Benjamin,

I am trying really hard to communicate with you so give me a break and help me out please.

First, your post above mix religion, politics, Palestine, Arafat, Arabic culture.
In your statement:
“ALL Muslims interpret their book literally” I am scratching my head. Even in my own family and friends there are a spectrum of opinions, discussion and interpretations. Last week with my soccer team, the issue of home loans and finance came up and the 8 of us had 4 different views. Most Muslims I know have little or nothing good to say about Arafat. I have little to say the man is with his creator now but the PLO history of corruption and manipulation is widely known in the Arab and Muslim world.

So where did you get the idea that ALL (I am using your upper case :) :)) Muslims are like a photocopier machine?

Phillip Tang & Boaz,

In an earlier thread (I think religious education) Mr Boaz admitted he spends a lot of his time on the internet chatting to Muslims youth. To lure them into his faith, Boaz confessed that he educate them on Radical Islam to ‘reel them in’!!

So I am asking: isn’t that part of the problem?

I mean, If I see a Muslim preaching radical Islam to other young Muslims I’ll pick up the phone and ring ‘you know who’ to lock him up. But Boaz is above the law. There are 35,000 full time missionaries in Africa (many of them are on the internet) trying to lure young Muslims by educating them on radical Islam. No further comments. I am not saying this is the only cause but its definitely contributing to it.

Peace,

Fellow_human,

I say ALL because there are no groups or organisations of Muslims that don't believe the Quran is the LITERAL word of God.

As far as I'm aware with Christianity, mabye BOAZ can help me out here, it's only the Mormans that interpret it literally?

Of course there are individual Muslims who interpret it differently, and you seem more moderate than many I converse with.

But it means nothing unless YOU are out there spreading the idea that many things Mohammed said were disgusting and need to be condemned.

Teachings on apostasy for one, where do you stand on that?

Obviously Muslims don't interpret everything literally as if they did every Muslim would be trying to kill every infidel, like Bin Laden says....and YOUR new Mufti won't condemn.

Are you organising a protest against that filthy old bigot from Melbourne?

You can tell me all you want about not interpreting it literally but you need to tell the immoral filth in your community, not me.

You mentioned bridges I think but this is laughable unless Muslims denounce 3/4 of their book - which preaches horrible things about non-Muslims.

And this is what occured for over a thousand years until we Europeans fought back with the Crusades.

Dhimmitude?

Where do you stand on women being 1/2 in a Sharia court? Where do you stand on Sharia? I think any Muslim who wants Sharia ought to be treated as a terrorist.

Islamic values are vile, and have no place on this earth.

You have much work to do to convince other Muslims that Islam is peaceful.

I'll go with what I hear from prominent Muslim clerics the world over - such as the Mufti of Mecca (no protests over his comments either, funny that) and see from Islamic bigots who justify their acts by invoking Mohammed.

How can you reform a religion when it's founder is the worst possible example to humanity one could imagine?

Rapist, killer, paedophile - his actions were outrageous, and that's according to your own sources!

You can't reform it, just like one can't reform Nazism.

Benjamin,

As a lawyer, you know there are two sides to every story. To know what Muslims believe you need to ask a Muslim and not a missionary. If I want to learn about Christianity or Judaism I am not going to ask a Bhuddist.

Muslims ‘truth about mohammed’ is different than Boaz. I quote non-muslim impeccable philosophers and historians:

1. Lamartine, History of Turkey, 1854, vol-2, page 276-277:

“if greatness of purpose, smallness of means and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Mohammed?...His forbearance in victory, his ambition, which was entirely devoted to one idea and in no manner striving for an empire; his endless prayers, his mystic conversations with God, his death and his triumph after death: all these attest not to an imposture but to a firm conviction which gave him the power to restore a dogma. This dogma was twofold, the unity of God and the immateriality of God; the former telling what God is, the latter telling what God is not…Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of idea, restorer of national dogmas, of a cult without images; the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire. That is Mohammed. As regards all standards by which human greatness maybe measured, we may well ask: is there any man greater than he?

2. Thomas Carlyle (1840), writes:
And then also Islam-that we must submit to God; that our whole strength lies in resigned submission to Him, whatsoever he does to us, the thing he sends to us, even if death and worse than death, shall be good, shall be best; we resign ourselves to God." Carlyle answers the question of Goethe and says "Yes, all of us that have any moral life, we all live so. This is yet the highest wisdom that heaven has revealed to our earth."
http://www.thomascarlyle.com/us/1776/0803250304/On_Heroes_Hero-Worship_and_the_Heroic_in_History
As for Muslims, we know his teachings through the Quran. Its enough proof that the world’s most known peaceful religious practice is Sufi (Mystic) Islam.

Peace,

First, Benjamin and Boaz, we know who "crucified" Jesus (Peace Be Upon Him), it is your very same lot who still kill and criticise...definitely everyone knows it is your fore-fathers, so don't mislead everyone. When a word about the great religion of God is spoken about, you become very irrationale and irritated simply because you threw away the Torah even before the death of Moses(Peace Be Upon Him). For one thing, Muslims respect and acknowledge the work of Jesus, Moses, David, Abraham etc... what do the jews of today respect? Killed or attempted to kill all apostles of God and then sent Mosad everywhere - very recently robbed a disabled man in New Zealand?

Irrationale, bring it on...

Second, Bashiir failed to address his own problems. Being a scavenger in Arab land of all places, will keep you off my thoughts of responding to your unrealistic arguement.

I will not respond to Tong because we know what he is upto, the virus that crotch on the Tasmanian devils eyes.

Fellow Human

You continually avoid the argument that the evil committed in the name of Islam draws its inspiration from the literal words of its prophet. It doesn’t matter that you and the people you know don’t live like that because the terrorist do. The spokespeople for the Islamic faith in Australia will get very little headway in their attempts to portray Islam as a religion of peace etc until such times as they unite to publicly condemn those who commit acts of terrorism. Until then it’s all just words. I just don’t believe that these terrorists are hidden from the communities in which they operate. There is some level of toleration for these violent anti western sentiments in Islamic communities or else they would have been ostracized.

I find myself in agreement with Fellow Human, when it comes to Boaz and the Christian missionaries, especially in Islamic countries. I find the Christians criticizing the Isalmists highly distasteful. These fundamentalist Christians are in some ways worse than the Islamists apologists’, though at least they’re not violent (yet). At least the Islamists are going by the word of their book. The Christian groups pick and choose those bits of the bible they like, giving their own meaning to those they don’t.

While I don’t agree with Benjamin on many things, his questions regarding Sharia, Apostasy etc should be answered. Also if the mufti’s don’t speak for their communities why do they have any following? Responding with quotes of how great a man Mohammed was according to non Muslim philosophers just brings to my mind his marriage to and sex with a nine year old girl.

Finally Galty, defending your faith by criticizing the Jews just shows how empty your arguments are.

Benjamin,

Answering your questions:

1.Position on apostasy
I addressed it to Kaktuz on this comment:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=758#13338

2.Are you organizing a protest against that filthy old bigot from Melbourne?
No, for many reasons (don’t have the time), also, if every follower of a faith is requested to protest whenever a stupid comment is made by a scholar of their faith, we will all be unemployed and in the streets 24x7.

3. Dhimmitude?
A term used by conservative wahhabis to describe non-muslims. The term was invented initially to establsih rights and obligations of non-muslims in muslim states and communities. Having said that, they also believe that non-mulsims have rights.
http://www.readingislam.com/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1153698300029&pagename=Zone-English-Discover_Islam%2FDIELayout
I am against any differentiation based on religious beliefs.

4. Women rights: I found a reasonable article that explains women rights:
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?cid=1123996016410&pagename=IslamOnline-English-AAbout_Islam%2FAskAboutIslamE%2FAskAboutIslamE

Hi Paul,

“You continually avoid the argument that the evil committed in the name of Islam draws its inspiration from the literal words of its prophet”

That’s not correct; terrorists mislead themselves into wrongful understanding of some old scholars interpretation of hadith. Those interpretations were written in the context and time of the crusades. Few facts you need to know:

1. Hadith was collected 2 centuries after the death of the prophet.
2. Hadith follows a science of narration (authenticity). Muslims take and study 3-5% of the hadith. These hadiths are inline with the teachings of the Quran.
3. Most hadith quoted by missionaries is either of questionable authenticity or directly contradicts the Quran.

As for judging Islam, my comment to kaktuz on the other thread was simple:
In a faith of 1.5 Billion followers, how many militant islamists are there? 10, 20, 100 thousands? How many Mystic/ sufi Muslims are there? 150, 180, 200 Millions? Mystic Muslim is by far the most peaceful spiritual practice since our time on this earth.

So if an average person with no baggage or prejudice wants to make a call on Islam. Which one do you think is more reflective: the 0.1 % or the 18-20%?

Peace as always,