Atheist Threat
Oct 10th, 2008, in News, by Patung
Young atheists on the internet, and eradicating atheism and communism in Indonesia.
Governor of North Sumatra, Syamsul Arifin, said on 8th October at an occasion marking Pancasila Day that all elements of the nation must continually fight against and eradicate atheist beliefs among the people.
Atheism, which seeks to erase Pancasila and which once threatened the nation in the guise of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), and still does, has to be guarded against, particularly because it still finds support among sections of the poor.
Syamsul said children should be taught from primary school through to university to hate atheism, so that the creed could as far as possible be obliterated.
A 4th ‘T’ – Rakyat tidak ateis.
The butchery of the atheist-PKI backed murderers of the September 30 Movement of 1965 (G30S PKI) could not be allowed to happen again, he said, hence the need to struggle against atheism. beritasore
Young Internet Atheists
On the internet at least some Indonesians seem happy to declare themselves as unbelievers.
Running an “affiliation” search on the social network site Friendster.com for “atheist” brings up about 144 matches friendster.com, while “ateis” produces 185 odd results friendster.com, although more than a few seem to be claiming to be atheist as some kind of joke.
On the same site, created on January 23rd, 2007 is the “Atheist Indonesia” group friendster.com, with 76 members and a fairly active message board, and some of its members seem to be active in an Indonesian language Atheist Wikipedia. ateisindonesia.wikidot.com
1,311 Comments on “Atheist Threat”
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Barry Prima says:
Or is that another brand of Islam?
As a matter of fact it is…or is even the multiple nature of manifest things,beyond your intelligence to conceive? Discussing God/ religion with you is a bit like telling a frog in a pond about the ocean. The pond is a dark and dirty place where the light wont shine .Until today, nobody and I mean nobody, can scientifically prove the Old Man with the White Beard actually does exist
Actually even the most stupid Muslim does not believe in that god, I should have stated more accurately that i was defending the right of certain types of Christians to adhere to that particular vision of the absolute as a symbolic tool, in the same way i would validate the hindus right to worship cows (inferior as it is an approach, valid it is on certain level nevertheless).
Scientific Proof.What is so absolute about Scientific proof, even advanced physics will teach you about the multiplicity of dimensions in the universe, and you expect truth of scientific kind, which is related to only one level of reality, cause and effect, to be absolute or even accurately describing the nature of anything?
What do you expect god to do? Show himself to you everyday y(actually he does already do so, but you fail to see,)..and then command you explicitly to worship him or die? He has a lot more class than that, but you can’t talk about class i suppose to man who doesn’t have any?Didn’t know intelligent Muslims use the God-idea only as a metaphor.
I never said they did, its one of those leaps of imagination you exercised in your reading of my post. Projecting i would call it?
God is not a metaphor, he is the only thing that is real. The created world, including man is the metaphor, through which Allah manifest his 99 attributes, and sometimes yes that could be in the form of an old man with a long beard. -
lomboksurfer says:
Hey Marisa – Talk about bloody passion and uncontrolled emotions OMG you are on bloody fire and making me bloody hot as well! Ouch baby you are so damn bloody red hot even if you are green! What’s up with my bloody Martian goddess? You been juicin too many bloody daiquiris’ lately or something? Bloody hell sugar baby you can be so awesomely cool most of the time you send a bloody chill up my spine. You trying to forget some surfer bum coz talk about a chick having greater scorn than bloody hell itself? Forget that dude beach baby and get into my surf world as it will put a bloody smile on your happy face from ear to bleedin ear! C’mon Marisa, you green Martian sugar-baby goddess, bring back that bloody lovin feeling coz this site needs you to rock our world with your bloody presence. If you still can’t bloody well get into your happy zone I bloody well hell know what can and that’s a night out with this monster surf boy. Just say the word hot bird and I am there! Peace, love & rock & roll to you my beach baby goddess!
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I counted 14 “bloody”s.
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Patung…
But Australia has just run a whole tourism campaign based around the word.
I am guessing that it is because of dudes like lomboksurfer that they thought it would work 😀
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peace says:
I prefer to surf at Kuta beach; safe, warm water and more women to be impressed 😀
Moreover the beach had been added by a lot of sand lately, maybe for the asian beach games. and it makes Kuta even more beautiful.
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Lairedion says:
Me stated:
Until today, nobody and I mean nobody, can scientifically prove the Old Man with the White Beard actually does exist
Barry prima replied in two successive comments:
He doesn’t….any intelligent muslim knows that….he is a metaphor, that is particularly useful to the human imagination which is a metaphor making mechanism (look that up in a scientific journal).
God is not a metaphor, he is the only thing that is real. The created world, including man is the metaphor, through which Allah manifest his 99 attributes, and sometimes yes that could be in the form of an old man with a long beard.
all based on his own description:
I am not revert/convert to anything, I only pose as a muslim in certain circumstances out of an instinctive need to champion the cause of the underdog.
LOL Do you want me to understand this and take this seriously? 🙂
@ Marisa
Sorry to see you leave. I recognize your talent but it takes so little to make you boil over. I enjoy commenting here but at the end of the day IM is just another blog (no offense, Patung) and there are more important things in life to worry about.
Surely will miss you and your sexy gravatars. Wish you all the luck, health and wisdom in the rest of your life. Horas, horas, horas.
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Patrick says:
@ Lairedion – Was it not Albert Einstein who said that there must be a higher intelligence in the universe precisely because of it’s order?
And not to mention the Jewish people who the bible said would be scattered from their land for many generations until God called them to return. Guess what? It has happened. Go read and see for yourself Israel exists and millions of Jews from every nation that they were exiled to have returned. God till this day has protected them from their surrounding enemies and against all statistical odds and they survive and prosper. This is proof enough for me God exist how about you?
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Patrick,
Do a little Google research to find out about Einstein’s view on God and his fellow Jews as the supposed chosen people. Here’s a link to start with:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/13/peopleinscience.religionToo bad your friend God didn’t protect the Jews from decades of persecution from the Christians, not to mention the Vatican Mafia you admire so much. Also your friend God failed miserably in preventing the Holocaust and many other genocides. And why is that? Because, according to your book (read Leviticus), your friend God is a violent, cruel and power-thirsty man who in any civilized society would be brought to trial for all the hate, violence and misery he incited.
The people of God (Jews) are constantly at odds with the Party of God (Hezbollah/Muslims). The people of God have a strong ally in the US, the one country blessed by God and built with the blood of black and red slaves provided by God, while the Party of God are blowing themselves to pieces and murder innocent people in order to get closer to God. Anybody with desire for peace and who wish to stay out of this conflict is considered an unbeliever and an enemy of God.
Tell me Patrick, with all this suffering and misery we still experience today caused by people claiming to know God, carrying out the wishes of God and pointing to God if they are hold accountable, why would any man with logic, common sense and reason would believe in such a God and worship such a God? I refuse and simply do not wish to understand such absurdity.
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And not to mention the Jewish people who the bible said would be scattered from their land for many generations until God called them to return. Guess what? It has happened. Go read and see for yourself Israel exists and millions of Jews from every nation that they were exiled to have returned. God till this day has protected them from their surrounding enemies and against all statistical odds and they survive and prosper. This is proof enough for me God exist how about you?
The bible itself who drives them to built the Israel which exist until now. It was them self who want the prophesy comes true. If the bible tells differently then the world will be different too. Because they want the bible to be right, it is their identity, it is their purpose to live accordance to the bible and the forecast it tells.
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@ Lairedion how original! Your just so fresh with ideas! What an intellect!
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jami says:
look, I dont really care about the politics of it all, and you guys arguing about terrorist and all this and that…… I just dont believe in any religions or super natural. Sorry, just dont believe in it. Never chose to not believe in it, just didnt, since I was a kid, no “laws”,no labels being tagged on me, or family telling me, or whatever is ever going to change that.
Oh, I can fake it. Be it the lords prayer or the shahaadah, I’ve at some point said them all, for one reason or another,but it doesnt really matter to me… because it means about as much in my opinion as singing the theme to Spiderman.
Bottom line is: I dont believe there is a such thing as ghosts, goblins, demons, jinns, angles, gods, prophets, magic, heavens and hells, kharma, boogymen, supermen, or radioactive amazing spidermen.
Sorry, cant help it. Dont believe I cant help it? go ahead, try and believe Lord of the Rings is a true story….force yourself…give it a try…..
couldnt do it right. Well that is how I feel when I have religion thrown at me.So you can “outlaw” me all you want. Hate me, make my life miserable, and force me to pretend I dont think it is all a bunch of fiction stories, but it in the end, I believe it is only because of the religious people’s own insecurities.
To be honest I think a lot of religion in Indonesia is just about tribalism and culture, anyway.
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Ziad says:
Religion is a often a primitive belief, as civilization advanced people have always opted for a more liberal and rationalised form of religiosity, atheism and agnostism are demarcated form religious beleiefs by the fact that they are based on rationality rather than a coded message or text as in the case of religions, where you always have to be subdued to the interpretations of a narrow group of people.
Communism is a political belief, but it is not communists who invented atheism, Marx tried to elaborate a “scientific” socialism, as in most cases science and rationality clashes with retarded and static beliefs.
anyway one can and should argue about such philosophical questions such as religion and communism but one should never question the right to adhere to any system of beliefs, freedom of beleif should be sacred and everyone should be humble enough to aknowledge that he does not know it all. -
pramino says:
I’m now reading this book called ‘God is not Great’ by C. Hitchens. Whether you’re a believer or a non believer, I would suggest you should read this book. He has an excellent historical knowledge of the origin of the three Abrahamaic faiths i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam. There is a chapter on each of the three religions and their holy books as well as a chapter dedicated to intelligent design.
Apparently, Judaism was not the first monotheistic faith. The Semites in their Babylonian captivity learned of such belief from their Zoroastrian Persian masters. This belief slowly evolved into religion when some of the Semites were released from the captivity and returned home.
There is no archaeological evidence pointing to their flight from Egypt and many figures cited in the holy books i.e. Moses, Abraham, David were probably mythical. Alexander the Great was mistakenly cited for Cyrus the Great, the man who freed the Israelis from captivity.
Evidence also suggested that these were myths passed on from one generation to the next until it came into written form around 3rd or 2nd century BC and thus we now have our Old Testament, New Testament and Koran.
It is odd to think that a bunch of desert nomads in the Palestine with their peculiar belief would influence the entire world (save the Buddhist and Hindus) in how they perceive God.
It is even really odd to think that these three religions and their offshoots and sects so on and so forth would still be fighting each other causing untold deaths and misery to this very day.
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@ Pramino – It’s even odder to me that a person can read one book on a subject, where there are hundreds if not thousands of books written, and cite that work as the sole source for everyone to change their thinking about religion. I suggest that you read many books on this subject and understand all points of view regarding the origins of Monotheistic Faiths before you draw any conclusions. Just because C. Hitchens says it’s so doesn’t mean it is so!
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Oigal says:
Thats right Patrick..why there are enough books written about religion you can find any excuse to justify any behaviour..its just a matter of research…Inquistion anyone? Perhaps a beheading of schoolgirls..a ritual burning?
Although the Gods are being slowly and thankfully pushed into the dark places of ignorance where they belong (you can find them on the shelf next to the santa claus and pan..who on the whole do a lot less damage)
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timdog says:
pramino – Christopher Hitchens is a dick.
He is not a historian; he is a glorified newspaper columnist. What you are reading when you go through his book is a better-edited, more slickly packaged version of the wikipedia-based “knowledgable” posts that some people (naming no names) slap up here with alarming regularity.
He is also a political turncoat of the highest order – a one time communist who now makes his pennies cheering the worst excesses of the Bush administration (which, one hopes, means he is shortly to be consigned to the political dustbin himself).
Essentially the man has no real ideals and simply follows the money.The thing is, like Hitchens, I believe that there is no god. However, unlike Hitchens I simply view this as another, equally valid, form of religious beleif. I also believe that supremecist hectoring of those who do not share that belief is every bit as rancid as – in fact is the same thing as – saying “my god is the only god and you are wrong”.
And he is a dick…
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@ Oigal – Your’s world is a world without hope or purpose! It is you and your kind who will justify your excesses such as abortion and euthanasia as being for the good of man. What next killing the mentally impaired? How about the uneducated? Too many poor annihilate them so there is more food for the rest of us! Justify all for the good of man because there is no higher moral force as we are like gods ourselves, the masters of our own destinies! Heil Hitler baby! Heil Oigel too!
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jami says:
@Patrick,
How do you know Oigal euthanasis people? What are you talking about with Hitler? Who are you to judge anyone, based on them not believing the same thing as you?
Are you saying that I’m a bad person, because I dont believe in magic and paranormal stuff?
the masters of our own destinies
I dont believe in destiny. There is only cause and effect. To believe that there is a “master of destiny” would make life pointless to me anyway, I would just be going though the motions since everything was already planned out. Why do you guys pray? If what is destined to happen is going to happen no matter what?maybe that is for another time.
I guess I just want to know why/or if you think that without belief in god/gods someone is evil?
I dont think you are a bad person for believing in these gods.
In fact, we might be good friends otherwise -
janma says:
Patrick what does that even mean!? Oigal is a murderer and immoral because he doesn’t believe in God? You can’t mean it!? Weird weird Patrick!
It almost sounds as if you’re trying to say that people who don’t believe in God are responsible for heinious things and advocate murder… (something religions have never done hey!)I agree with George Carlin when he says….
I’ve begun worshipping the sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the sun. It’s there every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, a lovely day.
There is no mystery, no one asks for money, I don’t have to dress up, there’s no boring pagentry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to “God” are all answered at about the same 50% rate. -
Janma – I notice you didn’t attack Oigal when he attacked all religious people for murders committed by fanatics. Are you implying by your lack of response to Oigal that you also consider all religious people to be murderers? To me, your sense of reason or lack of is weird, weird, weird, if you are indeed condoning his behavior over mine. I just used the same logic that Oigal applied but back to him with an atheistic twist and what better one than godless Germany during the Third Reich? If you think there is no God and therefore man replaces God as the moral force in this world then we become like gods and down the slippery slope we go.
Janma maybe your problem is that your getting philosophy from men like comedian George Carlin instead of truly great men like say Thomas Aquinas? Just a thought!
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Thanks Patrick..You just won the debate for me ..what greater proof that overly Religious Loons are immune to logic…
Lets see..because I don’t happen to fall in the fairies at the bottom of garden justifies evil behaviour therefore:
“My world is a world without hope or purpose”
Sorry sport..but my purposes serve the living not some dreamscape or nightmare visions of the indoctrinated..
“your excesses such as abortion and euthanasia as being for the good of man”…
Mmmm I have gone onto to be babykiller and murderer of old people…At least you are not over reacting or anything..Ok take a deep breathe..I know it may a surprise to someone who views life through the prism of indoctrination but Religion or Lack of it has no bearing on personal morality or ethics…
Murdering poor people??? WTF, and the rest…..As Janna said…seriously weird..but thanks for making my point, or should my response be stop speaking in tongues.
Oigal when he attacked all religious people for murders committed by fanatics
Oh my..ok just for you Patrick..the point actually made was sprouting there are thousands of texts supporting the existance of GOD is not proof rather just a never ending treasure trove of myths, ignorance and twisted history that provide boundless excuses to act like a immoral SOB if that is your particular twist on life.
BTW.. Godless Germany..it could be said that the Reich met all the usual mythology to qaulify as a religion..never the less strange you should bring that up..hardly “organised” religions most shining moment in recent history. Yet despite the disgrace there were any number of christians, non believers and muslims etc who displayed immense personal courage and morality regardless of their religious leanings rather than because of them.
To claim that a “believer” has the only claim to moral and ethical behaviour is the very height of arrogance next we will be making creationism complusary in school..Oops already done that?
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I notice you didn’t attack Oigal when he attacked all religious people for murders committed by fanatics.
yeah, I didn’t… because he didn’t attack ‘all religious people’
he just talked about how religions sanctify killings… not that all religious people are responsible for them…. -
Oh I don’t think its fair to imply that Janma is a Oigal View Supporter.. far from it.. I just think she like most noticed that going from non-believer to satan incarnate is probably a bit of leap of faith..tee hee
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@ Janma now your playing a game of semantics as Oigal implication is clear, all religious people justify and therfore through association are guilty of the murdering behavior of the fantatics, as it must be in some book. I am trying really, really, really hard not to say it, but I just cannot help myself, please get your reading comprehension checked. There I said it! Now I feel better : > )
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@ Oigal – Do you really find it such a great leap of faith for atheism to turn into Satan-incarnate? Read in Religion & Religiosity the following comment:
Berlian Biru Says: June 16th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
A small point but one worth mentioning, the biggest mass murderers of all time were pagans and atheists.Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, need I go on?
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@ Janma now your playing a game of semantics as Oigal implication is clear, all religious people justify and therfore through association are guilty of the murdering behavior of the fantatics, as it must be in some book. I am trying really, really, really hard not to say it, but I just cannot help myself, please get your reading comprehension checked. There I said it! Now I feel better : > )
I’m glad you feel better sweetpea….. but try as I might I can’t find where Oigal says “all” in his post…..? so where do I go to get my reading comprehension checked? Got a link?
Berlian Biru Says: June 16th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
A small point but one worth mentioning, the biggest mass murderers of all time were pagans and atheists.Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, need I go on?
no, hon, you don’t need to go on….. you’ve given us enough to go on with….. I see we are now taking Berlian Biru’s words as gospel?
we’ve done this argument a hundred times and try as I might I can’t even start to sort out the numbers of who killed the most people in all time and for what reasons…. I still need to get my reading comprehenision checked before I even start on my math skills. All I know is that religions are idealogies and idealogies when adhered to fanatically tend to encourage polarities and separation between people and even Mao and Stalin had idealogies that enabled them to kill or order to kill, doesn’t matter to me whether it was religion or not, it was based on the same way of thinking. I don’t hate religion, I hate dogma…. -
Janma – Semantics baby! Semantics! A twist here and a twist there and poof! It fits your argument perfectly! Well maybe not perfectly but who cares? I am not into the numbers thing (see Religion & Religiosity postings by me) either but the point is atheistic societies of the last century had a pretty piss poor track record don’t you think? We can say unequivocally that they were evil! As far as the abuse of religion, yes it goes on, but it’s the abuse by fanatics and individuals that one finds wicked and not necessarily the dogma.
About your reading comprehension being tested? You don’t need to do it on line. Ask any third or fourth year primary school teacher to administer the test for you. Good luck!
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point is atheistic societies of the last century had a pretty piss poor track record don’t you think?
No Patrick, I don’t….. firstly they were not ‘atheistic societies’ …. all of the above killings were based on something else altogether and the people involved in those killings were not neccessarily atheists…. you are just choosing the ones that didn’t kill clearly in the name of religion and trying to prove that they killed in the name of atheisim…. not true and you know it.
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Mmm.. Thanks for the clarification Patrick..I thought you were being a bit vague when I went from non-believer to satan incarnate and now comparable to MAO and Stalin no less…
Dang.. I was wondering why I would sometimes to get this strange urge in the middle of the night to invade Poland (Although to be fair, from my reading of history I think just about everyone else has done that from some time or other) at least that explains it. No one would ever think that was a fantical response hey..
If I may (I know a bit forward of an unbeliever n all) but..
Oigal implication is clear, all religious people justify and therfore through association are guilty of the murdering behavior of the fantatics,
is a bit presumptious.. I understand the burning need of the religious right to speak of behalf of everyone else (when they ain’t channelling the needs of the big guy) but perhaps I would be better placed to clarifiy my “implication”? As i did here..
the point actually made was sprouting there are thousands of texts supporting the existance of GOD is not proof rather just a never ending treasure trove of myths, ignorance and twisted history that provide boundless excuses to act like a immoral SOB if that is your particular twist on life.
Of course, you may have been berating someone else on their reading comprehension so perhaps missed the point…
But seriously Patrick..you don’t really want to gone into name dropping do you, despite the fact that MAO, STALIN etc relied on dogma and blind faith as much as any other religion its really not the core here. I anyone could name another dozen or so religious mass murderers (wanna do a POPE check for fun…How about.. Who was that blessed the Italian ARMY right before the rape of Abyssinia or perhaps the Muslim Brigades that fought for Hitler..some Prod examples perhaps.. But its all inane.. the whole point is
Belief in mystical beings or not has nothing to do with a persons moral and ethical behaviour and it is santimonous claptrap to suggets otherwise. Just as it just plain illogical to suggest proof of GOD is by volume of text..if anything it just proves the insecurity of man himself in accepting responsibility for his own actions
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Err, *scratches head*, thought I should get this post back on track.
@ barry prima
Well, I certainly hope so, barry prima!
Strange though that by how you comment on spirituality, you don’t sound much like a person that’s here for the sake of reassuring the stand of religions in the world, while the rest of people are here for the sake of doubting it. If you’re an atheist yourself, you’re actually giving atheism a good argument with that comment. Too bad it’s gone now.
@ peace
Agreed, but in my opinion, it’s not about being ready for leaving religions. It’s about being ready for accepting spirituality beyond religions itself.
Religions is part of the need to believe. The sentence ends there.
Not only a question of morality, but also identity. Religions of today are mainly utilized as personal or societal even national identities, more than how it is as morality. Anyways, just a suggestion, perhaps you could use Kant theories on morality as a reference to your statement.
barry prima then could ask you in return, then whose atheism or anti-theism is right?
Atheism isn’t supposed to be manifested from a question of logic, in a way that Islam fundamentalists may have questioned the logic of Christian Trinity and on why God could bear a son. Logic, after all, is only a perceived reality that human brains are conditioned to believing.
On contrary, atheism is manifested from a question of beyond-the-perceived-logic (I could use the term illogical, however centuries ago humans also perceive airplanes as an illogical invention. Such term is relative to the advancement of civilization.), whereas humans ask themselves: if there’s nothing (logical enough) to believe in, would I still believe?
If yes, then it’s returning to how morality isn’t measured by the fear of hell and the desire for heaven, as you’ve said earlier. So, what defines it, really?
Good thing that you seek peace, but religions –as we know it– are here merely to justify human causes. Sometimes good ones, sometimes bad ones. Atheism is one thing, but the idea of universal peace itself would still be facing challenges aside from religions, challenges made to justify the very same human causes.
.. in my humble opinion.
Thanks for the discussion.