29th April 2010
“Radical Islam continues to insinuate itself into British life, getting a free ride on the back of society's anxiety not to treat unfairly innocent Muslims who are just trying to get on with their lives. Polls show young Muslims becoming increasingly reactionary – a development that should alarm us all.”
April 29th, 2010 at 1:25
No need for alarm. Its a positive sign people were gettin a grasp of truth. These will be the cure for all the anxieties that have long succumbed them.
April 29th, 2010 at 2:25
“society’s anxiety not to treat unfairly innocent Muslims”.
That is the most alarming portion of the statement. There are no “innocent Muslims”. They have all been led down the ugly path because of the inequity of their fathers, each having been born an atheist and ruined by their parents lies. Each one of the “reactionary youth” had a chance to live a decent and honorable life, but because they were taught incorrectly that they were not people, but rather were Muslims, they are ruined forever; innocence is lost.
They appear to be blind to education and enlightenment. Note that there is not an advanced civilization comprised primarily of Muslims. That is not to say that there are not individual persons clinging to the Muslim faith that have not made significant intellectual contributions to society. Rather, it IS to say, that when the common Muslim mindset is the driving force behind a society, that society is clearly inferior and uncivilized.
There will be immediate and sharp disagreement with these realities, perhaps even on this board, but those disagreements will be from those who are insane.
DFTT!
BAT
April 29th, 2010 at 5:44
“al-taqiya” is the nasty truth…
April 29th, 2010 at 6:07
If you don’t explicitly oppose religious extremism, you implicitly support it.
April 29th, 2010 at 8:02
‘ordinary muslims trying to get on with their lives’ Yes there are many,however just getting on with life may not be enough if they are hoping that peaceful co-existence continues. The antics of the islamists are a gift to the extreme right.
If moderate,secularist muslims do not start to make their voices heard and begin disowning the extremists and others who demand special treatment and law changes for followers of their religion then there will be no ‘getting on with life ‘ for any section of society.
April 29th, 2010 at 8:32
BAT. Saying “There are no ‘innocent Muslims'” is an incredibly right-wing and scary view of the world. Are you really saying that Muslims living in the west are ‘blind to education’??
I’m certainly no islamic apologist but the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and educated people.
They do oppose religious extremism when asked. Do they make a point of opposing it daily. No, but then neither did the ordinary catholics and protestants in Northern Ireland 20 years ago.
Radical Islam however is an evil thing indeed.
April 29th, 2010 at 8:36
It’s the danger of being tolerent with religion, and keeping it immune from criticism. The vast majority of admittedly moderate theists of all pursuasions provide a safe haven and a breeding ground for extremists. Discredit that and religious violence will disappear.
April 29th, 2010 at 12:40
By saying “The vast majority of admittedly moderate theists of all pursuasions provide a safe haven and a breeding ground for extremists.” I’m assuming you mean that living amongst ‘normal’ people are some people who are capable of terrible acts of violence?
Isn’t that a fact of life? In my small town of ‘normal’ people there is bound to be one or two crackpots capable of murder. That doesn’t mean the rest of us are providing a safe haven for them.
We are in danger of unfairly labelling a lot of people here and thus proving the quote right by angering ‘normal’ young Muslims and provoking them into an action they wouldn’t normally take. I expect you would act the same way if labelled a terrorist simply because of your atheist non-beliefs.
I’m all for criticising religion but we need to keep things in perspective.
April 29th, 2010 at 13:23
PEB.
“They do oppose religious extremism when asked. Do they make a point of opposing it daily.”
Then they really should stand up and be counted – why don’t the moderates root out their own extremists? Instead of sitting silently by, whining about how peaceful they and their religion is. Surely they must outnumber them!
And as for keeping things in perspective – well, look at Islam, maybe that needs a good dose of perspective!
April 29th, 2010 at 14:21
PEB
No what I mean is that moderate religion is respectful of its own beliefs and this makes criticism of more fundemental doctrine difficult. It means that Jihad for example becomes supportable within the community in principle even if the individual acts of terrorism are condemned.
April 29th, 2010 at 14:29
Why don’t the moderates root out their own extremists? – it’s not like these people advertise their views to the general public. “You’ve never guess who’s moved in the down the road…Islamic extremists!”
Do you honestly think if a genuine middle of the road muslim heard someone was about to blow up a bus in London then they would keep quiet about it?!
Islam indeed needs a great big dollop of perspective but one mans religious extremist is another mans terrorist and these terrorists hide behind Islam to justify their acts. The goals behind these terrorists acts are more often than not political and financial.
…..and I’m not defending Islam itself. It’s a medieval collection of fairy stories like all the other ‘true’ religions.
April 29th, 2010 at 14:35
Thats a very interesting point Atheist MC. We would have to ask a moderate Muslim I suppose?
April 29th, 2010 at 14:53
The Muslim people will never have perspective if criticism could mean their death. Sol is always talking about “true believers”. They can segregate out those that they don’t consider “true” without actually criticizing anyone. It is a copout. They are fearful of their own. And well they should be.
I find the entire religion to be savage. I find the catholic religion to be savage also, but they (Catholics) were much more dangerous several hundred years ago. They have been tempered by society to be a bit more civilized. Muslims have not been tempered. And they have a lot more technology available to them, which makes them very dangerous. They also have a wishy-washy, politically-correct bunch of people in the world afraid to call them out on their bull$#it!
April 29th, 2010 at 15:34
“They [Catholics] have been tempered by society to be a bit more civilized.”. I’m not sure the people blown up by IRA bombs would agree with you Heretic.
Completely agree that there are far too many politically-correct people out there (especially politicians) terrified of rocking the religious boat. Religion should never be immune from criticism or mockery.
April 29th, 2010 at 15:58
I wonder why most unbelievers express their fear of the Muslims uprising. Their main interest is only to remove this true religion from the surface of this earth by orchestrating all sorts of schemes just to give a bad image of this religion. The repeated accusations of terrorist actions are actually normal human behavior out of frustration who is repeatedly opressed, robbed of their land and rights, in other words a close to war actions though not fully recognise by moderate Muslims.
April 29th, 2010 at 17:14
I have to agree with BAT regarding muslim controlled countries. Why is it that they almost uniformly: produce little, research almost nothing, approve of a sexist society and do virtually nothing to aid in the improvement of the human race? I’ve been to a handful of muslim controlled countries over the years. In many ways its like stepping back in time several decades. Were it not for crude oil, most, if not all of these countries would still be in the bronze age. Obviously geography plays a large part. Their lands are not very fruitful, but that aside, it’s almost as if muslims disapprove of science and self improvement. The question is why?
April 29th, 2010 at 18:01
The One to fear most in your sinful state is The Lord God Almighty.Muslims are mere human beings.
April 29th, 2010 at 18:37
Did’nt it occur to you all Atheists that your all are bad people.Breaking every Gods rules, condemning God with your words and taking SATAN as your faithful friend.
April 29th, 2010 at 18:50
@ Solomon QUOTE :”The repeated accusations of terrorist actions are actually normal human behavior out of frustration who is repeatedly opressed, robbed of their land and rights, in other words a close to war actions though not fully recognise by moderate Muslims.”
Have you actually read the qu’raan ? How do you think Islam was established? Exactly in the fashion you described above only even more barbaric. Whilst I would love people to stop robbing each others lands and rights etc I think that as long as we have dogmatic religious positions influencing foreign policy then this will be endless.
Moderate Muslim? What is that exactly? Whats moderate about staying silent while your own religous followers are screaming for the death of anyone who doesnt believe in what they do?
Im guessing you are not including yourself in the Moderate Community seeing as you believe killing cartoonists,authors and non-believers is normal human behaviour.
We have fought for centuries to achieve human rights, religious freedom and secular states I’ll be buggered if Im going to sit back and watch another fascist attempt at taking them away.
By the way , Im an ex- muslim , an apostate, which means its every muslms duty to kill me if they find out I no longer believe. You want to respect that? If so you are also a fascist and therefore my enemy.
April 29th, 2010 at 19:29
“Didn’t it occur to you all Atheists that your all are bad people.Breaking every Gods rules, condemning God with your words and taking SATAN as your faithful friend.”
Sol – doesn’t it occur to you that Mohammed was just a deluded fantasist, his Koran a rambling book of fiction? Allah is an unseen, ineffectual entity having no influence in this world because he doesn’t exist!
April 29th, 2010 at 21:37
“If you don’t explicitly oppose religious extremism, you implicitly support it.” – Greg
This is itself quotable and in my view actually better than the official quote because it generalizes to the habit of extremism that is present in ALL faith traditions.
April 29th, 2010 at 21:42
Why is it that religionists are all afraid of their god and want us to be afraid too? Could it be because they’ve read their own ‘holy’ texts and found that their god is actually quite terrifying? Wouldn’t an omni-benevolent god be infinitely above needing to cause terror among his creation? Contradictions like this rule out the possibility of a god as these poor terrified masses describe it.
April 30th, 2010 at 0:07
I wish I knew more about what caused Islamic societies to slip from being at the forefront of literature, science, mathematics and poetry a half millenium ago into fractured, sectarian cultures clinging to the past – and an anti-intellectual, science-fearing past – now.
I think of it as one of history’s great tragedies. Like the losses humanity suffered at the destruction of the library at Alexandria 2000 years ago, equivalent wealth has trickled away from the Middle East through the loss of a desire to truly understand and embrace the world around them.
April 30th, 2010 at 0:41
Michael:
The Dark Ages has had a lasting christian curse to the Human race and now a liked dark times are muslim induced and desired. The answer to your inquiry may be as simple as “it’s just religion”; as I believe religion tends to close the mind to progress and follows alone preciously with much of what you say above. The sides of the box that religious people crawl into are dark and steep and the preachers need to keep it so.
April 30th, 2010 at 1:32
Islam and Christianity took different historical paths to their Dark Ages. Christianity went from a small, beleaguered cult to a powerful religious institution that kept most of Europe enthralled for well over a thousand years. Europe only started to break away from its Christian oppression – physical and mental – when strong-willed, intelligent people insisted on thinking for themselves in the Renaissance. There was never really a beneficial, Christian-centric age.
But only four or five hundred years after Islam’s founding, some Islamic societies embraced science, art and multiculturalism for a few centuries. (There was much blooshed and sectarian xenophobia and hatred then, too, but it was tempered at least a little bit by many Arabic thinkers.) But then it just slid away, and now many aspects of Islam have embraced a new Dark Age. There are many Muslims who are drawn to the sense of poetry that is prevalent in much Islam, but they also cling to the past, and they cherry pick their own philosophies.
Of course, I really just need to find a couple of good histories of the Middle East, and then it won’t seem like such a mystery to me.
April 30th, 2010 at 2:09
Dear Gerard,
Whats wrong in having a religious foreign policy if its the question of humans interests or survival? Its of crucial importance. You are just trying to destroy that. You may have read the Qoran, but you may have read it with your butt, thats why you are so skeptic to it, shutting you from seeing its glory.
By being moderate one may not easily or impatiently jump into any wrong conclusions. Every cases of accused terrorism action is being watched closely, weighted whether the actions are justs. Condemning terrorism is not much of an issue to the religion haters.The actual reason why haters of religions is so busy campaigning to these terrorism stuffs is:
They love to see confrontation between Muslims, divided into many factions with different idiologies. In this way one becomes weak.
If you say killing cartoonists,authors and non-believers is normal human behaviour, then how many cartoonists or authors have been executed lately or up to date?
An apostate is equivalent to a traitor. Do you know what usually happened to traitors? They are “disposed”. That is a justs sentence to it. Apostates are hypocrates that is a cancer to society. They are not trustworthy at all.
April 30th, 2010 at 7:57
{Sol – doesn’t it occur to you that Mohammed was just a deluded fantasist, his Koran a rambling book of fiction? Allah is an unseen, ineffectual entity having no influence in this world because he doesn’t exist!}
Ahhh…..! Just a statement or rumble…without substance and not at all true. A fantasist does not recite revelations of history, philosophy,mystique,science,astronomy,politics & so forth. If God doesn’t exist, who gave life & who runs the universe with precise systems?