Ezra Levant, a journalist who published the controversial Mohammed cartoons, sticks it to Canadian thought police from the state's Human Rights Commission. This guy has stones. What a hero of free speech!
As Shea puts it, quoting C.S. Lewis: "The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of evil that Dickens loved to paint ... but is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices."
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Aren't you glad us secularists are here to save ya'll from yourselves?
One has to have IQ larger than his shoe size to understand arguments. Unfortunately the poster fails this test.
Harvey, you're a cool dude, but you really are a walking Manning's Corollary (to Godwin's Law), which, for those who have forgotten, is defined as:
In any online conversation about an incident of violence perpetrated by adherents of Islamic fundamentalism, the conversation will inevitably devolve into claims that Christians commit the same type and degree of violent acts, regardless of how demonstrably false that is; further, the claim will be made that past historical violence involving Christians means that present-day Christians are morally incapable of denouncing current violence involving Muslims.
Except you actually take it further, by adding the clause "and that Christians would, if not restrained by law, carry out the same violent acts against non-Christians". Posted by: Rod Dreher
I'm sure some of you much more adept at arguing and with a better grip on our language can explain the real meaning of Mannings Corollary better than I. The obvious is it's spin. Spin as in reframing a point to make it harmless in a discussion.
Comparing Islam of today and Christianity of yesterday is natural for many reasons. The most obvious of course is the five to six hundred years of maturity Christianity has on Islam. If we look at Christianity at the same age Islam is today we see the same behaviors of the faithfull.
Another point of comparison is of course the tenets of the faiths. They have more in common than they have in conflict.
The most important difference between Islam today and Christianity as known by this board is the ratio of secularism versus fundamentalism in the faith. Christians here are more secular than they are fundamental Christian.
That is interesting. The one component that makes their Christianity so real personally is the secular. It's the secular in their Christianity that gives it the credibility required for it to be real in their hearts. Without the secular Christianity is unacceptable as a faith.
Islam will follow Christianity's path, again, nature of the beast.
"Comparing Islam of today and Christianity of yesterday is natural for many reasons. The most obvious of course is the five to six hundred years of maturity Christianity has on Islam. If we look at Christianity at the same age Islam is today we see the same behaviors of the faithfull."
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Harvey Lacey - You see only the outward trappings, but you miss the defining reality. In order for western liberals to make the argument that Islam is like christianity 500 years ago, they have to flat out ignore the most essential characteristics and goals of islam. In reality, islam was never intended to be “merely” a religion. It was always a form of government - a political entity wielding temporal power to enforce the laws of Allah across every corner of the planet. 1400 years of history and probably ten thousand civil wars bear witness to this. Islam has an internal imperative that’s so deeply rooted it doesn’t even need to be overtly understood to be carried forward. That imperative always finds expression as soon as muslims have the political and demographic presence to awaken it. It cannot go unexpressed, even if significant numbers of muslims object to it (and honestly, I think many a moderate muslim has been surprised by the brutality and consistency of it . . .). A hindu peasant in Pakistan knows EXACTLY what the internal imperative of islam is; the Copts in Egypt understand; the animists and christians in Darfur, the Buddhists in S. Thailand, they all understand. Every non-muslim in ever muslim majority country understands the internal imperative of islam: the submission of non-muslims to islamic law and the enforcement of shariah based rules of dhimma which confine and circumscribe the religious speech and expression of non-muslims - with the ultimate goal being the destruction of those non-muslim communities through attrition and oppression . . .
It’s a bit like developing sea legs, Harvey. Immerse yourself in islam; join the islamic forums for a year or so, talk to the apostates and follow the news internally in these countries. After a while, you'll be able to see things "islamically," too. Your equivalencies will not survive the experience - I guarantee it.
This is why absolute free speech is the second most important thing in a republic. (After habeas corpus.)
It is for exactly that reason I oppose the concept of 'hate crimes' as implemented. I think we should treat such crimes as what they are...not only the actual crime but a threat made against other people like that, which obviously would carry an additional penalty.
It is, however, worth pointing out that free speech in this country is, historically, more restricted by the right than the left (The HUAC being the biggest recent one.), and more restricted by the whims of the majority than the whims of a minority.
Lynn, you're wasting your breath on Harvey. He sees religion in general as evil. Therefore all religions are the same. Of course if one wants to compare the development of Christianity and Islam, they don't even start out the same. Christ starts with three years of ministry, death and resurrection, and then it was a series of persecutions for about 300 years. Christianity wasn't even associated with the government for that time. The Romans considered it a weak, female type cult. And martyrs died in the arena, on crosses, etc. and not on the battlefield. Let's see how Islam started out. We have Mohammed receiving the word of Allah from Gabriel. Initially these sayings were peaceful until Mohammed became such a nuisance that he was kicked out of Mecca and went to Medina. In Medina the sayings become much more violent and Mohammed starts raiding caravans to support him and his followers. Eventually he becomes powerful enough the he takes over Medina and Mecca. From there it's one jihad after another to spread Islam. It's obvious to me that you can consider both religions to be on the same path and therefore extrapolate where they are based in time.
The Crusades didn't start until Islam had taken over 2/3 of formerly Christian lands and Muslims were attacking pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem.
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