Western culture gone too far ? In light of clash...
 

I basically agree with Sixpack that Western society has lost touch with its values and has gone too materialistic. If you believe money is everything you'll find out some day that actually it is nothing.
On the other hand, Western values have not gone through the drain. They are still here and can be taken up again (and defended if necessairy) by a new generation. They have helped Europe through ages of devellopment and have themselves deepened during those ages.
I sometimes feel that the hars confrontation with fundamental Islam is a challenge for Christianity and Humanism. They are flexible enough - contrary to fundamental Islam - to adopt the those new challenges.
I'm not sure that's going to happen, but it certainly is a possibility. This thread is proof of that.

@skybird

i'll read your paper. everyone's entitled to their opinion, and i'd like to hear yours -- sounds like you put a lot of thought into it.

i'll even reserve judgement till i've seen it. if it's F.O.S, though, expect some resistance ;)

I feel for your dilema Skybird....

I try to understand and even ask for clear,precise examples or quotes from this book the Quaran and only one who seems to know em pretty good is Avon Lady....any way I go on my day and turn on the news at night and see a group of peoples in Iran ...burning American flags chanting Death to Isreal and America....I think to myself...Is there some group of Americans,Isrealis,Aussies,Chinese or whoever chanting Death to Muslims...death to Iraq...Death Arabs...and burning these countries flags?If there is and someone knows about it please post the link to it so I can see the justifiaction or at least the reason for an Eye for an Eye.

I already know the truth my Muslim friends though and being human it is hard to accept...being a "New" Teatament Christian.

You want my head?....You want to crucify me?..I will consider it an honor ..a great honor..to die like my Fathers Son did.

Was looking for some pics and came across this...maybe we all get a little to cought up in things myself included...
http://www.masada2000.org/Terror-Cat.html

One final note from another site...was an intresting thought...

Personally, I think it's the lack of real individualism and secularism (and yet the mistaken illusion of the presence thereof) is the real problem we're facing here. There is an illusion of freedom where there is none.

Dogmatism in any form is ultimately destructive. And it doesn't solve anything. I don't see how our problems with 'drugs and violence' can be solved by what's ultimately another violent drug.

I've had the 'wonderful' experience of, in my rather brief life, of experiencing the East and the West in a very direct and unrestricted fashion. In both, there were illusions of freedom; in both, and I hesitate to say in which more so, I felt/feel severely repressed as an individual.

No anti-individualist dogma will lead to anything good if people can't even so much as properly value themselves. People are cheap; real individuals are not. I don't know what it takes to beat it into others' heads that people are cheap in the eyes of society. You look around, and these "freedom-minded individualists" are being bought and sold by the pound, left and right, often voluntarily so. As long as you and everyone around you are just 'people', nothing is possible. Because you're a cheap commodity, to yourself as to everyone else.

Anyway, back to my basement of politics-avoidance :roll:

We have. And when we have trouble with them, it's usually because we've stupidly placed opposing refugee groups in the same asylums. There are of course those who have deep mental scars from having been in the middle of war zones, and may act erratically as a consequence. But this is understandable, and something one can observe in war veterans of any country.

Their main problem in Norway though, is distrust. Norwegians don't trust them, and so there's often a cold front between Norwegians and immigrants. It's not like the West welcomes them with open arms and offer them the best of everything. It's more like smashing a food tray down in front of them, and ordering, "here, eat! And shut the F up". How is anyone supposed to react to that kind of attitude? Circumstances considered, their behaviour has for the most part been exemplary.

She's being awfully selective about them, though.

I see a lot of that in this very forum. Besides, I can certainly understand why Muslims in countries like Iraq and Palestine burn US flags and chant slogans. The US is in obvious support of Israel, making them their enemies. And the US has waged an illegal war against both Afghanistan and Iraq. I say illegal because that's what they were according to the UN charter - so-called "pre-emptive strikes" are unlawful, as were (is) the retaliatory action against Afghanistan. But after 911, how could the US be stopped? They were chanting, "USA! USA!" and swearing death to all "towel-heads" and what-not.

And still there is the injustice of Guantanamo Bay, where people have been held and are being held without a charge. Reminds me of the internment camps for Japenese-Americans during the war - because the average Joe was unable to see the difference between Japanese and Chinese, a lot of Chinese were also confined to such camps. Funny how no internment camps were prepared for German-Americans...

But in any case, there is never a way to justify "an eye for an eye". It worked in feudal Japan, because there revenge was a matter of honour and had to be mathematically perfect. Avenge to little, and there was still a stain on your honour. Avenge too much, and the other party was entitled to get you back for the surplus ammount of revenge. And all acts of revenge that included bodily harm had to be sanctioned by the Shogunate.

In the west, though, "an eye for an eye" tends to escalate things to no end. And to quote Gandhi: "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."

Conflict will never be solved so long as we refuse to accept any responsibility for ourselves. Everything happens for a reason, and to say that Muslims hate the West because they hate our way of life and want a world of chaos and destruction -- that's just propaganda, and I'm ever astonished at how effective it still is. We have learned nothing from history.


Is that what you think? In every faith, what describes a martyr is someone who themselves yield their lives. The terrorists, for example, view the Muslims among their victims as martyrs. They also view themselves as such, provided they die. I do not approve of this sort of martyrdom, unless it's against strictly military targets like the Kamikaze. However, I won't paint them in just one colour out of sheer spite. If we simply say, "they're the bad guys, and they're evil", we fail to understand them. And if we don't understand our enemy, how can we fight him?

Then you are in no position to write critically.

Everybody knows that their opinion is on the right path. What makes your case so special?

Kissaki's world: nobody's right and nobody's wrong. We're all in this big middle, you see. Think equivalence.

Rhetoric.

Gaining support for the islamic cause and building on spiritual (and then political; do I have to ask ?) supremacy in the West: Work in progress.

In a couple of regions in Holland young Dutch children were invited and have yesterday visited (end of ramadan) several mosqs to gain knowledge and appreciation for the 'islamic experience'.

Yesterday hundreds of willing na(t)ive Dutch kids showed up. Next year 3,000 ? In 2 years institutionalized on a national level as part of a political 'friendship' program: 100,000 ? Etc... ?

In the West:
-Do muslim kids visit Christian churches ?
-Do muslims convert to Christian or whatever ?
-Do muslims marry non-muslims ? Do muslim men f*ck non-muslims ?

It's about principles, filling the spiritual void and reli-political goals.

We have got to beat them.

[quote="Kissaki"]Their homelands were glad they left. Most of them were the bottom level/losers of their own societies. They however ended up in fairy-tale land.

But they introduced massive social security fraud in my country.
Like stealing gypsies.
They corrupted the original Dutch hard working mentality.
They kept on speaking their own languages.
They did not (want to) become Dutch.
They did not learn our history and they frankly dont give a f*ck.
They introduced the social unrest in my country.

When I project the same stuff on Norway, I understand your fellow Norwegians to a very large extent.

Re: Western culture gone too far ? In light of clash...
 

Our churches are empty, Abraham, yet mosqs are loaded with believers.
I kind of feel guilty for not being a church-goer for I feel I am abandoning my forefathers who once made this land great. Think of our golden 17th century, on which our current wealth is still largely based. Our forefathers would probably kick our asses. Admiral Michiel de Ruijter was the kind of Dutchman this land needs in large numbers. Firm in his principles, big in action.

Personally I sit in an intermediate position and can't identify myself nor with the ones who need more spirituallity, nor with the ones who are too materialist.

First of all, I must say that I believe that there is a God, a creator of all the universe. But then I also deny to any church, be it christian, jew or Islam, the pretended right to interpretate and determine the "correct" doctrine that shall guide our behaviour.

As a former law student, I believe in a universal "natural" law that has been valid in all civilizations that have ever existed, and that shall guide our behaviour towards the rest of the society: Don't steal, don't kill, respect the others, be true to your word, etc. Any law that must rule in any country should just regulate the minimum necessary to ensure the peaceful coexistance of people in it, and it shall be completely separated from the religion.

Religion must be a personal matter, something truly spiritual that guides part of your behaviour, specially your attitude towards God and your relation with him. But it must be entirely disconnected from the basic rules of the state and in no case there shall be any attempt to change the basic rules to fit any religion's ones.

In our western culture it is true that people have progressively fallen into a kind of drugged state, where consuming goods and pleasing the body is the final purpose that guides their lifes. That is sad, and I regret it much, and I believe that the social organization in a democracy is a part of the reason (Politics tend to work for the four year periods between elections, and avoid difficult decissions that can anger the population, but that might be necessary). But in my opinion we shall not fill that vacuum with religion or spirituallity. Too dangerous!

The first big error I can see in all religious doctrines comes at the very start: You are not free to think about God and about what he wants from you. You are instead to accept what the chosen religion says, no matter if that was first established in the middle age or in the era of the Romans, and in a country and situation thousands of miles away from where you live today.

Here do some terrible errors appear, like for example the will to make of the Islam a law for the state. That was logic in a middle-age north africa, where no precisely defined Kingdoms existed, and where many tribes simply roamed around the desert, not willing to accept the authority on any minor king. Same goes for eating pig....by the time that rule was established, pigs in the warm north africa had often triquinoseae (And illness) and could kill humans that ate their flesh. I can find also many examples like these in the Bible, and history shows how the christian church has tried always to influence in the laws of the state. Some very delicate points like abort and similar show it well.

So coming back to your question after this long introduction:

In my opinion, the best the western culture has done is to be able to separate in most cases (Not all, unfortunately) the religion from the state, and to corner the religion in the private and personal dimension of the citizens, never allowing an imposition of religious dogmaes to the rest. In that aspect we are far more advanced than the Islam, and probably if the Islamic countries were able to adopt a similar attitude towards religion, they would become surprisingly quick modern and tolerate states.

True this separation of religion and state tends to weaken the spiritual part of the citizens, and there does a problem appear when that vacuum has to be filled with consumism and ambition for money. But even so I believe it should be easier and more reasonable to try to lead actions focused in that problem, based in moral and ethics, rather than to fill the gap with religion. The ancient greeks succeded in having peaceful democracies ruled by ethics more than by religion, and the huge leap forward they made in philosophy and science has not been matched yet by any other civilization.

My two cents :up:

Did G-d reveal himself to humanity or not? If not, then your belief is (almost) unfounded.

If yes, then to whom? All of the above? Some? None? Someone else? What did G-d say? Any concrete obligations required of us mortals or are we just in G-d's big sandbox and have been told to play nice with each other?

If you're not sure, shouldn't you check it out?

I'm not questioning your instinctive assumptions. I just don't understand how you can let them stagnate like that.

Well spoken, Hitman, so gracias !

Our positions (intermediate) are in fact much the same (i also did law school btw).

Yet, christian religion as the main culture determining factor doesnt bother me for it's basically a peace~ and freedom promoting religion emphasizing personal responsibility (which it can be nowadays), but based on a firm belief in a single creator of heaven, earth and men.

This religion (which has a lot of similarities with 'universal law' you mentioned) could be key to world peace, but I now start sounding like a missionary and that's not what 'Sixpack' is about ;)

The problem is, the alternative is everybody's right, and by consequence everybody's wrong. Because opinions are like children: We are most fond of our own. And what, objectively, makes anyone's opinion more valid than anothers? There is no black and white. Yin and Yang, neither can exist without the other.