Yeah III – I’d never seen that before – it’s a good one!

I’m always having to look up initials to see what they mean in on-line urban dictionaries – I just assume it’s because I’m not young and cool anymore (actually, not sure I was ever very cool) and everyone else knows except me. They can come in handy on Twitter because you’ve only got 140 characters at most. Also, although I swear in my head a lot, I don’t like to do it out loud or in writing, so saying WTF comes is useful there.

A couple of years ago when having lunch in a cafe with one of my sisters and her two young daughters. Her and I saw something a bit weird that the girls didn’t notice and I said “WTF” to my sister. The girls were trying to work out what WTF stood for, and tried all sorts of combinations. They settled on “Who’s the fatty?” So that’s what it’s become between that sister and I. 😀

III. I love that!! Not sure I understand each word by itself or together, but I sense it captures something important.

I haven’t been no – I’ve been away for a few days, and it always takes me a while to recover afterwards. I’m still catching up on my e-mails. I’ll check it out sometime. I’m a bit reluctant to get involved at the moment because I’m having trouble keeping up already.

It’s hard to get someone to change a firmly entrenched belief, whatever it is, and there are certainly plenty of reasons to get anti-any religion if you look at it closely.

That’s exactly what it means when I use it Paxton – cheers. Sorry EA Blair – I’ve probably used it sometimes without explaining it too, and I should make a point of doing so each time I use it.

Thank you for that. I see so many III’s* on the internet that need to be explained that I have to wonder whether the effort of explaining after the fact mitigates the convenience of using the initialism in the first place.

*Intrinsically Idiomatic Initialisms

Sorry, I hate it too when people throw acronyms about. Social Justice Warrior. It’s a term I learned from Heather, which is why I didn’t spell it out. But I’ve since seen it elsewhere. As I understand the term, it is a derogatory reference to people who are willing to curtail free speech in order to protect vulnerable people from harm. Heather, want to correct me?

WTF is an SJW?

You made an important observation, related to Charlie Hebdo and similar incidents:t “Try asking Christians to stamp on a piece of paper that you’ve just drawn a cross on in pencil and see what happens. Do it in a Catholic Church, and you’re likely to get a pretty violent reaction. Look how some Muslims react to any depiction of Muhammad.”

Yes, no one likes to be insulted, especially regarding things that are sacred to them. I appreciate the value of humor and parody elucidating absurdities in religion, but I have little sympathy for those who insult people just for the purpose of denigrating, especially when the insulter is from the majority culture and the insulted is a minority. It’s just the SJW in me, I guess.

Have you followed Eric’s responses to our discussion and your post on the Crusades? I haven’t made much progress against his belief that Islam is and always has been a particularly vile and dangerous religion.

Hope you are well.

As you say, at the time of the First Crusade, the land had “belonged” to Muslims for some time, although in the context of that region, they were pretty recent interlopers. It can be argued that the Crusades are important today because they’re seen as a symbol, especially within Islam, and symbols are the expression of beliefs and are what drive people. Try asking Christians to stamp on a piece of paper that you’ve just drawn a cross on in pencil and see what happens. Do it in a Catholic Church, and you’re likely to get a pretty violent reaction. Look how some Muslims react to any depiction of Muhammad. The fact that most people, especially in the Christian world, have an erroneous idea of what happened seems not to be even relevant. I bet if you did a survey in the US asking who won the Crusades, at least 70% would say the Christians.

There is a major problem with how western countries and companies have behaved in the Middle East in the last 100 years since oil made it interesting. If you step back (and this isn’t to justify it, because it can’t be justified), it’s not any different to what those in power have been doing to the weak throughout history. We’ve got to the point where we are now, and in my opinion we have to find a way to move forward. The reason the Israel/Palestine issue isn’t getting solved is because both sides are so focused on what has been done to them in the past. They want justice/revenge for what they’ve suffered. That’s perfectly understandable, but it means nothing changes. Whenever it has seemed possible to move forward, both sides become unreasonable in some way. We can argue about who is right and who is wrong and who is the most unreasonable, but none of that will fix it. We need a two state solution, but at the moment neither side is prepared to make the concessions that are needed to make that work. In the meantime, Israel continues to exacerbate the situation by doing things like building on land that’s not theirs, and Gaza funnels a huge proportion of their already too small resources into things like weapons. Neither side is able to trust the other because both sides have proven they can’t be trusted in various ways. It’s easy to see Israel as the “baddie” because they have by far the most power, and have done by far the most physical damage, but they have justifiable complaints too. I also think religion is the biggest block in getting a solution – when children are getting taught in school and on state television, as they are in the Palestinian territories, that Jews are evil, it’s makes any hope of a peaceful future much less likely. The Hamas Charter is full of revolting anti-Semitic rhetoric too.

Who has a historical claim to any land? Do the anglo-saxons have any claim to England, or is it the Irish, scots, and Welsh who have the real claim? Does anyone have any historical claim to the Americas, other than the indigenous people? NZ–Maoris. But in an area as heavily trafficked as the Levant, who knows? wrt the crusades, for over 400 years the area had been in Muslim hands. Since 1187 until 1917 it was in Muslim hands. That’s a pretty good historical claim. Even the Hebrew people can be dated to no earlier than about 1200 bce. And their rule, to the extent it was a rule, was interrupted by Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, ending in about 63 bce, the Hebrews/Jews can hardly claim to have actually ruled Canaan for more than 500 years

The crusades are just a proxy issue for the Israeli Palestinian conflict. They have no bearing on anything, except as a symbol. It’s an interesting story, with no relevance to today. What is relevant today is the recent (last 100 years) history of western imperialism. People still remember the League of Nations mandates, and the western dominated petroleum companies that were set up to tap the oil. And the dictatorships the west supported in Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere. And the western imposed creation of a “Jewish State” in a land where a majority of people were Muslim. And the US/Brit “Christian Bush/Blair” invasion of Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands and setting off a conflagration that is still going on. And the savage Israeli onslaughts on defenseless Gazans, time and again, killing thousands. These things are real and alive in the minds of people (not western people because the media and the establishment don’t choose to see the truth). It’s these things, not the crusades, that matter.