When I caught the headline from Friendly Atheist, I certainly did not expect to read this:
… two school pupils were punished for refusing to kneel down and pray to Allah during a religious education lesson.
But I was even more shocked when I found out this wasn’t in Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or some other Islamic theocracy, but the United Kingdom!
According to the original story, the woman is “an open-minded CHRISTIAN” who was simply trying to impose some sense of empathy with someone from another culture, a concept which at its heart isn’t ignoble, but when you do so by forcing people to pray to a different religion’s God, and punish students for respectfully declining, you have crossed a very serious boundary.
- CJ
Sickening. Just sickening.
And lo and behold, political correctness strikes again.
Reed, it seems now that the UK is becoming much more easy to push around by muslims, even so called ‘moderate’ ones (in reality they are just less extreme, but still rather extreme).
Do you ever think that pro-Islamist views could infiltrate so much that the UK could ever end up being an Islamic state
Comment by Tom — 6 July 2008 @ 4:16 am
I have too much confidence in the intelligence of British citizens to see them allow a total Muslim takeover. Pat Condell wouldn’t allow it.
Comment by cjdeak — 6 July 2008 @ 2:08 pm
I know, but it seems to be a gradual thing. You see, us Brits will only do something if it’s really necessary, or is seen to be.
Now the problem is that freedoms are gradually being eroded, one by one – and they are the little things, so people think “Oh, it’s only something minor; let the baby have his bottle.”
Eventually, so many small freedsoms are encroached on that we don’t have any – it’s like a slippery slope, if you follow.
And my worry is, though, that Muslims will be allowed to run lawless in the streets (an example of this is that police dogs may soon have to wear booties in Muslim households, and to combat this problem the police just think it’s best to avoid the search altogether rather than bugger around with booties, which would be even more ridiculous).
Or Muslim shop assistants being allowed to hold up the queue for fifteen minutes while they consult the Koran to see if they can sell this or that – the boss won’t fire them for incompetence, because it would be religious discrimination (or, according to some, racial discrimination, since they’re so narrow minded that they’re unable to see that not every Muslim is an Arab nor vice-versa).
We try and keep confrontations and disputes to a minimum – only, sometimes we end up taking it too far and not confronting issues when we need to. No-one can balance on this line exactly.
So what about now?
I also pose the question in comment 1 to Reed.
Still, PAT CONDELL LOL.
Comment by Tom — 6 July 2008 @ 7:39 pm
This is CJ’s post. I’m sorry, I thought the WordPress theme I use identifies the author but it only does so in the RSS feed apparently. I’m working on fixing that. CJ is capable of attending to his own posts’ comments. :-)
Comment by Rev. Reed Braden — 6 July 2008 @ 11:44 pm
Okay (damn WordPress – you should go back to Blogspot).
So what are your thoughts on this, though?
I’d be interested to know, if you are ever able to respond, of course, :D.
Also, PAT CONDELL LOL.
Comment by Tom — 8 July 2008 @ 4:29 am
Saw this, was just, oh, a *bit* angry about it! :) And I’m already psychotically furious over the compulsory-broadly-Christian-assembly that exists in the UK. The last education secretary we had insisted it contributed to the cohesion of the school socially. As if Christianity bestows some kind of special social grace upon people!!
*spitting with fury cat sounds*
Honestly the teacher should have asked the kids if they would like to participate in a demonstration, and maybe got a Muslim guest in to demo it and explain it properly, not forced the kids to start prostrating themselves. You’ll never understand something second hand, I understood that after travelling to work on the train with a Muslim woman on a regular basis.
Comment by literarydeadkittens — 8 July 2008 @ 5:13 am
And that’s something else, actually; the Government, thinking they are the shining fucking saviours of cultural knowledge, have sometimes tried to enforce laws – so that Muslims are not offended – but ended up doing so in the process because their actions were based on a misinterpretation of whatever issue that law concerned (unclean animals, for example, and this whole incident with booties on sniffer dogs – the most prominent Mulsims are saying that it ISN’T necessary, and to do it would fustrate most Muslims).
Anyway, Reed, your thoughts? Come ON!!!111!!!!!cos 90 (-1)^2
And…
…
…
Pat Condell, LOL.
Comment by Tom — 10 July 2008 @ 7:23 am
Please people, have some insight.
The media makes this sound like the teacher was some crazed lunatic forcing students onto their knees to pray to Allah. Do you really think that’s the whole story? Do you think that is even relatively close to the REAL story?
It can’t hurt to learn about other religions through the process of praying, and this sensitive idiocy and refusal to understand and/or participate in what is alien to you is and has been one of the most common causes, if not the most common cause, of war and violence throughout all of recorded history.
Now, I’m not a religious guy, but I go to a mostly religious high school, and we do this kind of hands on religious education all the time. We’ve studied Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and many more and have never had a problem with it. I personally find it more likely that these students were causing a ruckus about it just because they could, (the fact that there were two of them just makes this more likely) but I wasn’t there so I wouldn’t know.
PS: I don’t know what’s going on in the UK right now, but there seems to be quite a bit of prejudice towards Muslims from what I can discern from the comments, and the US seems to be the same way right now with Mexicans and Indians. Seriously, wake up please, let’s think for ourselves for once, yes?
Comment by Tyler — 22 July 2008 @ 12:17 pm