Dear Jay,

Hitler is a different case because he lived in our times, he was recorded and filmed and there are still even people living today who saw him - not so Muhammad. Some claim that he didn't even exist while personally I believe that he did, but many things written about him are not true.

Thus there is nothing wrong with clinging to the teachings of Muhammad so long as one denies the identity between his teachings and the current teachings of Islam, repudiating parts of the latter but not necessarily the former.

<<If Muslims want to be seen as "real Aussies" they need to prove it>>

But why should they want to be seen as such?
I for example have no such interest (and I'm not Muslim)!

What business of yours is it whether another is seen as a "real Aussie" or not - your only business in this matter is that they do not harm you or put you at risk and that's the only thing they need to prove.

How they prove their innocence and harmlessness is not up to you, so long as they prove it. In fact, repudiating Islam (which you suggest as the ultimate test) doesn't prove that one is harmless - we have quite a number of true-blue real Aussie criminals who are not Muslim!

Dear Luciferase,

I certainly agree that ISIS would like to do us some damage. Leaving aside any judgement on whether we should have put half a billion dollars worth of assets into supporting the Yanks in this fight, the fact that we are so determined to drop bombs on these guys heads means that the likelihood of a response is pretty high, if they were ever able to manage it.

Australia could have forsworn direct military engagement and instead helped by arming other rebel groups, assisted the millions of displaced people, or provided logistical support. But our government has judged our ties with the US to be of a significance that direct bombing was the call. Certainly their prerogative as a ruling party in a democracy

Australians of course need to recognise that our actions have increased the risk of retaliation. Some think that risk is worth it even if purely on humanitarian grounds, and some do not but that is a different argument.

Islamic extremists, home grown or otherwise are not stabbing cops, beheading soldiers, nor laying siege to coffee shops in Brazil for instance.

What we should never do is accept the proposition that we are over there in order to keep Australia and Australians safer from the very limited capacity of ISIS to do us harm. It patently does not.

Having said that to call the brutish fool in Sydney a response by ISIS is inane. I have no doubt that Australia's continued offence against ISIS raises the risk of retaliation considerably and the authorities will have to be extra vigilant for many years to come. But in terms of a supposed ISIS blowback the false sheikh was little more that a fart, more an embarrassment to them than anything.

Luciferase,

"ISIS is not The Mickey Mouse Club where you send in your form signed by Mum'n'Dad and a self-addressed envelope and receive a club kit, including a mouseketeer hat, instructions for the secret handshake, and words to the club song."

Yes, yes very clever...thanks for the patronisation...but deep down I think you realise that the fake sheik was exactly that - "a fake" - right down to his supposed terrorist links.

Is Mise "
"Not all Irish people were members of the IRA but all Muslims are members of a religion/political system that condemns democracy and condones murder to further its expansion."
What a dreadful thing to say Is Mise, by suggesting all Muslims condone murder!
Many Muslims in this country have come here to escape the radical Muslim clerics and Taliban that cause mayhem where they used to live.

"The way forward for Muslims in Australia is to repudiate the teachings of Muhammad and to pick another path to salvation."
Lol!
Would that 'salvation' come in the form of your Christian God then Is Mise?
The fun religion populated by people such as Runner?
There is no religion on earth that can boast a murderless past....

Steele, I ask you what I did of Poirot and Suzie, and haven't had a straight reply. Are you claiming Endeavour Hills and Sydney would have occurred without incitement by ISIS?

I don't care much whether you think jihad should only be the province of less farty, embarrassing, brutish fools, or whether these events mean we're losing the war on ISIS. I do have concerns with the way Abbott has loudly lead us into this chin-first, but that's now equally academic.

Obviously, the answer to my question is important.

If you answer yes, you are ignoring the motives expressed by the perpetrators themselves, head in the sand, but more comfortable than requiring Australian Muslims to formally renounce aspects of the Quran supporting the actions of ISIS.

If you answer no, it must follow that Australian Muslims be required to formally renounce aspects of the Quran supporting the actions of ISIS.

What is the problem with this requirement, which I have previously couched positively as a commitment to secular democracy? The actions of ISIS supported by the Quran are all about achieving supremacy in violent ways, but there is direction therein about achieving it in smaller, quieter ways too.

Why do you, Poirot and Susie reject the simple truth about the ISIS connection? Why must we avoid making this request of Islam (and all other religions) in Australia? Is it because they may refuse? Then what, we continue to live in growing distrust with each new atrocity, and thwarted atrocity, until something snaps?

Facing the honest truth is a first step towards dealing with the issue of jihad in Australia. We should be able to do that without fear if the same commitment is required of all religions. The onus that an allegiance to a secular democracy puts on all religious people will then be clearly to act against anything that threatens it. Atheists can keep on doing what they're already doing, pointing out where religion is overstepping the line.

To Susieoncrack.

If you can condemn all Nazis as being hostile to everything you believe in, why does the idea of condemning all Muslims for the same reason outrage you? Isn't that a clear double standard?

Muslims believe in Sharia Law, they could not be Muslims if they do not.

That means it is OK to marry 11 year olds, allow Susioncrack's husband to beat her with a dirty big stick, kill people who try and leave Islam, punish women who get raped, claim that ecclesiastical law trumps common law, that people who criticise Islam should be murdered, that it is right to spread Islam by force, that homosexuals should be murdered, that women are essentially minors and the property of men, and that Muslim men may marry outside of Islam but Muslim women may not.

And you defend them?

But if the yanks do anything that you remotely consider wrong, you jump up and down, froth at the mouth, and condemn the Americans. While simultaneously claiming that condemning entire groups of people for their group behaviour is utterly wrong.