Well Ephestion, while you may take personal comfort in the idea that your position is noble, in fact it merely means that you have decided to stop fighting about whose invisible friend is the best, and that is a very sensible approach to take, as neither can prove the real worth of their god of choice.

To think that all criticism of Islam, or Christianity is based on this personal competitiveness is not always true, for very often it is an individual act or specific interpretation which comes into question, and these can be examined and argued from the more objective perspective of how they fit in with our standards of decency and morality.

For people like myself who believe gods and religions to be man made concepts, then obviously all the inherent flaws and weaknesses we see mankind party to are reflected in the beliefs of religious people.

As a favourite writer of mine once wrote;

"Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a God superior to themselves. Most Gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child." ---
Robert A. Heinlein

So if we could see a god invented who was not supposed to be omniscient, or omnipotent, then we could see the chance of finding a god who could grow, and learn from his mistakes, rather than having them enshrined in sacred text.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Dec 15^th, 2009 at 8:17am:



lmao, (replies in a very thick cockney accent,) "noddalot"

Ephestion, a noble gesture indeed. I accept your apology and I also apologise for any hurt I may have caused to you or your beliefs during the course of our arguments.

In other words FD, "Dont' give up your bigotry just yet, there's still much more about Islam for which you should keep your blind hatred about them, here's a link to my little anti-Islamic hateblog".

Nice one mate. Very proud of yourself I'm sure.

Not necessarily helian.

Islamic law for instance has provision for co-existence with political entities that do not oppress or hinder Muslims from their religion. So I can't see it becoming a problem, if Australia and other Western nations remain true to their secular values. However if they become consumed by the nutcases as we see plenty of examples of here (eg. Yadda, Sprint, FD), then yes there is a possibility of a conflict. The peddlers of the self-fulfilling prophecy that will give them the opportunity to attack Islam and Muslims.

Ephestion wrote on Dec 15^th, 2009 at 1:37am:

abu_rashid wrote on Dec 15^th, 2009 at 10:01pm:

Abu, as you know, ultimately Islam will tolerate no political or religious rivals... Hence the precarious religio-political schizophrenia of Turkish society.