Seriously, dude, what the f?

How in the name of f are the numerous dead in the wars of Afghanistan and Iraq evidence for concentration camps for europeans in any way, shape or form?

You are making no sense, unless you start doing so I will concider you to be trolling this thread and will not reply to you any more.

Take deep breaths men. This is not worth getting worked up over.

One point that the 'muslim menace' scaremongerers overlook is the dilution of religious extremism generated by Western European society. I think this is also in effect in the US, but possibly less so. Let me explain.

The pattern in Western Europe over the past century or so in inescapable - increased freedom makes societies more secular. There are a lot of varied reasons for this which I do not propose to go into, but the effect is not in doubt. This is clearly relected in the increase in the number of atheists and agnostics in those societies. Combine this with many others who claim to be christian, but never attend church, which effectively means they are non-practising and therefore effectively secular too.

Unlike the scaremongerers, many of whom wouldn't recognise a muslim if they fell over one, I know many muslims who have been part of English society for a long time. Interestingly, the trend towards secularism is present there, too. They do not pray twice a day, many don't pray twice a week, don't attend mosques, and observance of muslim festivals is also in the decline in such groups.

I have no definitive proof, but mark my words, western democracy is considerably more robust that most people think it is. It is religious doctrine in all denominations which is under far greater threat in the long run, and it it precisely the fear of this that encourages religious extremism. Thus the radicals should not be viewed as an unstoppable force which will destroy western society, but as the last gasp of an outdated ideology struggling against their own inevitable decline.

Take a look at the long term from say 1880 or so - the trend is inescapable - the secular west is winning the fight.

Sorry Clive, you don't have to attend church to be a practicing Christian. You do have to attend church to be a practicing Catholic or a practicing (insert Christian religious sect here) but not to just be a Christian.

I think it is a sad state of affairs in Estonia and also in the rest of the Baltic nations. These countries do not IMO have to be the leaders in murders, robberies, etc. The US-led world powers have enough wealth to fix the problems in the Baltic nations many times over but decide not to do so.

Finns haven't done much to help Estonia, they mostly use Estonia as a cheap place to get alcohol and prostitutes from. Now I don't blame Estonia for this, I blame the Finns.

As for the concentration camps, what is a concentration camp. It is a place where the prisoners don't have any rights. They can be tortured and also killed. The US has had concentration camps throughout it's existence. And you are going to guarantee that nothing of that sort has not happened and will not happen?

I know, August, but what I meant was that many people who say that they are Christians are actually stating that they believe in a god, as opposed to being atheist or agnostic. To all intents and purposes they are conducting their lives in a secular manner. By that I mean that they do not practise their religion in private, either, if you see what I mean.

Perhaps I'm not explaining my point too well, but I'm talking about the sort of person who would state 'christianity' as their religion in a survey, but no more read the bible or pray than I do. Maybe different in the US, as I stated at the start of my argument above, but that is very common over here. The main point being that religion does not play an active part in their lives, nor do they see it as a part of who they are as people. Obviously I am generalising, but do you see the idea?

What this means is that to view the number of Christians in the UK, as measured by the National Census, for example, is actually overstating the real numbers in practice (in both senses of that word), to the extent that the secularisation of the UK and Western Europe is highly likely to be far greater in reality than the statistics show.

I hereby nominate this for the Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf Unintentional Comedy Post of the Year.

Amen.

See my above point, heartc. But this is a minor point of contention which is distracting from the main thrust of the argument. By any measure you care to use, Western Europe is continuing to head in the direction of secularity which began in the 19th century, and the general picture is that, for want of a better phrase, that the fundamentalism of religious groups incorporated into those states are gradually being diluted as a result. Gradually the followers of a religion tend to move towards a less rabid position, and increasingly away from religion altogether. Whether you believe that to be a good or bad thing, that does appear to be happening.

The problem is, of course, that this is not good copy, so the media would far rather put fundamentalists and supporters of terrorism within those states on their front pages, which tends to perpetuate inaccurate perceptions at the expense of what is actually occurring.

I see your point but a native European has a lot of other non religious social and cultural ties that bind him to his country/region whereas an immigrant from a non European country does not. This might make the immigrant more likely to cling to his culture and religion.

What in the blazes are you on about? How does anything you have said have something to do with concentration camps? :damn:

Note: No one denies it has happened. It most likely will not happen again in Europe.

Also, have you ever thought that maybe perhaps Europeans might not go into your "camps" like sheep? Perhaps no one has told you, but countries outside of the US also have organized militaries.

Can I sig both these?

Are you reading with your eyes or like, using the force like Luke Skywalker? I'm talking about US concentration/extermination camps, as a German I'm sure you know what I mean when I talk about concentration camps, work camps and extermination camps. They are different things, you know.

And as much as I'd like to believe that European militaries have any kind of significance in the future, I am very sceptical that they will. It's just Finns and Greeks who have any real type of militaries based on a proper conscription, the rest of Europe has already chickened out.Through NATO US is able to give orders to any European nation that belongs to it. Already European NATO-countries are losing soldiers in the disastrous debacle that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are.

What are you saying? THEY are after me? :shifty:

You are aware that conscripts are more reluctant to fight than lets say volunteer armies, especially in modern warfare where it gets more and more expansive to train and maintain standing armies?

You might consider the Finnish Defense Forces proper armed forces, but unfortunately, and no disrespect to our resident Finns, you can't do much with just 37,000 active soldiers and 350,000 reservists in modern warfare (if you are being invaded that is). Unless you plan to use them all up in Guerrilla Warfare where you basically can say 'good bye' to all your heavy weapons and hope that your enemies get fed up with this before you run out of men.