No soup for YOU!

[jinjuku]

From the "Dear god, we are all doomed" department:

The gist of it: French soup kitchen has a traditional pork soup they serve up to the needy. Since it has pork in it, Muslims and Jews are offended that they don't get free soup due to a decision on their part.

Idiocy then ensues.

What is this world coming to.

 

[Rickster71]

There is much money to be made, with people just waiting around to be offended.

 

[jinjuku]

There is much money to be made, with people just waiting around to be offended.

Any good ideas on how we can capitalize? I think the market on hummus and pirogies are all tied up. BTW I absolutely love hummus and pirogies.

 

[j_garcia]

I wonder if these people have ever heard the term "Beggars can't be choosers". Who would have thought someone would go so far as to use use SOUP as a form of racism against the HOMELESS??

I never thought I'd hear a soup kitchen have a case pending against it such as this:

"on the basis of the current regulations, in particular concerning risks to public order and incitement to racial hatred."

 

[aberkowitz]

Sorry- but when the soup kitchen publicly states that they are serving pork soup to keep out certain people it makes me seriously question the morals of the people involved. Why would you specifically set out to further harm homeless and destitute people who are already suffering??

What's really stupid about this whole thing is that if the organizers had just kept their mouths shut and claimed that they used pork b/c they got it for the cheapest price then nobody would have cause to complain!

 

[jamie2112]

Extremest means Extremest and these Muslim folks are going way too far with this. It sure seems like these people want to fight with everyone on earth. I myself am over it Jihadist toolbags...

 

[jinjuku]

Sorry- but when the soup kitchen publicly states that they are serving pork soup to keep out certain people it makes me seriously question the morals of the people involved. Why would you specifically set out to further harm homeless and destitute people who are already suffering??

What's really stupid about this whole thing is that if the organizers had just kept their mouths shut and claimed that they used pork b/c they got it for the cheapest price then nobody would have cause to complain!

I think the entire thing is sad all the way around. While I welcome diversity it just doesn't seem to be working with some groups. Whether it be in Europe, Canada, the U.S. I am just getting really depressed nowadays.

You know what, let them serve what ever soup they are going to serve. At least one less person will have any empty stomach. What happens if the start serving soup with beef? Look at all the Hindu's you are going to piss off. What about the moral vegans? It just seems too much.

What I find funny is that you have religious fiction coming up against scientific fact about animal meat. Come on for pete's sake. How long has pork been a part of a healthy diet. That is the thing I can't stand: we don't eat pork because we were raised that way, same as our parents, their parents, their parents parents and on...

 

[j_garcia]

What kind of moron tries to help people who are down and out and then discriminates against some of them based on religious beliefs? That is just outright idiocy.

 

[aberkowitz]

Extremest means Extremest and these Muslim folks are going way too far with this. It sure seems like these people want to fight with everyone on earth. I myself am over it Jihadist toolbags...

Two responses for you:

1) Have you been to Europe and/or read news coming from countries like France and Germany about racism there? It's awful- think the period from the end of the Civil War through the late-1960s in the southern states of the US. France passes laws banning Muslim students (not extremists here) from wearing scarves on their heads in schools and colleges. English, German, and Spanish fans chant horrible songs at soccer matches against black (calling them monkeys and throwing bananas) and Jewish (telling them to head to the gas chambers) players from the opposing teams. Blacks and muslims simply won't get service at cafes in many cities. We're not talking about some hick town out in the middle of the country mind you, this is in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, etc. If you were treated this way everywhere you went, wouldn't you want to riot???

2) If you were hungry and homeless and somebody specifically targeted you and said "we're not going to feed you because you're not like us", wouldn't that make you want to fight them??

I hate extremists as well, but these actions are helping extremists groups build up in European countries. The Xenophobia in many of these places (most of them I've gone to and witnessed this first hand) is absolutely awful and could potentially destroy law and order in some of these cities. It's even worse when the government encourages it!

 

[aberkowitz]

What I find funny is that you have religious fiction coming up against scientific fact about animal meat. Come on for pete's sake. How long has pork been a part of a healthy diet. That is the thing I can't stand: we don't eat pork because we were raised that way, same as our parents, their parents, their parents parents and on...

I'm not going to debate the finer details of religion and why people decide what to eat or not eat. As a Jew myself I eat pork and I'm totally okay with it, and I also respect those who don't eat pork because it's what they believe. Most religious people that I know (of all backgrounds) tend not to get up in arms if a restaurant has nothing for them to eat b/c there are plenty of places they can go.

However in this instance when you have a group that's attempting to feed the homeless come and out publicly state that they are serving pork to make sure that the groups of people they don't like go hungry, I think there's something wrong. Like I said above, all they needed to do to keep quiet (I don't think anybody was complaining before they started talking) or at the very most say that they were serving pork b/c it was cheapest. Nobody would have had a problem with that. It's the malicious intent and the desire to make it known publicly that you have malicious intent that bothers me.

 

[jinjuku]

I'm not going to debate the finer details of religion and why people decide what to eat or not eat. As a Jew myself I eat pork and I'm totally okay with it, and I also respect those who don't eat pork because it's what they believe. Most religious people that I know (of all backgrounds) tend not to get up in arms if a restaurant has nothing for them to eat b/c there are plenty of places they can go.

Agreed.

But this needs to go one step further: If you are going to ask a group of entrenched Francs to question their ideas about their own identity, what that means. To challenge their OWN status quo of nation and nationality, it isn't to much to ask another group to challenge their same unfounded edicts that have simply been ingrained from one generation to the other just like a sense of nation and nationality is.

 

[aberkowitz]

Agreed.

But this needs to go one step further: If you are going to ask a group of entrenched Francs to question their ideas about their own identity, what that means. To challenge their OWN status quo of nation and nationality, it isn't to much to ask another group to challenge their same unfounded edicts that have simply been ingrained from one generation to the other just like a sense of nation and nationality is.

Are we questioning them about their nation and nationality or about their sense of human dignity? If this was a case of the french fighting against a proposal to make Islam the national religion or to rename Paris, then I could consider this a sense of national identity. But this is a case of a group of people who don't like other people b/c of how they look and what they believe and want to overtly treat them badly so they either A) die or B) leave town.

To your other point about questioning religious beliefs- I don't disagree that questioning is necessary, and many members of a wide variety of world religions have been doing that for centuries (hence the founding of Protestantism) and even moreso today, which is why you find Catholics that believe in abortion, Jews who eat pork, and Hindus who have thrown away the caste system. However, you are allowed to come to the conclusion that the "old ways" are still the best. Just b/c you question doesn't mean you need to change.

 

[jinjuku]

Are we questioning them about their nation and nationality or about their sense of human dignity? If this was a case of the french fighting against a proposal to make Islam the national religion or to rename Paris, then I could consider this a sense of national identity. But this is a case of a group of people who don't like other people b/c of how they look and what they believe and want to overtly treat them badly so they either A) die or B) leave town.

To your other point about questioning religious beliefs- I don't disagree that questioning is necessary, and many members of a wide variety of world religions have been doing that for centuries (hence the founding of Protestantism) and even moreso today, which is why you find Catholics that believe in abortion, Jews who eat pork, and Hindus who have thrown away the caste system. However, you are allowed to come to the conclusion that the "old ways" are still the best. Just b/c you question doesn't mean you need to change.

That is what the group that is serving up soup is thinking: "However, you are allowed to come to the conclusion that the "old ways" are still the best. Just b/c you question doesn't mean you need to change".

You are talking about people and their native culture. Don't expect a high ground of moral perpetitude when it comes to a group like this. Again what I see going on in the world saddens me. I don't know if a culture clash is in the making around the globe, but we sure haven't figured out how to get along.

The original article four paragraphs down intimated that it didn't start out that way. That is was simply a soup kitchen and then some Muslim and Jewish groups were up in arms. After that it took a life of its own on when one group saw the reaction they could get out of another.

 

[jinjuku]

Are we questioning them about their nation and nationality or about their sense of human dignity?

If I and my children were starving and we couldn't eat what is a PATENTLY healthy meal that contains beef/chicken/tuna/pork/what ever just based on some edict 1700 years old, you may just have to question your religion. I wouldn't go around and expect a group to bow to my demands.

How do you feel about parents, and their children when it comes to belief in herbalism, or faith healing vs modern medicine?

In general I don't have a high opinion of organized religion.

 

[j_garcia]

If I and my children were starving and we couldn't eat what is a PATENTLY healthy meal that contains beef/chicken/tuna/pork/what ever just based on some edict 1700 years old, you may just have to question your religion. I wouldn't go around and expect a group to bow to my demands.

How do you feel about parents, and their children when it comes to belief in herbalism, or faith healing vs modern medicine?

In general I don't have a high opinion of organized religion.

I was going to say something to the same effect - I would like to believe that anyone's god can forgive a transgression in the interest of sustaining one's life.

 

[aberkowitz]

If I and my children were starving and we couldn't eat what is a PATENTLY healthy meal that contains beef/chicken/tuna/pork/what ever just based on some edict 1700 years old, you may just have to question your religion. I wouldn't go around and expect a group to bow to my demands.

How do you feel about parents, and their children when it comes to belief in herbalism, or faith healing vs modern medicine?

In general I don't have a high opinion of organized religion.

I'm not disagreeing with you. If you're hungry you should eat whatever you can eat. In my opinion, I bet there probably were Muslims who were going to that soup kitchen and eating since they were hungry. The soup kitchen was providing a noble service in giving food to those who were hungry. Like I said before, my only problem is the fact that they are singling out ethnic groups who they don't believe are worthy of their food and essentially telling them to go die b/c of what they believe. Please tell me what benefit this group had in coming out and saying that they served what they served in order to specifically exclude certain groups- groups who quite possibly were already eating there. Do you think that is morally correct?

As for organized religion, faith healing, herbalism, home schooling, etc.- all of that stuff has been discussed ad naseum in previous threads here and I don't want to send this conversation off on that tangent. I believe that people should believe and do whatever makes them happy as long as they're not directly harming others (and no- let's not get into the debate about just b/c I believe something that it automatically harms you). Whether that ranges from eating beef/pork/goat balls to believing in Mohammad/Vishnu/Jesus Christ, if it gets you through the day then so be it.

I think the bigger problem, and the topic that we are avoiding in this thread, is how Europe will get over its rampant racism and xenophobia. If the continent truly wants to be taken seriously in the world and be a world power, then many of these so called "developed" countries are going to have to get their societies under control. It's going to be very hard for France or Germany to have positive diplomatic relations with countries that have large Muslim populations (the Muslim community is growing much faster than the Christian one) if their governments and their people are so outwardly hostile to this group of people.

 

[unreal.freak]

It's going to be very hard for France or Germany to have positive diplomatic relations with countries that have large Muslim populations (the Muslim community is growing much faster than the Christian one) if their governments and their people are so outwardly hostile to this group of people.

Maybe they dont want to be diplomatic with those countries you mention?


Peace,
Tommy

 

[aberkowitz]

Maybe they dont want to be diplomatic with those countries you mention?


Peace,
Tommy

There are over 1.5 billion Muslim people in the world, and over 50 countries have a population made up of over 50% Muslim population. If you don't want to be diplomatic with those countries, you're cutting off over 25% of the world.

 

[unreal.freak]

There are over 1.5 billion Muslim people in the world, and over 50 countries have a population made up of over 50% Muslim population. If you don't want to be diplomatic with those countries, you're cutting off over 25% of the world.

Im sure they are aware of that......Im not taking sides mind you, but im ok with people keeping to themselves.
Im not ok with people committing acts of terrorism or genocide. So if European countries are ok with not associating with Muslim based countries who am i to condemn them?

Peace,
Tommy

 

[Jack Hammer]

Being somewhat suspicious of the nature and accuracy of many news articles, the first thing that raises a flag for me is that the people who run the soup kitchen aren't clearly quoted as preaching/promoting racial/religious hatred. Most of that is 'clarified' by the author of the article. That said, it sounds really bad. Basically like something meant to be a good thing got twisted way out of control.

Here's the difference, if pork soup is being served because it's cheap and it's a traditional national favorite, then those who don't eat pork should either start eating pork quietly and thankfully, find a non-pork serving soup kitchen, or shut up and starve. If pork soup is being served because the servers specifically want to exclude/harm an ethnic/religious group, then those who are serving it should burn in whatever hell their religion offers.

Having never been to France and having no personal experience with their customs and national attitudes, it's hard for me to really make an informed opinion about how bad the situation really is vs how much the media is trying to sell newspapers.

Jack
(I really would like to believe it's more of the media blowing things out of proportion, but human nature can be cruel)