OT: Brussels attacks

Please point to the factual error.

I used *facts* to point out the error in your *opinion*.

Rationality doesn't enter into it. If you think the Catholic hierarchy's actions and inactions aren't serious then clearly there are irreconcilable differences between your concept of good proper behaviour and mine.

The slogan isn't mine.

Some Christians. Others were happy to own slaves.

Christians have been happy to massacre other Christians if the other Christ ians subscribe to the wrong branch of Christianity. Genocide is a relativel y modern word - the complete Oxford only lists it in the supplement, with a first use in 1944 - and I doubt if avoiding genocide is a matter of faith and doctrine.

I'm not sure what Muslims - as a whole - are supposed to be consenting to. There are plenty of Muslims who think that ISIS are bunch of dangerous luna tics and quite a few of them say so from time to time.

And you think that Muslim terrorists are any less discreet about effecting their demented schemes? Grow up.

Where did white supremacy come into it? McVeigh is reported to have "sought revenge against the federal government for its handling of the Waco siege" .

Might have rather narrow idea of what a Christian fundamentalist looks like , or you could simply be ill-informed, which does seem to fit most of your postings.

The Catholic Church isn't the only organisation whose institutional response to child abuse by it's employees was inadequate - it knew about it and didn't stop it.

has been digging up quite a lot of dirt. The Salvation Army hasn't come out of it well either.

In the US the Catholic Church in Boston paid out $85 million for some 552 cases.

Denying that it has happened is an irrational response.

I didn't deny it happened. I said Christians would have turned in Tim McVeigh. To claim they wouldn't is irrational.

Don't they teach //basic// history in the US? Christians have been torturing and murdering each other because of their "heretical" beliefs for most of history.

Catholics vs Protestants for a start, and then move on to the Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade and many many others.

And don't I remember something about why the pilgrims left Europe to form the US?

Historically and recently many Christians have actively avoided turning in malefactors, and in some cases have actively conspired to avoid their detection and punishment.

To claim otherwise is to irrationally deny facts.

I have little sympathy for the Palestinians. They got a shit deal, yeah, but they could have chosen to make lemonade out of lemons.

Instead they chose to suck hard on those lemons for 70 years.

If they had known what he was planning? Almost certainly. They didn't know because McVeigh didn't advertise his intentions.

You want to criticise Muslims because they haven't turned in Muslim terrorists - or at least not enough of them to keep you happy. My guess is that they mostly didn't know what was being planned.

Your original complaint was that " but they (Arabs) do .... nothing to report them when they see things, as they must."

The Christians around McVeigh "must" have seen him assembling his truck-load of explosives but they didn't report him either - perhaps this kind of activity is less obviously terrorist than you seem to think.

Sure. They didn't have the freedom the wanted in Europe to persecute the people in their community that didn't share their beliefs.

They hanged three Quakers in Massachusetts for the crime of being Quakers.

The British crown put a stop to it, when they found out about it.

There are various translations. It doesn't say to kill anyone.

The Arabs are still tribal, which is why their part of the world is such a mess.

And still so messed up about women.

I know. Even my wife, the pacifist, says, "bomb all trucks". ...Jim Thompson

Read the article. They were banished "upon pain of death" which meant they would be executed if they returned to the colony. The fanatics decided to test the law and returned from their banishment. That was a bad decision.

True; Bowdlerisation is another Christian tradition. (Other religions aren't exempt either)

But Christ's job specification clearly stated by Luke sets the ethos and standard, and over the centuries many Christians have killed each other over doctrinal differences.

They've been doing it in my country in my lifetime too. My mother stood 3 yards away from an IRA bomb on the day they blew up the Houses of Parliament. Funding for that campaign came from a strange pair of bedfellows: Colonel Gaddafi and American catholics (especially from Boston). The US authorities did nothing to halt the flow of money to those terrorists. Offensive? Yes, it was and remains so.

Give us a cite on that idiocy.

Really? It hasn't put a dent in Chechen terrorist activities, the Russians steer clear of them and not the other way around. Why don't you pay the region a visit, it will be the last we hear of you.

It's futile. Their political view creates their poverty, which reinforces their resentment at being poor.

Likewise, Mexico's people are poor because of the government they've established, and their Big Daddy view of what government should be. But redistribution destroys wealth, innovation, and investment--they got what they voted for.

John's point about Israel is well-taken. The Arabs could've rallied around Isreal's example and pulled themselves out of the Middle Ages. Instead, they went the way of the left: it's always easier to tear down the other guy than build yourself up.

Cheers, James Arthur

But Christians don't kill over doctrine much any more. As some of the world has advanced in many areas of science and human rights in the last 500 years or so, Christianity has adapted to, or even lead, the progress.

The issue is not so much religion but personal culture. Some places have long been countries with orderly populations: China, Japan, England, most of Europe, even a lot of Russia. They fight wars, less lately, but are fundamantally organized nations, and most citizens follow the common rules. Some cultures are fragmented, tribal, and locally violent, like a lot of Arabian places. The only things that sort of hold some places together is a brutal dictator. Remember "smart power", "We came, we saw, he died"? Remember the Red Line? Didn't work out so well, sort of Iraq II.

I don't know how to stop the brutality in the arabic countries, but I don't want to import that culture here, either.

The other resource that the arabs waste is women.