[Sephiroth]

@ROUGHBEAST

I'll single out just three of your paragraphs on which to comment. My reading of your post suggests that those three paragraphs covers the full sense of your response.

You appear to know Islam well, so you will know that at its height, during its golden age, there were more Christians living in Muslim territories than Christians living in the Christian world. There were more churches in Muslim lands than in Christian lands. These were, compared with our times, pretty barbaric for the ordinary citizen, but it was the norm for Christians to be left to get on with their lives peacefully. This was a time of fantastic cultural and scientific exchange between Christian and Muslim academics and artists. No doubt you will find exceptions, but from the Prophet down to all Muslims, tolerance of Christians and Jews, as People of the Book, was at the core of managing subjugated peoples. We hear of the holy wars, but these were driven largely by zealots and power mongers of the Christian world wishing to reclaim Jerusalem metaphorically and actually.

I know Islam no better than having read the Koran twice and what I observe with my own eyes. As with all cultures, there are wings, and I have observed that there is an obvious plan for Muslim population growth in Europe and that eventually the militant wing(s) will dominate the rest.

You then pray in aid to your example of the Christian/Muslim institutions living together well in the past. But time have changed in at least two meaningful ways (in this oil money era that have altered the dynamic you have described: (1) Sunni vs Shia power play/consequences; (b) Israel.

Although your historical account may be true, it no longer applies (9/11, 7/7, Yemsn, Sderot, etc).

Both religions have their roots in the shared scriptures of The Old Testaments. They share the same prophets - Moses, Abraham etc. A deep dive into those scriptures reveals a blood thirsty approach to sinners and enemies. The new scriptures deriving from the Prophet and the life of Jesus, whether we regard them as the word of God or not, were written in the context of the times derived from the moral imperatives of the time. The New Testaments and the Quran contain passages of great beauty proposing love, peace, charity, respect for other races and care for the natural world. Yet, with a nod to the stoics of the time, both sets of scriptures contain homophobic stances and the terrible things that might happen to sinners.

There's no doubt that both religions have their roots in the shared scriptures of the OT. Fat lot of good that does. Sharing the long dead prophets, whose exploits are described in the politically written testaments of their time has no meaning now. The nearest we have now is the Ten Commandments that make up a large chunk of of our culture and protections in law. The militant Muslims have no regard for the Ten Commandments and in order to maintain power in the UK when the Muslims have 51% in Parliament, it will be the militants who will be calling (and issuing) the shots.

EDIT. The statistic your link pointed me at is pretty desperate. At the time of Irish, Catholic immigration, families >10 were not uncommon. Due to Papal edict regarding contraception this continued into my mother's generation. Have we been overwhelmed by Catholics or Catholic culture? Your statistic presumably covering first and second generation Muslim immigrants points out families being one child larger than those of existing populations. I suggest that as we move into wholly second and third generation Muslim immigrants that the difference in fertility pointed out will narrow due to factors I suggested previously. We also don't know what will happen regarding indigenous fertility either. Econo0mic outlook can change things, e.g., the Blair years of economic prosperity and improving public services produced a wave of births that has only recently left our school system.

You are comparing the Catholic sub-culture (which dominates across much of Europe) with a culture that demonstrates different values. Today's Catholics are part of our cultural family. But then you argue that 2nd/3rd generation 'Muslim immigrants' fertility will narrow and thus, by implication, their birth rate will fall - in 50 years time when it's too late. Maybe - but only if their children attend Madrasas in significantly lower numbers. I'm a conspiracy theory person who believes that Saudi Arabia is busy paying for this religious attendance.

You've sort of blamed the Blair years for the birth rate now being seen. The point is that immigration, part of the Saudi plan, has led to the dangers we are now seeing here, in France, in Germany and Sweden.

The 2.8 million Muslims in the UK can turn out 10% of their number in demonstrations that cannot be safely policed. These demonstrations hardly hide their aim of wiping Israel out. Is this a case of multiculturalism working?