My apologies, Leigh. After your explanation, I now realise that your comments are not xenophobic. Rather, they are simply bigoted and offensive. How on earth are we as a society going to accommodate Muslim Australians when people like you assert that they are inherently dishonest, or people like meredith demand that they renounce their religion before they can be believed?

Such unrealistic and intolerant attitudes can only exacerbate and cultural differences, rather than lead to a stable and harmonious society. Demonising Muslims won't make them go away - rather it just gives them cause for aggrievement.

In terms of religion, I would best be described as agnostic. However, while I don't believe in god/s, I do know that religions perform many positive functions for their adherents. On the other hand, by their exclusive nature they alienate everybody else - which is why I'm not when very keen on them, particularly their fundamentalist and/or evangelical versions.

Leigh,

You said:
"When anyone tries to ‘engage in dialogue with Muslims’ – not just here but in the wider world – it’s like getting blood out of a stone. They are brilliant at changing the subject and dodging questions"

This is a 'self inflicted myth'. Myself among few other Australian Muslims have 221 responses on OLO to-date either answering questions, engaging in a dialogue or just coping with abuse, intolerance from fellow posters.
(Check some of the threads by user).

Well it is clear from the overwhelming evidence presented in this thread that the religion of Islam is wrong and harmful and therefore its followers are dangerous and untrustworthy.
So now that this has been established by the insightful posters above, where do we go from here? Surely we need to protect ourselves, our families and our nation from these dangerous beliefs and the people that espouse them. Firstly we should probably ban the practice of the religion and make the beliefs against the law, then i guess we need to form some sort of special division in the police force to seek out and investigate any people who continue to hold those beliefs and/or practice the religion in secret. These people will then need to be interrogated using the latest intelligence extracting methods to get them to confess to their beliefs(crimes). Then we can put them on trial in a special court to judge their guilt and give them a sentence. Punishment can be decided later but i think the traditional stake-burning will suffice...

Dear Mahatma
the 'intolerance' you speak of is HUGEly a characteristic of 'which' community ?

1/ Denmark.. 'moderate' Muslims demanding apologies and retractions of cartoons of mohamed. (When was the last time you saw 1000s of Catholics marching screaming down Martin Place over a 'Rat-zinger' cartoon ?)

2/ UK with people who have finally set themselves free of the spiritual prison of Islam being hounded by the 'moderate' muslim community as 'apostate scum'.

3/ 7 Ambassadors from Islamic countries DEMANDING an apology from the Danish PM and the removal of the cartoons of mohamed.

Please check out the links I provided on the other Irfan thread regarding 'current up to date' Islamic scholarly opinion on 'captive slave girls and the right of a man to have sex with them as his 'possession'

Mahatma.. I truly appreciate your desire to foster good relations with the Islamic community, but this forum is not so much about 'good relations' as it is about shining light on serious matters of cultural and national security, concerning faith that quotes opinion in 2005 which justifies the sexual enslavement of captive girls.

I hope and pray that one day you will try to do some relfection on this, and compare the gospel of Christ with the 'religion' of Mohamed.

The only reason you go on as you do, (bless free speech :) is that you simply know SFA as you put it about Christ, the gospel, the tone and teaching of the whole New Testament.... and even less it seems by your own words about Islam.

So, without intending to be 'mean' I have to suggest you are speaking by and large from ignorance (in the sense of lacking the facts).

F.H. on a 'human level' your interaction is always appreciated, I'm sure you would be a 'good mate' to have, but the faith you subscribe to is to my mind quite wrong. Please don't interpret 'us' or the gospel through your Catholic educational upbringing. Just read the gospel of Luke then the book of Acts.

I'm sick to death of hearing about Muslims and their problems.It is a confused system upon which none can agree on a central theme or philosophy.Really we've had enough of the threatening overtures of what 1.4 billion Muslims can do. They are getting more air space than they deserve.It it all about feeling inadaquate and gaining power through some imaginery being.

Really,grow up,get a life and do something positive like broardening your philosophy instead of blaming the rest of the world for your inadaquacies.The past is over.If you want a role model,look at China,they are going from strength to strength.The British tried to destroy them with opium and they just get on with it and put past conflicts in the history books.

Let's hear about some positive things that the Buddists are doing.

Donnie

I've seen university educated hard left people turn into rednecks after only three months of working with your average aussie mossie. I was once quite a lefty myself.

I've never seen anything like it.