Do you realise that for many people their “repetitious violent dogma” has been the final straw in deciding the change the world for the better? One example, ending slavery in USA. You might say “but it was Christian Americans who started the slavery to being with.” Yes, but that was an aberration, an exploitation, of their faith, not a fulfillment of it.

You make too many blanket statements Alch. If I did the same about you, I’d have every secularist in this forum responding, but on the basis of my religion, you feel it ok to judge me as ignorant, violent, and dysfunctional. I’m sorry if there have been those in my religion who have acted this way, but I don’t like you generalizing those things about me. Look at Jesus, He’s what we’re all aspiring to be.

“[conversion] not badged, instilled by stealth, lies, force and violence”. I couldn’t agree more. Yay, we agree! :-)

“If your ilk would leave.” I assume you mean the religious population of Australia, so about 80%. Hmm, if we want to be fair, perhaps your ‘ilk’ should leave.

“You neglect the planet you live on, destroying it along with all its inhabitants.” I’m afraid religion isn’t the only determining factor in this. http://answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0320_earth_day.asp This talks about why environmentalism and the Bible are not mutually exclusive (in fact, they go hand in hand). I for one care a lot about the state of the world. My primary concern is with the 2/3rds of the human beings of this world living in poverty, but of course I care about the environment as well.

“All monotheistic beliefs suppress women, children and non believers.” Got to love the absoluteness of that statement. Methinks you’re a little dogmatic too, Alch.

The NT was revolutionary for the way it treated women 2000 years ago. I think even today, it continues to be, providing you are reading the original Greek text, not some 16th Century white guy’s interpretation of it. I know I always plug this book, but “Why not women”… excellent reading.

And 42% Americans are Christian, Americans second:
http://pewresearch.org/datatrends/?NumberID=136

Going back for a moment to clear up this myth of a "tolerant Islamic Spain", so tolerant that saying "Christ", wearing green or ringing a bell incured a death penalty, and non-Muslims had to step aside to let Muslim pass on the road.

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1243
Iberia (Spain) was conquered in 710-716 AD by Arab tribes originating from northern, central and southern Arabia. Massive Berber and Arab immigration, and the colonization of the Iberian peninsula, followed the conquest...it proceeded as a classical jihad with massive pillages, enslavements, deportations and killings. Toledo, which had first submitted to the Arabs in 711 or 712, revolted in 713. The town was punished by pillage and all the notables had their throats cut. In 730, the Cerdagne was ravaged and a bishop burned alive. In the regions under stable Islamic control, Jews and Christians were tolerated as dhimmis, like elsewhere in other Islamic lands - and could not build new churches or synagogues nor restore the old ones. Segregated in special quarters, they had to wear discriminatory clothing. Subjected to heavy taxes, the Christian peasantry formed a servile class attached to the Arab domains. Harsh reprisals with mutilations and crucifixions would sanction the Mozarab (Christian dhimmis) calls for help from the Christian kings. Moreover, if one dhimmi harmed a Muslim, the whole community would lose its status of protection, leaving it open to pillage, enslavement and arbitrary killing...

Al-Andalus represented the land of jihad par excellence. Every year, sometimes twice a year, raiding expeditions were sent to ravage the Christian Spanish kingdoms to the north, the Basque regions, or France and the Rhone valley, bringing back booty and slaves. Andalusian corsairs attacked and invaded along the Sicilian and Italian coasts, looting and burning as they went. Many thousands of non-Muslim captives were deported to slavery in Andalusia, where the caliph kept a militia of tens of thousand of Christian slaves, and a harem filled with captured Christian women. Society was sharply divided along ethnic and religious lines, with the Arab tribes at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the Berbers who were never recognized as

equals, despite their Islamization; lower in the scale came the mullawadun converts and, at the very bottom, the dhimmi Christians and Jews.

The Andalusian Maliki jurist Ibn Abdun around 1100 AD:
No Jew or Christian may be allowed to wear the dress of an aristocrat, nor of a jurist, nor of a wealthy individual; on the contrary they must be detested and avoided. It is forbidden to [greet] them with the [expression], "Peace be upon you'. In effect, "Satan has gained possession of them, and caused them to forget God's warning. They are the confederates of Satan's party; Satan's confederates will surely be the losers!" (Qur'an 58:19). A distinctive sign must be imposed upon them in order that they may be recognized and this will be for them a form of disgrace.

Ibn Abdun also forbade the selling of scientific books to dhimmis under the pretext that they translated them and attributed them to their co-religionists and bishops... Whole Jewish and Christian libraries were looted and destroyed.

In Granada, the Jewish viziers Samuel Ibn Naghrela, and his son Joseph,were both assassinated between 1056 to 1066, followed by the annihilation of the Jewish population by the local Muslims. It is estimated that up to five thousand Jews perished in the pogrom by Muslims that accompanied the 1066 assassination. This figure equals or exceeds the number of Jews reportedly killed by the Crusaders during their pillage of the Rhineland, some thirty years later, at the outset of the First Crusade. The Granada pogrom was likely to have been incited, in part, by the bitter anti-Jewish ode of Abu Ishaq a well known Muslim jurist and poet of the times, who wrote:

Bring them down to their place and Return them to the most abject station. They used to roam around us in tatters Covered with contempt, humiliation, and scorn. They used to rummage amongst the dungheaps for a bit of a filthy rag To serve as a shroud for a man to be buried in...Do not consider that killing them is treachery. Nay, it would be treachery to leave them scoffing."

"There is no doubt that there are some elements in Islam that stand in stark contrast to the Australian pop corn culture of pornography,gambling, alcoholism and drug addiction."
Yeah! Take suicide bombing of innocents,gang rape,amputation of hands of thieves, beheading, stoning of 'wicked'women,insurgents hiding behind women and children, the bad behaviour of Muslims who caused Cronulla, that'll do for a start. There is more.
It is attitudes like yours that have worn out your welcome here in Australia.
Read John Stone's article in Quadrant,it will make anyone ask,why were these people allowed to migrate into this country.
Back to my armchair!

mickijo, is this the same John Stone who opposed John Howard in the 1980's and supported that fruitcake Queenslander to become PM?

Is this the same Stone who glorified the Spanish Inquisition? The same Stone who even Andrew Bolt described as an isiot?

You might want to take this chap seriously. I certainly don't.