Vilification and Multiculturalism?

Those adopting Multiculturalism as the feature of Australian society have not appreciated the diametrically opposed world-views that feature in some religious cultures. Christian values have existed for over 200 years, with peacefull coexistence with many religious practises. Since the establishment of the Department of Multicultural Affairs one dominant theme has emerged; that all cultures have equal right to participate in Law making. Christians and Muslims will be diametrically opposed on issues like: the freedom of the individual to personal belief based upon conscience, including the belief of atheism.


Multiculturalism should accommodation difference, Democracy will allow such difference. Muslim shari'ah law is based in totalitarian values and it's their influence upon the Religious Vilification Law that underlines their attempt to silence the right of their opposition to express a different opinion. The Australian Multicultural Foundations in Victoria funded by State Government has actively promoted the acceptance of Islam.

The Religious Vilification Law established was not to modify conflict but rather to silence opposition behind closed doors. The Multicultural Foundation deliberately planted spies in the conference of Catch the Fire to note things they felt offended. CtF had no strategy to vilify Muslims personally but rather to understand their world-view, their holy writings upon which they base belief and law. If those deliberate Muslim plants in the meeting did not personally believe the Qur'an and the Hadiths but they personally chose to be offended so they could bring a case before the Tribunal. This action was a deliberate strategy put in place before they attended the Seminar. Therefore we recognise Muslims take exception to points of view expressed about the Qur'an that differ from what some believe.

If such Religious Vilification Law is to silence difference, then this undermines Multiculturalism and Australian Culture and is an attempt at Totalitarianism, where all opposition is punishable, eg Salmon Rushdie. Australians want the absolute right to express a contrary opinion even if their opponents do not like or are offended. Therefore keep Australia a free Nation from laws that stifle expression of difference

David, you should attend more inter-faith gatherings. Your whole concept of who Muslims are and what they want to do to Australia is just way off the planet.

It really surprises me that a senior official of a major protestant denomination could think like that. If these are the sentiments you harbour, I might suggest Waleed Aly and the Islamic Council of Victoria team give you a call and invite you out for lunch. Then you can meet real Muslims making a real difference to Australian life.

If you are scared of Muslims so much, perhaps you should close your account with the National Australia Bank (if you have one with them), especially considering the NAB appointed Ahmed Fahour is their CEO. And make sure you never buy a mobile phone from Crazy Johns. And never have anything to do with his biggest contractor, Telstra.

I hope you accept an invitation to dinner or lunch with them. Fear not, they won't poison you.

ASH.... will you puh-lease stop doing my work for me or I'll start to feel redundant :))

THANKyou.... for illustrating with consumate perfection, (again) the very point I've been making all along, with my 'The Quran Villifies' line of thought.

Here is how it's gone so far:

A/ I claim (for reasons of discussion) "The Quran vilifies Christians"

B/ You claim "Not really BECAUSE the harsh words are balanced out by loving words" AMEN.. ! YES YES.... and add another YES.....

NOW...... you understand 2 things:

Why we Christians are so passionate about the Catch the Fire issue,
-the VERY SAME thing happened as you have just manifested.

-The pastors DID say somethings which may be upsetting to the Muslim community.
-As far as I can see, they spoke TRUTH, but even if they spoke from 'conviction'. They spoke from the heart.
-A 'MUSLIM' asked directly 'How should Christians treat Muslims', the pastor replied LOVE....LOVE....LOVE them...... (even if he did NOT say that (which he did) the BIBLE IS CLEAR "love your enemies" etc.
-The Muslims (spies in social conspiracy of the most repulsive kind in reality) Then went back and said 'They hate us'.

So, here we have me, quoting the Quran, 'it villifies us' and you saying 'the words of love balance this'

What I say now is...'GAME-SET-MATCH' :)))

We Christians have as much interest in taking Muslims to court over the harsh words in the Quran as we do in gaining another hole in the head, which is why UP TILL the Muslims took us to court, there WERE NO such actions by Christians. (but now, bookshops spreading anti Christian HATE have been busted,validating the CTF claims and they were referred to in evidence BY the evidence of Mark Dhurrie)

But NOW..... we have to defend our freedom of speech, freedom of belief and freedom of expression, so, $300,000 odd dollars later, the case continues. I strongly suggest you advise your buddies at ICV to get real, and get OVER their pettiness :)

Good for the goose, good for the Gander :)

BD, Philo et al - all christians are good, would never inflict their beliefs on others, have never persecuted anyone, will go to heaven (going to be rather lonely), accept other people's POV, love everyone, are never spiteful, petty or mean, accept that there is good and bad in everyone, never 'shout' in internet postings, never quote from their bible thinking this will win an argument with people who don't believe in their bible, respect women as equals (this is why we have a female pope, priests, ministers etc) never attack other religions and never rant on and on and on.....

If I ever considered becoming a christian thanks to the above representatives I have been completely disabused of such a notion. Perhaps this is why we do need the religious vilification legislation because, as evidenced on this forum, people do need protection from christian fundamentalism as well as protection from any other religious fundamentalism.

I will still listen to John Cleary however - he is pleasant, moderate and caring - very non christian qualities apparently.

Xena, I'm with you, the more fundamental a person is in their religion the less flexible they seem to be. I have met lots of people professing a humanist philosophy who act in a more becoming manner to their fellow man than supposed religious people.

I think that if Jesus was to come back right now he would be kicking over tables (computers) of some of the Christian posters on this thread, David_Boaz would be one of them. I have given the reason for this position in another thread.

Come, come, Irfan, not so patronising!

Despite all the bluster of your response to me I notice you don’t deny the dar al Islam (house of peace) dar al harb (house of war) teaching of Islam, which of course you can’t!

You and I know perfectly well that Islam and Christianity are world wide, vibrant missionary religions in competition for the souls of men and women. Let us talk frankly and openly of these things.

The point that you seek to avoid is that the experience of Christians (and Jews and others) as dhimmis in majority Muslim lands has been wholly negative for them, whether Coptic Christians in Egypt long before Muslims arrived, or Daniel Scot’s experience as a second generation Christian convert from Islam in Pakistan (falsely) accused of blasphemy and forced to flee his own country, but thankfully accepted as a refugee by Australia. I simply do not want to see that ever happen in Australia. I agree with you that this is highly unlikely simply because the proportion of Muslims will remain low.

However let us see how the experience develops over the next 20 years in Europe given the much greater and increasing proportions of Muslims in an effete and declining European civilisation no longer even able to acknowledge their Christian heritage in the recently drafted European constitution.

As far as the Islamic Council of Victoria is concerned, to the extent that they truly present a genuine moderate voice for Islam in Victoria, more power to them I say – but they don’t speak for all of Islam in Australia, as you well know and as my articles in small measure documents. Their action against Catch the Fire Ministries and Pastors Nalliah and Scot, including the duplicitous, underhanded placing of Australian converts of Caucasian descent in their Seminar did not impress Christians nor fair minded Australians more generally, and only served to demonstrate how nervous they were that any Christian knowledgeable of the Qur’an and aHadith should actually start quoting from these documents, informing their fellow Christians of Islamic beliefs.