A further example of ‘moderate’ Muslims making excuses for Islamic lunatics was heard on radio this morning. When asked by a BBC interviewer for their reaction to the UK government’s call for British Muslims to watch their children for signs of radicalism, their reaction was that the government should be concentrating, rather, on the REASONS for young Muslims becoming involved in violence: UK foreign policy. The recent London tube bombings were carried out because of British foreign policy!

If non-Muslims made such a suggestion – that it is reasonable to show objection to foreign policy by murdering innocent people as though this was a perfectly logical thing to do, instead of through the normal democratic process – most non-Muslims would express outrage immediately.

Not so with too many Muslims.

Alan: Right on.

Nahum: I can't help but notice the irony of picking Charlemagne as "the first to make widespread the practice of “conversion” by the sword" when it was his grandfather, Charles Martel, who stopped Islam spreading over the Pyrenees at the Battle of Tours in 732. No doubt the Muslims in Spain converted of their own accord or were welcomed into the land with open arms...

Anyhow, as far as offending the Islamic world goes, who honestly cares? Does anyone care about offending Christians? I mean, they're completely irrelevant to the modern world. After 1683, it was all downhill for Islam in the west anyway until we all became so dependent upon oil. Within a century (when we get off the black gold), the Islamic world will largely return to the irrelevant economic and cultural backwater that it has always been destined to be (as unlike Catholic Latin America, most of the Islamic world doesn't even grow anything), unless it embraces modernism, which would entail being relegated to something of a cultural relic much akin to Christianity in the west. Either way, I figure we probably have a couple of generations of ratbags to put up with before the whole circus of radical Islam (and organised religion in general -- with the exception of much of the U.S., does any modern, advanced society actually take religion seriously?) becomes a footnote in history.

AAAAARGH!

Sometimes all I want to do is just cry out! Our culture is overrun with systems which institutionalize injustice. Poverty is symptomatic of a system that falls short. And yet we all worship the system. We gotta have our colour tv's. And then people who aren't like us get a shellacking, and are demonized. Enter: the poor "bludgers" and the muslim "terrorists" of the world.

At least Hitler made people wear something that would stand out so everyone could be aware that it was ok to give them a serve or persecute them.

If you're an Australian, you had better start speaking English. What about the great bridge-buiders, or some of the construction companies that built our cities on the backs of hardworking migrants.

Alan, history matters and history doesn't matter. I quoted Charlemagne and John of Leiden but I could have just as easily quoted something from the 12th Century. The Crusades and the Ottoman conquests were disgraceful, and incredibly violent.

But the article is about respect. We have got to start respecting people. People who visit my website and email me abuse have no respect for me, and neither of us learn anything. Is that the kind of world we want to live in?

There are always going to be small pockets of extremists, but why do we have to take the standard of extremists in our means of engagement. Why can't we be rational, and believe that essentially, most people have largely good intentions, and are not innately bad? WHY!

I'll go wring my hands some more. :)

BTW thanks for alliteration stickman, it was a classic.

Thanks fellow-human - do you know what?

lets try an experiment, rather than looking at the past - and leaving the present for just a short time - lets cast our minds 20 or so years into the future? what can we see in 20 years time? -

ah... people still populate the planet - some call themselves 'this' and some call themselves 'that' and ah some still delude themselves into believing that God likes their particular group most - some of these [the latter] as always belong to the 'thises' and some as always belong to the 'thats'. mmm.....

I also guarantee that in 20 years time, most people will go to work/school, come home, spend time with family and friends, go to the theatre/cinema/pub, read a book, watch TV, post on a blog, go to bed - get up and do the same things all over again the next day.

I just hope we are all doing all of these things in a much cleaner and more co-operative/friendly way than we seem to be at the moment. And, do you know what, somehow, I think we will.

To add to my earlier post.

The absurdity of the arguments on this topic has inspired me to write a new Monty Python sketch, Viz:

Christian God and Allah in debate about which it the most peaceful religion.

End up in a mighty fight,(a la Black Knight)where both contestants end up limbless, but both still manage to hurl abuse and claim theirs is the most peaceful religion.

(For those not familiar see Black Knight sketch : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leEsz9ci5XE )

Thank god for atheists!!

Kevin,

the problem with your argument is threefold:

1. If we forget history, we learn nothing from it. It's akin to sticking one's head in the sand, and we're better than that. If we learn nothing, we repeat our past mistakes, and some of these have been dire. Perhaps, given your last point about the environment, you also realize this.

2. You suggest that people like myself will continue to delude ourselves that our God likes us more than others. I've never actually made such a claim. I don't believe God likes Christians any more than Muslims, Buddhists or atheists.

3. Your argument suggests and criticizes religious people for a perceived sense of superiority, whilst ignoring the same sense of superiority you want to claim through what I presume is your atheism. Irony or hypocrisy?

My point is that we are all hypocrites, not just Christians...