Paul, that's the point that many don't get, or want to get, that when hate speech becomes 'acceptable', because 'free speech' more and more of these incidents happen, because there will always be stupid people who will act out on other people's hatred.

Bazz, As to condemning despicable acts, have you heard condemnation from the leadership of what has, and is still happening, in the various churches, Jewish colleges, Salvation Army etc.? No, there is none. There is no removal of the leadership. In spite of this, these organizations still seem to be able to recruit new members, who are apparently quite OK with what the leadership and some members of their religions are doing. You do not seem to expect a mass exodus of members. I did.

I saw the Manny Waks documentary. His parents, his mother and father!, where shunned by their community, because Manny Waks spoke out. Here in Australia. They have now left Australia. This in spite of perpetrators being found guilty and now in jail vindicating Manny Waks and other victims accusations. Unbelievable.

Can't even find a link of world wide vocal criticism and condemnation by any of the leadership of Western Christian Churches, in spite of all the evidence. And they would have no problem whatsoever getting airtime or newspaper time in a local rag like the Australian.

It's slavish cult like following that's dangerous. What we need to know is why would anybody want to be part of a cult. Which ever one that is.

Rechtub is right in seeing the problem. He is wrong in his conclusion. As much as I would like a world free of religion, it is not going to happen any time soon. Only in some parts of Western Europe is religion disappearing, where basically life is safe and good and people are empowered to make choices.

Yvonne, "Paul, that's the point that many don't get, or want to get, that when hate speech becomes 'acceptable', because 'free speech' more and more of these incidents happen.."

That is not true. You have it @rse up as they say.

In fact it was the freedom of speech that was very hard won in the Sixties to get rid of the strong censorship that applied in the Fifties and before, that enabled and facilitated the human rights movement and specifically black rights.

The fight against censorship went hand in hand with the quest for more enlightened, tolerant attitudes to human behaviour.

Censorship is an abomination and political correctness is a scourge.

I agree with what you are saying yvonne. Wonder if you saw the Frontline documentary "Secrets of the Vatican" about fortnite ago on SBS? Most disturbing to hear the story of the woman raped as a child and, while bleeding, was told by paedophile rapist as he buckled his trousers "This is YOUR fault. YOU must do penance. If you speak of this to anyone your parents will burn in hell for eternity."

While it is very difficult and traumatic for victims to speak up (and so brave of them) there is a tacit acceptance by the sheep when they do/say nothing about the knowledge of these vile crimes. As one interviewee said, "There is a single method of dealing with complaints. Its called intimidation. Intimidation is the only plan."

Those who ascribe to theses cults and their crimes are guilty.

Further - and in the vien of this thread, on Q&A last Monday, the Canadian theologist vetoed the female MP's assertion that Islam "is a peaceful religion." He said, "It is not a peaceful religion," adding that you are either a follower of islam or you are to be wiped out, there is no moderation of the koran.

rehctub,

"Poirot, I'm not identifying people by their religion, I'm identifying that while ever this religion exists, there will always be terrorists who also feed from it, simply because even their own leaders can't find a way to stop these types from drawing their violence from within the religion."

I'm actually being pedantic...and if your refer to people as "Muslims"..then you are identifying them by their religion...and you did it again in your last post.

I'm not picking at that. We all refer to people by their religion if we wish to make a point about a certain religion. Just as if we refer to people as Christian or Jewish, then we identify them by their religion.

My point was that "religion" is not a thing in itself. It has no meaning or impact if it is not followed and practiced by people.

It's a "belief" system.

To say Muslims (or Christians or Jews, for example) "aren't" the problem...but their religion "is" doesn't make sense.

The thing you don't like about Muslims is their religion - you think that's the problem. But Muslims are the very embodiment of Islam. So how can you make sense of the statement "Muslims are not the problem, it's the religion they follow that's the problem...."?

If you believe Islam is the problem - then Muslims must be too. You can't separate those who practice the religion from the religion itself.

I read an interesting article by Virginia Trioli,
in this week's "The Weekly Review," 13th August, 2014,
page 3:

"Turns out we don't have the right to be bigots
after all. The Federal Government has abandoned
its crusade to repeal Section 18C of the Racial
Discrimintation Act. Columnists who want to offend
someone about their race will now have to make sure
they get their facts straight, and there's no
legislation to make sure they do that."

"Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act makes it
unlawful for someone to do an act that is reasonably
likely to "offend, insult, humiliate, or intimidate"
someone because of their race or ethnicity."

"The question that those arguing for its repeal never
managed to answer was what did they want to be able to
say that they couldn't say now?"

"In other words - what problem would the repeal fix?"

The worries of those who saw a greater problem with
unstitching the legilsation were clear: if everyone had
the righ to be a bigot, just imagine what would be said
and written when bigots declared open season. But the
advantage created by removing the sanctions was never made
clear. The rhetoric was always powerful - dangerous
restrictions on free speech, trampled liberties, et cetera -
but the solid examples were scarce.

As Trioli tells us: - "The morning after the decision to
abandon the repeal was announced the man at the centre of the
legislative row, Andrew Bolt, could still only come up
with two examples of "banned" speech for his comment
piece that day, and they were the columns that got him into
trouble in the first place - columns described by
Justice Bromberg in his 2011 finding against Bolt for
breaching the Racial Discrimination Act as containing "errors
of fact, distortions of the truth and inflammatory and
provocative language."

While Section 18C makes it an offense to offend, insult,
et cetera, the bit straight after it. Section 18D, gives
us all a way out: this is the guarantee protecting
freedom of speech.

TBC...

Poirot I think I get a point that makes some sense to me in that.

My take on it, people are generally people, most good or at least no threat, some bad. The behaviours of groups in different parts of the world and at different times are not all roughly the same though. They are impacted by cultural, political and religious values that impact on that group sometimes in extreme ways.

Think of the nations and cultures that have gone to extremism for a period and the fact that those nations and cultures were mostly comprised of normal people linked by some dangerous common denominator. Those within the group who have not shared the extremism have mostly either gone along with it or died for a stand against it. At the risk of invoking Godwin's law Germany is not a bad place to start for that reflection, nothing wrong with most of the people but a combination of factors and great evil was done by a nation who generally have been a great people.

Islam as a religion provides a focus for a group identity that is hateful to those outside the group. It appears to justify and when combined with other pressures encourage thinking and actions that constitute a threat to those not of the right brand of that faith.

Without the religion (and I don't think that we can take it away) the people would probably be a normal human spread of humanity. The point of concern is that the religion in it's present form appears to be a common factor for great extremism in it's followers. That's helped along by agitation from various groups both nominal friend and foe of the faith.

R0bert