Yes, how dare Muslims in America demand that they be allowed to build their own houses of worship on their property with their money? And in a country with Constitutionally-protected religious freedom, no less! Why, the unmitigated gall!
And Italy, another country with a Constitutional pledge to religious freedom! You mean they let Muslims build mosques there? How could they?! Why, taxpayers can even choose to give money to these “idiots” (NB: :rolleyes: ) if they want! And to other religions, too!!
Yes, Otto, the holy cities Mecca and Medina are closed to non-Muslims. As the Vatican was long closed to non-Catholics I suppose.
Who “these idiots” are I am not sure, Saudis are not ‘piling into’ other countries as of yes As for the right to build Muslim holy places on property they have lawfully contracted or own, well that is a right of citizens and residents. In the US and Italy. It’s hardly something Muslims – and in the case of Italy, they’re largely North African extraction, and btw you can go into Mosques in Egypt, and even take a nap in one. I have.-- have “demanded” although I suppose to the fearful bigot who has not quite mastered joined up logic, the simple exercise of non-discriminatory religious rights would seem like a ‘demand.’ I guess the Wiccans and the Mormons are going around demanding too.
I believe that most of us, not caught up in squeeling malinformed bigotry and have some passing ressemblence to an understanding of secular democracy – one really should take note of that word, secular-- are able to distinguish between the word “Muslim” and “Islamist.” But on the off chance that this is just plain unvarnished ignorance on your part let me explain. Islamist refers to adherents to politicized fundamentalist Islam, it is not a generic term for Muslim.
Insofar as one of the tenents of secular democracy is freedom of worship, with all the usual caveats on impinging on other etc, there is little to no reason to get one’s panties all in a bunch that here people excercise such freedoms. It makes little to no sense to somehow hold a segment of the population’s religious rights hostage by some fuzzy minded application of ‘reciprocity’ – rather meaningless in the end as it is illogical given few people emigrate to the region, rather the opposite-- from governments which (a) may not be their own (b) they may very well have fled from.
No, some folks are showing their fundamental ignorance and incapacity to think in a clear and logical manner.
Yes, Otto, the holy cities Mecca and Medina are closed to non-Muslims. As the Vatican was long closed to non-Catholics I suppose.
Who “these idiots” are I am not sure, Saudis are not ‘piling into’ other countries as of yes As for the right to build Muslim holy places on property they have lawfully contracted or own, well that is a right of citizens and residents. In the US and Italy. It’s hardly something Muslims – and in the case of Italy, they’re largely North African extraction, and btw you can go into Mosques in Egypt, and even take a nap in one. I have.-- have “demanded” although I suppose to the fearful bigot who has not quite mastered joined up logic, the simple exercise of non-discriminatory religious rights would seem like a ‘demand.’ I guess the Wiccans and the Mormons are going around demanding too.
I believe that most of us, not caught up in squeeling malinformed bigotry and have some passing ressemblence to an understanding of secular democracy – one really should take note of that word, secular-- are able to distinguish between the word “Muslim” and “Islamist.” But on the off chance that this is just plain unvarnished ignorance on your part let me explain. Islamist refers to adherents to politicized fundamentalist Islam, it is not a generic term for Muslim.
Insofar as one of the tenents of secular democracy is freedom of worship, with all the usual caveats on impinging on other etc, there is little to no reason to get one’s panties all in a bunch that here people excercise such freedoms. It makes little to no sense to somehow hold a segment of the population’s religious rights hostage by some fuzzy minded application of ‘reciprocity’ – rather meaningless in the end as it is illogical given few people emigrate to the region, rather the opposite-- from governments which (a) may not be their own (b) they may very well have fled from.
No, some folks are showing their fundamental ignorance and incapacity to think in a clear and logical manner.
BTW: in regards to the church issue raised above, I am unaware that RC is the absolute majority of Xtians, the single largest denomination to be sure, but counting in eastern Xtianity it strikes me your presumption lacked a factual basis to begin with, not to mention it was inherently illogical.
You say 'NO, some people are showing the fundamental ignorance
and incapacity to think in a clear and logical manner.
Well I say thats the exact thing about some Islamists. Otto wasn’t talking about the majority of Saudis coming to the west he was talking about Muslims from different regions of the Globe.
Em, about the generalisation, I was right about 80% of the xians belong to the Catholic Church and the 20% are the rest of the denominations.
Isn’t it strange that we can’t talk about other peoples religions with scrutiny but Christianity has been hung, drawn and quartered by people on this board. Why? If i’m wrong please point it out.
Your confusion makes it rather hard to parse your response.
As Muslims coming to the West from countries other than Saudi Arabia have, to put as clearly as possible, not the slightest control over what the Ibn Saud’s Wahhabite religious establishment decide as policy for Saudi Arabia, it is even more illogical to somehow link their free exercise of their religion according to standard laws and regulations to what the retrograde idiots in Saudi Arabia do. It would rather be like tying the exercise of Orthodox Xtianity in the US for Russian immigrants to the discriminatory rules Russia has imposed on other denominations.
Really. Is that so? And your source is?
By the way, just as an aside, asserting you’re right requires some support – that is especially true when the person in question has shown such a slim grasp of facts.
Yes, you are wrong. Your ignorance and self-indulgent squeeling aside, there have been threads on this board which dissect say Saudi practices etc.
What is not ‘allowed’ as it were is ignorant maundering on, repeating half-informed bigotry without a good foundation in fact.
And as one can see from a reveiw of the evidence on this board – without the usual self-pitying whinging blinders of selection bias – that there is little tolerance for ignorant critiques of Xtianity, for we have many Xtian posters who are well-informed about their flavor of the religion and won’t allow unfounded nonesense to go by. They are also adult enough to deal accordingly with more founded critiques, and discuss without whining on about how unfair it is.
There is plenty to critique in Islam, but to avoid bigotry, one should do so from an informed position. I do not pretend, for example, to critique the Orthodox for I know little about it in a substantive manner. Thus I keep my bloody trap shut and learn. You might, although this strikes me as so exceedingly optimistic as to verge on the fantastical, follow the same policy.
It’s Ottto - Otto with two t’s is an entirely different poster. Not a big deal, I wouldn’t expect you to know that - But just for future reference.
And it was actually unclear just whatOttto was talking about. However the implication was that “these idiots” were whoever were building mosques in various western countries. Since the people that build those mosques a generally Muslim citizens, immigrants or native-born, that build them for the purposes of their own worship, I have to conclude that Ottto doesn’t have a firm grasp of logic. He apparently would deny citizens of their rights to worship as they choose in their democratic nation, until some bizarre reciprocity occurs in some other, undemocratic nations. I don’t understand this reasoning at all, unless it is just sheer bigotry that presumes Muslim citizens are “other” and really belong back in those undemocratic countries.
You’re not defending a winning argument here.
No you are wrong, at least according to the report on this Catholic site. The correct figure is a little above 50% and dropping:
You’re wrong. A number of Christians have a fairly high standing here. There are a few Christian-bashers as well. But really what would be correct is to say that those holding strict socially conservative positions are in the minority. But that is hardly Christianity per se.
“Dirty” and “battle-scarred” is hardly “raped and looted”. The priests who were held in the standoff said they weren’t harmed, and they don’t mention that any artifacts are missing.
Also, the author of the OP’s article somehow doesn’t mention this:
“Foreign peace activists” desecrated the church, not “Muslims”.
Naomi Ragen’s article is nothing but a lot of hateful, racist bombast.
At this point it may amount to hijacking, but I would like to point out something said by Andrew Young when he was U.S. ambassador to the U.N. during the Carter administration. The exact quote has faded from my memory, but it went something like “Russia is the most racist country on Earth, and Japan is a close second.”
This thread isn’t really about racism. It’s about religious intolerance.
Xtianity (or Xianity) is shorthand for Christianity, just as Xmas is shorthand for Christmas, using the Greek letter chi (X) to stand for the initial of Christ==> Christos is the Latin alphabet rendering of the Greek [symbol]Cristos[/symbol].
Just about any discussion of Islam, these days, particularly one where the topic turns into descriptions of “them” and “their” culture or “their” beliefs winds up dragging in some comment or observation about “our” culture and beliefs and–since the predominant culture in North America, Europe, and Australia (whence most of our posters originate) has strong ties to Christianity–the topic of Christianity is frequently mixed into these discussion.
You know, I recall in history that similar discussions to this, only along political lines, were held within the USA prior to WW2. There might have been some religious ones when the Jews started streaming out of Germany and Europe, but all such discussions became moot when England was attacked and the USA was bombed.
I figure that we are right on the cusp of a holy war because everyone is ‘understanding’ the Muslims and bending over backwards to accommodate their freedom of religion.
We did something similar for the German politics and the Japanese Empire.
One of the main reasons for the Boer War in 1899 was that the British were trying to stop the Boers from keeping slaves. The Boers went on their “Great Trek” across South Africa in order to get away from the British so they could keep slaves again.
South Africa was unified, under British control, in 1910 and then fell into the hands of Afrikaner nationalists in 1924. The “Great Trek” remains an important part of boer consciousness and mythology to this day. It is also the origin of the “laager mentality”.
During the “Great Trek”, the Boers were attacked occasionally by locals. When they were attacked they would draw their horses and carriages into circles to defend themselves - like the cowboys do against the Indians in westerns. This circle was called a “laager”.
Understanding the “laager mentality” is crucial to understanding apartheid. The pro-apartheid (boer) South Africans felt like they were surrounded by enemies who opposed their system (these enemies included the US and Britain).
So they metaphorically drew their horses and carts into a circle to protect themselves - in other words, they adopted the “laager mentality”.
The Boers thought that they could Trek to the other side of Africa and be away from the British and thereby keep slaves. Unfortunately for them the British just followed them and, when they caught up with them over the other side of Africa, they informed them that they still couldn’t keep slaves.
Accomodating Muslims freedom of religion? Heh, aren’t all
religions need accomodation? Look at Jews, Hebrews,
even christian - don’t forget these are from the same root
originally. I really hope “everyone understand”. Half the
people in this country cannot even tell the difference between
Muslims and Islam. Lots of Muslims do not ‘understand their
own religion’ same as lots who were born Christians. Isn’t that
funny? some cannot even judge themselves but they try to judge
others!!!
what is that “something similar” we did for the german politics
and the Japanese empire? Let me ‘understand’ it more clearly
will you?
Throughout the 1930s (amid the Great Depression) there were any number of philosophical debates regarding the values of Fascism, Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, etc. Those debates tended to take place in a separate arena than the debates over the the U.S. response to the rise of Nazi Germany or the empire-building in which Japan was engaged. In those instances, the discussions followed the pattern of seeking to define the appropriate reaction to two very specific militaristic nations with very specific goals.
In the U.S., the arguments regarding Germany tended to revolve around the triangular discussion that we should ignore Europe because no one was going to launch a war across the Atlantic, anyway (isolationists), that we should build up our military so that we would be prepared to fight when we were inevitably dragged into the European war, and those (a fairly small group) who thought we should befriend Hitler and learn from his actions so as to escape the Depression.
Arguments regarding Japan tended to follow the first two perspectives of the German discussion, as no one actually thought that we should either befriend or learn from the Japanese.
Your claim seems to imply (although it is not clear, since you have not actually provided any substantive remarks) that either Saudi Arabia (with a rather small population and no manufacturing) is going to try to conquer the world in the manner of the German and Japanese attempts,
or, more likely, that there is some great Muslim conspiracy afoot in which all the nations that are predominately Muslim are going to suddenly join together and raise up to overwhelm all the European descended nations.
However, had you taken the time to study the links you claim to have read, you would then be aware that there is no great monolithic Islamic tide that is coming to crest. Nations that are predominately Muslim are inhabited by people with widely varying views and politics. They include religious divisions that are at least as deep as the divisions of Christianity into Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant. They include authoritarian regimes and democracies. They include countries dominated by both socialist and capitalist economies.
There is no Muslim “Hitler” or “Tojo” who is about to unify all those fractious countries and lead them, Saladin-like, in the overthrow of the “Christian” nations.
Please take the time to look at the actual information regarding the Muslim world. (Hint: Ann Coulter is not a good source for American society and she knows nothing about Muslim societies–note the plural. If you really read the links and still hold your opinions, please do us the courtesy of providing the source of your beliefs so that we may examine it.)
Omnivore,
There is as much bending over backwards for Muslims as there for blacks or Asians, its about general equality, its about striving to accept not just Christians or Muslims, but everyone. And judging by this discussion there isn’t much bending over backwards going on anyway.
Your comparison to German politics and Japanese empire is mute.
Before WWII, Germany and Japan had the intension of setting out and conquering other lands (as evil as you might think this is, ask your self what America did to over 20 million native Americans).
What you and so many others fail to understand is that the Muslim religion is not evil, although the practice of it May be evil. Christianity in the 17th and 18th century: “good” Christians had slaves; they beat the men mercilessly and raped the women, and then went to church on Sunday to pray in good conscience. These Muslims that were responsible for 9/11 DO NOT represent the Muslim religion, they are a group of men that are using their religion to achieve their own agendas (which is not uncommon, i.e. rich priests way back when). And on that note, I’ll venture to say that its America’s imperialist attitude that is indirectly responsible for the attacks, as unfortunate as the attacks were, the US had plenty of opportunities to prevent them on both physical and moral levels.
