Ze burkini is a problem with Ze France

[garbon]

So your position is that Islam is fine because its adherents do not always follow it?

Would you say Nazism was fine because not every party member gassed Jooos as a full-time job?

What are you babbling about now? I don't see why I should consider Islam more evil than Christianity, nor do I see why I should view all Muslims/Christians as repugnant as I know that not all of them hate me/people like me. A great deal couldn't give a fuck either way.

[garbon]

But Orthodox Jews and Fundamentalist Christians state pretty explicitely that they do believe everything as written.  Ergo it seems perfectly fair to judge them from that basis.  The same would be true and fair for their Muslim equivalents garbon.

Well yes I would think it would be alright to hate people who have demonstrated that they hate you.  Although all that hatred might not leave you a lot of time for anything else.

[Jacob]

Didn't I just say that?

But Orthodox Jews and Fundamentalist Christians state pretty explicitely that they do believe everything as written.  Ergo it seems perfectly fair to judge them from that basis.  The same would be true and fair for their Muslim equivalents garbon.

But the thing is, there is no specific evidence that the people who would like to have gender segregated swimming are all fundamentalists who want gay people executed.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

"Virulent misanthrope" or, if you want to get more personal "bitter old queen".

Only problem is that Crazy_Ivan80 falls into Grallonness in this case and I'm not sure Bitter Old Queen would do him justice.

not really. Here too we have muslims demanding seperate swimming hours for their wives because they think they shouldn't mix with infidels, let alone men.
If saying that this is a) medieval and b) wrong is anti-islam then I'll gladly be anti-islam, because I know I'm in the right and you (and those muslims) are in the wrong. Just like people defending the jim-crow-laws were in the wrong, just as the people claiming that your sexuality is an abomination unto god are wrong.

[Valmy]

But the thing is, there is no specific evidence that the people who would like to have gender segregated swimming are all fundamentalists who want gay people executed.

I was talking about the bigotry not necessarily the specific action at hand.

[Grallon]

Edit:  We really need a word other than 'Islamophobe' to describe someone like Grallon, because it's nothing more than bigotry now.

Fortunately for me I don't care one way or another to be labelled bigot or racist.  If people want to believe terrorists appear out of nowhere and are not the product of a murderous culture then there's nothing more to be said. *shrug*



G.

[garbon]

If people want to believe terrorists appear out of nowhere and are not the product of a murderous culture then there's nothing more to be said. *shrug*

G.

McVeigh.

[Grallon]

If people want to believe terrorists appear out of nowhere and are not the product of a murderous culture then there's nothing more to be said. *shrug*

G.

McVeigh.

How many McVeighs in the last 10 years compared to the numbers of murder/ bombing/ raping/ decapitation/ burning/ etc inspired by or claimed in the name of Islam?  There is your answer.

And for the record, once again, I'm not saying every single muslim is a terrorist.  However I'm saying the culture that produces them is the same that demands women be treated as chattel - including in public swimming pools.  The same culture that hang guys like you and me.

What McVeigh did horrified most americans - and he was executed for it.  What the 9-11 highjackers did was celebrated across the Muslim World... Look it up, I'm sure you can find videos on Youtube showing people dancing in the streets of Gaza after 9-11. 

So no I will not accomodate or compromise with these people. 





G.

[Sheilbh]

To the extent that said Muslims agree with the belief that Allah demands all homosexuals be executed by being tossed from the tallest point it seems justified to me.

I mean why shouldn't Muslims be judged by the beliefs they espouse?  That strikes me as fair and right.  If they said 'gayness is good lets be friends' I bet the Grallons and Martys would be singing a different tune and justifiably so yes?

Muslims should be judged as individuals by the beliefs they espouse.  As I've mentioned in this thread I've a number of Muslim friends none of whom believe that gays should die.  Yet, because they choose to wear a headscarf or whatever they pose a mortal threat to 'Western values' and are, in Grallon's words, 'vermin' who shouldn't be allowed to live in this country.  I think we empower the extremists when we allow their views to be described as 'Muslim' views rather than what they are, extremist Muslim views.

At the minute I'm staying just off Edgware Road which is the main Arab street in London.  That in itself highlights the hetergenous nature of Muslims is indicated simply in the fact that the Arab part of London is the other side of the city from the Pakistani part of London - it may be more mixed in smaller cities.  But I see every shade of Islam represented there every day. 

A small number of the women wear the niqab, none wear the burqa.  I see family groups every day in which the mum wears the niqab and her teenage daughters wear diamante headscarves and pretty shapely clothes.  There are couples walking hand in hand, some have both couples wearing a salwaar kameez, the woman in a niqab; others are in jeans and t-shirt, the woman in a headscarf; I've even seen gay couples walking down the street, or sitting at cafes.  Many of the women (I'd say equal with the number in the headscarf) don't wear a headscarf or niqab.  I've seen those women eating with their parents, even when the mum is wearing a niqab.  I can't accept that we condemn an entire group on the basis of a sect within it.  I think there's every reason (based on my experiences of Muslims and Muslim areas) to believe that as well as seeing extremist sects in Europe that we're seeing the emergence of a cultural Islam. 

Marty and Grallon are sort of different because I think they'd wipe out all religion and all adherents the world over, but I think for others it's something different.  I think a lot of these ignored Cassandras have a larger martyr complex than the most extreme sects of Islam and seem to almost relish the prospect of Eurabia.  They almost seem to want to be proven right (or to take the 'tough' and in reality deeply inhumane policies they favour) more than they want to save 'Western values'.  A lot of them, to me, seem to want, as Alex Massie recently put it, a continent wide confrontation and conflagration.

So your position is that Islam is fine because its adherents do not always follow it?

Islam is an almost uniquely flexible faith.  There are the 5 pillars and that's basically all you need to do to be a Muslim in the broadest possible sense.  I mean you don't even have to attend a Mosque, though it's generally believed you should.

You can then  choose which Imam or jurisconsult you consider to be most correct.  Especially within Shia Islam, which is more centralised, less personalised and more clerical.  It has a tradition of numerous Grand Ayatollahs who release interpretations of Islamic rules which often conflict and are considered 'models' which you follow and their support varies but your Mosque will be tied to a larger Mosque run by a more senior cleric tied to a Mosque run by an Ayatollah who is a supporter of that Grand Ayatollah.  Yet they generally don't consider each other to be heretics - even if the clerical arguments are fierce.  You could even just have a 'guide' and follow Sufi Shia.  Khomeini pissed off the clerical establishment in 1990 because he sent a letter to Gorbachev saying now that communism's in the rubbish bin of history you should consider Islam.  That's all fine but he recommended that the Islam which might most interest Gorbachev wasn't any standard Shia Islam or even Khomeinism but was a strand of mysticism.  Which has always been valid if suspect.

Sunni Islam is different because it doesn't have such a clerical infrastructure and one of the problems, I think, in the UK has been that radical groups have organised boycotts of Mosques with moderate Imams and often protest outside them (thus intimidating the community) until that Imam loses his audience.  There's a similar thing in the Catholic church with regular protests every time a service is held at a Church in Soho set up to minister to gay Catholics.  But there have been fierce ideological battles within British Islam and between different Mosques.

I think one of the problems we have is actually that European Islam is young, generally speaking.  Only 3% of Imams in the UK come from the UK.  I think that number's too low, though it's increasing as a generation of British preachers are emerging.  They are, on the whole, more moderate than the ones we've hitherto had to import from Saudi Arabia (because they'll pay for it) and other places.

I'm encouraged by the Quilliam Foundation's work (founded by two British ex-Islamists, it's an anti-extremist thinktank) and think there's a lot of hope in the work they're doing.

not really. Here too we have muslims demanding seperate swimming hours for their wives because they think they shouldn't mix with infidels, let alone men.

Well it's not for Muslims only.  Also as I say I know Muslim girls who choose to wear the headscarf who wouldn't swim with men around.  In some cases it may be the men dominating, but not in all.  And this isn't about absolute gender segregation.  So far as I can tell there aren't any calls to gender segregate leisure centre cafes.  It's about swimming costumes with lots of men around.

And for the record, once again, I'm not saying every single muslim is a terrorist.

I've read you call Muslims 'vermin' before and stop just short of calling for genocide.  In this thread you call them '3rd world savages'. 

You're not saying every Muslim is a terrorist but that Muslim culture produces terrorists, therefore Muslim culture needs to be absolutely not tolerated anywhere in the West and presumably weakened in the Middle East.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

not really. Here too we have muslims demanding seperate swimming hours for their wives because they think they shouldn't mix with infidels, let alone men.

Well it's not for Muslims only.  Also as I say I know Muslim girls who choose to wear the headscarf who wouldn't swim with men around.  In some cases it may be the men dominating, but not in all.  And this isn't about absolute gender segregation.  So far as I can tell there aren't any calls to gender segregate leisure centre cafes.  It's about swimming costumes with lots of men around.

most of those cafés are already segregated by default due to custom. No quarter should be given as it's about forcing religious taboos unto others, not about swiming costumes with men around.

[Sheilbh]

most of those cafés are already segregated by default due to custom. No quarter should be given as it's about forcing religious taboos unto others, not about swiming costumes with men around.

Cafes in community leisure centres aren't and there's no demand for it, so far as I can see.

I'd also say I've not seen a single segregated cafe in a Muslim area.

How are other people being forced by their religious taboos?

[Valmy]

Muslims should be judged as individuals by the beliefs they espouse.  As I've mentioned in this thread I've a number of Muslim friends none of whom believe that gays should die.

I have many Christian and Jew and Muslim friends who do not believe that gays should die.  However I think it is not a small thing that all those three religions have holy books that quite explicitely say that all gays (as opposed to Lesbians) should be put to death in some way.  If you say 'Yes I am a Muslim and yes I believe that Mohammed brought down the word of Allah as dictated by the Arch-Angel Gabriel...but having said that I reject or have a non-literal take on part of those teachings' well that deserves a bit of explanation no?

I mean if Marty cannot be upset at Islam for explicitely stating he should be killed because that would be intolerant...well that is just moronicly tolerant.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

most of those cafés are already segregated by default due to custom. No quarter should be given as it's about forcing religious taboos unto others, not about swiming costumes with men around.

Cafes in community leisure centres aren't and there's no demand for it, so far as I can see.

I'd also say I've not seen a single segregated cafe in a Muslim area.

How are other people being forced by their religious taboos?

Maybe not in Britian, but over here muslim-frequented cafes are almost always segregated. Not officially, but women know well enough that they're not wanted.

They're forced by having to accomodate segregation, in those cases where some bambi-eyed multiculti fool submits to such stupid requests. Luckily it hasn't happened too often yet, but then even one time is one time too many.

[Sheilbh]

I have many Christian and Jew and Muslim friends who do not believe that gays should die.  However I think it is not a small thing that all those three religions have holy books that quite explicitely say that all gays (as opposed to Lesbians) should be put to death in some way.  If you say 'Yes I am a Muslim and yes I believe that Mohammed brought down the word of Allah as dictated by the Arch-Angel Gabriel...but having said that I reject or have a non-literal take on part of those teachings' well that deserves a bit of explanation no?

There's nothing about killing gays in the Quran. 

Gays are condemned, sure, as they are in Christianity and, I believe, in slightly more vague terms.  But the application of Islamic views on gays generally speaking comes from Hadiths.  There's no agreed list of valid Hadiths and so different legal schools have different traditions.  Similarly the way of understanding them will be according to different traditions because, for example, Sunni Islam emphasises analogy from the Quran or Hadiths to the modern world, while Shia Islam emphasises the use of 'reason'.  The Shia argue that the Sunni tradition takes things out of the context of their times and is inaccurate whereas the use of reason enlightens and there are of course different opinions, different 'models' to follow.  There's no perfect analogy (as the Shia would say) but the Shia are basically a bit like Catholics in that they're very devoted to a clerical hierarchy and to scholastic philosophy.  The Sunni have the latter without the former.

What really distinguishes Islamic extremism from Christian or Jewish fundamentalism is that while they're basically believing in sola scriptura, the Islamic extremist is actually saying only this particular scholastic tradition.

Maybe not in Britian, but over here muslim-frequented cafes are almost always segregated. Not officially, but women know well enough that they're not wanted.

As I say I've been frequenting a lot of Arabic cafes lately and as far as I can tell during the days families visit them, same for the early evening.  During the night they're mostly old men playing backgammon and dates.

They're forced by having to accomodate segregation, in those cases where some bambi-eyed multiculti fool submits to such stupid requests. Luckily it hasn't happened too often yet, but then even one time is one time too many.

They don't have to, they choose to serve their community by allowing women and men to have an hour or two of separate swimming a week.  All sorts of women.  Meanwhile their cafes remain a place of genders mixing and so on.  I don't see the fundamentalist threat.

[Valmy]

There's nothing about killing gays in the Quran. 

Gays are condemned, sure, as they are in Christianity and, I believe, in slightly more vague terms.  But the application of Islamic views on gays generally speaking comes from Hadiths.  There's no agreed list of valid Hadiths and so different legal schools have different traditions.  Similarly the way of understanding them will be according to different traditions because, for example, Sunni Islam emphasises analogy from the Quran or Hadiths to the modern world, while Shia Islam emphasises the use of 'reason'.  The Shia argue that the Sunni tradition takes things out of the context of their times and is inaccurate whereas the use of reason enlightens and there are of course different opinions, different 'models' to follow.  There's no perfect analogy (as the Shia would say) but the Shia are basically a bit like Catholics in that they're very devoted to a clerical hierarchy and to scholastic philosophy.  The Sunni have the latter without the former.

What really distinguishes Islamic extremism from Christian or Jewish fundamentalism is that while they're basically believing in sola scriptura, the Islamic extremist is actually saying only this particular scholastic tradition.

Fair enough.  I just think it is understandable that people oppose ideas that are fundamentally bad ideas and not pussy foot around.  Just because I know some Mormons or Scientologists who are nice guys doesn't mean I cannot denounce Mormonism or Scientology.  I honor their right to practice those religions but I certainly do not have to like them.