The ISIS threat to Europe

[limpid]

22 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Pretty much what I was getting at - the philosophically insoluble argument about free will. Does it exist, or is everything we do genetically pre-programmed? In practice it's irrelevant. So I don't mind people saying homosexuality is a lifestyle choice - BECAUSE THAT'S PERFECTLY OK!!! 

(sorry this turned into a bit of a waffle.)

Genetics has almost nothing to do with free will (or the lack thereof). We aren't pre-programmed by genetics to make decisions. Genetics might influence the set of available choices, or cause weighting variations.

Any decision is made on the basis of the physical configuration of neurons in part of the meat computer in our heads. The brain generates a map of the "world" which runs about three seconds behind real time and has to be continuously guessing what is happening to you in real time. Ultimately you don't really get to make a decision about something because you already made the decision three seconds before you think that you did.

Whether you like / enjoy / are attracted to something is largely outside of the decision making process (although influences the set of available choices). You can't decide to like something, liking is a spectrum which runs from "like" to "don't like". You can train your responses to any stimuli over time.

[Brumerican]

If quirk has negative undertones then it was unintentional on my part .

Anomaly maybe?

[villakram]

Word is this charming individual may have taken a sojurn or two to that most enlightened of countries Saudi Whabia in recent years.

I can't say how disgusted I am to read that a member of these boards equates ones sexual orientation with drinking alcohol. Go have a serious think for yourself, if you are actually capable of individual thought that is 

[Brumerican]

Just now, limpid said:

. You can train your responses to any stimuli over time.

I agree on this . Repetition can alter your physiology and give you a better chance of making a favourable choice in the future. 

[tonyh29]

4 hours ago, omariqy said:

 I am a Muslim and I think homosexuality is a sin. Now you may not agree or find that reprehensible but I am being completely honest. I think its a sin much like drinking alcohol is or gambling is. 

I say this with the greatest of respect for you but I'm assuming you think that it's a sin because of writings in a book handed down by God through an Angel to a prophet who had married a 7 year old girl as one of his 13 wives .. 

can you kinda see why i think this view is somewhat flawed , by all means live by a code , no alcohol or gambling ... Sure why not ? but Islam claims to be a religion of peace so in that regard it's time that it came out of the 12th century and updated some of the views that have no place in an enlightened society( that goes for any religion )

 

[Brumerican]

17 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I say this with the greatest of respect for you but I'm assuming you think that it's a sin because of writings in a book handed down by God through an Angel to a prophet who had married a 7 year old girl as one of his 13 wives .. 

can you kinda see why i think this view is somewhat flawed , by all means live by a code , no alcohol or gambling ... Sure why not ? but Islam claims to be a religion of peace so in that regard it's time that it came out of the 12th century and updated some of the views that have no place in an enlightened society( that goes for any religion )

 

Jesus drank wine and partied with topless dudes ALL the time.  And he was related to Allah ! 

If God's own kid  is allowed to act like a Floridian clubber then his followers should probably chill out a bit.

Edited June 13, 2016 by Brumerican

[Wainy316]

Proof that even moderate Islam is completely **** up.

[Guest av1]

So any gay blokes having a beer at Ascot is presumably the scum of the earth. Thats reasonable i suppose. 

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

I say this with the greatest of respect for you but I'm assuming you think that it's a sin because of writings in a book handed down by God through an Angel to a prophet who had married a 7 year old girl as one of his 13 wives .. 

 

But f##cking a child is fine. Yup makes sense. 

The Catholics probably agree with that as well. #lovereligion.

[andym]

Having seen the full 10 minute clip of the Owen Jones walkout incident, i think he also comes across pretty poorly at times. Both the presenter and julia hartley-brewer do acknowledge the attack was homophobic, although the presenter did seem to then start trying to push 'it was an attack on people trying to have a good time', which was tactless.

Although it was just as poor from Jones when he kept shouting at the presenter that he was deflecting away from the homophobic element of this attack, at the part when he was simply quoting what was written in the paper. Especially given his propensity to deflect away from the influence of religion, in particular Islam, on this and many other terrorist attacks and general unpleasantness going on in the world at the moment.

I'm also not sure why he had such a problem with the use of words like lunatic, nutter etc which seemed to tip him over the edge, I didn't think they were being used as opposed to homophobic, i.e. to try and downplay that element of the attack.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2016 by andym

[hycus-flange]

9 hours ago, av1 said:

So any gay blokes having a beer at Ascot is presumably the scum of the earth. Thats reasonable i suppose. 

But f##cking a child is fine. Yup makes sense. 

The Catholics probably agree with that as well. #lovereligion.

When you look at Rochdale/Rotherham (always get them mixed up) Telford and probably many more places then I think you can say that f##cking children is fine when you follow a medieval cult.

Edited June 14, 2016 by hycus-flange

[ccfcman]

10 hours ago, Wainy316 said:

Proof that even moderate Islam is completely **** up.

Is it really though? One chap who is notably not super big into religion, shooting people just comes across to me as if he was moderately deranged.

Moderate Christianity is properly twisted also you know. In the same passage in Leviticus which slams homosexuality it says that eating shellfish or wearing two different fabrics is also punishable by death. 

Plus there is radical Christianity which causes the majority of American domestic terrorism - the Wisconsin Sikh Temple massacre, a suicide attack on IRS building in Austin, the Planned Parenthood bombing outside Boston, the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, George Tiller's murder which Bill O'Reilly goaded people into doing and murder of Dr. John Britton, the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church shooting and Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Fed building in OK. All directly in the name of the christian skygod.

You have periodic attacks on Planned Parenthood facilities, again in the name of a made up celestial old man. But I find it weird because, you know the same skygod is the number one cause of infanticide, seeing as he is omnipresent (when does he sleep?) and all knowing, why then did he come up with miscarriages? Odd that.

Let's read from Kings 6:29 now shall we?

Quote

So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.

Madness there.

So you see. Moderate or radical anything is wild and crazy. To blame Islam is as a whole is dreadfully misplaced.

[ccfcman]

15 hours ago, omariqy said:

I am a Muslim and I think homosexuality is a sin. Now you may not agree or find that reprehensible but I am being completely honest. I think its a sin much like drinking alcohol is or gambling is. 

It's reprehensible and morally bankrupt. You are 100% free to have your own views and beliefs as we all are but these rules and dictations are out dated in a modern society. That they are followed to such exacting standards worries me. Drinking beers is no more a sin than two men or two women being in love.

So I ask you as simple a question as possible. Where is the line drawn?

Quote

Those who disbelieve will be forced to drink boiling water, and will face a painful doom. (Quran 6:70)

 

[Wainy316]

1 hour ago, ccfcman said:

Is it really though? One chap who is notably not super big into religion, shooting people just comes across to me as if he was moderately deranged.

Moderate Christianity is properly twisted also you know. In the same passage in Leviticus which slams homosexuality it says that eating shellfish or wearing two different fabrics is also punishable by death. 

Plus there is radical Christianity which causes the majority of American domestic terrorism - the Wisconsin Sikh Temple massacre, a suicide attack on IRS building in Austin, the Planned Parenthood bombing outside Boston, the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, George Tiller's murder which Bill O'Reilly goaded people into doing and murder of Dr. John Britton, the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church shooting and Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Fed building in OK. All directly in the name of the christian skygod.

You have periodic attacks on Planned Parenthood facilities, again in the name of a made up celestial old man. But I find it weird because, you know the same skygod is the number one cause of infanticide, seeing as he is omnipresent (when does he sleep?) and all knowing, why then did he come up with miscarriages? Odd that.

Let's read from Kings 6:29 now shall we?

Madness there.

So you see. Moderate or radical anything is wild and crazy. To blame Islam is as a whole is dreadfully misplaced.

 

Yeah it is, I was referring to the homosexuality being a sin coming from a usually reasoned and intelligent poster.

I offered no defence of Christianity, equally as reprehensible.

[ccfcman]

3 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Yeah it is, I was referring to the homosexuality being a sin coming from a usually reasoned and intelligent poster.

I offered no defence of Christianity, equally as reprehensible.

I'm not sure that's moderate though, that's equal to a Christian abstaining from meat on a Friday and being homophobic etc.

[mjmooney]

12 hours ago, limpid said:

(sorry this turned into a bit of a waffle.)

Genetics has almost nothing to do with free will (or the lack thereof). We aren't pre-programmed by genetics to make decisions. Genetics might influence the set of available choices, or cause weighting variations.

Any decision is made on the basis of the physical configuration of neurons in part of the meat computer in our heads. The brain generates a map of the "world" which runs about three seconds behind real time and has to be continuously guessing what is happening to you in real time. Ultimately you don't really get to make a decision about something because you already made the decision three seconds before you think that you did.

Whether you like / enjoy / are attracted to something is largely outside of the decision making process (although influences the set of available choices). You can't decide to like something, liking is a spectrum which runs from "like" to "don't like". You can train your responses to any stimuli over time.

I knew you'd come back at me on this, Simon. And you are quite correct. I was sloppy with my science there, but my point was to make the analogy with the philosophical argument about free will. There is a quotation (which ICBA to attribute just now) which goes something like: "We have no free will, but we must act as if we do - we have no choice". Otherwise we get the reductio ad absurdam conclusion that no-one is responsible for their actions at all, and therefore we may as well scrap all laws and restrictions on our behaviour. 

My point was that - assuming for the sake of argument that we CAN make lifestyle choices, for anything at all - then there is nothing 'wrong' with choosing our sexual behaviour. It is not analagous to choosing to be a thief or a murderer, but more to harmless things like choice of clothes, music, hobbies, etc. The argument for it NOT being a choice always smacks to me as having an unspoken attitude of "OK, we all know it's wrong, but the poor dears just can't help themselves". I'd rather that sexual orientation was regarded as a (harmless) choice, than as an affliction. 

[ccfcman]

2 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

My point was that - assuming for the sake of argument that we CAN make lifestyle choices, for anything at all - then there is nothing 'wrong' with choosing our sexual behaviour. It is not analagous to choosing to be a thief or a murderer, but more to harmless things like choice of clothes, music, hobbies, etc. The argument for it NOT being a choice always smacks to me as having an unspoken attitude of "OK, we all know it's wrong, but the poor dears just can't help themselves". I'd rather that sexual orientation was regarded as a (harmless) choice, than as an affliction. 

Though I am fully sure this is meant well, I find it a curious point given it is mentioned twice. This idea of sexuality being a "choice".

I'll put it to you this way. I never chose to be straight, I just am. My flatmate never chose to be gay, he just is.

[limpid]

10 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I'd rather that sexual orientation was regarded as a (harmless) choice, than as an affliction. 

I think you are confusing sexual orientation with gender.

[useless]

The brain might make decisions before we're consiously aware of them, but we can still change those decisions (or so I've read (been told) lol). I read an example of people having their brains tested for racism, I forget the exact figures but a surprising number of people showed up to be 'racist' according to their brain activity, but of course once it reaches the consious stage most people don't display the same racial biase. In fact some of the people who showed the most racial biase in their scan results were the least racist in everyday life, I guess because they have to police themselves more. If I've remembered that right (probably not to be honest) then I think we do have some control over what we like.

As for gender I'm pretty sure most people consider themselves to be born with the gender that they identify as. But not biologically obviously.

 

[mjmooney]

35 minutes ago, limpid said:

I think you are confusing sexual orientation with gender.

No. I am not. 

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

Seems the shooter was a regular at the nightclub and had a profile on a gay dating app. Paints the picture of an individual who was violent and sexually repressed, and who for whatever reason self-radicalised. It isn't unknown for homophobes to be sexually repressed, so the jump between being that kind of guy to being a killing fifty people kind of guy is what needs to be understood. I certainly don't think this was a straight-forward Isis attack, and certainly not the kind that the media seems to be telling (and many on here seem convinced of). He seems to have affiliated himself with all sorts of extremists over the years, leading to FBI investigations which proved inconclusive because, it seems, he was a loose canon rather than a signed up member with connections. It seems as if the Isis ideology inspired him to act, but as he wasn't 'directed externally' then the exact cause (or 'what caused him to snap') remains a mystery, although his violent nature suggests it may not have taken much.