# Payback is a bitch. Old European church vandalised. Cardinal thinks it’s swell **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 8, 2006, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/payback-is-a-bitch-old-european-church-vandalised-cardinal-thinks-it-s-swell/355878 "2006-05-08T13:27:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/payback-is-a-bitch-old-european-church-vandalised-cardinal-thinks-it-s-swell/355878/122 "2006-05-11T12:41:35Z")
Can’t answer right now. Later… Please read these, if you have time: > **[Feminist.com:::Hirsi Ali Leaves Hiding to Spotlight Honor Killings](http://www.feminist.com/news/vaw26.html)** [http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/commentary.php?ak=2076](http://www.metroweekly.com/gauge/commentary.php?ak=2076) > **[Multiculturalism: It's Different for Girls](https://reason.com/2005/05/17/multiculturalism-its-different/)** > > When is it politically correct to beat gays and kill women? > **[Honest intellectuals must shed their spiritual turbans](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/nov/10/books.guardianreview4)** > > Ibn Warraq on Islam - the final taboo [http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/173441.php](http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/173441.php) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/payback-is-a-bitch-old-european-church-vandalised-cardinal-thinks-it-s-swell/355878/123 "2006-05-11T13:28:59Z")
**gum** , I think you’re missing the point. Nobody’s denying that there are some serious problems with militant political Islam, or with repressive Islamic theocracy, or with assimilation of Muslim immigrants into Europe. Nor is anybody arguing that Muslim protestors ought to be able to illegally trespass on church property without proper permission. All these issues should be addressed legally. But that doesn’t mean that it’s anything but monumentally idiotic to suggest, as **Rune** was trying to do, that Muslim protestors temporarily occupying churches are a symptom of an Islamic “takeover”, or that their temporarily covering Christian images is an act of “desecration”. Nor is it in any way useful to refer to Muslims as “heathens” worshipping “false gods”. It is also monumentally idiotic to suggest that Islam and Muslims are somehow protected by some kind of “special taboo”: > [@Rune](#): > > But I seriously doubt you do anybody, least of all Muslims or Islam, any favour by erecting this special taboo. Horseshit. Muslim-bashing is still far more acceptable than bigotry against many other religions. If a poster showed up on the SDMB, even in the Pit, ranting about how a group of, say, Jews occupying a church were “desecrating” it with their “heathen gods” and their “false prophets”, that poster’s ass would be banned faster than you could say “StormFront”. Say the same things about Muslims, though, and you’ll get away with it. And while we’re dissecting more of **Rune** ’s monumental idiocy, by the way: > [@Rune](#): > > a zillion threads about some Chick guy – and he’s just one man. From which we see that **Rune** counts threads **mocking Chick Tracts** as part of SDMB “Christian-bashing” in general, which is simply ridiculous. Making fun of Chick Tracts isn’t Christian-bashing any more than making fun of the loony pronouncements on jihad and martyrdom by people like bin Laden and Moussaoui is Muslim-bashing. Mocking the nutty hate-filled extremists of any religious faith is not at all the same as expressing bigotry against that faith as a whole. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/payback-is-a-bitch-old-european-church-vandalised-cardinal-thinks-it-s-swell/355878/124 "2006-05-11T16:05:57Z")
[QUOTE=Kimstu] **gum** , I think you’re missing the point. [/quote] In other news: sun rises in east, sets in west. [QUOTE=Kimstu] Nobody’s denying that there are some serious problems with militant political Islam, or with repressive Islamic theocracy, or with assimilation of Muslim immigrants into Europe. Nor is anybody arguing that Muslim protestors ought to be able to illegally trespass on church property without proper permission. All these issues should be addressed legally. But that doesn’t mean that it’s anything but monumentally idiotic to suggest, as **Rune** was trying to do, that Muslim protestors temporarily occupying churches are a symptom of an Islamic “takeover”, or that their temporarily covering Christian images is an act of “desecration”. Nor is it in any way useful to refer to Muslims as “heathens” worshipping “false gods”. [/quote] Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/payback-is-a-bitch-old-european-church-vandalised-cardinal-thinks-it-s-swell/355878/125 "2006-05-11T18:41:27Z")
I’ve been wanting to post this since I saw it in the print edition to see if **gum** and **Rune** ’s heads make little popping sounds when they explode. I present, from the (Fox News family) UK _Sunday Times_ magazine, a long and well researched article about the successful integration of the majority, _moderate_ Muslims, into British society. Seems that a right-wing European publication thinks they’re _not_ all extremists after all. Who’da thought it? The front cover of the magazine features a smiling Muslim woman wearing a Union Jack as a hijab. [**For God and country**](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2155558,00.html) > [@](#): > > Forget the scaremongering — UK Muslims are more concerned with speed dating, scout groups and women’s football than dismantling our way of life. Lesley White spent months among their communities and discovered that they don’t have to support the England cricket team to be British ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/payback-is-a-bitch-old-european-church-vandalised-cardinal-thinks-it-s-swell/355878/126 "2006-05-11T19:10:11Z")
**jjimm** - you’re missing the perfect circuitousness of the argument. There is no such thing as moderate Islam…therefore, moderate Muslims do not exist…so there is no need to rebut cases such as yours from the Sunday Times…hence the blindness to evidence for most European Muslims being moderates…therefore Muslim=extremist. ---
**Author:** ![DxZero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@DxZero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DxZero)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/payback-is-a-bitch-old-european-church-vandalised-cardinal-thinks-it-s-swell/355878/127 "2006-05-11T19:27:42Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] **jjimm** - you’re missing the perfect circuitousness of the argument. There is no such thing as moderate Islam…therefore, moderate Muslims do not exist…so there is no need to rebut cases such as yours from the Sunday Times…hence the blindness to evidence for most European Muslims being moderates…therefore Muslim=extremist. [/QUOTE] It’s like its straight out of _Catch-22_. Beautiful [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/payback-is-a-bitch-old-european-church-vandalised-cardinal-thinks-it-s-swell/355878.md?page=6)