Kana

That's a good point. What we're really talking about here is radical, fundamentalist Islam being in charge of governments. Imagine if Fred Phelps and the "God hates happy persons" crowd somehow became relatively large in the US... large enough to take over the government and create a theocratic dictatorship to enforce their own version of "Christianity". That's basically what we are dealing with in countries like Sudan.

I fully support everyone's right to believe whatever they want. But when religious belief becomes coupled with authoritarian governance, it is dangerous to everyone.

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Groovyville

Refuge51

I agree. I don't need to be governed by it and this incident now with this unfortunate teacher only sends home that message. So, if we cannot go into another country without being made to feel like criminals, maybe we should stop helping or being allies with those countries. Saudi Arabia with it's barbaric laws mostly against women, should be first on the list.


None of them have to follow a certain religion to come here.


Reminds me of the time this woman and her kids lived across the street from me and they wanted to borrow a few videos. They returned them, and when we asked if we could borrow a couple, they said they never ever lend out their videos.

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I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
~George McGovern~

Heretic

Radical xstians would love to do the same thing, but in modern representative governments it simply wouldn't be tolerated.

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"In space no one can hear you scream. in D.C. it won't matter..." -Clinton Resurrection: The Alien Queen lives!

Refuge51

Exactly. Yet when certain people of radical religions come here, they feel perfectly safe having one of their sons kill his own sister for the sin of dating outside the religion. They bring their barbarism and bloodletting here to our modern representative government.

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I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
~George McGovern~

Refuge51

Because there are British Muslims calling for the teacher's release, I now reduce my opinion of Islam to radical Islam, as being what I despise, not the real Islam.

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I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
~George McGovern~

Refuge51

Just wanted to post an excerpt to show how far from the real teachings radical Islam has become:

"There is not a single phrase in the Quran with anything negative about dogs. In Suri 18 of the Quran, it tells us a story about a group of men in a cave with a dog. In this story it says that angels entered the cave. Yet, in the hadith about dogs it clearly states that angels will never enter a place where a dog is inside. If Quran is considered to be the actual word of Allah, only conclusion to be made here is that certain hadiths are simply based on the prejudice of some Muslim scholars.

One of the most recent troubling events regarding Muslims and dogs is what is going on in Iran right now. The Iranian government has actually declared dogs to be un-Islamic and dirty. They are actually confiscating pet dogs and taking them to a filthy place and shoving them in small cages. Iran is threatening dog owners that they are un-Islamic. They are actually taking a risk to get their dog back. Their dog may die in the detention center or it may be given back providing that they never show dog in public. (source)

Mahatma Gandhi once said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be measured by the way its animals are treated."

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I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
~George McGovern~

Kana

The people who really need to be convinced that these radical clerics don't represent real Islam are their followers. I'm not really sure how to do that, though.

I do think there is a double standard regarding Christianity and Islam. If a Christian theocracy was engaging in these types of activities (gender apartheid, flogging people for insulting Christ, etc), then the world would be up in arms against them. The Christian regime in South Africa that engaged in racial apartheid was isolated and broken by the world community. The regimes in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Iran should be held to the same ethical standard.

I'm not advocating war any more than I would have advocated war against South Africa to end apartheid there. But we all need to start taking a stand against these kind of humans rights abuses, regardless of what religion said governments claim to be following.

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Groovyville

Kana

The Sudanese authorities have at least finally gotten around to actually charging Gibbons.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa...ars/index.html

Abusive phone calls... Excellent! More abusive phone calls are exactly what that government needs. They need to know just what the rest of the world thinks of their "proper ways".

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Groovyville

Refuge51

These people knew exactly what they were doing when they reported her..

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I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
~George McGovern~

Refuge51

I agree with this Kana. It's a two edged sword and the scary part is this radical religion we speak of right now is aspiring to be the world religion.

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I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
~George McGovern~