[mcsluggo]

Originally Posted by Evilmav2

Lordy, I really hate reading tedious point-by-point response posts, and I sure as heck hate writing them as well, but in this case I really don't have many other options...

You can TRY to take that ground, but since I looked at two points in your post (count 'em TWO points-- oh the confusion) and you split my post up into sixteen-quadrillion mini-blurbs... your point comes across a bit undermined

So radical, Jihadist Islamic terrorists have, 'been expunged from all states except the failed state of Afghanistan'? That statement is grossly, and demonstrably incorrect, and even if you are narrowly and legalistically just referring to 'Al Qaeda' ('The Base'; itself a nebulous aggregate of various Muslim fanatic Mohammaden groups, of which there are many in the world), then you are still wrong. Both the recent London bombings and the Madrid train bombings were conducted by operatives who considered themselves to be nominally part of 'Al Qaeda', and who had at least some degree of contact with other folks who also considered themselves to be 'Al Qaeda', who in turn had at least some degree of contact with other folks who had close contact with more seasoned Al Qaeda leadership elements that are hiding and scheming throughout the Islamic world.

'Al Qaeda' is an infection that is almost impossible to pin down, is incredibly decentralized, and often chaotically unorganized, but their particular brand of malevolent affliction has certainly not been expunged from any host country that it has choosen to infect in this beautiful but fragile green and blue globe of ours...

the state. the state. the state. Inquistion elements were intertwined with the LEADERSHIP of the countries. you were trying to weigh the actions of individuals within a society (al-queda) to the actions of the establishment in a different society (the inquisition). That was my point (and you KNEW it, as your statement below attests) but it wasn't meant to be a very big point anyhow, just a fiing across teh bow of your attemt to state that the single stupid act of 9-11 overwhelmed all stupid acts perpetrated in the name of christianity. Stupid acts are perpetrated by fanatics of all stripes. its in the fanatic handbook (you KNOW i have copy- you don't get as frothin and wild eyed as I am without it)

but you know this what I was trying to say, because you said:

As were the Crusades, as were the Reformation-era Protestant-Catholic wars of religion, as were the often brutal practices of Spanish and Portugese missionaries in the New World, ad infinitum...

Sure, lots of bad and worse things have happened in this short, recorded history of ours, and more than a few of those bad things were influenced or caused by the prevailing religious attitudes of the specific age and region where they happened (Christian, Muslim, Panthiest, Meso-American-Sacrificial, etc... indeed, almost all of them). But that is sadly beside the point.

The point I was trying to make to Mavdog earlier is precisely this (and maybe I should have worded it this way) : What happened in the Spanish Inquisition between the years 1480 and 1808 was certainly regrettable, and was certainly morally wrong, but as gauged by the prevailing moral and societal standards of the age, I say that the outrageous murder of innocents that fanatic Islam is committing daily in the name of their prophet today is proportionately worse, and is a far more ominous outrage than the 1000 or so executions of Christian heritics that a small religious court commanded over a 330 year period a couple of centuries back.

Water that has passed under the bridge is nothing but water that has passed under the bridge... And no matter how bad the Spanish inquisition was (a point that might have been an even more contentious subject of between a Swiss Calvinst Juror and a Spanish Catholic priest in the 18th century, than perhaps it should be today), that religious court didn't have the ability to Destroy the World. Over the next fifty years- years that both you and I are probably fated to serve as witness to- Fanatic, Jihadi, deeply believing followers of the Prophet Muhammed will assuredly come to possess that nightmarish ability, and that is a frightening thing.

That is why I found Mavdog's smug attempt to draw some kind of ironic equivalence between the Spanish Inquisition and the bad-and-going-to-get-worse war of the West against Islam to be both specious and despicable.

yes, technology has increased the scope of destruction that an individual, or small group, or relaticely small weak country can accomplish today. But that goes for EVERYONE, and isn't intrisic to Radico-Islam. Most of us wouldn't want to see David Duke, Jeffrey Dahmer, or Charles Taylor with a nuke either.

and yes there is a discounting across time of atrocities. I agree that it is a bit of apples and oranges to excuse atrcities today by ponting out what acestors generations ago did. now is now. you are right.

Yes. This isn't an academic exercise; this is a question of life and death- For you; For me; For the friends, loved ones, and families of us both; For everybody reading this; For every gosh-darned person who lives on this world of ours, and for all of the progeny who will follow us all.

For the last sixty years we have lived in an age where human civilization has balanced itself on the terribly sharp, direly precipitous bevel of a nuclear knife. Our race has been lucky enough thus far to maintain that precarious balancing act, but a fanatic, unreasonable, implacable foe like the millions upon millions of Muslims who support, or indeed, actively fight for, the Islamic Jihad against the whole portion of civilized human civilization that chooses not to pay obeisance to the memory and supremacy of their exalted prophet Muhammed, is frighteningly likely to destroy such-said desperate balance.

As I said above, the Spanish Inquistion was a bad, bad thing, but it never had the ability to give birth to Yeats' rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born. Radical Islam does, and as I've said repeatedly, that is why Mavdog's attempt to draw some kind of moral equivalence between the actions of today's hordes of murderous, Jihadi Mohammaden's who want to kill or force all infidels into 'submission' to the rule of Allah and the law of the prophet, to the actions of something as currently, greatly inconsequential as the 15th century Spanish inquisition, is dangerous, specious, and inane.

once again, EVERYONE has these frightening new capabilities that frankly I don't trust with ANYONE. Who here is comfortable that nut-bag Putin goes to sleep with his finger on the red button?

I'm not trying to whitewash anything. The inquisition was terrible, and the second diaspora was even worse, but the old history student in me prompted me to point out the fact that however bad Torquemada's inquisition was (as well as the ones that followed it), it's significance and horrors have been vastly overblown by first Reformation-era Northern European scholars and historians who destested the Roman church, then by chauvinist Anglo-Saxon scholars who were always more than happy to assume the worst of their continental neighbors (particularly the Catholic ones), and has now been overblown by a more recent generation of 50's, 60's, and 70's agenda-driven social historians who were always happy to embrace and occasionally exagerate just about any historical episode that lent itself to their preferred anti-religious, anti-Western narratives. Recent scholarship- based on primary source, documentary evidence- has discredited much of the old anti-Catholic myth/history that surrounded the inquisition, and I was merely pointing that out above.

as a catholic, i sincerely appreciate your efforts.

So all of geo-politics is predicated by what religion is 'on top of the heap'? And evidently you don't condone, but you can understand, the 'drastic' late-game tactics of Radical Islam in it's 'game' against Christianity? Ugggghhhhhhhhh...

Question: if the big flip-around envisioned in the story at the begining of the thread DID happen, and the Christian west DID find themselves on the bottom of the heap. Do you think it likely that individuals would be more likely to gravitate towards more drastic avenues of "expressing themselves"? In other words, I think there is roughly a 100% chance that angry young Christian men would form groups called something like "St. Michael's brigade" to fight and resist and reclaim the glory of christianity's past, if they found themselve living in the world outlined in the story.

Hockey analogy aside, that is human nature and all I tried to do was explain it with out framing it in the context of one religion or another. The fact that those who feel like they are on the bottom of the heap are often willing to fight a bit dirtier and meaner is not religion based but human based. If you are out to find the next great boxer, do you think you'd look in the tough neigborhoods of Dallas first, or in Beverly Hills?