The ease with which one can change his/her religion speakes volumes about the shallownwss of religions.Religious ideology is a virtual mind set and can never be considered real.As it is unreal it will not contribute to peaceful human coexistence.We see people practising the physical cuture of a religion like the dress code much more seriously than the tenets of religion.Religions divide people on irrational basis.Religious chauvinism and fanaticism have contributed to more human suffering than even the world wars, I presume.Let us all live as civilised human beings and not religious bigots and let us save our future generations from perpetual agony of living in alienated environments caused by virtual mind sets

Ah Melanie Phillips. Long on accusation, short on evidence. But she performs a valuable function for the conservatives; she generates fear and hate and helps entice some who succumb to her siren call onto the rocks of the system.

I am particularly worried about one religious fanatic with weapons of mass destruction. George W Bush has, according to an article in the Lancet in 2006, killed 650,000 innocent Iraqis.

A more conservative study says the figure is really "only" 150,000. Let me do the maths. That is about 50 September 11s over 3 years. In other words this religious fanatic has wreaked on the innocents in Iraq at least one September 11 every 3 weeks.

If the Lancet figures are correct, it is one September 11 he has unleashed on Iraqis every 5 days.

The melanie Phillips of the world fear monger to hide this very point - the biggest terrorists sit in Washington, and London and Canberra.

What Passy said!

Ezhil, you say, “The ease with which one can change his/her religion speaks volumes about the shallowness of religions.” I think it speaks of the shallowness of humans.

You seem to equate religious belief with religious bigotry. True, there are too many scary religious bigots around, but there are also many religious people who are not bigoted, so it doesn’t have to be that way. You might also have noticed some non-religious bigots on OLO and elsewhere. So, again, it seems that bigotry is a human problem, not a religious one. It’s just that the risk of bigotry increases with our level of arousal, and religion is something people tend to be passionate about. In recent times, atheism is espoused passionately and has given rise to a new breed of bigot. You will have to outlaw passion if you really want to rid the world of bigotry. You will find bigots everywhere.

Passy, I have come across as many US haters as Islam haters. The US haters fear-monger as well. There are two reasons why I’m less alarmed by George W than fundo Islam:

1) Bush isn’t going to kill me, while the fundo muslims will if they get a chance. Doesn’t mean he’s better than them, just less hazardous to me personally.

2) The US, I believe, is ambivalent about killing, and kills as few people as possible – especially non-combatants. Even if this is only because the US wishes to *appear* more ethical and life-loving because it’s so interested in its image, it still makes a difference. The fundo muslims are under no restraint of this kind, and seem to prefer to kill as many people as possible as visibly as possible.

Australia is such a little country. If push really came to shove, and we had to choose one tyranny over another – say, the US or China or Islam – which would you choose? If there was no other option, I mean.

TRTL, I’ve been trying for years now to be balanced about Islam, and it’s getting more difficult. Let me know if I exaggerate.

Pax,

What Ginx said!

TRTL: "This is basically what CJ's put forward, but from what I can see, you're attributing a false view to him, and making out that he has to support radical Islam, when no such logical connection exists"

Thanks TRTL - you've said pretty well what I would have in response to dickie's baseless claim that I defend radical Islam, and also for providing the link to the "dickheadophobia" post in response to her demand.

Perhaps dickie would now be so kind as to provide the URLs to these comments that she alleges that I have made in defence of radical Islam:

"Australian cult xenophobia," "blind bigotry," "typically xenophobic rant," "whining racists," "racist trolls" "whack a mozzie," "hate tinted glasses,"

OLO makes it very easy, dickie. You just locate the original comment from which the quote was taken, and underneath it is a row of icons. If you click on the one furthest to the right, this will copy the comment's URL to your clipboard. If you then paste this along with the "quote", then everybody will be able to verify the quote, its immediate context and the thread in which it was posted.

Given her predilection for cutting and pasting URLs in other threads, I'm sure that dickie can manage it in this one too. However, I can guarantee that no comment that I actually posted was in defence of radical Islam, nor any other religion or cult.

Perhaps dickie should stick to animal welfare and the environment, about which she seems to have some knowledge. On second thoughts, maybe she should leave environmental issues alone - unless she learns to debate more honestly.