Bullshit!
Please provide a shred of evidence that I’m a “Christophobe”.
Evidence? Pretty much everything you’ve said in this thread so far.
You are committing the logical fallacy of “NO U,” also known as the Diogenes gambit.
Aren’t you the guy who was claiming that Jerry Sandusky couldn’t have raped a child due to some weird paper towel tube test?
Dude, I’d recommend reading up on the subject before you make such judgements.
Perhaps you can enlighten us by telling us what authors you’ve read on the subject.
Your comment is utterly asinine and you really ought to work on your reading comprehension skills.
Please provide a single quote where I show that I’m a “Christophobe”.
Beyond that, why would I hate Christians when they make excellent lovers?
I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about here.
Fuck that noise. I have read up on the subject. There’s a reason that millions of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists regard Muslims with mistrust and loathing, and it isn’t mere Islamophobia. Those facts I cited are well established, and those who would try to deny or cast doubt on them are either profoundly ignorant or profoundly dishonest. I don’t know which one you are, and I don’t much care. Either way, you don’t deserve my time. In any case, if you seriously believe that the followers of a religion founded by a psychopathic desert bandit are somehow more humane and tolerant than Christians, you are definitely a Christophobe (i.e. someone with an extreme and irrational fear and hatred of Christians and Christianity) and an Islamic chauvinist.
Islam was created to be an instrument of Arab imperialism. Once you understand that fact, you have pretty much grasped the essence of Islam.
I apologize, I must have misremembered.
I could have sworn I remembered you insisting repeatedly that Jerry Sandusky couldn’t have raped a child in the showers and encouraged people to test this using a paper towel tube.
Are you saying that if I find a quote of you saying words to that effect they were from someone else?
Not only that, I also hate Americans for their freedom ! And Christmas. Apple pie, too !
Spare me.
[QUOTE=Ibn Warraq]
Aren’t you the guy who was claiming that Jerry Sandusky couldn’t have raped a child due to some weird paper towel tube test?
[/QUOTE]
Nah, that’d be Starving Artist. Different can of crazy. **Lonesome **here is a strictly one-issue poster: he hates any and everything Muslim, and AFAIK doesn’t ever communicate about anything else.
ENOUGH!
Everyone stop the personal bickering and return to the topic.
[ /Moderating ]
I believe it’s anything non-white.
The next crack get a Warning.
[ /Moderating ]
Sorry 'bout that.
People can “explain” it the same way that many Christians try to explain the Inquisition. No explanation is good enough. The thing to remember is that most Christians are horrified by the Inquisition. And Muslims are horrified by anyone who is massacred in the name of Islam.
I am a Christian living in a neighborhood that includes many Muslims. In the Nashville area, we have seen much cruelty shown to those who built a mosque in a nearby town. The cruelty came from those who say they are Christian.
It really doesn’t behoove us to throw stones at other religions. It is the self-righteous zealots of any faith who darken the reputation of their own religion. And it has nothing to do with the core of Christianity or the core of Islam. But people who don’t have a grasp of the main teachings will find bits and pieces to vilify the other religious faith unjustly.
What’s so interesting about my join date?
As you rightly point out, Pagans were not given any sort of toleration under Islam. Women, too, have had a hard time of it.
Muslims may well have been treated badly in medieval Europe, but this was a self-defence mechanism against repeated Muslim attemps to conquer Europe, a process that went on for nearly 1000 years, until the tables were turned.
Back to the OP:
I believe that hate speech legislation makes sense and doesn’t impact on free speech.
In most developed countries, freedom of speech means something like the freedom to state any opinion. Therefore there is no inconsistency or hypocrisy in prosecuting certain kinds of speech: “fire in a theatre”, inciting a crime, talking about sex in a public place with children around, sharing state secrets etc.
If you think blacks are teh dumb, fine, you can state that opinion. But to do that, you don’t need to use the n-word, nor aggressively shout this opinion at people in a public place. That’s where you’ve crossed the line into incitement IMO.
I think the US has got itself in an unfortunate position where they have all the exceptions that I listed, and others, yet still perceive free speech as being unlimited therefore hate speech must be allowed.
I would accept though that one issue with not allowing hate speech is what you do about people trolling on facebook et al. My own opinion tends towards “nothing” but I don’t think the issue is as simple as all that; it’s an interesting discussion topic in itself.
Gideon is so fucked.
Exodus 22:20 He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.
Deuteronomy 13:12+ If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in 13 that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), 14 then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you, 15 you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it completely,** both its people and its livestock. 16 You are to gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt, 17 and none of the condemned things[c] are to be found in your hands. Then the Lord will turn from his fierce anger, will show you mercy, and will have compassion on you. He will increase your numbers, as he promised on oath to your ancestors— 18 because you obey the Lord your God by keeping all his commands that I am giving you today and doing what is right in his eyes.
Etc., etc., etc.
Back to the OP.
While I understand the reasoning behind hate speech laws, especially in a place like Germany, I’m against them. It’s much easier to address bigotry when it’s nice and open. Sunlight/disinfectant and all that.
I like hate speech laws and am proud to live in a country that sees their value. I have found it very interesting to watch how it is applied and how it affects the national dialogue. What I see is, when some nutjob is spewing hatred for another group or religion says something awful, the focus becomes the veracity of the remarks, does it qualify as ‘hate speech’, under the law. So you can talk some trash, and you make get the desired attention you seek, the first time. Keep saying it after it’s been proven untrue, and you’re promoting hate. That’s not as good for the 24hr news cycle, as sticking a mic in the face of someone sure to just react and speak equally as stupidly. The talking head/news people are focused on ‘is it true’, because that’s what it will come down to in the end.
The outright lies that public figures are allowed to continuously spread (political campaigning comes to mind!) seemingly without much actual challenge, in America is very dangerous in my mind. The 24 hour news cycle just wants to fan the flames, keep the level of outrage rising, as it’s in their interests. And everyone sees it and can do nothing but wring their hands and raise their own rhetoric to try and counter.
It’s a frightful path to be on, in my opinion. Hate Speech laws have helped keep things in my country from taking that path, I believe.
Your straw man about the religion of peace and tolerance is just that–nonsense that no one in this thread has tried to promote, so you are the only one making the claim, just to demolish it. Rather silly.
As to the rest: The streets of Byzantium ran with blood when the Muslims conquered it for the same reason that the streets of the same city ran red with blood when the Christians conquered it a few centuries earlier: it was the way that war is often waged. (On the other hand, in 1453, after three days, Mehmed II called an end to the looting and announced that lands and buildings were to be restored to their rightful owners–something that had not occurred in the Christian conquest of 1204.) It had nothing to do with the religions of the people involved. In contrast, when Christians conquered Jerusalem in 1099, they did slaughter nearly all the inhabitants, while the Muslims did not slaughter the inhabitants of that city either in their first conquest in 637 or in the reconquest in 1187.
As to piracy and slave-taking, how is that a religious matter? Piracy had been going on forever in the Mediterranean; it was the reason why Rome maintained a large navy even after they were the only seafaring nation on the Mediterranean. Europeans did not tend to raid North Africa for slaves, because they did not have the good ships to pull off those sorts of raids and they already had a ready supply of slaves among the pagan Slavic peoples. Again: religion played no part in your claims. Similarly, the depredations under Tamurlane were carried out in the name of conquest, not the spread of Islam. He made no provision in his orders to “convert or die,” but simply ordered all non-Muslims, (whom he did not trust to obey him), to be slaughtered or enslaved. (Similar events occurred between invading Christians and the native peoples of the Americas.)
The actions were horrible, but they were not “Muslim.”
Piffle. Christians and Jews were tolerated in Muslim lands while they were not tolerated in Europe. The invasions that brought Islam into Europe were all carried out for the ancient purposes of extending empires, not to spread religion. Christians continued to live within the Ottoman Empire and the Iberian peninsula after their conquest by nations that were Muslim. Lands that were retaken were often purged of all Muslims.
Muslims were quite capable of acts of utter barbarity, but they were no more inclined to do so that Christians or pagans and Christians have been historically far less tolerant of aliens in their midst than have Muslims.
yes, history was quite the bloodbath. But your suggestion that religion was not a driving force is flawed. It was the emotional fuel that drove many of the battles.