I see no evidence of 'god hating' in any of the posts. Rather there is a dislike of being dictated to or arrogantly dismissed.

The nature of a debate is that people submit differences of opinion. If every one agreed with each other then it wouldn't be a debate.

It is one thing to state that you have no difficulty with differences of opinion. It is quite another to demonstrate that ideal. To date people have been called presumptuous, god hating, christian hating and now lazy!

Of course you have no difficulty with differences of opinion - provided they are all yours.

I think Trinity's post summarises what I find distressing about the antics of a number of the persons contributing on this thread.

Trinity says, "I see no evidence of 'god hating' in any of the posts." Without naming names a good few of the virulent anti Christians on this thread have already identified themselves as athiests. If you prefer "God deniers" or "God forsaken" we could try those descripters. If our athiests love God and seek to follow his ways whether in the Bible or Qur'an or some other holy book then they can tell us so.

Trinity says "Rather there is a dislike of being dictated to or arrogantly dismissed." We too think likewise of Trinity, et al! Touche.

Trinity says, "The nature of a debate is that people submit differences of opinion. If every one agreed with each other then it wouldn't be a debate." Agreed

Trinity says, "It is one thing to state that you have no difficulty with differences of opinion. It is quite another to demonstrate that ideal. Agreed, but this cuts both ways Trinity!

Trinity says, "Of course you have no difficulty with differences of opinion - provided they are all yours." How blind can you be? Are you any different or Xena, Johnny Rotten, or The alchemist? Take a look in the mirror, it might help.

I am happy to debate the issues and will debate them with people who care to debate issues and stick with the issues. My last post was one of desparation faced with The Alchemist, following a time worn pattern, playing the man and not the issue.

I find it somewhat ironical in debating athiests who critise Christians for calling attention to dar al harb, the nature of jihad, etc to know a) Muslims utterly reject atheism and would take the prescribed action against such persons under Sharia law should it be the law of the land, and b) that I have more in common with Muslims than an athiest ever would.

I think we can all recognise the problem with being human - we sin. Sin is the offence of degrading the image of God in another human, of violating their person by neglect or control, by verbal or physical violence. The incarnation of God in human character is expressed in perfect speech, unchallangeable wisdom and action that enhances the lives of others. As Romans 3: 23 says we have all sinned and fallen short of the image of God. Acknowledgement and confession is in order, if we have not sought the best for our opponents. May we be forgiven?
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At one time popular science theory defended the fact that the Earth was flat, and Colombus was a fool for denying this and sailing off the edge. Unfortunately the fool turned up to a red faced audience. Therefore following popular theory science is not a foundational truth. We would consider persons holding such views today as stupid, and there are such persons. Do we ignore, vilify, or abuse, or rather endeavour to challenge their conclusions. I would think best practise would be to endeavour to pose relavent facts that may challenge their view. This is not hate or vilification as some espouse, this is bringing things to their attention. Yes it might offend them and they might feel intellectually threatened. Do they take us to the Tribunal because we challenge their thinking? Atheists and agnostics have been challenging Christians for the past 2,000 years, we can take it, and we prefer not to silence our opposition with charges of vilification as they keep us checking on the facts and building tolerance. We all dislike personal abuse that degrades our image.

What was this thread about? Oh yes David Palmer’s desire to have the vilification laws repealed. For a while there I thought it was the lets trash everybody’s POV hour. I am toooo modest to say that I am the only target for the seriously Christian (joke Joyce).

Well David has succinctly demonstrated why he wants the laws repealed, because he wishes to further hatred against Islam – just read his posts –very negative opinion of Islam. Yet when other posters say negative things about his religion – ooo er don’t we get touchy.

I believe in freedom of speech – I don’t believe in the promulgation of hate. How do we monitor this? We create vilification laws.

The final irony in all this is that before this thread began I would have agreed with David Palmer.

Being of a liberal POV I did think that may be the Islam community over reacted.

However, I have changed my POV because of the anti-Islamic posts that appear from the usual suspects (Yes Philo, BD & DP) and also because of the insults that accompany these posts “presumptuous, god hating, christian hating …lazy” and the latest “"God deniers" or "God forsaken”.

My mother always told me if you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything at all.

Judge Higgins stated in his summary that Pastor Scot had "failed to differentiate between Muslims throughout the world, that he preached a literal translation of the Quran and of Muslims’ religious practices which were not mainstream."

What I find interesting is that here we have two former Muslims slagging off at their previous religion as a means of promoting thier status in their new religion, Christianity. Is this sour grapes?

Have they ever critically appraised other religions in the spirit of ecumenical debate and unity? Why just focus on Islam?

The vilification laws are there to provide parameters for religous zealotry which may caused people to transgress these same laws.

Following Palmer's logic, lets repeal all hate laws that are not conducsive to what he and Catch the Fire ministries thinks are not in like with free speech. Yeah sure!

I'm not a Christian and don't believe in their Jesus stories.
I'm not a Muslim and don't believe in their beliefs either.

But I would defend laws that ensure vilification does not occur between the two or with my own beliefs.

I'm with Trinity.

To Ranier, Trinity and Xena (Alchemist will scrape in when he learns to use paragraphs :)

I've taken a deep breath, and would like to work towards a better understanding and embracing of our divergent viewpoints.

Pity we can't all get together for a coffee or something, but state boundaries seem to preclude that idea, but I'd sure be willing.

I'm trying to understand how we are 'advocating hate' or are 'anti muslim' etc, by simply posting truth. I'm not talking about 'opinion' here, I'm speaking about plain simple truth, about the fundamentals of that faith, and its founder.

Let me clarify one thing, when we do that, the usual reply is 'But what about the crusades (and every other 'bad' example of supposed Christian behavior throughout history) .. well on those things David, Philo and myself would stand shoulder to shoulder with all of you in CONDEMNING such actions.

The reasons are simple. Christ's teaching and life in no way support such actions. It's not rocket science.

What I am struggling with awefully here, is that you guys/gals are not seeing that Mohammed was different. When (to use just one example) we say "He tortured", and provide a quote from the Hadith, an islamic source, we are 'hate filled anti muslim'.. Are you suggesting that Muslims have no interest or don't base their mindset on their own foundation documents ? This totally escapes me.

When the Koran says "Some you killed, (600-900 males) others you captured (women and children)" and we say he was a 'mass murderer' you again charge us with 'hate filled intolerance'.

I simply do not get this. Pointing to Hitlers writings in Mein Kampf as a source of National Socialist mindset about Jews especially, is in no way invalidated just because a Nazi Doctor discovered the link between Lung Cancer and smoking.... or is it ?

I'm guessing that too much exposure to a liberal view about 'others' is too ingrained for reason to prevail. I'm happy to be corrected on this.