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Angola Bans Islam, Shuts Down Mosques

 
 
 
Cheerful Charlie

Cheerful Charlie

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2513388/Angola-bans-Islam-shuts-mosques.html

Angola has reportedly declared Islam illegal and ordered for all of the country’s mosques to be closed down.

Minister of culture Rosa Cruz e Silva said that mosques in the largely Christian country would be closed until further notice.

She described Islam as a ‘sect’ that would be banned as counter to Angolan customs and culture.
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Ms Cruz e Silva said: ‘The legalisation of Islam has not been approved by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights [and] their mosques will be closed until further notice.’

Clashes between Christians and Muslim people are frequently reported in the local media.

Manuel Fernando, director of the Angolan Ministry of Culture's National Institute for Religious Affairs, denied the reported measures.
 
Only religion can do this - live in a free society yet when it comes to religion it can be communist - only one way, our way
 
Apparently, in Angola, Islam has never really been part of that country's culture. Angola has not so much as banned Islam as has not allowed Islam to officially become a legal religion. Moslems have created mosques without state mandate license, which are then torn down due to that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Angola

The government requires religious groups to petition for legal status. Upon recognition, these groups are allowed to build schools and places of worship. In order to be recognized, a group must have more than 100,000 and be present in 12 out of 18 provinces.[6] The population of Muslims, however, is estimated at only 90,000.[1] While the government has given legal status to 83 religious groups (all of them Christian[1]), it has not given legal status to any Muslim groups.[6] The president of the Islamic Community of Angola has criticized Angola's threshold for recognition by stating, "You need 100,000 to be recognised as a religion or officially you cannot pray".[1]
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
Apparently, in Angola, Islam has never really been part of that country's culture.
Click to expand...
Nor has Christianity, which was a very small minority belief until the British missionaries started converting the locals in the 1880s and '90s. The Bakongo tribal leaders converted much earlier, in the late 1400s and early 1500s, but Christianity didn't dominate in the territory that comprises modern Angola until about a century ago.

Much of Africa is a battleground between Christianity and Islam; Massacres, open warfare, and 'ethnic cleansing' are common, so the use of legal sanctions would be something of a relief, if only it were not directly connected to massacres, open warfare and 'ethnic cleansing' by populations who can read between the lines to see that their government will tolerate abuse of Muslims, if Mosques are banned (and in other regions, abuse of Christians when churches are banned).

Sub-Saharan Africa is a good example of exactly how bad things can be, if the main driving forces in politics are religious fervour and tribalism. The missionaries turn up, fill a tribe's heads with their brand of bullshit, and then sic them on the neighbouring tribes that got converted to the other faith, or that tried to retain their traditional animist and shamanistic belief systems. This has gone on, pretty much unchecked, since the 19th Century, and millions have died as a result.
 
Angola was for some years officially a Marxist state that rather frowned on religion. Since religion refused to die, in recent years as Angola has moved away from being a Marxist state, they apparently have been cautiously allowing religion, but only on the state's terms.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
Angola was for some years officially a Marxist state that rather frowned on religion. Since religion refused to die, in recent years as Angola has moved away from being a Marxist state, they apparently have been cautiously allowing religion, but only on the state's terms.
Click to expand...

Yes, perhaps I should include political extremisms such as Marxism and Fascism along with religion and tribalism; but these were something of a 'flash in the pan' historically, having burned out almost entirely in not much more than a century, while the other two have been around for millennia, and seem unlikely to go away any time soon.
 
The anti-Muslim arguments made by Christians in Western nations seem to have influenced this decision.

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bilby said:
Cheerful Charlie said:
Angola was for some years officially a Marxist state that rather frowned on religion. Since religion refused to die, in recent years as Angola has moved away from being a Marxist state, they apparently have been cautiously allowing religion, but only on the state's terms.
Click to expand...

Yes, perhaps I should include political extremisms such as Marxism and Fascism along with religion and tribalism; but these were something of a 'flash in the pan' historically, having burned out almost entirely in not much more than a century, while the other two have been around for millennia, and seem unlikely to go away any time soon.
Click to expand...

Marxism and fascism are exactly the same thing. FOX News told me so! :D
 
I am happy with this decision. Fuck religion anyway. But Christianity was tamed from the start with the "Render unto Ceasar" line in the New Testament. Islam is headstrong and will be a much greater risk of usurping government power.

The irony is that they have to be authorian to prevent an authoritarian religion from gaining a stronger foothold. Sort of like Germany being strict with Neonazis and their ilk.

Life is full of ironies and I accept this one.
 
repoman said:
I am happy with this decision. Fuck religion anyway. But Christianity was tamed from the start with the "Render unto Ceasar" line in the New Testament. Islam is headstrong and will be a much greater risk of usurping government power.

The irony is that they have to be authorian to prevent an authoritarian religion from gaining a stronger foothold. Sort of like Germany being strict with Neonazis and their ilk.

Life is full of ironies and I accept this one.
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would you also support banning islam in america ?

i dont have problem west became intolerance and leaning toward fascism
 
repoman said:
I am happy with this decision. Fuck religion anyway. But Christianity was tamed from the start with the "Render unto Ceasar" line in the New Testament. Islam is headstrong and will be a much greater risk of usurping government power.

The irony is that they have to be authorian to prevent an authoritarian religion from gaining a stronger foothold. Sort of like Germany being strict with Neonazis and their ilk.

Life is full of ironies and I accept this one.
Click to expand...
Christianity was hardly tamed by the words within what became to be called the Bible. If anything somewhat tamed the followers of Christianity it was first the slow impact of the enlightenment, and then later modern sensibilities...sort of.

When the Roman Empire became a Christian empire, Christians used their power to destroy other faiths, and ravage groups deemed heretical like the Donatists in north Africa. Who could forget the Spanish Inquisition? Or how about the infamous Vasco da Gama butchering in the name of better trade control:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama#Pilgrim_ship_incident
Described in detail by eyewitness Thomé Lopes and chronicler Gaspar Correia, da Gama looted the ship with over 400 pilgrims on board including 50 women, locked in the passengers, the owner and an ambassador from Egypt and burned them to death.
Click to expand...

In the modern age, the Nazi's used Christianity to bolster their barbarity. The US killed hundreds of thousands of Asians in massive bombing campaigns in SE Asia, which posed no danger to the US; and our wanton destruction from 20,000 feet was quite indiscriminate and didn't disturb our Christian leaders sleep. And then there is the Rwanda killing fields. Today one can see whiffs of right wing Christian hatred towards Muslims from people who would like to lead our country and their supporters. One buffoon claims to even want to murder families of terrorists (though he doesn't say how he would do it).

Note: None of the above is to suggest that radical elements within many Islamic countries/groups are not horrible and dangerous.
 
Thankfully in the US you can't ban things like religions.

What you can do is:
  • Educate and campaign; expose the truth, raise awareness, and persuade people from their nonsense;
  • Restrict immigration from certain groups and of people holding certain beliefs (by definition, potential immigrants are not protected against discrimination)
 
repoman said:
I am happy with this decision. Fuck religion anyway. But Christianity was tamed from the start with the "Render unto Ceasar" line in the New Testament. Islam is headstrong and will be a much greater risk of usurping government power.

The irony is that they have to be authorian to prevent an authoritarian religion from gaining a stronger foothold. Sort of like Germany being strict with Neonazis and their ilk.

Life is full of ironies and I accept this one.
Click to expand...

Tamed from the start?

Are you kidding me?

The Inquisition. The Crusades. The burning of heretics. The many bloody wars between Protestants and Catholics. The witch trials. The werewolf trials. The modern practice of burning children alive for witchcraft. The invasion of Iraq. The support of mass torture in Iraq. I would say that Christianity is anything but controlled.

But never mind that.

What possible value can you see in banning a religion?

Even the founding fathers were aware of the Streissand effect, even if they didn't call it by that term. If an idea genuinely is bad, then banning the idea only lends it undeserved credibility. Nothing good comes from such a thing.
 
JonA said:
Thankfully in the US you can't ban things like religions.

What you can do is:
  • Educate and campaign; expose the truth, raise awareness, and persuade people from their nonsense;
  • Restrict immigration from certain groups and of people holding certain beliefs (by definition, potential immigrants are not protected against discrimination)
Click to expand...

No, instead, here in the US, we use local governments to resist the opening of mosques, synagogues, Hindu temples, etc.

Then we randomly round up Muslims on suspicion of terrorism.

Then we occasionally shoot up Sikh places of worship because we're pissed off at Muslims.

Our politicians openly argue for refusing Muslim immigrants or even kicking Muslims out of the country, many of whom have been here since the time of the founding fathers.

And you know what? As bad as all of that is, that still isn't as bad as some of the things we've done to Mormons in the past.
 
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