Anti-Minaret Online Referendum

[Barrister]

It's just a matter of time now.

Or to elaborate:

Preventing the spread of Islam is a sign of societal health. Western civilization is an old codger with a dysfunctional immunesystem. In the paraphrased words of agent Smith, "Islam.. is a disease."

I'm beginning to think swedotardism is the disease.

[Slargos]

It's just a matter of time now.

Or to elaborate:

Preventing the spread of Islam is a sign of societal health. Western civilization is an old codger with a dysfunctional immunesystem. In the paraphrased words of agent Smith, "Islam.. is a disease."

I'm beginning to think swedotardism is the disease.

I sincerely hope you're right, but I fear you are not. 

[Ed Anger]

How will we drop the bomb between the minarets then?

Seriously- nah. The FBI needs a place to bug.

[Jacob]

Maybe you should move to Switzerland Grallon?

[Slargos]

Maybe you should move to Switzerland Grallon?

Maybe you should relent in your crusade against punctuation, Jacob? 

[DontSayBanana]

Switzerland hasn't dealt with bloody religious insurrection since Zwingli was swanning round Geneva.

Within their own borders, but Islam has created significant organized conflicts using their religion for justification in the US, the UK, Denmark... Islam is anathema to freedom of religion because so many believe their religious governance supercedes the legal governance of the followers' own country.

In the case of Ireland, it was extremists.  The radical activities were done without the encouragement or material support of the church; with so many flavors of Catholic and Protestant Christian following, we've been incredibly fortunate in that the verse "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" has been widely and liberally applied to mean Christian obeisance of state governments- it's insulated us from the kind of iconoclastic bloodbaths that marked the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and even the Counter-Reformation.

[Grallon]

Maybe you should move to Switzerland Grallon?

Whatever for?  There's a growing menace here too.  Wherever they go muslims carry their disease with them.




G.

[Tamas]

My first reaction was "this is bollocks" but it made me think:

We (well, most of Europe) do not allow all political ideologies to roam free. We try to silence the extreme ones. Why religion is any different?

Why should we ignore the literal interpretation of a religion, and rather, judge it by the most mild explanations of it?
If someone wears a svastika armband, and says that his hatred toward the jews and gays is just a metaphor for inner struggles of his peaceful soul, we still ban the guy from wearing that armband.
But we have religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity (old testament is a holy book of it, so though luck there) which makes such texts and teachings sacrate which are in no way compatible with modern society. Yet there is no problem with it because the followers not only pretend to ignore the controversial parts (then go ahead and act on them) but also because those teachings are claimed to come from a higher power, which of course gives a free pass.

So why should a liberal society allow someone to build a temple to preach ideas like secondary role for women, unholy nature of gays, and all that jihad crap. Again: if some bloke was to preach the teachings and laws present in islam completely free of religion, just as a purely political platform, he would be banned and/or thrown out of society.

[Josquius]

The trouble with Islam is down to extremists too. There's no problem with the vast majority of muslims.
When the initial waves of Pakistani immigration came in the 50s (or was it the 60s?) Islam was hailed as a nice peaceful religion whose adherants were hard workers. The rise of extremism has tarnished this quite a bit but still, to tar 1.5 billion people with the same brush because of a few thousand nutters and a few million supportive of nutters....

[grumbler]

This thread delivers, and reminds us once again that a fanatic is a man who can not change his mind and will not change the subject.

[The Larch]

Of course not, it's a symptom of short sighted bigotry.

[Tamas]

The trouble with Islam is down to extremists too. There's no problem with the vast majority of muslims.
When the initial waves of Pakistani immigration came in the 50s (or was it the 60s?) Islam was hailed as a nice peaceful religion whose adherants were hard workers. The rise of extremism has tarnished this quite a bit but still, to tar 1.5 billion people with the same brush because of a few thousand nutters and a few million supportive of nutters....

Again: we shouldn't care for people who claim to be memebers of a religion, but ignore the teachings they don't like. For example: a muslim or catholic who has no hard feelings toward gays is a decent man, but this should not save islam or catholicism from the hard fact of them being very intolerant ideologies.

A liberal society can not survive on the long term if it does not defend its basic ideas vehemently. If we say "no intolerance of minority lifestyles/races" then we should not have places of worship where they lash out against minorities. Simple as that.

[clandestino]

Of course not, it's a symptom of short sighted bigotry.

This. If a place wants to avoid the construction of minarets I'm pretty sure they can do that citing local building laws. A national ban is a shame, but I guess the Swiss are getting accostumated...

[Faeelin]

This. If a place wants to avoid the construction of minarets I'm pretty sure they can do that citing local building laws. A national ban is a shame, but I guess the Swiss are getting accostumated...

In America a statute designed to exclude minarets would be unconstitutional. But we're weird like that.

[The Brain]

The typical American constitution is gross.