Metal Reviews

Meh. Sell some gold or something.

Hails!

Btw couldn't agree more with EI either... IMO a big part of the reason religion lost its influence in places like Britain was because the bible was translated into language ordinary people could understand. Thereby cutting out the middleman, who is the one that causes most of the damage.

waaah

those refugees they just take and take and take eh

Look, the fact is that in the West, religion is no longer in a position of power in government, while in these Arabic countries it is. If the majority of people aren't fanatics or at least deeply religious, then there wouldn't be any more Sharia law, just like there aren't any inquisitions over here.

I'm not complaining, I wish our government would deal with them more effectively rather than just shutting them somewhere in motels and not letting them get jobs. I mean, I can understand why they would do so, there's a shortage of jobs as it is, and we want to avoid salary dumping. But if you've got a bunch of poor refugees who can't legally work around, they're going to start dealing drugs. It gets them money.

So the Spanish Inquisition was a result of ordinary Spanish people being religious fanatics? Seems to me more likely it was a case of a clerical elite forcing fanaticism on people that most likely didn't want it.

And sorry, in plenty of Arab countries religion is not a power in government. In Egypt, for example, Islamist parties are forcibly kept out of politics.

Nobody is disputing that a lot of Arabs are deeply religious, but so what? This certainly does not mean that the "vast majority" of them are "fanatics", or that they have any interest at all in spreading Islam, or even that they give a shit about people insulting it.

And it certainly doesn't mean that they in some way bring the governments they live under onto themselves, which is what you seem to be implying. That's like saying to all those people burnt at the stake in Middle Ages Europe... "well it's your own damn fault for being so religious".

During the spanish inquisition people would accuse their neighbours of witchcraft knowing full well they'd be horribly tortured, yet the belief in witches and saving someone's soul trumped it.

And the Jews got it in the neck. Expulsion, or living in secrecy with the possibility of being burnt alive if someone catches you practising your religion. Doubtless there were people who believed that THEE JOOS ARE EVILS!1 but most antisemetism back then was for financial reasons, the religion being the excuse.

Fear, envy & avarice was more influent in accusations to neighbours than religion & fanatism.

And spanish inquisition was really not against witches (Northen countries were more prone to burn witches), was more against jews, muslims & heretics.

+1. This post is pretty solid on what I would say. I love the blanketing statements being thrown around here.

my friend was telling me about her dad's theory that the jews were responsible for the Spanish inquisition for political reasons involving the crusades. i forget how it went though

Well, the Crusades were financial too. I don't see that much of a connection offhand, perhaps Brahm knows different? Fridge'll probably make out that Saladin had weapons of mass destruction that could reach Acco in 45 weeks or something.

The main reason people went after the Jews back then was because everyone owed them money. The chance to go and butcher a few rich Jews and take all their money/cancel debts was hard to resist.

Edited for clarity.

SALADIN IS BIN LADEN!!11+11!!+111++

They owed them money because the only job they allowed them to have was usury. Again, anti-semitism stems from the misguided belief that the Jews killed Jesus (overlooking that Jesus himself was a Jew).

Christians weren't allowed to charge each other interest; the pope declared it a sin. That led the jews to fill the niche since no Christians were jumping on the chance of giving out loans without interest.

Saladin would have Altair to strike out against the Christian heathens.

OK, fanatics is too strong a word for what I'm trying to say, the thing is these countries have a considerable number of ignorant people who as I said, only need a charismatic speaker so as to convince them to blow themselves up to attain Paradise. And as it has been shown from past terrorist attacks, the bombers are not all just uneducated simpletons, they have just been convinced that they are doing a great act which will give them great rewards in the afterlife. Just like Hitler convinced an entire nation to massacre Jews and like it.

And this ignorance is also why the populace of these countries hasn't risen up against their government, since if the people of a country are united against the government, there's no way the current regime could stay there. This is also the reason why many African countries repeatedly become lead by ruthless dictators like Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe.

Well, a "considerable number" is a bit different from "the vast majority", at least

People in Europe were led by ruthless dictators who they didn't "rise up" against until almost the end of the 20th century. And in one or two cases still are today. Was this really just because they were too stupid or ignorant to realise it?

A lot of these countries have disproportionately vast secret police and repression networks, along with shiny new weapons for keeping order shipped all the way from Europe and the US.

Hm?

I recently read a study on the psychology of following orders, specifically German soldiers who had to directly execute people, and the results were surprising... Most people actually didn't really have any qualms about killing.

It's the psychologically and morally ingrained tradition of the Auftragtaktik in the Prussian and later German army. Soldiers were given very limited, very clear orders which left them no leeway at all.