I am guessing, from this, that Mr. Blair will not be receiving the apology you so clearly owe him for your mischaracterization of his remarks.
Don’t forget about the bad teeth! Very important. Plus, all you guys drive mini’s and say ‘shag’ all the time…
-XT
Replace “Allah” with “Jesus” and you have a pretty standard Christian fundamentalist rant there.
So…it would be ‘and al Qaida exploited that pre-existing concern among members of what religion who tend to have contempt for western values, whose clergy regularly condemn the west as a corrupt and stanic, and whose Prophet said that he was commanded to fight until all worship on Eart was for Jesus alone’. And you think that works out? 
If you replace ‘al Qaida’ with ‘liberal’ then, well, that doesn’t really work either. But it’s still really fun!
-XT
You know what I meant. Christian fundamentalists rant all the time about how Satanic our culture is and have contempt for “Western values” like democracy and tolerance. There’s nothing uniquely violent or intolerant about Islam.
I did know what you meant…but I still thought it was funny. 
Looked at historically, there is certainly nothing uniquely violent about Islam. It’s only that, looked at today, Islam seems more violent because their subset of nutters and mad bombers is seemingly larger than the relatively smaller number of Christians willing to blow up abortion clinics in the name of saving lives.
-XT
Well?
I’m not off topic. I was merely pointing out that your source didn’t say what you claim it says and I’m hardly the only one who said that.
Also, what’s with the last two sentences. I never challenged your assumption that the Asian criminals were Muslims, or at least from Muslim backgrounds.
I think you confused me with another poster.
Ok, this was after I caught you in your utterly foolish claim in post 39 that Islam was comparable to Nazism because you claimed in most Muslim countries that being gay was crime punishable by death.
Yes, out of the nearly 60 Muslim countries seven do have laws on the books calling for the death penalty for being gay, though its not clear how often they are enforced.
The problem is that far too many people want to judge Islam entirely by the way it’s practiced in Saudi Arabia or Iran as opposed to say Turkey, Bosnia, or elsewhere.
This would be like judging Christianity entirely by Bishop Akinola of Nigeria or the Christians of Uganda.
People in backward countries act backward regardless of their religion.
For example, if you’d ever been to the Middle East you’d notice that Palestinian and Egyptian Christians(yes they do exist in large numbers) are at least as homophobic as their Muslim counterparts.
BTW, Iran does not finance hundreds of Mosques in the West or train numerous Imams.
In fact, there are very few Shia Muslims in the West and those that live in the West either come from Lebanon, or fled the Islamic Revolution, so few of those Imams were trained in Iran.
If you’re going to attack Islam, please get your facts right.
Ok, first of all wikipedia is not a reliable source and anyone who argues it is, especially on anything relating to Islam, Islamic countries, or the Middle East is a fool. There’s a reason many college professors don’t let their students cite it in papers. It’s not reliable because it’s edited far too often by people on both sides with axes to grind.
Moreover, as you’re trying to gloss over the Sub-Saharran parts of Africa that are dominated by Christians, with the exception of South Africa, are far more homophobic than Muslim North Africa.
I would much, much rather be a gay man in Tunisia than in the Christian parts of Nigeria, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Jamaica, or most of the Carribean.
Also, I’m a bit amused by your trying to suggest that homophobia isn’t a huge problem in Latin America, where the greatest insult one can call someone is “Maricon”. There’s a reason Canada has given asylum to gay men from Mexico.
Now, no one would deny that Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, has some extremely homophobic elements, but there’s nothing about Islamic theology that would make Muslims more homophobic than Christians or Jews.
Once again, you’re not inspiring confidence in your knowledge or understanding of Islam. The Ahaditha are at least as important in understanding Islam as the Quran. Judging Islam by the Quran and excluding the Ahaditha would be like judging Judaism by the Torah and completely ignoring the Talmud.
Now, yes, does that Quran have lots of disgustingly xenophobic bigoted parts to it? Sure, just as the Bible does as well.
However, religions are never about the scriptures but how they’re interpreted.
Just as most Christians don’t base their views of Christianity on what the Bible actually says, but instead ignore large parts of it and simply listen to how their ministers interpret it, few Muslims actually read the Quran. In fact, since only about 10% know Arabic and far fewer know Quranic Arabic, most effectively can’t read the Quran.
So, they, like their Christian counterparts, rely on experts to interpret it, and the vast majority of Islamic Clerics are not radical, though most are far more conservative than I would like.
That said, religious clerics, regardless of their affiliation, are usually amongst the most conservative members of their society.
Also, you’re defiant “I intend to remain an infidel. I will die before I submit or become a dhimmi” is an extremely silly statement. The Dhimmi status disappeared with the Ottoman Empire. There are massive numbers of Christians in Syria, Turkey, Egypt, and elsewhere and while they do face varying degrees of discrimination they don’t have to pay special taxes or any of the other things associated with Dhimmi status.
Furthermore, anyone who thinks the US is in danger of being conquered by Iran or some other Muslim nation is beyond paranoid.
Sigh.
For those not familiar with Shia Islam, when he accuses me of practicing “Taqiyya” he’s accusing me of lying to everyone here about my religious beliefs and that I’m hiding my true ones. Also, based on the way “Taqiyya” is understood on sites like JihadWatch, he’s very strongly implying that I’m a radical.
I very strongly hope I’m wrong so I’ll ask if you think I’m actually a radical Muslim pretending to be a moderate?
Furthermore, I never said that homophobia wasn’t a problem within Islam as it is within Christianity and no reasonable person upon reviewing my posts would think I made any such statement.
Also, if you’re as obsessed with Islam as you imply, I’d think you would infer from my username than I’m not exactly an apologist for it.
Also, while I’m new to this board, my understanding is that accusing a poster of lying is a huge no-no.
As assumptions go, it’s not a bad one, what with Pakistan being the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan” and having partitioned away from India in 1947 as an Islamic Indian homeland, after which millions of Indian Muslims moved there and millions of Pakistani Sikhs and Hindis got the hell out. Today 97% of Pakistanis are Muslim and it’s the second-largest Muslim country in the world, so really, this was a poor time to scream “racist” even if the rest of Valteron’s posting is a complete pile of retarded shit. Really obscure cite.
First they came for France, and I said nothing…
Regarding the “T” in LGBT : quite surprisingly, Iran allows sex-change surgery. Not that important in the grand scheme of things, but I found that quite weird, that’s why I mention this factoid.
Yes, while Khomeini was a scumbag, thanks to him the Iranian government pays for those operations and, if anything, transgendered people are treated better in Iran than the US.
People in the Middle East see things differently.
For example, Turkey has been allowing gays to serve openly long before the US or even the UK did, but only if they were “tops”. “Bottoms” on the other hand have never been tolerated in the Middle East.
People in the ME have different ideas on what constitutes “gay” behavior.
To be honest, you’re quite out of luck if you’re in a hurry in this street, prayers or not (I should know, I live nearby).
What you see is the result of a lack of mosques(*) (and though the situation significantly improved during the last 15 years or so, that in turn has often been the result of municipalities using all sort of tricks to prevent the construction of mosques within their boundaries, like buying preemptively the terrains, changing zoning, etc…).
Yes, that’s not legal, but franckly if that is the worst threat you’re coming to face from Islam, I don’t think we should be very worried.
Besides, generally speaking, French muslims, coming for the most part from North-Africa aren’t very religious. According to a poll I read once, about 8% of christians, 10% of jews and 12% of muslims attend regularly to religious services in France. Living in an area that has a significant north-african population (though not as large as in the area depicted in the videos), I certainly don’t meet many fundamentalists (actually, none). On friday, you’re more likely to find them drinking a beer at the local bar.
That would be by opposition to immigrants coming from much more traditionnalist and religious countries, like Pakistan (I suspect that the UK has a different brand of muslims immigrants, for instance).
(*) Although in this specific case : there’s a rather large mosque (the second largest in Paris, in fact) close to the place where I live, and as a result quite close to the place where these people are praying in the street. So, what I would wonder is : why aren’t they in this mosque?
My best guess would be that the mosque doesn’t belong the the “right” branch of french Islam. I’m not refering to actual subgroups like Shias and Sunnis, but to the fact that there’s quite a lot of infighting between French religious Muslims, based on part on different religious perspectives and on part on the country of origin of said muslims and/or of their imams/rectors/whatever, which itself, it is true, reflect a fight for influence from these countries (For instance, the great mosque of Paris is an Algerian stronghold). These internal divisions proved to be a significant problem when a representative council for Islam, similar to what already existed for Judaism, was created to act as an interlocutor for public authorities.
:mad:
The English Defence League is a very minor movement, a loose coalition of ‘firms’ of football hooligans. That the organisation couches their stated aims in conciliatory language should be considered in parallel with the behaviour of the actual activists: they’re fascists. Their stated inclusivity is belied by their actual overwhelming majority membership: angry white skinhead males in their 20s. That they target Muslims (their activists target Muslims as a whole, not just the radicals, as they claim) should indicate this. That they drape themselves in the ephemera of nationalism should confirm it. That their iconography resembles that of fascist movements should reconfirm it.
They also have very little popular support. They are not a worthwhile source to back up your frankly ignorant and delusional position.
If there were genuine no-go areas in the UK, I promise you our right-wing tabloids would be screaming about them like stuck pigs (pun intended), day in, day out. That they remain remarkably silent on the matter indicates to me that such areas don’t in fact exist outside the realms of hyperbole. But be my guest: The Daily Express and The Daily Mail are the two most right wing mainstream outlets. If such things occur, you will find them here.
Hey, I’ve done some of your work for you: Why the Bishop of Rochester is right about ‘no-go’ areas for non-muslims in Britain from two years ago. Please read the article in detail, however, not just the headline. Find me the part of that article that actually identifies one of these areas.
That’s right, there isn’t one.
Yes, there’s a problem with gang violence in some of our cities, and yes some of those gang membership are based on racial - and therefore, in some cases, religious - affiliation. Certain areas are dangerous to visit, because of them. But your habits are conflation and confirmation bias. You highlight and exaggerate those phenomena that fit your thesis, and wave away those that don’t. You draw your evidence from the words of extremists and fascists.
There is a real threat from some quarters in the Islamist community, I do not deny it. I’d like to see an end to it. But your specious reasoning and verging-on-mental-illness paranoia undermines the message you’re trying to convey.
You don’t live here. I do. I’m going to tell you again that you’re flat-out wrong. Stop spouting tripe.
Wait, why does it matter?! 
There is no Luton.
Wishful thinking will get you nowhere.
So, to paraphrase a certain Russian leader of the 1930s-40s period, “How many divisions do the Ayatollahs have?”
I’m still waiting for Valteron to show me some evidence there are “no-go” areas in British cities than non-Muslims can’t go into. I’d appreciate specific references to what these areas are. Really, it shouldn’t be at all hard to come up with some street names.
Valteron, you seemed pretty sure about this. Where are these areas? You must be pretty familair with the cities - how many times have you been to the UK?