50 Dead, 53 Injured in mass shooting at Orlando gay nightclub

[Dan Severn's Moustache]

The Bible is the biggest war-mongering pamphlet in the world. Ask Barbs how long was that book quoted and used to send Christian terrorists to stake claim of their dominance some 300 years ago.

The Puranas from the Hindu religion has a vicious caste system and an air of superiority to other religions. Do you know how many Muslims have been killed by Hindus over the last 25 years?

Islam seems like its the devil coz its happening to Americans, and all over the mainstream news.

As contradictory as the Bible and the Torah are, they pale in comparison to the amount of contradictions found in the Quran. I'm an atheist, so I'm not backing any horse in this race, but cultural relativism is not applicable in this instance.

Interestingly, around a 1000 or so years ago, Islam and Christianity were both the opposite of what they were today. Islam had entered its golden age, and the Abbasid empire dedicated their faith to the enrichment of culture and science, and most wars they engaged in during this period were ones on the defensive. This was in between the time of the imperialistic Umayyad and Ottoman empires, around the time of the Crusades, where Christians united to combat Islam.

Another key difference is that Christanity reformed. With the help of figures such as Thomas Aquinas, who campaigned for secular states, and events such as the Thirty Years War, Christians realised that slaughter, particularly slaughter between Protestants and Catholics was wanton, and sought to bring religious tolerance across Europe. Islam never really underwent the same changes; I forget his name, but a similar figure to Thomas Aquinas for Islam was killed for speaking out against Islam. This is still a problem in countries with Sharia Law.

Isolated individuals or minuscule groups of extremist Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, etc are not state sponsored anywhere in the world. Extremist Islam still is.

 

[JGlass]

It absolutely is, which is why I said "as the media likes to define it". The article Lee posted is very nice in summing up a lot of my thoughts.

My two best friends are in the LGBT community and I can say for a fact that I don't feel a fraction of the fear they do here. The more the homophobic side of this is erased in favor of feeding the mass media's terrorism rhetoric, the more marginalized the actual victims of the attack become.

I see your point, and I think it's valid. Unfortunately terrorist attack sells more newspapers (or whatever the 21st century equivalent of that phrase is) than hate crime.

Any chance we can sticky this and re-purpose it as a Mass Shooting Megathread?

And cripple my chances of being thread starter of the year? Not a chance, fancy pants.

 

[Coco]

Closet homosexual and a drinker. Devout, wasn't he?

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Closet homosexual

Well, duh

 

[Coco]

I could set my watch to it at this point. More efficient than trains in Nazi Germany.

 

[Tastycles]

As contradictory as the Bible and the Torah are, they pale in comparison to the amount of contradictions found in the Quran. I'm an atheist, so I'm not backing any horse in this race, but cultural relativism is not applicable in this instance.

Interestingly, around a 1000 or so years ago, Islam and Christianity were both the opposite of what they were today. Islam had entered its golden age, and the Abbasid empire dedicated their faith to the enrichment of culture and science, and most wars they engaged in during this period were ones on the defensive. This was in between the time of the imperialistic Umayyad and Ottoman empires, around the time of the Crusades, where Christians united to combat Islam.

Another key difference is that Christanity reformed. With the help of figures such as Thomas Aquinas, who campaigned for secular states, and events such as the Thirty Years War, Christians realised that slaughter, particularly slaughter between Protestants and Catholics was wanton, and sought to bring religious tolerance across Europe. Islam never really underwent the same changes; I forget his name, but a similar figure to Thomas Aquinas for Islam was killed for speaking out against Islam. This is still a problem in countries with Sharia Law.

Isolated individuals or minuscule groups of extremist Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, etc are not state sponsored anywhere in the world. Extremist Islam still is.

Speaking as someone who has written a dissertation on Aquinas and lives in a Sharia country, I'd say it's a lot less black and white than this.

 

[One Punch Doug Crashin]

The problem isn't Muslim extremism.... It's EXTREMISM. The Mainstink media would like you to think it's all about Muslim Extremists because "narrative" but that simply isn't the case. Everybody has extremists.

 

[Dan Severn's Moustache]

Speaking as someone who has written a dissertation on Aquinas and lives in a Sharia country, I'd say it's a lot less black and white than this.

I'm not criticising the individuals who are a part of the system here, I'm criticising the autocratic, authoritarian theocracy system that has been in place for hundreds of years, and are actually following the Islamic doctrine in a ultra-conservative manner; in the eyes of Islam, they are correct in what they are doing, and attempting to force this way of life onto everyone that is a part of the system.

I know this is off-topic, but I might as well bring it up while we're on the subject: My dad's best friend, who lives out in Dubai as a doctor, actually had to administer treatment to Idi Amin whilst he was in exile, before his death. Just an interesting factoid I felt like sharing.

 

[Lee]

Gun law debate aside. I'm not gay but I love going to two or three of the gay bars in my town. Great people, good drink and amazingly cheese music. I can have a boogie to S Club 7 and enjoy myself.

That's what upsets me. This is an attack on LGBT and all who support the lifestyle.

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

Gun law debate aside. I'm not gay but I love going to two or three of the gay bars in my town. Great people, good drink and amazingly cheese music. I can have a boogie to S Club 7 and enjoy myself.

That's what upsets me. This is an attack on LGBT and all who support the lifestyle.

As more details come out about the killer, I can't help but feel some sympathy for him in all honesty. There's been an awkwardly fine line being tred in the media with the revelation that he was a (somewhat) closeted homosexual himself.

It doesn't seem like he was a hardcore Muslim but his faith was quite a big part of his life. Marry that with his sexual insecurity/uncertainty as well as perhaps not feeling totally accepted by either community and his story is actually quite tragic compared to some of the recent perpetrators of the Paris, Boston and San Bernadino attacks.

 

[Big Nick Dudley]

As more details come out about the killer, I can't help but feel some sympathy for him in all honesty. There's been an awkwardly fine line being tred in the media with the revelation that he was a (somewhat) closeted homosexual himself.

It doesn't seem like he was a hardcore Muslim but his faith was quite a big part of his life. Marry that with his sexual insecurity/uncertainty as well as perhaps not feeling totally accepted by either community and his story is actually quite tragic compared to some of the recent perpetrators of the Paris, Boston and San Bernadino attacks.

I could probably find my way to feeling sorry for the guy had he sought therapy instead of shooting over 100 people.