A nice clarification there, David, although I must put in that Muslims do not accept the divinity of Jesus Christ, and I'll do some reading-up on the virgin birth matter. Either way, something doesn't add up (but then, if it did, there wouldn't be a requirement for faith, would there?)

The Shari'a court situation in Lebanon is interesting. There is a parallel in Australia, in the availability in some jurisdictions of courts based in part on traditional Aboriginal customary law. In that case, it is the defendant's option to choose which court system will deal with their case. I wonder if such a system could be more widely applied, and how much latitude for each jurisdiction could be tolerated by the majorities in each nation/region (Aboriginal courts cannot order leg spearing, so would a Shari'a court be able to order hand-chopping? It would contradict the longstanding abolition of corporal punishment under secular law and be unlikely to work under a voluntary system).

I can't imagine any such system becoming established in Australia, certainly not under multicultural-hostile Liberal government, but perhaps in 50 years when, according to Dana Vale's favorite Imam, Muslims will be in the majority?!

Vernon, you can point out all sorts of nasty things that God is purported to have authorised or inflicted in the Old Testament, and to tub-thumping reactionary Presbyterians to compare with similarly unpleasant bits of the Koran or the Islamic world, but that would be to tar all Christians with the same, and a very old and frayed brush.

Islam is not, to all Muslims, about slavish devotion to a singular interpretation of the text of the Koran, any more than the Bible is to all Christians or the Constitution of Australia is to all of the Justices of the High Court.

David Latimer

Yes, I agree, Pierre does say that, "about the dilution of traditional liberal-democratic values", but he also condemns Bush in a post 9/11 context, when he says 'the lawless, lying, fear-baiting warmongering president". So you are impeccably right by half, and impeccably wrong by the other half.

A very good article, and some thoughtful postings.
For the last four years or so heard a lot about Islam, from believers and others. However, I started to doubt the veracity of what I was hearing, and so started reading.
One thing that has become very clear is the correction that was made in the English speaking world some years ago about Islam meaning peace. It does only in a very limited way. In English, a much closer translation is submission. That is, Islam is peaceful towards those who submit to it, and not to those who don't. Another way of saying this is that for Islam, its Islam's peace or the peace of the grave.
Another aspect of this debate is becoming clearer. All religions desire political influence. Islam desires political control. In this, it is not really a religion but a political system pretending to be a religion.
Hence, to separate church from state makes no sense when the church is Islam. Islam will have to change to something quite unrecognisable before any separation can occur.
This change may be occuring - it is visible in the extent to which many western Muslims obviously haven't read or understood their Koran. Their preparedness to accept democracy, and the subservience of Islamic law to secular law, is testament to that. The problem is, there are so many Muslims who obviously have read their Koran and understand it's thirst for blood - Islamic and otherwise. It's these who will determine how Islam relates to secular rule, through their preparedness to murder and hence terrorise other Muslims who don't agree with them.
And as an atheist in Australia nowadays, I too am truly frightened about the influence of the christian religion in our political process, and that of many western countries. It's long time to separate church and state again here.

One day people may realise that we live in the year 2006 and we should start acting like it but instead we are creating a twisted world, a new dark ages, where right is wrong and wrong reigns supreme. It's a world full of insane people reduced from being citizens to being brainwashed slaves imprisoned by their bluddy teddy (i.e. invented fantasy god) fairytales and magic.

The fact that we have individuals who believe this delinquent claptrap is the problem. It is also a chilling fact that most of the world's leaders have this mind virus and believe in these nonsensical teddies (i.e. invented gods) that do not exist and magic that could not possibly be true. We are driven to war after war, violence on top of violence to appease mad people who believe in gory mythologies.

History always tells us that people in times of stress will first turn to these spooky beliefs of silly religious magic for answers which as we always find, simply leads to self fullfilling prophesies of destruction. There are no solutions in pure selfishness and ignorance. We get "So long as my eternal soul is with teddy (i.e. invented fantasy god) I don't care if the world ends tomorrow and I won't do anything about it" or "I'm not afraid, teddy will save my soul". Till kingdom come we get this pack of weirdos believing it is their teddy preparing his armageddon for the sinners.

How can people in all seriousness continue to want for the end of the world? We even have our Australian Parliament begin proceedings with such a religious playpen ritual known as a prayer to a fantasy god which goes something like this: "Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation."

It's abysmal, it won't stop, nobody is listening and for myself here, it's just a big vomit.

Response to Themistocles:

Is said: "Try not to fit the article into a post 9-11 frame of reference. It does not work." You said: "lawless, lying, fear-baiting warmongering president." He says that in rejection of the 9-11 frame of reference, in particular the idea that it 9-11 requires us to change our values, such as on pre-emption, domestic intelligence.

Let me explain in depth. In your first post you talk about l'infame as though it were the terrorists. There is no question that terrorists are rouges, horrible and infamous. But from the authors perspective he is saying l'infame is unchecked authority, collusion and demagoguery.

You also talk about France and Germany doing nothing, which only makes sense in terms of the Iraq War. Hence the l’infame has been effective in making people believe that France and Germany are soft on terrorism, when they are soft on making pre-emptive strikes on a country that was despotic but not an immediate threat.

For the record France has 550 troops and Germany 800, in the International Security Assistance Force, the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan sanctioned by UNSCR 1386 on Dec. 20, 2001. These figures are from a 2002 report from the Center for Defense Information in Washington DC.

Response to Keiran:

Australia does have effective separation of church and state. The prayer in parliament is the exception rather than the rule