Then it behooves you to take the time to find out the actual situation before you throw a comment implying that the British government is considering expanding the blasphemy law to Islam and undercutting your own position by a display of ignorance.
(Note that every serious reference to the British Blasphemy Law mentions that it is only applicable to expressions against the Church of England. In order to expand it to cover Islam, they would first have to expand it to cover Catholics, Presbyterians, and Methodists–like that is going to happen.)
I don’t recall asking any questions about sharia law in my post, but thanks for going off on that interesting tangent. You didn’t say, but I’m guessing from your post you don’t in fact endlessly hector the muslims you know, just the members of this board.
My response: for more than twenty years, I’ve worked for an oilfield service company that has operations worldwide. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in Tunisia, Egypt and Abu Dhabi. I’ve met, and socialised with, dozens upon dozens of muslims from a number of different countries and backgrounds. Our Houston facility currently has three muslims among its permanent staff.
In all this time I’ve never met a single one of these people that considered himself (or herself) a fundamentalist, not a single one has ever shown the slightest interest in trying to convert me (more than I can say about Christians, btw), and only one such person has ever shown the slightest sign of hostility toward me that might have been religiously motivated (a Libyan geologisdt I met on a train in Tunisia).
Based on my life experience, therefore, I must conclude that the OP is wildly overstating his case.
Quite frankly, Samclem, I could sit here and type one fact after another after another for the next 20 hours. From Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan demanding that the schools close on their religious holidays (they don’t close on Jewish holidays) to Muslims demanding that all teacjhers wear hijabs, etc. etc.
What good would it do? You would either point out that it was just three Muslims in Linz who made that demand, or you would use the flippant line that the plural of anecdote is not data.
Or else the answer will be that no such movement can be said to exist unless every single Muslim subscribes to it. I guess that Naziism never existed either, since no more than 38% or so of the German public ever voted Nazi in a free election. World War II was just an illusion. And Churchill was just a warmongering Germanophobe alarmist crackpot in the 1930s.
So I will tell you what, Samclem. I will endeavour to get all 1.5 billion Muslims in the world to email you at once and repeat what the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. “We’re the ones who will change you. Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children.” As he summed it up: “Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours.”
What percentage of Muslims would have to say this to you directly, Samclem?
BTW, if you want to see the article for which Macleans Magazine is being persecuted before the Human Rights Commission, please see this site.
So the Muslims you met did not make open declarations that Islam is out to overwhelm and Islamize the west. You expected them to?
Funny, isn’t it!? When I bring up examples I am told that the plural of anecdote is not data. But your anecdotes. . . . . why there’s proof!
Ah yes, Airy Neave, the same British politician murdered by white western terrorists.
Bad choice of analogy there.
And in the spirit of bad analogies, I have re-read this a few times, and am convinced that you are you telling me that my friends Zehara and Ajud are the equivalent of Nazis. I guess this includes my other Muslim friends too. That somehow liberal people who happen to have been born into a certain faith are the equivalent of people who voluntarily made a decision to join a fascist political movement.
I’m as opposed to radical islam as the next atheist, but you’re on a par with Der Trihs. No, in fact, you’re worse. Your opinion is worthless.
I had read an article mentioning that an extension of the blasphemy laws was being considered. I DID leave jimm the possibility of correcting me if that was wrong and sincerely apologized when he said I was. If you want to dance aroubnd calling me ignorant, have fun!
I guess a single error automatically invalidates anything else I say, when you disagree with me!
No, it’s the rest of what you post that does that.
First of all, the point I was making was that someone like Airy Neave could be friends with many young Nazis in Hitlerite Germany and find them to be fine people, and yet this does not change the nature of Naziism. That remains a fact whether he died in his bed at 110 or was killed by terrorists of any colour. So the manner of his death hardly makes my anaology a poor choice.
I am not comparing your Muslim friends to Nazis. I am making an analogy that decent people can be members of fundamentally dangerous movements and not realize it. I was also making the point that any large organization is BOUND to contain a fair number of decent people, if only because that is the nature of the human race.
By the way, millions of Nazi party members had about as much choice the become Nazis (if they wanted to keep their jobs and feed their families) as mosat of us have a choice of the religion we are born into.
I will try to keep my analogies simpler if they are too difficult for you to grasp.
Do you have any idea what happens to avowed atheists under Islam, BTW?
The Jewish population of Dearborn is miniscule. The school districts in Southeast Michigan where there are significant Jewish populations do close on the High Holy days.
As to
I notice that you conveniently forgot to include the word “some” or any serious evidence that the number was other than some tiny minority ignored by their co-religionists.
How often were Muslim demands being heard at all 20 or 30 years ago in America, Canada and Europe? So it is just 3 families in Linz who demanded that all teachers should wear the hijab? How many was it in Linz 10 years ago?
Presumably, we can only be concerned when 100% of Muslims in a locality make that demand?
I am not dancing around anything. You made a comment in complete ignorance of the facts, offering it up as evidence for your position (and expressing it snidely as though jjimm was the one who was ignorant of the event).
One error does not destroy your argument. Your “argument” is based on numerous errors, exaggerations, and distortions. Basically, you have found that there are enough “Western” nutters to serve as counterpoint to the “Islamist” nutters and you want all of us to join you in celebrating their nonsense.
- ::: shrug ::: *
Godwinizing does nothing to help your case, what little there was to start with.
Which “under Islam” is to to which you refer? That monobloc you fear, that doesn’t actually exist?
Sure, in Saudi Arabia the fate would be scary. In Yemen too, probably. Afghanistan it would be a serious issue. In Pakistan there are probably concerns about persecution from your neighbors. Things are getting sketchy in Jordan and Syria too, despite the latter’s secularism. It used to be OK in Iraq, but that’s changed since 1993.
Or do you include Indonesia? Turkey? Malaysia? Bangladesh? Islamic areas of India? Islamic areas of China? The UAE? Bahrain? Quatar? Morocco? Lebanon?
Because there are plenty of atheists in those places, who have little to fear, and in cases constitutionally protected rights. And sadly for your hysteria, the second list contains the majority of Muslims in the entire world.
Have you read the presentations that were made at the Brussels Conference? Or is your definiton of “nutters” people Tomndebb does not agree with?
Perhaps if you read some of the papers presented at this conference here you might note that the presenters included Dr. Marc Cogen, professor of International Law, Ghent University, Sam Solomon, ex-Muslim, author and shariah law expert, and Johannes J.G. Jansen of Utrecht University. Perhaps you would like to read the comments of Gerard Batten, Member of the European Parliament, who wrote the forward to Sam Solomon’s Proposed Charter of Muslim Understanding. Perhaps you would like to read the Charter itself here.
I am afraid I have no definition of “Nutter” to supply you, Tom, because I do not use that word to castigate those who disagree with me. I believe in debate because it is one of the most most precious rights we have in our western democracies.
You are right that some Muslim countries have held on to secular freedoms. . . .for now. All of these countries have extremely active fundamentalist movements who want to seep away the very tolerance you speak of. Look at the secularlist movement in Turkey. . . .definitely on the defensive. But I guess we have to wait until the fundamentalists actually come to power before you will admit it.
I notice you do not mention Algeria, another country that used to be secular and now is holding on against a barrage of fundamentalist violence.
The plural of anecdotes is not data, but how many developments in how many countries constitute a world-wide movement, pray tell?
The answer is seventeen.
mswas, there’s already a pit thread about the subject of your (typically) uncommented, slightly irrelevant, post. What are you saying: Saudi Arabia bad? Well, I don’t think many people would disagree with you.
I was inclined to agree with you that the posting by mswas about that Saudi business was somewhat irrelevant, until I went to the pit thread in question.
The funny part is, I am willing to bet that if I had said that the Saudis can and will intimidate the British Government with threats of terrorism, Tomndebb, you, Samclem and the usual bunch would probably say I was being paranoid.
My definition of nutters includes people who believe that their way is the only correct way, (including the tiny minority of Islamists who actually believe the way that gets your blood racing), and people who project gloom and doom and the sky is falling based on exaggerated extrapolations from small events to claims for the imminent collapse of world society.
I have not put you into either category, although I certainly note that you are a great fan of the latter (hence my earlier references to people who might be resurrected to help out providing their sterling leadership qualities in the current calamity).
Er… no. No paranoia: it’s a genuine threat. See my post in that thread. But again, it’s not relevant to your OP.