Trump's order on immigration and the wacko liberal response

The belief that people should be killed because of their religious beliefs, or lack of them, is in direct conflict with the part of the constitution it's being suggested has been contravened. If the judges are going to assess risk to life, which, you say, can be used to justify religious discrimination, assessing the proportion of the religious adherents who hold such beliefs is certainly relevant. I'm not being pedantic. While Faith is greatly exaggerating the evils of Islam, it's important that others don't lean too far the other way. I questioned your "nearly all" with the example of the young Brits being 36% in favour of apostate killing. 64% is most, but it is not "nearly all." Had you said "most" originally, I wouldn't have disagreed.Understanding such differences is utterly necessary for the purposes of this debate.The only relevant thing we might get a "most" for is theocracy. Judging by the last free election in Egypt, that's a distinct possibility in the seven nations concerned at present, and in the entire Muslim world. I mentioned this earlier in the thread, and someone pointed out that America already has many Christian believers in the supremacy of their God's laws, but that's hardly an argument for importing more.Is Islam close to being an unconstitutional religion? I'd answer "no", because Islam isn't really anything specific. There are so many different interpretations and so many contradictions in the scriptures that we can't really say what it is.However, there are certainly unconstitutional interpretations, and they are certainly fairly popular, and they certainly can be lethal. Exactly. And this is where the judges are going to have to assess the group concerned, and will have to think in vague terms like "some" , "most" and "nearly all". Mine maybe more to do with the idea that even if it did clearly discriminate against Muslims (like Trump's original suggestion) that still wouldn't make it unconstitutional because it could be justified; something you seem to agree with. That's why I thought that there might be too much rejoicing amongst some of the wacko liberals around here, although they will still probably be able to rejoice, because, as I've pointed out to Faith, ultimately economic considerations will come into play, and they will trump Donald. To me, that seems similar to what you describe as me saying that the U.S. discriminates anyway. Of course it has to be justified, but the types of belief that I've discussed above make it quite easy to do so where Islam is concerned. That 36% apostate killers would be compatible with the 17th century West, but isn't with the 21st, 20th or 19th. Our 18th century just didn't happen in the Islamic world, and it's arguably suffering from that fact.

If you're expressing highly subjective opinions about Muslims and Islam, that doesn't make you the entire topic, but it does tend to make you a part of it. Note that I've brought up myself and my own experiences in Muslim countries as well, because we can't be purely objective on subjects like this. You just compared them. Are you saying that you disagree with traditional Muslim views on the things I mentioned earlier, like fornication, same sex relationships and traditional family values? Isn't prayer important to you? Isn't there only one true God? Don't you consider it wrong to steal the property of others, and good to give to charity? Are all these things superficial to you? Really? Likely? How did you find this out? Why aren't I dead? Was I one of the lucky minority? No-one even hit me! Didn't you know that there are Westerners living in all majority Muslim countries? Because some get killed doesn't make it likely. Some get struck by lightning.You say you are not the topic, but if you are making up your own fantasy "Islamic World" and expecting others to discuss it, the head in which that world exists inevitably becomes part of the topic. If he'd been in Vietnam, especially the north, in the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam war, he'd have been at very high risk of being slaughtered by irate Buddhists or communists. But if he had visited the old communist Eastern Europe or another Buddhist country (I've visited both) he would have been fine.Tell me, how do you know how much I know about the history of Islam? Is it likely that someone who has spent a lot of time in Muslim countries would never have got curious and would know "nothing" of Islamic history? Is this your subjective world of make believe sneaking into the topic again? See the bit about Vietnam. It might be worth remembering that comment on economics as things pan out over the next few months. Money makes the world go round, as they say, much more than law and religion.

They could just ban all religions if it can be reasonably demonstrated that more than 25% of adherents believe in the killing of apostates. Effectively singling out Islam without doing so technically. It's religious discrimination of sorts, but would be argued on the basis that it's happening a lot in the in the Muslim world. When radical Sunni groups kill random Shia, they do it on that theological basis. Of course, if you could easily identify the 25+%, you just ban them. Sectarian religious discrimination. As Faith might point out, Mohammed was a religious terrorist in his later life. So what does that make the followers? Many of the Islamic attacks have been committed by people who are not members of "terrorist organisations", unless following Mohammed counts. You'd never ban any group on that basis, unless it was very small. Most neo Nazis aren't murderers. What percentage of the modern KKK have actually lynched someone? The percentage that might believe that anyone should be lynched could be a lot less than 36%.The thing is, about the threat to life angle, how many lives does that mean? Of course. Most of those amongst the Sunni who regard the Shia as apostates haven't personally executed one. But lots have been killed. You could probably find interesting prison stats from here in the U.K., and things like rape conviction stats in Denmark, but as you know, you have to be careful if it's right wing websites reporting these. I don't know about the U.S.I think, especially if Trump doesn't get his way, that the Muslims might, per. head of population, be more likely to be the victims of terrorism then non-Muslim Americans over the next few years (lone wolf stuff, like the Quebec attack recently). But America can't lock up all its Faith types. As you would point out, most or almost all of them aren't murderers. If it's so difficult to make the case for Muslims after September 11th, it would be impossible with any other religion, I would have thought. But that, surely, is discrimination "because of the religion alone". If certain types of killing are amongst the tenets and historical practices of a specific religion, they are part of it.Mohammed would be on the banned list, if he was still around. But not those, apparently, who are members of his organisation. I see why you ask. They are part of the larger group in world Islam who support the killing of apostates. Apostates get killed, so the group are apostate killers in the sense that the Nazis were Jew killers, even though most, probably almost all, did not actually kill a single Jew with their own hands. No. More like "have killed" and "are killing", as a group.The last hanging for heresy in Britain was around 1690. Many people would have supported this, but that doesn't mean they were all volunteering to be the hangman. If hardly anyone had supported it, it wouldn't have happened. The supporters killed the heretic, in a sense. That's one reason why I mentioned the seventeenth century in relation to the "apostate killers". That's not what I meant. A pioneering society evolving over a long period of time in a way which involves related changes in science, technology, the arts, religious, philosophical, social and political thought is not the same as a ruling class looking at the results in such societies and then trying to replicate them by imposing change artificially top downwards. It's not surprising that that did not really work.Edited by bluegenes, : ABE: And have a good weekend, BTW!