901. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239111 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 4:39 am

*chuckles*

You're pushing at an open door there, Fanusi.

You are suggesting, or at least appear to be suggesting, that I support the Chamberlain alternative. I don't.

Sorry. I'm in a vile temper today. I'll respond to your post later on, but for the moment, sorry about that.

902. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239106 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 4:10 am

Hungarianelephant,

1) How am I erecting a straw man? We know what the alternative was, because we had lived through it.

2) I fail to see how the numerous times when it would have been easy to stop Hitler, are irrelevant to the discussion.

3) How can we not apply that historical precedent to the Jihad? Two examples. One, in the matter of the Sudan, the US decided to listen to international howling, and go the UN route, and send inspectors etc. etc. As a result of which, everyone has been killed. So much for 'Never Again'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAhwgQ2HoF0

Also, we seem to be willing to let Iran's lunatic theocracy develop nuclear weapons. Welcome to the end of the world.

903. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239094 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 3:36 am

Sargeist, with respect, we know how it would have gone, for the simple reason that we have the actual goddamn documents from the Kreislau and from the OWK and from the cowardly Chambelain government, and we know that Hitler himself wrote that if he'd been stopped at the Rheinland, that would have been it.

904. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239089 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 3:30 am

hungarianelephant do you prefer the alternative? Yes, there'd have been a war - a brief, decisive war and that would have been that. And you are missing the other cases that I mentioned, including the fact that the OWK wanted to settle Hitler's hash many times, but was let down by the cowardice and moral failure of the Chamberlain government.

905. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239081 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 3:07 am

MPhil those that sneer at greatness only reveal their own smallness, as is illustrated amply by this nonsense:

I completely agree - but my opposition to such metaphysical, absolutist bullshit like "pure evil" and "good and evil" stands. It is this thinking that makes fanaticism of any kind even possible - religious or political. This thinking that made the atrocities of Nazi-Germany, of Mao and Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge, the Taliban

I don't even know where to start. Everyone and his brother knows that if Hitler had been stopped at Munich, that would have been the end of it. But there's more: when Hitler moved his troops into the Rheinland, the Oberwehrmachtkommando was so appalled that if there had been two platoons who stood in the way, they'd have deposed Hitler then and there. They also, along with members of the Kreislaugruppe, flew to London - and can you imagine what kind of a risk that they took? - and said: "We can decapitate the regime, take out Hitler, stop this madness right here and right now, but you have to guarantee that an attack on Czechoslovakia means war. They were told 'Forget it. We can do business with Hitler'.

And still more: time and time again, the Germans could have stopped the coming horror, but that would have required moral clarity and the courage that gives. The White Rose, three students who alone stood against the Nazis, wrote the following:

If everyone waits until the other man makes a start, the messengers of avenging Nemesis will come steadily closer; then even the last victim will have been cast senselessly into the maw of the insatiable demon. Therefore every individual, conscious of his responsibility as a member of Christian and Western civilization, must defend himself as best he can at this late hour, he must work against the scourges of mankind, against fascism and any similar system of totalitarianism. Offer passive resistance - resistance - wherever you may be, forestall the spread of this atheistic war machine before it is too late, before the last cities, like Cologne, have been reduced to rubble, and before the nation's last young man has given his blood on some battlefield for the hubris of a sub-human. Do not forget that every people deserves the regime it is willing to endure!

Edmund Burke wrote "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." And the genius of Evil, in all times and places, has been to get good men to the point where they will do nothing, by undercutting and destroying their moral sense, their certainty of righteousness. That is what needs to be combated.

Want to really know what caused those nightmares, MPhil? It's you, bucko. It's your fatuous, simpering assertions that there's no such thing as good and evil, that such a view is 'simplistic', that to take right action in a moral course is immoral. It's you and your kind that let the Nazis rise, that stood by in silence as the Khmer Rouge massacred its population, that howled down every warning as nation after nation fell to the darkness of Communism, and is now doing the same with regards to the spread of Islam.

Evil men will always exist; there will always be someone who is willing to pick up the weapon of fanaticism and enlist it in the service of Evil - of the enslavement, degradation and destruction of mankind. And if that is true, then it will always be necessary for there to be men who will do the opposite: who will embrace fanaticism, but on the side of what is right.

'Fanaticism' is ethically neutral. A fanatic is one who places a cause or a value above even their own life. The suicide bomber is a fanatic. So's the marine who throws himself on a grenade to save his troop. When Nelson Mandela said he'd die to see South Africa free, he was acting as a fanatic - and he was right to do so. He was given his courage by the clarity of his moral insight.

So, better learn the following lesson: As long as there are those who are willing to kill to enslave mankind, there will need to be those who are willing to die to set them free.

906. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239073 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 2:44 am

Can we include Saudi Arabia in there, too, please? Though I am not sure if they are evil or just galactically stupid.

You're pushing at an open door with me Sargeeist, I was just referring to what we might call 'the canonical three'.

I think we do agree, also the need for action but with such a blunt approach, I do fear for our future sometimes

Chris, I'd characterize it as less 'blunt' as 'muddle-head and wildly inconsistent'. You can't go around saying "Islam is a religion of peace" and then wage a war on those who practice Islam's central tenets.

Incidentally, and I realize that this is controversial, but I think that the dumbest comment coming from the Bush administration wasn't actually said by Bush, but by Condi, who, in reference to the Sunni-Shia fight, said "The just need to go over it".

The thing that really makes the whole mess so unworkable is that, by and large, political opposition to the Bush administration seems to come in two flavors: gutless and mendacious. As regards 'gutless', I'll refer you to Bill Maher's comments on the democratic politicos. As regards mendacious, consider the horrible Moore-Chomsky-Galloway triarchy, respectively a crude propagandist, a subtle propagandist, and an outright pimp and whore to fascism. The central message of this horrible crowd is completely disconnected with morality and reality.

On the other hand, no-one was willing, once it was clear that war with Iraq was inevitable, to ask the following questions: "The British, in a very similar manner that you are proposing to do, tried to pull Iraq into the modern age. They failed; what are you going to do differently? Why do you think that the millennial conflict between the Sunni and the Shia be resolved? And do we really want it to be resolved? After all it drains away the Jihadist resources from the conflicts elsewhere. I understand supporting the Kurds, but given the cult of Arab supremacism, how are you going to prevent the Arabs from slaughtering them again? And what are you going to do for the religious minorities? Is this Wilsonian business the best way to spend our resources, especially at the time when we need to plan for a long war? Wouldn't it be better and cheaper to restrict ourselves to removing Saddam and freeing Kurdistan, and then redirecting our resources to the Sudan, where we could gain some real allies?"

And so on. If the opposition had made that case, I'd have applauded them, and they'd have sliced-and-diced the Bush team. We didn't hear that; we got Moore's minutemen, Chomsky's piffle, Galloway's praise for Assad, 'no blood for oil' and the rest of this masturbatory nonsense.

907. Atheists: The Last Political Outcasts

Comment #239038 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 29, 2008 at 12:07 am

It would be nice to think that Obama might be elected because of his merits rather than as a token gesture to 'greater inclusiveness'.

Oh, absolutely! His merits, such as... er...

Help me out here?


Anyway, more broadly, I remember that Christopher Hitchens pointed out that the intellectual muscle of the Left was principally religious (Martin Luther King & so on), while the muscle on the right was principally atheist (Ayn Rand being example number one).

Well infact Atheists are just that bit more intelligent. We can see the shades in between without resorting to comic book notions of captain good and doctor evil....tsk. Or more accurately god and satan lol. For example, labelling the middle east as an "axis of evil" I mean come on! your one step away from labelling it "THE LAND OF MORDOR" in a scary voice........

*sighs* and this is why religion has returned with a vengeance - because of this perception that atheists are a collection of amoral, unprincipled types, so suffused with relativism that they are unable to see good and evil. The fact is, and regardless of whether or not you agree with the whole axis of evil thing (I have my own reservations), the governments of Ba'athist Iraq, Iran, and North Korea are pure evil. There's no other way to describe them.

Oh, that doesn't mean that there was not a much better way to handle the current situation. There were many arguments against, say, this Wilsonian adventure in Iraq (the basic incompatibility of Islam and democracy, the millenial Shia-Sunni conflict, etc.). But they weren't made; instead fatuous 'anti-War' types decided to snigger over such gauche terms as good and evil, and removed themselves from the discussion.

You can't end up with something like the Bush administration without a little help from the opposition.

908. B.C. health official says mumps outbreak began with unimmunized religious group

Comment #238321 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 28, 2008 at 1:46 am

I should like to know which particular 'religious group' was behind this particular insanity - though I think I can guess.

It sounds suspiciously like the way that polio is once more spreading throughout Pakistan ever since certain Imams declared vaccination haram.

909. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237899 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 27, 2008 at 11:43 am

Nairb, two quick points before I need to return to my astronomy.

1) Could you drop this term 'fascist' unless you can explain the hows and wherefores? Yes, fascists practiced deporation. So did the Czech's when they threw out the Sudetendeutsch. In fact, virtually every civilization in history has kept exile as a potential punishment.
Unless you can explain exactly why deportation of selected individuals - mark my words carefully, selected individuals, not an entire people - is an essential of fascism, kindly drop this nonsense. The fascists also built good motorways, something I'm also in favour of, but noone thinks that morally controversial.
In fact, you can read all fourteen characteristic of Umberto Eco's discussion of Ur-Fascism, and you will not find the use of exile as a punishment as a defining characteristic.

2) I have defined the crime very clearely indeed. It is as follows - public advocacy of the institution of Shariah, period. Punishment: permanent loss of citizenship and exile to a country of their choice.

Sorry if my tone is short, but I am tired and tired of repeating myself.

910. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237825 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 27, 2008 at 8:20 am

Now, unless you are a top ranking mathematician who is wasting his time on these forums bashing Islam, there is absolutely no way for you to get to the truth first hand. Your only option is to read what other mathematicians have to say about this dispute. In fact, you have no choice; you will have to go with what the majority of the mathematicians agree.

What you ignore is this: How are you to select which mathematicians to trust? Whose opinions will you select? And why should you accept the say-so of mathematicians?

Well, the reason - the reason, mark you - that I choose to accept, say, what I read in respected journals in areas that are outside of which my area of expertise, is that I have direct, first-hand experience of the way that peer-review works, of the integrity and honesty of scientists, and sundry other pieces of evidence that lead me to place my trust in these writings.

However, to best extent that I can, I don't accept anything of faith. I seek out the proofs for everything I can, not just advanced theories, but even the most basic ones. I've read Boyle's skeptical Chymist, and studied Lavoisier and learnt the proofs of the atomic theory. I've done similar things with the Germ theory, with the Theory of Evolution and so on.

But other fields sound more accessible and suddenly you see various amateurs spouting ideas, conjectures, solutions, proofs and "facts" without bothering to read the professional opinions. This is the problem I am addressing.

Then the answer to that is what you keep decrying - do the reading yourself, study, work and actually learn something. Check questions and propositions. Work, work, work.

My views on Islam that you so cavalierly dismiss as 'bashing' is the result of having solidly studied the subject - theology, jurisprudence, history etc.

So nuts to you.

I do not see why you bring up Einstein either. He received his diploma in physics in 1900, and PhD in 1905.

I have no idea what this even means or how it's relevant.

911. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237490 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 26, 2008 at 3:06 pm

Two points, Goldy, before I hit the hay:

1. I'd say, scientifically, race exists, and it's defintion is a group of common descent (in the same way we have varieties). Is there any significant moral difference between the races? No.

2. No, that isn't my source. The only time I read WorldNetDaily is when I'm in need of a good chuckle.

912. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237474 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 26, 2008 at 2:20 pm

*laughs* twp I think you must be the first person who has ever commended me for my patience.

913. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237473 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 26, 2008 at 2:15 pm

If I'm reading these comments by Nairb, & al right, they're saying that a Muslim by definition wants to tear down civilization and institute totalitarianism. Well, if that's true, then let's proceed accordingly.

However, in point of fact, it's bullshit. And I find it's extremely ironic, given that the complaint continually hurled at my head is that I treat Muslims as a monolith. Of course not all Muslims want to practice Islam in its totality, in the same way as many Christians don't practice Christianity to its full.

I've said this - umpteen times now - that we couldn't investigate everyone, though we could investigate potential troublemakers, and we'd get the worst of them. Yes, there'd be those who lie and hide their convictions and are driven underground - are we safer now when they can scream their intentions at the top of their heads and openly proclaim their intentions?

When those underground cells were discovered, we'd have the mechanisms in lace to deal with them.

914. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237447 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 26, 2008 at 1:51 pm

Renouncing Sharia would be seen as renouncing the Koran would it not, given that that is what it is based on?

With respect, that's their problem, and I really couldn't care less.

The fact is that, in the UK for example, only about 33-40% say they want Shariah. We can't deport them all - from a simple practical perspective, because we can't know who they all are. What we can get are the ones who really mean it, who stand up and say they want to replace the constitution with the Shariah - Abu Haza & so forth. We can get them, deport them, bar them from ever returning, seize their mosques and holdings and tear them down.

That is the way such a ruling would work. And that is both right and just. It would also act as a deterrent for violent bigmouths.

915. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237437 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 26, 2008 at 1:23 pm

This is quite different.
So you will not ask them a vague question like do you support Sharia?

They must express the will to change/overthrow the essential elements of the constitution?

Of course. This is the point I have been making continuously. When the renunciation of Shariah is required for citizenship, you can these goons and throw them out. You can also stop the relentless encroaching of Shariah.

916. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237430 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 26, 2008 at 1:14 pm

Indeed we have, al

Multiculturalism is a giant, toxic lie. There has never, ever been a civilization in history that has been multicultural. Multiracial, yes, Multicultural no.

917. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237423 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 26, 2008 at 1:01 pm

Since we are discussing Shariah, the following article just came to my attention:

"Shariah courts ordering wives to be more attentive to their husbands needs"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2625090/Sharia-courts-rule-on-sex-lives-in-Britain.html

Surely, surely there'll be a huge outcry from the feminist groups about this, right? Right?

*crickets chirping*

Yeah, I thought so.

Nairb could I please, please suggest that you do some reading on the Hariah and on Islam generally, on what it is and what it has always meant for those who fall under it?

If sharia is the set of rules that muslims
a)apply as an internal reference
b)live out their lives according to
c)impose on others
Thats 3 different things before we get into what bits are interpreted strictly literaly or not.

So depending on what you ask them you may get wildly different answers.

This is purely hypothetical. In theory, yes, there might be this difference; in practice there isn't. Any form of Shariah leads to Shariah-supremacism.

Can you define clearly the question you would have to ask and give an idea of how many would fail the test without coercion?

*dryly* I wouldn't bother to ask. It's simple: advocate replacing the constitution with Shariah and loose your citizenship. Period.

If its the guys spouting hate speech in the video - you can potentially already press charges based on incitement to hatred. You dont need to deport such people. The law takes care of it fine.
If you are afraid of proselitizing they can easily kept apart frpm other prison,ers if they are convicted of something.

You would need to keep them confined forever. In this case, deporation is both more merciful and more practical.

918. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237264 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 26, 2008 at 9:23 am

I just thought that was worth seeing again. While I have disagreed with you on many issues Fanusi I couldn't agree more with this. Exquisitely stated.

Thanks, J Mac. I always prefer someone who disagrees with me because of reason, to one who would take my words on faith.

919. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237254 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 26, 2008 at 8:59 am

The big lie is to tell everyone that they can reach the truth if they start reading or working. Truth is far more complicated than what a single human being can handle and at the end you will have to trust other people's professional opinions and because of that you don't get to have high confidence when discussing those issues.

I am tempted to reply with something suitably snide, along the lines of 'that may be true for you, but...' - but this is too important.

This is nonsense. To surrender the efficacy and power of your own mind is truly vile. The only verdict that is acceptable is that of your own reason, and the only way you can reach a verdict is by using it and seeking the best evidence available to you.

Without reason, quomak, how are you going to decide which of these professional reasons to trust? If it's all too complicated for a single human being to handle - well, on what grounds can you say that, since you're asserting it as truth and by your own words that can't be handled by a single human being, including yourself?

920. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #237126 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 26, 2008 at 12:04 am

Saying you can recognize good things as good and bad things as bad says nothing about the objective or universal nature of those judgements. It only shows that you can make such judgements.

J Mac, we were talking about the presence or absence of suffering, which included you critisizing the idea that slaves were miserable. I pointed out that you could just go and look and see the suffering for ourselves.

921. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #237125 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 25, 2008 at 11:46 pm

*groans* I wrote the list while rather tired. Number 11 is fixed - I mean 'strong, international alliances against the Jihad.

"make a European Islam (as a stepping stone to unbelief)"

But can that happen?

I'm afraid it can't, J Mac. Please, don't take my word for it - study the source documents yourself. Read the Qur'an, Hadith and Sira, and the history of Jihad and Dhimmitude.

Not so long ago I would have had similar views to many here. Then I started to learn about Islam.

I did read all. My point is different sects means different interpretations. Islam in the Koran is a set ideaology but the way it is read is by the followers is not - that's fluid. That's what we should tap into :-)

I'm sorry, Goldy, but as much as I wish you were right, you're not. None of these different sects is non-problematic from an infidel perspective, except for very small ones that are considered heretical. Hugh FitzGerald summarises it well:

July 30, 2008
There are fights within the world of Islam: fights between Shi'a and Sunni, fights by Arabs to suppress non-Arab Muslims such as Berbers, Kurds, and black African Muslims. There are resentments felt by the poor Arabs and Muslims for the rich ones. There is contempt felt by some of the "northern Arabs" of Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, for the "southern Arabs" of the sheikdoms and, especially, Saudi Arabia -- a resentment that may well merely be prompted by the economic disparity, but that is given a sheen of being about the supposed civilizational advance of the "northern Arabs" over the rude crude "desert Arabs" or "Beduin" of the Arabian peninsula.

There are also rivalries for power. Shall Mubarak stay or go? Shall he be succeeded by his oily gucci-loafered scion, or by the less corrupt, but likely more dangerous-to-Infidels representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood? Shall the Alawite dictatorship in Syria remain, or be replaced by a dictatorship of Sunni Muslim officers who, having slaughtered the Alawite generals, and allowed a certain amount of Sunni slaughter of Alawites in every one of their villages, now take over to enjoy the power, and of course the money that, in Muslim societies, is always obtained by the seizure of political power? And what princeling shall reign in this little sheikdom, and which one in that?

Oh, but that's it. There is no discussion of the Islam as an ideology. There is no attempt to modify, at all, the inculcation of a worldview that teaches hatred of Infidels, out of texts -- Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira -- bristling with hostility, often murderous hostility toward non-Muslims, and that offer a Total Belief-System that rests on an uncompromising view that a state of permanent war, though not necessarily of open warfare, exists between Believers and Infidels.

You can read the whole thing here:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/022004.php

It's sad, but it's true. This is a war against Islam, and it will be going on for a long, long time.

Nairb:

Firstly , would revoking citizenship imply also deportation?

Of course. And yes, Shariah is central to Islam, but no, that doesn't mean every Muslim wants it. This gives us the legal mechanism to get rid of those who agitate for Shariah. You find a group that wants to impose it, it looses its citizenship (you can start with those guys from the Undercover Mosque documentary).

Regarding Tariq Ramadan - I'll have to look him up, though I did hear something about that.

*groans* Bonzai, Goldy - there's actually been a book published about this guys doubletalk, about what he says to the West and what he says to Muslims. This is one more example of why it is so difficult to trust anything that gets said at face value. He's a dapper serpent.

Goldy, again...

So how come I don't hear of great Islamic problems in the US. I don't hear of US Muslims making a big fuss, not like in Europe

Well, it's because America is strong and Europe is weak. I wouldn't be too optimistic myself, given that about thirty-three percent or thereabouts of american muslims see a conflict between Islam & loyalty to the US constitution, and also little details like the shady connections of CAIR & the ICNA, and the Democratic party inviting Ingrid Mattson to the DNC, the ummah-loyal, terrorist-denying, Wahhabi-defending, caliphate supporting, jihad-defending nutcase. Read about that here:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022342.php

If that's what's out in the open, imagine what's below the surface.

Anyway, I'm going to leave it at that for the moment.

ADDENDUM for the benefit of quomak:

The little of Fox News I have seen is the clips of Christopher Hitchens laying the smackdown on Falwell & assorted religious idiots. I get my information from the source texts of Islam and when television comes into it, it's channels like Al Jazeera, Al Manar etc.

922. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236911 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 25, 2008 at 2:17 pm

So TWP , Fanusi , I would ask you to define more clearly your proposition so it can be discussed on its "merits"

Nairb, twp & I were kicking around ideas quite merrily. I'll summarise those I can remember at this point:

1. Make citizenship in the West contingent on renunciation of Shariah law. Then those - Hizb ut Tahrir, for example - who advocated overthrowing our democracies and replacing them with Shariah law could, quitely and firmly, be shown the door.

2. A total end to all Muslim immigration to the west.

3. Providing a safe-haven and asylum for all apostates and persecuted religious minorities from Muslim lands.

4. A total end to all aid to any country engaged in promoting the Shariah.

5. Heavy investment into a Manhatten-style energy project to get us off oil.

6. Failing 6, finding other sources of oil and trying to swing the world's major powers to embargo the Muslim oil states, and end the Money-weapon.

7. All mosques and madrassas in the West to be subject to random inspection and, if a clean bill of health is not given (e.g. hate-literature found), the mosque to be shut and its assets seized.

8. An international attempt to end the slave-trade, if not militarily, then by buying and freeing the slaves.

9. A vigorious campaign of cultural imperialism, to challenge and attack Islam on the air, on the TV, on the radio, on the internet, while conversely demonstrating the superiority of the Western way.

10. Trying to open the fault-lines within the dar al-Islam as much as possible. This invovles letting the Sunni and Shia tear each other apart, and also getting the non-Arab Muslims to understand that the root of their suffering is the Arab Supremacism that Islam has always been a vessel for.

11. Building strong international alliances against the Jihad.

Just in closing, I do wish people would drop this ridiculous term 'fascist', which is used without any respect for its meaning or evidence.

923. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #236896 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 25, 2008 at 2:03 pm

That is circular. You define immoral as that which causes suffering; you define suffering as that which you see as immoral.

No, I do not engage in circular reasoning. I define evil as that which causes suffering, misery and death, and I can recognise them by looking at them, in exactly the same way that a scientist looking at bands on a gel infers the presence of DNA.

I'm sorry, but if you can look at the rape squads of Mugabe - of men and women just torn off the road, and systematically violated, and beaten, and humilitiated , and having to watch their families murdered at times - if you can't look at that and see the human suffering that is being inflicted, then you've broken from reality. It's as though I was pointing at a painting, and you said it wasn't there.

All of our chains of abstractions are ultimately reducible to our sensory perceptions; it is those senses that are our windows into the world. It is the task of our reason to integrate them.

On what grounds can you call their societies hell? Their society is hell because they practice slavery. Slavery is wrong because it is used in hellish societies.

Have you taken a look at those societies? The rampant violence, the tyranny, and the stinking poverty? That is the basis of my statement.

As for circular argument, you are now trying to argue that slavery doesn't entail suffering - or that suffering and death are not evils. Well, this is just ridiculous.

There is one, and only one, way in which this is corect: this moral code is premised on a single choice, namely 'to live'. You may rephrase my comments as follows: "If life on earth is chosen, then the following is true..." This is the fundamental choice. If you choose death, then there's nothing anyone else can do.

And the sickening truth of the true monsters is that they really don't care anything for life, not even their own. They are creatures of death, and to destroy is their only satisfaction. This is what Christopher Hitchens calls the pornographic side of fascism.

924. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #236739 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 25, 2008 at 8:38 am

Ah, a welcome break from geology!

If you were the only human being left on this planet, then you couldn't have a moral code in the sense that we are all talking about here. Yes, you could know of a moral code, but it would be useless.

Not quite. What underpins all of the moral values I've just mentioned & is in itself my highest value? Rationality. In any world, I'd need to value reason, especially if I was alone on a world - I'd be completely dependant on my reason for survival. And I'd necessarily need to follow a precisely defined code of action - don't eat this, do eat that, plant now, etc.

But, precisely because I was discussing rooting morality in reason and science, I think it's pointless to speculate about other worlds. Our morality is way of living on this earth, and it is the nature of this world that determines that.

Let's take an example. Consider racism. Now why is racism an evil on this world? Because there is no significant moral difference between the races. Could there be a world where racism - discrimination based on race - was both moral and rational? Sure. It would be a world where there were significant moral differences between races - something like Tolkien's Middle Earth. If Middle Earth were real & you and I were born in it, it would be entirely legitimate to discriminate against orcs and trolls.

I'll rephrase what I said in comment #234956: "unfortunately we may never know what the right information is, but that doesn't mean it isn't out there to get at" to: 'unfortunately we sometimes don't have enough information, but that doesn't mean we should give up looking for it' (again, thanks Sciros).

Oh, I couldn't agree more. But that's the point I've been driving at - that it is possible to derive an absolute moral code, based on reason. Well, reason doesn't make us infallible, so we need to adjust to new data, and that's how we improve. I don't know who else here has read Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, but if you do, you'll find his blistering attacks on slavery and also on racism, which were based in the first instance, of seeing the miserable degradation that slaves suffered, and in the second instance by actually meeting black people (unusual in Victorian England) and reporting back: "Hey, they're just like us!".

I think we've nailed alot of the BIG moral issues already - slavery, racism etc. - and where there are 'grey areas', say, abortion, is where we haven't got enough data yet.

We can have these discussions, and look at the different effects of differnt moral principles & so on and derive an objective, scientific moral code. To take another example, I think that there are certain virtues - e.g. Justice, Honesty - that are essential to human life. If you're unjust and dishonest, you'll make a huge mess of your life, end up miserable, and you will also cause misery and unpleasantness for those around you. That's not moral and nor is it rational or practical.

925. Robot with a Biological Brain: new research provides insights into how the brain works

Comment #236708 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 25, 2008 at 6:22 am

This'll end well.

Don't these guys watch enough science fiction? The next thing you know they'll wheel in Davros.

926. Religion out of medicine, a new message for Ontario doctors

Comment #236675 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 25, 2008 at 4:05 am

But who is the judge, or what is the measure of "unbelievable human suffering." Particularly the criteria of "unbelievable" is clearly subjective. Human suffering we could attempt to quantify, but again it is still a subjective quantification. I suspect the muslims you refer to think they are relieving suffering by bringing others to islam or riding the world of the "infidel." While I have no sympathy for their cause I highly doubt that even the most extreme of the islamic terrorists see themselves as "evil." They think they are doing good.

Actually, they don't. There is no joy in Islam, nor humour. You can read the Ayatollah Khomeni on that.

Suffering can be objectively measured: you can look for signs like torture and rape squads (witness Mugabe, and Iran again), and famine, and material deprivation.

Death can be measured even more accurately. You can count the bodies. You can look at the slaughter of the Holocaust, for example, or the Gulag, or the famines in China. This can be objectively measured and then judged by the standard of human life and happiness.

While I certainly do not want to justify slavery Im sure the people engaging in it could justify it. They would claim that having slaves work the fields, or having that hierarchy and structure or organization actually minimized human suffering.

First of all, they didn't. The justification for slavery was that the slaves didn't count; in Rome, for example, it was the fact that they'd been conquered - tough luck for them. Aristotle started out by saying that some were simply born to be slaves (though, and I'm glad of it, given the admiration I have for the man, he ended by arguing for the eventual freeing of all slaves).

You can claim that the institution of slavery minimises suffering, but that's demonstrably untrue. Just look at the stinking misery of the slaves (slaves in Roman mines could last maybe a few months). And it isn't true for society as a whole. Compare our modern civilization with the hell of those societies that still practice slavery, or compare the state of development of the industrialized north that fought against the primitive, slave owning south in the Civil War.

That's why I say that morality - that is, a morality that is correct for human life and well-being - is both rational and objective.

The RSPCA banned all such use of dogs. The dogs and other animals could not be used for any labor purposes. So instead of dogs now people put children in the running wheels and attached the street carts to kids.

Exactly, and this is what always happens in cases of evil moral codes, whose defining characteristic is that they consider human lives as a means to an end.

In the "Undercover Mosque" documentary, I alluded to the facts that values are hierarchic. That is, any system of values assigns a lesser and higher place to individual values. Well, if you have the chance to trade a lesser value for a higher one, you do so. From that it follows, that if you place a value higher than human life, you will end up sacrificing human beings to whatever value you have exalted above them. In the case of religion, human sacrifice is conducted to a God. But it isn't just religions who do this. Communism sacrifices humans to 'the Community'. Nazism to 'the Race'. And Environmentalism sacrifices humans to environment, in the same way that the Aztecs tore out a human hear to appease the Sun. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

I'll expand on that last point. You gave one example, but there are many more, and many more hideous ones. Greenpeace blockaded food shipments to Zambia on the grounds that they were GM, causing thousands to starve to death. They try to prevent africans from using the coal and oil and uranium on which they sit, to exploit all of those excellent resources. They were behind the banning of DDT that has killed, what, eighty million? Something like that. They introduced the CAFE standards in the US that mandated more flimsy cars, resulting in higher death tolls of the individuals. And so on and so on.

Certainly slavery caused suffering, but I'd say that is not the relevant criterion. Did it cause MORE suffering than alternatives? Perhaps it did, but that is anything but obvious.

I'm sorry, but I'd say it's screamingly obvious. Even leaving out the minor fact of the sufferings of the individual slaves, those societies that practice slavery, in whatever form (see the USSR for a more modern form), stagnate and crash. Those that are more-or-less free, succeed. Why? Because they liberate the human mind, they let individuals be creative and build upwards.

927. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236641 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 25, 2008 at 1:14 am

*yawns and stretches* My, this list has grown long in my absense.


Goldy I am afraid, that when we are talking about the Shariah we don't mean something like the Beth Din courts, but something far more sinister. For the umpteent time, it was the Al Azhar that verified, in 1992, a Shariah manual that is supports the murder of apostates, waging of Jihad, the Jiyza, the institution of dhimmitude etc. etc.

---------------

Bonzai,

But they found Muhammad,--and the Saudi version too. There is something about Islamic doctrines that magnifies the worst violent instinct in people and it is a fundamentally horrible, totalitarian ideology.Why are you so afraid of giving it the recognition it deserves?

Precisely. Long expositions about this or that bad Western policy don't explain what just happened in the Sudan, or the slave trade, or honour killings, or the murder of Hindus or anything really in the long and vile history of this ghastly religion.

--------------------

Goldy,

I can't temper views that call for deportations of Muslims (not Islamists, note, Muslims) for the unfortunate cultural branding they got from their parents. You think these Muslims could go and convert to something else? Yeah, right! Immigration of the majority of them started just before I was born. Do you think their cultural practises change that quick? Even Kiwi Chinese who are 2nd or 3rd or even 4th generation are still Chinese here. We know Chinese living here who only meet pakeha like me when they work or visit our family (ie, meet me). As you point out, there are "China towns" in western cities. Why do you think Indian subcontinentals are any different?

Well, the fact of the matter is that quite a few from the Indian subcontinent - Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists - have no problem integrating and behaving themselves. It's just this one member of the human family that can't behave itself.

And there is no such thing as "Islamism". Sayyid Qutb added nothing new; the problem is Islam, what it teaches in the Qur'an and Hadith and the way it has treated infidels throughout its long history. That is the problem.

---------------------------------
Titania,

Muslim children who are living in Western democracies are the biggest hope for change in Muslim outlook, notwithstanding the British studies (cases) of second and third generation jihad advocators, which I think are probably an anomaly based on the misguided invasion of Iraq, justified in part by people like Fanusi on the basis that it is an Islamic country and somehow is a threat to us.

*groans* Not this again. I'll repeat myself: this isn't about you. Could I please suggest you watch the Undercover Mosque documentary? you can find it on YouTube.

It is not immediately apparent how the removal of Saddam get's people to decide that Hindus and Jews should be murdered, nor is there any causal connection between the end of Ba'athism in Iraq and the conclusion that raping nine-year old girls is okay.

This. Isn't. About. You. TheReligionOfPeace puts it very well:

It's all about Iraq, isn't it?

Yep, it's all about Iraq and...

India and the Sudan and Algeria and Afghanistan and New York and Pakistan and Israel and Russia and Chechnya and the Philippines and Indonesia and Nigeria and England and Thailand and Spain and Egypt and Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia and Ingushetia and Dagestan and Turkey and Morocco and Yemen and Lebanon and France and Uzbekistan and Gaza and Tunisia and Kosovo and Bosnia and Mauritania and Kenya and Eritrea and Syria and Somalia and California and Argentina and Kuwait and Virginia and Ethiopia and Iran and Jordan and United Arab Emirates and Louisiana and Texas and Tanzania and Germany and Australia and Pennsylvania and Belgium and Denmark and East Timor and Qatar and Maryland and Tajikistan and the Netherlands and Scotland and Chad and Canada and China and Nepal and the Maldives and...

...and pretty much wherever Muslims believe their religion tells them to:

"Fight those who do not believe in Allah, ... nor follow the religion of truth... until they pay the tax in acknowledg-ment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection."
Qur'an, Sura 9:29

You have been seduced to the dark side by Fanusi's extremism, however, I think you are a thoughtful person and once you see what Steve Z, Laurie, bugaboo, Mark Till and others are saying, you will come back to the side of human rights. We want to remain Anakin; we do not want to become Darth. (Whoa, too much Jameson,I had better quit.)

Yes - contempt for human rights, that's me. Seeing as I was the one who has brought up such policies as helping the black Sudanese defend themselves against Arab supremacism, and trying to free slaves as much as possible. Sorry, what was your point again?

And this weasel-word 'extremist' - Extreme means nothing on its own. It's only meaningful when it refers to some characteristic. I am extremely well-informed about Islam, I am extremely worried about what it is doing. I am also extreme in that I know that you can talk until you're blue in the face about this or that right, but unless you can create the social structure to maintain it, all your talk means nothing.

You see, there's another way that this can go: we keep dragging our feet until a major catastrophe, which will be either a CBN attack or the collapse of a Western nation (my money's on France at the moment). Now imagine that scenario. Can you imagine the fear and rage that will be coursing through the West? And do you care to imagine just what kind of powers and what political factions will be swept into power in the aftermath of that?

That is why I keep stressing: it's harsh now, or the unthinkable later.

I'd get less irritated if this ridiculous floating abstraction 'extremist' wasn't always used as though it was some sort of argument.

928. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236391 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 3:01 pm

So do I. But by winning the arguments, by education, by persuasion. Not by the imposition of draconian penalties.

Mark I have long said that this is exactly what needs to be done. I've called for a fully fledged program of cultural imperialism to argue the superiority of the Western way compared with the Islamic way, both on a personal and political level. It can be done.

Showing mercy is one of the things that makes us better than the thugs and jihadists. And I'd rather not give them that victory, thanks all the same.

Sorry, but I simply do not agree. Justice, not mercy, is what distinguishes us. Mercy to the guilty is always treason to the innocent. If the guilty don't pay for their evil, it is always the innocent who suffer.

------------------------------

Goldy, mind if I take it from the basics? What I was saying, and what I continue to say, is that citizenship in the West should be contingent on the renunciation of Shariah. Now if that law were enacted tomorrow, how would it work? Obviously one couldn't go around every Muslims house and ask him/her: 'Do you support Shariah?' That would be absurd. But what we could do and should do is expel goons like Abu Hamza, Hizb ut-Tahrir (sorry, Titania, I should have explained: Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international group with the stated aim of unifying the world under a Shariah caliphate).

We'd only get the hardcore lunatics, and that's what we want. Those who 'sorta' think Shariah is a good idea would become silenced. It seems like an excellent way of pulling some of the teeth from Islam.

Also, it means that genuine reformists, and those who want to leave the faith, would be able to do so, with the nastiest elements gone.

929. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236385 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 2:52 pm

Do you suppose that in your future posts if we are engaging in otherwise thought stimulating debates/discussions you can exclude remarking back to such posters that are applying nothing other than child playground "nanee nanee boo boo" games?

*suitably chagrined* Sorry about that. It's just sometimes enjoyable, when you're at a certain intellectual altitude, to drop rocks on what's crawling down below.

Right. And if I do recall the statement correctly muslims that claim they are apart of the Islamic faith but do not agree or abide by the Sharia are also considered kaffirs. And according to the more extreme views should also be dealt with accordingly?

.

*gloomily* Pretty much. There was one preacher in London who said 'anyone who denies that terror is part of Islam is kufar'.




---------------------------

Titania,

think in order to change the law for citizens to be deported, the Constitution would have to be changed, either by redefining who a citizen is (and under Fanusi's scheme to someone who does not advocate jihad)

This is a good place to point out that Jihad isn't just qital, i.e. combat. Jihad advances through many methods: demographic conquest, the money weapon, Da'wah (tareted efforts at conversion) etc. Tariq Ramadan is just as much a jihadist as Osama bin Laden, he just pursues the Jihad differently.

Fanusi, I will ask you: why deportation and to where? Why can't people be prosecuted and imprisoned or punished within the borders of the US? If you deport people, they become a security threat, and they may be freed when they should not be, and they may hide out in a cave in Afghanistan and strike out at us from afar.

The problem here is that if you lock these guys into regular jails, they'll end up converting small armies of already aggressive, violent men into mujahideen.

930. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236359 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 2:31 pm

Perhaps. But as Steve and others have been trying to get across, that doesn't mean every single follower - especially those settled, perhaps born, in the West - agrees with its supposed political aims. What is your attitude to those Muslims who perhaps do cherrypick the best bits, and actually aren't out for world-domination? Because at the moment you don't seem to acknowledge that any such human beings might exist.

*groans* Sorry, Mark Till, but I've said this very often, and it just shows to me that fools can manage to obscure it. So here we go again:

I have no problems with these Muslims. In fact, I think that we need to help them to break completely free of the hideous doctrines of Islam.

I've said very often that I believe passionately in Justice. And Justice is two-edged. Showing mercy to the thugs and jihadists and shariah supporters means sacrificing those Muslims who deserve better.

---------------------------

Oh, now this is just too good to be true:

have rational reasons for supporting fundamental human rights. Those reasons have been expressed very well by others on this thread. They include self-protection: if I deny rights to others, I have no right to demand them for myself

Steve! Nice of you to finally get here. So these goons and thugs, the ones who wish to destroy all rights and values - they've forfeited their rights yes? I mean, they can't have rights while wanting to deny them?

931. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236354 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 2:25 pm

*chuckles* I should really resist this tempation, but I think it has to be said...

The two foul-mouthed posters who can't seem to form a decent argument without resorting profanity are calling twp 'shallow' and 'bimbo'.

Oh, the irony!

932. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236347 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 2:16 pm

Well, Quetz as I recall, the Umdat al-Salik has thirteen pages devoted to waging Jihad. I mean, waging war is a political act, when you get right down to it, so it's not that unexpected.

There's a whole bunch about the laws of war in Islam.

933. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236342 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 2:14 pm

If the issue of the Sharia is indeed what I have so far understood it to be then eventually, and when it boils right down to it will justify a complete take over by a non-muslim country. Jihad is very much a part of the Sharia, if I remember correctly.

I hope I'm making sense. Fanusi?

*nods* Pretty much. The Shariah is based on the Hadith, Sira, and Qur'an, and they are very clear that it is a Muslim's dute to wage Jihad until the whole world is enslaved under the Islamic political system. It's not necessarily until everyone's converted to Islam (though that's sometimes honoured more in the breach than the observance), but until the Shariah rules everywhere.

Islam is first and foremost a political system.

No school of Shariah law considers non-Muslims equal. How could they? The Qur'an - the Word of God - says that the kaffirs are the most accursed creatures. None of them say that women are equal to men. Again, how could they?

934. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236339 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 2:08 pm

Titania, if I may?

Yes, I generally know what sharia contains but sharia is applied differently in different Muslim countries. I should have been more clear in the sentence you quoted. As I understand it, the sharia advocated by Islamic activists in the UK is a severely truncated form of sharia different than would be found in Saudi Arabia and would mainly deal with civil, domestic and religious matters.

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that's just not true. Have you seen the documentary "Undercover Mosque"? It shows very clearely that what they want is the fully-fledged horror of it.

The schools of Islamic jurisprudence were all fixed a long time ago. They've not changed in any significant way since then - that is, any significant way since. In 1992 the Al Azhar ratified the Umdat al-Salik as corresponding to all the requirements for the modern Muslim. That book is stuffed full of Jihad and dhimmitude.

That's the way things are because that's the way they have to be. Islam's whole selling point is that it is the final, perfect revaltion, uncorrupted. No school of jurisprudence can really mess with what's in the canonical hadith, much less with the Qur'an itself. And what those books preach is always and invariably hideous.

935. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236337 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 2:02 pm

Steve this may be hard for you to understand, but I judge just by what's written and who makes the best case. And this may hurt you, but I find MPhil far more reasonable and articulate, and he/she seems to have a far better grasp of the facts than you. I really don't need your permission to decide my own mind.

Why do you use reason? Where does your conviction that you should use reason come from? Why do you assuming that I am using only feelings? Why do you constantly reduce complex arguments to simple black-and-white choices?

*chuckles* I did warn you that I understood Philosophy. Reason is axiomatic - it is impossible to form any sort of counterargument to it because every time you try, you have to invoke it to make your arguments in the first place. That is what an axiom is.

I never said you only used feelings. I merely took you at your word when you said that your moral convictions were the product of feelings and not reason - especially since you have been unable to justify them rationally. And that's the unfortunate truth: even one concession to irrationality can blast an entire chain of reasoning to pieces, in the same way that just one mistake in a mathematical calculation wrecks the whole thing.

936. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236331 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 1:54 pm

Oh, au contraire Diacanu I find quite alot of the posters here very worthwhile: hawt4dawk, thewhitepearl, al-rawandi, felandath, Nairb, now titania... the list goes on quite a long way. And I keep meeting people who are worthwhile.

It's just that you seem to be hell bent on demonstrating that you're not one of them.

937. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236323 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Fanusi, I am noting a persistent stench of sexism rising from your recent comments (3rd-rate street walkers, witches, etc.). As a lady, let me say: FUCK YOU! Ooooh, I did not faint. Geesh, what a FUCKING surprise! Maybe I have spontaneously changed into a man and have not noticed?

Jeez, it seems every time I come back someone else demonstrates their inability to discuss anything rationally.

I don't know whether you have all noticed, but we're on a chat-board. What on earth makes you think that your ill-mannered swears mean anything to me?

I find this 'sexist' comment interesting. Sexism is assigning an irrational derogatory generalization to a sex. Which comments, exactly, are those that express that?

It's also interesting, given that what I advocate would, in the long run, lead to the emancipation of half a billion women.

On a related note, have you subscribed to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali security fund? Just out of scientific interest.

------------------------------

Steve I will confine myself to a few observations: First and foremost, you are always invoking reason, invoking facts in an attempt to argue, instead of just claiming that you 'feel' it and that's that. I realize that this must be a novel experience, but that proves my point. It is reason and not feelings that are our only guide to the truth.

Oh, and "to will" is to choose. I have freely chosen those values that I have rationally discovered are worth living for. It isn't 'too feel'.

No, because we have to learn what is correct (through a succession of feelings of having the truth demonstrated). In the end, one has to be convinced that something is correct, step by step. That involves feelings of recognition of truth

Ah, but how is one form of conviction then to be differentiated from another? How are you going to do that with only feelings? No, it is reason that provides that guide.

-------------------------------

Nairb vis a viz the whole 'Israeli propaganda' thing, my point was that the descriptions of Muslim atrocities in Lebanon seem to coincide with the stories of Muslim atrocities from all around the world and throughout history. That makes me think that this isn't 'just because of Israel'.

Your cautions about JihadWatch are noted, but could you give me an example of what's wrong? You've picked Hugh FitzGerald stating that if Muslim immigration continues unchecked Europe will be overrun. That seems pretty straightforward - Muslims will always immigrate to Europe as long as it is less bollixed than the nations they come from. Sooner or later there will be more.

May I just suggest that you read more of the site? It really is very good.

-----------------------------------

kaiserkriss

Glad to see everybody here agrees with my comment, since nobody challenged me, suggesting the root of the current Muslim problem lies with the house of Saud

Well, the Saudis are exporting Wahhabism it's true, but Iran's Shia and it's up to it's neck in this also. And Sayyid Qutb was condemned & criticized by the Wahhabis. I wish this was just the House of Saud, but it's far worse than that. It's the doctrine of Islam itself.

--------------------------

Diacanu, I find it interesting that you can somehow convince yourself that a point-by-point (there were two of them) dismemberment of your idiotic insult is just 'nitpicking'. Words have an exact meeting. If not, if I can be 'nationalist' while advocating internationalism, well, then I can say your a car-thief without having ever stolen cars. Hmmmm?

Oh, and as regars that 'jackboot' comment - could you please keep your strange fanatsies about me to yourself? It's very nice to hear it in public and, again, there are ladies present.

---------------------

Titania thanks for the extensive legal info. I appreciate it. Now, as a lawyer, could you say that a case could be made for a law to be passed that hardline Shariah-supporting nuts - Hizb ut-Tahrir and so on - could be deported? I'd welcome your views

--------------------------------

MPhil thank you for pointing out that reason is not the same thing as just feeling something. Though I would like to know: what part of Steve's criticism - if you can call it that - you agree with, given that facts and logic have been scarce on the ground with his comments?

938. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236253 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 12:05 pm

You seem to be deliberately confusing "feeling" with "emotion". Just about everything is based on "feeling" - the recognition of a correct mathematical proof for example. The proof can be demonstrated, but we have to recognise that it is correct, and that is a sensation.

The difference between recongnition and 'feeling' is something I've been stressing. It was you, not me, who said your views were based on feeling.

Or are you - sorry it's sometimes hard to figure this out - saying that feeling is the justification for mathematical proofs? So if I feel two and two make five, that's right?

Value? Please present either the spreadsheet with the calculations of that value, or actually be honest and admit that you have a "sensation" of value.

*chuckles* It's basic economic theory: something is worth what you're willing to give for it, and it isn't worth anything else. And what you are willing to give up for a value is a measure of what that value is to you. There are values in my life I'm willing to save for a week for. There are those I'm willing to devote years of work to acquiring. And finally there are those that I am willing to die for, because I value them more than my life itself.

You measure values by number, but not cardinal, but ordinal numbers.

There are all sorts of people who say nonsense like 'Oh, you can't measure love'. Of course you can: by the place that the loved one holds in the hierarchy of values. There are men who say they love a woman, but will cheat on her. And there are those willing to wait years, and live loyally for the one they love. It's obvious that the magnitude of the love is different.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

939. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236246 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 11:59 am

Incidentally, Diacanu that isn't the definition of fascism.

Authoritarian? Define that please. Because if I'm authoratarian for saying this, then surely anyone who advocates for law on any grounds must fall under this heading.

Nationalist? Oh certainly. So nationalist that I have long supported opening ourselves up to all the non-Muslim minorities fleeing the dar al-Islam, and more than opening ourselves up, I've advocated that we should go out and help them, and help bring them here. So nationalist that I think we should buy and free the slaves being taken from Africa, and hopefully convince them to come settle here in the West. So nationalist that I advocate a worldwide infidel resistance, of peoples of all races, in almost all nations, to band together against the threat.

Yep, nationalist!

Sorry, what were you saying again?

940. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236242 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 11:55 am

Reminds me of being stuck in the backseat of the car with my sisters on a long road trip when I was four years old. "She hit me first" was a perfectly legitimate excuse. But like I said, I was four

J Mac, I'm sorry, but you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying this as a justification; I was merely pointing out that the idea that booting out guys like Abu Hamza would send us into a spiral that could only end in totalitarianism was utter nonsense, given the historical evidence we have.

Incidentally, did you reply on the medicine thread? I've been looking forward to it!

941. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236234 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 11:50 am

Why, lastgreekstanding, I must thank you! If you're attacking me, it's one more sign I'm in the right.

Diacanu

And, let me also be another in the growing crowd that chimes in that you are a fascist.

Hmmm - define your terms. Do you know what fascism is? What it was based on? Or what it actually did? what it's defining characteristics are? And can you explain how my views are linked with fascism? Can you explain that, by careful, deductive reasoning?

Or are you simply throwing words out there, with no understanding of their meaning, in the hopes of shutting me up? That's your problem, not mine. I'm only concerned with the truth.

942. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236229 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 11:45 am

Oh dear, Steve it's unwise to enter an intellectual battle unarmed.

I feel that expulsion is wrong because it is against well-established principles of human rights, and because I have reasoned that it will cause problems

What well-established principles? On what do they rest? And what case have you made about problems? I have explained - 11th time now! - why it wouldn't cause any problems, given that far harsher methods were used in the past without social degeneration, and you've always hop-skippety-jumped over them.

You can squirm and try and hand-wave away these serious concerns about your facist attitudes by calling them "feelings", but I suspect you knew exactly what I meant. Those

The only one who is 'squirming' here is you, and it was you, not I, who first defined them as 'feelings'. You allude to something I'm supposed to know - something you haven't defined or explained or justified. This is just as ridiculous as any god-sodden mystic claiming his feelings explain the Universe.

Why don't you continually break the law, Fanusi? Do you sit down each day and calculate the rational odds that you will be caught, or do you have some moral "feelings" that this would be wrong?

I've explained this - at length - elsewhere. I place immense value on Justice, which is rationally definable, and as a result of thinking, my emotions have towed the line. Reinforced my conscious, reasoned convictions.

However, if I was in a situation where I was rationally convinced the law was evil, I would break it with no question - such as the laws of Shariah, or of Communism, or Nazi Germany.

Feel? Oh, indeed I do feel. I know where my feelings come from. But someone who just 'feels' and has no inclination to explain or justify his feelings is an automaton run by a program he doesn't know. 'Tis sad, 'tis true, 'tis true, 'tis sad.

943. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236214 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 11:34 am

If a person renounces US citisenship, then that person is no longer a citizen. It is actually very hard to renounce to the satisfaction of the US government, for tax and treason or terrorism purposes.

Well, then, I'd say that shariah-supporters have in word and deed renounced their citizenship and sworn alleigance to the Ummah instead. Give 'em the boot.

Because revenge is bullshit.
Revenge doesn't belong in a civilized society.
Revenge isn't justice.

I'm not in favour of this pork business myself - I'm fine with my three options for the mo', but I'd point out that in all classical texts on the matter, injustices are revenged. I realise that this is quibbling, but it's a point worth making. Incidentally, one of the first to arguethat civil punishements shouldn't be about revenge was Thomas Hobbes, who wrote "Punishment is not for revenge, but to instil terror". S

944. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236201 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 11:17 am

's okay, Titania. Though could I ask you to comment on my other point? I mean if it's legit to deport those who are members of communist or neo-nazi organizations, why not jihadis and sharia-supremacists?

Fanusi, go fuck yourself.

Reaction against feeling is itself an emotional reaction.

It's not a choice between being a Vulcan, and being a pure reactionary.
Trying to be the former is stupid, and stunted, and no one here is the latter, so stow it with that insult.

Diacanu there are ladies present, so I won't respond as I could. Also, I think you missed my point.

I wasn't talking about being emotionless ("a Vulcan" as you phrase it). I was talking about the fact that 'feelings' mean zip when it comes to finding the truth. Steve 'feels' that it would be wrong to expel goons like Abu Hamza. I 'feel' rather differently. There are those that 'feel' that God exists. There are many, many who 'feel' the Jihad is justified.

You see what I'm driving at?

Emotions are great, they're why life's worth living, but they must be coupled to reason. And the profound thinkers are always profoundly passionate. Read Aristotle. Read Darwin. Read a biography of Einstein. Read Michael Collins, where he describes what it was like to see the continents fly past as he orbited the earth. These men were and are all profoundly passionate - and profoundly rational.

945. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236173 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 10:49 am

The reason some of us right-wingers (incidentally, that applies to me, but I don't know that it applies to, say, twp) start foaming at the mount is statements like this:

I am not a damn hand-wringer. I refuse to give up human rights because some scare-mongering right-wingers want to get us foaming at the mouth!

Where does one begin? "give up human rights" would be less infuriating if I had not explained, ten times at least, why this would not involve giving up human rights, and heard no reply. Nor does this take into account my rather detailed discussion of the way that rights are, in fact, secured for human beings,(which is not, by the way, feeling all day long). "Scare-mongering" implies an untrue threat; the threat of Islam is all too real, and growing daily, as anyone who follows this knows. etc.

I want urgent, positive and strong action from law-enforcers and polititions to deal with real and iminent threats. That action does not require deaths or expulsions. It is actually prosecuting the evil preachers of hate.

And do what with them exactly? Put them in prison where they can recruit a nice little army of mujahideen to their cause? Again, this is something I have brought up a number of times, and each time it has been ignored. Oh, I do recall Steve that you pooh-pooh'd the idea that a religion suffused with violence, theft and rapine would find acceptance amongst hardened criminals. Well, here's some people who think differently:

"From Jail to Jihad"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKOvg1ijZr0


Of course this always happens when you 'feel' rather than think.


----------------------------

TWP,

Yes I realise this. In all honestly and at my own fault I'm going to have to admit after having such a long discussion on this thread (it's been about tweleve hours and the majority of those hours being hours in which I should have been sleeping) a post from a newbie that is so long and incredibly detailed in the middle of it all, didn't warrant the full attention it should have prob deserved. I admit I didn't really read all of it, didn't really find it worth my time at this particular point, as wrong as that may be.

'S okay. Trust me, I know about frustrating debates that cause you to climb the wall. :-D

946. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236157 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 10:11 am

CocoCantre,

Fanusi, Thanks, I'm open to legitimate articles and info from anyone here.

*bows* Mine the honour.

-certain people will find the following a trifle repetitive ;-)

A great place to start is with Ibn Warraq, a truly first rate scholar on the subject of Islam. His essay, "Islam, the Middle East and Fascism" is a very good place to start. You can find it here:

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=3766&sec_id=3766

and there's a good compendium of his writings:

http://www.freewebs.com/unoffibnwarraq/index.htm

There are several good sites studying Islam out there. I typically recommend the following:

JihadWatch (www.jihadwatch.org); especially the articles by Hugh FitzGerlald.

thereligionofpeace.com, which keeps a running tally of Islam's atrocities.

faithfreedom.org, the official site of Ali Sina, one of the most brilliant apostate polemecists.

There are many good books on Islam (and even more truly lousy ones - avoid Karen Armstrong and Reza Aslan). Ibn Warraq, Why I Am Not A Muslim is good, so is his Defending The West. Bat Ye'or's work on dhimmitude is pioneering, and Robert Spencer's are also great, if you can ignore the Christian apologetics.

If you want to learn about Islamic theology, there's a Qur'an blog on JihadWatch, which comments each Sura with the relevant bits of hadith, Sira, tafsir (classical commentary) and so on.

Then there are some good histories of Islam. Efraim Karsh's Islamic Imperialism shows how Islam has always functioned. Online, you can find Islam and the Psychology of the Musulman by Andre Servier:

http://musulmanbook.blogspot.com/

And, you may find the following particularly interesting, given your husband is Indian:

The Legacy of Islamic Rule in India:

http://voi.org/books/tlmr/

K.S. Lal estimates that as many as seventy million Hindus were murdered by the Muslim rulers when they overran the subcontinent.

947. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236143 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 9:51 am

CocoCantare,

Case in point, my husband. His last name happens to be Singh and he has brown skin. EVERY time we go to the airport and try to check in, he is held up and I breeze right through. He is asked ridiculous questions and me and my white family and friends never are. Forget the fact that he is a Lt. in the U.S. Navy! It is humiliating and devastating to him, especially since he puts his life on the line for this country just about every day! If we adopt more strict rules/laws, how much more will innocent brown-skinned people be singled out and suffer? I know the point is to single out muslims, but that doesn't always happen here. Any thoughts?

*dryly* If you think it's bad now, wait until al-qaeda perfect those damn underwear bombs. And yes, that's a real story.

Believe me, I'm fully sympathetic. That's another reason I'm so furious at these Shariah-supporting nutbags, not to mention our craven and dhimmified media that keeps talking about 'the Asian community', thus lumping in innocent Hindus and Sikhs with the Mad Lovers Of Mohammed.

Mark Steyn, noones idea of a peacenik, has written very convincingly on the subject of what he calls "new and predictably idiotic FAA regulations" and argues that this bumpf makes us actually less safe.

On a lighter note, my friend and I have a plan for "Islamophobic Airlines", where each passenger must, before boarding, eat a ham sandwhich, deface a qur'an, and make fun of Muhammad.

Hi everyone. I have been reading this entire thread and believe that many have included good ideas and solutions. But I have a personal fear that I thought I'd put out there. I'm a newbie and still doing my own research (like twp), so go easy on me, I'm trying to learn.

If it's not prssumptious, I could suggest a couple of resources to look at. It's alot of primary source data, so you can just read them and come up with your own conclusions.

948. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236136 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 9:38 am

twp, as much as I hate to disagree with you about anything in this discussion, I do disagree about this:

On another note, I really am quite sick and tired of persons consistently falling back on a three hundred year old document as an end all be all of "rights". Inserting the constitution in to a type of discussion that we are having now, is really pointless.

Personally, as something of an Americanophile, I like the US constitution, and think it is morally justified. Also, there are - as Titania mentioned in her post, though I don't think she realised it - grounds for this kind of expulsion (membership of a fascist part; Hizb ut-Tahrir qualifies), not to mention historical precedent.

949. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236130 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 9:33 am

I suggest you learn some biology, and philosophy. Our morality is based on empathy - our abilities to imagine and react to the feelings of others. We then discuss, using reason, if and how to react to those feelings, and whether or not such reactions are appropriate. Science without a feeling of wonder, or morality without feelings of empathy or compassion would be rather pointless.

As regards Biology, I graduated Summa Cum Laude in the subject, and was educated at Oxford. As regards Philosophy, I understand it fine to know that feelings are no use whatsoever in determining the truth of anything. You might want to read a little history. You'd find that he SS felt absolutely righteous about their acts, and that the honour-killing father similarly feels completely justified in killing his own children.

Feelings only mean anything when they are harnessed to reason. They are not tools of cognition. Anyone who asserts something just because they 'feel' it, exempts themselves from a rational discussion just the same way that someone who claims knowledge based on faith.

I think outfits like this should banned, and it is even in many Muslim countries. The goons who run it should be deported if they are non citizens. But I don't see how combating such extremist groups would necessitate the expulsion of citizens, and why do you think anyone would take them?

They're a threat, and removing them from the country is the least harsh option. Given what they'd get up to in our prison system, the alternatives would be solitary confinement, a la the Long Kesh, or death. Exile, permanent, seems the best option.

950. Channel 4 announces return of Undercover Mosque

Comment #236121 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 24, 2008 at 9:17 am

Why, Steve I expected this admission sooner or later, but didn't hope for it:

I find talk of certainties of guilt, of death sentences, of expulsions and of invasions deeply troubling, as they go against my feelings of how a civilized society should act.

Feelings eh? Well, you feel away, while thewhitepearl, Nairb, me and others do the actual thinking. Feelings don't mean anything, not in reason, not in science, not in morality. The only thing that matters are facts and reason.

I was wondering, no matter how often I stated why expelling goons like Hizb ut-Tahrir would not lead to moral degredation of our civilization, it was ignored. Well, now I know the answer: because it's never been about reason, facts, reality, but about your causeless feelings. One of those things you feel bad about was invasion which was discussed either as 1) to take the oil fields and end the money weapon, or 2) to stop genocide and slavery in the Sudan. The second is clearely moral, while the first only is open to discussion, but discussion involves facts and not feelings.

So, please go right ahead and feel, but do it in private, where it belongs.

---------------------------------------

Moving onto someone who is bringing actual facts, and reason and logic to the table, Nairb thanks for the info, they are very encouraging. It's what I've suspected, ever since I read about Iraqis loosing their faith due to the violence, despite them originally cheering 9/11. It's one thing to cheer about the slaughter of innocents far away, it's another thing entirely when they feel the lash on their own backs.

This is really wonderful news, and gives me some hope that this long war may end in my lifetime. Thanks, and I mean that sincerely, Nairb

-------------------------------------

Titania

TWP, there are many good reasons why we have the right to a presumption of innocence in a criminal trial.

There is something really wierd going on here. Noone here has suggested the death penalty without a trial. What I have said - and people should have got that by now - is that if there is uncontroversial evidence, death is the correct punishment. And where do you review evidence about guilt or innocence?

Furthermore, to become a US citizen, a person must swear that he is attached to the principles of the Constitution and that he is well-disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States and is not a terrorist, totalitarian party member, Nazi, communist, etc. See Section 316 of the Immigration and Nationality Act quoted below. If a person lies about any of these issues during the permanent resident of naturalization (process to be come a US citizen), that person can be denaturalized and subsequently deported.

I don't know what you've been reading, but that's exactly what we've been talking about. We are talking about fully-fledged Shariah supremacists like Hizb ut-tahrir, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. etc. Kick. Them. Out.

The extreme solutions you are advocating lead to further alienation of immigrant and Muslim populations and to the erosion of civil liberties for all

Okay, let me make this clear: this is not about you. It doesn't matter what approach you take, you can do no right by Islam. It has, in all times and all places been a disaster for I