On 12/13/09 17:14, Warp wrote:
> Gilles Tran<gil### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>> Problems with minarets: zero.
>
>    You deliberately fail to consider the *symbological* meaning of minarets,
> especially considering the teachings of islam with regard to non-islamic
> people and countries.

1. What do minarets have to do with the teachings of Islam with regards 
to non-Islamic people and countries?

2. You're suggesting people should pass laws that criminalize acts for 
/symbolic/ reasons?

>    You don't have to hear what muslim religious leaders and scholars are
> teaching from "racists" and "xenophobes". You can hear it from themselves.
> And it's not something which they are exclusively teaching in their own
> home countries, far from here. It's something which they are teaching in
> mosques right here, in Europe. Just watch that documentary about people
> who actually inflitrated British mosques to see what they were preaching
> there.
>
>    But of course it's so comforting to ignore such things.

	What Gilles said was factually correct. I'm not sure I see how your 
statements above are responding to what he said. He even acknowledges to 
a degree:

"If the right-wing party behind the referendum had been talking about 
actual Islam-related issues, it could have made some sense,..."

>> It's a completely bogus
>> controversy fueled deliberately by off-the-shelf xenophobia. It's a frigging
>> shame to see that in 2009 in Europe.
>
>    You, my friend, are a victim of multiculturalist propaganda. You have
> swallowed hook, line and sinker.
>
>    The reason why many Europeans dislike islamic cultures is not xenophobia.
> If it was xenophobia, they would dislike other foreign cultures with the
> same fervor. Most of these people who dislike islamic cultures have absolutely
> no problems with, for example, Chinese, Japanese, Indians or South Americans,
> even though their cultures are religions are often radically different from
> the European ones.
>
>    No, the reason why islamic cultures are disliked is because of how those
> cultures view basic human rights, such as their attitude towards women and
> sexual minorities (such as homosexuals), their attitude towards other
> religions (see, for example, how many religions are allowed to be publicly
> preached in the core islamic countries of middle east), and their attitude
> towards the basic concept of constitutional freedom, such as depicted here:
>
> http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/muslimprotest.asp
>
>    These Europeans also dislike the fact that so many muslims are offered a
> place to live and work, yet these muslim start making obnoxious and
> ridiculous demands instead of respecting their hosting society and culture.
>
>    For example Chinese, Japanese, Indian and South American people living
> in Europe do not behave in that way nor exhibit such low views on basic
> human rights in such a grand scale, which is why they are accepted. In
> other words, those people respect others and know how to behave and be
> a productive part of the society they are living in.
>
>    Blaming the dislike of muslims to "xenophobia" is trying to obscure the
> real problems by replacing them with invented ones.

	Once again, why not enact laws that actually address the issue? That's 
what Gilles seemed to be talking about (as well as myself). The UK did, 
to an extent. Their anti-terrorism laws are more draconian than the 
Patriot Act here. As well as their passing laws related to forced 
marriages, etc. Holland recently passed similar rules with regards to 
new immigrants - forcing them to be informed of cultural aspects that 
they are required by law to accept (homosexuality, etc).

	One problem with your rhetoric here and in other messages is the 
overgeneralization - not just of Muslims but of Europe. What's 
interesting to me if that none of the articles I read on the issue 
(which, admittedly, was a few) actually properly addressed the concerns 
the Swiss had with Muslims. Sure, a few quoted the local population, but 
that's almost useless. If Muslims were such a headache for the Swiss, 
they should actually have a proper study demonstrating the problems. And 
I mean a proper poll/study - not random news events here and there (or 
even worse, blog posts). As a third party person, I don't even know what 
the fuss is - other than it's not exactly noise, which people - 
including the Swiss - keep bringing up. Whenever I see a discussion of 
this on the Internet, the examples of bad Muslim behavior are from 
France, the UK, Holland, Sweden, and occasionally Norway and Denmark.

	Sorry, I won't generalize Muslims from all these countries, for the 
same reason that I don't look at all the non-Muslims from those 
countries as similar. The (national) cultures in the listed countries 
above are so diverse, and they're also so diverse amongst *Muslim* 
countries. You're expecting me to treat Muslims in Europe as a special 
uniform group?

-- 
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Neeum Zawan wrote:
>     Funny that the same arguments could be used against Americans by 
> looking at a subset of their population.

It would be interesting to see how big a subset it really is. That argument 
goes out the door when it's actually a majority of muslims that feel that way.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
>     Except that the ones in Switzerland didn't make any such noise, from 
> the articles I read.

OK. I haven't followed the discussion. I was just throwing out ideas for 
consideration.

>     And you live in the US. Barring a small part of Michigan, have you 
> heard of minarets here being used this way?

I honestly don't remember even seeing a minaret in the USA. And as I said, 
occasional churchbells that could be heard for a couple of blocks on Sunday 
morning. (Actually, recordings of church bells, which I always thought was 
rather disrespectful to God myself. :-)

> they're pissing off the "moderate" majority, 

Have you evidence that the majority are moderate? I used to think that was 
the case too, until they actually took a vote in California and asked 
everyone "do you consider homosexuals sub-human" and a majority of the 
religious folks said yes.

>     You could see it either way.

That's a good point too.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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On 12/14/09 10:02, Darren New wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> Funny that the same arguments could be used against Americans by
>> looking at a subset of their population.
>
> It would be interesting to see how big a subset it really is. That
> argument goes out the door when it's actually a majority of muslims that
> feel that way.

	Let's get precise. What is "that way"?

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On 12/14/09 10:07, Darren New wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> Except that the ones in Switzerland didn't make any such noise, from
>> the articles I read.
>
> OK. I haven't followed the discussion. I was just throwing out ideas for
> consideration.
>
>> And you live in the US. Barring a small part of Michigan, have you
>> heard of minarets here being used this way?
>
> I honestly don't remember even seeing a minaret in the USA. And as I

	They're in your own state, for crying out loud!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarets_%28California%29

	OK - Joke aside, I have no idea how many there are in the US. A Google 
image search for mosques in the US reveals a bunch.

>> they're pissing off the "moderate" majority,
>
> Have you evidence that the majority are moderate? I used to think that

	"Can you prove you didn't commit the crime?"

> was the case too, until they actually took a vote in California and
> asked everyone "do you consider homosexuals sub-human" and a majority of
> the religious folks said yes.

	Well, I see your point. The question then is how you define moderate. I 
don't generally subscribe to the viewpoint that if someone has a major 
flaw in one aspect, that you generalize to terms like extreme, moderate, 
etc. When I used the word, though, I was referring to violence.


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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 12/14/09 10:02, Darren New wrote:
>> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>>> Funny that the same arguments could be used against Americans by
>>> looking at a subset of their population.
>>
>> It would be interesting to see how big a subset it really is. That
>> argument goes out the door when it's actually a majority of muslims that
>> feel that way.
> 
>     Let's get precise. What is "that way"?

Well, in this case, it would be either that violence is an appropriate 
response to criticism of your religion, or that Sharia should replace 
democracy as a governmental form in their current democratic country of 
residence.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> I honestly don't remember even seeing a minaret in the USA. And as I
>     They're in your own state, for crying out loud!

I had noticed that.  I'll note for our foreign friends that California is a 
pretty big place, even in mountain scale. ;-)

>     OK - Joke aside, I have no idea how many there are in the US. A 
> Google image search for mosques in the US reveals a bunch.

Yeah, but I don't remember seeing a minaret. Maybe I just never went where 
they're common.

>>> they're pissing off the "moderate" majority,
>>
>> Have you evidence that the majority are moderate? I used to think that
> 
>     "Can you prove you didn't commit the crime?"

Not at all. See Prop 8.

It should be trivial to set up a phone poll to ask these questions. You 
might get false negatives, but I don't imagine you'll get a false positive.

> When I used the word, though, I was referring to violence.

Sure, and I see a whole bunch of pictures of people holding up signs, and I 
see riots and people burning down buildings, and etc.

I don't know what percentage of muslims would do that given the opportunity. 
I don't think you do either. That's why I said the assumption that it's a 
minority is a bad assumption, as would be the assumption that it's a majority.

I thought the idea that there would actually be enough votes to modify the 
CA constitution to treat gays as sub-human would never have passed either.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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On 12/14/09 14:06, Darren New wrote:
>>> It would be interesting to see how big a subset it really is. That
>>> argument goes out the door when it's actually a majority of muslims that
>>> feel that way.
>>
>> Let's get precise. What is "that way"?
>
> Well, in this case, it would be either that violence is an appropriate
> response to criticism of your religion, or that Sharia should replace
> democracy as a governmental form in their current democratic country of
> residence.

	While many like Sharia, they don't view it in the absolutes that you 
do. The majority seem to say that they want both democracy and Sharia:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/104731/muslims-want-democracy-theocracy.aspx

	Here's a Gallup poll (perhaps the same one):

http://www.gallup.com/poll/28678/framing-war-terror.aspx

	Essentially, they found little links between the level of religiosity 
and the support for violence, and those who were against violence were 
against it for religious reasons, while those who were in favor of it 
quoted nonreligious reasons. Interestingly enough, the politically 
radicalized minority favored "democratic values" like freedom of the 
press more than their moderate counterparts did.

	(So, religious moderates are more likely to promote violence than the 
strongly religious? I guess we need to define these terms).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/26/radicalisation-european-muslims

	Quotes another Gallup poll of Muslims in France and Germany - the vast 
majority of which stated they were against violence against civilians 
(aside: It scares me that I have to point stuff like this out...). More 
importantly, """responses were not determined by religious practice - 
with no difference between devout worshippers and those for whom 
"religion [was] not important"."""

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8038398.stm

	Here, while democracy is not mentioned explicitly, it shows that in 
some European countries, a greater percentage of the Muslim population 
identified with that country than did the general population. For example:

"""German Muslims were also found far more likely than the general 
public to have confidence in the judicial system, financial institutions 
and the honesty of elections."""

	Although in this case it was 40% of Muslims, so who knows - perhaps the 
other 60% wants to overthrow the government and have Sharia. I'd like to 
see a study showing that, before I believe it.

	Here's a Pew Poll:

http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=253

	See the chart about what percentage of Muslims (including in some 
European countries) think about democracy.

	Now I don't particularly doubt that you could look and find opposing 
data if you focus on a certain geographic region. Ever watch the Hans 
Rosling TED talks? Everyone should. The point he makes in each one is 
that it's stupid to talk of Africans and Africa, because there's so much 
diversity that just about any statement one makes is going to be wrong 
for a big bunch - and often for the majority.

	The sentiment and arguments are not unique to Africans, obviously, but 
for any large group - and the number of Muslims exceeds the number of 
Africans, as do their geographic spread.
	
	Getting back to the main topic, as I said in another post, the really 
valid question that needs answering is about the behavior of the Muslims 
in Switzerland. That they may do funny things in, say, Malmo is irrelevant.

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On 12/14/09 14:11, Darren New wrote:
>>>> they're pissing off the "moderate" majority,
>>>
>>> Have you evidence that the majority are moderate? I used to think that
>>
>> "Can you prove you didn't commit the crime?"
>
> Not at all. See Prop 8.

	First, I presume that by invoking Prop 8, you're not talking about 
Muslims per se, but about religious folks.

	So let's talk about African Americans: 70% of them voted in favor of 
Prop 8 - a higher percentage than some religious groups did (e.g. 
Catholics).

	So you're willing to say that the majority of African Americans are not 
moderate?

> Sure, and I see a whole bunch of pictures of people holding up signs,
> and I see riots and people burning down buildings, and etc.

	The majority of them do this? I wonder who runs the schools, police 
force, hospitals, etc? Would they have time to take care of those 
endeavors while they're busy rioting?

	If you merely want to point out that a big portion of them do this, I 
once again invoke African Americans, and point you to their really high 
over-representation in violent crimes in the US. In 2005, for example, 
normalized to their proportion of their population, African Americans 
committed more than 7 times as many homicides as their white counterparts.

> I thought the idea that there would actually be enough votes to modify
> the CA constitution to treat gays as sub-human would never have passed
> either.

	I'm sure the religious crowd would have been surprised as well, because 
that's not what happened.

	If you want to have a reasonable conversation, it helps if you don't 
editorialize by using words like "subhuman", because I'll be happy to 
counter-obfuscate.

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Neeum Zawan wrote:
> While many like Sharia, they don't view it in the absolutes that you 
> do. 

I never said anything about how I view Sharia. :-)

Those are good links. Thanks!

(Note that I never said it goes one way or another. I just said it's 
worthwhile to find out.)


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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