[FrikgFeek]

Just because you think it does not make it true. In contrast, the flat earth is prima facie absurd given that the Earth was known to be spherical even in Columbus' day

People have known that the Earth is a few billions years old since Charles Lyell's day, in the 19th century. Yet you'd still probably oppose that.

[Luis Dias]

I'd make the obviously controversial point that political disputes are a tiny lil bit less consensual than the roundness of the planet, and thus that to speak in the same tone for those two different topics exposes a lil lack of nuance...

[Mito [PL]]

It's not that I know much about the conflict.

I think anyone would be terrified/angry/whatever else if someone just killed several people in the nearest neighborhood. And I think there's a lot of difference between hearing "Some people were killed here and there some time ago" and actually witnessing something like that happen just several hundred meters away from where you live. Doesn't it become sort of personal? I mean - the place changes from just a normal parkside ground, where you get to pass by when going to work/school/whatever to a place just screaming at you "Four people were killed here!!!". I think just that is disturbing enough.
It's kinda how politics affect the life of an average person, I guess. In one situation, it's the amount of taxes you will pay or other slow, economical processes interacting with your life on a daily basis that get modified... But on the other hand, politic actions also affect the propability of something like the topic of the discussion here happening to you or your closest environment. So it is rather related to politics whether we like it or not, and it would be actually strange if something else would be discussed here.
And while I recognise that in the light of recent events that in Islam-related (or being in any conflict with other local people groups, in this case) minorities there's just an probability of something like that happening, I hate to generalise. Thus, the people I blame for these extremistic actions are the extremists themself. One can find some of them in any nationality or religion, but it happens that Islam, due to ideals and values it promotes, definitely "produces" a lot more of them than the others. Though it doesn't change the fact that it's the actions of single people that get so known of throughout the world, and there's still a lot of people in those nations/religions that just want to live their lives peacefully.

[LaineyBugsDaddy]

Just because you think it does not make it true. In contrast, the flat earth is prima facie absurd given that the Earth was known to be spherical even in Columbus' day

People have known that the Earth is a few billions years old since Charles Lyell's day, in the 19th century. Yet you'd still probably oppose that.

The earth was not known to be billions of years old. Lyell, a LAWYER, not a geologist or any other sort of scientist, who was distinctly opposed the very idea of there being a God that he had to answer to, essentially invented that idea.

[Grizzly]

Charles Lyell very much was a geologist. That he also was a laywer doesn't suddenly invalidate his geological credentials. And he did not invent the idea either: Uniformitarianism, the idea that the same geological and geomorphical processes that we see today are also responsible for the shape of all the mountains and valleys and any other shape on this earth (except the netherlands ), was one proposed by James Hutton.

[Luis Dias]

****ing hell, this is worse than twitter.

[Sandwich]

****ing hell, this is worse than twitter.

QFT.

[Phantom Hoover]

****ing hell, this is worse than twitter.

mlyp

[Aesaar]

Is this a terrorist attack?  Seems to me, if you're fighting a war (declared or not), soldiers are perfectly legitimate targets.

[Dragon]

Right. I think everyone, including the OP, has missed this little nuance. It seems to me that the dead were soldiers. For some reason, attacking Nazi and Soviet soldiers in occupied Poland was a grand and heroic action (even before we found out about the camps!). Attacking British soldiers in occupied Ireland was morally questionable, but you'd find plenty of people arguing it was needed, especially in context of the early 20th century IRA. Attacking Israeli soldiers in occupied Palestine is murder. It seems that we've lost our perspective a bit. I've been indoctrinated about our partisans for quite a while in grade and middle school, but when I now look at things I've read, they've been pretty despicable. We're really lucky that Nazis turned out to be such bastards after the war, aren't we?

Make no mistake, guerilla tactics in both of these cases were similarly underhanded. Martyrdom isn't a Muslim invention, it dates back centuries. Even the idea of attacking civilian population is not new. The exact tactics change, as do weapons and equipment, but the general idea remains the same. So remember that next time you remember the heroic partisans of WWII. Partisans killing German civilians in Poland wasn't unknown, either. This particular attack does not rank very high on the guerilla atrocity scale.

Yes, it's traumatic. It's meant to be. That's the only way guerillas can win a war. By making their enemies' lives enough of a hell that they decide the land they're occupying is not worth the trouble (or allowing someone else to kick them out, that can work, too). Yes, it does take place in front of the children. All such wars do. Children planting bombs under train tracks, then hiding in the bushes and detonating them as the train passes. WWII Poland or modern Israel? The only thing that differs is the type of train.

[Grizzly]

Right. I think everyone, including the OP, has missed this little nuance.

Heeey! I mentioned that at reply #5!

[FrikgFeek]

The earth was not known to be billions of years old. Lyell, a LAWYER, not a geologist or any other sort of scientist, who was distinctly opposed the very idea of there being a God that he had to answer to, essentially invented that idea.

1.) Science believed the Earth to be a few hundred MILLION years old before Lyell, his ideas in no way contributed to disproving YEC. It was already pretty weak way before Lyell theorised the Earth to be a few billion years old. His ~40 years of geologic work had nothing to do with his faith.
2.)Lyell was very much a Geologoist, he was even elected secretary of the Geological society years before he published his "Principles of Geology"

You can believe what you want to but it's pretty hypocritical to call flat earth theories "absurd" while believing something equally absurd yourself.

[Dragon]

Right. I think everyone, including the OP, has missed this little nuance.

Heeey! I mentioned that at reply #5!

Right. Everyone but one person. Who was promptly ignored in favor of mods and admins fighting. Way to go, HLP.

[Sandwich]

Is this a terrorist attack?  Seems to me, if you're fighting a war (declared or not), soldiers are perfectly legitimate targets.

Right. I think everyone, including the OP, has missed this little nuance.

Nope. I was wondering how long the "is this/isn't this" terrorism question would come up since before I even began this thread.

Look through my posts. I never called this attack "terrorism". An attack, mass murder, yes. Terrorism, no... although it does succeed in causing terror, the definition of "terrorism" (AFAIK) is "attacks directed at a civilian populace to invoke terror, often for political reasons".

While I did mention terrorism in my second post when I wrote "terrorism doesn't attain peace", I then went on to refer to the many years we've suffered these types of attacks, thus clarifying that when I said "terrorism", I meant most everything we've gone through over the years, not this specific attack. The styles are the same as past acts of terrorism, but because the target was military forces, it technically counts as "legitimate".

[Phantom Hoover]

Killing enemy soldiers is not murder, let alone mass murder.

[LaineyBugsDaddy]

Actually, that would depend on what combination of location, duty status, and in or out of uniform they are.

[Grizzly]

Actually, that would depend on what combination of location, duty status, and in or out of uniform they are.

Most countries have a similar definition of what constitutes a "combatant", but Israel in particular considers it to be “soldiers serving in the army (regular and reserve) or in well-ordered militia forces (e.g. the SLA or the State National Guards in the United States)”. It's just duty status which defines whether or not someone is military.

[Grizzly]

While I did mention terrorism in my second post when I wrote "terrorism doesn't attain peace", I then went on to refer to the many years we've suffered these types of attacks, thus clarifying that when I said "terrorism", I meant most everything we've gone through over the years, not this specific attack. The styles are the same as past acts of terrorism, but because the target was military forces, it technically counts as "legitimate".

Yo, we all get that Israel is a rather ****ty place to live in, but why did you in the same breath attempt to justify Israel reneging on any peace agreement it has been party to? The attacks have been ongoing for decades, but Isreal's occupation has been ongoing for decades too, with rather destructive results, and it has only further escalated. As a participant in Israel's democratic process you do actually have some power in changing that.

[Phantom Hoover]

I honestly don't think there's much point in discussing this with Sandwich, because he's very entrenched in the idea that the conflict is entirely the fault of Them, the Palestinians, and that the Israelis have never, ever done anything wrong or provocative. You can see this on the first page where he blows up the part about the guy who was "married and reportedly had four children" apparently because he finds that particularly outrageous; but I'm willing to bet that he feels no such outrage when Israeli shells kill Palestinian children because to him Israeli actions are always justified and proportionate.

[Sandwich]

Yo, we all get that Israel is a rather ****ty place to live in, but why did you in the same breath attempt to justify Israel reneging on any peace agreement it has been party to?

Huh? What peace agreement are we reneging on? How did you even get to that conclusion?

The attacks have been ongoing for decades, but Isreal's occupation has been ongoing for decades too, with rather destructive results, and it has only further escalated. As a participant in Israel's democratic process you do actually have some power in changing that.

In the time period between 1948 and 1967, there were no "settlements" to get all up in arms about. No "occupation". So why were the Arabs/Palestinians attacking Israeli civilians? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_against_Israeli_civilians_before_1967

I'll tell you why. Settlements/Occupation are a convenient excuse for the Islamic goal of killing Jews wherever they are found. Jewish existence is an affront to Allah or something, so they rile themselves up with incitement and inflammatory sermons about slaughtering the Jew, and go out to kill those pigs and monkeys, the infernal Jews.

Newsflash: There is such a thing as actual evil intent in the world. The minority isn't always in the right just because they're the minority. Fundamental Muslims want to kill Jews because of all the anti-Semitic hatred and the incitement they're inundated with from the time they can walk. They want to get those 72 virgins, perhaps have a street, school, soccer team, or park named after them, and have their family handsomely compensated.

Besides, the West Bank is at best (at worst?) disputed territory, not occupied territory. I won't get into that now though.

I honestly don't think there's much point in discussing this with Sandwich, because he's very entrenched in the idea that the conflict is entirely the fault of Them, the Palestinians, and that the Israelis have never, ever done anything wrong or provocative. You can see this on the first page where he blows up the part about the guy who was "married and reportedly had four children" apparently because he finds that particularly outrageous...

You do realize that the guy I was upset about, the guy who was married and had four children, was the Palestinian driver of the truck that rammed into the group of IDF soldiers, right? I.E. the perpetrator, not one of the victims? He had a family to take care of, and he goes and does what he did. That is evil.

...but I'm willing to bet that he feels no such outrage when Israeli shells kill Palestinian children...

Israel protects its children with its soldiers. Palestinians protect their fighters with their children.

Where is your outrage over their use of children as human shields? Where is your outrage when they launch rockets at Israeli cities from schoolyards and mosques? Where is your outrage over their indoctrination of their own children from before they can speak with the glorification of hatred, violence, and murder?

Why is it that I, an Israeli Messianic Jew, appear to be the only one outraged over what the Palestinians are doing to their own children?

...because to him Israeli actions are always justified and proportionate.

Which one of us has performed those "Israeli actions" firsthand? Which one of us has had to take the precautions, risk his life to do things the dangerous, door-to-door way, instead of just bombing an entire village and calling it a day? The IDF is one of the most humane militaries in the world, taking extraordinary precautions to avoid collateral damage. Quit being an armchair general, deluded into thinking that you have an inkling what you're talking about just because you saw something on the news.