"Perhaps you may_educate Boazy in the end" ... OUCH :)

No no no.. *smile*... it is vice versa..I'll educate young CJ and others..... but let me begin with brother Antonios...who said:

"Islamophobia is caused by Cristian extremists, Cristian taliban, neoconservatives and right extremists."

Antonios.. there is an element of truth in what you said.... but just an element..it needs to be unpacked and supplemented.

All those groups you mentioned, are very interested in exposing the real Islam. The reason is, they are fully aware of where it would take them.

For example, if you look closely at Surah 9:30, which by now most readers of my 'infequent' posts will realize is the one which condemns Christians (me) and Jews (Steven, Logic and others) by NAME.. and calls on 'Allah' to destroy us.

Now..Antonios.. in your limited understanding of Islam, you might view this as
-some obscure text,
-taken out of context,
-by someone who is not qualified to interpret it. (me)

Pericles and Keysar Trad would certainly take that view. CJ.. well I think he 'has hope' to see 'the truth' :) but I'm still a-workin on him.

But the danger of Islam is seen in Keysars own words in the other thread (his). "God said".. is the terminology he uses in reference to the Quran. It is not exactly a great leap of anything to realize that if 'God said' "may Allah destroy them" or.. "Allah himself fights against them" ( me, Runner, Gibo,Grey,David Palmer,Foxy, StevenLMeyer, logic etc.. Jews and Christians.. ) then..if ALLAH'S state is established, that the likes of 'us' will be relegated to some status of lower than low, or even executed if we spoke truth about Islam and Mohammad in such a state.

You see.. for a Christian or a Jew, the idea that "Mohammad was ANY kind of 'prophet' let alone the final one" is abhorrent, silly, unfounded, insulting, and most of all, a declaration of spiritual WAR against the God of Israel and Christians.

The German judge should have convinced you that a holy book which teaches the beating of wives is evil.

Glad to see everyone knew I was joking. After I clicked on Post Comment I had a small moment of dread wondering if I was asking for trouble after a similar attempt at humour on another thread some time ago. :)

I'm with CJ on this and his first post on this thread is one of the more perceptive I have seen on this issue on OLO.

Boazy I think you have as much change of converting CJ to religion as Howard apologising to the Stolen Generations.

Thanks pelican and others (and Steven, it's not the first time we've agreed on something!).

I don't suppose anybody saw the 'Cutting Edge' doco on SBS TV last night, entitled "Full Cover Girl"?

<< Synopsis

She is strong, smart and smiling. Jinan Al-Ubaidy, an elected member of the new Iraqi Parliament. She is also a devout Shia Muslim and fully covered in black. Her main priority: implementing Islamic law, which according to her opponents would turn back the clock on women’s rights. Her main weapon to achieve this: Democracy.

Abir Al-Sahlani opposes Jinan Al-Ubaidy. Abir returns to Iraq after years in exile to set up a secular political party. She hates the veil and everything it represents.

Over four years, international award winning producer and filmmaker Folke Rydén depicts, on site in Baghdad, Abir and Jinan at the centre of a tragedy rarely talked about.

Extreme political Islamism, which endorses female subordination, has become increasingly influential, both in politics and in everyday life. Kidnappings, murder, violence and harassment of women have risen to shocking levels. Something that could hardly have been the intended result of the new-found democracy. >>

[ http://www.fullcovergirl.com/documentry.html ]

It was quite fascinating, and addressed in part the tension between fundamentalist Islam, secularism and feminism in contemporary Iraq. Off topic, but the film also demonstrates clearly some ways in which Islamism has become far more influential in post-Saddam Iraq than it was prior to the invasion and ongoing occupation.

"the film also demonstrates clearly some ways in which Islamism has become far more influential in post-Saddam Iraq than it was prior to the invasion and ongoing occupation"

Quite. The neocons couldn't draw a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq because Bin Laden had made it abundantly clear that he despised Saddam Hussein for running a secular state, in defiance of Islamic law. Now that he's gone, the fundamentalists are happy to fill the power vacuum.

Do you recall that old story, Boaz, about Columbus' ships being "invisible" to the Arawak tribe, apparently because their brains were unable to process the signals from their eyes? I suspect you suffer the same problem when reading about Islam. Your brain will only process the bits that it has been accustomed to handling; anything out of phase with that gets ignored.

>>I hope I never hear another peep out of Pericles about 'adding to the problem'.. for goodness sake.. I rather think the NY times has significantly more impact than humble moi<<

But Boaz, the New York Times reports. You rabble-rouse.

"Her eureka moment came on roughly her 10th reading of the Arabic-English Lexicon by Edward William Lane, a 3,064-page volume from the 19th century, she said. Among the six pages of definitions for 'daraba' was 'to go away.'... She thinks the 'beat' translation contradicts another verse, which states that if a woman wants a divorce, she should not be mistreated... There have been similar interpretations, but none have been incorporated into a translation."

"Sheik Ali Gomaa, the Islamic scholar who serves as Egypt’s grand mufti, said Koranic verses must be viewed through the prism of the era. The advice 'is always broad in order to be relevant to different cultures and in different times,' he said through a spokesman in an e-mail message. 'In our modern context, hitting one’s wife is totally inappropriate as society deems it hateful and it will only serve to sow more discord.'"

Did you not notice these paragraphs, Boaz?

>>I could give chapter and verse if anyone is interested.. after all..I'm just a 'biased religious nutter' :)<<

We know. We know.

No surprises, I think CJ, pelican, Sancho et al have the right idea.

Feminism, secularism and Islamism aren't separate concepts. They're all states of being that exist in varying degrees, and tend to overlap.

Boaz, almost all of your posts hinge on a simple chain of logic - you argue that extreme Islam will not tolerate secularism, and the textual evidence from their holy book is proof of this, as the fundamental basis of their religion has at its core, an attitude of conversion-or-death.

That about sums it up, right?

Technically, you're not wrong. On paper, this theory is sound. But for all your youtube links and anecdotes hinting at impending danger, the issue is not as simple as the proposition I put forward above. Issues of such magnitude rarely are.

Yes, you may have spent a great deal of time studying the textual foundations of Christianity and Islam. It is evident, you are the kind of individual who places much faith on both these textual foundations.

Here is the core, I think, of our disagreement. Whilst I can accept that there may indeed be much that we consider to be heinous in the Qu'ran, put simply, religious is fluid. What you consider to be fundamental in both religions, is only fundamental in the context of today.

Tomorrow is a different matter. For all the kindness in the new testament, the process by which Christianity rejected the barbarity in the old testament in favour of the more pleasant words of the new, was an evolution in itself.

Cont'd