Comment by Ahmed El-Sherif on July 15, 2011 at 7:46am

Nice, I am glad Australia has not fallen into the same trap, just so you know people Islam tells you that dogs are unclean some Muslims even go to the degree of saying that black dogs are devils :S *ROFL* ..which is quite funny and contrdaicting with a story mohamed told to show that one should be kind to animals that a man was thirsty in the desert he found a well so he drank from it then found a thirsty dog so he used his shoe to bring some water from the well for that the dog to drink and supposedly for that god let him into heaven *yea right =/* Islam also tells you to kill rats and mice of all kinds because they are unclean and tells you to kill lizards o_0? supposedly the reason for that is that when Abraham was thrown into the fire, all animals started to put it out, except the lizard, it started flaring it up *LOL* which makes you wonder did mohamed encounter trouble with such animals when he was young so he was taking it out on them because he had authority when he got older, and also despite the fact that Islam tells that pigs are unclean it doesn't tell you to kill it, yet when swine flu spread they killed them all barbarically here in Egypt , it's the only country that done that.. people here are ignorant enough without religion ,and then religion comes and adds some more ignorance and chaos.

Comment by Ed on July 15, 2011 at 8:34am

Martin,

The Muslims are NOT stoopid! Ignorant yes, stupid no. Some are very clever in fact.

Comment by Ahmed El-Sherif on July 15, 2011 at 8:50am

well there are smart christians,muslims, jews, hindus...etc. but that doesnt give them the right to go around applying barbaric teachings, if they are smart they should start understanding that the world doesn't and won't revolve around them and they should start accepting other people's ways of doing things especially that they are free to do whatever they like as long as they don't harm anybody else, theists don't kiss our asses and we shouldn't kiss their asses either.

+ Though I am not for insulting anyone I personally think that "stupid" is really not that much of an insult compared to what some of them call us "blasphemers, sluts, devil's followers, filthy etc."

Comment by justin gold on July 15, 2011 at 8:57am

Gaytor what a confused opinion on the British/Britain you have,views that are typical of your so called news providers in the U.S,storys of the tabloid press which anyone of some degree of an intellectual nature would see them for what they are,you strike me as someone who would also hold many of the conspiracy theory's as fact,no wonder Noam Chomsky gets pissed off over there.

Comment by justin gold on July 15, 2011 at 9:22am

And to say British Muslim ass kissing,people in glass house's shouldn't throw stones as every country in the world thinks that the U.S is not just kissing Israeli ass its practically fucking it!!!!!!Have a good look at your own country before slandering another Gaytor,your post has really pissed me off.

Comment by Gaytor on July 15, 2011 at 10:08am

I have a feeling that this isn't going to help cool you down, but I have talked about US Israeli relations. http://www.thinkatheist.com/forum/topics/the-race-to-smooch-israels... (Chrome linking not working for me). I don't like that we ignore the actions of Israel and just keep handing them cash, or even the fact that we hand them cash at all.

So rather than getting worked up and putting up posts that add nothing other than the notion that you are upset, why don't you point out what is actually wrong with the post. George had some thoughts and we spoke about it with no issues. I can't understand your point if you don't share it.

Comment by Jimmy Boy on July 15, 2011 at 10:36am

Hi Gaytor - late to this but...your first source is the Metro - we can safely assume it's not true therefore; the next makes some pretty big stretches to push the Muslim button so is really just not credible; the last is from the Express - so again is almost certainly untrue.  They are well documented in just making it up.

This is a shame - because there are real issues with religious tolerance in the UK.  But it's not just Muslims. The worst offenders in total - because they are the large majority - are Christians, who get to pour shit into the heads of children across the land with tax payers cash every school day.  The recent crimes of the Catholic church are well documented (while not the UK, the Cloyne report released yesterday ran up to offences in 2010!).

There has been a Jewish court in North London for years - and of course Jewish schools which are for the main deeply intolerant, but calling it gets you lumped in with the German Nazi's; a Jewish community in Golders Green put up some piece of string between lampposts to designate some area inside which they were allowed to walk on the Shabatt: one might reasonably feel a bit funny if you lived just on one side of other of such a strange line.

Keeoing right along, I've very little time for the racism which is entierly part of the lingua franca of some of the Hindu population in the UK - and while very middle class in so many ways, there are some disgraceful views and attitudes towards the white population which are accepted by some otherwise reasonable Indian 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants.

However, to claim that this shows that mutliculturialism has failed is laughable.  The fact that there are issues, does not mean that immigration has been a failure.  How would you begin to define that?  And the fact that 3 prominent, hard right wing politicians (utterly ridiculed by their home populations now by the way) play the race card in increasingly desparate efforts to get relected, does not mean we should accept what they say is true.  Significant majorities, particularly so among those with some education, reject these people and their racist epithets, wholly and completely.  Their views are just too simple.

As ever, the world is a lot more complicated than as they protray.

So sure - we should start tackling our tolerance of socially unacceptable practices: organised misogyny (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism); sectarianism (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism); tolerance of and sometimes induction of of violence (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism).

Why are we picking out Islam specifically here? They are objectionable: but they are also an easy target with their funny ways, and the constant publicity in the poor quality racist press.  We might do a bit better perhaps and target all of them.

And lastly: the anecdotes above are obviously unpleasnt.  But I'm sure we could find similarly nasty stories about any individual members of any ethnic or religious group in the UK so they don't really take us too far and I think we should be (extremely) reticent about using these instances to demosntrate a trend.

Islamic doctrines on female exclusion on the other hand?  Absolutely!  Christian schools teaching homophobic bigotry?  Absolutely!  etc

Comment by George Thain on July 15, 2011 at 10:43am

I think Jimmy has summed things up better than I could in a reply to some of the things said since my last comment. I would like to say one thing though in reference to the comment about hate preachers in the UK and Europe. When I lost faith in Christianity I had a period where I tried to find the religion that was right for me, during this time I was invited to an event in London which had an Islamic preacher at. Whilst the majority of things he said were horrific it was no worse than some of the far right Christian preachers that are so prevalent in the States. However I also have no doubt that there would've been worse things preached as it did seem that the whole reason of this event was for people to bring people along with the sole intention of conversion. Luckily it didn't work on me and I soon gave up a hopeless search for a 'true' religion.

Comment by Gaytor on July 15, 2011 at 11:03am

Thanks for the points Jimmy. It's difficult from outside Britain to decide what sources are reliable. It's amazing to see how many tabloids you have in one medium sized country. The interesting thing is that the Express Story is likely the most verifiable on the headscarves, The breastfeeding story has 26 sources around the globe from India to Canada, but it's still one person's claim versus another's. Then the blind man with the guide dog seems to be duplicated by even other members. A critical point that you make is the myopic focus on Muslims. George felt the same way. I have nothing against Muslims, it's simply a matter of the stories that have reached my attention.

That said, if your society is being held back by religion in other ways, I would personally be in favor of fighting against it. We have plenty of our own problems here in the US and that's part of why this site exists and why I'm a card carrying ACLU member. If we don't stand against religion when it's inserted into societal norms, it becomes the norm and very difficult to remove later on. Think of the "In God We Trust" on US coinage or the "Under God" in our pledge. Small things, but now the majority that are my age think that this country was founded on religion and that the government is based on the ten commandments. 

I happily accept your criticism and core points. Thanks for pointing them out. 

Comment by John Siqueiros on July 15, 2011 at 11:03am

When you have a nation that gives a big, fat, wet kiss to its own official Church, it sort of has to bend backwards to keep people from questioning such charity. A nation that gives millions of pounds of taxpayer money to celebrate the wedding of the future Supreme Governor of the Church of England is going to have to give something up to the less favored religions.

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