Metal Reviews

It's not kneejerk, it's deliberate. To maintain post-enlightenment secularism, Islam must be excluded until it at the very least undergoes a transformation similar to that of Christianity during the Enlightenment. Islam and Christianity are today very different from one another, and need to be treated accordingly.

No religion should be funded by government, true. But viewing religions as one big single entity with a single ideology is as foolish as viewing political parties in the same way. And my history might be a little hazy, but I don't remember the enlightenment happening because churches suddenly lost their government funding.

Seriously, what an arrogant way of thinking that is, Fridge.

That's not what I meant and you know it.

You're fine with Christianity getting money, but not Islam, because you think by doing that it'll help them modernise. That's what you said.

No, I'm not fine with any religion getting money, and that's not what I said. I said, or at least meant, that Christianity was forced to modernise when secularism managed to overpower it. Islam has not undergone this submission yet, and thus must be treated very differently than Christianity today. That doesn't mean that Christian churches are any more entitled to public money.

And you're a Scottish Nat now? Jesus.

Not public fundings for any religion. That's the way. Religious buildings should be maintained by their faithful.

Actually, you implied that you were fine with Christians getting money but not Muslims - different religions being treated differently, and all. But anyways, whatever you meant, your whole hypothesis is clearly correct because of course there are no secular Muslims, or fundamentalist Christians anywhere in the world. No part of Islam has ever modernised, and they all live just like Mohammed did. Yes.

Haha, I'll be studying politics in Scotland, and I wanted to join a party to get some local political interaction, and the SNP seemed like the best choice. Social Democrats, and I get to troll English people.

You can treat an ideology differently than those who claim to believe in it.

I'd have thought UKIP would be more up your alley - you do know about Salmond and the Lockerbie bomber squalidness? But yes, whilst an American-Swiss skirt-wearing pirate is pretending to be a Scottish nationalist, I shall console myself with the fact that you didn't join and spoil my Liberal Democrats.

UKIP? O.o Assuming you were serious, what on earth gave you that idea? I don't see myself ever joining a right-wing party.

EDIT: Oh and, because I have a UK birth certificate, I'll be a British citizen in about... 5 years.

Well, UKIP are not known for their love of Islam, whilst the SNP seem quite happy to send terrorists back home in exchange for oil deals.

We'll change that, rarrr!!

Eh, I wanted a local political group, and the SSP just seemed too silly.

I agree but Frig likes to emphasize how Muslims especially shouldn't receive funding and should be, for lack of a better word, oppressed, i.e. support of the minaret ban, opposed to the victory mosque funding, surely rejects and approves of the bans on head scarves. I understand the separation of church and state. What I don't approve of is this idea that Christianity has become enlightened while Islam has not. They're both unenlightened insofar as the Enlightenment was a rejection of religion but nonetheless Christianity is just as barbaric and pre-modern as Islam, for instance, the Polish blasphemy hearings going on now. So Islam has some harsher dress codes but it doesn't advocate ignorance in the form of Palin and her ilk.

No, that's not my position either. Western, secular countries, like Central and Northern Europe, or (sometimes dubiously) the US, have managed to oppress Christianity in order to maintain Enlightenment. Christianity then lost power- the reform was imposed on it, and not embraced. The same needs to happen with Islam, but from within Islam itself. The nature of the religion makes any imposition nigh impossible. Until that happens, we must treat Islam as more dangerous than Christianity, and take stronger measures to oppose it.

Christianity is not enlightened, it is merely unable to overcome the Enlightenment.

I wonder what your new 'Social Democrat' friends say about all this "we must oppress Islam for its own good" nonsense. I know nationalists aren't famed for their clear thinking, but really, I'd keep quiet about that the next time you guys have a bbq.

Ah so Christianity is able to remain in check through Enlightenment values? May I introduce you to Proposition 8. Both Christianity and Islam encroach on the public sphere and both need to be oppressed according to your criterion. Your emphasis on Islam is worrisome to me because it comes off as unabashed racism when you cast a blind eye to Christianity's growing medieval rejections of valid argumentation and logic.

I don't cast a blind eye to it. Using exceptions to the rule like prop 8 isn't honest debating, not to mention that it was overturned because it was unconstitutional, showing that secularism still does trump religious idiocy; furthermore, my eurocentrism limits my perspective somewhat, so forgive me if I overlook American phenomena. I will agree, now that you mention it, that Christianity in America is becoming very dangerous indeed, whereas Islam has not yet had the effect there that it has in European countries, like France or the UK.

Also, it nae propagates ignorance? Check out the Channel 4 program with Richard Dawkins on Faith Schools in the UK, you should be able to find it on youtube. One third of UK state-funded public schools are religiously oriented, and the Muslim ones are churning out students who don't believe in evolution, think the Koran is scientifically accurate, and that Shariah is an inevitable consequence.

Richard Dawkins is def an unbiased source for this info.