Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

There is a disconnect here, and that disconnect is again, in definitions. While I can dissolve down to tiny differences between Christian sects and say "this is" and "this isn't", really, as John has mentioned before, wars have ostensibly been fought over the correct number of fingers to use while making the sign of the cross. It's a bit much for me to accept that this makes one side "Christian" and the other side "not Christian".

Fighting based on religious differences never completely dies down, this is utterly correct. However, there are times when it is common and brutal, and times when it is much more limited and restrained. This is the essence of what the GD model tries to explain.

[quote="John"]I thought that the whole point of the St Augustine story was that you
do anything you want your whole life -- drink, have unbridled sex,
commit genocide -- as long as you repent in the moments before death,
which erases all your sins. Maybe Hitler and Eva Braun, in that
bunker, followed the St. Augustine model.[/quote]

Its possible, yes, because salvation is a gift - its ill-deserved grace - no one deserves to be saved. But I am no more deserving of salvation than anyone else - Hitler or otherwise. But I would say that the way they lived and died would indicate otherwise. Having said that, I can't know, only Jesus knows for sure.

I thought that the whole point of the St Augustine story was that you
do anything you want your whole life -- drink, have unbridled sex,
commit genocide -- as long as you repent in the moments before death,
which erases all your sins. Maybe Hitler and Eva Braun, in that
bunker, followed the St. Augustine model.

Hi Augustine, yes, Christianity is unique in many ways vs other belief systems. Not the least of which are what Jesus calls lukewarm Christians - those who identify as Christians yet do not live Gospel driven lives. These people, despite what they say or believe, are not Bibilical Christians.

I am not saying that's the case in the CAR. It maybe or it just maybe they are, essentially, sinning. Here is a nice explanation on the idea posted just today: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-christian-penumbra.html?_r=0

[quote=solomani]I think it’s not fair to say they are not Christians in all the examples you list. It is fair to say they are acting inconsistently with their stated belief system. This inconsistency puts doubt on if they are capital C Christians or lower c Christians, or cultural Christians. Those specifics are between them and Jesus though.[/quote]

Christianity is one of the few religions in the world that makes a distinction between what you call "capital C Christians" and "lower c Christians, or cultural Christians." Whithin Islam, a cultural Muslim is a Muslim. Those declared infidels are declared so for not being culturally Muslim enough.

On your Christian comments. I think it’s not fair to say they are not Christians in all the examples you list. [b][u]It is fair to say[/u][/b] they are acting inconsistently with their stated belief system. This inconsistency puts doubt on if they are capital C Christians or lower c Christians, or cultural Christians. Those specifics are between them and Jesus though.

[quote]What is there about this particular point in history that makes Muslims the most massacred group in the world? From the point of view of generational theory, that's a very interesting question. Muslims are the most massacred people in the world today. Why is that?[/quote]

I am sorry this is patently untrue. The most persecuted religion in the world by number of deaths is Christianity. This doesn't include Christians tortured for their faith or denied the ability to worship freely or denied some other thing – like employment or the ability to pick and choose customers – for their beliefs.

And most of that killing is done by Muslims.

Speaking of the CAR situation it really seems it’s more a racial thing than a religious thing. It just so happens that those tribes also share different religions – which just further antagonizes and highlights their differences.

And I have to add one more observation: [b]The alternative media's embrace of Putin and Russian aggression[/b]. A lot of the financial blogs (like King World News), and other alternative sources have swallowed Russia's propaganda hook, line, sinker. That 9/11 Truthers buy into it neither surprises nor concerns me. What does concern me is people like ex-Reagan Cabinet members like Paul Craig Roberts buying into it. I'm surprised how many hedge fund managers are buying into it. I guess the alternative press (granted, many of them are kooks) have been so anti-American for such a long time that virtually any nation that opposes the United States is automatically "good". [b]How can some of these people be so naïve?[/b]

The average blogger and you tuber has probably never been to Russia. They don't know any better. It seems RT (Russia Today) is getting through to a few lost souls. I assume that the gold and silver companies are just trying to whip up hysteria to sell their products. I'm glad the MSM (main stream media) gets it.

The irony of the Russians calling everyone Nazis is jarring. For those who don't know: Stalin had a pact with Hitler for several years and even agreed to invade and divide up Poland together with Hitler and the Nazis. The Soviets and Nazis were combat comrades for a time before Hitler decided to turn on them. It drives me up the wall to listen to Putin talk about the Soviets stood up to the Nazis. The Russians did no such thing. They only fought the Nazis after they were attacked. Ugh.

So here we are again. 1938-Sudentenland (or is it 1936 Austria?). I know this: [b]The Russians only understand brute force. [/b]

Use brute force financial and crush Russia's economy (which is easy to do) or prepare for a brutal (real) war.

I lived in the Russian Federation both before and after Putin came to power.

Russia is worse off in many ways today. I could write for hours about what has been /is going in Russia, but I will try to be brief. Russian economic growth is tied directly to oil and other commodity prices. Russia has not reformed its economy at all. Russia's last decade of economic growth was simply a reflection of sky rocketing oil and commodity prices-nothing more. Much (if not most) of the money generated was stolen. The average Russian remains extremely poor.

Russia is still a gangster state. The Oligarchs are still holding on to much of the nation's wealth. Putin displaced a few because they stood in his way to achieving virtually absolute power. The big three oligarchs of the 1990s have all been aside: Vladimir Gusinsky is living inexile in Israel. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was released a couple of months ago after ten years of hard labor in Siberia. Boris Berezovsky is dead (officially he committed suicide). All three are /were spent political forces. [b]But the rest of the oligarchs remain[/b]. Putin has stolen billions (some reports say tens of billions). Russia doesn't have much of an economy in western terms because of the unbelievable level of corruption. Russia's leaders are intrinsically corrupt (and murderous). If someone does create a highly successfully company, it will either be stolen from him by corrupt government officials/gangsters or he will have to hire a string of vice-presidents and pay them extremely high salaries (to do nothing) and also award them a large percentage of the company's stock (if he wants to stay alive/avoid prison, etc.) . What kind of business can flourish in an environment like that?

Russians are brutes. The Russians have committed genocide in Chechnya, and gotten away with it. They supported Serbia/Montenegro in the genocidal wars of mass rape and mass death in the Balkans. And got away with it. Now they are continue to operate all over the Middle East. The Russians torture and murder their kind. Even some ethnic Russians living in the Crimea are packing up and leaving. They are moving to western Ukraine. One Russian explained that he had lived in Russia and said that Russians in Russia were poorer, had an even worse government, and zero freedom. He wanted nothing to with Russia. He wanted to head west and rebuild Ukraine in a better way. He didn't believe the Russian propaganda about the Ukrainians being a pack of Nazis.

[quote="Lashkar-e-Jhangvi"]We have the fatwa and signatures of the revered ulema in which the Shias have been declared kaafir [infidel]*. [/quote]

I think there are hundreds of thousands of Ulemas. Any one of them can interpret the Koran and issue a fatwa, which is sort of like a court ruling. Given what is in the Koran, and the huge number of Ulemas, there will always be some Ulemas issuing rulings that people should fight. So the fighting will go on. What any debate decides has nothing to do with anything.

[quote="vincecate"]A Shia Muslim can think that a Sunni Muslim is "not a true Muslim" and therefore an infidel. As long as many Muslims think the Koran is telling them to fight infidels, it does not matter what debaters say.[/quote]

This is quite true. There are many extremist groups that consider other sects to be non-Muslims and thus infidels. For example the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Pakistan has released this statement.

[quote="Lashkar-e-Jhangvi"]We have the fatwa and signatures of the revered ulema in which the Shias have been declared kaafir [infidel]*. Just as our fighters have waged a successful jihad against the Shia-Hazaras in Afghanistan, our mission [in Pakistan] is the abolition of this impure sect and people, the Shias and the Shia-Hazaras, from every city, every village, every nook and corner of Pakistan. Like in the past, [our] successful Jihad against the Hazaras in Pakistan and, in particular, in Quetta is ongoing and will continue [in the future].[/quote]

It is not clear, however, whether this is the motive or merely the excuse. The different sects of Islam serve as identity groups and thus potential targets for genocidal hatred. If members of one sect wish to exterminate members of another sect the claim that they are infidels may serve as a useful excuse.