should the police tip off communitys when they plan a raid

How is the Bible more open to interpretation than the Qur'an? Both are considered to be the word of God. Also, most of the repressive rules within Islam don't come from the Qur'an, they come from the Hadiths, which were written by Muslim leaders in the centuries following Muhammad's death. These were intended to justify their oppressive rule, by making false claims to reference the life of Muhammad. Since they are quite obviously false, there is a large strang within Islam that rejects the Hadiths (which are the pillars of Shariah law) and only follow a liberal interpretation of the Qur'an....

 

not looking at the historical evidence because it might to disagree with your own view of the how the world works ,or what you think other people are like, is worse prejudice.

neville chamberlain and hitler and the whole policy of appeasement was to do with someone who did that .

but I suppose chamberlain had simular arguments to you ,well hitler isnt all bad he makes nice paintings, nazism is a broad movement thinking otherwise is essentialism .

 

And there you go. I thought it'd be you who mentioned Hitler and the Nazis first Jonny....

 

after posting thought damn godwins law I may have broken it

 

This is a flawed line of reasoning. You could justifiably compare Islamic terrorists to Nazis in that analogy, and make the perfectly reasonable statement that you should not appease these terrorists as Chamberlain did with the Nazi party.

But what you are in fact doing is comparing millions of ordinary people to fascists; identifying an entire ethnic and religious group with extremist ideology. You are assuming that all members of this group share exactly the same characeristics as extremists when this is demonstrably not so. This is a dangerous form of prejudice.

 

if you look at a country that kills people who want to leave their religion doesnt allow other religions to be taught. would you consider the people in that country to be extreamists there are lots of islamic majority countrys as of today where this is the law .
they may not be involved in terrorism but Id call the people many many millions of them extreamists .

or take cat stevens he says he doesnt of this moment want to kill salman rushdie but he would like a state that will kill authors like rushdie is he a extreamist .

I think he is and all the other people in the uk who are not at present blowing things up but have as a goal a state that kills people for blasphemy extreamists .

I see things broader than just terrorism in that I dont want a situation that critics of a religion can be killed legally for example.

now there are lots of people Ive talked to them who have no intention of blowing anybody up , but they have as their goal quite a totalitarian state of affairs .

the majority of british muslims would like to see sheria law as a long term goal, something like 40% would like to see it now in majority muslim areas 61% would like it now for disputes between muslims

jihad isnt just killing people thats one part of it there is dawa thats missionary work economic warfare but it all leads to the introduction of sheria.

if you have polls where the majority of muslims now want to get rid of the present democratic govenment of this country you have problems .

 

No I think like in any country such systems are "top down". In the Islamic theocracies you're talking about there are religious authorities, scholars, leaders, these are the ones who determine the laws and standards. The vast majority of ordinary people in those countries accept this system because that's all that's on offer.

At the risk of invoking Godwin's law again, the comparison with 1930s Germany could also apply here.The Nazi party were the extremists, the ordinary folk of Germany foolishly went along with what was going on, turned a blind eye, didn't raise a fuss when they should have done. But was every one of those millions of Germans a Nazi? An extremist? Of course not. They were in the vast majority just normal everyday people.

 

Hmmm ... for some reason never really thought of it that way. I just figured everyone would move out. I would never think of "destroying" it all.

So far though, only seems like the only raid so far has been in Rochford, and that was because people saw 4 hooded guys breaking into a house and coming out with bags full of stuff.
Unfortunately, the theives were never caught; but when the pigs got there, they discovered what the guys had nicked were bags of weed from someones personal grow factory in an unlived in council house.

 

I beg to differ, in the beginning a significant proportion of Germans were Nazi supporters. Don't forget that before they instigated the Third Reich, the Nazis were elected to power. Of course, people may not have voted for them if they had known where it was going to lead, but like many dangerous ideologies, it made seductive promises for the future. And all that was achieved without even invoking the tremendous power to influence that "God's Will" has on believers.

 

Actually no, most Christian sects do recognise the Bible as being filtered through fallible minds of the men that wrote it, years after the events it describes. They have to have some flexibility of interpretation or it's impossible to square conflicting accounts of certain events that are written in different Gospels.

The Qu'ran is supposed to inerrant, having been dictated directly to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel, so there is no such flexibility.

I'd strongly dispute that it's a large number of Muslims who reject the Hadiths, but that's irrelevant anyway. There's enough in the Qu'ran itself - which all Muslims revere - to be concerned.

 

I'd be interested in seeing a source for this. Unfortunately, the UK census data doesn't differentiate between the different sects of Islam. What it does reveal is that the majority of British Muslims are of Pakistani origin. Pakistan's population is overwhelmingly Sunni.

 

Since we're going down that road, This may be of interest

 

Um ... maybe this is true in England and in Europe, but having unfortunately been raised in a protestant church of one kind or another from the time I was a baby until I finally defected (after even attending 1 year in a Christian College) when I was 19 - 20. Most Christians believe that the bible is "god-breathed" meaning that every word that is written is exactly how god intended it. More intelligent and broad-minded Christians believe that over the course of the years through various interpretations of the bible (i.e. the King James Version, New International Version, etc) have created some slight variations, as well as the fact that translating directly from Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic into English leaves a lot of area for mans interpretation as well.

I've been in presbyterian, methodist, free methodist, baptist, southern baptist, american baptist, evangelical, non-denominational, and weslyan churches. I attended a weslyan college (again unfortunately). I also (and this sends a slight chill down my spine) was taught at home and had many encounters with people who were so strict about the bible and what it said that they wouldn't let their daughters wear anything but skirts down to their ankles, and then they had to have on ankle socks so no flesh was revealed. And, well, this idea of "god-breathed" scripture was what everyone pertained to in one fashion or another. Some obviously were WAY more literal than others, just as with any religion where there is a religious text. Like Hasedic (sp?) Jews are more strict about the Torah, and strict Muslims are more inclined to take every word at face value in the Koran.

Extremisms are rarely, if ever, good.

 

The US churches you talk of aren't representative of Christianity worldwide. The Catholic Church and major international protestant denominations generally accept, for instance, that the world was not created in seven days. Instead they regard the book of Genesis as allegorical. Mainstream Islam does not permit such flexibility with the Qu'ran.

 

Yes I quite agree, it was ordinary average people doing what they thought would be best for themselves and their families. It was nothing to do with the extremist ideology itself which was being promulgated by the Nazi party. I'm sure if they had had more insight about what lay ahead many would have acted differently. As it is most ordinary people are just doing what they think is best for their own and couldn't care a fig for the actual concerns of the minority of extremist ideologues.

 

Well in that case you have met a lot more open minded Christian types than I ever have. The ones I met, if you say the world wasn't created in 7 days they would accuse you of blasphemy. And, this has always gone for the devout catholics as well. If you are talking about people that are not devout, as in do not read the Bible constantly, do not attend church at least 1x per week if not more, then you are talking about a different sort of person. A more "enlightened" person. And all the denominations I mentioned are major international protestant denominations, except maybe the variations of baptists like southern baptist and american baptists ... but then again, everyone knows who Billy Graham is, and he's a Southern Baptist minister. Can't get more international than him really. And well, if you told him that the world wasn't created in seven days, he'd defintitely start praying for your lost soul.

 

You are seeing this from a uniquely American perspective. Regarding Catholicism, the Vatican learned their lesson from the Gallieo embarassment and now treats science as a route to better understanding God's creation. In fact, there seems to be quite a debate going on at the moment regarding the exact position to take on evolution, but it's merely about God's role in the process - rejecting the evidence for the age of the Earth isn't even on the table.

Followers of religions can be very ignorant of what their leadership is telling them. Someone I know swears blind her mother was a "devout Catholic", but she worked as a theater nurse assisting during abortions.

Lol, sorry, but while Billy Graham certainly is famous internationally, to regard him as representative of international Christianity really just demonstrates your US-centric view.

 

Well I've only been in England for a year. In case you haven't noticed from recent world events, most Americans, unfortunately do not have access to a broad understanding of what life is like in most other countries.

I do want to point out though, that I was not talking of the Catholic religion at all, but of PROTESTANT Christianity. I also must mention that since about 1998 (and really a few years before then) I have tried to stay as far away from religion as possible, as I see it as a form of societal control.

I would find it interesting to know however, who you think is a representative of international Christianity; and I don't mean Catholisism, but of Protestant Christianity.

I'm certainly not trying to pick a fight ... I never would about religion. But, I do believe still that Christians believe that the Bible is very literal (especially Protestant Christians) ... and this sort of only black or only white mentallity is what causes such extremism. The same sort of extremism that is mirrored in other religions, such as Judaism (controversies in Isreal/Lebanon), and the predominately Muslim countries of the world. To say that ALL Christians feel this way, or ALL Jews are like the extremists in Isreal, or ALL Muslims are card carrying members of the Taliban or Al Quaeda (sp? sorry brain not functioning this early in morning) would be truly ignorant.

However, in my experiences, most that would consider themself devout in their religion, do take the scriptural texts (whether it be Torah, Bible, or Koran) to be the TRUE word of God/Allah, and not subject to interpretation.


---- as a side note, I'm not running any other Internet programs at the time, just this forum, and my virus protection/spyware alerts have just popped up to tell me that a Trojan Horse has been detected ... has anyone else had this problem? -----

 

The Christians that my fellow Phoenix is talking about, unfortunately, are one of the most powerful and influential groups in the world. To dismiss their significance as a threat on par with fundamentalist Islam would be to have a coin with only one side. Ironically, these nutters have more in common with the Islamic nutters than they do with all the rest of us caught in the middle of their wars.


Degenerate, a book I would suggest for you to read would be 'No God But God' by Reza Aslan. The author is an American Iranian, who fled from Khomeini's rise to power. He's a liberal Muslim who rejects the hadiths and demonstrates the gravity of the struggle that exists between radical and liberal Muslims today. He places this conflict on par with Christianity during the reformation. It's a very good read, even for an athiest like myself, and very well researched. Quite the 'Bible' of information....

 

Thank you Phoenix for (shall I say) backing me up a bit on this one. I don't really feel I have only an entirely US-centric viewpoint. Obviously, my main point of experience has been in the US. But, even there, things are REALLY different from State to State. I don't think people realize how many missionaries come from the US and go all over the world to try to spread this sort of fascist-like view of Christianity. Unforutunately, my mother is still one of these very churchy, bible-thumping sorts. She's gotten a bit more open-minded at times, but now she works for a baptist organization and every time I talk to her that is 98% of what she talks about, though she knows that I don't like to discuss religion with her.

I personally am an agnostic myself. But, due to my upbringing, I've seen the damage that this sort of completely right-winged, conservative philosophies can do.

I've known some Muslims that would consider themselves to be devout, but they still take liberties with what the Koran says. For instance, one in particular I knew, he and all his cousins were stealing satelite television. Which obviously would be considered wrong by the standards taught in the Koran. There are people who consider themselves to be devout Christians, but on a Friday night, might engage in swinging with their partner, but come Sunday they are saying all the right things in church. These people, though I believe them to be rather misguided, aren't the sorts to be scared of. It's the ones that stand outside of Abortion clinics, rant and rave at Gay Pride Festivals, and keep their children from getting medical care cause it goes against God. These individuals are really no better than the extremist Muslims or any other extremists for that matter.

They all, in my opinion, are in the same boat, and equal to each other. Muslim men that bomb planes in the name of Allah, are just as nasty and bad as the Christians that bomb abortion clinics and kill the doctors. They are cut from the same cloth, just call their religion by two different names.