To Vivy,

I'm proud to read your post.

But I'm also very ashamed, as an anglo-celtic, 7th generation Australian, to read these posts of the others.

Not all Australians are like these intolerant socialist ratbags. Unfortunately, most are. They are total hypocrites who preach diversity, yet they have ABSOLUTELY no respect for their own rhetoric. They are racist scum of the lowest order, in my opinion, and yet THAT is exactly what they'd accuse you and me of.

Vivy, if I met you in the street, I bet I'd have nothing but the utmost respect for you. You fight the fight. Not all Australian men think like them. Unfortunately though, most do. I apologise for them.

Of course, when I meet their trashy, scumbag tramps of girlfriends in the street, with their tramp stamp tattoos, body piercings, exposed bodies, drugged and drunk, I have nothing but pity for them.

Thank you Vivy for speaking up - respect.

Actually I think that we need this Sheik in Australia. We need him to keep saying these things as openly as he does so that we can see how corrupt and immoral HIS brand of Islam is.

I know Islamic people from various cultures who are disgusted by what this so called religious leader said. I do not blame Islam itself for those comments. I do blame the particular brand of Islam that this Mufti represents.

Irfan - thank you for the article - well stated and argued.

Getting back to my first point - the 'Mufti' should stay in his job, He should be allowed to spout any hateful thing that he wants - so long as the rest of us can hear and read what he is saying. I would prefer my enemies to be open about what they really think, feel and want to do, rather than than hiding amongst us, giving us a false sense of security.

So Mufti - thank you for pulling back the veil on the face of your beliefs. We can now look you squarely in that face and see your hatred for us, and show you our determination to not only resist you, but in maintaining good order within the law continually overcoming you and your venom with all the tools available in this secular, rights-based democracy.

I see a lot of Orwell's Big Brother in the mufti.

Part One

Last week’s Guardian in the Weekly Review section by Mark Lattimer, had the centre of his main page revealing what can only be a pictorial from a copy of a painting of the boy Jesus, surrounded by an ethereal glow with an adult male and female each side of him, also in Holy representation.

What made the pictorial even more breathtaking is that the foreground reveals the heads and shoulders of devoted looking Christian Arabs moving into the Church.

The major headline simply expresses the phrase MASS EXODUS - the accompanying italics intimating the following .........”as it is believed that half of Iraq’s Christians have now fled, why haven’t coalition forces done more to protect them?”

It could be suggested that Mark Lattimer and crew had gone to the trouble of showing the magnificient painting to try to reveal a truth that most academically trained journalists understand but not the general public.

From one who during retirement has spent years studying the philosophy of Western history, he becomes more and more shocked how much what can be revealed as true Christian history has been left out because it is not the way the Church and the accompanying Christian governments want the Christian story to be told.

Seeing that so many of our OLO appear so learned, probably much more than myself with an early small school upbringing, would like comments regarding the following suggestions?

The boy Jesus revealed in the pictorial is very much like the story of the boy Jesus revealed to us by our mothers, myself having had a mother whose own mother was Irish and her father an Australian born German.

Part Two

Therefore it was reasonably easy to believe later when studying historical philosophy that the suggestion that the boy Jesus with his so-called intellectual brightness could have been naturally gifted like the young Socrates.

As the Bible does indicate the boy Jesus as eager to mix among learned people, as well as a report that Jesus spent time in Egypt with his family, it does fit in with a suggestion from some academics, that the young Jesus could have attended the Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, particularly as history books do indicate that more than half the pupils of the Great Library, which had mostly Greek tutors, were Jews.

It is so interesting that the Sermon on the Mount without the accompanying spiritual content could have easily come from Socratic or even Platonic folklore.

One could also dare to suggest, that journalists like Lattimer desperately want to reveal in their reports that certain Christian groups are not now accepted and thus left to suffer by our Christian churches and their governments, because they have stayed too friendly with the Arabs.

Indeed, from academics there is much evidence to support the historical fact that the Arabic type Christians could be the true Christians rather than the Romanised believers. The Coptic-style Christians, as they are also called, are not accepted because they generally do not believe in the Trinity, which after all was only finally made officially spiritual by the Roman Emperor Constantine when he presided over the Council of Nicea in the late 7th Century AD, when the majority of the Holy Church by then had been strongly Romanised or Latinised.

Must apologise somewhat but do feel that Lattimer was attempting to get the true message through about the Iraqi Christians with the pictorial of the Boy Jesus. It is also felt strongly that because the article only mostly deals with the effects that the attack on Iraq has brought on Iraqi Christians, the use of the pictorial with its extra suggestive historical features must be seen as a tribute to the article editors.

Tennyson's_one_far-off_divine_event,

I mentioned racism because the negative publicity seems always to be directed specifically at Lebanese Muslims. There are Muslims from other nationalities that do not attract the same degree of attention.

Many of these are socially "invisible" and do not follow the same cultural dress codes. Therefore the argument seems to be focussed on one group of Muslims and not Islam per se, although many see no distinction.

Culture is something that evolves. It's never static. Look at how our much of our lifestyle and everyday speech is absorbed from foreign television and how it has changed over the years. In many ways, the youth of today seems to adhere to a different set of values from the previous generation.

All three main faiths use fear as the basis for their existence -fear of everlasting damnation or being cast into the lake of fire and so on. If eternal life is the carrot, there must also be a stick, otherwise what's the point?
Worship me or suffer for all eternity (because I love you) is a common theme they all share.

Likewise all three monotheistic faiths infer that women are subordinate to men and Islam certainly has no monopoly in this area.

However, what also interests me about this incident is that, considering the speech was made about a month ago -
If it was so important, why wasn't it reported earlier?
Why now?
Who reported it?
Who was the target audience? Certainly not people outside that faith because they normally would never had heard it. The reaction from many Muslim women seems to suggest that is was not well received in any case.
Was the speech made in English or Arabic?
Was the reporting intended to be informative or inflammatory?

Meanwhile the Werribee DVD story seems to have faded from view. A shame really, because it demonstrated that sexual assault is not necessarily related to provocation. Meat is meat, uncovered or not.

The "misogyny that exists among Muslim religious leaders" is not limited to Muslim leaders - it comes directly from the Quran and the man Muslims consider their great example.

Time after time after time Irfan and other Muslims get out their pens and write these articles that use the same excuses:"Out of Context" "a cultural thing" "bad translation" "misunderstood" "the Crusaders did it" and so on.

Quote:Ibn 'Aun reported: ...The Messenger of Allah made a raid upon Banu Mustaliq while they were unaware and their cattle were having a drink at the water. He killed those who fought and imprisoned others. On that very day, he captured Juwairiya bint al-Harith (Muslim Book 019, Number 4292 - also in Bukhari). http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/019.smt.html#019.4321

So which is worse, some idiot Imam saying rape is OK, or Islam's prophet and his men doing it? If you continue reading the text above you see where Mohammed's men ask the profit if they should practice 'coitis interruptus.' He says 'no, just screw them and don't worry!'

Will any Muslim condemn this?

Or how do you feel about Mohammed beating his wife?

Quote: Mohammed says… "Why is it, O ‘A’isha (his 9 year old wife!) that you are out of breath? I said: There is nothing. He said: Tell me or the Subtle and the Aware would inform me... He said: Was it the darkness (of your shadow) that I saw in front of me? I said: Yes. He struck me on the chest which caused me pain……. ," Muslim 4:2127.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/004.smt.html#004.2127

And so why all this commotion about a few word by some Imam when the real problem is the hate and violence inherent to Islam against all non-Muslims, not just women? In a week, month or year there will be other incidents (or worse) and 'moderate' Muslims will be making the same excuses.

John old man kactuz

PS: Irfan, I no longer am able to post at altmuslim.com because I was suspended. I had said good things about them. I guess it is the links to Islamic texts about torture, slavery and murder.