Are they sure this person is from Labour?

[phykell]

Originally Posted by cleanbluesky

I am anti-Islam, that is to say that I have done an investigation into Islam and I dislike many aspects of it largely due to militarism within Islamism and human rights issues in sharia and the Koran. Not particularly controversial given that Islam prides itself on its values, not information that's particularly hard to find either.

Speak to the hundreds of millions of Muslims who truly believe their religion is one of peace and compare the weight of such opinion against the relatively negligible number of extremists who believe their religion gives them the excuse to kill.

I don't much care about your anti-Islam sentiments TBH but what I do object to is that you only single that out as being worthy of your contempt whilst ignoring another religion which also has more than its fair share of lunatics. The Christian religion also has extremists who believe the Bible fully justifies their opinions and actions even if such actions involve the murder of innocent men, women and children. I'm reminded of the Warrington bomb where women and children were deliberately targetted as part of the IRA's bombing campaign against the UK. That bomb was set to go off at around lunch-time, on a Saturday afternoon, just outside McDonalds. Can you think of a more extreme action than that? The Christian religion(s) have been used as an excuse to commit terrible sins against the human race for millennia and the Bible and its teaching have been twisted to suit the purpose of, yes, extremists.

So eschew religious fanaticism, position yourself against terrorism; but always bear in mind that the enemy is the extremist and *not* the religion. Even Bush wasn't stupid enough to say Islam is the enemy. In fact, the only person I can think of, that would be stupid and ignorant enough to say such a thing, would be the leader of the BNP. The way you're going, people will think you sympathise with the BNP - but that can't be true, can it? You're a *thinker* after all

[cleanbluesky]

Originally Posted by phykell

Speak to the hundreds of millions of Muslims who truly believe their religion is one of peace and compare the weight of such opinion against the relatively negligible number of extremists who believe their religion gives them the excuse to kill.

This paragraph carries an assumption that you know anything about the prevalence of people you are talking about. Several times you have criticised me for treating people as a large bloc, although now you feel free to comment on the attitude of hundreds of millions of people. It seems that you are not against prejudice, merely against any estimate that don't serve a prejudice you'd prefer to believe.

I don't much care about your anti-Islam sentiments TBH but what I do object to is that you only single that out as being worthy of your contempt whilst ignoring another religion which also has more than its fair share of lunatics. The Christian religion also has extremists who believe the Bible fully justifies their opinions and actions even if such actions involve the murder of innocent men, women and children. I'm reminded of the Warrington bomb where women and children were deliberately targetted as part of the IRA's bombing campaign against the UK. That bomb was set to go off at around lunch-time, on a Saturday afternoon, just outside McDonalds. Can you think of a more extreme action than that? The Christian religion(s) have been used as an excuse to commit terrible sins against the human race for millennia and the Bible and its teaching have been twisted to suit the purpose of, yes, extremists.

I can see your point although I think the fact that you're willing to volunteer this information demonstrates exactly why I am more quiet about other religions - other people are usually willing to say it in my place and are already aware of it. I only speak when I have something to say and in the past I have spoken about the negative aspects of Christianity and Scientology (but what about all the good scientologists, surely we shouldn't hate Tom Cruise he was in Top Gun)

So eschew religious fanaticism, position yourself against terrorism; but always bear in mind that the enemy is the extremist and *not* the religion. Even Bush wasn't stupid enough to say Islam is the enemy. In fact, the only person I can think of, that would be stupid and ignorant enough to say such a thing, would be the leader of the BNP. The way you're going, people will think you sympathise with the BNP - but that can't be true, can it? You're a *thinker* after all

The idea that extremism is the sophistic at best and serves only to direct deserved distaste away from a population that believe in a anti-social ideology. I hear no-one else use the 'extremism versus moderate' ideology to anything else. Is it okay to be just a little homophobic/racist etc. etc. are there grades of racist? "It's okay, he's a good racist..." "Yes, I called you a nigger, but you know... positive, it was positive..."

You'd have to look at the religion to know whether the religion was at fault. You need to look at the religion. I've said this several times, and it gets repetitively ignored because its harder to think really nice thoughts about Islam when most accepted interpretations involve killing homosexuals. How exactly does one excuse killing of homosexuals, when you are a liberal? You can't, so ignore it. Produce some contextless rhetoric about the idea that a tiny group of amorphous 'extremists' are responsible for all the bad things that anyone with half a brain are turned off by, and point the moral finger at anyone who is willing to point out the problem.

[NokkonWud]

Originally Posted by Streeteh

[EDIT] Damn you desmo, i would have looked far more intelligent if you hadn't beaten me to the punch at pointing that out.

No you wouldn't .

[Garp]

CBS:

Why do you have this obsession with bringing religion, and more specifically anti-muslim sentiments into almost every topic of current affairs or debate? It's abundantly clear that you're a closed minded and bigoted individual. You seem to go out of your way to find any news article you can that is anti-muslim or could possibly be twisted in any way to be anti-muslim, and then post it here. We almost never see any thread started by you that isn't such.
You're being not only repetitive, but dull, and it's only serving to completely remove the value of any point you may be raising.
Of course you will now naturally follow this up in your usual morally superior way turn around and say that I'm the one being bigoted, same as you have done for the past 4+ years of your posting that I've seen.

Please, for the love of anything you consider to be holy or worthy, stop with these posts.

[cleanbluesky]

Originally Posted by Garp

CBS:

Why do you have this obsession with bringing religion, and more specifically anti-muslim sentiments into almost every topic of current affairs or debate? It's abundantly clear that you're a closed minded and bigoted individual. You seem to go out of your way to find any news article you can that is anti-muslim or could possibly be twisted in any way to be anti-muslim, and then post it here. We almost never see any thread started by you that isn't such.
You're being not only repetitive, but dull, and it's only serving to completely remove the value of any point you may be raising.
Of course you will now naturally follow this up in your usual morally superior way turn around and say that I'm the one being bigoted, same as you have done for the past 4+ years of your posting that I've seen.

Please, for the love of anything you consider to be holy or worthy, stop with these posts.

1) I made one comment. I'm not the driving force behind this - if you don't want the discussion to go this way then don't make a contribution to taking it there.

2) The rest of what you've said has been explained.

3) I have no reason to insult you because I actually have confidence in the accuracy of what I have said. I have no habit of accusing others of bigotry, I believe others have inaccurate opinions and selective attention but I don't believe bigotry is the most appropriate word to describe their motivations (whatever they may be). I do not tread an easy moral high ground, my opinion is the lesser of two evils and it is clearly a controversial one - but as controversial as it is I also believe it to be the fairest to all and the most honest.

4) This has become about me very quickly, which is a convenient way not to address the points that I've raised.

[cleanbluesky]

Someone should bin or rearrange this waste of a thread, especially considering the event in the original news article would make far better discussion.

[Davey_Pitch]

Originally Posted by cleanbluesky

Someone should bin or rearrange this waste of a thread, especially considering the event in the original news article would make far better discussion.

That's the one and only thing you've said so far in this thread that I wholeheartedly agree with.

[phykell]

Originally Posted by cleanbluesky

Someone should bin or rearrange this waste of a thread, especially considering the event in the original news article would make far better discussion.

Your first post in this thread began, "He's one of the token Muslims...".

Just pointing that out...

[Chuckles]

Originally Posted by cleanbluesky

1my opinion is the lesser of two evils and it is clearly a controversial one - but as controversial as it is I also believe it to be the fairest to all and the most honest.

I don't think it's controversial. I've been winding up enough groups on facebook with absolutely huge memberships to realise that it could well be a majority viewpoint. If not, then certainly one held by a huge amount of people.

Would you like it to be a controversial one?

[Mark]

Originally Posted by cleanbluesky

1) I made one comment. I'm not the driving force behind this - if you don't want the discussion to go this way then don't make a contribution to taking it there.

The problem with that argument is that you only addressed this one thread - rather than the persistent tone of your posts. If you're anti-Islam, so be it (I happen to disagree, but that's another thread), but twisting every news story that might allow your to peddle your rather one-sided views soon gets very tiresome, which then leads to what's happened in this thread.

However...

Originally Posted by cleanbluesky

Someone should bin or rearrange this waste of a thread, especially considering the event in the original news article would make far better discussion.

this I wholehearedly agree with.