Hmmm, so it looks as though option #2 - "Kill the infidel" won the vote with 52%... Luckily Islam is a religion of peace, so we have nothing to worry about...

Upvote for Dr. Gamal's responses-

“That is very saddening. [76% of the audience polled that a Muslim does not have the right to change religion] This result indicates a lack of knowledge regarding the essence of Islam, which is faith and liberty. If belief is not based on awareness and conviction, it is worthless. As the Koran says: “If it had been thy Lord’s will, they would all have believed.” In other words, every Muslim has the right to change his religion as much as he likes, and nobody is allowed to stand in his way, because this is a question of freedom of conscience, and it is forbidden to intervene in matters of people’s conscience. Talk to him, persuade him, hold a dialogue with him, but do not force him. You presented three options: Dialogue, killing, or the legal system. What do the legal system or killing have to do with people’s conscience? That is very sad. Most of you are young and do not believe in freedom.

I believe that freedom of thought and belief is absolute, because this freedom of thought leads to freedom of political opposition, which established democracy and got rid of kings and tyranny. It also led to freedom of the sciences, which has led progress, and freedom of justice, which led to fair treatment for laborers and women. Freedom of thought is indivisible, and the most important element of freedom is one’s belief, because it has to do with one’s conscience. Therefore, it cannot be restricted in any way.”

Islam could use more people like him.

"if he is insane then remove his head before it can infect the heads of others"

he says this with a smile.

fundamentalist trash. i wonder how he feels when muslims are killed by members of the other religions - i'll be pretty darned outraged. if they were doing it to "protect the sanity of the others" i'm sure he'd be ten times as outraged.

We shoulda left these guys in the stoneage.
Unfortunate for us, they got all the oil, so we cant help but integrate them into the global economy.

Count me with the Infidels.

Man, do these fuckers need an Enlightenment or what?

Upvote for the Gamal guy.

"Upvote for the Gamal guy."

Same here.

charliem: "We shoulda left these guys in the stoneage."

Read a history book. It would be more correct to say that they could have left us in the dark ages. Islam, at it's height, was the most open-minded, progressive and science promoting religion around. Sadly, it has deteriorated.

The sad thing is that it probably wouldn't be too hard to find some "Christian Scholar" from the bible belt who would say the same things.

And yes, upvote for Dr. Gamal's statement.

Isn't it interesting that the sane answers are only coming from the scholar? Once again, intelligence = freedom while religion = oppression.

Also, a big upvote for even the mere existence of this debate in the first place. I'm sure the fundamentalists would have rather cut of Gamal Al-Bana's head, than let him speak.

EXCELLENT Sift. I would upvote and * quality this if I could, but I will have to settle for upvote only. Regardless of whether or not we agree with the views presented and the will of Muslim youth as presented on this show, by watching it we are gaining insight on Muslim culture as they present it. I think this is the only way to really get a handle on their culture, and it's enlightening to hear what they believe, even if it's only a few voices.

I love the way he pronounces kufir, he really makes it sound like kaffer. Thanks, totally unknown Egyptian cleric, for reminding the world that not all the offensive and racist words in South Africa originate from the Dutch language ;-).

Sorry to break it to you all, but according to a leading expert on the Middle-East, this video footage is apparently absolutely worthless.

>> ^Farhad2000:
...MermiTV covers the Middle East like Fox News covers the news in the US... [MermiTV] cherry picks things that would incite the largest amount of fear.... like Fox News.

So we have nothing to worry about here...

However I am almost convinced that at the exact moment this aired, Fox was covering the plight of an obese cat looking for a home.

Yeah.. what's scarier? Feline obesity or talking about beheading non-believers on national television?

>> ^Pprt:
Sorry to break it to you all, but according to a leading expert on the Middle-East, this video footage is apparently absolutely worthless.


Not worthless -- The sentiments expressed in the video clearly exist, even if they're not mainstream. Fox News presents a view that doesn't represent the U.S. mainstream, though there are people that take Fox commentary to heart. I still say this sift is top notch because it exposes part of a culture that we don't see, and when most of what comes over the airwaves in the United States is our own reporters spinning their own views on the Middle East based on second-hand information provided (or at least tempered) by the U.S. Government, there's a lot we don't see.

The solution in my mind is more Islamic video on the Sift, along with annotations noting where it came from and links to more information if it's available. Once we get enough information, we can get a better understanding of the culture and see for ourselves which bits are quality footage and which are a crock. That goes for all cultures, actually.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'islam, religion, hilarious, fanatics, punishment' to 'islam, religion, hilarious, fanatics, punishment, apostate' - edited by my15minutes

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