Pericles said:

"It is not an attempt to take over the world, it is just a number of disaffected youths goaded by a smaller number of more intelligent rabble-rousers"

My goodness.. a team of doctors is 'disaffected youth'?

Thanx for making my case.

FH. next week... errr *ducks for cover* :) Tell me a date, and location, in fact..the best thing to do is provide the phone number of a go-between.. someone who can contact you..and I'll ring them and try to work something out. Yes..I'd love to meet you. Me armed ? :) hilarious.. I AM... a weapon mate *grin*...should I wear my 'ninja' mask ? :) Ok.. joking aside... yes.. I might be able to squeeze in a coffee... it would mean 3 hours out of my day from where I am.So.. YES.. you WILL be buying old son :) and I'd expect some cheesecake also..... look out for the dude waddling along with his turbo charged 'walker' thingy...

you can write to me if you like on newlifeinhim777@yahoo.com.au
and we can arrange the venue and time if poss... the best for me is close to flinders street station. Like Maccas in Swanston st.
blessings
BD

Most Australians are indifferent to political agendas, as long as they are not being personally threatened. Creating fear is a way of gaining a following based on some legitimate or some illigitimate agenda.

For instance the Greens have found a winner, they believe, by creating fear over global warming, if factual, will threaten everyone. However the sublimated communist socialist asgenda combined with an overt threat to environment associated with climate warming is a tool for creating fear to indifferent citizens. Ask, is it working? We in Sydney I hear have just experienced the coldest July since records were kept.

Public Schools and Universities teach global warming as fact created by overpopulation and human abuse of environment to the young generation and they believe it because they fear for their future.

When university lecturers and school teachers belong to left wing political agendas and run as Green's Candidates can we not see them as possibly subverting our way of life and continuing prosperity. Much of our current wealth has come from projects the socialists Greens see as damaging to a sustainable environment.

One major natural event like a volcanic eruption can pour more toxic chemicals into the atmosphere than for what we can compensate. Global warming may be a fact created by sun activity for which we have no controll.

There are agressive political agendas seeking to subvert and overthrow our free way of life. The Greens can accomodate Muslim Candidates as they did in several electorates in the recent 2007 NSW Elections because they wish to change our culture. Some fears seem legitimate and are a diversion from the real but hidden social agenda. Some try to divert raised public fears of an exposed threat because they do not believe a threat exists, others because they believe in the goals of those posing the underlying threat.

This is all you could come up with Boaz, after I wrote two pieces 'specially for you?

>>My goodness.. a team of doctors is 'disaffected youth'? Thanx for making my case<<

If you were to make a list of all Islamic suicide bombers, you would find that the vast majority of them are "disaffected youth". Just as one swallow does not make a summer, and the exception proves the rule, your observation on the doctors hardly makes your case, now does it?

Your case is, and always has been, that it is the teachings of Islam that force them into violence. The simple fact that they are Muslim is enough, in your view, to condemn them, and their only possible salvation, you believe, is to join your religion instead.

However, as the article on "Internet Jihad" in this week's Economist explains:

"Jihadists, Mr Ulph [senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation] says, are fighting less a war against the West than “a civil war for the minds of Muslim youth”. In this process of radicalisation, “the mujahideen attract the uncommitted armchair sympathiser, detach him from his social and intellectual environment, undermine his self-image as an observant Muslim, introduce what they claim is ‘real Islam', re-script history in terms of a perennial conflict, centralise jihad as his Islamic identity, train him not only militarily but also socially and psychologically.”" http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9472498

The key phrase here is the need to "detach him from his social and intellectual environment, undermine his self-image as an observant Muslim" in order to radicalize. If it were the religion alone that creates terrorists, there would be no need for additional radicalization, would there?

While there are a few nutters around who use the whole Islam vs Christianity thing to preach world domination, they still form a tiny proportion of their population. Unfortunately, they have been very successful in producing fear-based reactions in some folk, which feeds their ability to recruit, and turn, more youngsters. Look, they say, the depraved and decadent Christians revile us... and so it goes, round and round.

Hi Pericles, sorry mate.. I have been pressed for time this past day or 2, I'll look more closely at what you wrote tonight.

I appreciate your exploring this issue, and your last post definitely has some important points.

"Your case is, and always has been, that it is the teachings of Islam that force them into violence"

Let me just address that point first. I would not quite say 'force' them... I'd say 'pre-dispose them' and your subsequent quote about 'detaching them from their social and intellectual environment' was an excellent point. Surely you don't disagree with that do you ?

Using just the UK as an example. The London bombers who were successful were home grown and well educated in some cases. Now we have doctors having a dabble in jihad. This supports the idea of the faith being used to provide the spiritual launch pad for these activities.

Islam as a faith, has many dimensions. Not all are violent or anti social. The problem is, it has sufficient momentum on the violent 'defend the faith and honour of the prophet' to make it very easy to use in conjunction with Al Qaeda or Islamist propoganda videos in acheiving that social and intellectual discocation crucial to successful Jihad.

Pericles.. I had a read :) ur hilarious.. able to convey such wit ..

finger...follow the finger.. E n g l a n d :) fourth estate.. etc. Verrry entertaining stuff.

I disagree with the 'irrational fear' bit though (about JSP)

Nevertheless we would be lost without your barbs. Keep it up.

JSP.. your input is valued also mate.

It's good to see a softening of your attitude on this Boaz. It would be uncharitable of me to say "and about time too", so I won't.

>>[Your case is, and always has been, that it is the teachings of Islam that force them into violence]
Let me just address that point first. I would not quite say 'force' them... I'd say 'pre-dispose them' and your subsequent quote about 'detaching them from their social and intellectual environment' was an excellent point. Surely you don't disagree with that do you ?<<

If you are happy to concede that it is not Islam itself that creates the problem, but instead it is people using Islam as an excuse to incite violence, that's a good start. It places their activity on the same level as the Crusades, for example, or the IRA.

In order to get the troops to traipse across Europe to battle in the Holy Land, as they knew it, they were told that right was on the side of the Christian, and they were therefore allowed to create mayhem. Pope Urban II summed it up in 1095:

"It is indeed the will of God; and let this memorable word, the inspiration surely of the Holy Spirit, be for ever adopted as your cry of battle, to animate the devotion and courage of the champions of Christ. His cross is the symbol of your salvation; wear it, a red, a bloody cross, as an external mark, on your breasts or shoulders, as a pledge of your sacred and irrevocable engagement."

The IRA simply used the difference between Protestant and Catholic to incite their troops to bomb innocent civilians. Again, they probably used more subtle versions of "detaching [their footsoldiers] from their social and intellectual environment" to convince them that their religion supported their actions.

If you were to start modifying your tendencies to take every opportunity to denigrate Islam, and instead used every opportunity to rage against terrorists of every stripe and tendency, we might make even more progress.