how falling birth rates will get fixed in the end?

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puddingmouse
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29 Jul 2012, 3:41 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
HisDivineMajesty wrote:
And yes, it's almost all muslims who behave in this way.

Simply wrong.

Tequila wrote:
puddingmouse wrote:
10% isn't high. My school was 80% Muslim. The bullying is more likely to happen if you're a girl, and it's more likely that you'll get called 'white slut', than 'infidel'.


And I suppose Muslim kids calling white students "white slut" isn't punished as often as, say, a white child calling Muslim kids "Paki bastards"?

10% is quite high, it is well above the % of people who are Muslim nationally (4%). 80% is obviously much higher though.

"White slut" is clearly not as bad an insult as "Paki bastard". "Bastard" is a bigger insult than "slut", and "Paki" has connotations that "white" does not. However, from my experience both groups would be punished equally if there were an exchange of insults like that.


I don't think bastard is a worse insult that slut. Bastard simply mean illegitimate child, which is hardly even an insult when you think about it. Slut is a sexist word and a shaming moral judgement.


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The_Walrus
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29 Jul 2012, 4:10 pm

It isn't the dictionary meaning which matters, it is the weight of the word. "n****r" stems from "ignorant", but you wouldn't use it as readily as you would call someone ignorant because the weight and history behind it make it mean so much more than that. "Bastard" is similarly a word that has a long history and was a shameful thing a long time ago, but like "n****r" it isn't a word that is used simply to mean what it literally means any more. "Slut" doesn't mean anything other than what it says on the tin. "Shaming moral judgement"? No more than "bastard" these days, both have little literal meaning now that pre-marital sex is such an accepted part of society.



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29 Jul 2012, 4:12 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
It isn't the dictionary meaning which matters, it is the weight of the word. "n****r" stems from "ignorant", but you wouldn't use it as readily as you would call someone ignorant because the weight and history behind it make it mean so much more than that. "Bastard" is similarly a word that has a long history and was a shameful thing a long time ago, but like "n****r" it isn't a word that is used simply to mean what it literally means any more. "Slut" doesn't mean anything other than what it says on the tin. "Shaming moral judgement"? No more than "bastard" these days, both have little literal meaning now that pre-marital sex is such an accepted part of society.


I think slut implies that women are somehow dirty because they have sex. It is sexist because it's used as a way of passing judgement on a woman's perceived sexual behaviour. It's hardly ever used against men. Like there's something inherently disgusting about female sexuality specifically.

Bastard is just an archaic word that's stuck around as a generic moderately-strong insult. Even George Orwell, writing in the 30s, said it's not even really that insulting.


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29 Jul 2012, 4:49 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
Muslims can be racist towards white people, but "Paki" has a history associated with it similar to words like "n****r"- it means more than calling someone "white". I don't know how much meaning is loaded by "Kankerblanken", but "white slut" simply isn't as insulting as "Paki bastard".


White slut is, in fact, at least equally insulting. Kankerblanken, depending on the tone and emotion, can mean anything from "damn whites" to "whites are a cancer upon society". We are, in fact, second-class citizens in our own country, both in public measures and in the tone we're forced to accept. Geert Wilders was put on trial for remarks about Islam. A man who said he needed to destroy democracy and that all non-muslims were junkies and prostitutes was allowed to do so in public, next to a monument to peace and freedom, and a man who argued against him was dragged off by police. Sometimes, they even make clear their intention to exterminate native Europeans when they're taunting, which is something they do very often. Other taunts: "I'll rape your mother/sister/daughter/wife", "I'll stab the first jew I see", "we should deal with you like we did in the past" and "Islam will destroy you."

These are the people I don't want living here. These are the people who should be put on the first plane to Rabat and left to their own devices upon arrival. Even in Morocco, these people are known as trouble-makers, and when temporary labour contracts were signed, Moroccan authorities were very eager to sign these people off so they could get rid of them for a few months to a few years. Imagine how pleasantly-surprised they were when leftists had decided these poor people were victims of society and should have the right to stay here and to "have beneficial mutual exchanges of culture", which effectively meant they can demolish a few churches to build mosques and they get their own neighbourhoods with a hidden parallel society.

The_Walrus wrote:
Studies show that 54% of Moroccan males commit a crime before the age of 24 in the Netherlands, so yes, a majority.
The most common crime amongst this group is shoplifting, so yes, it does tend to be small thefts.


Actually, those figures have been revised once more. It's 65% before the age of 22 now. And they're six times as likely as native Europeans to use the social welfare net for extended amounts of time. It's an actual minority that's law-abiding and hard-working, but saying they're a problematic group in society means you're a racist. "White people also commit crimes!" was one of the more laughable comments. Yes, but they're less than half as likely to commit crimes.

The_Walrus wrote:
However, a few small things to note: being arrested does not mean you committed a crime, so you could argue that the Moroccans are suffering from discrimination at the hands of the police.


No, it can't be argued that they're suffering from discrimination. The police want to start more effective initiatives to target that group specifically, as they're both extremely visible to ordinary citizens and extremely over-represented in crime, welfare and school dropouts. However, that's racist, unlike asking for someone who isn't white for a high-ranking police position. They're also much more prone to schizophrenia (4-6 times as likely as any other group) and mental retardation (80% of mentally-retarded children in Amsterdam are from Morocco or Turkey). These are offered as actual scientific explanations for their high poverty and crime rates and low education rates: "due to inbreeding, their average intelligence is significantly lower and they often suffer from mental conditions, meaning it's harder for them to get by in education - an effect deepened by them being stuck between two different cultures."

The_Walrus wrote:
Also, immigrants tend to be poorer, and the poor tend to commit more crimes, particularly petty theft. The study didn't control for wealth. Also, the study did not factor in criminals who plead guilty in order to get a reduced sentence- perhaps Dutch youths are likely to do this whereas Moroccans are more likely to contest charges.


There are several minorities who are under-represented in crime despite similar living conditions. Thing is, Moroccans are a group that has become steadily worse, while Chinese people, Indonesian people (protestant Moluccans, mainly), Spanish people and Italian people have had no such pattern. In fact, all of these groups have integrated and started earning a lot of money and having proper education within two generations. Moroccans, meanwhile, are at their fifth generation, still form the bottom of society (in part due to their open refusal to attend school in many cases) and have actually become gradually worse since the first generation.

The rest is pure speculation, as there are no figures that I know of on pleading guilty or contesting charges with regards to culture and ethnicity.



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02 Aug 2012, 1:26 am

puddingmouse wrote:
Sharia law isn't that much of an issue, since I can't supersede national law. It's no different to the Beth Din courts in the Jewish community. Sharia law in Nigeria is a different matter, but were talking about a different beast here.


Sharia law can and does right now today supersede national law in practice.

Let us take a typical example.

A muslim woman from Pakistan is bought into this country for marriage and doesn't speak a word of English. Her husband abuses her. She seeks help and advice not from the police or social care system but from the mosque and the informal sharia court.

Do you think the outcome is going to be identical to a white English woman unhappy with her husband beating the crap out of her?

When was the last time a white English woman turned to self immolation as the only way out of an abusive marriage?

If justice is served entirely outside the mainstream legal system in a secretive closed community, then the legal system will never get involved either to inform a person of their rights or to administer justice.

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The main issue with Islamic schools is that they suck. Most people don't have any problem with Catholic schools because they normally have high educational standards (although some are very sh** and just live off the reputation). There's a reason why most Muslim children (shudder at that phrase) go to state schools, or get into church schools. Personally, I question the need for all faith schools, but that opens a can of worms because people get pissed off with me when I make this argument. Plus, I currently work in Catholic sixth-form college (there aren't that many secular sixth forms where I live), so the church system dominates education in some parts of the country. You can't whinge about Islamic schools without being prepared to dismantle this whole faith school system.


You have yourself just criticised Islamic schools by saying they suck. You can't say they suck and then say you are not allowed to say they suck unless you want to dismantle the whole faith school system. You just have said that they suck so clearly it is possible to say that they suck...

For a start Islamic schools are not inspected by OFSTED, they have their own inspection system which does not report to anyone other than the schools themselves. It is called the Bridge Schools Inspectorate. Please note they also inspect extremist Christian schools, the ones that teach creationism instead of science...

The superiority of religious schools is almost certainly a myth, the 'quality' almost always comes from selection of students. This concentrates troubled students in the non-religious schools and makes the religious schools look better than they are.

Finally I'm perfectly happy to remove religion from the school system, brainwashing should not be part of the taxpayer funded education system.

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Just a clarification, are you saying Muslims 100% reject gay rights nationally (which would hardly surprise me) or just within Muslim community? What about LGBT Muslims? I have no problem admitting that Islam is as homophobic as the other two Abrahamic religions, but I've not completely made my mind up about the adherents. I've heard a lot of them say things like 'homosexuality doesn't happen in our culture', but I think they just say that rubbish unthinkingly in a pious way - the same way some of the say 'inshallah' after every other sentence. I think they're scared of their own thoughts and of thinking the wrong thing. I've never met one who actually seems to hate gays.

I don't think being opposed to homosexuality is more radical coming from a Muslim than it is from a Christian or a Jew. The radicalism kicks in when you start executing gays, and I don't think the majority of British Muslims want that.


I mean exactly what I said, a telephone survey of British muslims was carried out by a respected non-partisan professional survey organisation with no axe to grind. When asked about homosexuality, every single one of the 500 muslim respondents condemned it, without exception.

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So, in short, in don't believe that Sharia courts, Islamic schools or being opposed to homosexuality because your scary-as-f**k god tells you to be, make you a radical. What makes a radical is believing that all infidels must die if they oppose your faith. In my experience, those morons are in a (not tiny) minority.


In that case you should spend a lot more time with a dictionary.

Go and look up some definitions of the word 'radical'

1. Characterized by departure from tradition; innovative or progressive
2. Relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough
3. A person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform; a member of a political party or part of a party pursuing such aims.

If you reject the cultural norms of society, the legal system and the education system and decide to live completely separate from it, you are by definition a radical. Living inside of a system and occasional voicing opinions that differ significantly from the mainstream is enough to qualify for the 'radical' label. Islam in Britain has gone a very, very long past that.

Quote:
As for freedom of speech, Muslims have got it also in their scripture that no-one can say nasty things about Allah and hurt his wittle feelings. This is the same reason that we have blasphemy laws that protect Christianity. The Abrahamic God is touchy. It's a sign of the daftness of religion rather than a full-scale attack on all freedom of speech.


We don't have blasphemy laws. Keep up at the back... :wink:


Quote:
As for female equality, similar arguments about Abrahamic religions sucking monkey balls on this issue apply. I think it is more problematic in Islam than in the other two because of passages to the effect of, 'Only one third of the people in paradise are women' and because of the relative backwardness regarding women's rights in the countries where Islam is the national religion. I won't argue that the situation isn't very bad, but I don't know how it relates to radicalism, except that truly radical Muslims go even further in oppressing women. If we're talking about Taliban-style amputations for wearing nail varnish, then I'd argue that the vast majority of Muslims in the Western world are not that misogynistic. If we're talking about denying women access to education, then only a minority are into that in the West. Most Pakistani families seem to value educated women as per Desi culture valuing education in general. The one time I came across a man denying education to a woman was when I saw a North African man tell his wife that she couldn't enrol on a English language course. Sickening, yes, but not a majority practice.

Could you please clarify what you mean by Muslims rejecting notions of human rights in the West? Most of the examples I can think of are culturally based and do not come from the religion.



Erm, I mean the fact that the UN declaration of Human Rights was declared 'unislamic' and 'incompatible with sharia law' by the OIC and the member states of the OIC instead decided to implement the Cairo declaration of human rights in islam.

You can't get away with saying that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with culture because it is entirely, 100% percent a religious issue.

Quote:
Quote:
I don't quite understand how you can post this and then two posts later inform us that in your experience you suffered years of sexual assault at the hands of many different individuals in multiple countries and formed the opinion that religion played a large role in explaining their behaviour.

For both of your posts to be coherent, muslim perverts from around the world must have been seeking you personally out the same way that nutters stalk world famous celebrities.

Perhaps you would like to pluck a figure out of thin air and inform us from your personal experience and belief and tell us what proportion you think is about ballpark for the number of muslims not fully onboard with the equal rights agenda?

And how many non-religious liberal campaigners cut their own wife's head off when she ask for a divorce?
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-02-16/just ... s=PM:CRIME

Why is it acceptable to lambast white skinned conservatives for unpleasant views but brown skinned religious totalitarian fascists are above reproach?


Most of the sexual harassment I experienced was in my own country. I live in inner-city Manchester.

I've met many, many more Muslim non-perverts than I have perverts. I think that maybe I just got harassed by so many Muslims because of the concentration of that particular group where I live. I was a teenage girl that walked around a busy city, alone and with lost, naive look on her face (due to autism). Unfortunately, gender relations being what they currently are in the world, that means I was almost certainly going to be sexually harassed.

Also, I said the religion was the reason why Muslim perverts were more threatening, not why they were greater in number. You can interpret Islam in such a way as to give you an excuse to treat infidel women badly, if you were that way inclined in the first place.

I'm not claiming that my personal experiences constitute some kind of reliable data; I was simply sharing them. This was much in the same manner as the woman that HDM mentioned, who videotaped herself walking around Brussels and recording the sexist remarks she heard.

Also brown-skinned fascists are not above my reproach. I was simply maintaining that the majority of brown-skinned Allah-fearing people are not of the same ilk, though a worrying-enough number of them are.



DC
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02 Aug 2012, 2:04 am

The_Walrus wrote:
"white slut" simply isn't as insulting as "Paki bastard".



I can't really take you seriously with that comment.

So only white people can be racist?
If non-white people are just as racist it doesn't count because it isn't really racist to use racist insults directed at white people?
Equality doesn't apply if you are white?

:roll:



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02 Aug 2012, 9:47 am

Wow, this thread is way off track. Oh well.

"Slut" is misogynistic hate speech.
"White slut" implies all white women are sluts, and is therefore both a racial slur and a gender slur.
I would say that makes it at least as serious an insult as "Paki bastard".



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02 Aug 2012, 11:38 am

Why does a low birth rate need fixing? The world could use fewer people.



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02 Aug 2012, 12:00 pm

I thought the world was over populated...so wouldn't a lesser birth rate be a good thing? I guess I am just not all that upset about there being less people on the planet, it would be less crowded.


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02 Aug 2012, 12:39 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
I thought the world was over populated...so wouldn't a lesser birth rate be a good thing? I guess I am just not all that upset about there being less people on the planet, it would be less crowded.


If any section of the world's population has to go, can it be Salafi and Wahhabi Muslims (and other totalitarian fanatical scum, I'm really not picky) and EU bigwigs? Ta.



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02 Aug 2012, 1:29 pm

Tequila wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
I thought the world was over populated...so wouldn't a lesser birth rate be a good thing? I guess I am just not all that upset about there being less people on the planet, it would be less crowded.


If any section of the world's population has to go, can it be Salafi and Wahhabi Muslims (and other totalitarian fanatical scum, I'm really not picky) and EU bigwigs? Ta.


Birthrates can't save bankrupt ideas ... the only one thing that can is oppression, martyrs, and enemies/external threats.



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02 Aug 2012, 4:14 pm

DC wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
"white slut" simply isn't as insulting as "Paki bastard".



I can't really take you seriously with that comment.

So only white people can be racist?
If non-white people are just as racist it doesn't count because it isn't really racist to use racist insults directed at white people?
Equality doesn't apply if you are white?

:roll:

I didn't say that. As a matter of fact, I said the opposite.

"White slut" is a racist insult. It's just "white" doesn't have the same meaning attached to it as "Paki". "Asian bastard" is equal to "white bastard", which are both less offensive than "Paki bastard" or "yiddo bastard" or "poof bastard". Similarly, "black slut" is no more or less offensive than "white slut"- but I would consider "Paki slut" more offensive, because "Paki" is an offensive word but "black" and "white" are not.
YippySkippy wrote:
Wow, this thread is way off track. Oh well.

"Slut" is misogynistic hate speech.
"White slut" implies all white women are sluts, and is therefore both a racial slur and a gender slur.
I would say that makes it at least as serious an insult as "Paki bastard".

No it doesn't.

I reckon you can determine how offensive a word is by how willing common people are to throw it around in casual conversation. I hear "slut" said casually a lot, "bastard" rarely. Therefore I think the consensus, at least among my peers, is that "bastard" is more offensive.



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02 Aug 2012, 4:39 pm

The_Walrus wrote:
I reckon you can determine how offensive a word is by how willing common people are to throw it around in casual conversation. I hear "slut" said casually a lot, "bastard" rarely. Therefore I think the consensus, at least among my peers, is that "bastard" is more offensive.


If I had friends who used to word 'slut' all the time to refer to actual people, they wouldn't remain my friends.


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02 Aug 2012, 5:11 pm

Tequila wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
I thought the world was over populated...so wouldn't a lesser birth rate be a good thing? I guess I am just not all that upset about there being less people on the planet, it would be less crowded.


If any section of the world's population has to go, can it be Salafi and Wahhabi Muslims (and other totalitarian fanatical scum, I'm really not picky) and EU bigwigs? Ta.


I don't think its up to me.....or that it would be a specific section.


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02 Aug 2012, 5:37 pm

DC wrote:

Sharia law can and does right now today supersede national law in practice.

Let us take a typical example.

A muslim woman from Pakistan is bought into this country for marriage and doesn't speak a word of English. Her husband abuses her. She seeks help and advice not from the police or social care system but from the mosque and the informal sharia court.

Do you think the outcome is going to be identical to a white English woman unhappy with her husband beating the crap out of her?

When was the last time a white English woman turned to self immolation as the only way out of an abusive marriage?

If justice is served entirely outside the mainstream legal system in a secretive closed community, then the legal system will never get involved either to inform a person of their rights or to administer justice.


Fine, your point is conceded. Sharia is bad, but how is it any more indicative of radicalism than Beth Din?

Quote:
You have yourself just criticised Islamic schools by saying they suck. You can't say they suck and then say you are not allowed to say they suck unless you want to dismantle the whole faith school system. You just have said that they suck so clearly it is possible to say that they suck...

For a start Islamic schools are not inspected by OFSTED, they have their own inspection system which does not report to anyone other than the schools themselves. It is called the Bridge Schools Inspectorate. Please note they also inspect extremist Christian schools, the ones that teach creationism instead of science...

The superiority of religious schools is almost certainly a myth, the 'quality' almost always comes from selection of students. This concentrates troubled students in the non-religious schools and makes the religious schools look better than they are.

Finally I'm perfectly happy to remove religion from the school system, brainwashing should not be part of the taxpayer funded education system.


Islamic schools, should they continue to exist, need to be inspected by OFSTED, or they should be closed down. The same goes for fundamentalist Christian schools. What I meant was that you can't whinge about the existence of Islamic schools, and call for their closure, without also suggesting the same for all faith schools. It seems queer to target Islamic school in particular.

Quote:
I mean exactly what I said, a telephone survey of British muslims was carried out by a respected non-partisan professional survey organisation with no axe to grind. When asked about homosexuality, every single one of the 500 muslim respondents condemned it, without exception.


The problem regarding acceptance of homosexuality is the faith itself. In the context of Abrahamic religions, though, such an opinion is not radical. It's only radically different from liberal Western culture (which I am a huge proponent of, btw). What do you propose we do about this? You can't limit immigration from 'Islamic countries' purely because they have a majority of Muslims. Most of the issues relating to this in the UK involve people who already have extensive family connections over here, and people who already have citizenship or were born here. Unless you go for the mass deportation route (unethical, expensive and will cause a huge international outcry), then the only viable strategy is to play the waiting game and let the effects of affluence take their course. In the meantime us liberals need to defend our values, but that doesn't include labelling large numbers of people radicals. The meaning of which, I will get to later.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not very confident in the efficacy of 'the waiting game', I just think it's the best of a bad bunch of choices. I'm expecting the world to go tits-up financially again in a more serious way, so that Islam will become more dominant. It might just be my pessimism, but I think an impoverished, superstitious world is on the horizon whatever we do. I hope I'm wrong.

Quote:
In that case you should spend a lot more time with a dictionary.

Go and look up some definitions of the word 'radical'

1. Characterized by departure from tradition; innovative or progressive
2. Relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough
3. A person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform; a member of a political party or part of a party pursuing such aims.

If you reject the cultural norms of society, the legal system and the education system and decide to live completely separate from it, you are by definition a radical. Living inside of a system and occasional voicing opinions that differ significantly from the mainstream is enough to qualify for the 'radical' label. Islam in Britain has gone a very, very long past that.

As per your given definition:
1. There's nothing innovative about sharia courts and Islamic schools as per Islamic tradition. Wahhabism is radical and innovative, but not a majority of Muslims in Europe are Wahhabis. These radicals have far too much influence on mainstream Islam and it is growing, but it's still not a majority.
2. If all Muslims want to fundamentally alter every aspect of society, they're doing a pretty crappy job of it. All missionary religions have that as an end goal though. Since evangelism plays a role (no matter how tiny) in every single branch of Christianity (the precedent was set with the Apostles), then using your logic, every single branch of Christianity is radical. Fear those crazy Quakers!
3. see above

The thing is, Muslims don't completely reject the norms of society. They reject certain ones in very visible ways. The problem with the 'radical' label is that it means different things to different people. It's possible to be very radical and relatively harmless at the same time, in the manner of those weird eco people who live self-sufficient lifestyles, or on communes. According to the dictionary definition they are radical. Some Muslims who are very devout but not Wahhabi fall under your definition of radical. They're not integrating into Western culture, but they don't wish us any harm. When we discuss Islam and Muslims, the 'radical' label takes on an extra meaning. Due to the state of world affairs and because news reporters use the word 'radical' when discussing terrorists. We're not playing with dictionary definitions here, we're playing with a label that in this context is tantamount to calling people terrorists (another hotly contested word).

Quote:
We don't have blasphemy laws. Keep up at the back... :wink:


We had them until 4 years ago. Many 'Christian' countries in Europe still have them.


Quote:
Erm, I mean the fact that the UN declaration of Human Rights was declared 'unislamic' and 'incompatible with sharia law' by the OIC and the member states of the OIC instead decided to implement the Cairo declaration of human rights in islam.

You can't get away with saying that has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with culture because it is entirely, 100% percent a religious issue.


I wasn't attempting to say that it had nothing to do with religion, I was asking for clarification on your point, which you have provided, thank you.

What I had in mind regarding human rights violations was things like forced marriage, which are cultural issues. So, it's not 100% a religious issue.

I'm aware that I'm being repetitive, but the other 3 Abrahamic religions and quite a few of the others aren't hot on human rights, either. The problem is that religion and government don't mix, but many of the faithful insist they should.


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02 Aug 2012, 6:45 pm

puddingmouse wrote:
Fine, your point is conceded. Sharia is bad, but how is it any more indicative of radicalism than Beth Din?


It's not more indicative, but it exists on a much larger scale in Europe than anyone would like to admit. And if you address these things in public without apologising in advance, you risk execution in the name of Islam. There was a man, Theo van Gogh, who made a movie about women's rights in Islam. He shouldn't have done that - he was murdered, or 'executed', for insulting Muhammad. Thankfully, the murderer was sentenced to life in prison. It's much better than the man who murdered Pim Fortuyn for political reasons ("scapegoating muslims", among other claims) and was sentenced to a lousy 18 years in prison.

puddingmouse wrote:
Islamic schools, should they continue to exist, need to be inspected by OFSTED, or they should be closed down. The same goes for fundamentalist Christian schools. What I meant was that you can't whinge about the existence of Islamic schools, and call for their closure, without also suggesting the same for all faith schools. It seems queer to target Islamic school in particular.


Ouch. They tried to use the results of nationwide tests here to determine which schools were very bad. Islamic schools came out right at the bottom, followed closely by 'multicultural' public schools. At the top were mostly semi-secular protestant schools and some catholic and semi-private schools. One problem that many islamic schools in the Netherlands seem to have is that they don't always speak Dutch during lessons. They're taught to read and write, and to discuss a little, but apparently, a sizeable amount of islamic schools carry out their daily business in other languages. One of them has a logo that says 'El Wahda', and the same name in Arabic.

What's most frustrating is that we pay for it. We pay for them to speak, read and write a language we don't understand, and a language that's going to set them up for failure in later education and employment, if they even reach that. By the end of primary school, they're able to recite several Qur'an verses in Arabic, but they're often not able to spell the name of their hometown or answer simple maths questions. The El Wahda school I mentioned before is complaining that the government won't fund a school for 130 muslim children who now have to go to a neighbouring town for islamic education. They say every child has the right to education in their area. Well, they do, because the area is full of public schools - it's their parents' choice that forces them to travel for an hour a day just so they can learn to recite the Qur'an.

They also had a quaint team building exercise. The children had a Qur'an recital contest, and were taught about islamic poetry.

puddingmouse wrote:
The problem regarding acceptance of homosexuality is the faith itself. In the context of Abrahamic religions, though, such an opinion is not radical.


In fact, most large denominations of western christianity don't really oppose homosexuality that much. Some might dismiss it a bit, or frown upon it, but a majority of them seem to accept, tolerate, and sometimes even support gay marriage and adoption. Even the pope isn't calling for homosexuals to be executed, castrated or imprisoned, as is law in several islamic countries. Muslims do tend to reject and condemn homosexuality, and that's not incidental - I'd say that's a sizeable majority of muslims worldwide, reflected in their laws, religious practices and public outcries and executions.

puddingmouse wrote:
What do you propose we do about this? You can't limit immigration from 'Islamic countries' purely because they have a majority of Muslims. Most of the issues relating to this in the UK involve people who already have extensive family connections over here, and people who already have citizenship or were born here.


Any measures beside border controls, a strict immigration policy, and a choice between forced assimilation or return to their country of origin are a case of fighting the symptoms. A few years ago, the Dutch government finally accepted the fact that islamic immigrants were pouring in at a much faster rate than even the most basic and sloppy integration courses could handle. However, we can't close the tap - Brussels is in charge of that.

This is one of the few instances where I'm happy we have Moroccans and Turks. Both of them are born, even here, with a Turkish or Moroccan passport. Unfortunately, that means some other things. They're obliged to swear loyalty to the King of Morocco and the government of Turkey, respectively. Turkish young men are also called up for Turkish conscription, unless they pay a large amount of money to the government of Turkey. Money they usually don't have, but we do - and that's where another interesting idea comes in. They once proposed that our government should pay the government of Turkey (~$10k for every young Turkish man) to buy them off conscription lists.

puddingmouse wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not very confident in the efficacy of 'the waiting game', I just think it's the best of a bad bunch of choices. I'm expecting the world to go tits-up financially again in a more serious way, so that Islam will become more dominant. It might just be my pessimism, but I think an impoverished, superstitious world is on the horizon whatever we do. I hope I'm wrong.


It's a pessimistic outlook, but it's happening in our backyards precisely because we're forced to play the waiting game. We're forced to accept hundreds of thousands of muslims who immigrate to Europe each year. We know most of them won't find work, most of them aren't educated beyond secondary school - and often not even beyond primary school - and we know a lot of them diametrically oppose our values. Thanks to Brussels, and our own political elites, we're forced to put on a false smile as we welcome them, knowing they're a net expense, knowing they didn't flee starvation or war, and knowing many of them make no secret of wanting to subject us to their rule.

puddingmouse wrote:
There's nothing innovative about sharia courts and Islamic schools as per Islamic tradition. Wahhabism is radical and innovative, but not a majority of Muslims in Europe are Wahhabis. These radicals have far too much influence on mainstream Islam and it is growing, but it's still not a majority.


That sounds an awful lot like "there were cockroaches, and I got food poisoning, and we were robbed by hotel staff, but at least the view was nice."

puddingmouse wrote:
We had them until 4 years ago. Many 'Christian' countries in Europe still have them.


We still have them. In 2004, they wanted to abolish blasphemy laws because one fundamentalist muslim had taken them too far and murdered a man for insulting Muhammad, but they decided not to because "just like women and homosexuals, religious people have the right not to be offended". Yes, we still have blasphemy laws so that we don't accidentally offend the type of people who see extrajudicial executions as a method of forcing their religion upon people. Christians don't care about blasphemy laws, and jews are mostly concerned with Moroccans driving them out of their houses and threatening to murder them. It's muslims who stir up trouble in this case.

puddingmouse wrote:
I'm aware that I'm being repetitive, but the other 3 Abrahamic religions and quite a few of the others aren't hot on human rights, either. The problem is that religion and government don't mix, but many of the faithful insist they should.


None of them - no other religion in the world, Abrahamic or not - comes even close to the size and intensity of violence and intolerance perpetrated in the name of Islam.