OK for people to be called Muhammad, but not a teddy bear (not in Sudan anyway)

[WendyWeber]

Poor woman

40 lashes???

I love the calm quote from the Muslim teacher at the school:

"I was just impressed that she got them to vote"

These are 6-7 year-olds, they chose the alternative names and they voted for Muhammad (also the name of the most popular boy in the class apparently) and most of the parents are fine with it - just one fanatic took offence from the sound of it.

Aren't all religions 'fundamentalist'?
They all say 'I am right'

I don't think it is meant to be vindictive.

littlebella - Turkey's stance on headscarves will not depend on EU talks at all. EU Enlargement Commissioner says so.

I would hardly call the Church of England fundamentalist, to be fair.

You have to agree that our perception of Islam, in a largely secular society, is one of rather extreme dictates.

Now the news is saying the nutters are out demanding she be shot.

For the love of God do these people know it is the 21st century?

She named a bear after someone who in all probability never bloody existed as anything else then a mere mortal who was no more divine then a piece of coal.

The whole world has gone mad, I would kill someone if they hurt my children, I would not kill for my religion, or my country and I would not demand the ending of a human life over naming a teddy bear fucking muhammed, or buddah, or kristner or even Jesus.

I love the life of Brian by the way

Relaaaaaaaaaaaaaax Cote d'Azur....
why are you taking the piss?
We are having a conversation here and guessing you have a turkish connection I very respectfully asked you to clarify and bowed to your correction didn't I?

Lighten up

We CAN have this sort of conversation and LEARN from eachother. Isn't that the whole point on this type of issue?

Any vicar of the CoE will tell you that the only way to heaven is through Jesus and the Christian faith.
I think you're mixing up fundies and fanatics. One has come to miean the other.

Can you quit tarring all muslims with the same brush. There's sweeping generalisations going on here.
Getting a bit weary of it all.

The reason why Islam is more 'literal' than say, Christianity, is that Quran is believed to be the literal word of God. It is written in first person singular, with God talking of himself as 'I'. The book itself is believed to have come down from heavens page by page, already written.

Most Christians realize that the Bible is just a collection of stories. Most Muslims genuinely think that Quran is the literal word of God.

Fundimentalist in a religious setting is generally considered to relate to those adherant who take the word of their religioun to be the totaly truth with no rome for debate.

thus there are some christians who belive that the word of the Bible is the actual word of god, these are considered to be fundimentaists.

the same is true of muslims, and may be true of rather more muslims than christians.

Rubbish Cote. I live in the US bible belt. I was told the bible is the literal word of god, that the earth was 5000 years old and that dinosaur bones were put in the ground by the devil to confuse people. And these were rich, TV owning, internet reading middle class Americans. Not uneducated rednecks.

that should read 'lived'. We were there 2 years and then escaped.

They would be considered to be religious fundimentalists.

Such belief is not that common in the UK.

Or for that matter outside the bible belt in the states. One only has to think of the Californian Chuches who campain for the right s of gay people to marry and be ordained. The Anglican Church in the US has openly gay bishiops, for example. This is not a fundimantalist stance.

and even those in the bible belt seldon hang openly gay people....not any more anyway. Unlike a recent case in Iran

Religion is (for me anyway) a personal choice.
I am a Christian, I do not expect everyone to believe in my god, I respect everyones right to follow what ever religion they want weather it be Islam, JWs, buddist, or the nutters that think we are all aliens and the mother ship is hiding behind the moon, DP is atheist (although on the last censer he put Jedi).

But I am sickend by those (of ALL) religions that say oh I did it for my faith, blew up a bus in the name of so and so, no you did it because you are a sad little nutcase and now you are trying to hide behind something other then your own madness.

I have yet to find in any holy book the bit that says go shot people for nameing a frigging stuffed toy.

I reckon they are about equal. I've travelled through central and south American and Italy and seen millions of catholics and they were all believers. In the US are millions of bible literalists.
There are fundies everywhere but again that isn't a bad thing. Both the bible and Qu'ran talk about forgiveness, being non-judgemental. The Qu'ran says that good people will go to paradise even if they aren't actually muslims.

needmorecoffee - Your American neighbours' interpretation aside, most Christians do realize that the books of the Bible are the accounts of Matthew, Luke, etc. They are not supposed to be a monologue from the very mouth of God, as the Quran is believed to be.

Very unlucky of you to have ended up in the middle of such religious nuts, though.

there's those in the bible belt who go and sing and rejoice at the funerals of gay people or blow up abortion clinics. Or large buildings.
Looneys are everywhere

Cote, they believedthat God 'inspired' every single word. Not a word crept in that god didn't approve of.

LOL @ Jedi DP!

But there are christian believes, and there are fundimentalists who take the word of the bible as the 100% truth.

My father was a deeply religious man, a Christian who's life was shaped by his faith. But he didn't believe every word in the bible.

Off hand, I cannot think of a single Christian friend in RL who believes in the 100% truth of the bible.

My understanding (and I'm happy to be corrected) is that the Koran is accepted to be the 100% word of God if read in the original Arabic by the majority of observant muslims

Thats probably not true MB and peope aren't going to admit to less than perfect faith. You think about the number of muslims who drink/lie/abuse women/ whatever (just like anyone else). A fundie would know what was watching them and taking into account every deed. Islam doesn't have a 'if you just have faith you are saved', obeying god and doing good works is also required.
But you'd be amazed at how many are as lax as many Christians.

martianbishop - that is correct. I would say that majority is close to 100%.

Mind you, the most fundie Christian family I knew, turned out the dad was sexually abusing his daughter. Diddn't believe in dinosaurs but was a pervert.
You can't judge faith by any outward appearnce in either direction really.

There are nutters in ALL religions, there are people who twist the word of god to their own liking,
I think that sometimes we in the west are too bloody soft, I could not stand in a Muslim country and spout hate against Islam but hey we don't mind it the other way round here.

The sad thing is that is is not the true followers of Islam that do this, it is the nut jobs, but it makes it so hard for the good and decent people and it stirs up so much hatred.

I do not have a problem with any of the Muslim people I know (or the ones from any other religion) I have a massive problem with the ones that incite so much hatred by living here and then having a go about it all.
I would not want to live by Muslim law so I would not live in a Muslim country, if you want to live here then you must do so by the laws of the land.
It makes it so so hard for the decent people to live as some people only see a colour or a way of life and think everyone is the same, and it is not the hard core trouble making nutters that end up being hurt it is the innocent good people who live life day to day and do no harm to anyone.

But NMC, if they won't admit to less than perfect faith, even if they don't actually believe it, isn't that still quite a big difference from a religion where most people are happy to say that it's not all true?