those around me, and don’t have anything to do with the person delivering the argument or even the argument itself.
I didn’t notice any of that. I always enjoy reading your comments and you have nothing to be sorry for!
argh, sorry to have been so completely wrong in what I thought it was, theophontes – and I’m very glad that there were more accurate assessments forthcoming from others!
Good luck getting the parasites nuked.
The necrophilous Ayn Rand, parts 1 and 2.
Part 2 is relatively speculative, so I would be interested in the thoughts of those more knowledgeable about Rand specifically.
alexanderz
I share your feelings for the Eurovision song contest. It decoupled from what it was supposed to be many decades ago.
This prediction is doomed to failure.
And I quote:
I suggest a different, more accurate prediction: science journalists and PR flacks will continue to be mocked almost as mercilessly as people who publicly claim to see Jesus in toast.
Is the ousted Thai PM single? She is so graceful and strong….Maybe we could swap her in for the Randroid fascist theocrat that is running Australia now.
“Neo-Confederate Beliefs Common in the South”. http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/slavery-nostalgia-is-real-and-its-dangerous/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
People who think slavery is OK.
I think they should be forced to experience a short period of slavery themselves….like being chained outside my office, making me look like bloody Einstein by comparison. Hell, even Wally in “Dilbert” would look good.
“If you do manage to get the de-wormer into the cats”
Good luck with that. Use thick gloves. And have plenty of gauze around.
@ birgerjohansson
It has turned into a comedy of errors. Maxxie has devoured her meds (STEAK!!!), the others are starting a hunger stike. Spawnphontes has disappeared with the kittybasket, so we have to wait until tomorrow to take Zoe to the vet.
Has anyone read “Anarchy, the State, and Utopia”? It’s supposed to be pretty great for political theory and stuff. Also, if anyone has any suggestions for good reading on that subject, speak up :)
Also, I’ve kind of been writing a bit of a post on “religious experiences”, particularly considering they are (mis)used as evidence of the supernatural, gods etc… So if anyone knows writing about that it would also be appreciated :)
SC
I can’t comment on Ayn Rand, but your posts actually sparked a lightbulb moment for me about another author I know (though one I love infinitely more than Ayn Rand) – specifically, Mervyn Peake. I’ll have to think about this some more, but what you write resolves a few (non)issue question marks I had floating around in my mind.
Next up on the reading list:
Solace & Grief and The Key to Starveldt by Foz Meadows
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel Dennett
Inaji,
If you will feel like it at the time, could you share your opinion of Cinder? It sounds interesting.
Beatrice @ 548, happy to do so. I haven’t gotten to it yet, but given the reviews, I’m looking forward to it.
The medic0506 thread is by far the strangest thing I have seen on Pharyngula.
I am almost sure that in my on-my-knees-nose-to-the-dirt clean-up of the herb-bed,
I have found some prairie onions.
I thought they were dead!
It’s getting dark now. Tomorrow, I’ll have another look.
Beatrice, about Cinder:
The world building is on the weak side, there was room for more background and detail, and the proliferation of Japanese names in the locale of New Beijing was a bit jarring. That said, the concept is good, there’s a great twist on the princess theme, the book is fast paced, and the characters engaging. Well worth reading.
X-posted.
I’m reading up on the c*nt thread. If I drank a shot every time manocheese makes a linguistic claim while apparently not knowing what linguistics is, I’d need an ambulance.
Time to give praise to the Great Oignon in the sky. Yay for spring!
Another reason NOT to join the Cult of Macintosh:
I’ve now spent 2 hours trying to get some files from a laptop to my Ipod, mostly audiobooks. No luck in Linux(with Amarok, Rhythmbox and Gtkpod, mustn’t be my day), and with Itunes in Windoze one has to google how to make the menu appear(alt key) because for some unfathomable reason it is hidden by default, who writes such a shit app? And then it doesn’t put audiobooks into “Audiobooks” but into “Music” instead.
Surely this can’t be the best we can do in 2014 transferring files between 2 devices.
rorschach
If you lose enough data in these transfers, the more likely you are to stick to a single, unified system in the future. :P That is, get rid of all the old devices and buy new, single-source crap.
What, you mean so that things just work? That would be a) giving in to those companies with their proprietary file shit, and b) leave me with nothing to do on a Sunday….
rorschach
Isn’t that what Sundays are for? ;)
Kirsty Wark on the BBC with a programme on the today’s misogyny. Probably only available in the UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0436qlw/Blurred_Lines_The_New_Battle_of_the_Sexes/
Ahhh, I see Chas has found another topic where he can be all superior about the irrational Horde…
rorschach (#555)
That’s actually becoming standard. Firefox does the same thing. It’s really going to fuck with any older people who aren’t so computer savvy and need intuitive interfaces that are understandable at a glance without having to remember special keypresses. But iTunes is shit, for sure. It has one of the worst interfaces of all the major programs out there, and is very unfriendly to people who want to manage their mobile media on a small scale (ie. transferring individual files instead of backing up the contents of an entire device or whatnot). Like, what’s so fucking terrible about drag and drop?
It puts video files into movies, unless they are HD (Cosmos, Inner Fish) when it plops them into TV. Under movies, recently another category has appeared, “reality TV”. Only done with one out four reality shows *snicker*.
A Noyd 561
I’m glad I haven’t updated recently then. What in the nineteen hells are these jackasses thinking? Seriously, I want to know.
There isn’t a single bloody dandelion to be seen, in spite of it supposedly being Spring. What do we have, though? Ticks.
Aarrggh.
@Dalillama (#563)
In Firefox’s case, maybe it’s to help make room for all the advertising banners and persistent headers, footers and menu bars taking up vertical space on webpages these days. Oh, and those crappy search/tool bars that every other piece of completely unrelated software wants to install on your computer.
Ináji
I have dandelions.
Oh my, do I have dandelions.
Want some?
—
Ticks are wimps.
They can’t handle 53°N.
mwahahahaha
We cleaned and filled the birdbath.
Golly, are we popular now!
@ chigau
Dang lucky you didn’t run into prairie oysters!
@ rorschach
Did you hear about the Ubuntu Edge Smartphone? It didn’t get sufficient funding, even as it had the most successful crowdfunding campaign ever. Check the specs here: Linky.
…
The Zoë Saga (Final Chapter):
We finally set off to the vet with Zoë, and Ms Molly, this weekend. Or rather, we intended to set off with both of them. Ms Molly is psychic. How the fuck she new there was a vet visit in the offing, is beyond me. She suddenly disappeared just as we were about to grab the cats. Complete clownshow trying to catch this tiny animal. I ended up lifting the entire couch so that theaphontes could grab her at last. Ms Molly went bezerker, leaving bloody scratches and disappearing like the Cheshire Cat.
It turns out that the vet had muti that can be applied to the back of the cat’s neck. All that time trying to con Ms Molly into digesting her pills, the expensive piece of steak, the subterfuge, the cat-wrangling, etc… completely unnecessary.
We got back to find her stretched out on the bed, cool-as-you-please, with a smug smirk.
Yes, shame it didn’t get going. I mean it’s technically possible to Run Ubuntu on Android , but it breaks your warranty, is probably illegal, and just not the same anyway.
chigau
I beg to differ. Latvia is full of them.
Complete with requisite Lyme disease and encephalitis.
rq
huh
I always assumed it was latitude.
Pffft also tells me different.
Whatever the reason, we don’t have ticks here.
And I am happy.
I fucking hate ticks.
Why do some people end their comments with
Thoughts?
Do they really think we require an invitation?
And why do I find it so annoying?
chigau
Enjoy your tick-free existence.
Must be nice, to realize your area is so unpalatable to parasites. ;)
If you want to get really angry, I left a comment at the lounge with some reviews of a book covering the role Nixon and Kissinger played during the Pakistani genocide in Bangladesh (or East Pakistan, as it was known then).
More drive-by complaining about sexism in the workplace in NC. My relative is a supervisor at a relatively small electronics company, and they recently had problems with an older male worker sexually harassing female employees. Apparently after management adopted a “it’s all in good fun” policy for a number of years, he became so bizarrely aggressive and vociferous that they needed to step in. The solution? Give the fucker a huge promotion to a position where he won’t be around women (because, of course, there are no women in top roles). He didn’t even have to endure a reprimand; his criminal behavior was outright rewarded. (He wasn’t made aware of the REAL reason for his move, although the other employees, particularly the harassed women, were; so now he no doubt thinks he “earned” the promotion.) Why didn’t they fire his ass and/or promote the women? The women had to suffer from his extremely lewd comments for years, but he gets a big raise. And to hear my relative (also an older male) talk, that was a great solution, because the guy was a “good guy” and grew up in “different times” when sexual harassment was “okay”, so it just wouldn’t have been “fair” to punish him. :-(
Ugh, carbonfox, that is truly shitty. Yeah, there’s always an excuse for sexist harassment, isn’t there – he’s too old to know better, he’s too young to know better, he’s too “foreign”/”wrapped up in his work”/socially awkward to know better (which is bullshit, as we all know from experience).
The most amazing thing I have learned about decent people is that they are willing to change their behaviour to help others enjoy life more. Assholes complain that is not a fair expectation.
Ha!
More than 24 hours!
Pods got ’em all.
Jesus fuck. Fuck the fucking Liberal party.
Secular school counsellors defunded, chaplains emphatically not defunded
NB ‘Liberal’ over here means right wing, ha fucking ha
Further context: these chaplains are being inveigled into state schools using government money, yet the average Australian cares vastly more about stopping a few hundred terrified refugees reaching our shores than state-sponsored proselytism. Gah
Chigau:
Heh. A visit from a Brown Thrasher and movies kept me busy today.
Yeah… I’m also noticing flaws in UI design in the newer versions of
AppleMozilla Firefox.And that’s not even taking into account that they’re using the ubiquitous “power” symbol, so you know some poor tech support person has had to sit and wait while the non-technical person’s computer “shuts down” after only closing Firefox.
throwaway
I did not know this.
Instead, I sugest to just power down your computer. When you reboot, Firefox will apologise profusely and ask if you want to restore your old tabs. This is a very handy feature.
But there is the X, along with the stupid menu.
(Not getting it, sorry)
I just bought an e-reader, a Sony PRS-T3, light as a feather, reads epub, mobi, pdf, txt, anything really, SD slot, wifi, USB, you name it it has it. Never liked the limitations on a kindle, and found tablets too heavy. Can’t wait to take this one to bed!
Of course tablets are too heavy, even in pumice let alone basalt. Plus you have to carry a hammer and chisel around with them as well.
And they’re hard to swallow.
You can restore Firefox to the old settings: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-to-make-new-firefox-look-like-old-firefox?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=why-are-tabs-top
If you’re using an older version, (I use FF 17), you can just open a new tab and type about:config in the nav bar, and change anything you want.
I’ve been ignoring the firefox update for…. a while.
I wasn’t that lucky on the work laptop, hence the newest incarnation.
Since the “correlations” thread has actually gone all about medical stuff; leaving this here, instead.
Honey producing bee colonies inversely correlate with juvenile arrests for possession of marijuana
[Of course, a True Skeptic™ should ask if the correlation–causation?!–goes the other way.]
From, obviously, the Journal of Improbable Correlations.
I want to know something about people’s perceptions of the Spanish Inquisition. Shouldn’t’t there be some context? The fact is that Muslims invaded Spain and southern France, and would have gone further if not for Catholics who stopped them there. The next 700 years involved Catholics battling their way down through Spain until they finally regained all of their land back in the 15th century. This is when the Spanish Inquisition began. Is it wrong for me to “justify” their paranoia about the Muslims and Jews (the fact is that some Jews at that place and time had been involved in the Muslim invasion of Spain) who remained? Most of them were ultimately expelled rather than killed. What do you think? I know it’s not politically correct but I can understand their fears after 700 years of war, and their desire for normalcy and peace. Also the number killed was very low. So what’s the verdict?
Why is this any justification for the inquisition?
diby sursch
It was a repulsive, ongoing crime against humanity.
Fuck you. How’s that for context?
And before that the Romans did the same thing, and before them the Gauls, and before them the Basques, and before them a culture whose name hasn’t survived to the present. What the hell’s your point?
Their claim is somewhat questionable given that their ancestors had spent those 700 years not living on that territory, while quite a lot of generations of people were born there and lived their lives there during that 700 years.
After the war was won, yes.
Yep, it sure is, asshole.
No they hadn’t. The Moorish invasion of Spain had happened centuries previously at that point; no one alive then had been involved in it in any way whatsoever.
Oh, wow, so they were made refugees, driven out of the only home they’d ever had, knowing that they’d be tortured to death if they stayed? What unspeakable mercy. *spits*
They were scumfucks, and you’re an asshole for trying to justify their atrocities.
Annnd fuck you again.
And yet once more.
And again. You unspeakable shitweasel, what about the normalcy and peace of the people they tortured to death, exiled, and just generally fucked over?
Compared to what? The black plague? You really are repulsive.
Fuck you and the horse you rode in on about sums it up, I think.
“It remains a fact that the Jews, either directly or through their coreligionists in Africa, encouraged the Mohammedans to conquer Spain.” The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906). Vol XI, 485.
But what you’re saying is that Christians don’t have a right to their own homeland? That’s a pretty extreme position. Christendom has a right to exist. Christendom has a right to defend itself.
Does it? You’re saying that Christianity is *native* to spain? Are you stupid? And what about the religions that Christianity quashed?
“Christendom” has never existed. It is a general reference to any of several countries where the Catholic Church was the state religion. There was no “Christendom” to defend.
Also, I’m disturbed by your use of “Christendom has the right to defend itself” in the present tense, as though it were currently a place needing defending.
‘Christendom’ has no rights whatsoever, and I can’t fathom why you’d expect anyone here to buy that line.
You missed the part where nobody who was involved with the Moorish conquest of Spain was alive at the time of the Spanish Inquisition, regardless of their religion or ethnicity, because it had happened 700 years earlier, and humans don’t live seven centuries. The behaviour of people already centuries dead cannot be held up as a justification. (I will also note that the Jewish Encyclopedia offers no apparent source for that claim, and you would be well advised to cite other works as well if you wish to be convincing.)
Christendom will always be Christendom. Why is that disturbing?
Funny how many subgroups of ‘Christendom’ are so keen to off each other over doctrinal differences.
Simply, because it doesn’t exist, hasn’t existed, and hopefully never will exist. It would be a horrible name for a country.
You do understand that it doesn’t exist?
Diby @ 598
I will see your attempt at distraction through tangent and raise you an “answer the questions presented to you by various people.”
Just curious, do you grill Protestants for Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, both of whom burnt and murdered many more people than so-called Bloody Mary Tudor? Do you condemn them for forced conversions as the Catholics in Spain are? Do you condemn Protestants for slaughtering the Native Americans and tAking their land? Or are all of the Protestant crimes Ok so long as it’s in the name of liberty and secularism?
Pick a definition, Cupcake.
diby sursch @598:
The Arian Church? The Gnostics? Byzantine Catholic? Orthodox? There has never been a Christendom. From the earliest days of Christianity, there have been multiple orthodoxies and each one of them knew that they had the only answer and all the others were guilty of heterodoxy. Even before the Reformation, there were dozens of mutual exclusive versions of Christianity — the Cathars (the first Inquisition), the Bogomils, the Moravians, the Hussites, etc. Today there are ~40,000 Christianities and even the Catholics are made up of sects which differ enough that, were they Protestants, they would be considered separate churches — the Franciscans are very different from the Jesuits. So where is this ‘Christendom’ of which you speak?
Diby sursch sez
Yes, yes, yes, no. Next set of silly questions.
Oh forgot to add, how do we gumby-fy quotes?
Either prove this alleged xiandom existed, or shut the fuck up, as a religious bigot should.
Diby… I blame the people that actually did that, not the people alive today.
I have scottish heritage, and my main clan is Campbell (also clan Hay). A long time ago, members of my clan murdered a great many of the MacDonalds after breaking hospitality, the Massacre of Glencoe. A total of 78 people died. A good friend in highschool didn’t talk to me for a month after she learned about the Campbell heritage because she was a MacDonald.
Was she correct to blame me for something that happened 330 years ago because of an ancestor who smuggled himself aboard a boat, in a coffin, to avoid marrying a girl he got pregnant back in Scotland back in the mid 1800s?
To add, but I do blame anyone today who is *okay* with the fact that people did that. Because people who are okay with that are assholes.
dilby surch
Only when we get someone through here who tries to justify them, which hasn’t happened that I can recall. See, we’re not castigating you because a bunch of Spanish priests killed a bunch of Jews, Muslims, and people they thought might be Jews or Muslims several centuries ago. We’re castigating you because you’re claiming that they were in the right when they did so.
Of course we do, why wouldn’t we?
Again, yes.
You may need a definition check; none of the things you mentioned were done in the name of secularism, you jackass. They were explicitly done in the name of fucking religion.
Decent human beings don’t consider those numbers to be low.
Yes, if someone shows up spouting apologetics for what was done by Protestants in the name of religion, I sure as hell do. Then again, you showed up and made claim the Spanish Inquisition was no big deal and then you asked for our thoughts. How is giving you our thoughts about just one of many crimes committed in the name of religion ‘grilling you’?
Yes. Just as I condemn Tilly’s army for the slaughter of Magdeburg. Or the Catholics, participating in the Albigenisan Crusade, for the slaughter of Carcassone.
Yes. Just as I also condemn the Catholics of Spain and Portugal who did the same thing (with the added horror of slavery) in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
How does a crime committed in the name of gods by a Protestant have anything to do with liberty of secularism?
It wasn’t just protestants who were busy slaughtering Indians, Cupcake.
Especially given that ‘processed’ here means ‘tortured and possibly maimed’. That goes for all 150,000+, not just the ones they formally executed. (Dying under torture wasn’t counted as an execution, btw.)
Rowan, who am I blaming? I made it a point to say some Jews at that time and place. That was deliberate, as I certainly don’t blame “the Jews.” Any uncharity towards Jews or Muslims or Protestants should be condemned. My only point is that very rarely do we hear people in the English-speaking Protestant world refer to any of those events with the P-word. However, anytime a Catholic is involved, we won’t hear the end of the C-word.
By the way, Cupcake, catholics were incredibly immoral when it came to Indians – they took orphans, forced those children who had parents to board at their schools, where they got busy forcing Indian children to deny their heritage, their way of life, and their beliefs. Many of them got that added on torture so beloved by catholic priests everywhere, and were raped. Repeatedly. Indians tend to be damn bitter about that, y’know.
Diby, it has been pointed out to you repeatedly that you think it’s fine for the catholics to be ‘suspicious’ of Jews who lived SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS after the events happened, because 700 years ago some Jews helped in a battle.
So, is it equally fine for me to be blamed for the murder of Glencoe because I can claim Clan Campbell?
I don’t even…p-word=Protestant? C-word=catholic?
Bullshit.
If a Lutheran showed up and tried to make the claim that Martin Luther’s teachings had little to do with modern anti-Semitism, I, and others here, would speak up. Vociferously.
Just noticed that.
There are no Catholics in Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, the United States of America, or Canada? Really?
And that’s yet another part of Diby’s disingenuous shite. See, ‘Catholic’ actually refers to one, specific group: People who are a part of the Roman Catholic Church. ‘Protestant’, on the other hand, refers to several thousand denominations, many of which have cheerfully committed atrocities against each other as well as non-Christians in the name of their flavor of Jesus, so it’s kind of silly to treat them as though they were a single hierarchical organization, like the RCC is.
Protestants are part of that christendom you’re so keen on, Cupcake. And there is no such thing as an “English speaking protestant world”. You’re a fuckwit.
And since the cat-o-licks were the ones doing the inquisition, your problem is where? Stay focused on what you are saying, not what you might mean….
You have to understand that my people, Polish Catholics, were slaughtered, numbering in the millions, by the Nazis because they viewed Slavs as an inferior race. Catholics like Chesterton, as well as the Vatican, had been railing against the evils of those ideas for quite sometime. This is why there is fear of the secular community, as they tend to be the ones pushing the eugenics idea.
Diby, I have German ancestry as well. Do you think it would okay for someone to kill me because Nazis?
What secular community? Humanists? Who accept everybody is equal? Sounds like paranoia to me….
No, I do not. I’m talking about ideas here. The fact is that the idea of eugenics is still often heard among some secularists, including Richard Dawkins. Those ideas are not only offensive in and of themselves, but given the history of that idea in the 20th century, it’s simply stunning how anyone could still believe in it. Whether it’s David Brooks claiming that Arabs lack mental ingredients, or Steven Linker claiming that Jews are biologically superior, or various intellectuals who subscribe to the bell curve, they should be condemned for it. I ask secularists to join Catholics in opposing these insane ideas. You should read some of the back and forth between Chesterton and Geore Bernard Shaw. Catholics are universally opposed to the idea of eugenics and racial superiority.
Lots of catholics were believers in eugenics, and a whole lot of them were slave owners. So what? Theists in general have been responsible for most of the ills in the world (and don’t give me “but but charities” shit, either), religion having proved itself as the most divisive thing on this planet. Hitler was pretty damn sure god was on his side, y’know.
This is absolute bullshit. I’m against eugenics in any form, and so are the majority of people who are secular. Plenty of religious factions who are more than happy to wipe out all those who don’t believe in their particular religious flavour, though.
I meant Steven pinker. Also, George Bernard Shaw.
So, Diby…. how the fuck does ANY of that tie in to your apologetics for the Inquisition and that they killed Jews because of the actions of Jews who lived 700 YEARS prior to the Inquisition, only they didn’t kill all that many so why are we upset about it?
Oh really?
Please provide an example, WITH the appropriate context.
I guess technically I practice eugenics with my corn snakes? After all, I breed only the ones I like the look of, and don’t breed ones with even minor health problems like kinks or poor initial feeding response. And I’m part of a growing group of corn snake enthusiasts who want to test and retire from breeding any snakes carrying the gene for Heritable Vestibular Syndrome found in corn snakes And I’m a secularist/humanist/atheist.
But oddly enough, I actively oppose applying that to humans.
I notice a lot of unevidenced allegations, which are dismissed without evidence. Why doesn’t Diby supply any? Xe doesn’t have any is the logical conclusion….
Oh? Provide a citation for every person you think is preaching eugenics. By the way, there are a fucktonne of people who don’t give a shit about anything Dawkins says. A lot of us would be pleased if he shut the fuck up about a number of subjects.
My only point is that Cathlic history does not begin and end with the Inquisition. You may point to some barbarity against Jews by some of the Crusaders, but that does not diminish the fact that Catholics were called upon by their Eastern Christian allies who were being invaded by Muslims. It was a defensive war, and Christians lost anyway. But why we should concentrate on some individual fools who did some bad things in that time of war strikes me as anti-Christian sentiment. The Crusades were justified because the Muslims were the aggressors again.
And the Muslim aggression was justified because in the past Catholics/christians waged war on the native polytheistic religions in the areas they were conquering, and that was justified if any of those peoples waged war on prior peoples, back through time down to the first single-celled organism.
You’re the one who brought the Inquisition up, shit for brains. You started this conversation, and you opened up justifying the Inquisition. The topic is entirely your fault here, chumley.
With this level of idiocy, I’m thinking about Pilty…
Rowan, what are you talking about? It’s a simple matter of fact that Muslims invaded Christian lands in the East. They sent word to the west that they needed help to defend their homes. So Catholics were sent east to aid them. This is no different than what America did in world war 2. If you oppose the Crusades, then you oppose the idea of America warring against the Nazi invasions of our European allies.
Someone is failing to realize that pretty much every country ever got their land by invading it and taking it over from peoples already there. And apparently that someone thinks that’s only a bad thing *sometimes*.
Duh, not a point worth anything. The RCC is still a block on the progression of humankind.
Nope, non-sequitur. There is no sequitur….
I’m going to have to call a big old ‘citation needed’ on that one. You do realize that Prester John wasn’t real, and neither was his kingdom? Unless you’re referring to the Crusader States (there’s a reason they’re called that), established after the First Crusade and not there for above a generation before the Second Crusade started, in which case you’re an even bigger asshole for pretending that your justification covers all the Crusades (not all of which were against Muslims, as Ogvorbis has noted and you haven’t addressed.)
@diby sursch
They went off and killed the Byzantine CHRISTIANS for fucks sakes! They had such a blood-lust-in-the-name-of-JEEBUS!, that they went and fucked up their own co-religionists.
No “invading” Muslims anywhere. They were far too busy laughing at “Christendom’s” own goal.
Others have dealt with his idiocy very well, but this has somehow slid by:
Even taking into account that Henry and Elizabeth reigned for 81 years between them, vs. 5 for Mary, I’m pretty sure this isn’t anything close to true.
Actually, it is true. Do your research. You have to remember that the Church in England, unlike in Germany, was free from corruption. There were few in England who subscribed to the Protestant faith in the time of Mary Tudor. Tudor, contrary to what Protestants believe today, was actually well-liked by the English since they were still Catholic in every sense, and so her reign was welcomed as they could practice their faith again. It’s a simple matter of fact, in the numbers, that Henry and Elizabeth both executed far more people.
Nope, not how it works. You make the claim, you provide the link, or you tacitly admit you are a liar and bullshitter. Beyond this statement, garbage which is dismissed without links….
@diby sursch
Have you ever heard of the Northern Crusades?
Where Catholic Teutonic Knights (who had their arses returned to them by the Muslims in Palestine) joined up with Polish Catholics (at their invitation) in a murderous crusade against other Slavs. And CHRISTIAN Slavs too!
The fucking pope thought this was just spiffing – murdering Slavs to the greater glory of an imaginary Catholic skygod.
(Emphasis added for the benefit of the obtuse.)
Why do I get the feeling, “Pilty, is that you???”
Oh, and if you would do further research, you would know, if you did not already, that there was something like 22 Germanic editions of the bible in Germany before luther – along with over a hundred editions in Latin and some other languages. The protestant myth is that Catholics forbade bible reading and everyone was ignorant until luther came and saved the day and made them bible literate. It’s simply not true. And every scholar knows now that it is not true. Before the Catholics invented the printing press, evangelicals also believe that the Church chained the bible up to keep it from people. The truth again is not sinister at all. Books were expensive to make, and so they were chained so no one would leave with it and lose it.
You’ve been reading a lot of Catholic propaganda if you believe any of that crap. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Citation really fucking required for that. A religious hierarchy completely free of corruption? Year right, as if.
Oh, wait, you’re serious. Let me laugh even harder. While I have no idea what significance you think this would have even if it were true, the fact that you apparently believe it has got to be the funniest thing I’ve encountered all day.
And how many of the translators had their remains exhumed and burned like John Wycliffe? Or were they unlucky enough to survive to be burned?
You provide links to said research, or it never existed, and you are just making shit up. Why are you afraid to present (link to) any evidence? Unless, you know know you have nothing…..
You can either do a copy/pasta like this: 13 year old Rosa’s refutation of Therapeutic Touch:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/279/13/1005.full.pdf
Or you can use something like this <a href – “http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/279/13/1005.full.pdf”>Rosa’s refutation of therapeutic touch</a>/ to give this: Rosa’s refutation of Therapeutic Touch.
Dang, the last tag should read “therapeutic touch</a>” to close the tags
also the – should be =
Churches, all churches, are inherently corrupt. They are built upon stealing from suckers or enabling crooks {*glares at monarchy*} to steal money.
For fuck’s sakes diby sursch – whether catholic, or protestant -their very existence revolves around telling lies about an imaginary diety.
How the fuck is that not totally corrupt?
Sweet jebus.
Should I send an alert?
中国人发明了印钞机! Pffffffffffffffffffttttttt!!!!!
@591, etc. — dilby sursch
Hi, dilby sursch! If you’re curious, my perception of the Spanish Inquisition was that it was a bad call. I’m not a fan of torture or the death penalty, and I don’t consider the maintenace of orthodoxy — religious, political, or otherwise — to be sufficient justification for killing, torturing, imprisoning or exiling anyone. I don’t tend to consider “the death count was low” as a point in favor of policies with death counts over 0.
I have to say, I don’t particularly understand the term “politically correct.” It seems like it often gets used to belittle concerns about historical accuracy and/or ethics without actually giving any reason for why those concerns are invalid. What do you mean by it here?
You know, some friends come to visit and you feel relieved; others leave and you are happier…
@635 dilby sursch
Sorry, didn’t see this. If that’s really your only point, then I think we’re all in agreement here. I can provide transcripts from my post-1820 Catholic school attendance in case anyone needs further proof.
whoops, sorry again, diby! I misspelled your name twice! Don’t exile any of the other atheists for it, though; it’s not a conspiracy — it’s just my eyes that are bad.
theophontes #660
本当！(日本語)
But how can you be sure that they were not Catholics?
I mean really, really sure?
theophontes @648:
The crusades of the Teutonic Knights were mostly directed against pagan Balts, not Slavs. First Prussians (wiped out or assimilated), then Semigallians, Curonians and Lithuanians.
I don’t know about ‘often’, but last November I heard Richard Dawkins in lecture, advocating for the good kind of eugenics but never explaining what he meant. No, not among snakes.
It was a bad presentation in general. (I can’t seem to find a link on youtube… It was the Entangled Bank event in London, November something-or-otherth?)
I’m just staring at my world map here and still trying to find Christendom on it. The rest of diby‘s logic just gets too confusing for this early in the morning.
Rob Grigjanis
Link: Battle of the Ice
…
FIFM: The Polish invitation to the Teutonic Knights was to tackle the Prussian pagans. (Not that attacking Prussians is any less bad than attacking Russians. The general point, that the cat-licks were rather too much in love with violence, remains.)
theophontes
Speaking of cat-licks…
how is the kitteh … worm … situation?
@ chigau
kitteh: 1 … vs … worms: 0
(Did you see Zoë Saga, upthread?)
theophontes
Yeah. I saw that.
I didn’t quite grok that
The Worms Are Dead.
I just got kittehsmug.
’cause that’s just normal
OT
wordpress is cordially invited to bite my crank
This would only be true if the definitions for “Church”, “England”, “in”, “unlike”, “Germany”, “was”, “free”, “from”, and “corruption” were arbitrarily changed.
You never expect the Polish Catholic inquisition.
I never expect any Inquisition.
…
That could explain some stuff…
Hmmm, let me think, “convivencia” under the muslims (mh, yeah, let us undo every conquest that was done 700 years ago. Out of the Americas and Australia, I say), realtive freedom of religion, science, marvelous architecture and engineering vs. 700 years of constant war and the Spanish Inquisition. Clearly the Reyes Católicos are the wronged party here.
♪ ♫ Ding Dong ! ♫ ♫♪ The wicked Worms Are Dead!!! ♫♪ ♫
Amazing. Once diby has finished explaining why the Spanish Inquisition was not just understandable (i.e. capable of being analysed as a historical phenomenon) but justified in torturing tens of thousands of people to death (hey, are you going to play the despicable “secular arm” game with us too?), I look forward (with nausea) to his justification of the Magdalene laundries, paedophile priests, Catholic condemnation of condom use in Africa, Catholic denial of people’s reproductive rights, the vile “mother” Teresa’s refusal of pain relief to the poor in her clutches … it’s a long, long list.
Tell us about the Tutsi massacred in Rwanda why don’t you. Tell us about the Cathars.
As an institution, the Catholic church is just like every other religion: corrupt, venal and in love with power, which they attempt to justify based on the supposed existence of a fictitious supernatural being.
I love the fact that diby fondly imagines people here would excuse one flavour of religion while condemning his preferred flavour! No, diby, religious abusers are scum; the fact that some of them may be catholic-flavoured xtian scum while others are protestant-flavoured xtian scum or muslim-flavoured scum or hindu-flavoured scum (with whom we are probably less familiar simply because most of us live in parts of the world where we encounter few if any hindu abusers – we are perfectly aware that they exist) is irrelevant. Surprise surprise, diby, we don’t like or excuse non-religious abuser scum either. Abuse of power is vile no matter who’s doing it.
I’m going to watch “The Monuments Men”. It’s supposed to be really bad.
Hm. Let’s see. Let me boot you off your land and then show everyone how generous I am to the religious minorities that I hire to mow your (oops, I meant my) lawn. Hey freedom of religion. Are not I kind?
I’m just astonished that people here genuinely believe that it’s justified for Muslim armies to take over European countries.
I’m astonished too. Just for different reasons. How to fight off aggressive invaders
You need to disguise your lies a bit better than that, diby old chap. Nobody here has said any such thing. So which is it, you’re so thick you can’t read for comprehension or you’re so dishonest you don’t care that you’re telling very blatant porkies? Or are you perhaps a desert topping and a floor wax?
Silly fellow.
@593
Small correction, but significant.
@594
Are you fucking high?
Did pagans have a right to their homeland before there were any christians on the peninsula? And since christianity had only been majoritary in the peninsula from about 300CE up to 700CE when the majoritary religion became islam for 700 years, wouldn’t that make it “islamdom”? I mean, the territory had been muslim for longer than it had ever been christian…
The Iberian peninsula is not fucking christendom…you should be embarrashed for saying something that astonishingly fucking stupid.
Your views on the Inquisition are disgusting by the way…we are all very aware that the history of catholicism in Spain is not limited to that horrible, monstruous period, it actually includes OTHER periods of disgusting corruption, death and subyugation (post-inquisition catholicism continued to be fucking vile), but it happened…and your pathetic excuses for justifying it make you an inmoral arsehole (and from what i gather from your posts…a fucking racist too).
diby sursch @ 591
diby sursch @ 680
Why astonished? You apparently think it’s justified for Catholic armies to take over Iberian countries.
@ diby sursch
You may score magic fairy points, amongst your goddist buddies, with the rank idiocy that you spew. Unfortunately you have stumbled onto the wrong blog for that.
If you cannot back up what you say here, then back off.
But notice the difference between the pagan and I. Pzmyers rightfully condemns Puritans such as Sam Harris who hate Muslims. I like Muslims. But I and everyone else in the world has a right to defend themselves if they are attacked. But I have no problem with Muslims. I respect their sovereignty, and I respect their rights in America as American citizens. Now I do believe their religion to be a Catholic heresy, but I have no hatred for heretics. But notice the level of hate for Muslims among the Puritans, people like Hitchens and Harris.
Oh, muslim scare. It’s usually either that or jew scare with christians. Oh yeah, or atheist scare.
Someone’s got issues
@ diby sursch
I do not think this word means what you think it does.
Who, specifically, is attacking you? “Muslims!!!”? Where?
Not that long ago, you would have been burned to death for diverging from Catholic doctrine as you do, you heretic!
We condemn bigotry from wherever it issues. What is your point exactly?
Azhael:
If ‘diby’ is pilty, they live and breathe stupid, all in the name of the RCC. Pilty sucked RCC arse like nobody’s business, and if ‘diby’ isn’t pilty, he’s damn near a clone.
G.K. Chesterton:I have already remarked that all Americans are Puritans, excepting those that are Catholics, but not excepting those that are atheists or anarchists or, more dangerous still, artists. The Pagans are Puritans; the enemies of Puritanism are Puritans; they prove it by the way in which they identify the last fads of Puritanism with the first principles of Christianity. The very fact that they think they can defy religion by drinking and smoking shows precisely what is the only religion they have ever found to defy.
G.K. Chesterton: I find it very difficult to take some of the Protestant propositions even seriously. What is any man who has been in the real outer world, for instance, to make of the everlasting cry that Catholic traditions are condemned by the Bible? It indicates a jumble of topsy-turvy tests and tail-foremost arguments, of which I never could at any time see the sense. The ordinary sensible sceptic or pagan is standing in the street (in the supreme character of the man in the street) and he sees a procession go by of the priests of some strange cult, carrying their object of worship under a canopy, some of them wearing high head-dresses and carrying symbolical staffs, others carrying scrolls and sacred records, others carrying sacred images and lighted candles before them, others sacred relics in caskets or cases, and so on. I can understand the spectator saying, “This is all hocus-pocus”; I can even understand him, in moments of irritation, breaking up the procession, throwing down the images, tearing up the scrolls, dancing on the priests and anything else that might express that general view. I can understand his saying, “Your croziers are bosh, your candles are bosh, your statues and scrolls and relics and all the rest of it are bosh.” But in what conceivable frame of mind does he rush in to select one particular scroll of the scriptures of this one particular group (a scroll which had always belonged to them and been a part of their hocus-pocus, if it was hocus-pocus); why in the world should the man in the street say that one particular scroll was not bosh, but was the one and only truth by which all the other things were to be condemned? Why should it not be as superstitious to worship the scrolls as the statues, of that one particular procession? Why should it not be as reasonable to preserve the statues as the scrolls, by the tenets of that particular creed? To say to the priests, “Your statues and scrolls are condemned by our common sense,” is sensible. To say, “Your statues are condemned by your scrolls, and we are going to worship one part of your procession and wreck the rest,” is not sensible from any standpoint, least of all that of the man in the street.
Which is complete bullshit
While nobody denies that muslims invaded and conquered most of Spain the Spaniards were not “kicked out”. For most people one set of monarchs were replaced by another set of monarchs. Those who “lost their lands” were the nobles and we can happily discuss how entitled they were to having said lands and ruling them in the first place. The Catholic Kings were not brave resistance fighters who threw out foreign invaders, they were nobles who inherited their own free kingdoms* and then conquered the lands from people who had been living there in relative peace for a few hundred years.
*for the given values of “own” and “free”
@diby sursch
Actually, why don’t you, Chesterton and your imaginary skygod just fuck off?
@686
Yeah, why would you waste your time hating muslims and heretics when you believe that they will rightfully burn in hell forever? You are just full of loooove….
I’m pretty sure there are some tablets you need to be taking…
By the way, as a spaniard who was raised catholic, fuck you and fuck your sick, monstruous fucking catholic church. It was sick and evil in the time of the Inquisition, it was sick and evil after that and it continues to be fucking sick and evil. It is disgusting in its entirety, from its most basic sick, twisted, repulsive, inmoral tenets…every last bit of it a monstrosity. All of christianity is an example of what happens when human fantasy goes horribly wrong.
@diby sursch
Stop preaching and start actually engaging with the responses you get.
Also, if you say “my only point is” about several different things, it makes you look like either an idiot or a liar.
They said I didn’t know what a puritan was. I know. They do not. Hitchens, I will give him this much: He knew he was a puritan. So did Orwell.
Orwell was extremely jealous of Chesterton: “Ten or twenty years ago, the form of nationalism most corresponding to Communism today was political Catholicism. Its most outstanding exponent – though he was perhaps an extreme case rather than a typical one – was G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton was a master of considerable talent who chose to suppress both his sensibilities and his intellectual honesty in the cause of Roman Catholic propaganda.Every book that he wrote, every paragraph, every sentence, every incident in every story, every scrap of dialogue, had to demonstrate beyond possibility of mistake the superiority of the Catholic over the Protestant or the Pagan.”
opposablethumbs
:D
Anyway, christians don’t have a homeland because christians were (often forcibly) converted within their homelands. They have nothing in common besides their religion – not appearances, not genetics, not culture (besides the religion part of it, that is). They even do catholicism differently in different countries… How the fuck do you make a single unifying ‘homeland’ out of all of that? Why do christians (I suppose in this case christian = catholic) even need a homeland when they have, many of them, very comfortable homes in their own lands and countries?
I guess having jewish or muslim or [other religion] neighbours somehow threatens them. Poor, weak, unprotected folk that they are.
Oh, so you are just trolling us really. I figured. Go away now please.
diby:
Atop all your other inanities, you apparently don’t know what “jealous” means. , indeed.
(Orwell’s summation of Chesterton reads as incisive as ever — thanks for the reminder!)
Regarding all non-Catholic Americans being “Puritan”: what a load of codswallop. Your capricious redefinition of “Puritan” as an epithet encompassing all our citizens who don’t share your favored doctrine of delusion is pure solipsism. Just call us “heretics”, then at least you’ll be communicating your odious supremacism with some vestige of forthrightness.
rq, Diby is essentially defining christendom as any land that has been conquered by christians either through violence, royal fiat or cultural domination, at some point in history for any length of time.
In their eyes, christianity is an empire.
A helpful hint to tell us from Protestants:
we don’t worship any part of the fucking .
Puritan, can I ask you a question? That’s rhetorical, and I know you hyper-rationalists have trouble recognizing even the rhetorical.
When the puritan Sam Harris says we must have compassion for a murderer and not punish him so much because he has no free will, does that make any sense to you? But here’s what does not make sense, the puritan says the murderer deserves compassion because man does not have free will, but the puritan will turn to the Catholic and spit on him because he uses his free will to remain Catholic. How does that make any sense? It does not. That’s a filthy religion, and that immoral holy book of John Calvin is to be condemned, more on account of being immoral rather than heresy.
Ok, some educational material for diby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nIRJVmZ4K8
Let us know how you go with that, will you.
Yawn still not one link to any evidence. Diby is dismissed as nothing but a clueless troll, not somebody trying for an evidence based discussion.
All Americans are Puritan?
Is this like the thing Calvinists do where they define everyone who’s not a Calvinist to be Pelagian? Or like the way certain evangelical/fundamentalist denominations define anyone who’s not one of them to be a Satanist?
@ Arren
Ah, you also noticed Chesterton’s duplicitous Bait-‘n-Switch:
That tacky little con trick is really all he did there.
It’s just a fact that the Church chose the Canon for the new testament. I thought protestants liked facts? Why do they bother with the bible if they don’t accept the authority of the Church? That makes no sense.
Only be dishonestly defining the word “puritan” can anyone say this with a straight face.
Is not having compassion for sinners of all kinds a CHRISTIAN value, straight of the word of Jesus H. Christ himself?
Please provide the citation where Sam Harris actually said this, and PROVIDE THE CONTEXT of said citation.
While you are at it, please define what you mean by “so”, “much”, “because”, “he”, “has”, “no”, “free” and “will”.
It actually makes a LOT of sense, clearly and obviously, to anyone with anything remotely resembling sense, mind, or heart.
But then, you’ve already demonstrated clearly that you possess none of the above to any significant degree, dibs.
@ diby sursch
If they did, they wouldn’t be goddists.
Fucked if I know. Fucked if I care.
You are the one who claims to believe in a magical skyfairy, and you come here to talk “sense”? Loose the imaginary friend, then maybe we can talk.
.
diby sursch, why do you come here? What is it you hope to achieve? More time in heaven?
rq
Oh all right. Grr. ::scowls furiously to cover considerable embarrassment:: ::hopes scowl is convincing:: ::scowls harder::
Ahem. Look, squirrels!
Then why don’t you have compassion for the murderers in the inquisition? OK, so now it gets even better. The religious are to get nothing but scorn and the harshest of treatments since they have free will and can choose to leave their faith at any time. But again, the man who murders is to receive compassion and understanding, and the Catholics who refuse to participate in this insane pity party, are to be condemned again for being able to control their condemnation but refusing to do so.
…but the “cat-licks” who murdered in the inquisition deserve no compassion because…sorry, I’m having a difficult time following the logic here.
Is it a bait and switch, though? The first bit, where he says, ‘I can understand the spectator saying, “This is all hocus-pocus”; I can even understand him, in moments of irritation, breaking up the procession, throwing down the images, tearing up the scrolls, dancing on the priests and anything else that might express that general view. I can understand his saying, “Your croziers are bosh, your candles are bosh, your statues and scrolls and relics and all the rest of it are bosh.”’ seems a fairly reasonable way to characterise the behaviour of atheists and other non-Christian people. (Though I’d personally say it’s not so much irritation but outrage at the cruel and tyrannical behaviour of the procession that causes the attempt to break it up.)
The second paragraph seems addressed at Protestants in particular, claiming that it’s irrational to take issue with almost all of Catholic theology while at the same time using “one particular scroll” as the basis of their theology.
I guess you could consider it a bait-and-switch in the context of the quote at #690 where he classifies all non-Catholic Americans as Puritans (and thus presumably, Protestants), but I think that just makes the combined argument incoherent. You can’t claim that all Protestants/Puritans/whatever devote themselves “one particular scroll” while at the same time classifying American atheists, anarchists, artists and pagans as Puritans, since they manifestly do not do anything of the sort.
Out of interest, diby sursch, do you realise that not everyone who frequents this blog is American? Also, what does Chesterton have to do with justification for Catholic conquest of Iberia or the Inquisition?
@ diby sursch
Say! Why don’t pearl divers sell the oyster shells with the pearls? Then we could have oyster shell & pearl jewellery instead of plain old pearl jewellery! Hey, what a clever idea. I mean: The oyster and its pearl are ONE right!? I am giddy with happiness, diby sursch, for such a brilliant insight. I’ll cut you in. You and I are gonna be RICH!!!
Because the corrupt Church isn’t the only game in town. Never was except with torture and punishment to keep the freethinkers in line, and hopefully in the future when people see imaginary deities, mythical/fictional holy books, and a hierarchy of stupid old men gets them nowhere but fleeced, the Church will fade into oblivion like it, or any movement based on phantasms, so richly earned.
@ Snoof
Far simpler: The protagonist starts out as a sceptic/pagan and shortly thereafter morphs into a goddist. The slimy hagfish has swapped our cheese for chalk, half way through the story.
diby, pretends that this is legitimate, by pretending all non-cat-licks are the same. This is, of course a lie, because otherwise the sceptic/pagan/goddist would have been referred to in the same terms. Xe knows it is a lie, because the sceptic/pagan mocks the bible, while the goddist idolises it. Even if they both fall under the heading “Puritan” (or “human being”), the attributes of each individual are utterly at odds.
diby is not so obtuse as not to realise this. Xe is just lying for jebus.
diby sursch @ 708
Who are you arguing with? I don’t think you’re going to find anyone who’s willing to take up the Protestant viewpoint to debate this issue with you, since (to the best of my knowledge) most of the commenters on this blog are atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, ignostics and/or other sorts of nonbelievers. As far as I’m personally concerned, the New Testament is about as relevant as the Iliad, and considerably less interesting.
diby sursch @ 712
Has anyone on this blog actually given the impression they agree with Harris’ statement? No? Then why are you asking us to defend it?
It makes sense if you don’t come from the mindset of punishment. I have no interest whatsoever in punishing murderers…i just want them to not be able to cause harm.
Also, you are very dishonestly implying that all murders are equal and that everyone who commits murder does so in the same circumstances. That’s almost as astronomically stupid as your bit about the iberian peninsula being a christian homeland.
There are very significant and crucial differences between a murderer who is a psychopath, a murderer that does so in self-defense, a murderer that had been abussed for decades by the person they killed and a murderer that commits its acts under the pretense that it is just and mandated by a god. Some of those deserve compassion, for others it’s not a matter of deserving anything and then there are those that deserve nothing but hatred and condemnation for the monstrosities they have commited.
I’m just curious as to why protestants would accept those 27 books as God’s word if they don’t believe in the people who chose those books. There were plenty of other books that they left out. The only reason I can see for believing in the bible is to believe in the Catholic church. Augustine, I believe, said that himself.
They don’t give a shit who “chose” them, and they don’t believe in your corrupt hierarchy. The latter is the problem you have. Deal with it appropriately, by ceasing giving money to it….
diby sursch @ 719
For the love of Eris, why are you asking us? Do you, perhaps, mistakenly believe this is a Christian blog?
So Diby, since you seem to think that what the inquisitors did was both justified and “not that bad” and it can also be infered from your previous statements that you think they are not in any way heretics, but good old, pure catholics, presumably you are actually saying that not only do those (admittedly long dead) people not deserve condemnation for their acts, but would in fact deserve to go to heaven. You are critisizing someone for claiming that a murderer might deserve compassion (without providing more specifics about the specific case of murder that might be deserving of it) while simultaneously claiming that murderers for Jesus deserve praise, admiration and eternal recompense. Did i get that right or do you instead think that the murdering inquisitors deserve condemnation for what they did? Would that inclide eternal torture aswell?
We need to get diby & medic0 together. Perhaps after a span of time, we’d see diby adopt the extramission theory of sight, and medic begin calling all non-Catholics .
Two exponents of fractal wrongness, intertwining in a wobbly double-helix of unremitting daftness.
Everybody deserves compassion to the extent that nobody deserves to be tortured. And there is no excuse for any country to have an official state death penalty. But don’t pretend that you can wave a magic wand and claim that (for example) someone who kills in self-defence is in any way morally equivalent to someone wielding significant power who commits torture or orders it done and then has their victim killed.
The catholic church today has huge resources and wields considerable power; the catholic church in the period of the Inquisition was practically omnipotent throughout a very considerable geographical area. The more power you have, the more responsibility you have, diby. Let the catholic church apologise to its victims and make reparations to the survivors; then after that maybe we could start talking about whether or not there’s any “compassion” for the priests and nuns who raped and beat and imprisoned children and young women who were supposed to be in their care.
There may be, possibly, in some hair-splitting sense a point to speaking of “compassion” for torturers – but frankly, it is of no importance whatsoever as long as the catholic church not only refuses to apologise for its old crimes but continues to commit new ones.
And no, protestants and all the other flavours of religious zealotry are no better per se. Abuse of power is what matters.
diby sursch #708
Indeed, that is actually a problem for the Sola Scriptura people. If you don’t trust the Church tradition, then how do you trust the texts that are selected by that same tradition? On the other hand, if you don’t accept the traditional canon, you risk throwing the doors wide open to all sorts of alternative texts.
Ways out of this are to either say that the church was right on this one point, but wrong in other ways; that the church was once completely right, but has now fallen; that you’ve got means outside pure tradition to validate the authority of the canon (e.g. direct inspiration); or simply casting aside biblical authority altogether. Or some combination.
I get the feeling that most rank-and-file Protestants don’t worry much about these things, just as most rank-and-file Catholics don’t worry about the implications of their history.
Of course, what relevance this has to anyone here or to the subject you originally brought up, I have no idea.
#719
Is this your new “only point”? Either way, if you’re interested in what Protestants think, why are you asking us?
Wouldn’t that be like crossing the streams? I’m not sure it would be at all safe.
This is hilarious. Where do you think you are, diby?
I for one could not give a gnat’s fart what any flavour of religidiots believe in; what I care about is preventing them from using their religion or any aspect of it as an excuse to cause harm – by interfering in law, in education, in personal autonomy; by having people beaten and killed; by teaching that women are inferior; by browbeating people with the threat of eternal torture; by teaching that gay people are evil … there’s plenty on the list. If religion is used as an excuse to cause harm, then religion has a lot to answer for and should be kept well away from government in every sense of the word.
If religious people would keep their religion where it belongs – out of the public sphere – they could believe whatever codswallop they like, why should anyone else care?
Actually, it’s my experience that many protestants know Catholicism to be true, yet will not become catholic.
Anyhow if we were to accept this whole corruption and going wrong argument, then we should have to accept Americans breaking away from the republic and creating their own countries. There’s always going to be corruption and things we don’t like. There’s no such thing as a perfect order.
Or as I say, One cannot really be protestant and grown up.
Ok, at this point I’m fairly certain diby sursch is only arguing with zir invisible
friendsstrawmen, not any actual human beings or other sophonts on this blog.Your personal and biased anecdote is dismissed as fuckwittery, as is everything you say where you don’t provide a link to back up your claims. Your failure to do so is utterly troll-like.
One cannot believe in phantasms and be fully grown. See, two can play that game, and you will never win. So stop this bullshit.
diby seems to be having an intense conversation with themselves, because they don’t seem to be addressing anything anyone is actually saying, fending off ebil Muslim and Protestant phantasms. Pro-tip diby: it might help to quote or mention the name of the person you are responding to. You aren’t coherent enough to pretend you are actually engaging without doing so.
King James was a Catholic?
NEW THREAD.