IMMIGRATION thread

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I'm not entirely sure that hate speech is banned. It seems like a haven for Islamists to present their politicized fundamentalist teachings. They're basically using freedom of speech to preach the opposite.

Hate speach is banned, but due process of law makes that sort of thing difficult to enforce. Due process of law is, here, much more important than banning a specific preacher.

MB is an organization that is filled with contradictions and ambiguities, operation Trojan Horse is a summary of their entire ideology. However "moderate" they may be, they still seek to draw a line between Muslims and the hosts that were kind enough to welcome them as citizens. Simply put, MB will present their ideology whatever way a potential beneficiary might like. Why wouldn't you take the money anyway? Pledging your loyalty to a political party is a small price to pay, especially in a country that gives little incentive for you not to.

For me this sums up the difference between Muslim thinking and British thinking - here no Church would be allowed to take money from a political party to breach their particular version of Christianity. That's true even of the Church of England which has Bishops sat in the Legislature and recieves some government money - said Bishops are almost always a hindrance to the Government of the Day that has a hand in not only funding but also appointing them.

MB is stealing citizens, while Wahhabis raise generations of terrorists. It's more adopting those ideologies than sharing them.

I don't disagree with this. I would argue that the Saudi government likes to export these people from the ME so that there are fewer of them at home.

I would criticize the decision to exile the main Jewish tribes for breaking the constitution of Medina, but this no. Banu Qurayza collaborated with the enemies of their Muslim allies in the middle of an ongoing war, so they had it coming. They were intimidated by Mecca and saw Islam as a threat to Judaism, unlike other Jewish tribes.

It was in the middle of a war that Muslims didn't start, nuff said. The prophet was never the aggressor in his lifetime, always a realist defending his people. Also, Medina was a multireligious city and the tribe violated this creed and sought to oppress a popular movement.

It was still genocide, kill all the men, take all the women and children as slaves. The women presumably became wives and the children were either left as slaves or would have had to convert to Islam for any chance of freedom.

It's not excusable - there are other ways to deal with enemies, genocide is always carried out as a vindictive punishment and a warning to others.

That doesn't change the fact that Christians have discarded the things that made their religion unique to begin with. I remember reading about Jesus destroying decorations at a Jewish temple for its vanity and corruption, yet this sort of thing flourished under the Catholic church.

Firstly, the version you heard was wrong. Jesus went into THE Temple, his Father's House, with a whip and overturned the market stools and the tables of the money changers. What was happening was that people were buying goats and chickens to sacrifice in the temple rather than bringing their own and they were changing their Roman money in Shekels to donate to the Temple. So the sacrifices were not valid because they had no meaning to the individual and the money lender were taking a cut when changing the money and so profiting from others' supposed piety.

At a more basic level it's exactly like you walking into your father's house and finding a bunch of shysters holding a market, you'd kick them out.

This has nothing to do with the decoration of the Temple and indeed Jesus never said anything, so far as I can recall, about the extravagant decorations of the Second Temple - there's nothing in the Gospel to suggest he didn't approve.

As to the Roman Catholic Church, I can tell you with some authority that for as long as there has been corruption in the Church the Church has made efforts to stamp it out, the practice of selling benifices (Church posts) and of pluralism (holding multiple benifices) was a problem throughout the Middle Ages, there were bad Popes who encouraged it and Good Popes who tried to ban it put this never had anything to do with the decoration of churches.

The difference is that as Christianity becomes more progressive, it becomes less true to its original commandments while as Islam becomes more progressive it reverts back to its pre-Caliphate pacifist tenets. Isn't there a verse on killing your neighbor if you see him working on Sundays...? I think there's more Old Testament to be found in The Bible than there is in Qur'an.

First off, early Islam is not Pacifistic - the Prophet made war. As to killing someone on a Sunday, that certainly isn't in the Gospels or Acts for two reasons. Firstly, the Sabbath in the Gospels is a Saturday as in Islam and Judaism and this remains technically true for Christians - but Christians worship on a Sunday because that is the day Jesus rose from the dead. Secondly, Jesus says quite a lot about working on the Sabbath (Saturday) and what he says is that it's fine. He gives the example of lamb that has fallen into a water troth as I recall, and makes the point that you have to pull it our or let it die.

I just looked this up though - apparently there's a few things in Exodus 35, but the Law does not apply to Christians because Jesus fulfilled the Law and thereby negated it.

Christians believe in the veracity of Exodus and teach from it but are not bound by it because it was not written by Christian Disciples or Evangelists.

How does a Christian embody Jesus? Do most Christians try to live by his lifestyle? Or have they brushed aside what made the religion unique for the most part?

Excellent question.

The answer to "how does a Christian embody Jesus" or, more properly, follow Jesus is usually "badly" but Jesus said that's OK so long as we love God and each other.

I don't see how my statement challenges that.

Well, if it's a sacred and inviolable text then presumably it all happened as described. Which means the Prophet married a 9-year-old girl (yes I know he didn't sleep with her on the first night) and had the heads of every man in a Jewish tribe cut off an enslaved all their women and children.

I'm sorry but this guy can't be repackaged as a Pacifist or a liberal thinker - he was a warlord and a diplomat, and a very successful one, but he wasn't Jesus or the Buddha or even Ghandi.