I read last week that in Great Britain, Mohammed is the most popular name for male newborns. How long do you think that can be sustained before the British culture becomes something very different from what it was?
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So, are you seriously saying that the average european is isolated and xenophobic or something?
The problem with this crap is that it doesn't help the problem...it makes it worse.
I want a society in which people are interactive with each other and sympathetic toward each other. Yep, I'm a liberal softie masquerading as a racist. It's because from what I see, human empathy extends only so far. It extends to family, and to race. It does not extend beyond that. A humane world is one in which racial and ethnic groups exist peacefully in their own territories.
I read last week that in Great Britain, Mohammed is the most popular name for male newborns. How long do you think that can be sustained before the British culture becomes something very different from what it was?
Not quite #1 yet but who is to say this is a bad thing.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1890354.ece
Let's play Wisemen and Fools.
How many here believe that...
Allow me to play devil's advocate and ask what Muslim nation attacked a sovereign nation that was not a threat to its own sovereignty? Any nation ruled by dictators or fools can find a reason to attack another nation religion doesn't matter.
And Indonesia answers your other question.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/id.html
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27771.htmThe Government's human rights record remained poor, and it continued to commit serious abuses.
pot and kettle.
Let's not ignore why catholocism is popular in latin america. It's not because of door to door work.
I read last week that in Great Britain, Mohammed is the most popular name for male newborns. How long do you think that can be sustained before the British culture becomes something very different from what it was?
Islam has a long and extensive history of invading other countries and making them into Islamic strongholds. Most recently Turkey invaded Iraq to take care of problems with Kurdish rebels/terrorists there. Iraq attacked and invaded Kuwait which triggered the Gulf War action. That action also prevented Saddam from invading Saudi Arabia which he almost certainly intended to do. Does anybody anywhere honestly believe ANY of Israel's Islamic neighbors would not have invaded and conquered Israel by now if they had been able to do so? Anybody who keeps up with the news at all can't miss the Islamic oppression against other Muslims in several African nations and other places. All those African nations with changing names and shifting borders haven't come about through peaceful means.
As for religious freedom in Indonesia, this is ordered by their constitution, but having non-Islamic friends in Indonesia, and from reading around the fringes, that is not entirely the case and conditions for non-Muslims are deteriorating: http://zfikri.wordpress.com/2007/08/04/indonesia-religious-discrimination-intolerance/
In Turkey, religious freedom is afforded non-Islamic citizens provided they do not advertise or solicit for new members in any way and maintain a low profile. In at least some areas, non-Islamic places of worship can't even put a sign on their place of worship to identify it.
And as for other human rights in Indonesia:
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27771.htm
This means what? I'm referring to relevance.
Jews and Muslims are both minority cultures in Europe, Jews a shrinking one and Muslims a rapidly growing one.
Let's play Wisemen and Fools.
How many here believe that, as a result of this European government initiative, Jews and Muslims will like and understand each other more?
How many believe that Muslims will understand and appreciate European (Christian) culture more?
How many believe that this is just a custard-head feel-good initiative whose real purpose is to distribute the money extracted by taxes from Europeans to various minority-group organizations which claim to be the spokesmen for their particular minority.
Finally, referring to a previous question: how many here think it might be a very good thing for Mohammed to become the most common male name in Britain?
This means what? I'm referring to relevance.
How much of a danger are Muslim countries to non-Muslim countries? See Fox's first sentence in the post I was replying to...
Well I think I fairly competently answered your first question along these lines, and it appears no matter what I answer, you will keep asking question after question which, if I continue to respond, will have the net effect of derailing the substance of the thread. So why don't we discuss the pros and cons of shifting cultures within nations dealing with multiculturalism? It is actually a much more interesting topic.
Cultures are not static things. Britain in, say, 1950 had a different culture than it had in 1850, and a very different culture than it had in 1650.
For one thing, the reality of the rule of law had grown enormously. The concept was very definitely present in 1650, but it was weak. Those who are interested in this are urged to read Thomas Babbington Macaulay's History of England, which is actually a history of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. (I know this sounds mind-numbingly dull, but please take my word for it -- it isn't. The book is as gripping as any Tom Clancey novel, and you will get some idea of where our -- American -- deep concepts of liberty come from. You will see, laid out by a skilfull writer, the actual process of struggle among competing groups which led to certain fundamental values becoming deeply established in our Anglo-Saxon culture. And these values are now accepted, in reality in the rest of Europe and perhaps less in reality but on paper, elsewhere.)
So, what is the problem that can arise if Britain becomes a nation of Mohammeds?
One problem is this: Muslim culture seems resistant to the idea of the rule of law. And the rule of law, more so than democracy, is a quintessential ingredient for a civilized society based upon democratic freedoms. I say "resistant" and not "totally hostile to", because the rule of law is such an attractive idea for all except the strongest (who find themselves restrained by it), that it has begun to permeate non-European cultures too. At first, only lip service is paid to it. But this is a first step.
However, Islam itself is not a religion which is very congenial to the idea of secular law being the supreme decider in most political matters. The concept of the rule of (secular) law runs against the grain of Islam as it is actually practiced. (I should stress "as it is actually practiced" -- I don't assume that because the Koran has various blood-curdling passages in it, that this defines the actual essence of Islam. Jews and Christians learned long ago to simply ignore the similar horrible passages in the Bible which conflict with their modern desires, and with Enlightenment values. Few Christians, for example, give a fig for the Biblical injunction against divorce.)
So the fear is, as Muslims grow in numbers and influence in Britain, so also will these backward Islamic values grow. Already, writers in Britain are afraid to satirize Islam, for fear of both murderous Muslim retaliation against them, and the actions of the Politically-Correct Thought Police here. (And this, despite Britain having a rich tradition of anti-religious satire -- remember the brilliant Life of Brian. A similar film making fun of Mohammed is now utterly inconceivable.)
Liberals, who have been at the forefront of defending individual freedoms, certainly more so than conservatives, should, by logic, be the first to be concerned about this. After all, Islamists share a number of socially-conservative positions with Christian fundamentalists. Both might be happy with a strict censorship that prevented satirization of religion.
But to believe that would be to ignore another component of liberalism: its deeply-rooted anti-Western assumptions, which see the West, and its capitalist system, as the source of the world's evils.
Thus liberals try to ignore the growth of Islamic power in Europe, despite its deeply illiberal character, as we have seen in this thread.
Truly, as James Burnham noted half a century ago, liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide.