Evidence for God from Science

Just several questions:

A) Given how serious a threat these guys could be, if unopposed, why have we been screwing around so long with them?

B) Removing dictators - has consequences, no?

C) Why such a nice paint job on a bomb? Heck, looks like they waxed it.

I was just told we bombed Afghanistan where a bunch of ISIS people were.
A) bc the Obama administration wanted peace and tried to not get us in a mess.
B) Sure it does-but if the dictator is bad then why not remove them?
C) Probably to show off.

TheKid: B) Sure it does-but if the dictator is bad then why not remove them?

It depends upon whether the forces that will replace the dictator will bring stability or further chaos. Or maybe those who overthrow the dictator are worse. You remove a ruthless strongman - who at least is keeping a forced peace - that's better than civil war or a worse tyrant coming in.

Maybe Donald could sit on it with a pair of goggles and a helmet when they drop the next one? Somehow I think it would be more poignant?

Ged: Maybe Donald could sit on it with a pair of goggles and a helmet when they drop the next one? Somehow I think it would be more poignant?

And no liberals or lefties would protest THAT bombing, eh?

Philip wrote:A) Given how serious a threat these guys could be, if unopposed, why have we been screwing around so long with them?

I think that the threat that they represent has been grossly overstated, and I disagree with the assertion that we've been screwing around with them. We've been plastering them with bombs and drone strikes and picking off their leaders for years. Granted, the previous attacks didn't use the biggest bomb in our arsenal, but that doesn't mean that they were half-assed or ineffective.

Philip wrote:B) Removing dictators - has consequences, no?

Indeed it does. Unpredictable ones. It's not something that should be done lightly.

Philip wrote:C) Why such a nice paint job on a bomb? Heck, looks like they waxed it.

Apparently they cost $16 million each, so they'd better be taking care of them.

Philip wrote:

Ged: Maybe Donald could sit on it with a pair of goggles and a helmet when they drop the next one? Somehow I think it would be more poignant?

And no liberals or lefties would protest THAT bombing, eh?

I expect that more than a few conservatives would raise a glass in celebration as well...

Yaaaay Donald!

Philip wrote:

TheKid: B) Sure it does-but if the dictator is bad then why not remove them?

It depends upon whether the forces that will replace the dictator will bring stability or further chaos. Or maybe those who overthrow the dictator are worse. You remove a ruthless strongman - who at least is keeping a forced peace - that's better than civil war or a worse tyrant coming in.

True, that's why I wonder who should replace them? There's got to be an understudy around to fill in.
Me thinks maybe the void (if there will be one) will be filled by the antichrist. Almost everything is in place now, a global market, mass communication and travel, a falling away from Christianity, the only thing i don't see yet is the 10 kings and nations. I think that will be a result of the EU dissolving though, what do you think?

I think you're silly.

what do you think?

I think that trying to figure out future events without crucial, key certainties is a waste of time. All of the end-time scenarios one typically reads about are based upon key assumptions and currently unknowable variables. If you plug in or misinterpret a key variably incorrect, well, there goes your speculation up in smoke.

Warning: I know I'm a little eccentric but I'm not a lunatic. But that being said, this may be one of the riskiest things I've said. Not trying to rustle feathers: this is what I really believe. So......... sorry not sorry.

This is a fact no president since Thomas Jefferson has understood. The problem is Islam. The problem is the Koran. The problem is the Hadith. A bomb can't destroy ideas. And the solutions are not anything people want to hear, but there are two of them.

-Least likely to work: a new Crusade. But instead of the defensive, barely hanging on to slivers of land Crusades of the past, it would be a reverse-jihad. Suppression of Islam, basically an Orwellian system placed on 2 billion or more people. Bad solution to a worse problem. Messy. Prone to fraction from within due to the unpredictable logistics and Machiavellian occupation under such conditions, as well as well-meaning but short-sighted sympathy. Military budget is also a concern. (extermination is off the table, even in my wildest dreams, I would not think of that)

+Most likely to succeed: total and complete withdrawal of America from the world and allocating resources inward instead of outward with military spending. Rock-solid, immutable no Islamists allowed entry. Use of Israeli-inspired testing for any Islamic sympathies. A process on par with our efforts to smoke out commies or scrutinizing Italians and Germans as was done in the past. Possible exodus of current Muslim residents. Total lock down of America from Islam. Hunker down as the world turns green through mass-immigration, invasion, savagery of women and extermination. White-knuckle the global pandemic until a miracle happens. The miracle may be divine, may be secular in origin. I don't know. But here's what I know,

The irreversible problems:
1. Role of female muslims in the Umma (global community) are as property. Mujahedin-making factories. According to the Koran, each man is allowed up to 4 wives, each of whom are typically always pregnant. When a man dies, the women are ceded in his will to his cousin, brother, father, uncle or friend who continue creating fighters. Incest is not strictly forbidden in the Koran, and first-cousin marriages, even fraternal marriages, are not uncommon in the Islamic world. Men are fighting and dying for global jihad all the time, so population and numbers are of no concern.

2. There are already 2 billion or more Islamists in the world.

3. The widely-held belief that a global caliphate is fatally predestined to occur gives the enemy the nerve and bravado to fight without regard to their own safety; that their sacrifice will help this new world emerge.

4. In victory or defeat, the Islamist is still rewarded, whether it is trophies, booty, prizes, wives, or access to paradise, they enter combat with the mentality that they have already won and that their victory is assured, as seen in #4 above.

5. Even this user can defer that a warrior culture, with many advantages gifted to men, and the dark thrill of battle as a promise, as well as heavy laudatory praise for such acts, are seductive charms to any young man.

(Efforts to reconfigure the base documents of Islam to more modern tones have failed due to lack of interest from within the Umma, and rejection even when applied. That is why I say these issues are irreversible)

Hortator wrote:Warning: I know I'm a little eccentric but I'm not a lunatic. But that being said, this may be one of the riskiest things I've said. Not trying to rustle feathers: this is what I really believe. So......... sorry not sorry.

No worries, I'm sure you won't come across as a monster. It's not like you're going to suggest imposing an Orwellian system on 2 billion people or something, right?

Hortator wrote:This is a fact no president since Thomas Jefferson has understood. The problem is Islam. The problem is the Koran. The problem is the Hadith. A bomb can't destroy ideas. And the solutions are not anything people want to hear, but there are two of them.

Can you show me some evidence that Jefferson's problem was with Muslims rather than piracy? And if you do find evidence that he didn't care for Islam can you show that that sentiment wasn't subsumed by his hostility toward religion as a whole?

Hortator wrote:-Least likely to work: a new Crusade. But instead of the defensive, barely hanging on to slivers of land Crusades of the past, it would be a reverse-jihad. Suppression of Islam, basically an Orwellian system placed on 2 billion or more people. Bad solution to a worse problem. Messy. Prone to fraction from within due to the unpredictable logistics and Machiavellian occupation under such conditions, as well as well-meaning but short-sighted sympathy. Military budget is also a concern.

Hmmm...

So you're saying that ideally we'd conquer the Muslims and stomp them into the dirt until the survivors repudiated their faith, but unfortunately that seems impractical? Not evil, but impractical?

Hortator wrote:(extermination is off the table, even in my wildest dreams, I would not think of that)

How'd you manage to mention it without thinking of it? And why wouldn't you think of it? When you look at what you've already proposed - a policy of military conquest and ruthless religious persecution via Orwellian tactics (so a police state backed by propaganda and the state-sanctioned imprisonment, torture, and execution of citizens for thought-crimes) - my first thought was "Why not just kill 'em?" Seriously, extermination wouldn't be inconsistent with all of the preceding steps. Why are you holding back?

Still, you say that you'd never think of genocide and I'll take your word for it. You stopped short of channeling Hitler and wound up channeling Stalin instead. Kudos, I guess.

Hortator wrote:+Most likely to succeed: total and complete withdrawal of America from the world and allocating resources inward instead of outward with military spending. Rock-solid, immutable no Islamists allowed entry. Use of Israeli-inspired testing for any Islamic sympathies. A process on par with our efforts to smoke out commies or scrutinizing Italians and Germans as was done in the past. Possible exodus of current Muslim residents. Total lock down of America from Islam. Hunker down as the world turns green through mass-immigration, invasion, savagery of women and extermination. White-knuckle the global pandemic until a miracle happens. The miracle may be divine, may be secular in origin. I don't know.

If you had a fly on your nose would you shoot it with a 10-guage shotgun? If not, why not?

Hortator wrote:1. Role of female muslims in the Umma (global community) are as property. Mujahedin-making factories. According to the Koran, each man is allowed up to 4 wives, each of whom are typically always pregnant. When a man dies, the women are ceded in his will to his cousin, brother, father, uncle or friend who continue creating fighters. Incest is not strictly forbidden in the Koran, and first-cousin marriages, even fraternal marriages, are not uncommon in the Islamic world. Men are fighting and dying for global jihad all the time, so population and numbers are of no concern.

Do you have evidence to back up any of this? How about some citations to back up the following claims and implications:

1) The majority of Muslim boys born will become terrorists and/or fighters, as you imply with your "Mujahedin-making factories" comment and double-down on with your "continue creating fighters" comment.

2) A Muslim man with 4 perpetually pregnant wives is "typical."

3) There are so many fighters dying that it will offset the population explosion caused by having so many perpetually pregnant Mujahedin-making factories.

Personally, I think that you're massively inflating the scale of the global Islamic insurgent population. There aren't that many of them, and the vast majority of Muslims do not have 4 wives and 300 kids, are not fighters, and just want to live their lives in peace.

Hortator wrote:2. There are already 2 billion or more Islamists in the world.

They're called "Muslims." "Islamists" is a pundit's way of making their adherence to their faith sound sinister. Also, this point severely undercuts your previous point. If there are that many Muslims and Muslims are so frequently terrorists and/or fighters then why are terrorist attacks so rare? I don't want to downplay the impact of each attack, but if there were billions, or even hundreds of millions of Muslim combatants then we'd be seeing constant, coordinated attacks all over the world by large groups of fighters. We'd be fending off assaults from Middle Eastern and African armies. We'd all be locked into a worldwide conflagration that would make World War II look like a pillow fight. Why is that not happening?

Also, here are some stats. Do with them what you will.

Hortator wrote:3. The widely-held belief that a global caliphate is fatally predestined to occur gives the enemy the nerve and bravado to fight without regard to their own safety; that their sacrifice will help this new world emerge.

And again, if that was a widely held position among Muslims (as opposed to Western pundits) then we'd be seeing a lot more attacks. There would be tens of millions of ISIS fighters rather than tens of thousands. The Caliphate would be a reality and we'd be in a constant global shooting war against them.

Hortator wrote:4. In victory or defeat, the Islamist is still rewarded, whether it is trophies, booty, prizes, wives, or access to paradise, they enter combat with the mentality that they have already won and that their victory is assured, as seen in #4 above.

And yet they've been consistently losing since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Hortator wrote:5. Even this user can defer that a warrior culture, with many advantages gifted to men, and the dark thrill of battle as a promise, as well as heavy laudatory praise for such acts, are seductive charms to any young man.

And yet very few young men are, in fact, seduced. Why not?

Hortator wrote:(Efforts to reconfigure the base documents of Islam to more modern tones have failed due to lack of interest from within the Umma, and rejection even when applied. That is why I say these issues are irreversible)

Have you considered the possibility that there might be economic, political, and historical factors to consider? Has it crossed your mind that things might be much, much more complicated that you realize?