Soren wrote on Feb 25^th, 2013 at 9:15pm:

No, you're right... Political Islam must be confronted with all means necessary to destroy it.

And not that the Jews have the answer... Their ultra orthodox are also the enemy (from within).

Separation of religion and faith was the point I made. As these are not separated in Islam, I do not support Islam. The private confession in Islam is also a political manifesto.

You bring up all sorts of motherhood statements - liberty, toleration, compassion - which in Islam are political statements as much as statements of ethics.
In Islam there is no equal liberty, no equal toleration, no undifferentiated compassion towards Muslims and others. Sharia is religious and worldly law, there being no differentiation in Islam.

Any Muslim who subscribes to your Judeao-Christian ethics on liberty, tolerance and compassion and all other ethical tents, would be an apostate.

Yes, you can submit to Allah and then, as a Muslim, you will have liberty among Muslim males, tolerance and compassion towards others who have also submitted.

But as a sharia judge, you could not treat women equally before your court, before the law of sharia, you could not permit freedom of speech and conscience, freedom to leave Islam, freedom to question let alone criticise Islam. 

I am somewhat gobsmacked that you need to be told this because you evidently can't see it by your own lights.i

Islam is not 'politicised' by some outside agency, turning apolitical Islam somehow into 'politicised' Islam. It is political. Sharia is not just canon law, separate from secular law. It is the law of Islam, inseparable from its 'spiritual' aspects. 

Not everyone is evil in a totalitarian system. So you can talk about individual Muslims.
I am, however, talking about Islam, the system that curtails freedoms that to me are more important.

Wherever there is more Islam, there is less personal freedom of every kind.
Wherever there is Western liberal democracy, there is more personal freedom of every kind.

You go somewhere fully Islamic - and they will not be able to tolerate many of your utterances and views. Theocratic dictatorships are still dictatorships.


This just in from the supposedly most secularised countries of islam:


While Australia debates the overhaul of our human rights laws and the extent to which speech should be regulated, in Turkey a famous pianist and composer, Fazıl Say, is facing charges of offending Muslims and insulting Islam for comments he made on Twitter.

As well as being an acclaimed musician, Fazıl Say is a self-declared atheist and opponent of Turkey's elected Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan, who is known for his conservative religious views.

Say sent tweets including an April Fools' joke about a call to prayer that lasted only 22 seconds, and quips about the Islamic prohibition on alcohol.

He faces charges of inciting hatred and public enmity which carry a possible jail sentence. The trial was adjourned last year and it's about to resume in Turkey.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/turkish-composer-charged-with...

Cheers!
(can I say that when discussing Islam?)

muso wrote on Feb 27^th, 2013 at 6:36am:

I think the danger inherent in Islam is the concept of jihad.

Islam appears to endorse a personal struggle against 'enemies of Islam' and does not appear to have any effective agency against this personal struggle descending into asymmetric warfare.

Soren wrote on Feb 27^th, 2013 at 9:58am:


Well, friends, you’re both right. Islam was a very legalistic religion from the beginning, but like every single other religion, it splintered and mutated. No religion today resembles what it started as. If you could freeze societies, you would solve the age-old, old boy problem. The Thousand Year Reich was intended to do just this. The price of stability is eternal war.

Also, most Muslims, since Islam began, have lived in non-Muslim states. The balance has shifted in the last 50 years with various Middle Eastern states and Indonesian independance - not to forget the fine nation of Pakistan. So, you see, an Islamic critical mass has definitely occurred.

But Islam itself is not about the law or living in Islamic states - any Muslim schoolboy will tell you this. It’s about a relationship with the One Gud - as insane as people get to promote this.

Christians are hardly adverse to the law either. The Divine Right of Kings was once an axiom of Christian political-economy. People fought and died for this principle - just as they do now for "democracy", which replaced aristocracy in the Christian world view.

Christianity is no Thousand Year Reich, and nor is Islam. Both change.

Soren wrote on Feb 27^th, 2013 at 9:58pm:


Quite. As you can see, I have provided a critical reading of Islam using Queer theory. Cunning, no?

Would you care to deconstruct such an analysis, old chap, or are you content to agree?

muso wrote on Feb 28^th, 2013 at 5:55pm:

True. The sole survivor of ancient Rome for a staggering 1800 years... No institution comes even close to that. Benedict's resignation is simply an expression of this institution's uncanny ability to adapt by dramatic precedent... Only this arch-conservative organisation can make such a statement and have  the effect on the world that it has... Even atheists and non-Catholics are abuzz about it... A master stroke.

muso wrote on Feb 28^th, 2013 at 5:55pm:

Oh, but they wish!