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shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#121New Post! Jan 11, 2017 @ 05:58:44
So any chance you might like to clearly state your position? Should individuals and groups be allowed to publicly express their views (assuming they adhere to the law of the land) or not? Should for example the JW's be allowed to 'publish' videos like the one that started this whole thread? Yes or no?
chaski On about 22 hours ago
Stalker





Tree at Floydgirrl's Window,
#122New Post! Jan 11, 2017 @ 07:06:30
@shadowen Said

Should for example the JW's be allowed to 'publish' videos like the one that started this whole thread? Yes or no?



Well, based on your posts, you don't think "LL" should be allowed to express their opinions.

What exactly is an "LL" anyway? Feel free to be specific and clear in your definition.
shinobinoz On May 28, 2017
Stnd w Standing Rock





Wichita, Kansas
#123New Post! Jan 12, 2017 @ 04:01:49
@shadowen Said



I have already explained what triggered the Black Hills gold rush and it sure as hell wasnt De Smet! Actually there are a number of primary documents that show that after the Californian gold rush (1848-55) De Smet and his fellow Jesuits were determined to do all they could to keep the whites out of the Black Hills and the surrounding area.

Obviously you didnt bother to read my answer to the triggers and driving forces behind the gold rush in the Black Hills and the decision by the US Government to break the 1868 Treaty of Laramie . If you did you wouldn't be grimly holding onto a view that is not simply unsupported by historical fact but is actually contradicted by it. This is why trying to discuss historical issues with you is a waste of time.

Anyway, just in case you decide you actually want to read my response here it is again....

In the early 1860's De Smet told a dinner party (who were discussing the prospect of gold in the west) that he had come across gold in his travels, but despite all efforts to persuade him to reveal the location of his discovery he refused to do so saying "he did not wish his children (the native peoples) to be disturbed". Multiple sources all confirm that De Smet never told anyone where he had found gold.

Let us look though at the background to the 'discovery' of gold in the Black Hills. Soon after the discovery of gold in Wyoming and Montana, the belief became prevalent that gold in paying quantities could he found in the Black Hills. Lieutenant Warren, of the United States topographical engineers, made a report of his visit to the Hills in 1857, in which he said: "The Black Hills are composed of the same formations of stratified rocks as are found in the gold bearing gulches of the Wind river and Big Horn mountains where gold has been found in paying quantities."

This belief was further strengthened by the widespread circulation of stories, mythical or otherwise, of immense finds of the precious metals there by the native peoples. One of these stories went back as far as 1811, when natives would come to a trading post of the American Fur Company, located at the confluence of the north and south forks of the Big Cheyenne river, about twenty-five miles from the Hills, bearing fine nuggets of gold, which they would exchange for sugar, coffee, gaudy trinkets and alcohol. These natives always claimed that
they found the gold somewhere in the Black Hills country, but neither threats nor bribes could induce them to betray the exact locality. In 1862 two natives brought about twenty thousand dollars' worth of gold to Fort Laramie, and sold it to Mr. Bullock, the post trader.

In 1857, Lieutenant Warren started to enter the Hills, even though he had been told by priests to keep clear of the area as it was sacred ground (how does this fit in with your narrative?). He went anyway.

In 1870 a company was organized at Bozeman to explore the Hills. The company was called "The Big Horn Mountain and Black Hills Mining Association". In the spring of 1874 this association sent an expedition of 150 well armed and well mounted men, accompanied by Colonel Murnn's battery, which consisted of one small cannon, to the eastern slope of the Big Horn mountains, with instructions to reach the Black Hills if
possible.

The same year the government sent an expedition to the Black Hills under the command of Gen. George A. Custer. According to R. B. Cowan, acting secretary of the interior, it was sent out "merely as a military reconnaissance of the country for the purpose of ascertaining the best location if in future it should become necessary to establish there a military post." Nevertheless a number of scientists, practical miners, etc., accompanied the expedition, and the result of their investigations was included in General Custer's report upon his return.

In his report to the adjutant general, for the department of Dakota, General Custer gave a flattering account of the country, particularly regarding its possibilities for agricultural pursuits. That part of his report, bearing on the question of gold mining said: "The miners report that they found gold among the roots of the grass, and from that point to the lowest point reached, gold was found in paying quantities. It has not required an expert to find gold in the Black Hills, as men without former experiences in mining have discovered it at an expense of but little time or labour." The report also stated that the
scientists with the expedition were satisfied that lead and silver could be found in paying quantities.

Custer's report of gold in the Black Hills was widely publicised and came during a time of significant economic hardship for the US as they were caught up in the great panic of 1873. An official government report of gold therefore provoked great excitement. Although old miners had never given much credence to the stories told of the fabulous wealth in the Hills, they hailed with delight the expedition of General
Custer, as a sure means of creating public sentiment in favour of opening up the country to settlement, which would in time force the government to act. They understood that the occupation of the Black Hills meant that the whole country west of them across the Powder river and Big Horn mountains must soon follow. General Custer, in his report, referred to the attitude of the native peoples as a "dog in the manger policy." He stated that they made no effort to develop the resources of the Hills themselves, and they were opposed to their development by the whites. General Custer recommended that the Black Hills either be opened to settlement, or be occupied as a military reservation.

As soon as the tenor of this report became generally known, companies were formed in various parts of the Northwest to go to the Black Hills with Sioux City and Yankton acting among the first.

In 1872, prior to the Custer expedition, territorial officials were already considering harvesting the rich timber resources of the Black Hills, to be floated down the Cheyenne River to the Missouri, where new plains settlements needed lumber.

And so here we have it. You desperately try and blame religion for the gold rush in the Black Hills and the subsequent decision by the US government to break the 1868 Treaty of Laramie by referencing a missionary who never actually told anyone where gold was to be found. You blame religion even though it was official US government expeditions that sparked the gold rush. Expeditions that included scientists and miners. That alone should give you a hint as to what the driving forces were and they sure as hell werent religious. But why let facts get in the way.


You keep missing my point. The whole bias of authority & dominion being derived from christianity. That set up manifest destiny & gave it the weight of law.
shinobinoz On May 28, 2017
Stnd w Standing Rock





Wichita, Kansas
#124New Post! Jan 12, 2017 @ 04:04:10
@shadowen Said

So any chance you might like to clearly state your position? Should individuals and groups be allowed to publicly express their views (assuming they adhere to the law of the land) or not? Should for example the JW's be allowed to 'publish' videos like the one that started this whole thread? Yes or no?


The "law of the land" is euro/christian based & not likely to give much voice to First Nations. That the majority can always shout down the minority is problematic.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#125New Post! Jan 12, 2017 @ 06:48:57
@shinobinoz Said

You keep missing my point. The whole bias of authority & dominion being derived from christianity. That set up manifest destiny & gave it the weight of law.




whatever
Composer On February 05, 2017




Sydney, Australia
#126New Post! Feb 05, 2017 @ 02:07:33
The Truth remains that the Botchtower has been exposed as a Paedophile & Homosexual protecting Cult, e.g. -

Their very own pretend bible translation even confirms their latest God(s) gave Homosexuals a Law encouraging and promoting their filthy lifestyle -


“All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must do to them.+ . . . . (Matt. 7:12) nw pretend translation

NB: ' do ' to others what you would have them do to you. '
shinobinoz On May 28, 2017
Stnd w Standing Rock





Wichita, Kansas
#127New Post! Feb 05, 2017 @ 02:34:10
@Composer Said

The Truth remains that the Botchtower has been exposed as a Paedophile & Homosexual protecting Cult, e.g. -

Their very own pretend bible translation even confirms their latest God(s) gave Homosexuals a Law encouraging and promoting their filthy lifestyle -


“All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must do to them.+ . . . . (Matt. 7:12) nw pretend translation

NB: ' do ' to others what you would have them do to you. '


Homosexuality is normal. Only religious dogma creates the false law against it.
adrinachrome On April 04, 2023




Fukitall, Arizona
#128New Post! Feb 05, 2017 @ 18:30:22
@shinobinoz Said

Johnny Walker?????



This is a real cult that i belong to. New Initiates wear red, members who pay their dues wear black, and the higher ups wear blue. Ha.

f*** some Johnny Walker sounds good right now.
Jennifer1984 On July 20, 2022
Returner and proud





Penzance, United Kingdom
#129New Post! Feb 28, 2017 @ 05:37:50
@shadowen Said

Actually it's all the rage to blame conflict on religion.

So give me some examples over the past 100 years or so where religion has been the root cause of a conflict.



I kinda figure pretty much everything that has happened in the Middle East over the last 70 or so years has had at least some form of religious basis.

And tell me if I'm wrong here, but isn't the war in Syria right now got something to do with <ahem> Islamic State...?

It's quite easy to deflect the reason for a war if one wishes to do so. The Israeli / Palestinian conflict can reasonably be called an Ethnic conflict (eg: not religious), but tell me it isn't to do with (predominantly, though not exclusively) Muslims vs (exclusively) Jews.

When India was partitioned in 1947, more than 12 million people were displaced along religious lines and the resultant civil conflict resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths (some argue nearly a million), mostly along religious lines. It might not have been technically a war, but people got dead in vast numbers.

Even in the post-Yugoslav conflict of the 1990's, it was Bosnian Muslims who were singled out for Ethnic Cleansing (or to give it it's proper name, Genocide). Again, not technically a war, but an armed insurrection with a fundamentally religious core.


If you want to split hairs you could make a case that religion is entirely innocent of anything at all.

Wars take place for many reasons and often the lines overlap and the picture becomes blurred, but when any conflict takes place one of the questions I ask is that, if religion were not a factor, would this war have happened at all..?

In the instances listed above, I don't think they would have, or at least, probably would not have escalated to the level of violence that has occurred.

Yes.... religion DOES start, and is often a major factor in, war.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#130New Post! Feb 28, 2017 @ 14:30:22
"I kinda figure pretty much everything that has happened in the Middle East over the last 70 or so years has had at least some form of religious basis.

And tell me if I'm wrong here, but isn't the war in Syria right now got something to do with <ahem> Islamic State...?"

The current conflict in Syria can be traced back to the Bush administrations attempts to undermine Assad's government by feeding ethnic tensions. The war in Syria is classified as a civil war and began with attempts to overthrow the secular government of the President Bashar al-Assad.

Now I think it would be difficult to argue that religion was the driving force behind the Syrian civil war. A war that was proceeded by protests against government corruption, human rights abuses, perceived oppression of certain ethnic groups, and the increasing frustration at the lack of individual rights. All pretty much secular issues. These demonstrations erupted into violence and all out war after Syrian soldiers were ordered to fire upon their own people.

Now when you talk about hypothetical situations you cant do so with any certainty. Nonetheless, I think it is likely that civil war in Syria would have happened whether the people in the region were religious, atheists or agnostics. Indeed, it was the invasion and overthrow of a secular government in Iraq by the US led coalition that directly led to the enormous mess that the middle east is now in. An invasion that was motivated by a number of issues, none of them even remotely religious.

"It's quite easy to deflect the reason for a war if one wishes to do so."
It's quite easy to try and blame religion as the reason for wars if one wants to.

"The Israeli / Palestinian conflict can reasonably be called an Ethnic conflict (eg: not religious), but tell me it isn't to do with (predominantly, though not exclusively) Muslims vs (exclusively) Jews."
Jews may be followers of Judaism and/or they may belong to the ethnic Jewish people. Indeed, an increasing number of Jews in Israel do not practise Judaism but it doesn't mean those who feel they are living on land that does not belong to them want them gone any less. I believe that the tension between Palestinians and Jews would essentially be the same even if one or both sides were not religious. After-all, one of the major problems is that both sides lay claim, and believe they should rule, the same section of land.

"Even in the post-Yugoslav conflict of the 1990's, it was Bosnian Muslims who were singled out for Ethnic Cleansing (or to give it it's proper name, Genocide). Again, not technically a war, but an armed insurrection with a fundamentally religious core."

Actually they weren't singled out. Croats and Serbs were expelled (sometimes violently) from parts of Bosnia by Bosnian muslims (eg Bugojno). Serbs expelled not only Bosnian muslims but Croats as well, whilst Croats sought to expel both Bosnian muslims and Serbs alike. And on the Balkan wars, the Croatian war of independence was fought between two sides who were both "Christian". No doubt you would argue that this therefore meant that the conflict had a somehow "fundamentally religious core".

"Wars take place for many reasons and often the lines overlap and the picture becomes blurred, but when any conflict takes place one of the questions I ask is that, if religion were not a factor, would this war have happened at all..?"

Care to ask that question re the following:

2nd Anglo-Boer War
The Boxer rebellion
Russo-Japanese War
Mexican Revolution
First and Second Balkan Wars
The Great War
Russian Civil War
The Irish War of Independence
Irish Civil War
Chinese Civil War
Second Italo-Abyssinian War
Spanish Civil War
World War II
Greek civil war
Korean War
French Indochina War
The Malayan emergency
Mau Mau uprising
Cuban Revolution
Laotian civil war
Algerian war
First Sudanese Civil War
The Vietnam war
Suez Crisis
Basque conflict
Congo Crisis
Katanga insurgency
Guatemalan civil war
South Thailand insurgency
Nicaraguan Revolution
First Iraqi-Kurdish war
Bay of Pigs invasion
Angolan war of independence
Indonesian- Malayan confrontation
Rhodesian Bush War
Mozambican War of Independence
South African Border War
Cambodian Civil War
Nigerian Civil War
Second Communist insurgency in Malaysia
Papua conflict
First Eritrean Civil War
Turkish invasion of Cyprus
Ethiopian Civil War
Second Iraqi–Kurdish War
Angolan Civil War
Western Sahara War
Cambodian–Vietnamese War
Insurgency in Laos
Indonesian invasion of East Timor
Mozambican Civil War
Ethio-Somali War
Uganda–Tanzania War
Chadian–Libyan conflict
Sino-Vietnamese conflicts 1979–90
Soviet war in Afghanistan
Iran–Iraq War

and on and on and on it goes.
chaski On about 22 hours ago
Stalker





Tree at Floydgirrl's Window,
#131New Post! Feb 28, 2017 @ 17:27:20
@shadowen Said

"I kinda figure pretty much everything that has happened in the Middle East over the last 70 or so years has had at least some form of religious basis.


You are absolutely right.

Religion, especially the Abrahamic religions, is one of the primary causes of war.
shadowen On March 22, 2024




Bunyip Bend, Australia
#132New Post! Feb 28, 2017 @ 21:55:17
@chaski Said

You are absolutely right.

Religion, especially the Abrahamic religions, is one of the primary causes of war.

chaski On about 22 hours ago
Stalker





Tree at Floydgirrl's Window,
#133New Post! Feb 28, 2017 @ 22:54:00
@shadowen Said




Did I misunderstand your post?

The part where you wrote: "everything that has happened in the Middle East over the last 70 or so years has had at least some form of religious basis"...?
Justpassing On February 03, 2021




Avoca Vic Australia, Australia
#134New Post! Nov 27, 2017 @ 08:28:48
@shinobinoz Said

Yeah, it's all the rage not to look at the root causes that are based on religious belief.


Wrong.

.. based upon one's interpretation... which satisfies their own devious needs.

I watched the cartoon clip and found one huge error.

Marriage was NEVER a religious thing but a civil arrangement - a contract.
It only became religious when the Muslims claimed that any woman who marries a Muslim... automatically becomes Muslim.
The Catholic church, fearing loss of membership, made the ruling that a catholic can only marry a catholic... and it had to be done in a church.

In Jesus time, people got married.. the hubbie went off to build their home (usually about a year)... came back.
When he came back they had a big party...the couple went into another room - and consumated the marriage... and showed evidence (a bloody rag???) to all and sundry at the party.

So saying that God made made marriage... blah blah blah is not entirely true.

Yes, he wanted man and woman to couple up - shack up - but religion wasn't the reason.

And as you can see from the Muslim/Catholic thing it wasn't religion but a man-made fear/desire for self presevation.
gakINGKONG On October 18, 2022




, Florida
#135New Post! Nov 27, 2017 @ 12:35:37
@woodss Said

It is guilty of a lot of things.

Bigotry is one:





I thought the animation was okay.

Bigotry is a form of intolerance which can't be justified by rational means.

I wonder why anyone would claim the JW's were bigots.
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