Simple Solution to Afganistan...

[gm]

Puddin' -- Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. :lol:

[IanS_Liv]

Also, the Middle Ages were not so backwards as everyone thinks.

In what sense? Sounds like an interesting thesis.

Daisy, you should visit Britain more often. We've had a few documentaries lately explaining to us that things weren't quite so primitive as we've been led to believe. One of the Pythons did a series about how Barbarians such as the Celts and Goths were probably more civilised than the Romans! Despite the Romans' superior technology.

Although I think proof might be hinting at the issue of the Western Renaissance and the rebirth of Western Science being led by information from the Ottoman Empire and the Muslim philosophers, scientists, etc who lived during the European 'Middle Ages' who preserved and developed the scientific knowledge that usually got you burnt at the stake by the Catholic Church.

[jazzcyclist]

Are you a fundamentalist anti-fundamentalist? :wink: It's ideas that have the undesired consequences not just the degree of ones commitment to those ideas.

Then you still have to define 'undesired consequences.' So in otherwords you do not believe in anything strong enough to stand up for it nor anyone else. Everything is relative in your eyes is it not - then let the muslims justify thier killings and let the best stategist win the game of power and be silent on fundamentalism. Bottom line is everyone acts as if there are absolutes when they do not like the others ideas. You fundamentally disagree with fundamentalism - you fundamentalist.

I'm not sure I follow you. Perhaps you and I are talking about different things when we use the word fundamentalism. I guess fundamentalism is a subjective word. However, I would definitely call a person a fundamentalist if he or she adhered to a literal and/or superficial interpretation of religious texts like the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, etc. Those aren't the only kinds of fundamentalists that I have a problem with, but those were the kinds I was referring to in the post you referenced.

And by the way it was not Islam that made a great 'Muslim civilisation' but only when Islam invaded Europe and was coupled with European ideas. Also, the Middle Ages were not so backwards as everyone thinks.

I guess we're all entitled to our opinions.

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal

[Daisy]

Daisy, you should visit Britain more often.

No doubt.

One of the Pythons did a series about how Barbarians such as the Celts and Goths were probably more civilised than the Romans!

Palin?

[gm]

Wow, now I see why I hardly ever agree with you, mister cyclist! Ah, well...

[IanS_Liv]

[quote=Daisy]

Daisy, you should visit Britain more often.

No doubt.

One of the Pythons did a series about how Barbarians such as the Celts and Goths were probably more civilised than the Romans!

Palin?[/quote:2mb5l3kw]

It was Terry Jones. I couldn't remember when I posted. It was a series called Barbarians and I wondered whether it may have made it onto BBC America or not.

[jazzcyclist]

Wow, now I see why I hardly ever agree with you, mister cyclist! Ah, well...

Please elaborate. We're all adults here and I can handle the truth.

[Daisy]

It was a series called Barbarians and I wondered whether it may have made it onto BBC America or not.

Thanks, I'm sure I can find it somewhere. A lot of those programs make it here on DVD.

Wow, now I see why I hardly ever agree with you, mister cyclist! Ah, well...

Please elaborate.

I'm guessing that Pascal did you in.

[rasb]

What, that brilliantly accurate quote from Pascal? How could anyone disagree with that? It's not anti-religion, it's anti-those who use religion as an excuse to do bad things, fundamentally.

[jazzcyclist]

What, that brilliantly accurate quote from Pascal? How could anyone disagree with that? It's not anti-religion, it's anti-those who use religion as an excuse to do bad things, fundamentally.

Exactly! I believe in giving attribute to any quote that I use regardless of how I feel about the person. Even W on occasion has said things that still resonates with me. Don't reject the message because you don't like the messenger.

[catson52]

What, that brilliantly accurate quote from Pascal? How could anyone disagree with that? It's not anti-religion, it's anti-those who use religion as an excuse to do bad things, fundamentally.

Pascal was one of the most brilliant, intelligent, people ever. For religious people who have problems with some of the things he wrote/said, please remember he was a devout Christian - a Jansenist. His scientific discoveries make him an all-time great, and as co-inventor of probability theory - and hence all statistics - he is way up there. Now if only the great minds of today (read financial genii) understood basic probability/statistics, the world economy would be in far better shape today.

[gm]

No, nothing to do with the Pascal quote.

[jazzcyclist]

No, nothing to do with the Pascal quote.

I'm guessing that my take on fundamentalism must have struck a nerve. Am I correct?

[jazzcyclist]

He's damned is he does and damned if he doesn't.

Consider. If there were no Americans in Afghanistan today, and the Taliban were on the verge of victory, how many of us would demand the dispatch of 68,000 troops to fight to prevent it? Few, if any, one imagines.

What that answer suggests is that the principal reason for fighting on is not that Afghanistan is vital, but that we cannot accept the American defeat and humiliation that withdrawal would mean.

Thus Obama's dilemma: Accept a longer, bloodier war with little hope of ultimate victory, a decision that could cost him his presidency. Or order a U.S. withdrawal and accept defeat, a decision that could cost him his presidency.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=109304

[Pego]

I am unclear on the concept of victory in Afghanistan. What does "win" mean?

1. Removal of Taliban from power? Done.
2. Elimination of top leaders of Al-Qaida? Not done, and they don't seem to be there any longer, anyhow.
3. Establishment of western style democracy in a fractionated, tribal, fanatically religious, undereducated country? Dream on.
4. Anything else?