Muslin waves crashing on European shores

[Skjellyfetti]

The Nazi Party us outlawed in Germany

As are all their insignia

As is certain speech, such as denying the Holocaust.

So no, they are not Nazis or neo Nazis. They are far right to be sure, but calling for an end to mass immigration only makes them so because they are white Europeans.

And your last statement is just further proof of your delusional state.

You know he's been convicted of these things, right? Denying the holocaust, praising the SS, and Rudolph Hess.

They don't use their insignia or salute - but, they are trying to get the ban lifted.

In 2012 a Berlin court handed Voigt a 10-month suspended sentence and a fine of €1,000 for glorifying the actions of the Waffen-SS at a party meeting in 2010. He has described the Nazi salute as a "peace greeting" and called for an end to its ban in Germany.

In 2005, Voigt received a four-month suspended sentence for incitement of the people, after calling for an armed uprising against the state at a 1998 rally. Police video recordings in 2007 showed that Voigt planned to suggest Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, as a candidate for the Nobel peace prize.

[CID1990]

The Nazi Party us outlawed in Germany

As are all their insignia

As is certain speech, such as denying the Holocaust.

So no, they are not Nazis or neo Nazis. They are far right to be sure, but calling for an end to mass immigration only makes them so because they are white Europeans.

And your last statement is just further proof of your delusional state.

You know he's been convicted of these things, right? Denying the holocaust, praising the SS, and Rudolph Hess.

They don't use their insignia or salute - but, they are trying to get the ban lifted.

In 2012 a Berlin court handed Voigt a 10-month suspended sentence and a fine of €1,000 for glorifying the actions of the Waffen-SS at a party meeting in 2010. He has described the Nazi salute as a "peace greeting" and called for an end to its ban in Germany.

In 2005, Voigt received a four-month suspended sentence for incitement of the people, after calling for an armed uprising against the state at a 1998 rally. Police video recordings in 2007 showed that Voigt planned to suggest Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, as a candidate for the Nobel peace prize.

NOT Nazis, Felchy.


What? You don't like people playing semantic technical games with you? It's your bailiwick so I figured you'd like it.

They aren't Nazis.

But again, this is only an issue to you because it's white Europeans doing it. All the other countries that bar immigration on racial bases alone are OK in your book. We get it.

[Skjellyfetti]

Up next, we have Golden Dawn from Greece. They now have 3 seats on the European parliament.

Not neo-Nazis at all. Just slightly right of center.

Nikos Michaloliakos, the head of the Golden Dawn party, being escorted by the police in 2013

In the highest-profile political trial in Greece in decades, members of the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party appeared in court on Monday for a brief hearing as their trial was scheduled to open on charges including membership in a criminal organization and murder.

The trial will determine the fate of Golden Dawn, the third-largest party in Parliament. The overtly racist group was catapulted from obscurity into the front lines of Greek politics at the peak of the debt crisis in 2012, railing against austerity and a growing influx of immigrants.

Facing trial are the party’s leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, 57, a former Greek Army commando, and 68 others, including the party’s remaining 16 lawmakers as well as supporters and police officers. Most are charged with membership in a criminal organization, with others accused of murder, racist violence and weapons possession. They face long prison terms if convicted. Golden Dawn rejects the charges, saying they are politically motivated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/world ... reece.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[CID1990]

Up next, we have Golden Dawn from Greece. They now have 3 seats on the European parliament.

Not neo-Nazis at all. Just slightly right of center.

Nikos Michaloliakos, the head of the Golden Dawn party, being escorted by the police in 2013

In the highest-profile political trial in Greece in decades, members of the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party appeared in court on Monday for a brief hearing as their trial was scheduled to open on charges including membership in a criminal organization and murder.

The trial will determine the fate of Golden Dawn, the third-largest party in Parliament. The overtly racist group was catapulted from obscurity into the front lines of Greek politics at the peak of the debt crisis in 2012, railing against austerity and a growing influx of immigrants.

Facing trial are the party’s leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, 57, a former Greek Army commando, and 68 others, including the party’s remaining 16 lawmakers as well as supporters and police officers. Most are charged with membership in a criminal organization, with others accused of murder, racist violence and weapons possession. They face long prison terms if convicted. Golden Dawn rejects the charges, saying they are politically motivated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/world ... reece.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Correct. Not Nazis.

Let me help you out- Jobbik isn't the Nazis, either.

[DSUrocks07]

A white person does something that's stereotypical of how others percieve their culture.

"SEE!!! ALL THEM WHITES ARE RACIST WHITE SUPREMACISTS!"

A minority does something that's stereotypical of how others perceive their culture.

"You can't judge all of them for the actions of one person!! Are you a racist or something!?!?!?"

[Ivytalk]

A white person does something that's stereotypical of how others percieve their culture.

"SEE!!! ALL THEM WHITES ARE RACIST WHITE SUPREMACISTS!"

A minority does something that's stereotypical of how others perceive their culture.

"You can't judge all of them for the actions of one person!! Are you a racist or something!?!?!?"

So, DSURocks, are you coming to Sambo's on May 8 or not? You're our big diversity play.

[kalm]

A white person does something that's stereotypical of how others percieve their culture.

"SEE!!! ALL THEM WHITES ARE RACIST WHITE SUPREMACISTS!"

A minority does something that's stereotypical of how others perceive their culture.

"You can't judge all of them for the actions of one person!! Are you a racist or something!?!?!?"

So, DSURocks, are you coming to Sambo's on May 8 or not? You're our big diversity play.

Do your really need diversity cred at a place called Sambo's?

[DSUrocks07]

So, DSURocks, are you coming to Sambo's on May 8 or not? You're our big diversity play.

Do your really need diversity cred at a place called Sambo's?

Its phoneticaly impossible to say the phrase, "Sambo's Tavern in Leipsic, Delaware" without a southern accent.

[kalm]

Speaking of free speech and hypocrisy:

Under the guise of the “War on Terror,” there has indeed been a systematic assault on free speech: though it’s been one waged by Western governments primarily against their Muslim citizens. For that reason, it has provoked almost no objections from those who dressed up as free speech crusaders that week. That’s because, as I wrote in the aftermath of that rally, the incident was used to manipulatively exploit, not celebrate and protect, free expression. Celebrating Charlie Hebdo was largely about glorifying anti-Muslim sentiment; free expression was the pretext.

This is all quite redolent of how the U.S. government and its acolytes quite adeptly exploit social issues to advance imperial aims. U.S. officials, for instance, gin up anger toward Putin or Iran by highlighting the maltreatment of those countries’ LGBT citizens — as though that’s why the U.S. government is hostile — while at the same time showering arms and money on allied regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt whose treatment of gays is at least as bad (while LGBT groups in the U.S. say nothing because those are Obama’s policies). Or American and British officials will denounce free press attacks by governments they want to demonize while cozying up to regimes that allow no press freedoms at all. It’s also similar to how neocons tried to persuade feminists to support the war in Afghanistan because the Taliban is heinous to women or justified the invasions of Iraq because Saddam violated human rights — at the very same time that the regimes neocons love the most are at least as bad if not worse on those issues (to say nothing of the human rights records of neocons themselves and the U.S. government).

This is now a common, and quite potent, tactic: inducing support for highly illiberal Western government policy by dressing it up as support for liberal principles. And it highlights the fraud of pretending that celebrations of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists are independent of the fact that the particular group they most prominently mock are Muslims, a marginalized, targeted, and largely powerless group in France and the West generally.

As I wrote after the Paris rally, it is simply inconceivable that Charlie Hebdo would have been depicted as heroes had their primary targets been groups more favored and powerful in the West (indeed, a Charlie Hebdo cartoonist was fired by the magazine in 2009 for mocking Judaism: where were all the newfound free speech crusaders then?). As the objecting PEN writers note, one can regard the murders of the Charle Hebdo cartoonists as repugnant, vile and dangerous (as any decent person does) while simultaneously scorning the Muslim-bashing focus of their “satire.”………..

What, pray tell, is remotely admirable about sitting in the West — which has been invading, bombing, and otherwise dominating Muslim countries around the world for decades, and has spent the last decade depicting Islam as the Gravest Threat — and echoing that prevailing sentiment by bashing Muslims? Nothing is easier than mocking and maligning the group in your society most marginalized and oppressed. People in the West have their careers destroyed when they’re accused of sympathizing with Islam, not for opposing it. Bashing Muslims and Islam is orthodoxy in the West, both on the level of official policy and political culture.

The controversy provoked by the PEN writers raises an ancillary though important issue: the role played by former Obama officials in human rights and other organizations designed to function as adversaries to the government. Human Rights Watch has come under fire because key officials served in the U.S. State Department and critics claim the group thus echoes the U.S. government line. NYU students are currently protesting the appointment to the faculty of former Yale Law School dean Harold Koh, who as a legal adviser in Obama’s State Department acted as an advocate of drone killings and Obama’s right to wage war in Libya in the face of a Congressional vote against that war. And now PEN is led by Nossel, a former Obama State Department official who faced serious criticisms after she left for using Amnesty USA’s credibility to advance Obama’s foreign policy.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015 ... lie-hebdo/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[YoUDeeMan]

Uh, nice article kalm...except the guy goes off the rails.

"As I was close to finishing my own story, The New York Times published a long article last night about the rather intense and fascinating controversy that has erupted inside PEN America, the group long devoted to defending writers’ freedom of expression from attacks by governments.

"Whatever else is true, PEN America has always existed to defend unorthodox and marginalized views from attack, and there is absolutely nothing unorthodox or marginalized in the West about the views expressed by Charlie Hebdo cartoonists or in showering them with courage awards. As Eisenberg put it in her original letter, the Charlie Hebdo award appears to be “an opportunistic exploitation of the horrible murders in Paris to justify and glorify offensive material expressing anti-Islamic and nationalistic sentiments already widely shared in the Western world.”'

So, which is it? Does PEN exist to defend writer's freedom of expression from attacks by government? Or does PEN exist to defend unorthodox and marginalized views from attack?

By saying that PEN exists to defend the downtrodden, it is in actuality saying that they do not support writer's freedom of expression. In fact, the author, and some of the people he quotes, don't seem to support freedom of expression at all. They are offended by Charlie Hebdo's free speech, and obviously don't agree with giving an award to people who are using their writing skills to stand up to an oppressive, violent sect of Muslinism.

Sorry kalm...although I get the gist of the article (that the US and other powers are hypocritical about freedom of expression, and very tactfully sneaky about the way they exploit the press, the guy loses all credibility when he intensely criticizes, and almost shows disdain for, any writer that shows Muslinism in a bad light.

[Baldy]

Speaking of free speech and hypocrisy:

Under the guise of the “War on Terror,” there has indeed been a systematic assault on free speech: though it’s been one waged by Western governments primarily against their Muslim citizens. For that reason, it has provoked almost no objections from those who dressed up as free speech crusaders that week. That’s because, as I wrote in the aftermath of that rally, the incident was used to manipulatively exploit, not celebrate and protect, free expression. Celebrating Charlie Hebdo was largely about glorifying anti-Muslim sentiment; free expression was the pretext.

This is all quite redolent of how the U.S. government and its acolytes quite adeptly exploit social issues to advance imperial aims. U.S. officials, for instance, gin up anger toward Putin or Iran by highlighting the maltreatment of those countries’ LGBT citizens — as though that’s why the U.S. government is hostile — while at the same time showering arms and money on allied regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt whose treatment of gays is at least as bad (while LGBT groups in the U.S. say nothing because those are Obama’s policies). Or American and British officials will denounce free press attacks by governments they want to demonize while cozying up to regimes that allow no press freedoms at all. It’s also similar to how neocons tried to persuade feminists to support the war in Afghanistan because the Taliban is heinous to women or justified the invasions of Iraq because Saddam violated human rights — at the very same time that the regimes neocons love the most are at least as bad if not worse on those issues (to say nothing of the human rights records of neocons themselves and the U.S. government).

This is now a common, and quite potent, tactic: inducing support for highly illiberal Western government policy by dressing it up as support for liberal principles. And it highlights the fraud of pretending that celebrations of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists are independent of the fact that the particular group they most prominently mock are Muslims, a marginalized, targeted, and largely powerless group in France and the West generally.

As I wrote after the Paris rally, it is simply inconceivable that Charlie Hebdo would have been depicted as heroes had their primary targets been groups more favored and powerful in the West (indeed, a Charlie Hebdo cartoonist was fired by the magazine in 2009 for mocking Judaism: where were all the newfound free speech crusaders then?). As the objecting PEN writers note, one can regard the murders of the Charle Hebdo cartoonists as repugnant, vile and dangerous (as any decent person does) while simultaneously scorning the Muslim-bashing focus of their “satire.”………..

What, pray tell, is remotely admirable about sitting in the West — which has been invading, bombing, and otherwise dominating Muslim countries around the world for decades, and has spent the last decade depicting Islam as the Gravest Threat — and echoing that prevailing sentiment by bashing Muslims? Nothing is easier than mocking and maligning the group in your society most marginalized and oppressed. People in the West have their careers destroyed when they’re accused of sympathizing with Islam, not for opposing it. Bashing Muslims and Islam is orthodoxy in the West, both on the level of official policy and political culture.

The controversy provoked by the PEN writers raises an ancillary though important issue: the role played by former Obama officials in human rights and other organizations designed to function as adversaries to the government. Human Rights Watch has come under fire because key officials served in the U.S. State Department and critics claim the group thus echoes the U.S. government line. NYU students are currently protesting the appointment to the faculty of former Yale Law School dean Harold Koh, who as a legal adviser in Obama’s State Department acted as an advocate of drone killings and Obama’s right to wage war in Libya in the face of a Congressional vote against that war. And now PEN is led by Nossel, a former Obama State Department official who faced serious criticisms after she left for using Amnesty USA’s credibility to advance Obama’s foreign policy.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015 ... lie-hebdo/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, those poor poor Muslins in Europe.
Treated so badly that they are flocking to Europe like moths to a flame.

I wonder if good ol low-info Greenwald would be so quick to put pen to paper to defend if those were marginalized fundie christians who went on a murderous rampage in France instead of the Muslins.

[kalm]

Speaking of free speech and hypocrisy:



https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015 ... lie-hebdo/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, those poor poor Muslins in Europe.
Treated so badly that they are flocking to Europe like moths to a flame.

I wonder if good ol low-info Greenwald would be so quick to put pen to paper to defend if those were marginalized fundie christians who went on a murderous rampage in France instead of the Muslins.

I'm sorry, did he defend murderous Muslims here?

[YoUDeeMan]

Yes, those poor poor Muslins in Europe.
Treated so badly that they are flocking to Europe like moths to a flame.

I wonder if good ol low-info Greenwald would be so quick to put pen to paper to defend if those were marginalized fundie christians who went on a murderous rampage in France instead of the Muslins.

I'm sorry, did he defend murderous Muslims here?

Yes. He hid it amongst the gobbly gook.

Charlie H. was clearly attacking extremist Muslins...and this author decides to round up that as hate speech. To cover himself, he stated that the murders were horrible...but then he repeatedly criticized any criticism of Muslinism.

If you can't admit that a large part of Muslinism is out of control and violent, and you won't allow criticism of Muslinism, then you are turning a blind eye to, and defending, the violence that is at the true heart of Muslinism.

[kalm]

I'm sorry, did he defend murderous Muslims here?

Yes. He hid it amongst the gobbly gook.

Charlie H. was clearly attacking extremist Muslins...and this author decides to round up that as hate speech. To cover himself, he stated that the murders were horrible...but then he repeatedly criticized any criticism of Muslinism.

If you can't admit that a large part of Muslinism is out of control and violent, and you won't allow criticism of Muslinism, then you are turning a blind eye to, and defending, the violence that is at the true heart of Muslinism.

Greenwald would defend CH to the moon.

You of all people should appreciate this juxtaposition. Disappointed...

[Skjellyfetti]

If you can't admit that a large part of Muslinism is out of control and violent, and you won't allow criticism of Muslinism, then you are turning a blind eye to, and defending, the violence that is at the true heart of Muslinism.

I'm pretty sure I know the answer.

But, you think the same about blacks based off the riotting; you think the same about hispanics based on the cartels, etc. etc. Right?

[YoUDeeMan]

If you can't admit that a large part of Muslinism is out of control and violent, and you won't allow criticism of Muslinism, then you are turning a blind eye to, and defending, the violence that is at the true heart of Muslinism.

I'm pretty sure I know the answer.

But, you think the same about blacks based off the riotting; you think the same about hispanics based on the cartels, etc. etc. Right?

You think the same thing about whites wanting to limit indiscriminate (now, that is funny) immigration.

Stop with the nonsense, smelly.

Not all blacks are violent (check out the video of the black mother beating her son silly because he was thuggin' around...but that's good violence), not all Muslins are violent, and not all wetbacks are actually wet.

However, Islam is a violent religion. There is no getting around that. If Moslem/Muslims/Muslins follow the Koran/Quran/Qur'an, which is said to the the direct word of Allah, they are directed to slay the infidels that don't submit.

I am not sure why there is any argument about that. At least the Christians try to say that the Bible is a collection of stories that are not to be followed exactly.

But the Quran demands violence from its followers. Those are the true Muslins. Anyone else is simply faking it.

Are there nice Muslins? Sure, some people who claim they are Muslins are nice...the vast majority of them. But, they are simply not true Muslins. They've made up their own religion that is not Islam, and they are in denial.

So no, there are not really any nice Muslins...if you are not a Muslin, they will force you to submit to their superiority. And if you are a woman Muslin, you do not have equal rights (I'm going to say that is also not a nice thing).

Any more dumb questions?

[Chizzang]

I'm pretty sure I know the answer.

But, you think the same about blacks based off the riotting; you think the same about hispanics based on the cartels, etc. etc. Right?

You think the same thing about whites wanting to limit indiscriminate (now, that is funny) immigration.

Stop with the nonsense, smelly.

Not all blacks are violent (check out the video of the black mother beating her son silly because he was thuggin' around...but that's good violence), not all Muslins are violent, and not all wetbacks are actually wet.

However, Islam is a violent religion. There is no getting around that. If Moslem/Muslims/Muslins follow the Koran/Quran/Qur'an, which is said to the the direct word of Allah, they are directed to slay the infidels that don't submit.

I am not sure why there is any argument about that. At least the Christians try to say that the Bible is a collection of stories that are not to be followed exactly.

But the Quran demands violence from its followers. Those are the true Muslins. Anyone else is simply faking it.

Are there nice Muslins? Sure, some people who claim they are Muslins are nice...the vast majority of them. But, they are simply not true Muslins. They've made up their own religion that is not Islam, and they are in denial.

So no, there are not really any nice Muslins...if you are not a Muslin, they will force you to submit to their superiority. And if you are a woman Muslin, you do not have equal rights (I'm going to say that is also not a nice thing).

Any more dumb questions?

That's a little sloppy ^ but you get the broad strokes mostly correct...
I'll give you a B minus

[AZGrizFan]

I'm pretty sure I know the answer.

But, you think the same about blacks based off the riotting; you think the same about hispanics based on the cartels, etc. etc. Right?

You think the same thing about whites wanting to limit indiscriminate (now, that is funny) immigration.

Stop with the nonsense, smelly.

Not all blacks are violent (check out the video of the black mother beating her son silly because he was thuggin' around...but that's good violence), not all Muslins are violent, and not all wetbacks are actually wet.

However, Islam is a violent religion. There is no getting around that. If Moslem/Muslims/Muslins follow the Koran/Quran/Qur'an, which is said to the the direct word of Allah, they are directed to slay the infidels that don't submit.

I am not sure why there is any argument about that. At least the Christians try to say that the Bible is a collection of stories that are not to be followed exactly.

But the Quran demands violence from its followers. Those are the true Muslins. Anyone else is simply faking it.

Are there nice Muslins? Sure, some people who claim they are Muslins are nice...the vast majority of them. But, they are simply not true Muslins. They've made up their own religion that is not Islam, and they are in denial.

So no, there are not really any nice Muslins...if you are not a Muslin, they will force you to submit to their superiority. And if you are a woman Muslin, you do not have equal rights (I'm going to say that is also not a nice thing).

Any more dumb questions?

Hmmm....I'm no religon expert, but some fundamental Christians would say that those Christians you describe above have also made up THEIR own religion and are "faking" it....

[YoUDeeMan]

You think the same thing about whites wanting to limit indiscriminate (now, that is funny) immigration.

Stop with the nonsense, smelly.

Not all blacks are violent (check out the video of the black mother beating her son silly because he was thuggin' around...but that's good violence), not all Muslins are violent, and not all wetbacks are actually wet.

However, Islam is a violent religion. There is no getting around that. If Moslem/Muslims/Muslins follow the Koran/Quran/Qur'an, which is said to the the direct word of Allah, they are directed to slay the infidels that don't submit.

I am not sure why there is any argument about that. At least the Christians try to say that the Bible is a collection of stories that are not to be followed exactly.

But the Quran demands violence from its followers. Those are the true Muslins. Anyone else is simply faking it.

Are there nice Muslins? Sure, some people who claim they are Muslins are nice...the vast majority of them. But, they are simply not true Muslins. They've made up their own religion that is not Islam, and they are in denial.

So no, there are not really any nice Muslins...if you are not a Muslin, they will force you to submit to their superiority. And if you are a woman Muslin, you do not have equal rights (I'm going to say that is also not a nice thing).

Any more dumb questions?

That's a little sloppy ^ but you get the broad strokes mostly correct...
I'll give you a B minus

With all due respect, I believe the non-violent, good violent, black mother bit puts me over the top to an A.

[Chizzang]

Hmmm....I'm no religon expert, but some fundamental Christians would say that those Christians you describe above have also made up THEIR own religion and are "faking" it....

Well said AZ
But you missed a previous debate (right here on CS.Com, Image that)
Where we discussed the importance of the Catholic Bishops stating that the Islamic dudes in the Boston Marathon Bombing should NOT BE killed for their heinous crimes against humanity

Even though - quite literally - the Old Testament would have them killed without question
The Church thus dismisses the Old Testament as "not valid in the light of newer societal norms"

Which re-emphasizes the covenant between Jesus and Man
which is a whole other thread of Hilarity - but more on that later

[kalm]

Hmmm....I'm no religon expert, but some fundamental Christians would say that those Christians you describe above have also made up THEIR own religion and are "faking" it....

Well said AZ
But you missed a previous debate (right here on CS.Com, Image that)
Where we discussed the importance of the Catholic Bishops stating that the Islamic dudes in the Boston Marathon Bombing should NOT BE killed for their heinous crimes against humanity

Even though - quite literally - the Old Testament would have them killed without question
The Church thus dismisses the Old Testament as "not valid in the light of newer societal norms"

Which re-emphasizes the covenant between Jesus and Man
which is a whole other thread of Hilarity - but more on that later

Rick Perry's Jesus disagrees.

[Skjellyfetti]

Hmmm....I'm no religon expert, but some fundamental Christians would say that those Christians you describe above have also made up THEIR own religion and are "faking" it....

Bravo.

The problem is fundamentalists. What Cluck and others hate about Islam is Wahhabism.

[Skjellyfetti]

Where we discussed the importance of the Catholic Bishops stating that the Islamic dudes in the Boston Marathon Bombing should NOT BE killed for their heinous crimes against humanity

Even though - quite literally - the Old Testament would have them killed without question
The Church thus dismisses the Old Testament as "not valid in the light of newer societal norms"

Well, there are quite a lot of interpretations of the Bible. There are a few hundred denominations in the the US.

Some take the entire Bible completely literally. Earth 6,000 years old, gays should be stoned to death, etc.

Others do not. Catholics aren't fundamentalists.

Again, you problem is with fundamentalists.

[Baldy]

Hmmm....I'm no religon expert, but some fundamental Christians would say that those Christians you describe above have also made up THEIR own religion and are "faking" it....

Bravo.

The problem is fundamentalists. What Cluck and others hate about Islam is Wahhabism.

Not necessarily. You forgot one big BIG caveat...fundie christians don't go around killing non-believers, apostates, or people who don't buy into their vision of the Jesus Industrial Complex.

[YoUDeeMan]

Hmmm....I'm no religon expert, but some fundamental Christians would say that those Christians you describe above have also made up THEIR own religion and are "faking" it....

Oh, I agree with that.

In fact, most people who say they are religious have not read their holy books. They state that they are Catholic, Christian, Jooish, or Muslin...and they are nothing of the sort. They don't know their own religion, so how can they claim to be following a certain religion?

In reality, most people are sheep. They don't question things and they go along because they need to identify with someone or something that is bigger than themselves. So, they are brought up in a household that tells them they are not alone in this world...that there is some father figure looking over them and that will take care of them when they die (but, only if they are good...and only if they submit to the father figure). Mass psychosis at its best. Ridiculous stories such as a God sending his own son down as flesh and bones to die, and then raising him from the dead, or some planet sending gods to populate other planets, are taken as fact...no proof needed. Just believe.

That's OK, as long as it is harmless. Unfortunately, in man ways, religions are not harmless to those who choose not to believe. Islam cuts off your head...but physical violence is not the only problem.

In any case, right now, Islam is the biggest religious threat to the world. There is no large movement to stand up and say, "Yeah, I know what Allah said, but eff Allah. It is all a joke...Allah doesn't look down upon other non-believers...he is a peaceful God and wants everyone, even the infidels, to live in peace equally among us."

Nope...no one is saying that.