THE VOICE OF REASON
Solon, (born c. 630 BCE—died c. 560 BCE), Athenian statesman, known as one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece (the others were Chilon of Sparta, Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Cleobulus of Lindos, Pittacus of Mytilene, and Periander of Corinth). Solon ended exclusive aristocratic control of the government, substituted a system of control by the wealthy, and introduced a new and more humane law code. He was also a noted poet.
When the Torah says “an eye for an eye”, the Talmud explains this is not taken literally but means monetary compensation must be paid for an injury. When the Torah specifies the death penalty of stoning, the Talmud explains it meant the offender was hurled down from a high place – rather than pelted with stones.
The Koranic treatment is most sensible because it makes sodomy a sexual offence. If you are arrested, tried and convicted you are punished, if not, you are spared, but it remains a sexual offence.
If you must do it, don't get caught.
Once Israel is a theocracy, there will be no such arguments between rabbis on this matter any more.
The punishment for extramarital sex for heterosexuals is 100 lashes. For the sake of sexual orientation equality of punishment for those who indulged in extramarital sex, 100 lashes is what should happen to sodomites too, if caught cottaging or some such. http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=24&verse=2
Rabbi Bassous is clearly issuing a very stern warning to Orthodox Jews not to go down the slippery slope where degenerate Christians have already slid down long ago.
Although Rabbi Dweck has not actually said anything halachically wrong, in my humble opinion, his non-condemnatory tone towards the sex revolution is obviously more than any Orthodox Rabbi who takes his Orthodoxy seriously can bear.
Rabbi Mizrachi talks about the "rotten rabbis" who bring the culture of the goyim to corrupt Orthodox Jewry, worse even than Christians or Muslims. They are "horrible people" trying to modify the Judaism. Worst of all are those Orthodox Rabbis who call themselves "modern".
Maimonides views the two major religions, Christianity and Islam, as necessary preparations for the coming of the Messiah and the universal worship of God that will follow in the future.
In his legal opus Hayad Hachazaka, Maimonides states that thanks to both these religions “the world has become full of the ideas of the Messiah, the ideas of the Torah and the ideas of the commandments, so that these have spread to faraway islands and to many dim hearted nations, and they now discuss these ideas and the commandments of the Torah.”
Nevertheless, Maimonides considers both Christians and Muslims to be heretics, mostly because of their various replacement doctrines regarding the Torah and the status of the Jewish nation.
So far, though, Maimonides’ assertions are expressed in the abstract, without hard and fast references to their halachic implications. Both Islam and Christianity are far better than the pagan religions, and both of them are a far cry from the truth of God’s only Torah.
Adolescents and young people suffer from depression, anger, anxiety and low self-esteem. Mind you, I have noticed that even mature people kill themselves over what is apparently nothing to their bereaved family and friends.
Look at it this way: we are probably half right if we say to ourselves that the rest of lives is worth living, or that it is not.
If you have decided that your life is not worth living, then the next thing to do, if you are rational, is to make your death worth dying for.
This is how the mind of the suicide bomber works.
I imagine ISIS know this, and target the young with just this in mind, offering them posthumous honours if they do their dirty work.
I know many young people who suffer from depression and openly admit it. I vividly remember these feelings too, which seem to fade as one gets older.
With all the facts and opinions given in the link to the rather dull and worthy piece above, turn this into something most people would want to read without falling foul of the law on defamation etc.
The subject of the interview could hardly bring herself to finish reading the piece because she had heard it all before and had indeed written it herself anyway with minimal input from the journalist.
Those of Facebook her friends who could bring themselves to read it from beginning to end after being begged to do so repeatedly agreed it was fair enough, but is that the point?
How does saying something perfectly truthful and perfectly dull that no one reads advance the debate? It doesn't and can't.
Tabloid journalists of the gutter press, do your worst, but within the law, please.
Your ultimate goal is the largest possible readership.
Sounds like Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was just feeling suicidal and decided to dedicate his suicide to ISIS. While known to the police, he was not known for his terrorist connections. Those intending to commit suicide would be aiming for maximum publicity, even if they had never previously had any terrorist connections.
If a suicide "dedicated" his suicide to ISIS, he would make his suicide and therefore his life more meaningful and also generate more fear by being identified with a group of terrorists who are very much alive rather than being a mere suicide whose life has already been extinguished.
A widely accepted explanation links amok with male honor (amok by women is virtually unknown). Running amok would thus be both a way of escaping the world (since perpetrators were normally killed) and re-establishing one's reputation as a man to be feared and respected. Some observers have related this explanation to Islam's ban on suicide, which, it is suggested, drove Malay/Indonesian men to create circumstances in which others would kill them.
There were 4,623 male suicides in the UK in 2014. Female suicides have fallen by almost 40%, from 2,466 in 1981 to 1,486 last year. Powell said some of the decline could be a result of changes in the workplace and home which had improved life for many women but left men unsure of their role.
It is not hard to guess why men these days kill themselves more than women and want to change sex to become women, is it?
Powerlessness and deprivation are exacerbated today by the ability, boosted by digital media, to constantly compare your life with the lives of the fortunate (especially women entering the workforce or prominent in the public sphere: a common source of rage for men with siege mentalities worldwide). The quotient of frustration tends to be highest in countries that have a large population of educated young men who have undergone multiple shocks and displacements in their transition to modernity and yet find themselves unable to fulfil the promise of self-empowerment. For many of them the contradiction Dostoevsky noticed between extravagant promise and meagre means has become intolerable.
The charges relate to a string of social media posts said to have been made between June 29 2014 and March 6 last year when it is alleged both Choudary and Rahman sought to validate the legitimacy of the 'Caliphate'.
They also urged others to support or obey Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-styled leader of ISIL, and travel to territory controlled by the barbaric regime, it is said.
SYRIA: Muslims worldwide must support the call for Shari'ah & Khilafah in Syria & Iraq. This is the pure call of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi & ISIS
This does read like an exhortation to all Muslims to join Islamic State. Perhaps he will say all he meant to do was express his opinion about Islamic State, and it was up to his listeners to accept or reject his opinion.
The Caliphate would have no legitimacy unless and until it became a member of the UN, whatever his opinion on it.
There are plenty who hate Choudary and to those he will have no moral authority over them at all. Those who approve of him and admire him - a minority within a minority - would have pinned their colours to his mast and have already have had their passports confiscated by the police, probably.
Brother Abu Rumaysah on Britain's Channel 4 today: "RENOUNCE BRITISH CITIZENSHIP FOR SAFE PASSAGE TO CALIPHATE!" - http://t.co/YLnHZkYFYY
belong, or profess to belong, to a proscribed organisation in the UK or overseas (section 11 of the Act);
invite support for a proscribed organisation (and the support is not, or is not restricted to the provision of money or other property) (section 12(1));
arrange, manage or assist in arranging or managing a meeting in the knowledge that the meeting is to support or further the activities of a proscribed organisation, or is to be addressed by a person who belongs or professes to belong to a proscribed organisation
(section 12(2)); or to address a meeting if the purpose of the address is to encourage support for, or further the activities of, a proscribed organisation (section 12(3)); and
wear clothing or carry or display articles in public in such a way or in such circumstances as arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of the proscribed organisation (section 13).
MPs voted this week to authorize British forces joining airstrikes against Islamic State forces in Syria. General Sir Simon Mayall is former defence advisor to the government on the Middle East and the Prime Minister’s security envoy to Iraq during first half of 2015; Aimen Dean is a former al-Qaeda member who switched to work for MI5 and MI6 in 1998.
Mayall: "A huge demographic bulge of young people" [in the Middle East while the West ages] - demographics is destiny. They have plenty of angry young men prepared to sacrifice life and limb, turbo-charged by their religion.
So this is what ISIS have.
What have we got? Imbeciles in government, and imbecilic senescent voters in denial who don't marry, don't have legitimate children or don't bring up whatever children they have properly, who refuse to sacrifice anything or take any risks unquestioningly swallowing the absurdities the government stuffs down their unresisting throats to justify their atrocities while pretending to believe that Muslims become terrorists for no particular reason other than they are Muslim.
Dean: "ISIS is a symptom, not the cause."
Husain: "This sounds more about image than actually what we can achieve" in response to Mayall saying Britain should "be there" because it is a permanent P5 member, we have a UN Resolution blah blah".
So this is why our government bombs people, is it? And you are OK with this, are you?
We deserve what's coming to us, for bombing people for image reasons and thinking this right and proper while pretending to be horrified and outraged that ISIS are gunning for us.
One then has to consider whether state-sponsored terrorism is always evil, if it is indeed the case that one man's terrorist is another man' freedom-fighter.
@prankyDuck 0 is not radicalised at all/still participating in politics by being a member of a party and voting in local/general elections.
All rapists are men, but not all men are rapists.
All sluts are women, not not all women are sluts.
It is possible to be a man without being a rapist.
It is possible to be a woman without being a slut.
It is possible to be radicalised without going on to become a terrorist.
It is possible to be a terrorist without being Muslim.
Questions for MPs:
Does radicalisation only apply to Muslims?
Would you say that Anders Breivik was radicalised?
If your answer is NO, is it because he is not Muslim?
Have you considered changing UK foreign policy to deal with the problem of terrorism?
Have you considered why Muslims might get upset, angry and violent if you bomb, invade and impose regime-change on Muslim countries for no good reason that they can see?
Have you considered having an honest debate about UK foreign policy?
Is the reason why you refuse to have a full and frank debate about UK foreign policy is because the UK does not have an independent foreign policy and/or that it is in fact indefensible?
Is the reason why the UK does not have an independent foreign policy because it is a vassal state of the US?
Have you considered whether now might be the time to leave NATO so as to break it up and make the Americans withdraw into isolationism, leaving the world a more peaceful place?
Have you considered that the possibility that US foreign policy is actually insane?
Have you made the link between destroying Muslim countries at the behest of Washington for no good reason and the migrant swarms heading your way?
Have you heard of the Wolfowitz Doctrine?
Have you considered that the victims of the Wolfowitz Doctrine ie Muslim countries toppled by the West might wish to object to it in the strongest possible terms and use terrorism to do so?
If you are an MP and have not heard of the Wolfowitz Doctrine, should you be whipped by your party into voting to bomb Syria?
If you are a Labour MP, are you grateful that Jeremy Corbyn is allowing you a free vote on whether to bomb Syria?
If you are a Tory MP, dare you demand a free vote for Tory MPs over voting on whether to bomb Syria if Labour MPs are getting a free vote?
If not, why not?
Is it cos you are too scared or stupid to challenge UK foreign policy of "bomb first and wring our hands later"?
Does UK foreign policy promote the British national interest?
How would you define the national interest?
What is the point of supporting a foreign policy that provokes terrorism that you cannot explain to your constituents?
Does it make sense to support a foreign policy that provokes terrorism and responding to the terrorism you provoke with increasing restrictions on the liberties of your citizens?
Do you know why so many citizens in NATO member states like, admire and support Putin, as Iain Dale said on the Sky Press Review?
Do you know why non-establishment politicians like Nigel Farage and Donald Trump admire and like Putin?
@busybuk Did you hear @Iain_Dale on Press Review on @SkyNews make the point that most of his listeners trust Putin more than Cameron/Obama?
Because sane people can understand what Putin is doing, why he is doing it and seeing that what he is doing works while explaining current government policy both domestic and foreign is like trying to explain the motivations of an imbecile or a lunatic, that's why we like Putin so much.
Paul Craig Roberts explains the evil of US foreign policy.
Under UK law you can be an "immediate threat" even if what you planned but didn't do was in LONDON in summer, as you are assassinated in August in SYRIA.
This was the rule of law that the now silenced Anjem Choudary was mocking. God's laws do not change because He does not keep making mistakes and try to cover up for them by changing them all the time to confuse people until no one knows what the law really is any more, not even the judges. The rules of natural justice require that the consequences of breaking a law to be accessible and foreseeable.
But if you can be considered an "immediate threat" even if the time for the terrorism you were alleged to have been plotting in London has come and gone and was not even committed justifies your assassination in Syria, then this rule of law is arguably neither accessible nor foreseeable.
Cameron was so anxious to crow about these the assassination of Ruhul Amin and Reyaad Khan that he forgot about the so-called government-defined British values of "the rule of law".
If there is a rule of law then that rule would be clear. If you are following it, you would have to stick to it, not vary the application and interpretation of it to fit in with what you wish to do while refusing to give coherent and verifiable reasons. This really does not suggest that the rule of law is being followed.
This war between Islam and the West is an ideological war, therefore some demonstration of moral superiority would be necessary in order to win hearts and minds, as well as force of arms. It does not appear that Western leaders understand this. While even ISIS terrorists say they follow the rules of their holy book, Western leaders seem determined to follow no particular rule or interpretation of any law except what suits them, and nothing is more guaranteed to bring your law into contempt than doing precisely this. The psychopath is not merely a deranged murderer as is commonly supposed, but someone who is without conscience or compassion for the people he hurts, without principles, and who will commit any crime if he thinks he can get way with it according to his mood of the moment. This would be the Western politician.
It was David Cameron who displayed his ignorance of the rule of law on the David Letterman Show when he couldn't answer what Magna Carta meant in English. I am sure it was not only the English who thought putting down promises you never intend to keep on a piece of paper with your signature was a very useful device in politics to trick people into supporting you and to mess your enemies around. These days it is called the manifesto.
If liberals no longer believe in liberalism and the fundamental principles of freedom of belief, contract, association and expression as well as the rule of law, what do they still believe in? Liberalism these days seems synonymous with sexual licence, an exaggerated respect for the slut and gay marriage under a dysfunctional system of government called representative democracy. Are we sure that these are the Western moral values that we want to be seen to be defending to the death, if at all, once the dust of history has settled?
If this were done, what conclusions can the world reasonably reach about how the British government adheres to its declared British values of the rule of law?
The idiot politicians who keep wittering on about winning hearts and minds remain clueless about what is actually necessary to win the propaganda war. This can only be done credibly by showing moral superiority and moral superiority cannot be credibly displayed when you break your own rules, and actively go against your own principles, can it?
“Some people say we preach hatred. Of course we preach hatred,” cried Choudary emphatically.
We should hate evil and love good.
How can we tell the difference between good and evil?
It is really very simple.
What is encouraged by the Koran is good.
What is forbidden by the Koran is evil.
What more do you need to know?
To hear Anjem Choudary admit that he preaches hatred, go to 2:11
Muslims are assured of victory even if hopelessly outnumbered.
008.065
YUSUFALI: O Prophet! rouse the Believers to the fight. If there are twenty amongst you, patient and persevering, they will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, they will vanquish a thousand of the Unbelievers: for these are a people without understanding.
PICKTHAL: O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there be of you twenty steadfast they shall overcome two hundred, and if there be of you a hundred (steadfast) they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they (the disbelievers) are a folk without intelligence.
SHAKIR: O Prophet! urge the believers to war; if there are twenty patient ones of you they shall overcome two hundred, and if there are a hundred of you they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they are a people who do not understand.
008.066
YUSUFALI: For the present, Allah hath lightened your (task), for He knoweth that there is a weak spot in you: But (even so), if there are a hundred of you, patient and persevering, they will vanquish two hundred, and if a thousand, they will vanquish two thousand, with the leave of Allah: for Allah is with those who patiently persevere.
PICKTHAL: Now hath Allah lightened your burden, for He knoweth that there is weakness in you. So if there be of you a steadfast hundred they shall overcome two hundred, and if there be of you a thousand (steadfast) they shall overcome two thousand by permission of Allah. Allah is with the steadfast.
SHAKIR: For the present Allah has made light your burden, and He knows that there is weakness in you; so if there are a hundred patient ones of you they shall overcome two hundred, and if there are a thousand they shall overcome two thousand by Allah's permission, and Allah is with the patient.
The NF was formed in 1967.
The BNP was formed in 1982.
Choudary came to the notice of the public in 2003.
Nationalism is nowhere, but Islam is in our consciousness.
From what I have observed of Muslims, Muslim men are more masculine, energetic, educated, intelligent, purposeful and better-organised than the Islamophobes who hate and fear them, evidenced in the utter collapse of the parties dedicated to Islamophobia, anti-semitism and hatred of other races. They are also younger and more technologically savvy than the senescent and technophobic Islamophobes.
Muslim men also tend to marry and have legitimate offspring and stay together for their children, while Islamophobes tend to be gay like Douglas Murray or tend to have bastards with their women who are mostly sluts. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2285670/Most-children-of-British-mothers-born-out-of-wedlock.html In other words, Islamophobes are irrational degenerates and irrational degenerate effeminates cannot win any war against those who are not degenerate who are neither effeminate nor irrational.
The writing is on the wall, but that just means that the Islamophobes are just going to pretend that they can't read.
Atheist Islamophobes like to pretend they are more rational than Muslims, but anyone can see that it ain't so. You may hate what ISIS are saying and doing, but you would be clear about what they want and do. Has the UK government explained to your satisfaction what UK foreign policy is all about? Why won't they? MPs cannot explain its rationale even to themselves.
The British political establishment talks about extremism without being able to define it, other than to set British values in stone with their ridiculous definition of "democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs".
Imagine a Victorian Briton reading this arrant nonsense. Will he recognise these PC Libtard values as British values? Would he be appalled that this piece of arrant nonsense that states what British values are has been set in stone for all eternity?
Individual liberty to be a slut - how good is that for the long term national interest when all the degenerate bastards are born?
Traditionally married couples are to respect gaily "married" couples? Why should those who expend their time, energy and resources and make sacrifices to bring up the next generation be treated as equal to those who have purely recreational sex all their lives and don't care what happens to their country after they are dead?
The liberal political establishment will not be answering these questions nor will the liberal media be asking them. Both are hopelessly corrupt and unfit for their designated purpose.
The British government does not see as its role the duty to promote the long term national interest and the British media, instead of asking questions, look the other way.
Therefore the only alternative to this nonsense remains Islam, I have reluctantly concluded.
There is no mystery to this. Muslims are more likely to make sacrifices for Muslims than degenerate selfish atheist libtards for other degenerate selfish atheist libtards.
E O Wilson:
"Selfishness beats altruism in groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups, and everything else is commentary."
"Human nature is hung in the balance: our behaviour driven by selfishness and our desire to co-operate to ensure the survival of the group."
"The tension between individual and group selection is the tension between sin and virtue."
God if He exists is Darwinian. He means to demonstrate to us that those who follow His laws most closely will triumph over those who flout His laws. For this reason it is not looking good for the West, even if ISIS do occasionally misinterpret the Koran.
"Of course, there is no reconciliation between the theory of evolution by natural selection and the traditional religious view of the origin of the human mind."
I have reconciled the two by the following:
"God if He exists is Darwinian. He means to demonstrate to us that those who follow His laws most closely will triumph over those who flout His laws. For this reason it is not looking good for the West, even if ISIS do occasionally misinterpret the Koran."
Jews have been corrupted during many time in history, but each time those Jews that return to religion and virtue cause Judaism to survive for another round of productivity. No culture has been productive as long as Judaism for the simple reason that no culture has known God for as long as Judaism has. Is there a single counterexample? Is there a single case in history where a people from a decayed culture rose again without God? I can't think of one. So why is this? Those with faith may find this question silly. They will say that those who obey God's will are rewarded and no other explanation is needed. But as a skeptic, I want to show that God's will is explainable and that the theory of evolution explains it well. So I will argue that the evolutionary salvation of a people requires two critical elements, that they worship one god, and that this god is the correct god. So not only does the Old Testament give the correct rules to optimize human evolution, it also gives the correct warnings of what will result from not following these rules. In fact the broad story told in the Old Testament begins with God giving the Israelites the right rules. The Israelites follow these rules for a while and so they become successful and prosperous. Then success causes them to begin to sin. So their decay begins. The more they violate God's laws, the more they decay and the weaker they become. Finally their country falls to Babylon and they go into exile. But then they return to following God's law and find salvation which allows them to survive and eventually begin again in Jerusalem. This story makes the same point that I am making in this article, that salvation can be found by following God's law. The Old Testament is the only book that I know of that goes through the entire life-cycle of a culture along with a complete analysis of what happened and why.
Can anyone define what extremism is, without looking it up?
Can a government be extremist without knowing it?
Why is the government always assuming it can never be the one guilty of extremism? Surely that is in theory possible?
"So as we talk about the threat of extremism and the challenge of integration, we should not do our country down – we are, without a shadow of doubt, a beacon to the world."
Is Cameron suggesting that "doing our country down" is a sign of extremism? And that Western government is perfect?
"the focus of my remarks today is on tackling Islamist extremism – not Islam the religion"
The only difference is Muslims who decide to stay in the West and keep their heads down, and those who choose to go to Syria and fight under the Caliphate or commit acts of terrorism in the West.
The Koran does state that Muslims have a duty to fight oppression and there is no doubt that Muslims will perceive that Muslims are being oppressed if Muslim countries are invaded and regime-change imposed on them by the West.
"like any extreme doctrine, it is subversive."
Any ideology that is diametrically opposed to yours would be logically "subversive".
Feminism is subversive to the patriarchy and marriage.
Muslims respect the institutions of marriage and the family, and have noticed that PC Liberalism is subversive to these institutions.
"At its furthest end it seeks to destroy nation-states to invent its own barbaric realm. And it often backs violence to achieve this aim – mostly violence against fellow Muslims – who don’t subscribe to its sick worldview."
Muslim terrorists who object to Western foreign policy have worked out that Western foreign policy is the direct consequence of Western democracy and have therefore deduced that the only way to challenge Western foreign policy is to put the frighteners on the people who keep voting for the same shit parties who perpetuate the shit foreign policy they object to.
Was there a single BNP voter who was a victim of the 7/7 bombing? Statistically that would be unlikely. (The BNP were the only party in the land who offered an alternative non-Zionist foreign policy. Michael Adebalajo actually considered voting for them, and was said to have approached a BNP organiser running a paper sale in Woolwich and discussed UK foreign policy with him.) http://thevoiceofreason-ann.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/how-end-problem-of-terrorism-without.html
As for Muslims killing Muslims, we already know Nazis kill other Nazis (Night of the Long Knives) and Commies also kill other Commies (Trotsky was assassinated by Stalin's secret police). Atrocities are often committed in war and revolution. The English had the English Civil War and the Americans their American Civil War.
Islamic State are doubtless purging their own ranks of whom they perceive as being subversives and traitors, as you would expect, really.
"basic liberal values such as democracy, freedom and sexual equality."
Democracy only lasted 180 years in Athens.
Freedom? Freedom to do WHAT? What is this sexual equality? Does he mean gay marriage?
"Ideas which actively promote discrimination, sectarianism and segregation."
Like ladies withdrawing after dinner? That would be sex segregation, I suppose, and having male and female toilets.
What sectarianism is he referring to?
"Ideas – like those of the despicable far right – which privilege one identity to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of others."
PC Liberals and their protected groups are privileged by law over social conservatives, are they not?
Christians have no freedom of contract to refuse to bake sodomite cakes for LGBTs and no right to refuse to have them as guests in their B&Bs.
"And ideas also based on conspiracy: that Jews exercise malevolent power; or that Western powers, in concert with Israel, are deliberately humiliating Muslims, because they aim to destroy Islam. "
Cameron has never heard of the Israel Lobby or AIPAC, clearly.
"In this warped worldview, such conclusions are reached – that 9/11 was actually inspired by Mossad to provoke the invasion of Afghanistan; that British security services knew about 7/7, but didn’t do anything about it because they wanted to provoke an anti-Muslim backlash."
These views cannot be disproven, can they?
They cannot be disproven the way God's existence cannot be proven or disproven.
"And like so many ideologies that have existed before – whether fascist or communist – many people, especially young people, are being drawn to it. We need to understand why it is proving so attractive."
If you are Muslim and you care about other Muslims, you would be inclined to think that the NATO invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan did not improve life for Muslims in these countries.
You may have noticed that the UK government has not given any convincing reasons to justify these invasions and may even have noticed that the Chilcot Enquiry's findings have had their publication delayed to protect the MPs who called for and voted for these invasions.
'So when people say “it’s because of the involvement in the Iraq War that people are attacking the West”, we should remind them: 9/11 – the biggest loss of life of British citizens in a terrorist attack – happened before the Iraq War.'
"When they say that these are wronged Muslims getting revenge on their Western wrongdoers, let’s remind them: from Kosovo to Somalia, countries like Britain have stepped in to save Muslim people from massacres – it’s groups like ISIL, Al Qaeda and Boko Haram that are the ones murdering Muslims."
"Far from being Tony Blair's "good war", Nato's assault on Yugoslavia was in its own way as immoral as the assault on Iraq. But as the Iraq war has become discredited, so it is even more important for the supporters of "liberal interventionism" to promote the line that Kosovo was in some way a success. The Council of Europe's report on the KLA's crimes makes that position much harder to maintain. And if it plays its part in making people more sceptical about any future western "liberal interventions", it is to be warmly welcomed."
Western interventionism does not exactly create for Westerners a fund of goodwill, does it?
"the adherents of this ideology are overpowering other voices within Muslim debate, especially those trying to challenge it. There are so many strong, positive Muslim voices that are being drowned out."
Those inclined to go on jihad are unlikely to be persuaded by the elderly and the middle-aged telling them not to go.
The already know elderly risk-averse male relations reliant on the NHS would not wish to go on jihad, and their comfortable and complacent parents would not wish to go on jihad either.
As for the clerics who insist that all terrorism is by definition wrong, that is not what the Koran really says, does it?
008.038
YUSUFALI: Say to the Unbelievers, if (now) they desist (from Unbelief), their past would be forgiven them; but if they persist, the punishment of those before them is already (a matter of warning for them).
PICKTHAL: Tell those who disbelieve that if they cease (from persecution of believers) that which is past will be forgiven them; but if they return (thereto) then the example of the men of old hath already gone (before them, for a warning).
SHAKIR: Say to those who disbelieve, if they desist, that which is past shall be forgiven to them; and if they return, then what happened to the ancients has already passed.
008.039
YUSUFALI: And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily Allah doth see all that they do.
PICKTHAL: And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is all for Allah. But if they cease, then lo! Allah is Seer of what they do.
SHAKIR: And fight with them until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah; but if they desist, then surely Allah sees what they do.
008.040
YUSUFALI: If they refuse, be sure that Allah is your Protector - the best to protect and the best to help.
PICKTHAL: And if they turn away, then know that Allah is your Befriender - a Transcendent Patron, a Transcendent Helper!
SHAKIR: And if they turn back, then know that Allah is your Patron; most excellent is the Patron and most excellent the Helper.
008.041
YUSUFALI: And know that out of all the booty that ye may acquire (in war), a fifth share is assigned to Allah,- and to the Messenger, and to near relatives, orphans, the needy, and the wayfarer,- if ye do believe in Allah and in the revelation We sent down to Our servant on the Day of Testing,- the Day of the meeting of the two forces. For Allah hath power over all things.
PICKTHAL: And know that whatever ye take as spoils of war, lo! a fifth thereof is for Allah, and for the messenger and for the kinsman (who hath need) and orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, if ye believe in Allah and that which We revealed unto Our slave on the Day of Discrimination, the day when the two armies met. And Allah is Able to do all things.
SHAKIR: And know that whatever thing you gain, a fifth of it is for Allah and for the Messenger and for the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, if you believe in Allah and in that which We revealed to Our servant, on the day of distinction, the day on which the two parties met; and Allah has power over all things.
Could Western foreign policy be described as "desisting"?
"Ask yourself, how is it possible that when young teenagers leave their London homes to fight for ISIL, the debate all too often focuses on whether the security services are to blame?"
If you were an Islamophobe, you would just love the idea of Muslims being targeted for being Muslim and expect them to like it or lump it or leave the country, wouldn't you?
Secretly or not so secretly, Islamophobes want Muslims all to be radicalised and become terrorists so they can just mow them down with their machine guns after they have locked them up in one big mosque and set fire to it if they try to escape ....
If you were Muslim, you would be quite likely to be radicalised once you are aware of the extent and depth of the Islamophobia against you.
"And how can it be that after the tragic events at Charlie Hebdo in Paris, weeks were spent discussing the limits of free speech and satire, rather than whether terrorists should be executing people full stop?"
I am sure even the terrorists knew they had forfeited their lives after they gunned down Charlie Hebdo.
I don't recall anyone saying that these gunmen should have been let off if they were caught alive or that gunning people down for whatever reason should not be allowed. The debate was whether Charlie Hebdo "had it coming".
"When we allow the extremists to set the terms of the debate in this way, is it any wonder that people are attracted to this ideology?"
What does he mean by allowing the extremists "to set the terms of the debate"?
"For all our successes as multi-racial, multi-faith democracy, we have to confront a tragic truth that there are people born and raised in this country who don’t really identify with Britain – and who feel little or no attachment to other people here. Indeed, there is a danger in some of our communities that you can go your whole life and have little to do with people from other faiths and backgrounds."
"So when groups like ISIL seek to rally our young people to their poisonous cause, it can offer them a sense of belonging that they can lack here at home, leaving them more susceptible to radicalisation and even violence against other British people to whom they feel no real allegiance."
"Instead of being a slut, SSM (Slut Single Mother) or a man afraid of sluts and SSMs, why not become a jihadi warrior?" is probably quite a seductive suggestion.
"let’s not forget our strongest weapon: our own liberal values."
The West's strongest poison which it causes its own citizens to imbibe regularly is its own liberal values that produced the foreign policy complained of by Muslim terrorists - liberal interventionism or Western militarism, if you prefer.
Muslims living in the West inclined to become Muslim terrorists are also disgusted by the permissive sexual mores of the West, which has now plumbed new depths with gay marriage.
Two gay men get it on with each other in a funeral parlour. East Enders is shown at 7.30 pm.
Two men kissing each other in broad daylight in a public place.
East Enders is shown at 7.30 pm.
"We should contrast their bigotry, aggression and theocracy with our values. We have, in our country, a very clear creed and we need to promote it much more confidently. Wherever we are from, whatever our background, whatever our religion, there are things we share together."
Islam is about forbidding extramarital sex, liberal values is about having sex wherever, whenever with whomever. Those who regard sodomy as an abomination, as the Koran instructs them to, would regard gay marriage with as much disgust as a gourmet would experience if invited to eat shit.
"We are all British. We respect democracy and the rule of law. We believe in freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of worship, equal rights regardless of race, sex, sexuality or faith."
So all the white British people who are descended from generations of white British people who disapproved of LGBTs were never British?
If we don't subscribe to the Cameronian view of Britishness then we are automatically no longer British?
"We believe in respecting different faiths but also expecting those faiths to support the British way of life. These are British values. And are underpinned by distinct British institutions. Our freedom comes from our Parliamentary democracy. The rule of law exists because of our independent judiciary. This is the home that we are building together."
What freedom is this? The freedom to fuck wherever, whenever with whomever? No thanks.
"Whether you are Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Christian or Sikh, whether you were born here or born abroad, we can all feel part of this country – and we must now all come together and stand up for our values with confidence and pride."
Must we all be glad to be gay? If not, will we be punished?
If we were all gay there wouldn't be much of a next generation to be British or be seen as degenerate Britons any more.
"And as we do so, we should together challenge the ludicrous conspiracy theories of the extremists. The world is not conspiring against Islam; the security services aren't behind terrorist attacks; our new Prevent duty for schools is not about criminalising or spying on Muslim children. This is paranoia in the extreme."
If people hate you enough they will willingly believe any lie about you, no matter how obviously ludicrous.
"In fact that duty will empower parents and teachers to protect children from all forms of extremism – whether Islamist or neo-Nazi."
Muslims and Nazis are quite likely to denounce Israel, Jews, Zionists and Zionism, I imagine.
"We must stand up to those who try to suggest that there is some kind of secret Muslim conspiracy to take over our government, or that Islam and Britain are somehow incompatible."
Islam is about social conservatism, degenerate PC Liberalism is about desecrating the institutions of marriage and the family.
"People who say these things are trying to undermine our shared values and make Muslims feel like they don’t belong here, and we will not let these conspiracy theorists win."
Actually, the Far Right and Muslim radicals are agreed that democracy and Christianity is a dead duck. Interestingly, a Caliph is just a dictator who undertakes to govern using Koranic principles in a one-party theocracy.
"And here’s my message to any young person here in Britain thinking of going out there:
You won’t be some valued member of a movement. You are cannon fodder for them. They will use you.
If you are a boy, they will brainwash you, strap bombs to your body and blow you up."
But if you are a brave jihadi warrior, they might reward you with sex slaves.
"If you are a girl, they will enslave and abuse you."
Jihadis are supposed to marry their sex slaves, I believe.
"using people who really understand the true nature of what life is like under ISIL to communicate to young and vulnerable people the brutal reality of this ideology"
If it is perceived as HMG propaganda, it will be dismissed out of hand.
"empowering the UK’s Syrian, Iraqi and Kurdish communities, so they can have platforms from which to speak out against the carnage ISIL is conducting in their countries"
These Syrians, Iraqis and Kurds would refugees and their statements would be made under duress. The intelligent radical would know to dismiss whatever they say as government mouthpieces.
"countering this ideology better on the ground through specific de-radicalisation programmes"
Will this mean preventing us from using deductive reasoning and coming to the natural and obvious conclusion with the available and undisputed facts?
"we need our internet companies to go further in helping us identify potential terrorists online."
How far have they gone already, and how much further does Cameron want them to go?
"They – the internet companies - have shown with the vital work they are doing in clamping down on child abuse images that they can step up when there is a moral imperative to act. And it’s now time for them to do the same to protect their users from the scourge of radicalisation."
Sounds like Cameron wants internet companies to block certain websites from their customers. Which ones?
"the Home Secretary has already announced a review of sharia courts."
Sounds like the government proposes to interfere in the process of arbitration.
"new protection orders which came into force last Friday and were used immediately by Bedfordshire police to prevent two girls being taken to Africa."
What would be the terms of these protection orders?
"passive tolerance of practices running totally contrary to our values."
Will Muslims be expected to apologise for Muslim terrorism the moment an Islamophobe demands an apology from him?
This is going to be fun and so going to make Muslims stop wanting to blow us up!
"The failure of social services, the police and local authorities, to deal with child sex abuse in places like Rotherham was frankly unforgiveable."
It was only too predictable that the coppers were not going to take the complaints seriously.
"police, already not caring enough about teenage girls being abused, could not be bothered with dealing with the flak of being accused of racism; it is not because they were being ultra-careful not to target an already maligned ethnic group.
The reason there was inaction and poor practice in tackling this crime early on is not political correctness but rather racist cowardice combined with a distaste for the victims. It is precisely because the liberal left has refused to tackle the thorny issues surrounding race and ethnicity that the likes of Ukip are able to colonise it so successfully."
Nobody cares about abandoned children who were carelessly conceived then carelessly abandoned by their unfit promiscuous irresponsible Slut Single Mothers (whom no MP will criticise) into care homes.
"And look what happened in Tower Hamlets, in the heart of our capital city. We had political corruption on an epic scale: with voters intimidated and a court adjudicating on accusations of ‘undue spiritual influence’ for the first time since the 19th century. As the judge said: those in authority were too afraid to ‘confront wrongdoing for fear of allegations of racism’."
This decision is being appealed by the ex-Mayor of Tower Hamlet found guilty of a criminal offence by a clearly biased Election Court judge who thought he could find Lutfur Rahman guilty of a criminal offence without the involvement of the police charging and arresting him.
"We undertook an immediate review when it became apparent that extremists had taken over some of our schools in the so-called Trojan Horse scandal here in Birmingham. But I have to be honest here – one year on, although we are making progress, it is not quick enough. It has taken too long to take action against the governors and teachers involved in the scandal and to support the schools affected to turn themselves around."
All these parents wanted was keep their children's school environment Islamic ie without sex ed, which encourages British schoolgirls to be sluts.
"So as part of our Extremism Bill, we are going to introduce new narrowly targeted powers to enable us to deal with these facilitators and cult leaders, and stop them peddling their hatred."
Sounds like Cameron is proposing to ban them from Twitter and Facebook.
"And we will also work to strengthen Ofcom’s role to enable us to take action against foreign channels that broadcast hate preachers and extremist content."
Which channels are these?
"I have charged Louise Casey to carry out a review of how to boost opportunity and integration in these communities and bring Britain together as one nation. She will look at issues like how we can ensure people learn English; how we boost employment outcomes, especially for women; how state agencies can work with these communities to properly promote integration and opportunity but also learning lessons from past mistakes - when funding was simply handed over to self-appointed ‘community leaders’ who sometimes used the money in a divisive way.
Louise will provide an interim report early next year. And we will use this report to inform our plans for funding a new wider Cohesive Communities Programme next year, focusing resources on improving integration and extending opportunity in those communities that most need it."
"Taking on extremism in all its forms – both violent and non-violent."
Why not have a National Debating Society on Foreign and Domestic Policy with a large cash prize for secondary schoolchildren and adults with televised debates allowing viewers to vote by text on Saturday evenings instead of the usual crap?
"Britain has never been cowed by fear or hatred or terror.
Our Great British resolve faced down Hitler; it defeated Communism; it saw off the IRA’s assaults on our way of life. Time and again we have stood up to aggression and tyranny."
The only way to prevent radicalisation is to stop people from thinking and forming their own conclusions about the evil criminal enterprise that is Western foreign policy.
The radicalised are divided between those who would never commit violence in pursuance of a political cause and those who would.
Young men are more prepared to do this kind of thing than senescent and effeminate men of the West, but this sort of thing is not unheard of in the white atheist male, if you can remember Anders Breivik.
Eventually, Western governments will make themselves so unpopular that they will be overthrown and an alternative form of government will replace the stinking shit that is liberal democracy.
You see, these radicalised Muslims have worked out that Western foreign policy is the result of Western democracy, and they have formed the very rational conclusion that they must destroy Western democracy to effect a change in Western foreign policy.
What is Western democracy but the declared indifference of Islamophobic Western voters to Western foreign policy?
Quite a few of them unashamedly say they want to kill Muslims for being Muslims and seem to be of the view that their NATO God of War can do no wrong and that American Exceptionalism is justified.
These Muslim terrorists, if they speak to non-Muslim Western citizens at all, would know how much the Western political classes are already despised.
Soon, our government will want to prevent us from forming the conclusions I have formed and disseminating these conclusions.
When Western governments ban free speech and criminalise views, Western civilisation as we know it will have been destroyed by the degenerate effeminate political classes who are currently run government and politics.
When they do this, it will be a signal for dissidents to rise up against the government.
The degenerate political classes are hoist by their own petard having painted themselves into a corner of policy contradictions and ideological inconsistencies. Indeed, it is nothing short of political and ideological dementia and a sign of mass and collective insanity. Every move they make puts them in check or checkmate.
Even if these degenerates go so far as to conduct a pogrom, expel or execute all Muslims in the West for being Muslims, close down every mosque, burn every Koran they can lay their filthy degenerate slut-stained hands on and ban Islam, THEY WILL HAVE LOST.
They will have lost because if they ban free speech and abolish the principle of religious freedom, then Western civilisation as know it will have ended.
Abolishing free speech and religious freedom would be the equivalent of Muslims giving up two of their five pillars of Islam.
These degenerate white men even get brown women to fight their filthy wars.
That is of course conclusive evidence that Western men no longer have any masculine pride and are no longer capable of feeling shame.
But then what can we expect of men who are lower than sluts, who don't mind being lower than sluts and who will continue denying that they are lower than sluts because they have taken on the feminine vice of denial?
These men white men are now so demented that they have now agreed to pay a foreign woman woman lots of money to prosecute and persecute them for years and years.
Today, on BBC Woman's Hour at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b061twpp female MPs were whingeing about the fact that there has never been a female Defence Secretary. That would be just too demoralising and insulting to the Armed Forces and would result in a coup d'etat, probably.
We already have a female Home Secretary in the position of wishing to wound but being afraid to strike about the water cannons so thoughtfully purchased by the London Mayor.
As I have pointed out many a time already, ISIS is the international patriarchy declaring war on the international matriarchy.
The world is now divided between those who think extramarital sex is a human right, and those who don't want this kind of degenerate shit because they have seen what it has done to the white man.
No one will acknowledge that the only way to support marriage is to have laws that support marriage which punishes extramarital sex or to have a religion that makes people think they will go to hell if they have extramarital sex.
No political party will support marriage because they know most voters are sluts and bastards
Most people won't know what degeneracy means because most people are degenerates.
Most people will deny they are degenerates because they degenerate.
Most people will say degeneracy doesn't matter because degenerates would say that, wouldn't they?
It would be the easiest thing to discourage thought and the forming of reasonable and logical conclusions from undisputed facts from a society of degenerates who would never stand up for any principle, truth or viewpoint.
Hello. Welcome to this week's Catholic Herald podcast where we discuss what's really happening in the Catholic Church. I'm the Associate Editor Madeleine Teahan and today I am joined by Professor John Charmley of the University of East Anglia. In this week's magazine Professor Charmley writes that religious literacy is at a low ebb in the West and simply educating people about spirituality in general terms cannot make up for this. Firstly, Professor Charmley, you make the point in your article that the Foreign Office for example is full of political science graduates and when they are analysing events for example what's going on with ISIS at the moment they are analysing it through a purely political lens and I think your point was very well-proven when the Prime Minister told the BBC a few days ago to stop calling ISIS Islamic State because it's a perversion of a great religion.What did you make of the Prime Minister's intervention?
JC:
I am afraid what he [David Cameron] showed was that I was even more correct than I thought I was in that piece [below]. Let's take for example the fact that he mentions - which is perfectly true - they are brutal, they are unpleasant, they kill gay people, they oppress women. I think ISIS actually came to most people's notice a year ago when they occupied Mosul when they drove out all the Christians. Now perhaps there were some gay Christians - certainly there were lots of women Christians - but they were not being targeted by ISIS because they were gay or because they were women, they were being targeted because they are Christians. Anybody with any knowledge of the history of that region will be well aware that from the original Islamic conquests that you have a parallel: ISIS did precisely what the first followers of Muhammad did. When they conquered a town they gave them a choice, and the people of Mosul were given that choice. They were not given that choice because they were gay or women, they were given it because they were Christians, as Christians were given it before by Muslim conquerors, which is not to say all Muslims do this, which is convert - and that is what they really wanted - and what were they converting to? Not terrorism but to Islam or pay a heavy tax, or leave. If you don't convert, you are killed, so I think we see here precisely the problem: Mr Cameron like Mr Obama is analysing this problem though secular lenses and through secular lenses you see the preoccupations of our own secular liberal elite: women and gay people. [Professor Charmley claims Islam is a religion that harbours murderous intentions towards Christians by reason of their faith alone. If this is so, what would he like to do? Ban Islam? Close down mosques? Burn the Koran? Intern or expel Muslims? I think we should be told.] Obviously, unless you are a member of ISIS, you don't actually want to oppress women and you don't want to oppress gay people, but if that is how you see ISIS, as a terrorist group that does these things because it is a terrorist group, you're not actually seeing what ISIS really is and I find it very hard to see if you misdiagnose the problem how you can get to a solution. [It is perfectly possible to be an anti-feminist and want to criminalise extramarital sex for eugenic reasons in order to prevent degeneracy, I would argue. The Bible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_homosexuality actually says worse things about sodomites than the Koran at 4:16. http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/004-qmt.phpIf Professor Charmley is so clever why doesn't he ask the question the government is not asking and answer it for them? What would he like to do? Declare the imminent reunion of the Catholic Church and State? Conduct another Inquisition? I think we should be told.]
MT:
You are absolutely right. He continues his discussion of Islamic State saying "I think this is particularly offensive" - namely referring to them as Islamic State. "I think this is particularly offensive to Muslims who see - as I see - not a state, but a barbaric regime of terrorism and oppression that takes delight in murder and oppressing women and murdering people because they are gay." Absolutely no mention of the persecution of Christians, which I thought was really quite shocking. [MT does not seem aware that Christianity is now regarded by African Muslims as the religion of people who want to spread gay marriage all over the world. The Archbishop of Canterbury already knows the real reason why African Muslims murder African Christians. I have pointed this out to Professor Charmley before, but he is mendacious and chooses to ignore the report below, doubtless because he prefers to propagate his narrative that Islam commands Muslims to murder Christians just because they are Christian.]
Justin Welby said he had stood by a mass grave in Nigeria of 330 Christians who had been massacred by neighbours who had justified the atrocity by saying: "If we leave a Christian community here we will all be made to become homosexual and so we will kill all the Christians."
"I have stood by gravesides in Africa of a group of Christians who had been attacked because of something that had happened in America. We have to listen to that. We have to be aware of the fact," Welby said. If the Church of England celebrated gay marriages, he added, "the impact of that on Christians far from here, in South Sudan, Pakistan, Nigeria and other places would be absolutely catastrophic. Everything we say here goes round the world."
I think that is the perfect example of why - if you diagnose it the way he is diagnosing it - you actually get it wrong - and I think he has got it wrong - so we end up with - in my view ridiculous ideas such as "Let's now attack ISIS in a conventional way - maybe even boots on the ground." When we last had boots on the ground against the Intifada - effectively an Intifada in Iraq - it didn't work terribly well and then we were dealing with scattered groups of fanatics. Here we are dealing with a well-organised, well-funded group of fanatics. They are searching around for solutions that match their vision and their vision is seriously wrong. What's changed is what I regard as religious illiteracy is now endemic and we can come on discuss why but that is what we are seeing, which is that we have a group of politicians - Mr Cameron's age or thereabouts, group of advisers, all of whom take, broadly speaking, what has happened in the West to be normative. Now what has happened in the West is we have seen in the last fifty years an enormous secularisation and they have imbibed the assumption - which actually is very politically incorrect when it is pointed out to them - that the rest of the world is going to follow the Western example, and therefore religion is going to become less important. I can remember being told by one of my tutors at Oxford - where I wanted to study theology and history - why did I want to do theology, because clearly by the time I was his age - which I am now - nobody would be concerned about religion. That wasn't the best prediction, but the point is that if that is what you assume - which is that the rest of the world is going to eventually catch up with you - I noticed some of the comments on my piece in the Catholic Herald - Islam is just 600 years behind us and it will catch up. There is no sign of any of that happening so. In other words, all the secularist assumptions that feed into their policy are actually wrong, and I think we are now at a stage in history where we can see that they are demonstrably wrong, and trying to analyse what is happening in most of the world without reference to religion is I think simply getting it very wrong indeed and I think what we are getting is that we're getting the wrong diagnosis from people who don't even know what questions to ask, but are very very confident that the political science models they are dealing with are right. [What does Professor Charmley mean by "religious literacy"? It is just a euphemism for Catholics not knowing that adultery, fornication and LGBT sex is a mortal sin ie not even knowing they are not supposed to do these things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_sin Why don't these Catholic priests tell them? Probably because most of them are gay and know gay marriage legitimises their homosexuality. What better trick if you are gay and Catholic than to become the priest, bishop, archbishop, cardinal or even Pope of married Catholics and have them kiss your ring? If you enjoy sodomy, what better place for you to safely break your vow of chastity than in a Catholic seminary where you will meet like-minded men who share your interests and proclivities and never ever be caught impregnating a woman not your wife? The Catholic Church, as you may have gathered by now, has been institutionally corrupt since the time it started selling relics, monetising sin and selling indulgences.]
MT makes a long rambling complaint about the government walking on eggshells in its anxiety not to offend Muslims while ignoring the hurt feelings of Catholics.
JC:
It is an interesting point and I it would be hard to deny in the light of what we have seen of the way child abuse cases in Oxford, Rotheram and Bradford have all been handled by the police. It would be very very hard to deny that, if you like, instead of looking at these things through the lenses of faith, too many people in authority in our country look at them through the lens of race - as though Islam were a race. They look at them through political correct spectacles because they can't quite work out Islam. I've lost count of the number of times that people have talked about Islam as though it were something to do with race. It isn't but it is very interesting that many many people in our society confuse the two because it shows you where they are coming from. Again, it is back to this thing with Mr Cameron about gays, women and ISIS, it's about Islam and race, and what this actually reveals is the underlying mindset of the people who rule us is really about. They understand race, they understand equality and diversity, so they reduce all faith issues to issues they do understand because actually they don't understand faith and what is really sad is that they don't understand that they don't understand. It's what Donald Rumsfeld called the unknown unknown. [Nicky Morgan has already said that those who express vociferous disapproval of LGBTs should be treated as potential extremists, and potential extremists should be treated as potential terrorists. Muslims are already on notice that they will be spied on and targeted. If Professor Charmley wants more bad stuff to happen to them, he should say exactly what would satisfy him eg internment, expulsion, Inquisition, immolation?] http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/homophobic-pupils-could-extremists-says-5975968
MT:
Can you tell us where is the evidence that suggests that religious literacy is at such a low ebb?
JC:
It is very very widespread but I can give you a very concrete example. I went a few weeks back to an event hosted at the LSE by the Leadership Foundation where the Director of the LSE Professor Craig Calhoun actually commented thus: "The thin grasp of religion's place in British history raises an issue for higher education. Religion is unevenly taught and studied and even when theology and religion are subjects, knowledge of them is poorly integrated into other fields" and Professor Tariq Mahmoud of Bristol who is another expert in this field commented at the same conference: "The decline of religion in the second half of the 20th century means that British society including higher education and its leaders have little or no understanding of religion." So there's two experts in the field at a conference that was actually convened because people are starting to get worried. People are starting to realise that it is a problem. So for example you have the Foreign Office who are now I think now trying to find out ways of informing their trainee diplomats about religion but if you look at your own field with the Catholic Herald I am pleased to say as a shining example against the trend, but none of our national broadsheets now have a full-time religious affairs correspondent. I won't name them because it is embarrassing for them. I can remember the time when the Anglicans ordained women bishops and religious affairs correspondent commenting on the radio that it will be the Catholics next, and the level of religious illiteracy that shows is quite astonishing. It is not as though it were a correspondent from The Tablet either. Wishful thinking that. So wherever one looks if you do not have a national broadcaster who has a trained religious affairs correspondent .. The BBC would not hire just anybody to comment on Wimbledon or football ... [How on earth would having religious Religious Affairs Correspondents create greater religious literacy if the Catholic Church is now too cowardly or corrupt to teach Catholic teaching?]
MT:
... They don't understand Catholicism, certainly.
JC:
They understand as little about Islam and Judaism as well so what they do is that they bring the things that concern them on their secularist agenda, and they read religion and they read faith through those lenses and that I think is a form of reductionism and it partly stems from the fact that in my own area of higher education far too much study of religion and the church takes the form of reductionism so we examine the economic impact of religion in the 19th century, we examine the social impact, we examine its artistic impact, we examine its impact on political thought, but in all of these things we are examining if you like the epiphenomena when we are not examining the thing itself, and I think modern historians in particular have a real difficulty understanding that the weird thing is from their point of view all these people in the past and some of us in the present actually do believe these things. It's not a substitute for something else: it is something we deeply believe [What are Catholics really supposed to believe? They are supposed to believe in the absurdity that Jesus is also God and his mother Mary is the mother of God. Yes, really. If you don't believe in any of this you are not Christian and only Christians go to heaven. It is not enough just to obey the laws of God or to believe that an omnipotent and perfectly moral God exists. The Doctrine of the Trinity is the additional requirement Christians are supposed to believe in order to distinguish themselves from those pesky Jews and Muslims they so despise and make themselves feel special and better than the other two branches of the Abrahamic faiths. Antisemitism is endemic to Christianity and requires hatred not only of Jews, but also of Arabs, for both are Semitic peoples whose respective faiths deny the Trinity.] and it is actually and again this is another problem we live in a world of we keep your religion to yourself, it can't come in the public sphere but inevitably if one has an active faith, it is bound to influence the way you behave. There is simply no way it can't. Therefore again we start from the assumption that well, whatever these ISIS people say about Islam it is nothing to do with the way they behave and that is to get it wrong. It is not to say heaven forfend it is not true or even a majority or even a minority of Muslims are like that, but it is to say that ISIS is Islamic, the people they convert are converted to Islam, not to terrorism. [Again, Professor Charmley repeats his lie that the Koran tells Muslims to kill Christians just because they are Christians, in his avuncular but mendacious way. His message is actually more insidious than Tommy Robinson's or the EDL's just because he seems so damned affable and avuncular when he says these things. He has a way of talking that can make the foulest lie and suggestion seem good natured - a kind of gurgle and chortle when he speaks. He probably can quite convincingly claim to even have Muslim friends, but Muslims should be in no doubt about how much contempt, hatred and fear Catholics like him feel for them and Islam. The Catholic Church is supposed to be the world's most powerful church and it would absolutely hate to cede its top dog position to the faith of brown people whom they have always regarded as congenitally backward and barbaric.]
MT:
Catholics have to ask themselves what they can do to address a lack of religious literacy. You talk about the failure of catechesis is evident in the result of the Irish referendum so the Church really has to look at itself, doesn't it, before it criticises the outside world because it is quite clear that there are many of us - my generation especially, I am 28 - I don't think I was well catechised through school or through church and the Church has a lot of work to do.
JC:
There is a good side and a bad side to it. The bad side is that you are absolutely right: the Church has a huge amount to do. I think very few people would wish to defend the catechetical education of the last 50 years. I think it has been at best poor and patchy. Obviously, one can't generalise and say it has been poor everywhere, but when you consider for example that in Ireland most people have had what 12, 14 years of Catholic education insofar as Ireland has been a very Catholic country and yet it is not simply the way they vote it is the way in which the debate was carried out in entirely secular terms. It seems to me that neither the bishops and archbishop mounted a very effective defence of the Catholic position and I didn't hear once any one of them referring to the Pope John Paul II's theology of the body, for example, and it is not like you have to go back to Aquinas. Some very good recent teaching from St John Paul, Benedict XVI so this leads us to the good side of it, which is that the Church is there, and you look at things for example what's happening down at Buckfast Abbey the new school of the Annunciation and places like Merryvale. There are some very good initiatives which our bishops are behind, very good stuff happening in Lancaster for example. Very good catechetical course designed by Nick Donnelly so there are some very good examples out there and there are some very good young orthodox priests who are very very keen to put this right and I think from that point of view the Church is very well-placed to, if you like, to - I don't like to talk in terms of leading the fightback because it sounds a bit crusadery in this context obviously you don't want to mention crusaders, but I think that the Church is very well-placed to begin the process - starting to begin the process of "I am dealing with this religious illiteracy." [I am afraid it is now too late to tell Catholics about mortal sin when the sex education they get at school tells them that the precise opposite is the case: that extramarital sex - instead of being a mortal sin - is actually their human right. If Professor Charmley himself is too afraid of calling a spade a spade, calling extramarital sex a mortal sin and calling gay marriage Her Majesty's Government's sanctification of a mortal sin, what hope is there for Christianity as a religion? It is clearly kaput, rotten with corruption and cowardice and cannot be fixed.]
Below is his article in the Catholic Herald whose language is an exercise in obfuscation and fudge. It is an amusing exercise in a pot calling the kettle black though.
The failure of catechesis evident in the result of the Irish referendum is a symptom of a wider failure in the Western education system. Religious literacy is at a low ebb. Education in “spirituality”, while a useful corrective to a tendency towards utilitarianism verging on the Gradgrindian, does not fill the gap left by the ebb of faith in our society.
What Benedict XVI called the “dictatorship of relativism” is relativistic about everything except itself. It seeks to dissolve the organic fabric of established order and replace it with its own, appropriating Orwell’s insight that you cannot express things you do not have words for – which is why it tries so hard to change the language. A world in which a man can be a “mother” and priests can wonder whether the Holy Spirit is feminine, without asking what it then means to say that Our Lord was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, is one in which Christian anthropology has vanished from the public square.
The effects of this go wider than the Church. A state department or a Foreign Office full of political science graduates will tend to analyse things through certain lenses, which is why they will advise politicians to say of ISIS that it is not “Islamic”, and instead, use the language of terrorism and national security. This plays well to an agenda of not upsetting an abstraction called “Muslim opinion”, but is it true? We deal with terrorists, in part, by isolating their political demands and seeing what deal can be struck.
But if, as history suggests, ISIS shares many characteristics which inspired the initial Islamic conquests, its demands are not likely to be ones to which we can agree. If we do not understand this, and if we insist on a reductionist approach to religion, which sees it as an adjunct to secularist definitions of quality and inclusion, then, unable even to ask the right questions, we are unlikely to get close to the right answers.
Any attempt to do this is further hindered by other manifestations of this mindset. Not one of our national broadsheets any longer has a full-time religious affairs correspondent – the splendid Ruth Gledhill of The Times was the last of the breed. The Catholic Herald, The Spectator and Standpoint cannot, by themselves, dispel a religious illiteracy which is both embarrassing and dangerous.
Does the Church have a part to play here? Blessed John Henry Newman wrote that “the Gospel requires the reception of definite and positive Articles” and the reverent acceptance of the “doctrinal Truths which have come down to us”. It is even more the fashion of our age than it was of his to ignore this wisdom in favour of a vague belief in personal spirituality; recovery of his ideal is essential both to good catechesis and a wider religious literacy. The idea of a received truth, which cannot be changed at the whim of fashion or a majority, is at the heart of the faith once received – and of other faiths too. As Newman wrote: “Faith is a state of mind, it is a particular mode of thinking and acting, which is exercised, always indeed towards God, in very various ways.” This non-reductionist way of thinking about faith is one way in which the Church could help fill the gaps in our public discourse.
Catholics believe in the Church as a visible community of the faithful, one of the functions of which is to provide catechesis. Its failings here have long been a cause for concern, but there are encouraging signs at Maryvale in Birmingham, and elsewhere, including the new School of the Annunciation at Buckfast. With such initiatives, our bishops are setting a course towards better religious literacy from which both the faithful – and the wider society they inhabit – will benefit.
None of this is to say that only people of faith can understand other religious people, but it is to suggest that they can bring to the study of such things a language, and an understanding, not readily available from an education system which studies the many epiphenomena of religion without understanding the phenomenon itself.
https://twitter.com/ProfJCharmley/status/617389573883174912
When I suggest having extramarital sex should attract corporal punishment as prescribed in 24:2 of the Koran, Professor Charmley calls me a "barbarian", when all I did was show "religious literacy", as he would call it.
@AnthonyLarme Instead of discussing inherent defects of Xtianity @ProfJCharmley says ISIS/Muslims harbour murderous intentions 2wds Xtians.
I think he is saying that non-Muslims, especially Christians, should be very very afraid of Muslims because the Koran tells them to kill non-Muslims. Professor Charmley is Catholic and Catholics seem to make it a point of hating every other religion even as theirs is obviously failing.
It is not enough to bomb them with conventional warfare, more must be done, but Professor Charmley does not specify what.
He seems from the interview to be rather exercised by the jizya, which is a conditional tribute. A conditional tribute is one which can be avoided by converting to Islam. If you do not wish to pay it you could convert to Islam. If you do not wish to become Muslim you can opt to pay the tribute. A conditional tribute is therefore less oppressive than a unconditional tribute, which you have to pay, or else. Professor Charmley for some reason cannot follow this logic.
How do I know Catholicism is failing? Because Catholics are afraid to say anything at all. You would have thought that their faith would assist them in proclaiming what they believe to be the truth, but not a bit of it.
A Christian must bear witness to the truth of the Gospel in every field of his activity, both public and private, and also if necessary, with the sacrifice of his very life. Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith.
This is a rather extreme requirement, would you not say? It is even more extreme than the Koran which only sees fit to promise the followers of Muhammad they will be rewarded by God in the afterlife if they sacrifice life, limb and liberty, not just a simple demand that they should die just to tell the truth. The Koran allows Muslims to conceal their faith if not to do so would result in injury or death, which is far more moderate and practical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiya
It is probably because Christians have so long ignored what the Bible actually says that they are now aghast that Muslims should take seriously and literally their holy book - which they believe to be the directly revealed Word of God - and this is why Catholics like Professor Charmley tell such lies: because they fear that Catholicism will be rivalled and superseded by Islam which they regard as an existential threat.
If Catholicism - the world's most powerful church - has now failed and fallen to gay marriage, then we should be grateful that Islam is waiting in the wings to fill the moral vacuum that Christianity has now become. No honest and good Jew or Christian should find any Koranic principle out of keeping with any Biblical principle. All the laws of the Koran if enforced would allow them to be better Jews and Christians, but their hatred and fear is unreasoning. They hold on to their hatred and chauvinism, turning it up all the more when in doubt, because their hatred gives them the false certainty that they must be right and Islam wrong.
Professor Charmley is supposed to be in education but I have found from experience that if you ask him an awkward question he will call you stupid, uneducated and tell you do your "research".
