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That was in response to bcsapper claiming that they abhor the idea of telling workers what they can and cannot wear for a job. I then gave some other examples of telling workers what they can and cannot wear and asked bcsapper if he/she abhors hardhats for example. By the lack of response and the responses that add nothing from the conversation, I take it that you guys are fine with requiring hard-hats for some jobs. In that case you cannot abhor the practice of telling workers what they can and cannot wear.

I have already provided examples of bias in media in earlier posts. A simple google search of cbc and cultural relativism gives many results. Bias & the cbc gives even more. Here are some examples: http://eyecrazy.blogspot.ca/2011/07/canadian-islamic-congress-brags-about.html http://veracityvoice.com/?p=11813 http://www.ottawasun.com/2011/11/11/cbc-bias-easy-to-find http://ezralevant.com/2010/05/the-cbcs-leftwing-bias.html Edit: okay these links suck, I was tired when I posted them. Please forgive me. Though I think the best example of bias is when they reported on the idle no more protests and refused to acknowledge for months that mayor Spence was consuming fish soup. And? What's your point? Why is the fact that some atheists believe in nonsense relevant? Could you elaborate? Rational how? Do you mean rational outside of anything that involves religion? I made no such claim and still have not received your justification for why there exists no 'pure' motives. Of course it makes a difference. Also, islam would disagree with you about it's origins. According to islam, islam is God's message through the prophet Mohammed, who is the last messenger of Allah. This message is perfectly clear according to islam and encompasses all aspects of life. What do you reject exactly? That the way in which murders such as Breivik justify their actions is very different from the way in which murders such as the 911 hijackers justify their actions? You claim that Breivik is 'like everybody else'?

Using theological islamic arguments? No

Personally I would consider present day Saudi Arabia more evil then all in the list, except maybe Nazi Germany (And that is a strong maybe). Imperial Japan was very religious. There was and still is today a strong influence of Shinto Buddhism. The Bushido honour code that was used by the japanese to justify actions such as Seppuku or Kamikaze attacks is strongly based on influence from Shinto Buddhism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido "During pre-World War II and World War II Shōwa Japan, bushido was pressed into use for militarism, to present war as purifying, and death a duty. This was presented as revitalizing traditional values and "transcending the modern." Bushido would provide a spiritual shield to let soldiers fight to the end. Denials of mistreatment of prisoners of war declared that they were being well-treated by virtue of bushido generosity." Nazi Germany was strongly influenced by the Occult and by Christianity. Maybe watch this video on the Occult and the Third Reich? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJwlHCVaQUoIn Nazi Germany, 54% of the population considered themselves protestant while 40% of the population considered themselves catholic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany While it would be wrong for me to say that Nazism itself was strongly influenced by Christianity, it still shows that the population did not 'lack a religion'. 20th century Russia was always a society with a strong presence of Orthodox Christianity and Islam. Despite the attempts of the communists to stamp out religion over decades, it remains strong in Russia today. Therefore I would not call 20th century Russia a society that 'lacked a religion'. As for 20th century China, confusionism, taoism and buddhism have a strong presence. In addition, many of the people are still superstitious to some extent and believe in ghosts or demons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_folk_religion Hardly a society that 'lacks a religion'. As for Cambodia, 95% of the population is buddhist, hardly a society that 'lacks a religion'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Cambodia So some muslims are involved in the production of a cbc fiction tv show and that disproves that Islam = intolerance? Wtf lol. This ridiculous claim isn't even worth responding to. Do you believe everything you see on fiction shows on tv? I gave you 3 examples of religious intolerance in Malaysia. You have yet to address them. Religious person - someone who believes in magical fairy tales Rational person - someone who's beliefs and actions are based upon reason and observation Am I not doing that?

The safety issue of face coverings goes beyond rotary machines and passing through customs. In general it makes it difficult for people to identify each other. Are you allowed to go to the bank in a hockey mask? Don't some cities have bylaws against protesting with your face covered? Wouldn't some jobs fire you if you decided to show up to work wearing a V for Vendetta mask? All I ask is for consistency of the law, the burka should be treated like any other face covering and no special exceptions should be made for it. Covering of the face is a security issue as it makes it difficult for people to identify each other. If everyone covered their faces then it would become much easier for criminals to move about in public and avoid law enforcers. My primary argument in this thread is that the burka is against islam because it goes against Allah's desire for people to be able to recognize each other. There is some discussion about the Quebec Charter of laicite because whether or not the burka or hijab are allowed/mandatory in islam is relevant to that debate. Yes it is, especially when it is the entirety of your counter argument. Maybe you would have better luck trying to use the Islamic texts to justify your disagreement with me? Or is it that you do not have sufficient knowledge of Islam to justify your support of the burka and your support of the burka is based upon an irrational adherence to cultural relativism? I have not used abrogation or taqiyya in my argument for why the Burka is against islam. If my theological argument is wrong, then please explain why it is incorrect. One of the reasons I created this thread is to hear counter theological arguments. But so far no one has provided any and instead many have resorted to ad hominem attacks on me for not being muslim.

Ad hominem... again Wow! Are logical fallacies the only thing you guys can do in response to my argument?

Thank you for your very enlightening contribution. *sarcasm* The Burka is a safety issue. It prevents people from seeing the face making it more difficult to identify people. There is a reason you cannot wear a mask when you enter a bank. But either way I was giving an example of someone being told they had to apply to a dress code or they would lose their job. For some reason you are fine with this when it comes to hardhats but not okay with this when it comes to the Burka. Why is this? You have not provided justification.

Wait, you really need me to establish bias in the CBC for you???? Did you not see how they reported on the whole idle no more situation? I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Can you be more clear? Hitchens supported the iraq war... that's about all I get from this. Are you trying to say that war advocates are religious people and/or are inherently irrational? What? I don't know, both sides of my family are non-religious. I can trace non-religious family members living in Canada for over a century. I have a family member that believes in homeopathy. Does that count? You are making a claim without sufficient justification. If you read the reasoning that islamic terrorists use to justify their actions you will find that the islamic texts are sufficient to justify their actions. You really don't understand the difference between someone being motivated purely by the religious texts of 1 religion and someone motivated by multiple sources?

Sure I can. Ad hominem fallacy. How is disallowing someone from having a job if they refuse to wear a hard hat that different from disallowing someone from having a job if they refuse to not wear a burka? Nakedness is illegal. If you don't believe me, run around naked on the streets and see how long it takes you to get arrested.

Well 'new atheists' such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Pat Condell and myself would disagree with you with respect to the west. Or perhaps they would have been even more evil. Also, all the societies you have listed did not 'lack religion' as you claim. Little Mosque on the Prairie and the CBC are cultural relativist propaganda. Also, little mosque on the prairie doesn't discuss the true nature of islam or the different interpretations of islam. Malaysia is tolerant? Let's see... Preaching Shia Islam is illegal in Malaysia, it is illegal for Churches to use Allah for God & muslim Malaysians can avoid paying income tax if they spend an amount equal to what they would pay in income tax on Zakat. Non-muslims cannot avoid paying income tax by spending an amount equal to what they would pay in income tax on charities, and zakat isn't even charity money. Those are just the examples off of the top of my head. There is no such thing as a rational religious person. Religion is inherently irrational. Not criticizing religion for fear of alienating people is even more counter productive and gives strength to radicals. Especially when it gets to the point where politicians like David Cameron and Justin Trudeau refuse to recognize the problem. Breivik's was actions was not motivated purely by religion (unlike the case of the islamist terrorists). Breivik's actions were motivated by a number of things including Christianity, Islam, cultural relativist culture in Norway, dominance of socialism, etc. Breivik was also a lone wolf, where as the islamists generally are part of large organizations such as Al Queda.

Well many muslims believe they know the answer to this question. The Quran does say it is perfectly clear and does have a system of abrogation to deal with conflicting verses, so it might be worthwhile to read the Quran and determine what is and isn't allowed according to islam. From what I can tell, the intent was to prevent rape, not to keep women servants. Yes islam is sexist but that is in other parts of the quran unrelated to the burka or islamic clothing. But the thing is that understanding Islam's position on the Burka is very relevant when it comes to the discussion on the Quebec charter of laicite. If the burka is unislamic, as I claim it to be, then it becomes much easier to justify banning the burka in the workplace.

Yes, this shows how strongly some moderates believe in their position. We force people to wear hard-hats in construction sites and it is generally illegal to run around naked. Do you abhor these practices? Personally, I don't think that dress codes should be based on religion. The law should apply to everyone regardless of gender or religion. So a law shouldn't prevent someone from wearing a hijab because it is religious, but the law shouldn't allow someone to wear a burka because it is religious. The burka and kirpan should be disallowed because they are face coverings and daggers respectively (unless you want to legalize people wearing face coverings and daggers everywhere), but on the other hand the hijab and turban should be allowed (unless you want to ban hats and/or bandannas). As a result, I dislike the positions of both the LPQ and the PQ with respect to the charter (because the LPQ wants to bend over backwards for cultural relativist reasons while the PQ wants to ban non-catholic religions symbols for ethnic nationalist reasons). The CAQ seems to be the only party with a reasonable position on the Quebec charter of laicite.

Here is an article that is relevant: http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/quebec-values-charter-gets-a-boost-from-liberal-muslim-mna-1.1543816 Apparently, Quebec's only muslim member of parliament has decided to break ranks with the liberal party in their absolute opposition to the charter. "I refuse any drift toward cultural relativism under the guise of religion, to legitimize a symbol like the chador, which is the ultimate expression of oppression of women, in addition to being the symbol of radical fundamentalism,"

Nope. Learn reading comprehension please. The electoral college system is not a 'free election' it's not even an 'election', it's a system... Nope, our monarch is some foreigner lady who lives on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

I did not say that. I said the first past the post system and the electoral college are undemocratic. Learn reading comprehension. The united states does not have a monarchy. You might have heard of this event known as the war of independence. Also Canada's monarchy isn't Canadian, it is British.

Brevik certainly had multiple motivations for committing his crime. The guy who murdered Lee Rigby, or the 911 hijackers on the other hand, I am less inclined to agree. The benefits do not outweigh the negatives so what does it matter? Also, why are you talking about religion in general rather than specific religions (example: islam)? Zero. Lack of religion does not cause war and misery. Lack of religion is not an ideology that can motivate someone to do something. I don't know. Could you give examples of religion preventing war? We can try to quantify the net benefits, the results just wont be very accurate. 1. You are treating all religions the same, as numerous other posters are doing. Islam is not Christianity. Scientology is not Christianity. Different religions have different values and should be evaluated on a case by case basis. 2. The idea that say Islam is inherently tolerant because it is a religion is non-sense if you actually bother to learn about what the religion teaches (it calls for the death penalty for homosexuals and apostates for example). 3. Even if you have separation of religion & state, ostracization of extremist views, and I ignore intolerant and hateful teachings of religions (example: I pretend that sura 9 of the Quran does not exist), religion is still inherently bad. It teaches people lies about reality, reduces one's ability to think critically (encourages people to have 'faith' rather than skepticism) and gives people false hope about their mortality. Or do you think that promoting an ideas that encourage people to commit suicide to go to the magical fantasy afterlife is a good thing? http://www.examiner.com/article/girl-12-commits-suicide-to-be-with-father-heaven Edit: I also don't understand why you are discussing religion vs non-religion in this thread. With respect to criticism of islam, both religious and non-religious people criticize islamism alike. Pat Condell is an atheist, but David Wood (owner of answeringmuslims.org) is a Christian, while Robert Spencer (owner of jihadwatch.org) is a Jew. The EDL has a very diverse group of people including christians, jews, sikhs, hindus, atheists and homosexuals. Perhaps there are features unique to islam that make it particularly dislikable (but to evaluate that you would actually have to read the islamic religious texts rather than make vague generalizations about all religions)?

True, though you have to remember that the Quran can only be truly understood in 7th century arabic. But from what I understand (and the link provided in the original post), it is very unlikely that 24:31 is telling women to cover lips & eyes. Burka is obviously ridiculous.

Progressive racism isn't at the core of progressivism. If you want to call it a betrayal of progressivism, fine. Have we cleared up that misunderstanding? Not necessarily ask, sometimes the perpetrators of violence tell us all on their own. But unless these perpetrators are insane or lying, the reasons the perpetrators give for their actions is usually a good indication of the cause of their actions. Are you assuming that religious fundamentalists are mentally ill? If so I would disagree with you, unless you want to include all religious people as mentally ill (which is fine by me as well ). If you are religious and your holy book tells you to kill someone (example kill apostates in islam) how are you mentally ill? Some wars not being caused by religion doesn't mean that religion does not cause wars. It just means that religion doesn't cause all wars. Because it ignores the fact that different religions are different & their flexibility of interpretation is different. If you want to justify this claim go ahead, but I do not accept this claim as truth. You reject that Christianity has caused wars or misery? Did the Spanish inquisition, the crusades or the imprisonment of Galileo have nothing to do with Christianity? Anders Breivik was found not-insane by the Norwegian justice system (despite immense attempts by the prosecution).

Fine, biggest security threat. Can we agree to this? Because you didn't bring up Cavanaugh in this thread yet, and I was unsure if you wanted to create a separate thread. There is what you posted in the Burka thread: The first error is that in order to show that 'religion causes violence' one does not need to show that 'religion has caused more violence than any other institutional force'. The second statement is much stronger than the first. Other things can cause more violence than religion, but it doesn't make the violence caused by religion any less violent. I also do not agree that 'one has to show that religion is separate from other institutional forces' in order to determine if violence is caused by religion. One merely has to understand what is the justification behind violent acts. The passage you gave states that (paraphrasing): 'Well because we cannot completely separate the Roman state from the Roman religion, we can never determine if an action of violence is a result of the Roman religion.' This line of reasoning is wrong. If one can show that the justification used by people to commit the violent acts is religious (as opposed to non-religious) such as 'We sacrificed those virgin girls before the battle because we want Mars' favour in the battle', then one can link the violent acts with the religion. The rest of the passage basically relies on this premise that I do not agree with. That some how completely separating religion from state is necessary to assign blame to a religion for violent actions. The last paragraph briefly mentions Islam & makes the unjustified claim (or implication; please correct me if I am wrong) that somehow perceived violence in Islam is a result of 'having not yet learned to privatize matters of faith'. As though the perceived differences between Christianity and Islam is purely a result of the West being more developed than Islamic countries. The problem with this is that the nature of Islam and Christianity are very different in terms of what they claim to be true, how much they suggest religion should influence the state's laws (Sharia Law anyone?), and their flexibility of interpretation. You have to treat different religions differently and go on a case-by-case basis. Cavanaugh doesn't appear to do this, but rather lumps all religions together.

Okay, so then does the link I provided in the Burka thread that 70% of terrorist deaths were caused by Sunni groups count towards justifying that Islamism is the biggest threat to the West in 2011? How about lives and resources lost towards fighting wars such as Afghanistan, Iraq & Libya? Wait, what? There are no benefits to immigration nor are there papers or studies that discuss this? What about the papers I have provided? I think this statement is quite unfair. While politics may be a strong driver behind our immigration system, economic benefits also play a significant role. The current conservative government has especially emphasized this. I suggest you look at the paper I provided earlier that compares the Canadian immigration system with the US immigration system and how the Canadian immigration system results in better quality immigrations by selecting immigrants from better countries.

Let me be more clear. Talking about people who hold views is okay when you are discussing their actions that are a result of the ideology. What we need to avoid is falsely assigning blame to an ideology using guilt by association (ex. Stalin was an atheist. Stalin killed millions of people. Therefore atheism caused the death of these millions of people.). Perhaps it would be useful if you listed the premises that believe I am claiming that you do not believe to be true. I'll have to disagree with you here. I think it is very important to understand why people do bad things in order to prevent those bad things from happening. I never made the claim that progressivism at it's core includes racism or that progressive ideology is necessarily racist. Progressive racism does exist but it doesn't apply to many progressives.

North Korea is a totalitarian communist country with no freedom and little prosperity, South Korea is a liberal democracy with lots of freedom and prosperity. Both Canada & the USA are liberal democracies with lots of freedom and prosperity. Pakistan and India were split into two countries because of religion (Islam vs Hinduism) and they continue to hate each other because of religion. US and Canada are different countries because of some monarchist war over 200 years ago that has no relevance today. There is no significant religious differences between US and Canada. Yeah, I hardly see how these comparisons are fair. I'm not sure why you would demand an 'equal partnership' given that Canada has a tenth the population. I also doubt that US would be unwilling to change their country's name. A change to something like United States of North America seems reasonable since France used to refer to the USA as the USNA in the early history of the USA. Look even mass effect has Canada & US merging into the United North American States: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/United_North_American_States Both the US & Canadian systems of government are in great need of reform. The first-past-the-post system is retarded and undemocratic, while the US electoral college system is even more retarded and undemocratic. Canada should also get rid of the monarchy. Any new state that is the result of a merger between Canada & US should have a better system of government than either Canada or the USA have currently.

Nah, it means that the growth rate is constant, while the first derivative is proportional to the zeroth derivative. But you are basically right. @GhostHacked - we are talking about the GDP per capita growing exponentially, not the growth rate growing exponentially. I have never encountered a situation (empirical or theoretical) in economics where you have an exponential growth rate.

By reading the Quran & Islamic texts. It also helps to listen to muslims explain their religion. I find that Zakir Naik is pretty good at this (despite being banned from speaking in the UK & Canada, so much for freedom of speech): http://www.youtube.com/user/zakirnaikdotnet My motivation for being interested in Islam shouldn't matter. What should matter are the facts and what the Quran says. Also, if I were so prejudiced against muslims, why would I be arguing that the true islamic dress code isn't as extreme as some people make it out to be? In this case I am siding with moderate muslims with respect to the burka (where as with respect to other issues such as how Islam treats kaffir, I side more with the islamists). Uhh... it depends on the islamist. Not all islamists think that women should wear burkas. Many are fine with just the hijab. Cause Michael keeps trying to derail this thread.

Here, perhaps some graphs will help you understand.