"...nobody had the smallest idea of what was going on..."

[Miles Archer]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Sissyk (a host of the General Discussion forum).

[rug]

1. Since the GD SoP rules out pure religion posts, here's something else he said.

It must be obvious to anyone who can think at all that the charges against the Hussein regime are, as concerns arsenals of genocidal weaponry, true.

- "We Must Fight Iraq", Daily Mirror (2002-09-25)

[deutsey]

2. +1

[NightWatcher]

3. Filled the void we now fill with science and knowledge

[dchill]

4. What void, exactly?

We don' need no steenking void!

[mindwalker_i]

5. Yes, religion gave us answers and provided a framework upon which we could build societies

Then, the human race grew up, at least to the point where we could use logic and reason to understand what was happening around us. We could put away the invisible friends and begin to understand our universe.

Too bad so many want to take us back to the dark days of prehistory.

[Coyotl]

6. I doubt that. Humans know what is going on.

Religion comes from forcing a belief system and behavior norms upon slaves.

[grantcart]

7. Possibly religion is an evolutionary preferred trait.

It allowed an integrated metaphysical framework so that after a long day people who accepted a clear understanding of celestial power and clear moral delineation would get something essential to have an advantage over those who did not
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a good night sleep.

[Art_from_Ark]

8. Christopher Hitchens--

Big bu$h supporter, Mother Teresa basher, anti-liberal demagogue, Iraq War cheerleader. Screw him and the pompous ass he rode in on.

[Hissyspit]

11. What's wrong with questioning the Mother Theresa mythology?

...not that I'm a Hitchens fan.

Mother Teresa Humanitarian Image A 'Myth,' New Study Says

The Huffington Post | By Ron Dicker
Posted: 03/04/2013 1:07 pm EST | Updated: 03/06/2013 12:50 am EST

A new study by Canadian academics says Mother Teresa was a product of hype who housed the poor and sick in shoddy conditions, despite her access to a fortune.

The Times of India, reporting on the controversial essay, wrote that the authors asserted Mother Teresa saw beauty in the downtrodden's suffering and was far more willing to pray for them than provide practical medical care. Meanwhile, researchers say, the Vatican engaged in a PR ploy as it threw aside concerns about her suspicious financial dealings and contacts to forgo the five-year waiting period to beatify her.

One of the researchers, Serge Larivee of the University of Montreal's department of psychoeducation, told the school's website, “Given the parsimonious management of Mother Teresa's works, one may ask where the millions of dollars for the poorest of the poor have gone?”

The research paper claims that the celebrated nun had 517 missions in 100 countries at the time of her death, but that the majority of patients were not cared for properly and many were left to die, according to the university website. In addition, the Vatican is said to have ignored a doctor's assertions when it concluded that a Mother Teresa miracle healed a woman who had tuberculosis and an ovarian cyst.

Researchers Carole Senechal of the University of Ottawa and Larivee and Genevieve Chenard from the University of Montreal came to their conclusions by examining 96 percent of the originally researched, published works about Teresa, according to the U of M website. Their findings are to be published in French-language journal Studies in Religion/Sciences.

Some of their references included medical journals and British journalist Christopher Hitchens, who called Mother Teresa a "fraud."

Other researchers have criticized Mother Teresa's efforts in the past. Mother Teresa: A Biography, written by Meg Greene and published in 2004, recounts an article by the Lancet medical journal that outlined the neglect and lack of expertise in a Calcutta facility established by Mother Teresa.

[Demo_Chris]

12. Anti-Liberal?! Seriously?

The man devoted his entire life, from the time he was in the equivalent of high-school, fighting for the far left. And he never ever stopped. He was the young man out there picketing in front of the factory ALONE -- getting his ass beat down by the police and the factory workers -- and going back the next day to do it all again. He travelled the world, visiting and occasionally sneaking into the most dangerous tyrannies on earth, to report on the oppression and try to focus the attention of the world on the plight of ordinary people living in Orwellian hellholes. You would be bloody hard pressed to name anyone in the last half century who did more to advance the cause of human rights.

YES, he supported Iraq. I did and continue to do so as well. Not because I like Bush or believed his lies, but because I understand who Hussein was and what he was doing to the people of Iraq. To put how bad that monster was into some perspective, consider the following.

We went in there and basically carpet bombed the shit out of it. We killed hundreds of thousands or perhaps even millions of Iraqi civilians. Those we didn't kill got maimed and poisoned and had their homes demolished. We took a beautiful country, virtually a paradise, and blasted it into shattered and poisoned concrete rubble...

And the people of Iraq STILL think that was a better deal than leaving Saddam in place. That's how twisted and evil Saddam Hussein was.

It comes down to this: Just because Bush did something does not automatically mean it was a bad idea, and just because our party does something doesn't make it good. When it comes to the large and complex issues, things like war, there are no simple answers, which is the reason you found people like both Clintons and Hitchens supporting the war (each for their own reasons).

[Art_from_Ark]

13. I'm sorry, I don't buy that argument at all

Here's what Eric Alterman has to say about Hitchens's "liberalism:

"At least half of the "liberal New Republic" is actually a rabidly neoconservative magazine, and has been edited in recent years by the very same Michael Kelly, as well as the conservative liberal hater Andrew Sullivan. Its rival on the "left," The Nation, happily published the free-floating liberal hater Christopher Hitchens until he chose to resign, and also invites Alexander Cockburn to attack liberals with morbid predictability. The Atlantic Monthly -- a main stay of Boston liberalism -- even chose the apoplectic Kelly as its editor, who then proceeded to add a bunch of The Weekly Standard writers plus Christopher Hitchens to Atlantic's anti-liberal stable."

http://webdelsol.com/SolPix/sp-whatlibmed.htm

Hitchens was a big-time bush supporter from the get-go-- bush, the man who stole the 2000 election, who started doing all sorts of terrible things immediately after he slithered into the White House, who lied about everything under the sun, who ran up the debt and got us involved in two long wars that drained away countless lives and money. Yes, just about everything that man did was BAD.

And I don't know where you get the idea that the people of Iraq somehow think that having hundreds of thousands of their compatriots killed, their infrastructure destroyed, their country contaminated with depleted uranium, their crops ruined, their houses invaded with night raids, and religious sectarian violence unleashed, was all worth it just to get rid of one man whose days were numbered anyway.

[MisterP]

9. "We *have* fire" --peasant, "Black Knight"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Burnett_Tylor

[Rex]

10. What is going on?

Do we have a winner?

[yodermon]

14. I disagree, actually.

Organized religion arose around the time of the agricultural revolution when the ruling classes emerged and figured out how to use religion and access to food to control the populace.
True "prehistory" religion is Animism, which is far less abusive, contolling and damning (if at all).
{not doing the subject justice with this short post of course }

[Sissyk]

15. Lock

Please repost in the Religion Group.

GD SOP states no Religion.