Welcome to Atheist Discussion, a new community created by former members of The Thinking Atheist forum.

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
#51

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
(10-10-2024, 02:52 AM)Rhythmcs Wrote:
(10-09-2024, 09:56 PM)Minimalist Wrote: Given everything that is wrong with religitards the question one should be asking oneself is "why would any batch of religious extremists want to form a political party?"

Do they think they can legislate their particular sky-daddy into existence?
Yes.  The things we religiously believe are the things we would make true were they not true.  Frankly, I don't think there's anything an official government endorsement could do or provide that a de facto theocracy of the peoples conscience could not, and there's a strong correlation between voting our conscience and voting our religious values.

I think Americans would be happy to do most anything the gov't permits, including stomping minority religions into the dirt.
On hiatus.
The following 1 user Likes Thumpalumpacus's post:
  • TheGentlemanBastard
Reply
#52

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
Count me in.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
Reply
#53

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
Quote:Frankly, I don't think there's anything an official government endorsement could do or provide that a de facto theocracy of the peoples conscience could not,

All Constantine had to do was announce that jesusism was to be given legal status along with all other religious mumbo jumbo and the xhristards were off and running.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
Reply
#54

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
It certainly didn't hurt. Let's suppose, though, that instead of an emperors finagling we're dealing with the people's conscience, and instead of an explicit edict we get a set of implicit laws.

I suppose there's some ideology in here, but there's a notion that our representative governments are not just a moral improvement, but a practical one as well. That we make the switch not only because we're privately invested but because the representative form is better at delivering societal goods. I think it's conceivable that a representative government that is implicitly christian could do more for christianity as a distinct part of the societal power structure. We see one weakness of empire from a chistian dominionist standpoint between constantine and julian and I couldn't put the christian capture of rome before julian. The history of implicitly christian law in much later western democracies (and late monarchy) suggests that dominionism is best served not by a prince on high, but when the body public become their own informers, accusers, and jailers. When they become collaborators rather than captives. An internal rather than external oppressor, from a critical standpoint.

The us, for example, has engaged in or does engage in implicit dominionist fuckery on a scale that would shame an explicit christian emperor...in a way that is not dependent on the whims (or beating heart) of any one man.
The following 1 user Likes Rhythmcs's post:
  • Cavebear
Reply
#55

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
(10-10-2024, 03:10 AM)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: I think Americans would be happy to do most anything the gov't permits, including stomping minority religions into the dirt.
Agreed, and that..I think, is the context of the current wingnut belief that the government can't tell them what they can't tell the government to do.  Thus religious oppression is religious freedom.  Religious suppression is free expression and assembly.  They never miss a chance to subsidize their religion and as soon as a penny goes to a mosque...or they think it has.... they say "we didn't mean that religion".  They have to buy hundreds of thousands of trump branded bibles for educational purposes™ - and anything else is woke.  A welfare applicant needs to be the shape and shade of a married white hetero christian - or they're takers.  Every president -has- to get up there and do their version of the god bless the us raindance.  The troops too, good heavens don't forget the troops - but not the other guys.  

If the founding wizards of the christian cult saw american political christianity in action they'd cream.
The following 1 user Likes Rhythmcs's post:
  • Thumpalumpacus
Reply
#56

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
(10-10-2024, 06:16 AM)Rhythmcs Wrote: It certainly didn't hurt.  Let's suppose, though, that instead of an emperors finagling we're dealing with the people's conscience, and instead of an explicit edict we get a set of implicit laws.  

I suppose there's some ideology in here, but there's a notion that our representative governments are not just a moral improvement, but a practical one as well.  That we make the switch not only because we're privately invested but because the representative form is better at delivering societal goods.  I think it's conceivable that a representative government that is implicitly christian could do more for christianity as a distinct part of the societal power structure.  We see one weakness of empire from a chistian dominionist standpoint between constantine and julian and I couldn't put the christian capture of rome before julian.  The history of implicitly christian law in much later western democracies (and late monarchy) suggests that dominionism is best served not by a prince on high, but when the body public become their own informers, accusers, and jailers.  When they become collaborators rather than captives.  An internal rather than external oppressor, from a critical standpoint.  

The us, for example, has engaged in or does engage in implicit dominionist fuckery on a scale that would shame an explicit christian emperor...in a way that is not dependent on the whims (or beating heart) of any one man.

I liked tht. But I have to note that religious domination is often determined by one local ruler and the people obey. Constantine decided the people shoild be christian. Henry 8th decided to create his own christian religion. Some individuals create their own (and people obey). Around here, there are many single specific (in detail) churches that exist only in one congregation. I can never remember the names of some of those, but I recall a spoof called "My Lady Of Perpetual Misery". LOL

The line between mainstream religion and cultism is very thin in my view. There are christians, jews, moslems, hindus, etc on one side of the line, and cults on the other. Jonestown, Heaven's Gate, and Branch Davidians (just as examples). And there are some in-between, like Mormons, 7th Day Adventists, and some occasional weird door-knockers.

But as I said, the line between them is pretty thin...
Never try to catch a dropped knife!
Reply
#57

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
(10-10-2024, 12:45 AM)Paleophyte Wrote:
(10-09-2024, 05:17 PM)SYZ Wrote: Exiled Muslim senator Fatima Payman has launched her
new political party with no policy positions and which will
not require candidates to oppose the war in Gaza, the issue
that saw her join the cross-bench.

I'm wondering what part of running for office strikes you as insidious. Damned clever of them sneaking around in plain sight like that.

Well there's several ways that radicalised Muslims can
"sneakily" subvert an established society or institution.
Schools, hospital, local councils, the armed forces—and
now our state and federal government FFS.

There are now as many Muslim immigrants in Australia
as there are our Indigenous population—around 800,000.
That's sounding alarm bells in many quarters, and not just
from me.  (And there are 4.4m Muslims in the US, as
some sort of comparison.)

Moreover, Muslims have the highest fertility rate of any
religious group—an average of 2.9 children per woman,
well above replacement level of 2.1, the minimum needed
to maintain a stable population, or the current 1.7 here
in Australia.
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
The following 1 user Likes SYZ's post:
  • jerry mcmasters
Reply
#58

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
(10-10-2024, 06:34 PM)SYZ Wrote:
(10-10-2024, 12:45 AM)Paleophyte Wrote: I'm wondering what part of running for office strikes you as insidious. Damned clever of them sneaking around in plain sight like that.

Well there's several ways that radicalised Muslims can
"sneakily" subvert an established society or institution.
Schools, hospital, local councils, the armed forces—and
now our state and federal government FFS.

There are now as many Muslim immigrants in Australia
as there are our Indigenous population—around 800,000.
That's sounding alarm bells in many quarters, and not just
from me.  (And there are 4.4m Muslims in the US, as
some sort of comparison.)

Moreover, Muslims have the highest fertility rate of any
religious group—an average of 2.9 children per woman,
well above replacement level of 2.1, the minimum needed
to maintain a stable population, or the current 1.7 here
in Australia.

Still not seeing the problem.
Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ.
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.


Vivekananda
The following 1 user Likes Dānu's post:
  • SaxonX
Reply
#59

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
(10-10-2024, 06:34 PM)SYZ Wrote:
(10-10-2024, 12:45 AM)Paleophyte Wrote: I'm wondering what part of running for office strikes you as insidious. Damned clever of them sneaking around in plain sight like that.

Well there's several ways that radicalised Muslims can
"sneakily" subvert an established society or institution.
Schools, hospital, local councils, the armed forces—and
now our state and federal government FFS.

There are now as many Muslim immigrants in Australia
as there are our Indigenous population—around 800,000.
That's sounding alarm bells in many quarters, and not just
from me.  (And there are 4.4m Muslims in the US, as
some sort of comparison.)

Moreover, Muslims have the highest fertility rate of any
religious group—an average of 2.9 children per woman,
well above replacement level of 2.1, the minimum needed
to maintain a stable population, or the current 1.7 here
in Australia.
So the problem is they are having kids and participating in society.....
The following 2 users Like SaxonX's post:
  • pattylt, Szuchow
Reply
#60

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
All nations evolve ethnographically. Attempts to restrict the participation of minority citizens is discriminatory.
On hiatus.
The following 1 user Likes Thumpalumpacus's post:
  • pattylt
Reply
#61

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
Immigrants 

Don't have kids and don't join the community "Your not integrating "


Have kids and join the community " Your a 5th column subverting the native population"


Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
The following 3 users Like SaxonX's post:
  • Thumpalumpacus, pattylt, Szuchow
Reply
#62

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
(10-10-2024, 07:01 PM)SaxonX Wrote:
(10-10-2024, 06:34 PM)SYZ Wrote: Well there's several ways that radicalised Muslims can
"sneakily" subvert an established society or institution.

So the problem is they are having kids and participating in  society.....

No, not at all.    It's the additional stressors that apply
to our country's under-financed social resources, specialist
education, separate facilities in hospitals and universities
and government offices, female-only medical facilities, halal
food licensing, banning of alcohol and pork products from
council recreational facilities, the right to wear full face
covering in secure buildings etc.

Australia is now a nominally secular country, but these Muslim
immigrants refuse to accept that, and act in accord with the
societal "norms" of the new country they've chosen to live in.

And yes, as you may've gathered [LOL] I despise the religion of
Islam above all others, based as it is on the ultimate destruction
of us infidels the world over.

  —Islam, in particular, should be anathema to all atheists.
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
The following 1 user Likes SYZ's post:
  • jerry mcmasters
Reply
#63

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
Quote:It certainly didn't hurt. Let's suppose, though, that instead of an emperors finagling we're dealing with the people's conscience, and instead of an explicit edict we get a set of implicit laws.


Interesting thought.  Deep down I suspect that "conscience" has far less to do with it than the perception of gaining an advantage.  Xhristard bullshit aside, the evidence suggests that jesusism grew very slowly in the Roman Empire.  Estimates are that by the time of Constantine there were fewer than 5% of the population who called themselves "xtians" and these were not a unified force.  The various sects apparently despised each other according to the late 2d century author Celsus.

[Image: d41a65d7320f808591bf08d89020fae3.jpg]

To be clear, the 313 CE Edict of Milan merely granted religious freedom to ALL religions within the empire....xhristards included.  Jesusism doddled long as little more than one among many in its various forms.  In 361 Flavius Claudius Julianus became emperor ( Julian ) and he promptly declared himself a follower of Neoplatonism and was a great believer in the classical pagan worship.  Julian, known as Julian the Apostate, ruled for only 2 years before being killed in battle.  Nonetheless, he scared the  living shit out of the xhristards who suddenly realized how fragile their legitamacy was.  

While it is true that succeeding emperors were too busy with revolts, barbarian invasions, and political plots to worry much about religion much they quietly acquiesced as various factions sought to undo Julian's reforms.  But it was a mere 16 years between the death of Julian the the ascension of Theodosius, a xtian fanatic who in 380 proclaimed jesusism to be the state religion in the Edict of Thessalonica....and none of this pansy, toleration shit for Theodosius!

Quote: We order the followers of this law to embrace the name of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the punishment of our authority which in accordance with the will of Heaven we shall decide to inflict.

Jesusism as the dominant religion of the Empire grew steadily from that point on..... but was it "conscience" or the fear of having a sword stuck in their throat?  I submit it was the latter.

BTW, there is a similar example in Islam...but I don't want to make this too long.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
The following 3 users Like Minimalist's post:
  • Inkubus, pattylt, Rhythmcs
Reply
#64

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
So in other words some merger concessions
The following 4 users Like SaxonX's post:
  • Minimalist, pattylt, Rhythmcs, Szuchow
Reply
#65

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
Well put.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
Reply
#66

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
If Muslim women are having 2.9 children vs the average of 2.1 or even Australia's 1.7, it’s going to take a long time for that replacement strategy to be meaningful. It also assumes future generations of Muslims continue with higher birth rates after living in a first world with available contraception. It’s too soon to predict that. Many cultures with high birth rates have decreased as the generations become more multicultural vs. moncultural. Catholics and Mormons aren’t the baby makers they were once noted for.

The Muslim immigrants haven’t been there very long. I think it’s foolish to assume their children and especially their grandchildren will remain as monocultured as the originals are. America had great concerns with the immigrants from Italy and Ireland and within one generation, that disappeared…remember, Protestant America was extremely concerned about all these Catholics flooding our country. People in new places don’t instantly integrate in a new culture but time works on all of them. If you try to isolate them, you just lengthen the time to adapt. Let them mingle, even though you might have to make concessions on food and clothes, and they’ll adapt sooner rather than later.

Finally, while I don’t particularly like Islam any more than Christianity, syncretism is a thing. Many Muslims cherry pick the Quran as Christian’s do the Bible. Much of the violence is ignored and many Muslims are as moderate in their faith as Christian’s are in theirs. Yes, there will likely be some fundamentalists trying to keep the Muslims pure but, just like fundamentalists do here, they fail to pass it on to all their children.

Trying to keep the Muslims feeling like they’re being singled out and persecuted won’t get you where you want to be. It just perpetuates the hatred and fear.
Reply
#67

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
Islam is the second-largest religion in Australia.
According to our 2021 Federal Census.     The
combined number of people who self-identified
as Muslims, is second only to all denominations
of Christianity.

The sectarian conflicts between religious groups
in the Middle East are currently being reflected as
tensions within the Australian community, and in
our schools—from Sunni v. Shia v. Sufi Muslims.

  All this pisses me off.    Cranky
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
The following 2 users Like SYZ's post:
  • Minimalist, jerry mcmasters
Reply
#68

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
To your first statement ......And?

To your second statement I doubt it.
Reply
#69

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
(10-10-2024, 10:45 PM)pattylt Wrote: If Muslim women are having 2.9 children vs the average of 2.1 or even Australia's 1.7, it’s going to take a long time for that replacement strategy to be meaningful...

Not necessarily.  Islam could well increase in Australia
exponentially—where growth compounds continuously.

And then there is this...

[Image: Screenshot-2024-10-11-at-11-07-05-Fact-C...nd-non.png]
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
Reply
#70

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
Or it could drop
Reply
#71

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
(10-10-2024, 11:45 PM)SaxonX Wrote: To your first statement ......And?

To your second statement I doubt it.

Because I'm a lifelong atheist and believe Australia
should remain a secular country.  That a non-indigenous
religion is expanding at an ever-increasing rate, and may
supplant our indigenous geosophical "religions" should
concern all Aussie atheists.

You doubt it because you don't live here, and you have
no counter data disproving my claim anyway.  Your "doubt"
is nothing more than your opinion, and, you know what
people say about opinions LOL.
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
Reply
#72

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
To your first statement is just meh  Dodgy

What counter data do I need to a baseless claim? A claim comes off as "Just an opinion" in it's own right Tongue
The following 1 user Likes SaxonX's post:
  • Szuchow
Reply
#73

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
England and and France are experiencing Muslim pains as well. True, I don’t live there but we have Muslim communities in the US, too.

I agree that current circumstances are tense. There could be violence. There could be great discomfort. I don’t see it as a long term problem, just current growing pains. And, I could be wrong. I envy your population of atheists as it’s a larger percentage of the population than the US. Most atheists in the US are more concerned about the Christian fundamentalists than the Muslims because of the size difference between the two.

So, what do you propose to deal with this? Are you hoping for legislation that doesn’t accommodate Muslims? Are you hoping their numbers get limited in entry? Expelling them? In the US we don’t even have those options since we’re predominantly Christian already. We just seem to want to kick out brown people even though thier religion is the same. If larger numbers of Muslims started immigrating in large numbers, I’m sure there would be plenty of hair pulling here as well.

Other than stopping immigration, what else could one do? There’s already a bunch there so, what would you like to see your government doing?
Reply
#74

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
(10-10-2024, 10:45 PM)pattylt Wrote: If Muslim women are having 2.9 children vs the average of 2.1 or even Australia's 1.7, it’s going to take a long time for that replacement strategy to be meaningful.  It also assumes future generations of Muslims continue with higher birth rates after living in a first world with available contraception.

It also assumes that the liberties of a secular democracy are less-appealing to kids than parents shouting at you for wearing makeup or skateboarding. You're of the hippie generation, Patty -- how did you respond to the restrictions of the Fifties here?

Kids aren't very different the world over.
On hiatus.
The following 3 users Like Thumpalumpacus's post:
  • SaxonX, Minimalist, pattylt
Reply
#75

The Insidious Advancement of Islam in Australia
If all The Muslims did was fuck, they'd still be doing australia a solid. Lazy ass whites, get off your asses and impregnate some women?
The following 1 user Likes Rhythmcs's post:
  • Fireball
Reply




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)