Overall a great post, Abraham :up:

Those ME customs dont belong here, unless it's in a restaurant where it's part of the act, and I play along :)

I'm with you Abraham.

A Jewish friend of mine blesses pork before chewing it. :D

I have travelled to many regions of Africa, most of which today are in different hands with different borders, I was forbidden to enter Kenya with the lame excuse of being from the PLO, fine, Mr. Kenyan revolutionary, I won't spread my western influence, wisdom and knowledge to your local population and subvert them in the most basic revolutionary way. Really, I won't! That's the whole point!

In my trips to Africa and Indochina I've ALWAYS made an effort to keep a low-profile. I don't like being a tourist, it's not fun, unless you're looking to relax at a resort or enjoy common attractions or sites, but to me it is much more fun to reach out and touch the local population. In most of the globe I've visited I can go easily unnoticed, but on more sinister regions as Soweto, if you go as a tourist (good luck) you'll be looked down by the locals, if not with hate, but if you can bypass the book-cover judgement, then you can discover what Soweto is really like, the people, the land, the culture.

As a tourist, I could run to the airport or an embassy and escape at any time, I could insult and hurt the locals all I wanted and simply run away, I had my home to go back to, my safe heaven, I had no fundamental need to respect the local culture.

But I wouldn't do that if I understand I'm stepping on a land that is not my own, talking with people whom I share no bonds with at all, other than the spiritual one, as we're both Human, in a country which I have nothing to do with, the least I can do is respect the local population, learn and understand the culture and do my best to integrate.

The reward is unmeasurable. The smile on their faces, the long chatting afternoons that went deep into the night, being invited to their homes, to dinner with them, being welcomed into their lives, having the doors and windows wide open, it is a very special feeling to share with a distant "stranger" from a distant land, suddenly, it all seems so much closer, to home, to your inner self. It's a pleasure every person should be allowed to experience once in their life times. I mean, how many people can say they have a North Vietnamese General as a pen-pal?

Now, imagine an immigrant! Shouldn't the demands be even higher? A tourist can behave like me voluntarily, but an immigrant, he needs to make the foreign land his own, he needs to understand the foreign culture to be able to feel part of it, knowing or learning the language should be mandatory.

I believe so, using as an exemple the Japanese immigrants from the past decades. People from a different land, rich with culture and religion, no less than any Muslim, and they managed to immigrate without causing any cultural conflicts, their values matched perfectly with those of their hosts. During WW2 they were locked in concentration camps by many nations, yet, the past is left to the past, because revolving these corpses would bring nothing but problems, it doesn't matter, life goes on, there's a life to live and it's not in the graveyard. I'll end the comparison here, because it would be unfair to go further and remember Japanese immigrants brought with them technology techniques and agricultural know-how as Muslims can't be expected to develop such things under Islam and in the desert, so I won't touch that point.

But speaking of which, the only region I never visited was the Muslim world. Never felt the desire, my first contact with an Egyptian Muslim was at the Seine, he was pissing in the river. Now, that's not the problem, I would piss at the Seine anytime too, everybody should piss at the Seine even. Jokes aside, the only thing actually stopping me from pissing at the Seine is that it was not my home, it was not my river. Now, pissing on the streets is awfull, people must be remembered all the time we ditched the dark ages, we have better sewage than ever and we should confine our corporeal excretions to that system. No blame on the Egyptian, if the French pee in their own streets, how do you expect him to understand his custom is not actually acceptable and the French who do that are actually violating the law? When there's no one to set the example... If you actually forced Muslim immigrants to understand what they're getting themselves into, chances are they'd become better and more French than the traditional Seine-pissing Frenchmen.

Re: Good bye Europe
 

I fully agree with you. In fact, I would shake that person's hand if it will avoid embarrassing or insulting him, as that is much much greater prohibition in this case.

My point, however, was that you should not attribute this case to Islam's viewing women as inferior. You have other proofs for that but not here.
Even assuming I would not shake someone's hand under the circumstances, it is farfetched to state that such an act alone indicates I am intraverted within my own subculture. That is a totally unproportional description.
I have never heard this one. Logically, that would mean that same-gender handshakes should be forbidden, too. This is certainly not the case in Judaism. Please enlighten me if you find a source for this explanation in Islam.
The gentlemen is either a super holyman or he's cracked out of his wits. This never happens in all of the circles I am involved in, including what you call "fundamental" ones.
On El Al, they'd let him starve. And other strictly Orthodox Jewish passenger's, knowing how out of line this is, would be disgusted and pipe up and tell him so.
I think I've responded to this point of norms and your case of abnorms.
An observant Jew who wants to eat non-kosher food is really wasting the opportunity by jumping with excitement over an airline meal. Poor fella!
In this case, the rules might and might not have been stretched. Furthermore, this ruling is based on other existing rules.
There is a strong opinion whether wigs are permissable or not but either way, it is not a question of stretching rules and laws but rather whether permissable or not.
Once again, no stretching of laws here - rather their application.
Well, Jewish history in Europe speaks for itself. In some places, especially in but not limited to Eastern Europe, strictly Orthodox Jews were often limited to living in Ghettos.

But for the most part, even such Jews were farmers and tradesmen once they were permited to be. And they never worked en-masse on a basis of any religious commandments to overthrow or usurp a government.
All this for a handshake. Tsk. Tsk.
Once again, your claim is faulty. We women also greet with hugs and kisses. Furthermore, once upon a time the world wasn't full of homosexuals, as it is today - certainly not the Jewish world. Laws were not enacted when there was no concern for them.
Yet G-d put limitations on many things. This is a decree to enforce such limitations, plain and simple.

You don't believe in modesty? Fine? But your intollerant view of those that do is just that - intollerant.

Does this mean that this guy and some Israelis don't like Europe, or may not visit us?

Sounds like a good deal to me.

Tell that to Japanese men. :rotfl:

No problem. You're born there and you'll die there.

Live long and prosper.

Nice post, Abraham.

Just off here a bit.


I for one will be glad if the European union broke up, not only does it make less money than seperate countrys but also such stupid rules and laws that have to be impliments by all countrys, and most are contradictory.

I hate the E.U ive never supported it, i will never support it, the sooner it goes the better.

That makes two of us.
:up: :yep: :up: :yep: :up: :yep: :up: :yep: :up: :yep:

A sobering though steed for you.

We might have to one day pay Euro tax :o

You know, call me a cynic, but I wouldn't consider a site titled 'jihadwatch' to be the definitive, objective authority on the state of Muslim communities in Europe, anymore than I consider the suggestion that we're going to hell in a camelhair-weave handbasket as anything more than hysterical rhetoric by rather dull people with nothing better to do.

As I like to say:

Good luck Europe!

You're not a cynic. :nope: You're an ostrich. :yep:

I don't care if you want to close your eyes to the editorial and commentary content on JW's site but for heaven's sakes read the news items they link to, usually from established and accredited news agencies, with all of their faults.

If you've got something to refute against them, go ahead and spill it out.

I have a better idea. Study Islam. Read the Quran, Sunnas and Hadiths. Ignore me. Ignore JW. Ignore Skybird and other posters here. But do yourself a favor and get wise. Here's your starting point:

USC MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts. This site at the University of Southern California is sponsored by the Muslim Students Association in the US.

You have no more excuses. What you don't know will hurt you.

I agree with AL here, James. what AL or me is saying is not that important. Form your own opinion, don't just copy the opinion of others. That also means: do not simply copy opinions of mainstream medias which are far from being unbiased in this question but mimic a sociological motivation to make a stand "pro" Islam. Don't pick for small pieces of info about Quran or Hadith or whatever, that are ripped out of context, but do a substantial study of it. There also is a lot of academical analysis on Islam, which maybe is even more needed for a beginning, since the material is so diverse and self-contradictory. I was confused and was led to false conclusions in the bginning, 13, 15 years ago, I admit. Those academical works that are able to proove their conclusions by refering to evidence and historical facts you can re-check yourself are the ones you can trust, to some degree.

Do you think I travelled and worked in the Middle East that much because I am fascinated by the Orient? Far from that! I hate the area, really. But since I first learned about Islam, I felt threatened by it, almost by instinct, so I sat down and learned about it, and then wanted to see for myself, at location. Later it was also a lot of money involved, admitted, but that is something different. First, it seemed that my initial sentiments were not justified and that it all is better than what I feared. But later, now, that I have more distance to all that diverse input, and do not concentrate anymore on the actual single experience and prioritize it no more over the background of information already accumulated, but see it all in one big context, I had to massively correct my first (before travelling) and my second (during travelling, and some years after) conclusions. My motivation to find out about Islam simply is no fascination for the Orient, but an attitude like "know your enemy". As I see it you probably do not know enough about it to form an opinion on whether you would want to see it as friendly or hostile to your society. So indeed, AL is right, do yourself a favour: start to learn, and trust nobody. you will not hear much positive about Islam from me, that is true. but keep in mind: you also will not hear much negative about Islam from Muslims and their representatives. Islam is extremely weak in terms of critical self-evaluation and self-honesty.

It was a stoney road for me to come to my final complete rejection of Islam. I had been positive baout it, I had been neutral about, I have been (and still are) negative aboput it. Do you think you can come to a comparable substantial evaluation with lesser effort?

I makde some assumptions about how much you have studied Islam. If these are incorrect, please tell me and accept my apology then.

There's more to it than meets the eye :shifty: check your PM box :yep:

red and understood finding now.