Dear Yuyutsu

So, you wish to read the Koran to discover the real meaning of Islam so that you can take an objective view of this religion? That is very good of you. I would not do that myself, because I would consider reading a book full of legends, and full of moral absolutes, to be heavy going. I started reading the Bible when I was 15 and it helped me a lot. I began at Genesis and by the time I got to Deuteronomy I realised that my religion was a load of crap. It was also very boring. God wrote a boring book.

Knowing nothing of Islam, I too took an objective view and read what I could about Islam. I read books by former Muslims who explained why they had left their religion. As a matter of fact, I am reading another, right now. (Cruel and Usual Punishment). I began to understand why Muslims act the way they do. It is because their religion teaches them to think differently to westerners. Islam is a dangerous religion. Just one aspect of it, that apostates should be murdered, should tell you right away that this is an evil religion.

Everything I see now about Muslims conforms to the stereotype I have formed of their way of thinking. I agree that there are good people everywhere. But if these good people believe in something which is very dangerous then these good people are dangerous too. I once met and worked with a genuine Nazi and he was a good man. He was formerly a soldier in the 12th SS Panzer (Hitler Jugend) division and he still loved Hitler, and he absolutely hated the Jews. If I was a Jew, I would consider that this nice, polite, hard working, taxpaying, law abiding Nazi was a real danger to me if he ever got organised with other Nazis. And it would also be a reasonable presumption that all fascist ideologies, be they Spanish, German, Italian, or Australian would be more or less a real danger to me

Dear LEGO,

You say:

<<Everything I see now about Muslims conforms to the stereotype I have formed of their way of thinking.>>

But how do you know that these are Muslims? Just because they say they are?

Yes of course, there is a problem with this group of people who call themselves "Muslims", but if we refer to this group (rather than to true Muslims) than it is a socio-political issue rather than a religious one. Of course one needs to deal with such threats, but I personally am only interested in the religious side and have no time or inclination to be involved in politics (not that I could change anything about it anyway if I were).

You say that those people believe in something dangerous - but do they really believe in it? All of them?

Within this group there are so many sects, so many opinions: surely any of them who is not interested in violence can find the right Sheikh that will tell them that Jihad is internal, while those who are interested in violence would find a Sheikh who will tell them that Jihad is external. At the end of the day, people will act according to their own inclinations - rather than by the book, a book which (like the bible) can be interpreted anyway in 1001 ways.

<<It is because their religion teaches them to think differently to westerners.>>

So do I. I think differently to westerners, yet I have no inclination to hurt anybody. I do not believe that apostates should be murdered (or else I would have to murder most of my family), or that women are inferior, or in FGM, etc.: Why couldn't others who are not westerners be the same? Aren't there also westerners who harm others, including murderers and rapists?

Just more examples of why Australia does not need immigrants. We should return to a white Australia policy.

Dear Ozzie,

<<Just more examples of why Australia does not need immigrants. We should return to a white Australia policy.>>

Of course: whoever or whatever that "Australia" whom you speak about is, it's not a person or a sentient being who may have needs - any needs.

Real people on the other hand, do have needs, including the space to live in freedom and dignity.

Some 200+ years ago, a bunch of Englishmen landed on this continent and because their guns and ships happened to be better than others at the time, drew lines on the map and decided childishly: "this is all ours, now everyone who wants to live in this continent must abide by our laws and customs".

They never had any legitimacy to do so. Who gave a group of people, any group, the right to control a whole of one of God's blessed continents? The Jews at least claim that God gave them the land of Israel, but no one (who isn't mentally ill) can claim even that regarding Australia, so how is this behaviour different in principle than the current behaviour of the thugs of the "Islamic State"?

Yuyutsu,

People have always been "multiplying beyond their means of subsistence" (as Charles Darwin put it) and displacing each other.

"The human skeletons found in a Late Palaeolithic cemetery at Gebel dating about 12,000 to 14,000 years ago show that warfare there was very common and particularly brutal. Over 40 percent of the fifty-nine men, women and children buried in this cemetery had stone projectile points intimately associated with or buried in their skeletons. Several adults had multiple wounds (as many as twenty), and the wounds found on children were all in the head and neck -- that is, execution shots. The excavator, Fred Wendorf, estimates that more than half the people buried there had died violently. He also notes that homicidal violence at Gebel Sahada was not a once-in-a-lifetime event, since many of the adults showed healed parry fractures of their forearm bones -- a common trauma on victims of violence --and because the cemetery had obviously been used over several generations."

"War Before Civilization"by Prof. Lawrence H. Keeley (Archaeology, University of Chicago) p. 37.

There are similar sites all over the world. The British were no better and no worse than any other Malthusian trap society (with people of any race) that was around at the time; they were simply more efficient. Apart from a few very remote islands, every piece of land on earth has changed hands numerous times.

For an amusing story, look up Kennewick Man, a 9,000 year old skeleton with a spear point in its pelvis that was found in the US Pacific Northwest. The problem was that it was clearly racially different from modern American Indian skeletons, resembling a Pacific Islander or Aboriginal person. The local Indian tribe went to immense trouble to stop the skeleton from being studied. (It isn't very good for claims of victimhood to be shown to be merely the descendants of an earlier wave of invaders.)

I don't agree with Ozzie about the White Australia policy. Where there is a problem, it is far more likely to be due to culture than race. Muslims come in all races.

Dear Yuyutsu.

Could you please name one sect of Islam that does not believe in Sharia Law? And if they all believe in Sharia Law, then they must believe that apostates must be murdered, and that critics of Islam must be killed. They also believe that women are inferior beings who are the property of men, and that men have a right and a duty to physically punish wayward women (however that tern can be applied) with a bloody big stick. Can you name one sect that does not believe in punishing female rape victims, or who do not declare that a female can not even bring a rape charge against a Muslim man, unless four Muslim males of good character can testify that they witnessed the rape from start to finish?

On a religious note, I am sure that you do not condone the religiously inspired behaviour of Boko Haram, Jemaal Islamia, ISIS, Al Qaida, Al Shaabab, even though these gentlemen are doing exactly what their prophet did himself, and they are plainly conforming to the holy scriptures of Islam. If people conform to both their religious leaders behaviour and his written instructions, then I would opine that these gentlemen are most certainly Muslims. And the very best of Muslims too, according to the Koran.

Finally, we get to your well intentioned hope that maybe somewhere in Dar es Salaam, some imams and sheiks preach peace, love and tolerance towards non Muslims. I doubt if that could be true, because it would be against their religion. And these characters take their religion very seriously. And if these peace loving imams and sheiks opposed the teachings of Allah and His prophet, that is Blasphemy, and the penalty for that is death. Can you name any Muslim sect that preaches tolerance towards non Muslims, and does not endorse the death penalty for blasphemy?