WIP

But, what we do will have an effect on whether the Muslim World moderates or becomes even more entrenched in Islamism. The hardliners here who are protesting the building of mosques, support anything and everything that Israel does, and support regime change wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are not helping the situation but merely throwing gasoline on the fire. Suspicion, contempt and hostility is not likely to encourage whatever moderation in the Muslim World that the anti-Muslim conservatives say they expect.

It doesn't matter whether interference comes from liberal or conservative politicians, but the difference is that a liberal has to risk angering the base when acting against renewable energy strategies, whereas the right denies the climate is changing, that human activity can affect climate, and that oil is the magic elixir of life. Therefore the rightwing conservative loses nothing by trashing everything that interferes with continued oil dependence.

And here's another reason why I object to the "teach the controversy" strategy that AGW deniers are using now as their fallback strategy to keep us oil dependent: That study showing 97 to 98% in general agreement with IPCC findings also shows how small the group of so called experts are that the oil economy advocates have to draw on, and how ludicrous it is to give them equal time. Stanford Study Exposes Lack of Credibility and Expertise Among Climate Skeptics That's an extraordinarily low number considering the gravy train offered to skeptics in funding research and speaking fees to offer themselves up as speedbumps to keep the economy oil-dependent into the future. For everyone who has even casually followed the continually morphing creationist/intelligent design movements that impede the teaching of evolutionary theory in American schools, the similarities between these movements are startling and cannot be accidental!

Here's something we know right now: the rate of atmospheric CO2 levels is increasing at an accelerating rate, and will be at 400 ppm within two years at the present rate. This is especially troubling considering that the world's economies have been in a recession in the last two years, and yet those CO2 numbers (linked below) keeps climbing! We have to go back 15 million yearsto observe a time in Earth's history when atmospheric CO2 levels were even at their present level. Nearly all of the plants and animals (including us!) have evolved during an age when carbon levels are much lower than present, and we have no idea how we are going to deal with the changes that will come from present CO2 levels, let alone raising them even higher. It's also worth mentioning that one of the denier arguments - that increased solar activity caused the global warming of the 90's, has been blown out of the water since worldwide temperatures have kept increasing right through a time of minimal sunspot activity over the last few years! So what's the next excuse? Let's just wait till 2014 before we do anything...another shifting excuse just to stall time and prevent any action taken to prevent this rolling disaster. The actions of BP in the Gulf of Mexico illustrate that oil company executives are reckless, greedy short-term thinkers, who only focus on the next quarter's profits, and could care less about the long term effects of their business practices. And that's why oil and coal company propaganda on this subject needs to be dismissed just like the tobacco company propaganda 30 years ago, that tried to deny the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes!

I would like to know why you are talking down alternative energy? When I started this thread, I didn't propose that wind power is the answer to all of our energy problems, I just wanted to know why conservatives such as Ontario's would-be next Premier and conservatives across Canada and the United States would rather sit on their hands than do anything to encourage the development of alternative energy strategies? It wouldn't have anything to do with oil, gas and coal companies that want to maintain the present fossil fuel monopoly I suppose! Stateside, Texas Congressman Joe Barton accidentally said it out loud last week, and I wonder if there are any conservative politicians or lobbyists in Canada or the U.S. that aren't wholly owned subsidiaries of the big oil agenda.

Aside from post-modernists, I don't think anyone discounts science, but that doesn't mean that science can answer every question. Some questions fall outside of the realm of science. I don't think science will tell us what life is all about. I wasn't referring to the Nazis, or the practice of eugenics in America. My point is that Sam Harris made the claim that science, specifically neuro-science, is reaching a stage of development where it can start answering moral questions. But he is making a lot of assumptions that what's best in a scientific approach to ethics will lead straight to the liberal, secular beliefs he advocates. I brought up the basic principles of social darwinism because Harris makes the assumption that there is a scientific reason for universal ethics, or what's best for the vast majority of people. Harris may be a utilitarian, but can't get there just by using science! That was the reason why David Hume presented the Is - Ought problem as a caution against claiming to derive a statement of principles solely from a statement of facts. If we were to just apply the principles of natural selection to questions of ethics, we don't find a reason to expand our circle of concern to universally applied ethics.

When it comes to how people find meaning and purpose in life, these are subjective and personal by definition; so I would agree that it is offensive to be faced with fundamentalists who think everyone needs their explanation. But, I can't help thinking that new atheists like Dawkins are fundamentalist naturalists, since they think that because they find all they need from science, everybody should and nobody should need supernatural explanations.

I would also say that Islam is not a monolithic religion with a central authority, and that is part of the reason why there is so much trouble with sheikhs and imams acting like rightwing radio hosts in their efforts to get attention. The more extreme and outrageous they are, the more they get noticed, especially during troubled times. And just as Islam is not monolithic, neither is Christianity! I wouldn't judge all Christians by the hateful, rightwing warmongering fundamentalist preachers that claim to speak on behalf of Christians. I don't pay attention to what August writes, but past experience indicates that conservatives are only concerned about how women are doing in Muslim countries. They don't seem to be averse to telling women that they have no authority to decide whether or not to continue a pregnancy, or cutting funding for women's shelters over here. That's what makes me sick of having Ayaan Hirsi Ali held up by the right as an example for Muslim women to follow. I don't criticize her for becoming an atheist and despising the religion of her birth; but only a minority of people abandon their religions and their cultures. Most seek to reform them. Look at all of the long-suffering liberal Catholics who keep soldiering on year after year for Christ's sakes! A Catholic who becomes an atheist has removed themselves from playing an influential role in their former community, same thing with a Muslim atheist.

And in post 117, why did you use the phrase:"But in those years, the group was non-violent." when referring to Hamas. Were you unaware of the assassinations and terrorist attacks that Hamas conducted earlier, or were you just talking out of your ass?

Hamas is a Creation of Mossad Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Islamist movement in Palestine, returning from Cairo in the seventies, established an Islamic charity association. Prime Minister Golda Meir, saw this as a an opportunity to counterbalance the rise of Arafat’s Fatah movement. .According to the Israeli weekly Koteret Rashit (October 1987), "The Islamic associations as well as the university had been supported and encouraged by the Israeli military authority" in charge of the (civilian) administration of the West Bank and Gaza. "They [the Islamic associations and the university] were authorized to receive money payments from abroad." The Islamists set up orphanages and health clinics, as well as a network of schools, workshops which created employment for women as well as system of financial aid to the poor. And in 1978, they created an "Islamic University" in Gaza. "The military authority was convinced that these activities would weaken both the PLO and the leftist organizations in Gaza." At the end of 1992, there were six hundred mosques in Gaza. Thanks to Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad (Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks) , the Islamists were allowed to reinforce their presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, the members of Fatah (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine) and the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression. Ahmed Yassin was in prison when, the Oslo accords (Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government) were signed in September 1993. The Hamas had rejected Oslo outright. But at that time, 70% of Palestinians had condemned the attacks on Israeli civilians. Yassin did everything in his power to undermine the Oslo accords. Even prior to Prime Minister Rabin’s death, he had the support of the Israeli government. The latter was very reluctant to implement the peace agreement. The Hamas then launched a carefully timed campaign of attacks against civilians, one day before the meeting between Palestinian and Israeli negotiators, regarding the formal recognition of Israel by the National Palestinian Council. These events were largely instrumental in the formation of a Right wing Israeli government following the May 1996 elections. Quite unexpectedly, Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered Sheik Ahmed Yassin to be released from prison ("on humanitarian grounds") where he was serving a life sentence. Meanwhile, Netanyahu, together with President Bill Clinton, was putting pressure on Arafat to control the Hamas. In fact, Netanyahu knew that he could rely, once more, on the Islamists to sabotage the Oslo accords. Worse still: after having expelled Yassin to Jordan, Prime Minister Netanyahu allowed him to return to Gaza, where he was welcomed triumphantly as a hero in October 1997. Now, speaking of bullshit, if your government was as justified banning almost everything from entering Gaza during the blockade, as you and the other koolaid drinkers maintain, why are they now lifting the ban except on weapons: Israel lifts ban on most civilian goods into Gaza .....all that arguing and making excuses for nothing!

This is not a valid argument since the same argument was offered up during apartheid South Africa that despite 2nd class citizenship, blacks were still better off there than in other African nations. I did not intend to give the impression that Mossad took Sheikh Yassin aside and told him to create an Islamist movement in Palestine. My point is that Israel was well aware of Hamas in those early years, but decided that it would serve their purposes to have two Palestinian groups fighting each other. The rhetoric of Hamas was no different then, than it is now. The only difference is that the Israelis didn't contemplate what would happen if the group they favoured and encouraged at the expense of Fatah, would end up in power. So it is ironic that they are raising the alarm bells about Islamic theocracy and trying to maintain the conflicts the U.S. has with the Muslim nations, when they encouraged the rise to power of Hamas.

It seems to be part of the new atheist thinking of people like Richard Dawkins, who believes that science and the scientific method are the only pathways to discovery and even finding meaning and purpose in life -- in his books, he describes a kind of Carl Sagan-type of spirituality of contemplating the universe to deal with these questions, and explain how he would replace religion. That may work for Richard Dawkins and the naturalist minority, but for the likely overwhelming majority of people who will not find naturalism fully satisfying, just getting them to accept naturalistic explanations where there is a conflict with a supernatural belief -- may be the best we can expect from them. A little while back, Sam Harris gave a TED talk called " ", and although he says that a science of morality would presently need to be fleshed out, he seemed to imply that science can answer all moral questions. It's worth noting that the reason why atheistic ethical philosophers have refrained from attempting to create a scientific system of ethics that he wants to start, is because the last time great new scientific insights were adapted to create a moral system was over a hundred years ago when Herbert Spencer created Social Darwinism.....and that one didn't work out so well! You can easily see how to derive social darwinism if moral progress depends solely on evolutionary principles, and if the struggle for survival drives our natural evolution, then being the best equipped to survive is morally best. Long story short, although I am a naturalist, I think we have to reach for higher principles which may be a priori, and be considered arbitrary by some, since our circle of concern needs to be expanded beyond what's best for us, our families, and our nation.

It does matter who's in control of the blockade. The Israeli Government is deliberately denying medicines and a variety of foods through the blockade. If they were really concerned about interference from Hamas, do you really think they wouldn't be able to circumvent Hamas? The question: do two wrongs make a right? needs to be asked here. If Israel does not claim to be a democracy or support human rights for all, then they have no special obligation to uphold a higher standard than Hamas does. But if they are claiming to uphold a higher standard than Hamas, they cannot use the ends-justify-the-means as a defense of state-sponsored terror. Hamas wouldn't be here now if it wasn't created by the Mossad to weaken Yasser Arafat's PLO. Then, when the monster they created won the election, they tried to stop it from taking power by supporting the PA's attempt to remain in government. A blockade is an act of war, and the Israelis started the blockade as soon as Hamas seized control. So the whole ugly chain of events has its source in the backfired strategy Israel devised to manipulate Gaza.

I don't think trying to "root out" religious influence would be a good idea even if possible. That would just create some sort of secular dogma that everyone has to follow. If a politician gets their moral values and political philosophy from their religious background, that's fine as long as they can justify their ideas with evidence available for everyone to examine. Me neither!

If Christianity is so important to you, why is it that you have no appreciation for core Christian values?

In other words, you are just a forum troll who has no interest in debating issues!

Fine, we can leave that for an Ayn Rand thread, but for the record, I wasn't the one who brought up Ayn Rand, but I'm not so sure it's off topic anyway since Hirsi Ali talks like an Ayn Rand acolyte. Maybe it's the money talking from that A.E.I. contract, but when she does veer off of the Islam topic, she castigates the "socialism" of her former adopted home - Holland and other European nations, and even calls for private philanthropy to replace government welfare and financial aid programs. Maybe her future will be as running mate for a Rand Paul presidential campaign! As for the creator of this toxic stew, I have to admit that I have never liked Ayn Rand, even when I considered myself to be libertarian. Partly because her version of altruism she describes in her philosophical works and novels like the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, is extreme total selflessness, that doesn't allow a person to pursue their own interests. Most people are able to live a more balanced life, but Rand had to create strawman versions of altruism to make altruism look abhorrent and bolster her extreme view that everything will work fine with everyone pursuing their own interests..... and ethical egoism does not fill the void that would be left if no one did anything purely for the benefit of others...... I wonder if having children would have had an impact on this ideology! We need immigration to balance out the demographics of an aging population. Most of the world has too many children, while we have too many baby boomers such as myself that are getting close to retirement. And unless we turn into something less than a democracy, a religious litmus test for citizenship will be a non-starter. But in theory, the dogma that Islam represents an incorrigible malevolent force in the world that cannot be moderated, would make total war inevitable at some future point in time.

As noted by others on this forum, you accuse others of ad hominem attacks against you all the time, while doing the very same thing yourself. Most of us here try to debate the issues, and you don't seem to show any interest in the actual subjects, except for choosing sides and piling on. Do some of your own work for a change.

My neighbourhood has a fairly sizeable Muslim population, if the hijabs are any indication, but I have not seen any Muslim woman in the past eight or nine years that I have been living here wearing a full niqaab or burqa....therefore I am inclined to view 99% of the frenzy over Muslim garb as something akin to the Yellow Peril or the unhinged Red Menace hysteria fomented by the far right back in the day. In most respects, the Muslim Threat to Western Civilization is something concocted to fill the void left when other foreign threats disappeared or vanished. How well Canadian Muslims fit in here is going to depend a lot on whether they are influenced more by the Muslim Council of Canada, or the Canadian Islamic Congress. And I am of the opinion that efforts to vilify them encourage the Muslim leaders that want to keep their communities isolated. Moderation takes more courage than conservatism. The biggest threat that the right represents to the welfare of women is the modern anti-abortion movement that demonstrates little regard for life, but desires to take away the choice from young women of how to handle birth control and family planning. "Protecting women" is just going to come off as so much patronizing to most women. The only men women expect protection from are the men in their lives; I would be surprised if many women take conservative men's desires to protect them seriously. Unless it's a strange noise downstairs in the middle of the night, most women feel that they can protect themselves. You could have said the same thing about Italians back when I was young, or the Irish and the French a few generations back. Most children of immigrants adopt most of the common culture and try to fit their traditions in the gaps. No doubt many Muslims who have emigrated here are concerned about having their religion diluted by Western values, but this is not London or Paris, most Muslims here are not as insular as conservative opinion tries to convey.

Oh shut the hell up and make some points yourself! All you do around here is act like a whiny little bitch and snipe at everyone you don't like behind their backs (I've read what you've said about me already, and don't have the guts to post on my comments). And when you're not doing that, you're waving your pom poms and cheering for heroes. Do some of your own thinking for a change. Or if you are incapable of debate, go elswhere!

I did not create that Warsaw Ghetto analogy. It's been made a number of times over the last few years from Al Jazeera and other Arab sites of course, but it has also been used by Israeli peace activists who have become increasingly disturbed by the abuse of power, disregard for law, and simply the "might makes right" mentality that now pervades the majority of opinions on how to deal with the Palestinians and other Arabs. It's not my job to determine if it is a fitting analogy, but the cosmetic appearance of Israel keeping a large population trapped and "putting them on a diet" as one of Olmert's cabinet ministers called it, does make for disturbing comparisons. Like I said before, just because Jews have had a history of persecution, does not make them immune from becoming the oppressors themselves....and modern Israel has become the evidence. No point bringing back all of the points of international law, but if you already read what I wrote previously( probably in one of the other thousand or so Muslim and MidEast threads), the only way the Israeli raid can be lawfully defended is by selective application of international law. If a ship is registered and not a pirate vessel itself, it cannot be forcibly boarded in international waters without the consent of the host nation, unless war has been declared, and the destination of the ship has been declared a belligerent by the nation attempting to enforce a legal blockade...ie. that stupid example of Lincoln and the Civil War etc. Is the Israeli blockade of Gaza legal? Not according to the U.N. The conduct of the blockade fits neatly under the definition of collective punishment by Israel's own admission. Has Israel declared war on Gaza? I haven't seen that yet! Therefore, if this whole bullshit process was really following some form of legitimacy besides the power of the gun, Israel would not be able to seize those ships in international waters, or in Gaza's waters also. Who knows the exact procedure, since the Israelis seized every recording device they could find on the ships. Here's what else you wouldn't have learned about on FoxNews: Gaza flotilla activists were shot in head at close range Exclusive: Nine Turkish men on board Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times, autopsy results reveal. Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today. The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine. Now, go back to spin cycle! I don't know whether or not peace is possible, but if Israel has given up on the peace process entirely and has decided to follow the time-honoured solution of ethnic cleansing to rid themselves of the Palestinian Problem (and possibly the Lebanon Problem also), we should cut them loose to do it on their own. But I don't see that as likely since our current Conservative Prime Minister is a total lapdog to every Neoconservative policy and is trying to get closer to Israel, as celebrated in another thread here by conservatives as a good news story!

If I want a credible source on the subject of whether Islam can be compatible with Western values, I won't look for it from her. I can find a more thoughtful, reasoned approach on the subject from another Muslim woman from a Muslim nation who faced persecution for abandoning her religion (but later returning) and coming out as a lesbian -- Irshad Manji -- who also faces death threats for her unorthodox views on Ijtihaad and other topics on Islamic Reform. A few years ago she had to have bullet-proof glass windows installed in her home, but unlike Ayan Hirsi Ali, she doesn't get paid enough to have 24/7 bodyguards surrounding her at all times. Now, you and all of the others here who insist that Islam in all its forms is ultimately incompatible with modern values need to inform us of what you see as the end game....and whether it includes all out war and the extermination of all Muslims!

I have read enough evidence that the Israeli Government is restricting the amounts and types of foods allowed through the blockade to deliberately cause physical harm in Gaza. That qualifies as collective punishment of a civilian population, and is about as clear a violation of human rights as you can get. And who do you think is going to be most affected: Hamas or women and children? That should be self-evident, and since Israel is the controlling power conducting a blockade, they ultimately have the responsibility to ensure that their policies do not harm the civilian population. Whatever evidence you have about Hamas is a moot point, because they are not the ones who are controlling the blockade.

How about Ayn Rand's opposition to the principle of altruism in the first place! This woman's crazy ideas may have made her an interesting oddity for cocktail party conversation back in her day, but the fact that so many sociopathic billionaires have latched on to Randian Philosophy to justify their greed and selfish disregard for everyone else is enough reason to pull out the guns and shoot down her lousy philosophy and bad logic....and her boring novels also!

I was going to comment on this thread yesterday or the day before, but didn't have time. The OP should note that although Ayan Hirsi Ali has many valid reasons for her bad feelings about the religion and culture she grew up in, she is an admitted liar who was forced to come clean about her fraudulent refugee claim in Holland.....remember that in the future the next time you rightwingers start ranting about fruadulent refugee claimants! But, more to the point, since arriving on American shores she has been employed by the well-funded conservative think tank - The American Enterprise Institute. So, she is not only a spokeswoman now for atheism and an aggressive response to Islam, she is also a paid apologist for U.S. foreign policy -- as she was the last time when she appeared on Bill Maher's show and declared that Afghanis need to support the American backed government there, along with Afghan troops.....even I am now aware that most Afghanis outside of Kabul view their national army as no better than the Taliban, since most of the soldiers are from the Northern tribes who don't even speak the same language! Whether Hirsi Ali is aware of this or not is immaterial, since she is either uninformed or just out to earn money as a hired propagandist. Either way, that along with her willingness to look in a camera and tell lies removes whatever credibility she had left.