Archived Current Debates

Having read the article, there are two points on which I wish to comment:

1) Many violent Islamists claim that their murderous deeds are but a reaction to the atrocities committed by certain countries in the West, particularly Britain and the United States. Perhaps we should call their bluff by not invading countries who never paused any danger to us, and who are incapable of defending themselves against the most powerful nation on the planet, unless we subscribe to Aesop’s maxim: Might Makes Right!.

2) As for killing apostates, I found in the Quran few passages which specifically refer to apostates (those who “turn back”. Arabic: Murtedun). One goes something like: “If you turn-back from your faith and die in unbelief, your works will bear no fruit in this life and in the hereafter; you will be companions of the fire and will abide therein”.

In this passage, there is certainly a threat that an apostate would burn in “the fire”, a punishment delayed until after death. Fair enough! But, unless I misread these words, I don’t see how they can be used as a license to hurry the passage of the poor sod to Hell! In any case, the delayed punishment seems conditional on dying in “unbelief”, which clearly indicates that those who swap one “belief” for another are exempt!

Another passage reads: “If they turn back, it is they who are in schism; but Allah will suffice thee as against them”. Again there is nothing here about giving one Muslim a licence to kill another.

Hi Zak! Fancy meeting you here!

Something important to remember about Islam. The Qu'ran is not the only authority. There are, basically, three authorities in Islam: the Qu'ran, the Hadith, and the Sira, or the biography of Mohammed. Together, the three make up the Sunnah. The content of the Sunnah is disputed, but it is unquestionable that it consists of more than the Qu'ran.

If you consult Qu'ran 5:33, you will read of 'corruption in the land', which was, I think, interpreted by Mohammed himself to apply to apostates. Here it is in Montgomery Watt translation: "The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be there degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom."

Well, that's clear enough, at any rate. One advantage of the Qu'ran is that it never leaves anything to chance!

I am very concerned about this particular essay by Benedict Rogers. Let me list my concerns.

Let's start with this remark. "Of course, we should engage with moderate Muslims who have never given extremism a thought. But they are not the problem."

But of course they are the problem, if they dare not address the extremists - and, indeed, many of them dare not. So, moderate Muslims are very quiet. That's why Islamists thought it necessary to establish the Quilliam foundation in the first place.

Here's my next concern: "But who do we think stands a better chance of changing Muslim mindsets - ex-Muslims or ex-Islamists who remain Muslim?" This is a comment on people like Ayan Hirsi Ali. No doubt, Muslims stand a better chance of speaking to Muslims. That goes without saying. The question is: do they have anything to say? That remains to be seen. Ayan Hirsi Ali doesn't think so. That carries some weight with me.

Here's the next one: "We should advocate human rights for persecuted Muslims." This is a joke, right? No, it doesn't seem so. But, by persecuted Muslims the writer is referring to Muslims persecuted by their own faith and the rules that govern it. Yes, we should advocate human rights for persecuted Muslims, and we should make it clear that Islam itself is responsible for their persecution.

The next point is equally concerning. According to Rogers, only when Muslims acknowledge a problem will 'we' be able to solve it. In other words, we have to wait and see. Do Muslims think there is a problem? Will they acknowledge it? If they don't, then we can't do a thing. And this is nonsense. We know there are problems. We know there are problems about young women (girls) being sent back to Pakistan or Bungladesh and forcibly married to their cousins (or whomever). We know that there is a problem with Muslims accepting women's liberation. We know that many (perhaps most) Muslims cannot accept gay liberation. We know that many Muslims cannot accept secular forms of government. As Rogers himself says, there's a problem with apostacy. Christians may regret it when other Christians abandon their faith, but he knows of not one who would threaten violence as a result. Christians put up with abuse, but Muslims threaten blood-curdling violence. So, there's a problem. We don't need to wait for the other shoe to drop.

Greywizard:

As always, you cover the subject in a lucid and scholarly style. I prefer a subject that can be tackled with mathematics which leave little scope for circular arguments. Having just the two major books of Islam (the Quran and the Hadith), both in English, limits my scope for discussing the article in any depth, apart from touching on just two points. I think we can all agree that it is a subject which should be taken very seriously and resolved sooner rather than later, if we are to avoid further misery for everyone.

My first impression on reading Ben Rogers' essay is that I found it hard to believe that a Government approved think tank would endorse such a diatribe. This is underlined by the comments of "de-radicalisation centres - to help Muslim's escape Islamism" No doubt to save the poor uneducated fellows from their own folly. So much for bringing religion into the public square - as long as it's only Christianity? Whilst there is undoubtedly a discussion to be had about radical Islamic ideology (as there is also with Christian fundamentalism so coyly neglected in this essay) from my own experience of working alongside ordinary everyday Muslims - in the real world of work not the varsity common room, they were no better or worse than any of my other colleagues. I didn't agree with some of their views, they didn't agree with many of mine - despite that we managed to rub along together without any problems. I have no reason to believe that this is a rarity in the work place.

I suspect that the main points of this essay coincide with a report in the Daily Telegraph today - that in twenty years time there will be more practising Muslims in the Uk than there will be Christians. That is because, regardless of whether I agree with them or not, your average Muslim knows more about his religion than the average Christian. I put it to you that many of the oft quoted 71% of citizens of the UK who identify themselves as Christians do so not because of any truth or truths revealed in the Bible but rather more to the sentimental notion of being reunited with beloved family and friends.

Just for a change I agree with Zak.

The invasion of Iraq has done more to radicalise Muslims than anything else. It also destroyed whatever moral authority the "Christian" west had in muslim eyes and which it might have claimed from NATO's intervention in Kosovo and belated intervention in Bosnia. It was perpetrated by people as clueless about their professed Christian faith as they were clueless about Islam - the analogy with the Crusades which President Bush carelessly made at one point was not far from the truth.

Everytime I see a new government initiative to promote "moderate" Islam I am reminded all too clearly of the "official" churches of the Communist world.

Yes 9/11 happened before Iraq and was a terrible thing but it was perpetrated by a small group of activists using minimal technology.

What is the answer? Well, who would start from here?!! Getting out of Iraq is not simple but it must be done and western leaders might help by admitting and showing repentance for their mistakes. No sign of that.

Some further thoughts: I think Christians can help but only by being self-critical and conscious of the history of our own religion, recent as well as past. We need to remember that young people who adopt faith can become very fundamentalist and very susceptible to individual leaders. So, yes, don't feed persecution complexes. Be tolerant if at all possible. I do hope some of the conspiracy trials we are seeing at the moment are well-founded - but it's another reason why preserving justice and human rights is critical.

As it happens I think Christian radicals tend to veer towards pacifism rather than violence. My many conversations with Muslims over the last few years suggest to me a religion that is potentially complex and multi-layered with unrealised strands of mysticism and spirituality. I suspect analogies with the need for "reformation" or "enlightenment" are misguided as is the idea that Islam can be defined on a one-dimensional scale from extreme to moderate. At the moment radical Islam is a political banner, just as communism and Marxism was. As an analogy, it took one lot of fundamentalist Marxists, the Vietnamese, to sort out the worst horrors of Marxism, expressed in Cambodia.

Jonhunt:

One more such agreement with you, and I am undone!

(with apologies to Pyrrhus)

Sorry to spoil all the cordial back-slapping, but moving on from Scarthin Nick's good points, maybe this article should have a response, entitled:

First, take the plank out of your own eye: How Christianism should tackle its own radicality - written by an Iraqi who's had his family and friends wiped out by what he perceives as 'Christianists' (i.e., driven by Western 'neo-conservativism', which seems to be the underlying principle of all the political parties, whatever flavour, religious, or not).

Is 'moderate' merely a synonym for relativism: a luxury available only in the comfy, exploitative West, where people have very little else about which to worry? Do extremists see themselves as extreme, or do they merely see themselves as protecting a good? Is it merely a case of competing goods, and which means should be used to actualise those goods?

Quite a long time ago I wrote a lot in one discussion here about utopianism - the attempt to actualise an un-actualisable good - and I think this is article gives a classic example. Neither the radical extremist, nor the proposals put forward here are realisable goods in the human sphere. They both propose conflicting views of truth (ideologies?), a 'salvation by works', and are both confrontational (the article claiming it's approach is innocuous, of course!). Both think the other is wrong, and needs correction. How could these ideas be brought about, concretely, apart from some mass movement of force? One side uses it indiscriminately, the other hopes-against-hope that everyone will buy into the ideas in a market-place of wishy-washy relativism where you can believe what you like. To most, like with politics, it's simply irrelevant to their everyday lives. They're either racist, or just get on with with their Muslim neighbour, of which Scarthin Nick gives an example.

People think they're right. And the more people tell them they're wrong, especially if they try to ram it down their throats, the more they resist and entrench their position, don't listen, lash out.

What's more, it covers the non-religious sphere just as much. It's got more to do with what we care about - value - and how much we care about it, than whether it's religious or not. One person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings." Maybe this is the kind of spirit that can be removed only by prayer and fasting? Rather than priding ourselves in the rightness of our our worldview and our ability to make all things well, maybe humility and reliance on God's grace might be more appropriate?

I forgot to add in my earlier post that whilst I don't have a simple solution over what to do about radical Muslims who subscribe to the "Behead those who insult Islam" genre. As a comparison I am optimistic that if after years of turbulence Dr Paisley and Martin McGuinness can find it within themselves to sit down together at the same table, then a solution for this issue can also be found.

What I can't do, at the moment, is to hold Ben Rogers in any regard as an authority on this subject. Having re-read the essay again, it confirms what I first thought, that by calling on our (?) Judeo-Christian heritage we might somehow "cure" radical Muslims. That Christianity, in it's broad sense, is more likely to find a solution than any other agency such as a political or ethical one. Is this an echo of Ann Coulter's famous comments: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Not the best idea to bring radical Muslims to the negotiating table. This, of course, is from the woman who wants to take away women's votes because "women are voting so stupidly." Radical indeed.

It is also worth noting that the picture to go along with the essay is the iconic one of the twin towers, as close as possible to the words radical and Islam - thus encouraging the reader to associate all three in the same context, when as far as I know there must be many Muslims who are of radical opinion but perfectly peaceable citizens. Once again, I feel I must challenge Theos for using this as a cheap propaganda shot.

Paul, I'm not going to comment on your disquisition on relativism, except to say that it seems, for you, that we either have authoritative religious belief, or we have relativism. I'm not sure why you should think that. It seems to me a false dichotomy.

However, the point I did want to remark on is your comment that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. And that's straightfoward nonsense. Terrorism, whether by heavy bombers or suicide bombers, comprises acts of random violence intended, for political or military reasons, to terrorise civilian populations. It is seldom successful in achieving the political or military aims sought. (American bombing of military targets in daytime made a much greater impact on the achievement of victory in WW II than British bombing of civilians by night.) And it has nothing whatever to do with freedom.

I am surprised, by the way, that you seem to favour Luther's theology of salvation by grace and not by works, despite the epistle of James. Humility and reliance on God's grace, in my experience, almost always means that we take someone else's word for it.

Weird article. Where is the evidence that demands for Christian churches in Saudi Arabia will bring Bin Laden to repentance? Where is the evidence that hospital chapels are hotbeds of Islamic extremism?

Theos itself, and all lobbies like it, are the problem. They peddle the lie that religion, any of the religions, should dictate what politicians do. When any brand of any of the big religions has had real political power, the result has always been persecution and misery.

To tackle Islamic - and Roman 50% 'catholic' - extremism, we should

(a) Abrogate Article 2 of the first protocol of schedule 1 to the UK Human Rights Act, which gives parents a spurious 'right' to ensure indoctrination of their children 'in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.' This is inconsistent with, and trumped by, children's right to choose their own religion, in accordance with Article 9.

(b) Require all schools, especially including schools run by religious organisations, to teach an agreed national syllabus about religion. Children should learn about at least 6 of the big religions, and should be told why they reject each other, and why atheists reject all of them. Children should consider at length the three important truths about religion: 1. At most one brand of one of the big religions can be right. 2. Theologians have no tools to decide which one it is. 3. The religious have frequently resolved, and still resolve now, disputes by persecuting and killing each other.

(c) The state should treat discrimination by religious organisations exactly as it treats religion-backed customs like suttee, polygamy, child sacrifice, and ritual smoking of cannabis. Outlaw them. If Roman 50% catholic seminaries will not admit women, they must pay woman applicants unlimited compensation. If women priests are denied promotion to bishoprics, likewise. The selection and appointment of imams must give equal opportunity to women. And likewise for homosexuals. It is, in my opinion, no coincidence that the religions run by frustrated men are the maddest, while The Society of Friends, for example, is benign.

Nicholas

Thank you for your provocative comments. Your solution of reverse indoctrination and totalitarian secularism(by which I mean a form of secularism rather than a description of secularism) was of course tried by the Communist countries.

It was so unsuccessful that the Communist experiment was ended everywhere except China, North Korea and Vietnam in 1989. The peoples of eastern Europe and Russia rejected not just the totalitarianism but also the ideology. Poland in particular lurched towards extreme Catholicism. Yugoslavia erupted in sectarian violence as populations grabbed at different and poorly understood heritages.

Several of us from different perspectives have stated the key message: it is genuine tolerance of fundamentally held beliefs that deters the lurch towards extremism, not intolerance. Yes society must deal with terrorists and prevent and deter their activities - but it will only avoid creating more terrorists by not marginalising and persecuting those who seek deep spiritual meaning in their lives; or even those who seek meaning from joining groups with clear beliefs and objectives.

A good article, of some relevance to this disucssion is Terry Sanderson's on Murphy-O'Connor in today's Guardian, here:

On Cardinal Archbishops, lies and secularism>/p>

Freedom of religion is very often freedom to impose absurd beliefs on little children. Unil secular societies have to come to the point where we no longer think it appropriate to indoctrinate children with beliefs for which there is not a shred of evidence, there will be no peace within our societies.

Does this make me a utopian? No, it doesn't, but it makes me someone who actually believes that, by our own (merely human) efforts, we can actually make things better, if we try. And if we stopped believing with absolute conviction things that we can neither prove nor understand - actually, even Cormac Murphy-O'Connor thinks God is beyond our understanding - one wonders why he thinks it appropriate to speak with such assurance of God's will - we could at least make a beginning in learning to live together. The constant intrusion of religious voices in the process of secular debate and decision making does little more than confuse the issues.

This is why I find Ben Rogers' paper so impossibly naive. He knows - that's why he wrote the article - that powerful religions - absolute ideologies of any kind, and especially today, political Islam, are extremely dangerous.

Here, I disagree intensely with Scarthin Nick. Muslim friends and co-workers may be fine, sensible chaps, but religious bodies as a whole, on their official side, as the Catholic Church makes it clear to us, are overweening, whinging power brokers, and they pass on their ridiculous sense of being persecuted to their fellow religionists, who, as Nicholas makes clear, may not really be paying all that much attention, but the religious power brokers, being the loudes public voices around, go on just the same. And recall that Islam, no less than Roman Catholicism, takes direction from outside an unaccountable authorities.

Whether active Muslims know more than active Christians about their religion is doubtful, I suspect. The sources of Islam are so arcane and complex, that popular versions of the faith come nowhere near the real thing. But talking about individuals instead of about the institutions and institutional power that interferes - with often disastrous consequences - in public decision making, is to make a serious error. Remember that almost all religions (especially the monotheistic variety) give a platform for fairly ordinary persons with quite limited abilities to harangue people in fairly large numbers once a week, and sometimes more often than that.

Yes, let's force religions to observe human rights, the human rights of women, children, gay and lesbian people, instead of letting them get away with oppression just because they are religions. Doing this systematically, as was done in the case of adoption agencies, would soon reduce religions, as they should be, to the private sphere, where they can do less damage. And it would stop the continuing attempt, by religious authorities, to confuse the issue by running together the undoubted right of individual's to hold what beliefs they wish to hold, on the one hand, and the exercise of religious power, on the other. I think Nicholas is really on to something here.

Greywizard

There is no central institutional source of authority in Islam, any more than there is in protestant Christianity.

Yes, Iran has sought to create within its own nation a central source of authority. I don't find it a pleasant political system but generally speaking, a campaign of bombing and imposition of regime change would be far more damaging than leaving it alone to evolve through the limited democracy it has.

As for human rights, the essence of human rights is the right to be different. You and Nicholas are advocating a view of rights which would take away these rights from many many people.

Not so, Jon Hunt. The only thing I want to take away is a right that some (probably, I think, only a minority) of parents claim, to insulate their children from reasoned criticism of their parents' religion, and reasoned defence of other religions. Your comparison with the USSR under Stalin is unfair; Soviet schools did not ensure that children knew what the Buddha taught and why. I also want to stamp on the outrageous claim that, for example, Roman 50% 'catholics' make, that they should be allowed to discriminate against women and homosexuals. They never had a right to do this, any more than anyone ever had a right to discriminate against blacks or slaves or people of the wrong tribe.

It is worth reading the transcript of Murphy-O'Connor's latest incoherent blathering. At one minute, his god is a total mystery, and it's all silly atheists' fault for demanding anything clear. But that same day, the wily double-speaker will have recited all the barmy - and all too clear - claims of the Credo. And he knows that his utterly mysterious god hates it if two men enjoy stroking each others' willies, or if a woman wants less than the 20 or so children she is capable of bearing. As for why, until very lately, his god allowed 18 of these children to die young, well, that's a mystery, of course.

Yes, Islam has no equivalent of a Pope. And yes, beyond the Koran, there is scope for debate about which of the voluminous hadith are genuine. But the central, and transparently barmy, claim that the Koran is the perfect word of a perfect god, remains. My agreed national syllabus would expect children to read the Koran, and what is tendentiously called 'the' bible, and to discuss a good selection of the revolting and mutually contradictory texts they contain.

Oh, and by the way, I deny that any of the big religions offer 'deep spiritual meaning' for anyone's life. All humans can and do construct meanings for their lives, without needing any supernatural props. The big religions (with one possible exception) offer only the absurd nostrum that our lives have no meaning, except as a preparation for things that will, allegedly but unverifiably, happen to our consciousness after our deaths. (The possible exception is Buddhism, in a strict version that denies that there is any 'self' that could be re-incarnated.)

Watching the last thread and the beginnings of this one, looks like Greywiz, Zak and Nicholas could end up debating among themselves.

Of course, we're the power-crazed bullies, blah, blah, blah.

Paul, that seems a bit unfair. If you don't want to join in, of course, no one can force you. But I did read what you wrote, and responded to it. I didn't call you a power-crazed bully. I just questioned what you said.

Jonhunt. I disagree. There are central authorities in Protestantism and in Islam. They don't have the institutional stability and uniqueness of the pope, but they have a cohesive unity nonetheless. Protestantism, despite the old British idea of 'free churches', is far from free. Indeed, the degree of unity of belief within most strains of conservative Protestantism would be astonishing, if we knew nothing of the capacity of human groups to be self-correcting and self-perpetuating. The same goes for Islam. Of course, (at least Sunni) Islam looks, first of all to Saudi Arabia, where the holy cities are. Indeed, it is said that the Qu'ran can only be read, correctly, in Arabic, since that is the language that the angel Gabriel (Jebreel, I think) used in dictating the holy words to Mohammed. So, yes there is an external authority, a very powerful and compelling one. (Lots of people bring up Sufi mysticism at this point. Well, of course, you could bring up Meister Eckhart in the Christian tradition too. But neither reference takes away from the predominant orthodoxies in either faith.)

The essence of human rights is not the right to be different. The essence of human rights is the right to be free. Without that right, we become extensions of someone else. That's the problem with the indoctrination of children, which offends against this fundamental right of freedom and autonomy. Education should help people make their own choices, not determine what they should be. Of course, within this, it goes without saying that freedom for one must be consistent with freedom for all.

The point that Nicholas makes is very important. At one level religious believers tend to say that God is mystery; but at another level they want to be able to say that God commands this or that. If God is a mystery, how does it come about that we know what God wills? Many religious people are very specific about God's will. How do they know, if God is at the same time mysterious and impossible for the human mind to grasp?

Greywiz, you say: "If God is a mystery, how does it come about that we know what God wills? Many religious people are very specific about God's will. How do they know, if God is at the same time mysterious and impossible for the human mind to grasp?"

But yet, more than most I'd say, Greywiz, you would know that the term mystery doesn't mean 'enigmatic', 'unknowable', or suchlike, in a Theological context. And if you don't, then all your appearance of being so well-read is just a sham. You're just using it - like you do in many cases - to score points: being specific when it suits, being deliberately obtuse when it suits, etc..

Therefore, to begin to think this is a valid argument (based on a fallacious understanding of the term 'mystery'), is merely a sign of ignorance not any profound thinking at all.

Also, in relation to my view of grace, I don't say grace alone. I believe utterly in grace and it's salvific value, but don't think the Epistle of St James is 'a straw epistle': I'm just not a pelagian. But, here again, I'm sure you knew exactly what I meant, but just chose to play the dimwit - or else your seemingly immense ignorance of Catholicism is indeed that - immense ignorance, posing as informed knowledge.

Paul, if you want to put all that in a calm, level-headed way, without bullying, I'll respond.

Chaps (and chapesses if you're still reading, Polly): No doubt it would be interesting to discuss how anyone can know the moral stances of an incomprehensible god. But I suggest we stick, here, to the current question, how we counter religious extremism. I would hope it could be common ground that children should be taught that the big religions do (all, I think) state that their god(s) are beyond human comprehension. I think children should also be invited to reflect on the (I think, incompatible) claim, that some parts of the 'will' of these god(s) have, from time to time, been 'revealed' - bizarrely, chiefly to long-dead men obsessed with virgins, or to adolescent girls in places in need of more tourists.

They should, I think, also be brought face to face with the dogma of the old men in the Vatican, that women should have 20 children and see 18 of them die (or make their sex lives a misery by hugely unnatural 'natural' contraception). Ratzinger is reported to have endorsed this contemptible and cruel nonsense, again.

And children should listen to Murphy O'Connor's amazing admission, in his interview on Today on 9 May, that he is against reason, because reason (not the fawning of the Vatican) supported Hitler. Here's the transcript: "... if you go just by reason, I think, without faith, without belief in God, you can imagine, for instance in the last century, some of the faith[less], or supposedly faithless societies - people, whether it's like Hitler or Stalin, bringing up - having a country in which, if you like, a God-free zone, a dictatorship ruled by reason, and where does it lead? To terror and oppression."

The extremism we need to counter is not just in caves in Afghanistan. It is here, in Westminster.

"Paul, if you want to put all that in a calm, level-headed way, without bullying, I'll respond."

And even that, is doing exactly what I said you do.

I hope you mean not to follow your example - you're the only one who's been cautioned by the mods for being abusive, remember?

Paul. I was cautioned because of a word. The words was drawn out of me by frustration. You were the immediate cause of that. And I have said, several times, that your snide abusiveness is something to which I will not respond. Clearly, with your last post, you are trying to force me into a no-win situation. I am not fooled.

Nicholas is right, of course, that discussing how we can know the will of an incomprehensible being is really a digression. It seems to be a fight between reason and faith, or, as they used say, Athens and Jerusalem. I think I'd pick Athens, even though the church, in a pique, closed the philosophical schools some time around 500 (509 sticks in my mind), and since then reason has had a dodgy time getting noticed.

The point about the education of children seems to me the most important one. Most religious 'education' is abusive, because it fixates in children's minds at an early age beliefs which are not amenable to reason. This makes it harder for reasonable discussion at later ages to get going. Many people find themselves trapped within narrow orthodoxies, and discover, too late, that their lives have been distorted because of them.

Nicholas is right on another point. Islamic extremism is not the only thing with which we have to deal. Chritian extremism is becoming more shrill every day. I think it is the result of the increasingly strident voices of Islamic extremists for recognition and respect. Christians feel the need to respond in kind. Christian priests used to burn heretics at the stake. Perhaps they won't sink that low again, but they are quite prepared, for the sake of their beliefs, to use lies, half-truths and slander to get their way. What they would do with real power, if they had it, is anyone's guess, but it is worthwhile looking at countries in Latin America for hints as to the uses to which ecclesiastical power might be put.

No religion is benign. Islam may be the most obvious case of extremism today, but the current interventions in of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain gives us clear warning that Islam and Islamists are not the only dangerous extremists with whom we have to deal. And despite Paul's personal animadversions about my opportunistic use of the unknowability of God to underline the arbitrary character of these interventions, the truth is that the catholic position is a matter of sheer assertion, based on supposed knowledge of the will of a being whose nature is beyond comprehension and cloaked in mystery.

That the whips are permitting a free vote of the 'hybrid bill', giving a few extremists the right to 'vote their conscience', is not a good sign for the future of British democracy. It is, in fact, the first step on the way to theocracy. It is not a step that should be taken.

The laughable thing is that the Roman Catholic Church, when times are good, and lives are not threatened, speaks out against a practice that will cause no suffering, and in which the interests of individuals are not involved. However, during the Holocaust, when millions were being slaughtered, the Vatican remained virtually silent. Given the anti-semitism of the pre-war Roman Catholic Church, documented carefully by David Kertzer in his books "The Kidniapping of Edgardo Mortano" and "The Popes against the Jews," this is not surprising. What is objectionable is that the Vatican is so vociferous now, when the issue is no longer one of suffering, but a narrow-minded and absurd idea of when human life begins (based, as I say, on supposed knowledge of a god who is incomprehensible to us).

The only way to fight this kind of thing is not with prayer, but with an infusion of reasonable moral thought. For Christians who wonder about this Bishop Holloway's book "Godless Morality" is a good place to start.

"The point that Nicholas makes is very important." Those are your words, Greywiz. It's convenient that it becomes a 'digression' once it's found to be utterly wrong.

Why not just admit what Nicholas was talking tosh, and you backed it up, rather than try to wriggle out of it? :)

Nicholas quotes Murphy-O'Connor (not the best example of Catholic orthodoxy) "... if you go just by reason..." - Nicholas seems to be blind to the "just" in that sentence...

On the contrary, Paul. M-O'C conflated two outrageous lies. 1. Hitler was motivated just by reason. He wasn't. His motivations included a mad neo-Wagnerian dream of domination by a mythical Germanic 'race'; and Luther-based anti-Semitism, in which the Vatican backed him. (It wasn't till 1962 that the Christian extremists dropped the 'perfidious Jews', and instead informed their utterly mysterious god that it does 'not refuse Your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of Your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness.')

Lie 2: Government based just on reason leads to oppression and terror. I know of no historical examples of this.

M-O'C's is the sort of mad extremism that Richard Dawkins so rightly urged BBC interviewers to challenge.

Don't push me Paul. I'm in the mood to eat a couple of Christians today!

It was a digression, and I didn't wriggle out of it. I still think the whole idea of God's mystery or incomprehensibility or unknowability is in direct conflict with the idea that we can have any notion what this God's will might be. Since we cannot know or comprehend God, we do not have criteria by which to judge what is or is not a revelation of God. Sorry Paul, not wriggling out at all, and I do think it's still nonsense. So, I don't think what Nicholas was saying was tosh.

Murphy-O'Connor cannot justify the outrageous remarks he made. They are the typical "We're right, so you must be wrong" of all absolutists. The trouble is that it was absolutist thinking of a particularly primitive kind that led to the atrocities committed by the Nazis, not reason. (Rather than neo-Wagnerian I think I would rather say sub-Wagnerian.) Read Mein Kampf. It's a scarcely literate piece of invective from beginning to end. Something like Murphy-O'Connor's outpourings.

Returning to the topic of the thread, and what we are to do with Islamism (just a note, Islamism is the radical version of islam - 'radical Islamism' is a bit of a tautology). I think that Nicholas is right. We're talking here about religious extremism, period. Islamic extremism is, at the moment, a serious practical issue. Christian extremism is just starting to rear its ugly head. It's been around before. The important point, for the moment, is to ask ourselves whether religion holds the key to how to deal with issues like these. My own response is no. It can't hold the key, because in this instance religion itself is the problem.

I have been following up the Quilliam Foundation on t'internet. "By their friends shall ye know them" Extremely popular with Islamaphobes and Neo-Conservatives, less so with everyone else. There are too many articles to reproduce - however the one from the Muslim Council of Britain may be of interest - which can be had by going to:

http://www.mcb.org.uk/media/letter164.php

Sorry, folks, I can't do active links on this site!

"Don't push me Paul. I'm in the mood to eat a couple of Christians today!"

"Paul, if you want to put all that in a calm, level-headed way, without bullying, I'll respond."

Gosh, Bunglawala really comes across as an extremist in the letter referred to, Scarthin Nick. Very disturbing, especially if you have ever read the foundation documents of the Hizb ut-Tahrir that Banglawala considers mainstream. Here's a little snippet from the Notes and Comments of Butterflies and Wheels:

"Hizb-ut-Tahrir is a political party whose ideology is Islam. Its objective is to resume the Islamic way of life by establishing an Islamic State that executes the systems of Islam and carries its call to the world. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has prepared a party culture that includes a host of Islamic rules about life's matters...As for the resumption of the Islamic way of life, the reality of all the Islamic lands is currently a Kufr household, for Islam is no longer implemented over them; thus Hizb-ut-Tahrir adopted the transformation of this household into a household of Islam. With regard to determining whether a household is Islamic or not, this is not dependant on whether its inhabitants are Muslims or not, but rather in what is implemented in terms of rules and in whether the security of the household is in the hands of the Muslims, not the Kuffar...Hizb-ut-Tahrir is not a spiritual bloc, nor is it a moralistic or a scientific bloc, but rather a political bloc that works towards the management of the Ummah's affairs as a whole according to Islam."

This, I gather, is from Seumas Milne. And this is, apparently, from what Banglawala says in his letter, mainstream Islam in Britain today. Well, how do you deal with that? Security of the household must not be in the hands of the kuffar (as, apparently it now is), but in Muslim hands. If this doesn't sound to you like a threat to the peace of the state, I'm not sure what would.

I think Islam (not just Islamism) is a dangerous force in today's world. I think Christianity has the capacity to be dangerous. It's time to reaffirm the rights of people to be quit of the ties of religion. If people want to govern their personal lives by religious rules, fine, but anything that governs public order cannot have, as an essential premise, a religious presupposition.

With this latest murder of a teenager in Hither Green, the media report there have been 13 teenagers murdered this year. There is also a spiralling problem of teenage alcohol and drug abuse and drug/alcohol-related crime and violence.

I'm presuming - based on the opinions expressed here by the most vociferous non-religious in these discussions - we have to conclude that these crimes were committed by the religious, because all religions are evil and secularists seem to be such upright and good folks.

That is, religious folks - based on their 'reasoning' - must be more violent and generally evil on the whole if we're to believe their core thesis: that religion is evil. (To be "evil", can't be measured only by one-off events perpetrated by a handful of people, can it?)

Therefore, to uphold that thesis, murder, violence, and crime, must be perpetrated by more religious than non-religious persons. If not, the thesis has no grounds in evidence (well, apart from digging around in anaemic historical reportage, which is a very scientific and objective discipline, isn't it? - especially if journalism's anything to go by - from where historians get a lot of their 'evidence').

The misguided thought here is merely a reversing Hume's Fork: that you can get an 'is' from a subjective 'ought'. This is shown in Nicholas' belief that he can tell us the contents of the depths of Hitler's mind: "His motivations included a mad neo-Wagnerian dream of domination by a mythical Germanic 'race'; and Luther-based anti-Semitism, in which the Vatican backed him.". That is, it is religion and Hitler as they 'ought' to be, so Nicholas can then hold his other belief about religion. It takes one error to uphold another to give the appearance of coherence. Error cannot be built on truth.

Daniel Dennett arrogantly assumes the same (his idea of heterophenomenology). But it is all hubristical nonsense, based neither in evidence nor reason, but merely the positing of a belief as true because it's expedient to the cause. But what's worse, is that it claims to a superior knowledge where there is none, but just the positing of a belief which is believed by their disciples. That's why a philosophically-minded atheist wouldn't come at it from this direction as they'd realise the flaw in the so-called reasoning.

Alternatively, religious people might see the problems as driven simply by the utter nihilism and vacuousity of what the non-religious posters here think is the solution.

I think neither position is right. I don't think religion is the source of evil. I think the Devil is. That is, religion contains evil: but so does secularism. But I just think the Devil, generally, has a stronger hold on the non-religious. Therefore, I believe the nihilism and vacuousity of secularism isn't in it's non-religiousness, but that it has submitted more to the 'Ruler of this World', aka Satan.

Of all the non-religious posters, despite disagreeing at times, I think Scarthin Nick is the only one who sets a good example of what secularism could be, as he's the only one who lives by the principles set out in Mike Shermer's list (Rational Atheism), I published here in a previous discussion (Do we need 'institutional' religion?).

As I've said before, to try to slice the cake along the religious/secular divide is just plain nonsense. There is evil in both camps. I don't think religion is the lesser of two evils because it's more moral. It's the lesser of two evils because people have rejected the Lordship of Satan, and natural law dictates that God's grace doesn't privilege the Christian, nor even the religious, but all, irrespective of creed, colour, sex. Hence why I could say that people like Scarthin Nick probably have been graced, although he might deny it! :)

And, no, I'm not a protestant, Greywiz. It's a very Catholic view: although you're unlikely to hear mention of the Devil or evil even, from the wishy-washy, mealy-mouth of Cormac Murphy O'Connor.

I vowed to deal only with problems that have mathematical or logical solutions, and to avoid circular arguments, semantics, and self-righteous comments; but some of the contributions to this thread have blown my vows away. Let us have a look at some of the pronouncements made here. I will leave out the latest diatribe which is full of garbage that does not justify being graced with a retort:

1) “Surrendering our heritage and deep-rooted cultural values does not please Muslims”. What exactly are these deep-rooted cultural values? Are they: “We set before you wars with the glorious rewards of martyrdom and everlasting fame, and pardon for all sins” (Urban II in AD 1095, but could have been made by Blair and Bush in AD 2003 without altering a word).

2) “We need to defend our Judeo-Christian heritage, bringing an end to excessive political correctness”. Does this Judaeo-Christian heritage of ours include forcing half the Palestinians to live as unwelcome refugees in other people’s countries, and the other half to live and die as foreigners on two shrinking reservations in their own country? And does it include turning the other cheek. And does it also include not doing to others that which we do not wish done to ourselves? (Kung-Zi - 5th century BC, Hillel – 1st century BC, and Jesus – 1st century AD).

3) “Not a day goes by without Christianity being mocked in some form”. Surely this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Who started the name-calling anyway? And why should their mockery of our religion be insufferable, but our mockery of their religion is freedom of speech worthy of a knighthood?

4) “Outlaw ritual smoking of cannabis”. Why should “ritual” smoking of cannabis be outlawed while “secular” snorting of cannabis is exempt from this stricture. However, not long ago this country waged two wars on China to force the Chinese to buy opium produced by our merchants in Bengal. Today we lecture the Afghans to grow cucumbers instead of poppies. Why should anyone take seriously our most recent moral fad, rather than the one we have only recently abandoned? Who appointed us arbiters of what is now morally acceptable and what is not?

5) “Children should consider at length the three important truths about religion”. I contend that there is only the one truth about religion, which is that all three major superstitions are based on lies, falsehoods, ignorance, and self-interest, milked for all they are worth by the mighty and powerful to control the masses. And whatever little good that may be promoted conditionally in a few passages in “holy” books, they are utterly nullified by a plethora of passages which encourage animosity, thieving, mutilation, massacre, and mayhem.

6) “The state should treat discrimination by religious organisations exactly as it treats polygamy”. I contend that one spouse at any one time is more than enough. That apart, this proposition would criminalize only those who formally register their polygamous marriages, leaving unscathed a huge number of those who practice polygamy informally (called multiple partnerships nowadays). Where is our world-renowned sense of justice in that?

7) “Muslims cannot accept gay liberation”. But my dear Greywizard, only a few years ago we sent homosexuals to prison, today they parade in the streets with pride. And tomorrow? What? Not long ago women were thought to be too irrational to have the vote, today they grace Parliament in large numbers. Not long ago it was perfectly legitimate to hang witches; to burn heretics and translators of the bible; to transport children to the colonies; and to shoot aborigines for sport. Today we have abolished these, once, legal practices. But what if we decide tomorrow that child abuse is a legitimate sport? Or that heroin may be sold freely in supermarkets? What then? Just how swiftly should we insist that other nations must synchronise their cultures with our own? And how comes it that these imperatives only seem to come from nations with nuclear weapons? One hardly hears the Liechtensteiners or the Andorrans or those who dwell on sweet Rockall, pontificating on these matters. Is this not a case of Might Makes Right?

8) “Islam is a dangerous force”. But Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc., are not entities in themselves. They can only have an existence by virtue of the words and deeds of those who confess them, but these never painted a pretty picture in the past, nor today, and I have no reason to believe that they will in future.

9) And finally: Why can’t we leave other people to deal with their unsavoury problems at their own pace and in their own way, as we have dealt with ours? What is the alternative if we find the practices of some outsiders so abhorrent to us and so resistant to rectification? Should we keep them out and remove the rest of them from our midst to prevent them from contaminating our cherished prides and prejudices? Or should we invade their countries to force them to send their girls to school, to lift the hijab, to build churches, synagogues, and pagan temples in Mecca and Medina, and to stop them practicing the exquisite biblical punishments of chopping hands and feet and stoning sinners to death?

Paul, if you want to blame things on the Devil, go ahead. I'm not even going to touch that one. Just about time, it seems to me, that we emerged from our self-incurred minority (to use Kant's words). Blaming things on the Devil doesn't really help.

The other day a man took his 17 year old daughter, placed his foot on her neck, and stabbed her several times until she died. He said that the only regret he had was that he had not killed her at birth. The police congratulated him, because 'they knew what honour is all about.' This act can be directly attributed to the primitive way in which Islam is appropriated by so many. Whether directly attributable to the religion itself, I cannot say, but it is so common amongst Muslims to kill their women for the sake of honour that I suspect it is Islam that is at fault. But not the Devil. Just human beings being human in a rather unlovely way.

As to religion being the sole source of evil, I have already said that religion does not have the monopoly on evil and cruelty. It is responsible for a lot, but not all. So, no, religion is not the sole source of evil, just one of them. The source of evil, I think, lies, ultimately, in ideology. Religions tend to be ideologies, and when they claim final and absolute truth, they are well on the way to capping their arrogance with evil. This is the problem with Islamism, by the way, as well as with Marxist-Leninism, Maoism, and various other contemporary ideologies.

As for Nicholas' position on Hitler, all you have to do is read Mein Kampf, or his table talk, or read a biography or two (Ian Kershaw's two volume bio is very good; the best German one is written by Joachim Fest). His ideology included a kind of sub-Wagnerian paganism superimposed on an Aryan (not Arian) interpretation of Christianity. It is interesting, as Christopher Hitchens points out, that Hitler was never excommunicated, but Dr. Goebbels was. Goebbels was excommunicated because - now get this - he married a Protestant! But Hitler's ideology certainly wasn't a form of secular rationalism.

Lastly, I wonder what it is that makes you so aggressive. You could have said everything in your note without standing there with your six-gun at the ready.

Just a remark in response to Zak. After quoting my "Muslims cannot accept gay liberation”, he goes on: "But my dear Greywizard, only a few years ago we sent homosexuals to prison, today they parade in the streets with pride." Precisely, and if most Christians had their way, they'd still be in their closets. This includes the entire Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury and arguably the majority of the memebers of the Anglican Communion, and most evangelical Protestants. Islam is not the only museum of antiquated morality in the world.

Fair cop, Paul. I should have said that, from Hitler's writings and speeches, it appears that his motivations included (etc). (And thanks, Greywizard, you're right, sub-Wagnerian.)

I don't know whether religion contributed to any of the awful spate of murders of teenagers in London. I don't see how secularism (the stance that the state should neither favour any particular religion, nor be influenced by any religion) could have.

The big religions are evil because they all require belief without evidence, and because they therefore have no civilized means of resolving differences of belief within and between them. Furthermore, most of them have spawned extremist factions which oppress some or all of: women, different believers, 'apostates', and homosexuals. This, in my opinion, is linked to the defect that most of the big religions are run by embittered old men.

What is your evidence, Paul, for your assertion that the source of much evil (presumably, including religious extremism?) is a supernatural agency which you refer to as 'the Devil'? And how is this hostile deity best countered? Should Tesco be selling us holy water to sprinkle on its tail?

I try (and often fail) to treat other sentient life forms as I would wish to be treated, to enjoy pleasures which are near at hand, and to keep in mind the possibility that I am mistaken. You're free to call this vacuous, but you're mistaken if you label it nihilism.

"The big religions are evil because they all require belief without evidence, and because they therefore have no civilized means of resolving differences of belief within and between them."

This statement itself requires belief without evidence, as there isn't any that can be given. And, of course, the secular authorities have a civilised means of resolving differences. I think not.

Furthermore, most of them have spawned extremist factions which oppress some or all of: women, different believers, 'apostates', and homosexuals. This, in my opinion, is linked to the defect that most of the big religions are run by embittered old men."

So the racists at football matches and in street riots are religious? I thought they were full-blooded hedonistic secularists, often with tattoos and skinheads - the others are embittered old men like Patrick Moore, and the sweet grandfather-like twins: the McWhirter brothers - of Guinness book of Records fame - who funded the activities of the skinhead, tattooed, rent-a-yob. People wonder why Ross McWhirter was blown up in a car bomb in 1975 - well he shouldn't have been funding and training terrorists. And his brother shouldn't have been allowed to continue shoving excrement through the letter-boxes of minority ethnic groups, and provide funds for legal aid to those prosecuted for extreme racism.

As to the women in safe houses as a result of of domestic violence, they're escaping crazed Christian husbands, of course.

- Get some perspective, Nicholas. Don't become bitter and twisted like GreyWiz.

In all of this, the common factor is people. All groups involve people, all groups have problems. The mistake, from a Catholic perspective (as I can't talk for any other religious group), is Pelagianism: to assume salvation is within man's own capacities, and that somehow, by being baptised, or going forward at a Billy Graham rally, one becomes a morally superior being, or capable of a moral rectitude that was not previously available to oneself. This is what we refer to as the sin of presumption. It leads to proselytism of the worst kind because it's based on pride: the delusion of knowing or being better than everyone else.

I'd like to propose 3 categories:

1. Those who consider themselves constantly in need of redemption.

2. 'The Redeemed'.

3. 'The Redeemers'.

1. I would consider to be the Catholic and Orthodox positions, but I cannot talk for any other Christian Church.

2. In the Christian sphere, this is a 'Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine', view, or, "Once saved, always saved", because they were baptised or 'went forward' at a Billy Graham rally: the sin of presumption. In Catholicism, it's often exemplified by scrupulosity and salvation-by-works nonsense which thinks that if all the rules are followed, everything'll be OK (which is the same as what many Protestants believe, except they refuse to see it in, or admit it to themselves. It's just focussed on different objects).

3. Into this category would fall Lenin, Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung, Osama bin Laden, (Tony Blair, George Bush, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens?)...

I think these categories are cross-cultural, and have their equivalents across the theist and atheist domains.

In position 3, the 'leaders' are not motivated from the position of love, humility, self donation, etc., like Christ, but see themselves as having the solution to the world's problems within their grasp, but needs to be implemented by category 2, The Redeemed: the followers. The problem with The Redeemed is that, by believing their salvation is assured (because their hero, the megalomaniac, said so, if they but follow), the question of morality becomes superfluous. So, if Christopher Hitchens says something's true, it's true, irrespective of evidence to the contrary. Like the comment that 'all religions are evil', but when you look at crime - in real life - and violence - in real life - and nastiness in general - in real life - very few of the perpetrators are active members of 'the big religions'.

Therefore, what needs to be analysed is the form in which some people express their beliefs, not the content. Two people can believe the same contents, but express it in a totally different manner. This, for example, could be said of Scarthin Nick and GreyWiz.

In the same way, the problem of Islamic radicalism - or any form of 'radicalism' - is in form in which the content is 'incarnated'. the content is irrelevant. It could be: "iPods are necessary to be someone (so the redeemer implies in his marketing blurb). I haven't got an iPod, therefore I'm incomplete. I must have an iPod (to be a true follower). I can't afford one. How will I get one?". So they end up killing a fellow classmate to fulfil what they perceive as a deficiency in their identity. It's very, very religious, but just not in a conventional 'hokey-cokey' way...

Paul. Get some perspective?! Give me strength! Quite aside from your gratuitous swipes at me (which, again, is a bit like a drive-by shooting), do you really have any idea what you are talking about? I mean: I've read some marginally intelligent posts from you, but your last is really just a stream of nonsense.

And, as always, you set such a good example.

"I've read some marginally intelligent posts from you..." Well, thank you!

From the postulate 'all buttercups are yellow', it does not follow, Paul, that anything yellow is a buttercup. Likewise, religious extremism is not the only cause of evil.

What is the evidence that Pelagius was mistaken? You have omitted category 4, those who think that the whole idea of 'redemption' is unnecessary and unpleasant, particularly if it is alleged to be bought from YHWH by a (half?)-human sacrifice. (That is not to say, of course, that any human is capable of continuous unalloyed goodness.)

'... if Christopher Hitchens says something's true, it's true, irrespective of evidence to the contrary.' Who do you think holds this position? Where have they stated it? Are you perhaps confusing it with Jesus's reported (but, I suggest, probably not authentic) claim to actually be 'the way, the truth, and the life'?

I am perplexed by some of the responses here - especially Scarthin Nick's remark "So much for bringing religion into the public square - as long as it's only Christianity?" and others who seem not to have read my article properly. I made it very clear that this is about Islamism - the political ideology - and not the religion of Islam. Secondly, I made it clear that the best people to restore a moderate, peaceful, tolerant Islam are Muslims themselves, and that we should support their efforts. If anything, i was lukewarm about people such as Ayan Hirsi Ali, who have left Islam. I would have thought my piece would have been read as it was intended - not an attempt to promote Christianity or any other religion, but an effort to support voices of moderation, freedom of religion, and peace. People are of course free to disagree with the methods I set out - but some of the comments here suggest people have not read the central message of the article properly.

Ben: Despite the frequently quoted 'no compulsion in religion' bit, the Koran imposes death for 'apostasy', is clearly anti-Jewish, and imposes discriminatory taxation on 'unbelievers'. There is absolutely no prospect of a reformation in Islam admitting that the Koran is a fallible human construct. The problem is not 'Islamism'; the problem is failing to stand up to all claims that any supposedly divinely-inspired book should be used to support any legislation in any society. Hence (I think) Scarthin Nick's point.

Ben. If you follow the disucssions on this site, you'll have noticed that they tend to take on a life of their on, weaving in and out of the positions taken and the points made in the original essay.However, if you look back over what's been written, you'll see that we do, eventually, hit on almost everything that you said in your original piece. We won't always agree, of course :-), but we do at least try, I think, to respond to the issues. In fact, I printed your essay, and then tried to respond to it point by point. (It's the second note in the series.)

I appreciate your response to Scarthin Nick's point about bringing religion (and that religion Christianity) into the public square. This is, after all, Theos, a Christian think-tank, so the remark was not altogether off base, since presumably your aim is, at least peripherally, to give a Christian response to Isalmism, although you skirt the issue pretty well. In the end, it seems, we should support the moderate groups and then wait and see.

I guess I'm still a bit puzzled why you should be lukewarm about people like Ayan Hirsi Ali. It seems to me that the choleric response to her abandonment of Islam is an indication of the depth of the problem. If Islam cannot absorb criticism, then Islam is only very questionably a safe entity to have in our midst in any numbers. Indeed, it is unclear to me, as well as to many others, I suspect, how distant Islam and Islamism actually are from each other. We do need some clarity here. This is Nicholas' point when he remarks that 'the Koran is a fallible human construct', and that there is little possibility of reform until that is widely understood and accepted.

Indeed, I think that most of us read your piece as 'an effort,' as you say, 'to support voices of moderation, freedom of religion, and peace.' A lot of us feel that, until there is some clarity about the standing of the Qu'ran, a preparedness of Muslims, in significant numbers, to go public about what they see as the radical extremes of Islamists, a clear desire of the many to accommodate their lives to secular forms of governance, and a repudiation of extreme forms of Islamic polity, like those espoused by Hizb-ut-Tahrir, there is practically nowhere to start in promoting the goals you seek.

In fact, I would go further. I am afraid that, if we take the very generous multicultural route, we will in fact make it easier for Islamism to work safely in the background. There are some kinds of political goals which are simply unacceptable in a democratic polity, and anything that looks like a theocracy is included. Certainly, by all means, support groups like the Quilliam foundation, but bear in mind that, until we see something to the contrary, they are as much lonely outriders as Hirsi Ali and Ibn Warraq.

Having said all that, I do welcome you to the discussion, and, now that you are here, perhaps some of the points that are unclear can find greater defintion.

On another matter, Paul Rodden and I have been carrying out a kind of jousting battle here since Paul joined the group. I'm not sure what's at issue here, but it does add to the excitment of the whole affair :-)! Paul, you didn't think I was going to be particularly fulsome in my praise, after the drive by shooting and the long stream of invective earlier, did you?

I have great problems seeing why Islam should be tolerant - or any other group for that matter. It's elitist, liberal, clap-trap.

I don't think the tolerance has to be 'restored' either, as if it was there before, but somehow got lost.

It is not for us to dictate what people should believe, or how they should behave. Each person has to decide what they will be, based on their conscience (q.v., John Henry Newman's Letter to the Duke of Norfolk) Catholicism leaves everyone utterly free. As John Paul II never tired of saying: "The Church proposes, she imposes nothing", which appeared, even in official documents.

Clive James once said "All you have to do on television is be yourself, provided, that is, that you have a self to be.", but so many people, including celebrities, don't have selves but a protean personality, constantly blown about by every wind of doctrine. Many are extremists in their latest 'phase'. As I said before, it's about form, not content: Extremism is a choice. To kill someone, unless by accident, is by choice. To follow someone who advocated killing the infidel, is doing so - by choice...

Conversions, or changes of heart by reason, are very few. The genuine ones seem to be through wholesome relationships, whereas with the fanatics I know, it was through being whipped up by the hysteria at some evangelistic rally. And, I'm sure Islam's got its equivalent of Islamic Billy Grahams.

That's why I used the term 'Christianism' in my first post. Americans, off their own soil in Iraq, are the Christian equivalent of Al Qaeda. They're two sides of the same coin. Islamism, Americanism, Christianism.

That's why your article, Ben, is so one-sided and blind. You want to fix them because you believe you know the answers you have some gnostic-like knowledge not available to those less fortunate than yourself - but how about fixing yourself? Take the plank out of your own eye first? That's the trouble with the public square - one begins to absorb its values if one lives in it too long (others have always lived in the public square, but just cut their scriptures to fit their lifestyle).

Should we approach the public square from the point-of-view of Sacred Scripture, which advocates turning the other cheek and loving, not theological/apologetical gymnastics? Or is it right to start with the public square and view Sacred Scripture - the Word of God - through its lens and categories? This sort of Kantian accommodationism towards Sacred Scripture and the Faith for the sake of acceptance or getting conversions, is anathema to us. It is manipulative and deceitful.

As I've said before, surely it begins with humility, repentance, and grace, rather than claims to some form of knowing better? Or are some humans really qualitatively or morally better than others? If so, One should be reading Animal Farm, and not the Bible as one's guide to life.

Paul. I think the following two comments in your last post are contradictory:

"I have great problems seeing why Islam should be tolerant - or any other group for that matter. It's elitist, liberal, clap-trap."

and:

"It is not for us to dictate what people should believe, or how they should behave."

Toleration, as I understand it, is precisely not dictating to people, at least in part. Toleration comes to an end when someone decides that his point of view must be protected in some way, against the views of others, and then tries to enforce that protection. It's not liberal clap-trap. It's common sense.

Ben's article is an attempt to ask the question how we are to deal with people who are genuinely intolerant, and who are prepared to kill people in order to get their way. I have some problems with the way he asks the question, but it's a fair question, and to equate Islamism with what you call Christianism and Americanism is simply bizarre.

I think the Americans and the British (may I remind you) were wrong to invade Iraq. Possibly Ben thinks so too, but that's not the question. The question is what to do with Islamists in Western societies who are quite prepared to use the freedoms accorded to them to subvert democratic process and the toleration that makes democratic society possible.

How does that make Ben onesided and blind? He didn't say he had some superior (gnostic like) wisdom about this -- that's a complete caricature -- although he obviously thinks some ways are better than others. I disagree with him on some points as I said, but I don't think it helps to be abusive.

And, by the way, before you claim that 'Catholicism leaves everyone utterly free,' you should listen to what your church actually says. Sure, you're free to stay, and obey, or free to leave and do as you please. But that's not the Catholic Church; it's the society that provides that kind of freedom. They can walk away if they like. But if you stay, you're under compulsion, a compulsion that has recently been made particularly clear in the new bill regarding genetic experimentation. Of course, that doesn't stop catholics from ignoring some things prescribed by the Vatican. For instance, in the US, catholic women are as likely to have an abortion as non-Catholic, and are also as likely to use artificial means of birth control. This doesn't mean that there is no compulsion. It just means that the church has no effective means of enforcement. If they did (as they do regarding abortion in some Latin American countries, they'd use it).

I'm interested that your scriptures 'advocate turning the other cheek and loving.' That hasn't been much in evidence of late.

I appear to have painted myself into a corner on this one! May my example be a warning to others - don't be tempted to go on the internet after the pubs have turned out! (our village local has been restored after closure) So yes, I concede that Ben Rogers had a point to challenge my comments "As long as it's only Xtianity." Although I am sure in the past Theo has vaunted itself as a platform for all faiths. Nevertheless If I am wrong, I am wrong.

Having got that off my chest, I still find this article to be one of the most disturbing I have read in a long time. Since all who have posted, Christian and secular alike have expressed some misgivings about the article, this, I think, is what Ben Rogers should take on board.

Paul Rodden, thank you for your generous comments - you may be pleased/alarmed to know that a Jehovah's Witness friend has said somethiong similar; that I am but a whisker away from becoming a JW! Any more of this and I fear Richard Dawkins will be asking for his scarlet letter T Shirt back!

We seem to be stalled for a moment, with nothing left to say. There's an interesting comment comment over at Comment is Free (Guardian) worthwhile looking at. The interesting thing about this comment is that while the commentator, Nesrine Malik, keeps saying that Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, and now (apparently, a new one) Wafa Sultan, take on the whole gamut of western values and reject Islam whole, thereby missing the thoughtful subtleties of Muslim women, she doesn't have any thoughtful subtlties of her own to suggest.

At least this much seems to be clear, though, and that is that many and probably most Muslims will not accept positions like Hirsi Ali's (et co) who oppose Islam root and branch (in fact, she's willing, at this late date, to bring up the old story of the deception that Ali used, and really had to use, in order to escape forced marriage and be accepted as an immigrant to the Netherlands). What we need to see, though, is not some Muslim gutter fighting, but exactly what people like Nesrine Malik have to offer in its place. So far, the moderate voices that everyone is talking about, and which we are supposed to take as a majority, are little in evidence.

Ben, could you point us to some moderate Muslim voices who have solutions to the problem of the relationship between Islam and the west? That's the first question. The second is this. Nesrine Malik rejects the positions of Hirsi Ali, Manji, etc., basically because they are apostates. But of course, one of the big problems with Islam is that it doesn't acknowledge the legitimacy of abandoning the faith. Doesn't moderate Islam have to find a way of allowing people to leave the faith gracefully, with the respect of the community? Isn't the fact that there is no such way of leaving the faith a part of the problem with radical Islam?

One more question. When Muslims reject so-called western values, what are they rejecting? It seems to me that what they are rejecting are things like the UDHR (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and expecting that we will accommodate cultural and religious values which infringe on such rights. If this is what they are rejecting, then we're still in trouble, aren't we?

"We seem to be stalled for a moment, with nothing left to say."

Who's the 'we'? Could it be that people are just sick of you beating them up, GreyWiz?

You and Zak successfully wiped out the last discussion, with only jonhunt valiantly striving onwards. This one it's been me - or else this one would have died much earlier, too.

If it hadn't have been for us, you'd have been the lonely boy in the playground that no-one wants to play with 'coz you're too flaming big-headed.

Unlike you (when it suits), I don't take anything personally in here, as to join anything like this is bound to attract vitriol, and should be expected.

I find the example you set fascinating and I learn a lot from it, especially why it's as pointless to try to discuss with an atheist as it is a Bible-basher as their methods and reasoning are so alike. All that differs is the content.

In essence, you uphold the thesis I proposed above: that the dimension in which most people categorise fanaticism/extremism, or what have you: i.e. theist/atheist, religious/secular, brilliant/stupid - is simply misleading as they span all camps. Hence, why I believe Ben's article and the Quilliam Foundation are fundamentally hypocritical in it's literal, full-blooded sense.

What I'm trying to discover is what's behind it, what motivates extreme behaviour. Is it God, psychopatology, the Devil? And what motivates the more mild forms which alienate people and make then generally obnoxious in society (anti-social behaviour)?

Unlike Greywizard, I am no gentle soul oozing with politeness and accommodation, and I would rather not insult you directly but you have begged for it this time Paul. You have never had anything rational or intelligent to say in any thread that I have ever visited; instead, like the wide-eyed and open-mouthed Islamists and other hooligans of that ilk, you lash out verbal abuse at your betters, and fill the pages with incomprehensible rant.

Read this carefully Paul, I will type it very slowly so you can understand it: Nobody killed the last thread, it was stillborn when the author dragged into it the mutually exclusive words, God and morals; and if Theos is a theological think-tank, then try not to take the “think” out of it every time you post a diatribe.