GREY...

You said...
"Islam (or at least certain significant proponents of it) is either a danger to our way of life or it isn't. Once you can determine whether the concept is accurate or not, then it is possible to say whether someone is 'demonising' or merely stating a true fact"

You may have a couple of high 5's for this :) (and your just criticism of the language constructs.... idea)

BOAZ

The people who decide which elements of Islam are a danger to our way of life, I think would be those who know it best. By personal experience and study of its founder, laws, philosophy of the State, history of expansion (and associated connection with the doctrinal aspects and example of the founder).

This is my first post to this page. I’m actually not ‘participating’ in the usual sense but wanted to throw a few ‘outsider’ perceptions into the ring.

Reading through the posts three words started ringing in my mind: “Tower of Babel”. Babylon, as in babble.

Then I thought of an Australia as it was at a time when people could honestly and proudly say that “The Australian Way of Life” was the best in the world. Let me mention, for those who have long been snoring at the wheel (aka as being 'laid back' or 'watching the footy'), that time is long gone…

That, if I’m not mistaken was a time when this was a unicultural society. Yes, there were the indigenous people, but for all practical purposes Australia was a single nation, functioning under essentially one culture, its core values defined by one ‘God’ (too bad, atheists and others, but that’s the way it was and to try and rewrite history is plain evil.)

That was the time when Australia gained its magnificence, the fruits of which we now scatter to the global winds.

Today we (i.e. this society) bicker and babble as to whether we are ‘manufacturing’ an enemy with our language or whether our delusions are real and which is the right God or whether Allah should be acceptable, etc. etc. yada, yada. We know not nearly what we are talking about and we waste our precious time with, as robertomelbourne1 said, “a piece of intellectual drivel” and, in Aslan’s words, “pseudo-intellectual philo-babble.”

Absolutely.

We bicker, squabble and split hairs to find answers that stare us in the face. Answers that have been around forever, except we are now so ‘sophisticated’ we think we know better.

All of this claptrapping makes me think of a Greek word: diabolos.

From which comes ‘diabolical’ and, of course, ‘the devil’. The word ‘diabolos” essentially translates as divide and abolish. Which, friends, is actually the essence of what ‘the devil’ is in any given society. ANY GIVEN SOCIETY.

When that society becomes divided and the division is allowed to fester and grow, the society will eventually become ‘abolished’---destroyed. To use a much misunderstood expression, it will go to hell.

Trust me, it will be the real thing if you understand that 'hell' is not all fire and a red-faced fella with horns. Hell can be a way of social life that has become intolerable.

And that, people, is the essence of what is happening here in Australia, and evidenced even on this very page. Read your news headlines for the ever multiplying signs. Read oz-aware.com for a cut-to-the-chase version.

Lurking, unmentioned, in the mists behind this discussion, the murky monster of multiculturism unquestionably casts its long shadow of influence on much of the thinking presented here.

We have embraced ‘diversity’ because ‘someone’ told us it was a good thing.

Who the hell is that ‘someone’ and where’s the hard evidence that diversity, the spawn of multiculturism is a good thing for any society?

ANY society?

Talk is cheap but money buys the whiskey, so SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Nobody can, because in human history there is NOT ONE single example of a multicultural society thriving and prospering. From South Africa to Bosnia, to Israel and Palestine, the evidence is overwhelming that when two cultures compete for the same territory, they clash.

Ultimately, if not immediately, they will clash------violently.

We haven’t had violence—in any meaningful way—in Australia. Gee, can anyone with half a brain not work out why?

While it might feel good to have a say and voice a public opinion, it is clear from these posts---and others---that many would be better employed sweeping the streets rather than partaking in public philosophical pronouncements. Their unlearned offerings serve to merely increase the volume of the ‘babble’. It is clear that the internet is increasingly merely a modern version of the village common, its mindless, ignorant mob screaming their opinions and occasionally calling for blood (Oh, Graaaaace…have I forgotten my pills agaaaaain?)

Anyone know what happened to Babylon? History is not just for the reading.

Islam is not ‘the devil’ or ‘satan’ and those who ‘demonise’ it, or say it is being demonised, have got their eyes and wires crossed.

Division and dissent are the real demons, and they are the spawn of that destructive devil, "Diversity". Islam is inarguably causing division and dissent within increasing numbers of Western societies---UK, Holland, France etc.

That our turn draws inexoribly closer can be evidenced by the many discussions on this website that have the 'I' word as their 'stimulus'....

Australia, you have been warned, not by me, but by long, bloodied human history. United you may have a chance of standing, but divided you absolutely, positively and most certainly will fall.

I very strongly suspect you will not listen, Australia. The only reason I tell you these things is for the sake of my own conscience. I don’t want my grandchildren cursing me as they will curse you.

The fact that Australia has been a paradise for the longest time has led the great majority of her people to arrogantly believe that they are somehow special and ‘above’ the errors made by ‘mere humans’ throughout history.

They have, after all always been exceptionally ‘Proud’ to be Australian, not ‘Honoured’ to be.

Such is the collective hubris, they don’t even know why the difference is critical.

And they surely don’t know that pride comes before........what?

This society must have what it believes is virtually unlimited freedom of speech even while, irrationally, its government tells you how, when, where but not why you must leave your car locked (http://www.oz-aware.com/ideology2.htm). Its bureaucrats, seeking to overturn hundreds of thousands of years of human experience, now tell its mothers how their child must be birthed---or else….. (see Brisbane Courier-Mail of February 3, 2005.

Freedom of speech, when those who exercise it to protect what has been ours since our inception are hauled before a tribunal and punished, is an irrational nonsense, a widespread social delusion.

We are increasingly an insane society. These posts, let alone the original essay (which is not surprising, considering the youth and inexperience of its author) merely advance that perception in my mind.

I realise this post will not stop the babbling. Will probably spur it. Fair enough.

We are busy blogging bees, busily building the new Babylon.

Just remember, you read it here first.

Boaz
This seems more like politics than religion. We use words or language to describe God, and have tried to even incorporate logic at times into our thinking of God. But perhaps God does not use words or logic, and these are just man made constructs. Instead God uses spirit or conscience or will rather than language.

Remove all language and Christianity and Islam become like two long lost brothers who have a very similar God within them. But these brothers have lost sight of this because they are using too much language in their thinking of God, and that language has now become too political.

However I have to qualify all this by saying that there are other families of religion also.

Yeah, OK Pericles, I studied philosophy too, so I am aware of all the silly little mind games philosophers play. My favourite quote is from Plato (Phaedo 69b):

"Any system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true."

You say that "reality is a construct of language". Really? Well, let me assure you that I am really real and not just a construct of your language. If you doubt this, let me know where you live and I will come over and pour a cup of boiling water on your head. Then we'll see if you still think reality is just a construct.

Welcome to the real world buddy!

Furthermore, when it comes to determining reality, you ask: "Who is the judge here?" I respond: "How about putting it to a jury?" Hands up all those who think Hitler was right in killing all those Jews? And gypsies? And mentally disabled people?

And if you really believe that there is no-one who can judge what is right or wrong or what is real then why are you on this forum arguing your case? You obviously think you are right and others are wrong.

But perhaps I am mistaken. If so, and you really do believe that it is impossible to judge what is real, then I expect to never ever hear from you on this or any other forum ever again. If you do continue to contribute then it will be clear to everyone that you are deceiver and a liar.

AK

Hey Aslan, you clearly also find it too pathetically easy to paint the moral relativists into a corner using their own discombobulated dichotomies. Problem is, explaining to them is typically pointless, as I wrote about at http://www.oz-aware.com/pointless.htm.

Mind you, here's a great chance for Pericles to prove me wrong. All he has to do is let you know that, well, in fact, he was wrong and you were right.

Don't hold your breath, Aslan. Only truly moral people find it easy to admit they are wrong. And moral relativists cannot, by definition, be truly moral.

Diary note to myself: I really must write about that beast a long time ago described as "A Moral Imbecile"....