Austria bans foreign donations for Mosques, requires Imams to speak German

[Loren Pechtel]

We have a subset of mosques that are the problem--the foreign ones. We can ban them without banning other mosques.

We have no such criteria to find the problem churches, though. How can you remove only those that are likely to have pedophile priests without removing them all?

Are all foreign funded mosques a problem? Or is it that you don't like Muslims but are willing to give white pedophiles a pass?

I would think the law would ban foreign-funded churches also. I don't see them as any more dangerous than the local variety, though.

 

[Jayjay]

Again, we are not talking about "regular people", but multimillionaires. And we are not talking about any country, but a place where wahhabism is the official flavor and freedom of religion doesn't exist. It's very likely that anyone who gets to be a millionaire in Saudi Arabia, and is making hefty donations to build mosques abroad, is going to adhere to the wahhabist creed. But wahhabist or not, that's not the relevant part... them being representatives of the country that tramples people's rights is.

Being wealthy and from a certain country does not make someone a "representative" of said country.

Maybe not in a comfy liberal democracy. But Saudi Arabia is a corrupt autocracy. You don't get to be filthy rich in such countries, unless you are either part of or have close ties with the governing elite. And it's not so much about being rich, as it about colluding with the Saudi clerical establishment, which you damn well know is the reason why KSA is what it is, and which is exporting it's brand of intolerant, ultra-conservative Islam not just to its own neighbourhood but all around the world. The individual(s) that you are defending might have nice painted-on beards and shiny gowns, but they still represent a morally bankrupt regime.

You want the Saudi elite to be evaluated on an individual basis, and enjoy the same rights as any Norwegian or European person, but you don't mind that SAudi Arabia itself doesn't allow equal rights to foreigners or even Saudi citizens of different creeds? This is a country where you could get a death penalty from smuggling in a bible, and you want the world to be outraged about Norway or Austria.

That is not relevant. Citizens should not be punished because of the failures of their governments. That you have such difficulty comprehending this just reinforces everything I keep saying about your failure to view Muslims as human beings, and your insistence, despite reasoned argument to the contrary, that they are collectively guilty for the crimes of other Muslims.

Nobody is being "punished" by Norway or Austria's policies. Spreading their backwards religion to other countries is not the right of anyone, and certainly it doesn't trump the right of the people of Norway or Austria (including muslims) to be free of such nonsense. I'm not anti-muslims, I'm anti Islam and anti-religion, especially the batshit insane kind.

But even if your assumption were correct, you've presented no sound reasoning as to why a rich American ought to be allowed to fund a nutty Christian church in Norway, but a Saudi shouldn't be allowed to fund a mosque.

(...)

Besides, what makes you think that a Christian fundy millionaire from the US would be permitted to donate millions to build churches in Norway either? You are making unwarranted assumptions, and labeling entire country of Norway as xenophobic and anti-muslim because of your own prejudice - you want to see boogie men of evil infidels around every corner persecuting righteous muslims around the world.

Nonsense. I don't know if a Christian would be allowed to do so or not. But that's not the point. You are arguing that a Saudi citizen should not be allowed to fund a mosque simply because Saudi Arabia has a bad human rights record. And that's shit reasoning. If the project itself is deemed to be a harmful influence, that's one thing, but you can't single out one religion. And the passport that the person funding it is holding, in and of itself, means nothing.

No, I'm saying a Saudi citizens should not be allowed to fund a mosque not simply because of his passport, but because what he is funding a wahhabist brainwashing and or propaganda institution. If an American millionaire were to fund a Saudi mosque, the same thing. And I have no problem with Saudis funding useful charities either.

It's funny that you accuse me of "shit reasoning", while admitting that the entire premise of your argument (that Saudi citizens are being treated differently) is something you pulled out of your ass.

No, what'a apparent is your constant misrepresentations and strawmen. I am blaming the saudi millionaires who fund mosques, for funding mosques. I'm blaming the leaders of Saudi Arabia (not the regular folks) for the sorry state of their country. It's you who's constantly pretending that I'm saying something I'm not.

The same thing happened in the other thread (of which you clearly still have a chip in your shoulder, for bringing it up): I repeatedly said that the blame is not on the regular muslims, but the ring leaders and the influence makers. But when you've decided that you are being oppressed by an infidel, you just can't let go of that delusion.

Why would I have a chip on my shoulder about the other thread? You lost. Despite your persistence, and attempts at textwalling me into oblivion, you could never put together a coherent argument. "Ringleaders," "influence makers" and all the other terminology you kept tossing out all amounted to buzz words that you couldn't define in any meaningful way. Ultimately, my point - that people are responsible for their own actions, and not those of nebulous concepts of "community" that can mean whatever ideologues and fearmongers want them to - is the only one that stood up to scrutiny. Your case failed.

As I said, chip on the shoulder. Making the last post on a thread after everyone else gets bored of your repetitive whining is not "winning".

Ok, show me the average citizen who is hurt? Where is the victim? It's outlandish and improbable because you can't find any single person who would be seriously harmed by Norway's or Austria's foreign funding regulations. Only a few butt-hurt imams who can't get their toys.

Again, since you can't come up with a solid rationale for the policies you're defending, your only recourse is to downplay and misdirect.

What misdirect? It's your argument that Saudi citizens are being discriminated against, or that some people's rights are being violated. Yet you admitted that you don't know if there actually is discrimination, and you can't point to any person or group whose rights actually being violated. That's pretty fundamental flaw in the argument that you are trying to make, isn't it?

The solid rationale that you seem to miss is that foreign funding of religious institutions, especially by countries that are demonstrably evil, is a fucking bad idea. Your attempts at framing it as an issue of individual rights is utter sophistry, when you know damn well why Saudi Arabia funds mosques abroad - to gain political and religious influence and to spread its branch of Islam. The policies of Austria, Norway and other countries that do what they can to limit this are perfectly rational.

I'll say it again: being rich and trying to build a mosque, will make one guilty of trying to build a mosque. A useless endeavor at best, a despicable attempt at brainwashing vulnerable people at worst. It's not an issue of condeming every Saudi millionaire for just being from Saudi Arabia, it's about condeming those asshats who can't find any better use for their money than fund mosques. I have absolutely no problem with Saud millionaires funding worthwhile endeavours and I doubt even Norway would object to someone from Saudi Arabia building, say, a secular hospital in Norway.

If that's your objection, then why don't you just ban the funding of any and all religious institutions, foreign or not? They're all attempts at brainwashing vulnerable people.

Foreign funding, coming from countries like Saudi Arabia or Turkey or Russia, also has a political dimension. If you are going to allow religious institutions to be funded at all (which might be lesser of two evils compared to banning religion altogether), by having them be home-grown at means that there is some accountability and you can keep an eye on them and moderate their influence. And if some church or a mosque can't muster the required funding to stay operational from their own congregation, maybe it's best to let them go bankrupt.

If a person is a nominal muslim, and doesn't attend the mosque, what difference does it make to him what language the sermons in that mosque are? If a person speaks German, how are his rights being trampled by having to listen to a sermon in German or that his mosque uses a German translation of the Koran?

If we assume that a person's religious freedom includes right to receive religious preaching in his own language if he so wishes, for these people that right is not being imfringed in any serious manner... in the first case because he doesn't attend the mosque anyway, and in the second case because he is indeed receiving sermon in his own language, German. This isn't speculation, but fairly obvious deductive reasoning. So that's why I initially addressed the only one group who might have some issue with the language: recent immigrants who attend mosque but don't speak German.

People should be free to practice their religion in their language of choice, whether they choose to do so or not. Most people don't vote, but taking away their ability to do so is still an infringement of their rights.

People have the right practise their religion whichever way they want, but they shouldn't expect to get someone else to pay for it. The people who want sermons in Arabic or Turkish in addition to that, are not forbidden from receiving them. This issue is what the government-licensed mosques or churches are required to do in exchange for their privileged status.

The voting analogy is invalid, because no right is being taken away in Austria. It's more akin to regulating how voting happens... for example, most countries ban foreigners from running to office, or that campaigns have to be financed in a certain way.

Only one religious community has to be told to do so. The others are German-speaking already.

Facts not in evidence.

It is a reasonable assumption. Nevertheless, even if some individual churches might not be German-speaking, vast majority of them are. And even those who do services in other languages,,would have no issues agreeing to a German translation of the Bible, if required.

And free speech goes out the window when you start taking government money... even in the US, which is fairly secular by any standard, have tax-exempt status for churches, but in exchange the churches cannot endorse political candidates. This isn't violating free speech, because they can always give up their privileges and speak as freely as they like. It's the same in Austria.

It's violating free speech, because A) the government shouldn't be forcing language on people via houses of worship and B) it is threatening to take away their licensing if it doesn't like the message they're sending.

The government forces language via schools, media, and other institutions also. Houses of worship aren't special. As for "threatening" to take away some privilege if you are not adhering to commonly agreed rules of conduct, that's no different than the police threatening to take away your driver's license just because they don't like you driving according to your own rules rather than oppressive government-imposed ones.

Neither of those is at stake. You can start your own mosque in Austria and preach in Klingon if you want, and nobody would stop you. Just don't expect to get licenced by the government.

You're really grasping now.

Yes, threatening to delegitimize an entire religious group by taking away their licensing if they don't meet arbitrary and vague government standards is discrimination and a clear infringement of said group's civil liberties.

No rational person will argue otherwise. And you're torpedoing your own credibility by refusing to own up to this.

The standards in question not arbitrary. Austria has huge problems with Islamic extremism, and proportionately a disturbing number of people being suckered to go to Syria and Iraq to fight for ISIS. Sure, these measures won't stop it entirely, but at least they are a step in the right direction.

Groups don't have civil liberties. Individuals do. The unequal treatment is quite validly criticized as putting Islamic sociaties in secondary position behind Christianity, and that might create a perception that muslims are second-class citizens, which in turn is inconducive to social peace, but no one's actual civil liberties are being harmed in any way. Special privileges enjoyed (and abused) so far are not civil liberties, they are just government rules and regulations like any other.

You need to go back and reread the thread. You seem to forget everything that was said before. The context here was my bringing up immigrants, and clearly, I did it because of the potential language barrier. You clearly want to argue about something else, but I already conceded several posts ago that in my opinion Christian churches should face the same limitations. So what's your problem here exactly? Just feel the need to keep whining about someting and getting the last word? You can have it.

The problem is I don't know what the hell you're going on about, hence the question. The language issue has already been addressed.

That's the problem with point by point rebuttals. If you get confused because you can't follow a conversation farther back than one post, that's not my problem.

Except that if you had bothered to research the issue, you'd know that the other churches do have the same requirement of public benefit.

Produce a source demonstrating that the requirements are the same.

It's mentioned here for example:

Legally recognised churches and religious communities

Legally recognised churches and religious communities in Austria are public corporations, i.e. they perform functions of public interest. In addition to their religious tasks, this also includes social, societal and cultural functions that benefit the public at large, and are therefore supported by the state.

Austrians can fix the language and unequality issues within their own legislature and constitutional court. The points you made are minor issues, and hardly deserve international widespread outrage. I would say that it's comparable to the debate over Obamacare's subsidies that the US Supreme Court is deciding... sure it might affect a lot of people in the US, but it's still an internal matter and hardly worthy of outrage around the world.

You might say that, because you view the rights of Muslims to free speech and religious expression as a triviality.

Some of us do not, and recognize the inherent danger in legislation allowing the government to force its identity onto an entire religious group, and stomp out religious expression it doesn't like. The Obamacare situation is not even remotely analogous.

Religious expression is not being stomped out, only certain government-sponsored religious expression. And if you don't want government to force its identity on religious groups, then why do you think it's ok for Turkish and Saudi Arabian governments to continue to fund these mosques? Religion is an age-old tool being used by governments to further their own agendas, but at least in Austria, it's used for somewhat noble ends.

The Obamacare parallel is mostly about the constitutional challenge that the Austrian law will likely face due to the problematic issue of inequal treatment compared to Christian churches (just like Obamacare is facing a constitutional challenge over subsidies in states that don't have their own health care insurance exchange, but that's neither here nor there). I fully expect that either the law gets struck down or it will have to be toned down, or generalized to apply to other religious societies as well. But that's just a practical matter and legal wrangling. Morally speaking giving some religious groups less rights than others is what Austria is already doing by not recognizing Jehova's Witnesses or Jews as religious societies, and that's why whatever happens to this law, it's hardly worthy of international outrage because every country has slightly different rules and regulations about handling official religions. Some have just one state church that reigns supreme, some are completely secural, some have several recognized churches and different levels of recognition... as long as people's basic rights are respected, I don't see how it's anyone else's business to tell them how to organize their society.

If you abhor discrimination no matter who the victims are, then why aren't you complaining about Austria's discrimination of non-recognized sects and churches, who have to pay for the free Islamic or Catholic teaching in schools whether they want it or not? You should be first in line in demanding that Austria stops coddling certain religions at the expense of others altogether.

Because that's not what the thread is about. It's about the Austrian government trying to impose unfair and dangerous restrictions on its Muslim community. That is of huge concern due to the implications it carries with it. If you want to argue about a separate issue, start another thread.

The fact that Austria is already "unfair" towards some other sects shows that it's a non-issue. It's hypocritical for muslim societies to complain that they don't get some of the same privileges as christian churches, when they are in fact getting most of the privileges not enjoyed by non-recognized sects. If catholic churches having some minor privileges that muslim mosques don't is "a huge concern", then surely, it's an even bigger concern to grant the muslims any rights at all not enjoyed by all sects, including Jews, JWs, Bahai, Pastafarians, atheists, and every other imaginable sect?

 

[Jayjay]

Are all foreign funded mosques a problem? Or is it that you don't like Muslims but are willing to give white pedophiles a pass?

I would think the law would ban foreign-funded churches also. I don't see them as any more dangerous than the local variety, though.

Actually, no it wouldn't. This is an amendment to law applying to Islamic sects only. The fact that it doesn't apply to churches is the crux of the issue and will likely cause the proposed law to be modified or struck down.

 

[Draconis]

I don't see how these "Foreign Donations" can be stopped. ie, you could send some money to someone who is an Austrian national, he then gives it to the Mosque.

 

[Barbarian]

I don't see how these "Foreign Donations" can be stopped. ie, you could send some money to someone who is an Austrian national, he then gives it to the Mosque.

The tax authority would ask questions about the received money; why, in exchange for what and whether it is taxable revenue.

 

[Warpoet]

Maybe not in a comfy liberal democracy. But Saudi Arabia is a corrupt autocracy. You don't get to be filthy rich in such countries, unless you are either part of or have close ties with the governing elite. And it's not so much about being rich, as it about colluding with the Saudi clerical establishment, which you damn well know is the reason why KSA is what it is, and which is exporting it's brand of intolerant, ultra-conservative Islam not just to its own neighbourhood but all around the world. The individual(s) that you are defending might have nice painted-on beards and shiny gowns, but they still represent a morally bankrupt regime.

Your nonsensical, irrational assumptions, built on childish stereotypes of the maniacal, fanatical Ay-rab swinging his scimitar around in the desert and profiting off of blood money, is not a basis for discriminating against people. I bet you've never even met a Saudi in your entire life.

There are far more people who have become wealthy through corruption or through the exploitation of others in places like Asia or even "comfy liberal democracies." But you don't give a shit about any of that, because they're not Muslims.

No, I'm saying a Saudi citizens should not be allowed to fund a mosque not simply because of his passport, but because what he is funding a wahhabist brainwashing and or propaganda institution. If an American millionaire were to fund a Saudi mosque, the same thing. And I have no problem with Saudis funding useful charities either.

That is not what you said. You said that their being Saudi and being wealthy makes them complicit in the crimes of KSA, and that's a bunch of bullshit. As usual, when you can't defend a position, you just shift the goalposts and claim you never held it, assuming no one is taking the time to read through all this crap anyway. And you've presented no reason to believe that any mosque funded by any Saudi is going to be extremist, just your own absurd and childish generalizations. Nor have you addressed the issue of whether a Christian should be allowed to fund an extremist Christian institution.

It's funny that you accuse me of "shit reasoning", while admitting that the entire premise of your argument (that Saudi citizens are being treated differently) is something you pulled out of your ass.

Actually, no. That's what it appears from the evidence presented so far, and it's what you're advocating for.

As I said, chip on the shoulder. Making the last post on a thread after everyone else gets bored of your repetitive whining is not "winning".

I didn't say I won, I said you lost. We all lost, because you wasted everyone's time with a lot of incoherent bullshit, all attempting to somehow blame the Muslim community in some way or another for the Charlie Hebdo attacks, but you never got any of it to stick because it was built on shitty logic.

The whole thing required minimal work on my part; it was largely just a matter of feeding you the rope. And it's the same here with your similarly absurd assignment of collective blame on any Arab who happens to have X amount of money.

What misdirect? It's your argument that Saudi citizens are being discriminated against, or that some people's rights are being violated. Yet you admitted that you don't know if there actually is discrimination, and you can't point to any person or group whose rights actually being violated. That's pretty fundamental flaw in the argument that you are trying to make, isn't it?

The evidence suggests Saudis are being discriminated against, and that's what you're advocating for anyway.

And your rationale is "fuck Saudis," and your defense is that it doesn't matter because they're still rich anyway and can go somewhere else. As I said before, such forward, progressive thinking.

The solid rationale that you seem to miss is that foreign funding of religious institutions, especially by countries that are demonstrably evil, is a fucking bad idea.

Ah, so now any Saudi with the means to fund a mosque overseas is "demonstrably evil" by extension of being Saudi.

Careful, Jayjay, your true colors are starting to show.

Your attempts at framing it as an issue of individual rights is utter sophistry, when you know damn well why Saudi Arabia funds mosques abroad - to gain political and religious influence and to spread its branch of Islam. The policies of Austria, Norway and other countries that do what they can to limit this are perfectly rational.

Well, gee golly, I guess banning Muslim immigrants altogether is perfectly rational as well. Hell, why stop there? Let's just ban Islam altogether. I'm sure we can find cheap immigrant labor for the Austrians elsewhere.

And yes, when you advocate discriminating against people on the basis of nothing more than where they came from, it becomes an issue of individual rights.

Foreign funding, coming from countries like Saudi Arabia or Turkey or Russia, also has a political dimension. If you are going to allow religious institutions to be funded at all (which might be lesser of two evils compared to banning religion altogether), by having them be home-grown at means that there is some accountability and you can keep an eye on them and moderate their influence. And if some church or a mosque can't muster the required funding to stay operational from their own congregation, maybe it's best to let them go bankrupt.

As I said, if you're coming at it from this angle, you might as well just advocate for banning religious institutions altogether, since you apparently think it's the government's job to "moderate" peoples' expression of their religious beliefs.

People have the right practise their religion whichever way they want, but they shouldn't expect to get someone else to pay for it. The people who want sermons in Arabic or Turkish in addition to that, are not forbidden from receiving them. This issue is what the government-licensed mosques or churches are required to do in exchange for their privileged status.

No, the issue is only what mosques have to do, since they're the only ones being subjected to these absurd regulations. And licensing is not some triviality, in most countries it is an essential component of how institutions function.

The voting analogy is invalid, because no right is being taken away in Austria. It's more akin to regulating how voting happens... for example, most countries ban foreigners from running to office, or that campaigns have to be financed in a certain way.

More doublespeak and misdirection. If the government were to single out one particular group based on religion, ethnicity or anything other than their legal status and force them to meet all manner of arbitrary rules in order to exercise the right to vote - as it has in the past - that would be clear cut discrimination. And it's the same here.

It is a reasonable assumption.

Not until you come up with evidence indicating such. But you seem to be having trouble with that part; you much prefer making claims, and then expecting that they be accepted without question.

Nevertheless, even if some individual churches might not be German-speaking, vast majority of them are. And even those who do services in other languages,,would have no issues agreeing to a German translation of the Bible, if required.

More facts not in evidence, particularly the last part.

The government forces language via schools, media, and other institutions also. Houses of worship aren't special.

Ridiculous. Of course they're special -- that's what the whole concept of freedom of religion is about. Except you don't seem to care about that at all, which appears to be the problem underlying all of this.

As for "threatening" to take away some privilege if you are not adhering to commonly agreed rules of conduct, that's no different than the police threatening to take away your driver's license just because they don't like you driving according to your own rules rather than oppressive government-imposed ones.

The rules are not commonly agreed to. They are being arbitrarily imposed on one specific minority because the government wants to police their ideology.

Your constant attempts at disregarding this fact won't make it go away, Jayjay.

The standards in question not arbitrary. Austria has huge problems with Islamic extremism, and proportionately a disturbing number of people being suckered to go to Syria and Iraq to fight for ISIS. Sure, these measures won't stop it entirely, but at least they are a step in the right direction.

There you go again, reaching into your same old bag of tricks, holding the entire Muslim community responsible for what its worst elements do. The logical end game of all this would just be to ban the practice of Islam wholesale, and remove all the Muslims from Austria, or at the very least stop all Muslims from immigrating there.

Groups don't have civil liberties. Individuals do. The unequal treatment is quite validly criticized as putting Islamic sociaties in secondary position behind Christianity, and that might create a perception that muslims are second-class citizens, which in turn is inconducive to social peace, but no one's actual civil liberties are being harmed in any way. Special privileges enjoyed (and abused) so far are not civil liberties, they are just government rules and regulations like any other.

The right to practice one's religion freely, and in their language of choice, is not a privilege, even if you and other people of your ideological slant see it as one. By this twisted line of reasoning, Austria could ban Muslim institutions altogether, and it wouldn't be a violation of anyone's rights.

Fucking ridiculous. And I doubt you'll find much support for it, even on an atheist board.

That's the problem with point by point rebuttals. If you get confused because you can't follow a conversation farther back than one post, that's not my problem.

Actually, the problem is that you're all over the place, don't defend your claims, and half the time backpedal and pretend you said something you didn't.

It's mentioned here for example:

This does not demonstrate that the requirements are the same. In point of fact, it shows multiple Islamic communities as already being recognized. The article in the OP states that the new regulations will need to be met in order for said institutions to continue receiving licensing.

"Public interest" is a much more general concept that does not have the ideological implications that are evident throughout every aspect of this legislation.

Religious expression is not being stomped out, only certain government-sponsored religious expression. And if you don't want government to force its identity on religious groups, then why do you think it's ok for Turkish and Saudi Arabian governments to continue to fund these mosques? Religion is an age-old tool being used by governments to further their own agendas, but at least in Austria, it's used for somewhat noble ends.

Yes, threatening to revoke the licenses of religious institutions because you don't like their message is suppression of religious expression. And foreign funding of mosques, or any other religious institution, is not "forcing" anything on anyone. People choose to go there of their own free will. Comparing the influence of a foreign actor funding religious institutions to the state apparatus is laughable.

The Obamacare parallel is mostly about the constitutional challenge that the Austrian law will likely face due to the problematic issue of inequal treatment compared to Christian churches (just like Obamacare is facing a constitutional challenge over subsidies in states that don't have their own health care insurance exchange, but that's neither here nor there). I fully expect that either the law gets struck down or it will have to be toned down, or generalized to apply to other religious societies as well. But that's just a practical matter and legal wrangling. Morally speaking giving some religious groups less rights than others is what Austria is already doing by not recognizing Jehova's Witnesses or Jews as religious societies, and that's why whatever happens to this law, it's hardly worthy of international outrage because every country has slightly different rules and regulations about handling official religions. Some have just one state church that reigns supreme, some are completely secural, some have several recognized churches and different levels of recognition... as long as people's basic rights are respected, I don't see how it's anyone else's business to tell them how to organize their society.

Forcing linguistic assimilation on religious institutions, selectively applying funding regulations and threatening to delicense them if you don't like their message, is not respect for peoples' basic rights.

The fact that Austria is already "unfair" towards some other sects shows that it's a non-issue. It's hypocritical for muslim societies to complain that they don't get some of the same privileges as christian churches, when they are in fact getting most of the privileges not enjoyed by non-recognized sects. If catholic churches having some minor privileges that muslim mosques don't is "a huge concern", then surely, it's an even bigger concern to grant the muslims any rights at all not enjoyed by all sects, including Jews, JWs, Bahai, Pastafarians, atheists, and every other imaginable sect?

No, because your premise is false to start with. The churches do not enjoy "minor privileges" over mosques. They enjoy the freedom to practice in their language(s) of choice, receive funding from abroad, and maintain their licensing without the government trying to police their ideology.

That's what this thread is about, and it's a pretty fucking big deal, your attempts at downplaying it and changing the subject (like you are now) notwithstanding.

 

[fromderinside]

Yeah, what's up with that?
I heard that in Germany people pay church tax or something. Even atheists have to pay it. Now imagine paying money to another official religion - islam.

I think only the members pay the church tax (that's how it works over here anyway).

The idea behind is of course grounded in historical importance of the clergy, but even as an atheist I can kind of appreciate the idea: by having an official, wishy-washy state religion, it's kind of an vaccination against more virulent and harmful strains. Look at the US, it's always had a rather secular laws, and as a result is a breeding ground of all sorts of crazy cults.

Here, in the states, we tremble at slippery slopes more than we do at religions. Cults are only one result. Benefits are secular law and skepticism of government at all levels.

On another note I suppose someone has already noted that most Christian services are now conducted in the native or community language where they are practiced even if, since, they were originated elsewhere (Catholic Church serves as example). Seems to me a good idea that everybody who believes get the most understandable (some call it best) interpretation of service possible.If a church is for immigrants its still preferable to hold public services in the prevailing community (larger than immigrant) to instill intra-communal trust. Harking back to cultural tokens, some dating back 4000 years, doesn't seem very constructive.

 

[Clivedurdle]

As a matter of interest, who here has seen a saudi funded mosque and a non saudi funded one?

 

[fromderinside]

Not a Muslim. Don't care.

But: Mosque-building rises as Muslim American clout grows http://articles.latimes.com/2013/ju...booms-as-muslim-american-clout-grows-20130623

Strikingly, the new mosques have been funded entirely by local Muslims, who began settling in the region in the 1960s. Before 2001, new mosques were often funded by foreigners; the Saudis financed the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City, and Libyans helped build Masjid Omar near USC.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Your nonsensical, irrational assumptions, built on childish stereotypes of the maniacal, fanatical Ay-rab swinging his scimitar around in the desert and profiting off of blood money, is not a basis for discriminating against people. I bet you've never even met a Saudi in your entire life.

There are far more people who have become wealthy through corruption or through the exploitation of others in places like Asia or even "comfy liberal democracies." But you don't give a shit about any of that, because they're not Muslims.

His point is that in places like Saudi Arabia the only way you become wealthy is through evil. It's not that some are bad, it's that basically all are bad. (There could be some good ones that inherited their wealth but this isn't likely.)

 

[Warpoet]

His point is that in places like Saudi Arabia the only way you become wealthy is through evil. It's not that some are bad, it's that basically all are bad. (There could be some good ones that inherited their wealth but this isn't likely.)

Yeah, I already knew exactly what he was saying so I don't need any clarification from you. His "point" was bullshit that is built on childish stereotypes and manichean oversimplifications. The suggestion that all wealthy Saudis are bad people because they're wealthy and Saudi is fucking idiotic.