Nah it's always in their interests to claim these sorts of things. Keeps them relevant in their eyes. Regardless though there's next to no chance that Ukraine were involved imo. Just wouldn't make sense for them.
Certainly possible. The Pakistani population is pretty heavily concentrated in Ontario, though, and there isn't any great strife there either. About 1.5% of the population in Ontario is of Pakistani origin (and that has massively increased in the past 20 years), versus 2.7% for the UK as a whole, from what I can see. I'm definitely not saying that there isn't a difference here, I'm curious why there is a difference. My suspicion is that it's something of a feedback loop: people retreat into kinship groups out of a (real or perceived) feeling of conflict which results in Balkanization which results in further feelings of conflict for everyone involved and a hardening of positions, and things spiral from there. Whether by luck or because it's hard to get too angry when you're really cold, we've largely been spared that feedback loop; the only significant ethnoreligious violence I can think of was the Air India bombing by Sikh extremists, and that happened before I was born.
The fact that the US Embassy put out an alert two weeks ago would pretty much preclude Ukrainian involvement. It's also a massive black eye for the FSB...the Americans knew this was coming, warned their own people to stay away from nightclubs and the like, and the Russians called it disinformation. Turns out they knew what they were talking about.
**** I apologise. The first report I read said they were in Ukraine military garments. If it isn’t Ukraine then my post was insensitive. ****ing horrible
No worries. First couple hours after any breaking news event, it's a massive minefield of disinfo as people try to score points.
And no doubt what is a creeping sense of growing rather than reducing difference here is a) partly in our minds and b) more a reflection of a global polarising. Muslims are no different to atheists and Christians in being citizens of this social media age where everything is shocking. I am with Schrodinger in believing religion causes more harm than good, and the Koran is not like the Bible. It is not to be interpreted but to be obeyed. And those holy books have really got it in for gay people.
I'm certainly not religious, either. But I will note that when people turned up here a few months ago to protest an event and scream that gay and trans people will burn in hell, they weren't Muslim.
I know which countries the religious heads exist in and how they treat homosexuality. That has exhibited itself here fairly often - I posted a few links earlier.
How a country treats homosexuality is not really a good proxy for how the ardently religious treat it, though. The uncomfortable reality is that the fundamentalist believers of most religions are heavily against it...the only thing that differs in tolerant countries is that they are not in a position to act on it.
My point is the world is full of Islamic nations with Islamic laws. People come from those countries to the West - and most are not doing it out of rejection of those ideals. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran are the heart of the Islamic church - and being gay is banned in all of them. I am not sure what I am struggling to get across here. Europe is not Canada. You don’t need thousands of dollars to get here. We have a vast majority of wonderful muslims here, no doubt about it, but they come from a culture that is very different to ours and there is a lot of intolerance amongst them for things we hold as important. In this country, when a school is picketed for daring to have a picture book with Adam and Steve as a couple, it is the Muslim community doing it. That is not the same for you as your Christianity hasn’t died out like ours has (thank ****).
But that is my point. The problem is not any one religion; the problem is religious fundamentalism writ large. Fundamentalist Muslims and Protestants and Hindus and Mormons and Jews and Catholics and Buddhists are remarkably similar in their prejudices, and prone to the same lashing out, it's merely a matter of where they can achieve critical mass.
We only have one of those groups here, Schad. The others simply have no noticeable voice. Ireland on the other hand…
Yeah, that's exactly it. There is no appreciable population of Muslim fundamentalists here. Nor Hindus or Mormons or Catholics or Buddhists. But there are a godawful number of Protestant fundamentalists, and they have a loud voice. But I'm also capable of looking at Pakistan or India or Myanmar or elsewhere and seeing that the fundamentalist versions of those other sects look awfully familiar.
I believe you have state schools and Catholic schools as the basic norms, right? Religious education is not as common here. Religion in the UK was quietly dwindling to nothing. That is why I think we really notice the difference with Muslims. They still have all that faith. Faith is yucky stuff.
Varies by location. There's a fair bit in Quebec (French/Catholic) and the Catholic school lobby is fairly powerful in Ontario as well. There is little to no formal religious education where I am, and in much of the country. It's just those two provinces (which happen to have 60% of the population of Canada or something). Almost everything in Canada is provincially-run, particularly education.
Cruel men believe in a cruel god and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly god, and they would be kindly in any case Bertrand Russell
Throw faith out at your peril. Faith is what builds nations and keeps them civilised. Faith is what binds massive numbers of people together, even though they have nothing else in common. Faith and a joint belief in a common good. I actually think a lack of faith is a much larger problem at this current time. Christian values are what built the west. Now faith is gone we are losing those shared values in my opinion
