Neverthless, bigmal, there's change afoot.

My own view (historical)of the middle east is it once gave us highly educated, refined, elegant thinkers who offered the world a taste of higher mathematics, great scholarly works and much interesting intellectual thought of the age.

Yet Italy is not "Rome". Likewise, the ME that once was, has gone and been replaced by the stalled thought of old books and the paranoia borne out of segregated lives and dogmatic belief.

Recent polls apparently show that we, as a nation, are also ignorant of islam. Well, as most probably thought, "No sh1t, Sherlock!". So we dont spend every minute of every day for no apparent reason studying just one of numerous foreign religions that lack any obvious historical or theological links with Australia - surprise!!

Seriously, I think we're often turned off by the entire subject because we feel publicly bludgeoned into constantly paying attention to it when it has little relevance in daily Australian life and in fact, sometimes directly contradicts who we are as a nation and where we're going.

So ignorance, if that's what it is, seems one good reason to eschew thoughts of introducing 'sharia law" because it's probably true, we don't know enough about it nor are we convinced that it adds anything to our nation except further division in law.

The constant singling out of muslims by themselves or others, no matter how well-intentioned, creates much worse discrimination here in Oz than it solves. I'll stop to help you change your car tyre ANYTIME, no matter what you think your religion is or whether god caused the flat, I don't care less, its your business - END OF STORY.

http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD112106

"The Muslims today - forgive me for saying this - with their accepted interpretation, are the first to destroy Islam, whereas those who criticize the Muslims - the non-believers, the infidels, as they call them - are the ones who perceive in Islam the vitality that could adapt it to life. These infidels serve Islam better than the believers."

Commenters above also made the point that "sharia law' manifests itself differently in different cultures. That makes sense only to an extent to me but it also makes it difficult to apprehend which version is being proposed and how that might work for people who prefer this bit or that rule - think of all the lengthy, costly appeal processes between pissed-off parties let alone the endless argument when, on occasion, Australian law will be brought in to override bad decisions.

Its various manifestations are also very difficult for to understand as these appear often to be in theological conflict over what is and what isn't allowed in islam, irrational or kee-jerk reactions, sudden brazen intolerance of any other people and regularly prone to invoking extraordinarily weird hard-line pronouncements (see below). In other words 'sharia law' whatever IT is, seems today to display all the narrow, inconsistent, haphazard and socially dis-unifying elements that we plan to keep out of our law.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=9&art_id=14909&sid=7160632&con_type=1&d_str=20060324

Would Aussies really like a Muslim nation to arise here,I didn't trust them before I became a Christian? As a kid ,in Perth WA I often heard Aussies slinging off at Jews in our area,so you grow up with this idea that there is something wrong with others when adults say things without thinking what they are on about ,they(Jews) had handy food shops in our area.

I find that Jews are good law abiding people who keep to themselves and are very intelligent and modern ,but want to protect their homeland Israel. I believe that many non Jew is envious of the way Jews get wealthy and conduct their businesses with great success.

Israel was given to them by God ,otherwise Jesus would not have defended Israel ,as Son of God.
It was not the Jews that put Christ to death, but mainly gentiles (Romans) egged on by the religious zealots(Pharisees) that Jesus was rebuking continuouslly, because they tried to push the laws too far and even invented many (but not for themselves) .
They tried to load mankind down with heavy burdens and demands beyond acceptance ,just like the Muslims and immams, buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs and our own government at times.

All laws came from The Bible originally ,The Ten Commndments.

So, to the atheists and non - believers in The Bible ,I ask what laws would you impose daily ?
Maybe drive on any side of the road ,or take anything you want from others or just have sex anywhere with anyone and take off?
With Hitler I mentioned ,you need to read "Smokescreens", by Chic and some history and why he allowed 6 million Jews to be gassed and put to death by bullets or anyway even draining the blood from kids to help Germans.
He thought he was god .

mikem, your stupid hissy fit posting does you no favours.
Australia does not need to lower itself to accommodate those who refuse to live by the laws they promised they would.
Australia should simply give them a free one way ticket back to the dysfunctional countries they came from. Australia will be the better for it.

dobbadan,

Of the Ten Commandment, only 3 of them are legally enforcable. "You shall not murder", "Neither shall you steal" and "Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbour." Another is perhaps grounds for divorce "Neither shall you commit adultery."

The remaining 6 have absolutely no legal validity. Indeed, I quite enjoy the christian hypocrisy of "You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above" - [Jesus pinned to a stick], "or that is on the earth beneath" [The Cross], or that is in the water under the earth" [The Fish bumper sticker] "you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God" [Deadly Sin from a God??]

Yep - gotta love the hypocrisy.

I am appalled at the remarks of Dr Ahmad Abdul Aziz Al Haddad, in the following article in the Dubai based "Gulf News".

http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Afghanistan/10027888.html

I agree that the West has no business interfering in the workings of the legal system in Islamic countries, provided the people democratically support them. That a man has to die because of his religious convictions (or lack of them) is simply unjust. Why are people presumed to be weak willed if they "desert their religion"? If Islam is truly a just and peaceful religion, then it should not be afraid of a few apostates. Surely love and forgiveness, and not punishment, is a better way of getting people to convert.
I could not understand anyone considering to become a Muslim, if they could not change their mind about it, on pain of the death penalty.
I challenge Islamist posters on this site, to let us know your views on this issue, and explain them, so that we can be aware of just what it is that Sharia law represents.
It seems to me that Islam is simply based on fear, like so many other religions and cults. Show me where I'm wrong.