Palmyra being destroyed in front of their eyes
ISIS militants on Sunday blew up the temple of Baal Shamin, one of the most important sites in Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra, said Maamoun Abdul Karim, the country’s antiquities chief.
The temple bombing would be the first time that the insurgents, who control large parts of Syria and Iraq and who captured Palmyra in May, have damaged monumental Roman-era ruins.
Wikipedia has an image by Bernard Gagnon:
Now that’s rubble.
“We have said repeatedly the next phase would be one of terrorizing people and when they have time they will begin destroying temples,” Abdul Karim told Reuters.
“I am seeing Palmyra being destroyed in front of my eyes,” he added. “God help us in the days to come.”
They destroy people, and the irreplaceable objects that people value. They do that for the sake of an imaginary god who hates people and the irreplaceable objects that people value. At the core of human life there is this devotion to an imaginary god who hates people and everything people value except itself.
Too bad nobody who could do anything about it cares.
I rarely comment on these posts because it makes me so sick I’ve got nothing. It’s deep, existential despair.
“At the core of human life there is this devotion to an imaginary god who hates people”
I’m not sure that’s a useful way to put it, because if we (humans) were ever in a position to get at the root cause, it would send us the wrong way. At the core of human life there is this devotion to hating people, and inventing imaginary gods / patriotisms / whatevers to justify it.
The problem isn’t really the devotion to gods or nations. The problem is that’s a widely accepted excuse to commit atrocities. (Just not “their” atrocities, of course.)
As for the atrocities. I’m like Josh. I got nothin.
What, they aren’t even just sticking to statues, they have to destroy basic architecture?