Soulfire

We should treat others as equals in order to prove our superiority to animals. We should treat everyone as equals because it's the decent thing to do. We should treat others as equals in order to depart from our violent roots. We should treat others as equals in order that they might reciprocate. We should treat others as equals because it's the most disarming thing we can do, so that peace might come of it. Will that suffice as reasoning for you, my friend? PS: Auditory awesomeness, and I liked this song before it was cool.

PS: I have a -11 ranking now! WOOOOOOO, double digits! For every thumbs-down I get, I consider myself the more honoured, because it means I'm fighting the good fight against trolls and bigots. WOOOOOOOO!

Neeel: To treat someone as an equal would be to treat them with the same degree of respect as you would prefer to be treated with yourself. You know the whole Golden Rule thing? Literally every religion has a version of that rule: do no harm to others if you would not have them harm you, and so forth. As for why we ought to be peaceful, as I say, are we no better than animals or Neanderthals flinging rocks at one another? If humans are as great as we think we are when compared to the animals, as I do because I'm a humanist, I think we ought to put our money where our mouths is (mouths are?) and live up to what we have the potential to be. Besides, why not get along? It's easier. A4E: Your statement was that the West treats people as equals and I was responding to that statement. In terms of Islam, no, they don't. And neither does any other religion or philosophy. Except Pantheism but I won't go there unless you want me to. Point is, we can, collectively, as a species, do a lot better than we're doing.

A4E, are you kidding me? The West doesn't treat people like equals at all! Several examples incoming...also, disturbing content to follow so prepare yourself accordingly. 1. 1970s: Black woman (in America) on display in human zoo. Woman dies, zoo claims her body, puts corpse on display, inters all remains in 1980s other than her genitals, which they cut off, put on display, and didn't return to her family for interment until 2002. 2. White women gain right to vote in North America in 1930s, black women in 1950s, Native women in 1960s. 3. Tuskegee studies on black men and the deliberate spreading of STDs among them to see how their biology differs when under such conditions. 4. Japanese migrants turned away at British Columbia border in WWII, with the proclamation that "None is too many". Japanese families already living in British Columbia split apart according to surname and all made to move to different Provinces (i.e. if your sister were married and had a different surname, she'd be off to Alberta and you to Ontario, just as an example). 5. Anti-hijab and burqa movements in France and in Quebec, with Muslim woman being stripped at a beach in France by authorities for her "safety". Note that the image given to us in class of this happening was coupled by a picture of Catholic nuns in habit walking along beach in France, no one stripping them. Recent occurrence, I might add. Here, I'll find you the pics... Burqini woman French nuns I'm done for now. Any questions?

Damn straight, Killian! And yes, I'm aware of what sarcasm is. Here's the sound of me caring. ................................................................................................................................. But for serious, if we want peace, we have to start treating people like people, like equals. Are we not all biochemically equal anyway? Besides, human beings as a species are still 98.8% similar to our primate ancestors, so what are we bragging about? But we're smart enough to be able to evolve past that. Human evolution is significant in that, despite our physical changes, the greatest evolution took place in the mind. Why not use that for cultivating a life that everyone can live? It's bullshit to carry on as animals would, warring with one another and hoarding our possessions and creating false barriers between one another. If people are so great, and I think we are because I'm a humanist, can't we do better than that?

What, my Pantheism? To believe that everything is God (yes, including you) is not a crime. In fact, it's the greatest equalizer as well as the greatest affirmation of human goodness of which I am aware. And you can save your misogyny and xenophobia for someone who gives a feck. I do not, however, give a feck. PS: Beck. Just because.

@ Erwin, LOL...you're cute. ♥

Yay, gratuitous amounts of feedback! LOL, okay, one at a time here. RoseCordex: I can't believe I'm quoting him again, but as Stefan says, "To see the farm is to leave it." So get up and leave the farm, my friend. I'm waiting on the other side of the gate. And of COURSE I was ashamed of myself. I'm always telling people I know not to paint everyone with the same brush, and my stupid brain went on media-created autopilot and said "Oh, a Muslim...of course...". And I'm just like, brain, FECK OFF. Things like that shouldn't be there if you're me. I try to be as open-minded as I can be, see. Neeeeel: No, I think it's more of a creation of what we've been taught through ancestral tradition: that our people are better than any other people, and that our people should fit into a certain form (white, preferably male, heterosexual, able-bodied, Christian) in order to be considered our people. That's not cool, because, as I said, to create an "other", one that does not fit into the false archetype, is to create your own so-called enemies. That's bullshit. RichardY: Honey, you know I love you, but that's my point exactly. They weren't "playing fair", and nobody ever does when they're brainwashed and afraid. Fear will make you do as you are told, and to do as you are told is both stupid and boring, because you're not following your own compass. I believe in Tabula Rasa, yes, but in line with that I believe that all people are born good. We have to be TAUGHT to be bad. And unfortunately, if you're taught too thoroughly, you'll make bad things happen. No one has the right to attack children, or anyone in general who can't fight back. It's that early, negative conditioning that makes such a disconnect happen in the mind. A4E: I said nothing about appeasement. I said for "us" to leave well enough alone. Someone has to drop the gun first in order for peace to happen, and I don't care what so-called "side" it is, but because we're supposedly so intelligent and civilized, I figure it might as well be "our side". Are we no better than animals that we should cling to our weapons for constant fear of attack? Bullshit.

If we're going to talk about colonization, let's talk about the kind that our ancestors did, shall we? Mass cultural genocide, both in the forms of warfare (biological and otherwise) and in the form of residential "schools" (I will NEVER call those schools without adding quotation marks; they were brainwashing institutions, nothing more), cultural theft (Thanksgiving, anyone?), and still, after all the supposed progress we've made, America has never had a woman president. Black one yes, and that was great, but a woman in office? Oh no, oh no! We mustn't have that! LOL. But I'm diverting. What about the Muslims coming here, as we came here, do you call "colonization"? Bearing in mind the fact that America was in Muslim-occupied countries LONG before the migration crises began. Besides, if your country were overwhelmed by tyrants, wouldn't you want to get the feck out of dodge? And what better place to come than into nations that aren't so torn apart? Oh but wait, there's yet another gun aiming at you the moment you hit the shore, if you DO hit the shore, because a lot of them died along the way.

Well, no offense meant, but I certainly know I won't find any friendship in you. Mind you, RichardY has been rather nice, now hasn't he? And I just like talking to people, frankly. Besides, I wondered who on here would be receptive to my views, given Stefan's history of racism, misogyny, and general fear-mongering of the left and of anyone different. Take his views on immigrants and Muslims. It's fine that he's an immigrant himself because he's white and non-religious, while anyone who has brown skin or was taught differently than he was is an automatic threat. People in glass houses...but I digress. I'm not going anywhere, though. I'm here until I get banned, as I'm sure I probably will be at some point. But they can't ban me without reading what I have to say. Ba-BAM!

Left...in the middle of those two, I'd say. Middle Path, my dear Donna. Middle Path.

This might be a long one, and I apologize in advance for that. Also, if I get hit points on my account for this, I don't really care. I have something to say. This morning, when I heard on the news that it was a guy with an Arabic-sounding name who committed the bombing, I swear to God I thought to myself, "Muslim". I was SO ashamed, totally disgusted with myself. As if my brain were just on autopilot and thinking that it would have been a Muslim to conduct those bombings. Kids, don't do what my stupid head did. I know it's hard, because every single day in the media, there are those stupid little micro-aggressions that add up to a really big problem, directed at the minority group of the moment. Every century picks a new minority group to pick on: disabled people, gay people, people who just aren't white, anyone of a different religion, and so on. This decade, it's Muslims...and a whole bunch of others (thanks Trump), but mostly Muslims. We brand people as "other" or as "enemy" or as "different" in the negative sense, but it's these labels that CREATES the so-called "other" or "enemy". People honestly don't get this and it's REALLY annoying, but it's like saying to someone that they're a piece of shit. The more you say it, the more it gets ground into that person's head, and, despite whether it's true or not, the more the person will start to believe it. It's called the "thousand paper cuts" phenomenon: a paper cut is one little thing, but then cut and cut and cut away until BAM, you've bled out, or are so injured that you just can't function. I am NOT condoning what happened in Manchester. Not in the slightest. I think that people who attack others and especially children or animals (i.e. groups that can't defend themselves) are terrible. However, it may indeed be the case that they are terrible because they themselves have suffered greatly. Think about what's gone on in Syria: can you honestly imagine being so incredibly oppressed by your government that such a large proportion of people choose to leave a country? It's very difficult for anyone living in Europe (at least Western Europe) and North America to imagine this, because we have always lived lives of relative ease compared to those who live in war-torn nations. It's called white privilege. Whites, myself included, have had the privilege to live in these relatively peaceful, orderly nations, but very much at the expense of nations in which these privileges are not at all present. I've made this point on another page before, but it is fear that most often makes us revert to the mindset that we must kill in order to live. But why should we have to kill in order to live? I see no reason for that other than those reasons that are found in a mind that has been warped by fear: fear of death, fear of retribution, fear of the pyramidal structure that our world has become, and so forth. And it will be fear that makes people retaliate, and blame the "other", while in reality we create that "other" by aiming guns rather than reaching out hands. I do NOT believe that this issue is beyond repair, mind you. It's going to take some doing, but for God's sake, people, I have just two things to ask of you, and this applies not only to anyone here who cares but to the world generally, if I may be egotistical enough for a moment to make such a bold request... 1. Put down the fecking guns 2. Stop saying "us versus them" and "the other" and "the enemy"; it's not helpful And I'm done. Like I say, I don't give a damn if I get bombarded for this. People who feel the need to perform violent attacks are only ever doing so out of fear, which comes out as aggression because we as humans know of no other way to deal with fear. And that's all I have to say about that, except to express my condolences to anyone here who's from Manchester and witnessed this shit go down first hand. No amount of money or compassion towards the families that now suffer could ever compensate for such losses, ever.

Oh Richard, we just had this conversation in the class I'm taking today. What is meant by "noble" or "civilized" entirely depends on who you ask. For example, I live in Canada, right? And I'm the descendant of European immigrants. No one in North America is actually from this continent to begin with unless you count the Native cultures at large. But the settlers never considered the Natives to be their equals, which, as we previously discussed, is where they went wrong. Those settlers came in with their guns a-blazing and their smallpox fresh at hand, and look what happened. Not to say that there wasn't tribal warfare before that time, but they really fecked some shit up. So I kind of love the idea of pacifism because it would also (if used during colonial times) have GREATLY minimized the harm that was done and maybe would actually have led to peace in the Americas. As it stands, not so much. Donna, I'm a principled pacifist. I believe on principle, on my moral code, that that is the best way to go. If you consider that ignoble and...what was the term you used? Scandalous? If you consider it ignoble and scandalous...well, less power to you. As opposed to "more power to you". Also, I vote left. I told y'all, I'm a leftist.

Trust me, there's no shame in pacifism. If the whole world lived by the principles of pacifism, we would have no war. Do you know how huge a shift that would be? I mean, I understand why people WOULD shoot: our primitive instincts would compel us to do that. Frankly, though, is it not more noble, more human, to pursue the higher path of pacifism? You have to THINK about pacifism, and not just act on the trigger. See, even the word "trigger" denotes a gun. The only purpose of a gun is to injure or kill. I honestly don't think that we should have any use for such things in a civilized world.

Firstly, I'm pulling a Stefan here but I agree with this part: don't just say "him" when referring to a rapist. They can be females too. Secondly, no, I don't try to pull the rapist off, I pull at my loved one. Get them out of the situation. And obviously they would help me in that process so it's not like we would be working at cross purposes here. Yes, there is always a pacific option. And even if I were to get shot doing it, I'd rather the blood not be on MY hands. I'm a Jain; it's what I do. You're still trying to get my goat though. Didn't I tell you to abandon that option? If this is a game, I'm very, very good at playing games, so play on if you want to, but you're just going to make yourself look like an ass. RichardY, I think I'd want to visit, do the whole tourist thing. Besides, I wouldn't mind getting up to Cork. That's where mom's side is from. As for the whole "luck of the Irish" thing, I think I agree with John Lennon, but that's because no one ever says whether it's BAD luck or GOOD luck. They just say "luck", which is not very specific. Pretty sure it's bad, truth be told. But oh, what was it that my buddy told me about Irish people going to Scotland? There was some comedian who said that the Irish looked in the direction of Scotland, and were all like, "Hey, you see those dark clouds hanging over the mountains up there? Let's go there! It'll be great! Even more pissing rain and even more freezing cold in winter than it is here! Yay!" LOL. Also, Mr. Richard, would you like to join the Lilly vs. Donna game as well? We'll have some lovely sport, shall we?