A great post David.
I think you've hit on a major divide.

Any one-eyed glorification that may have existed in the west for the likes of the crusades has long ago been purged from mainstream thinking. Its now become almost customary to wear sackcloth & ashes when talking of the west’s role in the crusades But we hear next to nothing about the crimes of the other side, either from western ‘academics” or from
non-western ‘academics’.Typically western academic texts will list a long litany of charges again the crusaders ( & more often than not tie it all to the woes of the modern world) but pass nary a comment on the wrongs of the other side.

This has enabled some, who trace their heritage from other than Christian roots, to take a lofty holier-than-thou stance . One gets the distinct impression when reading some of these peoples posts on OLO, that their own past was a golden age of tolerance & progressive governance.( a variation on the noble savage theme). And I’d suggest, it is also a major reason some high profile non-western ‘extremists’ are able declare with a high degree of local credibility that it is all black & white & God & justice are on their side.

If we want to break grip of extremism we have to move beyond Mickey Mouse caricatures

Keep posting David - we need to hear more from people like youself who have had experience(s) outside our nice, little,
liberal western cocoon(s).

pericles, this site is pretty useless unless you keep the entertainment value in mind.

boaz is pathetic, as a rational being, but he's amusing and from here- seems to be human, and entitled to speak his mind.

when you cut off discussion because you don't like what the speaker says, you condemn yourself to only getting good news. remember what happened to xerxes.

Dear Pericles, I can not do better than point to the posts of Horus (pro) and Demos (con)

Clearly you are out of step with things. You speak for yourself when you lay condemnation on me.

I don't mind disagreement. Onya Demos, go4it mate.

But Bugsy.. you showed a flaw in understanding there. The only reason I pointed to the darkness of souther Italians was to underline a historical reality. It has nothing to do with any value judgement on particular genes. Enuf said on that.

Thanx heaps Horus. The truth commends you :)

Pericles.. back to you. Since when did you adopt Sharia law for yourself and seek to impose it on me ? Criticism of Islam and National Socialism and Communism and the Ananda Marga etc etc etc are legitimate social exercises.

POSSIBLE PUBLIC ACTION. I'm considering the following:

A small team at Preston Mosque with a sign:

"Muslims don't believe Christ is Son of God, MAY GOD DESTROY THEM, they are deluded, away from the truth"

Naturally, Current Affair would be alerted, and the event would be video taped (by team members)

This would be a political act, with the specific aim of throwing out the 'Racial and Religious (in)Tolerance Act 2001' and is thus exempt from any infringement of Anti Terrorism hate laws.

The purpose would be to highlight the inherrent vilification and anti semitism in Islamic Scriptures against Jews and Christians, and the danger of such a value system growing in Australia.

Anyone wish to join ? Basic qualification "BALLS OF STEEL"
Naturally, there will be many suggestions of 'other' kinds of qualifications

Now don't misunderstand me here, I'm absolutely in favour of free speech, in all its many forms.

I am particularly in favour of Boaz sounding off about his pet religious theories, just as I am in favour of being able to take him to task about them. In fact, having Boaz around is an important part of taking the temperature of one-eyed anti-Islam fanatics.

While on the subject, I certainly don't believe that Boaz is the most sinister manifestation of the hate industry, merely its willing mouthpiece, presenting a naive and simplistic view of "us and them".

My point is that having one place to go to keep up with his "discussion" on Christianity vs. its nemesis, Islam, is both useful and convenient.

Useful, in that we can keep pace with the extent of its impact on the less thoughtful members of the community. My grandfather was a typical working class battler in the thirties when he came under the spell of Oswald Mosley. Grandad was a classic example of your "average man", so it is always important to keep an eye on the traction these neo-fascistic rantings are achieving with the population at large.

It is also convenient. It is very annoying to have a perfectly amiable and constructive discussion suddenly interrupted by a Boaz interjection, on the one hand quoting the Bible with gleeful approval, and on the other quoting the Qur'an with undisguised disgust.

His excitement over the Bible quotes is particularly cringemaking, almost as if he had written the words himself.

(OT: It occurs to me that the Bible could well have been written by a long succession of Boazes. Imaginatively building a universe that mirrored their own tortured loneliness and feelings of inadequacy. But that's material for a whole new thread)

So let's ask him i) to keep on writing, as much and as consistently as he has in the past - or even more so, if he wishes - but ii) to confine his offerings to the thread that he has created for himself.

I'll certainly pop in from time to time.

Pericles, your way with words is not diminished by exercise. Good.... I always learn something, but what I honestly don't understand is your reference to the 'hate' industry in connection with my anti Islam posts.

Let me see if I understand you.

1/ Islam is based on documents which specifically name Christians and Jews as "to be destroyed,deluded,at war with Allah".
2/ It does so on the grounds of their beliefs.
3/ I am highlighting this hate, this 'mein kampf'...this outright genocidal tone in Islamic writings. Recorded both in the Quran and in the Hadith, one being the 'Sent down word of Allah' and the other, the 'oral tradition of sayings of the prophet'.
4/ By highlighting the points mentioned in 1&2 above, I am 'hateful'....

Is that where you are coming from ? Perhaps the difference between us is that 'I' am a specifically mentioned target of 'mein kampf/Quran' and you think you are not. Your spiritual status places you at more risk than me in Islam.

So... let me re-iterate so it is unmistakably clear.

1/ I and all my kind are hated (Literally) by Islam.
2/ Documentary evidence and practical example abound to support this assertion.
3/ Mentioning this as a social and political danger means.. "I am hateful"...

Now..have I accurately captured your position?

Your position is the opposite conclusion from what a rational person would reach based on the facts as they stand.

To demonstrate exactly how silly, irrational and untenable your apparent position is, I can simply change it from "Islam" to National Socialism, and call myself a Jew, and you would look at my 'anti Nazi' commentaries as 'hateful against Nazis'.

You should re-think what you say, because people are reading this stuff, and I don't think you want to come across as an irrational, muddle headed dill who uses lots of big words but lacks basic powers of reason and deduction.

If I was ranting against Nazism would you hold the same view of me?

Would I be a "Luminary of social responsibility" or.. "a hateful bigot"?

This has been the main reason why I keep responding to you Boaz, despite the fact that I find myself saying the same things over and over.

>>what I honestly don't understand is your reference to the 'hate' industry in connection with my anti Islam posts<<

I can well believe that you don't understand it. You have shown absolutely no glimmer of understanding, ever since we started these "conversations".

In fact, I doubt very much whether you ever will understand it.

It is disturbing to speculate why, but if I were to hazard an unprofessional guess, it would be directly related to your attitude towards Christianity.

From the evidence gained from your posts, it appears that you have little tolerance for others who profess to be Christians. You lump them all - Crusaders, Popes, tele-evangelists, even recently the entire Roman Catholic faith, I notice - into a basket that says "nice try, but you fall short of my criteria"

You have even less tolerance for faiths that are not your own. Scratch that. You have less than zero tolerance, you have active antipathy. And the evidence you present for this antipathy is only comprehensible to fellow-travellers, not to the world at large.

So you must accept (I realize that understanding is beyond your capacity) that to a non-Christian such as myself, your invocation of various selected translations of various selected ancient texts to support your antipathy is not logical, merely provocative.

And when your provocation appears to be out of hand, I occasionally point out to you the impact of what you are saying.

Because to me, this is what counts towards the "incitement to hatred" index, and why I keep invoking the shade of my long-departed grandfather.

You may believe you have the purest of motives for your invective against Islam. But the end-result is stirring up hatred in other people, less able than yourself to see the deeply Christian nature of your position.

Quoting religious texts is the medium. The message is "hate these people".