Trudeau hires some lefty loon to combat "Islamophobia" (whatever that means)

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, blackbird said:

If you think Jesus would have been a liberal, you are dead wrong.  However, we must get past the hurdle of you saying you don't believe in God.  The belief is a guaranteed ticket to hell unless changed.  All the more reason for you to study the Bible, its origin, message, and meaning.  Google "is the Bible from God and why"?

I appreciate your concern.  I always do with religious people.  It's very touching.

That said, I'm curious.  What is your view of Hell?  I remember an authority as high as one of the Popes ( I forget which one) recently stated that Hell was not an actual place, rather a state of being without God.  Or something to that effect.  What's your view?

[Michael Hardner]

29 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

 1) I wonder.  Is there any empirical data on that?  It seems to me that numbers might be changing, diminishing even, but the percentage of wingnuts is getting greater.  Or is it just that I hear about them more?

2) Express any way you want.  And you only need to address it if you want to.  I have a copy of Mein Kampf somewhere.  So does David Duke, I suppose.  We process that information differently.  The information is going to be there, like it or not.  Unless it is restricted, which I oppose, but even if you do restrict it, what do you restrict?  No more publishing or sales of Mein Kampf?  What about reporting of J.K Rowling's views on transexuality?

3)I don't see why the concept of freedom of expression should have any bearing on how we process information.  It's an overarching principle that holds that people have the right to think their thoughts and express them without restrictions based on another's views of those thoughts.  There are laws around incitement, slander, libel, assault, etc, that one can agree with or not, but in a free society the principle should remain as unrestricted as possible.  So the public and its responsibilities depends on the public.  Every day I see the public exercising its responsibility in a way that I oppose, but they can still do that.  That's their right too. 

4) Generally speaking, I think the best thing to do with bad information is to shine a spotlight on it and expose it to the ridicule it deserves.  Of course, that's not going to make everyone happy, because one person's bad information is anothers accepted dogma.  Social media is more of a curse than a blessing.

1) Well, I look to America as a kind of cultural frontrunner and definitely happening there, with fundamental Muslims too.  Wingnuts who love religion and cults are finding new ones.

2) You didn't answer my question.

3) I think I said as much... I'm still trying to understand what you are saying though.

4) Ok, here it is... yeah, that approach isn't working.  

[blackbird]

1 hour ago, bcsapper said:

I appreciate your concern.  I always do with religious people.  It's very touching.

That said, I'm curious.  What is your view of Hell?  I remember an authority as high as one of the Popes ( I forget which one) recently stated that Hell was not an actual place, rather a state of being without God.  Or something to that effect.  What's your view?

I can only go by what the KJV Bible says about it.  Doesn't sound like a state of being.  Sounds like an actual place.

"Matthew 13:50 - And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

"Revelation 21:8 - But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

John 3:16-18 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

1) Well, I look to America as a kind of cultural frontrunner and definitely happening there, with fundamental Muslims too.  Wingnuts who love religion and cults are finding new ones.

2) You didn't answer my question.

3) I think I said as much... I'm still trying to understand what you are saying though.

4) Ok, here it is... yeah, that approach isn't working.  

1) Really?  I see the opposite in the US. They are a stone's throw from becoming a theocracy.

2) Dammit.  That was my favourite paragraph in that response.  I don't see how I can answer that other than to say we don't.  We don't have any right to dictate how anyone processes anything.  I thought I had said as much.  That's no reason to keep them from having things to process.  I can find a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a few seconds.  So can anyone else. Anyone who wants to take such things seriously, that's their prerogative.  That said, I don't hear about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion much anymore. 

3, 4) Working is not the issue.  I oppose the idea that expression should be restricted until an abitrary position (It's working) is reached.  That leaves far too much to be based on the definition of working, and who makes that definition. 

And to be clear, what exactly would you do to achieve your definition of working?  How would you change things here?  What about in the US, with their First Amendment?  (I like that one the best, so far)

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, blackbird said:

I can only go by what the KJV Bible says about it.  Doesn't sound like a state of being.  Sounds like an actual place.

"Matthew 13:50 - And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

"Revelation 21:8 - But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

John 3:16-18 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." 

All liars?  That seems unreasonably harsh.  Who among us hasn't lied at some point?

What about Donald Trump?  It's all he does. Is he destined to burn in fire for all eternity? 

It also seems harsh that the fearful and the unbelievers should suffer the same fate as the murderers and the whoremongers.

I remember when I was growing up, Purgatory was a thing.  Does your lot believe in Purgatory? 

[Michael Hardner]

8 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

1) Really?  I see the opposite in the US. They are a stone's throw from becoming a theocracy.

2) We don't have any right to dictate how anyone processes anything.   

 

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/ 
"Along with the decline in the percentage of U.S. adults who identify as Christian in recent years, Pew Research Center surveys have found declining shares of the population who say they pray daily or consider religion very important in their lives."

2. "We" have the right to tell them to shut up, of course.  You don't seem to want to do that either ?  How about social movements to let people know what is going on ?

I think that people whipping up hate against a minority needs a response, and that's all I have to say.  If you have nothing more to suggest other than to repeat that the government shouldn't restrict speech we're at the end.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/ 
"Along with the decline in the percentage of U.S. adults who identify as Christian in recent years, Pew Research Center surveys have found declining shares of the population who say they pray daily or consider religion very important in their lives."

2. "We" have the right to tell them to shut up, of course.  You don't seem to want to do that either ?  How about social movements to let people know what is going on ?

I think that people whipping up hate against a minority needs a response, and that's all I have to say.  If you have nothing more to suggest other than to repeat that the government shouldn't restrict speech we're at the end.

1) Okay.  I don't see that in the makup of the SCOTUS, or the reason for the makup of the SCOTUS.

2) Of course you have that right.  But you are not the public.  You are only a part of the public.  The people you want to tell to shut up are part of the same public.  They can tell you to shut up.  It's all allowed.  Social movements have the same free expression rights as individuals. 

You can respond.  The government can too.  Public information messages are always good.  Restrictions are not.

The end is good.  We were never going to fully agree anyway.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, blackbird said:

 

A somewhat enigmatic response...

[Michael Hardner]

10 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

1) Okay.  I don't see that in the makup of the SCOTUS, or the reason for the makup of the SCOTUS.

2) Of course you have that right.  But you are not the public.  You are only a part of the public.  The people you want to tell to shut up are part of the same public.  They can tell you to shut up.  It's all allowed.  Social movements have the same free expression rights as individuals. 

3) You can respond.  The government can too.  Public information messages are always good.  Restrictions are not.

4) The end is good.  We were never going to fully agree anyway.

1) So that only means that one of the oldest institutions in the US lags behind the general population in makeup.
2) I feel we're playing "say obvious things"
3) Ok well "public information messages" it is then
4) We just did.  

For my part, I will endeavour to ostracize, isolate and call out that loud minority of "the" public who walks in the footsteps of the scapegoaters of the past.  

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

1) So that only means that one of the oldest institutions in the US lags behind the general population in makeup.
2) I feel we're playing "say obvious things"
3) Ok well "public information messages" it is then
4) We just did.  

For my part, I will endeavour to ostracize, isolate and call out that loud minority of "the" public who walks in the footsteps of the scapegoaters of the past.  

Yeah, me too.

[blackbird]

14 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

All liars?  That seems unreasonably harsh.  Who among us hasn't lied at some point?

Good question.

The explanation for this requires more than I can give on here.  If you want to know, there are many websites that explain.  It is rooted in the Fall of Man.

"Originally man was made to be the created image of God, to live in union with God’s divine life, and to rule over all creation. Adam and Eve's failure in this task is their sin which has also known as "the fall of man".

The Fall of Man in Genesis 3: Bible Meaning Explained (christianity.com)

You said "who among us hasn't lied at some point".  That is a fact.  It is because of our fallen, sinful nature.  That is why unless a person is redeemed, they will go to hell.  The Bible makes it clear.  There are only two places to go, heaven or hell.  

[blackbird]

29 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

A somewhat enigmatic response...

I will have to get the dictionary out.   Sorry I must have hit the wrong key and posted a page before I typed it.

Edited February 7, 2023 by blackbird

[blackbird]

49 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

What about Donald Trump?  It's all he does. Is he destined to burn in fire for all eternity?

I don't know what Trump believes.  I am not going to judge him.  

[blackbird]

51 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

It also seems harsh that the fearful and the unbelievers should suffer the same fate as the murderers and the whoremongers.

I remember when I was growing up, Purgatory was a thing.  Does your lot believe in Purgatory? 

No, bible believers do not believe in purgatory.  It is not taught in the Bible.  There are only two places, heaven and hell.  Rome has built a vast empire of wealth on the teaching of purgatory and indulgences that the people can receive if they continue to pay for them.  Why would they give that up?  It has  brought them untold wealth.  Read the book "The Vatican Billions" by Avro Manhattan available free to read on the internet if you can find the right website.

Here is what a different website says about the wealth of the Vatican.

"One of the world’s 7 remaining absolute monarchies, Vatican City is not only the smallest state in the world, but also the richest state in the world, so rich that it could end world hunger not only once, but twice. There is no doubt, however, that between the church’s priceless art, land, gold and investments across the globe, it is one of the wealthiest institutions on Earth. The amount of Church-owned land, in square kilometers, across the globe — an area slightly bigger than the huge province of Alberta in Canada. Properties include Vatican embassies, churches, cathedrals, monasteries, schools and convents. [All tax free.] Thirty years ago the Vatican bank had 10 BILLION dollars invested in foreign companies. The vaults hold at least one metric ton of gold. 31 million dollars was seized from the Vatican bank by Italian authorities during an investigation into money laundering. 2 BILLION dollars was paid out as settlements by the church for sex-abuse cases just in the United States. In 2011 one offering, the Peter’s Pence, brought in 86 million dollars. The Sistine Chapel, offers a look at how difficult it is to appraise all of this. Estimates range from $400 billion all the way up to $2 trillion for just this one masterpiece. [How can the papacy call for corporations to be more generous? “And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls….” Rev. 17:4.]"

THE UNCALCULABLE WEALTH OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH (eternalgospel.org)

[blackbird]

1 hour ago, bcsapper said:

All liars?  That seems unreasonably harsh.  Who among us hasn't lied at some point?

9 Things to Know about the Fall of Man (crosswalk.com)

[blackbird]

3 hours ago, bcsapper said:

I don't believe in a God myself,

Who do you think created the complex universe with all of intricate laws of physics and gravity that keeps the planets in precise orbits around the sun and gives us the four seasons we need to grow crops and live on earth?  Hardly could have all happened by pure chance or cosmic accident.  The big bang is a flawed theory because it still doesn't explain how a complex universe with the laws that govern it came to be.  Explosions do not create order.  They create disorder.   It also still doesn't explain where it all came from.  Had to have a beginning and a Creator.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, blackbird said:

Who do you think created the complex universe with all of intricate laws of physics and gravity that keeps the planets in precise orbits around the sun and gives us the four seasons we need to grow crops and live on earth?  Hardly could have all happened by pure chance or cosmic accident.  The big bang is a flawed theory because it still doesn't explain how a complex universe with the laws that govern it came to be.  Explosions do not create order.  They create disorder.   It also still doesn't explain where it all came from.  Had to have a beginning and a Creator.

A basic application of the Anthropic Principle, I suppose.  We are here, and so is the Universe, so therefore it did all happen by pure chance or cosmic accident.  Otherwise we, and it, would not be here.  To my mind, fantastic though the idea is, it's less fantastic than the idea of a creator.

But, as always happens with these conversations, we're getting round to the

"Oh yes, he does"

"Oh no, he doesn't"

stage of an argument on the existence of a creator, so I'll call this my last response.   Thanks for the information about the Vatican.  I always found that Purgatory stuff a bit dodgy, too.

 

[blackbird]

15 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

it's less fantastic than the idea of a creator.

The idea of a Creator is not unreasonable or fantastic.  It makes complete sense.  Biologists found in the past 50 years or so that even the cell is extremely complex with vast amounts of strings of data that regulate how it functions.  All this could not have happened by Darwinian evolution or chance.  It required an intelligent designer to put the information in the cells.  Evolution does not create information.  That is one thing about it that dooms the theory.  Life in the world required a vast amount of information to be placed there from the beginning.  Only an intelligent source could have provided that information.

[TreeBeard]

9 minutes ago, blackbird said:

cell is extremely complex with vast amounts of strings of data

What do you mean by “strings of data” within a cell?    Don’t just cut/paste crazy religious sites please.  They carry no weight in the field of biology. 

[Moonlight Graham]

On 2/4/2023 at 9:17 AM, Michael Hardner said:

What's the scale of those issues, versus the murders and violence against Muslims in canada?

What is the scale of this problem?  Seems like a few isolated incidents.  Is there more violence and murder against Muslims in Canada than Canadian Muslims committing violence and murder against the country (terror)?  Again, seems like some isolated incidents in both cases, and seems to have calmed down a bit of late.

[Michael Hardner]

28 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

1. What is the scale of this problem?  Seems like a few isolated incidents. 

2. Is there more violence and murder against Muslims in Canada than Canadian Muslims committing violence and murder against the country (terror)?  

1. Multiple murders with multiple victims over a short time.  I mean, do you want to say 9/11 was an 'isolated incident' ?  You don't need to be a social scientist to know what's happening out there.
2. Seems like it.  Are we acting against fundamentalist terror ?  We sure are.  Should we do something about this ?  We sure should.

[blackbird]

1 hour ago, TreeBeard said:

What do you mean by “strings of data” within a cell?    Don’t just cut/paste crazy religious sites please.  They carry no weight in the field of biology. 

"DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created."  - Bill Gates (Microsoft)

"Life is just bytes and bytes and bytes of digital information."  - Richard Dawkins

"The machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like.  Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer engineering journal... What has happened is that genetics has become a branch of information technology.  The genetic code is truly digital, in exactly the same sense as computer codes.  This is not some vague analogy.  It is the literal truth."   - Richard Dawkins

---From the book "Darwin's Universe - From Nothing, By Nothing, For Nothing -- Survival for Nothing" by Yan T. Wee

The cells are the building blocks of whatever living organism they are a part of and therefore they each have a specific function and are enormously complex.  Each cell must be able to multitask.  They have vast amounts of information stored in them so that they can do what they are designed to do.

There is enough information in the cell of a lily seed or a salamander sperm to fill the Encyclopedia Britannica sixty times over.  -  P.129 "Darwin's Universe".

The cells in an eye would be different than the cells in a tongue or a liver, etc.  Each cell was designed to do a certain function and is enormously complex.  Even in the human eye is enormously complex and each part would have its own unique cells in order to function and operate in conjunction with the other parts of the eye.  One doesn't need to be a biologist to get the drift of that.

Edited February 7, 2023 by blackbird

[TreeBeard]

Those are analogies.  
 

DNA is not literally data.  It’s chemicals.  You quote Dawkins….  Do you think Dawkins believes that a god made DNA?

[Moonlight Graham]

26 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. Multiple murders with multiple victims over a short time.  I mean, do you want to say 9/11 was an 'isolated incident' ?  You don't need to be a social scientist to know what's happening out there.
2. Seems like it.  Are we acting against fundamentalist terror ?  We sure are.  Should we do something about this ?  We sure should.

What are we going to do against Islamophobia?  I reckon nothing the Liberal government will say or do will have any affect on these folks.  The government can study it, which seems fine, but not sure what they can do about it.  I also don't know what they could study.  Some people are racist, always have been & always will be.  Study complete.

The people I know who are Islamophobic are also ignorant against many other people that aren't like themselves.  They've never spoken more than a sentence with a Muslim person or the people they don't like.  They are just ignorant.  The cure for ignorance, and racism generally, is exposure.

When it comes to terrorism there are some things the government can do about that, but also can't totally prevent it.  Yes 9/11 was fairly isolated.  It was a problem, but limited in scope.

[WestCanMan]

16 minutes ago, Moonlight Graham said:

What are we going to do against Islamophobia?  I reckon nothing the Liberal government will say or do will have any affect on these folks.  The government can study it, which seems fine, but not sure what they can do about it.  I also don't know what they could study.  Some people are racist, always have been & always will be.  Study complete.

The people I know who are Islamophobic are also ignorant against many other people that aren't like themselves.  They've never spoken more than a sentence with a Muslim person or the people they don't like.  They are just ignorant.  The cure for ignorance, and racism generally, is exposure.

When it comes to terrorism there are some things the government can do about that, but also can't totally prevent it.  Yes 9/11 was fairly isolated.  It was a problem, but limited in scope.

Stop pontificating dude.

Angela "rainbows and unicorns" Merkel said herself that there are "no-go zones" in Germany. 

The simple fact of the matter is that islam is a behaviour modifier, and not a good one from a kumbaya POV. 

I've spoken a lot of sentences with Muslims, I know a lot of people who came from the ME. I lived in Bby/New West/Surrey/Langley for over 30 years.

Our closest friends here came from Jordan/Lebanon when they were in the late 20s/early 30s. We spend Christmas Eve with them (the husband is dead now but we still do it with the wife, kids and grandchild). They know more about the ME than you know about Canada. 

FYI speaking with individual people is usually nice, and of course there are a lot of nice people out of a billion of them, but don't forget, the ones you're talking to are the ones who believe that Canada is a nicer place than Iran. By and large they're the best ones of the whole lot.