The Archbishop of Canterbury has lost his mind...

[Konovalov]

You know, when I look at what the Archbishop did and the whole furore and reaction that resulted from it I don't find it too dissimilar to the overblown controversy of the Pope's academic essay on Islam months back.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

I don't see that there's a need for action quite yet. Religious courts are there for non-criminal disputes for subsections of society. Whether there is a need for these is a different argument than this.
I suspect this mess is about the gaffe-prone Williams mentioning the S-word rather than any substantive disagreement.

Sharia law? Oh that's all about stoning rape victims, isn't it?

The general synod is wet behind the ears as this man has made a few gaffs in his time, I was referring in removing him from his post not locking him up.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by STEED

The general synod is wet behind the ears as this man has made a few gaffs in his time, I was referring in removing him from his post not locking him up.

Ah right right.

The synod is deeply split between liberals and conservatives. Remember the row over homosexuality a couple of years back? The international Anglicans are even more divided.
I think some of this mess is constructed from that divide in the church.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

Ah right right.

The synod is deeply split between liberals and conservatives. Remember the row over homosexuality a couple of years back? The international Anglicans are even more divided.
I think some of this mess is constructed from that divide in the church.

I may have strong views on law and order but even I would not push for a prison sentence, he hasn't broken the law.

Good point you made.

And now a Question for the man in question, what would he make of this.

Saudis clamp down on valentines

Religious police in Saudi Arabia are banning the sale of Valentine's Day gifts including red roses, a local newspaper has reported.
The Saudi Gazette quoted shop workers as saying that officials had warned them to remove all red items including flowers and wrapping paper.
Black market prices for roses were already rising, the paper said. Saudi authorities consider Valentine's Day, along with a host of other annual celebrations, as un-Islamic.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7239005.stm

I hope the PC thugs don't see this.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

An idiot to say it is inevitable, yes.

Remember that there are Jewish courts in use every day in Britain.

Just to give another dimension to this British-law-above-all attitude that seems rather common.

Beth Dins are almost unnown to non-Jews. Many do not evenknow they exist, inclduing me. Now that I know, I say they have to go as well. However, Judaism in Western nations never was missionizing and aggresively expanding, in fact severlly conttributed to the hosting nations, regarding arts, philosophy, science, education, cultural creation, and beeing Jewish in Germany and being German at the same time is on no way a contradiction. Beth Dins are mostly dealing with questions of divorce, and conversion, I meanwhile learned, and do not try to expand themselves onto others, non-Jews. - sharia on the other side holds a totalitarian all-pervading power that demands that all others miust act in a way so that Sharia and Islam is not offended, and rights are only accepted as far as sharia accepts such rifghts, and the freedom of speech is only valid so far as long as it is not beign sued to talk against Islam and Sharia, in which Islam again is offended once again. also, Sharia law cannot be picked apart and thus being granted valdity only in so0cmke of it's rules, in other snot, like it is done with Beth Dins. To think so means not to realsitically know what Sharia is. It is a non-modular, monolithic system designed to prevent any splitting, reformation, choosy picking, in order to safe Islam from being "perverted" this way. All or nothing at all, that is the motto.

Also, Sharia and islam stands for the slavery of females, supression of infidels, barbarism, inhumanity, medieaval blindness, stands for religious fascism, intolerance, draconic penalties, crippling of reason and intellect.

I can't see Jews in our nations and communities bullying the non-Jewish population, making trouble, aggressively demanding more and more concessions to Islam, soecial rights, and wanrting special procedures for themselves that even the european churches does not enjoy anymore today. Judging by it'S followers, Judaism and it's Jewish courts does little to nothing to missionize their social communities that host them. But Islam knows no self-restraints in all this.

So why again putting it into relation? Why again trying to raise a picture that it is not so bad, by relativising it? Sharia laws implemented in the West would be many, many times worse than the existing Beth Din (which also does injustice for example regarding certain implications of women trying to get divocres from their husbands, as i learned) . In Western societies there can and should and must only be one law, that is the law of the state and legislation. any other law of private corporations, private parties, relgious clubs, the Church, the Jews or Sharia is totally and completely unacceptable, and must be broken and replaced with the enforcement of the only law there can be in a society like ours where politics and religion are strictly kept separate.

Currently, Turkey Erdogan is visiting Germany. He used the opportunity to first demand school lessons being held in Turkish language, turkish schools and turkish universities bing established, teachers from turkey being send to Germany en masse, such schools and universities not as a symbolic institution of cultural exchnage like you often can see with an american university here, or even a planned german university in Turkey - he wants it to be a system covering all germany and becoming a second pillar of German education system alltogether. Next he realised that he worried the Germans by that, nicetalked it by superficially encouraging Turks (after 40 years) to finally learn German - and one setence later fired a whole broadside that they should not accept to become part of German society, but should remain Turkish, and should remain a Tiurkish community different from german society, and that it is a crijme against humanity to expect Turks coming and wanting to live in Germany to adapt to German standards "too much". Integration for him is only a worthless word. for him it means: getting a german passport, but staying turkish - in full. It means to have a german passport, but to vote in the lelections for turkish parliament (for the AKP, of course). urope shall not be left any chance of avoiding that, and that there shall not be an alternative for Turkey than just this. The crowds totally were enlightened with enthusiamsm.

Rememeber this is the same Erdogan who just months agaoi angrily wanrs the West to stop taling of moderate Islam and fundamental Islam - that would be an offence to every muslim, becasue there is only one islam, and the West should give up it's arrogant lecturing and manipulation of trying to play Muslims versus Muslims.

Currently, the turkish religion minstry already heavily interferes with placeholding associations in germany with german inner politics, finances the building of more and more and even more mosques, invests into segration and Turkish clture centres, provide aid to Turkish parallel societies, and directly undermines the demand for integration by the german state and the German population. They provide all imams that practically do not speak a word of German and do all service and preaching in mosques in Turkish, and rotate them in and out. Turkey makes lip-confession of training Imams in Germany under the German state's survaillance, it wants it'S own ministry providing these imams - outside the survaillance of the german authorities.

I giggled and laaughed when seeing it on TV, and felt a grim, gloomy satisfaction when thinking about Greens and SPD-people sitting ion front of their TVs: and seeng Erdogan getting all the cheers and applause you would expect "immigrants" (seeking to integrate into there new nation of choice) investing into their new "home". It was a worst case scenario of integration efforts needing to declare total and complete bankrupcty. Erdogan is an extremeol nationalistic and most fundamentalistic guy for whom Europe is islam's prey, he is very arrogant and self-convinced, and wants Turkey being in the lead to press it's claws deeper into europe, but I must admit he is clever and ruthless in his powerpolitics. For him it has economical benefits (at the cost of the EU), political power, but the main motive behind him is religion (the unwelcomed truth the EU does ignore with all determination it can bring up). He has estimated the weakness of the German politics totally correct, and used our own dmeocracy and free elections agaisnt us by making them the prferred choice of Islam to gain legitimation.

If somebody cannot see in how far this example has to do with the suggestion of implementing Sharia in Britain, I can't help such a mind anymore.

Just btw, due to a house fire in which 9 Turks got killed, turkey and its government immediately comparted chancellor Merkel with Hitler again, and that she is dscriminating the turks for not wnating them in the EU, and complained on racist arson, and all Germans being Nazis, and the imperial gestures and language once again gained such heights that I would give it a thought why we really must exchange ambassadors with that country any longer - we could happily do without turkey, that is for sure. It got leaked from police reports meanwhile that the wires were in bad shape, that it was tried to illegally draw off electric power from the town's electricity grid, and that the small girls that said they saw strangers putting up the fire got themselves trapped in so many contradictions and even descriptions of which they even did not know what they meant, that nobody believes them anymore anything. Most likely it is becasue those turkish families living in that house illegally played around with the electric wires that already were in bad shape, and thus caused the fiore themselves. I doubt that politicians will find it easy to talk that out in public if it turns into the truth being proven. the temptation to avoid conflict with turks again by just making the bad wires responsible, must at least be very high.

[VipertheSniper]

Originally Posted by STEED

I may have strong views on law and order but even I would not push for a prison sentence, he hasn't broken the law.

Good point you made.

And now a Question for the man in question, what would he make of this.

I hope the PC thugs don't see this.

Well Valentine's day is un-Islamic... after all it's a reminder of the christian martyrs, can't have that in an Islamic country...

Sure the way it's celebrated today is purely commercial, I guess most people don't even know why the Valentine's day is named Valentine's day, but the origins are christian and I guess that's what ticks off them Saudis.

Maybe they could call it Suicide Bombers day in Saudi Arabia and worship their "martyrs".

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by VipertheSniper

Sure the way it's celebrated today is purely commercial, I guess most people don't even know why the Valentine's day is named Valentine's day, but the origins are christian and I guess that's what ticks off them Saudis.

Maybe they could call it Suicide Bombers day in Saudi Arabia and worship their "martyrs".

Or they could worship me - Valentine's day is my birthday, and i am certainly not suspicious of being a representative Christian.

[Tchocky]

Originally Posted by Skybird

So why again putting it into relation? Why again trying to raise a picture that it is not so bad, by relativising it?

I'm not trying to make any relativist point, nor any comment on specific religions.
Just that there are already religious courts in the UK, so this is not a new thing.

[Skybird]

[quote]The archbishop of Canterbury has proposed a partial introduction of Islamic Shariah law in Great Britain. This is yet another step on the part of the Western world to subjugate itself to a Muslim immigrant minority unwilling to integrate.

In the autumn of 2006, the Dutch were dismayed over a book that had been published by the country's then justice minister, in which he speculated over the introduction of Shariah law in the Netherlands.



"How can this (the introduction of Shariah) be prevented legally?" the minister wrote. "Simply calling it 'impossible' would be scandalous. The majority counts. This happens to be the essence of democracy."

If two-thirds of the Dutch public favored Shariah, the minister argued, its introduction would be unavoidable. Forced onto the defensive, the minister explained that his comment had merely been a reference "to the democratic principle" that a two-thirds majority is all it takes to amend the country's constitution.

At the same time, of course, he criticized the ongoing immigration and integration debate. "I don't like the tone of the political debate," he said. "To say: 'You must conform and accept our norms and values as your own; be reasonable, do as we do,' doesn't conform to the way I think things should be handled.'"

But the minister neglected to explain exactly how he thought things should be handled. His omission only reinforced the impression among many in the Netherlands that what he really meant was that it is not the immigrants who should "conform and accept our norms and values," but the Dutch who should conform to the norms and values of immigrants.


In the summer of 2007, Tiny Muskens, a liberal Catholic and the former bishop of the Dutch city of Breda, proposed replacing the word "God" with the word "Allah." Allah, he said, is a nice name for God and, for this reason, we shouldn't feel uncomfortable about referring to God as Allah.


A short time later, the Social Democratic mayor of Brussels, Freddy Thielemans, banned a rally -- scheduled to take place on the sixth anniversary of 9/11 -- to protest the gradual Islamicization of Europe. He also instructed Brussels police officers not to smoke or eat in public during the month-long Ramadan fast, so as not to offend Muslims. A bit farther south, in Zurich, police officers were asked to acquaint themselves with Islamic culture by voluntarily refraining from eating or drinking for an entire day during Ramadan.


How "Islamic Extremism" Disappeared

Meanwhile, the BBC announced a new policy on its Web site's "Section on Islam": Any mention of the Prophet Muhammad was to be followed by the phrase "Peace be upon him." The move, a BBC spokesman explained, was intended to ensure a "fair and balanced" portrayal of Islam.

It didn't take long before the British Home Office announced a new rule applicable to all official government statements: Phrases like "war on terror" and "Islamic extremism"" were no longer to be used. Home Secretary Jacqueline Jill Smith explained the reasoning behind the rule: Extremists, she said, act, not in the name of Islam, but in opposition to their faith. For this reason, she argued, their activities ought to be referred to as "anti-Islamic activities." Ms. Smith was essentially using a rhetorical trick to wipe terrorism off the table.

As is common in England, the minister's directive was accepted without much opposition. Only a handful of critical Britons were astute enough to ask why, in the days of IRA terrorism, the organization's activities were not referred to as "anti-Irish activities."

And now a British cleric wants to introduce Shariah in England. Mind you, this is not just any pastor from some tiny village in Wales, but rather the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church, Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury. According to Williams, Britain must consider the fact that some citizens cannot identify with British law. Accepting some aspects of Shariah, he argued, could help to avoid social tension. Under Williams' proposal, people involved in marital conflicts and financial disputes would be able to choose between British law and Shariah.
The archbishop could actually be right -- on a purely factual level, at least. It would indeed help to avoid social tensions if Muslims were not required to observe the aspects of British law governing marriage and divorce. Even a few non-Muslims might find this option rather appealing. A "temporary marriage," as is possible under Shariah, could certainly have many advantages, especially if "temporary" means only a few hours or days.


A Cafeteria-Style Society?

But the bishop is mistaken if he believes that one can structure a society like a cafeteria, where diners can choose between meat and vegetarian menus. A little bit of Shariah is just as unrealistic as a little bit of pregnancy. Shariah regulates all aspects of life, and anyone who proposes assuming only parts of Shariah fails to comprehend its inherent inevitability. Imagine if we were to allow nudity in public swimming pools, but only under the condition that each visitor be allowed to decide which article of clothing he or she wishes to remove.
The proposal by the archbishop of Canterbury is evidence of more than just an unbelievable naiveté. It also reveals how far the idea of preventive capitulation in the face of an unsolvable problem has advanced.

Proponents of preventive capitulation would argue that because some immigrants are unwilling or unable to accept the rules of society, society should assume the immigrants' rules. For them, "integration" could also be defined as the need for the majority to conform to a minority.


Voting under the Burqa

When the day comes when coeducation has been eliminated in schools and the burqa becomes mandatory for all women, when pubs no longer serve ale and female passengers have their own separate compartments on buses and trains, where they can feel safely protected against the lustful eyes of men, that will be the day when even the last opponents of Shariah will have to admit that social tensions have in fact declined. Those who live in windowless basements need not live in fear of getting sunburned.


What's next? Will women have the right to vote without having to show their faces? What a wonderful idea! Women being allowed to show up at polling places and cast their votes while veiled from head to toe -- provided, of course, they bring along two forms of identification and a witness who can vouch for their identity.


Not in England -- not yet, at least. But precisely that is possible in liberal Canada, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, whose titular head is the British monarch.

Henryk Broder
from: http://www.spiegel.de/international/...534772,00.html

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

I'm not trying to make any relativist point, nor any comment on specific religions.
Just that there are already religious courts in the UK, so this is not a new thing.

It is a different thing, and thus, it is new. sharia does not compare to Beth Tins as practiced currently. It's threat potential ranks uncomparably higher.

[Konovalov]

Skybird, Did you read the entire transcript of the Archbishops speech/essay?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Konovalov

Skybird, Did you read the entire transcript of the Archbishops speech/essay?

What are you aiming at? It was a long speech text that I had (in german translation) - if it was the complete speech I cannot say, they did not mark a proper start, and end of it. The essence of it was that he thought it to be impossible to avoid that parts of sharia would be implemented and made available for those choosing it - and exactly that is the misconception of shria, which canot be divided withiut violating islam most basic princiapl rules of not being avauilable for democratic, choosy picking of some, and some not, and he did not show a realsitic assessement of what integratioin means, and how such an act would be perceived from the side of Islam: a declaration of weakness, preventive obedience, and an invitation to push for more. Segragation, not integration.

[STEED]

And now for something completely different...................

The Bishop

[Konovalov]

Originally Posted by Skybird

What are you aiming at?

I simply wanted to know if you had either watched and listened to the speech or alternatively read the entire transcipt. Nothing more, nothing less. No aiming, no hidden this and that.

For those that haven't then this columnist piece from the UK Times may be handy: "I've read it so you don't have to".

EDIT: Forgot to add the full cream milk version in addition to the skimmed one. So here they follow below.

Full essay as given by the Archbishop of Canterbury which was the foundation lecture at the Royal Courts of Justice to lawyers can be found here.

Full transcript of interview given by the Archbishop of Canterbury on BBC Radio 4 World at One which was earlier that day before the lecture can be read here.

Finally the official press release by the Archbishop of Canterbury the following day in response to the furore that errupted can be viewed here.

[Skybird]

This is the part that raised rang my alarm bells firts in the german translation:

"The rule of law is thus not the enshrining of priority for the universal/abstract dimension of social existence but the establishing of a space accessible to everyone in which it is possible to affirm and defend a commitment to human dignity as such, independent of membership in any specific human community or tradition, so that when specific communities or traditions are in danger of claiming finality for their own boundaries of practice and understanding, they are reminded that they have to come to terms with the actuality of human diversity - and that the only way of doing this is to acknowledge the category of 'human dignity as such' – a non-negotiable assumption that each agent (with his or her historical and social affiliations) could be expected to have a voice in the shaping of some common project for the well-being and order of a human group."

And then I started thinking about what this would mean if terms like "dignity" and "freedom" and "diversity" would be used by two groups in totally different meanung, thus using the same word for different things, as I see it being the case with western culture, and islam. And as I already said, and other critics in the media made clear in ,much better verbal expression than I can, Sharia law is not of the lkind that accepts to be split into pieces, some of which you follow, and others you refuse. It's either all (you are Islamic, fully), or you are nothing at all (then you are a heretic to Muhammad's teachings and policies, or are an infidel, and both must be overcome). The Bishop makes a lot of intellectual gymnastics - but he lives in an isolated bubble indeed, having lost contact to reality and the object of his anaylsis., thus he is analysing his own fnaatsy of what it should be - but unfortunately is not. He wa nts to remain in control - by bending it to such degree that his tools and means and thoughts can manage the task, while in reality, it is beyond his abilities, and by far so. a typical example of ignoring the venomous snake in your house - and concluding that this is enough to ban the danger.

Nuts, completely. And nhow it coincides with the Erdogan visit and the furor it caused. Erdogan also demanded Germany to see the diversity of mankind, and aplying different rules to different people, instead of German rules for all people who wanrt to live in Germany. Summarizing it, Williams said: "We may all have the same passport, but we shall not fall under the same law." Erdogan said to the Turks in Germany whom he warned against adapting and assimilating, and whom he recommended to learn German only for their own opportunistic advantage, but to stay Turkish indeed: "You may live in Germany, but the Turkish nationality must be your guiding principle you must try to anchor in Gemran society." Or as a german newspaper put it: "You may live in gemrany, but I, erdogan, are your true prime minister." One good consequence erdogan'S arrogance has had: the rejection of a EU membership for turkey has grown significantly, while always having seen a majority of Germans being against it. He also has dmaaged the interest of Turks living in germany - that is why several different Turkish-german spokesmen rejected his proposals alltogether.

I must refuse your subtle intention to calm it all and declare it harmless, Konovalov. It isn't at all. Naturally, your sympathies towards Islamic interests are different than mine. that you rate it differently then, is natural. But that does make the bishop'S clever thinking not less divorced from reality.