dialamah

Jews and Muslims, for centuries: Jews found relief from Christian persecution with Muslims: Christians and Muslims, for centuries: Christians and Muslims live peacefully in Eritrea: This site doesn't allow copy/paste, unfortunately, but it seems Christians and Muslims have lived peacefully together for about 2000 years. So, are you 'shut-up' now?

She was somewhere between the age of 9 and 17, depending on who you believe. In any case, the marrying of young females was very common among people of all nations and faiths, at that time. Generally, even if a girl married at a young age, the marriage was not consummated untll the girl had her first menses, and was considered a woman, commonly around age 12-13, though some were younger and some were older.

Daring me to answer 'honestly' suggests that if my answer isn't one you 'approve' of, you'll not accept it. Anyway, I denounce people who kill other people for any reason. I denounce leaders who encourage their followers to kill, for any reason. I hold *individuals* responsible for their actions. In the Quran, choices are provided and supported by scripture. Different people choose to follow different scriptures. Whole Islamic sects are given to following the most peacefu and progressive scripture; some Muslims follow the most *violent* scriptures; most are somewhere in between. I hold the *individuals* responsible for their choices; if they follow the peaceful scrptures, that is to be commended and respected. If they follow the violent scriptures, that is to be condemned and denounced. Which I do, wholeheartedly.

I could or at least, people who call themselves Christians. Peace-loving Christians would denounce them, just as peace-loving Muslims denounce those who bomb, behead, burn and drown others.

Link #1: Sharia patrol groups are denounced by Muslims; several of them are charged, convicted and jailed. Christian patrol groups are now in operation as well. Link #2; A group of men are annoying people, are picked up and are ultimately determined to not be breaking any laws. A video group follows these men and finds them doing nothing much at all. Link #3: Same as Link #2 That NEVER happens with non-Muslims, eh? I never see guys on street corners with signs about the end of the world, aggressively warning us all to repent. I never see Christian religious programming telling people how God is going to punish them for their behavior, telling women they should be modest in dress and behavior, advocating moderation/avoidance of alcohol, submission to Jesus, etc. Nobody has ever gotten a knock on their door, to find nicely and modestly dressed people at their door, trying to tell them about God. If Muslims are on the street talking to people about their beliefs and religion, it's 'extremism'. If Christians do it, it's unremarkable.

If the "criticism" of Islam didn't focus entirely on a one-sided view, in order to substantiate a fear of Muslims, then yeah - I'd accept that this is all just objective discussion. But what I am seeing from some is that they use parts of the Quran to declare Muslims inherently violent. They find reasons to dismiss the many parts of the Quran that teach peace and tolerance; they ignore the many clerics and other Islamic experts who denounce and use Quranic scripture and Hadiths to do so. I just don't see how that is any different than the way in which Daesh use the Quran and various Hadiths to support their war. The Westerners who want to use Islam as motivation for terrorism also seem to want to downplay the impact of Western influence and meddling in that region. We ignored how much of the Arab world felt about having Isreal plunked down in that region. The people in that region watched the US make up "evidence", and then attack Iraq. We meddle in their politics, and lie about it. We engage in military action in their countries and leave them worse off. And yet it's because Islam teaches them to be violent that we have a problem with terrorists? How blind and illogical is that? I don't know how or why the misinformation about the Jews got started but I bet there was no lack of 'proof' at the time for their perceived crimes; today, many of us no longer believe that information and so it's 'hate speech' or 'hate crimes' from those that still believe. Some people feel they have plenty of 'proof' about the Muslims and their 'crimes', they take the actions of the extreme minority as 'proof' of how all Muslims feel and believe, and will some day act. They use words written hundreds of years ago to 'prove' that Muslims as a whole are bent on conversion or genocide. They take isolated incidents of a few hundred immigrants who happen to Muslim behaving badly in their new country as 'proof' of all Muslim's ill-intent, while ignoring the many millions if immigrants who also happen to be Muslim becoming well-integrated into their new country. The demonizing of a person or group, whether a competitor, a religion or an ethnicity, tends to follow fairly predictable patterns. I see it happening with Muslims, and it seems to also have happened with Jews in the past, with very long-term consequences. For Muslims, the Daesh are very useful in allowing others to demonize Islam and all Muslims and I wonder what was used against the Jews, because I really don't know. I think a politician who advocates banning and/or carding Muslims and building walls against Mexicans, and those who agree with him, are also extremists. That would make roughly 30% of Americans extremists. I think that people who walk around Walmart with loaded weapons to make a point are extremists; so there's another significant portion of the US population. Do I want those kind of people moving to or visiting Canada and 'influencing' Canadians to their brand of extremism? Of course not, why would I? Am I able to pick out those people from among all Americans who may want to move or visit here? Nope. So, what I have to do is rely on our system of government and laws to manage those who may have extremist views, while still welcoming those who do not. Yes, it's a risk, someone with extremist views may come to Canada whether a White Supremacist with a gun fetish who believes inter-racial couples should be killed, or an Islamic fundamentalist who believes apostates should be killed. But it's also true that people with extremist views already live here, and that people who've been born here can be radicalized. We cannot make us safe from everything all the time, and it's fruitless to try. We'll just put ourselves in a prison, and remove our own humanity.

There are many ethnic enclaves in the States too, do you think people behave any differently just because of some label like "mulitcultural" or "melting pot"? There are 422 different languages spoken in the States, compared to 177 in Canada. Why do you think things are so much different in the States in that regard?

It wasn't my parenting that was maligned, so it wasn't my legal rights that were affected. And please tell me -- how are kids served if a parent is maliciously accused, and has their access removed for the two or three years it can take for the case to go through the courts, and the parent cleared of charges? All it would have taken in this case was for the initial social worker to employ a bit of common sense, do a minimal amount of investigation, and the kids would not have lost their father for those years. I was shocked too, and I checked with a couple of lawyers - they can, and they do. The police don't have to 'prove' a crime was committed, they merely have to act on the allegation and the allegation only needs to come from one person. In this case, it was a social worker who made the complaint, after one interview from a woman who'd decided - ten years after the supposed crime - to make a complaint on her ex-husband, nearly a year after she'd left him, and after she'd allowed him plenty of access to the kids, while she pursued a new relationship. There was no mark on anyone, there was no repeated behavior, there was no documentation. The child supposedly affected said at the time it wasn't true; mom later said that she 'made it up', but by then it was too late. The charges progressed, the prosecutor tried some fancy moves, but in the end the judge said it didn't happen - three years later. Yeah, they count on that. They threaten with long jail times, permanent record, promise that it'll go easier if the accused just pleads guilty now - the system will look kindly on the person who doesn't bother with the cost of court. He can get it over with, , there'll be no or very little jail time - six week-ends, vs. five years, he'll be able to see his kids that much sooner. And many innocent people plead guilty out of fear, out of exhaustion, out of financial desperation and not because they are guilty. The system works; prosecutors get their conviction rates and innocent people have their life destroyed. I didn't believe it could happen either, in Canada, till I saw it happening firsthand. I agree social service agencies are overwhelmed, but from what I've seen, they're overwhelmed because they aren't actually doing their jobs. Mostly, they fail to investigate - lack of investigation means they either miss the abuse altogether or they target someone who is innocent and needlessly destroy parent-child relationships.

Merry Christmas to all, and a politically correct "Happy Holidays" from Bing and Frank.

Hey, Argus, would love to continue these various conversations with you, but it's Christmas Eve, my son is visiting and I have some pies to bake. Merry Christmas.

@ BigGuy, you make good points there. Not much to add, just wanted to let you know cause there's not a lot of 'agreeing' on these boards, eh?

Why is the Conservative never at fault: We lost the election because of Liberal media (not because we screwed up enough times that the electorate got sick of us) We were forced to break our promise because the other guys made us (not - we could have set different priorities: hired fewer senators, done less warmongering, kept the GST at 7%). One does wonder just when Conservatives and their supporters will take responsiblity. Yeah, and no doubt Liberals forecast was accurate when they made it, but things deteriorated rapidly when they got into office and found out just how cooked the books were, never mind that the world economy still isn't all that great. This government is facing some of the same challenges you happily forgive Harper to run deficits on, so why do Conservatives get a pass, but not the Liberals?

My statement was about what I expected; I don't see how a statement of my past expectations requires evidence.

I said "may not be harmful to kids"; I've no way of knowing for sure just how harmful it is or isn't. For most of my life I felt that spanking, judiciously applied, wasn't a bad thing. Then about five years ago, something happened in my life and my thoughts on that have changed. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have done my best to eliminate corporal punishment from my kids' lives even though they turned out 'ok'. I'm not suggesting criminalizing spanking is a solution either but if other methods that exclude hitting (violence) work as well or better, why not use those methods?

I've seen kids who've been raised without corporal punishment and they are amazing kids. Responsible, mature, focused, goal-oriented. Corporal punishment is common and may not be harmful to most kids, but it certainly isn't necessary to raise good human beings.

That is what you wrote, and much more like that. If you don't like what you wrote, that's not my problem. People's actions speak louder than any book, which is why I don't judge 1.5 billion people as genocidal murderers just "waiting to be called", based on the actions of less than one half of one percent of them.

You are part of the gang that believes the only important part of the Quran is the part that commands Muslims to kill non-believers, apostates, etc. You ignore and dismiss anything within the Quran that teaches non-violence, tolerance or peace. I'm not going to waste my time going through this thread, or any other, to "prove" that to you. If you believe differently, you can spend your time proving that.

What we actually need, in my opinion, is a legal system that doesn't take shortcuts when investigating allegations of abuse. Having lived through a nightmare scenario involving social services who automatically assumed guilt based on a single vague and unsubstantiated accusation, thousands in legal fees and a judge ultimately saying "There's not enough evidence to prove guilt", I think there needs to be a focus on holding parents who make malicious accusations much more accountable.

Well, not sure what point you are trying to make, but obviously an adult carrying a screaming child is preferable to a child being dragged or hit.

I thought she carried the child, since she was 'squirming' and BC_Chick's arms were sore.

Argus, on 05 Nov 2015 - 4:37 PM, said: WestCanMan, on 15 Dec 2015 - 7:58 PM, said: I'm sure I could find more, but my dog wants petting.

Guess you haven't really been paying attention if you think no-one hasn't implied or outright stated that Islam commands Muslims to kill all non-believers, and that those who do not comply are not 'true Muslims" or are 'just waiting for the call'. There's usually something that someone seizes on to feed their fear/hatred. Perhaps it's merely that in Leviticus, there's a command to kill non-believers. Or maybe it's because Jesus threw the merchants out of the temple. Anyway, I'm certain that whatever it is, its as bogus as any other reason to hate/fear an entire group of people.

*shrugs*. I expected that from well before the election, regardless of who got in. At least Trudeau was slightly more realistic than the other two.

I agree, that would be ideal. On the other hand, "right" according to whom? Some people want refugees, some do not; some want only Christian refugees, or only refugees that aren't Muslim. Trudeau has done at least one thing I disagree with and think is morally wrong. On the other hand, a lot of people would disagree with me and have just as valid reasons.