Posted on 12/07/2004 7:28:32 PM PST by naturalman1975
IT was one of those extremely rare moments when I found myself agreeing with John Howard. Asked what he thought of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore's reported plans to make Sydney's Christmas celebrations low-key and generic, the Prime Minister slammed them as "silly", "ridiculous" and "political correctness from central casting".
Out of sensitivity for a multicultural society, Moore was reported to have said she did not want the celebrations "to push any one religious belief".
In fact, Moore had said nothing of the sort. Quite the contrary: the council is increasing its Christmas celebration spending this year by 50per cent. The words were spoken by Jeff Fisher, chief executive of fast-food chain Oporto following news that the chain had banned a nativity display from its franchise in Hornsby in northern Sydney. Media had put the words in the wrong mouth, but Howard's assessment of them remained true.
Every Christmas it seems we go through this farce. Last year, Stonnington Council in Melbourne removed the word Christmas from its celebrations and prevented speakers at a carols night from quoting the Bible. Some kindergartens and daycare centres have stopped having Christmas parties, instead having end-of-year or fairy parties.
All this, it seems, is being done to include Australia's religious and cultural minorities. This is supposed to foster social harmony and tolerance.
But it doesn't. It does exactly the opposite. When Channel Seven's Sunrise recently ran an interactive segment on the issue, a common theme in the responses of viewers legitimately aggrieved by this emasculation of Christmas was anger towards minority groups -- especially Muslims -- who were cast as cultural warriors against the majority.
Muslims may not celebrate Christmas but it is ridiculous to suspect they are behind this absurd trend. Jesus is a revered, prophetic figure in Islam and, accordingly, we are the least likely to be offended by other religious groups celebrating his birth. An anti-Christmas campaign is more consistent with aggressive atheism than any Islamic imperative.
In fact, I know no member of any religious minority, Muslim or otherwise, who asked for or even wants this. In my experience, religious minorities are far more concerned that their right to religious expression is respected and protected. That, surely, is a right belonging no less to the majority than to minorities.
Driving Christmas underground only erodes this treasured Australian norm and that is far more troubling to me than any Christmas celebration. I find the idea of restraining religious expression substantially more offensive than I find any nativity display. The impoverishment of Christmas is done more on behalf of religious minorities than by them.
This is where political correctness loses the plot; what purports to inspire tolerance instead inspires hostility and intolerance. Diverse, vibrant and tolerant societies are created by allowing eclectic cultural and religious expressions, celebrations included, to flourish. You don't achieve that by surrendering a culture, replacing it with bland meaninglessness.
Denying the Christianity in Christmas or, worse, doing away with it altogether helps no one. This is not multiculturalism. It is anti-culturalism.
Waleed Aly, a Melbourne lawyer, is a member of the Islamic Council of Victoria executive.
Where did you hear the US govt dictating what faith anyone may practice?
I haven't heard a word about that.
It's nothing to do with faith.
It's about chaos and destruction as promoted by wahhabi islam spilling over into the general population.
Nothing about which faith can be practiced.
"We should deport all Muslims."
"We should nuke 100 Islamic cities."
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity."
All of those canards have been posted, over and over. Fortunately the present U.S. government has seen fit to ignore them.
I'm sorry for what happened to you at the hands of an abuser, but I fail to see what all this has to do with what I said. And I still believe that trying to proselytize by giving a holiday greeting is more akin to what happened to you than a passive attempt to spread the gospel.
You're right. I've seen them over and over too.
But until someone actually gets to the point of practicing what they're preaching, it's empty rhetoric.
That's why the govt is not stepping in. They know full well there will always need to be ways for people to vent. This is what that's about.
It's quite obvious that no one in govt is acting upon that.
What does any of that have to do with the US dictating what faith anyone may practice, btw?
Excellent points, Texas.
A comment about the charges of bigotry that have been leveled at me and others who share my views: after years on the left, I have developed a pretty thick skin when it comes to having my point of view reduced to simple accusations of racism and bigotry. I am glad to see that there are others here who will take on the islamic apologists and expose them for what they are. As a newbie, they consider me easy prey, but being new to FR doesn't mean I am new to the issue. No one would be happier than I if even just the American Muslim community leaders would come out forcefully against the goal of worldwide theocracy and terrorism, WITHOUT the inevitable qualifications, i.e. "We denounce this act of violence, but.."
Mega thanks to texasbluebell, broadsword, valin, naturalman1975, and all the others who aren't afraid to speak out.
Once again, doesn't it depend on which verses you look at and emphasize?
This is what I meant (in an earlier reply) about how "no body is saying Islam doesn't have problems big problems".
What here have on threads like these is some people taking the most violent verses and saying this is all you need to know about Islam, that would be like taking
Heb.12:29] Our God is destroying fire.
[Psalm.94:1] O Lord, you God of vengeance.
[Amos.9:1] I will slay that left of them with the sword, not one of them shall flee away...I will command the sword, and it shall slay them
Ezek.12:14]I will unsheathe the sword after them. I will let a few of them escape from the sword, from famine and pestilence.
[Judges 21:20] And they commanded the Benjaminites, saying Go and lie in wait in the vineyard, and watch; if the daughters of Shiloh go out to dance in the dances, then come out of the T vineyard and seize each man his wife from the daughters of Shiloh.And the Benjaminites did so, and took their wives from the dancers whom they caught.
And saying "See, this is all you need to know about Judism."
No. Nothing can overcome the advocation of murder. Nothing.
No, none of us should be afraid to speak out.
I won't be silenced by being called a bigot or a racist, because I'm pointing out the evils that are spilling over in the world. It's an old tactic that the leftists picked up and have used too effectively in the past. Now the moslems are doing the same.
But we're onto all the various extremists now.
Islam had better start policing itself. It won't be pretty, whether we help them or they help themselves. But it will have to be done one way or the other.
You may have just signed up here, but you're no newbie, that's obvious!
Welcome aboard, we need more to come over from the dark side, ariamne!
"I'm sorry for what happened to you at the hands of an abuser,"
I'm not sure how you connect smiling at someone and wishing them a "merry Christmas" with forced conversion to a religion. Perhaps if I grabbed them and started telling them ALL about Jesus, you'd be right, but that isn't quite what I had in mind. Friendly greeting, my best smile, and on about my business. If they want to talk, I'm probably available, but I'm not planning on making them talk. EVERY thing a person does is an example of what they REALLY believe. If I treat people kindly, listen attentatively, and help where I can, I'm a lot more likely to get invited to talk about what I believe than otherwise. If I get in your face, and demand to tell you all about Jesus, well, lets just say I find that seriously annoying, too. One of my grandfathers was a used-car salesman. I don't like high-pressure sales. My approach is more like "find out what the folks want, and tell them what you can do to help them get it." Not just low-pressure, but no pressure.
I didn't go down that road, you felt compelled to tell me all about your sad experience, which I truly have sympathy for you about. But you used the term "forced down my throat", which is exactly how many people feel about your approach. I'm not saying they are precisely the same, which is why I said "kinda like".
Friendly greeting, my best smile, and on about my business.
OOPS, you forgot the part about it being a friendly CHRISTIAN greeting, which invites them to celebrate YOUR holiday. Then you admit, it's proselytizing.
Have at it, I disagree with the concept. It's not the same as if they asked you what you are celebrating.
Anyway, sorry about your past, and have a nice Christmas.
" Nope, Chimps are too much like humans. I vote for Dolphins. "
It won't be dolphins. There'll just be a note saying "So long, and thanks for all the fish".
I wont be rats either. The mice wouldn't allow it.
But I think you're right, chimps are too much like humans. They also have "My tribe is better than your tribe" humming inside their skulls. ;^}
This is not multiculturalism. It is anti-culturalism.
Bwahaha. I love it - "(I) must exclude..." Bologna. You have my argument, and your failure to refute it shows the foolishness of religious bigotry.
George Wallace was a democrat.
Atheists, heathens, pagans, muslims; all the same thing.
that's why it says "Wallace-types"
Explain your claim that Christian extremists are a threat to our society.
Christian extremists are folks like St. Francis, the Apostles, Mother Theresa, Billy Graham and Fulton Sheen. Please tell me how you can so fervently defend the raging horrors of Islam's march in the world and then claim that Christian extremists are a threat to humanity.
You are beyond ridiculous!
Christians in Egyptian cathedral stone police to protest woman's alleged forced conversion to Islam
30 hurt
By Maggie Michael ASSOCIATED PRESS
6:11 p.m. December 8, 2004
CAIRO, Egypt – Several thousand Christians who packed a cathedral compound in the Egyptian capital hurled stones at riot police Wednesday to protest a woman's alleged forced conversion to Islam. At least 30 people were injured.
The injured included 21 police officers. Some policemen were seen wiping blood from their heads in the streets outside the compound of the Coptic Orthodox cathedral in Cairo's Abbasiya district.
Police threw the rocks back over the compound wall and an Associated Press reporter saw about 10 injured people, including a priest, inside the compound. The police sealed off the compound by parking some 40 trucks around its walls and closing adjacent roads.
Protests began Sunday at the cathedral as word spread that the wife of a Coptic priest in Abou al-Matameer, a town 84 miles north of Cairo, was forced by her Muslim boss in the civil service to convert.
A security official has said the 47-year-old woman, Wafaa Constantine, was living in a Muslim household in Cairo and had become a Muslim of her own free will.
Some of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority said Constantine was kidnapped and taken to Cairo with the complicity of local authorities.
The disputed case highlights the potential for friction between Egypt's Muslim majority and Christian minority. The Copts are an estimated 10 percent of the nation's 70 million people.
On Wednesday night, a brother-in-law of Constantine entered the compound and told protesters through a loudspeaker that the woman had returned home.
"My brothers and sisters: my brother just told me that she arrived in a safe place and she is in good condition," Meshiha Maawad said.
The protesters clapped and whistled but refused to leave. They demanded that Pope Shenouda III, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, speak to them. The pope has offices in the compound.
An assistant, Bishop Yoanas, told the crowd the leader left the compound because he was "upset" that authorities delayed Constantine's return.
"We thank the government for bringing her to us," the bishop said. "But because of the delay, Pope Shenouda, who waited four hours for her return, was not happy and he left."
Some protesters said they would not leave the compound until they saw Constantine herself. But, as the night wore on, many protesters did leave.
The victims of the rioting included young priest Matyas Abdel Maseh. Leaning against a wall for support with his head bandaged, he said he was hit by a stone thrown by the police as he tried to stop demonstrators from getting too close to the compound's gates.
"The government is attacking Christians," Maseh said. "The army outside the gates is attacking us with stones."
Accusations of forced conversion surface every year in Egypt.
The editor of the Coptic newspaper Watani, Youssef Sidhom, accused the government and local authorities of being reluctant to investigate and prosecute such cases.
"Such injustice has created a very sensitive situation, like the one we are witnessing now," Sidhom told the AP in a phone interview. "What kind of a religion is it that accepts people who have been forced to believe in it?"
Copts generally live in peace with their Muslim neighbors, but they are underrepresented in the upper ranks of the civil service. They complain of discrimination in finding jobs and restrictions on building churches.
During an Islamic insurrection in the 1990s, Muslim militants occasionally attacked Copts. In 2000, clashes broke out among Copts and Muslims in several adjacent villages in the southern province of Sohag, leading to 23 deaths. All but two were Copts.
Find this article at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20041208-1811-egypt-christianprotests.html
----Need not have to wait too long to prove that the people of the Moongod, like I said earlier, if they are a majority, then they will try to convert infidels either forcefully or in another manner- like in the above case by kidnapping.
Well, listen, what do you want us to do? If we protest against Christmas traditions, you don't like it. If we participate, you don't like it. I suppose we should just banish ourselves from all the festivities while at the same time keeping our mouths shut...?
The fact is, some atheists are married to believers, and many atheists have families who are believers. We're not going to banish ourselves from enjoying the fun, and our families don't want us to do that, either.
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