51. Blind Faiths

Comment #109458 by agn on January 9, 2008 at 5:13 am

As for the Crusades:

The Crusader States, founded by Christians practiced equality before the law.

Muslims emigrated to them, because they found better economic opportunities there.

Ring a bell or two, perhaps?

52. Blind Faiths

Comment #109457 by agn on January 9, 2008 at 5:13 am

As for the Crusades:

The Crusader States, founded by Christians practiced equality before the law.

Muslims emigrated to them, because they found better economic opportunities there.

Ring a bell or two, perhaps?

53. Blind Faiths

Comment #109456 by agn on January 9, 2008 at 5:13 am

As for the Crusades:

The Crusader States, founded by Christians practiced equality before the law.

Muslims emigrated to them, because they found better economic opportunities there.

Ring a bell or two, perhaps?

54. Blind Faiths

Comment #108913 by agn on January 8, 2008 at 12:22 am

About the so-called "selective evidence" charge against Ba't Yeor:

It is a FACT that there were numerous massacres of Jews and Christians in the so-called "tolerant, golden age of Islam", for example the massacre of Jews in Cordoba.

Now, in a TRULY tolerant society, massacres DO NOT OCCUR AT ALL!!

Thus, it is those historians who select away the evidence of massacres in order to convey an image of a tolerant, golden age who present a morally warped image of history, not Ba't Yeor.

55. Blind Faiths

Comment #108564 by agn on January 7, 2008 at 8:44 am

Spot on by Ayaan.
It is various forms of irrationality that are plaguing us, and hindering us from forming rational strategies to remove Islam from the minds of people, not reason.

A "cult of reason" is a contradiction in terms.

56. Man and God

Comment #103504 by agn on December 26, 2007 at 1:51 am

"But as faith issues have emerged at the centre of British and global politics, what was once a tolerant debate between believers and unbelievers, respectful and accommodating of each other's views, has become a vicious dogfight."

Every statement should be accorded the respect it deserves, which does not make all statements equally respectable, as this editor thinks.

57. Man and God

Comment #103369 by agn on December 25, 2007 at 10:00 am

Let us just look at one of the rhetorical devices applied here:

"Ayaan Hirsi Ali's impassioned denunciation of the restrictions of Islam in Somalia have stirred sympathy as well as anger"

First off, Ayaan's considered criticism of Islam as such is belittled as being "impassioned", and only, presumably, valid for Somalian affairs.

Thereby, by a conjuror's grip, without any argument of substance at all, the writer has pushed her to the sideline as an emotional woman who may deserve our sympathy, even perniciously inflame our "anger", but not essentially bringing an "objective" view of her birth religion into the public sphere.

The writer could just as well said she has unjustly slandered Islam, since that is what he onviously thinks she have done, and what the other "militant" atheists have done.