If the Muslims mean that they would like the law to be based on Christianity, as in Catholicism or a theocracy of some kind, then they are even more out of touch and foolish than I had given them credit for: Muslims have not exactly prospered under Christian ‘regimes’ of the past (or present, say Ethiopia) have they?

The question: “Our laws should respect and be influenced by UK religious values” is very poorly phrased and makes no mention of Christianity at all: it merely says ‘U.K religious values’. What are these exactly? It is likely to be interpreted by the Muslim on the street as meaning ‘respect or deference to the range of religious traditions present in the U.K’, which they would rightly think includes religions such as Islam, Hinduism etc in a kind of ‘Do not denigrate their Gods lest they denigrate Allah’ kind of way.

Frankly, secularism for all it’s glaring faults, is a reaction to Christianity IN PARTICULAR and the set of intellectual and social circumstances that this religion brought about in Europe. The Muslim (and indeed Chinese and others) experience was radically different. It would be rather bizzare for Muslims to throw their hat in with the Church of all people in a fight which has very little to do with them, what with Muslim learning having kick – started the Enlightenment in the first place which displaced the authority of the clergy and the Church.

A clearer question would have been ‘Do you want Christianity to be the basis of U.K law?’ rather than the waffly way they put it. The answer to that would have been interesting, but given that the four top Christian thinkers in history, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin and Martin Luther seem to think there IS compulsion in religion, and that one can compel salvation, I don’t see the benefit for Muslims in living under the yoke of the Church as opposed to the yoke of secularists.

So I think this article from the Telegraph is an example of what they say about lies and statistics…

I would be interested to hear from any Muslims who WOULD prefer to live under the COE or a Pope as opposed to, say, the situation in the United States or the U.K.

If we look at recent Europe: The first mosque in Spain was opened after four hundred years: I did not see the Church in Spain, where it is far more powerful than in Northern European countries, agitating for the prayer places of Muslims in that time (when they got a spare minute from backing Franco’s fascists that is). Nor is the Catholic Church exactly agitating against the hijaab/niqaab bans in Spain, France or Belgium. Nor have I heard a peep from the Pope about that nor the refusal of Italy to list or allow mosques as ‘religious buildings’. We all know what the current Pope had to say about the Prophet (PBUH). Most unhelpful not to mention inaccurate.

And I need not remind this site of Rowan Williams recent probing of the extremes of stupidity with his comments about Islam. And he’s one of the ‘nice guys’.

We love and respect our Christian brothers but let’s not sugar coat reality: I for one am happy living here in the U.K as it is: I DO NOT WANT MORE CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE, especially where that will mean state funding for missionary work/and curtailing of freedom of religious belief.

Yes, the militant atheists and secularists need to be tackled, but I think the idea that Muslims and Christians are ‘natural allies’ in this fight is a comforting fantasy and possibly fallacious. Are we going to, as Muslims, start defending the record of the Church in Europe and demand more space for it in public and political life? I think not. The secularists, to my mind, have a point against the Christians but not so against the Muslims.

After all, most of the ‘great’ secularist thinkers were practising/professing Christians, so even their own intellectuals seem to want to rein in the Church.

Who are the Muslims to disagree?