Ben Franklin would be proud of you.
Daniel
Complete, absolute agreement with your post.
It sounds as if the Cowley Road has improved since I lived there (rather a long time ago)
Personally I quite like multi-culturalism, socially it is probably a bad idea, but the shops and restaurants are interesting.
Realistically, Moslems in the UK are a very small minority, the 7/7 and 21/7 stuff was alarming, but I expect MI5 are glad to have something to do (by now they are probably running the show).
I intensely dislike religious schools, but having visited a heck of a lot of schools in the past, I must confess that C of E and Catholic schools are pretty good - and my experience of people who have been to religious schools is that they tend to reject the dogma anyway.
I would be quite happy to have young Moslem males learning the Koran by heart, by the age of eighteen they would be athiest lager louts (note how the UK ones were normal while young and then caught religion).
I would also be quite happy for people being able to opt to live under Sharia law, opt is the operative word - it is violent and distinctly unpleasant. The idea of someone accepting a harsher punishment because of religion rather appeals to me.
I must confess that I have voted for the UKIP in European elections in the past, and will do so in the future - mainly because the alternatives were lousy, but also as it was gratifying sticking it to the rest.
With our planning laws, the UK is a rather crowded place, we really do not need a major influx of immigrants - although nubile Polish lasses are very welcome.
After that digression, the jist is that I really do not believe that Moslems are much of a problem in the UK.
1.6 million, one third of which do not disapprove of attacks on civilians as I’ve repeatedly cited in the Pew Poll is not a small minority. That nearly half a million hold this view in any degree at all is mightily disturbing.
And I have to say I’m disturbed that any of my countrymen would be happy to see Sharia Law.
You really think women are going to be given the option of ‘opting in.’ You happy with anyone opting in to being beaten (within whatever confines the operant interpretation of the Koran is in the area)? Children?
The concept ‘thin end of the wedge’ ring a bell?
Well, excuse me for pointing out that, once again, you are using words that you really don’t understand. You sneered at liberals for being “tolerant” of women wearing a burqa, but then went ahead and admitted that you do exactly the same thing. Most liberals would prefer that the burqa go the way of the whalebone corset, but we also realize that we can’t make it go away. It has to be abandoned willingly. Anything else would be both immoral and counterproductive. So we put up with it. We tolerate it. Just like you do.
The only real difference is that when I see a woman in America dressed in a burqa, it doesn’t piss me off. It makes me sad for the woman, but it also makes me hopeful. The cultural attitude behind the burqa does not come solely from the men in the culture. Most women wearing those things would be horrified at the idea of going out without one. If you want to get rid of burqas, you have to convince the women wearing them to get rid of them. That’s not going to happen if the burqa is the dominant mode of female dress in the culture. The best way to get these women to liberate themselves is by showing a positive counter-example, and the only way they’re going to get that is by being in a culture where women are treated equally. When you see a woman in a Western nation wearing a burqa, for some odd reason you see it as a death knell for liberal democracy. I see it for what it is: a death knell for the burqa. Even if the woman wearing it never gives it up, it’s pretty unlikely that their daughters will wear it, and almost unthinkable that her grandaughters will. 'Cause, see, that’s the other difference between you and me. You think the ideals of classical liberalism, freedom, and democracy are these terribly tender, delicate things that need to be protected from any contamination. The fact is, liberal democracy is the strongest social force on the planet, because it is impossible to deny that it leads inevitable to wealthier, healthier, happier people. Every burqa clad woman who we let emigrate to the West today means one more Muslim dedicated to the ideas of freedom and democracy tomorrow. Your Chicken Little warnings of “cultural suicide,” aside from being comically paranoid, also demonstrate your almost total lack of faith in your own culture. Muslims aren’t a threat to Western civilization. They don’t stand a chance against it. Liberalism has overthrown kings, ended slavery, humanized the Catholic church, and destroyed communism. You think Islam is going to fare any better? No way in hell. There is no creed or dogma in the world that can withstand the power of blue jeans and pop music.
Have the leftys and feminists finally opened their eyes is equivalent to have the lefties and fems quit beating their spouses. Its a set up .
Ya think?
I live by religious rules.
I put loyalty to God over loyalty to the USA.
Of course, I’m a liberal Christian, so I just blend in to the background. The two loyalties are never called into direct conflict. But if US law or society did force me to betray my religious beliefs and values, I’d resist and rally to change the laws. If I were forced to choose between America or God, I’d choose God.
Thankfully, I don’t believe that America will ever ask me to do that. Where they do conflict, I’m allowed to live my personal faith the way I like to.
Why should the values of other religion be respected any less?
If you are ar any sort of a Christian your country has been violating your beliefs on a daily basis. If at any time your country acts wrongly - by all means put your values first. Just call them ‘values’ and not God. Claiming ‘god’ is okay with your opposition and actions just removes your actions from rational debate and influence.
God says it’s fine to do a lot of evil things so I’m pretty much ruling him out as a legitimate base for claims of moral action.
And no - I’m not happy for anyone to put higher allegiance to imaginary beings, who even if they did exist have made a piss poor hand at letting their will be known, above the common democratic weal.
And I’m particularly unhappy with a religion that claims universal loyalty above that of citizenship. If Christians in the UK took their religion seriously i’d be unhappy with them too. Fortunately we’re not like the USA in that respect.
I believe that God defined and personifies values. He is the author and guiding hand of my conscience and reason. In my personal understanding of the universe, God’s will and good values are synonymous. They cannot be separated. You are free to disagree, but you’ve no right to disrespect how I derive my values.
You don’t want a secular state. In a secular state, the government stays out of religious matters as much as is possible (religious values will always creep in to governance to some extent, that’s inevitable). It takes no position on the existence of God or the correctness of any paticular religion. It’s neutral and libertarian on religious beliefs and practices.
You want an atheist state. One where religious practices are actively discouraged and prohibited. Your emphasis on “loyalty to the state” is troubling as well, as the twentieth century showed us that nationalism is just as useful an excuse for war and atrocity as religion ever was.
For the love of mike, man, I’m so liberal I’m barely Christian anymore, and I find your take on the proper place of religion in society to be worrying.
Why doesn’t he? As near as I can tell, he’s got every bit as much right to disrespect the derivation of your values as you have to hold those values. It’s the bumpy ride of democracy.
FWIW, I hate the idea that God defines values: that seems to me to make the very idea of values meaningless. If Nyarolathotep, the Crawling Chaos, were the universe’s creator instead, would you believe that capricious sadism constituted good deeds, and that compassion was a contemptible sin?
This much I can agree with, though. I might not like the source of your values, but I may not prohibit you from voicing them in politics. Me, I’m not at all thrilled with loyalty to a nation state; I think less nation-state loyalty would vastly improve our world.
Daniel
To me, that’s like asking “if masses were repulsive to each other, would Newtonian gravitation be wrong?” Yes, if the universe were created such that sadism was right, then sadism would be right. It would also be, IMHO, a very different universe.
Him who makes the rules… makes the rules. I think “right” and “wrong” aren’t just concepts invented by human reason, or even just dictates from an alien intelligence, but are inherent in the fabric of the universe. God isn’t just telling us what to do, he’s describing morality as it exists in the system He created.
And yeah, I concede that others do have the right to disrespect my religion and values. Substitute “supress” where appropriate.
That’s cool. As for the “He who makes the universe makes the rules,” I really don’t like that, because it makes the idea of good and evil irrelevant. Why should I be compassionate? If the only reason compassion is good is that it’s a matter of definition, what do definitions have to do with guiding my behavior?
But maybe that should be a different thread.
Daniel
Yes - I have every right. I object strenuously to anyone attempting to shape the world I live in according to values derived from an ideological source removed from debate. Especially from a completely subjective source like religious belief.
Yes - loyalty to the state was a bad phrase. I’m not happy with blind loyalty of any sort. I’m trying to say something along the lines of ‘subscribing to the values and norms of your host culture’.
Does that mean that you’re troubled by those in Iran who agitate for expansion of human rights and political equality, and you would encourage the government to expel them from the country?
I’m sure that’s not what you mean, but it seems to be a corollary of what you’re saying. Is there a way you can formulate your belief that doesn’t give comfort to the Ayatollah?
Daniel
Well, that is indeed true. But they are part of that country - not a recent and alien-in-values add on like Islam in the UK. In fact it is fundamantalism in Iran that is the relative newcomer.
I would certainly say though - if you emigrate to Iran, if you choose to live there, you are tacitly accepting the broad rules of the game played there. Same if you are born there but have dual nationality with the USA/UK or wherever.
At base I think rational, secular values and systems are ‘better’ than theological ones. Once you start running societies based on notions of what some mythical diety, apparently incapable of expressing themselves in a way clear enough for any two people to actually agree what it means, then you no longer have a decent basis for a democratic society. Appeals to ‘out-of-bounds-of-debate’ higher authorities makes rational discussion of options impossible.
Democratic politics can’t function well in a god-obsessed world and I think the USA shows that with its tweedle-dum, tweedle-dee, pray to the Lord narrowness of disputed ground and the enforced kow-towing of politicians to God and Mammon. In any sane country leaders who profess to speak to God would be pointed at and mocked out of office. In the USA it seems compulsory.
I actually agree with this–but I also think that systems with extremely broad freedoms of speech and expression and strong commitments to the principle of justice and equality under law work much better than those that privilege certain classes of citizens above others, or privilege certain ideas above others.
Daniel
True - but the problems arise when only one side play by the democratic rules. Democratic elections don’t guarantee a democracy as we see in Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Afghanistan etc. It is inevitable, in any Islamic society, that Islam will be allocated a big - possibly -vetoing role.
The law of god - sharia law, however it is defined, will be a competing authority. We can see how even military dictatorships like pakistan cannot exclude it. And this is the problem I have with Islam and its the same problem Europe faced with catholicism in the middle ages. It claims a supremacist role based on mythical, unchallengeable grounds.
And Islam has such a weight of interpretation and custom behind it - none of it condusive to a secular liberal society - and is not even close to being compelled to adapt to the modern world like Christianity was eventually obliged to. (And look how that bogey tries to leap from the coffin at every chance).
While some sects and a few more website owners might stitch together something plausibly liberal from Islam that is completely irrelevant. At the moment Islam, in all the societal manifestations of the two main streams is intolerant of what I think are core values. Treatment of women being just the most prominent.
Western europe is in a position societies have not been in for a while. Having to absorb mass immigration of peoples who religious based values and beliefs clash with the host society. The most visible manifestation of this being the attempts to make commenting on Islam in any way unfavourable, as outside of free speech. An attempt that is in practice backed by the implicit threat of force.