He's a non-citizen who provided material support for a foreign terrorist organization. Hopefully the first of many more to come. Non-citizens can absolutely be removed if they engage in terrorist activity or provide support to one.

A visa is a privilege and to use it spit in the face of a country which gave you it deserves repercussions. Khalil led crowds which attacked police.

There are scores of movies, books and other texts/images that depict the dominant man getting a woman, from the James Bond franchise to the recent Dutch success 'Baby Girl' and from Pride and Prejudice to 50 shades of Grey. Apparently it is not that simple. Men could embrace feminine values and become nice guys, but that does not necessarily make them more attractive. Here we have a different kind of problem from the first, namely that what desired masculinity is, is itself still in doubt. Masculinity has become a problem for itself, it is unclear what it is precisely, how it should be constructed. It is clear that it is a problem, but unclear what the solution is because it is caught in a contradiction. It has to reform and not reform at the same time. — Tobias

The happiest and most enviable men who are those who can go home to a wife and kids that love them. It's not the Andrew Tates of the world. A man must be able to integrate "feminine" values to some extent. My advice - read the Bible. Jesus was a man who managed to successfully integrate masculine and feminine traits in a way that made him such a powerful human. The choice doesn't need to be Andrew Tate or be a doormat. If the dichotomy of alpha asshole/submissive beta is causing you mental strain then step outside of it.

This collapses the two concepts of faith and trust (emunah and bitachon), which are obviously related, but I see them as differing, although faith is required for trust. — Hanover

Thanks for bringing this up. True. Let's distinguish between the two according to Chabad:

Emunah: Emunah, however, is an innate conviction, a perception of truth that transcends, rather than evades, reason.

Bitachon: Generally translated as “trust,” bitachon is a powerful sense of optimism and confidence based not on reason or experience, but on emunah. You know that “G‑d is good and He’s the only one in charge,” and therefore you have no fears or frets.

A very useful distinction to draw out. I'd say that I have emunah, but not bitachon so much. Personally, I wouldn't regard either bitachon or emunah as chosen within my own psychology. Regarding emunah, the belief/conviction came to me under a certain set of circumstances. I suppose ideally true emunah would manifest in bitachon but I'm not quite there yet.

If you want to try to ground your bitachon/emunah rationally I would never try to argue against that because, as you correctly note, bitachon/emunah is conducive to psychological well-being.

Very strange statement from the EU on Syria:

The European Union strongly condemns the recent attacks, reportedly by pro-Assad elements, on interim government forces in the coastal areas of Syria and all violence against civilians.

Civilians have to be protected in all circumstances in full respect of international humanitarian law.

The EU also calls on all external actors to fully respect the sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of Syria. The EU condemns any attempts to undermine stability and the prospects for a lasting peaceful transition, inclusive and respectful of all Syrians in their diversity.

https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/spokesperson-statement-latest-developments-syria_en

Seems pretty clear that it's HTS/government forces committing the atrocities. Civilians are fleeing for safety to the Russian base in the area. Israel has also ventured in to protect Druze minorities. Perhaps there is a real drifting apart of the EU versus the American worldview. This seems pretty black and white to me.

Palestinians — BitconnectCarlos

The term is also essentially meaningless these days. Anyone living in historical Palestine is technically a Palestinian. So Benjamin Netanyahu is a Palestinian. For very nefarious reasons the term has simply come to mean "non-Jew living in historical Palestine."

You seem like you're in a vengeful mood.

Hundreds of Alawites, Kurds and Shia killed in Syria these past couple days and the world could not seem to care less.

They could lose it 20x. Doesn't change the fact they are the indigenous inhabitants. Nor does it change the fact that Palestinianism is simply a front for Islamic expansion - a far greater and more dangerous force than Israel.

If you knew your history -- if history actually mattered to you -- you would know that the Palestinians are colonizers. So Israel retaking land in Gaza or the West Bank is quite literally decolonization, and decolonization can sometimes be a bloody process as the colonizer entrenches themselves in the land and openly attempts to continue their colonization in the form of the chant "free Palestine."

Biblical writers & ancient redactors didn't know that the Americas existed. They weren't discovered until many centuries after the Bible was written. However, since 70-90% of Argentinians are Catholics those ideas brought over by the Spanish and the missionaries did stuck in the minds of the people. Why do you think this is? Is it just the power of European brainwashing and church organization or is there something else at play?

1) is faith an emotion or a thought? What if it is neither — Gregory

It's a word with various shades of meaning depending on the language and the context.

It's the Greek πίστις (pistis) - to have trust or confidence in something, could be towards God or towards another person among other things. I may have faith e.g. that a mechanic will drive out to repair my car which has broken down in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps he has done so 5x prior so my faith can be said to have some grounds or evidence. Christianity, at least Pauline Christianity, seems to be heavily, if not entirely, based on pistis in the resurrection.

Faith is also the Hebrew אֱמוּנָה (emunah) which is a dynamic and fluid concept that's also multi-directional. A popular Jewish prayer said in the morning is Modeh Ani which ends with "raba emunatech" - "great is your faithfuless" - that is, great is God's faithfulness towards us. Through restoring our souls to our bodies each morning and giving us another day God shows his faithfulness towards us.

Israel could annihilate them at any point. Yet it does not. Israel has nukes, chemical weapons, yet it restrains itself.

Surely if it sought to exterminate the Palestinians it would start with the Palestinians within its own borders, no?

Yes. And it is important for a group to protect itself against others who seek its own annihilation.

Genocide is always wrong. Gaza was purged of Jews as was much of the West Bank - Judea & Samaria.

What happened to the Jews of Bethlehem? Or Hebron?

Well, if Protestants murdered 1/3 of Europe's Catholics 80 years ago including members of your family that might alter your perspective both towards your heritage and the non-Catholic world.

If we had been there and saw a man, we knew to be Caesar crossing the Rubicon then we could be certain in the sense iof having no cogent reason to doubt that Caesar crossed the Rubicon. How certain of that can we be now? I don't know how well-documented it is...I am not an historian. — Janus

We would need to trust our sources regarding which man is Caesar and that he was indeed crossing the rubicon and not some other body of water.

I'm not a historian either, but without the roman civil war between caesar and pompey (apparently sparked by the crossing of the rubicon) we just cannot make sense of history and the events that transpire afterwards in egypt and elsewhere. it's so central to the narrative that if we doubt it all else falls into doubt.

The more we can cross-reference documents that record the same events when or close to when they happened, the more reliable we would think the records are—the more likely we would be to believe the events happened. There is no way to go back and observe though.

When the recording documents are understood to be more distant in time from the described events then their reliability would reasonably be thought to be inversely proportional to the temporal distance. When the described events are extraordinary, things of which we have no well-documented examples, like walking on water, raising people from the dead or turning water into wine. then we would be justified in skepticism.

In general, we cannot be sure of any historical events because as I said above, we cannot go back in time to observe for ourselves. — Janus

Even if we went back in time our eyes or senses could be deceiving us. Or we could just be misunderstanding the historical event.

IMO certain historical facts serve as linchpins and essentially place them practically beyond doubt without our historical knowledge of that period (and possibly later) falling apart. One example could be Caesar's existence. Even if a paper were to come out placing reasonable doubt on most or all the sources behind Caesar we couldn't seriously entertain the idea of Caesar's non-existence without unraveling so much of our historical knowledge of that period and beyond. So it could be said that we start with Caesar's existence (through our body of historical knowledge) and his existence is not so much a conclusion that e.g. we work up to inductively through gathering our sources and making an educated inference that he indeed existed.

Anscombe puts it better than me in her "Hume and Julius Caesar."

Which year do things start to be relevant to you?

Yes, history is irrelevant. Islam clearly no longer seeks to spread. Carry on.

Is there any point at which history becomes relevant to you?

The original Islamic expansion was not caused by some "cycle of violence" type logic. From its inception, Islam has simply been a religion that seeks to continuously expand. Has its nature fumdanentally changed since then?

It’s unspeakably awful and deserves condemnation. — Mikie

I agree that 9/11 was unspeakably awful and deserves condemnation. We should say the same of 10/7.

then acts like that largely wouldn’t be committed. — Mikie

I'm sure you know that Arab massacres of Jews in Palestine occurred in the 1920s and 1930s before Israel existed. Before there was an Israel to blame things on.

The victims of 10/7 didn't commit atrocities. The attempted bus bomber a few days ago did not target people who committed atrocities.

What would you say if a terrorist bomber from Afghanistan or Iraq blew up your neighborhood? Justified blowback, perhaps? America is no angel.

I’m American, therefore I defend Vietnam and Iraq? I’m Catholic, therefore I defend priests molesting children? — Mikie

What if it were your immediate family? Or what if your tribe/group had a history of persecution by another group and it's once again at your doorstep?

Every country has its sins of course; no country is perfect. So I'll certainly agree with you that America is flawed.

No I meant I'm Jewish.

And you're a state apologist as well given you supported the American Revolution and the creation of a new state from England and you seem to think it's been a force for good overall.

Oh wait— right, you’re just rooting for your team and everyone else is antisemitic. — Mikie

I've discussed this issue with many TPF users and I've only accused one of anti-semitism and it's not you. But yes, I'm situated. I was born to a certain culture, and I'm pretty open about that.

I’m also mostly in favor of slave revolts— like the one seen on October 7th. — Mikie

The Palestinians were slaves... that's a new one. So what did their Zionist taskmasters assign them?

What are your thoughts on the decision to fight the revolutionary war and declare independence from Great Britain? Justified or no?

I have not claimed that all wars that a nation engages in are good or necessary.

Civilizations must win wars/be able to defend themselves to be civilizations. They must sometimes use lethal force against criminal or terrorist elements, but I suppose all that is just "murder" to you.

You may not care whether a death was intended or not, but civilized nations do.

Because one is committing globally acknowledged crimes against humanity, and has been for some 70 years, and the other is not. — Tzeentch

Until I hear an explanation for the Bucha massacre this sounds like Putin apologetics.

Israel has never went into Gaza or the West Bank and hog-tied hundreds of civilians before executing them.

In the case of Israel-Palestine, it is not morally grey at all. It is perfectly clear to me what has gone on over the past 70 years — Tzeentch

Like when several Arab nations immediately attacked Israel from all sides and Israel didn't just roll over and die. What a travesty! :lol:

But yes, clearly black and white. We can all see the group that abducts civilian hostages and murders a mother and her little children in captivity are clearly the good guys. The issue couldn't be any clearer. All the human rights organization agree. No need to look at the footage or draw our own conclusions; just trust the organizations. The internationalist organizations always hold the truth and cannot be compromised.

Jews in Gaza are dead or hostages. Palestinians in Israel serve in Parliament. By all means, continue listening to your internationalist sources flush with Qatari money.

1) Is intention morally relevant to you?

2) You do realize intention isn't purely internal, correct?

ISIS doesn't have an air force either.

You can condemn airpower as inhumane, but without it you jeopardize allied victory and ensure a much more deadly ground war. Now I wonder whether naval bombardment is ok with you or if that's off limits.

EDIT: WIthout air and naval bombardments we surely lose, so our best course of action would just be to surrender.

True, there is no moral equivalence. Bombing from the air is morally worse. But I’m glad you can see into people’s souls now. When they kill, it’s because of race and evil intentions — when we do it, it’s accidental and unintended. — Mikie

Ok, so an allied bomber who strikes a weapons factory where the debris ends up hitting a nursery in the area and killing 10 babies is equivalent (if not worse, since you say bombers are worse) to a Nazi who intentionally executes 10 gypsy babies.

Both are the same morally. Ten dead babies. Accidental, intentional... doesn't matter. Maybe the pilot did intend to kill those babies. Maybe the Nazi's motives/intentions aren't so clear. Maybe he really wasn't trying to shoot those 10 romani babies he lined up and shot.

You presented an idea - a universal rule of thumb - and then rejected my historical application of that principle. :up:

What other wars/time periods are we not allowed to use as historical examples? Just for future reference.

EDIT: And yes, when pilots bomb military bases (where do babies live) that is not the same as shooting a baby at point blank range because it belongs to a certain race and to draw a moral equivalency between the two is deranged.

The US did kill many more Japanese babies than Japan killed US babies.

Additionally, we should note the difference between the intentional murder of babies (as occurred on 10/7 and to 10/7 hostages in captivity) and babies dying as a byproduct of a strike on a legitimate target.

So whichever side kills more babies is the bad side? Is that how we see history?

So the two Bibas brothers (4 and 10 months) were brutally murdered by Palestinian civilians a month after being captured with their bare hands via strangulation. But who cares? Thousands of Palestinian children have died. Why should two even matter?

Remember guys, as long as a non-state actor is fighting a state, the non-state is virtually always in the right because there's no way that small terrorist organization/non-state actor/battered population has caused more deaths (rightfully or wrongfully) than the state has over its long history.

So kill as many Israeli or American babies as you like; you are always the good one as long as your opponent is that state. :up:

Had this situation happened the other way around, we would say that Israel killed them, but on this occasion, it is simply a few Palestinian civilians -- certainly not representative of Palestinians in general -- who did the deed. Palestinians commit crimes individually, Israel as a collective. That's how the game works.

If the LBGT community called upon its members to burn copies of Paul's letter to the Roman's, I don't see how that could be seen as not offensive to the millions of Christians who might cherish that scripture, and have no ill regard for LGBT community; and I don't see how burning Romans would advance their cause. — ENOAH

Let me ask you something:

If a group of LGBT people did burn Paul's letters, and then a group of Christians arrived and began attempting to murder them by stabbing them which would be closer to your response?

a) How dare they burn that Scripture! They deserve what's coming to them for their transgression!

Or

b) These Christians is batshit insane and we must arrest these people and investigate what is being taught in their churches.

I'm thankful to live in a society where violence is not considered an acceptable response to provocative, non-violent behavior.

Let's think about this from another angle. So you've been with someone for many decades and find that actually, you want some space, need to go alone for a while and be on your own. Now what do you call it? I guess the term usually used would be 'brake up'. Fine, these things happen. Yet, do you really think that it won't have an effect on your relationship with this someone? Everything will be just fine and dandy like this. Or if you would need this someone, she or he will be there to continue as if nothing happened. — ssu

Sorry about the break up. I hope the US and Europe can still be friends.

Anyway, in the event that a broader scale war in the Middle East does break out I would prefer not to have Russia as a vehement enemy. I would prefer that the US has a dialogue with them; a rapport as opposed to just trading insults and giving sanctions which Biden did.

The EU has a combined GDP of $22bn and Russia has around $4bn so I don't see why the countries of Europe can't band together to deter Russia.