Bushbasher wrote:

"with an understanding that your "the" actually makes no sense….."

PEOPLE are infinitely diverse. It makes no more sense to talk about "the Muslim" than "the Catholic".

Example:

Many Catholics use condoms. But core Catholic belief condemns their use. Catholic priests across the world tell the faithful to refrain from using condoms.

Yet it still is reasonable to talk about "the (CONTEMPORARY) Catholic superstition" while acknowledging that:

--It has "fuzzy borders" – there are grey areas and different priests will emphasise different aspects of the superstition at different times;

--Individual Catholics in secular society will take a "cafeteria approach" to their faith – keeping what they like and ignoring what they don't.

It is in this sense that I it is reasonable to talk about "the (CONTEMPORARY) Islamic superstition" but NOT about "the Muslim".

I've emphasised the word "contemporary" because religious cultures change. Islam has changed in my lifetime and living, as I did, among Muslims, I was able to observe parts of the change. The Islam of today is much more aggressive, militant and plain bloody-minded than it was when I was growing up. To some extent this is also seems to be true of Christianity, Hinduism and Judaism.

You frequently accuse posters of quoting from koran out of context. That implies you are familiar enough with Islamic thinking to be able to make a judgement. Are you?

That being said, the danger of relying on what is written in holy books is that they are subject to frequent re-interpretation. Regardless of what is written in the bible, neither Jews nor Christians today stone adulterers. Ephesians 6:5 notwithstanding, Christians led the fight against slavery. Refusing communion to gays is not the same as executing them.

Perhaps Islam will evolve into something more benign. But that will not happen if foolish people make excuses for its lunacies and attempt to appease it.

The danger is that if this superstition is not opposed others with more power will re-establish themselves. CHRISTIANS LOVE IT WHEN ISLAM IS ACCOMMODATED BECAUSE THEY CAN DEMAND THE SAME PRIVILEGES.

Bushbasher

Muslims underdogs?

In what way? What do they have to complain about? They are allowed their freedoms. Their faith has a bad reputation because of what some of them did. Same as the US. The US has a bad reputation for many but Americans are not underdogs?

The only reason I can think a religion would get support because they are underdogs is because you feel them inferior beings? You are the bigot. It is ok to bag christianity, why different? Are they so mentally retarded or childish they need your protection?

How patronising and bigoted. You and CJ et al are so blinded by your racism you cannot even see it. they are a different species, they are a lesser order, they need zoo keepers and minders. I am sure they can talk for themselves and are very well educated. Why not allow them to speak for themselves.

Bushbasher describes Muslims as "underdogs".

Muslims make up 20% of humanity. They are probably the world's fastest growing religion. In Western countries they have freedom to practice their religion. I know that nearly all religions whine about "poor persecuted us". Not least among the whiners are my fellow Jews.

But, objectively, it is not clear to me in what sense Muslims are the "underdogs".

BTW, Bushbasher, Indonesia, a Muslim country with 10 times Australia's population, looks set to supplant Australia as regional top dog within the lifetime of many OLO posters. Then we shall be the underdogs. How this will work out? At the moment Indonesian Islam is benign. Will it remains so?

There is no way of answering these questions.

THEMISSUS wrote:

"People just need to understand we are vunerable to myths and many take advantage."

More than that. People often collude in their own deception. How else do you think Ponzi schemes work? How else are people able to go on denying evolution?

Growing up during the cold war it was apparent to me that Soviet Communism was a totalitarian ideology as vile as Nazism. Many of my contemporaries professed to be unable to see this.

I found their attitude even more perplexing than belief in the virgin birth. The virgin birth, after all, may be extremely improbable but it cannot be falsified by direct observation. The atrocities of Soviet Communism were there to be seen by all.

My communist contemporaries dismissed this all as "imperialist propaganda". They wanted to believe. More precisely, they did not want to believe that, warts and all, the American side might be better than the Soviet side.

As Lenin put it, there are "useful fools".

Today it is equally apparent to me that contemporary Islam, as well as being a superstition, is also a loathsome totalitarian ideology on a par with Nazism and Soviet Communism. The same useful fools – and I mean sometimes the very same people who made themselves useful fools for Communism – profess to be unable to see this.

Useful fools are an immortal species.

One useful function of threads like this one is that they provide an insight into the peculiar workings of the hater mindset.

A case in point is The Missus. So far, she's accused me of liking Islam, not to mention being variously right-wing, bigoted and now apparently racist - all because I advocate tolerance of others and their beliefs. Of course, what she projects on to me is about the exact opposite of what I actually am.

I'm left wondering whether such egregious misapplication of terminology derives from simple ignorance about what these terms mean, or something more psychologically complex. It doesn't really matter, I suppose - indeed, I wait with bemused and bated breath to discover what wildly inaccurate descriptor she'll come up with next.

Perhaps I'm also a homophobic, misogynist Christian fundy without being aware of it. The anticipation is hard to bear.

C J Morgan

Yes pretty much what I think of your statements here. Bit of a little Hitler going around abusing anyone that does not follow the scripture according to C J.

I would fight for the right of people to hold different beliefs but just as strongly fight for the right for people to oppose those beliefs. It is the people going around telling people they cannot hold an opinion that cause the most problems in the world..and refugees. Often called dictators are they not!

To persecute the individual for their beliefs is wrong but to persecute the belief system is not, or should not be. You appear to be on the persecute the individual team. I cannot respect that.

Yes TheMissus,
CJ Grogan preaches tolerance but doesn't practise it.
CJ Grogan is your true, holier-than-thou hypocrite.