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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Rancid Schnitzel" data-cid="579217" data-time="1463094994"><p>I think this article sums things up quite well: <br><a class="bbc_url" href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/sadiq-khan-victory-so-where-are-all-the-islamophobes/18331#.VzUNQj9--Ec">http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/sadiq-khan-victory-so-where-are-all-the-islamophobes/18331#.VzUNQj9--Ec</a></p></blockquote>
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Yep. London moved on from 7/7 ages ago and I for one am glad we are embracing a new mayor not because of his religious views, or in spite of them, but because he was the best candidate. It's very early days obviously but he somehow feels right for the job.<br><br>
As for the islamaphobes, I think the closest we got was London newspaper, the Evening Standard: 1) not giving Khan any front page coverage on his victory and 2) later referring to Khan as "seizing power". It wasn't a fucking coup, he didn't seize anything, he was democratically elected. -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Cookie" data-cid="579983" data-time="1463324560">
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<p>Yep. London moved on from 7/7 ages ago and I for one am glad we are embracing a new mayor not because of his religious views, or in spite of them, but because he was the best candidate. It's very early days obviously but he somehow feels right for the job.<br><br>
As for the islamaphobes, <strong>I think the closest we got was London newspaper, the Evening Standard: 1) not giving Khan any front page coverage on his victory and 2) later referring to Khan as "seizing power". It wasn't a fucking coup, he didn't seize anything, he was democratically elected.</strong></p>
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<p>Fuck me Cookie. Really? That's appalling.</p> -
<p>Truth first. Then reconciliation.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Although I understand that sometimes land theft comes in between.</p> -
I think this goes here ...<br><br>
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-war-on-christianity-is-fuelled-by-ignorance/news-story/45a705f92fc2b6e69743a8674f646c29'>http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-war-on-christianity-is-fuelled-by-ignorance/news-story/45a705f92fc2b6e69743a8674f646c29</a><br><br>
BSG is Andrew Bolt? -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote"><p>IT’S not the haters who will kill Christianity. It’s the ignorant, who have no clue how we non-Christians will suffer.<br><br>
But, wow, that hatred sure is feral. The latest examples?<br><br>
One: the Greens this week say they want to strip churches of their “right to discriminate†— actually their freedom to insist their employees live the faith.<br><br>
Two: Sydney University’s Student Union threatened to deregister the university’s Evangelical Union unless it stopped insisting members declare their faith in Jesus Christ.<br><br>
Three: Christian lobby group Family Voice Australia this week accused Facebook of deleting one of its pages arguing against same-sex marriage.<br><br>
Four: Facebook administrators had earlier deleted a page by the Centre for Public Christianity calling on same-sex marriage activists to be less abusive (It was restored after protests by Tim Wilson, the former freedom commissioner and now Liberal candidate in Goldstein).<br><br>
Five: Yet another church in Melbourne was burned to the ground last month and four in Geelong have been torched in six months — arson attacks that got a fraction of the media attention given to the burning yesterday of a Geelong mosque (Police say the mosque may have been mistaken for the church this bluestone building originally was).<br><br>
These attacks are part of a disturbing pattern. Everywhere Christians are being harassed out of the public space. In Victoria, for instance, state schools have new rules against the singing of not just hymns but, it seems, the more religious Christmas carols.<br><br>
In Tasmania, a former transgender Greens candidate complained to the state’s Anti-Discrimination Commission about a Catholic Church pamphlet opposing same-sex marriage (She has since dropped her action). Even worse, the commission ordered the local archbishop, with all Australia’s Catholic bishops, to explain whether they should be allowed to keep offending people by preaching church doctrine. SBS has already decided Christians shouldn’t. It banned an ad made by Christians defending traditional marriage, yet ran one by Ashley Madison for a dating service for adulterers.<br><br>
The media is particularly hostile to Christians, using the sex scandals of churches last century as an excuse to smash the churches today. Radio and television outlets recently played at high rotation a song by comedian Tim Minchin vilifying Catholic Cardinal George Pell as a “coward†and “scum†and falsely suggesting he’d covered up for paedophile priests. Last year, actor Rachel Griffiths told ABC radio she was “quite elated†that arsonists had burned down the beautiful St James Church in Brighton because it had decades ago had a priest who’d abused children.<br><br>
Just check how The Age this year marked Easter, Christianity’s holiest festival. On Maundy Thursday, it complained that St James was being rebuilt for $20 million and called for churches to be stripped of their tax exemption. On Good Friday, it praised a retired teacher who’d once confronted a paedophile priest and later claimed, exaggeratedly, the Catholic Church was keeping files “secret†from victims.<br><br>
True, attacks on the church are nothing new. What is new, though, is the ignorance of so many about what’s at stake and their indifference to the fight. How many young Australians, even young journalists, understand just what Christianity teaches and inspires? Last month The Australian reported on an Islamic State sympathiser in Kempsey prison who allegedly attacked a former Australian soldier, carving “e4e†into his head. The reporter explained: “The phrase is thought to refer to ‘an eye for an eye’, which appears in both Christian and Islamic texts.â€<br><br>
But the Christian New Testament actually records Jesus denouncing such justice: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth’. But I tell you, … if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.†The Koran, though, says “a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth, and for wounds is legal retributionâ€.<br><br>
The most bizarre example of this double standard occurred earlier this month when a caller rang up ABC presenter Jon Faine, a vehement critic of Christianity but an equally passionate defender of Islam.<br><br>
Caller: I’ve got a Sunni Muslim friend … He loves his AFL, you know, a real, typical kind of Aussie bloke. But … he’s adamant that stoning is the best punishment for adultery …<br><br>
Faine: Why is that any different to people in the Orthodox Jewish community for instance who have some bizarre beliefs or people in the Hillsong or any other happy-clappy Christian community who have all sorts of bizarre beliefs? You know, they just live their lives. It’s not as if they put them into practice.<br><br>
Caller: That may be true, Jon, but I’m specifically wondering what you would do in that situation?<br><br>
Faine: Oh, I’d say, well, that’s pretty wacky and who’s going to win on Saturday?<br><br>
Our gay activists are no better. Like the Greens, they rage at the church’s stand on same-sex marriage but are completely silent about the most violent expression of gay hatred — the hanging of gays in Iran and the throwing of gays off tall buildings by the Islamic State in Syria.<br><br>
These new Christ-haters and hypocrites are dangerously ignorant of an important truth: the gods actually differ and inspire different behaviour. Christianity, for instance, tells us to treat even strangers as we would our own kin and insists the life of even the most lowly is sacred.<br><br>
Christ is recorded in the New Testament as preventing the stoning of an adulterous woman, famously saying: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.†The Muslim prophet Muhammed, however, is recorded in the famous biography by Ibn Ishaq of having ordered the murder of “two singing-girls, Fartana and her friend, who used to sing satirical songs about the apostleâ€.<br><br>
The founders of the faiths led very different lives — one a preacher of nonviolence, the other a warrior king. Their respective religions express their culture and culture counts in influencing behaviour today.<br><br>
Consider: which societies are safest for nonbelievers? Which the most likely to be democracies? Which the least likely to treat terrorists as heroes?<br><br>
Which are least likely to allow humans to be destroyed for an allegedly higher cause?<br><br>
Each time, the answer is Christian. Christianity profoundly inspires the values of those societies, even if many of their citizens despise it.<br><br>
I am no Christian, but I do have a faith in Christianity. Will we be this safe once it’s gone?</p></blockquote> -
<p>Good writeup. I certainly haven't heard about any churches being burned down. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Religion is bullshit in general, but going out of your way to attack it is about the same as a religious person going out of their way to attack me about my lack of belief in their little book.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Just leave people the fuck alone.</p> -
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote"><p>The most bizarre example of this double standard occurred earlier this month when a caller rang up ABC presenter Jon Faine, a vehement critic of Christianity but an equally passionate defender of Islam.</p></blockquote><br>That would be the John Faine voted in 2011 in the top 50 of Australia’s most influential Jews?<br><br><blockquote class="ipsBlockquote"><p>Consider: which societies are safest for nonbelievers? Which the most likely to be democracies? Which the least likely to treat terrorists as heroes?<br><br>Which are least likely to allow humans to be destroyed for an allegedly higher cause?<br><br>Each time, the answer is Christian.</p></blockquote><br>Wrong. That would be agnostic/ atheist.
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Antipodean: can you name one of these societies that are agnostic/atheistic? <br><br>
Most societies like it or not are based in some sort of religion.<br><br>
Our society (NZ/Aus) is based on Christianity being Euopean based ... like it or not.<br><br>
Whilst many of us would like to think our way of life is now based purely on an agnostic way of life, it's just not. <br><br>
On that basis I prefer that we have the Hippy Pacifist as our inspiration rather than the Murderous Warlord.<br><br>
May be a simplistic viewpoint but it's mine -
<p>Bolt's presenting a false dichotomy. With each passing year the proportion of people who identify as non-religious continues to grow. Given that and the advance in modern democracies to a clear delineation between church and State, we're on the way to the type of society I suggest is safest for nonbelievers, most likely to be democracies and least likely to treat terrorists as heroes.</p>
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="antipodean" data-cid="581958" data-time="1464003511">
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<p>Bolt's presenting a false dichotomy. </p>
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<p> </p>
<p>Wow. Bet that never happened to him before :)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He fits the conservative glove perfectly.</p> -
So 12 dead and more than 50 injured in Berlin as another peaceful individual drives a truck through pedestrians.
@TeWaio said in The Failed policy of Multiculturalism:
Bump, to dwell on a happier note than the thread had recently meandered to..
Sadiq Khan reckons bombings are part of a cultural exchange of ideas and you should get used to it
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@Kirwan said in The Failed policy of Multiculturalism:
Have to laugh at the other thread about a world war, as if we aren't already in one.
Difference is we are fighting people that are happy to take decades to win and even breed us out.
Really? How many westerners died in the first 2? How many Kiwis?
In this one you think we are in, you, as a kiwi, are literally more likley to have been punched by a pissed up Jerry Collins than injured by Islamists in the last 10 years in NZ. I'm not sold that qualifies as a world war...
Thats just hyperbolic bullshit & a delusional re what an actual world war - or even a local war, looks like.
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@gollum said in The Failed policy of Multiculturalism:
@Kirwan said in The Failed policy of Multiculturalism:
Have to laugh at the other thread about a world war, as if we aren't already in one.
Difference is we are fighting people that are happy to take decades to win and even breed us out.
Really? How many westerners died in the first 2? How many Kiwis?
In this one you think we are in, you, as a kiwi, are literally more likley to have been punched by a pissed up Jerry Collins than injured by Islamists in the last 10 years in NZ. I'm not sold that qualifies as a world war...
Thats just hyperbolic bullshit & a delusional re what an actual world war - or even a local war, looks like.
So because it's not fully arrived in NZ it can't be a world war? Interesting definition.
Kind of ignores the fact that 50-80 potential terrorists are being tracked in NZ because of links to these nutjobs.
Also ignores that it's a different kind of world war that what WWII was. State sponsored asymmetric warfare, and with a stated invasion policy of breeding out the locals and undermining western law and culture.
Of course it's happening more in Europe, and to a lesser extent the US, purely because we are hard to get to. You'd have to really pushing your head into the sand hard to not think there is a worldwide war being waged on the west by Islam.
Suppose it's ignorable if you just call every attack nothing to do with the religion of peace, just the work of a lone wolf, bra.
But I'm sure you will, as the poster proven wrong on geo-political events most often on this site (well, expect maybe Winger), will lecture me on how I'm wrong and it was germans killing each other yesterday, and the assassination of the Russian ambassador was nothing to do with Islam.
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@Kirwan said in The Failed policy of Multiculturalism:
@gollum said in The Failed policy of Multiculturalism:
@Kirwan said in The Failed policy of Multiculturalism:
Have to laugh at the other thread about a world war, as if we aren't already in one.
Difference is we are fighting people that are happy to take decades to win and even breed us out.
Really? How many westerners died in the first 2? How many Kiwis?
In this one you think we are in, you, as a kiwi, are literally more likley to have been punched by a pissed up Jerry Collins than injured by Islamists in the last 10 years in NZ. I'm not sold that qualifies as a world war...
Thats just hyperbolic bullshit & a delusional re what an actual world war - or even a local war, looks like.
So because it's not fully arrived in NZ it can't be a world war? Interesting definition.
Kind of ignores the fact that 50-80 potential terrorists are being tracked in NZ because of links to these nutjobs.
Also ignores that it's a different kind of world war that what WWII was. State sponsored asymmetric warfare, and with a stated invasion policy of breeding out the locals and undermining western law and culture.
Of course it's happening more in Europe, and to a lesser extent the US, purely because we are hard to get to. You'd have to really pushing your head into the sand hard to not think there is a worldwide war being waged on the west by Islam.
Suppose it's ignorable if you just call every attack nothing to do with the religion of peace, just the work of a lone wolf, bra.
But I'm sure you will, as the poster proven wrong on geo-political events most often on this site (well, expect maybe Winger), will lecture me on how I'm wrong and it was germans killing each other yesterday, and the assassination of the Russian ambassador was nothing to do with Islam.
(Drops microphone )
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@gollum said in The Failed policy of Multiculturalism:
@Kirwan said in The Failed policy of Multiculturalism:
Have to laugh at the other thread about a world war, as if we aren't already in one.
Difference is we are fighting people that are happy to take decades to win and even breed us out.
Really? How many westerners died in the first 2? How many Kiwis?
In this one you think we are in, you, as a kiwi, are literally more likley to have been punched by a pissed up Jerry Collins than injured by Islamists in the last 10 years in NZ. I'm not sold that qualifies as a world war...
in the last World War there were Germans and Japanese running amok on New Zealand...
The Failed policy of Multiculturalism