'Major incident' in Woolwich

[uncleglen]

Public funds should not support faith schools-it is absurd in these days of 'enlightenment'. They are breeding grounds for homophobia for one thing and zealotry is rife amongst young people who have been brainwashed since they were born, by their parents and relatives and a succession of faith schools. I am sure, Quids, that Richard Dawkins is also raising a glass to Hitchens.

[Otta]

That's a whole different thread right there.

[????]

But many people whose bookshelves are no doubt creaking under the weight of Dawkins, Goldacre et al seem a bit silent on this.....

[david_carnell]

Are you expecting "us" (lefty pinko types with Polly Toynbee on speed dial) to denounce all of Islam? To proclaim it as a hateful religion, devoid of good and intent on the destruction of all other faiths?

Ok. Anything else whilst I'm here.

Of course the caveat is that these men are no more representative of Islam than the Westboro Baptist Church or people who blow up abortion clinics are of Christianity. So can I denounce that too?

You just seem to be intent on being antagonistic tonight? You think the left is tying itself in politically correct knots over this? Personally, and unlike you I can only speak for myself, I've got other stuff to worry about.

To be honest, I've struggled all day to see what the fuss is about. I don't mean to sound crass, but COBRA? Wtf?! If this is terrorism it's some of the most shambolic I've seen. It's a horrid murder, no doubt, but nothing more. Most people who hack others to death with machetes often ramble on about god, the devil, hell etc.... and if you're a muslim who's this mentally ill then I guess you'd wibble on about allah.

[El Pibe]

Your spirited defence of Catholicism is noble quids, but there's a big difference between a huge global organisation, with power influence and money having a conspiracy to protect itself against heinous crimes and pervert the cause of justice, and individual preachers twisting a faith.

For Anjem Choudry, read David Koresh.

As I have oft repeated, all religions are essentially exercises in fantasy, and are often used to justify prejudice, hatred and violence. Not even Buddhism, the worlds most unambiguously peaceful philosophy (he never wanted it to be a religion, though inevitably people decided it should be so and deified the poor sod) is free from having dirty just war linen tucked away.

Islam has heaped violence in the past and been responsible for great art and learning. Christianity when it held sway definitely managed great art and great violence but we had to throw its shackles off to allow ourselves learning, but we digress.

It's always politics quids. Martyrdom, or dying for a cause has always been seen as a noble thing, we honour our 'glorious dead' every year. Where you see medieval stupidity they will see glorious death, hell they even killed a soldier.

No one ever thinks they are evil, they always think theyre doing the right thing for the right reasons, it's always the other who is bad.

You talk of Baghdad deaths but it was holier than thou, god-fearing marines who declared everyone in Fallujah an enemy combatant just because they hadn't left their homes and killed tens of thousands of people with tanks and depleted uranium and white phosphorus and 1,000lb bombs. Sounds like terrorism to me, and it doesn't even make me angry, imagined if you identified with the victims of this violence.

Maybe it's daft of an Englishman of Nigerian heritage to feel the idealism that Islam is a united family (especially given the evidence of schism and sectarian violence) and he needs to take the fight to the enemy in the face of such barbarity, but is it any more insane than any other artificial construct, say national pride or any religiosity of any ilk?

It's not an elephant in the room it's so obvious it's hardly worth mentioning.

It's just that some people don't want events like this to be a conduit for scapegoating 2 million peaceable constructive citizens of our country whilst others would love it to be the first step to its dissolution and rejection of the society we currently are.

You keep coming at this subject but I can never quite get what you want out of it except howling at a perceived guardian shaped moon.

[Annasfield]

Do you not think that the fact that they're utilising COBRA means that they have intelligence that suggests they need to?

I'm fairly sure that all of the incidents have occurred and that could be linked to this haven't been reported in the press.

[DaveR]

FWIW I don't think there's much point in trying to make semantic distinctions about whether to be described as a terrorist you need to belong to a group of a particular size or with some type of structure. What is beyond doubt is that the kind of murders carried out in Woolwich are precisely what were and are intended by the individuals and organisations who preach and disseminate a particular brand of extreme hate-driven Islam. Of course it's not representative of Islam as a whole but neither is it entirely unconnected with mainstream Islam, at least as practised in some Middle Eastern/South Asian countries.

Consequently, to react to these murders with a shrug of the shoulders - it's not real terrorism and it's nothing to do with Islam - is almost as stupid as blaming it on Muslims in general. The ongoing radicalisation of even a very small number of British based Muslims is a real problem that needs to be addressed, by the authorities and also by those who are witnessing it happen. The latter will most often (although not exclusively) be amongst the wider community of British Muslims, which is why it is so important that there is no equivocation about what people's obligations should be.

[woodrot]

El Pibe Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Your spirited defence of Catholicism is noble

> quids, but there's a big difference between a huge

> global organisation, with power influence and

> money having a conspiracy to protect itself

> against heinous crimes and pervert the cause of

> justice, and individual preachers twisting a

> faith.

>

> For Anjem Choudry, read David Koresh.

>

> As I have oft repeated, all religions are

> essentially exercises in fantasy, and are often

> used to justify prejudice, hatred and violence.

> Not even Buddhism, the worlds most unambiguously

> peaceful philosophy (he never wanted it to be a

> religion, though inevitably people decided it

> should be so and deified the poor sod) is free

> from having dirty just war linen tucked away.

>

> Islam has heaped violence in the past and been

> responsible for great art and learning.

> Christianity when it held sway definitely managed

> great art and great violence but we had to throw

> its shackles off to allow ourselves learning, but

> we digress.

>

> It's always politics quids. Martyrdom, or dying

> for a cause has always been seen as a noble thing,

> we honour our 'glorious dead' every year. Where

> you see medieval stupidity they will see glorious

> death, hell they even killed a soldier.

>

> No one ever thinks they are evil, they always

> think theyre doing the right thing for the right

> reasons, it's always the other who is bad.

>

> You talk of Baghdad deaths but it was holier than

> thou, god-fearing marines who declared everyone in

> Fallujah an enemy combatant just because they

> hadn't left their homes and killed tens of

> thousands of people with tanks and depleted

> uranium and white phosphorus and 1,000lb bombs.

> Sounds like terrorism to me, and it doesn't even

> make me angry, imagined if you identified with the

> victims of this violence.

>

> Maybe it's daft of an Englishman of Nigerian

> heritage to feel the idealism that Islam is a

> united family (especially given the evidence of

> schism and sectarian violence) and he needs to

> take the fight to the enemy in the face of such

> barbarity, but is it any more insane than any

> other artificial construct, say national pride or

> any religiosity of any ilk?

>

> It's not an elephant in the room it's so obvious

> it's hardly worth mentioning.

> It's just that some people don't want events like

> this to be a conduit for scapegoating 2 million

> peaceable constructive citizens of our country

> whilst others would love it to be the first step

> to its dissolution and rejection of the society we

> currently are.

>

> You keep coming at this subject but I can never

> quite get what you want out of it except howling

> at a perceived guardian shaped moon.

I was going to post summit like ths, but less well structured, spelt badly and with swear words

[the-e-dealer]

Go on do it anyway!

[????]

EP where do I defend Catholicism? How do you know what I felt about Fallujah For fuck sake? You haven,t got a clue so start from stop making up what other people think and by slur their indifference to 1000s of innocents deaths. I am on the record on this forum for saying I stopped voting Blair after Iraq, which is more than other virtuous liberals on this thread can say....can,t we have any criticism of non western religons on the basis of liberal guilt and fear of being labelled a racist? Criticism, not denouncement, Mr 'you,re on one side or the other' Carnell.

[El Pibe]

I'm by and large with you DaveR.

I don't think I made my position clear as we got sidetracked into the semantics.

I think the insistence that it is terrorism, the readiness to leap to the word serves political agendas of politicians wanting to be more electable, of the hate preachers wanting to be taken seriosuly and of the right wingers wanting to create a climate of fear and segragation in our society.

To me this needs to be treated as a criminal matter, just as the 'war on terror' by and large vindicated the islamist philosophy of defence against crusaders, it would have been much more effectively pursued by police forces and security services than by tanks and daisy cutters.

I've been saying for ages that Al-Muhajiroun and its 'successors' shouldn't be given the oxygen of publicity, the media have lapped up their grandstanding at every turn making them feel more influential than the very small group of idiots that they are. A small paragraph saying that there was a demonstration at wooton basset would suffice rather than the 6 page spreads in the Daily Mail, playing into their hands.

I'm inclined to agree with the earlier article that these chaps' insistence on performance is a direct result of that.

I don't think anyone is shrugging as such, but reactions at many levels play into polarisation rather than tolerance. The radicalisers at the universities will now talk of these chaps executions, of the betrayal of the muslim council and its need to dissasociate themselves from the 'true believers'*.

Deradicalisation should be played through quiet, boring, solid debate and engagement and this will be more difficult in the climate created by such incidents, again playing into their hands.

I don't think anyone really thinks this has nothing to do with Islam, it is esentially the distant eddies of huge climactic shifts in and for the heart of islam itself, but the supposed shrug is really about saying lets not get sucked into having the wrong focus here but lets get quietly on with the job of ensuring that the form of islam that will dominate here is a tolerant inclusive one rather than push it further away from the liberalism into which it has taken root, whilst law enforcement get on with the job of dealing with the inevitable extremists that engagement can't sort out.

*not my thoughts obviously, just to clarify

[Otta]

Yeah, all that stuff he said.

I don't know the ins and outs of this, but a friend suggested that by labelling it terrorism, the police are given more power due to anti terrorist legislation. That may be part of the reason that the powers that be were so quick to use the word...

[Voyageur]

Otta Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Yeah, all that stuff he said.

>

> I don't know the ins and outs of this, but a

> friend suggested that by labelling it terrorism,

> the police are given more power due to anti

> terrorist legislation. That may be part of the

> reason that the powers that be were so quick to

> use the word...

Maybe so. And if the extra powers mean that whoever poisoned the minds of these foolish young men is brought to book, I for one, will be relieved.

[StraferJack]

Paul Sinha's take on some of this

http://sinhaha.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/519/

[WorkingMummy]

I am with Quids, 100% on this one.

The problem is, as soon as you start believing, and teaching your kids, that there is a supreme creator, who: made THE UNIVERSE on the one hand; but cares to an incredibly high level about the incredibly small details of your life; and demands your love on pain of brutal eternal living hell, you are, we, dare I say, fucking yourself and all around you up a bit.

Don't really care if it's Catholic or Muslim. It's all a bit unhealthy, if you ask me. And likely to spin off into dodgy behaviour. As it does, all the time.

Of course, lots of other stuff can fuck you up. And of course, there are some parts of all the "holy" books that can be used to mandate acts of humanity. As far as I have knowledge of the scriptures, which is only really extensive with the bible, these passages are in the minority.

I do think that any religion which endorses literature has a responsibility for acts which take that literature seriously. If religious moderates want to wash their hands of crimes committed in the name of their creed, they should rid their creed of the evil nastiness.

Like Thomas Jefferson did, by taking a red pen to the bible and publishing a version which promoted only good deeds (rather than murder, genocide, human sacrifice, scape goating, mutilation, etc).

Can't think why the Arch Bishop of Canterbury, Pope and peaceful Muslim and Jewish leaders cannot follow Jefferson's lead.

[WorkingMummy]

I am with Quids, 100% on this one.

The problem is, as soon as you start believing, and teaching your kids, that there is a supreme creator, who: made THE UNIVERSE on the one hand; but cares to an incredibly high level about the incredibly small details of your life; and demands your love on pain of brutal eternal living hell, you are, well, dare I say, fucking yourself and all around you up a bit.

Don't really care if it's Catholic or Muslim. It's all a bit unhealthy, if you ask me. And likely to spin off into dodgy behaviour. As it does, all the time.

Of course, lots of other stuff can fuck you up. And of course, there are some parts of all the "holy" books that can be used to mandate acts of humanity. As far as I have knowledge of the scriptures, which is only really extensive with the bible, these passages are in the minority.

I do think that any religion which endorses literature has a responsibility for acts which take that literature seriously. If religious moderates want to wash their hands of crimes committed in the name of their creed, they should rid their creed of the evil nastiness.

Like Thomas Jefferson did, by taking a red pen to the bible and publishing a version which promoted only good deeds (rather than murder, genocide, human sacrifice, scape goating, mutilation, etc). He was left with a very slim book!

Can't think why the Arch Bishop of Canterbury, Pope and peaceful Muslim and Jewish leaders cannot follow Jefferson's lead.

[El Pibe]

Here's that dirty word again.

A superpower raining death from above all around the world on dusty hovels is a 'just' defensive war apparently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22638533

See, it's soooo easy to do.

[david_carnell]

???? Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> EP where do I defend Catholicism? How do you know

> what I felt about Fallujah For @#$%& sake? You

> haven,t got a clue so start from stop making up

> what other people think and by slur their

> indifference to 1000s of innocents deaths. I am on

> the record on this forum for saying I stopped

> voting Blair after Iraq, which is more than other

> virtuous liberals on this thread can say....can,t

> we have any criticism of non western religons on

> the basis of liberal guilt and fear of being

> labelled a racist? Criticism, not denouncement, Mr

> 'you,re on one side or the other' Carnell.

In the words of Michael Winner (RIP), calm down dear. You'll give yourself an aneurysm at this rate.

Blimey, so I went too far with denouncement? You merely wanted criticism? Make your mind up.

Like what? What do us commie-bastards need to say to keep you happy?

I think senior islamic leaders need to condemn both the actions taken by these killers and then, rather than try to claim they have nothing to do with islam, admit that there is a rotten element among a few fringe members of their religion. And talk about what actions they are going to take to address it.

Then what? Seriously? You ask so many questions and attack others for their mealy-mouthed-ness (is that a word?) and yet I see no solutions or insights presented. Just cheap jibes. I'd like to debate this with you. Reasonably. Without resorting to cliches. Want to try?

[WorkingMummy]

Most religious people are law abiding, of course. But it's not "a rotten element among a few fringe members". It's a horrid, central theme running through the scriptures religious people revere.

And the many, evil aspects of the scriptures are not really "open to interpretation" as El Pibe has said. What's open to interpretation about "god" ordering Hebrew people to commit genocide in the land of canan (sparing only virgin females, whose fate you can guess), or ordering the stoning of homosexuals? It's not grey. It's clear, evil, psychopathy. And it's dangerous.

The priests/clerics should take the red pen to the scriptures. Then they could say, "This is not in the name of Islam."

[woodrot]

we can only hope that we are experiencing at the final death throes of terminally flawed oudated belief systems,scrabbling for purchase, but somehow I dont think so.Organised religion defies logic, but humans arent always logical innit.

animals facing extinction go into reproduction overdrive in an attemnpt the keep the genetic line going - the emergence of frenetic public wankery from Xtians. Muslims, Jews and everyones default example of a peace loving belief system ( fucking peaceful ... lol ), Buddhism, merely adds weight to the extinction argument.

good fucking riddance. power seeeking selfish cunts the lot of them

[david_carnell]

WorkingMummy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Most religious people are law abiding, of course.

> But it's not "a rotten element among a few fringe

> members". It's a horrid, central theme running

> through the scriptures religious people revere.

>

> And the many, evil aspects of the scriptures are

> not really "open to interpretation" as El Pibe has

> said. What's open to interpretation about "god"

> ordering Hebrew people to commit genocide in the

> land of canan (sparing only virgin females, whose

> fate you can guess), or ordering the stoning of

> homosexuals? It's not grey. It's clear, evil,

> psychopathy. And it's dangerous.

>

> The priests/clerics should take the red pen to the

> scriptures. Then they could say, "This is not in

> the name of Islam."

I would have thought most of it is open to interpretation. Otherwise, whilst on your period you wouldn't be allowed near your husband for a week. See Leviticus. But I digress...

But you're right in that clerics and teachers of all religions should condemn certain scripture as unbecoming of their religion in the 21st century. And lots do. It's why we don't have stoning on Goose Green every Sunday. And Islam will move that way too. But, and this will cause untold offence, currently too much of it is pretty backward and illiberal. But we won't change that with authoritarian state action or burning mosques.

[El Pibe]

poppycock WM, every aspect is open to interpretation, especially when its a book filled with thousands of contradictions, and they in turn are totally contradicted by the new revelation.

The church spent two thousand years settling on agreed interpretations of every single verse and cherry picking what supports the consensus and what doesn't; read the prologue to the catechisms and that's pretty much it's stated treatement of the OT verbatim.

As for the blood and fire in the book, well its essentially an oral history put to paper. How exactly would you describe Dresden or hiroshima to future genereations, it's just that stuff wrapped up in 'cos god said so' rather than that's what empires do to each other.

People will always find an excuse for it, just look at Obama's words in the above link, even the good guys can be bad guys, and I'm pretty sure the drone policy is very much bad guy territory no matter how apparently effective it is at keeping his enemies off balance (and recruiting more for the future, nicely self perpetuating that way).

Really most here are agreed that religion can be a hateful thing, I would rather see the world without it, but that would never stop this sort of thing, it will always be with us in one guise or other.

[WorkingMummy]

No but it's not open to interpretation that I should not touch my husband while bleeding, is it?

You make my point, it's clearly nuts. So axe it.

But anyway, banning touching menstruating females is NOTHING compared to the worst (and prolific) evil in the scriptures. Even just on the theme of women. Read the story of Jephthah's daughter.

Instead of just (hypocritically) revering the scriptures but ignoring the horror, moderates should excise the evil from their holy books. And until they do, sorry, but Jihad (and a lot of other crazy sxxt) can be done in the name of your holy book/creed.

[Chillaxed]

That's just another example of a ridiculous and dangerous 'rule'. It doesn't mean it's open to interpretation.

david_carnell Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> I would have thought most of it is open to

> interpretation. Otherwise, whilst on your period

> you wouldn't be allowed near your husband for a

> week. See Leviticus. But I digress...

[El Pibe]

Sadly D_C I thin kthe momentum is the other way in Islam.

The modernising movement towards secular islam which took root in the twentieth century was betrayed by the likes of Phalavi, Saddam, Gaddaffi, Sadat and the Assads.

Glimmers of hope in the Arab spring mask what is essentially an uneasy truce between modernists and salafists, which will be settled one way or another further down the line, and saldy Syria has effectively killed off that momentum for years to come.

In most of the other states the trend is towards a more traditional interpretation.

Ironically it's actually healthiest in Iran, a country governed by an autocratic, conservative theocracy.