Of course: if you criticize it, you must not understand it.
First, the Cardinal's remarks, from the Sydney Morning Herald, with thanks to JE:
The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, said secular liberal democracy was empty and selfish, and Islam was emerging as an alternative world view that attracted the alienated.In a speech in which he also attacked his critics for suggesting that conservative Christians were a danger to democracy, Cardinal Pell said communism had shown how the emptiness of the secular approach could be filled with something darker.
"The small but growing conversion of native Westerners within Western societies to Islam carries the suggestion that Islam may provide in the 21st century the attraction which communism provided in the 20th, both for those who are alienated or embittered on the one hand, and for those who seek order or justice on the other."
Dr Pell told the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty last month that secular democracy could not stop the rise of intolerant religion and in fact worsened it. He said democracy was not a good in itself. Its value depended on the moral vision it served.
"The past century provided examples enough of how the emptiness within secular democracy can be filled with darkness by political substitutes for religion."
And the Mufti's response, also from the Herald, with thanks to JE:
A spokesman for the Mufti of Australia Taj Aldin Alhilali, Keysar Trad, said Dr Pell's comments showed he did not sufficiently understand the teachings of Islam.Mr Trad said Islam was a religion which strongly believed in God.
He said Islam's holy book, the Koran, had a strong emphasis on the democratic process, with one passage recommending people consult over all their affairs.
Democracy was practised at every level of the faith, including choosing religious leaders, he said.
"Islam is not the new communism," he said.
"To draw parallels between Islam and a godless system is most unfortunate."
It also completely misses Pell's point. The Cardinal wasn't saying that Islam, like Communism, was atheistic. He said it filled a void for disaffected Westerners, as Communism once did. Did Trad really miss that point, or did he choose to focus on a straw man because it was easier?
Mr Trad said extremist terror groups branded as Islamic in the media did not act in accordance with Islam.
Great. Mr. Trad, please email me at director@jihadwatch.org with texts from the Qur'an and Sunnah that definitively refute radical Muslims' use of them to justify their violence. I'll be in the Jihad Watch offices most of the day.
I think he could be right. The umma operates as a kind of brotherhood of man, in the same way that communism did.
And like communism, once you convert, you don't change your mind, or you wind up dead.
Islamism, communism and fascism are all really just differnet faces of the "utopian" (but in reality hellish) totalitarian coin.
We have accepted that fasism was a threat to a humane world in the 1940's (i.e. it took 20 years or so). It took until the 1980's for virtually all of us to understand communism was a inhumane ideology (i.e. this took about 60 years).
And now in 2004 atleast one catholic archbishop understands that islamism is a inhumane threat to us all (one could argue that has taken 1400 years). One archbishop has been enlightened. A pity about all those world leaders attending Arafats funeral who don't get it. Crying for a cold blooded mass murderer. What is next... the worlds leaders cry for Stalin and Hilter? If these two mens movements were alive and kicking maybe this wouldn't be a fantasy! Fear can make people do all sort of ridiculous dances. I hope we don't have to wait for the contempoary equivalent of Islams bleitzkreig/invasion of Poland before they "get it". The western world always seems to be asleep at the wheel until the last possible moment.
I'm assuming Pell is an Anglican, but of the Aussie variety. Between him and John Howard, I have to say it's awfully tempting to think of immigrating to Australia. If only the ozone layer wasn't so thin.
obl r us: you are dead on too. There is no coincidence that at various junctures in the history of the 20th century, the Nazis, the Communists and the Islamists got very cosy with each other when circumstances suited them. All are totalitarian ideologies that purport to offer utopia to their followers, but deliver brutal, dysfunctional police states instead.
It´s beautiful listening people like the catholic archbishop of Siney, the truth is wakening up, it´s beautiful and I´m more happy to be catholic, islamism is the new communism, very real, greetings
The Mufti said "Islam's holy book, the Koran, had a strong emphasis on the democratic process..."
Really? Where do dhimmis fit into this "strong emphasis on the democratic process"?
Furthermore, how does theocratic monarchy-dictatorship (Islamic Caliphate) fit into the notion of democratic processes?
The Mufti is right about one thing, Islam is not the new communism - it is the new Fascism. Ask the Dutch.
Mufti says:
"Mr Trad said Islam was a religion which strongly believed in God.
He said Islam's holy book, the Koran, had a strong emphasis on the democratic process, with one passage recommending people consult over all their affairs."
Wha? I was wrong all this time? And to think I thought they were a bunch of brutal, intolerant, murdering heathens like Yasser Terrorist, Osama and abu Musab! Why, that rude chap in Holland must have deserved what he got for insulting such a great, democratic religion. This changes everything -- where do I sign??
Allah Akbar! Salami, salami bolonie!
Did Trad really miss that point, or did he choose to focus on a straw man because it was easier?
Of course that's what he made a straw man. You see, when conservatives meet up with someone that disagrees with them, they HAVE to either lie or commit a fallacy of logic. That's what you have to do when truth isn't on your side.
For instance, (I am not gay so please don't write back calling me a sissy or whatever) I have yet to hear a good arguement as to why homosexual marriage shouldn't be allowed. The usual litany of whines is something like:
1. It's an abomination.
2. God hates it.
3. It's a threat to "real" marriage.
4. The bible says it's bad.
5. "Our founding fathers couldn't have imagined it."
6. It's unnatural.
7. It's unhealthy.
8. "Not even" animals do it.
9. It will lead to further "problems" (e.g. group marriage, bestiality, pedophilia.)
10. It will ruin our society.
11. It'll corrupt our children.
Do these arguements sound familiar? They should... they are all the SAME arguements used by conservatives forty years ago to keep interracial marriage illegal. Eventually it went all the way to the (Warren) Supreme Court. They considered that since it would be okay for a white woman to marry a white man, yet not okay for a non-white man to marry the same woman, the laws (as they stood) were punishing people not for what they do, but rather for what they are. That means that different people are allowed different liberties, and we are supposed to all have the same liberties.
The anti-"miscegnation" laws were struck down. So the conservative christians lost that round.
Now you know that Muslims are just as conservative as christians, if not more so. Just admit it, and you can start your progress back toward the secular, democratic, liberal policies that (usually) make this country great.
"...the Communists and the Islamists got very cosy with each other when circumstances suited them.
Hitler cozy with Commies? You mean the Soviets. He was not cozy with German Communists that fought the Brownshirts as hard as they could, until Hitler had them all killed.
Oh, you "forgot" to mention the very, very cozy relationship that the Nazis had with the Christians... like for instance, the fact the Nazis were all Christians.
The Australian Cardinal notes the Islam is now the vehicle of choice for those wishing to express their alienation from, hatred for, their circumambient society -- Amerika (with its "k"), the West, Capitalism, The System, and so on and so obviously forth. The psychically marginal or confused, from the Marin County spoiled brat, Lindh, to the Finsbury Mosque moron (Reid), to the gang member (Jose Padilla) going straight and getting high on the Jihad -- this element is not insignificant.
Another group consists of those who have somehow been led to believe that Islam has to do with "social justice" when, in fact, Islam is almost a guarantee of despotism (save where, as in Turkey, Islam itself has been constrained for a long period), because the whole social contract theory of government does not exist, and the depot should not be opposed as long as he is a Muslim. There is no theory within Islam to withstand the mass theft of trillions by the House of Al-Saud, or the amounts that sheikhs and sheikhlings ahd sheiklettes have helped themselves to up and down the Gulf, not to mention the military kleptocracies in Algeria and Egypt, the Assad and Saddam Hussein dynasties (the latter cut short quite recently), or the mass theft of foreign aid by Arafat and his henchmen, the latter now standing to inherit most of it if only Suha will give them the codes and the combinations (and they have probably made her an offer she cannot refuse). But The New York Times, in an editorial within the last month or two, bizarrely referred to the "social justice" of Islam -- what does this mean, other than that those conducting Da'wa in the prisons pretend that Islam is on the side of the poor and oppressed, when it is nothing of the sort?
Where the Cardinal may be wrong is in assuming that liberal secular, non-religious people -- if they have kept their wits about them, and not accepted the age's sentimentalism, which is less likely to be found among determined atheists than it is among certain liberal Christians -- the kind who don't much believe in God, but have substituted for their lapsed faith a determination to defend another faith, Islam, from those whom they purport top believe are so cruelly unfair to it. It was Notre Dame that was deadset on offering a forum, and a haven, for the sinister Tariq Ramadan. Better not to defend against the Jihad by splitting all the non-Muslims, who have far more in common, no matter where they stand, than any of them do with Islam. The monotheistic Christian or Jew has nothing to fear from the polytheistic Hindu, and everything to fear from his fellow monotheistic sharers of the "Abrahamic tradition," Muslims.
Surely it is simply a function of mental weakness, rather than a particular outlook, that determines who is and who is not fooled by the apologists for Islam.
In this regard, think of Ayaan Hirst Ali, Theo van Gogh, and Pim Fortuyn -- not one was a believer in anything the Cardinal would consider belief. Nor is Ibn Warraq nor Ali Sina nor many ex-Muslims. On the other hand, Walid Shoebat and Nonie Darwish have pierced the veil of Islamic belief brilliantly -- and they are now devout Christians, of "Palestinian" Arab origin.
The moral of this comment is: Muslims make up 15% of the world's population. If that other 85% can just stop quarrelling, and realize what is at stake, and above all tried to deprive the Muslim oil states of the money that funds the Jihad, and stopped all Muslim migration into the Infidel countries, that would be plenty, and expensive ventures such as that now underway in Iraq -- fine to disarm the country, idiotic to engage in this hopeless, misdirected "LIght Unto the Muslim Nations Project" Yes, I know Allawi, and Ambassador Franck, and Chalabi, and Wolfowitz' Great and Good Arab Friend supplying pillow talk about "democracy" all keep urging the U.S. to keep it up -- but so what? We have much bigger fish to fry right now, and the biggest one of all is in educating Europeans, and supporting them, in putting paid to their own homegrown appeasers -- Lavalesque Chirac, Quisling-like Schroder, not to mention Solana, Patten, Prodi who must be exposed, mocked, and deprived of all political and moral authority.
What part of "when the circumstances warranted" didn't you get, KJ?
Hitler entered into a deal with Stalin and Stalin with Hitler because it suited both of their purposes. And various communist organizations the world around then lobbied against participation in WW II (including the Jewish ones), because that was the direction that came from Moscow. Consequently so much for the solidarity with the communist movements in countries fighting fascists.
As for Hitler's Christianity, I believe, being an Austrian he was born RC, but like Saddam, he invoked God and religion when it suited his purposes, but he was otherwise really quite secular, "living in sin" with Eva Braun until near the end.
I don't have a reference handy that defined what liberalism and conservativism actually meant when the terms were first coined. The idea that reform is the exclusive preserve of one or the other isn't valid anymore than the idea of which is inclined toward military intervention and which isn't, just like the "left" is no longer a bastion against facism as it was in the 1930s. I've met "conservatives" who are more socially progressive and reform-minded than liberals, and liberals who are more fiscally "prudent" than the current Republican administration appears to be (although given the prosecution of a major war skews this).
All of these labels have become quite meaningless so why not move the discourse to something a little more germane to JW's or DW's central theme: monitoring Jihaddist activities and Dhimmi behaviours and trying to educate others.
kj-
Did you see my reply to your post in JW "Muslim Reformers: 'Fatwas Issued by the Extremist Muslims Clerics Encourage the Commission of Terrorist Acts'"?
kj wrote: 'the fact the Nazis were all Christians.'
While it's perfectly true that most GERMANS were born Christians, the National Socialist Party was actually an offshoot of the occult Thule Society which had all sorts of strange beliefs. The Nazis were drawn to Nordic pagan mythology as exemplified in the rituals of the SS. Some of them also flirted with Buddhism and Tibetan mysticism. Not forgetting, of course, that Arafat's hero, the anti-semitic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem spent much of WW2 in Berlin as Hitler's guest.
Meanwhile, those with strong Christian convictions, such as Dietrich Bonhoffer, tended to end up in concentration camps...
/history lesson off
One must ask the question?
(Conversion by young westerners)
why has Islam made such inroads in the western community?
and why did it make no such inroads prior to the 1960s?
What has changed in the youth of the last thirty years?
Pell answer this question well.
When amorality and hedonism reign supreme in society, the dissafected youth yearn to find a worthwhile code of existence to live by.
Islam is if course happy to fill the void.
The defence against islam is not based on secularism and democracy. they only serve to aid its advance.
Islam's inroads have been fought with the aid of Christianity and our forefathers knew that this was the most effective defence. That is why europe was littered with Churches and the people constantly reminded of the war we have been waging for over a millenium.
The reasons why islam made a inroad into western communities is muslim immigration and the P.C. multicultural mind set.
One must ask the question?
(Conversion by young westerners)
why has Islam made such inroads in the western community?
and why did it make no such inroads prior to the 1960s?
What has changed in the youth of the last thirty years?
I think the increase in muslim believers in the UK especially is almost totally due to lax immigration and cantonisation of muslim immigrants who fail to integrate fully. They also have a slightly higher birth rate (for now). If we deal with the immigration and integration issues, I just don't see the masses turning to Islam.
The only British converts I can think of are Ronnie O'Sullivan (bringing in the converts through excellent potting and dodgy family connections)and a former nun I once saw in a documentary about the Hajj. Apparently, Allah made it rain on her and this was a spiritual experience.
Talking of rain, I work in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. We have a great assortment of religious folk, but apart from a few marriages, I've never seen or heard of muslim proselytes. There are certainly a lot of nutters (who badly need to get a job), and I've seen some quite obscene 9/11 anniversary celebration posters. I just don't think the local non-muslims are biting.
In contrast, a Christian evangelical "Word of Faith Victory Church" has sprung up almost over night in various parts of greater manchester with many leaflet-carrying converts. This kind of thing didn't happen much in the 60's either. Actually, on reflection, it did: North Manchester was flooded with Jehovah's Witnesses who held rallies in packed football stadiums. It didn't catch on and neither will Islam.
Maybe all the converts are metropolitan guardian readers...
France and Sweden are very atheists, and islam is very strong, USA and Poland are religious and islam is less important, none fights for his atheists ideals, he fights for God, the fatherland, his family and for his culture. The Cardinal is right, islamism like communism is a lier, uses like a weapon but it´s facist like the nazism, I think that is the perfect mixture between nazism and communism. For this is very dangerous, propaganda, vital space(umma) together.
Greetings
kj wrote : I have yet to hear a good argument as to why homosexual marriage shouldn't be allowed.
Well kj, if homosexual marriage is allowed, it will become a very slippery slope.
The North American Man-Boy Love Association ( NAMBLA ) will be asking that all pedophile laws be recalled, because we are just infringing on their rights to be pedophiles and the children’s rights to be abused. Or people will want to marry their cars, pets, children, homes, lawnmowers, televisions, furniture and the list goes on and on......
Now how does a purely secular society fight that?
You will have absolutely no moral ground except the feeling of the people as they feel that day. That my friend will not be a society that would be fun to live in, if you think different, then I implore you to move to Europe.
That is why American said NO to legal gay marriage.
kj, just for old time sake
Al Qaeda for Kerry!
Benelux: I second your response to KJ. He thinks, as a hald-educated Westerner, that he "knows" Christianity--chiefly from nasty op-ed pieces in the NYTimes and the media; and from a progressive American public school education which has given us millions of Johnnieswho can't read (or digest history, for that matter). He assumes that since the Nazis were anti-Jewish, they "had to be" Christians--even if Hitler declared Christianity to be a "Jewish Poison".
Actually, KJ, National Socialism blended the two great post-revolutionary "progressive" ideologies: socialism and nationalism, both of which were often fiercely anti-Christian throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.
KJ here reveals another facet of how the Left is like Islam: believing in the basic goodness of man, it has to blame someone else when things go radically wrong (as in National Socialism). And isn't it convenient that there are responsible, Christian adults around who know and admit their own imperfactions, and are as charitable as they can be to other people.
Also, KJ, re homosexuality, as a mature male, I fear and am horrified by anyone who can enjoy giving or getting the moral equivalent of a colonoscopy, and then say it's just as normal and enjoyable as male husband and female wife ordinary sex. Hence, I suspect you're too young for your physician to worry about your prostate, and I'll give you time to grow up.
Actually, even after the proven disaster of Communism, it's amazing how many people you meet today who still insist it's the way to go. They'll make the excuse that it wasn't given enough of a chance, or wasn't applied properly, or just needs a bit of tweaking. They're usually not people I'd want to associate with anyway. Sort of confused, angry and just weird. Often not all that anxious to get any real employment either, scoffing at that as being for drones or greedy people. Not sure how they expect to eat and live. I guess there are just confused, angry and lost people in the world, and they'll gravitate to something that is bizarre or rebellious.
Personally I think people who convert to Islam are totally messed up. Flakes who'd end up in some other cult if Islam wasn't around - Moonies, or something similar to Koresh's loony bunch, etc. Reid, Roche and that Willie Brigitte's wife - former army soldier, lesbian, and god knows what else and now a lonely lost Muslim woman with a 'husband' who's back in France facing terrorism charges. Pitiful people really. Lost souls caught up in the lie of Islam. I'm sure they're fed the sanitized, filtered version of how it's all wonderful and perfect. Not told what the founder really got up to and how despicably evil he was.
Trad and his "we do not understand Islam" BS excuse. That's what they throw up every time. It's "not Islamic", "out of context", "lost in translation", "we don't understand the poetic, complex nature of the original language", and on and on and on. Blah, blah, blah, blah! This message is brought to you courtesy of the hardworking Aussie taxpayer who's supporting his fat, lazy butt.
Bravo Pell! Another Aussie with stones the size of boulders.
waterdragon52
"I'm assuming Pell is an Anglican, but of the Aussie variety. Between him and John Howard, I have to say it's awfully tempting to think of immigrating to Australia. If only the ozone layer wasn't so thin."
Pell is the Catholic Bishop of Sydney.
Pell is a man of conviction I dont always agree with his convictions hoiwever I am surprised he has called a spade a shovel this time, unlike our United Nations approved "religious" organization the Uniting Church who along with the various other 'peoples" Churches see muslims VICTIMS of Christianity and the wicked WEST.
One such clown who host's a Sunday night Religious program on Radio Station 2GB Sydney Australia said at the closing of his show at midnight the day after the Bali Bombing had blown to pieces 198 holidaymakers 88 of them his fellow Australian's he was moved to ask his listeners ".........who is responsible for this terrible thing ? gee I dont know I think we ALL ARE, DONT YOU ?" yeah right asshole everybody BUT the self described MUSLIM TERRORIST'S who did IT.......clowns, traitors and appeasers are working for the ENEMY and the ENEMY is islam.
If I may, a parting observation:
If only the ozone layer wasn't so thin."
Where did you hear that one?
Dont take any notice of that TERRORIST HABIB supporter Bob Brown and his Green Party and their "Junk science" he and his boyfriend would not know shit from clay if it was rubbed in their face.
try junkscience.com & green hoax for some FACTS
Yours faithfully,
RSole.
Folks - Hugh has made a significant point. We are in a struggle for our very existence, and yet, even in this discussion, digression about gay marriage, though important, is not going to save us from what we are facing.
We are facing annihilation or enslavement. We must put aside our differences, focus and concentrate on the issue of confronting creeping islamization, whether by terror or other means.
Stop arguing among ourselves about other issues. Focus on the true problem. Be ready to adapt and the enemy is constantly changing, and get ready to be in it for the long haul.
RSole:
You mean to tell me I won't have to slather myself with SPF 60 sunscreen if I want to visit Downunder? Glad to hear it, mate.
As we all know, Islam and democracy are incompatible. By democracy, I mean a pluralist and tolerant society, where democratic elections are a by-product of that society.
The excercise in Iraq is wasteful in blood and treasure. Iraq is not going to be a democracy just because it has an election. Far better we concentrate our minds on events happening at home. The single most deleterious effect the Iraq war has had, is the polarisation of the West, thus allowing islamists to gain traction within. We need Liberals and the Left as well, to marginalise Islam.
rb:I think the increase in muslim believers in the UK especially is almost totally due to lax immigration and cantonisation of muslim immigrants who fail to integrate fully.
Lax immigration based on the principle that everyone, no matter from what culture, will appreciate the benefits of a civilised and tolerant society. The fact is that many people are not quite ready for civilisation, either as individuals or as a cultural group. Chief among the latter are Muslims, whose culture brooks no other.
The mess we are in Europe is of such magnitude that the continuation of European civilisation is now in serious doubt, with all that entails for the US and other Western countries, and the rest of the world.
There are few options left by which one can systematically reduce our vulnerability. These options are getting more constrained with the passage of time, not just by our own charriness but the increasing numbers of Muslims.
Some options are
1. Stop all immigration of muslims to the West.
2. Those muslims who do not have citizenship, to be given a fixed time to return to their homelands.
3. Those who have citizenship to be monitored. Islam to be recognised as a political movement and public space as a religion, denied to it. For instance the call to prayer over loudspeakers to be regarded as an affront to the secular state, and to the beliefs of non-muslims.
It is a pity that one has to write this, for as a live and let live liberal, all these are anathema to me. And yet, tolerance of the intolerant, is death to all civilised values that I hold dear.
What a moral dilemma we have landed ourselves in, ignoring all the wise that have gone before us, and the history of those around the world that have fallen prey to this most insiduous and poisonous of ideology of islam.
As for oil, we do not need to worry; Arab ntions have to sell oil just to survive.
I couldn't read all the details of the tons of comments posted their.I was excited about doing so,since all seemed to come with one person!!
For those who wonder how the basic principles (or at least some) of democracy were referred to during the Khalifate era, I advice you, to get back to the way the four different Khalifas came to throne (Abu Bakr, Omar,Othman, and ALi) you will notice notions and concepts that are taught in political science books now ( nomination, consultation, arbitration, governing councils, public choice..etc)
Don't forget the political face of the whole thing then.
You can always critisize Islam,but at least try to be informative, instead of wasting time repeating each others one sided claims, while more people convert to Islam daily! This if you really want to confront that enemy!!!
waterdragon52
You mean to tell me I won't have to slather myself with SPF 60 sunscreen if I want to visit Downunder? Glad to hear it, mate.
No way, a good quality SPF 58 OR 59 will see you through no worries at at all, honest.
RSole.
"I advice you, to get back to the way the four different Khalifas came to throne (Abu Bakr, Omar,Othman, and ALi) you will notice notions and concepts that are taught in political science books now ( nomination, consultation, arbitration, governing councils, public choice..etc)"
Thats great. That would explain the abundance of democracies throughout the arab world. I can name all the numerous arab democracies througout history....like...ummm...like...well you know....ahhh....hang one one will come to me anytime now. Hey!!!!I know one arab democracy in the making...Iraq!!! Gee...those americans shouldn't be there...the democracy they had before the americans came was so great. Saddam won every time. What a nomination!!! They had so much consultation in the Iraqi parliament with all of Saddams parliamentarians always nominating Saddam...aint that amazing. That's what I call a governing council!!! So much public choice the Iraqi's voted 99 percent for the one candidate...WOW!!!
The Cardinal wasn't saying that Islam, like Communism, was atheistic. He said it filled a void for disaffected Westerners. . .
Why can't a disaffected person fill his "void" with something useful? Like-- I know this sounds crazy, but-- a JOB?