Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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ProfX
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Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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Hostages safely rescued after nearly 11-hour ordeal at a Texas synagogue, officials say. The suspect is dead
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/16/us/colle ... index.html

An elite FBI hostage rescue team breached a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, Saturday night, safely recovering three remaining captives after a nearly 11-hour hostage situation, federal and local officials said.

[snip]

The resolution came nearly 11 hours after a gunman entered Congregation Beth Israel as the synagogue livestreamed its Sabbath morning service on Facebook and Zoom at around 11 a.m. (noon ET) Saturday, Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller said. The livestream appeared to capture part of the incident before it was removed.

[snip]

President Joe Biden thanked state, local and federal law enforcement for their work in getting the hostages out safely. He said authorities will learn more "in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage taker.
"But let me be clear to anyone who intends to spread hate -- we will stand against anti-Semitism and against the rise of extremism in this country," Biden said in a statement from the White House.

[snip]

Two law enforcement officials told CNN earlier Saturday that investigators believe the hostage taker may have been motivated by a desire to release Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year sentence at a facility in Texas. She was convicted in 2010 on seven charges, including attempted murder and armed assault on US officers in Afghanistan.

[snip]

Congregation Beth Israel is affiliated with the Union for Reform Judaism, whose website indicates the congregation serves 157 membership families.
The synagogue, established in 1999 with 25 membership families, was the first Jewish congregation in Northeast Tarrant County, according to CBI's website. The CBI community officially opened the doors to its own new building in 2005.

[snip][end]
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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Was watching this all day yesterday.
[snip]

Two law enforcement officials told CNN earlier Saturday that investigators believe the hostage taker may have been motivated by a desire to release Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year sentence at a facility in Texas. She was convicted in 2010 on seven charges, including attempted murder and armed assault on US officers in Afghanistan.

[snip]
Watching this closely, too. This was reported early on by a guy at ABC News. I'm awaiting what all is revealed about these connections.

This situation is so f'ed up - the congregants at this synagogue are going to be traumatized for life. :(
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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The question centers on whether or not the bad guy is a lone actor. If he is, then possibility #1, the most likely, is that he was just some whacko motivated by the imprisonment of "sister" whoever, a Taliban sympathizer who is doing time in that part of Texas.

I don't believe that particular issue even involves Jews or Israel, though it doesn't always help to think rationally in these matters.

If I'm right about #1, then one obvious conclusion is that it's the start of many years of deadly fallout from the poorly managed clusterfrack in Afghanistan, and its sickening collapse. The GOP, with its typical command of the media, was able to pin their foreign policy mistake, and the dismal end of same, on the Democrats, even though they started it, and left it to Biden in a state that was all over but the shouting.

Possibility #2 is that he was inspired by the local right wing anti-Semitic militia types. Right now, this looks less likely, though in Texas one always has to wonder.

Of course, if he isn't a lone actor, things change. It goes to who put him up to it.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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Appears to have been a British Muslim. Affiliations with Islamist groups so far not discussed. The FBI is so far saying there's no evidence he was working with anyone else.

He referred to Siddiqui as his "sister" but that appears to have been metaphorical. My guess is his motivations are probably along these lines -- he figured since the "Jews control America", the best way to get her released was to take some hostage.

Texas synagogue siege: hostage-taker named as Briton Malik Faisal Akram
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... be-british

They are not saying how he died, but I also think it's a safe bet they killed him as they sent in armed units to end the standoff. Should note that was after hours of negotiation. He DID allow one hostage to leave.

Some of this was accidentally caught on livestream as they were live-streaming their service when he burst in. Not sure if this got recorded, but it seems he told people he had a bomb. I again think this has not been verified, so far they are saying, no he didn't, just a weapon.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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The conclusion of the operation came in prime time for LA, and was closely followed on the usual Internet gossip machines. Everything points to the FBI deciding it was time to stop negotiating and take the guy out. First the lights in the building went off, then a flash-bang was fired in the direction of the perp.

Presumably he was stunned and distracted momentarily, and the good guys were in position with their IR gear on, and they produced a fast, loud resolution to the situation. The bad guy had already said something to the effect of, "You aren't getting me alive." The authorities took him up on that.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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carmenjonze wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 9:00 am Was watching this all day yesterday.



Watching this closely, too. This was reported early on by a guy at ABC News. I'm awaiting what all is revealed about these connections.

This situation is so f'ed up - the congregants at this synagogue are going to be traumatized for life. :(
What no comment about the race and religion of the perps?
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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Glennfs wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:50 pm What no comment about the race and religion of the perps?
I have a comment. Lots of hatred of the Jewish people by the religious.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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gounion wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 5:03 pm I have a comment. Lots of hatred of the Jewish people by the religious.
I have a comment too, MAGA and trump have made it acceptable to bash Jewish people and commit violence against them.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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Glennfs wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:50 pm What no comment about the race and religion of the perps?
His race is totally irrelevant.

So is his religion per se.

Fundamentalist Islamism is an ideology, not one that all Muslims subscribe to. Not all Muslims embrace ISIS, al-Qaeda, or what guys like this do. MOST don't.

Just like the QAnon Christian Reconstructionists or whatnot blowing up abortion clinics and setting fire to them don't represent Christianity.

BTW: the JDL freaks who tried to blow up a mosque out in CA don't represent me, either, nor settler maniacs in the West Bank who attack and kill Palestinian kids.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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ProfX wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 5:27 pm His race is totally irrelevant.

So is his religion per se.

Fundamentalist Islamism is an ideology, not one that all Muslims subscribe to. Not all Muslims embrace ISIS, al-Qaeda, or what guys like this do. MOST don't.

Just like the QAnon Christian Reconstructionists or whatnot blowing up abortion clinics and setting fire to them don't represent Christianity.

BTW: the JDL freaks who tried to blow up a mosque out in CA don't represent me, either, nor settler maniacs in the West Bank who attack and kill Palestinian kids.
A tiny minority of Muslims or Christians or whatever group have the violent ideology that results in this or 911 etc. All of it is wrong and bad.

ALL maga, ALL trump followers, of which there are tens of millions, have and will in the future support violence against you and me and our government. ALL of them. Note I am not saying all republicans, but I am saying ALL maga, ALL trumpers.

Trumpers or maga or people who VOTE for those who support them need to own their violence and their hatred. You CANT support the party that supports trump and not support violence against our country and our people. You cant.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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I don't know if they are all violent.

That said, they seem to believe some things that are very irrational, and this is what worries me:

Image

So yes, this IS what makes me worry why there are so many people out there willing to drink pee, chug horse paste, listen to some strange "Q", or wait in Dallas for JFK to rise from the grave.

I don't know if all of them are violent, but I take Voltaire's warning, seriously.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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ProfX wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 7:17 pm I don't know if they are all violent.

That said, they seem to believe some things that are very irrational, and this is what worries me:

Image

So yes, this IS what makes me worry why there are so many people out there willing to drink pee, chug horse paste, listen to some strange "Q", or wait in Dallas for JFK to rise from the grave.

I don't know if all of them are violent, but I take Voltaire's warning, seriously.
Yes, and by being violent I mean that all of them either are willing to themselves act that way OR they will surely support those who do.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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Today in Muslin Bans:
Glennfs wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:50 pm What no comment about the race and religion of the perps?
You sound really resentful.

Are you relieved that it wasn’t yet another mass-murdering white conservative male?

Did you celebrate when you learned that the perp (singular, not plural — nice try, though) is dead?
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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gounion wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 5:03 pm I have a comment. Lots of hatred of the Jewish people by the religious.
The religious includes multiple billions of people in the world. The religious are thus a very mixed bag.

Church, community cared for families of Colleyville hostages during hourslong crisis - Star-Telegram
For hours on Saturday, Good Shepherd Catholic Community church in Colleyville came to the aid of Congregation Beth Israel as an armed man held Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three others hostage at the synagogue.

The help came in the form of a safe place for the rabbi’s family and spouses of the other hostages to wait out the ordeal. And Father Mike Higgins took time Sunday morning to praise the effort and how communities helped each other. “It showed what the worst of the community can do and what the best of communities (can do) as well,” Higgins said Sunday during one of the morning Masses at Good Shepherd.

The incident ended about 9:15 p.m. Saturday, after nearly 11 hours of police and FBI negotiations, when the hostages escaped unharmed and the suspect died as law enforcement breached the building. The FBI on Sunday publicly identified the hostage-taker as Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old British citizen.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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Libertas wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 7:30 pm Yes, and by being violent I mean that all of them either are willing to themselves act that way OR they will surely support those who do.
They do nothing to stop them, and they deliberately allow them to persist.

When it’s a Muslim, first thing out of their trashy mouths is “where were they radicalized!?!” and “Moozlumz should be reporting the radicals in their mosks to the authorities!!!”

Lol I’ll eat my hat the minute even one of these complicit, dishonest conservatives reports the unhooded vigilantes in their houses of worship to the authorities. :problem:
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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carmenjonze wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 1:29 am The religious includes multiple billions of people in the world. The religious are thus a very mixed bag.

Church, community cared for families of Colleyville hostages during hourslong crisis - Star-Telegram
You know I have a different view on it. While religious people HAVE done good things, mostly religion has poisoned everything.

The only reason today's Christians don't all openly despise the Jewish people is because they believe they need Israel to exist so it - and all the Jews there - can be destroyed in Armageddon, according to their latest made-up interpretation of the crazed rantings of the Book of Revelations.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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Anti-Semitism ... is complicated.

I've said this before. Should you read Mein Kampf? It's a work of horror and a insight into a diseased mind ... but you'll learn something. Notably that, Adolf was a fan of a number of American eugenicists.

The white nationalist anti-Semitism in this country taps into an older but not exactly "religious" (per se) idea. Adolf and his pals argued (and this stuff goes back to the 19th century) that Jews were a genetically inferior "Semitic race" to the dominant "Aryan" or Teutonic race of Germany. They were untermenschen because they were an inferior race. (Along with Blacks, Slavs, Romani aka "Gypsies," and basically anything they didn't consider "Aryan".) (Although Adolf didn't look anything like what he said was his racial ideal, but I digress.) The second component is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which proclaimed Jews to be part of a conspiracy to rule the world and make white Christians their slaves. Anti-Semitism is strange in that for centuries it has proclaimed the Jews to both be inferior, but also part of some "plot" to undermine "Christendom" or whatever else by manipulating it from behind the scenes. I guess because they are inferior to "Aryans" they must constantly unleash evil plots to subvert them from the shadows.

You can't understand the 1924 Immigration Reform Act without getting that it was designed by American eugenicists to keep out Jews from immigrating (not just them, of course, also Southern and Eastern Europeans, and other groups). Why? Well, again, some stuff that would sound familiar. They were said to be genetically inferior and possibly contaminating through intermarriage the "WASP"/"Aryan" stock of the U.S. Hitler and the Nazis did not emerge out of a vacuum. As many historians have argued, they just were willing to dial up their negative eugenics to 11. Here in this country, (supposedly) "inferior" groups were sterilized. In Germany, of course, they were ... gassed and exterminated.

Now I'm not arguing anti-Semitism doesn't still have a religious component. There are still places in the world in 2022 where Passion Plays are put on, and you can watch the Jews (supposedly) bay for the blood and death of Christ. The blood libel goes back to medieval Christendom as does this claim that Jews were poisoning the wells of Europe during the Crusades. And of course there is supercessionism ... essentially this idea that Christianity has rendered Judaism obsolete, and/or that thus Jews should remain homeless pariahs, guilty of deicide, within Christendom.

It's just that in the 19th century it took on a racial one. Now I want to be clear. From the point of view of genetics, haplotypes, etc., there is no such thing as a Semitic or Jewish "race" per se. (Neither is there, really, an "Arab race," either.) But that the Nazis and eugenicists believed in one and acted on its social reality is a grim fact.

Notice I haven't touched on Israel. There is complicated subject #2. But yes, to understand some of this guy's motivations, they are clearly tied both into "I/P" and also the war in Afghanistan. They also have to do with geopolitics. My personal position is that the government has every right to detain and try Ms. Siddiqui, but there are people, including CAIR, who have called for her release. As I think it can't be disputed that whatever the merit of the original accusations against her, when she was interrogated in Afghanistan, she grabbed a rifle & tried to shoot and kill several American interrogators, and thus, yes, I do think she is guilty of attempted murder. Along with, possibly, other charges. I can say there is a widespread belief in the Muslim world that the "Jews control America," IMHO that IS anti-Semitism, and I think this is why he chose his particular hostage targets. He wanted Siddiqui released, and this is why he did it.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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Glennfs wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 4:50 pm What no comment about the race and religion of the perps?
As opposed to the race of Proud Punks and Oaf Keepers?

Religion is not relevent, Radical Islam is just a shitty as Radical Christianity. You keep flying your Islamophobic Flag.

Race is not important, except to a racist like you.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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ProfX wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 9:04 amAnti-Semitism ... is complicated.I've said this before. Should you read Mein Kampf?
I read Mein Kampf when I was stationed at the Pentagon, so full hate and the oppression of the poor misunderstood Germans. Never mind that Hitler was Austrian.

It took me almost a month to read it, about as long as it took to read Marx. National Socialism was an ideology based hate. Not unlike the ideology of the far right of today. It is White Man who is the true victim, we have a right kill Non-Whites. We have to kill Jews. We are protecting ourselves.

The Arizona Bund Rally (Call it what it was) was hate filled, lie filled rant how the poor White Man Traitor is the real victim, never the fact that he is only President to ever lose the Popular Vote Twice.

Mein Kampf was Hitler's roadmap, and very few if any people knew it or believed it. Fascism require suspension of belief, and the Traitor knows that.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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I didn't consider it worth going into all the US vs THEM poison that motivates these attacks. Everyone knows what the problem is. People just plain don't trust those unlike them.

The Tom Lehrer song was about the universality of it all, and the hypocrisy of a ruling majority that insisted on racial purity proclaiming a National Brotherhood Week every year. He was right, you know.

And yeah, the best line in the song was "everybody hates the Jews." So true. Western European history's favorite universal paranoia sinks, with the Muslims a close second, followed closely by imaginary bomb-throwing anarchists hiding under the bed. And, over here, our own homespun social catastrophe involving descendants of another race transported in chains to the Americas as slave labor. Yeah, it's all their fault for being enslaved in the first place.

Every time fascism comes around, it's just the same old same old, and people still eat it up. Failure of imagination, or something. It's just so easy.

Now there's the Internet. What could go wrong?
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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gounion wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 8:27 am You know I have a different view on it. While religious people HAVE done good things, mostly religion has poisoned everything.
Religion has not poisoned everything.
The only reason today's Christians don't all openly despise the Jewish people is because they believe they need Israel to exist so it - and all the Jews there - can be destroyed in Armageddon, according to their latest made-up interpretation of the crazed rantings of the Book of Revelations.
No, this is inaccurate. There are indeed plenty of conservative Evangelicals in the US who believe that about Israel. In fact, most Christian groups do not share this theology, which is relatively new (19th c.) What you’re describing is only a drop in the bucket of eschatological theologies, which span 2K years.

For instance, today’s mainline Protestants don’t believe this, nor do today’s Catholics or Orthodox or Seventh Day Adventist’s, or Christian Fundamentalists. You’re talking about a very small subset of Christians.

The wiki page on Christian eschatology is pretty thorough. And stays away from “which denominations believe what” rabbit holes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_eschatology

Check out especially the section on Historicism v Futurism, and the Major Theological Views section, which lays out the various millennialisms.

Oh and check out that chart.

Today’s Christians simply cannot be said to have one belief on the so-called end times. That in itself is a defining characteristic of the religion.

That said, Christianity is indeed one of THE top contributors to antisemitic views and behaviors, ever.

So have secular governments like the Soviet states. And our own anti-immigration policies.

But Christianity should not be conflated with “religion”. There are two billion Christians in the world, with wildly varying theologies, not just on eschatology but a whole lot of other things. Islam is another religion. So is Hinduism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, and these are just so-called world religions, not to mention animism, non-western indigenous religions on the African, Australian and South American continents.

Then you get the question of whether Buddhism is religion or philosophy.

Does Yoruba religion ruin everything? I say that’s unlikely, but maybe ask practitioners of Santería, Candomblé, Ifa, and related religions like Vodun, Vodou, voodoo, hoodoo, etc. whether it ruins everything. It will take you a while. Those religions span the Caribbean, Brazil, other parts of South America, and our own country.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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I don't think religion poisons everything. I do think that it fills some kind of human need for infinite universality, and that indeed there's a lot we don't know about cosmology. I'll leave it at that.

"Getting rid" of it would be like getting rid of eating. We need to find better ways of coping with its abuse. That's what poisons things.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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carmenjonze wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:38 am Then you get the question of whether Buddhism is religion or philosophy.
I tackle that in class. :D Westerners seem to believe "something" is only a "religion" if it worships a deity or deities. I think that's ethnocentric.

It not only fails for Buddhism, but also for Taoism and other Eastern religions like Shinto. The problem with Shinto is the same as for Voudoun. Are the kami of Shinto deities? Some are (notably the sun goddess who's the ancestress of the Emperor), some aren't, some in the West we'd call "spirits," and it's the same issue with the Haitian lwa.
Does Yoruba religion ruin everything?
Every zombie movie ever made wouldn't exist if not for it. :D

And we could start there.
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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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ProfX wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 12:53 pm I tackle that in class. :D Westerners seem to believe "something" is only a "religion" if it worships a deity or deities. I think that's ethnocentric.
It's definite a western understanding of what "religion" and "philsophy" are.

Image
It not only fails for Buddhism, but also for Taoism and other Eastern religions like Shinto. The problem with Shinto is the same as for Voudoun. Are the kami of Shinto deities? Some are (notably the sun goddess who's the ancestress of the Emperor), some aren't, some in the West we'd call "spirits," and it's the same issue with the Haitian lwa.



Every zombie movie ever made wouldn't exist if not for it. :D

And we could start there.
Yes and without west African diasporic religions, specifically, there's no salsa, no samba, no bossa nova, no calypso, no hip hop, no blues, no jazz, no Gospel, and no rock and roll.

Anyone in doubt can just ask Robert Johnson, who famously went down to the crossroads.

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Re: Hostage Situation at Texas Synagogue Ended

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ZoWie wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 12:34 pm I don't think religion poisons everything. I do think that it fills some kind of human need for infinite universality, and that indeed there's a lot we don't know about cosmology. I'll leave it at that.
There's a lot we don't know about death, too. FBOFW, religion provides answers that science and secularism are not designed to. And even science and secularism has developed closure rituals around death. They'll never call it "ritual," but that's what it is.

Sorry to the hardcore atheists and secularists and etc., but "you die, you go in the ground, and that's it" will never be a satisfactory answer to someone who is grieving. It sounds to me like how Evangelicals talk: "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it."

I find this attitude a lot. It's unrealistic, and actually irrational.
"Getting rid" of it would be like getting rid of eating.
Good analogy.

Good luck getting rid of eating...
We need to find better ways of coping with its abuse. That's what poisons things.
Or disallowing religious abuses, period. For me, this includes fascist Buddhist priests in Myanmar stoking genocide against Rohingya Muslims, rightwing nutjob Hindus doing the same to Muslims and Sikhs, the ethnoreligious shxt-show in Ethiopia between Oromo, Tigray, and Amhara; salafist extremism from Nigeria to Afghanistan to Indonesia and everywhere in between, white Evangelicals teaming up with violent Orthodox in eastern Europe and in African countries...religious extremism and abuse is so widespread.

In our own country, I might not be so averse to the whole "Muslims need to report radicals in their mosks" line if the people saying it practiced it themselves in their own religious environments. A lot of things in this country would change immediately, were they ever to do so.
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