User Police

serguey123

@serguey123 said:
What makes you think of Ireland?
1) Speak English (or something remotely close to it) as a primary language
2) Has a lot of IT workers, and IT companies
3) Has a crazy hilarious corrupt government, and as such was slammed during the financial crisis (highest level of household debt in the world, according to the Wikis, right behind Iceland I imagine)
Based on the stuff you've been saying in this thread, though, I might guess you're from a former Russian republic... but the problem with that is your English is too good to be ESL (I think?) and the odds of someone from an English-speaking country moving there permanently would be remote. But it would explain the paranoia over revealing where you're from. @serguey123 said:
I won't entertain guesses, there is a reason I keep that stuff for myself
The Irish secret police are going to pelt you with potatos!

Hmm, thank for the praise about the English language, I guess.

English is just one of the languages I speak and is far from being my primary language. I recall saying this to you in another thread.

Potatoes are a valued resource so I doubt they will use that.

It is not paranoia

blakeyrat

@serguey123 said:

English is just one of the languages I speak and is far from being my primary language. I recall saying this to you in another thread.

This may shock you, but I don't keep a dossier on everybody on this forum.

@serguey123 said:

It is not paranoia

Oh noes it's a North Korean!

Now I'm just starting to think you're from fucking Ohio and a huge drama queen.

stratos

Come on blakey, he has at least 500 posts and you have have some text classifying code lying around.

serguey123

@blakeyrat said:

@serguey123 said:
English is just one of the languages I speak and is far from being my primary language. I recall saying this to you in another thread.
This may shock you, but I don't keep a dossier on everybody on this forum. @serguey123 said:
It is not paranoia
Oh noes it's a North Korean!
Now I'm just starting to think you're from fucking Ohio and a huge drama queen.

Sorry I tend to forget the fact that not everybody has a good memory.

Look, believe what you want, I won't entertain guesses, if you want to think I'm north korean fine, (I actually know the language, but not well), if you want to think I'm from Ohio fine as well, (never been there), if you want to think I'm a drama queen, fine.

My first post was that I won't discuss my country, nor the people I work for, not because of fear of potatoes but because people are jerks about it, (they have some points, but still, it is annoying).

So paranoia is not the reason

blakeyrat

@serguey123 said:

My first post was that I won't discuss my country, nor the people I work for, not because of fear of potatoes but because people are jerks about it, (they have some points, but still, it is annoying).

Please. I work for a company that does internet advertising, about the most hated activity among geeks. Nagesh posts from India, which is hatred central for geeks due to offshoring. Neither of us get any crap about it. So yes, it is paranoia.

serguey123

@blakeyrat said:

@serguey123 said:
My first post was that I won't discuss my country, nor the people I work for, not because of fear of potatoes but because people are jerks about it, (they have some points, but still, it is annoying).
Please. I work for a company that does internet advertising, about the most hated activity among geeks. Nagesh posts from India, which is hatred central for geeks due to offshoring. Neither of us get any crap about it. So yes, it is paranoia.

I beg to differ, you made a thread about morons making fun of Nagesh and I recall some comments when you discussed advertising and adblocking.

Ok, there might be some justified paranoia because of my job or my nationality and perhaps some of it is unjustified, again, think what you want, but I'm not discussing it in a public place with people I don't know.

blakeyrat

@serguey123 said:

I beg to differ, you made a thread about morons making fun of Nagesh and I recall some comments when you discussed advertising and adblocking.

Yeah, well, the main page is a completely different world. I don't recall anybody bitching about my work though.

@serguey123 said:

Ok, there might be some justified paranoia because of my job or my nationality and perhaps some of it is unjustified, again, think what you want, but I'm not discussing it in a public place with people I don't know.

Aw but you know us!!

@serguey123 said:

Filed under: drop the fucking issue already

Hells no.

serguey123

@blakeyrat said:

. I don't recall anybody bitching about my work though.

They were, you were also talking about how using AdBlock is inmoral for free content serving websites.

[@blakeyrat said:

Aw but you know us!!

No, I don't.

@blakeyrat said:

@serguey123 said:
Filed under: drop the fucking issue already
Hells no.

Whatever

blakeyrat

@serguey123 said:

@blakeyrat said:
@serguey123 said:
Filed under: drop the fucking issue already
Hells no.

Whatever

Ah, people from California do "whatever." So you must be Californian!

The_Assimilator

@RogerWilco said:

Being fluent in a foreign language is difficult.

FTFY.

@Nagesh said:

@stratos said:
@Nagesh said:
Speling mistake in my country happen all time. Sometime we use right speling, but wrong word.

if naturel language is not English, what can be done?

Convince your government or minister of education or whom ever that teaching kids english in school as a second language is a good move. Perhaps even going for that extra mile and let them add a third language, like spanish, german or perhaps, considering the location of india, mandarin.
What you yourself can do is of course learn the language on your own, and when we assume you are not a novelty account you are actually pretty much on the right path by joining an english forum and using it daily. Perhaps won't help your pronounciation, but people who don't understand your naitive written language will thank you for your better grasp of english when for some reason then need to read your code or documentation.
On a side note. Wasn't india occupied/part-of the great british empire for a hundred odd years. I'd always imagined that grasp of the english language would be pretty common in india.

dear startos,
as british ocupied india, they comit severel atrocities in our cities and towns. they rape many women and leave behind ofspring who nobody want. all our govt documentation is still in english. hindi is still strong, but mostly in rural population.
also it is more than 63 years since we acrue freedom. people have more than 1 medium of learning. so my school hindi medium. lot of people go to english medium school and aquire good english speaking and writing skill if they pay attention as for me, i come from averege middle family so canot aford english medium schooling. i try to make up by reading. right now i am reading hardy boys novels writen by Franklin W Dixon. I hope to write beter in less then one year.

Sherlock Holmes, dude.

@Xyro said:

@blakeyrat said:
Alternatively, encourage home-grown tech industry growth so that you're the one creating the documentation and everybody else has to deal with your language.

@derula said:
@serguey123 said:
@derula said:
Who cares, let's strike the US and European countries anyway!

OMG, Germany is doing it again

WWIII has been declared
Someone had to do it, and we just have the experience. Everyone else would probably have done it wrong.

SAP?

That was my first thought too... shudder...

Weng

@blakeyrat said:

@serguey123 said:
Btw, people discuss something more important than my nationality, I would be very surprised if anyone actually guessed my country of birth as I'm the only one in this forum from Corrupsylvania

I've just been assuming Corrupsulvanian is Ireland. How many continents off am I?

My operative theory is either Romania or Bulgaria. I've known english speakers from both and, aside from their HILARIOUS accent, their english was actually EXCELLENT and nearly indistinguishable from a native speaker when written.

blakeyrat

@Weng said:

@blakeyrat said:
@serguey123 said:
Btw, people discuss something more important than my nationality, I would be very surprised if anyone actually guessed my country of birth as I'm the only one in this forum from Corrupsylvania

I've just been assuming Corrupsulvanian is Ireland. How many continents off am I?
My operative theory is either Romania or Bulgaria. I've known english speakers from both and, aside from their HILARIOUS accent, their english was actually EXCELLENT and nearly indistinguishable from a native speaker when written.

Oh man I need to meet some Bulgarians. There's nothing I love more than a funny accent.

DaveK1

@stratos said:

@DaveK said:
You post appears to display unstated assumptions
and a lack of real knowledge about both the history of India and the
current state of language usage and teaching there.

Your, I assume, assumption that i'm a prick is wrong. It may not have included a question mark, but a question it was.

No, that was not my assumption, although it may possibly - or not - be a valid inference from my assumptions. I made two assumptions, both of which I will now enumerate:

1: My first assumption is that you were not aware that you were talking about what is in fact the largest English-speaking nation in the world.

2: My second assumption ...

@stratos said:

Convince
your government or minister of education or whom ever that teaching
kids english in school as a second language is a good move.

... is that you deliberately worded your post to be patronising on purpose. But I assume nothing about your motivation for doing so.

Please feel free to correct either of my actual assumptions that were incorrect.

PJH

@Xyro said:

Are you from the Vatican?

Perhaps he's one of the 2.3 (living) popes per square km there?

PJH

@DaveK said:

1: My first assumption is that you were not aware that you were talking about what is in fact the largest English-speaking nation in the world.

Erm - India is 2nd by absolute number of speakers, not first.

serguey123

@blakeyrat said:

@Weng said:
@blakeyrat said:
@serguey123 said:
Btw, people discuss something more important than my nationality, I would be very surprised if anyone actually guessed my country of birth as I'm the only one in this forum from Corrupsylvania
I've just been assuming Corrupsulvanian is Ireland. How many continents off am I?
My operative theory is either Romania or Bulgaria. I've known english speakers from both and, aside from their HILARIOUS accent, their english was actually EXCELLENT and nearly indistinguishable from a native speaker when written.

Oh man I need to meet some Bulgarians. There's nothing I love more than a funny accent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPQPz27L6RE //I haven't watched it, I was looking for the one with the lady when she gives an awful rendition of a popular song, so I can't vouch for it being really funny.

Just because I like you, also please update you blog more often

More bulgarian goodies http://www.funbox.pk/video/play.asp?funboxpk=yPQPz27L6RE&title=bulgarian+got+talent+-+imitation+of+song+(verry+funny+)

btw please if you people are going to guess, try to make intelligent guesses or at least funny ones, like some of the above.

locallunatic

@blakeyrat said:

@Weng said:
My operative theory is either Romania or Bulgaria. I've known english speakers from both and, aside from their HILARIOUS accent, their english was actually EXCELLENT and nearly indistinguishable from a native speaker when written.

Oh man I need to meet some Bulgarians. There's nothing I love more than a funny accent.

Depends on how long they've been in the states, the four I work with have only the faintest of accents (that or I'm just really bad at noticing things, which is pretty likely).

DaveK1

@PJH said:

@DaveK said:
1: My first assumption is that you were not aware that you were talking about what is in fact the largest English-speaking nation in the world.
Erm - India is 2nd by absolute number of speakers, not first.

Ah, that's a recent change in how they measure the demographics. The figure quoted for India used to be 350 million, but they've now clarified that into two separate categories of "English speakers" and "English users", which is probably more realistic.

OTOH both the USA and Indian figures on that page are from ten-year-old census data, and whereas the USA's population is already almost entirely English-speaking, there's a lot more room for growth in the Indian English-speaking population. Sooner or later they'll probably be first again even under the new analysis.

[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]Isn't Serguey a russian name?[/quote]

Sergey is.

@serguey123 said:

@blakeyrat said:
@serguey123 said:
(I checked)
... how?

I was bored so I checked, the probabilities of finding a fellow countryman were small anyways.

But how did you do that?

serguey123

@Spectre said:

[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]Isn't Serguey a russian name?

Sergey is.[/quote]

If you google the name regardless of how you write it you will get hits, but the nationality of the hits will change a bit, work from that

serguey123

@Spectre said:

@serguey123 said:
@blakeyrat said:
@serguey123 said:
(I checked)
... how?

I was bored so I checked, the probabilities of finding a fellow countryman were small anyways.

But how did you do that?

I retasked a satellite (for the humor deprived bunch that includes my employer, this is a joke, I did not move it)

frits

I'll eat my shirt if Nagesh is from India. Nonetheless, I think it's lame of people to make anti-Indian comments in response to his shenanigans.

frits

[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]@hoodaticus said:

For him to say "how people are calling it" instead of "what people are calling it" strongly hints at a romance language. Not to mention his name. The "guey" ending in his name hints at a Spanish or Portuguese country. If he's not in the EU or USA, then I'm guessing Brazil (since it's the most populous country that could fit the bill).

Isn't Serguey a russian name?[/quote]

It's found in Cuba.

blakeyrat

@frits said:

[quote user="Renan "C#" Sousa"]@hoodaticus said:
For him to say "how people are calling it" instead of "what people are calling it" strongly hints at a romance language. Not to mention his name. The "guey" ending in his name hints at a Spanish or Portuguese country. If he's not in the EU or USA, then I'm guessing Brazil (since it's the most populous country that could fit the bill).

Isn't Serguey a russian name?

It's found in Cuba.

[/quote]

Whoa. Cuba adds up. That's brilliant.

Here's a piece of the puzzle: wherever he grew up, they showed "The World of David the Gnome" and "Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea" on TV, although I'm not sure if they used those exact titles. (Those are the English titles.)

frits

@blakeyrat said:

Here's a piece of the puzzle: wherever he grew up, they showed "The World of David the Gnome" and "Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea" on TV, although I'm not sure if they used those exact titles. (Those are the English titles.)

There are Spanish versions for both of those according to wikipedia. "The World of David the Gnome" was only in four languages: Spanish, English, German, and Dutch. "Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea" was in a dozen or so.

Nagesh1

@frits said:

I'll eat my shirt if Nagesh is from India. Nonetheless, I think it's lame of people to make anti-Indian comments in response to his shenanigans.

I am from India only.

मज़हब नहीं सिखाता आपस में बैर रखना

serguey123

@frits said:

I'll eat my shirt if Nagesh is from India. Nonetheless, I think it's lame of people to make anti-Indian comments in response to his shenanigans.

I share that feeling, if Nagesh is from india frits should eat his shirt

@blakeyrat said:

...comment extracted from blog...

That is not fair, betraying your faithfull users like that

frits

@Nagesh said:

मज़हब नहीं सिखाता आपस में बैर रखना

मैं कोई मुझे गाइड धर्म है. मैं अपने कार्य समझते हैं. Don't be a hater.

Nagesh1

@frits said:

@Nagesh said:
मज़हब नहीं सिखाता आपस में बैर रखना

मैं कोई मुझे गाइड धर्म है. मैं अपने कार्य समझते हैं. Don't be a hater.

good to know you're knowing your work, but what does exact गाइड mean in contest of that above statement?

blakeyrat

@serguey123 said:

That is not fair, betraying your faithfull users like that

Yah, I shouldn't have used off-channel communication. But I'm only doing this at all because I know it annoys you, and spite is actually my primary motivating force to do anything at all.

Someone_You_Know

@Nagesh said:

@frits said:
I'll eat my shirt if Nagesh is from India. Nonetheless, I think it's lame of people to make anti-Indian comments in response to his shenanigans.

I am from India only.

मज़हब नहीं सिखाता आपस में बैर रखना

Google says that means "No religion teaches to hate the other".

Doesn't pretty much every religion do that?

serguey123

@blakeyrat said:

@serguey123 said:
That is not fair, betraying your faithfull users like that
Yah, I shouldn't have used off-channel communication. But I'm only doing this at all because I know it annoys you, and spite is actually my primary motivating force to do anything at all.

Well, mostly is like cheating in a game, if you are privy to some information nobody has, then you have the edge, they are supposed to figure it out with the information provided. You however should be an interesting person to work with if you are like that in RL

@frits said:

<FONT color=#698d73>Shouldn't translation be commutative?</FONT>

Not when a translation tool is involved, they all suck ass, the weirder the language the more offbase the translation is. words are not much of a problem but sentences are a no go.

Nagesh1

@Someone You Know said:

@Nagesh said:
@frits said:
I'll eat my shirt if Nagesh is from India. Nonetheless, I think it's lame of people to make anti-Indian comments in response to his shenanigans.

I am from India only.

मज़हब नहीं सिखाता आपस में बैर रखना

Google says that means "No religion teaches to hate the other".
Doesn't pretty much every religion do that?

Only true Indian can know meaning and next line of this famous song

Religion does not teach us to bear ill-will among ourselves (First line which I have copy pasted) We are of Hind, our homeland is Hindustan. (Second LIne which only Indian person will know).

This is a Nationalist movement song created by Muhamed Iqbal. Every one in school is forced upon to sing it till he it is byhearted. it is not qualified to become anthem, since anthem is jana gana mana created by the Great Sir Rabindranath Taogre, who also founded Shantinikten, where Indira Gandhi (first Indian woman prime-minister with balls) going to school.

derula

@Someone You Know said:

Google says that means "No religion teaches to hate the other".
Doesn't pretty much every religion do that?

I would consider that trolling if I didn't know that most people actually believe that.

Christianity, for starters, teaches to love your fucking enemies! "Do not have any other gods before me" does not mean "other religions suck", it means "it is me who is worshiped in every religion, they just may have different names for me".

Someone_You_Know

@derula said:

@Someone You Know said:
Google says that means "No religion teaches to hate the other".
Doesn't pretty much every religion do that?

I would consider that trolling if I didn't know that most people actually believe that.

Some kinds of Christianity, for starters, teaches to love your fucking enemies! "Do not have any other gods before me" does not mean "other religions suck", it means "it is me who is worshiped in every religion, they just may have different names for me".

FTFY.

I think you'll find there are a lot of people out there who refer to themselves as "Christians", but would strongly disagree with that entire statement.

derula

@Someone You Know said:

I think you'll find there are a lot of people out there who refer to themselves as "Christians", but would strongly disagree with that entire statement.

Whatever. They're wrong.

PJH

@derula said:

Christianity, for starters, teaches to love your fucking enemies!

Unless they're gay, female or black of course. And if the priesthood is anything to go by, you're supposed to love kids as well as your enemies.

derula

@PJH said:

@derula said:
Christianity, for starters, teaches to love your fucking enemies!
Unless they're gay, female or black of course. And if the priesthood is anything to go by, you're supposed to love kids as well as your enemies.

There's a difference between the message the bible tries to deliver and what most people call "Christian" nowadays. I should have made it clear that when I say Christianity, I mean what message I think the bible is trying to deliver.

Seriously man, history is shit. It's basically:

Some guy figuring out that every human should be treated the same regardless of skin color, religion, language and other shit. He writes it down because he figures he's the first one to realize.
Others read it and find it pretty awesome, save for all the equality, because some person once was mean to them, and that person happened to be another religion/race/nationality.
After a while, lots of people agree that the work of the first guy is pretty epic, and that he didn't really mean it the way he wrote it, because obviously some certain groups of people are dicks.
Goto 1.

Why the shit can't people wise up? Is it really just the human nature being dead stupid?

DaveK1

@blakeyrat said:

[ . . . ] spite is actually my primary motivating force to do anything at all.

... this explains a lot, actually.

DaveK1

@derula said:

@PJH said:
@derula said:
Christianity, for starters, teaches to love your fucking enemies!
Unless they're gay, female or black of course. And if the priesthood is anything to go by, you're supposed to love kids as well as your enemies.

There's a difference between the message the bible tries to deliver and what most people call "Christian" nowadays. I should have made it clear that when I say Christianity, I mean what message I think the bible is trying to deliver.

Seriously man, history is shit. It's basically:

Some guy figuring out that every human should be treated the same regardless of skin color, religion, language and other shit. He writes it down because he figures he's the first one to realize.

Others read it and find it pretty awesome, save for all the equality, because some person once was mean to them, and that person happened to be another religion/race/nationality.

After a while, lots of people agree that the work of the first guy is pretty epic, and that he didn't really mean it the way he wrote it, because obviously some certain groups of people are dicks.

Goto 1.

Why the shit can't people wise up? Is it really just the human nature being dead stupid?

I think it's just "Power corrupts", writ large. Religions all start off with a really good idea and it works fine when it's just among a small group, but as soon as they get big they become hierarchical power structures in society and politics comes into everything they do (as it does with large powerful organisations of all kinds). So they get corrupt.

Only a decentralised non-hierarchical (perhaps anarchic or cell-based) religion could ever hope to truly stick to delivering the original spiritual message of a founder. Discuss.

derula

@DaveK said:

Only a decentralised non-hierarchical (perhaps anarchic or cell-based) religion could ever hope to truly stick to delivering the original spiritual message of a founder. Discuss.

This reminds me of a campaign Microsoft had a while ago. I think it was in Germany only, at least I don't think I've seen an English version of it. This image:

[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/57/mslinuxpinguinmutationein3.jpg/][IMG]http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/7022/mslinuxpinguinmutationein3.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

The text in the upper right says "An open operating system can easily mutate sometimes." I think the Chaos Computer Club started a contra-campaign, "a proprietary file format can easily mutate sometimes", featuring a similar image but with what a Word document would look like in 5 different versions or so. I can't seem to find it though.

Anyway, wouldn't a non-central structure lead to the religion dividing into many, many small, but different religions? And they would then fight each other again... okay, this is probably a similar argument why anarchy wouldn't work on a large scale. But yeah.

A second. We have Internets now, so the cells would be closely tied together, no matter how far apart. Wonder how that would add to the equation.

stratos

@DaveK said:

@derula said:
@PJH said:
@derula said:
Christianity, for starters, teaches to love your fucking enemies!
Unless they're gay, female or black of course. And if the priesthood is anything to go by, you're supposed to love kids as well as your enemies.

There's a difference between the message the bible tries to deliver and what most people call "Christian" nowadays. I should have made it clear that when I say Christianity, I mean what message I think the bible is trying to deliver.

Seriously man, history is shit. It's basically:

Some guy figuring out that every human should be treated the same regardless of skin color, religion, language and other shit. He writes it down because he figures he's the first one to realize.

Others read it and find it pretty awesome, save for all the equality, because some person once was mean to them, and that person happened to be another religion/race/nationality.

After a while, lots of people agree that the work of the first guy is pretty epic, and that he didn't really mean it the way he wrote it, because obviously some certain groups of people are dicks.

Goto 1.

Why the shit can't people wise up? Is it really just the human nature being dead stupid?
I think it's just "Power corrupts", writ large. Religions all start off with a really good idea and it works fine when it's just among a small group, but as soon as they get big they become hierarchical power structures in society and politics comes into everything they do (as it does with large powerful organisations of all kinds). So they get corrupt.
Only a decentralised non-hierarchical (perhaps anarchic or cell-based) religion could ever hope to truly stick to delivering the original spiritual message of a founder. Discuss.

islam? protestants?

Newer religions like scientology and mormnism seem to have a singular structure, as does islam in some countries i guess (but not totally sure) But i actually think there are more decentral religions then otherwise. (although i have no clue about asian relgions)

derula

@stratos said:

religions like scientology

I lol'ed.

blakeyrat

@DaveK said:

@blakeyrat said:
[ . . . ] spite is actually my primary motivating force to do anything at all.

... this explains a lot, actually.

"My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We only kill out of personal spite."

DaveK1

@stratos said:

@DaveK said:
@derula said:
@PJH said:
@derula said:
Christianity, for starters, teaches to love your fucking enemies!
Unless they're gay, female or black of course. And if the priesthood is anything to go by, you're supposed to love kids as well as your enemies.

There's a difference between the message the bible tries to deliver and what most people call "Christian" nowadays. I should have made it clear that when I say Christianity, I mean what message I think the bible is trying to deliver.

Seriously man, history is shit. It's basically:

Some guy figuring out that every human should be treated the same regardless of skin color, religion, language and other shit. He writes it down because he figures he's the first one to realize.

Others read it and find it pretty awesome, save for all the equality, because some person once was mean to them, and that person happened to be another religion/race/nationality.

After a while, lots of people agree that the work of the first guy is pretty epic, and that he didn't really mean it the way he wrote it, because obviously some certain groups of people are dicks.

Goto 1.

Why the shit can't people wise up? Is it really just the human nature being dead stupid?
I think it's just "Power corrupts", writ large. Religions all start off with a really good idea and it works fine when it's just among a small group, but as soon as they get big they become hierarchical power structures in society and politics comes into everything they do (as it does with large powerful organisations of all kinds). So they get corrupt.
Only a decentralised non-hierarchical (perhaps anarchic or cell-based) religion could ever hope to truly stick to delivering the original spiritual message of a founder. Discuss.

islam? protestants?

Decentralised but still hierarchical I would say, you have your priests and your imams and they lay down the law for their respective laities...

DaveK1

@derula said:

@DaveK said:
Only a decentralised non-hierarchical (perhaps anarchic or cell-based) religion could ever hope to truly stick to delivering the original spiritual message of a founder. Discuss.
Anyway, wouldn't a non-central structure lead to the religion dividing into many, many small, but different religions? And they would then fight each other again... okay, this is probably a similar argument why anarchy wouldn't work on a large scale. But yeah.

Well, your original premise was that religions only start fighting each other when they get big and become politically powerful; I'm suggesting the theory that maybe if we designed them deliberately so that they fragmented and splintered and continuously evolved, they'd maybe never get that big....

stratos

@DaveK said:

@stratos said:
@DaveK said:
@derula said:
@PJH said:
@derula said:
Christianity, for starters, teaches to love your fucking enemies!
Unless they're gay, female or black of course. And if the priesthood is anything to go by, you're supposed to love kids as well as your enemies.

There's a difference between the message the bible tries to deliver and what most people call "Christian" nowadays. I should have made it clear that when I say Christianity, I mean what message I think the bible is trying to deliver.

Seriously man, history is shit. It's basically:

Some guy figuring out that every human should be treated the same regardless of skin color, religion, language and other shit. He writes it down because he figures he's the first one to realize.

Others read it and find it pretty awesome, save for all the equality, because some person once was mean to them, and that person happened to be another religion/race/nationality.

After a while, lots of people agree that the work of the first guy is pretty epic, and that he didn't really mean it the way he wrote it, because obviously some certain groups of people are dicks.

Goto 1.

Why the shit can't people wise up? Is it really just the human nature being dead stupid?
I think it's just "Power corrupts", writ large. Religions all start off with a really good idea and it works fine when it's just among a small group, but as soon as they get big they become hierarchical power structures in society and politics comes into everything they do (as it does with large powerful organisations of all kinds). So they get corrupt.
Only a decentralised non-hierarchical (perhaps anarchic or cell-based) religion could ever hope to truly stick to delivering the original spiritual message of a founder. Discuss.

islam? protestants?
Decentralised but still hierarchical I would say, you have your priests and your imams and they lay down the law for their respective laities...

hmm, yes, but i don't see how a religion could function without. Humans tend to have a need for hierarchy. I could imagine that even when you took a new religion where the nr. 1 rule would be that everyone is supposed to figure it out for themselves a hierarchy would develop regardless.

Thinking about it, judaism actually functioned quite peacfully without any corruption that at least I am aware of. But I guess the fact that you can't become a jew means that there is no need for aggressive expansion which means you don't actually have to do that much against infidels.

derula

@DaveK said:

@derula said:
@DaveK said:
Only a decentralised non-hierarchical (perhaps anarchic or cell-based) religion could ever hope to truly stick to delivering the original spiritual message of a founder. Discuss.
Anyway, wouldn't a non-central structure lead to the religion dividing into many, many small, but different religions? And they would then fight each other again... okay, this is probably a similar argument why anarchy wouldn't work on a large scale. But yeah.

Well, your original premise was that religions only start fighting each other when they get big and become politically powerful; I'm suggesting the theory that maybe if we designed them deliberately so that they fragmented and splintered and continuously evolved, they'd maybe never get that big....

Hm. So the idea is, if there's very many small, entirely disconnected groups, there would be no room for xenophobia because you would be used to seeing many people from other groups every day...? If people are mixed well enough that there's no considerable minority anyone could be hating? I still think the problem would be that someone would find a way to merge several groupings into a larger group by finding similarities other groups don't have, thus creating a new minority to suppress. Homo homini lupus, as cliché as it sounds. :/

Someone_You_Know

@stratos said:

Thinking about it, judaism actually functioned quite peacfully without any corruption that at least I am aware of. But I guess the fact that you can't become a jew means that there is no need for aggressive expansion which means you don't actually have to do that much against infidels.

Who told you that you can't become a Jew?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_to_Judaism