From: Joe Dees (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Mon Aug 04 2003 - 19:02:19 MDT
Let me furnish you with a real-world example, so you can try out different approaches on it...
Pro-Israel people are accused by anti-Israel people of ignoring distinctions between Arabs (many Arabs are not Muslim), Muslims
(most Muslims are not Arabs), and jihadist Wahhabi terrorists (who espouse a violent and vurulent minority mutational subset of
Islam, and are predominately, but not entirely, Arab), and of covertly attacking Islam and Arabs when they critique the Wahhabist
fantasy ideology. Anti-Israel people are accused by Pro-Israel people of ignoring distinctions between Jews, Israelis (not all of
whom are Jews), Semites (which include Jews and Palestinians - they are both susceptible to the genetically based malady of
Tay-Sach's disease) and Zionists (many Jews, both inside and outside of Israel, are not Zionists), and of covertly attacking Jews
when they critizice Zionist ideology or the actions of the state of Israel. Each side, in other words, accuses the other of racism
under the cover of religious and/or ideological critique. Each side also accuses the other side of pointing out nonexistent sawdust
motes in the eyes of the opposing members whilst ignoring the ship's masts obstructing their own vision. Both sides are right and
both are wrong to some degree, but to what degree? Is a truly objective and independent evaluation of their competing claims
possible, and if so, can such an evalustion help to resolve or at least ameliorate differences, or are all 'true believer'
extremists, regardless of the content of the memeset to which they are in thrall, immune to such evaluations, and pre-programmed to
memebotically filter them out?
To solve this dilemma could help us VALIDLY and SOUNDLY criticize other perspectives in a convincing manner and possibly win us
adherents, and also help us avoid similar pitfalls whilst engineering our own phaith.
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