Short anectode in Turkish (not simplified)

                                         -------------------------

Bush ve Obama  bir barda oturuyormuş.
. Yanlarına bir adam yaklaşmış.
“Beyler ne yapıyorsunuz?” diye sormuş.

Bush.:
   "Üçüncü Dünya Savaşını Planlıyoruz " demiş.»
   Adam : «  Gerçekten mi.? Peki savaş  için planınız nedir ? » diye sormuş.
   Bush  yine cevap vermiş.
"  Planımız bu savaşla birlikte 140 Milyon Müslümanı  ve Angelina Jolie’yi öldürmek. »
  Adam şaşırarak : « Angelina Jolie mi ? Neden Angelina Jolie’yi öldürmek istiyorsunuz?” deyince,
  Bush Obama’ya dönerek :  “Sana 140 Milyon Müslüman, kimsenin umurunda olmaz demedim mi?“ demiş.

Alpha,

You are such an insecure man. An exaggerated fear or phobia you have.

You should know that half of the "christendom" are and will be converting into eastern religions and the other half to islam with the help of globalists under aegide of UN. Ultimately Islam will become the dominating religion. Im afraid this option is unavoidable.

Alpha - please note there is a General/Off Topic section in the forum. The anegdote has nothing to do with news and/or announcements. I´ve heard this joke millions of times with Jews/bolsheviks taking places of Muslims I would be fairly calm about the threat of Muslims being wiped off the face of the earth. They´ll either do it themselves or will adapt the less barbaric approach to religion. For now they seem the ones who do not like the idea of other religions having the right to exist (look at what happend in Egypt, and I´m talking not only about the recent bombing, I´m talking about Christian girls being kidnapped, raped and forced to convert into the "religion of peace")

Lemon - I sure hope Europe will never turn Muslim but it will tend to be more and more atheistic (is that an adjective?). I´d hate to see our freedom taken away by people who kill because somebody laughs at their prophet or who sue schools for talking about pork in the context of agriculture. Also, I´d hate to see women´s rights being violated by barbarian ideas. I think the fad of Europeans converting is becoming thing of the past after thousands of sad stories on tv talking about poor girls who fell for a "macho" and got an abusive tyrant instead; or stories about women not realising that they had little or nothing to say when their "owners" had custody of their children, could do whatever they wanted but forbade their wives to do anything they, being raised European, were used to.

There is an issue with the demographics where Muslim immigrants to Europe usually have more children than the natives, but in a generation or two, they non fanatical group will become dominant as our culture is definitely more appealing, especially to youngsters.  Frokm what I´ve seen so far,  it´s the converts that are most fanatic.

DD,

Europeans arent converting from christianity to islam, they are converting from atheism to islam. Today the western post-christian Europe is suffering from the spiritual stagnation. Hundreds of chuches are closed down weekly thanks to the EU´s atheisation and multiculturalism policy. Atheism offers nothing except the spiritual starvation. The results as you see quite tragic: moral degradation, no family relations or responsibility (as many partners as you want) etc. Consequences are already there and will be more. Let Sweden be a precaution to all europeans.

I disagree Lemon. If you´re an atheist it means you don´t believe in God, and Islam is based on a contrary belief, just like Christianity. From what I´ve seen on different forums (I can base only on this as I don´t know any converts in person, even the girls I know who are married to Muslims chose only the moderate ones and were not forced to convert), I see that it´s usually girls with low self esteem, often from villages, who meet a Muslim and get attracted to both exotic origin and the need to cause controversy in their environment, who choose to convert. Such girls would convert to Pastafarianism or would become Buddhists if only they met a partner like that. The most ridiculous reason I´ve heard was "I don´t want to work and Muslim men have to provide for their families"

Also, I don´t agree that it´s atheism that´s causing moral decay. I´d say it´s too little respect for the law. Were penalties more severe, crime rates would be lower. Today´s problem is misunderstood tolerance. Tolerance doesn´t mean allowing everyone to do as they please, but to accept people may have their own ways within the  law of the country they´re in. Or do you find it morally superior that in sick countries like SA women are not allowed to drive or marry more than one man while men can enjoy prostitutes they marry for 5 minutes?

Ethics has nothing to do with religion. You don´t need to believe in god to live a responsible life. After all, people have been establishing laws and rules of co-existence long before Jews invented the idea of one god, long before the idea caught on to give rise to Christianity and way longer before an Arabian sheperd came up with the idea to profit from adjusting the Jewish religion to his own needs

I fail to see the link between multi cultural societies and the closing of churches. This is simply not the main reason. First of all, people becoming atheist is the foremost reason for "natives" not being Christian. The number of conversions to Islam is neglectable. Second of all, who says "multi cultural" equals Islam? How about all the "foreigners" who are Christians?

By the way, I think saying atheism is related to lack of family ties and degredation of morality is a total missunderstanding of what atheism really is. Atheism and a feeling of family and a feeling of morality is not related. It is short sighted and insulting to atheists to think that you can judge their ethical insights by their believe in a higher being. Loving your family, showing respect to your parents, standing up for old people in the bus, living an honest live, all these things are NOT related to a believe in god. Atheists can make good choices in their lives based on upbringing and personal feelings, instead of an outside source like the bible. Just like religious people can make bad decisions based on that same bible. The choices that make atheists lead a good life are not less than those of a religious person, just because they base it on something else.

"Loving your family, showing respect to your parents, standing up for old people in the bus, living an honest live, all these things are NOT related to a believe in god."

Enjoyment of good music is not related to believing in god either, but it certainly indicates a subtler being.

yeah we know Hitler loved Wagner...

This reminds me the following scene from the movie Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola:the helicopter attack accompaniment with Walkürenritt or Ritt der Walküren.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7XNb3Q9Ek

I strongly disagree with all of you. At the same time I understand what you are saying. If not a change in my life I would be speaking the same things now as you are, because I was bombarded by the same mass media sources.

My priorities were freedom, democracy, equality, human rights, honesty, peace etc. Its been not long ago I´ve come to understanding that everything fails and will fail. I also see that globalist propagandists from UN and EU (paid by elitists) have done a huge work through mass media to prepare the mass for the one world government.

The soil is ready. See the results: you all speak in accord. They make you believe that you are free, but you dont see you arent. You are system slaves. Welcome to the New Age!

They have used and played terror acts in order to tighten the control system by amending the laws. Now everywhere there will be cameras, your bank accounts and incomes are transparent. You are watched like in Big Brother. And they will tell you that its all for your security.

Many people say that humans are developing, but they arent, they are actually downgrading.

There have been many lies in mass media people took in.

9/11, moonlanding, evolution, heliocentricity, etc.

After all this its easy to manipulate people, because people by nature are naive and tend to trust the government. Why? Why not? Because the holy cow UN, EU and USA say so, "the inventors of freedom and democracy" with the help of other holy cow giant mass media corporates (again controlled by the elite) like BBC, CNN, ABC, National Pornography, Beast Planet.

The more you learn the more it makes you sad.

Maybe there are lies that you´ve also believed,that you continue to believe, that stop you opening your eyes to the bigger picture. 

Sometimes, being an ordiary person gives one a lot of freedom with the things he/she wants to say, his/her preferences and the stuff like that. Reading the things she wrote and doing a bit of reading between the lines, I conclude, Daydreamer doesn´t like Islam as an entity and that she considers the whole religion and the Muslim community as a threat to the Western ideals. She bashes a faith which should largely depend on personal choice by using her personal freedom. I have a right to wish that this remains as the desire of an ordinary person and not that of the European politicians who in my opinion must find a way to solve this aloof xenophobia.

I know this point has been presented to the public in a provocative tone for years. For example, while I was wondering why the CNN were not making any manipulative news on Turkey for a long while, a new salvo of them has newly arrived and strangely this coincided with the worsening relations with Israel. Now the entire world will remember the ugly face of Turkey because documentaries and special news coverages will come one after another. This is proof that our beloved Europe is still a raw ideal populated by people who are not very different from Arabs in the way they react to things. Retaliative thinking is still so much in fashion. Only few intellectuals considers religions for what they are, a personal choice meant for seeking and finding internal peace.

I like Jesus Christ. I believe he was a decent person. A prophet? No, in my opinion, he was just an idealistic person who wanted to introduce a new order in a world of liars and betrayers. The same people still live today, thanks to Islam and the Christian faith there are a great deal of people who could convert themselves into more peaceful, helpful and compassionate beings. Sister Teresa was one such person in the Christian World, Yunus Emre or Rumi were two others from the other camp. They inspired millions of people to be better individuals. For me, the religions of these persons are not important at all. I consider the result, and they have my respect for being what they are.

If you take your time and want to learn about the teachings of a faith system that is so allergetic to you, I suggest that you read its philosophy. Maybe you will realize this world is not meant for Europeans to live and prosper only. We need every culture and life style that exists in this world not just their wealth, money, freedom or resources.

It´s not so much the fate that I abhor as far as Islam is concerned, after all Christianity is equally bigoted, cruel and against equality, it´s the culture that hasn´t got rid of the elements that make it stick in the 8th century. I am all for freedom of religion, you´re welcome to abstain for certain kinds of food, name your god as you please and celebrate any day in any form you find appropriate as long as your religious views do not contradict what I consider a great achievement in terms of human rights. I´m talking about equality of sexes, about the right of individual to choose their religion, spouse, lifestyle and clothes.

You may consider me intolerant because I am against ancient tribal lifestyle where women have less rights thab men or when family finds it justified to kill a woman only because she chose to life differently than they like. Also, I´m talking about things like making it hard for other people to have different religious views - think death sentences for converting, ban on women to marry outside faith or bombing people because they go to church rather than mosque.

I´m all in favour of people keeping their culture, but not the barbaric traditions. We wouldn´t let cannibals eat other people in Europe, why should we allow Muslims violate our laws? Why should integration mean we can´t call our holidays by their name, but they should be able to call theirs as they please? We like pork - deal with it, nobody is forcing you to eat it here, don´t make us give it up only because you don´t eat it.

Despite its sheer complexity, human society is not very different from an ant colony as far as the basic structure is concerned. Some of us have to breathe coal sand in gloomy mine galleries thereby getting the cancer at an early age while some others must beg for money in the streets. Women of bad fate sell their bodies. Despite all those laws and legislations we are not better than ants when it comes to settling the structural problems of our colonies. Instead, we learn to live with the shortcomings and seek solutions that could improve things rather than whining over the things that can not change no matter how hard we try.

I have chosen to be a non-believer, I live in a Muslim country and most of my friends and relatives are Muslims. I reckon there are hings to be gained from being a part of a religious community. First of all, religion acts like a bond, it keeps nations together. If it weren´t for Christianity, there would probably be no Greece, Serbia, Croatia or Poland today. History tells us, it is easier for people of the same religion  to unite and protect themselves. It creates a kind of synergy needed for common people to set higher targets and to align themselves to a course of development which brings forth power and prosperity in the end.

A couple of days ago, I found a documentry on Youtube featuring a trial conducted by a team from a Japanese TV company back in the 70´s.. They wanted to test the assumptions proposed by scientists regarding the techniques employed by ancient Egyptians when they build those collosal pyramids. The team uses high tech equipment, heavy machinery and the service of scientist and their advanced calculations to replicate the construction of a pyramid in a much much smaller scale. After months of work, they give up. Summarizing the whole campaign the team leader makes thisstatement: We have failed. The main reason of our failure was not technical. I now understand that those people must really have been very ardent believers. Their belief was so strong that they could build this masterpiece often creating the tools and equipment even more precise and mightier than the ones we used thousands of years later.

If a man and a woman think they must live by the rules of Islam and if they have no objections whatsoever about the things they would lose in the personal freedoms department, that would perfectly OK for me. They have my respect. I obviously don´t think like them but I respect their choices just like I respect lesbians, gays, etc. In my opinion, these are all choices and reasons and motivations may not appear valid to everyone but we must try to understand these people anyhow. Bashing a Muslim is no different from bashing a gay person. These days the latter is considered an offense - just another double standard...

If all the people who worry about "being slaves to the media", "slaves to indoctrination" ad so forth would worry about people who are actual slaves (like is still very common in the cacao-trade, in the sex-industry, etc.), the world would become a lot better.

My basic premise in life is live and let live. I only have problem with religious people once they break my part of "living". You make choices for your life, I make choices for my life. I get ticked off when I hear that my local supermarket is selling halal meat, without labelling it. I want to be able to make an informed choice, and I should not be secretly fed meat that isn´t stunned before slaughter. But at the same time the newly installed "burka-ban" in Holland ticks me off as well. I don´t want to walk around in a burka, but who am I to decide for others if they can´t? The problem with the burka is that often the family pressures a woman to wear it. Government says it´s against this pressure... So they pressure a woman to not wear it! How distorted.

This discussion reminds me a bit of the Maldives. The first thing that pops into your mind is "tropical islands"... But do you also know that it is a muslim country? And that other religions are in fact illegal there? It seems these tropical islands could teach Iran a lesson.

This is stolen from wikipedia, about the Maldives: The open practice of all other religions is forbidden and such actions are liable to prosecution under the law of the country. According to the revised constitution, in article two, it says that the republic "is based on the principles of Islam." Article nine says that "a non-Muslim may not become a citizen of the Maldives"; number ten says that "no law contrary to any principle of Islam can be applied in the Maldives." Article nineteen states that "citizens are free to participate in or carry out any activity that is not expressly prohibited by sharia or by the law."

You can find funnier laws in the US States. It is just a matter of selective attention.

Here is a pick: Illinois

Bashing anyone basing only on the social group they belong to is wrong. However, I have yet to hear about a country that punishes you with death for changing your sexual orientation from gay to straight. I´ve heard about ones killing people for converting from Islam. Of course, if a woman feels she´s inferior to men, it´s her choice to live like this and it´s none of my busines. However, if women´s inferiority is written in law, then there´s something wrong.

The world is full of ridiculous laws and so are religions (for laughs check out a bogus baptist church http://www.landoverbaptist.net/? and see what Christianity would be like if people were crazy enough to proctice it as it is). It doesn´t worry me until these laws and rules are applied in real life, like the one you quote about Illinois. Western civilisation has been through a lot in order to do away with backwardness imposed on it by religion. We don´t want to go back there.

So, if you´re choosing to come and live in the west, you´re very welcome to do that. Just obey our laws and don´t make us take a step back in our development. If you´re all in for living like they didin 7th century, pick SA or Emirates and I´m sure you´ll be happy there and they´ll be happy to have another follower of inequality and injustice (according to the western values)

Daydreamer, the problem here is that you should be more specific with your protest. When you say Islam is responsible for this not only are you making a factual mistake but you also target billions of believers who have nothing to do with the policies of the country you are talking about. That´s why I suggested you should read about Islam before coming to these generalistic conclusions. Islam is not limited to Saudi Arabia or the like.

Merhaba !

I believe that, after all, Matrix is not such a science-fiction film. You can see many "real" things if you watch accurately.

I like that film very much and I also like The Last Samuray. Here, even the King was made believe that new deep cultural changes were necessary and very good .. for the sake of all the people.. of course...

I wish you all Iyi geceler and for tomorrow iyi günler.



I´ll try to be as specific as I can. I am against ANY country that operates on Sharia law, any country that makes religious beliefs law and any country whose citizens are not free to choose their religion as individuals. Maybe it´s coincidence that all of the above concern Muslim countries. But is it really? Or is Islam to blame for the above?

Of course not all Muslims are like this. But these countries are all Muslim. Does it have nothing to do with religion? I hardly think so.

I´ve read enough about Islam to have an informed opinion about it. Bashing it is not my hobby horse just like Islam is not my pet peeve. However it´s hard not to draw conclusions when you have eyes, ears and brain. Of course not all countries with Muslim majority are the same, Turkey is a great example of how even religion as hostile as Islam can function peacefully (more or less) in a society.

Can´t say it enough that people always confuse religion with morals.  They are not the same.  I find that people in general, even the ones who are not particularly religious, are generally moralistic.  Most people live by a code that transcends religion.  I think once you add Islam or any religion into the mix, there is civil unrest and hostility.  We can see it in the debates about the veil, or debates in my country about religious references in government buildings.   

I personally happen to follow a religion.  I am very well aware of its failures toward women and I also acknowledge that there are imperfections in its teachings.  I am not so arrogant to say it is perfect.  However, I have chosen for my own reasons to still call myself a member.  Maybe it is out of habit or for a need to remain connected to my heritage but it has always been my choice. 

Having said that, when debates in the US about separation of church and state come up, I am always of the mind that the government has no right to preach or demand that I swear allegience to a GGod.  If a Government decided tomorrow that we should all start worshiping trees and demand that we sacrifice our first born children to the God of Treedom….what would happen?  We would all go crazy and probably over throw our government.  This is an extreme and silly example but if you give the government that kind of power in your life then they will take it.  People should always fight for freedom and government should never be allowed to intrude on  your life in such a personal way.    

 I couldn´t disagree with you more...Terrible news stories make for higher ratings.  It is just as ridiculous to believe everything is terrible as believing everything is wonderful. 

Maybe it is just different from where I am sitting.  Everyday I see nurses comforting patients, people helping eachother in hard times through volunteerism and charity work, I see families taking care of their olderly relatives, I see troubled kids being fostered by people who truly want to help them.  Do I hear and see terrible things too?  Of course but for every terrible thing, I hear 10 good things.  Its all in the perception of the world around you and if the perception is that the world is an evil dark place and people/governments are out to get you then that will be the truth for you.  But if you truly believe in the goodness of people then it all doesn´t seem so apocolyptic.      

My belief is God-centred not human centred. You believe in the goodness of human, in their positive sides, you chose so. But the Bible says that every human by nature is evil and therefore needs to be saved by Christ whose blood was shed on the cross.

I may sound apocalyptic, I may sound bad news. Feelings dont matter, what matters is the Truth. The whole planet avoids this truth. Jan Hus said

Seek the truth
Listen to the truth
Teach the truth
Love the truth
Abide by the truth
And defend the truth
Unto death.

You see, this life doesnt matter much because it will pass quickly, but the life after is a thing to seek or wonder about. All of us are here for a reason. Nothing happens accidentally or reasonless.

Then so what that you lived a good positive life surrounded by positive and happy people when you can be rejected and sent away from the sight of Holy and Almighty?

Your positive or heroic or holy life filled with kindness and good deeds wont save you because no one is capable, because God is holy and will not stand even a shade of a sin.

 I don´t think you and I are or ever will have the same feelings about it.  In your explaination it doesn´t matter what we say or do...we are all damned.  So why bother?  You are living your life so that the promise of an afterlife is fulfilled.  I am living my life so that the gifts God gave me can be used to their full potential...that my life can positively affect as many people as possible.  I really do hope that you find what you are looking for.  As for me, I already have a little slice of heaven...its called happiness.  You might want to try it sometime.

I would be so depressed if I would wake up every day, thinking I was put on this world for a reason...but at the same time this reason was nothing at all, since my life is pointless and doomed. Thinking helping other people is pointless, since God doesn´t care about people, doesn´t care about it´s creations. Like God makes things, and throws them in the trash the next day since they are all failed creations filled with sin anyway. Lucky me, I wake up happy most days, enjoying the world around me. I might as well, since after this short life I must be doomed to hell anyway.

To Barba:

Time
(Mason, Waters, Wright, Gilmour)

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it´s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you´re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I´d something more to say.

Ahhh the Pink Floyd musical masterpiece ´Time´ from the album ´Dark side of the Moon´.   

Meaningful lyrics and it still sounds great!

If that´s the English way than I´m extra happy to be Dutch

Ahhh.....music from the psychedelic days..........how times have changed.......thanks for the memory......

Time

The problem as I see it is you confuse culture & politics of various countries with Islam. You think there is a "Sharia" that all Muslims must subscribe to. The fact of the matter is there are various interpretations of Sharia, not one.

What you/we see in Saudi Arabia is a particular school of Islam that is reactionary and backward in the extreme.  That particular school has gained power and spread their influence in the last 50 to 60 years because of their petrol wealth. The repressive conditions are supported by the very liberal free Western countries you love. Each time you turn on a light, ride around in a petrol powered vehicle, use you plastic coated computer and too many other things to mention in this post, remember, you are supporting the very repression you say you hate. You even wear it with the various acrylic garments...and not to mention the factories that process things to prepare things you "need".

While you proudly proclaim you are an athiest, your knowledge of religions is not something you should flippantly discuss with little knowledge. You think you have knowledge, but I can assure you, you do not. Don´t confuse politics with religion. From time immemorial those who seek power have attempted to manipulate how religions are interpretated, and lazy masses have followed along.

I can only say some of the most enlightened, compassionate, generous, humble and gentle people I have ever met have been Muslims, who would share their last piece of bread with a stranger.

None of those things you mention below are condoned by Islam, they are tribal, cultural traditions that have remained in spite of Islam.

As I have suggested many times before....try reading some of Riffat Hasan´s works.

Sorry for my poor English, Daydreamer, but I want to know more clearly, can you explain what you meant by "....an Arabian sheperd came up with the idea to profit from adjusting the Jewish religion to his own needs"?

Sorry for my poor English, Daydreamer, but I want to know more clearly, can you explain what you meant by "....an Arabian sheperd came up with the idea to profit from adjusting the Jewish religion to his own needs"?

Daydreamer you are pointing your finger at people who call themselves believers and call their prophet some deceitful Arabic shepherd.

You forget the realities of the world we live in and the fact that we are bereaved of the knowledge to have a peek at the big picture. There are questions but no one has the full answer that is why some people look for answers in the metaphysics and religion.

I don´t believe in Mohammad either but I will not call him fraudelent, indecent or fake because I know that mine is just one in the pool of opinions. And the number one rule to keep the pool peaceful for everyone is not to stir it with defiant statements.

Accordingly, just like all the countries around the world, I recognize Mohammad as a prophet of a legitimate religion. The same goes for Buddha, Jesus Christ and Moses. Although I may not believe in them they have my full respect. When entering their temples which are also the products of a sophisticated civilization behind them I abide by the rules designated by the communities of those temples and pay utmost attention in order not to disturb them. Any civilized person must act like that. I am sorry if you find this offensive but I geniunely believe that you should not target a whole religion like that in a public forum. Nevertheless, a discussion on the role of women in Islamic countries could be opened. As you see, there are vast differences among Islamic countries. Still, the women in those countries do not blame the religion in any way. They consider the role given to them as acceptable. After all this is a choice, a social choice to be exact. The other options are also on the table. It would be the easiest thing to switch to a more Western life style. Some countries are doing that by choice and some are not. 

Basically, you could let a Muslim woman to express her opinion about Western culture and Western women. You would be surprized at the level of critiicism and disdain in her words. They detest your life style and find it inhuman. Now let´s do the math, aren´t you feeling that way about her lifestyle?  What good will come out of targeting religions? You will call their prophet fraudulent and they will call you God knows what. Like always, the best policy is respect....

You have posted a long reply, I will try to answer statement by statement in multiple posts:

You are saying:

"If people were not free to criticise religion because of wrongly understood respect, we´d still be in the Middle Ages in Europe. We´re not and I hope the eatsern world will end their Middle Ages as well."

I have no objections about criticizing religions. My concern is insulting religions and their believers. What would you do if you were the commander of the US rangers facing the Indians for the first time. Would you say: "Come on ye fools, there is no manitu, run for your lives..."?  You and I know (or guess) that Manitu does not exist. Nevertheless, Manitu is a product of their own culture with all the good and bad ingredients. If they didn´t believe in Manitu and opted for the Christian faith, their lives would not be any different unless of course, they were influenced by another culture. I conider this presumed necessity for unconditional influence of one culture on others as idiotic. We need Manitu, we need Allah, God, Shaman and you name it what. These are cultural products and they are destined to find new meanings as their host civilizations advance. For example, Arabs would probably not be very different from how they are now did Islam not spread among them. They would still be Arabs with a different God. It is their culture that determined the general outlook of Islam. 

As for the answer of you statement: We would not still be in the Middle Ages if we respected religions. I would agree with you more if you said, we atheists would not exist in such abundance, if we were in the Middle Ages.

Good for you Vineyards.....I applaud your efforts.

I find having conversations with persons, who are convinced of their wisdom and knowledge, has dim prospects of success. Some are convinced their knowledge is adequate to condemn billions of people and no compunction belittling those billions. Of course, they can do what they want, they are free after all.  However, the wisdom of such actionns are questionable and ineffective to bring about positive change.

They see the negative and very little of the positive. You know, glass half empty, instead of glass half full?

What can one say to those with closed minded "know it all" persons?

I´ll make it short this time

It is easy to speak of love and tolerance from the perspective of 21st century. However, you seem to forget that satire, ridicule and mockery were powerful means that helped to decrease political influence of christian (catholic) church. In order to improve something you have to demythicise it. If I see a satirical picture making fun of feminism, it´s fine. Not everybody has to share my views. Why shouldn´t we be allowed to make fun of ideas we disagree with? It has nothing to do with respect.

The idea of respecting a belief or culture doesn´t seem justified. You may only respect people´s right to choose it. "Choose" being the key word here. If a culture or belief doesn´t allow the idea of choosing or rejecting it, then I am not going to accept it, let alone respect it. Any system not based on equality of rights, freedom of religion and political views is wrong from my point of view. Feel free to disagree, I do not mind that.

If not willing to respect inhumane beliefs speaks against my wisdom (that I never claimed in the first place), so be it. I´d rather be stupid than blind.

Let me put it in a nut shell. I am not against criticism whether it be through mockery or irony. I enjoy reading satire myself. 

To set the record straight, I am against the notion that one civilization or a community has the correct answers to all the questions we face in life. Arabs are living in a different world and their values differ dramatically from yours. They perceive life quite differently and like any culture would naturally, they would like to hold on to their own values and enjoy the freedom of shaping their society according to their own perceptions. From your point of view, there are gross violations of female rights and thereby an acute set of restrictions on personal freedoms. You would have this problem with people from an Islamic country living in your country. You would expect them to obey the social values of the host culture as much as possible. But come on we are talking about people who live in their own land with minimal interaction with what is supposed to be more advanced civilizations. Just like we expect them respect us when they get in touch with us in our own environment, they are entitled to expecting respect from us. This is very basic.  We are not talking about Mohammad and a few of his friends. We are talking about a choice made around 1.5 billion people. There are 2.1 billion Christians in the world. These two religions together constitute majority of people living in the world. When you condemn both Christians and Muslims you are condemning almost the entire humanity. 

I would like to live in this world in a peaceful setting and what harms the peace most is the prescriptive approach. Don´t tell people what they ought to believe in or what they ought to do. This is being done in a large scale and every attempt made to ridicule their religion brings them together to stand strong against a common enemy. Don´t show enmity if you don´t want to arouse feelings of hatred uselessly.

OK. I think we have both made ourselves clear and we can now rest assured that the world will be the same tomorrow no matter what we say. It is the internal dynamics of society that is responsible for radical changes and that usually happens at a very small pace.

Everything else aside,I wish you all the best as you are nearing the end of your pregnancy. I suggest you forget about the Arabs and the stuff for a while Arabs will always be there to be criticized. These are very precious moments and they seem to go with the wind.

Is this you second one? 

Regards.

Thanks and yes, it´s my second one and again a boy