G'day Dan,
I too believe in respecting the rights of religion, providing they do not interfere with the rights of others.
To be critical because of poor spelling is not nice at all. And actually, while I capitalise "God" and "Islam" etc because it is the correct convention, if someone doesn't have they done anything except perhaps say that the religion doesn't have to be given a special place by capitalising it.
And you are right that in the Muslim religion there are a great many that do not agree with their leaders but dehammer wasn't talking about all the followers of Islam. He actually did say "leaders" and it is very difficult to find a "leader" of the Muslim religion currently who would say that women are entitled to go nude or where bikinis in any society including those where it is generally acceptable. There was a question in a Muslim newspaper answered by someone that almost universally is considered to be a progressive, tolerant thinker. The question was "Can a women deny sex to her husband". The answer: "No". After a bit of an uproar the answer was modified to "If she is sick, nursing, has a physical problem or wishes to divorce the man then she can refuse." Even the last one actually required that she take the steps to be divorced before she could refuse.
A valid argument can be made as follows: The Koran is rasist, sexist and unsuitable for modern society. The Bible is also racist, sexist and generally unsuitable for modern society.
Those statements can get you jailed in many countries in the world including so called liberal countries. Generally, they breach laws such religious vilification laws. Truth is not an excuse. If you got up in front of a crowd and did nothing but read sections of the Koran to them, you could be jailed in Australia, and I believe the UK. The passages that would be deemed to be inciting religious vilification are things such as you cannot be friends with a Jew or a Christain. In the Bible you have, if a person attempts to persuade you away from your faith kill them. In the Koran, however, you have a great many more passages relating to the rights of women, such as they are able to inherit a fraction of what a male can, they are property, they are inferior.
Why do we "owe" the believers of any faith "respect and courtesy". If you are rude to me, and you certainly are in many posts, does that mean anything other than you should improve your manners? It is good manners to show respect to a culural rite or to a religion. However, you wouldn't see me showing any such respect if I was witnessing genital mutilation of a child because it is part of a culture. I'd object to it. I'd object to an adulterer being stoned to death.
No one says that those that gather outside US jails to chant and protest at executions do not have the right to do so. Actually, the law says they have the absolute right to do so. Same with protesting outside abortion clinics. It is when that protesting becomes harrassment, that the law may be able to act.
By think about it for a moment. Can you see anyone in the US tolerating the protest outside a Mosque or a Evangelistical church? Same applies to Australia and the UK, so I'm not picking on the US here (except the US is the only place that provides a fundamental right to free speach).
The Pope quotes an obscure Muslim scholar and your end up with non Catholic nuns killed and a number of churches (again non catholic) burnt down.
Think about what a cartoon did to Denmark. Wear a quote from the Koran on your clothes or an image said to be of Mohammad in any city in the US and see what happens to you.
This is not a religion of tolerance, either as written in the religious text or even practiced. Neither is fundamental Christains for that matter. Ask the widows and widowers or ophans of abortion clinic doctors how tolerant they think fundamental Christains are.
Sometimes disrepect has its places to. dehammer owed nothing to any particular religion because he is on a science forum. He is not discussing religion with members of a religious faith. And even if he was, I would have thought that the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights includes the right to be rude. Society suggests that we should not do so but that certainly isn't a command.
And personally, I don't think dehammer actually meant any offence at all. His spelling and grammer are not the best in any posts. That means nothing by the way, only that he might not be a fast typist, or he has a really crappy computer that keeps on locking up on him and he is trying to get his point across before it is all lost again.
So your little diatribe about taring a culture and the suggestion that dehammer fits the category of misogynistic seems to be based on one word "moslim", not capitalised and not spelt correctly. Wow! Now that is a leap of faith. It really looks like you really wanted to find something to belittle dehammer about. You actually started with:
"I'd really like to go just one day without finding something you write offensive". I would suggest from how much you read into one word that this isn't even close to how your really feel.
Now you are free to attack my take on religion. Mine is not a mistake in grammer. It really is an assertion that the Muslim religion has some very serious problems in a modern society and that even the very liberal interpretations of the religion do not really fit in with Western society. I fear this is going to be a very very big problem in years to come and being respectful now is reasonable to those that deserve it but smacks of Chamberlain's appeasment principals for the rest.
Just how many newspapers in the US stood up for free speech and published the cartoons that started out in Denmark? How many Christain cartoons have you seen? Why the "respect" for one religion and the freedom of speech for the other. Could it be that Christains rarely burn down embassies, kill citizens of countries that print cartoons, and cause riots that kill people? You could argue that this is simple ethical journalism. Knowing what the consequences are likely to be, you refrain from publishing something that will cause those consequences. But really all that shows is that those willing to commit horror and attrocious crimes in the name of their religion dictate what is printed and what is said.
And now we have completely left any suggestion that this is science behind and ventured so far into the politics of religion that to go further may actually be dangerous to the participants. I suggest we end this thread. Mr Morgan you certainly have the right of reply of course.
Regards
Richard
