When the Middle and Dark Ages ended, and the Renaissance came about (much, in part, to the Arab Caliphates and Sultanates that had preserved the works of Aristotle, Plato and others and passed them, after their conquest of Constantinople to Christian scholars in the west) then the Church reflected the excesses of the Renaissance, both in positive and negative fashion. The Christian Church has certainly impacted the development of Western Europe, but Western Europe's development (Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel comes to mind here: make the connections) impacted the Church far more. KC asks which we'd rather live in--Christian or Islamic countries--with the implication that the religion is responsible for the successful development of Christian countries versus those of Islam, but Diamond's thesis is, trust me, far safer than any psychotic screed that KC might manage to pen.

The same is true of Islam. Islam has followed the development of the countries it has spread to. The military strength of the west was enough to save Europe, the steppes of the lower Russias was enough to prevent massive invasions north after the Mongols and the Golden Khanate, and so Christianity was preserved. But where Islam could spread, it encountered societies barely advanced beyond stone age implements, and had a hard enough job laying the least veneer of civilization on them. And of course, in things like female circumcision, it adopted stone age customs as a consequence, in those areas, of being molded by those societies.

 These societies ranged from the Berbers in Morocco to the Mongols and Turks coming in from the Eurasian plains. Christianity appeared, and was adopted into and radically transformed, by the highest civilization running in the world at that time (China's Han Dynasty having collapsed right about the time Augustus ruled and Christ was born). Islam, instead, bore the brunt of the eastern invasions, and as those semi-civilized invaders were tamed, in order to tame them sufficiently to live amongst civilized Arabs, some of their customs were accepted into Islam. These customs, of course, were those of peoples living an extremely harsh life by comparison with the civilized Romans, so to expect Islam to have been able to adopt, from the Turks or Berbers, the same sort of thought and theology that the Christians were able to adopt from the Greek philosophers is simply silly.

The primary impetus for Islam today is drawn from the alienation, backwardness and repression of the states in which it operates. Saddam wasn't an Islamist, he crushed them, and when his hand was removed, we see the reaction of the people in that country, broken down not along religious lines, really, but amongst their natural ethnicities and territorial locales: it is not religion driving the conflict; it is merely the excuse for various power groupings to dance their way to the ultimate fate of the state of Iraq, as many surmise, a breakup into three states. When the Shia kill the Sunnis, that's not Islam at work, that's politics at work, with Islam being a convenient cloak.

Religions impact society less than the society impacts religion. The society in question will turn any religion the way that society is going. The Christian religion at the height of the Roman empire reflected that empire's value: peaceful, philosophical, explaining why the Church Fathers don't read like a bunch of ignorant nomads, but rather as educated and sophisticated men. 
But as the empire fell, the Church turned, in part due to necessity to defend itself from the depredations of the invaders, but as much as a reflection of the much harder, much more violent Dark and Middle ages that followed. Religions do not exist in vacuums: they are led by men drawn from the societies in which they exist, and they will be molded by those men.You can compare the early Church Fathers with that Christian monk who wrote, after the sack of Jerusalem, "it was good that the streets ran red with the blood of the Infidel", and noted with pleasure how many Muslim pregnant women were stabbed through the womb, killing both mother and child in a single blow.

First pay off all my bills. House. Car. Buy a house for each of my kids<2>.Two cars for the two kids,clothes,donate to needy families. Donate to the local animal shelters. Donate to the local food banks for people in need. Help the older/elderly.

You may ask, what kind of country would do these things to its own citizens? The answer is, the kind of country that engages in mass surveillance, has by far the largest per-capita prison population on the planet where tens-of-thousands of prisoners are kept in permanent solitary confinement, and in which being sassy to an airport homeland security goon will get you a rectal search as punishment – in short, a police state.

Bush all but stopped playing golf because the press attacked him constantly for it.
If, Obama is so disrespected, so ignored by those under him that he has NOTHING to do with these emails, what the hell is his job?  There is nothing you won't say he isn't responsible for, so why are we paying his ignorant ass a salary if he's responsible for nothing under the blanket of his beyond incompetent leadership?
There are emails,  that have already been discovered that went directly to the White House counsel.

Agree, we shouldn't stand for it, but the Obama regime believes it will get a pass on this.  Haven't the media, and his supporters like Jim, defended him from years.  From IRS, Benghazi, F&F, Syria, Ukraine, and now Iraq.  Nothing is EVER his fault.  Time to hold his sorry a$$ accountable.  He needs to get his a$$ back to DC and start to address these issues....instead he is out on the golf course.  

Welfare has changed significantly, and much of what currently circulates as discussion about it is dated information.  It looks to me as though the government has phased itself successfully out of the picture and future generations won't have the same expectations.
Why should anyone work if they are satisfied with the current revenue stream?
Not happy with the homeless population especially the growing numbers of children.
Public education is the solution.  Teach them to fish, grow vegetables, start a business.
If you want them off the streets at night, maybe a mandate that all vacant motel rooms be provided.  All restaurants with eatable food leftover not be allowed to throw it away.  Surpluses can be scooped up for them.  The county and town poor farms used to operate to give people a hand up.  Stigma was not as intense back in the day.  Annie Oakley learned to read and write in just such a facility.  Back in the day it was not uncommon for people to fall on bad times, and we had more humane ways of dealing with it.  Smaller communities paid individuals to take them into their homes for a time.  We can do better, obviously.  Why don't we?
The expense went through the ceiling as private contractors bid on the services instead of government hiring and providing the services....then the contracted service just fell out of the budget, at some point when state's no longer required counties to provide for the indigents in this way. Now the county budgets are screaming over the health expense of indigent care...it's a vicious downward spiral initiated by some sound good ways of saving tax dollars.

Computer people calling Mark Levin's show right now saying this is bullshit.  

Apparently the nightly news, at least ABC (I think that's who Levin said he is watching while on air) is IGNORING this.

Right now a guy is talking who says he ran an email program for a big government agency, and he's going into all the backups and security, etc.  He says the only way this could happen is if someone who is very high level physically goes in and wipes out the particular areas he desires to be wiped out, and even then the backups which are stored in highly secured areas, multiples, would have them.

More corruption from our historic first of a criminal CIC.

I hate our government because it is no longer representative of the citizens. We have people who have made a fortune and now want to use it to control others. We have people who become entitled after decades in public office. We have bureaucrats who refuse to look at the impact their rules and regulations have on the economy and the people.

The voters have long since lost control of the government.

I do have a problem with the known leaders of the movement . I consider them extremists and by in large harmful to the nation. They remind me of many Christians who claim to believe in Christ but can't live by his teachings. What good is a political platform if it becomes clear that is not really what the party is all about?

The Insanitea party is just the radical right's voice. Not really a party. Just the extreme branch of the Republican party. The libertarians are another branch of the conservative movement but not nearly as radical as the Insanitea people. The Libertarians are closer to the anarchists. Then there are the Classical liberals who seem a bit like the libertarians and the constitutional party people who just seen to want to go back to 1776.

if we didn’t have a government, we wouldn’t have anything right now, everyone will be fighting to survive, because no more power plants, theft all the time, murder will get away with because of no justice system, and so on so forth, so ya, we need a government, because most of the people in this world will take advantage of no punishment at all, anarchy people.

When people need assistance, really need it, they ought to get it because we are decent and kind people. But there are so many who scam the system or are trapped into becoming institutionalized that they resemble recidivist criminals who can't function in society and require the structure the state provides. Example:

EMS call for a sick teenager. Family in public housing project and on Medicaid. Presume that they are on food stamps and WIC for little ones. The persons on the Medicaid form included the following:

Grandma (in her early fifties if I am a judge of such things - I know better than to ask a lady!)

Mom (maybe around early thirties)

Elder daughter (17)

Son of elder daughter (3)

Daughter of elder daughter (1)

Younger daughter (15)

Younger daughter is pregnant in third trimester.

Six people, four last names on the Medicaid document. Their situation is a little extreme but by no means unusual. Grandma, Mom, and elder daughter all appear healthy, fit, (reasonably) sane, and able to work. None do. Are we really helping that family? I say we are not.

Not my thread stir negative emotion regarding islam and muslim people,but the action of some muslim people .Your free to express your opinion ,positive or negative...and i have it too.
I saw other threads,were people express what they don't like  Jews or Christians...so what?Every religion has its bad people ....but some tend to have only bad rather than good.
I am not ignorant,this is a forum were people to express their view on bitcoin,economy,society....no one force you to read and reply to a thread you don't like or agree with it.....so you free to do what you want, even to report me,that won't change my view or opinion over what i posted on this thread.

he title says it all...what is wrong with this faith?  Along with the people that practice the 'religion of peace.'

Just one week in the world of Islam. What is wrong with this faith?

What the hell is the problem with Islam? In the past week..

In Kenya:

    At least 34 people have been killed after unidentified armed men stormed the coastal city of Mpeketoni, setting hotels, restaurants, banks and government offices on fire and spraying bullets in streets.

    Kenyan army spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir ...  blamed al-Shabaab, Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked militant group… “They were shouting in Somali and shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’,” he added, meaning “God is great”, in Arabic.

In Nigeria:

    Suspected Boko Haram gunmen have reportedly kidnapped 20 women from a nomadic settlement in north-east Nigeria near the town of Chibok, where the Islamic militants abducted nearly 300 girls in April, most of whom are still missing.

In Iraq:

    Sunni Islamist militants claimed on Sunday that they had massacred hundreds of captive Shiite members of Iraq’s security forces, posting grisly pictures of a mass execution in Tikrit as evidence and warning of more killing to come.

In Syria:

    The Al-Qaeda-breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria has prevented food and medical supplies from reaching some neighborhoods in an eastern Syrian city, an activist group said Friday.

    The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ... an offensive by ISIS in eastern Syria against rival Islamic rebel factions has killed more than 640 people and uprooted at least 130,000 since the end of April.

    In Spain:


        Spanish police arrested eight people in a pre-dawn raid in Madrid on Monday, breaking up a jihadist recruitment network led by a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, the government said…

        Spain’s government has said it fears battle-hardened Islamist fighters may return to Spain from Syria… Spain this year marked the 10th anniversary of the March 11, 2004 Al Qaeda-inspired bombing of four packed commuter trains in Madrid, which killed 191 people.

    In Belgium:

    The fourth person to die after a gunman opened fire on the Jewish Museum in Brussels was to be buried in a Muslim cemetery in Morocco.

    Alexandre Strens, whose mother is Jewish and father a Muslim Berber, was to be buried near his grandparents’ graves in the cemetery in Taza, north-east Morocco… A suspect, Mehdi Nemmouche, was arrested in Marseille, southern France, 11 days ago ...

    In Indonesia:

        Radical Islamists in Indonesia have been celebrating and swearing allegiance to ISIS on line, raising concerns that more potential terrorists will be attracted to the conflicts in Iraq and Syria… Jakarta-based terrorism expert Sidney Jones says Indonesians are known to be fighting in Syria, and that Indonesians attracted to ISIS are more radical than the Bali bombers.

    In Sudan:


        The retired Libyan general Khalifa Heftar who is leading the military campaign dubbed as ‘Operation Dignity’ against Islamist militias accused Sudan directly of providing aid to these groups… Heftar says that these militias have wreaked havoc in the North African nation.

        In China:


            China today sentenced three people to death over a deadly attack at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square last October, state television reported, an incident blamed by the government on Islamist militants....

            Five people were killed and 40 hurt when a car ploughed into a crowd at the northern edge of Tiananmen Square and burst into flames…

            All of those sentenced appeared to have ethnic Uighur names. Xinjiang is the traditional home of the mostly Muslim Uighurs, and China has blamed previous attacks on separatists… China has been on edge since a suicide bombing last month killed 39 people at a market in Urumqi. In March, 29 people were stabbed to death at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming.

        In Australia:


            ON a hot summer’s day earlier this year, a beautiful young Pakistani girl named Amina stood in the living room of her western Sydney home, listening in horror as her father explained how he planned to ­murder her.

            “I am going to kill you now, right here!” he shouted at the 16-year-old. “And no one will say anything about what I do to you. I am too powerful in the community.” Amina’s parents had promised her to a man 13 years her senior and she had made the mistake of refusing to marry him… For years, child marriage in this country has been hidden under layers of culture and tradition in tight-knit communities… Then came news of a 12-year-old girl who was “married” in January to a 26-year-old Lebanese university student in an Islamic ­ceremony at the girl’s home in NSW’s Hunter ­Valley, and the layers of secrecy began to peel away.

            In Britain:


Cont'd.....  http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/just_one_week_in_the_world_of_islam_what_is_wrong_with_this_faith/

Any vessel big enough to comply with the biblical dimensions would break up in the smallest water movement, let alone the tempest described.

Collection of the animals, more than 95% of them unknown to primitive Middle Eastern nomads, would have been impossible given the technology available at the time.

All the witterings of the bible were the result of primitive, pre Bronze Age nomads' imagining things they could not rationally explain.   Sensible people see them as such and when science suggests they were wrong, quietly drop them as anything other than what they are: fantasies.

Facts always matter, and you do not have the facts.

The President took credit for decimating the core of Al Qaeda's leadership including the killing of Bin Laden, all accomplishments of this administration, Special Forces and the agressive use of drones. He did not claim an end to terrorism, and that is your lie.

No president will end terrorism, and your claim is laughable.

As to the details of the attack, we now have the leader of the attack claiming it started over the movie and you saying republicans know better than the guy who was there. Seriously?

The President cited the attack on Sept. 14th as an act of terror, and Susan Rice in her Sunday presentation on Face the Nation noted terrorists were at benghazi. Candy Crowly was correct. And the challenges to Benghazi came out long before the elections and voters took those into account in re-electing the President. Facts matter.

Finally, the nation is doing pretty well. Our economy is stronger than any Western democracy, our deficit has been cut in half, all jobs lost in the recession have been restored, the Federal reserve estimates the economy will grow at 3% this year and unemployment will fall to 6% or less by the end of the year. Corporate profits are strong and the stock markets are solid. College loans are being reduced, health cars costs are falling, the ACA has enrolled 13 million and rising. Our production of oil is at its highest level in 40 years and our total enegry production is higher than ever in our history.

We are ending two nation building wars where there was zero chance of success and we will no longer field troops on the ground in the ME where they cannot change the course of history.

The world and the nation still have problems, aways will. But this presidency has done a good job, and no, we are not falling apart anywhere but on Fox.

lol your so wrong :
The Quran contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule.  Some are quite graphic, with commands to chop off heads and fingers and kill infidels wherever they may be hiding.  Muslims who do not join the fight are called 'hypocrites' and warned that Allah will send them to Hell if they do not join the slaughter.

First, the administration didn't just "suggest" it then...they flat out lied about it for weeks.  On September 14, the WH official blowhole flat out said that they did not have any intelligence that it was anything but a spontaneous riot over a video when we know for a fact that they knew that was completely and utterly false. 


Second, Mrs. Clinton was the first to "suggest" it that night before the attack was even over.  Where did she get that intel, given both the SD and the CIA on the ground were saying the opposite in real time?  We know for a fact from an email send to Mrs. Clinton the next morning that the SD had already informed Libya it was AaS.   


There is zero doubt the administration lied and they knew they lied.  That is not even disputable any more

Its sad to think that you're right, that no one will care about what she did to a 12 yr old rape victim because their devotion to party and to Hillary outweighs their sense of decency. I'm not surprised that leftwing men approve of her attack on a child or the shady tactics used to smear a rape victim but it still surprises me when women on the left defend her for the attack and all the other attacks on sexual abuse victims. And these are the same people who declare conservatives are waging a war on women.
It's because of women like Hillary that women in the workplace today keep their mouths shut about sexual abuse and harassment.  And its lawyers like Hillary that keep women and girls from reporting rape.