You will never take our freedom of Speech...wanna do somethingt about it?....go to Afghanistan...the Marines will set you stright

"However, anti-Semitism and offending any other religions is absolutely wrong."
Your logic is as wayward as your grammar.
Antsemitism is hostility to jews as a people for no other reason but their jewishness. You are perfectly entitled to be offensive about the jewish religion and its doctrines or their so-called prophets, or christianity and Christ, just as you are entitled to be offensive about hinduism, ahmadiyya, baha'ism, the Unification Church (moonieism), the Chusch of Latter Day Saints (mormonism), Scientology or any other religious doctrine and their inventors or prophets.

In tha case of muslims and Mohammmed there sre psrticulsr difficulties, I'd agree; muslims believe that Mohammed truthfully claimed to be the last prophet of god whereas others think he untruthfully claimed to be the last prophet of god and judge his character and behaviour accordingly.

You're absolutely right.

When I was much younger, probably to little or naive to understand what was going on around me, at the time of the Satanic Verses furore, someone very close to me was campaigning not to have the book banned. Instead he realised that under freedom of expression he would not be able to ban it, but instead, he was campaigning to have the law changed so that the blasphemy laws did not just apply to Christianity and Judaism, but to other religions as well as Islam. Unfortunately, most muslims at the time were too busy buying copies of the book, setting fire to it and stamping on it. Which did nothing other than increase sales of the book.

There is a lot of double standards in the world when it comes to Islam, but unfortunately, as an ummah, we do very little to try and achieve actual change. Instead, we like to denounce, blame, decry, threaten, and do very little to achieve actual change, through legal routes. The latter path may take longer to achieve, but at least there is a tangible result at the end. Ranting and raving, while it is justified as an expression of anger, only feeds our opponents and gives them ammunition to use against us later. It's a negative image which western media loves to exploit.

When was the last time you saw a Christian group ranting or raving in the press about some injustice. There have been one ro two incidents in recent years, but mostly, they seem not to care about the lack of interest in Christian issues.

When was the last time you saw a Jewish group ranting and raving on Tv about an issue which they felt was offensive to their religion? Never. What they do when something like that happens, is that they mobilise, they start to co-ordinate their efforts, and as a group, they act together towards one goal, and in most cases, they are successful. This makes it easier for them the next time and the time after that. This is why most of the world's western governments have strong Jewish lobbies and Jews in positions of power and influence.

Until we learn to become more unified and fight for equality, there will alawys be anti-islamic bias and double standards.

Well, at least that's my view.

You people continue to amaze me with your jawdropping lack of awareness of your hypocrisy!

You go on about how you're oppressed (poor dears!) yet just to the right of this whining piece is discussion thread about how you're organising a campaign to prevent sex education in schools, which is just a cover for anti-gay attitudes.

Muslims in the UK are renowned by everyone as belonging to the most reactionary and intolerant and unpleasant sections with regard to social issues whether it be gays, women's equality or free speech issues.

Boys, I suggest you take a long hard look at yourselves and stop being so damned reactionary. From that you can move to stopping being so hypocritcal.

As for people abusing islam and your prophet well that is just the rough and tumble of living in a democratic society. Living here you must expect to have your sacred values held to discussion, examination and, Yes, ridicule and abuse.

Challenging the basis of belief is acceptable regardless of which religion it is, and each religious community should be able to defend itself. Many Muslims, but far from all or even perhaps the majority, have a profound difficulty with this. But then again so do many people from other faiths. The root of this is that we are not used to comparisons and judgements being made about Islam, as most of us come from societies where we are the absolute majority and that such freedoms of expressions do not exist. However if we believe that Islam is superior to other faiths then such challenges should pose no problems for us, and indeed should strengthen us. To constantly seek protection under anti-blasphemy laws suggests that our own faith is weak and unsustainable. It is notable that christians in the last 100 years have stepped back from absolutism and accepted that other faiths can be valid. Especially in Britain and the English speaking world, there is a tradition of religious dissent and toleration of dissent.
Anti-semitism is an irrational hatred of Jews as a community and individuals, without any substantive challenge to the issues of faith.

If blasphemy laws where to be used, christians could get the Koran banned as it makes the blasphemous allegations that Jesus is not the son of God and thet He wasn't crucified.

I don't think any of us want to see that happen.

I think the best thing to do is ignore it. If you truly believe that Islam is the only true religion, then so what if a few people criticise it? they will surely be punished by Allah in the afterlife.

Try to hang on to that reassuring thought.

I think all of you at MPACUK are very silly little boys!

Perhaps someone should write to your mummies and let them know that you are spending far too much of the time on your parents' computers, embarrassing them by posing up ridiculous comments all over the internet?

Gosh, isn't there any school work you could be doing? If not, why not go down the Rec and play some cricket or something?

Now, put down that mouse and up the wooden hill with all of you.

Anti-semitism is an irrational hatred of Jews as a community and individuals, without any substantive challenge to the issues of faith. [/quote]

I'm with you on this... I mean... surely all the anti-islamic rhetoric in the right wing rags and the BNP chantings is all about 'challenging the basis of belief'. Of course it has nothing to do with the 'irrational hatred of Muslims as a community and individuals, without any substantive challenge to the issues of faith'. You're such an intellectual. Which nursery do you attend?

And muslims could get the bible banned as it makes the blasphemous allegations that Jesus is the son of God and thet He was crucified.

Many of us would not want both of these things to happen but would be very amused if they did happen.

you mean the marines coming back in body bags or the ones taken prisoner by the Taliban???????

[quote=Thersites]"However, anti-Semitism and offending any other religions is absolutely wrong."
Your logic is as wayward as your grammar.
Antsemitism is hostility to jews as a people for no other reason but their jewishness. You are perfectly entitled to be offensive about the jewish religion and its doctrines or their so-called prophets

You've clearly not tried doing this and witnessed the results. Double standards abound yet you seem blissfully unaware of this fact. I'm for having the same hate filled rhetoric that's meted out to muslims to be applied for ALL faiths - I doubt this would be tolerated for very long by some groups, don't you?

Muslims aren't a faith. They are followers of a faith. It is perfectly reasonable to criticise muslims- or followers of other faiths- for following aspects of their faith or -more generally- for believing something that there is no reason to be true. It is not reasonable to criticise them simply for saying they are muslims. They may well, like many muslims, not actually accept the nastier aspects of islam. For example -to tske another religion as an example- it is perfectly reasonable to criticise judaism for saying little boys should have their foreskins cut off in the first few days of their lives;. It is not reasonable to criticise jews on that basis because their definition of jewishness may not include infant circumcision or because they have never actually thought about just what the practise means.

You're both confused about the meaning of the word "blasphemy".

To blaspheme is to say or commit an action that is rude or offensive towards a religion. Questioning a fact such as whether someone is the son of Goad or not, and whether he was crucified or not, is not blasphemous, only contentious. If you were to portray Jesus as being crucified wearing a nappy, or depict him with an erection, that would be blasphemous.

Blasphemy laws can work for all faiths and beliefs, as well as enabling people of differing views to discuss their differences in a climate of mutual respect.

As an Arabic Jew, I am a Semite & an Arab, so what do you call yourself, an israeli is anti Semitic as Zionism invented it.