"What lies at the heart of the fierce opposition to the construction of mosques and Islamic schools in some parts of Australia?"
We know too much about the effect Islam has had on whichever country has been unfortunate enough to experience it.
We may be easygoing but we're not stupid.
As for the title "Anglo-Christian tribalism", what a joke.
How much more tribal can you get than the inassimilable followers of Mohammed.
Their cult demands that they don't assimilate.
Take neither the Jews nor the Christians for your friends (Sura 5:51, 60:13).
Don't get me wrong, I feel sorry for all the brainwashed followers of Mohammed, but not to the extent that their cult should be allowed to impact negatively on this country, like every other country it has infected.

The Muslims in Egypt killed Coptic Christians and deprived them of their land. It's time non-Muslims help the Egyptians Coptic Christians rid Egypt of Muslim invaders.

The plan is underway; we have Christian Obama sweet talk the Muslims, next send in the drones, the Jews can then go in and claim back what belonged to King David.

The Coptic Christians can rightly claim back their land.

Repeat this process in Hindustan which rightly belongs to the Hindus. Hindustan includes Pakistan, Afganistan, Bangladesh. Claim them back from the Muslims.

TR,

[I'm not the one telling children (with a serious straight face) that angel whats-em-o-bob sped dowm from outside space-time to dictate a God book]

If you’d take the time to listen to the best Christian philosophers and scholars you’d soon realize it’s not as absurd as you obviously think.

Besides, it’s easy to make fun of any belief system. Atheist naturalism would have you believe that the universe popped out of nothing. Belief in naturalistic atheism also logically necessitates that you’re objectively of the same value as a mouse, that life has no ultimate transcending purpose or meaning, and that deciding whether the deliberate killing of another human being is an immoral act or not, is just as subjective as deciding whether to eat yoghurt or ice cream on a hot day.

As John Dickson writes: “only one way of life is logically compatible with Christianity; any kind of life is logically compatible with atheism”.

So, if I was given the choice between sending my kids to a Christian school that teaches good Christian values and sending them to an atheist school, I’d choose the Christian one. And to use a more relevant example, I’d send them to a Christian school over your garden variety secular state school. So would many parents.

[Well, why bother having faith schools at all then!?]

There’s plenty of reasons.

For starters, there’s one incredibly obvious reason staring you in the face: This is a democracy, not a totalitarian regime. So religious schools should exist simply because people want them to exist.

And you may well ask, why would people want them to exist? Well, there’s also plenty of reasons for that. Parents may feel that they’d like their children’s spiritual development to have more emphasis placed on it than would be the case at a state school. Or they may feel that religious schools provide more of a well rounded education. Or they may feel that a religious school would be a safer environment for their child to grow up in.

.

[If Muslims want to be taken seriously as partners in human civilization, they need to do FAR more to combat the monsters among them.

As a Christian, I deplore and condemn the US Religious Right and the (tiny) fringe of violent bombers of abortion clinics and so on. "Morality" covers far more than just sex and reproductive technology. But those politically correct left-liberals who cite this tiny fringe group as meaning that Christianity as "just as bad" as the madness behind the widespread fundamentalist excesses of Islam are both dishonest and intellectually bankrupt.]

Glorfindel, I agree with every word. Eloquently put

"For starters, there’s one incredibly obvious reason staring you in the face: This is a democracy, not a totalitarian regime. So religious schools should exist simply because people want them to exist."
An excellent argument for allowing Muslim schools.
The first tenet of Democracy is -or should be- that Every One is equal before the Law. If Christian -or any religious- schools are funded publicly, then surely every religious school should have the same right.
Alternatively, if you oppose Muslim schools, then you should also stand against the indoctrination of the young by Christians.
But of course, the answer to this riddle is simply that Christianity is right, and Islam is wrong.
What I find most amazing about all religionists, is that they start with the premise that their God is all knowing, all seeing, all powerful; infinitely more superior to humankind than a man is to an ant... And then they proceed to explain exactly how we should please him/her/it, and why.
And it always seems like the least intelligent, and least imaginative are the most secure in their perfect understanding of this ineffable being

TR,

"We secularists have had more than a gut full of religious stupidity, hypocrisy and violent tribalism." Oh yeh, speaks another one-eyed secularlist who just does't get it. You don't understand humankind and culture much do you. You just would not be able to comprehend that it was actually religion, eg. Christianity which has greatly inspired the arts, such as the fine arts and music and it would seem was the actual instigater for what we can appreciate today such as that thing called culture! Yeh! and even spirituality for that matter, and in some cases, even "Science" - astronomy and seismology for example. You know some humans need such desires called faith and hope (helps makes them human) in their imaginations, in their lives. This means you are bagging all those black American gospel singers - which I think has inspired some pretty great music that I listen to today. What do you think the impovershed people in the world would hope to live for. But no, they must be idiots too if they have a religious faith.

Oh you smug secularists are so myopic and cold.

I myself am not particularly religious but I at least see the point.

George,

Thanks for your response, but what do think the Pope is going to say. After his run-in in the Uni in Germany where he spoke as an intellectual in a scholarly environment. These days no public figure is able to be sincerely honest at their own peril. He had no choice but to be diplomatic. That incident in Germany was so sensationalist - there are media vultures/trouble makers hiding in all the corners. The Pope is no trouble maker. He was just rationally speaking and reiterating relevant history. It was all about being rational afterall!