tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post114242272735833377..comments2024-03-29T05:31:02.923-04:00Comments on The Y Files: Yes, Virginia, there is anti-Muslim bigotryCathy Younghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09688616617444359647noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-557394714873289752021-03-26T12:37:14.324-04:002021-03-26T12:37:14.324-04:00I am unable to read articles online very often, bu...I am unable to read articles online very often, but I’m glad I did today. This is very well written and your points are well-expressed. Please, don’t ever stop writing.<a href="https://www.educationcounsellor.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">writing help UK</a><br /><br />Technologyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02691960469162920638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-42443422119588995082021-02-11T07:52:47.670-05:002021-02-11T07:52:47.670-05:00I was searching some blogs to read on google and f...I was searching some blogs to read on google and found this blog post page. I must say it is very informative as well as interesting. Thanks to the author of this post/page for writing such wonderful lines.<br /><a href="https://www.goassignmenthelp.com.au/do-my-assignment/" rel="nofollow">do my assignment</a> -<br /><a href="https://www.goassignmenthelp.com.au/assignment-writing-service/" rel="nofollow">assignment writing services</a> -<br /><a href="https://www.goassignmenthelp.com.au/assignment-provider/" rel="nofollow">assignment provider aus</a> -<br /><a href="https://www.goassignmenthelp.com.au/assignment-help-brisbane/" rel="nofollow">assignment help brisbane</a> -<br /><a href="https://www.goassignmenthelp.com.au/assignment-provider/" rel="nofollow">assignment provider</a>Emma Jacksonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07231590202987840264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-25320294184048454362020-11-27T03:02:40.290-05:002020-11-27T03:02:40.290-05:00Assignment Help Australia
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download free pc gam...nice share thanks a lot :) <br /><br /><a href="http://www.ourpcgame.net" rel="nofollow"> download free pc games </a><br /><a href="http://www.affiliatesrating.com" rel="nofollow"> affiliate review</a>Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16217946196345356227noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1143396377200480622006-03-26T13:06:00.000-05:002006-03-26T13:06:00.000-05:00I think the historical record shows that Christian...<I>I think the historical record shows that Christians treated Hindus and Buddhists much better than Muslims did. A lot of that may stem from the fact that Christians only came into large-scale contact with those religions late in their history when respect for human rights was on the rise, of course.</I><BR/><BR/>I think a more important factor was that European Christians never made up more than a tiny fraction of the population of the major Hindu and Buddhist areas, and they were acutely aware of that fact. <BR/><BR/>The initial European contacts in Mughal India in the 17th Century were primarily for trading rights, not colonization or conversion. In the 18th Century, French and British stations in India were interested in using the local Hindu and Muslim rulers against each other rather than direct domination. Even after the British came out on top and controlled the Indian subcontinent, there were never more than 250,000 - 300,000 Britons to control a population of 400 million. The Indian Mutiny of 1857-58 showed them just how precarious their rule was, and they were careful to utilize the techniques of Divide and Conquer to maintain it.<BR/><BR/>The European record in China or the French regime in Indochina certainly can't be called "enlightened," but once again the very small numbers of Europeans compared to the huge numbers of Chinese and Indochinese limited how much they could accomplish. There was missionary activity, of course, but without the committment of much greater numbers of Europeans it was never likely that conversion would make significant inroads in China.<BR/><BR/>In the end, what kept Western Christianity from mimicing Islam was not so much moral scruples as it was the economic and political strictures of the European imperial powers. Imperialism was expensive and resource-consuming, and no Great Power wanted to leave itself at a relative disadvantage in the theater that mattered - Europe.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142980013152450772006-03-21T17:26:00.000-05:002006-03-21T17:26:00.000-05:00Excuse me but were'nt you the one who said:"There'...<I>Excuse me but were'nt you the one who said:</I><BR/><BR/><I>"There's no standing commandment to kill people who worship other gods"</I><BR/><BR/>No -- I was the one who said that, not Jim.<BR/><BR/><I>Exactly where in the Koran do you find an injunction to slaughter Jews and Christians?</I><BR/><BR/>Most of the justifications for Islamic warfare actually come from the Hadith (recorded sayings/actions/etc of Mohammed), not from the Koran. The best parallel to Christianity would be Paul's letters, which were immensely influential in spite of not, technically, being the direct word of God.<BR/><BR/><I>Traditional Islam holds that these religions are imperfect interpretations of revelations from Allah. As such, neither Christians or Jews, being "people of the book", qualify as "unbelievers.</I><BR/><BR/>This is true. But it is worth considering that treating Islam in the manner which Islam says Christianity and Judaism should be treated is considered grounds for jihad. In other words, Islam teaches that it is ok to wage war against people who treat Muslims the way that Muslims treat non-Muslims. Christianity, on the other hand, doesn't endorse violence, even against oppressors (although since Christians are human beings like the rest of us they tend not to follow those teachings very well).<BR/><BR/><I>It's true that Islam gives short shrift to pagans and paganism but neither Christianity nor Judaism have clean hands on that score.</I><BR/><BR/>I think the historical record shows that Christians treated Hindus and Buddhists much better than Muslims did. A lot of that may stem from the fact that Christians only came into large-scale contact with those religions late in their history when respect for human rights was on the rise, of course.Revenanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11374515200055384226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142978831038778482006-03-21T17:07:00.000-05:002006-03-21T17:07:00.000-05:00Omar, you seem to have a bad habit of equating "Ch...Omar, you seem to have a bad habit of equating "Christian people did it" with "Christianity did it". That's a dangerous equivalence for you to be using. For starters, it makes the statement "Islam is responsible for most of the terrorism and genocide in the world today" true. A more rational approach is to look at whether the underlying religion sanctions those activities.<BR/><BR/>That said, I'd like to address a few of your points:<BR/><BR/><I>Right from the beginning of Islam in Makkah then to Medina, Muslims only fought back when attacked or threatened.</I><BR/><BR/>It is recorded that Mecca's attack on Medina was in retaliation for Mohammed's raiding of Meccan caravans. Labelling the subsequent Muslim conquest of Mecca as "only fighting back when threatened" is a bit Orwellian. It is certainly true that Mohammed and his successors spun their various wars as being "defensive", but that's a trick would-be conquerors have been using since the dawn of time. It defies common sense to think that a group of people "defended" their way up from a single city to control of the entire Middle East and much of Africa, Europe, and Asia.<BR/><BR/><I>the dreadful trans Atlantic slave trade</I><BR/><BR/>The African end of the transatlatic slave trade was founded and run by Muslims, and continued to be run by them long after Europeans and Americans got out of the business. Slavery continued to be practiced in the Arab world until the mid-20th century, and continues to be practiced in the African Muslim world. Finally, the Koran itself endorses slavery. So pretending that Muslims are blameless on the slavery issue is a bit silly.<BR/><BR/><I>or horrors of both the first and second World Wars</I><BR/><BR/>Where the Second World War is concerned it seems worthwhile to point out that the leadership of the Palestinian Muslims was allied with Nazi Germany. And it is patently ridiculous to say that Muslims had nothing to do with the horrors of the First World War when the Ottoman Empire was one of the chief combatants.<BR/><BR/><I>be it Sebrenica and Rwanda</I><BR/><BR/>The Sudan genocide, which is being carried out by Arab Muslims and is still ongoing, has already claimed more than twice as many lives as the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides combined.Revenanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11374515200055384226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142968311428902052006-03-21T14:11:00.000-05:002006-03-21T14:11:00.000-05:00"Good thing too, since by your standard we would h..."Good thing too, since by your standard we would have to indict Christianity and Judaism for the ravings of Meir Kahane and Pat Robertson"<BR/><BR/>No argument from me there. Religion is a very strong force, both for good and evil, and it needs to be watched all the time, and never really trusted. Complacent piety and blind faith are immoral when it ocmes to something as powerful as religion.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Omar, you have probelm with hysterical generalizations:<BR/><BR/>"As for Peru and Mexico: how can one forget what Pizarro and his men did to the Inca? And what Cortes did to the Aztec? <BR/><BR/>First you said extermination. I then point out that genetically indigenous people are in the majority in those places, hardly exterminated. Then you respons with a feint about incidents in the past, as if history ended right at those incidents and the situation remained frozen. Alright then. Pizarro toppled the Inca government, which was very authoritarian aparently, and instituted his own. He can be said to have enslaved the population, but that would be not quite accurate, since such a small force of troops could never enslave such a huge population if it were used to freedom. In Mexico the situation was somewhat simialr, most people were macehualli before and reamined macehualli after Cortez arrived. Again, he had a tiny force and in his case a lot of his success was due to the help he got from Mexican allies, especially the Tlaxcalans, but there were others. Indeed the Tlaxcala survives as a separate political entity to this day. The same happens to be true in an unrelated case, Michoacan, which the Spanish never "conquered" since as enemies of the Aztec Empire, the Purepecha were happen to make arrangements with the Spanish. And there was certainly no extermination there either; the Spanish wanted people to rule. Death from new diseases can't really be laid at the feet of the pre-modern Spanish unless you attribute to them God-like power. You seem to be be confusing this with events in North America, but even for that area, your broad brush characterization of events as an extermination is inaccurate. In the South there was more inter-marriage than extermination, until there an eventual expulsion - again, not an extermination. Even in the north, the Iroquois formed an alliance with the Englsih that is basically still active today in the form of Anglo-Canadian protection of the Mohawk against Quebec. Even within the territory that became the United States, both the Pawnee and the Absaroka will tell you to this day that they survived extermination only because of their alliance with the US, because it was the Lakota and Cheyenne, not the whites, who were trying to exterminate them. The point is simply that the historical situation is much more complex that you seem to understand.<BR/><BR/>If you are getting your (obviously clueless)information about the living standards of African-Americans, the majority of whom are middle class by American standards, then that explains your problem. Bit of advice - just as Americans tend to be fairly ignorant of the Middle East, so do Middle Easterners tend to be ignorant of the US, and worse than that, ignorant that they are ignorant, because they imagine they know the US. And this can be true even if they physically reside in the US, because some choose to live in communitarian bubbles and never interact with people in the general public.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142963263063159132006-03-21T12:47:00.000-05:002006-03-21T12:47:00.000-05:00Exactly how does that matter if the attacks are be...<I>Exactly how does that matter if the attacks are being carried out as a result of preaching in mosques by imams? Is that not also Islamic?</I><BR/><BR/>Excuse me but were'nt you the one who said:<BR/><BR/><I>There's no standing commandment to kill people who worship other gods.</I><BR/><BR/>Evidently you think it matters when speaking of Christianity and Judaism. In the case of Islam, not so much. Good thing too, since by your standard we would have to indict Christianity and Judaism for the ravings of Meir Kahane and Pat Robertson. <BR/><BR/>All religions harbor their share of bigots and lunatics. You, apparently, are concerned only with the Islamic variety.W.B. Reeveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11501942097348818813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142963019027771112006-03-21T12:43:00.000-05:002006-03-21T12:43:00.000-05:00Considering India and wherever else! Give me one i...Considering India and wherever else! Give me one instant where Islam wiped out a whole people like the indeginous Tasmanians were?<BR/><BR/>I have not refuted Islam's dirty closets! Nor did I generalize and attacked a certain people because of their certain dark past.<BR/><BR/>As for Peru and Mexico: how can one forget what Pizarro and his men did to the Inca? And what Cortes did to the Aztec? That was just about 500 years ago! Very recent indeed!<BR/><BR/>To date, the ideginous Americans live wretched lives, many in 'reserves'! And the decendants of the African slaves? What kind of a life do they have in the World's richest country? This was just in tday's Herald:<BR/><BR/>http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/20/news/blacks.php<BR/><BR/>Just as we have a 'lot of cleaning to do' you to do have plenty!<BR/><BR/>We are all one and the same Humanity, sharing the same destiny. Just as blood and internal organs can be transfused or transplanted from one to the other, irrespective of religion, race, ethnicity, color or gender. And the recent DNA conclusions make each and every one of us almost one and the same.<BR/><BR/>Preaching hatred against one group, and continuously portraying it negatively - the way Islam is now - is not the way for 'progress'.Barsawadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09946007916457149705noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142960647300287222006-03-21T12:04:00.000-05:002006-03-21T12:04:00.000-05:00Revenant,I can't back that up - I have seen it var...Revenant,<BR/><BR/>I can't back that up - I have seen it various places, and that may just be circular reporting, or it may mean that there is some truth to it. I got the impression it came from some analysis of census returns. Middle Eastern cults were popular in Roamn times - Isis cults, Yahweh cults, Mithra cults, so it's not hard to believe that lots of people might have converted to Judaism. Judaism may not have been ll that unattractive in the Roman world; it's not an unattractive religion; it offers an appelaing cosmology and you get out of exposing your kids on a hillside. <BR/><BR/>"Considering the very recent spread of Islam in South East Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia in particular ...."<BR/><BR/>How about considering the spread of Islam in India?<BR/><BR/>"Islam too, was never a part of the almost complete extermination of the indeginous people of the Americas ..."<BR/><BR/>You need a trip to Mexico, or Texas for that matter, if you think the indigenous peole of the Americas were wiped out. Peru will work too. You are rather conveniently sloppy with your facts.<BR/><BR/>"Be it the dreadful trans Atlantic slave trade.."<BR/><BR/>Well of course. We will just overlook the equally horrible trans-Saharan and East African slave trades, and of course we mustn't mention the still ongoing ensalvement of black people in Sudan.<BR/><BR/>"BTW, if you think the massacre of pagans was merely a matter of real estate acquisition, you might inquire into why it was that Samuel said God had turned his face from King Saul."<BR/><BR/>In the extermination of Canaanites? Canaan? The LAND of Canaan? In this particular instance it was because Saul had failed to kill off the livestock and kept it for himself. That is a very thorough extermination, and it would leave the land absolutely empty. It was still about land. The whole narrative is about taking the Promised Land.<BR/><BR/>"Exactly where in the Koran do you find an injunction to slaughter Jews and Christians?"<BR/><BR/>Exactly how does that matter if the attacks are being carried out as a result of preaching in mosques by imams? Is that not also Islamic? <BR/><BR/>So what? It doesn't make bigotry against individual Muslim people because of their religion any more accaeptable. It doesn't make it acceptable or useful to claim that Islam is monothically violent or anything else.<BR/><BR/>"Still, even with its bloody foundation - one can not generalise and condemn Western civilization and democracy whole sale. "<BR/><BR/>Well, I happen to think there is and has been a lot to criticize in Western civilization, and that that is where most of our progress has started. The same goes for religions - Christianity has had a lot of housecleaning to do, and still has some left. It is for Muslims to identify and fix the problems they see in their religion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142957212745605002006-03-21T11:06:00.000-05:002006-03-21T11:06:00.000-05:00That may be harsh, but it is not all the same as s...<I>That may be harsh, but it is not all the same as slaughtering all unbelievers if they refuse to convert.</I><BR/><BR/>Exactly where in the Koran do you find an injunction to slaughter Jews and Christians? Traditional Islam holds that these religions are imperfect interpretations of revelations from Allah. As such, neither Christians or Jews, being "people of the book", qualify as "unbelievers." It's true that Islam gives short shrift to pagans and paganism but neither Christianity nor Judaism have clean hands on that score.<BR/><BR/>BTW, if you think the massacre of pagans was merely a matter of real estate acquisition, you might inquire into why it was that Samuel said God had turned his face from King Saul.W.B. Reeveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11501942097348818813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142903183553645912006-03-20T20:06:00.000-05:002006-03-20T20:06:00.000-05:0025% of the population of the Roman Empire was Jewi...25% of the population of the Roman Empire was Jewish? Do you have a cite for that? Because that seems incredibly high, especially for a religion as unattractive to converts as Judaism (lots of rules and prohibitions, no promises of Earthly or Heavenly reward, and practiced by people in what was then considered a backwards and barbaric part of the world).<BR/><BR/>I can see the religion spreading during the time when Christianity was still a cult within Judaism, but prior to that it seems hard to believe it would have caught on.Revenanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11374515200055384226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142891640111028382006-03-20T16:54:00.000-05:002006-03-20T16:54:00.000-05:00Revenant,I think you are right that the massacres ...Revenant,<BR/><BR/>I think you are right that the massacres in the OT were only for land - taking Canaan, and there was also a standing injunction to destroy Amalek - the Arabs - for preying on the Israelites in the desert. That may be harsh, but it is not all the same as slaughtering all unbelievers if they refuse to convert.<BR/><BR/>As for what constitutes belief and unbelief, there are some tantalizing clues in various places that the Persians were considered monotheistic - various nice remarks about Cyrus as godly and so forth. There is another theory that this monotheism has roots in the hittited incursion/settlement in the region long before the entry into Egypt, and therefore before the Exodus, and that there is a connection between "Luwian" the Hittite liturgical language, and "Levites". Anyway, not a word about exterminating gentiles for their unbelief (or belief, as the case may be).<BR/><BR/>Judaism is not a proselytizing relgion and never really has been, with one exception - during the Roamn era about 25% of the polulation seems to have ben Jewsh, and that can only have been the result of a lot of conversions. Jesus makes a remark to the effect that the Pharisees will go to the end of the earth to convert one gentile but won't bother to help a fallen Israelite, or some such. Again no mention of any force, and even the nukmbers and factuality are shadowy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142885345366755392006-03-20T15:09:00.000-05:002006-03-20T15:09:00.000-05:00Of course for the ancient Israelites this simply m...<I>Of course for the ancient Israelites this simply meant that massacre was mandated for competing pagan cultures.</I><BR/><BR/>I don't believe that was generally the case. The Old Testament does contain stories of supposedly divinely-sanctioned massacres of neighboring cultures, but those seem to have been the exception rather than the rule. There's no standing commandment to kill people who worship other gods. "I am [Yahweh] your god, you shall have no other gods before me", is a statement addressing the Jews, not all of the people of the world. When the Jews waged war on their neighbors it was generally for the same reason that their neighbors waged war on them -- for land and plunder. "God wants this war" was probably not typically used as an excuse, since holy wars were supposed to not allow plundering -- it is harder to get a man to risk his life when you won't even let him take home a stolen enemy goat for his troubles.<BR/><BR/>But, yes, it does seem that the ancient Jews were royal pains in the ass (certainly the Greeks and Romans thought so), and modern Jewish theology is definitely filtered through those thousands of years of being kept under other peoples' thumbs.Revenanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11374515200055384226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142868008333884972006-03-20T10:20:00.000-05:002006-03-20T10:20:00.000-05:00However, even during the time when the Jews were r...<I>However, even during the time when the Jews were ruled by priests (a time which, it is worth noting, isn't actually part of any historic record beyond that kept by the priests themselves), they weren't evangelistic -- their religion was for their people, and they did not attempt to forcibly convert the rest of the world to their form of worship. Islam does.</I><BR/><BR/>True enough. Traditional Judaism springs from a tribal religion and consequently is not evangelical. Of course for the ancient Israelites this simply meant that massacre was mandated for competing pagan cultures. <BR/><BR/>I suspect that being crushed militarily, dispossessed and scattered to the four winds had more to do with Judaism's subsequent developement than any inherent doctrine. Much as the 30 years war and the French Revolution had more to do with the subsequent decline of Chistianity's political authority than any of its dogmas.W.B. Reeveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11501942097348818813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142833884174543412006-03-20T00:51:00.000-05:002006-03-20T00:51:00.000-05:00As was Jewish theology for quite some timeIf by "f...<I>As was Jewish theology for quite some time</I><BR/><BR/>If by "for quite some time" you mean "for a few centuries, thousands of years ago" then sure. <BR/><BR/>However, even during the time when the Jews were ruled by priests (a time which, it is worth noting, isn't actually part of any historic record beyond that kept by the priests themselves), they weren't evangelistic -- their religion was for their people, and they did not attempt to forcibly convert the rest of the world to their form of worship. Islam does.Revenanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11374515200055384226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142793907117826222006-03-19T13:45:00.000-05:002006-03-19T13:45:00.000-05:00Mohammed was very big on Islam ruling both worlds....<I>Mohammed was very big on Islam ruling both worlds.</I><BR/><BR/>As was Jewish theology for quite some time.mythagohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07138471078836187498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142783627394828092006-03-19T10:53:00.000-05:002006-03-19T10:53:00.000-05:00Cathy,I just want to say I am another reader of yo...Cathy,<BR/><BR/>I just want to say I am another reader of your blog who agrees completely with the first paragraph of the first comment (by luke) on this thread - "an uncommon amount of common sense". I couldn't put it any better myself. You are an intellectually honest opinion writer unlike any other. No agenda, no bias, thoughtful and completely objective.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142656106444584862006-03-17T23:28:00.000-05:002006-03-17T23:28:00.000-05:00My reading of European history indicates that the ...My reading of European history indicates that the Catholic Church held a great deal of temporal as well as spiritual power. The Pope directly ruled a sizable swath of central Italy, and much of the Holy Roman Empire consisted of self-ruled bishropics as well as counties and duchies. The papacy was a source of political as well as religious authority until well into the 19th Century, when the new Italian state finally overran the Papal States and ended the Pope's temporal reign.<BR/><BR/>The Caliphate began as a spiritual <I>and</I> temporal title held by the immediate successors of Mohammed, but over time became a more purely spiritual position. The Otttoman Sultans were recognized as Caliphs through their possession of Mecca, Baghdad and Damascus (the three greatest centers of medieval Islam).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142630007125202082006-03-17T16:13:00.000-05:002006-03-17T16:13:00.000-05:00April,Asylum and labor certs are a mess. Asylum is...April,<BR/><BR/>Asylum and labor certs are a mess. Asylum is inherently frustraing and heart-breaking. No help for it. Anyway....<BR/><BR/>Church and State -<BR/><BR/>The real divisions between the relgious and political sides of European life don't have to do with figleaf formulas like divine right and such. There were three impulseas at work:<BR/><BR/>1) The underlying Indo-European notion that governance and religious/acadmemic endeavors are utterly separate and inter-contaminating. This is afeature both of the Hindu caste system and of Irish tribal law and it probably has reflexes all the way betwen those cultures.<BR/><BR/>2) The transnatioanlist structure of the Church as opposed to local or national(when those arose) rulers. The Guelph-Ghibelline struggle that went on for centuries was an expression of this tension.<BR/><BR/>3) Simple sibling rivalry. High ranking aristocrats and churchmen often came from the very same families. The fought like littermates. So where in Islamic society the caliph or emir would have clerics staffing his courts adjudicating all issues, that never, ever happened in Europe. Civil rulers maintained the courts they had always had from long before Christianity. Some matters, such as probate and marriage lawe, that we now think of as civil, may have been under church jurisdiction, but that was a difference of application, not of principle.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142629044444986172006-03-17T15:57:00.000-05:002006-03-17T15:57:00.000-05:00And the people of the Islamic world were generally...<I>And the people of the Islamic world were generally ruled by caliphs and shahs, not mullahs.</I><BR/><BR/>Hm. My understanding is that the caliph was also viewed as a religious leader. If that's not correct, then the historical parallel you're drawing would be a valid one.<BR/><BR/>Even then, though, the example of Mohammed himself is a troubling one. Jesus' message, it seems to me, was that it doesn't matter who rules THIS world, because its the next one that counts. Mohammed was very big on Islam ruling both worlds.<BR/><BR/>I'm not saying that "Muslim = dangerous" or anything like that. I just feel that the underlying philosophy of Islam is less compatable with enlightened thought than the Bible is, and that it is therefore more difficult for observant Muslims to come to terms with enlightened society.Revenanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11374515200055384226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142628092420835432006-03-17T15:41:00.000-05:002006-03-17T15:41:00.000-05:00Rev:Certainly we didn't have separation of church ...Rev:<BR/><BR/><I>Certainly we didn't have separation of church and state in the modern sense of "religion not being allowed to meddle in politics", but the people of Europe were generally ruled by kings, not priests.</I><BR/><BR/>And the people of the Islamic world were generally ruled by caliphs and shahs, not mullahs.<BR/><BR/>In Europe, kings were traditionally considered "anointed by God"; hence the "divine right of kings." (Incidentally, isn't the English monarch formally considered the head of the Anglican church?) If I remember my European history correctly, after the Reformation and the religious wars of the 16th Century, the generally accepted doctrine was that a country's religion was determined by the religion of its sovereign. In fact, most European countries have an official religion today. In Russia, the Russian Orthodox Church and the state were <I>very</I> closely enmeshed; and until the last century the Catholic Church had tremendous political power in Western Europe.Cathy Younghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09688616617444359647noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142627606012216912006-03-17T15:33:00.000-05:002006-03-17T15:33:00.000-05:00Jim & Cathy:Thank you for your great responses to ...Jim & Cathy:<BR/><BR/>Thank you for your great responses to my post. Cathy, I keep meaning to tell you that your blog is one of the few that I've visited where I've seen actual APOLOGIES issued. I truly, deeply appreciate your apology, and totally understand.<BR/><BR/>Jim: eh, more of a kindred spirit than I thought - are you attorney or paralegal? You are SO right about Candians, and your theory is totally consistent w/my own. God, if one more Canadian whines about having to get a long form birth certificate, I'm going postal.<BR/><BR/>I'm getting the impression you work with asylum cases? The closest I've come to that is a J-waiver of the 2-yr residency due to hardship - a pretty intresting case.<BR/><BR/>Finally, my take on CIS is this: though they are frustrating, they PALE in comparison to DOL (labor certifications). I am suprised that MORE problems do not occur with CIS. Maybe I believe this in order to preserve my sanity. CIS may be bad, but I sort of EXPECT crappy service from a large complex system like that. I'm far more miffed that most of the highly educated foreign nationals I work with cannot seem to wipe their own asses. I simply expect more from a educated person with a high level of responsibility.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11306845.post-1142624996622107682006-03-17T14:49:00.000-05:002006-03-17T14:49:00.000-05:00April: it seems that I misunderstood the purpose o...April: it seems that I misunderstood the purpose of your comment, and I am sincerely sorry. Reading the thread (late at night and on cold medicine), I got the impression that, after Jim's statement that traditionally Muslim Somali immigrants did not pose any problem in terms of Islamic militancy, you were countering his post by recounting an anecdote about Somali immigrants being extremely aggressive in their interactions with immigration lawyers. Having reread the thread carefully, I see that my interpretation was wrong and, once again, I apologize. I promise to read more carefully, in the future, before respoding. (I think my mind was also somewhat addled by all the posts in the "male reproductive rights" thread.)Cathy Younghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09688616617444359647noreply@blogger.com