Slavery was carried on by Muslims long before white Christians tried it for a very short time in the scheme of things. It was Britain that stopped the slave trade in the West. Muslims are still involved in slavery to this very day.

Runner notes that “current regressives really think they are morally superior to the slave traders”. He is far too kind. The people who he is referring to are totally without morals of any kind. The believe in nothing, and stand for nothing except their own pathetic egos. They don't even match up to Muslims, who have beliefs and stand for something, even if that something is wrong.

It was Christian morals that saw slavery abolished not atheistic 'humanism', which just sits back, sneering at anyone who has everything they lack. They are empty vessels, not worthy of any attention whatsoever.

Hi Ttbn,

Any day now, I expect a group of Buzu slaves from Mauretania being interviewed on TV and explaining to ignorant people like me and you that Islam is the most freedom-loving religion in the world. When one is a slave, after all, your master ensures your well-being, health and general happiness. Slavery offers security in a very insecure world. Slave children are often allowed to go to school, in preparation for the life ahead when they take their parents' place. Slave-owners regularly check their slaves for disease and malnutrition, and go to great lengths to ensure that slaves stay alive, something rare in the heartless world of Western 'morals', capitalism and colonialism.

Perhaps there should be a regular weekly TV show: slaves this week, 14-yr-old girls just married, next week, women about to be stoned for their evil transgressions like getting raped or being accused of looking at a bloke, the week after, and how they can fully understand that Islam is the most merciful religion in the world; and then a double-length program about how homosexuals are 'cautioned' about their behaviour, being repeatedly but lovingly dropped from a height of fifty centimetres or less, on to a feather bed.

Perhaps the ABC or SBS could run regular weekly question-and-answer-type programs, copying Islam-On-Line: can women become martyrs; should women be accompanied by a male when they are out the back hanging out the clothes; can a teenage boy 'chastise' his mother with a feather or piece of tissue paper; why women can't drive; why Allah (-*-*) would be disgusted to touch a woman; are there any women in Paradise besides each man's 72 virgins; how women are unfit for advanced education, how Islam is the most congenial religion for women, and so on. It would be gripping TV !

Joe

ttbn,

They may have been morals that Christians had, but that were not Christian morals exclusively.

<<It was Christian morals that saw slavery abolished not atheistic 'humanism', which just sits back, sneering at anyone who has everything they lack.>>

Which kind of knocks the wind right out of your argument.

Since when had you found God, anyway? Congratulations, by the way. Where was he hiding?

Incidentally, if you remove the bad bits of Christianity, and the god-claim, you’re left with Humanism. So, please, tell us all what’s so bad about humanism.

You can’t, can you?

Having just returned from the Easter Vigil at my local Christian church and having listened to some very uplifting words, I am convinced, more than ever, that those of us who believe in life after death will never be disappointed.

Sorry Is Mise,

I wish I had that consolation, but sadly no: what you get is all there is, you play with the cards that you're dealt. So many years, and that's it. I dream of making some deal with a god to let my dear wife come back, say once a year, for a day, or an hour, or even just a minute, but it isn't going to happen, I know that. As well as her, I've known some wonderful people, who I would love to be with forever, but no.

There is so much beauty in the world, and so much pain. You do what you can to admire and rejoice in the one, and to minimise the other. So much beautiful literature and music, so many brilliant and hard-fought ideas, so much human ingenuity and sacrifice and courage, and you know its creators are only on this earth for a short time, fifty, sixty, eighty years, they make their contribution and then they're gone, never to be forgotten, I hope. Unsung heroes and heroines, like my wonderful mother-in-law and her dad, a veteran of the Western Front. Battlers who never complained, at least not enough. Yes, there is an enormous amount of evil in the world, but so much goodness in so many people.

And I know their time comes to an end, just as mine will. That's life, comparatively short and definitely finite. You do what you can, then you exit, left or right.

Best wishes,

Joe

Blessing, Is Mise and Joe,

You are both correct.

As Is Mise said, those of us who believe in life after death and conduct themselves well as a result, with love and charity, will never be disappointed.

And those things which Joe mentioned will indeed all come to an end, then, as Joe said, you exit.

Yet you, the one who has exited is liable to re-enter. You did it once, then why not again?

However, life after death is not a picnic. Rather than wishing for it, one should better strive to end their attachment to life so we do not have to come back again and again and then suffer and lose our dear ones again and again.