Sounds reasonable...

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vincegamer

Active member
Originally posted by Evil Dave
Let me clarify...

The argument that we, as a race, are more civilized than this is a farce, considering the eyeblink of time our civilization has exsisted.

We are more civilized (literally living in cities) because we live by laws.

Nature has lasted, and will last far longer than mankind ever hopes, and nature is a violent bitch.

So why add to that violence?

I believe that the animals have it right with the fight/flee mechanisms.
Of all the animals on the planet, only humans fight and kill over concepts. Concepts that cannot be proved or disproved.

Concepts such as friendship (go on, prove the concept of friendship to me) or family which you are willing to kill for, but not concepts such as eternal life, which you are not willing to kill for?

Let\'s face it if everyone felt this way their would be a lot less wars.

That is because we would not have governments. Instead we would live in small, isolated family groups struggling desperately for survival, always wondering if someone is going to kill us for our resources to feed his family.

If you knew that by attacking me, that I would wipe everyone you knew, loved and held dear off the face of the planet, with no hesitation, I would tend to think you would think twice about screwing with me.

Unless I was bigger than you. Then I\'d just wipe you out :p
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Face it, those who live by abstract concepts such as a rule of law, property ownership, etc. tend to have better lives than those who don\'t. For example, the average Middle-eastern Arab who is willing to use violence to help his kin group hold out against other kin groups, or even kill or die to preserve his culture from an expansionistic western capitalist state has to worry daily about clean drinking water. I on the other hand, a pacifist, flush gallons of water down my crapper every day.
Your argument is that it helps our way of life to kill those who threaten it. Then if we just killed all non-Americans would we be happier? We\'d just find someone else to kill. That fits in with the \"it\'s our nature\" argument you put forth. I don\'t want to find myself on the other side of the it\'s okay to kill line (for say, approving of gay marriage, which is apparently a threat to western civilization).
The only solution, is to foster non-violence at every level, because only when people are not lead to believe that violence is the answer will people stop turning to violence.
 
J

johnboyjjb

Active member
Originally posted by Astonia
Originally posted by Evil Dave

If the other person is dead there is no way for the violence to continue.
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Ahem, people do have friends and families to do that for them...
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Not if you do the job right.;)

Way back on page 2 darthfoley used text from the Qaran and the Bible comparatively showing similarities in the text about the status of women. He left 2 things out in my opinion. The statement that \"husband should love their wives as Christ loved the church\" which He died for.

Second, globally, look at all the countries that have Christianity as the primary religion and compare that with the countries that have Islam as the primary religion. Almost completely, the nations that have \"Christian\" ideals value their women higher than those without. Also, Jesus Christ is kinder and more loving to women than ANY preceding person documented. Many Biblical scholars beleive Christ was the catalyst for female freedoms, it just had a really delayed reaction.

:D Okay, I\'ll play nice now. :D
 
H

Hoblit

New member
The concept of family or killing to protect it is not unique to humans. In fact most animals are more dangerous when their young are threatened as the option of running away is no longer viable.
 
E

Evil Dave

New member
Like I said before, I\'m not an advocate for violence, I\'m just pointing out that sometimes it is unavoidable.

On a side note, all the older folks remember how it was back when you were a kid?
I\'m in my early 30\'s and I remember fighting all the time as a kid, fistfights. I never started a fight but I was not afraid to finish one. You got into a fight with a guy, you gave each other your lumps and then it was cool. Hell, half of my good friends were in a fist fight with me at some point in our lives. No one died, maybe a bone got broken.

Nowadays, it seems there are no fist fights, there are gun fights and kids stabbing kids.

I tend to think we are trying too hard to supress the violence that is inherant within us all. Fistfights let us blow off the steam.

Schools today with their policy of suspending both parties, instead of the antagonist, have
disabled a pressure valve. These kids have no way of fighting back, without losing face, and blow up.

My high school coach would break out the boxing gloves and let us go at it, if two people held a grudge, and afterwards it was cool.
It\'s not cool if people shoot you though.
 
V

vincegamer

Active member
Originally posted by Evil Dave
Like I said before, I\'m not an advocate for violence, I\'m just pointing out that sometimes it is unavoidable.

Isn\'t that what Ghandi said? Oh no it\'s not. One may not be able to avoid a particular act of violence upon ones self, but one can avoid at all times committing acts of violence upon others.

I\'m in my early 30\'s and I remember fighting all the time as a kid, fistfights.

I\'m sorry you had such a violent childhood. Perhaps that\'s why you find it okay now.

I tend to think we are trying too hard to supress the violence that is inherant within us all. Fistfights let us blow off the steam.

I agree that people need to blow off steam at times, but I don\'t think violence is the way to do it.

My high school coach would break out the boxing gloves and let us go at it, if two people held a grudge, and afterwards it was cool.

Of course I have no proof, but I suspect it was not cool with everyone, and also that the puny nerd would never have been able to use this tactic to relieve agression towards the bullying jock.
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Since you brought up our youth, I have to say I did once hit someone out of anger when I was 13. He was a bully who\'d been picking on me for years and one day I just slugged him in the stomach. What I did was wrong. Fortunately, he was so shocked at me hitting him that rather than hit back he asked me why I did it and we talked for several minutes about how I felt and he apologized for his behavior.
But see, if THOSE coping skills had been taught, I wouldn\'t have had to lash out in the first place.

Other than that one time, my motto was always \"if I can\'t talk my way out of it I deserve a beating,\" and I never have gotten a beating.
 
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Evil Dave

New member
Originally posted by vincegamer

Isn\'t that what Ghandi said? Oh no it\'s not. One may not be able to avoid a particular act of violence upon ones self, but one can avoid at all times committing acts of violence upon others.
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So do you honestly believe that if we had just \"talked\" to the chechen terrorists, who held up that school and ended up killing some of those russian kids, they would have let them go and everything would have been hunky dory?

Or the 9/11 bombers?

Or Hitler?

I think not.

Doing nothing, against those who would do evil, is just as evil itself.

You may say that violence is evil, but when these types of people attack our children, our civilians, and even people trying to help them, there is no other recourse.

Pacifism seems to me to be a very selfish way of life, when your beliefs are more important than an innocent\'s life.
 
minimart

minimart

New member
Ahhhh when ideology meets reality.....that is the quandry. Do you rush in to rescue someone from a burning house? Answer yes now, what happens when you are there? When thought and reality collide the unexpected can happen;)
 
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Nelson

New member
Originally posted by Evil Dave
So do you honestly believe that if we had just \"talked\" to the chechen terrorists, who held up that school and ended up killing some of those russian kids, they would have let them go and everything would have been hunky dory?

Or the 9/11 bombers?

Or Hitler?

I think not.

Doing nothing, against those who would do evil, is just as evil itself.

You may say that violence is evil, but when these types of people attack our children, our civilians, and even people trying to help them, there is no other recourse.

Pacifism seems to me to be a very selfish way of life, when your beliefs are more important than an innocent\'s life.
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Well, you\'ve gotta ask yourself WHY they did those things...Violence begets violence, and it\'s a vicious cycle. I mean, what contributed to the rise of Hitler? the rise of nazism and fascism...what contributed to that? The allies making germany pay for the cost of World War One, basically enslaving it\'s people. And what lead to World War 1? And so on....

Ditto with the 9/11 terrorists and terrorists in general. They need to have some reason, no matter, how arbitrary or insignificant it seems. Retaliation only serves to further their pupose. I\'m not saying don\'t defend, but I am saying don\'t retaliate. At least in my eyes, there\'s a difference between actual defense, preventing the act from happening, or stopping it while the event is taking place, and the kind of \"defense\" practiced by the U.S of A, which is basically fuelling the terrorists hate, propaganda, and support. Pacifism takes away a lot of that momentum. Once again, pacifism needs to start before the events.

If we practiced pacifism from the beginning, there might evil dictators roiling under the surface of society everywhere, but they sure wouldn\'t have the same influence, the same power.


EDIT: Cup o\' tea? I find this quite interesting and entertaining....gimme some red bull.
 
E

Evil Dave

New member
I don\'t believe that pacifism or even defence only would work against terrorists.
These people see us as sub-human, we\'d only make ourselves defensive sub-humans.

And as bad as our retaliation may seem look at the numbers.

We lost more civilians and innocent people on 9/11 than we have soldiers over the year in Afghanistan.

In less than 8 hours they did more damage to our people than they have in a year.

The chechen terrorists killed nearly as many innocents in a week, than soldiers we\'ve lost in Iraq.

It seems to me retaliation is working...A lot less innocent people are getting killed here, by us being over there.

I fully feel that the russians will agree with us.

If there is no one, or nothing, that you will not fight for, kill for, or die for, then I truly pity you, for you have no one, or nothing, worth living for.

Ask any parent.
 
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Nelson

New member
Originally posted by Evil Dave
If there is no one, or nothing, that you will not fight for, kill for, or die for, then I truly pity you, for you have no one, or nothing, worth living for.
Ask any parent.
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I think you\'re missing my point here. I never, ever said there wasn\'t anyone I\'d fight for or die for.

Okay, take a mugger, for example. If he attacked my mother and killed her while strolling down a street, I\'d probably kill him if I had taken every precaution to protect her, hired a bodyguard, set up warning systems everywhere, made up plans for several different scenarios, gave him social housing, a good job, prevented the beatings he suffered at the hands of his father, gave him counselling, and held peace talks with him. If, even then, he still killed my mother, right in front of me and my bodyguard, and had proceeded to attack me, I would have felt completely justified in killing him.

I would not, however, take the fight to his home and loved ones. I would not kill his family, put his friends under house arrest, and bomb his apartment building, killing and enraging his innocent neighbours inside, under the pretense of finding crack.

And I certainly would NOT feel justified in killing him if I ignored the street signs that appeared every few blocks down this hypothetical street that read \"Muggers ahead\" \"Warning: Depraved muggers ahead\" \"Warning, in two blocks lies certain death\". If I had left her at the junction of Crack St. and Mugger Ave., loaded to the brim with jewels, and had spat on every single bum along the way, disparaging their way of life, then no, I wouldn\'t feel very justified in killing him.

I think that was a subtle metaphor for something, but I can\'t quite place it.

I\'m also saying that I believe in solving the problem outright, Yes, there may still be the odd sadistic chap who, while being given all the privileges of life, acceptance, tolerance, mediation, and finding no support among his friends, or in his religion, still kills, but it would be a lot rarer. And then, yes, I would die for someone.
 
QuietiManes

QuietiManes

New member
While that sounds nice, blaming someones upbringing or parents or the ghetto trailer park they were raised in, you have to realise after a certain age, you are responsible for your decisions. Someone looks at my mother funny they\'re getting a beating, end of story. They put their hands on my mother they\'ll be lucky to wake up in hospital a month later. I dont care what kind of poor abused ghetto punk they are.

And I\'m not a violent person. In fact I detest it. But I love my mother and \"they\" are gonna stay the fudge away from her or pay a very dear price indeed. They may have had a hard life but my mother didnt smoke crack more than go to work and thereby raise them in their filth. You wanna go to the \"source\" put in some capital punishment and enforce it on the parents as well. \"Mrs Smith, I\'m Detective Foley, your son has been sentenced to death, we\'re here to hang you with him. Oh, and where is Mr Smith?\" See how long these poor folk let their kids run rampant after a few of those go through. I realise that\'s a bit out there, I\'m not seriously suggesting it. But I think it makes about as much sense as \"Oh you just killed my mom? Let me give you a student loan, nice posh apartment on campus and a hooker (read girlfriend so you dont get too many unsatsfied sexual urges, cause dont want ya raping someone, then I\'d have to give you a woman to please you anyway so might as well do it now). *hug* Ghandi would be proud!\"

Having said all that, I dont think the US in the mid east ATM is quite the same thing. They\'re not exactly only affecting the ones who took down the towers. I mean, most of those people burned up with the americans.
 
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