Harry's Place

What a wonderful, wonderful post. Many thanks, Marko, for expressing these concerns so well – and to David T for putting this whole post up.

Terrific piece, thank you

Why is not possible just to hate Islam?Tell pray why the millions of white as well as for example the millions up on millions of say hindus who have worked in the Gulf and kept “quiet” are not allowed to hate muslims? This is a bit like the liberal elite of the Uk. being very much into immigrants as long as they do not have to live with the consequences!!!

Phew! Excellent post Mr H. I have to admit that I don’t recognise HP as having a chronic problem with anti-Muslim bigots. I think most of those who you would class as such, take great pains to target their invective at Islam itself. Christianity, as a religion, tends to attract a lot of negative discussion here and, in my opinion, it’s usually instigated by those who post rather than commenters themselves. This is a good thing in many ways, as it allows those of us who are Christian to counter some of these views and venture our own shilling’s worth.

I agree with your point about the comments moderation though. Anyone clearly attributing negative charcteristics to Muslims as a group, with no qualification, should have their comment deleted for the sake of keeping the thread on topic and not detracting from the main subject of the debate.

Anyone who uses the word ‘comrades’ in 2009, in a non military context, is really a bit of a twat.

That was one of the Lefty idioms quite rightly binned by Mandy, along with donkey jackets, in his new Labour red rose and suits makeover.

that bit aside…Marko wrote:

Having said that, the comments boxes here are frequently flooded by extremely nasty bigots who really do hate all Muslims.

Not seen much of this at all myself on HP. I’d be interested in some specific examples and some regulars who are guilty of this?

I have seen plenty of criticism of Islam, the political-religious ideology and those that hold to it’s mainstream tenets….those who are Koranic literalists.

Describing as ‘bigots’ those social liberals who critique Koranic literalism on the basis of its mysoginistic, supremicist, imperial, homophobic, authoritarian, intolerant violent nature – would seem rather an Orwellian inversion. So hopefully that’s not what Marko meant.

Perhaps I’ve missed something, again I would be interested in some specific examples of this alleged bigotry on HP?

Just leaving yourself open to criticism is not in itself a bad thing.

Anyway, any regular reader of HP knows that the blog has a history of allowing all sorts to side track the comment section: socialists, galloway fans, right wing racists, or even just pointless tedious trolls.

Marko:

The Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ site, without having their comments deleted. But it does not follow from this that The Guardian is anti-Semitic; merely that its comments moderation policy is too lax.

I agree entirely. No, the Guardian’s anti-semitism follows from a different source entirely; its editorial policy!

Islamophobia is totally rational. Where Islam takes hold criticism of Islam becomes punishable by death. Islamophobia-watch is run by a guy most likely on the payroll of Islamist organisations and is dedicated to witch hunting of anyone criticising Islam.

That people can gather anywhere and say critical things about Islam is never acceptable to Islamists but until they have political power they can’t stop it and have to be content with legal intimidations like HP has faced earlier and funding useful idiots like Bob Pitt(bull) to go after their enemies.

In the absence of blasphemy laws, political correctness and cries of islamophobia are the next tier in their arsenal to keep criticism of Islam and atrocities done in its name muffled.

Of course HP follows a political correct line of not directly criticising Islam itself but the comments section doesn’t.

“”"Not seen much of this at all myself on HP. I’d be interested in some specific examples and some regulars who are guilty of this?”"”

Nick, one very simple example, the huge amount of times when, totally out of context, comments appear treating Bosniaks and Albanians as extreme islamist peoples, this in posts non related to the Balkans region. Let me highlight that usually these appear totally out of context.

If you paid more attention to the comment boxes you’d find plenty of examples.

An excellent piece, Marko.
I’m not sure I agree with you entirely -I think that for the most part when downright bigots do show up here, their arguments are usually pretty rapidly dismantled and who knows, maybe something actually filters through to them in the end. Personally, if I try to take apart an anti-Semitic argument for example, I don’t necessarily do it for the sake of the writer of that particular comment, (some of them seem to be impervious) but for the ‘bystanders’ who may be reading and who do not have a solid opinion on the subject. I actually think that there is value in hearing bigots, unpleasant as they may be, in order to know what we’re up against.

Excellent post. Why not have a separate thread where comments deemed abusive / racist (by the HP staff) can be moved? If this could still be accessed then there can be no complaint about censorship, and comments could be reinstated. Issues would be easier to follow in a streamlined comments section, and more people would probably feel able to contribute without being engulfed in a torrent of malice. The no-moderation policy of HP limits the impact it could have.

What Israelinurse said

Where Islam takes hold criticism of Islam becomes punishable by death. Islamophobia-watch is run by a guy most likely on the payroll of Islamist organisations and is dedicated to witch hunting of anyone criticising Islam.

Where any attempt to rule according to pretty much any religion takes hold, you end up with a particularly vicious politics.

Bob is on the payroll of the GLA, not an islamist organisation: although he may get some money from iEngage, which is the organisation that is run by the Bunglawala family, and headed up by a wanted Islamist terrorist.

It is one thing to make blasphemous comments and to mock a religion, atheists do that all the time. That is a basic right that springs from freedom of expression. From criticizing one religion, it doesn’t necessarily follow that one is instigating the stigmatization of the followers of such religion.
Another, very different thing, is to systematically present the immigrants as threats to ”our” (meaning yours, being myself a foreigner) way of life.

Islamophobia is rational in the same degree that hatred and fear are rational. Hatred and fear are not the values upon which a democratic society is built, on the contrary, such values represent a threat to democracy. Fear can be fought by fighting ignorance, that’s why islamophobes are so keen of spreading false ideas about Muslims, to feed ignorance. Islamophobia is an extreme reactionary behaviour more appropriate of paranoid mentalities than of balanced self-confident individuals. People who see themselves as failures need scapegoats.

Anyone who has experience in reading or listening to discussions dealing with issues related to tolerance and social problems can very quickly draw a line between arguments expressing legitimate worries and discussing real problems and paranoid fantasies. Islamophobes can be quite sophisticated and reveal their bias only subtly, but after a while it’s quite easy to identify them.

Where any attempt to rule according to pretty much any religion takes hold, you end up with a particularly vicious politics.

Nonsense! There never has been and there never will be a Protestant theocracy in the UK, yet most of the values to which we hold dear as a society, our institutions and the people themselves have been positively influenced by it. Nonetheless, a modern Christian theocracy would be preferable to a secularised human rights regime administered by the high priests of gobbledegook and equality.

An excellent post Marko. I used to be a frequent commentator in the comments boxes of this site, but now much less so. I will make exceptions including for any Guest Post that I write for this forum as I feel that it is important on a blog to engage with those that have taken the time to read and comment upon what you have written.

The reason for my withdrawal from the comments boxes is not simply a time issue but also because I do not want to associate with those who think it important to mention, at any vague opportunity, that the Muslim Prophet Muhammad was a pedophile because he had a child bride . This is a gratuitous insult.

David T was correct to say that German should apologise to Harry’s Place for highlighting a quote from the comments section to damn the whole blog, but it is also true that someone had written in the comments box a comment associating Muslim religious female dress with terrorism.

Away from the anti-Muslim bigotry in these boxes, I also see that some pro-Israeli/pro Jewish posters,on many threads, irrespective of the subject have a habit of diverting the subject at hand to make a comment about Israel/Jews irrespective of whether it is appropriate or indeed justified.

An example is a thread from yesterday on Quakers, Friends House and pacifism. One poster, Anat, has said the following with no justification:

They have sympathy for everyone except Jews. There is a name for such people.

Josh Scholar concurred and responded:

I’m partial to “wankers”

It is comments such as these that simply bring Harry’s Place comments boxes down to the sewer.

I wish commentators would think about what they are writing before they put their fingers to the keyboard and if they have an urge to make a stupid comment, to do so elsewhere. The reason for this is that I have a lot of sympathy with what Marko also recognises and that is that it takes an inordinate amount of time to respond to such comments and simply deleting them does not fit so well with the spirit of the the strap line of this blog.

I agree that this is a good post, and it’s to David T’s credit that he has posted it given that it is critical of the comments moderation policy of HP. It demonstrates a clear commitment to free speech – which is why I keep reading the blog.

I can understand why Marko is appalled by some comments – frankly so am I, and its not always Muslims who are the target of bigotry (e.g. Christians – see above). My view is that it is HP’s right to set their own comments policy and be consistent about it – in my view they are. Because I’m appalled by the ignorance and frankly lack of social skills by some commentators, I very often choose not to read comments, but the main article only. Others can comment and deal with ugly comments as and when they wish (see Isaelinurse above).

I therefore support the right of HP to choose their comment moderation policy, as I support Marko’s right to choose his (no Marko you’re not being undemocratic by not allowing comments – people can always email you with comments).

Please keep up the good work – both Marko and HP.

Pitt is a liar and a BNP-enabler.

“…the comments boxes here are frequently flooded by extremely nasty bigots who really do hate all Muslims.”

Nah, sorry. Like Nick, I don’t think is true – there are some, occasionally (and there are dickheads, yes) but saying that HP comments are ‘flooded by extremely nasty bigots’ is just nonsense.

Compared with other blogs I’m familiar with, I’d say Harry’s Place is a model for striking the balance between underpruning and overpruning.

Who the fxxk is Bob Pitt?

I do find this this blogs patience and willingness to engage with a whole variety of people that noone else has heard of part of its appeal.

The comments moderation policy is what it is. It attracts sad little trolls from Hong Kong, viscious anti-semites, cranks and some (though not as many as seem to be implied) anti-muslims.

The idea that this would make this blog anti-semitic, anti-muslim or anything else is bizarre and can only come from someone of pretty limited intellect (the aforementioned Pitt ???)

MattG

Nonsense! There never has been and there never will be a Protestant theocracy in the UK,

I’ll drink to that!

I think that around 18 months ago HP became the target of a sustained campaign by people associated with the “winds of jihad” blog who would often take over threads using multiple aliases and attack anyone who they felt was not “anti-muslim” enough. I certainly remember that any attempt to link to blogs or subjects that they felt to be “off-message” – such as Spirit 21, or to suggest that many British muslims were human beings who had the same concerns as the rest of society, were often greeted not by arguments against what was actually being said but demands that such links should not even be posted on a blog which they felt was supposed to be “anti-muslim”.

I suspect that many got the idea that HP was an “anti-muslim” blog from reading Pitt’s excruciating bullshit rants at “Islamophobia watch”. Certainly I do not remember (when arguing against the few bigots who used to turn up here) that Bob Pitt lowered himself to try to counter their arguments – yet he always had the strange ability to precis the worst of their comments and present them as being the views of HP itself. In my opinion much of the blame for the proliferation of bigots can be laid at the door of Pitt himself.

Ha! Very funny, Our Chief of Men, Oliver Cromwell.

“The reason for my withdrawal from the comments boxes is not simply a time issue but also because I do not want to associate with those who think it important to mention, at any vague opportunity, that the Muslim Prophet Muhammad was a pedophile because he had a child bride . This is a gratuitous insult. ”

Ditto. I used to love posting comments to Harry’s Place, but especially in the last year the comment boxes have just feel full of humourless anti-Muslim bigots. One can either choose to dedicate themselves to responding to their each and every comment, or just not post at all for fear of being accused of allowing bigotry to pass uncommented, so due to time constraints I’ve done the latter.

P.

I’d prefer to be labelled an anti-Islam bigot rather than an anti-Muslim bigot if you don’t mind. I despise the ideology, not the proponents (though I have little regard for them, what with them being proponents of such an evil ideology). I think I can live with being deemed intolerant of something absolutely bad. Call me an anti-Communism bigot, an anti-National Socialism bigot, an anti-AIDS bigot and an anti-cancer bigot too. Why not.

‘Anyone who uses the word ‘comrades’ in 2009, in a non military context, is really a bit of a twat.’

You see, Nick; you’ve already lowered the tone of the discussion. Words like ‘twat’ turn up often enough – and they do – and the whole discussion rapidly descends into the sewer.

I would certainly be against any attempt to turn HP into a site where discussions could only take place under the Rules of the Oxford Union Society.

There are many places like that on the web already – hardly anyone comments at them.

“You see, Nick; you’ve already lowered the tone of the discussion. Words like ‘twat’ turn up often enough – and they do – and the whole discussion rapidly descends into the sewer.”

Sigh. You’ve just confirmed what I thought from your earlier hyperbolic statements – that you really ought to get a grip.

Besides, Nick’s comment about ‘comrades’ and ‘twats’ was both funny and true….

I have to say what is wrong with detesting a religion or an ideology. Most far Lefties hate capitalism and a good lot of them personally hate “rich bastards”, “fat cats” and “cityboys” as well. Is that a disgraceful prejudice ? Not to them it isn’t.

The difficulty is to disassociate extreme dislike of a religion/ideology from hatred of all of its adherents especially when most of the adherents do not hold the most extreme views of the religion. But is it wrong to personally abhor Muslims who proselytise for the death of apostates and stoning of homosexuals or Christians who advocate violence against abortion doctors ?

The problem discussions here mainly seem to be with those who think all Muslims (because of a literalist obsessive reading of the Koran) must be extremists or they are not Muslims. That is the view of obsessives like John P and it is wholly absurd. More to the point whenever pernicious nonsense from the Bible is brought up as a counter argument he tends to run away snivelling.

As for free speech on HP I think the balance is about right especially since the idiot Benji has gone. But I do think it might be worth investing in some software that removes all references to Muhammed and dodgy sexual activities.

You see, Nick; you’ve already lowered the tone of the discussion.

Thanks, I do my best, you can nail Cromwell on me too. I guess humour is subjective!

But ‘comrades’ …really it is rather glaringly pretentious …twatish even… to my non Socialist ears. Use of it does speak to a certain lefty genesis, I was merely pointing that out in a non doer fucker way!

This is always going to be a difficult area since to criticise a belief system is implicitly to criticise the believers: one is either saying they are as cruel as the beliefs they espouse, or they are stupid to be hoodwinked or they really believe this stuff and are a threat to society.

One can’t criticise Nazism without criticising Nazism.

It is in fact instructive to look at the affinities between Islam and Nazism.

Both are anti-democratic systems of thought.

Both believe in a Supreme Leader who will decide on all important matters of policy and ideology.

Both stigmatise the Jews.

Both believe in aggressive war and propaganda to be pursued until the ideology reigns supreme over the whole planet.

Both create different classes of citizenship – full citizens and the rest.

Both consider women to be inferior to men.

Both glorify military endeavour over other pursuits in life.

Our society deems it appropriate to denigrate both Nazism and Nazis.
But it does not deem it appropriate to denigrate either Islam or Muslims. David T. is in fact always careful to maintain true Islam does not believe any of the above (although anyone who has studied the matter knows that he is of course plain wrong).

My own view is that one has to be scrupulous in observing that not all people who go by the name of “Muslim” have the same motivation.

Many, maybe even most (though probably not), in the UK are “cultural Muslims”. This is the faith of their fathers and they go along with it without wishing to be militant in the faith and having made their peace with modernity and democracy more or less. A substantial minority or possibly a majority do believe what the clerics tell them and are inclined to act on that belief without fully understanding the ideology. Then there are the active core – the clerics (the vast majority of them) and the committed ideologues or foot soldiers – who understand the nature of Shariah and Jihad and do all they can to forward both, within the circumstances they find themselves.

Were we to strip Islam of its religious pretensions, it would stand exposed for what it is, like Nazism – a power cult that wants to rule the world.

The pro Shariah movement (the active core of Islam and its fellow travellers on the Left, in Lambeth Palace, in government and within the Royal family), will do everything they can to represent people who oppose Islam as hate-mongers. Don’t expect anything else. David T can see that trying to distinguish between Islam and something called Islamism has done him no favours. You’ll still get criticised with the same degree of vehemence.

Slightly self-congratulatory post, aren’t we good, we love Muslims, hate fascists. Very black and white…if you don’t like Islam, the religion so-called, you’re a bigot.
Well no, I don’t accept that label. You know full well the realities of Islam but you sweep them under the carpet, you pretend they don’t exist or if they do ‘real Muslims’ don’t want to follow that path.

“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers. . . . This holy army guards my religion.”
Democracy was like a bus: “You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off.”

‘…there was much chatter amongst the liberal-progressive classes in Bloomsbury in London that these Irish revolutionaries were priest-ridden, bomb-trotting, Celtic-Gaelic obscurantists, to whom they refused to give a certificate of good character.
….But the point, ladies and gentlemen, is not what the chattering classes of Bloomsbury thought of the Irish revolutionaries, but what the Irish people thought of of the Irish revolutionaries. That is the point.’

What is an extremist Muslim?:
They advocate a caliphate, a pan-Islamic state encompassing many countries.
• They promote Sharia law.
• They believe in jihad, or armed resistance, anywhere in the world. This would include armed resistance by Palestinians against the Israeli military.
• They argue that Islam bans homosexuality and that it is a sin against Allah.
• They fail to condemn the killing of British soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Inayat Bunglawala… said such plans would affect many British Muslims: “That would alienate the majority of the British Muslim public. It would be counterproductive and class most Muslims as extremists.”

‘He acknowledged he was a “son of the German people” … “but not guilty on that account”; he then launched into a highly controversial claim that a “ring of criminals” were responsible for nazism and that the German people were as much their victims as anyone else. This is an argument that has long been discredited in Germany as utterly inadequate in explaining how millions supported the Nazis.’

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science — the science against which it had vainly struggled — the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

‘The right thing to do, I would suggest, is to make it absolutely plain that there is no compulsion to respect Islam as either a religion or a political ideology and that our governments, both of which are liberal democracies, will at every juncture attempt to counter the poisonous sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, misogyny and furious reaction to apostasy which is more or less inherent in even the more moderate strands of this religion. But, these being free countries, people should be allowed to believe whatever rubbish they like — be it Islam, Scientology, Rastafarianism.’ Rod Liddle

Joseph Ernst Renan (1823-1892):
Muslims are the first victims of Islam. Many times I have observed in my travels in the Orient that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain the others in the practice of religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service one can render him.

Why do so many Left wingers trail along after the Islamists?:
‘We are witnesses of the greatest moment of summing-up in history, in the name of a new and unknown culture, which will be created by us, and which will also sweep us away. That is why, without fear or misgiving, I raise my glass to the ruined walls of the beautiful palaces, as well as to the new commandments of a new aesthetic. The only wish that I, an incorrigible sensualist, can express, is that the forthcoming struggle should not damage the amenities of life, and that the death should be as beautiful and as illuminating as the resurrection.’ Sergei Diaghilev 1905.

To continue to try to deny that genuine concerns exist about the Islamic religion is shameful and dangerous.

‘The final image of Dr Bronowski, in his “Ascent of Man”, standing in the mud at Auschwitz is implanted in my brain. He wept and said that Auschwitz and, by implication, all the other hell-holes constructed by Man, is the unavoidable destination reached by the denial and silencing of truth.’

Nick, one very simple example, the huge amount of times when, totally out of context, comments appear treating Bosniaks and Albanians as extreme islamist peoples

Huge amount of times? Really? You must be confusing HP with some other blog.

It’s a very good and Mikey’s comment is on the nail too. The mix of virulent anti-Muslim sentiment, obsessives determined to drag Israel into everything, and a tone of bitter, curdled ungenerosity and nastiness can often make the comments boxes a place where you don’t want to spend too much time.

Which is a real shame as there a lot of commenters who are informed, intelligent, interesting and prepared to engage in debate rather than just hurl shrill insults.

The optimistic view of comments boxes is that debates are self-moderating and that unpleasantness and bigotry are challenged and argued down. This does happen sometimes but the reality seems to be that malign people have more time to spend patrolling blogs and forums. I mean, google a few of the worst offenders and you’ll see they crop up all over the place.

So what do you do. Like the poster, I think that abusive and bigoted comments should be deleted but these are active forums that would require 24-hour moderation. Given that that is unrealistic, my – admittedly illiberal – solution would be to ban the worst of the posters in the hope that a more civilised equilibrium is restored.

What happens is that if we criticise Islamist Extremism and Antisemitism we are by definition also criticising the Muslim(s) who hold these views.

I use the term “moral compass” to define what supports a human being in their behaviour. Clearly, the “moral compass” of an Islamist, Jihadi and Muslim Antisemite is Islam. Islam’s laws are defined by the Koran and Hadiths.

After 7/7 Blair said that the perpetrators were following a “perversion” of Islam but I have yet to be directed to a book called “Perverted Islam”. Whereas, Black Magic and Satanism are perversions of Chritian belief and I can read tens of thousands of books on that subject.

The Koran says that Allah turned Jews into apes & pigs”. The Koran says that there is “no compulsion in Religion” and yet advocates killing those who leave Islam or protection for those who convert.

Hence, The Koran has both good, bad and contradictory teaching. This means that the followers of “perverted Islam” are simply following a nasty set of ideas stated by the Koran and those who are benign, friendly and accommodating are ignoring these texts.

If criticism of anything derived from Islam is Islamaphobic then the word is meaningless as a label for nasty people because, quite clearly, to be against some of the teachings of Islam and finding them repulsive is a very real and valid emotion.

If I say that I hate Anjem Choudray am I Islamaphobic because he’s a Muslim? Am I Islamaphobic because my hatred derives from his extremist Islamist views?

HP posters are (by and large) intelligent sensitive creatures who never mean that criticism of these extremists extends to the whole Muslim Community.

Timely and well deserved post, I echo many of its sentiments.

Mikey’s spot on about threads, you almost know before reading the comments what guff will be spewed out and much of it is borderline. I don’t even trouble to read many comment threads nowadays.

Then again, you can argue about moderation policy for weeks, even years, without coming to a conclusion.

Each blog has to decide where they draw the line and how best to encourage informed debate without getting tangled up too much in the minutiae.

All Muslims are potential terrorists. David T and others are lying to themselves when they say otherwise. They cannot be reasoned with, and terror is the only language they understand. It is good that HP has partially broken the taboo on criticising Islam. Now we must break the taboo on speaking about the solution to the Islamic problem.

Simon says:

“So what do you do. Like the poster, I think that abusive and bigoted comments should be deleted but these are active forums that would require 24-hour moderation. Given that that is unrealistic, my – admittedly illiberal – solution would be to ban the worst of the posters in the hope that a more civilised equilibrium is restored.”

Could you give some examples of bigoted posts and bigoted posters. It would help to know where you are coming from – given that many people in this country think David T is a bigot who posts bigoted material himself.

On a related subject –

The scales continue to fall from the eyes in relation to Iran.
The regime is now going after Moussavi himself, not content with torturing UK embassy officials and fracturing students’ skulls.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8134248.stm

Only blinkered appeasement – a craven attitude to the Pro-Shariah – could have led to a situation where we seriously though there could be anything like a free election in Iran or that it was wise to employ Iranians to work in our embassy.

Considering Attila that you chose the week when I was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the YMCA/New Deal providers to post a highly inflamatory attack on me because of a letter I’d written nearly twenty years ago in Living Marxism about your mum, it’s a bit rich you wingeing about Pitt.

You might be pleased to know that Dan, who is the close comrade who does our site, was deeply upset about your remarks.

But then he is just some working class spotty youth.

As for Pitt, he certainly exists.

Just about.

Doesn’t like being reminded of his Hull accent.

As I think just about the first person attacked on his Watch, I was was fighting the Khommists, physically, in Paris in the early 1980s.

field – the comment by “Sxzlgnuat” at 2.55pm seems pretty bigoted to me, what do you think ?

It should certainly be deleted as it encourages terrorism against Muslims.

Field

Fair question but I’m going to duck out partly because it would be unfair to put anybody in the dock without spending more time than I want on going through their posts. It’s a sunny day and I’m off out….

However, the characteristics of posters who might usefully be banned might include:

- repeated personal abuse
- repeated blanket denunciations of Muslims, regardless of context
- tendency to make purposelessly provocative attacks on Islam (eg ‘Mo was a paedophile’)
- tendency to swamp threads with long off-topic posts

I know some of this is a matter of degree and may be rather subjective but it’s up to the blog owners to take these decisions – or alternatively to take an ‘anything goes’ approach.

I have total sympathy with the blog owers on this – it’s an unpaid labour that they undertake in their valuable spare time and it would be entirely unreasonable to expect them to turn it into a full-time occupation. That’s why I think banning people, rather than attempting to deal with the problems post by post, might be a pragmatic solution.

@Sarah Correia (today at 11:25 am). There’s a lot of truth in what you say. But consider this:

People who see themselves as failures need scapegoats.

All too often the person seeing himself as a failure turns out to be a Muslim and the misnamed “islamophobe” is made the scapegoat. Misnamed, unless you would call a pre-1945 German dissident a “Naziphobe”. Or what about the people who are now being rounded up and tortured in Iran? You could hardly call them “Islamophobes” since presumably they’re all, or nearly all, Muslims themselves. So what are they? “Islamicrepublicophobes”?

field – the comment by “Sxzlgnuat” at 2.55pm seems pretty bigoted to me, what do you think ?

I agree, it’s an unqualified, vulgar blanket condemnation of all Muslims. But what strikes me most about it, is that those sort of comments in relations to Muslims are rather unusual on HP. Very much the exception.

I still don’t see that it warrants deletion though, but it comes quite close to incitement, so I wouldn’t loose too much sleep if it went. But then it aint my blog and isn’t my call.

I’d agree with Nick on that comment. It is isn’t the opening sentence that concerns me so much but the overall tone and the ambiguity which are a kind of “blank cheque” incitement.

Of course, if we say “All Nazis are potentially violent racists” I think we tend not to be blink so much.

Jihad Watch reports that there have been 13,500 deadly terrorist attacks by Islamic terrorists. I’ve no reason not to believe that figure when one considers all the attacks across the Middle East, North Africa, in Darfur, in Europe, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Indonesia and elsewhere.

Clearly there is something about Islamic ideology that lends itself to terrorism if the attacks are in such number. But of course an individual Muslim is not necessarily a Jihadist any more than an individual Nazi is
necessarily a mass murderer.

HOwever, I think if someone could show me how the basic ideology of Islam is not so very like Nazism I would be happier about these attempts to knobble free speech.

Here are some more points of comparison:

Both condone the murder and enslavement of prisoners of war.

Both place great emphasis on deception as part of war, in particular covering up motives.

Both exercise strict political control over the arts.

Both deny the existence of universal human rights.

Both sanctioned the terroristic murder of satirists.

The main difference is that Nazism is an explicitly racist ideology whereas Islam claims not to be, although its association with enslaving of Black Africans over many centuries (something that continues to this day) makes this doubtful – especially when one reads of the cruel castration of male Black Africans that went with it.

In Hitler’s view Islam would have been a religion well suited to the Aryan’s martial instincts. He clearly saw the affinities.

I think HP would benefit from more comment moderation but, though I dislike all the rubbish that Marko and many of the commenters have already described, I also value the openness and free-moving nature of HP. The hard thing is to figure out what’s an appropriate degree of moderation, and to apply it.

If David T and the others can come up with even a half-way objective policy, I bet some of the regulars here could be persuaded to take on the task of applying it (and maybe not — I regret I’m volunteering others, not myself; I don’t have time). I suspect that if an understandable policy was declared and applied for a little while, the work load on moderators would go down fairly soon as people learned that posting outside the rules was a waste of time.

An easy starting point would be to ban ad-hominems and obscenities. It’s not that we’re still shocked by rudeness and naughty words, but there’s a reason why they used to be considered unacceptable, and mostly still are in face-to-face conversation: They make worthwhile discussion all but impossible.

Comments like “All Muslims are potential terrorists” (Sxzlgnuat, 4 July 2009, 2:55 pm) are other easy candidates for elimination. Removing even only the most obvious trash would improve the level of argument here, and it would force people who want to comment to think a little bit about the points they really want to make and how to make them.

Finally, Marko’s piece is really well written and argued, no matter where you come down on moderation, and it is a sign of the nature and value of HP that David T put it up. Well done to all concerned.

That was 13,500 since 9/11 I should have said.

You see, Nick; you’ve already lowered the tone of the discussion. Words like ‘twat’ turn up often enough – and they do – and the whole discussion rapidly descends into the sewer.

I think the use of the word “comrade” is silly and antiquated It’s akin to describing oneself as a ‘flapper’ or as ‘groovy’.

Marko’s inability to broker even mild criticism, and his penchant to characterise any opposing arguments as ‘lowering-the-tone’ betrays a precious and sensitive narcissism that is itself an obstacle to free and open debate.

And as for religious bigotry at H.P.?

The only POSTINGS that have had any anti-religious overtones are those pertaining to Christianity.

As someone in their fifties, I’ve spent decades reading aggressive poelmics against Christianity, polemics that were greeted as progressive tracts and praised for their scope and depth, and yet when a similarly critical eye is cast at islam, the observations noted are all classed as bigotry.

Criticism of Christianity=’s enlightenment and progress.

Criticism of Islam =’s bigotry and racism.

My beef is with that blatant double standard and the inability of progressive to address it.

You forget to mention HP is full of rabid zionist extremists who attack Muslims because they are apologists for Israeli facism

(NB Anti-Muslim bigotry is NOT to be confused with criticising Islam as a religion or opposing special privileges for Muslims, both of which are entirely legitimate. The boundaries may not always be clear, but that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t try to draw them).

Yet when applied to Jews these are called anti-semitism by HP

so in response to a HP post saying “we are not anti Muslim” we have posters saying why shouldnt Hindus and Christians be allowed to hate Muslims “Islamophobia is totally rational” “Islam is the same as Nazism”" “All Muslims are potential terrorists”
“Now we must break the taboo on speaking about the solution to the Islamic problem.” and quoting Jihad watch!!

None of these posts has been deleted as you would demand if Jews were teh subject

You arent fooling anyone Muslim haters!

Nick (ex South Africa)
“I agree entirely. No, the Guardian’s anti-semitism follows from a different source entirely; its editorial policy!”

Riiiight- so HP isnt anti-Muslim for criticising Muslim countries and Islam but the Guardian is anti-semitic for criticising Isreal!!!

Special priveleges indeed

” For example, plenty of extremely nasty, bigoted and abusive individuals – anti-Semites and others – turn up to comment on The Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ site, without having their comments deleted. But it does not follow from this that The Guardian is anti-Semitic; merely that its comments moderation policy is too lax.”

Untrue. Such posts are deleted as soon as moderators are aware of them

They are also in a tiny minority. The anti-Muslim posts are on the other hand a majority on HP

You miss the crux of the matter- what is it about HP that draws Muslim haters like John P et all to it?

a few questions

firstly to anyone who quotes Renan on islam/muslims? do you also agree with Renan’s vile views on Jews? Or is his xenophobia acceptable only when he’s talking about muslims, rather than jews.

secondly to anyone who talks about Sha’ria, what do you mean by that term? You presumably know that it’s a broad term without a fixed interpretation. You presumably know that it’s a term which has changed with history (it’s use in Medieval times is thought to be influential on John Lock’s conceptions of law). Is only the salafist interpretation of sha’ria the correct one, and why so?

thirdly when you talk about islamic terrorist attacks being 13,500 in number since 9/11, how does that compare to ethno-nationalist terror attacks since 9/11? In the EU, 99% of all terror attacks (both foiled and sucessfull) are from ethno-nationalist terror organisations like Eta, and Corsican nationalist groups.

I’m not saying I don’t have a problem with Salafist/Deobandi/etc interpretations of Islam, but to posit that these represent Islam as a whole is factually incorrect. Just as it would be wrong to judge all of Christianity on The Lords army in Africa, or the KKK, or Phelps’s god hates fags ministry.

This is a good post. I agree with most of it insofar as it relates to the hands-off approach to the right wing anti-Muslim bigots, which I have said before I think is the wrong approach. It does exercise me, which may be a bit sad really, considering this is an internet site!

I think this is pretty much the only thing HP does wrong. Otherwise it’s the epitome of a thoughtful, centre-left, progressive blog. (Well, pretty much. Bit soft on Boris, but never mind. Occasional rubbish anti-Labour nonsense from one or two offenders, but on the whole entirely in agreement with me – or vice versa? – which obviously means it must be doing a good job.)

I disagree about the swearing. Obviously. But quite apart from my own occasional predeliction towards the Anglo-Saxon, Graham puts it well:

“I would certainly be against any attempt to turn HP into a site where discussions could only take place under the Rules of the Oxford Union Society.

There are many places like that on the web already – hardly anyone comments at them.”

Exactly. Whilst one wouldn’t want every second word to be an insult, political debate can sometimes end up a bit like the verbal equivalent of an impassioned bar-room brawl, and it would be unnatural not to recognise that. Sterility is a bad thing, and I think people talking about sewers (simply because of languistic manners) are being a little po-faced.

“To determine if someone is a principled opponent of Islamic/Serb fascism or an anti-Muslim/Serb bigot, you need to ask the following questions:”
Do you understand the difference between race and religion?

I don’t think all Muslims are evil. A lot of them have not even read the Koran. However Islam IS evil – Surah 9v29 is really offensive for example.
“‘Oh, but we don’t really hate Jews/Muslims; we’re just criticising Zionism/Islam !”
I don’t hate BNP voters – but it is a repulsive party, just as the pedophile prophet was a repulsive man.

PS I don’t know why as someone whose mixed race child the BNP thinks should be deported I am allowed to attack the BNP. But not the pedophile prophet who thought that I should be killed or forced to pay Jizya.

Marko, when you’re finished with that horse of yours, NASA are looking for a cheaper way to reach orbit – stepping of the back of that equine of yours should do it.

Awwwh, poor diddums Mikey (and his fellow traitors to the enlightenment) is sad that a dead genocidal paedophile rapist and gangster gets called a….dead genocidal paedophile rapist and gangster.

You of all people Marko should know the dangers of appeasing theism.

All the precious little useful theist idiots in this thread should replace the term “Islam” with “Scientology” in their bleats, and consider if they would protest so much. Would they like fuck!

As for “bigotry”, yes, if you are stupid enough to think your own personal sky fairy is watching over you and if you happen to mix polyester and nylon or eat bacon he (its always ‘he’ isn’t it?) will be angry with you, then yes, you truely are a fucking moron. We didn’t go to the Moon, cure cancer or have the enlightenment so you can get a murderous pissy fit every time your precious little imagination gets insulted.

All enemies of the enlightenment, all enemies of science and reason, yes, I am fucking well prejudiced against them.

If it was up to them (ALL OF THEM), I’d be dead and we’d be living in caves. Vile Evil Fuckers every one of them (whither they be Muslim, Christian, Communist, Nazi or whatever).

Great article Marko.

Post Moderation is problematic in just the way that you described. And, if I am not mistaken, HP is all volunteer work. Not like CIF which, in spite of what you say, (But it does not follow from this that The Guardian is anti-Semitic; merely that its comments moderation policy is too lax.), the Guardian is obsessively anti Israel.

Anti Islamic comments are quickly deleted. (like – Muhammud was a pedophile). Those comments lambasting Israel with complete lies and fabrications can sometimes remain for 36 hrs or more before being eventually removed.

Example – . I met a mother who was at home with her 10 children when Israeli soldiers entered the house. The soldiers told her she had to choose five of her children to give as a gift to Israel. As she screamed in horror, they repeated the demand and told her she could choose or they would choose for her. Then the soldiers murdered five of her children in front of her.

This blood libel remained for more than 3 days.

That seems to be more than simply a failure of moderation policy.

Shorter Marko and HP commentariat rebuttal of racism accusations…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU3WgN–sFs&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffailblog.org%2Fpage%2F3%2F&feature=player_embedded

You miss the crux of the matter- what is it about HP that draws Muslim haters like John P et all to it?

HP’s postings and contributers are what draw me to this site

I dislike islam, and I dislike it for very valid reasons, and it’s entirely my right to hold that opinion.

I work with several Muslims (ex) whose dislike of Islam exceeds mine.

In fact, the numerous ex-Muslim authors, authors such as Magdi Allam, hold views very similar to mine, and yet are not denounced as bigots.

Unpleasant things, no matter how true they may be, can no longer be discussed, and with the OIC pushing the UN to class even mild cirticism of islam as ‘blasphemy’, how long before any criticism of the subject becomes forbidden?

Allowing comments to languish for days in the moderaters queue is just the beginning of censorship and an effective way og placing a chill on all discussion.

“All enemies of the enlightenment, all enemies of science and reason, yes, I am fucking well prejudiced against them.”

Agreed. Why we continue to pussyfoot around religious idiots (of all stripes) is beyond me. I really thought that this was understood on HP – that they should get no special priveleges or protection against insults and/or criticism, gratuitous or otherwise (but, of course, gratuitism is most often in the eye of the beholder).

But note, Marko and others, the qualifying “all” that Morgoth uses. And for me, all religions are a blight – it’s just the case that Islam, at the moment, is the worst, and the most dangerous, of the lot. It’s just silly, and not a little perverse, to pretend otherwise.

field: But of course an individual Muslim is not necessarily a Jihadist any more than an individual Nazi is necessarily a mass murderer.

No, field, comparing the “individual Muslim” with the “individual Nazi” is the sort of thing that Marko is getting at. The individual Muslims I know are not remotely like any individual Nazi. It’s anti-Muslim bigotry to suggest this.

The individual Muslims I know are not remotely like any individual Nazi.

They have all abandoned any human dignity, any human potential, any sense of self and of worth, the very things that make and drive humans. Instead they are mindless slaves of Mo the Pro, The Fuhrer or L. Ron Hubbard.

What is the difference? They are *ALL* traitors to their species.

This post is a very worthy response to German’s very silly attack. My only reservation is that I’ve spent quite an amount of time taking anti-Muslim bigots to task in the comment threads at Harry’s Place and generally the response from anti-Muslim bigots is to say more extreme and more unpleasant things about Muslims – which, of course, German would just use as more evidence against David T.

So I really do not think that there is much that Harry’s Place can do to head off such criticism unless they start deleting comments and banning people. Whilst this does happen occasionally, the fact that this is the exception not the rule is to David T and co’s credit.

I am with Morgoth, this bullshit has gone way past not wanting to ‘offend’ the Religious, who gives a flying fuck what these religious lunatics think and Oliver, seriously, what fucking planet are you living on.

irrespective of your views on religion per say, part of the Enlightenment was religious freedom. That freedom surely consists of both the right to disbelieve but also the right to believe.

to pretend that justified rationalise criticism of islam hasn’t been poluted by people with agendas to damn all muslims, and all of the broad mosque that is Islam is just silly and not a little perverse.

Shorter Flying Rodent Comment:

“I know the accusations against HP are rubbish but I can’t resist repeating them anyway.”

Another easily contradicted liar – next?

sorry it should have been “justified rational”

Oh and Anaximanders other sandal, I’m on the same planet as you. Would you care to actually debate with what I’ve said, or is it just ad hominem attacks you go in for?

to pretend that justified rationalise criticism of islam hasn’t been poluted by people with agendas to damn all muslims,

And that is a problem why?

“to pretend that justified rationalise criticism of national socialism hasn’t been poluted by people with agendas to damn all nazis”

“to pretend that justified rationalise criticism of paedophilia hasn’t been poluted by people with agendas to damn all paedophiles”

and all of the broad mosque that is Islam is just silly and not a little perverse.

We have went to the Moon. We send probes to the Stars. We penetrate the mysteries of the Big Bang, and you want to give backwards guttersnipes that would KILL you for the slighest of irrational reasons respect? What fucking planet are you on?

Oh dear. (Last sentence toned down in order to avoid obscenity.) This is one of those tiresome arguments which has to be properly gone through at some point.

HP, in my view, performs a valuable service in helping turn round the general view on the UK Left that anything pro-Israel is imperialist and Bad, and therefore anything anti-Israel, pro-Muslim etc. is ipso facto Good. Thus bits of heinous anti-Semitism have passed unnoticed into the Left’s mental bloodstream. To reverse this, we have had to a) be a bit obsessive about barmy Islamists and their stooges and b) put the opposite case in fairly trenchant terms. For instance, Bob Pitt and co. seized on a post allegedly “associating Muslim religious female dress with terrorism”. That post was mine.

Now, if one wants to avoid offending Muslims at all costs, one would not write anything which could be thus interpreted. But HP has led us out of the zone in which one mustn’t offend Muslims because they and their representatives are soooooo sensitive. I recognise that what I wrote was provocative. But it’s only unacceptable if deliberately misinterpreted. It looks as though I think all forms of Muslim female religious dress are linked to terrorism. I do not. There are many forms of Muslim female dress around the world, related to different Muslim cultures. The frequently seen hijab or jilbab, in which the woman’s face is seen but little else, is not something I have a problem with. But the full burqa or niqab derive from extremely hard-line Muslim cultures, with some of whom we are at war. If you can think of any reason for which genuinely integrated Muslims with any degree of loyalty to Britain should put their womenfolk into such clothes, please tell me. But please don’t delete or ban me for making such a point, however provocative.

Likewise with those who say that “it might be worth investing in some software that removes all references to Muhammed and dodgy sexual activities” (MoreMediaNonsense). I agree that the “Mohammed was a paedophile” line is unnecessarily aggressive. World history is full of dynastic marriages involving children, and it was certainly not a settled preference: most of his wives were widows. But he did consider sexual possession of captives to be a Muslim’s natural right, and was most definitely a rapist. And that is not a piece of irrelevant mud-slinging: it has a direct relevance to Darfur today.

Of course we should not allow allegations that all Muslims whatsoever are evil and perverse and should be thrown out. But deletion is not necessary; the HP community can be relied on to take down any such person. But we must have no truck with the idea that certain comments about certain Muslims will “offend” the “community”. Bollocks: if you want to live in a place with proper water supply, flush toilets and central heating you will just have to accept the cut and thrust of free debate which made such amenities possible.

Oh and Anaximanders other sandal, I’m on the same planet as you. Would you care to actually debate with what I’ve said, or is it just ad hominem attacks you go in for?

For these to be a debate, both sides have to be rational. Thinking that idiots who think that an imaginary sky friend is watching them and punishing them if they eat shellfish deserve respect or debating is NOT rational.

Debates are grounded in facts, in the scientific method, in evidence and the conclusions to be drawn from them, i.e. methodological naturalism. If you cannot hold to this as your prime principle, you are not worthy of debate and you can fuck right off.

*sigh* Morgoth, you know the big bang theory was thought up by a Christian monk, don’t you.

I think you’ve just evoked Godwin’s Law with your strawman arguements there…

I agree that the “Mohammed was a paedophile” line is unnecessarily aggressive.

Is the (equally true) statement “Hilter was a genocidal tyrant” “unnecessarily agressive” also?

And what the fuck is this “unnecessarily agressive” bollocks?

Actually Oliver, it was Александр Александрович Фридман (Alexander Alexandrovich Friedman)

Hmmm. This rather sounds as if we can expect the Morgoth Gestapo some time in the small hours to search our houses for forbidden theist literature. And that somewhere a Room 101 is being prepared for forcible extraction of theist concepts from our minds.

Not sure about this, to be honest.

sorry the big bang theory was thought up by a Roman Catholic priest, rather than a monk.

Morgoth, you have a problem with belief systems that damn the unbeliever, yet you don’t have a problem with your own belief system which damns all believers. How does that work exactly?

I do NOT have a belief system. I merely accept the evidence. There is no evidence of any intelligent entity other than our own sentience. Indeed, a surpa-sentience as proposed and followed by theists is impossible in our universe

And that somewhere a Room 101 is being prepared for forcible extraction of theist concepts from our minds.

Its called “looking after your fellow human beings, fucking who you want, eating what you want, expanding your horizons both intellectually and socially and generally having a good time”

.

actually it was as much Georges Lemaître

‘Its called “looking after your fellow human beings, fucking who you want, eating what you want, expanding your horizons both intellectually and socially and generally having a good time”’

Well, that’s exactly what I do anyway. And I’m still a theist.

No, Friedman discovered the expanding-universe solution to the Einstein field equations in 1922.

Debates are grounded in facts, in the scientific method, in evidence and the conclusions to be drawn from them, i.e. methodological naturalism. If you cannot hold to this as your prime principle, you are not worthy of debate and you can fuck right off.

Exhibit one – the prime problem. Morgy thinks discussions (this isn’t a debating society) must be run his way or anyone opposed to him is unworthy. Quite what gives Morgy the right to demand this at HP? Is an implied acceptance of Morgy’s right to hand down imperial decrees tantamount to running a website where what Morgy thinks is the “party line”? Will Morgy’s words appear on Islamophobia Watch as HP’s own?

You bet!

Well, that’s exactly what I do anyway. And I’m still a theist.

But you still place unacceptable limitations on your behaviour because of an imaginary sky friend that you have absolutely no evidence for existing. Hence you are a cripple, a failure of a human being.

Your affliction is easy cured though.

“Debate what I have said”

To what end? Seriously what’s the point, the evidence is already there, I mean it doesn’t take an Astrophysics Degree to see it, all it takes is to read a few books, the Koran, ahadith and a few history books, other than those that extoll the virtues of socialism and Karl Marx that is.

You are not interested in “debate” your mind is already made up and This isn’t a debating chamber, it’s a virtual repository for the “views” of a multitude of varying people, it’s not a classroom.

Now if you want to play the “I am an intellectual and I know better than you card” then please feel free to try. Because “Shock Horror” I do know a little bit about Islamic History, no really I do.

Oh yes, so as to preempt any of the usual cries of Islamophobia, I didn’t get my information from Jihad Watch.

““looking after your fellow human beings, fucking who you want, eating what you want, expanding your horizons both intellectually and socially and generally having a good time””

um, that *is* a belief system you’ve outlined there.

“Indeed, a surpa-sentience as proposed and followed by theists is impossible in our universe”

more evidence of your belief system there… especially as the big bang theory can be used to argue for the existance of a supra-sentience.

Fuck off Graham, I was pointed to Oliver that you cannot reason someone out of a position they have not reasoned themselves into. Theism is a prime example: it is ANTI-reason.

“But he did consider sexual possession of captives to be a Muslim’s natural right, and was most definitely a rapist. And that is not a piece of irrelevant mud-slinging: it has a direct relevance to Darfur today.”

What disgusting rubbish. According to this putrid line of argument all Muslims must be rapists (as they aim to emulate Muhammed) and if they aren’t they can’t be Muslims.

What a vile way of thinking. You deserve to be banned.

again mr Anaximanders other sandal, you’ve avoided debate, and relied on ad hominins like “You are not interested in “debate” your mind is already made up “. Hmmm, why is this?

um, that *is* a belief system you’ve outlined there.

Err, no. It is a consequence of our evolution.

more evidence of your belief system there… especially as the big bang theory can be used to argue for the existance of a supra-sentience.

No it can’t. “Goddidit” as applied to the Big Bang is just as wrong as saying “Goddidit” to explain the existance of the Tellytubbies.

Is mr Anaximanders other sandal avoiding debate because he refuses to enterain the arguments put forward by proponents of Betrand Russell’s teapotism?

“No, Friedman discovered the expanding-universe solution to the Einstein field equations in 1922.”

yes, but he didn’t posit a big bang start to it did he, that was Georges Lemaître

Fuck off Graham, I was pointed to Oliver that you cannot reason someone out of a position they have not reasoned themselves into.

Oh dear (here we go…)

Many times in the past it has been pointed out to you that this is nonsense. Of course you can reason illogical people out of a position that they have not reasoned themselves into (were this not the case we would still be burning witches.) One reasonable response to an illogical person would be to teach them the tools of reasoning.

However, you do not wish to do this and so have arrived at the very intolerance shown by some of the worst examples of fundamentalists throughout history. Calling people cripples and making thinly veiled threats that they are “easily cured” is frankly quite disgusting.

“um, that *is* a belief system you’ve outlined there.

Err, no. It is a consequence of our evolution.”

hahahahahahahahahahaha you are awfully funny you know, keep on wriggling.

Our evolution as a fundamentally social species includes the social constraints on “having a good time” and “fucking who you want, eating what you want”. But not according to your belief system.

Oh and by the way all you Jewish/Christian believers who come on here to spout garbage about how the Koran is uniquely unpleasant in its teachings I suggest you read this :

http://www.evilbible.com/

Here’s some stuff to start you off :

” This web site is designed to spread the vicious truth about the Bible. For far too long priests and preachers have completely ignored the vicious criminal acts that the Bible promotes. The so called “God” of the Bible makes Osama Bin Laden look like a Boy Scout. This God, according to the Bible, is directly responsible for many mass-murders, rapes, pillage, plunder, slavery, child abuse and killing, not to mention the killing of unborn children. I have included references to the Biblical passages, so grab your Bible and follow along. You can also follow along with on-line Bibles such as BibleStudyTools.net or SkepticsAnnotatedBible.com.

It always amazes me how many times this God orders the killing of innocent people even after the Ten Commandments said “Thou shall not kill”. For example, God kills 70,000 innocent people because David ordered a census of the people (1 Chronicles 21). God also orders the destruction of 60 cities so that the Israelites can live there. He orders the killing of all the men, women, and children of each city, and the looting of all of value (Deuteronomy 3). He orders another attack and the killing of “all the living creatures of the city: men and women, young, and old, as well as oxen sheep, and asses” (Joshua 6). In Judges 21, He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead, except for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, God told them to hide alongside the road and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap her and forcibly rape her and make her your wife! Just about every other page in the Old Testament has God killing somebody! In 2 Kings 10:18-27, God orders the murder of all the worshipers of a different god in their very own church! In total God kills 371,186 people directly and orders another 1,862,265 people murdered.

The God of the Bible also allows slavery, including selling your own daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:1-11), child abuse (Judges 11:29-40 and Isaiah 13:16), and bashing babies against rocks (Hosea 13:16 & Psalms 137:9). “

A scientific hypothesis! Not “Goddidit!”

Intolerance, Graham? Ask Hypatia of Alexander about tolerance….Ask the hundreds of millions killed by theism about tolerance….

No point attempting to “debate” the wiki generation Morgoth, it’s a futile exercise.

Oh and by the way all you Jewish/Christian believers who come on here to spout garbage about how the Koran is uniquely unpleasant in its teachings I suggest you read this :

Who, apart from J.P., is suggesting this?

oliver,

Morgoth is an occultist.

He has a problem with every competing religion, but he’s always very, very reluctant to discuss his own weird beliefs.

Who said the Koran is uniquely unpleasant?

Graham, what else could someone, who, instead of revelling in the wonders of the cosmos, is so devoid of intellectual reason and capability that they think that “Goddidit” is a valid answer, be anything other than an intellectual and psychological cripple?

You’re making excuses for irrationality again.

I would normally delete Sxzlgnuat’s 2:55 pm comment, but it should be left standing in this thread as an example of what I hope everyone can agree is pure anti-Muslim bigotry– going far beyond the usual “I’m not against Muslims, I’m just against Islam” mantra. If you can’t agree with that, I’m not sure what there is to discuss.

Ask Hypatia of Alexander about tolerance….Ask the hundreds of millions killed by theism about tolerance….

Oh don’t be a tit, I don’t beleive in God and have many times made the point about how many people religion has killed.

We are talking about intolerance on a blog so it would be far better for you to ask Benji about it.

I don’t remember all their names Morgoth and can’t be bothered to look it up but I reckon many of them are.

I tell you what in future why don’t we ask all the “Koran is uniquely vile” spouters to tell us whether they’re religous Jews or Christians ? Then we can quote from that site to them until they p*** off.

Is it a deal ?

Graham, what else could someone, who, instead of revelling in the wonders of the cosmos, is so devoid of intellectual reason and capability that they think that “Goddidit” is a valid answer, be anything other than an intellectual and psychological cripple?

They could very easily be someone on a journey towards rationality.

You are making excuses for intolerance again.

“I would normally delete Sxzlgnuat’s 2:55 pm comment, but it should be left standing in this thread as an example of what I hope everyone can agree is pure anti-Muslim bigotry– going far beyond the usual “I’m not against Muslims, I’m just against Islam” mantra. If you can’t agree with that, I’m not sure what there is to discuss.”

Agreed.

We are talking about intolerance on a blog so it would be far better for you to ask Benji about it.

Who is talking about intolerance on a blog? You came in, you rambled, you made a point that is at best tangiential, and now you’ve got your knickers in a twist?

And a journey *towards* rationality? Good grief!

Who is talking about intolerance on a blog?

Lindsey German and Bob Pitt

(At least try to read the post before you start commenting on it!)

And a journey *towards* rationality? Good grief!

Ah! I see you think rationality is innate.

Do us all a favour and go back to declaring yourself to be Churchill!

“What disgusting rubbish. According to this putrid line of argument all Muslims must be rapists (as they aim to emulate Muhammed) and if they aren’t they can’t be Muslims.

What a vile way of thinking. You deserve to be banned.”

How jolly enlightened. Yes, demands for a ban on contrary views are always the first refuge of a certain type.

My line on Mohammed’s habit of raping captives is borne out by all the most basic Islamic literature. That it has been followed with full religious approval is a historical fact, and remains so in some areas (e.g. Darfur) until today. No doubt this is a vile way of thinking and ought to be banned, in that it isn’t very complimentary.

However, I don’t believe in any obligation to be complimentary to all and sundry. And there is nothing in my argument which implies that all Muslims are obliged to follow Mohammed in this way; just that they can if they want to. The idea that I am saying that a non-rapist cannot be a Muslim is preposterous.

But I expect to be banned all the same, that is if HP wants to be a place where Muslims can feel free from criticism of their Prophet. I await the verdict of David T et al.

I do believe Morgoth is trying to suggest anyone who disagrees with him is “irrational”!

Amusing, if a little weird.

To determine if someone is a principled opponent of Islamic/Serb fascism or an anti-Muslim/Serb bigot, you need to ask the following questions: Does the individual in question support Muslim/Serb anti-fascists and democrats, or do they equate all Muslims/Serbs with fascism ? Do they claim that Muslim/Serb fascism is simply the counterpart of the fascism produced by other groups, or do they claim that Muslims/Serbs have a unique propensity toward fascism ? In sum, are they attacking Muslim/Serb fascists because they are fascists, or because they are Muslims/Serbs?

All a bit rich really. A scan of Greater Surbiton will reveal that, until very recently, virtually every single post referred to: ‘Serb fascists’; ‘Serbian fascism’; ‘Orthodox fascists’; ‘Serb women-hating fascists’, etc. etc. Reading GS, one might be forgiven for thinking that all Serbs were indeed fascists. Admittedly, Marko did once declare: “I, on the other hand, love Serbia and the Serbian people.” A Balkans Bernard Manning?

As a measure of Marko’s even-handedness when it comes to being visibly “anti-fascist”, recall last year when Dinko Sakic, the 86-year-old former commander of Jasenovac (the notorious second world war concentration camp) was allowed to be buried in Zagreb wearing his WWII Ustashe uniform, in a ceremony with some pomp? Marko assured his readers that this was a “simple national embarrasment” [sic]. Note, there was precious little outrage in the Croat national press over this. Throughout Marko’s “exposes” of Croat fascism, one finds much special pleading. We learn that the Ustashe were in fact betrayers of the Croat people. Perhaps taking a cue from Austria, Croats realised there was much to gain in portraying themselves as also the ‘victims’ of fascism.

In another lapse of even-handedness, Marko fails to note in his article on ‘Serb women-hating fascists’ that the Croat writer Slavenka Drakulic now lives in Sweden following threats received from ‘facists’ in her homeland. Indeed, the CiF article by Drakulic noting the ‘rehabilitation of fascist ideology’ in Croatia prompted a rash of quite rabid posts, many involving personal insults (these were from declared and/or presumed Croats).

A plea for honesty now, HP posters. If a concentration camp commander had been buried (wearing full uniform) in, say, Budapest – would that have not prompted some outrage on these pages? And rightly so. What about Vienna? Tehran? I know, what about BELGRADE? That would have hit the button. But, since it was Zagreb, one can’t help suspecting that HP posters pause and take their cue from Marko:

“OK, it does look a bit iffy: full-blown Holocaust camp commander, unrepentant (’I sleep well’), buried in full uniform, personally executed Jews as well as Serbs, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre didn’t like it one bit, deary me. This warrants a bit of vigourous posting. Wait a mo, Marko says it just a little ‘embarrassment’ and nothing to get worked up about. That’s a relief”.

“…what I hope everyone can agree is pure anti-Muslim bigotry–”

Yes. Agreed. But it’s only one comment out of many – hardly the ‘flood’ of anti-Muslim bigotry that Marko was harping on about.

I would agree only with the statement that “All Muslims are potential terrorists.” as part of the larger context that all Sky Fairy followers are potential terrorists. They most certainly CAN however, to be reasoned with (to claim that they cannot be cured is simply the Theist Original Sin argument under another name and completely wrong).

The solution is the eradication of theism, through enlightenment, education and vigourous defense of reason and enlightenment principles. Make teaching your defenseless child that there are such things as sky fairies who want them to not eat shellfish, for example, should be a criminal offense. Shutting down theist places of worship, instituting vigourous critical thinking in schools (as well as banning RE and faith schools) and maintaining the public sphere as a purely secular space is the way to do it. In short, we need to go Dawkins on their arse, big time.

Cipriano – the Old Testament God did many very vile things and so have his followers over the years. You should also be very suspicious of devout Christians and Jews by your reckoning.

Are you ?

See my above :

“In Judges 21, He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead, except for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, God told them to hide alongside the road and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap her and forcibly rape her and make her your wife!”

Where is the difference in vileness in the above to what is in the Koran ?

I do believe Morgoth is trying to suggest anyone who disagrees with him is “irrational”!

No, you can disagree with me on the basis of evidence and reasoned argument. Similarily, I can disagree with you on the basis of the evidence and reasoned argument. For example, we can disagree on the matter of, say, selective education, as it is an argument based upon education, attainment levels, demographics and so in.

I reserve the right to call you a nutter and refuse to get down to your level if you claim that you’re in favour of comprehensive education because L. Ron. Hubbard said that every time a child goes to a grammar school Xenu kills a kitten.

Dinko Sakic, the 86-year-old former commander of Jasenovac (the notorious second world war concentration camp) was allowed to be buried in Zagreb wearing his WWII Ustashe uniform, in a ceremony with some pomp? Marko assured his readers that this was a “simple national embarrasment” [sic]. Note, there was precious little outrage in the Croat national press over this.

Don’t you think that you ought to mention that Sakic was extradited to Croatia, tried and sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Tudjman regime? Or would that puncture your righteous indignation completely?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/dinko-sakic-concentration-camp-commander-875730.html

Oh well – perhaps I should be the first to coin the term “atheofascist”…

Quote: “I believe that when faced with the problem of bigoted or abusive individuals flooding your blog, you should do one of two things: either simply delete their comments ruthlessly and restrict the discussion to civilised people, or systematically take them apart.”

In other words, restrict freedom of speech, just like Muslims do. In other words, deny people the right to have any opinion that does not conform to Islamic doctrine.

Actually, Harry’s Place does, to a degree, restrict speech. They delete postings which they believe to be too radical. Last month, for the first time, I had 2 posts deleted by HP moderators.

My crime? I stated that there is no such thing as a “moderate” MUslims. HP believes otherwise. They deleted by comments. It is their right. Because of this, IslamophopbiaWatch proves once again that they are intolerant bigots. They just don’t want strong criticism of Islam – They don’t want any criticism of Islam, Mohammad or their actions.

From my experience, I can categorically state that Harry’s Place doesn’t have an anti-Muslim agenda. They have a anti-radical Muslim (or “anti-Islamist”) agenda. Once again, I think HP is wrong, or they haven’t really talked to a “moderate” Muslim about the hate and violence in the Quran and hadith. Why should a person (myself) not condemn all Muslims when all Muslims accept refuse to be honest about their doctrines, the evil actions of their dear prophet and the discrimination practiced against non-Muslims in those societies where they dominate?

Kactuz

I reserve the right to call you a nutter and refuse to get down to your level if you claim that you’re in favour of comprehensive education because L. Ron. Hubbard said that every time a child goes to a grammar school Xenu kills a kitten.

And I reserve the right to call you an intolerant lunatic if whilst I reason with someone that Hubbard is wrong you can only call them cripples and threaten to “cure” them.

Where is the difference in vileness in the above to what is in the Koran ?

Precisely, MoreMediaNonsense!

As Pat Condell says:

“… religion is bearing false witness against us to our detriment – and that is defamation. Religion is telling us a poison story about ourselves, because it doesn’t want us to like ourselves one little bit. So it denigrates us from the moment we’re born, as unworthy, unclean and stained with sin, persuading us that there’s something that we need to be saved from. And indeed there is: The curse of religion, which for its very survival depends on keeping us enthralled to a view of reality that’s so childish, so stunted, so utterly and transparently false, it amounts to nothing less than a malicious assault on our very identity as human beings, which I believe makes religion a crime against humanity.”

Oh, yeah, that reasoning of yours is really going well, Graham. Just ask Giordano Bruno on the success of that.

From Drakilic’s article:

This summer Dinko Sakic, the 86-year-old former commander of Jasenovac, the notorious second world war concentration camp, was buried in his Ustashe uniform, the Croatian equivalent of the Nazis. After the war, Sakic emigrated to Argentina but returned after Croatian independence in 1991. He was welcomed back like a celebrity. In his interviews, Sakic repeated that he regretted nothing. What Sakic should have repented was that tens of thousands of inmates in Jasenovac were murdered under his command. He also personally executed two Jewish prisoners. Franjo Tudjman’s government showed no will to put Sakic on trial until Israel signalled it was perfectly willing to try him there. So in 1998, Sakic was sentenced to a maximum of 20 years. At his funeral a Dominican priest, Vjekoslav Lasic gave a speech in which he advised Croats to admire Sakic and to take him as an example.

Also, from the Indie obit: “It also contributed to the important process of reconciliation with Croatia’s Serbian and Jewish communities.”

As there was no mention of the funeral in the obit, I suspect it was written before the “Jewish communities” got to hear of him being buried in his concentration camp uniform. Some “reconciliation”.

Puncture repair kit not needed

How do I ask Bruno? Do you have some occult spiritualist event where he is scheduled to appear?

It is really quite simple (and rational) Morgoth. This is a blog and you do not run it. Therefore the only question is whether the people who do run the blog want to be associated with your levels of intolerance and demands that things be done your way.

Where have I demanded that *you* and *HP* do anything, you tool?

Ah! I see you think rationality is innate.

Non-sequitur. “Goddidit” is not the response of anyone in the slightest bit rational.

Perhaps Graham can ellucidate for us the thought process where my declaration that I personally conisder debating to have a pre-requisite of rationality on both sides is morphed into me demanding that this blog follow certain (unelaborated and unspecified) behaviours that I have never actually ever spelt out and are only a figment of his imagination?

Its a leap of logic by the resident TescoKirbyBlueNose that makes the Underpants Gnomes business model look impeccably logical (and successful)

As there was no mention of the funeral in the obit, I suspect it was written before the “Jewish communities” got to hear of him being buried in his concentration camp uniform. Some “reconciliation”.

Well I have no doubt at all that British nazis have been buried in their regalia (as, for that matter have members of the Serbian nazi government of Milan Nedić and former members of the SS.)

None of that would imply that the British or Serbian or German governments are present-day nazis, yet you seem to be implying that Sakic’s burial means that the Croats are.

Its a bit racist that isn’t it?

Tudjman (and for that matter the Ustache’s) relations with the Jewish communities of their times are a little too complicated to be gone into here but I doubt that this incident has made a great deal of difference to international relations to be quite honest.

Where have I demanded that *you* and *HP* do anything, you tool?

Now, now. Keep your hair on Mr Eldritch. HP has tolerated (oh yes) your remarks for years (so you have nothing to wet your pants about.)

The question is whether HP wants to continue tolerating them and those of others with similar problems.

MoreMedia Nonsense (and Morgoth, but the latter is beyond rational argument) seem to be saying that all Jews are potential terrorists because the Old Testament contains nasty bits. That is bigoted nonsense, as anyone who knows the first thing about modern Judaism and Jews would know. 99.9999% of religious Jews have no intention of emulating the events described in the book of Joshua (which are highly embroidered versions of oral histories passed down over many centuries, in any case).

Morgoth,

whilst we are on that topic

what exactly is rational about a belief in the occult?

A question to the “believers” why do the three middle east religious dogmas all have their “sabbaths” on different days, friday, saturday, sunday? It is not a joke, seriously people doesn’t that strike you as being just a tinsy winsy bit suspicious?

Old testament “magic ring”?
New testament “resurrection” ?
Mohammed’s 25% cut of the “profits” for Allah?
Golden Plates, Heavens Gate, The Moonies, Scientology, people who hear voices? I mean it’s all a bit, well, err, well childish, isn’t it.

“In Dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide;he knows the road and the paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind men as guides.” Heinrich Heine.

I personally can’t ‘work out’ Heine but the afore quoted lines hit the nail on the head as far as I am concerned.

Religion, all religion has become a threat to our survival as a species, because of one simple and glaring game changer, Nuclear Weapons. Anyone, Anyone who thinks religious fanatics will not gladly push the “button” for the glory of his chosen deity is, quite frankly, a simpleton. The “MAD” logic which has prevented a nuclear holocaust thus far will not work with religious fanatics.

Frunobulax is simply telling lies about what I have written and what I stand for. Funny how he condemns the Croatian press for allegedly ignoring the funeral of the Croat fascist Dinko Sakic, then condemns me for posting about it !

Here are some links to my posts about Croat fascism and bigotry, so readers can decide for themselves if I’ve glossed over them. The first of these is the one that Frunobulax referred to (but cunningly failed to link to). If anyone can detect any ’special pleading’ for Croat fascism on my part, do please feel free to point it out:

http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/croatias-ustashas-from-treason-and-genocide-to-simple-national-embarrasment/

http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/nationalism-and-cowardice/

As for Frunobulax’s accusation that all my posts equate the Serbs and fascism, here are a couple of examples which readers are also invited to judge for themselves:

http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/serbia-votes-for-the-west/

http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/the-end-of-the-kosovo-myth/

The question is whether HP wants to continue tolerating them and those of others with similar problems.</i.

No, the question is why you see fit to accuse me of doing something that I have clearly not done (i.e. supposedly trying to dictate the editorial and content line of HP).

what exactly is rational about a belief in the occult?

Define the “occult”, Modernity.

Well I have no doubt at all that British nazis have been buried in their regalia (as, for that matter have members of the Serbian nazi government of Milan Nedić and former members of the SS.)

Openly? Last year? Please give examples rather than hunches.

Its a bit racist that isn’t it?

Deary me, what a cheap shot. To merely quote a Croatian writer who – with notable examples – points out what she see as the ‘rehabilitation of fascist ideology’ is enough to prompt the accusation of “racist”.

All Muslims are potential terrorists. David T and others are lying to themselves when they say otherwise. They cannot be reasoned with, and terror is the only language they understand. It is good that HP has partially broken the taboo on criticising Islam. Now we must break the taboo on speaking about the solution to the Islamic problem.

Don’t you trolls from Islamaphobia Watch and MPAC UK have nothing better to do than plant obviously offensive posts to see if the get removed?

Frunobulax is simply telling lies about what I have written and what I stand for. Funny how he condemns the Croatian press for allegedly ignoring the funeral of the Croat fascist Dinko Sakic, then condemns me for posting about it !

Here are some links to my posts about Croat fascism and bigotry, so readers can decide for themselves if I’ve glossed over them. The first of these is the one that Frunobulax referred to (but cunningly failed to link to). If anyone can detect any ’special pleading’ for Croat fascism on my part, do please feel free to point it out:

http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/croatias-ustashas-from-treason-and-genocide-to-simple-national-embarrasment/

http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/nationalism-and-cowardice/

As for Frunobulax’s accusation that all my posts equate the Serbs and fascism, here are a couple of examples which readers are also invited to judge for themselves:

http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/serbia-votes-for-the-west/

http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/the-end-of-the-kosovo-myth/

Who said the Koran is uniquely unpleasant

It isn’t, the problem is that core to Islam is belief that it is the verbatim word of the creator of the universe dictated by the angel Gabriel to the ‘prophet’ Mohamed and transcribed, without error as the Koran. That it is the final and unalterable word of God. Hence the term ‘Koranic literalist’. That is a large part of what makes Islam a ‘uniquely unpleasant’ pernicious and an especially dangerous meme, one with the track record to boot.

I have no particular problems with self identifying Muslims who manage the mental calisthenics of doing this whilst not being Koranic literalists…well other than a significant risk of recidivism. But those Muslims who are Koranic literalists are extremely dangerous, and this is a form of Fascism.

And let’s not pretend that Koranic literalism is anything other than mainstream amongst self identifying Muslims.

J Ketland says:

“No, field, comparing the “individual Muslim” with the “individual Nazi” is the sort of thing that Marko is getting at. The individual Muslims I know are not remotely like any individual Nazi. It’s anti-Muslim bigotry to suggest this.”

Well, how many individual Nazis do you know JK? Are you saying they are all foaming at the mouth ready to go kill Jews? Are none of them pleasant people or people who pretend to be pleasant?

I think you have really got to disprove the links I made between Islamic beliefs and Nazi beliefs before you lecture me in this way. I note you don’t attempt to deny the close resemblance.

And the individual Muslims you know, are you telling me they believe in-

Mohammed as the perfect example for all humanity.

Jihad against the non believers

The ending of democracy, to be substituted by ruler of a Caliph (Supreme Leader).

Creating a two tier citizenship.

The inferiority of women to men.

Practising the arts of deception in relation to non-Muslims.

If you are saying they don’t believe in any of these things then in what sense are they believing Muslims? If they don’t believe in those things – the things taught by clerics at all the major Islamic centres of learning – then they are what I call cultural Muslims, just as you might say I am a cultural Christian, though I don’t go to Church, propagate Christianity or believe in its ideological tenets. In which case that is irrelevant. You’re an academic aren’t you? Your experience of Muslims may well be confined to a narrow section of Muslims who have abandoned their faith and embraced modernity.

Openly? Last year? Please give examples rather than hunches.

Wel of course I don’t have examples (as I am not intent on proving that a particular country is riddled with nazis…)

To merely quote a Croatian writer who – with notable examples – points out what she see as the ‘rehabilitation of fascist ideology’

So lets get this straight : Sakic is deported from Argentina and sentenced to twenty years and then fascist ideology is “rehabilitated” by his privately-conducted burial?

Some “rehibilitation” that! To damn a whole country because of what some nazi nutters do at a funeral is racist I’m afraid – in fact you could not find a clearer example of racism.

The battle against the heirs of the Ustashas in Croatia has been won; the battle against the supporters of Karadzic in Serbia is being won.

I’d say allowing a Holocaust camp commander to be buried in full uniform, followed by negligible public outrage, suggests the ‘battle’ in Croatia has not been won.

“Define the “occult”, Modernity.”

Morgoth, stop ducking.

You are perfectly capable of defining the occult for yourself, after all it is you who are the occultist.

Do you think he should be exhumed on the basis of what one writer has said then?

As for Frunobulax’s accusation that all my posts equate the Serbs and fascism, here are a couple of examples …

And the other couple of hundred?

The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus (clandestine, hidden, secret), referring to “knowledge of the hidden”

Come on Modernity, you define it. What do you want to know?

It isn’t very rational to believe that you can call up Pan Morgy!

In the wake of 9/11, the Muslim head of Al Arabiya TV, Abdul Rahman al Rashed, said: “Not all Muslims are terrorists but, with deep regret, we must admit that almost all terrorists are Muslims.”

Is his statement is Islamaphobic or true?

If we take the fact that since 9/11 just over 250 Muslims in the UK have been found guilty of terrorism-related offences. (You can verify that with Home Ofice stats and some answer in Hansard). I believe I once heard Frank Gardner quote a bigger number.

So, on a population basis is it Islamaphobic to say that a UK Muslim is MORE likely to have links to terrorism than a non-Muslim Brit?

An item in MPAC UK from a few days about compasses provided to Muslim men in prison stated that “10% of the Male prison population is Muslim”. Is it Islamaphobic to state this?

My point is that debate about facts relating to Muslims is often stifled by self-imposed political correctness or claims that you are Islamaphobic for pointing it out.

I am sure there are surveys about how charitable Muslims have been, how open the Mosques and Imams have been to inter-faith dialogue etc. Good stuff doesn’t make the news. Things that threaten us or should worry us about the fabric of our society and its dangers will always get publicity.

Hate preachers who incite racism and violence are rightly outed whether they are Left, Right, Muslim or Non-Muslim. HP is basically anti-fascist and against antisemitism irrespect of where it comes from.

‘And the other couple of hundred?’

Go ahead and provide even a single example :-)

It isn’t very rational to believe that you can call up Pan Morgy!

I completely agree!

“If you are saying they don’t believe in any of these things then in what sense are they believing Muslims? If they don’t believe in those things – the things taught by clerics at all the major Islamic centres of learning – then they are what I call cultural Muslims, just as you might say I am a cultural Christian, though I don’t go to Church, propagate Christianity or believe in its ideological tenets. In which case that is irrelevant. You’re an academic aren’t you? Your experience of Muslims may well be confined to a narrow section of Muslims who have abandoned their faith and embraced modernity.”

But what if they don’t consider themselves to have abandoned their faith – who are you to tell them they are Muslims or not?

What is your own experience of Muslims? Do you routinely go through your list of ‘horrific Muslim views’ and tell them they cannot properly qualify as a Muslim if they’re not sufficiently nasty?

The Catholic church considered Luther a heretic, but he thought he was staying true to Christianity. Religion evolves; religious teachings are interpreted differently; religious cultures cannot be easily essentialised.

So are Christians who are not Bible literalists similarly not proper Christians?

Hmmm. You may be a reformed Crowley-lover but you are still a Crowley -lover. And all Crowley-lovers are potential murderers.

Still. We must be tolerant.

Image 12 from this slide show is great
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8129324.stm

“Where is the difference in vileness in the above to what is in the Koran ?”

As far as I know I have never argued on the basis of “this is what the Koran says so everyone who follows the Koran is an utter….” My problem with modern Islam is not Koranic literalism but the fact that the Koran is invariably interpreted by some warlord who does so in his own interests, and that Islamic society has never evolved a mechanism for holding the leadership to account. Hence every Muslim state is an unstable dictatorship, and hence (by empirical observation, not from the fundamentals of the doctrine) Islam is inherently quasi-fascist. My opposition to Islamism has nothing racist about it but is part of my opposition to fascism everywhere.

Jako –

Well that’s all to the well and good. I have no problem with people believing in heresies if it helps move their religion away from darkness into the light. Catholics who don’t believe in Papal supremacy may not be good Catholics but I have no problem with them declaring they are.

It’s true religions and sects can redefine themselves. We saw it with the Dutch Reformed Church, transformed from a bulwark of apartheid to one of its gravediggers.

When the major Islamic centres of learning start preaching the value of democracy, universal human rights, and are prepared to consider whether Mohammed was in all respects the perfect example for humanity we may know that the religion is moving. Because, real change in religions is based on what they teach. Following Vatican 2, there was a shift in what the Church taught about democracy, not just what its followers believed.

Can we name names? I haven’t seen that much anti-Islam bigotry here. Sure there are often commentors that I think go far, but on the whole, I think this group is fairly reasonable. If Morgoth and Josh Scholar represent the worst of HP, I think this place is actually in decent shape considering the subject matter of the blog. They both tend to be generally anti-religion. Lets make this conversation concrete and explicit:

Who are the the most anti-Muslim bigots of the regulars here? I’d like to know.

“HP is basically anti-fascist and against antisemitism irrespect of where it comes from.”

Agree 100%. Most people don’t like to hear the truth, a Human defense mechanism I suppose, but thankfully “Truth will out” eventually.

We, all of us regardless of ethnic origin, have a problem at this particular moment in time with the fanatical adherents of a particular religion, that problem is leading to other problems as to what is the best way to tackle the aforementioned problem. Who Knows what the solution is? I don’t.

But I do know one thing, pretending there isn’t a problem is a big, big mistake.

Deny reality if you wish but reality is very stubborn. It may very well take a few millennia more to shake off these ridiculous superstitions and I regret that all of us here will not be there to see it but for the sake of our future potential as a species lets not destroy the present for such a stupid reason.

At one time it didn’t make any difference to me what Humans chose to believe but that is no longer true, because of this Islamist Insanity spreading throughout the world, it now does make a difference to me, I perceive it as a threat to me and to the survival of my offspring. Which for those who don’t realize it is a very potent genetic programing that makes animal species react, sometimes violently, to any threat real or perceived.

As I am sure you are all aware “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”

Believe in a “God” if you wish, but if anyone expects me to believe in a “God” then they are going to have to prove that a “God” any “God”, exists, having Faith is not an option for me.

Unfortunately there are millions of humans who do not agree with this live and let live logic re religion and they are prepared to kill anyone who disagrees with their reality and that, like it not, is a very Big Problem, well it is from where I am sitting anyway.

Peace to all Humans, but not at any cost.

Quite simply, it is because of people such as Morgoth that I do not post much here. That is the case. It is not just his bigotry, but his use of vulgar language that puts me off.

Anaximander – I agree entirely with the first half of your post, and with your general sentiments. But you are going to have to hold your breath and take a big leap, almost as big as the one you are requiring from us Theists.

“We, all of us regardless of ethnic origin, have a problem at this particular moment in time with the fanatical adherents of a particular religion”. Yes, it’s called Islam. Christianity, Buddhism etc. do not cause this problem, whatever might have happened in earlier years. You must, in the context of your argument, agree that Islam causes this problem and other religions don’t. And don’t let them blackmail you into thinking that this constitutes “anti-Muslim bigotry”.

You may believe that all religions are equally wrong, but don’t be afraid of admitting that they’re not all equally part of the problem. “Deny reality if you wish but reality is very stubborn.”

“Hence every Muslim state is an unstable dictatorship”

even post Suharto Indonesia? You know the largest Muslim state in the world?

don’t tell me, I’m going to be shouted down as an ‘appeaser’ or ‘living on another planet’ because I point out the falseness of these xenophobic generalisms

And Morgoth a former devote of Crowley? hahaha… a man in perpetual adolesant rebellion against his strict Christian childhood/family, explains alot.

Mikey – sorry to hear that. I don’t really think that vulgar language does any harm in robust debate. And Morgoth, though I totally disagree with him, does produce robust debate, though a little monotopical.

As for free speech on HP I think the balance is about right especially since the idiot Benji has gone. But I do think it might be worth investing in some software that removes all references to Muhammed and dodgy sexual activities.

Yeah, we wouldn’t want anyone criticizing the great prophet, PBUH.

Jesus. Can I use the word “wanker” again?

‘“Hence every Muslim state is an unstable dictatorship”

even post Suharto Indonesia? You know the largest Muslim state in the world?

don’t tell me, I’m going to be shouted down as an ‘appeaser’ or ‘living on another planet’ because I point out the falseness of these xenophobic generalisms’

No you’re not – not by me at any rate. Indonesia and Malaysia (possibly a better example) are not states based on Islam (though both are states threatened by Islamism). When you look at the more openly Islamic states of the Middle East and North Africa, you’ll see that my “xenophobic generalisms” would be largely true if you dared to admit it. I’m no sort of xenophobe, unless you define the idea that liberal democracy, human rights, respect for human life and dignity etc. are purely Western imperialist concepts as xenophobic.

But if you still think I’m a xenophobe, then tell that to my wife, if your Chinese is good enough.

Who are the the most anti-Muslim bigots of the regulars here? I’d like to know.

I’m possibly as Islamophobic as any, anyone. By Islamaphobic I mean I really detest Islam – Koranic literalism – as a religion and a political ideology, I detest it with every fibre of my being. It’s diametrically opposed to pretty much everything I think and believe and most of my core values. I think it’s currently the most dangerous ideology on the planet.

But then I’m not a great fan of any form of Theism, it’s generally at best really silly, and often rather destructive and doesn’t do good things for critical thinking. But Islam is in a whole nasty league of its own.

Some no doubt would would hold me to be an example of ‘Islamaphobic bigotry’. I see that as an Orwellian inversion.

but his use of vulgar language that puts me off.

Oh you poor diddums!

P.S. Mikey, here is a T-shirt just for you.

Morgoth – fair enough; but would you go about with one saying “Mohammed is a Pig-fucker”?

Don’t mind any insults to Christianity, so long as the speaker would say exactly comparable things about Islam.

The real scandal is not what a bunch of regenegade unreconstructed revanchists like Bob Pitt think, but rather why is it is so-called “progressives” like Mikey are rushing to defend a…historical personage (shall we say) who developed one of the most anti-progressive/liberal ideologies on the planet. Not to mention a DEAD historical personage.

Leaving aside characteristics and inclinations of Mohammed, would Mikey be so sensitive about L Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith or Dr Kellog? Would he like fuck!

So the question is this: why is Mikey siding with an ideology that has killed millions of progressives/liberals?

‘Oh you poor diddums!’

No; he’s just a civilised person.

Cipriano, definitely.

No; he’s just a civilised person.

Being civilised is respecting delusional murderous irrationality?

Yes, I don’t doubt you on that, Morgoth. Inconsistency is not something you can fairly be accused of.

“Being civilised is respecting delusional murderous irrationality?”

No, being civilised is not offending anyone, however nasty, and not saying fuck.

Thank you Cipriano. I would have thought my views on those lunatics who don’t like using light switches on Sundays would have made that quite clear.

I think Mikey needs to read some Hitchens, C. post-haste.

“No; he’s just a civilised person.”

One need not argue like an academic in order to be civilized. And one need not be civilized to be good. (Not that Morgoth is necessarily either.)

p.s.

Mikey is a momma’s boy.

BTW, isn’t implying that someone is ‘uncivilized’ something of an ad hominem?

No it’s Saturdays they don’t like using light switches on. Note this vital difference.

And Friday nights.

Islam is the correct state of being as revealed by Allah the Great to His Blessed Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his family.

Only when one has submitted to Allah the Great with the totality of one’s being, with the sincerest of intentions will one find true peace on earth. Fortunately, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and especially the UK: thousands bear witness that there is no deity but Allah and that Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, is his final messenger each year. In London alone, nearly 35% of the inhabitants are Muslim; new mosques, prayer rooms, Islamic centres and schools are being inaugurated every day. If Allah wills it, we shall see not just a Muslim majority in the UK, but an Islamic government and the black flag of Allah and His Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, over Buckingham Palace. May Allah hasten the defeat of the unbelievers and the victory of those purest in faith; those who hold fast to the Upright Sunnah and the Book of Knowledge. Ameen.

zajebavati!

Sepahizva @ 4 July 2009, 11:39 am

“There never has been and there never will be a Protestant theocracy in the UK, yet most of the values to which we hold dear as a society, our institutions and the people themselves have been positively influenced by it. ”

Were you including the pre-UK English monasteries amongst those institutions?

I’m possibly as Islamophobic as any, anyone. By Islamaphobic I mean I really detest Islam – Koranic literalism – as a religion and a political ideology, I detest it with every fibre of my being. It’s diametrically opposed to pretty much everything I think and believe and most of my core values. I think it’s currently the most dangerous ideology on the planet.

While I basically agree, I think I would rather detest Islam with the fibers of someone else’s being. Maybe I can hire someone to detest it for me.

My joke reminds me of the way Gardianista anti imperialists outsource their antisemitism to the Islamists and Palestinians etc.

Not great parallelism, as hating a religion is not the same thing as hating a people.. but the outsourcing joke is the same.

Bloody hell, I think Naby’s serious.

Many of us got the point years ago that Morgoth is anti-religion. Ayn Rand was also anti-religion and also thought that people who believed in God were irrational. So be it. Morgoth made his point a long time ago and if he wants to keep going on about it then he should start his own blog and ramble on there.

In my opinion, people such as Marko who are intelligent and knowledgeable are a credit to this site; if the likes of Morgoth and like minded people disappeared then I feel this site could attract more commentators who would also be useful.

I certainly agree with freedom of speech, but I do not see any reason that Harry’s Place has to provide a platform for those such as Morgoth and Nick (ex South Africa) to name but two.

Cipriano says he does not “really think that vulgar language does any harm in robust debate.” Some people, including myself, are offended by vulgar language. Moreover, I feel that not only is there no need for the use of vulgar language but that vulgar language is often used by those who lack the ability to express themselves in more acceptable fashion.

Only when one has submitted to Allah the Great with the totality of one’s being, with the sincerest of intentions will one find true peace on earth.

You must be using an obscure meaning of the word “peace” of which I was not previously aware.

“Say: O People of the Scripture! Come to an agreement between us and you: that we shall worship none but Allah, and that we shall ascribe no partner unto Him, and that none of us shall take others for lords beside Allah. And if they turn away, then say: Bear witness that we are they who have surrendered (unto Him).” (3:64)

Shorter Mikey: “I don’t want to hear anything bad about religion”.

I find it ironic that I appear to be a damn sight more progressive than Mikey. Heck, I’m probably a damn sight more progressive and liberal than 90% of the people here on this blog, commenters or posters.

Which is a really damning inditement.

The fast growing religion in Britain is actually neo-paganism – all the vulva-obsessed earth mother types who nevee wash and think they are infused with dolphin womb energy or something.

Mikey – surely you must recognise that we’ve got someone on now for whom Morgoth would be an ideal interlocutor.

You must be using an obscure meaning of the word “peace” of which I was not previously aware.

The core root of the word Islam in Arabic means ‘peace’, whilst the verbal noun ‘Islam’ could be translated as submission; the submission of one’s entire being to the Will of Allah the Sublime and All-Knowing. Only through the guidance of the the Noble Criterion, can we reach the Lofty Heights of Inner Peace and Tranquility attested to in the Rememberance and propagated by the Perfect Man, Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family.

Cipriano. I am an Atheist, I work in one of the scientific specialities, I am indeed head of my particular little kingdom and I see all religion through the same, if you like, biased eyes, of my “belief” in the trueness of science, a belief founded on the reasoning of “proof” a verifiable, experimentally reproducible, and in most cases irrefutable proof.

Ideology for me, any ideology be it religious or political has just as many positive aspects as negative aspects when you take more than just a cursory look at it and adherents to a particular ideology always, it seems to me to, do not want to listen to any other “version” of their firmly held beliefs, they certainly don’t wish to hear of the bad bits, the crimes, the atrocities because that hits them where it hurts, and lets be honest they all have their skeletons in their ideological closets.

The Islamic Faith is at this moment perceived as being a threat to a not insignificant number of those who don’t share this particular ideology, that is an undeniable fact, a fact based on evidence we can see almost daily on our news channels.

The problem for me is what is going to be the eventual outcome of this ‘clash of ideologies’ because unlike the situation re “Left and Right” the believers in religion seem to me to really believe there is an after life and that they really are going to be sitting next to all the good and the great for all eternity and for some if that can be hastened along then all the better.

An acquaintance of mine, a post doctorate, “educated” person said to me once that she “believes in a uncreated creator” and that she was looking forward to dying and going the heaven, she wasn’t joking she really meant it.
There is no “debating” no “reasoning” no “logic” that can be employed to counter this sort of “thinking” it is simply an ideology which defies all attempts at getting ‘through to’.

People with this sort of mentality are one day going to get hold of Nuclear Weapons and they ARE going to use them and YES the most likely candidates to pursue this course of apocalyptic destiny ARE, in my view, adherents, true believers in the religion called Islam.

Islamophobia is taken to mean “a irrational fear of Islam” Now if my views on the religion of Islam make me guilty of having a phobia of Islam then so be it, but I don’t see it as being “irrational” on the contrary I, ME see it as being very, very Rational.

Gene will be pleased to know that Naby ul-Rahmah’s website has achieved the impossible: making me more sympathetic to Barack Obama (or “Barack Hussein Obama Bush” as we must call him now)

Only through the guidance of the the Noble Criterion, can we reach the Lofty Heights of Inner Peace and Tranquility attested to in the Rememberance and propagated by the Perfect Man, Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family.

Put the bong down and step away from it with your hands up.

oliver @ 4 July 2009, 5:36 pm

“the big bang theory was thought up by a Roman Catholic priest”

A commitment to celibacy can do strange things to the imagination.

The fast growing religion in Britain is actually neo-paganism

I invite you to taste the sweetness of the Message from the lips of some of Islam’s most pious followers; allow them to convince you of the Immortal Truth: everything we do, we do for the sake of Allah the Self-sufficient and He alone.

Naby ul-Rahmah – you must know that on this blog we don’t like Islam at all, also that we have no respect for Mohammed, who by our standards was a nasty piece of work, and that we have no desire for the influence of Islam to spread any further than it has already. If you’d like to debate on this basis, then welcome. But if you’d be offended by your prophet being abused, you’d be better off elsewhere.

I invite you to taste the sweetness of the Message from the lips of some of Islam’s most pious followers;

I’ve found that its more fish-flavoured than sweet, actually.

Naby ul-Rahmah, at 2 minutes 15 seconds your video explains exactly how “peaceful” you are.

LOL your video has some brainwashed moron pointing to the landscape in Israel explaining that these trees you see all around are the ones the Jews will hide behind when you slaughter them all.

I’m not worried about you. You’re too much fuck ups to accomplish your goals, and you’ll all die if you try.

Have a nice day you genocidal moron.

Put the bong down and step away from it with your hands up.

Illegal drugs are in clear contavention of the Glorious Prophet of Islam’s Sunnah and the Unalterable Contract with Allah the Eternal and Oft-forgiving. A true believer would never countenance sacrificing their spiritual, mental or physical well-being for the sake of plumbing the depths of Western immorality.

Morgoth – I doubt that, I like fish. I’d have thought pigshit.

A true believer would never countenance sacrificing their spiritual, mental or physical well-being for the sake of plumbing the depths of Western immorality.

But Eastern immortality is tickety-boo eh?

I have a pizza arriving shortly with ham, bacon AND spicy pork. Yum. I ordered extra pork just for you!

Anyway, Naby thinks that 35% of London’s population is Muslim. He must be on something.

Cipriano, I must admit, I’ve never come across any ejaculatory juices that tasted of pigshit before. I must not be having relationships with the right women….

Naby ul-Rahmah – you must know that on this blog we don’t like Islam at all, also that we have no respect for Mohammed, who by our standards was a nasty piece of work, and that we have no desire for the influence of Islam to spread any further than it has already. If you’d like to debate on this basis, then welcome. But if you’d be offended by your prophet being abused, you’d be better off elsewhere.

Whilst I find any allegation levelled at the Perfect Man, Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family, offensive and a distraction from discovering the Truth, I will endeavour to enlighten you and call you to the Straight Path as best I can.

The Blessed Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family, came as a Mercy to Mankind; a benevolent merchant of peace instructed to convey the message of the Eternal in this Temporal Realm.

The cool thing about these extreme Muslims is that they’re self-parodying. Even with a web site and an Salifist video, we can’t tell Naby ul-Rahmah is sincere or if he’s a satire.

There is really no difference except for volume of nonsense produced. There’s a limit to the amount of effort a sane person will put into a joke.

I’m voting satire though.

Morgoth you have no taste. If you want pork on a pizza then hawaiin is the way to go. mmmm

I have a pizza arriving shortly with ham, bacon AND spicy pork. Yum. I ordered extra pork just for you!

Are you aware that the consumption of swine flesh is an incalculable sin? Pigs are filthy animals that eat their young, live in their own faeces and urine and excrete excrement through their skin. Why not choose to sample the delights of a halaal meal, with meat slaughtered according to the Holy Writ?

Ok, drop the joke. We don’t believe you’re for real.

Even with a web site and an Salifist video, we can’t tell Naby ul-Rahmah is sincere or if he’s a satire.

I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah the Great, and that Muhammad is His final messenger, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family.

“excrete excrement through their skin. ”

Sheesh!

‘Moreover, I feel that not only is there no need for the use of vulgar language but that vulgar language is often used by those who lack the ability to express themselves in more acceptable fashion.’

Indeed; it’s for lazy and inarticulate people who are more interested in venting their internal frustration and aggression than they are in having a discussion.

Sort of a throwback to the class dunce who, when trapped by the English teacher and asked to give an opinion, uses the word ’shit’ to describe a Shakespeare play, then looks around the class sniggering and seeking approval.

Naby – yes, you’re right that halal meals can taste very nice – trouble is they don’t give you anything proper to drink with them.

For some reason this reminds me of “The Life of Brian”

Mr Naby ul-Rahmah if your prophet couldn’t read how did he know that what was written down by his minions and compiled in the book known as the Koran was what he told said minions to write down?

Have you ever considered enlightening yourself as to the delights of an Islamic lifestyle, brother Josh? From where does your stubborn contention that Islam is evil originate?

People with this sort of mentality are one day going to get hold of Nuclear Weapons and they ARE going to use them and YES the most likely candidates to pursue this course of apocalyptic destiny ARE, in my view, adherents, true believers in the religion called Islam.

Surely, Ronald Reagan and his vague mutterings re: ‘rapture’ wasn’t too far off this mark?

Mr Naby ul-Rahmah if your prophet couldn’t read how did he know that what was written down by his minions and compiled in the book known as the Koran was what he told said minions to write down?

He, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family, would recite the revealed portions of the Criterion to his companions, may Allah forgive them and bring them eternal peace, who would then recite the same portion with the Blessed Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family, correcting mistakes. The written version of the Qur’an that we know today was never compiled in the Blessed Prophet’s lifetime, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family.

From where does your stubborn contention that Islam is evil originate?

See my comment about 2:15 in your video. Then check out the prisons in Iran for run-away wives.

In general, I believe that people need freedom to be happy. We need more freedoms not more assholes out on the streets beating women and killing everyone who acts like a natural human being.

“From where does your stubborn contention that Islam is evil originate?”

Naby, your guys do tend to kill rather a lot of people. Why is there stuff about killing Jews on the video on your website? And the word “Salafi” conveys to me people getting their throats cut in Algeria. That’s basically why we think Islam is evil.

Alan Ji: No, there wasn’t a Protestant theocracy in the pre-UK monastries for the simple reason that they were Catholic. Anyway, there was always a split between lords temporal and lords spiritual.

In general, I believe that people need freedom to be happy. We need more freedoms not more assholes out on the streets beating women and killing everyone who acts like a natural human being.

But how far has extreme liberalism carried us as a society, Josh? To the extent where now sodomy is exalted as a normal human practice; where underdressed ladies of the night are free to ply their trade and indulge man’s every whim on the streets of London; where immorality reigns triumphant by virtue of its mundanity?

I can’t bring myself to watch the whole video. Besides I’m not sure if it’s real or subtle satire.

I know the insanity and hatred in it don’t seem subtle but that’s normal for the Salafis anyway. I’m not sure THEY can tell satire from the real thing.

“to the extent where now sodomy is exalted as a normal human practice”

Naby, it’s always been a normal human practice, especially in the Islamic world: what do you think the sultans used their young male slaves for? Even now, my gay friends tell me, there’s far more sodomy in Muslim countries than over here.

Naby, your guys do tend to kill rather a lot of people. Why is there stuff about killing Jews on the video on your website?

The disbelievers will always couch their injustices in the vocabulary freedom and human rights. Allah-feraing Muslims the world over have the right to strike back against these injustices and continue the resistance to fly the banner of Islam once more.

And the word “Salafi” conveys to me people getting their throats cut in Algeria. That’s basically why we think Islam is evil.

A Salafi is merely a pious Muslim following the best example of the Blessed Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family, his companions, may Allah forgive them and grant them etrenal rest, and the first two generations of pious followers, may Allah have mercy on them all.

He’s got 21 videos.

Maybe he ISN’T satire.

These people really are amazing. You can not tell a real Salafi preacher from some kind of Monty Python parody. They are that far beyond the pale.

Islamonutter wrote:

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world

Possibly, but I suspect that their numbers are being trumped rather considerably by those who subscribe to no deity or no religion. Certainly that’s true in the UK Europe and the US.

Naby – you’ve used very peaceful language here, and thank you for that. But you’ve also made it clear that when your lot have power you think it’s all right to kill us all as unbelievers, and thus we’ll conduct our own resistance in our own country, and leave our Israeli friends to do it in the Middle East, with our firm support.

In the meantime – salaam aleikum.

Yeah, you flew the banners of Allah alright; straight into the WTC where you evil fuckers murdered 3000 people because they didn’t bow down to your paedophile pig-fucking prophet.

Naby, you know as well as I do that there could easily be peace between Palestinians and Israelis if it wasn’t for genocidal criminals like you pushing for limitless slaughter. Therefore the Palestinians aren’t engaging in any form of “resistance”, by now they are the aggressors.

Calls for genocide are not fighting injustice, they are the cause of senseless suffering that will continue forever. You, what you call for, are the most extreme evil.

To make it so clear that even you can’t misunderstand: You call for killing them all, you make peace impossible by demanding the impossible, you are therefore the most evil that a human being can be.

“Surely, Ronald Reagan and his vague mutterings re: ‘rapture’ wasn’t too far off this mark?”

But he didn’t do it though did he? Neither did Stalin or Mao or any of the other post ww2 leaders. Are you willing to pin your hopes on the premise that the likes of Bin Laden or Ahmadinejad are only speaking Rhetorically, that their desire for the implementation of the Islamic doctrine of ‘no other god but allah’ bullshit is just rhetoric? Are you convinced that an Islamic Bomb will not be deployed for the glory of Allah?

I am certainly not convinced that the “MAD” logic will dissuade the “true believers” of Islam, as a Pakistani General remarked a couple of years ago when asked about the prospect of a Nuclear War with India “We have to die of something and if it’s for Islam then I fear it not”. I don’t know about you but I find that sort of “thinking” extremely worrying.

I just wandered over to ‘Pub Philosopher’s’ blog, and if you think some of the comments on this blog are near the knuckle, I’d advise you in no circumstance to visit that blog. If you can’t bear foul language then it is not the site for you. I don’t see how it has anything to do with philosophy though. More like Piss Artist.

Sorry lads, this has been an instructive parody. My apologies. I just wanted to gauge reactions to an orthodox Muslim voicing what many (including me) would consider odd and and extremely socially conservative viewpoints. Congratulations to those wo twigged from the outset…kudos to you.

The site I linked to is a very controversial one: revolutionMuslim is run ostensibly by Youssef al-Khattab, a convert/revert from Judaism. They have now linked up with a similar bunch of nutters over here (Salafimedia) and the Islam4UK crew…keep an eye on this site and their pronouncements…

Hmm, what did you think of our reactions?

Naby, what is your REAL background?

Well done Naby. That I didn’t twig is probably partly due to consumption of Islamically prohibited liquids, also because, like others, I didn’t think anyone would keep it up that long. Grateful for your views.

But he didn’t do it though did he?. I guess we would have noticed. Whilst not intending any 1-to-1 correspondence with the remarks of the Pakistani General, I recall being more a little concerned when hearing this stuff about Reagan nearly thirty years ago. Perhaps Ronnie’s minders were having a holiday.

Nowadays, although their fingers are far from the trigger, there is a sizeable Christian element in the US whose support for Israel seems to be based on the acting out of a Biblical prophecy. And there doesn’t appear to be much in it for us (atheist) bystanders. And Dr Strangelove has just come out on blu-ray.

‘you evil fuckers murdered 3000 people because they didn’t bow down to your paedophile pig-fucking prophet.’

In fact, a considerable number of Muslims were killed in the 9/11 attacks:

http://islam.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/18/vic.muslims.victims/index.html

Have a read of what their relatives have to say, and what Morgoth has to say, and decide for yourself who is more human.

“If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world”

Such a delightful faith, eh Marko?

Naby, what is your REAL background?

Anglican, Greater London, privately-educated, SOAS, working class…often to be found using strange monikers here and lots of ellipses…

In fact, a considerable number of Muslims were killed in the 9/11 attacks:

Well said. I am a big fan of Morgoth though based on his unstinting consistancy.

Naby ul-Rahmah, when Britain becomes a Muslim state, will it be Sunni or Shia? My guess is Shia, as no one can imagine a Sunni England.

9/11 was just another example in the countless litancy of death and destruction carried out by theists.

unstinting consistancy

er, ‘unyielding’ consistency

frunobulax, I hope in thirty years time I can look back and say maybe I was just being paranoid, I really, really do. If believing in a god would make that hope a reality I would reluctantly convert, maybe, to Jainism because of all the religions, that is the only one I would ever consider, if I had to, converting to.

Morgoth is human, but mad, and incapable of distinguishing between my mother in law and that Al-Macaroon guy, wrongly believing that all theists are somehow equally at fault, when they’re obviously not.

In fact, a considerable number of Muslims were killed in the 9/11 attacks

Indeed, but as we both know, Muslims are considered completely expendable to Islam (just like with Christianity – never heard of the phrase “kill ‘em all, let god sort them out”?). Theism after all, produced this:

During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran’s forces were no match for Saddam Hussein’s professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child’s neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.

The sacrifice of the Basiji was ghastly. And yet, today, it is a source not of national shame, but of growing pride. Since the end of hostilities against Iraq in 1988, the Basiji have grown both in numbers and influence. They have been deployed, above all, as a vice squad to enforce religious law in Iran, and their elite “special units” have been used as shock troops against anti-government forces. In both 1999 and 2003, for instance, the Basiji were used to suppress student unrest. And, last year, they formed the potent core of the political base that propelled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad–a man who reportedly served as a Basij instructor during the Iran-Iraq War–to the presidency.

Religion, such a wonderful thing eh?

as no one can imagine a Sunni England.

fnar, fnar…as long as we keep our stress patterns and intonation and desist from calling inhabitants of Iraq ‘I-rak-keys or the capital *Bag*–dad then it won’t be too bad. best thing to stave off an Islamic revolution, and it’s worked wonders for me, is to snaffle up one of the multivarious and delectable Muslim girls to be found in London…wooing girls in lassi cafes is just so much more civilised!

Morgoth is human, but mad, and incapable of distinguishing between my mother in law and that Al-Macaroon guy, wrongly believing that all theists are somehow equally at fault, when they’re obviously not.

I defer to Steven Weinberg, Nobel laureate in Physics:

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

And with that, goodnight. T’missus is away this weekend, so I’m going to go to bed with the two pussies and watch Moonraker on t’laptop

Night all!

Morgs, dear, you are worrying. It’s fanaticism and ideology that blights societies, and it doesn’t matter what shape it takes. Going to church on a weekly basis and singing in dreadful choirs is harmless. Leave it alone. It’s not Al-Qaeda. It’s cake.

And with that, goodnight. T’missus is away this weekend, so I’m going to go to bed with the two pussies and watch Moonraker on t’laptop

It took me a second to realize that he was talking about cats.

Good thread, very stimulating, mentally that is. See you in the ether guys/gals.

“frunobulax
Nowadays, although their fingers are far from the trigger, there is a sizeable Christian element in the US whose support for Israel seems to be based on the acting out of a Biblical prophecy.”
Now I ask you, we have a thread on Islamophobia and someone pipes up with the “The Christian Right only support Israel so that all the Jews die and Christ returns”.
I have heard this meme loads of time, but have NEVER heard a single right-wing Christian state it. The last Church I visited, a catholic one in East Lansing, had the oddest last supper picture I had ever seen. They had a seder and Jesus and the disciples wearing Talits, all reclining.

Brilliant post, Marko.

What Sarah said.

If I say that I hate Anjem Choudray am I Islamaphobic because he’s a Muslim? Am I Islamaphobic because my hatred derives from his extremist Islamist views?

I don’t know any Muslim who shares Anjem Choudray’s views or anything remotely similar. Your view condemns them alongside Mr Choudray. Either that or say they can’t be Muslim (eg at field at 7.13; damned if they do and damned if they don’t. It’s rather like those on the far left who use the actions of Baruch Goldstein and Meir Kahane to imply they are typical of the behaviour of all Jews while claiming they’re not anti-Semites. The word ‘extremist’ is a clue here.

We have went to the Moon. We send probes to the Stars. We penetrate the mysteries of the Big Bang, and you want to give backwards guttersnipes that would KILL you for the slighest of irrational reasons respect?

I have owed my safety and do owe my health to individual Muslims; far from backwards guttersnipes, they are more educated than most even at HP. I give them respect. And we have went to the Moon? Methinks some of us are still there. Needless to say, the world cannot be rid soon enough of the likes of Anjem Choudray, Mr Khamenei and all the rest of those who spend their energies making a misery of the lives of others.

“We, all of us regardless of ethnic origin, have a problem at this particular moment in time with the fanatical adherents of a particular religion”. Yes, it’s called Islam. Christianity, Buddhism etc. do not cause this problem, whatever might have happened in earlier years. You must, in the context of your argument, agree that Islam causes this problem and other religions don’t.

Uganda, Ruby Ridge, the Burmese Junta, the RSS and the genocide in Gujarat. Nothing really.

Indonesia and Malaysia (possibly a better example) are not states based on Islam (though both are states threatened by Islamism).

This is quite a long way from every Muslim state is an unstable dictatorship. Unless you believe that the people of Albania, Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Kosova, Malaysia, Mali, Turkey etc. are not “really” Muslim.

All this theological stuff is over my head. I’m still trying to work out what on earth Melvyn Bragg was talking about, on the radio the other day, when he said that Sonny and Cher separated in the 7th century.

AoS: Perhaps it’s a positive sign that the only use so far of nuclear weapons has been ’secular’. Though the absolute necessity even for the bombing of Japan seems less than certain.

The awful irony, should nuclear weapons be used again again but for a theist purpose, is that, almost by definition, these chaps should have nothing more than stones to throw since those weapons are rather more in keeping with what the religious mind can produce (left on its own).

Current politics aside, as long as organizations like the Basiji exist a completely unacceptable injustice continues…

I can be nothing but disgusted that terms like “progressive” can be applied to people who don’t show any disgust, who don’t protest this sort of extreme perversion above all others.

This is a strange one. You see I think Harry’s Place is great.
And yes I don’t have much time for Islam and its supporters.
But here’s the catch
I’m an apostate from Islam.
Does that me a racist? And do the people who wish me dead, count as victims.

“wally

All this theological stuff is over my head. I’m still trying to work out what on earth Melvyn Bragg was talking about, on the radio the other day, when he said that Sonny and Cher separated in the 7th century.”

Nice one Wally – was that your own or one made earlier by someone else?

Naby –

I was just about to post that you were a parody but an accurate one, when you more or less confirmed my intuition.

Oliver –

Indonesia (a fairly recent addition to the Muslim world) may be a tiny flickering light in the dark. It would be fantastic if it together with Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and Lebanon it created a platform for democracy in the Muslim world but it is too early to stay. Currently Christians and Hindus are persecuted across Indonesia and there are many centres of Islamic intolerance. But of course the fact that they seem to have a functioning democracy is a fantastic advance which we must all support.

Wouldn’t it be great if the democratic nations within the Islamic world formed a union to promote their democratic model. Sadly I don’t see that happening yet. IN terms of ideas, the Islamic world remains uncommitted to universal human rights.

Good piece but when it comes to the subject of Yugoslavia s civil wars, the reality was that it was a war of 3 fascist sides with civilians in the middle of it as both actors and victims.

Hmm one of the reasons I knew that Naby ul-Rahmah was a satire is that he was trying to convert people HERE. Everyone knows we’re a tough crowd. Notice that the people who attack HP very rarely try to make their case in the comment section? Bob Pitt, isn’t here trying to peddle his support for the Mullahs here. He knows he’d be ripped to shreds. They know perfectly well that their best hope is to slander us behind our backs.

Josh –

So true.

I have always found that if you actually get into debate with a believer in Islam they run a mile as soon as they realise you know something about the Koran and the Hadith.

field @ 5 July 2009, 12:46 am

“Sonny and Cher separated in the 7th century.”

That doesnlt explain the tribute band called
Cher and Cher alike.

Nick (ex South Africa) – Who are the the most anti-Muslim bigots of the regulars here? I’d like to know. I’m possibly as Islamophobic as any, anyone. By Islamaphobic I mean I really detest Islam – Koranic literalism – as a religion and a political ideology, I detest it with every fibre of my being. It’s diametrically opposed to pretty much everything I think and believe and most of my core values. I think it’s currently the most dangerous ideology on the planet. But then I’m not a great fan of any form of Theism, it’s generally at best really silly, and often rather destructive and doesn’t do good things for critical thinking. But Islam is in a whole nasty league of its own.

Indeed.

I can sign up to that.

The core root of the word Islam in Arabic means ‘peace’, whilst the verbal noun ‘Islam’ could be translated as submission; the submission of one’s entire being to the Will of Allah the Sublime and All-Knowing. Only through the guidance of the the Noble Criterion, can we reach the Lofty Heights of Inner Peace and Tranquility attested to in the Rememberance and propagated by the Perfect Man, Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family.

So, who would you blame for Islamic barabaric slaughter of innocents and much antisemitism from Muslims> Would that be direct orders from Allah or some nasty interpretations from the Warlord Mohammed?

After all you describe Muslims as some ronotic army pre-programmed by Allah with an operating system and with applications decided by the whims of Mohammed. One minute its “No compulsion in religion” the next minute its “kill apostates”.

I don’t expect an answer from a brainwashed Islamo-bot – but I would welcome and respect you for one.

I recognise there are millions of de-programmed Muslims who are just as respectful of the Koran and their religion that they don’t go out daily and think that Jews are descened from apes & pigs.

As someone who is apparently a devout Muslim then how about explaining why you DON’T think Jews are descended from apes & pigs. If you don’t then where is the programmimng bug?

BTW I happen to think that ultra-orthodox Jews are Judaeo-bots and my comparison is that MOST Jews are not into the programming but have a programme that allows then to evolve their religious adherence to a practical level that suits them. Also, Jews will always be Jews irrespective of how religious they are. Other religions seem to allow a variety of adaption – except Islam.

Morgoth quotes Steven Weinburg:

“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

Not so – it rather takes adherence to dystopian ideology in general. In religion’s case, the slide from putative utopianism to definite and concrete dystopia requires the addition of the political to the mix.

Religion for overtly political ends is what is problematic, not religion in or of itself.

I defer to Steven Weinberg, Nobel laureate in Physics

Which of course makes him an expert on religion, right?

Morgoth, you are an idiot.

I certainly agree with freedom of speech, but I do not see any reason that Harry’s Place has to provide a platform for those such as Morgoth and Nick (ex South Africa) to name but two.

Freedom of speech, BUT.
Only for views I agree with.

I do NOT have a belief system. I merely accept the evidence.

You’d benefit greatly from reading Popper, but I doubt that you’d understand him, since you have a closed mind and are not susceptible to rational argument.

There is no evidence of any intelligent entity other than our own sentience. Indeed, a surpa-sentience as proposed and followed by theists is impossible in our universe

I didn’t know we had the world’s greatest physicist on board here in the shape of the closed-mind called Morgoth.
You do realise that it is impossible for bumblebees to fly, don’t you?

Gordon Bennett, please read up on the Speed of Light.

I stated:

I certainly agree with freedom of speech, but I do not see any reason that Harry’s Place has to provide a platform for those such as Morgoth and Nick (ex South Africa) to name but two.

Gordon Bennet responds:

Freedom of speech, BUT.
Only for views I agree with.

This does not reflect my views. People I do not agree with should have the right to freedom of speech. What I have said is that I do not see why Harry’s Place should provide that platform. I would not take away from Morgoth or Nick (ex South Africa) the freedom to start their own blog, or to stand in,for example, Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park, London to rant on any subject they wished.

field wrote:

And the individual Muslims you know, are you telling me they believe in “Mohammed as the perfect example for all humanity”, “Jihad against the non believers”, “The ending of democracy, to be substituted by ruler of a Caliph (Supreme Leader)”, “Creating a two tier citizenship”, “The inferiority of women to men”, “Practising the arts of deception in relation to non-Muslims”.

When you describe all Muslims as “individual Nazis” and when you insist that all Muslims wish to “end democracy”, “practice the art of deception in relation to non-Muslims”, etc., you engage in bigotry, because your generalizations are not true.

Sxzlgnuat

Is a Tim Carlos Allon a member of the decidely weirdly ultra free market libertarian Revolutionary Communist Party.

He is a provocateur who thinks himself to be terribly clever.

Thank you metta. I realised he was a wanker when he posted a lot of insults to the Hillsborough victims on the 20th anniversary. RCP eh? Against the wall the lot of ‘em.

Mettaculture’s real name, btw, is [content deleted]. If he’s brave enough to abuse people on the internet, he’s brave enough to do so under his real name.

HP
Moderator’s please remove that comment from Mr Hoare

Immediately.

mettaculture,

To be fair,you have attacked Marko Attila Hoare who uses his own name and is a professional academic. You refer to him as “Mr.Hoare” ignoring the fact that his title is “Doctor.” This is aside from far worse insults that you have directed against him on this blog.

This particular thread is about whether it is correct to allow the comments from bigots to be allowed to stand. It seems that there are those who like the fact that this blog is unmoderated.

Unless Marko has not been correct in your real name, given the stated unmoderated policy,why are you complaining? Are you embarrassed about the insults you have levelled at him?

If your argument is that you have a job and are worried about what your employers may think of your comments on blogs, in the event it becomes known to them, then how do you think Marko might feel if those that he knows from a professional or other point of view, can Google search his name and see your insults?

If you are prepared to try and spread accusations against someone who has used their full name, then you should be prepared to have your own name exposed.

I have little sympathy for your request.

Back on topic from the little spat above….

This particular thread is about whether it is correct to allow the comments from bigots to be allowed to stand

We seem to be one or two notches back from that, there seems to be little approaching consensus on what constitutes bigotry. Some, including the poster Marko seem, on the face of it, to think trenchant critiques of mainstream Koranic literalist Islam constitute bigotry.

Others, including myself, see this as PC bollocks that amounts to attempting to confer special privileges and protection from criticism on a particularly dangerous form of fascism.

In fact, Nick (ex SA), yours is a complete distortion of Marko’s position. Not even “upon the face of it” does Marko “seem… to think trenchant critiques of mainstream Koranic [sic] literalist Islam constitute bigotry.”

One reason why is that this was not his target at all.

On my reading, his principle target was the moderation system of HP, precisely because it allowed the flooding (sometimes) of threads with comments from people who think that other people, simply on the basis of their particular religious identity, should be treated a little worse than dirt under fingernails.

Nick (ex South Africa)

In itself, I doubt that Marko does think that a critique of “Koranic literalist Islam” constitutes bigotry. Having said that, when someone tries to provide such a critique at every opportunity, irrespective of the subject of the thread,but based on the fact that the word “Muslim” was used, then I think it is fair to questions that persons motives.

One does not see a continual critique of Christians because Leviticus 20:13 states:

If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense.

It may well be true that there is violence advocated in the Koran,but for many people who refer to themselves as Muslim,they are as likely to blow themselves as an act of Jihad as many Christians are of hunting down homosexuals to kill.

There are hundreds of millions of Christians in the world who have no desire to murder homosexuals and there are hundreds of millions of Muslims who have no desire to enter into a holy war.

One may argue that they are opposed to all religions. Fair enough, but if the thread is simply about the MCB and the actions of a spokesman for that body, why is it necessary to continue repeating these attacks on the Koran?

It may well be true that there is violence advocated in the Koran,but for many people who refer to themselves as Muslim,they are as likely to blow themselves as an act of Jihad as many Christians are of hunting down homosexuals to kill.

Actually that’s rather misleading.

There is no doubt there are many wholly admirable self identifying Muslims.

There is also no doubt that being a devout, practicing Koranic literalist Muslim is a risk marker for being a Jihadi and much else that blights the world in the name of Islam and this is a problem orders of magnitude worse than religiously motivated attacks on homosexuals by Christians.

I mean let’s face it, El Al airport security profilers don’t generally flag up Baptists for a second look!

Mikey –

One doesn’t see continued criticism of Christianity/Christians because one doesn’t see murderous terror being used against homosexuals in an organised way with involvement of clerics. In Islam we do see murderous terror being used Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, women, democrats, homosexuals and others – and we see that with involvement throughout of clerics.

Some, including the poster Marko seem, on the face of it, to think trenchant critiques of mainstream Koranic literalist Islam constitute bigotry.

Serbia’s Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History, by Philip J. Cohen (and enthusiastically endorsed by Marko) would, I suspect, be considered racist it were about any other people. Anyone reading the book would learn that the very fabric of Serbian identity is essentially fascist. Indeed, this is not lost on Marko and he notes that: “It would be wrong to conclude from this book that the Serbs as a people are somehow inherently pro-Nazi or prone to violence and aggression.” So, even he appears to concede that that would be the lasting impression of the book. However, that little bit of nuance is unlikely to register with readers of the book. Marko, a master of nuance, knows this very well. For example, another 5 star endorsement alongside Marko’s on Amazon UK:

He [Cohen] then traces back the role of this faction, identifiable with the primitive anti-modernity and bestiality that is Serbian Orthodoxy

Personally, I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss over criticism of the Orthodox church. Though Cohen’s cursory mentioning of Jasenovac, almost in passing as he plods on with his Serb equals fascist thesis, is something else.

As an aside, Dr Marko’s most withering putdown – or at least one of them – is “amateur historian”. Which is just what Philip J. Cohen appears to be. The day job I believe is dermatologist. Also, there have been postings that make mention of the dismissal of a close relative of Cohen’s by the Yugoslav King Aleksandar under suspicion of corruption charges. More recently, further claims that the “amateur historian” received assistance from Croat nationalist ghost writers. I wonder, is any of this true?

Lastly, ‘Dr Marko Attila Hoare’ (as listed on Amazon, i.e. not ironic quotes) is very sparing in his endorsements on Amazon – only three are listed. Evidently, Marko considered Cohen’s book particularly worthy.

PS. For what it’s worth – if ‘mettaculture’ is going to be that offensive, then I think it’s fair game to show his real name.

J Ketland –

It is quite clear, because I’ve already said it numerous time, that to describe someone as a Muslim does not imply that they necessarily personally wish for Jihad, unequal treatment of women, creation of a Shariah ruled state etc. etc

But what you have given no evidence for is that I am wrong in stating that these things are what are taught as the core ideology at all the major centres of Islamic learning.

As long as that is the case, it is a perfectly reasonable position to begin with that the individual who identifies him/herself with a religion that teaches those things at its major centres of learning might – as a matter of probability – have sympathy with those things. It’s just as with someone who says “I’m a Christian” it is reasonable to suppose as a matter of probability that they don’t approve of homosexuality or children being born out of wedlock.

The position is further complicated because Islam has always been a worldly ideology that sanctions deceit. I could bring forward numerous examples of the sort of deceit practised by Islamic clerics and spokespeople. In those circumstances, we cannot simply take someone’s word for what they say they believe. It’s very much as with Communism – where thousands of Comintern agents would pretend to be democrats, patriots, peace loving and all the rest.

Though Cohen’s cursory mentioning of Jasenovac, almost in passing as he plods on with his Serb equals fascist thesis, is something else.

Why would a book about Serbia need to contain anything more than a cursory mention of a camp in Croatia? Should books about England always have to mention Vichy France or The Irish potato famine?

Why would a book about Serbia need to contain anything more than a cursory mention of a camp in Croatia?

Actually, it was called Yugoslavia at the time. Oh, and there was a war going on. Although not totally clear cut, one part of Yugoslavia pretty much sided with the Nazis and another part was bombed by the Nazis. Duh.

Actually, it was called Yugoslavia at the time.

Actually it was not. If you had read that book or any other book about the region you would know that the Ustasa state was the only time previous to 1991 that there was an independent state of Croatia. As Cohen’s book is about the country of Serbia (which had a long history) there is no reason to mention Jasenovac at all. It is good to see however that you recognise Serbia sided with the Nazis during WW2 but it would help if you could do some research before making any more dumb comments.

One does not see a continual critique of Christians because Leviticus 20:13 states

You’ve obviously not been reading anything I been writing. But then there’s obviously none so blind as those who will not see.

When HP publishs a post regarding Christians, or Gays, I am very happy to lay into those particular types of theists regarding their murderous intolerance of GBLT people. In fact, there is pretty much a consensus on here from all commenters left and right regarding Brett’s posts (and let me remind you that I pretty much agree 100% with just about everthing Brett posts).

However, you appear to be asking me to indulge in the sort of behaviour that Graham of this Parish momentarily accused me of (and then rightfully backed away from said accusation) last night. So not only do you want to place limits upon conservations based upon your own particular foibles you also now want to insist on off-topicness. Who is the disruptive one really?

Societal violence decreased marginally, but tensions between communities remained high, especially following the country’s declaration of independence on February 17, 2008. Although societal discrimination and violence appeared to be generally ethnically motivated, the close link between ethnicity and religion made it difficult to determine if events were motivated by ethnic or religious animosity

You omit to mention, perhaps because you do not follow daily what happens in Kosova, that the ethnically-motivated violence since independence has almost exclusively consisted of attacks by members of the Serbian community in Northern Mitrovica (Serbians elsewhere in Kosova are mostly immune from this), in large part financed by Belgrade, against the personnel and property of UNMIK, EULEX, the Kosova Police Service and the government of Kosova. Their most important campaign has been the long-running violence and destruction against people living in Albanian enclaves in Serb areas with a view to their ethnic cleansing. Now we have last week’s attempt to seize an Kosovar village by force. You might profit from reading the reports of the British government, EULEX and Ban Ki-Moon.

Incidentally, to most Kosovars, ‘Muslim’ means member of the Slav-speaking Muslim community.

Personally, I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss over criticism of the Orthodox church.

Indeed. The Serbian Orthodox Church has portrayed itself throughout the history of an independent Serbia and throughout Yugoslav history as the keepers of the Serbian national flame. It has been churchmen like Atanasije Jevtic who have been noisily demanding the destruction of the Albanians of Kosova for decades and criticized Mladic and Karadzic for being wimps and traitors for their lack of willpower in fighting the ‘Ustasi’ and ‘Turks.’

The two themes of Marko’s piece are well-matched. For while the Serbian fascists and their apologists are telling the West about the ‘Islamist dagger into the heart of the West’ represented by the existence of Kosova and BiH, they do not tell you about their campaign in the Muslim World of Kosova’s and BiH’s being Western traitors, beholden to the United States, especially popular with their friends in Iran and Syria.

I think that this thread is entirely misguided. David T or whoever controls Harry’s Place needs to think seriously about these issues.

Criticism of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed can seriously damage your health as Theo Van Gogh would know among many others.

One contributor here is now seeking to intimidate others into dumb submission.

If someone makes a comment that is illegitimate, incitement for instance, then the thing to do is to complain about that within the thread or via the contact facility. It can then be removed if so adjudged.

Hello!

My name is Albert F and I cannot discern anything positive within islam.

Have a nice day!

XXX

oh and: “yada”

Indeed. The Serbian Orthodox Church has portrayed itself throughout the history of an independent Serbia and throughout Yugoslav history as the keepers of the Serbian national flame.

Whereas a Croatian Dominican priest pater (Vjekoslav Lasić) can give a speech in which he said that “the court that indicted Dinko Šakić [Holocaust camp commander] indicted Croatia and Croatians”, and that “every Croat should be proud of Šakić’s name”. He also claimed that Independent state of Croatia (NDH) formed a ground for establishing modern state of Croatia. And, of course, we read nothing larger into this.

Moderator: please confirm that I’m not posting using the name “Puzzled” as well. A sneaky trick that, having someone posing a gormless question/statement on one’s behalf. But since you did…

It is good to see however that you recognise Serbia sided with the Nazis during WW2 but it would help if you could do some research before making any more dumb comments.

There are a few inconvenient truths. Nazis being greeted by thousands on the streets of Zagreb and being bombarded by flowers is one of them. The other was Operation Punishment – the code name for the German bombing of Belgrade during the invasion of Yugoslavia. The Luftwaffe bombed the city on April 6 (Palm Sunday) without a declaration of war, continuing bombing until April 10. More than 500 bombing sorties were flown against Belgrade in three waves coming from Romania where German forces were assembled for the attack on the Soviet Union. Most of the government officials fled, and the Yugoslav army began to collapse. The attack on Yugoslavia was one of the earliest terror bombings of World War II. (cribbed from Uncle wikipedia cos I couldn’t be arsed typing it out myself).

Now, think back, were you – Puzzled – confused at any point? Could you have perhaps mixed things up? Maybe you recalled that the good folk of Zagreb threw bombs at the Nazis, and, consequently, the Luftwaffe dropped flowers on Belgrade? Easy enough mistake to make, I suppose, especially if you’re er… Puzzled.