The UK government has already sanctioned the recognition of Sharia courts, this was not a submission to Sharia law as claimed by people by Pat Condell and other sensationalists, but rather "applied to situations where both sides in a legal dispute freely choose a Sharia court as a binding arbitrator rather than taking a matter before the official courts."

"The decision does not break new ground. The decisions of similar Jewish Beth Din court arbitations have been recognized in England for over 100 years. Neither party can be forced into arbitration by a Sharia or a Jewish court."

The imposition of Sharia Law is mistaken in most corners of discussion, Sharia law is simply a religious law system that should be followed by Muslims, that deals with politics, economics, banking, business, contracts, family, sexuality, hygiene, social issues and other everyday issues.

Most do not specifically call for the imposition of these laws directly unto other denominations or people, but rather the creation of separate Islamic courts when dealing with issues relating to Muslims. Which is what the UK has done, in the modern Islamic world dual court systems are maintained specifically to deal with issues depending on the demands of the parties, and further depended on the school of Islamic law being followed.

The issue becomes confused when Western observers extrapolate the practices of states like Saudi Arabia and Taliban Afghanistan and individual incidents as being representative of Sharia Law, when in fact they are usually backward cultural practices. The Pashtun practices seeped into Taliban controlled Afghanistan and has seen the imposition of many inhumane and truly vile practices.

The debate of freedom of speech and censorship is on going, am not parroting one line or the other. I believe in freedom of speech myself and have disagreed with the inane protests that occurred during the publishing cartoons, but the question has to be raised when you have a film that is negative of an entire religion while any similar criticism is labeled as anti-semetic when applied to the Jewish community. The hypocrisy is there.

Furthermore society censors ideas because it finds them offensive and detrimental to social cohesion, I don't think you would find many defending the freedom of speech of people burning crosses, wearing KKKs masks and calling black people the n word, using Nazi symbols in German or denying the holocaust.

I mean look at what happened when one Catholic priest said that he denies the existence of the holocaust. He was made to 'reform', this also falls under the freedom of speech argument. The debate is thorny as it is. Ultimately you realize that the creation of censorship occurs to maintain social cohesion or relations between nations. I might not necessarily agree with it but I understand its existence, likewise here in this case as well, I understand its screening online and in Netherlands but I draw a line when he tries to use it as a political vehicle.

Jwray, of course he doesn't Pat Condell is at the end against all religion and is against the seeming loss of Liberty in this case, but he takes one side of the religion and it becomes a cohesive attack on all aspects of it. Have you seen his other videos?

People wouldn't differentiate between that, and would simply use this as another tool to further their own ideas, most of all what I have seen the idea of the clash of civilizations. I have seen this debate reach fever peak after 9/11 with the emergence of Little Green Footballs, Jihad Watch and Fjordsmann. I think that is a destructive and nonconstructive path to take. I refuse to simple stand by and not present counter arguments.

The claim that making such statements doesn't result in problems down the line look no further then the US military cultural training of 2003, where troops were essentially told that all Arabs are deceitful jihadists that would like nothing other then to kill themselves to reach heaven. Where a entire political power claimed that Islamic fascism reaches from Morocco to Indonesia. It seems that in the Western world declarations like these have a finite life time this is not the case in the Eastern world.

Given the last 8 years, I believe the Western world needs to engage the Arab world in dialog but it must respect the cultural background of the region and not just think that it can westernize ideas through brute force and seemingly endless criticism of it's religion.

It's called Pat Condell's Godless Comedy. He used to be a stand-up comedian. There's no insult here.

>> ^Farhad2000:
Pat Condell doesn't even know who the fuck Geert Wilders is or what he stands for.
http://www.videosift.com/video/Fascist-Exposed-Geert-Wilders-on-R
adical-Islam
Watch Wilders squirm under questioning when interviewed by BBCs Hard Talk and expose himself as a fascist who just doesn't like immigrants.


The thing is : In this case it doesnt matter if Geert Wilders eats babies for breakfast, he is being charged for making a movie that is strictly critical towards ISLAM. Period. It doesnt matter if you, me or Condell agrees or sympathizes with whatever Geert Wilders say, In this matter, he is being charged for essentially blasphemy, if anything..

I know very little about Mr. Wilders, and he might be the biggest asshole on the planet, Judging from the HardTalk interview, I certainly disagree with him on many points, For instance, he wants To use "administrative detention" to round up people who are hostile to his "Values", which essentially means that he is hostile to his own values and should be in detention himself..

The point is that in any case, its all OPINIONS, just like "Allah Ackbar, All infidels are dirt" is an opinion. Both may be good or bad or disgusting, depending on who hears them, but they shouldnt be illegal.

If a Muslim makes a movie with quotes from the Torah, and images of children being slaughtered by IDF's bombs, Many will probably find it offensive, perhaps inaccurate, but unless it ends with "Kill all the Jews", it is still entirely within our Free Speech rights. In America, it would be free speech no matter what, but most of Europe has "Hate Speech" laws, under which threats of violence or death against groups or individuals is illegal, and that brings us to the heart of the issue:

Has Geert Wilders threatened with, or encouraged violence or murder of groups or individuals?

No. (Well, not to my knowledge, and not in "Fitna", which is what he is charged for)

Case closed

Pat Condell doesn't even know who the fuck Geert Wilders is or what he stands for.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Fascist-Exposed-Geert-Wilders-on-Radical-Islam

Watch Wilders squirm under questioning when interviewed by BBCs Hard Talk and expose himself as a fascist who just doesn't like immigrants.

Common sense, clear thinking and self awareness in action. It's a welcome relief to watch Pat Condell's videos.

Pat Condell is a clam; he's exactly as big as his mouth.

I typically Downvote anything that is intentionally offensive or adversarial. I also absolutely can't stand conspiracy BS. I upvote things I find compelling, entertaining, or interesting. I think of playlists as far more powerful than votes. I do recognize when certain people vote one way or another on a certain issue, but it really doesn't effect anything. Also, being one of the three conservatives on this site, I tend to upvote anything remotely so. The same goes for religion.

I like comment voting, but it can tend to be sort of mob-rule now and then. Ironically I often read more of the negative voted comments than others. I just want to know what was so offensive that someone was led to hit the down button.

I don't automatically DV any certain video, but I'll admit I WANT to (ahem Pat Condell). I just don't think it's very honest.

Hey, your http://www.videosift.com/video/Pat-Condell-Welcome-to-Saudi-Britain is dead, but here's a fix:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox2-Wun2dIg

Whoops, I dupe. http://www.videosift.com/video/Pat-Condell-Welcome-to-Saudi-Britain

http://www.videosift.com/video/Pat-Condell-Trouble-With-Islam
http://www.videosift.com/video/Catholic-morality-Pat-Condell

Some videos that are freedom of opinion that may violate these same rules we discuss here.

I do care about science, but i studied maths, physics AND art, and i see the similarities between them, and their respective weaknesses.

I think it's great that we have science to make computers so we can talk to each other at a great distance. I think penicillin was probably a good thing to invent. The steam engine turned out to be quite useful.

But, just because the scientific method has been so successful in so many areas, that doesn't mean that it can or should be applied to God.

spoco, i don't think everyone shares your tolerant and sensible attitude... many people are "shitty" to me here without even knowing what I believe, they just hear the word god and shout "IT FITS IN YOUR BUTT!". That's what pisses me off about atheists, they are wrong AND they love rubbing it in everyone's face... just like religious fundamentalists... you become what you fight. So I will continue to diss Pat Condell, Dawkins, and these clowns, because they are taking a good thing to extremes and turning it into a bad thing... mostly because they get off on it.

You think my pqueue is long? Check out ants then!

I think the amount of clips in my personal queue just come from the fact that I often post videos that fit well into my one hit wonder list for example.
They are not too popular, but I post them anyway to get them out of my head and complete the list as good as possible.
Also sometimes the clips I post are "special interest", like a clip from a classic Aussie movie or stuff like that. Not too many upvotes on those either.

I´d love to point you in a direction, but even I don´t know where to begin sometimes. Maybe the ones that are just below queue escape level are a good start?

Oh, just noticed you have a few lined up as well... Will look through it and see if I find something I like!

Cheers,
maatc

In reply to this comment by Octopussy:
In reply to this comment by maatc:
True, I added it to that channel. Thanks for pointing it out.

In reply to this comment by Octopussy:
Shouldn't this be posted to the *Islamica channel?

Well, the channel is supposed to be dedicated to, i.a., celebrating the rich tapestry of Islamic culture, but lately it seemed to have filled it up with Pat Condell, Gitmo and suicide bombers, so I think your contribution is much appreciated.

Btw, you got the longest personal queue I've ever seen on the sift. I'd like to give you a few upvotes, but I don't know where to begin ;-).

In reply to this comment by maatc:
True, I added it to that channel. Thanks for pointing it out.

In reply to this comment by Octopussy:
Shouldn't this be posted to the *Islamica channel?

Well, the channel is supposed to be dedicated to, i.a., celebrating the rich tapestry of Islamic culture, but lately it seemed to have filled it up with Pat Condell, Gitmo and suicide bombers, so I think your contribution is much appreciated.

Btw, you got the longest personal queue I've ever seen on the sift. I'd like to give you a few upvotes, but I don't know where to begin ;-).

In reply to this comment by dead_tofu:
In reply to this comment by poolcleaner:
Until I hear something from his mouth that I disagree with, I'm going to love the man. I see several of you auto-downvoting, so I'm going to assume you disagree with critical thinking in regards to religion; you disagree with stand up comedy, which can be crude at times; OR you have a past disagreement with Condell in particular.

In all honesty, I don't know much about this man, but here's a quote from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Condell):

"I used to talk about this stuff in comedy clubs until I discovered internet video. Now I get a lot more death threats, but I don't have to deal with drunks."

I automatically like the guy.

hear,hear.....well spoken.

Thank ya, Tofu.