Pat Condell: "The crisis of secularism"

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When was the last time you heard of someone who wasn't Muslim killing a bunch of people because of what he believed?
Oh, that's right it happens all the time.
In every society there are crazies that go and do something crazy, like blow up an abortion clinic, or a school, or shoot a bunch of people.
This is not new.
We do not condemn every German because Hitler was insane.
We do not condemn every christian because one or two blew up abortion clinics.

But yet we condemn every Muslim for one action committed by a dozen people.
We allow them no defense.
We harass them, depict them as the most evil things on this planet, spit at them for asking to be allowed to prey as their religion asks, judge them for dressing in a way that their religion asks.

I ask, do you get spit on in public for wearing a kippah? Correct me if that's the wrong word, I had to google it.
Do you fear walking down the street while wearing one?
Do people stand outside your church and yell profanities at you?

How can you honestly expect them not to become frustrated and even to resort to violence when their voices are drowned out by all the hate and no one will listen to a word they say.
They came to our countries to get away from their government, to find a better life away from the hate and intolerance.
But all they are finding is more hate, more intolerance and not even for anything they have done but for what a couple dozen people did years ago.

To correct any confusion, I am not defending the Taliban, or the perpetrators of 9/1.
I am defending the people who are lumped in with them simply because they prey to the same god.


By the way ruveyn and this is a horribly non "Politicaly Correct" thing to say and is meant genuinely without offense.
If your people had fought against the racism and mistreatment then maybe the majority of their population wouldn't have been murdered in Germany.
That is what happens when people do not fight against ignorant hate and it should not be a lesson we are so quick to toss aside.

You are more right than wrong. German Jews were such civilized folk they would not take the Nazis at their word and they paid dearly. However, that mistake will never be repeated again. The next time a government tries to mop up the Jews they will pay in blood. They may succeed in doing it, but it won't come for free the next time.

You have correctly pointed out the weakness of being too civilized, too rational and too fair minded. Against a blood thirsty barbarian these are not virtues, these are weaknesses.

Jews finally woke up in the Warsaw ghetto. They stood up against the Nazis for just about as long as the French Army did. But they did not throw down their arms. The Jews lost in Warsaw but they did not die quietly. They shed some Nazi blood.

ruveyn

Read about the King David Hotel Bombing and the attack on the USS Liberty if you don't think terrorism from Jews exists. Besides, targeting a whole group for the actions of a few is just like throwing all Jewish citizens in ghettos because the German government carried out a false flag attack on the Reichstag and blamed it on one ret*d Jewish boy for setting it ablaze. There's as*holes in every group, Jews, Muslims, Christians, whites, blacks, and atheists alike. So, the object shouldn't be targeting a specific nation, race, or religion, but sorting out all the as*holes the wold over and humanity uniting against them in a common cause.

The Haganah operatives called up the British command and warned them the hotel would be blown up. The Brits chose not to evacuate. As to the Liberty, how did the Israelis know a ship flying American colors was not an Egyptian plant. The Liberty showed up right in the middle of war. The U.S. did not co-ordinate the mission of Liberty with the Israeli government.

During a war sh*t happens.

And have Jews seized commercial airflights lately? Say in the last 40 years.

In the mean time Muslim fanatics blow themselves and innocent parties up on nearly a daily basis. The explosion of the suicide vest is the new Call to Prayer.

ruveyn

1) There are eight times as many Muslims in this country as Jews
2) Anti-Semitism doesn't sell as well as Islamophobia

Round up the usual excuses. It's not terrorism when Jews do it, right?

People browsing this thread might also like to read up on the assassination of Lord Moyne by the Jewish Lehi gang, or on the Lavon Affair (where Jews plotted to carry out false flag terrorist attacks in Egypt and blame them on Arabs), or on the Mossad-orchestrated false-flag attacks on Iraqi Jews detailed in Naeim Giladi's book Ben Gurion's Scandals, or on how Israel deliberately failed to inform US officials that they had foreknowledge of the 1983 Beirut barrack bombings that killed 299 French and American servicemen, detailed in Victor Ostrovsky's By Way Of Deception.

The United States killed a few hundred thousand civilians when they bombed Japan in 1945, but only about 3,000 civilians were killed when radical Muslims bombed the world trade center in 2001. Saying that all Muslims are terrorists today is like saying that all Americans who lived during the late 1940s and 1950s were terrorists. Sure Islam is a messed up religion like Christianity and Judaism, but they're not all terrorists. If you don't agree with the way other people stereotype you, don't stereotype other people. Stereotypes are the route of senseless hatred. There has never really been a time in American history when the general public's hatred hasn't been directed towards one or more groups. If people find a reason to stop hating Muslims, they'll start hating another group to satisfy their cravings for hatred. If that happens, people will probably start directing their hatred towards the Chinese and we'll start progressing towards World War III.

Do Jews do violence to innocents virtually on a daily basis. The Israelis are in a tough neighborhood. They are opposed by Hamas fanatics and thugs. They are liable to be attacked by neighboring states. In short they are in a WAR, and a war for survival at that.

Meanwhile look else where where Jews are no so threatened. Do they do horrendous acts? Was Mohammed Atta, a college student in Germany threatened when who took part in the 9/11 outrage? He was not. He was just another Wahabi fanatic unhinged by his wicked and insane religious belief.

Generally you don't find Jews doing that sort of thing. Outside of war zones, Jews tend to be law abiding on the whole, although there are Jewish criminals just as there are Christian criminals. Every race and nation produces its share of criminals.

On the whole, where Islam dominates the scene there is wholesale slaughter, usually done by Muslims against Muslims. Islam tends to produce violence.

ruveyn

Read what I said. I in no way denied any of that and neither do I endorse it. However, your statement was European colonists deliberately killed off most of the native population in the Americas and this is not the case. The bulk of the native population (about 20 million people) was unfortunately decimated by diseases that was unfortunately brought to the Americas by Europeans.



They don't need us to "give them a chance". If those societies are going to change they will, that should not stop us from condemning barbarism when we see it. I did not reply to your other points because I'm not interested. I don't care what happened in the west 100 years, 200 years ago or the middle ages. I'm talking about what's happening now in the 21st century and in the 21st century we have established international standards of human rights (that the UN Human Rights Council has been infested human rights abusers who use their privilege to avoid accountability at every turn is not the point). Changes can only happen when such things are condemned, especially by the ordinary people in those societies, otherwise it signals that everyone is happy with it.



Which is exactly what they did, eventually ending with Osama Bin Laden getting shot in the head a decade later. Notice that I was talking about the war in Afghanistan, not the Iraq war which is a separate issue.

Sorry Teq, but if you study your history you will find that Jews were the mainstay of the anarchist movement that swept across Europe from the late 19th century onwards. They killed plenty of people and blew lots of stuff up.

The press and society in general reacted in a similar way to the backlash against Islam today and after the decades of this 'problem' a 'final solution' was found...

True in general but not true for California were there was an organized genocide.

Hmm. According to dictionary com, secularism means:

1. secular spirit or tendency, especially a system of political or social philosophy that rejects all forms of religious faith and worship.

2. the view that public education and other matters of civil policy should be conducted without the introduction of a religious element.

So his definition certainly doesn't seem to be the whole story.
I mean, think about it - "religion for those who want it and no religion for those who don't" - obviously we already have freedom of belief, and freedom of speech. We already have quite a lot of freedom of practice. So what exactly is this greater freedom of religion/nonreligion that secularism promises?


I see.
You're already free to be an atheist, so what you really mean is, free from any effects of other people's religion.
You promise that other people will be allowed to believe and practise what they want - so long as you never have to see it, hear it, or be inconvenienced in any way by it.
And at no point have you stopped and thought, "Hmm - how can this actually be accomplished, without impinging on people's rights to practise their religion - their right to do what they have determined is the morally right course of action?"


I'd wonder where in the world this guy lives, but he says 'here in the UK' at some point, so apparently he lives in some other UK somewhere on some other planet, vastly different from this one where over the past ten years people have been successfully sued for having a B&B with Bible principles, been banned from being foster parents for being Christians, been sacked for refusing to advocate activities the Bible forbids, and so on. I wonder where his 'UK' is.


Now the man who spent years going round preaching to people, and trained loads of other people to do likewise, and left with the final words "Go therefore, and make disciples of me" (Matthew 28:19), was actually advocating keeping things to yourself. Who knew?

You know, I could go on, but I can't be bothered dignifying this guy with a response any further. Please don't subject us to any more of his inane ramblings.

In short. Religion and Government are separated. This in imperfectly done in the U.S. Strictly speaking a prayer to open a legislative session or a court session should not be permitted. But it is.

ruveyn

It means that the government should not get involved in matters of religious belief for any one side. It should be free of it. Religion and government don't mix under a secular system.

Unless you want to live in a country where religion holds a big say over the government? We've been here before, haven't we? There are plenty of places in the world you can move to if you want that kind of system. Most of us here don't, otherwise we'd vote in parties which do.



Well, unless you're Geert Wilders or someone like Shafilea Ahmed I guess.



We already live in a more-or-less secular country. I believe it could be even more so. As long as people who don't want it aren't being dictated to by the religious, I don't see a problem. That kind of nonsense has caused a lot of harm in our own history.

Do you want to live in a theocracy?



In law you are, but not always in practice depending on who you are. For some people it might not actually be safe to become atheist. Their family may well completely disown them, their community might turn against them and so on and so forth. We had similar crap here in the past. You had to conform.



Yes. I don't want to have other people's opinions forced upon me. They can believe whatever they like, and I can believe the same.



I see churches (and sometimes mosques and synagogues) everywhere I go. I don't feel the need to go and burn them down. That is called tolerance for that which you disagree with. Tolerance for other's religious beliefs. If I want to look them up, I can ask them about them. I'm sure they'll be more than happy to oblige. Would you like me to force a long discussion on the state of my feet on you? If not, why not?

What I don't want is to be awoken by the likes of the Jehovah's Witnesses at 9am on a Saturday morning. Thankfully, they've given up round here. A sign should suffice if they were to start again, though.



Simple. They can go to mosque, church, synagogue, temple and pray to their belief. They cannot be allowed to let their religious beliefs override secular law. If that is allowed to happen and secular law is made to give way to religious law, the whole edifice starts to unravel. If you like, secularism offers (or should offer) a level playing field for everyone.



Any reason why you have to be so abusive? It doesn't suit you.



I actually disagreed with that judgement at the time. Frankly, them having a B&B with Bible principles is an excellent example of a free market. The Bible lovers can go, and everyone else can either go or steer clear. I'd much rather know if a place of accommodation was good or bad for my specific needs before I put my money down - there's nothing worse than realising you're not wanted somewhere after they've taken your money.



Don't agree with that, unless they're taking it to abusive proportions.



I can't see anything wrong with that. If your religious customs forbid you for doing something, find a way around it or, if you can't do that, resign. For example, there are a lot of Muslim-owned pizza places that are more than happy to put ham on your pizza. Their rationale is that they ain't the one eating it and they make money so they can live with themselves.



That one on Planet Earth. I don't know where yours is.



Apply for me to be banned. Go on, you know you want to.

Last edited by Tequila on 11 Sep 2012, 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Just for the record. Religion in the U.S. is protected by the First Amendment. Congress shall make no laws establishing a religion nor prohibit the free exercise thereof.

Almost. Child sacrifice is still prohibited in the States. But very few would want to practice that anyway.

ruveyn

Forgive me for being thick, but isn't that also known as murder?