Taliban kill children in Pakistan

[Matt-EUC]

Originally Posted by thulfi

Which religion, even in it's most extreme form would justify the murder of innocent children of it's own religion (never mind the others)?.

Christianity. No, really.


Psalms 137:9

[keith_d]

There's an article (http://www.vox.com/2014/12/16/740525...chool-pakistan) which suggests that in addition to the obvious revenge motive there may have been other reasons for this barbaric attack. Possibly as a show of strength when their rank and file members are under pressure from the military, or as a result of splits within the Taliban.

Whatever the motivation, I suspect there will be an unofficial 'shoot first' policy from the Pakistani army when dealing with Taliban suspects in future. It's not the sort of thing that's easily forgiven.

[ophic]

Originally Posted by keith_d

Whatever the motivation, I suspect there will be an unofficial 'shoot first' policy from the Pakistani army when dealing with Taliban suspects in future. It's not the sort of thing that's easily forgiven.

If there isn't already. This isn't the first instance of the Taliban attacking children in Pakistan. It's been going on for years.

[Red Herring]

Originally Posted by Matt-EUC

Christianity. No, really.


Psalms 137:9

I'm a bit of an atheist so probably not the best to advise on religion, but if you look at that Psalm,

"How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock."

there are two ways you can interpret it. If you are looking for justification for doing so then I can see how you may choose to read this is such, however I prefer to read it literally as a question.

Indeed, how blessed are they? I would suggest not very.....

[Matt-EUC]

Well, there's that. But more to the point, I pulled a verse from the bible and used it completely out of context so it now says what I want it to. (Totally appropriate to this discussion!!!)


If you read the rest of the chapter it makes a lot more sense and is much less awful.

[PyroUK]

In all fairness, it's all crap.

It doesn't matter which way you look at it.

You can try and work out why they may have felt justified but as westerners we will NEVER get it.

As he was trying to say, we don't know both sides of the story, it may have been that a, culturally relevant, slight was made against them and they retaliated. We won't understand what that is.

I however think it's more likely that, and I do not condone this, it was more tactical. It's the same way humans have done it since the dawn of our time. If you have an enemy and want to defeat them, you have certain options.

Fight the fighters, which will keep coming, or stop the fighters before they are fighters. This in my mind is the most likely reason. Not the best thought out, but most likely.

At the end of the day it doesn't matter if it's us or them, atrocities are committed in one way or another by every nation.

Look at the civilian death toll created by us and the yanks in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not to mention the cost in lives of our servicemen and women.

Originally Posted by Red Herring

I'm a bit of an atheist so probably not the best to advise on religion, but if you look at that Psalm,

"How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock."

there are two ways you can interpret it. If you are looking for justification for doing so then I can see how you may choose to read this is such, however I prefer to read it literally as a question.

Indeed, how blessed are they? I would suggest not very.....

True but if you read the whole old testament you can find instances of "soldiers of god" killing entire towns including women and children.

But it's ok because they were Evil, even the newborns. The bible says so.

Originally Posted by PyroUK

Look at the civilian death toll created by us and the yanks in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not to mention the cost in lives of our servicemen and women.

Civilians have always been casualties of war, that's inevitable in a world without formal battlefields, the difference is between accidents and deliberate targeting.

You can claim that the line is blurry in some instances but there's a pretty clear cut difference between an explosion that kills a soldier and a bystander and killing all the kids in a school with no military personnel for miles.

[maviczap]

Originally Posted by Spank86

True but if you read the whole old testament you can find instances of "soldiers of god" killing entire towns including women and children.
But it's ok because they were Evil, even the newborns. The bible says so.

Yes, and probably why these countries are still living in the dark ages, both spiritually & socially, if they are still living by old religious dictate.

I'm not religious by any means, but I don't have any issues with people who do, unless they believe that slaughtering innocent children is condoned by their god.

It's the old question about morality.

How do we know what is moral if morality is fluid, and even if it's fixed how do we know our perception is correct?

Its very easy to point to specific things and say immoral, or wrong, but not everyone shares the same views and what we point to today in horror may be classed on a par with some of our own actions when viewed by our decedents.

I think the real problem is the combining of two morally incompatible cultures. I find it interesting that Islam (in its current form at least) is 500 years younger than Christianity and when we look back 500 years we find behaviour that's not so far away. Not that I'm advocating ignoring the next 500 years of dead children in the hope that it'll all work out.

[BanannaMan]

Originally Posted by Matt-EUC

Christianity. No, really.


Psalms 137:9

Psalms is pre-Christ (aka Old Testament) so they would have been Jewish.