[Kissaki]

Originally Posted by Abraham

One final attempt, but you really don't seem to be interested in a serious discussion:

I take it your goal is to change my mind, since you say this. Then you have failed to understand what the purpose of discussion is. Your words above deserve no further comment.

Please don't use my logic, I feel you somehow misuse it..
The Indian wars were no Christian wars, sanctionned by a Church to spread Christianity, but a power struggle about land. Christianity had nothing to do with it.

Exactly! Christianity had nothing to do with it. Nor did Islam's expansion in the 7th-9th centuries have anything to do with spreading religion. Was the Iraq/Iran war about Islam? Certainly not. Nor does modern Iran have any intention of spreading Islam. Fundamentalists want to attack the West (and Israel) to defend Islam.

Exactly. You hit the nail on the head and here we fully agree. I guess you know the inferior position of women and non-Muslims under Sharia. You probably also know about the 'rights' of 'infidels' under Sharia.

Covering up women and the treatment of women are actually not part of Sharia, but are cultural elements which have nonetheless passed into law. Also, in many Muslim countries you are allowed to go unveiled as a woman if you're a Western woman.

On an opposite note, you might have noticed that veils have been banned in schools in several European countries. But I guess this is ok, because they deserve all the restrictions we can impose upon them - but don't they dare tell us what to do!

and which covers all aspects of life. That's why KLM stewardesses have to wear feals when they leave the airplanes in Jeddah or Tehran and are not allowed to look men in the face. That's why an Imam complains with the Mayor of Amsterdam when he sees two gays walking hand in hand in the Oosterpark in Amsterdam and asks for a small Caliphate in Amsterdam!Completely backwarded and not my cup of tea...
So in the end non-Muslims are not allowed to do as they please.

Nor are Muslims in our countries. Though it may please you to think so. When we get to the bottom of things though, what seems perfectly normal here may seem backward there, and vice versa - it's a matter of cultural perspective. How can you expect people to act contrary to their cultural upbringing?

I am indeed talking about general or fundamentalistic Islam. If there is a difference, please point it out, because I suddenly feel pretty ignorant missing some major distinctions in Islam.

General or fundamentalist Islam, which is it? You can't talk about both in the same breath. Fundamentalist live by their respective holy books by the letter, but according to the modern usage, has a more aggressive and possibly violent interpretation. Muslims in general are just like Christians in general, though - they can't keep track of all the rules in day-to-day life. Even Christians who know their Bible by heart often forget themselves, and forget the most important aspect of their own faith: love thine enemy. Muslims are not robots - they have urges and feelings like everybody else. Very few people in this world have the willpower to put religion before themselves.

In conclusion: fundamentalists are in a minority in every single religion, because it's such a difficult thing to be.

Well, I just keep my eyes open.

How do you know?

Nonsense, Kissaki.
I'm using a very broad brush allright. The brush of Judeo-Christian Civilisation, which brought us - and went through - the Renaissance and the Enlightment and led to the prescious separation of State and Church that you clearly fail to distinguish from Sharia.

I nearly choked when I read the above. Judeo-Christian civilization is what necessitated the Reneissance in the first place! To give you a quick repeat history lesson, Reneissance means "rebirth". That should tip you off, right there. Rebirth of what? Of pre-Christian ideas and concepts, from which Christianity had reverted. Ideas and concepts, I might add, to which Islam had made absolutely priceless contributions.

We are now facing a religion of which 90% of the followers are having Dark Age convictions, and I am afraid the number is growing...

There are two kinds of statistics. Lies, and damned lies. I wonder where you got this particular one (I'm guessing "90%" is a figure you made up just now).

They will quickly have to adapt their religion to modern society, like some are desperately trying to do, or either they will get irrelevant with their backward thoughts about infidels, women, Jews, homosexuals you name it... or our Western society will become irrelevant.

In my cousin's daughter's kindergarten, there's a Pakistani boy who likes to wear dresses. His parents help him dress up. Real backward.

Our basic human freedoms are not a given but have to be defended every now and then. This is one of those moments.

Funny. That's just what the Muslim fundamentalists are saying. And I believe their way of life is under more serious threat than ours.