You underestimate my "intelligence", not personal, but intelligence sources. I've already told you Kevin, I know what goes on
Yes, you told me that. But you have given no compelling reason to believe that. You have some Muslim friends... that's your authority that Trump's my numerous scholars of Islamic jurisprudence?
These are renegades, and only a very small minority, and they will never have the stamp of approval, from Australians or from the majority of Muslims who live in Australia.
You clearly cannot back up this claim that they are a "minority." You don't even understand the difference between Sufi, Shia, Wahabbi or Sunni, so forgive me if I reject the significance or your intelligence (not the personal kind). You'd have me believe that the media reports from within Australia, including the studies done by the experts I mentioned, are all conspiring against your Muslim friends.
Get it through to your head, man. You're assessing it on media reports while I'm at the source
The source!?! You know a few Muslims, probably Sufis, and so their views must represent the majority of a billion people because... you say so?
Every argument for introducing "Muslim ideals" has been thoroughly knocked back, including the one that allowing polygamy would "reduce brothel visits" by men
Of course it has. Look, I never said Australian law would accept it. I'm saying it is a problem because they cannot stop it from being practiced among Australian Muslims. They're doing it behind closed doors and they only find out about it when individual incidents are reported by a raped or abused woman. In which case, the most authorities can do is arrest the offender. They can't arrest the Imam who gave him religious permission to abuse his wife or rape his maid or whatever. Islamic law will always be with Australia so long as there are Muslims willing to practice it secretly and the fact is the religious authorities in Australia overwhelmingly embrace it. After all, without it, they wouldn't be religious authorities!
You also seriously underestimate the "secularising" factor of Australian Muslims, and why pre-20th century Islamic ideals are all but dead, except in the minds of a minority
All you are doing is reiterating your previous asserted position, but your only source of authority is anecdote. You have not dealt with any of the evidence to the contrary except to hand wave it aside as "the media!" I've provided enough information to disprove your claim that pre-20th century ideals are "all but dead." If that were true then sharia wouldn't be such a problem in Australia and there wouldn't be media reporting on it regularly.
Are Muslims becoming more secular in the West? Of course they are, but they are hardly the majority. But in these cases, we're not talking about Islam now are we? We're talking about a completely different religion, one that is learning to accept western values while gradually abandoning traditional Islamic values, such as the primacy of sharia law. To most Muslims, without sharia, there is no Islam. The younger generations are looking to this as outdated, as they become more influenced by western society. But they do not represent a majority n Australia yet. And they'll never represent a majority in Muslim countries where there state laws are sharia laws.
It simply doesn't work here as it does in Saudi Arabia
On the contrary, it works quite well for Muslims who enjoy living it. There is nothing in Australian law to prevent them from practicing it. There is no enforcement against it until they find out, and they usually only find out about it when someone convicted of sharia crimes comes turns up dead or beaten. But they can't stop it from being practiced.
"Ride in my taxi"? lol. I've already told you - I work for a Muslim, and the Muslims I encounter are not those who "ride in my taxi", but taxi drivers I regularly speak with, and some of whom are personal friends.
Oh OK, so your sample pool is much smaller than I orginally thought. I'm not sure how this works in your favor. So you work among Muslims who think sharia law is garbage? Really? Are they Sufis as well? How does this change the fact that most Australian Muslims support Sharia? Australia is a big country, after all.
You're not paying attention, Kev, and you underestimate human hypocrisy and the realities.
You lost me there.
A minority of Muslims will always try to impose their view of Islam on Australians
Yes, like that Imam you cited earlier. He is a minority Sufi. But no one really "imposes" anything on them. They learn this stuff from their traditions. Most educated Muslims in the western world actually do read the Quran. There really isn't much that need to be "imposed" onto them.
and other Australian Muslims, but this has a snowflake's chance in hell of surviving
But it is surviving Ray. That you think it is going to die a slow or quick death, is really irrelevant to the fact that it is alive and well and the majority of them want it to stay. And the reason being, sharia and true Islam cannot be divorced from one another. Sharia is integral to what Islam is. Anything else is basically another religion altogether, and so you really have no business calling it Islam. Again, this is like trying to defend the Book of Mormon as fiction, based on conversations you've had with RLDS members, and then insisting this is what "Mormonism" is about.
Your view of the "Islamic threat" is a wild goose chase, in terms of how it is actually received in countries like Australia, by both Muslims and non-Muslims.
I have scientific data backing up what I say. Polls taken in Muslim countries on questions of terrorism in general, the tragedy on 9/11, feelings towards the western world, etc. Do you understand how many Muslims in the Middle East consider Osama bin Ladin a freedom fighter and his cause just? Pakistan is the second largest Muslim country in the world with over 134 million, and polls shortly after 9/11 indicate a 65% approval rating for bin Ladin. In non-Arab Indonesia, the largest Muslim population of nearly 200 million, 50% view bin Ladin as a "justice fighter" and 65% do not see him as a terrorist. Taken together that's nearly 200 million supporters from just two countries! Most Muslims in the western world migrated from this part of the world, and they bring with them their traditions. You'll probably have to wait another two or three generations before western society manages to squeeze that out of their culture.
Fundamental Islam has no chance of surviving in Australia - none whatsoever! It is all as good as dead and buried, with no hope of any kind of "resurrection". If you wanted to go on a serious crusade, then it should be to save Islam, not condemn it, but of course I say that in jest.
If "fundamental" Islam is the bad stuff that modern Muslims are abandoning, then why would anyone want to save it? You're not making any sense, and you're really kidding yourself if you think you can get a firm grasp of what more than 500 million people believe (majority of a billion) just because you know some Muslims in Australia.