| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Koran bashers @the Oaks | |
| Posted by: | John Theodore Clark | |
| Date/Time: | 17/11/09 11:37:00 |
| This is an interesting discussion in which my views are piggy in the middle. For me there are several key issues, which also come out in other threads: 1) To what extent should the State prevent someone from doing, of their own free will, something which the majority, or even a minority of people, consider morally abhorrent? (face veils - many wearers do so out of choice; being members of the BNP, and promoting one's views on TV; abortion - most women who abort their unborn child think they are exercising a free choice to end something that might have been, and do not consider that they are killing a human being) 2) To what extent can the practices and sensibilities of a minority be considered as equal in value to those of the majority? (at one end of the spectrum, persecution of individuals simply because they are different; at the other end, tolerence of practices which clearly break the law - here I am not so sure that "Islam" IS promoting views that are incompatible with Englsh law) 3) To what extent can one draw parallels between the wrongs perpetrated by Muslim extremists and those carried out by Christian extremists? (Here I am sort of with Robin - Christian Zionism is a key factor leading the US to be soft on Israel, and to take an interventionist policy in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan - I don't believe that the reference to a Crusade on Terror was purely acccidental). It is, however, not the only factor - there is of course oil, and here I don't think that Robin would agree with me - I can see nothing wrong with a nation going to war to protect its supplies of an essential commodity) 4) The polarisation of the debate on our troops into two camps, whose views appear almost fascist. (On the one hand, the British army is held to be in an unjust foreign war, and its soldiers are therefore by extension murderers, while on the other, "I died in the war so that these people have freedom of speech, they are dishonouring our brave boys, I am going to write to the Daily Mail etcetera".) 5) To what extent is the problem with Islam itself, and to what extent has it rather to do with interpretation and practice? (I have read both the Koran and the Bible. Both the Old Testament and the Koran contain warlike language, and promote one group to an exalted level while considering all others as somehow unclean, not chosen, or downright inferior, in a an almost Mein Kampf-like style). But most nations and sects that are basically Christian have moved on since then. Most Christians no longer consider the Bible to be the literal word of God. We separate Church and State (moreorless in the UK), and no longer stone people to death, burn them at the stake, or beat them for not complying with religious edicts. Much of Islam seems stuck in a rut in this respect, and US policy seems to have promoted the radical side of Islam, and done little to help the development of more moderate Islam in countries such as Turkey, Morocco, and Egypt). |