Arab/Middle Eastern Paganism

[Dayve]

Actually thats essentially false. Not only can you study other religions in muslim countries, but you can practice others as well. This is a verifiable fact, your assertion on the other hand is not, and as it is contradicted by my own statement can be safely assumed to be a bigoted opinion formed from ignorance and possibly fear - which may, of course, say something about you.

Foot

You can study other religions in a select few muslim countries, Egypt is the only one i know of where you can openly practice other religions (albeit at your own risk, they get frequent death threats and discrimination, i know because i knew an Egyptian Christian) but in most it's forbidden.

The Koran even says, i'm unsure of the exact words, that other religions and other cultures should not be tolerated or accepted, they should be conquered or destroyed.

I'm not bigoted or misinformed, although i do find islamic culture vile and barbaric, but that's because of their behaviour as of the last 1000 years and their worship of a pedophile, rapist murderer named Mohammed.

I once met a Saudi Arabian muslim through World of Warcrack, knew him on Teamspeak for about 6 months. When we first met i wanted to ask some very frank and possibly offensive questions about Islam, and i was the first Atheist he had ever met so he had questions too. I showed him various videos of beheadings, executions, women being stoned to death for 'crimes' we wouldn't even consider crimes over here, suicide bombings, torture, all the nasties from the religion of peace and love.

He told me the people committing those crimes were rebels and were following a corrupt version of Islam that they have created themselves. He told me he would never approve of killing even if the condemned had done something to really deserve it, such as rape or murder or whatever, and that prison is a more civilized and favourable punishment. He said that religion is secondary and personal and nobody has the right to interfere with somebody else because of what they believe in, and especially no right to kill or discriminate against somebody because they don't believe in the same god or gods.

He was possibly the nicest and most polite person i have ever met, if only more were like him. One night his father heard him laughing with his friends from the evil and barbaric west and destroyed his computer. He emailed me from a friends computer a few weeks later and that's the last we ever saw of him.

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However, this conversation doesn't belong on a forum like this. Perhaps eBaumsworld or some other such forum where swearing and offensive content is allowed. If any mods want to delete my posts that's perfectly fine by me, i'd fully understand.