Israel-Gaza war

[C8RKH]

Hamas is not the collective of all Palestinians. Just like ISIS an Al Qaeda in their respective regions do not represent, much as they would like to think they do, all of the people they want to enslave.

HAMAS is not a nation state that is wiping out a generation.

The region jas been a mess for a long time

 The West has played its part. But then so have all the local actors who have collectively behaved like the most dysfunctional and entitled families.

[C8RKH]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqjrwg9dly1o

[drdoom]

Democracy may not be forced onto a people, rather the people must force democracy onto their own hierarchies, as shown time after time. The Beeb article linked above helpfully cites commentary to that effect. I submit that to be part of the calculus informing Netanyahu's cabinet, an aspirational adjunct to beating down aggressors' capacity to harm Israelis. Thus the Palestinians will assert valid governance once they've had enough of the alternative.

[Barrykearley]

Sadly religion is forced on people.

lets consider religions that believe genital mutilation of young boys, forcing women to cover up in public and controlling their rights to education etc. 

Democracy, socialism, communism, capitalism, bombs, guns etc aren’t the issues - it the vile religious preachings and practices that’s the issue. 

imagine today someone coming up with such concepts in the western world - they would be locked up as a cult leader.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

After we die and we go to the next place, will there still be conflict between the dead of the various religions, or will we suddenly all get along just fine?

[C8RKH]

What next place? When you're dead, well, you're just dead. That's it.

Anything else is just a made up story to convince you to give time and money to strangers and their respective organisations. It's a multi trillion dollar industry, religion. 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

10 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

What next place? When you're dead, well, you're just dead. That's it.

Bizarrely half of the world’s human population seems to disagree with you. Bonkers isn’t it? Can you imagine what the reaction would be if a major world leader came clean and publicly declared that there is no such thing as God and that anyone who thinks otherwise is lying to themselves and everyone else?

[eclat22]

Personally I feel that religion is nothing more than a glorified pyramid scheme.

[C8RKH]

24 minutes ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Bizarrely half of the world’s human population seems to disagree with you. Bonkers isn’t it? Can you imagine what the reaction would be if a major world leader came clean and publicly declared that there is no such thing as God and that anyone who thinks otherwise is lying to themselves and everyone else?

Many people need to believe that there is something after life. I'm cool with that, but not fool enough to believe it.

Living in a small village in the country I've seen the petulant and petty behaviour of religious leaders, including things like Church elders etc. Total hypocrisy and it's all about them and the power they think they have or deserve.

I am pretty confident that we are the only animal on this planet that believes in "religion". What makes us so arrogant to think that as one out of say 9m species on the planet, we are right, and they are wrong?

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Too true. We live next door to a church, but our two cats only go over there to do their business in the graveyard. Good girls!

[NAC63]

All religion is just brain washing from an early age.

[tim_marra]

8 minutes ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Too true. We live next door to a church, but our two cats only go over there to do their business in the graveyard. Good girls!

TBF, If that were to happen on my late wife's resting place, I would go mental with the perpetrators 

[drdoom]

Solid points above as to the nature of organised religion, clearly pertinent to the Mid-East miseries. These systems exist solely in order to structure the behaviours of societies under their sway. Around the globe and in the broader Middle East women are systematically and sternly diminished in order that they carry most of the adult burdens, so freeing up men to indulge their less social natures. What little boy does not love a toy gun? What makes a man a proper adult? I see cultural deadends at the root of most political quagmires.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

2 hours ago, tim_marra said:

TBF, If that were to happen on my late wife's resting place, I would go mental with the perpetrators 

But why? We’ve got relatives clogging up the Funeral Directors with their ashes. In fact all of my wife’s immediate family: mother, father and brother are there. They’ve gone. We grieve, but that’s it for them.

[Chillidoggy]

It depends on the kind of relationship you had with the deceased, and to an extent, your morals.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Loved them all dearly, if that matters.

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, Chillidoggy said:

It depends on the kind of relationship you had with the deceased, and to an extent, your morals.

Nothing to do with morals. You not think that rats, badgers, mice, foxes, birds and all many of insects and animals are not pissing and shitting all over a graveyard? What difference does a cat make?  Absolutely not wishing to offend anyone, but they are in a hole, 6 feet or so, down in the ground. Not on the surface. The only thing that lives is their memory, and the memories they were a part of and played a role in making.