bk59

That is pretty clear. It is also pretty clear that this is a non-issue. A footbath is not a religious thing. It can be used by anyone. Plus, in this case, it had the added benefit of accommodating something that was happening anyway in a manner that made the bathrooms safer. Did anyone ask for a religious custom to be catered to? The answer is no. Muslims students were already going about their daily prayers. In the same way that I imagine many Christian students are going about their daily prayers at the U of M. And I would have to disagree that "universities across the west" are "backing away from any visible sign of 'religion'". In fact, I think in many cases the opposite is true. Many universities are attempting to accommodate all religions instead of avoiding them. Take the University of Toronto as an example.

In my opinion the answer to every single question you asked is No.

But there is a difference between safety hazards that exist as part of the workplace when employees are going about their work and a safety hazard that exists because of an employee doing something unrelated to doing their job in the workplace. To my knowledge, occupational health and safety generally requires employers to eliminate the first type of hazard, but not the second type. There is nothing hazardous about a sink. Using it in a certain way could create a hazard though. But unless employees are required to wash their feet in a sink as part of their work then I doubt an employer would have to deal with this issue. Regarding your Monster, as I tried to point out in my last post, an employer is not obliged to accommodate your religious practices if it is a safety hazard while doing your work. I understand that you do not want to be forced into a religion yourself, but the fact is we belong to a society that holds many different beliefs. Try not to let your anti-religious stance cloud the fact that we can accommodate these beliefs without forcing anyone to follow any particular religion. (To be clear, I am not using "anti-religious" in a derogatory way - your posts just make it clear that you don't support religious beliefs.)

This is a fun new attitude from you. Because I called you on your racist statement now apparently I am calling everything racist? Let's not confuse the issue here. The documentary did not seem particularly racist to me. It brings up some legitimate concerns. I would still question some of the things said in the documentary (just as I did with that list). I would also question your statement that 15% (or more) of the British Muslim population "want to or actively do kill people." Everyone can watch that first part for themselves, but here is some of what it says with respect to your "point". For the record I watched the first five parts, but couldn't find the sixth. This is just me writing down what is said in the first part with Haras Rafiq. These numbers are a bit disturbing, no doubt about that. But again you have overstated things. 15% do not want to kill people. They are saying I can see why, but I wouldn't do it. Don't get me wrong; these numbers are not good. But saying "I understand how someone could kill a man who hurt a child" is different from "I want to, and will, kill that man." Plus I would very much like to see where those numbers come from. I too can post a video of a man writing on a flipchart up on YouTube. (Yes, I know this is BBC show & not a random video posting. My point is that there is no source for these numbers.) I would also be curious to find out the percentage of US and/or Canadian citizens that support statements like "I think we should just go into Iraq and Afghanistan and kill all the Muslims." (I have heard this said before.) I wouldn't want the numbers so that I could somehow equate British Muslims with other populations and then judge which one is superior. I would like to know the numbers to find out what a "normal" number would be. In any population there will be those that actively argue for the destruction of those they perceive as their enemies. I'm curious to know if that 15% is high, low, or the same compared to other populations. Extremists are dangerous and should be stopped. And yes, Britain certainly does have problems with its Muslim population. And those "could be" numbers may be accurate, I can't tell from this. But the whole reason I don't consider this video racist is because it does not make the claim that you are making - that Muslims are murderers simply because they are Muslim. The video itself clearly shows some Muslims trying to get along with the rest of British society. You should also note that in one of these videos (part 2 maybe, I forget now) there is an important thing to think about. In Afghanistan against the Russians, and in Bosnia, the West encouraged the type of Muslim fighting that is now back in Afghanistan and Iraq. This does not make things like suicide bombing acceptable. But in all your lists of Islamic terror attacks over the years, how many were condoned or encouraged by Western governments? Next time you want to make blanket generalizations about an entire religion you may want to think about things like that. The problem is more complex than just "Muslims kill because they are Muslims."

The statement that Muslims kill because they are Muslim is completely false. All you need to prove that it is false is to find one Muslim who has not killed another person. I assure you that this is possible. Muslims do not kill because they are Muslim. Saying otherwise is racist - a term that is not meaningless. cybercoma has already pointed out why the statement is so obviously racist. It is not racist to point out facts. But pointing out facts is not the same as creating a set of "facts" that amazingly just so happen to support your views. The list you provided is a mix of valid terror attacks and crimes that have no place on that list. Even if you take the list at face value, to say that "tens upon tens of thousands a year, year after year" are being killed is exaggeration. Your inability or unwillingness to even state what terrorism means just makes it seem like you are more interested in Muslim bashing than actually discussing extremism.

I think maybe there are a few issues in your post that could be separated a bit. First you seem to advance the position that anything having to do with faith is not worthwhile. And while I suppose we could have a whole debate about the merits of faith, or lack thereof, this thread doesn't really seem the place for it. I'll just say that whether you agree with having faith or not, there is a large segment of Canadians that subscribe to some form of faith and find it worthwhile to hold those beliefs and practice their faith through actions. As for what effect this has on employers... I would guess none. Yes, employers must provide a safe working environment, but that does not have anything to do with religion. Take a look at the Supreme Court case Bhinder v. Canadian National Railway. (You can read it here if you want.) In that case CN required its employees to wear hard hats. Bhinder was a Sikh who, because of his religion, was forbidden from wearing anything on his head except a turban. The Supreme Court sided with CN saying that although this regulation had the effect of discriminating against Sikhs, it was a valid occupational requirement. In that case safety trumped religion. Your post seems to say that accommodating religion would be a valid safety concern. At least according to the Bhinder decision that is not the case. Using your ghost example, I would think that the employee would have to demonstrate that the ghosts posed an actual safety hazard in terms of the work environment before the business would have to take action. Also remember that a university is a very different place than a business. At a university students are encouraged to participate in extra-curricular groups. Some of these groups happen to be faith based. If the university is providing a place for worship (irrespective of religion) then it makes sense that they should do what they can to accommodate members of that faith community in terms of safety. And maybe that is the only effect it will have on business - businesses that provide space for worship may have to ensure that those spaces are safe. Then again, any business that provides space for worship would probably have no problems installing something like a foot bath. Not only because it seems like a fairly minimal cost, but also because if it really is a safety issue then they will not want to be sued.

Well congratulations on proving that you are in fact prejudiced. Perhaps post #4 was a bit premature in defending you. In a list enumerating terror attacks, if you can't define terrorism then your argument isn't worth anything. You want to denounce terrorism without knowing what it is, go ahead. You just won't be taken seriously. Good luck trying to stop something when you can't even say what that something is. That makes it a very practical question and not simply philosophy. I am not attempting to claim that "this list is largely composed of murders committed by folks who are only Muslim in passing, and not by people who are killing because they are Muslim". I am claiming that this list is inaccurate and pointless. It does nothing but promote the type of racist sentiment that you endorsed above. It characterizes all Muslims as murderers - which is clearly untrue despite your statement - and is the exact same type of generalization that Muslim extremists level against the Western world.

Please explain to me how a foot bath is pressing religion into anyone's face. A foot bath is hardly a symbol of Islam. In fact, many people seeing it in the bathroom probably wouldn't associate it with Islam in any way. I also took a look at the PDF on the CAIR website under "American-Muslim Voter Survey". I'm not sure if this is what ScottSA was talking about or not, but looking at it I can only ask "What is the big deal?" Here are some quotes from page 11: How dare they participate in their government! Or contribute by volunteering. And holding values in common with other religions in the US... unthinkable. Perhaps all this fuss about a foot bath is just a bit of overreaction.

First, allow me to re-state this since you missed it again. I am not trying to equate Islam with Christianity or any other religion or ideology. Not on a moral basis. Not on any basis. I say this because I think it highly doubtful that you do understand what I am saying. Please enlighten us as to your definition of a terror attack and your definition of a terrorist. Because killing one person because God told you to is not a terror attack, nor is that person a terrorist. To me, terrorism involves actually trying to create terror - committing the crime not just to commit the crime, but also to scare other people. Admittedly there is no definition of terrorism that everyone in the world accepts, but there are a few out there. See here. I did not parse out one or two slightly questionable incidents. I simply took a look at the list and had three examples right away. I think this fact on its own says a lot about the list. I did not go through the entire list, and I have no intention of doing so in the future. Because it is pointless. No doubt there are many acts that count as terror acts - I did not suggest otherwise. But I am convinced there are some acts that should not be on that list. Which is why my original argument - that using numbers like this is counter-productive - still stands. There are too many questions about what is valid and what is not. And at the end of the day this type of comparison only promotes misconceptions and prevents people from concentrating on stopping actual extremists. The bottom line is that I think these numbers are a generalization, no different than when an extremist claims that the West is corrupt and decadent and only interested in oil and money. (And please feel free to not copy so much text next time. Everyone here is quite capable of clicking on the link.)

But what does that really mean? Does that mean everyone in Canada should dress the same? No new fashion from overseas, because that's not how we do things here. Should we ask immigrants if they will be preparing food dishes that originated from their home countries, and if so turn them away? My point is simply that yes, they must adapt to our culture, but that does not mean that we can't accommodate parts of their culture. It is a question of where you want to draw the line I suppose. And I doubt that any two people will identically agree on where that line should be. But in this case, how is this foot bath in any way harming anyone? It is an addition to a bathroom that everyone can use. It avoids a safety problem that affected everyone, not just Muslim students. I have no problem adopting your position if, for example, someone shows up and wants to execute someone for a crime since we don't have capital punishment here. But if someone is just practicing their religion without affecting anyone else - and make no mistake, Muslim students praying does not affect me or you in any way - then why not let them?

OK, let's take a step back here. The original ScottSA post talked about how "Muslims at prayer" did not fit the description of "quiet reflection." I objected to that because it is not true (to my knowledge). Muslims at prayer are much different from calls to prayer. I tried to stress that by asking if you would characterize Christian prayer as loud based on a church ringing bells. (I wouldn't. I think the act of prayer is separate from a call to prayer - Muslim or Christian.) I apologize if that was not clear. But let's talk about the calls to prayer.... Here is an article from 2004 about calls to prayer. It backs up what jbg posted regarding Dearborn. Here is a quote: This does not support ScottSA's assertion that Muslims are caterwauling and it definitely does not support his claim that they are blaring prayers. Again, this is a call to prayers, not prayer itself. It even shows that the Muslim community is willing to accept limits on their call to prayers to fit in with the community. Maybe that is part of the reason why I find it so disappointing when people get so upset over a foot bath. It really does not hurt anyone and yet some people still can't find it in them to accept this accommodation.

Are you actually serious? Really? Up until now Muslims at the university had to wash their feet in the sink. And you think that they are going to complain that a foot bath is being used by "infidel feet or whatever"? I will concede that it is possible that someone might complain. But do you have any evidence at all that this might happen? Do you have any evidence that the reason these foot baths were installed was because Muslims were complaining that infidels were using the sinks that they were using to wash their feet? I think, based on what little I have seen, the vast majority of Muslims at the university will be happy to have the foot baths and that will be the end of it.

Wow... you certainly did miss the point of my post. My whole point was that context does matter when producing numbers like this. In no way am I attempting to "whitewash Islam." Nor am I defending any of these acts. I am saying that if you want to use numbers like this, understand where they are coming from. Context matters in that just because someone is Muslim and commits a crime, this does not make it an Islamic terror attack. The example of the man killing another man because God told him to is not an example of terrorism. It is a criminal act. The man might be delusional or even a full-blown psychopath, but he is not a terrorist and the murder was not an act of terror (Christian or otherwise). Please note, I am not trying to avoid calling that murder Christian terrorism. I am flat out saying that it was not a terror attack - it is not Christian terrorism. (Although I do find it funny that you use the Spanish Inquisition as an example, but you say that June 5, 2007 is "a while ago", implying that it is somehow less relevant.) As for your paragraph about how Christianity and Islam are orders of magnitude different in this regard, I have already clearly stated that I have no interest in comparing the number of incidents since the beginning of time. There is no point. All religions have their extremists who commit crimes and acts of terror. These people should be stopped no matter who they are. Likewise, all religions have members who denounce the extremists in their midst. If you want to take this data at face value go ahead. That's your choice and your right. But don't expect others to blindly accept that all of these are terror attacks simply because they were committed by Muslims.

This purpose was simply to show how gross generalizations are never justified, and when called on them the usual answer is to claim that the poster was saying something else. You claimed that when Muslims pray it is always loud (caterwauling and blaring prayers from high places). When called on it, you instead claimed that the poster was denying the number of times Muslims pray per day. This is misdirection. Do you consider Christian prayer to not be quiet reflection because some churches ring bells before services? Muslim prayer is not necessarily loud & disruptive. This is obvious to anyone, at least here in North America, who has lived in a community with a Muslim population. I am not saying that all calls to prayer are quiet, all the time, all over the world. All I am saying is that describing all Muslim prayer as screaming is just plain wrong. This type of misinformation is responsible for people overreacting to something that is completely trivial. So the university upgraded a bathroom & included a foot bath. So what? The Muslim community was prepared to raise money for this, but the university decided to pay for it themselves. That is the university's right. They also included the diaper changing station. Again, good for them. You should note that the foot bath is not limited to religious purposes. Everyone can use them. This is not the same as encouraging or pandering to a particular religion.

I really have no interest in trying to equate one religion or ideology with another. As far as I'm concerned the abortion clinic bomber is just as wrong as the suicide bomber in a marketplace. Are there parallels between extremists of all religions / ideologies? I think so. But I see no reason to try to rank these religions / ideologies in terms of who is better overall & who is worse. Those types of statements are too general and do nothing to improve people's understanding of the issues or suggest solutions to complex problems. I am saying all of this because my next few comments are not meant to defend or attack a particular viewpoint about whether one religion is "worse" than another. Using numbers in the way that these sites do is almost always misleading. Not necessarily intentionally misleading, but still misleading. For instance, take a look at the list of "Islamic Terror Attacks from January to June of 2007": These numbers are all characterized as Islamic terror attacks. But are they? Or perhaps it would be better to look at other situations to see if they are being characterized in the same way. For instance, when a Christian US pilot drops a bomb in Iraq and two children are killed would we say that this was a Christian attack? In the example quoted, Jihadis mortar a soccer field. I just don't think there is enough information there. These people, while declaring themselves Muslim, may not be there simply to kill based on religion. For some of the insurgents in Iraq it is about ridding the country of an invading force and not just simply about religion. But this is a hard example, and I know that many people here will take great offense to it. So let's look at the other two I quoted. The Chechnya example I think is similar to the first one, but different enough that it should also be looked at. These "Holy Warriors" attacked a security patrol. If these are people, separatists, trying to fight for their country, attempting to rid their country of Russian rule, then perhaps their religion is not the deciding factor here. During the American Revolution would you characterize a group of militiamen killing a British patrol as a Christian terrorist attack? (Assuming the militiamen were Christians.) The honour killing also bears mentioning. This is a murder, plain and simple. The motivation may have something to do with this person's religious beliefs, but then again so did this (also found here). And I don't think anyone is calling this a Christian terrorist attack. All I'm trying to say is that making statements like "Islamic terrorists murder more people every day than the Ku Klux Klan has in the last 50 years" is not necessarily accurate. And not just because someone picked 50 years instead of 60. But because how you define "Islamic terrorist" will have a huge impact on the numbers. At the end of the day the cliche is true: you can use statistics to prove anything. How you define your starting point, how you organize the numbers, etc. can always be manipulated. And sometimes it isn't even intentional, it just so happens that you assume something and all of a sudden you have included a simple murder in stats on terrorists.

With statements like those made by ScottSA it isn't surprising that so much of this thread is overreaction & a waste of time. These ideas about how Muslims pray are pretty misinformed, at least as far as North America goes. And when called on it ScottSA responded by changing the subject. It's pretty clear that buffycat was talking about the statement regarding screaming, and nowhere mentioned anything about how many times per day Muslims pray. It's a pretty sad attempt at trying to deflect from the fact that ScottSA apparently does not know what he/she is talking about. I think it is safe to assume that not everywhere in the world operates the way you think it does or should. Is it really that hard to believe that at some university, at some time, there existed two rooms for Christians and Jews?

Any business that sets its prices based on the (fluctuating) value of the Canadian dollar versus other currencies would be in a lot of trouble. The government does have a legitimate concern in wanting to make sure that more Canadians spend their money within Canada. But this seems to be a particularly stupid way of voicing that concern. When companies realize they aren't making the profit that they want because people are buying the same products from somewhere else for less money, then, and only then, will they want to lower those prices. Why? Because if they are making the profit they want, why would they change what they are doing? And any person that needs the Minister of Finance to tell them to shop around for the lowest price is an idiot. Full stop. Bottom line: this is not a valid point. It's government blundering into an area that it does not need to be in and has historically been very bad at manipulating. And what was with the shot at the Liberals? Does everything have to be partisan here?

Would anyone like to actually provide some proof that most judges in Canada are Liberal party members, or donors, or not competent, or providing services on the side to the Liberal party to get appointed? Otherwise these types of comments are no better than, and no more credible than, most conspiracy theory posts. I am also amused that someone can declare that nearly all judicial appointments were done for patronage reasons and then in the same post ask how judges were appointed. Perhaps that question should have been answered before reaching the conclusion that it was patronage. Just because you may not agree with a ruling does not mean that the judge is incompetent. Can everyone here criticizing the judiciary honestly declare themselves experts on the law? Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe when judges pass out sentences they actually look at all of the factors necessary for justice, including the rehabilitation of the person found guilty? The point of a sentence is not solely to punish the offender. Ideally you want them to become functioning members of society without committing more crimes. Our system isn't perfect, and mistakes are made. Sometimes people cannot be rehabilitated. But this does not equate to a judiciary that is out of touch with reality and incompetent. Or simply political pawns. Most of the above attacks on the judiciary in Canada seem unsound at best.

If a leader can't admit their faults / mistakes that makes them a weak leader, not a strong one. A strong leader can say "Actually, I don't know about X, but I have a lot of smart people who do and I'm learning more about it all the time." The weak leader says "Of course I know all about X" and then continues to do nothing because of their ignorance. Don't confuse strength (or the appearance thereof) with an inability to admit that you're human. Strong leaders have no problem saying that priorities can be hard to set. But strong leaders then go out and set priorities. The person who thinks priorities affecting an entire nation are always easy to set, or who mocks those who can see that it can be hard, are those who probably don't fully understand what is at stake.

We have a scary situation. How can the judges be better at judging than jury members ? Its my understanding that this is technically illegal but a presidence has been set. Its the empire taking power away from the people. I haven't read what the judge said to the jury, so this is a bit of speculation. But if during the trial the accused basically admits to killing the person and offers no defense then the judge is right to tell the jury that they cannot acquit him. It's something like this: The law says if you do X then it is a crime. The person says "I did X, but I don't think it's a crime because of Y." If Y is not a valid defense, like self-defense, then when following the law acquittal is not an option. We may sympathize with the father and his desire to protect his daughter. But from my understanding the judge basically was saying that this does not excuse murder. Without any other lawful excuse, then the jury can't just ignore the law and acquit him. I think a scarier situation would be the jury saying, yes we know he committed murder, yes we know he had no lawful excuse, but we are going to acquit him anyway. That precedent is way worse. It would be condoning murder. If people want to make this sort of thing legal then we should elect a government that is willing to do that, not let people literally get away with murder. (Edited to fix the quotes problem.)

To think that a lower crime rate in rural areas is due to vigilantism is wishful thinking at best. The victim in this case had his right to life taken away. That is wrong. The father should be sent to prison for murder. The only gong show happening is the one going on here. Where people are defending the taking of a human life just because they don't like the victim.

That girl had the right to live. The victim also had the right to live. The fact that he was dealing drugs does not change the fact that he had a right to live. We have penalties for dealing. The father chose to murder him instead. This talk about the girl's rights is well and good and completely irrelevant. This girl did not die. She didn't even come close to death from what I've heard about this case. Should we have capital punishment now for things that people might do? You might get drunk and drive your car and kill someone. Does that give me the right to kill you? Cigarettes kill people. Should we be gunning down convenience store clerks that sell them? Or maybe the cigarette company executives or tobacco farmers? He was worried about his daughter. I get that. But that does not excuse the fact that he murdered another human being. It wasn't in self defense. His daughter was not in imminent danger. This talk about "society can't have it all" isn't very compelling. We already have penalties for drug dealing. I think society already has this one figured out. We don't need vigilantes running around dispensing their version of justice just because they think they are right.

Some of these posts are quite interesting. Argus believes in personal responsibility, but apparently only when it suits him. According to Argus the father shouldn't have to take any responsibility for killing someone. Then again, Argus finds that the victim is not worthy of being called a human being, so clearly it wasn't really a crime. I'm curious Argus, if the victim was gay and the person who killed him believed 100% that being gay was reprehensible and made the victim less than human, would that be OK with you? Because that is what you are advocating. Saying that this crime was justified because you think the victim is less than human opens the door to justifying almost anything you want. It's no wonder you don't like our justice system - it clearly takes a stand that our society doesn't allow that sort of vigilante justice. I can only hope that you've raised perfect children. If your child happens to make a mistake that hurts someone else, what happens when an angry father comes along and guns your child down? Don't you think maybe your child deserved the chance to reform? To pay his or her debt to society in an appropriate way (for example, jail) rather than being murdered?

At least those posters added some common sense when compared to all the posters that were saying "This show that I've never seen is so offensive." No matter what the show is actually like I'm sure that most who thought the idea was offensive will find something to complain about. Just as I'm sure that most who didn't think that the show was a big deal will watch and continue to think that this show is no big deal.

Look, my point was simply this: the federal government has declared English and French the official languages of Canada. Your assertion (in post #32) that they are not Canada's official languages is flat out wrong. So you're taking wikipedia as a source over the official Ontario website? That seems a bit backwards. Even if you only choose to believe wikipedia then maybe you can explain why it lists some provinces as officially English only? Alberta Newfoundland and Labrador Prince Edward Island Saskatchewan Maybe it would be better to just give up your claim that no provinces are officially English only. You haven't answered the question about how the Charter gives Aboriginal peoples extra rights that make them superior to other Canadians. You have just written some nonsense here. 1. Point to a place in the Charter that gives Aboriginals extra rights. 2. Show how these rights give this minority group power over Canadian society. 3. What are you talking about when you say there is a "corrupt transfer of power"? What power are you talking about? Where is it coming from? Where is it being transferred to? How is it corrupt? 4. What are you talking about when you say "bouncing charter rights of one or another"?