First, George, right on to what you criticize me about, could say you mob had already been hammering it on both sides. Just did not want to get caught in all the personal sniping that is going on.
Had an inferring one on this thread already.

Trying to get down to what is the real seat of the matter, especially in the Middle East. Western imperialism putting on the neo-colonial pose of bringing freedom to Third World countries run by dictators - but unfortunately with oil-company reps too close behind.

As a free-lance aged student with Honours, reckon it is my role not to get tangled up in discussions that are somewhat needed, but because in our group we have no tutorial arbitrator, we do resort to distressing personal attacks. In fact, I have just recently had one on this thread.

Really what this discussion should be all about, is that admittances of wrongdoing against the Islamists go against our smart-arse Western pride.

As ecumenical liberal Christians, therefore we do believe that we owe the apologies that Middle East leaders such as Mubarek have asked for - the admittance from the West that our interests in the Middle East have been involved too much with intrusion and injustice.

Certainly Western cultural intrusion is shown in places like Dubai, where there is certainly an attempt in the glitzy infrastructure to mix East and west together, but certainly not to impress the mullahs, who mostly deal with the lower classes.

Us Westerners have treated the Arabs like dirt for too damn long, similar to the way we mentally regard Aborigines.

No matter what it costs in claims, including to the Arabs, admittance and apologies from the West are needed to create more understanding in the Middle East.

Cowboy Joe.

You seem to think you can dicate to others what they should say think and feel. Do not assume to make claims for me or statements as to what I said.

I dot mind an aplogy cowboy if one is warranted. That is not the case here.

You rave on about me being a city slicker when I am a third generation farmer. You also claim I have no knowledge or understanding of Muslim people and Islamic councils
You are inncorrect on both counts.
Thats two out of two.
Let me make myself very clear in regards to your complaints about young Muslim boys being punished unfairly.
If somebody is breaking the law - be it Muslim or Christains we have laws to deal with that.
What actions did you take when seeing these marks on young Muslim boys?
2 How did you know in fact they were Muslim boys and not Christian boys?
Are you suggesting young Muslim boys look different? Perhaps you personally knew these young boys ?

Tell you why I am asking CowBoy Joe- Because I am concerned as to what you did to help them.
You may have felt you were not in a postion to do anything.
Please know the Muslim leaders follow our Australian laws in regards to what you have raised.
Your post does seem to highlight the need for us all to be treated as one.
Also my comment in general meant I have found all children from other countries far more considerate of their parents and family.
That would include Greeks Italians to mention a few. They work together as familes and they respect their elders. We can all learn from each other Coyboy Joe
That was my simply message to you.
No apology . Perhaps you might re read my posts.
I am as true blue as any Aussie but fair dinkim I am sick of people picking on Muslims.

bushbred, the west doesn't owe the Islamist any apology. This is not an east west issue nor one explicitly of religion. It's a democracy vs. authoritarianism. Too bad your studies haven't taken you outside of the socialist realm and shown you the spread of democracy and the number of countries that have adopted democratic principles since the last world war against authoritarianism.
To date the world is divided into 193 countries and 16 related or disputed territories. Of these 193 countries 148 are considered free democracies and 45 are considered not free. Of the 16 related or disputed territories 11 are considered free democracies and the remaining 7 not free. At the out break of WW2 there were only 6 principle democracies in the whole world.
The number of liberal democracies currently stands at an all-time high and has been growing without interruption for some time. As such, it has been speculated that this trend may continue in the future to the point where liberal democratic nation-states become the universal standard form of human society.
The separation of Church and State protects both State and Church and frees the people from the tyranny of religious authoritarianism. Once freed of this tyranny nations soon adopt a democratic form of government, though in a couple of countries communism still rears it's ugly head.
And as for your western cultural intrusion. I had to laugh when you said it was for the benefit of the lower classes. As if they could ever afford the high end merchandising of Dubai shops and real estate. Dubai is an exclusive playground for the very wealthy.
Islam will not change until all Muslims demand a separation between Church and State and realize how such a policy will free them to move on to joining the rest of the world, instead of being held apart and at political-religious ideological odds and further warfare.

Pericles, I certainly do not want to quibble about which dictionary or definition is more authoritative but we have to have mutual clarity about the meaning of terms we use in a debate. Anyhow, I think we are already moving in circles. Nevertheless, let me comment on some of your last propositions in the hope there are still some readers interested in this merry-go-round of arguments.

“An empiricist will never understand how a religionist can believe the stuff they do.”
Sorry for choosing again mathematics as an example but you will never understand what mathematicians claim to be true unless you ask a mathematician (and he/she might tell you that he/she cannot explain it unless you learn more mathematics) and not the proverbial “little old lady”, who is neither an expert on what mathematicians do (although she can count) nor on what faith means for an educated, say, Christian (although she goes to church regularly). The experts to ask, in my opinion, are not that much “pure” theologians as people like the British trio Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne, all of them accomplished scientists with an additional degree in theology.

“ You can't find religion through logic.”
There are many things you cannot find through logic, whatever that means: logic just tells you how to derive one proposition from another, and, as said before, there are no universally accepted propositions from which you could derive the proposition about the existence or non-existence of God. Perhaps by logic you meant common sense, but that would bring me back to what I already wrote about it.

“Nor can a religious person understand how an empiricist limits their view of life to testable, repeatable experience.”
I do not understand: it is easy for a two-eyed person to understand how the one-eyed person sees the world - he just has to cover one of his eyes. It is harder to explain stereoscopic vision to a one-eyed person. (ctd)

(ctd) “An empiricist can cope with the fact that there are people who rely upon faith instead of logic to inform them of the nature and dimensions of the universe,”
All educated people, rely on (natural) science, structured through logic and mathematics, to “inform them about the nature and dimensions of the universe”. This has nothing to do with faith.

“religious people are puzzled when non-believers say that on the balance of evidence, there is no God.”
Nobody is puzzled. Christians only remember that e.g. Thomas Aquinas also claimed that “on the balance of evidence”, there was a God (see his five “proofs”). They were able, aided also by Enlightenment, to arrive at a rationally more modest position, and they can only hope that empiricists too will have this insight and be more modest about their apriorisms.

You do not have to have faith before you believe, you only have to accept that there are two alternatives to start with - a self-sustaining and self-explanatory God, or a self-sustaining and self-explanatory material universe (provided the existence of the material universe is beyond doubt) - and then decide one way or another on the basis of many personal reasons, a religious experience (e.g. in the sense of William James) being just one of them. The rest of your post I commented on elsewhere.

bushbred,
Firstly, I never said I did not agree with what you said about the impact of the West on the Middle East. Secondly, I did not criticise you, I only thought one should not claim monopoly on what is and what is not to the point of an article. Thirdly, I do not understand the tone of your reaction. Arguments laced with emotions - whether triggered by concern for injustice done to people unable to defend themselves by “civilised” means, or triggered by one’s inability to accept that some people can share an empiricist's scientific outlook and still be able to look beyond its horizon - as understandable as they might be, are counterproductive, unable to offer a common ground on which different opinions can meet.

Thanks for your advice, George. Regarding the main thesis, it is just that as a social scientist have become suspicious about any attempt to change Islam's mindset from the West.

As you know, many of the Islamic intellectuals now living in the US, fled from Iran when the Shah was booted out. I certainly agree with the Iranian female lawyer, who last year said that though she wanted democracy in Iran, she preferred it not to be fashioned on the American Way.

Possibly not quite as bad as democracy fashioned on the point of a bayonet or on the end of a US missile, but since the illegal attack on Iraq, the minds of us ecumenical Christians have not changed much.

Digressing somewhat, in Mandurah here, where my lately deceased wife and I originally retired from our farm north of Dalwallinu, I have become concerned how a few of our Anglican church members have become tied to the American Christian Right, even having received some spiritual message about Judaism now saved by our Saviour.

Not really angry with them, but much too crazily fundamental now for me.

As a social scientist with the belief that religous faith should always be tempered down by reason, and aware going by your soft-toned first approach to me that you could be of the same mind, that you could another one to inform me that I worry too much.

However, as one turning 86 on Sunday, reckon they may be the sort of worries that has kept the old brain alive.

Proud to say I am a George also.

Really glad to have made your acquaintance - George C - WA