Re: Machete attack in London
 

Old or New Testament? They are very different.

I think that most of us will agree that the moralities in the Book of Leviticus are not ones we support.

Re: Machete attack in London
 

So you have to cherry pick, which is not the basis for morality (because you're obviously choosing from your own moral code which are 'right' and which are 'wrong'). Simply another load of old bollocks.

Re: Machete attack in London
 

Before I begin to enlighten you, I would like you to first identify yourself as to your background. I had already spent some of my precious time replying to your posts before thinking that you were a Christian person before realizing that you were most probably not and your views of Islam was largely influenced by emotions, rather than logic. This post of yours, however, have actually puzzled me, because I have assumed that you are from a Jewish background, but now you are talking good of Jesus which is not a Jewish tradition. So Norm, who are you?
You don’t have to answer if you so wish, but at the same time don’t expect me to too.

Re: Machete attack in London
 

Will this be the same style of 'enlightening' where you justified fasting with a video which disproved your assertion? :thumbdown:

Re: Machete attack in London
 

That's norm, he's been deported

Re: Machete attack in London
 

With the irrational rise of the illiterate EDL, it appears we've finally discovered what happened to Sloth since starring in Goonies:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/...castle-010.jpg

Re: Machete attack in London
 

Irrational?

Re: Machete attack in London
 

Easy to see that the pic shows a racially superior type.

Re: Machete attack in London
 

Christianity has always been about cherrypicking what you want from the bible. That's why there are so many sects and denominations. What makes it complex is partly because the bible is not one book written by one man. There aren't even any writings from Jesus, just records of his sayings and teachings by many different followers. The bible consists of multiple 'books' (and I use the term loosely) that evolved over hundreds of years before attempts to consolidate the writings into a single document sometime during the dark ages. There are 'books' that never made it into the bible.

The one common underlying thread that binds christians is the New Testament, which is the basis of the modern christian church (ie post circa 500 AD or the council of Nicea that firmly established the divinity of Jesus as opposed to other sects that saw him as an inspired human leader). The values and morals of christianity is based on the new testament while the old testament was merely history, primarly the history of the Jewish people. Really hardcore fundies like to focus on the Old Testament and give it more weight because of the blood and gore and thundering prophets, but most Christians don't.

That's probably the biggest difference between Christianity and Islam. Islam offers no choice. It's either haram or not. But Christianity has always been more flexible in its approach and practice.

It's too easy to diss christianity, and sadly many people seem to be doing so because they're lumping it with all religions primarily because of disgust at Islam. But this ignorance ignores that much of what helped to form us, as modern western people, is because we were christians, not muslims. A perfect example is that in Islam there's no such thing as secularism as everything is Islam, it governs every aspect of a muslim's life, so the idea that religion could be separate from society or other societal organisations is puzzling. But Christianity has always taught that church and state are separate organisms, as Jesus said, 'give unto ceasar what is ceasar and give unto god what is god' and even at the height of Christianity during the medieval days, the Church was a very separate organism that was often in conflict with the secular institutions and governments. The point here is that in the West we've always been able to see Christianity, while as an underlying influence in society, but yet still a separate institution amongs many others. Thus the west developed that degree of choice and flexibility that the Islamic world didn't.

I have no spirituality whatsoever but I am still fascinated by the evolution of Christianity from the perspective of how the West evolved into what it is today - a more tolerant, progressive place, and contrary to what some of you may believe it owes a great deal of that to the influence of Christian thought and history.

Re: Machete attack in London
 

Have you seen the apologies the BBC have been doing regarding their coverage? Shocking.

That said, I do think the media have hyped this up a bit too much. Most knife crime in London goes almost unreported (case the one with a load of teenagers about a week ago) which is where it should stay. Throwing it in the media only incites more hate and ideas from both sides - much better to deal with the problem quietly in my opinion aka UAE style.

Re: Machete attack in London
 

Sunlight is a good disinfectant and transparency is necessary for a free society.

Re: Machete attack in London
 

You've been in the UAE for too long. The UAE is good at dealing with potential problem cases by deporting everyone involved.

I could buy the scenario that it would have been better for the authorities to have swept in and handled the affair by keeping everything under wrap. But this only works if the authorities also kept a firm grip on radical islam by quickly deporting / arresting anyone who promises to be a nuisance.

But they aren't. Its not fair to the British public to allow radical islam to take hold in the UK and then prevent the public from knowing about the extent of the problems or incidents like this one.

As it is if the public aren't allowed to express their reaction to something like this, then you run the real risk of the frustration and anger building up over time into something potentially explosive.

Re: Machete attack in London
 

Not quite....
But my style of debating is that when a discussion reaches the state of ‘arguing for the sake of argument’, in Arabic it is called ‘ Jadal’, I normally hail an advice by the prophet of Islam which says, let your opponent have the last word and you shall have a generous reward from the Creator.

Re: Machete attack in London
 

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Re: Machete attack in London
 

Given most of the laws in Leviticus are specifically for Jews and Judaism makes no requirement for non-Jews to follow their laws in order to be deemed righteous I'd say cherry picking is quite acceptable for Christians...

N.