Rayvin

Why on earth would you join the Tories... I think Renton is spot on, she's a career politician trying to preserve her livelihood. Doesn't change the fact that the SNP have treated her disgracefully of course.

Again though, I think Russia's ability to compel people to invade and brutalise another country (very similar acts of aggression) - and indeed Ukraine's ability to compel people to defend their country rather than just flee - suggest that religion is not at all the only thing that could produce these outcomes. There are all sorts of narratives that we might accept to push us to do this. I'm tempted to say the issue is more about a widespread lack of critical thinking skills than it is about anything else. Or maybe it's just baked into our social DNA, that we build group bonds around abstract concepts that then come to define our identity, and treat attacks on those identities with serious hostility. I appreciate that this is adjacent to the main topic at hand here although I have tried to keep my posts on it somewhat relevant to the matter at hand, but this probably isn't the place for a philosophical conversation on religion in the end.

Religion certainly is a significant component part of culture, but I suspect culture is the unifying theme in all cases where religion is implicated and indeed where it is not. Russia has a culture built up around strong man politics, a view that Russia is on its own against a hostile world and needs to defend itself proactively. China has a persecution complex baked into its culture. The US has some bastardised version of white saviour complex and exceptionalism. These things have and will continue to push these countries to undertake violent acts. However at this point I think you'd be more inclined to suggest that those in power are just manipulating narratives that they're pushing - and I think my point in all of this is that religion is just another one of those narratives.

I understand the view but I just don't really agree, I think the people who want this stuff to happen would find ways to justify it either way. Definitely in this case tbh. The Israel/Palestine issue is a political one on the face of it, to me at least - I would imagine that after decades of perceived injustice and oppression at the hands of Israel, Hamas could have managed to have this happen with or without any religious implications. Human nature and our propensity for being "led" is more of an issue for me than religion.

This is absolutely where I am on this too. I think the best you could argue is that religion is perhaps the lowest of low hanging fruit in terms of whipping people up into a murderous frenzy, but then Russia has still managed that in the invasion of Ukraine and there are no religious underpinnings to that of any real note. I think it's actually culture in the end that is the thing we go to war over.

I think because there are people out there who seem to think if you take religion away humankind lives in total peace and harmony, and I'm just not seeing it. Religion is a convenient narrative or context for violence often enough, but I suspect that in this case we would be seeing this violence with or without it.

As an aside, I've seen a lot of people talk about this as a religious conflict but im not personally sure if it is one. Is it not nationalism that underpins this rather than religion? I know that religion is heavily intertwined of course but I'm not sure it on its own is the "why".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre I'm not really trying to make a big thing of this terrorism angle I'm really just responding to the point about how Britain would react. I think we'd go to war on either side of it tbh.

I miss HF tbh, he was a good guy.

I will add that I don't see any way for Hamas to ever get what it wants through any means - which makes this latest escalation cruel and spiteful at the cost of many lives. A people without hope, acting hopelessly.

True but how would the British public have responded if we had been Palestine in the 1940s, is the other side of that. It's been a while since i read up on this but I'm fairly sure Palestine was constantly targeted by Zionist terrorists prior to the formation of Israel (and who also massacred women and children) and then effectively they were given victory by the British. Would we have accepted that in our country, especially if it was imposed on us by a colonial power? I really don't see how anyone fixes this because the whole situation is flatly impossible at the outset. Its incredibly sad.

The West's inconsistency on all such matters is an embarrassment to all of us tbh. The cost of pragmatism over principle ultimately.

What in the everloving fuck did you search to get that?

I'm creating this thread due to the lock put on the previous thread. I'm not going to put forward any views or sentiments of my own in this opening post but just want to outline that since this is obviously a very sensitive topic which affects some people on the board quite personally, especially at the moment, we should have some care in terms of emotive wording and so on. That said, it is also important that people are allowed to freely discuss the factual realities of the situation, naturally.

I agree with the above and am locking this. @PaddockLad or indeed anyone, please feel free to make a new topic. I agree that it should have it's own place outside of General Convo. EDIT - nvm I created one myself. If we determine there's a better way of approaching it than what I've done then I'm happy to adjust.

Quite so!

I'm sorry like but the rest of my colleagues could just fuck off on this one, especially if I was allergic to the damn things It is callous of them to inflict that upon you, not the other way around.

I think you'd be within your rights to raise a concern around it truth be told. I feel like at absolute minimum the dog should be housetrained if it's going to be in a working environment. If you're allergic then I would imagine they also have to prevent dogs being on the property out of a duty of care, surely...?

I didn't tbh, I replied as I was reading through earlier posts. I will do. I'm also just going to leave this for now anyway, it's not the time.

They used "launch" twice in quick succession...

Apparently the guy was a PR agitator so it could well have been me!

I don't disagree with any of that really. And the UK in particular should hang its head in shame over this complete fiasco it had a significant hand in creating.

I would say the race to the bottom on hatred has now been reached in this conflict, but then the human capacity for inflicting suffering is seemingly boundless. Heads are going to roll in the Israeli intelligence setup though, seems that this caught them completely off guard. I wonder what we'd do in the shoes of either side. You'd like to think we'd somehow be 'better' and 'more compassionate', but I doubt it.

Am struggling to imagine how pissed I'd be if I was some sort of talented performer and yet this was how I was known.

I reckon it comes down to precision - Hollywood passes were (IMO) meant to have an clearly observed intended target who was making a run in anticipation of it. Allardyce just had his defenders skying the thing to no one in particular in the hope that the big guy up front could get himself under it and then 'hold up play'. Mind you, this is me being devil's advocate, I can see the point you're making.