Some of the violence in Syria sees Jabhat al Nusra and other al Qaeda affiliated groups attacking soft targets that country's larger cities. Yesterday's bombing at the University of Aleppo could be their latest casualty.
Many of the al Qaeda fighters in Syria came from Iraq, and they promote...
I agree with the people who have said in this forum that this event was about control. This was a single instance in a larger struggle that women in India and all over the world are having to fight. Some men, for cultural and sadistic reasons and other reasons I can't begin to understand...
Well, working within structural causes of and military effects on the international system, we could claim that the current international system is anarchic. If we were to claim that, the system would only be transformed by changes to the organizing principle and by changes to the number of the...
I never tried to. I sampled both the Soviet Union's and the United State's experiences in Afghanistan along with other examples of Iraq, Sri Lanka, and the United States; but, in doing so I sampled multiple experiences in multiple countries with multiple religions. I never focused on a single...
Once again you are either misinterpreting or misrepresenting what I said.
I said, "that if the state were weakened then religion could be filling any political vacuums created from said weakening. I would categorize religion (or anything else for that matter) filling a vacuum traditionally...
Ah, that would explain the disconnect. You didn't read what I wrote very carefully. If you reread, you will see that I never claimed that religion with either a capital R or a lowercase r was the "culprit" as you put it. All I said was SOCIAL CHANGE was a "culprit." I went on to hypothesize that...
Is that because you don't have a defense? :yes:
Obviously you didn't learn in school the importance of precision when participating in persuasive writing.
That is hilarious to me, because everything you have claimed thus far has been academically weak. Where are your sources?!? What...
I am inclined to agree. I find comedy to be most effective when it calls attention to the perfunctory of every day life, or when it causes individuals to reexamine their values system by calling attention to social taboos.
It is certainly not a simple matter of semantics. If I weaken my arm by pulling a muscle, have I destroyed it? No.
And I've provided a defense that I believe is valid. You have been very vocal that you disagree with what I've said, but that is simply your opinion. I can just as easily say that...
As I've said already, I'm generalizing about ALL religions, not one religion in particular. Furthermore, I've given you examples (in my second post in this thread) already, and you've already said that you disagree with my examples. I'm not going to retype or rehash things that I've already...
I was under the impression that the term New Age was meant to connote the timing in which the religious tradition first became popularized. Devotees in the 1960s were re-imagining and problematizing older concepts of spirituality. They were literally constructing a "new age" of spiritual...
skinker,
That is certainly an interesting depiction of Lilith, but the (blog?) that you linked to left me wanting. Do you have any historical or academic sources that you could share with a novice like me to your religious tradition? Something that could better explain in a social scientific...
These interpretations are fantastic. Infinitum, can you tell me what folklore or incarnations of Lilith depict her as being a demon before she became Adam's wife? I've never heard this version, but I'm woefully lacking when it comes to Jewish legends.
My rebuttal is a restatement of my original hypothesis. I felt it needed to be restated since you took something that I wrote, ran with it, and took it into a direction that I neither claimed nor intended.
I apologize if I misread or misinterpreted what you wrote.
Yeah, many people assert that, and in that case I tend to agree with you; but, I'm not sure I'm even interested in questioning the role of states as much as I am interested in questioning the causalities that interrupt the international system that states co-exist in.
Theories of...
The better ordered a society and the more competent and respected its government, the less force a state is required to employ. Similarly, in international politics states supreme in their power have to use force less often. But states do use force, variables in use aside. They project force...
There are MANY people who agree with you. Reductionist, Constructivist, and Systemic theories are but a few of the theories that scholars have attempted to use as a replacement for Realist theory. I, however, still find Realist theory helpful for a maximalist view of the international landscape...
You're missing the fact that the state mechanism being opposed by religious actors in both of those case studies is the United States military. Are you suggesting that the U.S. military is an inherently religious institution?
You make some valid points, but the conception of the nation-state that I am presenting here, like almost all constructs in social science, is not meant to be a complete model or an absolute definition of the real world. I'm merely presenting a framework for the purpose of creating a jumping-off...