Pure Brutality

[Leonardo17]

I recently came upon this BBC interview on the life of women in the regions that are being controlled by ISIL.
In summary an ISIL fighter needs only to see a woman. Then if he wants to he can take that woman (after a sham marriage ceremony = She is being asked 3 times by the Imam, than she is the wife of the guy she doesn’t even know). Then the ISIL fighter buy her stuff and does with her things that he wants to do (buying her some sexy underwear etc.) Then the ISIL fighter gets killed and these two get to escape Syria and talk to the press in Turkey:
 




 
This video reminds me of a 2019 movie called “Miss Bala”. I am not sure but I think it has to be available on Netflix.


 
The plot is very interesting. Gloria’s sister Suzu gets kidnapped by the Mexican Cartel and Gloria decides not to let it go. The DEA also spots her and decides to use her as a covert agent inside the Mexican drug cartel. So she play the role of a “friend” of the cartel member Lino Esparza. Esparza is an interesting very clever character that I would define as a sociopath. (Psychopaths are born this way – sociopaths are people who turn into what they are because of their environment in their early childhood). Gloria is such an interesting character because she knows how to set limits with this psycho Esparza and manages to get out of the situation basically unharmed. In the movie there is this other woman Isabel. This one is more like the property of the cartel. Esparza is basically doing whatever he wants with her and Isabel is basically supposed to take it all in while still having a smile on her face. In the end she even loses her will to live and ends up sacrificing herself in order to give Gloria a chance to escape.
 
I decided to share this here because I’ve recently read that people with severe personality disorders (narcissists, Borderlines, sociopaths, especially narcissists) can be very good at using religion and spirituality as a cover or as a pretext to carry-out their antagonistic behaviors on more ordinary people. As I tried to explain before, I don’t believe this has anything to do with what I would call “real” religion or spirituality.
 
Unfortunately, there are many groups that have the stamp of “Islam” on them. But on the level of practice, these are drug cartels, barbarian hordes, mafia-like organizations or political organizations whose modus-operandi is similar to that far-right parties all over the world.
 
I cannot say there is no gender roles in religious teachings. This is an aspect of our lives in this world so most spiritual teachers did say a thing or two on these issues.
 
Still it is not possible to study these issues and establish any type of connection between that and what is pure and simple brutality. I believe that something like the Taliban could not have existed in the old ages. I think at some point, there would be a truly religiously motivated war against them.
 
Today there is no Christendom and/or Caliphate of any kind. We all became nation-states. But if there was such a thing. The IRI (for instance), and all other parallels would probably be seen heretics and other nations would subdue them in one way or the other.  

[The Grand Nudger]

Yet another thread where you claim that there's no connection between these silly religions and the things their most ardent followers keep doing. You believe that something like the taliban couldn't have existed in the old ages, but big mo and his merry band of slavers rapists and warlords were the prototype.

[Sheldon]

I believe that something like the Taliban could not have existed in the old ages. 

Really. have you read the bible or the koran at all?

[Leonardo17]

Yet another thread where you claim that there's no connection between these silly religions and the things their most ardent followers keep doing.  You believe that something like the taliban couldn't have existed in the old ages, but big mo and his merry band of slavers rapists and warlords were the prototype.

But that’s a fact. In medieval times you had the crusades, women were not that free after all, the justice system was nothing like our modern legal codes that are based on reason and the demonstration of guilt. But we can still say that these things still existed in a more rudimentary form. Perhaps less in Europe and more in the East.
 
But take a look at this for instance:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/taliban-moral...32228.html
 
   In medieval times, religion was the de-facto ideology of everyone. Outside the aristocracy no one could even read and write, so the religion was the main identification for people and for states. That’s how the Northern Crusades happened in 1209 for instance (you can just check it on Wikipedia).
 
So that’s just my assumption. There were still ways of doing things in the dark ages. The term “Sultan” meant “The will of God”. So I am just imagining an emissary arriving from some neighboring country reporting half of the things that are happening in Iran right now. In the mentality of that age, it was the duty of the Sultan to react on that.
 
That’s the ideology behind the crusades as well. While the real goal was basically the plundering of the riches of the East, the ideology behind it was what I say it is. That’s the difference between scholasticism and our more modern / rational way of thinking.
 
So these guys are living on our backs in way. They are only doing what they are actually doing because it is possible to do these things in our age. In ancient times they would probably been eradicated in very cruel ways. And these things did happen a lot in the Ottoman Empire. Groups like that would challenge the emperor and end up getting tied up to trees until they die of starvation and/or be eaten by wild animals.
 
All I am saying is that these things were taken very seriously since the main ideology at the time was that only one way of practicing religion was correct and all the rest were incorrect.
 
So a land that is ruled by bearded people slaughtering their own people for no reason. What would be the reaction of Tamerlane?

Sheldon:

 
You don’t just “read” these books. I mean you do, but I study them in a more gradual manner. Trying to understand one issue at a time. Spiritual progress is no a 1 or 0 situation. I see it as a lifelong process in which main religious books are useful tools in achieving just that.

[Belacqua]

In medieval times, religion was the de-facto ideology of everyone.

And that's why the brutality done in the bad old days tended to justify itself in religious terms. Not always, but sometimes.

But I think recent times have proven that we are plenty capable of extreme brutality with non-religious ideologies as well. Perhaps we're better at distancing ourselves from the evil we do -- dropping bombs that are out of sight and out of mind. Or setting up policies that seem bureaucratic and bloodless, but end with misery for lots of people. 

But this is just as brutal, and in fact more efficient at ruining people's lives.

[Sheldon]

Leonardo17 Wrote:

I believe that something like the Taliban could not have existed in the old ages. 

Sheldon Wrote:
Really. have you read the bible or the koran at all?

Leonardo17Sheldon, You don’t just “read” these books. I mean you do, but I study them in a more gradual manner. Trying to understand one issue at a time. Spiritual progress is no a 1 or 0 situation. I see it as a lifelong process in which main religious books are useful tools in achieving just that.

This rather misses the point, in that the texts of both books, describe societies that suggest your claim about the Taliban is dubious.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's the thing that Leo is here to try and solve. It's clear that he thinks the stories are shit. Just pure unmitigated garbage. But how to best whistle past that graveyard? At the end of the day, I can't even be mad, because he's just wondering how he's supposed to say he doesn't believe in all this shit in a way that doesn't make the sweet 80 year old woman next door plot his murder.

[Leonardo17]

In medieval times, religion was the de-facto ideology of everyone.

And that's why the brutality done in the bad old days tended to justify itself in religious terms. Not always, but sometimes.

But I think recent times have proven that we are plenty capable of extreme brutality with non-religious ideologies as well. Perhaps we're better at distancing ourselves from the evil we do -- dropping bombs that are out of sight and out of mind. Or setting up policies that seem bureaucratic and bloodless, but end with misery for lots of people. 

But this is just as brutal, and in fact more efficient at ruining people's lives.

- That’s what I am talking about. Yesterday I was talking with someone about the Political Islamist party in my country. The person I was talking with was telling me that the Political Islamist Party did not care about religion and that their only goal was to rob the countries riches as much as it could.
 
   My answer to that was that it is their very nature to be whatever it is that they are. In terms of energies, these are lower energy people. They like to lie, to twist things, do things that are bad for others and “good” for their own ego and otherwise they’ll just fit in. If religion is available, they will use it and try to pass laws promoting polygamy for instance (This happened yesterday in Iraq). If not, they don’t need it either. They’ll present themselves as socialists (like Maduro or the Sandinistas of Nicaragua) or even as pure pragmatists (like the regime in Russia).
 
   So that’s the little thing that we as spiritual have that atheists usually don’t have. When you are into some genuine form of spirituality. You end up distinguishing ego centered behavior better than other ordinary people.
 
Sheldon + Grand Nudger:
 
  

---

You have to be in it to know some of the stuff happening today is pure invention. You know, Deephak Chopra (who is of Hindu faith) wrote a very nice on the life of the prophet Mohammad. When I am into that kind of interesting literature I still wonder how some people were / are able to interpret the messages of these enlightened beings in a way that is so completely wrong.
 
    I know what it looks like from the outside. And being where you are you are not entirely wrong.
 
   For me “to be in it” means not even knowing how people in the IRI brought themselves into the situation in which they are right now. In a Course of Miracles it says “Do not underestimate the vengeance of the Ego”. And that’s what happening here.
 
   This is supposed to be something that helps us / lifts us above our material – worldly conditions so that we all end up living a better life while knowing that it’s only a dream.
 
But when people are so deeply rooted in what we call “the false self” or the “physical self” the result is that they take those spiritual tools and use it for all sorts of thing.

---

 
In a more materialistic description: Having parents is a good thing, you know. Having been loved, having been raised in a human way. Not all people have that. That’s what I am trying to say in a nutshell.

[Leonardo17]

And that's why the brutality done in the bad old days tended to justify itself in religious terms. Not always, but sometimes.

But I think recent times have proven that we are plenty capable of extreme brutality with non-religious ideologies as well. Perhaps we're better at distancing ourselves from the evil we do -- dropping bombs that are out of sight and out of mind. Or setting up policies that seem bureaucratic and bloodless, but end with misery for lots of people. 

But this is just as brutal, and in fact more efficient at ruining people's lives.

- That’s what I am talking about. Yesterday I was talking with someone about the Political Islamist party in my country. The person I was talking with was telling me that the Political Islamist Party did not care about religion and that their only goal was to rob the countries riches as much as it could.
 
   My answer to that was that it is their very nature to be whatever it is that they are. In terms of energies, these are lower energy people. They like to lie, to twist things, do things that are bad for others and “good” for their own ego and otherwise they’ll just fit in. If religion is available, they will use it and try to pass laws promoting polygamy for instance (This happened yesterday in Iraq). If not, they don’t need it either. They’ll present themselves as socialists (like Maduro or the Sandinistas of Nicaragua) or even as pure pragmatists (like the regime in Russia).
 
   So that’s the little thing that we as spiritual have that atheists usually don’t have. When you are into some genuine form of spirituality. You end up distinguishing ego centered behavior better than other ordinary people.
 
Sheldon + Grand Nudger:
 
  

---

You have to be in it to know some of the stuff happening today is pure invention. You know, Deephak Chopra (who is of Hindu faith) wrote a very nice on the life of the prophet Mohammad. When I am into that kind of interesting literature I still wonder how some people were / are able to interpret the messages of these enlightened beings in a way that is so completely wrong.
 
    I know what it looks like from the outside. And being where you are you are not entirely wrong.
 
   For me “to be in it” means not even knowing how people in the IRI brought themselves into the situation in which they are right now. In a Course of Miracles it says “Do not underestimate the vengeance of the Ego”. And that’s what happening here.
 
   This is supposed to be something that helps us / lifts us above our material – worldly conditions so that we all end up living a better life while knowing that it’s only a dream.
 
But when people are so deeply rooted in what we call “the false self” or the “physical self” the result is that they take those spiritual tools and use it for all sorts of thing.

---

 
If I had to formulate this in a more materialistic manner I would simply say this: Having parents is a good thing, you know. Having been loved, having been raised in a human way. Not all people have that. That’s what I am trying to say in a nutshell.

[arewethereyet]

^Having parents is pretty much a necessity.