"Bill of Shame"

[Shaker]

Neo-con/libs, CIA, Mossad but ultimately the devil.

You're an utter, utter lunatic. Absolutely no surprise to see the Mossad mentioned, of course.

[ad_orientem]

CIA and Mossad work as one. The lunatics are the ones that think they're not up to dodgy stuff, like having a hand in the creation of ISIS.

[Shaker]

CIA and Mossad work as one. The lunatics are the ones that think they're not up to dodgy stuff, like having a hand in the creation of ISIS.

Let me guess - RT has the skinny on all this, right?

[ad_orientem]

Let me guess - RT has the skinny on all this, right?

Among others. I also linked on another thread an Israeli news source quoting an Israeli minister saying they preferred ISIS to Iran and Syria, but you dismissed it off hand.

[floo]

Neo-con/libs, CIA, Mossad but ultimately the devil.

Oh dear!

[Outrider]

As I said, culture and ethnicity is what makes us what we are and for most people it matters.

Cultures evolve, constantly, and a major factor of that evolution is the influx of trends and ideas from other places, never more so than in the modern era of instantaneous communication.

Lose that and we cease to be.

No, because you can't 'lose' culture, you can simply change cultures. We don't cease to be, we cease to be part of what we were before and become part of something new, but that's the case regardless of whether ideas come from inside or outside - culture IS change.

As I said, if it was anywhere else in the world apart from Europe and Europeans no one would think anything wrong of it, but then this not happenning by accident.

I see, so other cultures don't matter if they're 'lost', just so long as ours remains, because we're special?

The whole thing has been orchestrated.

What paranoid nonsense.

Europeans are fed up with it which is why anti-immigration parties are making massive gains. May they continue.

European culture - the one that you're so desperate to protect - is the open, warm, welcoming arms of peaceable people. It's freedom of movement, the eradication of artificial boundaries between the one species on Earth that divides itself by language and politics. The irony, here, is that you advocate dismantling the last thirty years and more of cultural evolution in an effort to protect that culture from people who would rather join it than remain in their own.

O.

[Outrider]

Anti-Christian forces.

Anti-Christian forces don't need outside agitators to signal the end of organised Christianity in Europe, organised Christianity is doing a fine job of driving itself into irrelevancy all on its own, ably assisted by the ready availability of good quality education in most places.

To bring in agents from outside whom - as I interpret your thinking - are likely to try to spread Islamic ideals through the continent to supplant Christian ones would only make sense if secularists were somehow losing ground to Christianity. They aren't.

O.

[Hope]

Anti-Christian forces don't need outside agitators to signal the end of organised Christianity in Europe, organised Christianity is doing a fine job of driving itself into irrelevancy all on its own, ably assisted by the ready availability of good quality education in most places.

Interestingly enough, the newly available good quality education in many parts of the world is actually helping boost the numbers of Christians in many parts of the world.  This suggests that the availability or otherwise of good quality education doesn't necessarily have that great an impact on the strength or weakness of a religion, and that there are other factorts at work.  Remember that Europe and the West don't have the monopoly on 'what is best for humanity'.

[Hope]

CIA and Mossad work as one. The lunatics are the ones that think they're not up to dodgy stuff, like having a hand in the creation of ISIS.

And that is likely a scenario as Saudi Arabia becoming a Christian nation within the next 12 hours, ad_o.

[ProfessorDavey]

Anti-Christian forces.

Oh no!! AO has turned into Vlad.

Seen any grassy knolls recently guys.

[ad_orientem]

Cultures evolve, constantly, and a major factor of that evolution is the influx of trends and ideas from other places, never more so than in the modern era of instantaneous communication.

No, because you can't 'lose' culture, you can simply change cultures. We don't cease to be, we cease to be part of what we were before and become part of something new, but that's the case regardless of whether ideas come from inside or outside - culture IS change.

I see, so other cultures don't matter if they're 'lost', just so long as ours remains, because we're special?

What paranoid nonsense.

European culture - the one that you're so desperate to protect - is the open, warm, welcoming arms of peaceable people. It's freedom of movement, the eradication of artificial boundaries between the one species on Earth that divides itself by language and politics. The irony, here, is that you advocate dismantling the last thirty years and more of cultural evolution in an effort to protect that culture from people who would rather join it than remain in their own.

O.

That's bollocks. What you're referring isn't European culture but a self-destruct mentality. Your modern Europe is killing itself and you're actively encouraging it. It might well be too late and the result won't be your multicultural wet dream but an Islamic Europe.

[ProfessorDavey]

That's bollocks. What you're referring isn't European culture but a self-destruct mentality. Your modern Europe is killing itself and you're actively encouraging it. It might well be too late and the result won't be your multicultural wet dream but an Islamic Europe.

Guess what - there would have been people with exactly the same attitude in 1966 and in 1916 and in 1866 and in 1816 etc etc. So the great european culture you are so wedded to has evolved constantly to the point we see it today. And it will continually evolve, thankfully, in the future too. Cultures that don't evolve stagnate and eventually die or get replaced. So if you value your culture, let it evolve because that's the best way to preserve it in a real sense, rather than as a museum piece.

[ad_orientem]

And that is likely a scenario as Saudi Arabia becoming a Christian nation within the next 12 hours, ad_o.

The CIA and Mossad certainly did have a hand in creating ISIS, just as they had a hand in creating Al-Qaeda. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The US, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia all had a hand in it. It takes the pressure off them, their regimes and their misdeeds. It consolidates their power by creating instability among their rivals. Don't you also find it strange that Russia did more damage to ISIS within an week than the US did in God knows how long?

[Outrider]

Interestingly enough, the newly available good quality education in many parts of the world is actually helping boost the numbers of Christians in many parts of the world.

Good education is more than just literacy rates and mathematics - unfortunately, that realisation seems to be going out of favour here, as well as in the developing world.

This suggests that the availability or otherwise of good quality education doesn't necessarily have that great an impact on the strength or weakness of a religion, and that there are other factorts at work.

Perhaps it is something that's unique to Western Cultures, which are the only ones we have sufficient figures for to make the judgement - statistics is always on slightly dangerous ground when it moves outside of the sampled areas, but certainly even when ethnic and economic factors are accounted for, educational achievement has been shown to have a fairly strong negative correlation with religiosity. I guess we'll have to wait a while to see if that holds in other places as well.

Remember that Europe and the West don't have the monopoly on 'what is best for humanity'.

No, they don't, but they do have much, much better success rates than other places so far. They have happier, healthier, wealthier, better educated people living in freer, fairer societies; they've provided scientific and technical developments, legal frameworks and concepts like personal liberty and human rights. They've not done that in isolation, and there are still more than enough examples of where they are far from perfect, but whilst we shouldn't dismiss other cultures out of hand as merely 'primitive' and therefore unworthy, we shouldn't fall prey to the idea that all cultures are equally valid and decent.

The West isn't the only possible good way, but it's the best we have at the moment.

O.

[ad_orientem]

Guess what - there would have been people with exactly the same attitude in 1966 and in 1916 and in 1866 and in 1816 etc etc. So the great european culture you are so wedded to has evolved constantly to the point we see it today. And it will continually evolve, thankfully, in the future too. Cultures that don't evolve stagnate and eventually die or get replaced. So if you value your culture, let it evolve because that's the best way to preserve it in a real sense, rather than as a museum piece.

There is a difference between organic growth, such as a seed growing into a tree and hacking the tree down and planting an altogether new tree. It is the latter which is happening.

[ProfessorDavey]

The CIA and Mossad certainly did have a hand in creating ISIS, just as they had a hand in creating Al-Qaeda. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The US, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia all had a hand in it. It takes the pressure off them, their regimes and their misdeeds. It consolidates their power by creating instability among their rivals. Don't you also find it strange that Russia did more damage to ISIS within an week than the US did in God knows how long?

Just because some organisations are wedded to the notion that the enemy of my enemy is my friend (a view I have long derided) doesn't mean that this was somehow a policy aimed at de-christianising Europe. The latter view is frankly nonsense.

[Shaker]

No, they don't, but they do have much, much better success rates than other places so far. They have happier, healthier, wealthier, better educated people living in freer, fairer societies; they've provided scientific and technical developments, legal frameworks and concepts like personal liberty and human rights. They've not done that in isolation, and there are still more than enough examples of where they are far from perfect, but whilst we shouldn't dismiss other cultures out of hand as merely 'primitive' and therefore unworthy, we shouldn't fall prey to the idea that all cultures are equally valid and decent.

The West isn't the only possible good way, but it's the best we have at the moment.

O.

Hear hear, huzzah and a hearty handshake on a superb post.

[Shaker]

Interestingly enough, the newly available good quality education in many parts of the world is actually helping boost the numbers of Christians in many parts of the world.  This suggests that the availability or otherwise of good quality education doesn't necessarily have that great an impact on the strength or weakness of a religion, and that there are other factorts at work. 

Whatever those other factors may be, we need much more of them.

[ProfessorDavey]

There is a difference between organic growth, such as a seed growing into a tree and hacking the tree down and planting an altogether new tree. It is the latter which is happening.

There have always been ebbs and flows in terms of the degree of migration over the years - I don't see this as anything out of the ordinary, it is just as much 'organic' growth as there was before and after WW11 and many other times.

And just to check there aren't double standards going on here - I gather you live in Finland - I trust you are native Finnish born and that all your natural family for generations are also Finnish born. Would seem to be rather unreasonable if this were not the case to be denigrating others (or their families) who have chosen, or been compelled, to migrate to another country, while being in the same boat, so to speak, yourself.

[ad_orientem]

There have always been ebbs and flows in terms of the degree of migration over the years - I don't see this as anything out of the ordinary, it is just as much 'organic' growth as there was before and after WW11 and many other times.

And just to check there aren't double standards going on here - I gather you live in Finland - I trust you are native Finnish born and that all your natural family for generations are also Finnish born. Would seem to be rather unreasonable if this were not the case to be denigrating others (or their families) who have chosen, or been compelled, to migrate to another country, while being in the same boat, so to speak, yourself.

My mother is Finnish but I was born in London and moved to live eith my mother's people. Perfectly legitimate. The people and the land are part of who I am. The same blood runs through my veins. For some blood is important and my forefathers shed their blood for this land. The same cannot be said of the wave of migrants from the Middle-East. This is not their land, not their culture and neither have they shed their blood for it. They do not shed their blood for their land and then they come here a d sexually assault our women. Yet again over the weekend a group of assylum seekers were arrested for gang raping a woman in Helsinki. That is the wonderful culture they bring.

[floo]

My mother is Finnish but I was born in London and moved to live eith my mother's people. Perfectly legitimate. The people and the land are part of who I am. The same blood runs through my veins. For some blood is important and my forefathers shed their blood for this land. The same cannot be said of the wave of migrants from the Middle-East. This is not their land, not their culture and neither have they shed their blood for it. They do not shed their blood for their land and then they come here a d sexually assault our women. Yet again over the weekend a group of assylum seekers were arrested for gang raping a woman in Helsinki. That is the wonderful culture they bring.

Most Brits had ancestors who were immigrants at one time or another!

[OH MY WORLD!]

Finland created ISIS Ad O, I promise. (snork)

[Udayana]

Most Brits had ancestors who were immigrants at one time or another!

So should be in favour of assaults on local women?

[Udayana]

Anyway, looks as if the Danes have approved these measures.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35406436

[Hope]

Good education is more than just literacy rates and mathematics - unfortunately, that realisation seems to be going out of favour here, as well as in the developing world.

The places I was referring to are those where quality education has been provided by British and other Western nations' aid agencies.

No, they don't, but they do have much, much better success rates than other places so far. They have happier, healthier, wealthier, better educated people living in freer, fairer societies; they've provided scientific and technical developments, legal frameworks and concepts like personal liberty and human rights. They've not done that in isolation, and there are still more than enough examples of where they are far from perfect, but whilst we shouldn't dismiss other cultures out of hand as merely 'primitive' and therefore unworthy, we shouldn't fall prey to the idea that all cultures are equally valid and decent.

And on who's backs have they managed to do all this?  Remember that much of Europe's success and liberality has come on the back of destroying competitors' industries and monopolising their markets by dumping cheap product into them.   Our 'freer/fairer societies' are often based on unfair international trade practices and sharp industrial practice.  We have societies where individuals are forgotten and ignored, elderly 'put to the side', etc - situations that some of those uneducated and backward societies put us to shame.

The West isn't the only possible good way, but it's the best we have at the moment.

Not sure that that 'best' is that much better then many other cultures.