Sharia Law

In America we would never vote for Sharia Law once it was understood that porn would be outlawed. We love our porn and will never give it up. The only way I could see it happening is if we are all so busy watching porn, that we don't pay attention to the take-over.

 

What has to be remembered is that the present rise in Radical Islam is in no small way the result of western (especially US) interference in the Middle Eastern region.

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After the First World War there was a rise in secular ideas in the Middle East that was reformist, progressive, liberal and very often left wing.

The problem was that after WWII the US increasingly saw anything ‘reformist, progressive, liberal and left wing’ as ‘communist’ or the gateway to ‘communism’

They moved to undermine such movements which advantaged the more conservative and religious elements.

For example in Iran there was the left leaning democratic government of Mohammed Mossadegh which was overthrown by an Anglo-American coup that put in power the Shah. Many argue that it was the purge of left wing elements under the Shah - fully encouraged and assisted by the US - that allowed the mad mullahs to so easily get control in Iran after the popular revolution because secularists who had been mainly left wingers were diminished and weak.

A similar thing happened in Afghanistan; if you see pictures or film of urban Afghanistan in the 1970’s you can see young people that don’t look that different from young people in London or New York around the same time. Women could openly walk in the streets in dresses talking freely with men, and people went out to bars and discos were they danced to western music. They were the product of reforms that had begun in the 1920’s.

The political conflict was between educated left leaning reformists and often less well educated rural religious conservatives.
When socialists came to power after the authoritarian rule of Mohammad Daud, the US began supporting the conservative religious groups. This escalated as the situation progressed, and when the Soviets became more involved US anti-communism become aroused and with the aggressive form of that policy that came about with Reagan the situation went out of control.

But warfare in Afghanistan continued even after the soviets had been driven out, as warlords fought for power then fought against the Taliban (who rose to power because of dislike of the corrupt and brutal warlords). Kabul was reduce to rubble - the urban, educated, western looking progressives had either fled or been killed. Women didn’t go out and if they did they wore the burka, talking to a man who was not a close family member could bring about a beating, bars were closed and music banned.

Things might have been very different if western governments and especially the US had supported the moderate left, like the Parchamis back in the 1970’s, anyway we’ll never know. What we do know is that Soviet support of the socialists and US support of the conservative religious groups brought about the situation, that continues today.

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We then get to the influence of Saudi Arabia and the promotion of hard-line Wahhabism. The spread of Wahhabism was another product of the Afghan war not only did many hardliners go off to fight the soviets in Afghanistan (like Osama bin laden) but wealthy Saudi Wahhabist’s financed many schools in the region that promoted the doctrine and some of them became even more radical and hard-line. This was known by the US but since the people coming out of these schools were very anti-communist they gave the policy there tacit support.

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Oh and don’t get me started on the fuck up that was the occupation of Iraq…

 

Nerd

You use two propaganda sources to back up your claims, one a hate blog and the other from the Christian Broadcasting Network that was set up by that well known conspiracy theorist and Christian nut job Pat Robinson.

Classy

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The birth-rates argument is a common scare story of racists bigots and social Darwinists – black people have more children than us whites, Catholic’s have more children than us Protestants, the poor have more children than us middle class people and so on and so on.

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As to the video it’s a joke

First up the Christian People’s Alliance leader has said that there is probably a link between the passing of gay marriage legislation and some storms that happened around that time saying "A lot of Christians believe that God is angry over gay marriage and God can actually show that anger,"

Second – Anjem Choudary has little support from British Muslims and been called a bigot who just wants to provoke hatred by other Muslims.

[SIZE=11pt]Third - here is - The random Muslim scare story generator: separating fact from fiction [/SIZE]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/12/muslim-scare-stories-media-halal-sharia-niqab

[SIZE=11pt]This is the bit on Sharia Courts – There have been two recent flare-ups of the sharia courts and "parallel Islamic law" scare story. In 2011, a bill was tabled in parliament to address concerns over sharia arbitration, and in early 2014 solicitors were allowed to draw up sharia-compliant wills, leading the Sunday Telegraph to pronounce that "Islamic law is adopted by British legal chiefs".[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Since 2009, there have been sharia court investigations by the Independent, the Telegraph and the BBC. The political momentum against these courts is primarily from Baroness Cox, a crossbench member of the House of Lords and self-proclaimed "voice of the voiceless" Muslim women, who she claims are being victimised.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Of all the Muslim threats, this seems the most potent. It actually has "sharia" in the name. UK law has some scope to acknowledge the customary or religious laws of both Jews and Muslims. But going by the coverage, it would seem it is only Muslims that have both demanded and been granted exception. On closer inspection, it is clear sharia courts only have jurisdiction on civil matters and everyone must opt in to a sharia court. They only have an advisory capacity and address mainly property and financial matters, and rulings are then only enforceable by civil courts. In many cases, they are understaffed affairs, where one official settles petty disputes and draws up rudimentary documents.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]The creeping sharia courts' "astonishing spread" was first reported by the Daily Mail in 2009. At the time, there were reportedly "no fewer than 85". In the most recent Daily Mail report on the issue in 2014, the number was, despite the warning about the pace of change whereby Islamic law was cannibalising British secular law, still "no fewer than 85".[/SIZE]

Fourth similar Jewish courts are in daily use in Britain, and have been for centuries.

 

Blake

I’ve always being opposed to ‘faith’ schools of any kind and have ranted about it a few times here. If people want to teach their kids at home or in ‘Sunday school’ about big sky gods or fairies then fine - but - there should be no association of religion with education beyond being taught comparative religion in a purely academic way by a sarcastic atheist.

Calm…calm….no no I’m OK….

Anyway that is my personal point of view.

And two are biblical (old and new)

But yes we do seem to love our French and German overlords.

 

Balbus,

You dismiss the well established procreation data as unimportant because it's just a scare tactic? Is that right?

Simple minded people will agree with micro evolution and dismiss macro evolution because they're incapable of extrapolating the results over large swaths of time.

We agree that Christians are dogma filled idiots I presume? Do we also agree there are small groups in Europe trying to enforce Sharia Law?

My main question is, if (really when) Muslims are the majority, do you think their goals and demands remain so limited? Their religious texts demand certain doctrines be followed. While keeping in view that mindless bigotry does exist, can we rationally discuss the logical consequences of these trends? What do you think happens if Muslims make up 70% of the electorate?

 

Nerd

And yet more scaremongering – to quote again

The focus far outstrips the size and political activity of the minority, which number 2.7 million (less than 5% of the population), not all of whom are practising Muslims. The Islamic scare story plays to a nexus of easy media sensationalism, a portion of the public primed and ready to believe the worst, and an interested rightwing element for whom it is a convenient vehicle for their anti-immigration views, xenophobia, or just Islamophobia.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/12/muslim-scare-stories-media-halal-sharia-niqab

 

did you watch the videos?
As Harris points out, the difference is what the actual source material for the religion teaches.
Christianity does not formally teach violence and oppression as a means to spread the religion.
Certainly practitioners of Christianity have used it to justify their violent and oppressive domination of other peoples, but that is a perversion of the teaching.

That is what is at issue here, Islam teaches violence as viable if not primary means of propagating the religion.

if you look at the three Abrahamic religions , Judaism, Islam and Christianity, of the three Christianity is the only one that specifically teaches against violence, but rather peace and charitable acts and non-violence as a primary means of propagating the religion.

Judaism has a history of violence, but upon careful examination you find it was violence in the same fashion as all cultures of the time, most of it was attempts at increasing their borders or defending them.
Granted in their retelling of it, successful land grabs were because God was happy and provides some justification for the violence, or if unsuccessful, God was unhappy and its' a spanking. Either way, while utilizing God as a justification for success or failure, Judaism really didn't teach propagating the religion via violence and oppression. They would suppress opposing religions for political reasons mainly, but didn't "force" others to accept their beliefs or die and were much more tolerant in comparison to Islam.

Islam is the only one of the three that specifically teaches and instructs in the source material that violence and oppression are viable means for propagating the religion, and that there need be no other justification for the violence other than what the person believes. As Sam points out, the scariest aspect is that a martyr is guaranteed paradise. Think of all the Muslims assholes who have spent most of their lives breaking every commandment in the book and then as a last option to get into paradise all they have to do is go out in a blaze of glory taking a few infidels with them.
Talk about your death bed conversions...LOL
I just see them starting to line up now.

Now I'm not attempting to justify any violence by any group to further their ideas, but we should at least be aware of and acknowledge the difference between what a religion teaches and what the practitioners of a religion actually do.
I applaud Sam Harris for being honest enough to point it out and stress the differences.

 

As long as they're not a majority it's not a problem. If they were a majority would it be a problem?



Census Year - Number of Muslims

1961 - 50,000

1971 - 226,000

1981 - 553,000

1991 - 950,000

2001 - 1,600,000

2011 - 2,706,000



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_Kingdom

We see the Muslim population consistently doubling, or nearly doubling every ten years. Should actions be taken to slow this growth, or do we expect it to change naturally?

 

Balbus, Asmo, remember the main point here is that the religion teaches very clearly and specifically that violence is perfectly ok against infidels.
When push comes to shove, even the most meek & moderate Muslims can not wiggle around and arrive at any other interpretation of the teachings.

 

I'll believe it here when I see it. But I won't put up with it. At all.

There are areas in the US one doesn't enter, but these neglected areas have become that way through lack of governmental/citizen care.

If a man in a dress with a beard tries to tell me what I can or can not do, where I can walk/be-----problem.

 

When Jesus said 'I come not to bring peace but a sword' I assume he meant the spiritual sword, and was speaking in a symbolic way. Others who are more literal minded might see it differently.

That aside, I think you have a point here. There's no way Muslims can get around the fact that violence is hard wired into their religion, and without violence, it wouldn't even exist.

Christians have committed terrible abuses over the centuries, and maybe some of the rationale for that can be found in the Old Testament, which definitely does encourage violence.

However I agree there is more of a humanistic side in Christianity,(although I wouldn't call myself a Christian) even if it has often been usurped by those with political or other extraneous motives. Just this week, the Pope has published his new encyclical on the environment and ending world poverty. Even if you disagree, at least they're making some attempt to speak up and represent people who otherwise would have no voice. I doubt anything of that kind will ever come out of Islam.

To me, and this is obviously only my opinion, there's something in Islam that kills or stymies a certain something in people. A kind of intelligence, a sensitivity - I don't quite know how to express it. Maybe it's because they are told in their scripture that brutality is good and the will of allah, anyone who has any sensitivity to the suffering of other beings but wants to remain a Muslim, has to do some kind of very weird mental and ethical gymnastics. They have to cut off in some way their actual feelings and replace them with a kind of dumb submission to barbarism.
Probably that's simplistic, but something of the kind is going on.

 

If you consider it within the context of the conversation in which the remark was made, it is more that he realized just how radical and divisive this "new covenant" would be, especially at that time being essentially stuck between the Jews and the Romans. It was not a command to begin a violent evangelical campaign.
Go forward a bit and you see that he rebukes Peter for brandishing a sword and attacking one of the Roman guards. When he does mention needing to take up arms defensively, it was in anticipation of exactly what happened, the wholesale persecution of Christians over the next few hundred years.
So when taken in context, it takes on a different connotation altogether.

that is the danger of taking anyone's statements out of context, you are almost certain to get it wrong.

 

Can we say, Hell on Earth, if it were to happen. We've seen what religious governments can do, so HELL NO.

 

Balbus, I don't know if it's relevant WHY extremist islam exists; what's important is what to do about it now. It doesn't help anybody to say "Well it's YOUR fault imperialist USA!" that's exactly the dialogue that islam wants you to perpetrate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP6U6Hhy_2M

 

Nope. I've seen the putz's email exchange with Professor Chomsky, and that's enough.

 

White

IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT – if you don’t understand were the US (and others) went wrong you are unlikely to be able to lessen the damage and are very likely to make a bad situation worse.

Basically the US undermined the secular progressive elements in the Middle East and favoured the conservative and religious groups even giving support to the spread of the really hard-line and extreme Wahhabism, those policies lead to the mad mullahs in Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Al-qaeda and ISIS across the Muslim world.

 

White

Re Video

You do know that the English Defence League is a far-right fascistic group the equivalent to white supremacist groups in the US - is that what you want, you want such people to be admired?

Because to me they are fucking idiots, dangerous fucking idiots.

 

OK everyone – what would you do?

What actions would you take?

As I’ve said scaremongering is likely to lead to fear and even hatred and that can end up with things like someone opening up with a gun in a church I mean Dylann Roof supposedly told victims “you’re taking over our country. And you have to go,”

So what would you do?

 

One thing would be to ban faith schools that teach Islam and lead to lack of integration here in the UK and other western countries. Try to induce people to integrate. How to do that I don't know. Islam is a powerful system of mind control.

But I'm not sue that would make enough of a difference even here.

In terms of the middle east, I just don't know. Maybe one thing would be to look again at the relations we have with regimes that have Islamic laws such as Saudi Arabia. This would be a corollary of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels.

We could also be much more critical of Israel, and stop supporting genocide against the Palestinians.

But I feat that the genie of Islamic extremism is not going back into the bottle easily.

 

Blake

That sounds like you'd just target Islamic schools - do you mean all faith schools including Christian ones?