You are right some extent – talking about “the desire for Muslim only areas” he says that “They cannot be definitely proven but there are growing indications that they are real.”

I guess this is somewhere between “they exist” and “they don’t”. He doesn’t say what the indications are, but I assume we can agree that he’s not entirely making it up. There is presumably some evidence to support N-A’s position on no-go areas.

Here’s a case of one Muslim who converted to Christinity:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1571970/Muslim-apostates-threatened-over-Christianity.html

Sofia Allam simply could not believe it. Her kind, loving father was sitting in front of her threatening to kill her. He said she had brought shame and humiliation on him, that she was now “worse than the muck on their shoes” and she deserved to die.

This is not the only case. There are others similar this one.

The point that some people on this thread seem to be missing is that the orthodox side of every religion is only interested in keeping people in their place and controlling the number of their co-religionists. You either allow conversions to happen in society without pre-conditions (we have to live in a completely secular society first, etc) or you give others the license to keep people in their place.

It seems to me to be a legitimate civil liberty to assume that religion should be something we reach out to rather than have their adherents trying to convert us to on the doorstep, rather like double glazing salesmen.

I’d imagine, other Glaswegians can correct me, Clairwill, Shuggy – that fear for your own life – would tend to suggest that an attempted conversion programme would be a very dodgy undertaking. The believers, of either faith, would be likely to get chased.

And these are not Dawkinite post enlightenment folk. Largely, they are folk that couldn’t give a fuck.

Which, Sunny, is another huge disconnect between the Westminster consensus – where religion is respected and denial, perhaps nihilistic denial, is not given any status whatsoever.

Please perm that too into your ideas about what our society is.

I think your understanding of English is rather bad if you think thats what it says.

It says…”T]here is a drive amongst the mosque-attending older generation who would like sharia areas….and it is likely that they will support each other in order to attain their goals.”

Saying it is likely they will support each other’s goals is not the same as saying: “We have evidence there are no-go areas because of this evidence” etc. And even then, areas where these Mosque leaders would like sharia to be enforced better isn’t the same as saying non-Muslims are not allowed in that area. This is more to do with controlling Muslim women with an alternative legal system than not allowing non-Muslims into the area.

I thought you were one of those evidence obsessed people? Seems like it from your blog. Except, here, you’re twisting around the wording of a blog to infer, as is widely repeated on newspapers, that Nazir Ali has found some areas where he finds it difficult to venture into.

There’s no evidence for it.

Are you discounting the report I link to, and if so, why? At the moment I have a report from a race relations adviser which says they do exist, and your assertion that they don’t. At the moment I think your views are going to carry less weight.

You say that N-A “hangs around with self-proclaimed fundamentalists” and ask what more evidence I need of his bigotry. When you say “hangs around with”, you have only shown that N-A has spoken in support of a motion proposed by Paul Eddy. As far as I can tell, Eddy is a PR man who works for lots of Christian organisations and one of his clients is the Lawyers Christian Fellowship. One of LCF’s members, Ms Funny Italian Sounding name certainly seems to have some strong views on Moslems. But to go through an unproven personal relationship (N-A and Eddy), a business relationship (Eddy-LCF) and an employee-employer relationship (LCF-nasty lady) is a bit of an overstretch for showing that the Bishop “hangs out with fundamentalists” and is therefore demonstrably a bigot.

So in answer to your question, I’d need evidence that the Bishop holds bigoted views.

BH – No, that is what you call speculation. He speculates that there may be a coalition to crate sharia-run areas but there’s no actual evidence of any such areas being created. Warning of future problems is not the same as Nazir-Ali saying there are actual areas that exist.

Nazir Ali is a bigot like any other religious fundamentalist who thinks people of other faiths are heathens and foolish. He hangs around with self-proclaimed fundamentalists. What more do you want?

The report I referred to earlier is here.

Quoting from it:

[T]here is a drive amongst the mosque-attending older generation who would like sharia areas. There is also the minority of highly disaffected young men who want to control their patches. These two opposite ends of the spectrum desire the same thing albeit for different reasons and it is likely that they will support each other in order to attain their goals.

As I mentioned, this was written by a former race relations adviser, so I imagine it must carry some weight.

I don’t think I’m being obtuse at all. You have criticised the Bishop for condemning no-go areas without having been to one. I’ve merely pointed out that we accept the existence of lots of things without having seen them ourselves. The report I link to seems to me to be highly credible.

You keep asserting that Nazir-Ali is a bigot and a fundamentalist without really giving me anything to convince me that you are right. The no-go areas he criticises seem to exist. We all seem to agree that he should be free to try to convert people from other religions, which is what he has called for. Where’s the bigotry?

Where are the no-go areas? Who has been to one? Where is the evidence?

There may be areas in Britain where gangsmake it difficult for people to pass through… these may be run by white gangs, black or brown gangs. What’s it got to do with anyone’s religion? And furthermore, I bet there are more white no-go areas than brown no-go areas. No?

In a free society, different religions should be able to try to convert each others members, shouldn’t they?

Sure, but you accept why the Church hierarchy might be unwilling to let a bigot push for such operations?

Its a wedge tactic, regardless of what people are allowed to do in a democratic society.

Cover Drive – thank you for your comment in no. 12 – nice encapsulation of how religion and caste has been used for CENTURIES for people to keep in “their places”. Good trick isn’t it.

Neither. We should have a fully secular state and religion should be the private business of believers. Religious institutions should be paid for by private bodies and not by the tax payer.

All religion is based on preparing for the afterlife. In which case, prepare in private and feel smug that you’ll all go to heaven and kindly let the rest of us enjoy this hell in peace.

heh heh

bishop hill, well i guess it depends on what you mean by “converting” others…if its a chat then sure = anyone’s got the right to influence other people’s opinion – on not just religion obviously. Same for anyone else to convince religionists of the falsity of their statements about “god”

Also why claim so falsely that Christianity is what shaped the Britishness when in fact many faiths and cultures did this?

It is simply false to make the nonsensical claims he is doing.

So we agree that these no-go areas exist, then. You can hardly say he’s talking crap then. I say there’s oppression going on in Burma, although I’ve never been there. Does that mean I’m talking crap?

If you want to criticise him for not equally condemning no-go areas for ethnic minorities, feel free. I accept Sid’s point about these, although as I’ve never been to one, I may be talking crap in doing so.

In a free society, different religions should be able to try to convert each others members, shouldn’t they? Of course the other side might not like it, and their religion might even condemn it, but I would say that a liberal should stand up for this principle. Either we have freedom of religion and freedom of speech or we don’t.

All a lot of crap.

See this post:
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/1830

Wanting to convert people to Christianity is hardly synonymous with fundamentalism is it?

Oh this is not my teminology, the people from CCFON and LCF (Andrea Williams, mentioned above) used it herself to describe herself in the C4 documentary.

Is Lord Nazir Ali supporting Christian Fundamentalists? You damn right he is.

To deny this is intelectually bankrupt.

Why is it that the others faiths are able to build good relatiosn with their own community and others but the Anglican Church can’t and the Bishop rather than look inwards and change looks outwards and demand everyone else changes?

To claim that Christianity and only Christianity has shaped the identity of the British is sheer nonsense.

What does he define as British Identity?

Britishness is many things to many people. Many British people view Curry as a British Dish – but it isn’t Christian! In fact now I’d hazard a guess that Curry, Kebabs, Pizza etc are more common on Friday than Fish!

Bish is trying to blame the failure of the Church on every faith but his own.

Many faiths have contributed to the freedom and identity of this country.

The Bishop being the nasty man he is would be wise to recall that in two world wars Britain was helped to be saved by people of faiths other than Christianity who out numbered locals and Christians.

Thus the very freedom the nasty Bishopp lives under is provided by the faith communties he is maligning.

The loss of Christian Identity is caused because people like the Bishop don’t relate to the people, something which with respect all the other faith communities Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindu and so forth have kept in touch with the grassroots.

The fact they’ve done this in much harder circumstances than the Church shows how out of touch the Bishop is. The Church has become essentially an academic type institution which is out of touch with the people and rather than changing itself it is asking society to change to the churches needs.

The Bishop takes the typical right wing and evangelical line – attack Muslims when people reply or complain then say you meant the radicals!

Nasty man wityh a nasty agenda.