Again I must ask,can I say this?
Can I say something I believe totally, may be not.
My first post in this thread asked that we not defame the idea of Multi cultures in our country.
But highlighted a Culture within a religion, that drives poltics and is driven in turn by all three.
Nothing to do but say it and hope, this gigantic problem is being given air because of selective separatism,not enforced by us, but bought with a group.
For every word against this problem such a word comes at us, from people putting us down in our country.
Hide it if you want but this is not multi cultural thing it is one culture.
I wounder why we except the idea if we are nice it will be all right?
weakness only strengthens others.

I believe that runner's views are hypocritical in this matter.

Islamic abuse of women is only objectionable to people who have abandoned the "old" testament, not just bits and pieces like the average hypocritical biblical literalist.

Almost all abuses of women and children are approved in the old testament. Presumably runner is adopting a "relativist" stance to object to muslims, yet desiring that their vote for "creationism" be counted. Aren't they just wrong all over runner? or is it you too?

Runner continues to parody a revolting version of christianity that has illegitimate currency in our society, inexplicably.

I hope he continues to do so, as it will continue to highlight the deep offensiveness of "fundamentalism" and so contribute to the decline of such.

Rusty.

How does 'anti-multiculturalism' and 'racism' mesh?
As a country boy, I've always been struck by the number of rednecks who avow "I've only known one good Abo... he was just like a white man".
In other words, it was not about colour or race; it was about a perceived culture of Aboriginality. All they have to do is act like whitefellas, and the problem's gone.
As an atheist, to me the solution is simple. All immigrants are welcome to bring their culture; just leave their religion at home.
I wonder how that would affect the numbers of boat people?

Hi Grim,

As an atheist, I don't have a problem with people holding religious views. The problem comes when they (Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, whatever) seek to impose those views on other people, and to intrude those views into government policy.

The separation of church and state occurred, more or less, in Europe some four hundred years ago, after hundreds of years of brutal suppression of dissidence, wars, the burning of heretics, and general devastation, something we can't allow ever to happen again.

Shari'a law advocates seem to be aspiring to again blur the distinction between church and state, to bring about a religious state, with the implication that non-believers or those who do not convert must be the servants of the devil, and deserve to be exterminated, in order to impose the will of Allah on the world.

I have no objection to anybody coming to Australia: the more diverse our cultural mix, the better. But as long as everybody, everybody including fundamentalist Christians, as well as fundamentalist Muslims, keeps their religious views out of the political sphere, then we can live together in a democracy which recognises our human equality and our equal rights to participate in the conduct of our common affairs, as equal citizens.

Joe

Belly,
I have to disagree with your last post.

Multiculturalism is an ideology and we do find aspects of quite a few cultures alien to our society.

For example, forced marriages, honour killings, caste system, incest and pediphillia are cultural practices that we do not accept. Then there are numberous culinary tastes that we would not approve of.

While I am sure the European leaders were mainly talking about the effect of Islam on their societies, MC embraces far more than that.

As i said before, we are a multi-racial country but not multicultural. Our culture continues to evolve and we accept certain aspects of various cultures and they become part of our culture. But there is no way we accept all aspects of any other culture.

The concept of MC is that it puts original culture ahead of national loyality. It was imposed upon us and we were told we had no culture and foreign cultures were far more important and we had to accept them. It was an experiment in social engineering.

Rusty

The fact that the Scriptures conflict with your godless values certainly brings out the vitriol evident among many of you fundie atheist. Your dishonest representation of the God of Israel is nothing new.The fact is that fundie secularist have more in common with Islam than Christians. The murder of the unborn in masses alongside the sexualisation of kids is the sole domain of the fundie secularist in the name of rights. Your self righteousness knows no bounds.