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Humanists of the world gather up!

Off Topic » Humanists of the world gather up! (Posts 151 to 180 of 488)

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  1. Fuck it. I lost my lecture, forgot to copy paste.

    It was a lecture in history. I think that Middle Eastern situation is defined by few events that lead to the state we have today. Long story short.

    FIrst century AD - Insurrection in the Roman Province of Iudea leads to scattering of Jews all over the Roman Empire and destruction of the Saint Solomon temple in Jerusalem, which was built there from God's order as it is written in the Bible. For some here it may have no importance at all, for religious Jews this is the basic law that was broken. The Wailing Wall of today remembers those times. Another famous event from that insurrection guaranteed us one of the best themes ever written by Jerry Goldsmith.

    622 AD - 1 AH, AH = After Hijra. Muhammad is made to seek refuge in Medina, this escape from Mecca is by Arab terms named Hijra and starts the Muslim calendar. After the war that ensued protection was guaranteed (by Muhammad himself!) for Muslim Arabs AND Jews. The Arab start to take over North Africa and Spain. In 732, the battle of Poitiers repells them from France.

    1095. The Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire in distress asks the West to help them out with Seljuk Turks, who threaten Constantinople. Urban II in one of the best ever speeches in history leads to a massive movement and in 1099, after first Crusade, Europeans take over Jerusalem. This leads to a massive conflict to this day. Crusaders is the way Christians are referred to by Islamist terrorists.

    XIXth Century - Jews get recognized in Europe, Zionism is created, as an opposition to assimilation. Jews have to return to their historical and holy (Promised!) land.

    1900-1939 - Zionism gets extremist too. Few organizations are listed by the British as terrorist organizations. Interestingly, one of them leads to what we have today in the name of Likud. Today there exists an extremist right-wing party in Israel, rendered illegal by the government many years ago.

    1949 - The world shocked by Holocaust reacts to their complexes (too) by creating the state of Israel in today's Palestine. While Soviet Union allowed this country, later they support Arabs only because America supports Israel, building a similar opposition to the one that made Russians support communist states in Vietnam and Korea. One of proposed spots for a Jewish state is one of the Lands of Germany (still feeling guilty for the Holocaust), but David ben Gurion (the first Prime Minister) rejects the offer and creates the state in historical land.

    Israel is immediately attacked by the shocked Arab world. It wins all the wars thanks to the most modern warfare and best trained military. A spiral of violence harking to this day ensues.

    This lecture in history, for many merely a reminder, is necesssary to understand my view. For me it's about mutual disrespect and dehumanization on both sides. Governments (and I am not anarchist myself) think they control the spiral of violence that ensued, but they don't and the people they are supposed to protect suffer from that. Dignity is taken away from them by every side of the conflict and that makes them run for desperate measures. It doesn't have to be poverty, mind you, just common controls, disallowing people to enter planes JUST BECAUSE of nationality and stuff like that.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
    •  
      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeDec 14th 2008
    So...um... what's your point of discussion exactly?
    Or was this a prelude of sorts?
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
  3. It is a prelude, indeed.

    First, I'd like to hear your opinions on the Middle Eastern situation.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
    •  
      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeDec 14th 2008
    PawelStroinski wrote
    First, I'd like to hear your opinions on the Middle Eastern situation.


    MY opinion on THE situation?
    shocked

    Fuck me, that's a subject too large for one forum, let alone one POST!
    I'll try and think of some shortcuts (which will inevitably relay incomplete and incorrect messages) so as not to overflow the board, but I don't have the time for that just right now, it's that complex a subject.
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
  5. My theory is that the whole thing is about mutual disrespect and dehumanization. Let's look at how Arabs were dehumanized during the Crusades and how Nazis dehumanized Jews and other nations.

    Dehumanization is the basic method to start genocide. That's quite obvious. And mutual offending each other doesn't help. Let's look at the spiral of violence.

    This is an obvious mechanism. Palestinians want independence, so they start to use desperate measures. Terrorism. The most cruel method, attacking CIVILIANS rather than soldiers, to ensue fear. This works, but the state needs to defend itself.

    Reciprocious (sp.) attacks don't really help. OK, getting the security measures higher is a good idea. But do NOT disrespect people. "It shouldn't happen that way". If you use DOZERS against civilian homes of terrorists, if you make helicopter precise attacks on targets, you won't make people happy. Fight fear with fear? Where is the common misunderstanding? That the spiral of violence will be in any way CONTROLLED?
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
    •  
      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeDec 14th 2008
    PawelStroinski wrote
    My theory is that the whole thing is about mutual disrespect and dehumanization.


    That's as correct as it's incorrect.
    Correct in the sense that any "them vs. us" way of thinking at some poiunt resorts to a certain level of dehumanization. However, there are SO many more factors in play that it's too simple an argument: classic Arab tribal and clan structures that are deeply paranoid and mistrusting at root and won't allow for integration of other ideas, nomadic cultures that are suddenly confronted with (artificial) boundaries, primordial and completely rusted considerations of social life and acceptable (sexual, life-style, religious, political) behaviour inhibiting development and growth, a religion without any central authority, corrupt inheritant power bases, legacies of western influences...

    I'm just skimming the major issues here, but ALL of these are intensly more important in what has happened in the Middle-East in the last thousand years or so than just one psychosocial aspect.
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
  7. Of course it's much more complex than that, I don't deny that, but the dehumanizing part is the reason behind the spiral of violence at hand.

    The lack of central authority is an interesting thing. Can you guys imagine, that Sunnah Islam is basically disallowed to give certain interpretations to the Quran as opposed to the Shi'a minority?

    Sunnah, is the LAW. and 10th century "closed the door" for some interpretations, while Shi'a is based on the Twelver Imams and the interpretations are basically still allowed. What is good is that religious scholars regularly start to issue fatwas (verdicts) rendering suicide bombings and the "martyrdom" illegal according to Islam, because suicide is illegal at all, NOT to mention murdering innocent people.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
    •  
      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeDec 14th 2008
    PawelStroinski wrote
    Of course it's much more complex than that, I don't deny that, but the dehumanizing part is the reason behind the spiral of violence at hand.


    I respectfully disagree: it is a method through which violence is easily perpetrated. It's way easier killing "a hated satan" than it is a 23 year old single mom.
    Always has been.
    It's a method that throughout history has been employed quite purposefully or grown naturally.

    The lack of central authority is an interesting thing. Can you guys imagine, that Sunnah Islam is basically disallowed to give certain interpretations to the Quran as opposed to the Shi'a minority?


    Shi'ah has its own dogmas. It's no worse than Sunni interpretation.
    The only thing Shi'ah has to its advantage is a formal realization that the Quran has changed (and may change still) through human interpretation. Yet they're a far cry from any truly liberal interpretation (though I agree at least the seed for change may be there).
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
  9. The seed is there. Sunni Muslims also issue new fatwas. For example most of terrorist organizations are Sunni and Al-Qaeda has its own theological branch.

    I think that Zionism and Crusades are some kind of a Muslim concept if terrorist have NO PROBLEMS in using that as their basic rhetorics.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
    •  
      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeDec 14th 2008
    PawelStroinski wrote
    I think that Zionism and Crusades are some kind of a Muslim concept if terrorist have NO PROBLEMS in using that as their basic rhetorics.


    I don't think I understand what you're saying here?
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
  11. I meant complex. Sorry for that.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
    •  
      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeDec 15th 2008 edited
    Well, you know: if you want to hit a donkey, a twig is easy to find.
    The fact that the crusades were a millennium ago never stopped them from being employed in inflammating modern-day anti-west rethoric.

    Arguments as stupid as that are seldom used in a proper debate, even a heated one.
    Zionism (especially as employed in the Arab world to denote the Jewish Conspiracy) however, is another story, and far harder to tackle as it plays on the universal fear of hidden agendas by unseen powers who secretly control the Universe... impossible to disprove, in other words (however unlikely and impractical such a concept may be to the analytical mind).

    Why this is a more dangerous subject to tackle is of course that there's always the foundation of Israel and its continued existence under American umbrellage as a case in point. There is something to say for that argument, even though Realpolitik would have it no other way (it's impossible to undo, however one may wish it hadn't been done in the first place).

    However and as that may be, Israel only serves as a lightning rod for Middle-Eastern unrest: it's not like it's ever been quiet and peaceful out there, or in fact even unified, except during the 6th-8th century when Eastern forces unified under the calliphates rallied to invade Europe (and almost succeeded). During those days (slightly before that time even) the Middle-East was a beacon of science, art and culture.

    Of course that couldn't last as the last great calliphate was heavily dependant on the Persian power base, much to the chagrin of the Arabs. Within 200 years, schisms, strife and civil war utterly undid any unification and progress made before.

    A case could be made that the Battle Of Poitiers (the halting of the Mulsem invasion into Europe) may have contributed greatly to the decline and fall of the caliphates.
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
  13. Yes, decline and fall of the caliphates, but it were the Crusades, I think, that led to decline of Arabic culture.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
    •  
      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeDec 15th 2008
    I disagree: at that time Arab culture was already in absolute disarray, with infighting, revolutions, militant and extremist religious nationalism being the norm... in fact the Arab culture was on a positively similar footing with the European one of the 9th-11th century.

    The crusades may possibly (simply through the ruins of war) have helped accelarate the decay, but the end started way before Jerusalem suddenly was in dire need to be "liberated from the heathens".
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
  15. Thor wrote
    PawelStroinski wrote
    Steven wrote
    There are people that fine sociology uninteresting? Philistines!
    It's such a fascinating subject.


    Indeed it is fascinating and I am discovering it right now, by finishing Mills' The Sociological Imagination. Definitely will read more.


    And of course you're familiar with other classics, like Goffman's "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" or Giddens' "Modernity and Self-Identity. Self and Society in the Late Modern Age"? The late Roger Silverstone is pretty interesting, too, especially his application of sociological theory on contemporary media texts, such as television. "Television and Everyday Life", for example.


    Today I bought the Giddens book.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
  16. Martijn wrote
    I disagree: at that time Arab culture was already in absolute disarray, with infighting, revolutions, militant and extremist religious nationalism being the norm... in fact the Arab culture was on a positively similar footing with the European one of the 9th-11th century.

    The crusades may possibly (simply through the ruins of war) have helped accelarate the decay, but the end started way before Jerusalem suddenly was in dire need to be "liberated from the heathens".


    I've heard of a book that compares the advancement of Western and downfall of Arab culture during and after the Crusades. I haven't read it yet.
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
    •  
      CommentAuthorBregt
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2009
    Just got a message from God!

    He is returning to Earth! shocked
    Kazoo
    •  
      CommentAuthorMarselus
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2009
    Too Late.
    Anything with an orchestra or with a choir....at some point will reach you
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2009
    Do you think I could get his autograph? Big fan of his work.
    •  
      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2009
    I never said any such thing!
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2009
    ^
    As James T Kirk once sort of said....

    Why does. God. need. A keyboard!??
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
    •  
      CommentAuthorDemetris
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2009
    He's after Steven; obviously.
    Love Maintitles. It's full of Wanders.
  23. Steven wrote
    Do you think I could get his autograph? Big fan of his work.


    I once almost joined a Jesus Christ fan page on soulseek and asked a similar question lol
    http://www.filmmusic.pl - Polish Film Music Review Website
    •  
      CommentAuthorBregt
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2009
    He looks like a carrot though, when he told me this. A bit odd isn't it?

    icecream
    Kazoo
    •  
      CommentAuthorBregt
    • CommentTimeJul 17th 2009
    What is epistemology?
    Kazoo
    •  
      CommentAuthorDemetris
    • CommentTimeJul 17th 2009
    Some blah blah theoritical stuff i guess, another one of those things that live only within books and their creators' minds? wink tongue
    Love Maintitles. It's full of Wanders.
    •  
      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeJul 17th 2009
    Christodoulides wrote
    Some blah blah theoritical stuff i guess, another one of those things that live only within books and their creators' minds? wink tongue


    ...says the man who writes about differing aspects of sound waves (or whatever it is)!
    I am extremely serious.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDemetris
    • CommentTimeJul 17th 2009
    Totally irrelevant comment. I work with physics. It's all around you whether you realize it or not. Next wink
    Love Maintitles. It's full of Wanders.
    •  
      CommentAuthorBregje
    • CommentTimeJul 17th 2009 edited
    Thor wrote:
    ...says the man who writes about differing aspects of sound waves (or whatever it is)!


    applause

    Excellent example by the way!

    Physica try to explain how sound works (with waves, ear membrane and brains and all that). Metaphysica try to explain what sound is which is kind of a mystery of course, yes Steven, a mysterious wonder wink . In epistemology both things are important because the question is about how do we know what sound is. Not just how it works but what it is as well, and how do we know we all hear the same for instance. And musicians and listeners just wonder what is beautiful and what not and why is one thing beautiful and something else not and that has to do with aesthetics. Probably a lot of holes in my explanation, but anyway...

    I would think in a music department you study some epistemology as well? Try explain music to someone who is deaf. And not how music works but what it is. And then there you have it.
    •  
      CommentAuthorBregje
    • CommentTimeJul 17th 2009

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