The 'Islamophobia' canard is just the latest and most hateful attempt by the Left to try and make it look as if their Utopian plans for happy-clappy global socialism have any foundation whatever in reality. Let's be nice to fundamentalist religious maniacs; then when, with the aid of your efforts, they take over, we might well be spared for another week or two. Or as Noel Coward might have put it:

Don’t let’s be beastly to the theists,
Don’t let’s be rude about their faith.
Though they believe in Providence,
Without a shred of evidence
We know their hearts are in the rightish plaith.

Don’t be insulting towards Islam,
Don’t treat the Moslem with disdain.
Insist that he’s terrific,
And astonishingly pacific,
Or else he’ll bomb your house, or car, or plane.

No, we won’t be beastly to the theists
As long as it might result in personal pain.

Don’t let’s be callous to the Christians,
Don’t snicker at the stories that they tell,
Though their customary behaviour
Is nothing like that of their Saviour,
And they’re perfectly sure it’s you who’s going to Hell.

Don’t be contemptuous of Buddhists,
Don’t criticise the Eightfold Path.
Though the sound of one hand clapping
Is a rather feeble flapping,
Whatever you do, don’t listen to it and laugh.

That’s why we won’t be beastly to the theists,
Because there are far too many of them by half.

Don’t let’s be horrible to the Hindu,
For the Hindu is a person just like you.
Unless, let it be stated,
He’s been reincarnated
And come back as an animal in the zoo.

Don’t scoff at Seventh-Day Adventists,
Don’t sneer at Scientology.
If a Mormon can make President,
It’s prudent to be hesitant
In pointing out it’s plainly idiocy.

So three cheers for Xenu and Moroni!
Whatever the hell it is they’re s’posed to be.

No, we won’t be beastly to the theists,
From us the theists nothing have to fear.
We’re a ragtag little band,
Our ideas are second-hand,
And we lead the atheist movement from the rear.

So we won’t be beastly to the theists,
‘Cos they’re so pathetically grateful that we’re here!

Jon J's second post was great. However, Bob Santamaria's NCC has a questionable devotion to democracy. Bob S. favoured Franco's clerical fascism. Totalitarianism whether in the form of Marxism, Fascism or religion stinks.

Very good Jon J.

This is a good article.

Make no mistake the West is at war with islam albeit not in a conventional sense.

The acts of terrorism are the cutting edge of this war; it is also progressing more insidiously through population build-up and the increasingly shrill demands for Sharia law.

The NCC is not the only religious organisation unwilling to be critical of islam; in England for example the Anglican church continually sponsors inter-faith 'dialogue' and other concilatory approaches and concessions to islam.

In this respect the religions are on song with the left who have supported islam to the point of death as Nick Cohen so eoloquently and ironically described in his book, "What's Left" where the left in Iran were the first to lose their heads when the mullahs came into power.

How to explain such cognitive dissonance?

For a start the left are cowards and flat track bullies; it is so easy to protest against sources of authority in the West, especially when the left controls much of that authority, but the muslims have a habit of blowing things up.

Philosophically the nuances of left support for islam can be distilled to a case of the enemy of my enemy must be my friend.

As a result of left control of the msm there has been no effective analysis of the values and methods of islam so to most of the punters the real nature of islam is camouflaged behind the usual shibboleths as 'moderate' muslims and a few bad eggs etc.

It is ironic that the Catholic church is currently being held to account for the crimes done under its auspices but there is no such attempt to apply the same standards to islam.

terrorism and facism is not foreign to the secular humanist and those who adopt their dogmas. Remember it is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that is an offense because it exposes their corruption and failed dogma. All is tolerable except those 'war mongering ', 'spiteful' 'hateful ' Christians who normnally give more, volunteer more and promote family in the normal sense.

Dear runner,

I really don't think you know what secular humanism is.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism

The philosophy or life stance secular humanism (alternatively known by some adherents as Humanism, specifically with a capital H to distinguish it from other forms of humanism) embraces human reason, ethics, social justice and philosophical naturalism, while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, pseudoscience or superstition as the basis of morality and decision making.

Go to the website to read more.

Secular humanism rejects terrorism, fascism and superstition including your superstition.

Santamaria as one of Australia's greatest intellectuals - oh puleez.

I first saw him as a young teenager before I even became interested in politics, on his weekly TV spot "point of view". It was obvious to me that he was very much into the politics of fear and loathing.

During the American war against the people of Vietnam he tried to pressure our government into persuading the USA to use nuclear weapons against the North Vietnamese.
To his credit he was one of the few voices on the right side of the culture wars divide to oppose the then nascent but now firmly in place politics and anti-"culture" of "free"- market fundamentalism.
He also said that he never ever voted for the Liberal party.

And yes it would be a very sorry day for humankind is Islam came to dominate the world.
But how many human beings of either Islamic or Arab origins have been slaughtered by the Christian West in the past decade, as compared to Westerners whether Christian or otherwise by members of Islam.

And of course we dreadfully sane Westerners dont do terror do we. We are "civilized". As an invitable consequence of our dreadful sanity we gave the entire world both World Wars. We do our supposedly non-terrorist killing via silently "efficient" drones. Or via cruise missiles launched from secure bunkers thousands of miles away, or from 30,000 feet via B52 bombers. Or we use petrol bombs, Moab bombs, daisy-cutters, cluster-bombs

Well, Daffy, the fact is that we have the weapons. We have the weapons because we have the science, and we have the science because we have achieved a more or less secular society. We use overwhelming force in our wars because it would be foolish not to, and we kill from a distance because we can. I completely agree with you that we don't always get the enemy right, and we don't always understand their motives for hating us -- which is partly what the article is about.

But don't you agree that it's lunacy to go up against an enemy as well-armed as the US when you could choose to make peace instead, and don't you agree that religious beliefs are contributing to that lunacy? Courageous resistance against a powerful enemy may be brave and noble, but putting up a courageous resistance because you think an invisible magic man wants you to is stark madness.

good also to know that Israel has far more than weapons on its side. It continues to win against all odds and all enemies. Amazing how they have transformed such a tiny plot of desert in a blooming rose garden.

But the Israeli "rose garden" is essentially a welfare state that has been paid for by the long suffering ordinary every day American taxpayer to the tune of countless billions of dollars.
The same USA taxpayers who are mostly Christians, non-religious or members of non-Semitic faith traditions essentially subsidize or pay for orthodox Jewish males and their families to be parasites on the same Jewish state while being full time students of the Torah (while simultaneously being exempt from military service and demanding that everyone else conform to their strict cultural norms re the sabbath, and gender relations). And who are most often (but not always) in the vanguard of those Jews who demand that ALL of the ancient Old Testament lands be returned to Jewish possession and sovereignty, and thus actively support the "settler" movement and their systematic disposession of the Palestinians.

Some/many USA Christian zionists support this project because it squares with their deluded belief that the restoration of this ancient state of affairs is a prerequisite for the "second coming of 'Jesus'" and as a simultaneous precursor for "armageddon" to occur - and of course even more importantly to them, the "rapture" too. Such a mind-set is deeply psychotic and yet it is subscribed to by tens of millions of dreadfully sane USA Christians steeped in the fantasies of the New York Times best selling Left Behind series of books.

But when it all boils down it is all about access to and control of OIL.

Cohenite,

How to explain this weird coming-together of extreme Catholics, Islamists and some of the Left ? As someone born and raised on the Left, but some time ago, I think it may have something to do with their common belief in a Utopia, a perfectly-scripted, pre-ordained society, into which - from each of their perspectives - eventually everybody must be fitted or - for the good of the rest of society - 'removed', 'subtracted'.

In a word, each of those ideologies is authoritarian. In Isaiah Berlin's dichotomy of positive and negative freedom, they come down on the side of positive society, the ready-made Good Society, which has no place for dissent. In Karl Popper's schema, they each represent, in their horribly different ways, a closed society. Which has no place for dissent.

Maybe every generation has to re-learn the same lessons, over and over again, how to resist the sirens of fascism, in their multitude of names :(

Joe

Daffy, the name says it all. Oil! How much Oil does Israel control? It has nothing to do with oil. It has a lot to do with the manipulation of public opinion, and the creation of the myth.

Not to mention the recent terrorist plot on the Canadian train network which was nabbed.

It looks like the Boston bomber murdered his three ex Jewish friends on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. He went to Russia for 6 months soon after they were murdered:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/boston-bombers-link-to-murders-20130505-2j13w.html

I'm no expert but I try to educate myself. I’ve studied an 8 lesson course on” Islam and the West” and didn’t come away positive at all. The instructor had been involved in interfaith dialogue and stated Muslims just don’t do dialogue (only pretend) as they insist definitively, Islam is beyond criticism as the Koran comes directly from the word of God. It looks like they would be using Taqiyya (Koranic lies). The instructor wasn’t there to pillory Islam (the college would not have allowed it) - he just lay the facts out in front of us (history) and some of his personal experience. He relayed one incident when he boarded a bus in Rockdale where a young Muslim man pushed in front of him and outright just said to him, “you know I can kill you”. The instructor was an elderly man and iterated this with nonchalance.

I don’t consider it’s even a religion, it is more like a political ideology/Mohammad cult. I think a considerable amount of Islam’s followers are psychologically disturbed. Why is it anywhere they go trouble follows. Southern Philippines, Southern Thailand, Myanmar/Burma, Nigeria, the West and the rest. There is a huge exodus of Christians fleeing the middle east. There won't be any left there in time to come.

Australia has had four terrorist plots foiled that we’ll never know about but here is a list of what’s been happening in the UK:
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/home/the-threats/terrorism/international-terrorism/international-terrorism-and-the-uk/terrorist-plots-in-the-uk.html

Denialists will bang on about the Crusades but all they were doing was defending Europe after persistent invasions for goodness sake.

But we keep on grovelling, shamefully. Trojan horse.

Hi Constance,

Just to put that early Middle eastern history into perspective - we forget that in the six hundred or so years before Muhammad came out of his cave (where have we heard that myth before?), Jewish, Christian and various syncretisms of these were widespread across the MIddle East. Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia were Christian, Indigenous Christian, way back from the first century. (After all, the south-western coast of India was Christian from before 100 AD). Europe was still barely Christianised by the time of the peaceful Muslim Invasions of north Africa.

So, when the peaceful Muslims invaded the Christian kingdoms along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, the Christians rather understandably hankered to get those lands back: after all, they had been christian for hundreds of years. After the peaceful Muslims (Arab and Berber) invaded Christian-Visigoth Spain, understandably the Christian Spanish wanted to get it back again. They regained most of it pretty soon, within a couple of hundred years, but it still took them nearly eight hundred years to get it all back.

As an atheist, I have no axe to grind for Spanish Christendom, but I just want to put the Crusades in a sort of perspective: it wasn't a simple matter of nasty, foreign European imperialism against peaceful Indigenous Islam.

In other words, they had as much right to invade those territories as the Muslims. But of course, that tit-for-tat sort of idiotic history has to come to an end sooner or later, so, as it happens, the Muslims gained eventual control of nearly all of it. It's theirs now. Okay. Let's move on, draw a line under it.

No more invasions. Let democracy bloom in its own way, in each region - equal rights for all, and a recognition of the primacy of a common set of legal rules, for all, male and female, believer and non-believer.

And everybody should wash their hands before being involved in medical operations, modesty be buggered.

Joe

Dear Loudmouth,

I liked the spirit of your post. However, you wrote: "But of course, that tit-for-tat sort of idiotic history has to come to an end sooner or later."

As long as religion carries the idea, "We have the truth." and keeps the missionary spirit alive that 'tit-for-tat sort of idiotic history' will not come to an end. As Faulkner said, "The past isn't even past."

Seems like Greg has not bothered to check his facts. A simple phone call to the NCC head office or to myself would have helped here.
No such policy changes have taken place!

As for critique of article on Boston bombings..await our reply later this week. As for 'not covering Christians under persecution'...are you kidding? try 27-4-13 "MIDDLE EAST: Egypt becomes a nightmare for Muslim Brotherhood" by Frank Lindsey.

What Greg failed to mention is news weekly has a policy of not running articles that rely on sources known to be connected with Serbian nationalists that supported ethnic cleansing of muslims in the Bosnian war. And we are proud of this fact.

Greg is also wrong in that we never pulled an article by Cardinal Pell on this subject there was a reported broken link at some stage.

Greg would do well to read the book we published by Paul Gray The Nightmare of the Prophet

and also Gilles Kepel’s book Jihad.

Greg Byrne has provided a fairly comprehensive list of Islamic terrorism post 9/ll, but he has overlooked the recent terrorist attempt on the Canadian train system which was foiled by alert security. If only terrorism in the US is considered significant, it should be remembered that Canadian train was headed for New York where the explosion was intended to happen.
Among the authors banished from the News Weekly website is Patrick Sookhdeo, founder of the Barnabus Fund which supports persecuted Christians all over the world - but the persecution occurs primarly in Islamic countries.
It is also of concern that there have been recent riots in Bangladesh by fundamentalist Muslims demanding an Islamic state and Sharia law, and demonstrating against the secular government of that country.
Every week I get an email from Farideh Araki detailing the arbitrary arrests and executions of prisoners in Iran, among them Christian pastors or "apostates" from Islam. The only thing keeping some of these hapless victims alive is international publicity. That is why it was unfortunate that my article on Aisia Bibi, mother of five young children, who has been on death row for several years in Pakistan on spurious charges of blasphemy, was removed from the News Weekly website.
Those who minimize the dangers of Islam should remember John Donne's poem:
"No man is an island.......any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
Babette Francis

LukeMc - so why were all those articles taken down?

The article "Egypt becomes a nightmare for Muslim Brotherhood" by Frank Lindsey is speculative. The Brotherhood may have lost some elections in student unions, just like our Australian student unions don't vote conservative, but the Brotherhood is firmly in control and is being supported by billions in aid from the US government so long as it does not abrogate its treaty with Israel. However, Frank’s article is conceding my point, that Egypt would be better off with a secular government than a Muslim one under Sharia law.
Luke and Frank, NCC state presidents, have not dealt with the core of my article:
l. Does the NCC consider Islam a benign religion like the Baptists or does it concede that it is a not only a religion but, in the words of Rev. Mark Durie, a totalitarian ideology? Durie's view is supported by the organisations who are in Coalition with the NCC on pro-life and pro-family issues: Family Voice Australia, Salt Shakers, Australian Christians, Culture Watch, Rise Up Australia etc. The NCC held no consultation with any of these groups or the deleted writers before embarking on its new undefined policy.
2. Does the Pat Byrne really think terrorism is a rarity? Re the Boston bombings the editorial of the Australia/Israel Review, May 2013 provides a perceptive analysis:
"....What is now counterproductive is to decline to draw the necessary conclusions that this was yet another part of a widespread campaign of terror motivated by the spread of transnational, violent radical Islamist ideology...."
The inspiration for this ideology comes from Islam’s scripture, the Quran: "Fighting is obligatory for you, though you dislike it." [Sura 2:126]. The word in Arabic for fighting means "to kill." And it says also "I shall cast terror into the hearts of the disbelievers. Cut off their heads, and cut off their limbs." [Sura 8:12] The Boston bombers may have killed only a few but they did succeed in severing the limbs of several.
This is what the NCC needs to consider instead of distancing itself from those who provide insightful critiques of Islam.
Greg Byrne

Luke McC (8 May) suggests that a simple phone call to the NCC office could have clarified their policy in regard to Islam. Well I wrote three letters to the President and Vice President Pat Byrne of the NCC and one to the National Secretary of the Australian Family Association early in 2012 trying to ascertain what was the cause of the antipathy towards me apparent in the attitude of Pat Byrne. I never received a reply.
In addition, as a partner of the World Congress of Families, I offered a free VIP registration to Pat Byrne to attend the World Congress of Families VI in Madrid in May 2012, and also invited him to chair an Endeavour Forum Inc. public meeting in Melbourne in August 2012 at which eminent US lawyers were speaking on pro-life issues. Pat declined both invitations as he is entitled to do, but he never took the opportunity on either occasion to discuss with me just what he objected to in any of my articles for News Weekly or AD 2000.
More recently the WA branch of the NCC is rejecting emails from NCC supporters who wish to provide information and discuss Islam. This is hardly conducive to dialogue. Secret decisions and behind-the-scene manoeuvreing may have been appropriate strategy for the NCC when it was battling communists in the trade unions in the 1950s but it it won't work in the internet era of the 21st century. I am not a communist and I don't claim any right to be published in NCC journals. But I and the other website-deleted writers do deserve the basic civility of an explanation before we are besmirched by claims that our articles published in NCC journals are damaging the reputation of the NCC.
Babette Francis

I have recently been reading a little of the 7th century history of the
stablishment of Islam as a religion, so I cannot claim to be well read on the subject.
However what I have read is so similar to what we see today of Islam
that I shudder to think what we are facing with the high level of Islamic immigration.

Mahomet was a terrorist war lord in 642 who claimed the angel Gabriel
visited him with a message from Allah.
One of the interesting things that happened was when his brother in law died he wanted to marry his widow.
This was apparently forbidden by custom at that time.
Very conveniently Gabriel turned up that night and said that Allah had OKed the marriage !
Oh, and Gabriel said he could also have more than one wife.
How convenient.

Therein probably lies the custom of cousin marriage which has blighted
the arabs ever since.
Sometimes argue that the Bible has parts that support the killing and
stoning to death, but from memory that is only in the old testament.
Christianity has ruled out those punishments as part of an unenlightened era.

The moslems are commanded to lie to kafirs, (you & me), if it will advance Islam.
That is why no treaties made with Islamists can be expected to last.

The Jews learnt that bitter lesson when their town was taken over as
a base for caravan raiding and renamed Medina. Those that would not
convert were slaughtered.

Mohamed also stated that if a country had even one moslem residing
in it, it had to be ruled by sharia law.
To bring that up to date, a convicted moslem in a Sydney court refused
to stand to be sentenced. His reason;
"I do not recognise the court as I am only answerable to Allah and Sharia Law."

There are many in the country now who do not have to obey our laws.
They consider them to be null and void.

That is the way it is and all the waffle in the world will not change that !

Hmm, a little more,
In contrast to the Bible the Koran is the direct word of Allah and
cannot be reinterpreted and is unchangeable.
Therein lies the problem that the rest of the world has with Islam.

The whole history puts into context, for me anyway, why the dispute
between the Jews and the Islamists is so intense.
The Jews lived in many areas of the middle east but were either killed,
converted or driven out of Arabia.
They settled all around the Mediterranean, but when Israel was founded
in 1956 the Jews were driven out of North Africa and other moslem
countries despite having lived there for 1000+ years and many went to Israel.
So if the Arabs want the refugees to return the Israeli refugees would also have to return, hmmm.

Greg you quote from the Talmud: "He who saves one life it is considered as if he saved an entire world".

Let me quote from the Qur'an

“Therefore We prescribed for the Children of Israel that whoso slays a soul not to retaliate for a soul slain, nor for corruption done in the land, shall be as if he had slain mankind altogether; and whoso gives life to a soul, shall be as if he ha given life to mankind altogether. Our Messengers have already come to them with the clear signs; then many of them thereafter commit excesses in the earth.” Qur’an 5:32 {http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=5&verse=32}

Yes i’d support more serious scholarly attention to Islam. I think you would find we have a lot in common, as the quote from the Qur’an suggests.

Can i also suggest that a more nuanced approach be taken, one that seeks the truth. For example, the following article by someone who has actually studied Islam: Carly Fiorina (former HP CEO): Technology, Busness and our way of life: What’s next. {http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/speeches/fiorina/minnesota01.html)}

cont...

Greg, your view of Islam as an extremist ideology is based on ignorance. To illustrate consider recent events in Timbukutu, where ISlamists were driven out by the French after 2 years of occupation.

My first point is that Timbukutu is the site of the first university. To quote from a BBC trailer:

"The University of Timbuktu was a medieval University in Mali, West Africa which comprised three schools; namely the Masajid of Djinguereber, the Masajid of Sidi Yahya, and the Masajid of Sankore. During its zenith, the university at Timbuktu had an average attendance of around 25,000 students within a city of around 100,000 people. There were four levels within the University curriculum, that included, the "Circle of Knowledge", the "Superior Degree", the "Secondary Degree", and the "Primary Degree". Teachings mostly consisted of Quranic principles; however, literature covering topics of science, mathematics, and medicine,among other disciplines. "
{http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fwales%2Farts%2Fsites%2Fprogrammes%2Fpages%2Ffrom_wales_to_timbuktu.shtml&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGU-wc0rlriNnEtxw4dagHKrQqHeQ}

So how can this, or the history of the Moors (as recounted in Fiorini's speech in the previous post) be a product of an extremists ideology?

Secondly, the Islamists' occupation saw the library ransacked and the tombs of leading Islamic scholars desecrated {http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2012%2F07%2F03%2F1104872%2F-Black-Kos-Tuesday-s-Chile&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNG5Qey9p6528enGA_xwAnKer4rGbA} .

It is only through the efforts of the locals and the Ford foundation that they were able to smuggle out 90% of the manuscripts {http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D_4pJTaiev8k}.

The point i'd like to make with this example is that Islamists are hell bent on destroying Islamic culture or any culture!...clearly they need some education in their own faith and heritage!

Obviously, they can not claim to be acting in the name of Islam

So we do have much in common... including our enemies!
Salaams

The Islamists have been pursuing the Jews and Christians with murder
since their founding in 642 AD.
They are commanded to do so and it is an obligation.
We have no choice but to resist.
To ignore the threat is to ignore a very long history of the same threat.
Islam is incompatible with democracy which is why no islamic country
is a democracy. Even Indonesia can hardly be called truly democratic.
If in doubt ask the Christians there or the Papuans.

The closest comparison to Islam was Nazism. Hitler also wanted the
elimination of the jews and the Mufti of Jerusalem urged Hitler to
speed up the final solution.

We cannot now walk safely in our own cities without looking warily
at the moslem walking past.
There is no such thing as a "good" moslem because if they oppose the
actions of the militants they are considered to be opposed to Allah
and are to be killed. If they leave Islam they are to be killed.
That the militants don't actually do that here is only a matter of time not of principle.

Bazz, like Greg, your notion of Islam representing an extremist ideology is borne out of ignorance.

Consider the example of The Holy Prophet Muhammad 's Letter to the Monks of St. Catherine in Mt. Sinai . In translation, the text reads as follows:

"This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world)."

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achtiname_of_Muhammad

For a short news item showing the monastery and the covenant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0SsRmC6O5k

Just to add to the previous post, a modern commentary on the Prophet's covenant with the Monk's of St. Catherine by Dr. Muqtedar Khan “Muhammad's promise to Christians”

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2009/12/prophet_muhammads_promise_to_christians.html

Doesn't wash grateful because there are other paragraphs that give
different instructions and it is those that they obey.

There is also a paragraph that says it is permissible to lie to an
infidel if the lie helps Islam.

Never the less for the last 1300 years plus they have been murdering
Jews and Christians and it is no wonder the Jews have had enough.
There have been two major Islamic invasions of Europe and the third is
under way now with the help of the power of their womens' wombs.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Constance, I think the last line in Paul Sheehan's piece is most relevant: "He had found a cause that he could use to rationalise his malevolence." Bad people have used all sorts of things to "justify [their] malevolence" throughout history. Just look at the atrocities carried out in the name of Christ, or some King, or even commerce (which continues today, of course).

Bazz, the Islamic Caliphate was a unifying and civilising force in a region which was fragmented into small tribal groups. It was an Enlightenment creation at a time when Europe was a barbaric cultural desert, under the iron rule of the Roman Church which suppressed any form of social or cultural change, enforcing rigid conformity and the precedence of religion over secular matters. The Caliphate presented a challenge to that and had already created several new technologies that may well have lead to Europe coming under its sway eventually.

So the barbarians from Europe smashed it down, committing atrocity after atrocity in the process and leaving a deep and abiding scar within Islam that has never healed. It created the conditions for fanaticism and zealotry to thrive, fed by resentment and self-serving interpretations of the Quran.

Islam is around 600 years younger than Christianity and has spread further. People have adopted Islam all around the world by choice, including in our immediate North, while Christianity has been spread by force and aggressive proselytising.

Have a think about the state of the Christian world 600 years ago. Do you think that a modern charismatic would find much common ground with a European Catholic, or would they find themselves bound to a stake and burnt as a heretic?

If we want Islam to evolve as Christianity has done, we need to allow it the social and economic means to make it happen. We need to create genuinely educated populations who have enough knowledge to decide that the maddest of the Mullahs are simply wrong.

It's a tragedy that the most aggressively primitively Christian state also happens to be the most powerful by accident of geography.

That is a load of rubbish Antiseptic.
I presume you were referring to the Crusades, and they occurred in an
attempt to stop and reverse the invasion of those territories inhabited
by Jews and Christians by the Islamists from Southern Arabia.

The Islamists are not shy to boast of their intentions and they make it
quite clear that if you do not convert you will either be a slave or dead.

They are not kidding and they mean it.
Slavery is still rampent in moslem countries, ask the Phillipino slaves.

Apologists such as yourself are not doing yourself or your family any favours.
Just watch what is happening in Europe if you do not believe me.

I am aware that making these statements is a bit risky if there is
someone working in a position to trace my ip address.

Bazz,
This weekend my wife had planned to go to the city with friends. The event was cancelled because of police advice to the community that there may be groups planning to visit the city with the intention of starting trouble. As we know from Cronolla these guys have no qualms about attacking women. So they cancelled. The only winners out of this are the extremists.

We've already seen where extremist views lead on both sides (eg. Anders Behring Breivik). When i asked my wife not to go to the city i had in mind various attacks by people spitting and pulling of hijabs. The story of Marwa El-Sherbini came to mind. She was murdered by her neighbour, Alex Wiens, in a frenzied attack with a knife (she was was three months pregnant, expecting her second child). It was in a court room where she was testifying against him for verbal abuse and from court records there was no mistaking his motives: the views he expressed in court seem identical to the views you have expressed, as do those of Breivik.

I've also heard the diatribe of the Islamic extremists...they are both based on willful ignorance and misinformation. This is not a clash of civilisations, its a clash of ignorance in which only the extremists can win.

Just to add to the my previous post:

The only way to avoid a clash of ignorance is to fight the ignorance.