*Fewer than one in four British voters believes Islam is compatible with the British way of life, the UK’s first Muslim woman Cabinet Minister reveals today.
Yes? And? So? Islam is a medieval, misogynistic and brutal faith that has yet to undergo an enlightenment. Therefore, its underpinning tenets are, indeed, incompatible with a civilised society. To recognise this is perfectly reasonable.
Baroness Warsi will quote private police figures which show that more than half of race hate attacks in Britain are against Muslims as she condemns critics of Islam for peddling ‘hate’.
Repeat after me; Islam is not a race, Islam is not a race and so on. One day, maybe, these cretins will grasp this point. And, besides, this is a somewhat one-sided analysis. What about Muslims claiming that certain areas are “Muslim areas” and harass those who do not comply with their brutal, primitive, misogynistic belief system? Oh, yeah, that doesn’t fit with the narrative, does it?
But in a new speech today she accuses critics of Islam of being ‘un-British’ themselves by grouping ordinary Muslims with extremists.
Actually, those of us opposed to Islam do not tend to claim that ordinary Muslims are extremists any more than we claim that Christian fundamentalists are representative of the whole. That is a massive straw man there. And it is not “un British” to speak out and state that this religion flies in the face of our civilisation – being as it is, based upon the deranged ravings of a medieval warlord who converted unbelievers by sword point and encouraged his followers to do just that, a system that looks upon unbelievers or infidels as unclean and treats even half of its own as second-class citizens, a belief rooted in conquest and submission of those who do not believe. A look at Middle Eastern societies and how non-Muslims are treated does not exactly fill one with confidence about how Islam treats the rest of us. So, no, I will not remain silent and I will not stand by when such insults are hurled in my direction by someone I pay for but have never been given the chance to vote for (or against). I despise, utterly, Islam and the reprehensible political and belief system it represents. Such a barbaric and primitive system has no place in a modern, civilised society and saying so is not Islamophobic, because there is no such thing. A distaste for Islam is not an irrational fear or dislike; it is perfectly reasonable and rational.
Ultimately, if people want to practice Islam, then that is fine by me. But do not expect preferential treatment and do not expect the rest of us to submit to it and do not try to silence those of us who dare to speak out. And Warsi can fuck right off, frankly.
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*Daily Mail, so usual caveats apply.
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Update: From Pam in the comments we get a wonderful example of the term “Islamophobia” being used as designed; to stifle legitimate and accurate criticism of Islam.
If you don’t want to be called an Islamophobe, don’t start by calling Islam brutal, medieval and misogynistic.
There is no such thing as Islamophobia (Islam is brutal, misogynistic and medieval), so, perhaps, now is the time to revisit something I said about this construct back in 2006. It is as valid now as it was then.
Repeat after me; Islam is not a race, Islam is not a race and so on. One day, maybe, these cretins will grasp this point
It is not a very difficult point to grasp. Have you considered that it is not a want of understanding that causes us to disagree with you but a different analysis? Islam is not a race but predominantly it is practised by those who are not white, European types. It does not mean that every single critic of Islam is racist but there is certainly a racist element in the more extreme attacks upon the religion and its adherents. Nick Griffin was filmed at KKK rally a few years ago explicitly saying that culture and religion are to be used as code for a racism.
I am well aware and you are wrong. Islam is a religion, a philosophy and a political system. It is not, and never has been a race. Weasel wording doesn’t change that, nor does attempting to paint Islam’s critics as racists, which is what Warsi is attempting to do here.
I am well aware and you are wrong.
That’s a convincing argument. I grovel before the virtuosity of your arguments.
Weasel wording doesn’t change that, nor does attempting to paint Islam’s critics as racists, which is what Warsi is attempting to do here
I can only assume you have abandoned the comprehension of English as early sacrifice for Lent, as that does not address any of the points I made.
I wasn’t making an argument, I was making an observation. An accurate one.
I am perfectly capable of reading and comprehending your points and my response covered them. This little trope of yours, that I have somehow not responded to the point you have made is becoming tiresome. I did, you just didn’t like it. Too bad. Insulting me won’t win you any arguments – indeed, it is evidence that you have comprehensively lost the argument.
Hinduism is a religion practised mainly by non-white non-Europeans. Does anyone think that Hinduism is incompatible with British life. And Christianity is practised by mainly non-white non-Europeans too if you look at the global population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Christian_world_map.png
Just because a religion’s adherents are mainly of one social grouping* doesn’t mean that hating that religion equates to hating that social grouping.
Britain has grown up with a Christian outlook, just the same way that the Middle East has grown up with a Muslim outlook. Both religions are pretty similar in outlook. The only problem is that extremists have managed to take over the Muslim religion just the same way that extremists did with Christianity so many years ago.
Get rid of the extremists and their intolerances and life would be very peaceful all round. Until the ordinary Muslim stands up against their extremists then they will get tarred with the same brush.
* I use the term social grouping as it’s better than race, or colour, or nationality, or whatever else the progressives have managed to put under the label “Racism” as it doesn’t imply any human characteristic other than people who group with people who think, act, talk, and socialise in similar ways.
Until the ordinary Muslim stands up against their extremists then they will get tarred with the same brush.
Scratch a libertarian, find an authoritarian
I’ve read some stupid comments in my time, but this one is competing for top prize.
As SBML says, Christianity is now predominantly practised by those who are not white, does that make me a racist for disbelieving in it ?
Using Nick Griffin as your go to example of someone who equates Muslims with racial inferiority is pretty lame, you’d expect a racist to be racist I’d have thought. It doesn’t mean that everyone who dislikes Islam is racist, those who invented the term Islamophobia did so fully intending to suggest that they are. It is exactly the same as calling AGW sceptics Deniers, the association with Holocaust denial is deliberate and every bit as dishonest.
Quite. And it is why I will challenge the term at every opportunity. There is no such thing as Islamophobia.
Using Nick Griffin as your go to example of someone who equates Muslims with racial inferiority is pretty lame, you’d expect a racist to be racist I’d have thought. It doesn’t mean that everyone who dislikes Islam is racist, those who invented the term
Which part of “It does not mean that every single critic of Islam is racist” do you not have the intellect to comprehend?
Why do you bring up Nick Griffin at all ? The argument was that Islamophobia was a dishonest term used to try and equate opposition to a religion with hatred of a race. If you then suggest that racists use Islam as a code word for people with brown skins you are doing no more than stating a truism. It does not address the problem of people using a term they have invented solely in order to discredit their opponents by suggesting they are racists, indeed you appear to tacitly accept this approach yourself. If Islamophobia actually means something more than that, what is it, what would be your definition ?
Let me expand on that. What I’m objecting to is the way Islam is given a free pass by some people because of its association with race, which actually mirrors the actions of racists in their attacks on it for their own purposes. We don’t see this with Hinduism for instance, if any one were to direct criticism at that religion it’s unlikely they’d be accused of Hinduphobia, why is this ? Hindus are predominantly dark skinned so you might expect, if race were the only or even the main issue, to see much the same arguments in use. We don’t for obvious reasons. Hindus haven’t been the source of sectarian religious activity, neither have they been demanding favourable treatment for their beliefs and they certainly haven’t let off any bombs on the tube. This is what leads many of us to look at Islam and ask whether there are some fundamental aspects of the religion that lend themselves to this sort of thing, yet when we do we are too often greeted with an argument that amounts to, ” shut up, they’ve got brown skins “. The term Islamophobia is shorthand for this. When someone like Warsi does this, which she is making a habit of doing, and Longrider has a go at it, along you come and make a rather confused argument which seems to amount to how you don’t agree that all opponents of Islam are racist but actually some are so he’s missing the point. In fact it’s a job to know what you are saying, it looks as though you are just signalling your anti racism rather than making any cogent point.
Ah, yes, when faced with the paucity of one’s argument etc., etc.,
Islam is an ideology no different from other all encompassing and often authoritarian ideologies. Criticising an ideology is NOT racism not by any stretch of the imagination. Personally, I think having a phobia about an ideology that has such a bad reputation as Islam does, is a sensible thing to have.
One thing that I try to keep in mind is that as well as being a threat to our culture, Islam is a prison for many Muslims who wish to think outside the box.
For me,criticising Islam is one way of freeing its slaves.
Not least given that apostasy carries a death sentence.
F.211. You make the same “mistake” as the commy shits.
It is NOT a “phobia”. I am NOT bloody SCARED of these turds, I just DO NOT LIKE THEM.
THAT has FUCKL ALL to do with “being scared” and THERFORE can NOT be described as a “phobia”.
I don’t like milk. I am NOT terrified of cows!!
I tend to agree – even if we do fear the outcomes of an Islamic state becoming a reality, we should always denounce the term Islamophobia and not allow it any currency. There is no such thing. Those who dislike or even fear Islam are acting rationally, therefore there is no phobia.
we should always denounce the term Islamophobia and not allow it any currency
Indeed. Sectarian tosser seems to fit the bill better, certainly in the case of Furor T.
Ah, yes, when faced with the paucity of one’s argument, change the insult. Islamophobia does not exist. It is an artificial construct designed to silence critics. The only tossers are the ones who use it – or such stupidity as “sectarian tosser” to silence critics of an evil, primitive, brutal and misogynistic ideology. Despising Islam is a perfectly reasonable and rational stance.
What amuses – and saddens – me is that the leftists who are quick to champion gay rights will likewise defend an ideology that allowed unfettered reign will actively persecute and kill homosexuals and is more right wing and authoritarian than even the most rabid of our home grown Tories.
The Islamists would crush you withought a backward glance if they ever had any real power to do so.
A phobia is an irrational fear, and I know enough about Islam by now to know that my fear and loathing of it is perfectly rational.
I have always thought though that Monotheism is a mistake that only leads to totalitarianism. If you really must believe in a Sky Fairy, then best to believe in lots of them, all competing against each other for your attention and devotion. Free Market religion and all that 😉
Spot on – exactly so.
All religions are blackmail, and are based on fear and superstition.
Religion offers a supposed comfort-blanket, or carrot to the believers, and waves a stick at the unbelievers.
“Do as we say, and you’ll go to heaven, don’t do as we say, and you’ll go to hell.” What they conveniently leave out here is the unspoken threat, which is only made manifest in those societies which are theocracies: “If you don’t do as we say, we can make sure you go to hell really painfully, and quickly.”
Thus all “priests” are liars and/or blackmailers. They may not be deliberate liars, but nonetheless, they are telling untrue fairy-stories.
Fear of exclusion from the community, in one form or another, is a standard part of the power-structure of any religion or cult. Excommunication, anathema, banishment, exile, fatwah, etc, … Fear of entry being refused in “the next world”, or “the community of saints”, or “the party”. Fear of real physical punishment by the “secular arm”, the NKVD, the Saudi religious police, or whomsoever the current set of spiritual thought police happen to be. Hence:
Corollary: 2a ] Marxism is a religion.
I believe Bertrand Russell was the first to note this, but the behaviour of both individual Marxists, and marxist organisations, and the construction of their internal power organisation and heirarchies conforms to classical religious behaviour. For example: people read a set number of Trotsky’s saying each day, just as if he were Jesus, or Mahmud. Or appeal to “the historical inevitability of the revolution” etc …
I may add that it passes ALL the tests, if one cares to list them:
1] It has a “Holy” book or books.
2] The words in those books may not be questioned, even when demonstrated proven wrong.
3] It has sub-divisions and sects and “heresy”, and heretics, in Trevor-Ropers phrase are “even wronger” than unbelievers.
4] Those sects fight each other, either by open warfare or in internal pogroms.
5] It is structurally based on the RC church, complete with its own “holy office”
6] Which leads to the gulag – the communist equivalent of the churches years of penitence and autos-de-fé
7] Thousands if not millions are killed in the name of the “holy cause” to bring about a supposed millennium
8] It persecutes all the competing religions
9] In some sects it even denies Evolution by Natural Selection (look up Trofim Lysenko)
Greg does that include true believers in the church of AGW ?
RAB I’m really not at all sure that you can draw a straight line from monotheism to totalitarianism. I think what is rather more necessary is the existence of a state religion allied with a state with a leader who is the focus of power. This happened in Japan with Shintoism.
One thing that I try to keep in mind is that as well as being a threat to our culture
It is this sort of demented rhetoric that makes people ripe for any authoritarian sleeze bag who comes along to “protect the culture”. What does it even mean? Is the ROH under threat because Islam isn’t too keen on music? Isn’t it possible to buy a bottle of wine at the supermarket? The greatest threat to our political freedoms comes from authoritarians and their useful idiots, much in evidence here, who are terrified of an miniscule threat. Grown a backbone. Grow an extra few layers of skin. It’s embarrassing that a nation that stood up to the Luftwaffe in 1940 is so degraded that it can get worked up by so little.
“It’s embarrassing that a nation that stood up to the Luftwaffe in 1940…”
This is no more the nation that “stood up to the Luftwaffe” than our grandparents’ society was the same one that faced the Spanish Armada.
The only thing *today’s* society had to do with WW2 was to read about it in history books, (or watching endless documentaries about Hitler* on the History Channel).
This is the nation that has made Simon Cowell wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice.
This is the nation that elected Tony Blair and his cronies not once, not twice, but *three* times.
So, no, it’s clearly *not* the nation that stood up to the Luftwaffe in the 1940s.
* (For someone history considers such a scumbag, our media does a bang-up job of keeping his memory alive.)
I think it’s reasonable to claim that Islam, in its militant and even sometimes its less militant form, is a threat to our culture. It makes hegemonic claims and demands for special treatment, allied to those on the left who see it as a useful aid to their own bid for power, this is helping to undermine freedom of speech and secularism. The mainstream Christian churches gave up on this approach some time ago although some Christians have been encouraged to try the same tactics and then cry foul when they discover that they are to be excluded from the process. This is a rather wider problem than just Islam of course as modern Britain seems to be full of people who want others to be coerced into behaving in ways they deem acceptable.
I have decided to adopt a philosophical belief system based on the “recent single-origin hypothesis” (RSOH)- and cannot therefore be guilty of ‘discriminating against’ anybody on racial grounds (with the possible exception of any surviving Neanderthals).
“Lego has been accused of racism by the Turkish community over a Star Wars model that supposedly resembles one of Istanbul’s most revered mosques.”
Minor ‘problems’ are that-
* Hagia Sophia was built as an Orthodox Christian Basilica, some two centuries before the birth of the Prophet, Muhammad (PBUH).
* It remained a place of Christian worship for over a thousand years.
* The building has been a (secular) museum since the 1930s.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/9820517/Lego-accused-of-racism-with-Star-Wars-set.html
I saw that claptrap. These thin-skinned arseholes will seek out any and every opportunity to take offence. The only appropriate response is to tell them vigorously to fuck off.
A better response would be to demand that it be reconsecrated as a church!
Isn’t it just a teeny bit hypocritical for one group of people to accuse another of being racist towards them, when all the time their own culture are actively and enthusiastically embracing that other big no-no (in civilised societies, at least), of extreme (and I mean extreme) sexual prejudice and persecution? The phrase “pot calling the kettle black” springs to mind here …
fahrenheit 211 has the right sow by the ear
However, may I take your original wording, & alter it, just a little bit:
“Christianity is a Bronze-Age, misogynistic and brutal faith that has yet to come to terms with the enlightenment”
Christianity (or most of it) treats women like dirt – or hadn’t you noticed?
The Bronze Age in the birth place of Christianity ended more than a millennium before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.
Fully expecting Greg Tingey to change the wording although the subject in hand is Islam, let me say that I genuinely believe that no intelligent, rational person can believe that the thoroughly unpleasant Mohammed was a prophet of a benign god. If he was a prophet, then the god he was a prophet of must be as big a shit as Mohammed was.
Yup.
DocBud
Christianity is thoroughly based on Judaism ( It’s called the “OLD TESTAMENT” in case you hadn’t noticed! ) Which is definitely Bronze-Age goatherders’ myths.
Islam is even more unpleasant Dark-Ages camelherders’ myths.
Communism is 19thC economists’ muyths.
All religions, all lying, all murderous, all blackmailing.
Got it yet?
If you look at Mohammed’s pronouncements they are largely based on Judaism and Christianity so you can lump Islam in with Judaism, he was the ultimate (in the words of Life of Brian) “making it up as he goes along” prophet.
Judaism, according to the OT, dates back to the Stone Age.
Well, it doesn’t.
History & Archeology say otherwise.
Judaism may have been a Bronze-Age myth but there are some who doubt that and think it a much later scribal invention. Whatever the truth it hardly matters, religions change and adapt over the centuries and ascribing them to a particular period might be useful as a polemical device, I admit to having done it myself but is otherwise meaningless. Even Islam a much more modern religion whose roots you might think were easier to trace is buried in historical obscurity, which is one reason why the Muslim claim to immutable unaltered truth is bogus. Christianity is not as thoroughly based on Judaism as you seem to think and there are few if any religions that have undergone greater changes from the original state. As for your claim that it has failed to come to terms with the enlightenment, this is almost the same position adopted by some Christian fundamentalists ironically enough. I’d say quite the reverse, it is, in its modern forms, very much influenced by the enlightenment, if only we could say the same of Islam.
Oh, really?
Given Cardinal Ratpoison’s pronouncements on things, recently, I beg to disagree.
The RC church is still desperately trying to expunge all traces of the enlightenment, in exatly the same way as the evangelical fundies are doing.
Lying bastards, the lot of them
Greg it really would be advisable to cut out the rants and the bile and give some sort of reasoning for your opinions, otherwise you just end up sounding like an uninformed dick. I was going to give you an historical example of the kind of thing I mean but it would just be wasted, so I will save the wear on my keyboard.
Ratpoison has publicly met & commended a lovely christian from Uganda, who wants gays killed – on the record.
Ratpoison was in charge once of the “defending the faith” bit of the RC.
He is completely reactionary & obscurantist, as shown by his record.
You may not like this, but it is true.
Yes, I rant, because people still swallow the blackmailing lies of these people – all of them. (NOT just the RC)
That doesn’t actually answer my claim that Christianity has been greatly altered by having to adapt to the consequences of enlightenment thinking. Certainly it’s easy enough to find examples of Christians advocating or failing to condemn terrible things but that’s hardly confined to them or to any religion. My point was that comparing modern Christian thinking with its pre Enlightenment form shows some major differences, this is not true of Islam. When I have more time I might come back and give an example.
I was going to post a longish comment but no one would be interested in that so I will just ask you to consider the question of witchcraft. At one time even the most tolerant minded non sectarian Christians, highly educated men of great intellect believed firmly in witches, you wouldn’t find anyone from a similar modern background who did. This change in the upper echelons of the church has become the official position of all the mainstream churches and belief in the direct intervention of supernatural forces in the lives of humans has virtually vanished from Christian discourse, something that would have been inconceivable in pre-Enlightenment times. This unfortunately is very far from the case with Islam.
Except, of course in may erm “african” churches, where witchcraft is still believed in & chidren are tortured.
See recent court cases.
So that horse won’t run, either.
I thought you’d you’d bring that up. you’re nothing if not predictable. You’ll notice that I was talking about the Enlightenment, how much influence has that had on the average African village do you think ? You’ll also notice that I mentioned well educated people, not a lot of them in those villages either. This is my whole point, where people have not been given the opportunity to rise out of superstition and ignorance, superstition and ignorance, rather unsurprisingly still thrive. You’ve also missed my point about the way theologians and church leaders have been compelled to adapt to new ideas in the secular world, in Africa those processes are nowhere near as strong for the reasons I’ve given. This has in fact always been the case in Christianity, it has simply had to change in response to a society which was qualitatively different to all that had preceded it in the way new ideas took hold readily. One can argue how much influence the Church had on that process, some Christians like to imagine that it was entirely driven by Christianity, I find that untenable. What I think it is quite impossible to argue, as both some Christians and some non believers do is that Christianity is unaltered since its foundations, it isn’t. Have you read the writings of any pre Enlightenment Christians on theology or science ? They make interesting reading, I’d particularly recommend the Seventeenth century as this early modern period gives a good picture of how intelligent men were having to grapple with new ideas and discoveries from the secular world.
To claim that Christianity still poses the same sort of threat to lives and freedoms as it often did in the past is just silly and to suppose that it is an equivalent evil to militant Islam is just bonkers frankly.
Our species doesn’t actually worship gods. It worships the *written word*. And it spends most of its life bickering over how to interpret those words, and what they are trying to teach us.
Jews are fanatical about their sacred compendium of fairy stories. Christians are equally fanatical about *their* sacred compendium of fairy stories. And so are Muslims. Same goes for every other effing bunch of ignorant fruitcakes who believe their particular stories about their invisible friend are the ones that should be considered gospel.
We’ve even had a front-row view of a religion being _born_ over recent decades, thanks to the USA and its right-wing nutters who persist in their misguided belief that some documents written by a bunch of white, wealthy, slave-owners a couple of centuries or so back are, for some reason, to be considered sacred and infallible. (Perhaps someone would point out the meaning of the word ‘amendment’ to said weirdos.)
“Islam”, “Christianity”, even “Judaism”, are mere symptoms of a deeper malaise: our species’ insatiable desire for certainty. Science doesn’t actually offer that service: you have to turn to religion’s pat, trite, and often dangerously incorrect, “answers” for such psychological comfort blankets.
Boiler plate ignorant anti Americanism. It’s this kind of thing allied with ignorance of the thing you oppose, in this case religion, that has lead me to become thoroughly disenchanted with the way some atheists have adopted all the worse traits of the religions they oppose. It only helps confirm the equally ignorant and quite common view that atheism is just another belief system.
I wasn’t aware that criticising the clear worship of a bunch of documents written by some blokes over 200 years ago counted as “ignorant anti-Americanism”. Unless you genuinely believe that the 2nd Amendment really was intended to let anyone and everyone, regardless of their mental capacity, own and carry armaments that nobody in the 1790s could possibly have even dreamed of, regardless of whether they were part of an *organised* militia.
Switzerland’s political system is actually based on the US model and, yes, almost every home has at least one gun and ammunition for it. The nation’s entire population is (a) organised, and (b) a militia, and legally recognised as such.
That 2nd Amendment in full reads: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Note the pre-condition that is rarely, if ever, mentioned. This is the only such Right to have such a condition attached to it. And it’s there for a reason. The *intent* is clearly that this is for the defence of the *State*, not of individuals or families. But the implication of almost every gun nut is that only that second half is relevant.
Now go and watch that country having yet another of its hilarious gun control “debates”. (And, yes, the sarcastic quotes are there on purpose.) It’s painfully obvious that at least one side of the argument genuinely believes that the 2nd Amendment is religious-level dogma, not just some words written on a piece of paper by some politicians a little over 200 years ago. They’re brooking no argument at all – even suggesting that *more* guns are the “solution”!
Finally, “atheism” is not a “belief system”. It’s merely a *lack* of belief. It’s the null state. It takes me no effort whatsoever. I no more “believe there are no gods” than I “believe there are no fairies or ghosts”. I don’t believe in the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster either. The evidence for all of those is exactly the same: None. Zero. Zilch. Zip.
Do you believe water flows uphill, despite all the painfully clear evidence to the contrary? Do you believe you see a green and yellow polka-dot sky every day? Do you believe all the stars and planets are made of Stilton cheese?
No?
Then why the fuck do you claim that I “believe” that there is no god when there has never, ever, been any evidence whatsoever that such a thing exists in the first place?
I stopped believing in invisible friends when I was six. What’s your excuse?
My excuse for what ? You seem to have concluded, on what evidence I don’t know, that I am some kind of theist, which I’m not.
I wasn’t making any claim about what you believe, about which I care nothing, I was taking issue with your style of argument which is grist to the mill of those who do claim that atheism is another belief system, which I stated clearly.
I’m not getting into an off topic argument about gun control. There wouldn’t be any point anyway as your mind is obviously closed shut on the subject and you obviously prefer ranting to rational discussion. Your childish dismissal of the American Constitution is further evidence of that.
If you don’t want to be called an Islamophobe, don’t start by calling Islam brutal, medieval and misogynistic. 🙄
And there, ladies and gentlemen, we have it: A perfect example of the artificial construct “islamophobia” being used for its designed purpose – to silence accurate and legitimate criticism.
I did that on the Grauniad supposedly “Comment is Free” site – and got myself banned … for being “Racist”
DOES NOT COMPUTE
The Groan is a Dhimmi paper. The evil Islam can do no wrong – even when it engages in violence against homosexuals. Although I expect there are a few heads imploding when that happens 😈
OK I won’t call it Medieval as that would be something of a disservice to the actual Middle Ages.
Dark ages, perhaps. Although, Dark ages Britain was certainly a more developed and pluralistic society than the cult of Islam.
Correct
Islam is a collection of Dark-Ages camelherders’ myths (which I’ve said before …)
to Pam, even when much of what we see of Islam is brutal, medieval and misogynistic? I’ve given up accepting at face value the words of peace that emanate from the mouths and other orifices of the promoters and apologists of Islam, I’ve been lied to by them too many times (will put up story of that soon). I now prefer to judge Islam by the actions of far too many of Islam’s adherents, not the soothing words.
I consider myself both Islamophobic as in concerned and frightened of the violence within Islam and Islamonauseous about so much of the ideology of Islam.
I have no wish however, to see individual Muslims, especially those who reject Shariah and similar aspects of Islam harmed in anyway. Islam is not compatible with western free societies, but that applies to the philosophy and ideology of Islam not those who are innocent. Justice should not mean rolling the innocent up with the guilty.
I would much prefer that Muslims woke up to the fact that Islam is a crock of shit and rejected Islam, because Islam the ideology is as about as welcome in free societies as syphillis is in a brothel. Islam is slavery for its adherents, it is a moral duty to me to free the slave.
Agreed
Remember that christianity is also slavery for its’ adherents…
The evangelical mantra of…”his service is perfect freedom” which sounds remarkably like the mantras of that other muderous religion, communism, doesn’t it?
A “phobia” is an “irrational fear” of something.
There is *nothing* irrational about being afraid that some bunch of militant fanatics will fly some aircraft into your office building. Or strap bombs to themselves and detonate them while on public transport. Or even stuff masses of explosives into their own vehicles and drive them into your street and set them off.
It’s perfectly *rational* to detest a religion that sees nothing inherently wrong with declaring a jihad against *writers and cartoonists* who live in countries that aren’t even slightly culturally Islamic and to whom Sharia law cannot even be reasonably expected to apply.
Such fear is NOT a “phobia”, because it is not an *irrational* fear! Nobody wants to be blown up by some pig-ignorant fruitcake who still believes in invisible friends and insists you do so too, or else.
As a long-time Londoner for much of my life, I have little time for the hypocritical Roman Catholic or Protestant churches either, thanks to their singular inability to excommunicate members of either the IRA or the UDA. My dislike of organised religions is therefore not limited to Islam alone.
But the worst of it is that I also detest having to walk on eggshells around all the thin-skinned, offence-seeking nutters like yourself. Know this: You can have “Freedom of Expression”, OR you can have “Freedom from Offence”. These are mutually exclusive concepts: you cannot have both! Choose wisely.
So don’t walk on eggshells. If they are offended, fuck ’em. 😈
Or, failing that, “respect” their ignorant, stone-age, superstition. I respect no religion. All are deeply offensive to me and I will have no hesitation in saying so. None are deserving of respect from me and none get any.
You’ll get no argument from me there.
I don’t give freely of my respect. Respect is not a right. It must be earned. Otherwise, respect becomes devalued and worthless – rather as the ridiculous overuse of “hero” over recent years has rendered that word effectively meaningless today.
Oh, don’t even get me started on the fad for calling people who run a bit faster than others or kick a ball about “heroes”, they don’t know the meaning of the word.