Leaders of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir met in Australia this week to call on Muslims to reject Democracy and moderate Islam as “haram” or forbidden under the Koran (Qur’an). British Hizb ut-Tahrir leader Burhan Hanif told an audience that Democracy is a lie and that no laws but those in the Koran could govern mankind.
Hanif insisted “We should not be conned or succumb to the disingenuous and flawed narrative that the only way to engage politically is through the secular democratic process. It is prohibited and haram.” He specifically warned that Muslims could not embrace any system based on “secular and erroneous concepts such as democracy and freedom.”
His views were echoed by Australian Islamic leader Wassim Dourehi, who told the conference that Muslims should not support “any kafir (non-believer) political party” in “this godforsaken country” of Australia. He specifically denounced moderate Islamic views as “a perverted concoction of Western governments.”
Source: News.
Mike Appleton:
I had no idea you were a lawyer.
Your attending Catholic schools only makes me more certain than before that you don’t know much about the Bible. Most Catholics I’m acquainted with don’t read much in their Bibles. They rarely quote scripture and hardly know how to rightly divide the word of truth. It’s a tradition, apparently. I guess one reason there are conflicts about which Bibles are best is has a good deal to do with Catholics having worked very hard at hiding them from the people, burning them (or those who wrote them without their permission), and using corrupt copies.
It’s no wonder the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire.
You don’t seem to be able to distinguish between the troubles caused by the Catholics in Europe and the Christians who the Catholics hunted down like dogs. You act like all Christians were Catholics from the beginning. This is a very narrow view held by Catholics and people who know very little about Christianity. The Baptists fully disagree with those assumptions and we would like people who once hunted us down and tortured and murdered us to stop telling us we were Catholics when we did not wish to be. The two groups have a separate (but intertwined) history.
On your first point you said “What I did say, and repeat, is that fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Moslems share a desire to legislate religious views.” This is like saying FDR and Hitler share an interest clothing because they both wore shirts. It is trivially true.
I don’t mean to say it is trivial in the sense of being unimportant, but it is trivial within the context of the vast and nearly opposite differences between the two religions and their operations within or as the state. Jesus never told his flock to take over the Roman government. Mohammad went conquering and took over villages and cities (and it wasn’t in self-defense).
There were surely abuses and great sin committed by people who called themselves Christians. But this is part and parcel with all human groups, not just Christians. The main thing is when Christians behave badly it is because they are violating their sacred texts. When Muslims behave badly (like in this case) it is because they are following their sacred texts.
Mohammad led armies. He sacked innocent villages. They murdered. Robbed. Raped. Took sex slaves. All this is codified as holy conduct. Where is this approved in the New Testament? There is only self defense or wielding the sword under the auspices of government (like the Roman Centurion who became a Christian and stayed in the military as far as we know). In Christianity there is no military quest to dominate the world except in violation of the word of God. In Islam there is a military quest to dominate the world in obedience to the Koran (all that Mohammad did is to be emulated).
Your trivial comparison obscured the real meaning and imparted no real information. It set up a false image. It was meant to put Christianity and Islam on the same footing, but in a bad way. But as I pointed out in my original post, even atheists (I like to call them fundamentalist atheists, or fundie atheists) also “share a desire to legislate….views”.
It is irrelevant where the ideas for law comes. You don’t think so. But that is how the system is supposed to work. You seem to think religious views ought never to ascend just because they are religious. That would deny religious people their political rights BECAUSE they are religious.
There is nothing in the federal Constitution which forbids religious people from enacting their beliefs through laws. The federal Congress is indeed barred from establishing religion and that means it is barred from creating a state run church. The feds also have no authority to vote in circumcision (whether religious based or not). So that issue is moot. The states could do it if they wished even if it was religious in nature. The right to resist remains.
You said there could not be a “law mandating daily readings from the Bible (even the King James version)in public schools. This is not a particularly difficult distinction to understand, but it is routinely assaulted by conservative Christians as somehow “discriminatory.”
The federal government has no authority in this matter. If states wish it, they may do it if the schools wish. It had always been so until the government took more and more power from the privately run schools (taxes were the camel nose under the tend). Most older folks can remember bible reading in school.
As scary as it sounds (especially with Muslims in the country) conservatives make their point about this because it is correct. The reason they take this position as you describe above is because that was the position of the early republic after the Constitution was established. If the founding generation thought it not against the Constitution for individual states to have state sponsored religion, then why are you giving conservatives a hard time for pointing it out? You even mention it in your post. You don’t mention that some states wouldn’t have signed the Constitution if they thought the general government had the power to interfere.
I realize that the Baptists wanted to be protected from the Catholic religion. And I realize you are referring to it. And I know you are referring to Jefferson’s response to the Baptist when he uses the terms wall of separation. But you fail to make the distinction between the federal government establishing religion (which is forbidden) and the states establishing it (which was allowed). You tell only half the story. It wasn’t considered a violation for the states to have state funded churches.
Going backwards in time, Puritans (the Pilgrims) wanted to be free to have their religion. Everyone else had theirs including the licentious folks in the Netherlands. The Hindus had India. The Catholics (largely) in Europe. The Anglicans in England. The pagans, Africa. It was fully in keeping with fairness for these peculiar Christians to want a place where they could worship freely since they were denied such a place elsewhere.
The Catholics, and all the rest (except perhaps the Jews, depending on the circumstance) had their places to worship freely. The Pilgrims did not. So freedom of religion meant worshiping such that the Catholics and others wouldn’t forbid it (as they had been doing). THAT is how freedom of religion started here. They didn’t have to worrying about denying others the freedom to worship because others had places all over the globe in which to do that, the Pilgrims did not.
This was carried forward a century and a half until it meant freedom of religion for the sovereign states as determined by their citizens and eventually barring only the general government from any involvement in establishment or forbidding. (If the federal government stops the states from establishing religion it is overstepping its boundary and violating the first amendment by forbidding the establishment thereof).
We need greater freedom for the states. The federal government has become a soviet style monstrosity and it needs to be put in its place. I want federalism back. I want a state that honors the Christian religion and makes laws reflecting it. I want you to have a state that doesn’t (if that is what you wish). A state should have the right to have homosexual marriage and abortion. A state should have the right to not have them.
That is how we were meant to be ordered. But Abraham Lincoln ruined it and the republic. We need to get it back or else there will be secession or brutal totalitarianism after a slaughter the likes of which Lincoln triggered (if the people rebel against their tyrants).
Because of Lincoln, we are all very unhappy with each other. Our original plan will make us a happy people and we must return to it. But our current leaders and educators, and our elites with fancy degrees, fine educations, and blue-ribbon credentials are making it impossible.
They are the lawless usurpers making domestic tranquility impossible.
Mike Appleton a simple thank you wouldn’t cut it, so…
Dankie dat jy, Falemnderit, شكرا, Շնորհակալություն, Sağ ol, Eskerrik asko, Дзякуй, Благодаря, Gràcies, Hvala vam, Děkuji, Tak, Dank u, Tänan teid, Salamat, Kiitos, Je vous remercie, Grazas, გმადლობთ
Danke, Σας ευχαριστώ, Mèsi poutèt ou, תודה, Köszönöm, Þakka þér
Terima kasih, Go raibh maith agat, Grazie, Paldies, Ačiū
Ви благодариме, Terima kasih, Takk, با تشکر از شما, Dziękuję
Obrigado, Mulţumesc, Спасибо, Хвала, Ďakujem, Hvala, Gracias
Asante, Tack, ขอบคุณ, Teşekkürler, Спасибі, Cảm ơn bạn, Diolch yn fawr, אַ דאַנק
Thanks for telling it like it is.
Mike A:
why does Kant rise to that level with you? Isn’t his idea of morality to do something from which no benefit to the actor is gained? So it would be morally superior to save a strangers son rather than your own (an extreme case). At least if I understand him correctly. Why is this moral superiority? Doesn’t it negate the self? It seems to me that it is an extreme position, total selflessness. Isn’t that as bad in it’s own way as total self absorption?
MIke A:
“First, my friends would probably more readily attest to my character flaws. Second, I am compelled to express my thoughts here because my wife is tired of listening to them.”
************
Amen, brother Amen!
Tootie:
“There is nothing in the New Testament that teaches Christians to ignore just secular laws.”
**************
21 So at daybreak the apostles entered the Temple, as they were told, and immediately began teaching.
When the high priest and his officials arrived, they convened the high council[b]—the full assembly of the elders of Israel. Then they sent for the apostles to be brought from the jail for trial. 22 But when the Temple guards went to the jail, the men were gone. So they returned to the council and reported, 23 “The jail was securely locked, with the guards standing outside, but when we opened the gates, no one was there!”
24 When the captain of the Temple guard and the leading priests heard this, they were perplexed, wondering where it would all end. 25 Then someone arrived with startling news: “The men you put in jail are standing in the Temple, teaching the people!”
26 The captain went with his Temple guards and arrested the apostles, but without violence, for they were afraid the people would stone them. 27 Then they brought the apostles before the high council, where the high priest confronted them. 28 “Didn’t we tell you never again to teach in this man’s name?” he demanded. “Instead, you have filled all Jerusalem with your teaching about him, and you want to make us responsible for his death!”
29 But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.
Acts 5:21-29
So much for another hilarious episode of “Tootie on Theology.”
You’re more than gracious, mespo. I agree with you wholeheartedly on the merits of this site and have always found your views candid and perceptive. But I need to correct a couple of things. First, my friends would probably more readily attest to my character flaws. Second, I am compelled to express my thoughts here because my wife is tired of listening to them.
Mike A:
Bravo on the tour de force reply and the personal insights into your granite character and interesting life. I feel honored to have read it, and can only hope some of my pedestrian commentary has, on occasion, caused you some amusement or reason for additional thought. I find this blog the most unlikely of forums: a place where thoughtful persons can come together for some adult discussion and fellowship. It is truly an intellectual oasis amid the floating garbage of the blog0sphere. Contributors like you and many other of our regulars make it so.
Thanks, Buddha. I think I’ll go eat now.
Maybe so, Mike, but I did find your verbose edition most entertaining. 😀
Tootie, when I scrolled through this site this morning, I noted that you had replied to my earlier comment. My initial reaction was annoyance and I determined that I would not respond. However, I am not very good at ignoring personal attacks despite my repeated insistence that I will not do so.
As I have previously told you, I enjoy this site because it raises serious topics and because its participants are, for the most part, thoughtful, coherent and often funny. I enjoy an exchange of arguments, meaning the assertion of propositions supported by logical and reasonable facts and inferences. I try to avoid topics concerning which I literally have nothing useful to offer. For example, the lengthy discussion of the collapse of the twin towers on September 11, 2001 involved principles of engineering and physics with which I am completely unfamiliar. I didn’t understand half of what Slarti, Bob, Esq. and others were talking about, so I stayed out of it. Although you are always forceful, and sometimes even insightful, I find your comments to be frequently polemic, personal and disjointed. But the exchange of insults is not argument. So I will try to focus on the substance of your position.
The difficulty is where to begin. You have asserted that my views are not founded upon a proper understanding of the New Testament and that Christians have the right “to impart their beliefs into a secular legal code.” And you have interspersed your points with allegations that I am ignorant of, discriminatory toward and contemptuous of Christianity in general. It is as though someone had vomited in my bathroom and I have to decide whether to clean the floor or the sink first.
I’ll begin by tackling the ignorance and contempt issues so that you will be more fully aware of my limitations and prejudices. I am a lawyer as you know, but I also know a bit about religion, history and a few other things. I attended both public and Catholic primary schools. During those years I was in public school, I attended weekly religion classes at whatever parish we happened to be living in at the time.
My high school years were spent in two Jesuit schools studying a traditional college prep curriculum, which included four years of theology, including comparative religion and scriptural studies. Following graduation I did a brief stint in a Jesuit novitiate in Louisiana before leaving and starting college.
I took my undergraduate degree in philosophy, where my course work included the study of classical Greek philosophy, 17th and 18th century British philosophers (from whom the Founding Fathers derived many of their ideas), symbolic logic and some 20th century philosophy of language. I studied ethics under John Rawls, whom I deeply admired, and chose Immanuel Kant as my concentration for my senior general examinations because I believe him to be the finest moral philosopher the West has ever produced. I also studied East Asian history where I was introduced to some of the fundamentals of Taoism and Buddhism. I was active in Catholic student groups as well. And while I was in college, I was fortunate enough to meet the Berrigan brothers, who taught me a great deal about the duty to resist unjust laws and unjust wars.
In my adult life I have read a great deal on the history of Christianity, including the development of modern Christian fundamentalism, the history of Catholicism and of the papacy and the development of religious traditions in this country, including the battles over secularism during the debates leading to the adoption of the Constitution. My friends include Christians, Muslims and Jews, with whom I have always freely discussed religious topics.
None of this makes me an expert in anything, and I do not profess to be. However, I know enough to know that there is not some monolithic “Christian” view on any topic. Christians, after all, cannot even agree on a version of the Bible, the foundational document.
With regard to your specific points, I offer the following:
1. I did not assert that the New Testament urges Christians to ignore just secular laws. I have no idea what you’re talking about. What I did say, and repeat, is that fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Moslems share a desire to legislate religious views.
2. Your statement regarding the right of Christians to “impart” their views is confusing and inaccurate. Every person, regardless of his or her religious opinions, brings to bear a particular set of values and principles in the process of making decisions, including policy determinations incorporated into statutory enactments. However, there is a marked difference between urging the consideration of one’s moral values in the legislative arena and urging the legislative adoption of particular religious doctrines. Congress cannot enact a constitutional statute requiring that every male child be circumcized any more than it can enact a constitutional statute compelling everyone to attend midnight Mass at Christmas (or at any other time). It is for the same reason that Congress cannot pass a law mandating daily readings from the Bible (even the King James version)in public schools. This is not a particularly difficult distinction to understand, but it is routinely assaulted by conservative Christians as somehow “discriminatory.”
3. Your statement that Christianity was “designed to live among all nations” finds both scriptural support and scriptural disagreement. More importantly, it is functionally meaningless. The entire history of Christianity is largely a chronicle of power struggles between Christians and secular authority. There is a reason the Roman empire became the Holy Roman Empire. There is a reason that heretics were condemned to death. The Catholic Church did not recognize the supremacy of secular law in many areas. Indeed, had you carefully followed the original “Robin Hood” series with Richard Greene, as I did, you would know that the Church’s crumbling resistance to secular involvement in dealing with pedophile priests has its origins in the fact that at one time members of the clergy could only be tried in ecclesiastical courts. How do you think Friar Tuck managed to survive all of those nasty encounters with the Sheriff of Nottingham ? The first law degree was conferred by the University of Bologna in the 11th century. It was a degree in canon law. King Henry’s final break with Rome was not really a theological dispute over the doctrine of marriage annulment. It was a political battle over control of the English church, a matter of sovereignty rather than religion. After the wall of Christian “unity” was breached, there was a virtual torrent of new varieties of Christian thought, leading to the prosecution and execution of many people by the emerging leaders of Protestantism.
When the Puritans reached our shores, they were indeed seeking a place of religious freedom, but they meant religious freedom for Puritans. The original laws of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were awash with religious laws, none of which included freedom of religion. The Church of England became the lawfully established church in Virginia, supported by public taxes. Taxes also supported Congregational churches in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Catholics and Jews were prohibited from holding office in a number of states. The impetus for separation of church and state was not something merely dreamed up by deists and atheists. Although the Founders were heavily influenced by enlightenment philosophy, the idea of a secular state was ardently supported by Catholics and Jews for obvious reasons, but also by Baptists and Methodists, fledgling churches struggling against the publicly funded dominance of the Anglicans and Congregationalists.
The omission of any mention of God in the Constitution was not an oversight. It was part of a deliberate effort to make certain that the new nation would not be torn apart by the same sectarian bloodbaths that embroiled Europe. That is why Jefferson wrote in the long-debated Bill for Religious Freedom adopted in Virginia in 1786 that “our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics and geometry.” That is also why he made reference to the “wall of separation between church and state” in his famous letter to the Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut. You will note that he was writing to Baptists about that issue. The state established Protestant churches didn’t need that assurance. The great evangelical revival of the early 1800’s was largely made possible by the adoption of a secular Constitution. It is indeed ironic that it is primarily evangelicals who now seek to break down that wall and who wish to marginalize the role of Thomas Jefferson in constitutional history. But what that proves is what we already knew, that the growth of a particular religious ideology will ultimately produce pressure to incorporate (“impart,” in your terms) its doctrines into public law.
So, no, I am not against freedom of religion. But I am strongly opposed to those who wish to corrupt that freedom by making particular views of Islam or of Christianity the law of the land. That would require the partial repeal of the First Amendment, and the repeal of various other freedoms would follow hard upon that.
I guess I could have just said what Buddha said.
Jericho,
why doesn’t your developed world stay out of the under-developed world? or have you ever confronted the fact that those worlds stay under developed because the developed world makes sure that they do?
Buddha Is Laughing
U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Art. I “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
That means, you homophobic zealot, that Christians most certainly do not have the ability to impart their beliefs and cannot legally impart their beliefs into THE secular legal code this country is founded upon.
================================================================
I love it when someone states a simple truth in response to simple ignorance.
A handy tip if you don’t want to accept anything other than Sharia:
– Don’t move to the developed world.
More on this group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Apparently they had a similar convention in Oak Park, Ill. in 2009 urging the revocation of the Constitution (and presumably all laws derived therefrom) and the enactment of Sharia in its place.
This is a quote from one of their “panelists” at the 2009 Oak Park convention:
“Secular capitalism has made me devalue my skin” and “has kept my family in ghettos,” said one speaker, an African-American who went on to blame it for the fact that he smoked marijuana and his grandmother played the lottery. Capitalism, he added, is a form of economic “terrorism” and “causes us to be sent to mental hospitals.” Barack Obama’s presidency, he said, “is only a scheme or con” to trick people into thinking that things will get better under capitalism.
Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/1100/hizb-ut-tahrir-shariah-takes-precedence-over-us
This group claims to reject violence to achieve their goals and has condemned 9/11 as well as the 2005 London bombing. The US Gov’t says there’s apparently no clear link between Hizb-ut-Tahrir and any terrorist group, it is “hesitant” to name them as a “terrorist” group since they are not advocating the violent overthrow of the US Gov’t.
Who forced these clowns to move to Oz? If they don’t like how Oz is governed, then they should move to the wonderful land of Afghanistan, where there’s no electricity, no TV, no shopping malls, no newspapers, none of the things that make the “god forsaken country” [shouldn’t that be “Allah forsaken country?”] of Oz so attractive to immigrants.
The ironic thing is that 30 years ago these people wouldn’t have even been allowed to visit Oz. I don’t know when Oz let down the incredibly strict racial barriers, but I know in WWII my grandfather had to post bonds with the Australian authorities in order to enable his African-American crew to step foot on Oz for some R&R.
Buddha,
I read an interesting quid bit about the founding puritans. They came over to escape religious persecution, right, well apparently once they had there own colony, they were not very tolerant of others beliefs. As a matter of fact they killed, ostracized or banished them to suffer death at the hands of he elements.
“Despite their desire to live by Biblical principals, Winthrop and his fellow settlers seemed not to grasp the true meaning of the New Testament and its two most important commandments: “Love God above all and your neighbor as yourself.” Looking back, with 21st-century eyes, we sense an absence of neighborly love. We think Puritans held each other to unattainable standards of behavior, meting out punishment instead of forgiveness, intolerance instead of understanding.”
http://www.awesomestories.com/religion/the-puritans/puritans-and-religious-intolerance
Tootles,
Completely full of theocratic bullshit as usual.
“What you don’t like, apparently, and what you might not realize or if you do you won’t admit it, is that Christians have the opportunity to impart their beliefs INTO a secular legal code. You don’t think Christians have that right (but you believe you do) to express themselves though laws.”
Read this until it starts to get through your thick skull –
U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Art. I “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
That means, you homophobic zealot, that Christians most certainly do not have the ability to impart their beliefs and cannot legally impart their beliefs into THE secular legal code this country is founded upon.
That’d be whether you like it or not.
Mike believes this to be a truthful reading of the Constitutional law of the land because it is.
And what goes for Christians, goes for ALL religions, you simple creature.
Mike Appleton:
There is nothing in the New Testament that teaches Christians to ignore just secular laws. You are just making up crap and I defy you to prove your bogus assertion that Christianity is similar to Islam in this regard.
Christians are to render unto Caesar that which is his and it is a religion that honor laws, secular or not, as long as they are just. And this is clearly written down now for about 2000 years, but even though you have the audacity to comment on it, you clearly don’t no what it says. You should be embarrassed.
Apparently you like to make comparisons between religions when in fact you don’t even know what the teachings of one of them says. I suspect then that you don’t even know what the teachings of the other is. Your ignorance appears to be very broad on this subject.
The New Testament reads
1 Peter 2:13-14 (King James Version)
“Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;
Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well”
What about that don’t you get? Couldn’t it be more clear? It seems YOU might disregard that passage as much as the Catholic Church hierarchy.
Islam comes with a legal system inherent in it and it is now long established. Christianity has no such legal system. It was designed to live among all nations.
What you don’t like, apparently, and what you might not realize or if you do you won’t admit it, is that Christians have the opportunity to impart their beliefs INTO a secular legal code. You don’t think Christians have that right (but you believe you do) to express themselves though laws. You cloak this bigotry behind the falsehood that since some people are religious, they have not right to structure law accordingly.
So much for freedom of religion. It is dead as far as you are concerned.
In other words you discriminate against religious people because their IDEAS come from religion. Whereas if ideas come from non-religious realms (ah, like yours), then they are to be favored. Well, who died and made you god of that rule? Honestly: NO ONE.
Even an atheist will not agree to go along with unjust or immoral laws. Are they any worse than a Christian who claims the right to do the same? Even the Nazis couldn’t get away with “just following orders”. And they were secular indeed.
In fact the whole world believed that some laws should not be obeyed and they expected that of the Nazis. Are you saying Nazis SHOULD obey all secular laws no matter how odius?
You seemed to be very confused.
Why don’t you try to stop venting your contempt for Christianity and just admit that Islam is a threat to all good people.
You sound like a broken record.
Snap out of it.
“The only way that asshole Colson found Jesus is that Jesus didn’t see him coming.” – George Carlin via Buddha
Poor Jesus was blind sided the first time by Paul … after that, the numbers just kept growing.
Off Topic,
But yet again, I found myself listening to NPR and the subject was about history revision.
I did not know but the Indian women (American Natives) used select the tribal leader and if they decided they did not like him for some reason they could remove him…..Sounds like some women folks I know already do it, but hey, who am I to say…..