Graham, you are to be congratulated for your controversial and brave decision not to publish the cartoons.

In line with the 5 month lag time will you be celebrating Christmas 2005 in May 2006 and Easter 2006 in August 2006?

Fellow-Human,

I think you might read a little more widely before you espouse your view

'The vandalism and rioting in my humle views are Islamists groups showing their influence on the naive. Governments there are usually asleep at the wheel.'

The following story appeared in todays New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/09/international/middleeast/09cartoon.html?hp&ex=1139547600&en=578cb46567d732ae&ei=5094&partner=homepage

It contradicts your assertions. Your view might be humble but it could also be quite mis-informed.

In an earlier post you also quoted the Quran, and Prophet Muhammad's Farewell Sermon.

" No Arab has superiority over a non-Arab, and no non-Arab has superiority over an Arab...The criteria for acceptance in the sight of God are righteousness and honest living."

A simple question. Does the same apply to Muslims and Christians and Jews and Buddahists and athiests and agnostic's and Satanists etc? Or is Islam and it's adherents superior to the adherents of other faiths or beliefs or non-believers?

"For balance - one could argue that many more Muslims have been killed by Western Christians in the last 10 years than the other way around." (plantagenet, 9 Feb 2006 3:07PM)

"Could you give us some statistics on this claim" Philo (9 Feb 2006 8:01 PM)

It's not quite presented as a claim, but the argument compares deaths by extremist terrorists against death by Western military action in Iraq, Afghanistan plus mass killings of civilians in Kosovo.

I think this is unfair to make this argument as it is important to factor-in total killed because it falsely suggests the idea of Western Christians verses Middle-Eastern Muslims. For example, we should not exclude Serbian deaths by NATO forces or Balkan fighting in general, Janjaweed attacks in Dafur or muslims killed by so called "islamic terrorism".

To provide numeric statistics on this would only invite dispute, but obviously in terms of raw numbers events related to military action result in more death than terrorist action.

Graham, great article, but I think a few points are being missed.
I've been following the articles on Arab News and am in debate with one of the Saudi journalists who writes for them. It seems to me that the two cultures are talking past each other.

Hopefully as a secular bystander in the war between religions, I can be more objective and forget the vitriol which is exploding on both sides of the debate. Lets face it, our extreme Xtian fundies are quite similar to their Muslim fundies..

IMHO the core problem is always the same. When religion becomes part of politics and is more then just a lifestyle choice, things become
nasty. Politics is open slather for us all. Nobody really bothered about Islam, until Kohmeini introduced political Islam. Next was the Muslim brotherhood with their agenda, then bin Laden with his agenda.
9-11 showed that they meant what they were saying, it was not just talk.

Many Xtians have preached to me on OLO about the wonder of Western civilisation and the dangers of Muslims overrunning the world, by means of high fertility.

It seems to me that they have missed a critical point. Western civilisation makes up about 15% of the world's population. Growth
is seen as the key factor, our society is also hopelessly addicted to oil.

Forget about Muslims outbreeding Christians. The reality is that a large part of the world's oil reserves are located in the Middle East. If the Muslims switch off the tap when they please, its Western oil addicts who will suffer most. Western society has been highly foolish in its addiction, with no solution on hand. The Arabs are well of this....

Philo

Thanks David Latimer for providing some context.

Snippets from Amnesty International's Latest Annual report for Iraq, for 2005:

"Hundreds of Iraqi civilians were killed by US-led forces when they launched major attacks against insurgents in Falluja, Baghdad, Mosul, Samarra and other cities and towns.

In April at least 600 civilians, including many women and children, were reportedly killed in Falluja as a result of such attacks..."

"Only a minority of killings of Iraqi civilians and other alleged abuses involving multinational forces were investigated, and those investigations that did take place were often inadequate and shrouded in secrecy. In many cases, victims’ families were not told how to apply for compensation, or were given misleading information."http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/irq-summary-eng

These people are described as civilians. I suppose hundreds of Australians being killed in Australia by an occupying force (for whatever reason) might prompt a little bit of resentment nationally and internationally.

Of course in the context of many more Iraqi's being killed by fellow Muslims complicates the picture. Also would things have been worse if Saddam was still around? Who knows.

Anyway a death is still a death but of course we look after our own.

Pete

David Latimer,
Is Yabby claiming the USA military are fundamentalist Christian? When it is made up of mostly atheists and probably equally as many Muslims as fundamentalist Christian.
_________________________
"It's not quite presented as a claim, but the argument compares deaths by extremist terrorists against death by Western military action in Iraq, Afghanistan plus mass killings of civilians in Kosovo.

I think this is unfair to make this argument as it is important to factor-in total killed because it falsely suggests the idea of Western Christians verses Middle-Eastern Muslims. For example, we should not exclude Serbian deaths by NATO forces or Balkan fighting in general, Janjaweed attacks in Dafur or muslims killed by so called "islamic terrorism".

To provide numeric statistics on this would only invite dispute, but obviously in terms of raw numbers events related to military action result in more death than terrorist action.
Posted by David Latimer
_______________________________

Yabby,
Could you define what you understand as a fundamentalist Christian. Because if Christians are living outside the teachings of Christ then we as Christians have a responsibility to exhort then to remain in the faith and teaching of Christ