Yay, another cite-free reference. A classmate told me that a Muslim and an atheist were in the closet making babies and he saw one of the babies and then the baby looked at him.
There were approximately 421,000 domestic abuse cases reported in England for the year ending march 2016 (Domestic abuse in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics)
God Save the Queen, indeed.
See above note first.
Given the above note, this is a warning for trolling. Normally I’d suggest you venture into the Pit to let out any frustrations you may have, but even there trolling isn’t permitted (loosely defined) so my suggestion is to focus on substance when you engage in debate.
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Wow. Since this isn’t the Pit, I won’t say what I think of Jefferson, but I don’t see how you can call the post you warned him for “content-free.” It was stupid and unoriginal to the point of self-parody, but not content-free. A repeat posting of “Allahu Akbar” by itself would certainly have justified a warning, but it seems to me to be totally irrelevant that he appended it to some content, however insipid.
While I’ll grant that the specific post might not be the epitome of empty statements, I would say that there have been a number of posts by Jefferson that seemed written with the explicit goal of avoiding having to make any real defense of his position.
In that post, he moved from a string “proof by assertion” statements to “faulty generalization”, which is perhaps a slight movement in the right direction, but I’d personally guess that it was written more as an attempt to divert attention away from the lack of content than an attempt to start providing it.
Coming into this thread a bit late but I would think that direct experience living and travelling in Muslim majority countries would be rather more compelling in understanding the way Islam is actually practised than reading a book.
I’ve gone over my personal objections to Islam before and while some of them are directly from the theology, most of my issues are with specifically the way it’s practised in certain countries and my personal understanding of that is from my travels. (But yes absolutely no matter what issues anyone has with Islam, Muslims as people should be treated like anyone else).
Can I just join in on page 5 without having read anything previously?
If you don’t have the time yourself to wade through religious studies theory and method and then a survey of Islamic histories and sources (many of which are not super interestingly written even for a nerd like me), then you’ll have to pick experts, authorities, and leaders to trust about what can be meaningfully said to be “Islam” in a particular place or situation.
Unfortunately, if you haven’t done that research, it’s going to be really hard to pick trustworthy figures, because not only are many of the candidates in the public sphere disingenuous apologists, hateful bigots, or just all-around misinformed, even the ones who are decent can have very narrow areas of expertise.
It might be more productive to have a clear idea of what one thinks the role of religion should be in the public sphere, how freedom of religion (including practice, not just belief) relates to freedom of speech and expression, and how to engage with people who believe differently. Then you can have more confidence that your opinion on Islam, whatever it may be, will not have the negative repercussions you fear.
The documentary in question was on national TV a couple of years ago. I have deleted it long ago. But it’s a true now as it was then. As I already said it was probably Generation Jihad. As for my response “Allahu Akbar” to the daft claim these terrorist attacks have nothing to do with Islam, I though these two words would be clear enough for anybody. THIS is what most of these terrorists shout out as they attack. Surely we are all aware of this?
As for the floggings, these are not unusual in Indonesia.
Check this one out: Trainspotting Ewan Mcgregor rails against Donald Trump but ignoe Sharia beatings
So, it is pretty much not true, now, as it was not true then.
I have no statistics available, so I’ll put a disclaimer on the “most of these terrorists” part, but if you were to say *many *of them, then I’d agree. And it would indeed be a daft claim that these attacks have nothing to do with Islam. But you seem to believe that Muslim extremists would not be extremists, if there were no Islam. The people you call “daft” believe that those who gravitate towards extremism would probably find something else to be fanatic about.
@TonySinclair, @Sage Rat, @Jefferson -
Please take discussion about moderation to ATMB if you have a desire to have that conversation.
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Today’s big Islamic terrorism story that will stick in most people’s craw is the case of the IS suicide bomber paid £1,000,000 in compensation for being held in Guantanamo Bay sneaking off to join jihadis:
And now for a happy interlude.
I am not sue what is supposed to “stick in one’s craw.”
Is it the fact that my predictions, years ago, that stupidly locking up people without evidence that they had done wrong would actually convert them to join the other side seem to have been proven correct?
Is it that I keep having to see silly comments from you that demonstrate that some people do not appear to be able to learn from history?