If anyone is pushing the ‘Angry Muslim Man’ stereotype its those who have banned Wilders on the grounds that Muslims would not be able to control themselves in Wilders’ presence, and the Angry Muslim Man holding a plackard calling for Wilder’s death who’s photo you printed yesterday.

And I’d have also let in the three other people you list who have been banned from entering the country, so lets not pretend those who are arguing for free speech are doing so selectively as you seem to be doing.

The list of people previously banned from coming into the UK include ‘Bounty Killer’, rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, Louis Farrakhan (Nation of Islam) and Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Would Melanie Phillips or Douglas Murray stand up for the rights of Farrakhan to speak?

No, they wouldn’t, but I would.
Let ‘em all speak and expose the wrongness of their thought to public scrutiny and indeed derision. Don’t give them the kudos of a ban or allot them martyr status.
J.S.Mill:

there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered

, the reason being that the fullest liberty of expression is required to proof our arguments, to advance human knowledge and discussion to their logical limits, rather than petty considerations of social embarrassment.
Some may cite the harm principle, but the limits on free speech should be very narrow because it is difficult to support the claim in the overwhelming majority of cases that speech causes harm to the rights of others.
Causing offence is not the same as casuing true harm. Stephen Fry (no great political philosopher, but quite adept with words) put it quite well when he said,

So you’re offended. So fucking what?

(note to self: close your html tags. Oops)

Everyone is entitled to their point of view, but when other people start forcing their views on others I start to get angry. Religious groups demanding special privileges is one example of this, hence my fury at Muslim parents demanding that headteachers get sacked and their children get special assemblies in primary schools. However, Geert Wilders is merely expressing an opinion, not forcing his ideology on other people.

Furthermore, he is not inciting violence, unlike Yusuf al-Qaradawi and several notable others.

Spot the flaw in the argument:

my fury at Muslim parents demanding that headteachers get sacked and their children get special assemblies in primary schools.

…

Geert Wilders is merely expressing an opinion, not forcing his ideology on other people

…

the ‘fascist Koran’ outlawed in Holland, the constitution rewritten to make that possible, all immigration from Muslim countries halted, Muslim immigrants paid to leave and all Muslim ‘criminals’ stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported ‘back where they came from

how are his demands as expressed above – he is a member of parliament, remember – different from, say, Muslim parents demanding special assemblies?

In my mind, an MP calling for the banning of books and the expulsion of ethnic minorities from countries is slightly more serious than parents calling for a different kind of assembly at school.

where’s the difference?

I see a sensible middle of the road article is put in the times whilst here we see this obnoxious trace that revels your true views.

“Liberal” conspiracy seems something of a misnomer for this site.

On what possible grounds can you call Melanie Phillips a racist?? And this sinister association by insinuation of Douglas Murray with the BNP has the hallmark of prejudiced stereotyping throughout the ages.

Whilst you clearly have a point about people picking their causes this is clearly a lesser issue than government inconsistency.

What shines through from this blog is your complete lack of respect for those who disagree with you.

““Liberal” conspiracy seems something of a misnomer for this site.”

That would appear to be because you seem to believe Liberal to mean pushover

“Simply hoping that everyone will call themselves ‘British’ and that will be the end of that is naive thinking.”

But that is how all of the citizens of this country should be happy to describe themselves. I do not believe it is racist to say that anyone coming to or born in this country who does not want to be British should stay away or leave.

“Life is more complicated, richer and diverse than that for many people across this country”

No it is not.

This is code for saying that some ethnic groups do not want to fully integrate into British society- that they are not content with the word British. They insist on being described as British asians, British muslims or whatever. They want equality of opportunity with the rest of the population but want to be different too. They don’t want skin colour to matter and yet they want it to be their defining characteristic. In fact they only way they can be sure that they are treated without discrimination is by retaining their “different” self image.

And that is a problem. Because the retention of these “differences”, the celebration of “diversity”, is the reason why so many second generation “British asians” have become radicalised- because they have been made to feel outsiders in their own country.

So come on Sunny, you can’t have it both ways. If you want to emphasise your “diversity” you can hardly then complain when someone else also refers to it .

“This search for identity isn’t going go away yet because we still haven’t found the right language to describe ourselves.”

Try British.

“I do not believe it is racist to say that anyone coming to or born in this country who does not want to be British should stay away or leave.”

Some people believe in Santa Claus, they’re wrong too.

Oh fuck off Pagar.

I was born in these isles and I certainly don’t consider myself British in the same way that Gordon Brown tries to convince people to be British. So at once there are different identities using the same word. What difference does it make if there are different identities using different words?

There are plenty of Scots, Irish and Welsh who don’t agree with the dominant assumptions on what it means to be British and many have, as a result, withdrawn their desire to be part of the United Kingdom. This is the result the monolithic views on “Britishness” which you are espousing…so much so that it there is the potential for there no longer to BE a Britain.

Congratufuckinglations.

“That would appear to be because you seem to believe Liberal to mean pushover”

Err, no – tolerant.

racists such as Melanie Phillips

This is an extremely serious accusation. Have you any evidence to back it up? Or are you just throwing around slanderous labels like a little boy because you have no proper argument to go with it?

“This is an extremely serious accusation. Have you any evidence to back it up? Or are you just throwing around slanderous labels like a little boy because you have no proper argument to go with it?”

There is cold and hot racism, sensible racists or oblivious racists engage in cold racism where it is disguised under a more socially acceptable nationalism. Phillips regularly groups whole faiths together (well, muslims) for the actions of the few and has no qualms stoking up the kind of feeling that has led people this week to ask “WHY WAS GEERT BANNED BUT NOT MUSLIM’S?!” despite muslims actually being banned too.

She might not be out there crying for the blood of muslims and asians to be running in the street, but the lack of that doesn’t forgive her racism, to do so is to buy in to the ridiculous “I’m not a racist, but…” mentality that was actively pursued as a vote winning strategy by the Tories. She obviously bought in to that all a bit too much and a bit too well.

I can see what Sunny Hundal means, but I also think that -with their decision- the British government handed Geert Wilders 15 minutes (and more) of undeserved fame. I wonder how many tens of thousands of people (who would not have heard of him otherwise) are now downloading his “film” online.

Every paper in the country is talking about him. His revolting hairdo (reminiscent of a barrister’s wig) is also quite memorable, so people now can also identify him visually.

Wilders’ views are absolute shite. I don’t agree refusing him entry is the right way to go about it.

“There is cold and hot racism, sensible racists or oblivious racists engage in cold racism where it is disguised under a more socially acceptable nationalism. Phillips regularly groups whole faiths together (well, muslims) for the actions of the few and has no qualms stoking up the kind of feeling that has led people this week to ask “WHY WAS GEERT BANNED BUT NOT MUSLIM’S?!” despite muslims actually being banned too.

She might not be out there crying for the blood of muslims and asians to be running in the street, but the lack of that doesn’t forgive her racism, to do so is to buy in to the ridiculous “I’m not a racist, but…” mentality that was actively pursued as a vote winning strategy by the Tories. She obviously bought in to that all a bit too much and a bit too well.”

Since when are Muslims a race? And this is just an apologia for the concept of thought crime.

pj,

please.
Get 3 random articles by Melanie Phillips online (the subject is invariably the same – non-white immigrants). Read them all. Then come back and tell us about the “serious slanderous labels”.

What Sunny doesn’t do in his welcome and optimistic survey of identity issues is to offer a reason why we have managed better than some other European countries.

Perhaps the reason for this is that being British has always had an element of hyphenation to it. Britain is a funny place – it isn’t a legal entity (that’s the United Kingdom) and it isn’t a country in its own right – those are England, Scotland and Wales. So those of us born here of white stock are born with a hyphenated identity too.

Wilders is under 24-hr police protection because of death threats from the Islamic community. One dutch film-maker was already killed by them.

If you see his Fitna film – it simply shows a verse form the Koran, then shows islamic scholars preaching hatred from those very verses – and then shows the violence committed as a result, by groups who themselves use the Koran in the public statements.

No where does he incite violence.

He does ask questions that are uncomfortable.
Like his question: why if Mein Kampf is banned in Holland, is also the Koran not also banned – on the basis that both have been used to promote violence.

Watch the film for yourself – read the koran and the commentaries to it online.
The Koran really is not a book of peace, Jesus said ‘love your enemies’, Mohammed said ‘kill your enemies wherever you find them’.

This does need to be discussed in the open.

Sadly too many Muslim public figures do now want a public debate.

If Wilders arguments are rubbish -why not let him speak them – he’ll looka fool if they are rubbish

Why is Melanie Phillips a racist? What evidence do you have to back-up your inference that Europeans are more racist than the British? Is it an assumption based on prejudice and wild generalisations?

Snoop Doggy Dogg has been banned from several countries due to his well documented and repeated convictions for drug and firearms offences. The UK ban also relates to a violent incident at Heathrow airport. He’s not banned for inciting violence, but for indulging in it.

I accept that banning Louis Farrakhan maybe unwarranted. His influence is insignificant, and black people I know, couldn’t give a monkey’s about him. A visit would only create interest in patronising white middle-class campaigners/agitators. I suspect the commentators you mention would not support a visit from LF because they do not agree with his pronouncements, such as support for recent Mugabe policies. To suggest they would not because he is black is just lazy and the last resort of someone unable to form a coherent and factual opinion.

I believe Yusuf al-Qaradawi incitements are well documented.

Your arguments are flawed because the BNP is a legitimate political party and Wilders is not inciting violence against anyone. You could easily pick holes in Wilders statements, but I suspect, as with most lefties, you prefer not to because it would become a wider debate about the level of immigration and the cultural, social and identity implications which you’d prefer to ignore.

Let’s be honest here. Sunny is hardy going to bite the hand that feeds him. He’s earning a living out of “angry muslim man” and white middle-class political correctness. “Angry muslims” make minor issues significant stories and because our media is almost exclusively managed by the white, left leaning middle-class, they feel that people from minority groups should only comment on ‘racial’ issues. Its down to their own guilt about their hypocritical existence and their cowardly adherence to political correctness. Its why racial equality leaders must be non-white and ‘community’ political advisers must be non-white.

Jesus said love your enemies…yeah…the bible is *so* pure and moral in that sense. Except…Acts 3:23 which essentially says kill the jews (and anyone else that doesn’t believe in Christ).

Yeah, the Koran is *so* different from the Bible…

Genuine question, (and I’m still forming my own views on this, having been content in the last post just to argue against the people who were saying stupid things without putting my own views forward): could Wilders be arrested, prosecuted and jailed if he was allowed into the UK, and made public statements designed to incite racial or religious hatred? Or would he have diplomatic immunity or some such thing?

I am trying to reconcile the following views:
- Being in favour of freedom of movement
- Usually but not always supporting freedom of speech; certainly supporting laws on incitement to racial and religious hatred and wanted them to be extended to cover sexuality & disability too
- Being careful to distinguish freedom of speech from actively giving someone a platform to express themselves

erm, and #20, that’s a very strange reading of that text. Full quote in context:

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, 20and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. 21He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. 22For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. 23Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his people.

There’s a strong argument that the passage is anti-univeralist and suggests people who don’t believe in Christ will be cut off from God after life on this earth ends (some would translate that as “destroyed”, if God is seen as in Christianity as the Sustainer of life then the two mean the same thing anyway), but it certainly doesn’t direct anyone to kill anyone else as you suggested.

I imagine (not being so well-versed in Islam) that people who selectively quote the Koran are doing it as much of an injustice as you just did the Bible; doesn’t make it right either time though.

tim f, you appear to have taken one version that is more “lenient” in it’s translation. Check out these translations and see that the rest use “Utterly Destroyed” or “destroyed”, not cut off.

A person, just like a Muslim Extremist, could use this to claim all non-christians be killed in Holland. They don’t ban the Bible either…because neither the Bible nor the Koran forces people to be dickheads about the intepretation inside them. But trying to argue that the Koran should be banned is to argue that the Bible should be too, they are not significantly different from each other in the hatred or danger that they could provoke in the wrong hands.

For me, that text is the same as the Jehovah Witnesses knocking on my door and saying “if you don’t listen to us, we will have nothing to do with you ever again.”

I suspect Lee lifted someone else’s warped interpretation. Rather than debate or research the allegation that the Koran contains dangerous (in the minds of the weak and indoctrinated) text, he’d rather divert the debate with some warped allegation about the Bible. Probably why some Islamic extremists regard such people as “useful idiots”.

> I imagine (not being so well-versed in Islam) that people who selectively quote the Koran are doing it as much of an injustice as you just did the Bible; doesn’t make it right either time though.

Sadly Tim, you’re wrong. The Koran is quite clear and unambiguous about how to treat Jews and ‘unbelievers’.

One example – all major strands of Islam agree that apostasy (giving up being a muslim) is punishable by death. The Koran and Hadith are clear on this -so in some muslim countries it is even enshrined in the law. Another ground for death from the Koran is adultery ; which is covered a whole lot of times

Or another example – equal rights for women: 41 Muslim countries have signed up for their own ‘cairo’ convention on human rights… which omits the bits about equality for men and women. And also does not ahve equality under the law for people of any or no religion (unlike the universal convention on human rights).

Hence Wilders questions – if the Koran is used to justify violence by so many groups around the world, how should we handle that? If they are mis-reading the Koran – then where are the international confeferences focusing specificlly on Jihad violence, where ‘mainstream muslim scholars’ friom many countries show the others the error of their interpretation. No such conferences occur… so what does that suggest?

Lee, I’ve taken the version that is overwhelmingly the most commonly-used version in churches in Britain today. But even if you use “destroyed”, you have to admit that it is not an imperative for believers to destroy people, it is a view on what God will do at the end of time as we know it.

I agree with and prefer your statement “they are not significantly different from each other in the hatred or danger that they could provoke in the wrong hands.” to your original statement.

#25 – I really ought to be more well-versed in the Koran and interpretations of it so I could refute some of that stuff; suffice to say I’m not convinced for two reasons – 1) because I see people make similar claims about Christianity and I know them not to be true, and 2) because I’ve heard Muslims refute some of them from time to time and they’ve provided more evidence (though admittedly not evidence I’m knowledgeable about) than you have there.

In particular, arguing that when nation states adopt a political form of a religion they are bound to be interpreting it correctly is very, very dodgy ground for a Christian to be on.

Anyway, going back to my first point if someone can clear up the issue about whether Wilders is arrestable in the UK should he be allowed to speak here, I’d appreciate that.

What I find odd about this is that parading through central London waving placards with foot high letters saying “Death to Westerners” in front of the worlds media gets you a police escort and apparent immunity from prosecution but you can be denied entry to the UK because you want to show a film hacked from a load of old news clips to some old farts in a dusty back room at Westminster. Whatever happened to freedom of movement/expression/speech ?

“Or another example – equal rights for women: 41 Muslim countries have signed up for their own ‘cairo’ convention on human rights… which omits the bits about equality for men and women. And also does not ahve equality under the law for people of any or no religion (unlike the universal convention on human rights).”

Not a problem with the book, but how PEOPLE use it in the modern world. The bible is no better at it’s portrayal of women as lesser, however Christian society has (by force or reason) abandoned that concept within the bible. Does that mean some Christians don’t believe women are lesser? Let’s not be stupid.

“Sadly Tim, you’re wrong. The Koran is quite clear and unambiguous about how to treat Jews and ‘unbelievers’.

if they attack you first, is quite a clear distinction.

“Another ground for death from the Koran is adultery ; which is covered a whole lot of times”

As it is in the Bible, as well as being gay, or a “whore”.

“if they attack you first, is quite a clear distinction”

“The Promise of the Stone and the Tree.”It tells a story about Abu Hurayra, one of the Prophet’s companions who quoted the Prophet as saying: “The hour [the Day of Judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.A Jew will [then] hide behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will call upon the Muslim: ‘O Muslim, O slave of Allah! there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!’ – except for the gharqad tree, for it is one of the trees of the Jews.”

Lee – is that what you call defensive attack?

I’m so glad for people like Chavscum, DJ, James Worren and hopefully there are more out there who can see things clearly because unfortunately Sunny is too involved to see clearly whats actually going on.

I don’t think Melanie is Racist at all. I just think that its her perogative to believe what people tell her ie we want the whole world under Islam, and she is taking steps to ensure she doesn’t have to wear a Burkha in the future. Just because you choose to ignore these warnings doesn’t mean that she is a Racist.

Sunny is too involved with what, exactly? Muslims?

The Promise of the Stone and the Tree

is not in the Koran, by the way.

>Secondly, I find the hysteria surrounding Geert Wilders’ ban as quite hypocritical. The list of people previously banned from coming into the UK include ‘Bounty Killer’, rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, Louis Farrakhan (Nation of Islam) and Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

I’m not aware that any of the others are Members of the European Parliament.

Leaving that aside, at this point, I think there’s a big question over the simple legality of the Home Secretary’s action, even without getting into “this person is more nasty than that person and will upset x, y or z more” games.

http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2009/02/11/geert-wilders-the-home-offices-decision-is-unlawful/

I think Jacqui Smith may be off her rocker.

I’m not saying any more until I’ve seen the full film.

Lilliput: You can selectively quote from a Hadith if you like. You can ignore that it was part of a “historical” context too. Just don’t expect me to then ignore the “historical” instances littered throughout the Old Testament, and even the new Testament, that so willingly calls for the deaths of so many, and for lesser reasons than being a Jew (Luke 19:27 for example). If we’re being truly literal and without “historical” context then we can say that the Christian God would prefer that unbelievers aren’t killed, but tortured indefinitely (Well that explains Guantanamo at least).

What is really interesting, however, is that the Koran (earlier text, IIRC) is largely much more forgiving of different opinion than the old testament. However the newer texts of the Hadith is slightly more violent while the New testament is less so. The latter texts are the ones that are seen as manipulated for political/power purposes and so to be trusted less as “real accounts”, as real as a bunch of religious texts can be anyway.

The fact is that if you believe everything all these books say then both religions are violent to those that don’t agree with them, and persecute those that are (essentially) not straight men who worship and sacrifice daily.

The difference is that largely Christianity has managed to avoid misinterpreting these ancient ethics in the modern world, whereas some extremist muslims have not. In reality I’d say consign them all to a museum and let people marvel at what sort of morals people had some 2000 years ago, but if you’re not going to speak up against the prejudice and violence in the bible you have no right to single out the very few occurrences in the Koran and Hadith and say that it should be banned.

“I don’t think Melanie is Racist at all. I just think that its her perogative to believe what people tell her ie we want the whole world under Islam”

So, she can listen to the odd voice of a few extremists and then use that as a means to promote anti-muslim sentiment on a wider scale…and that isn’t racist? You, sir, are a hypocrite that should know better given the amount of Muslim individuals that take the actions of a few Israeli-jews and use it to call on the destruction of all Israel.

“The difference is that largely Christianity has managed to avoid misinterpreting these ancient ethics in the modern world, whereas some extremist muslims have not.”

This isn’t clear (essentially I’ve said the same thing but spun Christianity in the positive and islam in the negative). What I mean to say is that, aside from George Bush, there are almost no Christians out there preaching their faith including the violence, while enough extremist muslims get their more violent interpretations out there. I’m absolutely certain there are less-public versions of each believer that take more violent interpretations of their text, people are quirky that way.

Religious groups demanding special privileges is one example of this, hence my fury at Muslim parents demanding that headteachers get sacked and their children get special assemblies in primary schools.

For a person who reads around a lot LFaT, you can be incredibly dim at times.

The Muslim and Christian pupils did joint assemblies 4 days a week. On a fifth day the assemblies were more religious in nature, and the headteacher tried to get the Muslim pupils to sing Christian hymns while abolishing the Muslim prayers.

Now, I’m generally against religion in school anyway. But if you’re going to force children to sing religious hymns, then why not allow them so sing to their own religion? Answer me that. What was the problem with the current situation?

This is an extremely serious accusation. Have you any evidence to back it up? Or are you just throwing around slanderous labels like a little boy because you have no proper argument to go with it?

Wait, you want to me to argue against Melanie Phillips – a woman who thinks the latest MMR revelations are part of another conspiracy/with-hunt?

I’ve demonstrated exactly how she’s racist – she is playing to the BNP hymn book. In her article she doesn’t even mention that Geert Wilders wants to deport all Muslims from the Netherlands… he is merely ‘controversial’. Now why wouldn’t anyone want to mention that important bit when discussing a controversial politician? Unless of course you think its not entirely a bad idea.

No, we want free speech all the time Sunny – and y’know what, you can even say whatever you like, and we won’t punch you in the face.

By all means dig out some “right wingers” and search for hypocrisy, but you’re going to struggle to find much among proper libertarians. Free speech is a touchstone, and rightly so.

No, we want free speech all the time Sunny – and y’know what, you can even say whatever you like, and we won’t punch you in the face.

That’s great Frank… do you get urges to call brown people Paki to their face then?
As for you being a libertarian, don’t try and make me laugh please. Proper libertarians believe in freedom of movement for peoples too.

That’s great Frank… do you get urges to call brown people Paki to their face then?

No, but what harm woudl it do you if I did? In or out of a playground?

As for you being a libertarian, don’t try and make me laugh please. Proper libertarians believe in freedom of movement for peoples too.

Well so would I, once we had a level playing field. But as things stand we have nation states, local legal jurisdiction, local taxation – and contractual obligations based on all that.

But what’s that got to do with the issue in hand?

Can anyone help with some information:

* Do we have precedents of Elected Politicians (European or other – I might want to draw a distinction later) being banned by this or previous Home Secretaries?
* Do we have precendents of invitees to speak at Parliament being banned by Home Secretaries? (was Gerry Adams ever prevented attending to speak to a meeting when not an MP?)
* Has Wilders actually specifically incited anyone to do anything?
* Clearly there is already ample precendent of Home Secretaries and the Govt locking people up and restricting their movements in ways that turned out to be illegal in the current administration – mainly laws struck down in the courts (all of the “indefinite detainees” for a start). Has this happened in previous Govts?

Matt

I would be very suprised if other governments hadn’t locked up immigration detainees and deported people in ways that turned out to be illegal – certainly I know it to have happened a number of times under this government. Eg deportations while a legal process in ongoing, etc.

Before a couple of years ago immigration detainees were regularly locked up before an initial decision was even made on their case. (I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen now, just that that particular abuse of the immigration system happens less.) I’m sure that happened under the Major government too.

As to whether Wilders has actually incited hatred – I believe he is being prosecuted for that offence at the moment so until the result is returned it’s too early to say one way or the other.

FrankFisher: What it has to do with the issue at hand is that you’re not really a libertarian FF – you just pick and choose, and then make idiotic claims.

No, but what harm woudl it do you if I did? In or out of a playground?

Well, why don’t you do it and find out? Some people react in different ways to others. If you had the courage of your convictions, you’d go to a bunch of black men, call them niggers, and then try and spark a conversation about how it impacts them and what they think of it. Go on – do it.

Does that mean some Christians don’t believe women are lesser?”

You don’t even have to be religious to believe that. Just look at a predominantly secular country, like Japan.

“Sunny is too involved with what, exactly? Muslims?”

I suspect she/he means the political and media process. An ambitious person is very unlikely to upset the status quo with unconventional views. The accepted conventional view within the modern Left is that Muslims are victims. This stifles their expression of sensible opinion. As an outsider, it can be amusing to watch the Left tie themselves in knots over sexual equality, homosexuals, animal rights, etc in the context of Islam.

How is Phillips promoting anti-Muslim sentiment? Is that a job not adequately performed by extremist Muslim’s and the appeasers and condoners of radical Islam amongst the left-leaning ruling class?

Lee, as intelligent person, you surely realise that Christianity has developed and progressed over time to become very liberal in Northern Europe and not so liberal in Catholic Europe. This has not happened to Islam. All religions feed on fear and indoctrination, but some more than others. That is why in our enlightened times, our own CofE is rapidly dying, Catholicism is struggling, but surviving due to immigration, cultural segregation in our cities and its more intense f and d than the CofE, and Islam is growing ever more powerful and influential. As Islam is a recent import, as a consequence of mass immigration policies, it is natural that many, many people are concerned about its growth and the policies that feed its growth, especially in the context of a move to secularism by the indigenous peoples of Europe.

Some people argue that Muslims will integrate into European society and culture and their religion will progress and become more liberal overtime. I guess this is the Govt’s hope. No doubt, this has happened with some success in small parts. However, as a recently imported religion, it is heavily influenced by outside forces. Plus, people have already acted and segregation has become the norm. The evidence is clear in our cities and its the same in places like Malmo and Rotterdam, where increasingly schools are majority Muslim or majority non-Muslim. Years of failed multi-culturalism, self-loathing and class prejudice from our ruling left-leaning elite has caused this. No wonder their modern equivalents are afraid to debate it.

Well, why don’t you do it and find out? Some people react in different ways to others. If you had the courage of your convictions, you’d go to a bunch of black men, call them niggers, and then try and spark a conversation about how it impacts them and what they think of it. Go on – do it.

Well that would tell us what harm they think it does them – I asked you what harm it would do? You can tell the difference?

Curious that again, when considering the total lack of harm that words can do, you straight away zip along to a violent scenario – you claim my libertarianism is suspect, what does that say about your liberalism Sunny? The kind of liberal who punches people when he disagrees with them?

“Lee, as intelligent person, you surely realise that Christianity has developed and progressed over time to become very liberal in Northern Europe and not so liberal in Catholic Europe.”

Yes, because largely the bible has been shunned as a literal translation of the word of god and more to being a moral guide. The Bible and it’s usage lends (as the Koran does) to both ends of the scale.

My point here isn’t to ascertain who is the best in class of all religions, it’s to make the point that the books themselves don’t cause the problem, it’s the people that are unable to marry the contents up to modern ethical frameworks and social boundaries.

The assertion, however, that Islam hasn’t progressed is false. I’ve been heartened to even watch programs such as those that have been on Channel 4 in this country and see what modern muslims in a growingly secular society are actually believing. Things do take time, that’s why I can’t stand with anyone that talks about trying to hamper that progress and put up barriers that enable extremists to reign back progress.

25 – “Hence Wilders questions – if the Koran is used to justify violence by so many groups around the world, how should we handle that? If they are mis-reading the Koran – then where are the international conferences focusing specificlly on Jihad violence, where ‘mainstream muslim scholars’ friom many countries show the others the error of their interpretation. No such conferences occur… so what does that suggest?”

I was at one such conference less than a month ago in Acton. Amongst the speakers were three internationally renowned scholars, people with the knowledge and authority to explain how violent extremists are misinterpreting the Koran, and there were about 300 people there. I was talking to one of the Shaykhs, and he was speaking at a conference of a similar size to that every day during the week that he was in the UK (it was also being broadcast to reach an even wider audience). The previous month he’d been in Indonesia, and spoke to groups of up to 30,000 people at a time.

If you send me your contact details, I’ll send you an invite to one of these conferences – it sounds like you might learn a lot from it.

As an outsider, it can be amusing to watch the Left tie themselves in knots over sexual equality, homosexuals, animal rights, etc in the context of Islam.

There’s nothing to tie in knots over, especially since the left argue for those rights more forcefully than right-whingers do. The answer is to simply allow Muslims the same rights as others within the law, and to protect anyone from demonisation (which includes any minority)

How is Phillips promoting anti-Muslim sentiment?

Where shall I start? If someone spent that much time obsessing about how Jewish practices were leading to a decline of British society and taking us to hell in a handcart – I’m sure you’d be the first person to accuse them of antisemitism (especially if they were leftwing).

FrankFisher: Curious that again, when considering the total lack of harm that words can do, you straight away zip along to a violent scenario

If you’d bothered to read my article, I pointed out how offensive words, deliberately designed to dehumanise people, can lead to increased violence and in an extreme circumstances, genocide. And I can offer plenty of examples.

A random insult here or there may not lead to much (expect, perhaps a punch in the face), but I did say the situation would be different if they started being used widely.
You really have problems comprehending English don’t you?

If you’d bothered to read my article, I pointed out how offensive words, deliberately designed to dehumanise people, can lead to increased violence and in an extreme circumstances, genocide. And I can offer plenty of examples.

I read you article Sunny and I agree dwith most of it – but your comment regarding punching somone for calling you a name stood out. It suggests your liberalism is a badge, not a state of mind.

And yes, you offer examples, and I can offer them back. So for example, for all the millions of people around the world who claim they have been goaded into violence as a result of nasty old words, there are many time their number who have not. “Incitement” is just an excuse – people don’t kill people becuase of words, or becuase they have been persuaded by incendiary langue, and have lost control of themselves – they kill because they decide to. It’s the argument that language brainwashes people that is dehumanising. You could say whatever you liked to me Sunny, I wouldn’t punch you for a word. There isn’t one that would do it. I control myself, I dont’ cede control to some emotional response to a word. Geddit?

A random insult here or there may not lead to much (expect, perhaps a punch in the face), but I did say the situation would be different if they started being used widely.
You really have problems comprehending English don’t you?

No I think I understand it pretty well. I understand the stuff that isn’t said too.

I enjoy coming here and reading the comments, because so many people read the articles and presume they are seeing liberal thoughts. Quite clever of you Sunny to call this place liberal conspiracy. But I suppose winding people up gets you noticed and some well paid work. Bit like Melanie Phillips.

I heard a good example of this sort of linguistic legitimation of violence recently.

“Because I loved her” – the reason/excuse for murdering one’s wife, has been invoked countlessly down the ages with varying levels of power. Looking at it on its own, is basically absurd. But given context, you can see how the reasoning can be received given a sufficiently patriarchal environment (love = possession, ownership etc.) and the belief that men can be incited to violence given the actions of “their” women.

I think the reasoning “I was insulted/I am insulted” is basically the same. It is an absurd idea but given the correct context (where religious values are legitimated and privileged) becomes received socially as, if not entirely acceptable, then understandable.

Sunny (42): ‘If you had the courage of your convictions you’d go to a bunch of black men, call them ‘niggers’…’

I think you’re confusing libertarianism with Tourette’s.

Having the freedom to do something is not the same as it being compulsary no matter how much New Labour wants to define everything as either illegal or mandatory.

FrankFisher: . It suggests your liberalism is a badge, not a state of mind.

You mean like your claim to be a libertarian.. but not actually following through with the policies?

There isn’t one that would do it. I control myself, I dont’ cede control to some emotional response to a word. Geddit?

And what’s your point? You have less of a temper than I have. I’ll give you a Blue Peter badge when I see you. Doesn’t invalidate any points I make though.

It’s the argument that language brainwashes people that is dehumanising.

You really are quite stupid aren’t you FF? There’s an article on the front page by Chris Dillow that illustrates how stereotyping affects performance. Backed up by research. And here you are, spouting pig ignorant rubbish again.

shatterface: Having the freedom to do something is not the same as it being compulsary no matter how much New Labour wants to define everything as either illegal or mandatory.

No one said punching people in the face should be legalised, or killing someone or any sort of violence. My point was to point out that using racist language is still offensive regardless of how retards such as FrankFisher try and justify it. And those words have baggage too. To pretend that people aren’t affected by words is the kind of stupidity I’m not really going to engage any further. We can agree to disagree.

Sunny – could you watch the Fitna film,and tell us exactly which bits you disagree with? Tell us where in the video (how many minutes in), so we can all take a look and see what we think.

That would get us back to where you started this debate.

Wlders is quoted says “I’m trying to use images to show that what’s written in the Koran is giving incentives to people all over the world.”

What do you say to that Sunny?

” On a daily basis Moroccan youths are beating up homosexuals on the streets of Amsterdam.”
Thats Wilders experience in Holland.

I can say, that in my sleepy little UK market town, that the Koran is being used by Muslims to beat up former Muslims- happened 10 days ago to 2 friends of mine. Happened last year to some one else. All schools of Islam belive that Apostasy deserves the death penalty – so it is not a case of ‘extremists misinterpretating the Koran’.

Lee:
You seem to want to argue that the bible and Koran are morally equivalent.
But you have used no facts to support that view.
You said “Jesus said love your enemies…yeah…the bible is *so* pure and moral in that sense” and then you went on to misquote the bible (Acts 3:23) and were quickly found out.
So far you’ve not disagreed, that Jesus DID say love your enemies.
And you’ve failed to come up a verse where he says the opposite.
And you’ve not disagreed that Mohammed is quoted in the Koran and Hadith saying kill your enemies / kill the jews.

Regarding women under Islam: you make another claim with no facts to support it:
“The bible is no better at it’s portrayal of women as lesser”.
You need to spell out the parallels between the bibleand Koran then to support that view – believe me, that is an impossible task!
Mohammed made a number of statements about ow to treat women that are the reason that mainstream Islam treats women the way it does.
From things like daughters inherit the half of a son.
That a women cannot go to court claiming she was raped unless she has 4 witnesses.
That before a court, a female witness counts for 1/2 a male witness.
That if a wife doesn;t do what the husband wants, he should first not sleep with her, and then he should beat her.
So the reason that 41 muslim nations have written their own Cairo convention on human rights so that it excludes equal rights for women, is not that all those nations are extremists, but because of mainstream Islamic scholars and thinking.

Do the research Lee, and come back with facts to support your view that 41 countries are ‘mis-interpreting the Koran’ and then we can have a sensible debate.

You also accuse lilliput “You can selectively quote from a Hadith if you like.” But then you gave no facts to say whay the quote was selective!

You then said:
“What is really interesting, however, is that the Koran (earlier text, IIRC) is largely much more forgiving of different opinion than the old testament. However the newer texts of the Hadith is slightly more violent while the New testament is less so. The latter texts are the ones that are seen as manipulated for political/power purposes and so to be trusted less as “real accounts”, as real as a bunch of religious texts can be anyway.”

I suggest you research the mainstream Islamic concept of Abrogation in the Koran: which means that when later sayings of Mohammed contradict his earlier ones, that the earlier ones are treated as superceded.
So the ‘earlier Koran’ texts that you approve of …are in fact considered by Islamic scholars as replaced by the later ones. (Eg the classic one, early on Mohammed says ‘respect the peoples of the Book’ meaning Jews and Christians. But because his later sayings say kills the Jews, give all non-believers the choice to convert or die..; those earlier verses are not relevant. They are used however as misinformation, quoted to westerners who don’t know the abrogation principle, as evidence that Islam is a religion of peace – hece you’ll see them on zillions of Islamic apologist websites).

If you want a quick read-up on Islamic background, try:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/

You say:
“The difference is that largely Christianity has managed to avoid misinterpreting these ancient ethics in the modern world, ”

Not so, Jesus gives none of the instructions on how to treat women, or when to fight etc that Mohammed does. Jesus in contrast acted in a radical way (we would consider modern) towards women: they were among his close followers; he forgave ther sin, he saved the women about to be stoned for adultery.

In contrast, the Koran quotes Mohammed sentencing a women caught in adultery to death. Hence the death penalty is the mainstream punishment for adultery across all strands of Islamic thought for the last 1000 years.
And that can’t change, unless Islam scholars somehow saw that there is something Mohammed did that was not good – and that we shold not follow Mohammed’s example on it….. Phew, that’s a hard nut for a religion to crack.

You write:
“The Bible and it’s usage lends (as the Koran does) to both ends of the scale.”

I hope, I’ve disproved that as above.

But if you want to supprot your case – you need to come out with verses from the New Testament, and from the Koran, that match and show the ease of use for mis-interpretation by violent extremists.

I suggest you take this Koran verse, and see if you can find a New Testament one to match:
Sura 9:5, commonly referred to as the “Verse of the Sword”, revealed toward the end of Muhammad’s life:

9:5. Then when the Sacred Months (the 1st, 7th, 11th, and 12th months of the Islamic calendar) have passed, then kill the Mushrikun {unbelievers} wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. But if they repent and perform As-Salat (Iqamat-as-Salat {the Islamic ritual prayers}), and give Zakat {alms}, then leave their way free. Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

or
9:29. Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

Sunny

Given the importance you place on how words can have a big effect on people….how do you justify your overly aggressive words on this forum? ‘stupid ‘ pig ignorant’ ‘retard’.

You wrote: “To pretend that people aren’t affected by words is the kind of stupidity I’m not really going to engage any further” – so why are you not more careful with your words when you personally attack people on this forum?

you wrote:
“You really are quite stupid aren’t you FF?….you are, spouting pig ignorant rubbish again… my point was to point out that using racist language is still offensive regardless of how retards such as FrankFisher try and justify it. “

donpaskini

I asked “where are the international conferences focusing specificlly on Jihad violence, where ‘mainstream muslim scholars’ friom many countries show the others the error of their interpretation. ”

You wrote:
“I was at one such conference less than a month ago in Acton. Amongst the speakers were three internationally renowned scholars,

Which scholars?

“people with the knowledge and authority to explain how violent extremists are misinterpreting the Koran, and there were about 300 people there. I was talking to one of the Shaykhs, and he was speaking at a conference of a similar size to that every day during the week that he was in the UK (it was also being broadcast to reach an even wider audience). The previous month he’d been in Indonesia, and spoke to groups of up to 30,000 people at a time”

Great – can you give me the uRLs.

” If you send me your contact details, I’ll send you an invite to one of these conferences. it sounds like you might learn a lot from it.”

Just post the URls here, so we can ‘all learn a lot’

Claude

You wrote to support the person who had claimed that Melanie Philips is a racist:

“Get 3 random articles by Melanie Phillips online (the subject is invariably the same – non-white immigrants). Read them all. Then come back and tell us about the “serious slanderous labels”.”

That is not how debate works I’m afraid.
If a claim is made, and then a request for facts to support that claim follow – you can’t say ‘go away and do your own research’

In this case, it should be easy for you to do your own homework and present it – as you claim that it will ony take the readuing of 3 of Philip’s articles to get proof.

The balls in your court Claude.

Claude

You wrote:
“Wilders’ views are absolute shite. I don’t agree refusing him entry is the right way to go about it.”

Ok, a statement like that, sounds like you aren’t here to contribute to a sensible debate….

Shame.

But if you *are* here for sensible debate – then take one of Wilders views that you don’t agree with, and say why you don’t like it, and give supporting evidence URLs as to (i) why you are sure it is a view of his and not something attributed falsely to him and (ii) why you think he is view is not good.

That way we can all join a constructive debate, and pick up new facts and learning as we go.

There are times I can be provoked into violence by what someone says but that does not mean my loss of temper should be sanctioned by the state or that I should be permitted to parade around wearing a plackard calling for someone’s death because they have offended me.

The notion that Muslims should be permitted to do so because they are considered to know no better is simply an example of the racism of low expectations.

Both those who believe in Wilders’ right to free speech and those who oppose it agree that it is not the response of his SUPPORTERS that is the issue here, it is the violence of those who OPPOSE him.

This is very different from, say, reggae stars inciting hatred of homosexuals (or Muslim clerics doing the same, for that matter) where the issue is DIRECT incitement.

“What do you say to that Sunny?”

You seem to have ignored what I’ve written above…what’s the matter, you can’t deal with someone actually stating an answer to this question, so you have to pursue those that haven’t yet?

“All schools of Islam belive that Apostasy deserves the death penalty – so it is not a case of ‘extremists misinterpretating the Koran’.”

Yet you have no figures whatsoever to back up this grand and wide ranging assertion as being relevant to the real world actions of people that identify as Muslim, especially in the west.

DJ: Your comment was in the spam box, hence why I didn’t see it before…

Lee:
You seem to want to argue that the bible and Koran are morally equivalent.
But you have used no facts to support that view.
You said “Jesus said love your enemies…yeah…the bible is *so* pure and moral in that sense” and then you went on to misquote the bible (Acts 3:23) and were quickly found out.
So far you’ve not disagreed, that Jesus DID say love your enemies.

You’re going to selectively quote negatives from the Koran, and then positives from the bible, and claim we’re having a level debate here? Mohammed also leads by example in forgiving and not seeking retribution on his enemies, and indeed there are examples from the books where forgiveness is shown for sins. Neither book is better or worse than the other in this respect.

Give us a break, you’re fooling no-one. Also, it wasn’t a misquote.

And you’ve not disagreed that Mohammed is quoted in the Koran and Hadith saying kill your enemies / kill the jews.

You’ve not disagreed that Jesus calls for those that stand against him to be killed.

Regarding women under Islam: you make another claim with no facts to support it:
“The bible is no better at it’s portrayal of women as lesser”.
You need to spell out the parallels between the bibleand Koran then to support that view – believe me, that is an impossible task!

The facts are there in both books, I’m not going to sit here and indulge in your games here by writing out verse for verse comparisons. The fact that you ask for that just goes to show how much diversion you’re putting in to this argument.

Do the research Lee, and come back with facts to support your view that 41 countries are ‘mis-interpreting the Koran’ and then we can have a sensible debate.

Quite the opposite, their society is built on the relevant interpretations of their time, just as Christian society is. However, like with modern christians, modern Muslims don’t accept outdated or modernly immoral parts of their holy text. Can I remind you that it was not all that long ago that being a homosexual in this country was a crime? It’s hilarious that you should point fingers given how we in “civilised democracies” have barely entered adolescence from these religious shackles.

To ban the Koran because it’s outdated is, as I’ve said, to also do the same to the Bible which is equally as violent if not more so. It’s also to ban a whole load of other texts and films because we have evolved as a society.

You also accuse lilliput “You can selectively quote from a Hadith if you like.” But then you gave no facts to say whay the quote was selective!

His example is the only unqualified distinction of violence against another for no good reason, while every other instance of encouraging violence is in retaliation, in defence or in keeping of the moral law. Why is it we should believe that every other description of what is and isn’t ok is irrelevant because of ONE passage in a Hadith?

I suggest you research the mainstream Islamic concept of Abrogation in the Koran: which means that when later sayings of Mohammed contradict his earlier ones, that the earlier ones are treated as superceded.

Which, in it’s very essence, is misinterpretation and personal politics interjected into religion for unholy reasons…the same reason the New Testament is criticised.

So the ‘earlier Koran’ texts that you approve of …are in fact considered by Islamic scholars as replaced by the later ones.

Come back to me when Christians don’t still believe what they do from the Bible on issues such as homosexuality, abortion, etc, then we’ll have a level debate on the matter.

If you want a quick read-up on Islamic background, try:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/

Truly independent resource there, nice one…

Jesus in contrast acted in a radical way (we would consider modern) towards women: they were among his close followers; he forgave ther sin, he saved the women about to be stoned for adultery.

Yet the sentiment, which is ultimately what matters in the modern world, is that women are lesser than men in both texts, and indeed can be murdered for their “sins” in both texts…Bible and Koran/Hadith

In contrast, the Koran quotes Mohammed sentencing a women caught in adultery to death. Hence the death penalty is the mainstream punishment for adultery across all strands of Islamic thought for the last 1000 years.
And that can’t change, unless Islam scholars somehow saw that there is something Mohammed did that was not good – and that we shold not follow Mohammed’s example on it….. Phew, that’s a hard nut for a religion to crack.

Yet any simple search for discussion on this matter shows that the idea of forgiveness for these sins is completely compatible with Islam.

“Allah accepts the repentance of a person as long as death has not reached his collar bone”

“Didn’t they know that it is Allah who accepts repentance of His servants and forgives sins?” (At-Tawbah: 104).

“Allah accepts the repentance of those who do evil in ignorance and repent soon afterwards; to them will Allah turn in mercy: For Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom.” (An-Nisa’: 17)

There are many more examples, but I’m sure they will be disgarded for no good reason as seems to be your will.

I hope, I’ve disproved that as above.

That you have not.

I suggest you take this Koran verse, and see if you can find a New Testament one to match:
Sura 9:5, commonly referred to as the “Verse of the Sword”, revealed toward the end of Muhammad’s life:

Luke 19:27, and (I think, I can’t remember off the top of my head) Some part of Matthew that talks about judgement day. That is if you can forgive that the Koran is much more straight forward than the Bible, which hides its intent in, for want of a better word, riddles.

25. Lee Griffin. In the New English Bible , the word used is extirpated which can mean removed or destroyed. The author of Acts 2-v23 is apparently quoting from Moses and all the prophets from Samuel onwards. The author is not quoting Jesus. It is The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John which are the primary sources of The Christian Faith.

The best response to Fitna was by Omar Bakri, who said he was pleased with it because it was almost like a terrorist recruitment video.

I’ve already written about this piss poor effort:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/08/haplessneocons

shatterface: but that does not mean my loss of temper should be sanctioned by the state or that I should be permitted to parade around wearing a plackard calling for someone’s death because they have offended me.

No one has argued for either of those, nor justified either of those.

it is the violence of those who OPPOSE him.

Who promised violence if Wilders came in? I’d be wary of reading right-wing blogs that make stuff up.

Lee

>>“All schools of Islam belive that Apostasy deserves the death penalty – so it is not a case of ‘extremists misinterpretating the Koran’.”

>Yet you have no figures whatsoever to back up this grand and wide ranging assertion as being relevant to the real world actions of people that identify as Muslim, especially in the west.

Well, it will be very easy for you to prove my assertion was wrong – just point out to us all, which schools of Islamic thought consider apostasy to not deserve the death penalty.

Lee – regards differences between Jesus and Mohammed:

You seem to be missing the specifics again.

I wrote:
“So far you’ve not disagreed, that Jesus DID say love your enemies.”

And you have STILL not disagreed.
So we both agree I guess, that he did say that.

And I had written
> And you’ve not disagreed that Mohammed is quoted in the Koran and Hadith saying kill your enemies / kill the jews.

And again, you STILL have not denied that Mohammed said that.

So the facts are, that you don’t deny even after 2 chances to do so: That there is at least one major difference between Jesus and Miohammed: in what they say about treating one’s enemies.

The fact that there is this one difference, suggests the possibility that there may be more; to any open mind, which goes beyind saying ‘all religions are the same’.

You wrote:
> You’ve not disagreed that Jesus calls for those that stand against him to be killed.

I have disagreed, and others here have disagreed. You have presented no sources as to why this is true, other than misquoting Acts, which others have already pointed out does not mean anything close to what you claim it does.

Please do point out where Jesus calls for his followers to kill ‘those who stand against him’.

Hint: save yourself some time – there is no such source.

Lee – regards women under Islam

I wrote
>Regarding women under Islam: you make another claim with no facts to support it:
>>“The bible is no better at it’s portrayal of women as lesser”.
> You need to spell out the parallels between the bible and Koran then to support that view – believe me, that is an impossible task!

But, again (is there a pattern forming here?), you ignore my invitation to present your case with facts and sources.

Instead you make a sweeping generalisation:
> The facts are there in both books

Sorry Lee – sweeping generalisations don’t cut it in debate.

> I’m not going to sit here and indulge in your games here by writing out verse for verse comparisons. The fact that you ask for that just goes to show how much diversion you’re putting in to this argument.

So what is happening here: you’re clearly ignoring repeated request to provide sources to support your statements.
If you can’t support your own claims with sources, then you’re telling us all, that you have no sources.

And instead of being ready to admit that, you’re starting down the road that many who realise they are losing an argument follow – you’re starting to attack the person, and avoid the issue in hand.

Why accuse me of ‘games’ when I only asked, as any 6-former over a coffee would know to ask: that you be ready to support any claims you make with facts.

I wrote:
>>Do the research Lee, and come back with facts to support your view that 41 countries are ‘mis-interpreting the Koran’ and then we can have a sensible debate.

Your answer is gobblydegook:
>Quite the opposite, their society is built on the relevant interpretations of their time, just as Christian society is.

The Cairo convention was signed by those 41 Muslim countries in the 1990s.

> However, like with modern christians, modern Muslims don’t accept outdated or modernly immoral parts of their holy text.

So you’re saying that whatever is in the Cairo convention, is therefore not outdated.
Because the 1990′s governments who signed it are modern.

So you’re agreeing, that enshrining in law that women (and those of other or no faiths) are not equal is a modern mainstream Islamic worldview.

> Can I remind you that it was not all that long ago that being a homosexual in this country was a crime?

That is true.
But don’t change the subject for the moment- the issue is the treatment of women under Islam.

You wrote:
> To ban the Koran

I didn’t raise the question of banning anything -you’re moving the goalposts.
I’ve only challenged your claim that the Bible and Koran are equivalent’ – i’ve not asked what we should do if we find the Koran’s content does tend to support violence.

You write:
>because it’s outdated is, as I’ve said, to also do the same to the Bible which is equally as violent if not more so.

Can you be specific in your views here. Is the Bible more violent or not than the Koran?

And how have you measured this? Number of verses where violent things happen? Number of verses where violent action is commanded as the right thing to do?
Number of violent things done by Jesus vs number of violent things done by Mohammed?
Number of battles Jesus took part in, versus Mohammed?
Number of prisoners they each beheaded?
Number of women caught in adultery they said should be stoned.
Number of women who they took unwilling to their beds after killing their husbands in battle.
Number of their enemies who’s wounds they healed? (Hint: according to the Koran, Jesus did miracles but Mohammed did not)
Number of times they mention the need to fight their enemies?
Number of dfferent methods they describe to kill people who deserve to die.
Number of military campaigns they fought?

Hint: Jesus and Mohammed are chalk and cheese.

“That there is at least one major difference between Jesus and Miohammed: in what they say about treating one’s enemies.”

There is no such difference, as your lack of denial over what Jesus and the Christian writings actually said shows, as does your lack of acknowledgement of where I have given such “proof” (proof in as much as you’ve proved that Mohammed is a vengeful prophet, that is to say none of consequence).

Jesus, ultimately, says that those that don’t believe in him will be destroyed. on judgement day. At least the Hadith only claims that Jews and Turks will be destroyed.

“Hint: Jesus and Mohammed are chalk and cheese.”

Sorry, sweeping generalisations just don’t cut it in debate, DJ.

Lee – regards exhortation to kill non-Muslims

I wrote:
“You also accuse lilliput “You can selectively quote from a Hadith if you like.” But then you gave no facts to say whay the quote was selective!”

And you answered:
“His example is the only unqualified distinction of violence against another for no good reason, while every other instance of encouraging violence is in retaliation, in defence or in keeping of the moral law.”

Can you confirm what you saying here:
- that of all the Hadith and Koranic statements of Mohammed that talk about killing non-Muslims, all are only in cases of defence or retaliation to military attack, apart from the 1 Hadith that Lilliput quoted?

Lee – abrogation in the Koran

I wrote: ” I suggest you research the mainstream Islamic concept of Abrogation in the Koran: which means that when later sayings of Mohammed contradict his earlier ones, that the earlier ones are treated as superceded.”

You answered:
“Which, in it’s very essence, is misinterpretation and personal politics interjected into religion for unholy reasons…

This statement is unclear. Are you saying that Islamic scholars for 1000 years have been misinterpreting the Koran?
The principle of abrogation has come from Islamic scholars, from early on. Because there are a number of cases where Mohammed’s later statements contradict his earlier ones, and this needed to be resolved.

Major things changed – such as early on Mohammed commanded that Muslims should pray to the east to jerusalem. later he changed that, that they should prey to Mecca.

I wrote: !So the ‘earlier Koran’ texts that you approve of …are in fact considered by Islamic scholars as replaced by the later ones.”

And in answer, you change the subject altogether:

“Come back to me when Christians don’t still believe what they do from the Bible on ….

No sorry Lee. That’s not how debate works.
You stated that the early Koran has lots of content on the theme of forgiveness/tolerance.

I’ve raised some facts to show that those earlier statements are considered superceded by Islamic scholars themselves.

So either you have to make a case why the scholars are mistaken, and that abrogation is not valid. Or you have to accept the principle of abrogation is mainstream in Koranic interpretation.

Where do you stand on the principle of abrogation?

I wrote:
> If you want a quick read-up on Islamic background, try:
> http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/

You answered:
> Truly independent resource there, nice one…

OK, what are the sources that you personally would consider independent?

Buy anyway, even if you think it not independent, it would have helped you to avoid some of the spurious claims you’ve made, if you had read and understood that source.

It’s good to read a number of sources, and make your own judgement about where they all lie on the spectrum.

Lee – Jesus commmands, versus Mohammeds

I wrote:
“Jesus in contrast acted in a radical way (we would consider modern) towards women: they were among his close followers; he forgave ther sin, he saved the women about to be stoned for adultery.”

You answered: “Yet the sentiment, which is ultimately what matters in the modern world, is that women are lesser than men in both texts, and indeed can be murdered for their “sins” in both texts…Bible and Koran/Hadith”

Firstly, why are you shifting the debate from facts, that can be asserted and checked or disproven – to ‘sentiment’ which is one step removed from the facts.

You didn’t disagree with any of the factual things I said Jesus actually did: in his treatment of women.

You also didn’t disagree when I said “the Koran quotes Mohammed sentencing a women caught in adultery to death. Hence the death penalty is the mainstream punishment for adultery across all strands of Islamic thought for the last 1000 years.”

So forget ‘sentiment’ – it is the facts of what Jesus did and said; and what Mohammed did and said: that has resulted in the mainstream Islamic world having the death penalty for adultery: and the western post-christian world, with major christian influences behind many of it’s paradigms, where adultery does not get the death penalty.

I wrote:
“And that can’t change, unless Islam scholars somehow saw that there is something Mohammed did that was not good – and that we shold not follow Mohammed’s example on it….. Phew, that’s a hard nut for a religion to crack.”

You answered:
“Yet any simple search for discussion on this matter shows that the idea of forgiveness for these sins is completely compatible with Islam.”

Can I ask, what did you mean by ‘these sins’?
Did you mean forgiveness for adultery?
Did you mean apostasy?

I am very interested to hear on what grounds you disagree with all the schools of Islam, who agree that apostatsy and adultery deserve the death penalty.

Lee – mis-quoting of the bible (again)

I wrote: ” I suggest you take this Koran verse, and see if you can find a New Testament one to match: Sura 9:5, commonly referred to as the “Verse of the Sword”, revealed toward the end of Muhammad’s life:” ..then kill the Mushrikun {unbelievers} wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush.”

And you replied: “Luke 19:27″.

This is too easy to shoot down – you realise that you weaken everything you say when you mis-interpret the bible so badly.

I guess I should first ask you- what are your sources, to show that Christians have interpreted Luke 19 as a command to kill non-christians.

But I’ll save you the embarassment of having to admit there are no such sources.

Instead, let’s look at Sura 9.5 versus Luke 19.

Sura 9.5 is a command from Mohammed, as to how to treat non-muslims.
It is quoted very often by Jihad groups, and Islamic scholars behind the likes of Hamas and Iran etc.
A command from Mohammed, is understood by all Muslims, to be a firm and binding command. So this verse cannot be overlooked or ignored by a Muslim.

Whereas the passage in Luke you quote is NOT a command by Jesus.
In fact, it’s part of a parable, which is understood by all christians, to be a story with a moral attached to it The parable is not understood to be somethng to ‘be done as commanded’ – but a story which had a moral to be drawn.

Luke 19 is the well known parable of the talents.
No where in mainstream christain thought has it been interpreted as instruction to kill anyone! It’s moral, is that at the end of the world, god will judge each of us based on what we have done with what god has entrusted to us (often the #entrusted to us# bit is interpreted to mean the knowledge and awareness of god himself that each of us may have) – ie how have we behaved, in the light of what we know about God.

It’s a great parable, but has nothing whatsoever in common with Sura 9.

The closest it gets, is saying that at the end of the world (end of our lives) that there will be a judgement by god. and that those who have rejected god, will ‘go to hell’.
But hey, that is common to Islam and many religions.
There is no way that can be interpreted to mean that anyone should kill anyone else.

You wrote:
“and (I think, I can’t remember off the top of my head) Some part of Matthew that talks about judgement day. ”

But as I said above, judgement day is also a Koranic concept.
The judgement day occurs several times in the new testament – but it’s always a warning, that we should live our lives in terms of what god expects of us.
Nowhere does it suggest that we should kill anyone, and take judgement day into our own hands.

So please, try again – where does Jesus say anything equivalent to Mohammd’s instruction to kill in Sura 9.

You wrote:
“That is if you can forgive that the Koran is much more straight forward than the Bible, which hides its intent in, for want of a better word, riddles.”

This is a very common mistake about Jesus’ parables that people make who have not read the gospels for themselves. There is no ‘riddle’ – the parables are clear in the text as you read as not being commands; they are clearly flagged as stories with a moral – the Jewish society of jeus day, and for many societies since then, understand the form of a story with a moral.
The Good samaritan, the widow’s mite, the lost sheep, the parable of the prodigal son – to christians these are powerful stories that give insight into gods nature.

But if you believe the Koran is ‘more straighforward’, then I guess that means you don’t have any reason to disagree that Sura 9 is a clear command to Muslims to kill non-Muslims?

Lee

I wrote: “Hint: Jesus and Mohammed are chalk and cheese.”

You answered”
“Sorry, sweeping generalisations just don’t cut it in debate, DJ.”

Touche.

Now answer the question: “Can you be specific in your views here. Is the Bible more violent or not than the Koran?

And how have you measured this? Number of verses where violent things happen? Number of verses where violent action is commanded as the right thing to do?
Number of violent things done by Jesus vs number of violent things done by Mohammed?
Number of battles Jesus took part in, versus Mohammed?
Number of prisoners they each beheaded?
Number of women caught in adultery they said should be stoned.
Number of women who they took unwilling to their beds after killing their husbands in battle.
Number of their enemies who’s wounds they healed? (Hint: according to the Koran, Jesus did miracles but Mohammed did not)
Number of times they mention the need to fight their enemies?
Number of dfferent methods they describe to kill people who deserve to die.
Number of military campaigns they fought?

Sunny – regards Fitna the movie

I asked:
“Sunny – could you watch the Fitna film,and tell us exactly which bits you disagree with? Tell us where in the video (how many minutes in), so we can all take a look and see what we think.”

You replied:
“The best response to Fitna was by Omar Bakri, who said he was pleased with it because it was almost like a terrorist recruitment video.”

Sorry, that does not help us understand what specifically _you_ disagree with in the movie.

You wrote:
“I’ve already written about this piss poor effort:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/08/haplessneocons”

OK, looking at your article for specifics, this is what I read:
“Go ahead and watch the film if you must, it’s available all over the web. But I’ll warn you its rather boring and nothing most of you wouldn’t have seen before in the news.”

Nothing specific there – other than you think it uncontroversial, if you think it boring?

You wrote:
“As Reem Maghribi says here, it should instead be used by Muslims to have an open discussion about those quotes in the Qur’an, their context and applicability in the modern world.”

Ah that’s good – so let’s kick off that debate here.
Please do tell us your views about the Koran quotes in Fitna.

You wrote: “Wilders’s poor film”

Ok, nothing specific there.

Ok Sunny, you say you want an open debate about these quotes in the Qur’an – here is a debating forum, where that open debate can start – albeit on a small scale.

Over to you then, lets hear your views about the Fitna film and the quotes it contains.
Be specific please!

DJ,

Who cares which silly book says what?

Firstly, why are you shifting the debate from facts

I like the idea that we’re talking about “facts” when discussing either the bible or the Koran. I am, however, only shifting the debate to where it was before you started bogging it down with subjective scripture quotes.

Look, DJ, you’re clearly here to extol how Christianity and the Bible is clean and pure. The unfortunate fact (for you) is that it is not. It condemns those that do not believe and sin to death and non-resurrection. While the Hadith is a bit more descriptive about the how, the what is the same for both religions…if you don’t believe in god, come Judgement day, you will be killed. Not before (though punishments for sins will apply, and…in both religions be encouraged to be forgiven). Acts 3:23 confirms deuteronomy, which plainly calls for the killing of non-believers, and Matthew 5:17 also confirms that Jesus isn’t in opposition to the old laws of the bible…thus to kill sinners and non-believers.

Jesus does offer respite or temporary stay of execution, though it is not unqualified and love for all…he “forgives” the adulterer because it serves as an opportunity to teach the men that brought her before him about hypocrisy and their own mortal souls. He doesn’t say she is forgiven, merely that he will not condemn her this day and that she needs to go and repent…if she does not she will be judged as any other sinner.

When Jesus talks of “loving” an enemy it is to not be a hypocrite, but that doesn’t necessarily ring to mean that you should let your enemy do what they like. Jesus also says that you should defend yourself (buy a sword) and that laying your life down for another is honourable. Again, Islam is more graphic about it, but the sentiment still exists here.

Is it not awfully clear? Well no text is clear in either book in all fairness, and yet there are Christians in the world that believe the bible says it’s ok to go to war (and that Iraq is justified) while others say Jesus would never condone war (certainly not in the manner of Iraq). Certainly Jesus agrees with the laws of the old testament and the OT says that you can prepare and defend yourself from attack, which is no worse than what the Koran states. It’s all interpretation, but the book forces no-one to do either.

As I said, both books are fairly equal on this matter. Though it’s interesting that you will continue to try and compare Christian New Testament teachings (which include forgiveness) to the Koran (which is more comparable to the old testament, which advocates a lot of fighting and killing) rather than some of the Hadith (which actually once more advocates more forgiveness).

I am very interested to hear on what grounds you disagree with all the schools of Islam, who agree that apostatsy and adultery deserve the death penalty.

You want your passages, here they are. This is a good article regarding interpretation… http://www.ahmadiyya.org/islam/tolerance.htm

So you’re saying that whatever is in the Cairo convention, is therefore not outdated.
Because the 1990’s governments who signed it are modern.

This is the statement that pretty much proves my point. A group of people interpret the book in a significantly different way to how other learned people do, millennia after they were written, and yet the book is somehow blamed as the cause. The problem is the people, interpretation is the cause. Both books are violent and prejudiced, but they are also old and, in the cases of the New Testament and Hadith, questionable in authenticity…it takes people to make something of it that is no longer relevant in the modern world.

Interesting DJ! Jesus would have loved you, the hypocrite that you are…

So please, try again – where does Jesus say anything equivalent to Mohammd’s instruction to kill in Sura 9.

Mohammed doesn’t instruct anyone to kill non-muslims without qualification. The whole of the Koran doesn’t lend itself to this being believable either, and…furthermore…from a historical context if this was the true meaning then there would have been far greater wars in history where Muslims tried to kill or enslave Jews and the small population of Christians. But there aren’t, which kind of goes against the original interpretation being that which you have done to this (selective and subjective) snippet of the Quran.

“This verse was revealed during a historical period when the small Muslim community had entered into treaties with neighboring tribes (Jewish, Christian, and pagan). Several of the pagan tribes had violated the terms of their treaty, secretly aiding an enemy attack against the Muslim community. The verse directly before this one instructs the Muslims to continue to honor treaties with anyone who has not since betrayed them, because fulfilling agreements is considered a righteous action. Then the verse continues, that those who have violated the terms of the treaty have declared war, so fight them.”

Luke 19:27 confirms the same because it is a parable that states when Jesus (the prince) has left and given to the people his coins, and when he has returned resurrected (as the King) he expects faith to have grown, and belief to have prospered. If nothing has been done with that faith, then the benefits of faith will be removed…and if one has no faith they shall be killed.

You can argue in interpretation this means that they shall lose their soul come judgement after death…however then you are only proving my point.

Sunny (63): the ‘right wing blog’ which indicated that Muslims might resort to violence was Liberal Cimonspiracy, which posted a photo of a Muslim carrying a sign saying KILL GEERT WILDERS!!!

Unless you faked that picture, it does suggest that the threats of violence are coming from those who oppose Wilders, not from his supporters.

Sorry, that should say Liberal Conspiracy.

Muslims and the Death Penalty.

Time for some data, I think.

I’m not getting into a Koran verse-swapping argument without there being some Muslims on the thread to bring some context to it.

>>All schools of Islam belive that Apostasy deserves the death penalty – so it is not a case of ‘extremists misinterpretating the Koran’.
>Yet you have no figures whatsoever to back up this grand and wide ranging assertion as being relevant to the real world actions of people that identify as Muslim, especially in the west.

I’d agree that the basic assertion than all 4 classical Islamic schools teach execution as the penalty for Apostacy is completely uncontroversial (hardly a wide ranging assertion, but definitely not especially relevant to 2009), but that some modern Islamic authorities temper that assertion.

There are a number of “Muslim” countries (a majority, I think) that have banned the death penalty, which is why all the comment box loons (whether Christian Loons, or Right Wing Loons, or Secularist Loons, or Islamist Loons) wherever they manifest themselves ranting about “The Threat of Sharia as I understand it” or “Sharia the Beatiful as I interpret it” need a more nuanced analysis.

These countries are on the Amnesty “death penalty abolished for all crimes list”: Albania *, Djibouti *, Turkey *, Guinea-Bissau *, Azerbaijan *,

These countries are on the Amnesty “death penalty abolished for ordinary crimes list”: Kyrgyzstan *, Kazakhstan *,

These countries are on the Amnesty “death penalty abolished for in practice list”: Algeria *, Benin *, Brunei Darussalam *, Burkina Faso *, Cameroon *, Eritrea, Gabon *, Gambia *, Mali *, Mauritania *, Morocco *, Niger *, Suriname *, Tajikistan *, Togo *, Tunisia *, Turkmenistan *

The ones marked with an asterisk * are full members of the Islamic Conference Organisation. The membership criteria are slightly flexible, but it makes the point that Islamic (and indeed the Sharia tradition) *can* be and *have* been developed to be more liberal. In practice it’s the usual Middle-Eastern axis that are less progressive.

The process seems to follow a similar trjectory to Western Countries only somewhat later – abolition for less exceptional crimes, for particular categories of criminals (minors, mentally handicapped, women), commuting to life etc.

Life ain’t simple.

Islamist Loons

My view is that there is a group of Muslims who fit the template Geert Wilders suggests, but that they are a small-tiny minority (no idea of the exact numbers) who are not in the mainstream in this country.

I think the key thing we need to work on is building a civil/civic society that marginalises all the Loons (including the Left-Wing Loons who I forgot to mention above).

I don’t think Jacqui Smith banning Geert Wilders helps that process.

shatterface – I believe that was from a protest held when the film was actually released, and not from the UK. I was referring specifically to the claim attributed to Lord Ahmed.

DJ – I’m not interested in discussing verses from religious scriptures.

The main reason is that religious scriptures are intensely contextual creations – part historical, part commentary, and definitely a source of controversy over interpretation. So to quite verses randomly out of books to justify this or that is the kind of thing terrorists do… oh and people such as yourself. And I have no intention of debating someone who thinks JihadWatch is a credible or useful website.

My views here are about Fitna itself (quality, content), the debate around free speech, and stopping people from coming into the country.

After my “sense of humour failure” I’d better be crystal clear that I’m not calling anyone in particular “loons”.

M.

Lee:

>You want your passages, here they are. This is a good article regarding interpretation… http://www.ahmadiyya.org/islam/tolerance.htm

I don’r think you can regard the Ahmadiyya movement as typical of Islam – they are regarded as heretical (i.e., not Muslims) by most Muslims. Pakistan even passed a constitutional amendment in 1974 to make it illegal for Ahmadis to even call themselves Muslims (+ recorded the fact of affiliation on travel documents). I’d accept that it demonstrates one possible interpretation that is also used in more liberal mainstream circles (e.g., in the emphasis placed on “no compulsion” against a traditionalist version of Sharia) however I’d also be interested to know how Muslims in general react to an argument based on that article.

The position is perhaps comparable to Jehovah’s Witnesses with Christianity (except that Ahmadiyya is more liberal than the mainstream while the JW movement is more conservative and controlling): both are 19C movements that “re-engineered” their respective religions in some respects.

I think your interpretations of the Gospel verses are highly idiosyncratic, and I wonder whether you would find one commentator from the field in a hundred to support them – I’ve never seen a single one who did so. On the literal intepretation of the parables – that’s just not how they work: to me your suggestion is like saying that Little Red Riding Hood justifies the extermination of wolves from the wild. That doesn’t stop them having a valid moral, though.

On Acts 3:23, it’s hardly likely that an evangelistic sermon with the intention of suggesting that “non Christians” (leaving aside that the word hadn’t been coined) should be killed – rather than would be “judged at the end of the age” – would be preached (or would be invented as having been preached if you think it is a created account) by a Jewish preacher to a Jewish crowd in the Jewish temple in the sight of the Jewish civil authorities, when the sentiment cuts across the whole thrust of the context. I think the best you could ever get there is a rabble rouser abusing the single phrase to stir up a pogrom in Medieval times, if that. If you find an authority making this interpretation, I’d be interested to hear of it.

Happy to argue in more depth, but it’s slightly off topic.

Rgds

An Incredible Sense of Deja-Vu / The Right become the Left and the Left become the Right.
To Sunny

I,m new to this forum and I,ve been following the exciting and enriching swash-buckling sword-play in this discussion between the participants of this debate. E.G Sunny,DJ and Lee.
One fascanating process that has taken place with monotonous ” historic regularity ” which refuses to escape my attention is the innate and habitual ” knee-jerk ” reflex of ” The Left “,
in becoming the unwiitting enemy of the very values and principals it claims to have been the only and last bastion of. ( The Imposter Left )
As a born in 52 / 1968 / Left-wing / Hippy / Anti-Establishment / Anti-Vietnam / Anti-Racist / Anti Capitalist / Ex Colllege Kid…and having not had the luxury of having lived all my life in some bubble
( intellectual comfort zone ) , I have watched over the years with increasing alarm at the repedative and increasing tendancy of Wester Liberals,through either / or–perhaps post-colonial /
majority / white-guilt / cultural relativity / moral equivalence / or loathing of western culture,which manifests itself as ( see…we have religious fanatics to ” moral equivalence ” and all cultures are the same ” cultural relativity “.
With all due respect Sunny , none of us are perfect and I appeal to you to reconsider you remark
to ( shatterface ) Quote ” And I have no intention of debating someone who thinks JihadWatch is a credible or usefull web-site. ”
Think about your remark,be a man and recognise the signs of blanket-censorship / left wing imposter / reflex—-Jihadwatch–is facist / racist / right-wing insinuation
JihadWatch might just be a Civilizational Preservation reaction to ( imposter left ) inablity to identify and counter-act a serious,totalitarian idelogical and demographic enemy. Only freedom of speech can save us from religion.

Sorry —forgot to press the ( notify me of followup comments via e-mail in last post.

Sunny

You said in the Times newspaper concerning Fitna the film: “it should instead be used by Muslims to have an open discussion about those quotes in the Qur’an, their context and applicability in the modern world”

But this morning you said “I’m not interested in discussing verses from religious scriptures.”

So you contradict yourself.

But further, you add:
“to quote verses randomly out of books to justify this or that…”

So you _actually are_willing to discuss verses from scripture – you happy to say that you think Wilders has pulled verses out at random?

Ok, if that’s your view – you must now back it up with facts – ie which verses, and why.

If you fail to do that, you position lacks all intellectual honesty.

You cannot criticise in public newspapers others views on Koranic questions , if you then follow that up with statements that you are unwilling to support that with facts.

Yes DJ, I have also began to notice the regular appearance of the;

” picking verses out at random to justify ” defense.
And you are justified in asking which verses they are reffering to.

There is one Islamic doctrine in particular which is difficult for westerners to grasp,because we judge from our perspective and psychology.
It is a tactic which is used to avoid scrutiny of ones intentions or of the true nature of ones Ideology. it is a tactic of evasion and deception.
it is known as Taquiah or Taqyyia,
Only by disguising the true aim of Islam towards the other tribes and nations that it encountered during its expansion from a small Bedouin tribe to an Empire was it possible to achieve its goals.
If the adversdaries that Islam encountered during its tide of conquest had been aware of the nature of its foe, they would have died fighting.
Taquiah was the most valuable weapon in Islams arsenal. It is literally a Koranic instruction to evade.lie,decieve, undermine,confuse and mislead the enemy.( and if you are told by some Muslim scholar that this strategy is only permitted to be used ” In defense or during war ” such a statement would be ( yes ,you guessed it ) just more Taquiah.
Any truce made with the Infidel is never to be permanent in nature,and only allowed to regroup or in time of weakness.
if you are told that the Koran declares ” there is no compulsion in religion ” and they omit to tell you that all the nice verses in the early Koran were ( Abrogated by Allah ) later,then yes…that is just more Taquiah.
And if they tell you that beheading,stoning,supression of women, execution of homosexuals ect ect……are just cultural anomalies and not Koranic edicts…they are lying again….it is Taquiah.
And if they tell you that Geert Wilders is just cherry picking verses out of the Koran and misinterpreting them…..that statement is also Taquiah.
Islam can only survive by avoiding scrutiny.it is petrified of being unvailed as the;
Freedom-Ophobic / sexist / homophobic / Yoga Ophobic / Knowledge-ophobic and most of all
Non-Muslim-Ophobic tyranny that it is .
It is based on fear, and if it knew that finally it had been RUMBLED,and we all knew about Taquiah, and there was nowhere left to hide. It would then turn in on itself and crumble like a pile of dust.
Islam is a Bully, and all Bullies when confronted,become cowards.
But if you feed this crocodile in the hope that you will be the last to be eaten,the crocodile just gets bigger.
The fatal mistake that we have made is that we talk ” their language “We have to start talking ours.
No tolerance for intolerance—-no apologies for being free.

journeyman

not sure about your spelling – Wikipedia lists it: Taqiya

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

Yup…that seems to be the thing with Arabic….even Kuffar–Kaffir has two spellings.
As to your Taquiah….I have also seen it as Taqiyya.
To our minds the concept of Taquiah,explained as not only a tatic of war but also a culturally ingrained indoctrinated reflex,right down to the individual, sounds like a defaming propaganda,and I can understand why a Westerner would see it as a rather generalized sweeping statement.

However,I and many others have had the encounter with Taquiah first, and only after discovered that this ” thing has a name.
I am certain that Apostate Muslim-anti-Jihad web-sites will also confirm this, such as Apostates of Islam and Muslims against Sharia.
Taquiah is the reason that one finds it almost impossible in a debate to pin Islam down. Your antenna begin to register some kind of evasion manouvre.
Every attempt to critizise is met with either/or outrage,victimhood,grievance,accusation and insult to their belief or sentitivities.
Islamists know us very well and exactly what makes us tick.Which buttons to press to get which concession. We are always on the defensive.
They know that their culture,belief and language is so inscrutable to us that we will gladly believe what we hear,assuming by western standards that all men are honourable until proven otherwise,especially if they claim religious piety.
The Islamist Propaganda machine has specifically been targeting the young Left-Wing in Western society, manipulating them as usefull tools in furthering their agenda.
They play on Left-Wing fear of racism accusations and habitual contrition for the faults of western society.
Universites infiltrated by Saudi-funded Middle-East faculties are rampant throught the West and specifically goal orinentated to portray Islam in a positive light……right down to a specially written sanitized version of the Koran,for young impressionable Western eyes only.
Yes thats right …..er……Taquiah……..anybody.
I

“I don’r think you can regard the Ahmadiyya movement as typical of Islam – they are regarded as heretical (i.e., not Muslims) by most Muslims. Pakistan even passed a constitutional amendment in 1974 to make it illegal for Ahmadis to even call themselves Muslims”

Yet historically it can be safely assumed that Muslims were closer to the Ahmadiyya movement than modern Islam that, in parts, chooses more violent paths. This is the imbalance of history that lends itself to the argument of interpretation.

I’m not a Muslim scholar, I don’t have their level of knowledge by far… but these conflicting interpretation by Muslim scholars, however, just go to prove my point…that the book itself is only as dangerous as individuals wish to make it.

I’m also not a Christianity expert, but there is no denying that the book in its entirety is violent, mainly due to the Old Testament, and that there are enough references that Jesus agrees with what Moses preached and of the “old laws” that one could happily interpret that Jesus was not as forgiving as people make him out.

Whether modern academics would interpret it as violent or not is *completely independent* of whether it COULD be violent.

This is the only point I’m trying to make…I’m not trying to suggest the Bible wishes people to kill each other, just like I don’t believe the Koran justifies violence in any form other than self-defence…the books themselves are outdated in their morals and justice, but that alone does not make them dangerous. People make the books dangerous, from Muslim extremists that take a very literal translation of shortened snippets of the book, to Christians that use choice exerpts (as I have done on this thread) to prove that instigating a war on Iraq is holy and just.

Pretty simple conclusion. Geert Wilders appears to be a controversial, provocative and anti-Islamic figure. He’s going a bit far. I don’t agree with him.

The Muslim extremists he campaigns against, and of whom I must assume Sunny Hundal is amongst, are far more threatening. Those who have forced Mr Wilders to live under police guard 24/7 are far more of a threat than the Dutchman, who is simply a controversial and borderline racist. Not all racists go around murdering anyone in their sights who they are racist against. Whilst racism is bad, this borderline, anti Islamic racism where he wants Muslims to be sent home, is NOT as bad as calling for Jihad (ie death) against anyone who defames the provocative Koran.

I wonder if Sunny Hundal realizes yet,that he is ” validating ” the political agenda of his future enemy.
The future enemy of the left / reason / tolerance / equality and democracy.
One awfully nasty habit that the ( Imposter Left ) has is —name calling—not debating.
it is cheap,cowardly and a ” COP OUT “.
What was that about Melanie Phillips being a racist. Please , don,t be shy,lets debate it.
We must not deprive your readers….the right to know why.
Come along now…..all those of the ( imposter left ) who lip service free speech.
We must not develop our own ” Spanish Inquisition, Melanie Phillips / Geert Wilders are racists ( heresy…………..and rush it through the Sunny Hundal ” Kangaroo Court “.
The only problem Sunny, is that one day you might have to decide between following your conscience , being loyal to your ideals or continuing to write articles for the Times, because once you stray from the ” party line ” they may not like it.
There is such a thing in Europe as the new CODE OF CONDUCT FOR JOURNALISM contirived by the mortal enemy of the Left, ( The Big Money / Industrialist / European Council / Eurabia / Project / Globalist Power Block builders–( see BARCELONA DECLARATION 1995 STARTING 2010,the integration of Morocco,Algeria, Tunisia ; Egypt , Jordan , Turkey into the E:U. ) pop;270,million.
To facilitate access to cheap labour, oil and gas supplies, and create a competitive enlarged economic power block.
Goverment, educational , N.G.O. cultural and Media organisations to co-operate in erradicating xenophobia, racism and religious intolerance and promote ” cultural enrichment ” .
I like that….Orwells Newspeak…” cultural enrichment “,Anybody know what it means.
I do…its a tailor made expression specifically targeted to appeal to the ( imposter left ).
Its another way of saying..” if you don,t fucking Knuckle under, and keep you mouth shut while we over the next twenty years, conduct the greatest demographic, social, most rapid, culture shock imposed Western civlization, you,ll end up in court under the special new hate speech laws charged as being racist.
Sounds like a loony conspiracy theory doesn.t it
Well we all know that if it doesn,t have American-Bush-Neo-Con-Republican stamped all over it,then it can,t possibly be a Capitalist conspiracy.
I mean…the Unelected Non-Democratic parasites at the European Council would never lie to you would they.
Meanwhile.. every time the E,U. council and their Saudi-Wahabist and their Code of Conduct for Journalist shouts ” SHIT “,everybody down at the Times…..jumps on the shovel.

DG> Muslim extremists he campaigns against, and of whom I must assume Sunny Hundal is amongst, are far more threatening.

I’ve been ignoring the trolls on this thread, but …

ROFL.

Jesus..what a green horn I am…..I had to look up TROLL in wikipeda to find out what it means.
Theres a name for everything is,nt there.
Of course now,having suddenly been promoted to the ” Troll awareness “,ones instiinct is to take a look in the mirror to see if I belong in that category.

By the way, being a green horn,I don,t know if this is a stupid question,,,,,,,,,but when you know somebody things you,re a troll.
I mean do they say….shove off or something.

Lee

I liked your last post (92).
Nice not to suffer a personal dig this time ;<)

I can see that you’re bang in the mainstream of UK understanding of religions – we’re taught at school and in the media etc that all are religions are ‘equivalent’. A road common to many of us on this forum I guess.

And the christians we meet seem nice guys and the other religious folks we meet seem to be nice guys, so we assume that all religions are equally ‘nice’.

I used to think the same – Christianity and Islam are both monotheistic – Jesus is mentioned in both I heard, so it seems at first glance ‘obvious’ that they have lots in common, and are ‘equivalent’.

I know how you feel when you say that the Bible and Koran are equally violent -I can see that you want to believe that. I too wanted to believe that.

But you probably feel uncomfortable having to stretch way too far, when you argue that because some heretical, minority islamic ‘sect’ interpret the Koran less violently than ALL the mainstream Islamic groups, that this ‘proves’ it’s down to the interpretation.

And, like me, you probably find it unsettling to realise that ALL 3 Islamic groups agree on the death penalty for apostasy and adultery, whereas NONE of the 3 major Christian groups do.
It’s hard not to agree that these are substantive diferences.

But like you, I did believe that both books where equally violent.

But then the Mohammed cartoons came along -and I couldn’t understand the furore and the violence.
SoI read the new testament, with a red pen to hand, to underline all the violent passages…. and then did the same in the Koran.

And like you, I couldn’t find any words of Jesus that commanded violence by his followers. But instead ‘love your enemies’. And Jesus even healing one of his enemies.

Whereas in the Koran and the Hadith, there is _loads_ about fighting -how to fight, when to fight, that taking the world by the sword is not peripheral.
Mohammed himself beheading prisoners (that’s why Jihadi’s favourite method of killing is beheading -because it is good to copy Mohammed’s example.)

There’s explicit commands that adultery and apostasy deserve the death penalty.

And then I read up on what the position of the major Islamic groups is – and found a load of common ground between them – with death penalties and inequality for women and non-muslims right there at the centre.

I could no longer stay in the believe that the violence was just a few extremists, when it was there in the Islamic mainstream.

So, as for me, I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer honest of me to say that both books are ‘equally likely to be mis-interpreted to support violence’.

That’s maybe not a step you’re ready to take yet – just be aware that it might come one day.

And now when I look in the news, and see that around the world that there violent groups planting suicide bombs and declaring Jihad against local and national governments – and that loads of them quote Mohammed and use Islam as their influences…

I compare it with the number of non-Islamic suicide bombers around the world. And basically, I don’t see any Christian groups committing violence and quoting from Jesus to justify it.

I don’t see any Jewish groups comitting violence and quoting the Old testament to justify it.

I do see on YouTube Hamas’ TV shows: where they have kids shows that teach ‘kill all the jews’: I see the Hamas MPs speaking, saying they want to kill all the Jews and take over Israel, and then they will go on to take America.

I do see 41 Islamic countries that don’t allow women and those of other or no faith equal rights under the law.

I see Saudi where there are no churches, no synagogues where is it against the law to meet with others to worship in any way except Islam.
But in Rome there are mosques and synagogues. In Jerusalem there are churches and mosques.

I read on wikipedia that the majority of women killed in Gaza are honour killings.

I see how various people who have asked questions about Islamic influences on Jihad and Islamic violence…. be killed.

I see a few people with the guts/disregard-for-self to keep asking these questions despite death threats, and they need 24/7 police cover. As do Danish cartoonists.

I read of women in Saudi, (happened this week), who are raped, go to the courts to get justice, and because they cannot provide 4 male witnesses (mainstream sharia law requirement), they are accused themselves of adultery, and sentenced themselves.

I read of Palestinian journalists who report from Gaza that there were cases where Hamas forced families to stay in their houses, even as they fired rockets from their roof and then retreated – that Hamas actually wanted civilian casualties.

The weight of facts just became too much for me Lee. It might have been ‘easier’ to believe that Jesus and Mohammed are equally likely to inspire violence and intolerance.

But the weight of facts became too much for that view to be intellectually honest.

But it’s not comfortable in the UK to say this in ‘polite circles’. So many people are uncomfortable even to consider the possibilty that there may be cultural differences between the west and the Islamic world. If you say down the pub wth friends that of course Jesus and Mohammed were quite different people who did quite different things, and said quite different things.. some of those friends will look askance and ask if you’re not ‘being a bit racist’.

So maybe you’re better off not jumping view too quickly.
Not many folks you’ll find can be arsed to spend even 20 minutes discussing religion or Wilders like we are here.
Even fewer will put in a couple of hours round the table, to look at wikipedia and etc, researching what mainstream islam says, and what mainstream christianity says.

You wrote:
“I’m also not a Christianity expert, but there is no denying that the book in its entirety is violent, mainly due to the Old Testament”

You are quite incorrect there Lee – would you be willing to discuss here on the forum how you reach that concusion? Dig out all your gospel quotes, refer some commentaries on them (there’s a bunch on line to be read for free) – look at the websites of the major christian groups?

You wrote: “People make the books dangerous,” you’re absolutely right of course, that it’s people that do the violence, after reading the books. But you won’t deny that some books promote violence more than others.
The Dutch and Germans obviously think so – thats the logic behind their ban on Mein Kampf.
That’s why Wilders asks the question – if they ban mein kampf…. should they not also apply the same test to the Koran, does it promote violence?

Sorry to have prattled on at length about my own road of experience.
Maybe I’ve been clumsy, but I just wanted to see if actually, we’re not closer to each other round the table than we thought.

that poor saudi women I mentioned: sentenced to 100 lashes for adultery, because she was raped: here’s the link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1141267/Saudi-judge-sentences-pregnant-gang-rape-victim-100-lashes-committing-adultery.

The Mail call Saudi’s legal system a ‘strict form of medieval law’.

But strangely they didn’t say it is actually 100% Sharia compliant in this regard.

“And, like me, you probably find it unsettling to realise that ALL 3 Islamic groups agree on the death penalty for apostasy and adultery, whereas NONE of the 3 major Christian groups do.”

DJ, the facts are there, the two books are really not different from each other…yet it is of course undeniable that he two sets of peoples have ended up in two different places in the modern day. The fact that people *now* interpret the Quran as they do is not an indictment upon the book but on the people that have chosen to make such decisions and on the blindness of faith.

I also think you ignore the context of when the books were written, the states of conflict that the two different sets of people were in at the time, when regarding what language is used.

You can’t on the one hand argue that the Quran is the source of extremism in Islam while ignoring that mainstream Christian groups have abandoned the violence in the Bible. You can’t argue one or the other, but then I guess that’s why you’re trying to pretend that the Bible is free from violence and that the Quran is packed full of it.

You also can’t argue that the expert opinion of modern muslim scholars is that violence is justified in the manner that has been used, for example… http://www.metimes.com/International/2005/07/07/muslim_scholars_forbid_labeling_apostasy/5356/

Lee

Looks like we’re the only ones left awake around the campfire discussing this :<)

I think maybe our views are pretty close on most of this, once we get to the substance.

You wrote:
“The fact that people *now* interpret the Quran as they do is not an indictment upon the book”

This wasn’t quite clear – do you mean that the way the Quran is interpreted ‘now’ is different than it was in the past?
When did it change? Which Islamic scholars were the innovators in Quranic interpretation?

I think it’s a pretty isolated position to go down this route – it’s a huge theme in Islam that it has not changed since the beginning, that the Quran and Hadith are unchanging truth (in contrast to the Islamic view that the Bible has been constantly edited over the centuries).

So I wonder if you meant something else by that?

You wrote:
“..the context of when the books were written, the states of conflict that the two different sets of people were in at the time, when regarding what language is used.”

I agree with you, the language between the books is quite different.
As you say, the books were written in diferent contexts, by different sets of people: and so it’s hardy surprising the language used between them is different.

And we’d both agree, that as real historical characters, in difference places and in times, Jesus and Mohammed also _did_ different things.

(Just one example Mohammed was a military and political leader who led battles, and beheaded prisoners. Jesus wasn’t and didn’t).

And we’d both agree that they _said_ different things.
(just one example, a women caught in adultery was taken to Mohammed, who said she should be stoned. Jesus in the same situation, famously said ‘let him who is without sin cast the first stone’ and the women was saved’).

But it seems that although we agree on this lot, there’s still an extra step you haven’t taken; you write:
“the facts are there, the two books are really not different from each other”

So despite agreeing with al the differences:

But so far no facts mentioned on this forum support that.

And actually, logically, if the books have different language, describe different people who did different things. and said and commanded different things…. then it follows that they are likely to be different to each other.

Any historian would support that – in fact a historical approach would focus on listing similarities and listing differences, and like you above.

So that’s were we are Lee.
So close.. and not yet in agreement.

The only way this debate can move forward, is for you or someone to try to explain why the differences between what Mohammed and Jesus did, said and were – are not important.

But there are _so_ many differences (Jesus said love your enemies, Mohammed said kill them), that this is a mammoth task.

Before everyone goes home, I’ll make it official that I regret this comment.

“DG> Muslim extremists he campaigns against, and of whom I must assume Sunny Hundal is amongst, are far more threatening.

I’ve been ignoring the trolls on this thread, but …

ROFL.”

Since DG asked some good things.

(Sunny being a secularised Sikh!)

Matt

“Mohammed said kill them”

Mohammed, categorically, did not say kill your enemies in an unqualified manner. That is our sticking point, perhaps mainly

Mohammed never condoned killing of “enemies” that did not wish to fight, thus it can NEVER be accurately interpreted that suicide bombing (for example) was justified by Islam.

I have tried to explain the differences that can be interpreted, and indeed the similarities that literally exist, but you are unfortunately blind to the bigger picture as you have one truth in your mind and you’re unwilling to put that aside for a moment. We don’t agree on half as much as you think we do, and I resent being told I agree with you on matters where you have broadened the context out of proportion.

I also think it’s telling that you are unable to deal with the historical argument of behaviour in Islam and the implication that has on interpretation through the ages.

Lee

thanks for that.

“We don’t agree on half as much as you think we do,”

Ok, to help me understand where we do agree or disagree: where do you stand on these key positions:
New testament and Koran use different language
Jesus and Mohammed did different things
Jesus and Mohammed said different things
Jesus and Mohammed instructed their followers to do different things

“…the historical argument of behaviour in Islam and the implication that has on interpretation through the ages.”

Sorry, not quite understanding you there, can you expand on that?

“Mohammed, categorically, did not say kill your enemies in an unqualified manner.That is our sticking point, perhaps mainly”

Ok, cool, a specific point of difference like this should be amendable to a bit of sensible fact finding, and hopefully a quick resolution.

If I dig out Koranic verses, and the statements by mainstream Islamic scholars which talk about killing your enemies, would you be happy to discuss them here?

I thought this discussion had died out ,so I thought I,d shove off.
I did try to log off but could,nt find out how so I keep geting up-dates on this discussion,which perhaps is not such a bad thing.
After all its my pet subject.
No doubt you noticed that ” journeyman ” has made a few contributions to this discussion.
Out of cyberspace naivety, I automatically assumed I was jumping into something comparable to a newspaper comment section.
It was only later I bothered to read the ( site description ).
Liberal Conspiracy web,it seems ” and with all due repect ” an internal Left Organisation to-and fro, discussion, and I almost felt like I was intruding.
Not being as ” cyber savey ” as some veterans, I may have been somewhat slow to register this,as taking part in web-discussion has been a recent development.
Being now perhaps a touch wiser,I can appreciate that the chaps down at L.C have got their job to do, and It did not escape my attention that there was a passing refferance in there web-policy-info,to the fear of L.C web being diverted, from that which it is designed for and “shanghighed”
by overtly opposing political stance or just plain irritating mischevous comment.
Well,I can,t confess to know much about that myself and I only found out what a troll was yesterday.
I would be very hesitant to get involved with most of the subject discussions on L.C because I,m
clever enough to be aware of my ignorance of the micro-introcasies of British politics,but concerning such things as the Left and its both fascinating and fate-provoking dalliance with Islam, Geert Wilders, Salman Rushdie; Lord Ahmed, Stealth-JIhad, Jihad- LIte and most of all Freedom of Expression and Speech,I hope that should the subject arrise again, that my most humble opinions, might be welcome.
Taking the above considerations into account,it would have been wiser if I had introduced and identifyed myself before commenting,although anonimity does seem to be prevalent.
As an Ex-Pat British guy….resident in Scandinavia where we have our own dilemmas to ponder over,I have asked myself why I should bother to web-comment here and not where I can find a nice ideological ” comfort zone ” that validates instead of questioning my outlook.
To be blunt ,although I have always seen myself as being predominantly Left / Social Democratic /
Progressive / LIberal / Atheist ect, both I and many others have been unable to ignore a prevalent endemic and historical tendency, spanning the entire Western Left-Wing movement since at least the 1930,s—-to unwittingly, and with the best of intentions—ignore,validate, appease, excuse,shelter, support, strengthen and justify the very doctrines which oppose the very moral principals and values which make the existence of Organisations such as Liberal Conspiracy possible.
I know what a scholar is and I claim to be no scholar, and when I first many years ago, made the observations of the Left that I have just described above,I was at that time a 16 year old, Anti-Vietnam, dope smoking, anti-establishment, bohemian, third-worldist, sterotype. ( I still demonstrate against Vietnam ) .
It was only latter when I stumbled over George Orwells–Critical Essays that I had the backing of paradoxically ” a hero of the Left ” and a respected scholar to confirm that my suspicions were not the result of ignorance.
I must emphazise here that my intentions are honourable and Left or Right, my concern is something other than the difference between Tory and Labour ( if there is one ).
My concern is to do with the Left and Islam and my certainty that Islam will become more than just the prevalent issue in the Media for the present period,but the ” Zeitgeist ” of our times.
And the nasty things about Zeitgeists is that you never see them coming., and one tends to wake up one morning and say ” how the fuck did that happen . A should you do so—lets hope you didn,t weren,t the cause.
Time to nip off,for a bite to eat, I,ll post some Orwell observations later.
Best Regards.