BOAZ

On 6 December 2007, you started this thread with this paraphrase of a Herald-Sun news item: "SIKH students in Victoria have been given the green light to carry small daggers to school under a plan that has outraged teachers and principals." Small daggers!

The description: "The kirpan, carried in a sheath and worn on a strap, is one of five articles of faith that initiated Sikh males have to carry. It is not allowed to be used as a weapon." Not allowed to be used as a weapon.

By 15 January 2008 you "updated" your thread: "Just a reminder of what one is...see here.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40025000/jpg/_40025050_sikh-knife.ap.jpg
Isn't that a beaut :) I can see it all now.. a 15 yr old Sikh kid at school...with THAT."

The photo you produced (unsourced and unattributed) is of a large, probably antique, kirpan held up in front of the face of a mature man - not by a 15 year old boy.

What you say you "can see now" is nothing like what initiated Sikh boys wear under their clothes. You are clearly trying to manufacture fear by misrepresenting and distorting the reality of school practice. I call that lying. What do you call it?

You excuse yourself by claiming: "I've done the research on the Kirpan, and it can (from Sikh sources) be from a small crucifix size (acceptable) to a sword size. So are you claiming to be telling the truth by saying that a kirpan can be as large as a sword and that such a "weapon" would be worn under the school uniform of a 15 year old boy?

As for your injunction that I should do some reading, I have researched cases and constitutional law thoroughly and find that wearing the kirpan to school is legal in at least the following countries:

Australia
Canada
Denmark
India (under the constitution, no less)
Sweden
UK
USA.

I have not found a single case of a Sikh using his kirpan as a weapon at school in any of these countries. Maybe your superior research has revealed such cases?

But boaz, you say that it's about offering them information on Christianity, but not badgering or haranguing them.

There is one very simple response to this: when they tell you they're not interested, do you stop.

And by stop, I don't just mean stop talking to them at that juncture, I mean, once they've made it clear they don't want to be subjected to more of this rhetoric, do you leave them be permanently?

Because quite frankly, if your answer is no, then it is indeed badgering them.
If your answer is yes, then it's no different to the current situation, so I don't see why you've really brought it up at all.

Grand Faith Auto

Start game.

Beat your wife: 100 points
Flog adulterer: 100
Cut hands off thief: 200
Stone unwed mother to death: 400
Buy slave: 50
Execute apostate: 500
Execute homosexual: 300
Hijack plane: 2000
Crash plane into civilian target: 5000 (extra 50 each casualty)
Crash plane into military target: 7000 (extra 100 each casualty)
Outlaw political parties: 400
Accept bribe: 50
Ban teaching of Western philosophy in schools: 400
Ban the public practice of religions other than Islam: 2000
Detain political opponents without charge and hold for indefinite periods of time: 600
Torture prisoner: 70
Arrest woman for driving car: 100
Arrest woman for traveling without male relative: 100
Levy additional tax on non-Muslims: 100
Destroy temple or church: 500
Destroy world heritage site's archeological treasures: 2000
Issue fatwa calling for execution of novelist: 200
Assassinate critical filmmaker: 300
Set fire to embassy: 700
Desecrate foreign flag: 50
Send death threat to critic: 100
Demand destruction of ancient Egyptian statues and artifacts: 400
Marry a child: 200
Beat cleanshaven man with big stick: 50
Rape woman who wears stimulating and attractive clothing: 300 (700 if gang raped)
Destroy museum and private art collections: 3000 each collection
Pray only at the times you're told to: 50
Take aid workers hostage: 100 each hostage, 200 each casualty
Assassinate government official: 1000
Take school hostage: 1500 (extra 200 for each child killed)
Massacre villagers: 100 each casualty (extra 600 for each baby smashed against a wall)
Kidnap and murder journalist: 300
Kidnap and behead foreign businessman: 300 (extra 300 if you videotape execution and post on the Internet)
Machine gun worshippers in Hindu temple: 100 each casualty
Bomb nightclub full of tourists: 100 each casualty
Plot to bomb Australian electricity grid: 300
Plan to attack Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor: 400
Take Olympic athletes hostage: 3000 (extra 200 each casualty)
Bomb synagogue: 500 (extra 50 each casualty)
Bomb commuter train: 500 (extra 50 each casualty)
Dismiss criticism as "Islamophobia": 100
Strap explosives to yourself and blow yourself up during hospital's opening ceremony: 15,000 points and go to Heaven

Game Over

recycle myths 1000 points

Display ignorance 1000 points

Peddle hate 1000 points

Game over!

FrankGol: You scored 0 points. Lowest score.

"Recycle myths"

Myth? Do you even know what the word means?

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered members of the Israeli Olympics team in Munich, September 1972.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered Nicholas Berg, an American businessman, May 2004.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered Daniel Pearl, an American journalist, February 2002.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered Paul Marshall Johnson, an American helicopter engineer, June 2004.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered Kenneth John Bigley (a British civil engineer), Jack Hensley (an American engineer) and Eugene Armstrong (American construction contractor), September 2004.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered Kim Sun-il, a South Korean translator, June 2004.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered Shosei Koda, a Japanese tourist, November 2004.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered Fabrizio Quattrocchi, an Italian security guard, April 2004.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered Margaret Hassan, an aid worker, November 2004.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered Seif Adnan Kanaan, an Iraqi citizen accused by his killers of being a US spy, October 2004.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered Tom Fox, a human rights worker (3 others also abducted) in 2005/6.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* kidnapped and murdered three Indonesian Christian teenage girls, October 2005.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* videotaped many of these executions and posted the footage on the internet.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* sent death threats, put a bounty on the head of, and set alight the artwork of Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who'd depicted Muhammad as a roundabout dog (a form of Swedish street artwork).

Myth or fact: *Muslims* set fire to the Norwegian and Danish embassies in Syria, following the Danish cartoons controversy in 2005.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed United States' Beirut embassy, April 1983.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed the World Trade Center, February 1993.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* hijacked a French passenger jet in Algiers, killing 3 hostages, December 1994.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed the Khobar Towers, June 1996.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed the United States embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, August 1998.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed the USS Cole, October 2000.
(A military target yes, but a decade *after* the first Gulf War had ended!)

Myth or fact: *Muslims* demolished the two giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, March 2001.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* hijacked 4 passenger planes, and crashed them into the World Trade Center and The Pentagon, September 2001.
(You do believe the official story, don't you Frankie Wankie?)

Myth or fact: *Muslims* suicide bombed a Passover ceremony in a hotel in Netanya, Israel, March 2002.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* suicide bombed a Jerusalem cafe, March 2002.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* machine gun attacked an Hindu temple in Ahmedabad, September 2002

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed a Bali nightclub, October 2002.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* suicide bombed a number of targets in Casablanca, May 2003

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed trains in Madrid, March 2004.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* took a Beslan school hostage, resulting in the deaths of 158 adults and 186 children, September 2004.

Myth or fact: A *Muslim* murdered Islam-critical film director
Theo van Gogh, November 2004.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* attacked the Christian community in Demsa, Nigeria, February 2005.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed London public transport, July 2005

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed 3 locations in Sharm el-Sheikh, an Egyptian resort city, July 2005.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed two markets and a bus in Delhi, October 2005.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed 3 hotels in Amman, Jordan, November 2005.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* bombed a railway station and Hindu temple in Varanasi, India, March 2006.

Myth or fact: Faheem Khalid Lodhi, an Australian Muslim, was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, for plotting to bomb the national electricity grid or Sydney defence sites.

Myth or fact: *Muslims* massacred 8000 civilians in Mazar and Bamiyan, Afghanistan, August 1998.

Are all these "victims" still alive somewhere sipping cocktails?
Did I imagine all this?
Is this a movie where I wake up and go "Oh, it was all just a bad dream."?