MUSLIMS: Who will decide the culture and traditions of your land?

Sculptures Removed from Bangladesh Airport After Muslim Protests | ARTINFO.com
HT - Sculptures Removed from Bangladesh Airport After Muslim Protests | Europe News

Read this then answer my question:

Authorities in Bangladesh were forced to remove new sculptures installed at the international airport in the capital, Dhaka, after protests by Muslims threatening to destroy them, Agence France-Presse reports.

The five statues of local folk singers were created by Mrinal Haq, the country's best-known sculptor, for a government commission meant to enliven the dull Zia International airport. But thousands of Muslims came out to protest the sculptures, calling them idols and threatening to attack them with power tools (...)

Items like this are more common since Islam has become more activist and public; even in non-Muslim nations and areas of the world. QUESTION: Who determines the culture of a nation or what cultural traditions are important?

It is behavior such as this by religious zealots that prompted the wisdom of our founders when it came to the separation of church and state (such as it is).

UPDATE: I've decided to attempt to post a listing of this offal whenever I find one -

1. CENSORSHIP: Turk paper's web presence blocked by opposing Muslim view (h/t Europe News)
2. COMMERCE: Sony delays PlayStation game over Qur'an [background] lyrics (h/t Europe News 10/20)
3. ENTERTAINMENT: Muslim extremist's X Factor fury (h/t Europe News 10/20)
4. 
   

Art, Bangladesh, Culture, Idols,
Islam, Muslims, Religion, Zealots

EUROPEAN CONNECTION: Don't fence me in ... I'm religious and political?

Europe's first revolution | New Statesman
HT - Cranmer: MEPs: ‘The EU is of a secular and neutral nature’
We Are Losing Europe to Islam | Diana West : Townhall

America is going the way of Europe ... unbeknown to the majority of her citizens!

John Steinbeck's novella was titled - Of Mice and Men; but God said - of neither mice nor men ...

Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation." For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.

But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.

2 Peter 3:3-10

But first a metaphorical interlude ...

Farmer Jones was content with his life's work: his terraced fields were solid and easily maintained; his dual-source irrigation system was state of the art; his stock fine and deep in DNA; his bio-seed stores unrivaled; and his children and grandchildren legally provided for ... a century at least if the wisdom they were taught ruled their lives.

But his neighbor was not so content, nor so wise: when the 100 year flood came, it took his poorly built terraces, polluted his wells, killed his stock, saturated his seed stores, and took the house and barns as a final thought. On their way to removing the new county road, the waters and the flotsam and jetsam undermined Jones' terraces and took his farm too!

Though the global financial crisis is the easiest correlation here, the demise of Europe as a viable Western ally will cascade across the sea and destroy all that is not destroyed by the fiduciary failure of our financial community.

So how is it that I see America following Europe's lead in to oblivion?

First, Europe's new leaders believe they can correct "mistakes" of the past (Crusades, wars, poverty, inhumanity, etc.) by ignoring almost 1,500 years of Christian influence.

Papal mutterings about this perceived "apostasy" have been increasing in volume for some time now - but what really infuriated the Vatican was the presentation, back in 2003, of the first draft of the ill-fated European constitution.

In its preamble, the authors had indulged themselves in a spot of root-tracing. Europe's debt to ancient Greece and Rome was solemnly acknowledged. So, too, were the achievements of the Enlightenment. About the Christian roots of European civilisation, however, there was nothing.

The implication was obvious: everything between Marcus Aurelius and Voltaire was to be reckoned mere backwardness and superstition. [...]

Today's secular Europe may well pride itself on having arrived at a post-religious state of moral and intellectual superiority - but it is no less Christendom's heir for that.

In the USA it is a popular recreation, and Starbucks' moment, to wax on about our evil and religious past, while revealing a severe case of anti-religious ignorance marinated in an unhealthy canister of secular arrogance; in so doing the secular humanist, not seeing the baby in the dirty water, throws it out.

What they conveniently forget in their snobbery is the existence of such grand institutions as Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, Loyola; the multiple and nationwide hospitals of the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, the benevolent work of the Amish, Mennonites, the Salvation Army, the Knights of Columbus, and the senior care and retirement facilities of manifold others, etc. and etc.

All undeniable foundational and historically relevant religious entities.

Second, Europe's new leaders believe they can get away with the former if they "ring-fence" all religions and politics.

... the con viction [sic] that the religious and political spheres should be rigorously ring-fenced - and even more rigorously patrolled - has widespread support in Brussels. As one group of MEPs protested, in an official letter of complaint to the president of the European Parliament: "The EU is of a secular and neutral nature."

Almost daily, in America, someone (usually a politician but also an entertainer or academician), somewhere stands to condemn all things religious, throwing the baby, the water, and the clean out together.

A good example of this attitude of the left is the fairness doctrine (it's believed by some that this abomination will be reinstated in the event of an Obama victory); this is nothing more than cristophobia in drag.

Third, Europe's new leaders believe there are no absolutes and are willing to institute a broad set of absolutes to stop belief in them.

Pope Benedict asked last year: ‘Is it not surprising that today's Europe, while hoping to be seen as a community of values, more and more seems to contest that universal and absolute values exist?’

Yet he ought to have made it clear that the EU has developed its own universal and absolute articles of faith which are not neutral, but decidedly anti.

If a state seeks to be neutral in the effect of its policies then it requires a greater level of state intervention to ensure that inequalities are negated. [Cranmer]

A refreshing wind in all of this elitist duplicity and stupidity is Benedict XVI's adamant stand against the EU Parliament's efforts to bury their heads in the sand.

Most of our (America's) cultural war has been fought on this battlefield ... sanctity of human life, separation of church and state, Constitutional law and legislating from the bench, capital punishment, free speech, etc.

Cranmer is with Pope Benedict XVI in his opposition to the EU’s militant secularism.

One cannot be ‘neutral’ in matters of religion - pretending to broker between ‘equal’ faiths and impartial in arbitration between competing worldviews - for that neutrality presupposes a higher level of knowledge and constitutes itself an article of faith. There is no neutrality to be had because neutrality needs as much justification as any other position.

Secular humanism has progressively become more absolutist in its quest to silence conservatives and people of faith by ridiculing the belief in absolutes ... and the irony seems to be lost on them.

Fourth, multiculturalism has been the weapon of choice for Europe and the European Union ... a weapon incapable of aiding in a suicide ... for combating the Third Jihad.

With Wall Street convulsing, and the White House race intensifying, the question "Who lost Europe" is on no one's lips, let alone minds. Indeed, the question begs another: "Is Europe lost?"

The answer to the second question is, "No, not yet." And losing Europe, I would add, is by no means inevitable. But that doesn't mean the continent isn't currently hell-bent to accommodate the dictates of Islamic law, bit by increasingly larger bit. Such a course of accommodation, barring reversal, will only hasten Bernard Lewis' famous prediction that Europe will be Islamic by century's end. [Diana West]

The USA has been duped into a multicultural stupor by leftists and special interest groups; Islamic groups have used this stupor to their advantage. If America doesn't wake up, it will have more than an illegal immigration problem.

The west faces increasing tension with the Muslim world. [...]

As the first decade of the third Christian millennium draws to an increasingly troubled close, the verdict of historians on its significance can already be anticipated. Two themes will predominate. The first, exemplified by the present carnage in the financial markets, will be the quickening of the west's decline relative to China and India; the second, not entirely coincidentally, will be the tensions in the relationship between the west and the Muslim world.

A bleak picture indeed ... for a nation so self-absorbed and carnal that it might well face a day not too distant when it cannot defend itself. A nation's military security is intrinsically tied to its economic security ... and as we found when Russia invaded Georgia, we're lacking in both areas.

Christianity, Europe, Faith,
Geopolitics, History, Multiculturalism,
Muslims, Politics, Religion

PALIN: A few well placed notes do not make music!

Memo to snobs: Go suck an egg. -| Maggie's Farm

Bird Dog at Maggie's Farm sure sums up a lot of our feelings (link above) ... especially his link to Jungle Trader's link to Michael Goodwin's thoughts at the New York Daily News.

"Some day, we will look back with disgust at the abuse Palin has taken and wonder how it could happen in this great nation, circa 2008."

My short answer is that far too many Americans are fundamentally selfish, self-centered, ego-centrists.

Christianity, Election 2008,
McCain, Palin, Politics, Religion

PROPHETIC VOICE: Newsweek and Sam Harris gang up on Sarah, reveal end-time roll!

Sam Harris on Sarah Palin and Elitism | Politics | Newsweek
HT - Newsweek on Palin: A 'Pet Pony' and 'Rapture-Ready Extremist' | NewsBusters

Sam Harris is a self-promoting, nobody atheist who has been blessed by the Peter Principle ... raised up to "his level of incompetence," only his benefactors have no idea he has been!

Writing in what used to be a worthy magazine, Harris declares John McCain's pick for Vice President a figment of imagination, a religious zealot of the first order, someone of such dysfunction that she is not worthy of our time, let alone our support.

So, I ask, why are Newsweek and the soon to be forgotten Sam Harris taking the time to mock her? The answer to that question is found in another Peter principle ...

Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming?

For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation."

For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

2 Peter 3:3-10

One of the dangers of keeping Sarah Palin under wraps is that it allows this kind of hyperbolic diatribe to reproduce! (see here also) Where is the danger for Harris' and his crapola, if he knows she won't be allowed to respond?

I can't agree with all of Tim Graham's take on Harris' opinion of Palin because I don't see it in the same light ... with the same worldview!

Harris has a right to his opinion; it's the subtle and quasi-intellectual fear mongering (see cristophobia) which really bothers me (CRIB emphasis). Notice ...

Her relative ignorance is guaranteed on these fronts and most others, not because she was put on the spot, or got nervous, or just happened to miss the newspaper on any given morning. Sarah Palin's ignorance is guaranteed because of how she has spent the past 44 years on earth.

I care even more about the many things Palin thinks she knows but doesn't: like her conviction that the Biblical God consciously directs world events. Needless to say, she shares this belief with millions of Americans -- but we shouldn't be eager to give these people our nuclear codes, either.

Excuse me? Who has Sam spent any quality time with regarding the "the past 44 years" of her life" Seriously, how does he know how she spent the past 44 years?

Then there is this little slip: "her conviction that ... God ... directs world events." Add Harris' own admission "millions of Americans" share "this belief" with poor Sarah!

First, this has been shown and re-shown to have taken out of context. And, second, she never said or even implied anything near to this. But will Harris' hubris allow him to discuss it reasonably and rationally? No! It won't!

And "we" shouldn't? This wee slip of the tongue tells me that he believes he, the Newsweek shakers, and their mover-readers are all of one mind. Such arrogance!

And "these people"? What smug contempt for "millions of Americans"?

Harris and Newsweek are not just mocking Sarah Palin, they've called out, by Harris' own figures, millions of Americans. But they have no fear, not of Sarah's fellow Christians (recent history shows we don't fight back against this crapola) and not of the likes of Sam Harris or the editors of Newsweek (Romans 3:18).

Most reasonable people know intuitively what this means to the intelligentsia. And most public speakers/writers avoid it when speaking to or about any minority group: women, blacks, Jews, Muslims, etc. But not to Christians, especially Christian women.

Harris and Newsweek are both guilty of what they accuse Palin - of ignorance and of spending their lives in the wrong way, without God, and therefore not knowing him or what He has said!

CROSS POSTED: Cristophobia Watch

2 Peter 3, Christianity, Cristophobia, Election 2008, Harris, McCain,
Newsweek, Religion, Palin, Politics

MEDIA BIAS: Don't give me facts, I'm content with my ignorance!

FRC Action Summit: Newt Gingrich | Hot Air
HT - Gingrich Criticizes Media for Anti-Religion Elitism; Chastises ABC's Gibson | NewsBusters

Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the House, blasted the media for its religious intolerance and historical ignorance at the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C.

"And I want to take a minute or two because I want to put in context how bad things have gotten in the elite media and how utterly alien from historic traditional American culture some elements of the elite media are and I'll let you decide for yourself as you watch them which people accurately fit this," Gingrich added. "But there's a secular, at a minimum skeptical to religion, at a maximum overtly hostile to religion bias in the mainstream media."

I'd vote for overtly hostile.

Much more ...

CROSS POSTED: Cristophobia Watch

Christianity, Cristophobia, Gingrich, Media bias,
Palin, Religion, Religious Intolerance