The Christians have sorted through their Bible and realised that God was getting a bit carried away with Himself when He wrote things like “Suffer not a witch to live”. So they chucked out those Holy proclamations which they knew nobody would accept anymore in order to appeal to their customers. If Islam wants to survive, it had better learn how to sell the product.

Thank you for indirectly confirming that Muslims do indeed believe that the Koran is the literal word of God.

You can direct your second question at David Boaz. He is a Christian while I am a pagan. You know, one of those people that Allah said must be killed if they do not embrace Islam. So, since you obviously believe what Allah tells you, you can hardly be surprised at my hostility towards Muslims. I don’t want to appear unfriendly, but I tend to be a bit leery of people who profess that they want to kill me.

I am off the Hell with RObert. It should be fun. David will get to sit on a cloud singing hymns and hosannas, while you, Azilitz, can do whatever Muslims do in heaven. But Hell will have lots of hookers, gamblers, drunks, drug addicts, jazz players, US generals, rock stars, honky tonk pianists and people just like me. Hell is really going to swing.

Your assessment about the Renaissance was spot on. When the Western world stopped thinking through the constraints of religious dogma, we began a process whereby we powered ahead of those priest and mullah ridden societies that were stuck in a time warp. If Islam wishes to stay in the 13th Century, go right ahead. But please stay in your own countries. We like or beaches, beer and bikinis, and we would prefer it if backward thinking Muslims keep out of our faces.

Until any Muslim society has the nous to put a deep space probe into orbit, we in the west will regard Muslims as "a little people, a silly people, foolish, barbarous and cruel."

Jamila, thank you for your article. I am not commenting about your article but the way it has been responded to. The highly vitriolic tone and righteousness of sentiments in replies to your article leave me saddened. I have no problem with reasoned debate. Unfortunately there is little to be found, there are few respectful and rational comments. These offer a glimmer of hope. They are such a minority of posts that one wonders about the people who live in Australia. How representative is this manner of our engagement with foreign concepts. I found it difficult to plow though so much invective. Surely it is possible to engage in debate without recourse to methods that are akin to what is being disagreed with.

dysphoricmaniac,

Looks like you're new here. Are you a proxy for Jamila?

So far we have not heard from her at all.

You may even be Jamila Hussain in disguise.

In case you are, here's my question:

When will you resign from your lecturer post, a vantage position which enables you to influence the impressionable and gullible students towards Islam?

It's not about vitriol and righteousness or otherwise. You have failed the very first test of being an intellect. I do not believe your tenure ought to last very long in a western institute of learning.

Apparently 'Today Tonight', Monday night 630 on 7 is profiling a mossie enjoying the benefits of sharia and the Aussie welfare system. He's got three houses and multiple wives.

It's typical TT stuff, they caught the bearded nutjob in the street and hit him with embarrasing questions. I used to do the same when working at the park

I know TT is not high end journalism but it's good to see a formerly untouchable subject finally seeing the light of day.

Other Monday night offerings include the Four Corners' take on the Cronulla 'riots'. That should be a gem.

dysphoricmaniac. You wonder what sort of people who live in Oz? They are people willing to take a stand where other countries will not.

The whole ideology of islam is such a joke it must be actively criticised. It wouldn't matter so much if it's practitioners just got on with life and were relatively harmless and weren't so given to violence, welfare fraud and crime.

Jamila can say what she wants but if she takes a stand then she has to be prepared to take the slings and arrows.

Keep it up Australia

Spot on Redneck, my sentiments exactly.

dysphoricmaniac

As you can see there is a plethora of posters who believe that vitriol constitutes debate.

On subject - I do not agree with all aspects of Sharia law anymore than I agree with a star chamber like the Lyons Forum. The latter is active in our government, the former isn't. Neither should be able to influence political decisions. However fundmentalist Christianity not only exists within our legal system but is influencing it.

We require constant vigilance against all religions controlling government and, therefore, our lives.