Yep

Thought the debate would degenerate to "look at the relegious foundations" argument.

How about leaving this old road and returning to Indonesia, where Islam is only one of several inflences on Indonesian's lives.

New possibilities may be:

Could the Bali bombings - Indonesians mainly killing Indonesians - be a symptom of a political struggle in Indonesia?

Could secular, renegade, Indonesian army elements have provided their expertise to the bombers as part of an anti democratic destabilisation campaign? Its not out of character.

Or, if Westerners were the targets, is this more a nationalist (rather than religeous) reaction against the West.

Boazy - welcome back - I think some of your observations are good - but the moment you get on to religious foundations as your main argument, and start your quotations, it becomes a textual tit for tat.

So, I think, the narrowing of the debate to old books and "all Muslims are fundamentally the same" puts a dampener on intelligent discussion.

As you can realise Fellow_Human and Ifran being pacifists represent a branch of Islam that is not political, and not totalitarian. They are Mr nice guys. The problems that the world faces today are not from nice Muslims; it is from those who will enforce a totalitarian state. From an active political arm of orthodox Islam that believes the entire world must fall under the laws of Allah and infidels must be destroyed.

Fellow_human and Ifran do not represent or have any power to influence this radical orthodox arm of Islam. Unfortunately they defend their brand if Islam against any associated criticism. They attempt to defend an inane religious branch of Islam against the radical elements of Islamic orthodoxy that might taint their view of the religion.

What we must be aware of is the power brokers of radical Islam and their agenda to enforce the laws of Allah upon all nations. The power brokers of this brand of Islam believe the Qur'an exactly as BD and myself present as the basis of their agenda. As well as the example set by Mahomet in his ruthless warlike life. Unfortunately Ifran and Fellow_human are irrelevant in standing with us in outlawing the radical basis of their orthodox belief in the Qur'an.

By a continual defence that: "This not what the Qur'an teaches" is unfortunately not believed by the radical Islamists, and it is what these Islamist believe that must be challenged and outlawed.

By the continual defence that Islam is a peacful religion is not the nature of peace we believe in. Peace to them is only achieved when all the opposition is subjected or destroyed. A diverse democracy is not acceptable to them and is considered by them as an abomination to Allah. They cannot coexist with persons of different faith, that is why even Fellow_human and Ifran in their view are not orthodox.

But just between us most Muslims do not mind if the whole world is subjected to Allah's laws as the Qur'an outlines. Death of infidels is not a sad day to orthodox Islamists. They continue to degrade the coalition of England Australia and USA's attempt to protect the right of all people in Iraq to live together in a democratic secular system. They prefer the continual bombing and overun of extremists in Iraq than a secular society.

Irf and others

Newcastle is my home town. My family is grieving for a long term friend.

I have not heard any "moderates" speaking out for the Newcastle victims - let alone any others!

Plantaganet is quite correct.

The holy rollers should realise that when they turn otherwise productive discussions into theological mumbo-jumbo, most of us tend to move on to another discussion.

I thank Irfan for at least trying to present another perspective to the spin and propaganda upon which the noisiest of this forum's correspondents rely.

I was born in Newcastle, and I have many relatives there.

Philio:

"They continue to degrade the coalition of England Australia and USA's attempt to protect the right of all people in Iraq to live together in a democratic secular system. They prefer the continual bombing and overun of extremists in Iraq than a secular society."

Mate, you have got to be kidding! I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist or anything, and I am sure that there are many fighting who belive this, but its the power brokers who make decisions and control power. And they are NOT there to protect the right of Iraqis to democracy.

To belive George W only invaded for that reason is completely and totally niave, and I have to say, I thought the same thing for a while. But on balance, all the evidence suggests these types of international policy issues are never made out of altruistic concern for the people of other nations. Maybe, at times they may make up about maybe, 30%, but the nation state is there to look after itself and its own people.

If protecting democracy was a concern, then there would be loads of US troops in Zimbabwe outsting Mudgabe!! but no one is doing squat. O! I forgot - they are black!