Well, how would you cope with a religion - with a significant following - that is intend on destroying "live and let live"?

I'm not saying that 'real' Islam is of that variety. But there is a significant minority - who label themselves Muslims, thus hard to separate from the more "moderate" ones - that believe it's their purpose in life to do so.

The same as we coped with communism, socialism, fascism and all the other ideologies that tried to change the world.

The world adapted, and moved on.

So it goes.

(Mind, I'd miss my pints of Pedigree and my schweinsbratwurst, not to mention my foreskin...)

This is what amazes me. People are afraid of extremism, but then fuel it with their bigoted stands. If you isolate people and taunt them and put them down and treat them as outcasts, then eventually they will act like such. A few people here talk about integration, but on the other hand prevent it by their words and actions. Unfortunately, your bigoted theoretical ideas completely get in the way of practical social existence. And then you wonder why the outsiders remain as such over generations.

I'd allow Muslims the same freedoms as any other members of society, including being allowed to build minarets, within applicable normal planning guidelines. This should act not merely as an expression of a Western value of equality, but also encourage integration. As soon as there is any effort to reduce my freedom . . . then I'll start complaining about that.

Is there a reason the tone of that Evangelical Christian video is so alarmist Oh, yeah, I know why. They want me to preach the gospel for them.

"Europe as we know it will cease to exist..."

Here's something else: one in seven people in Europe are Turkish. Wooooo... they have us surrounded. Run to the hillzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Shame on those wanting to impose civil liberty limitations on their fellow innocent man.

Come on, that's silly - the differences are reflected in the different ways both civilizations have developed.

While ideas about freedom and liberty are not unique to any particular civilization (e.g. the Chinese has some very libertarian aspects), in the West these were developed in a specific context - these ideas were direct consequences of the Reformation of the Christian church. The West has since taken it much further, of course - but there is a religious precedent to these ideas, even if one doesn't necessarily adhere to Christianity.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, there was a time when Papism was considered the greatest threat to the fabric of civilisation that Europe had ever seen. Wars were fought, heretics burned, churches destroyed, monarchs deposed.

Now Roman Catholics are those friends and colleagues of ours who eat fish on a Friday and hum Ave Maria while filling the kettle.

In fact, not much different from those friends and colleagues of ours who prefer lamb to bacon and cover their hair as our grandmothers did...

The Swiss eventually went after the communists and Nazis. I would have done the same.

Yes, shame on those Muslim terrorists.

Eh?

I can't recall the Swiss army occupying Berlin and Moscow and restoring democracy to Europe.

Was that down the other strand of history that the rest of the world missed?

What? Where?

Muslim terrorists in Switzerland?

I'm writing to Blick!

Seems like you're ignorant of your history.

Look up "Target Switzerland: Armed Neutrality in World War II" by Stephen Halbrook.

It is fairly clear that a number of posters on this thread are living in a parallel universe.

Magic_Castle32 . . . you live in Australia. What's your interest in saving European civilisation (whatever that is!). Are you planning on evacuating that continent?

And, oh yes, can we get back to minarets please?

That any clearer for you?

Anyway, it's utterly off-topic, so I shan't indulge you any more.

Just so we can have a post on the minaret discussion for a change I thought I'd just summarise opposition to and criticism of the banning proposal.

The Swiss Federal Government opposes it on the basis that is infringes internationally agreed human rights as well as the Swiss Federal Constitution.

The Swiss General Assembly voted against it.

Amnesty International and economiesuisse oppose it, though for different reasons.

All churches and religious organisations in Switzerland oppose the proposal.

There is also a selection of legal objection to the proposal from legal academics and practising lawyers.

All this goes to show that support for the proposal really is very far from the mainstream.

What is amazing is that an idea with such minority support has received so much coverage.

Human stupidity is infinite.

but moderate muslims should not care if they can build minarets? I mean they are allowed to build mosques, why do they need minarets?

You are telling them they shouldn't care or asking them?

Personally my beef isn't with Islam. What I dislike are militant religions that increasingly seek to interfere with politics, and those are Islam and Christianity in Europe. But make no mistake, there are also militant Hindus, militant Buddhists (inform yourself about state Buddhism in Thailand and SEA for example) etc who to this day try to expand their field of influence in secular states of varying degrees, mostly with negative effects on the overall performance and peace of a country.
I percieve Europe as secular, not as Christian, and to increasingly turn to Evangelic Christianity to counter Islamic influence is to fight fire with oil.
I want a level, equal playground for all religions in Switzerland, but it should be strictly limited to the private sector. I don't like noisy towers in Switzerland, but let's rather forbid noisy towers instead of Minarets.

Resulted form humanism and secularism. While the church was in command of Europe... it didn't seem bothered by all those bad things and itself commited many horrible atrocities.