Establishment of Religion
Reader comment on item: British Government Worries about Radical Islamic Teachings at Universities

Submitted by Stephen Berman (United States), Jun 16, 2006 at 10:19

I respectfully suggest that it is highly presumptuous for a non-Muslim to try to tell Muslims what Islam really teaches.

Moreover, it is certainly a novelty that the government of any country should be in the business of deciding what people are allowed to believe in terms of their religions. It is nearly 400 years since John Locke and others in England questioned the government's authority to do such things. The citizens of the U.K. have not delegated to their self-proclaimed elites any authority to tell them what to think. Charles the First learned this the hard way.

And indeed, religious beliefs back then had enormous political implications. Being a Catholic in Protestant England, during the height of the counter reformation, would seemingly be even more threatening, than being a Muslim in modern day England.

If Locke was wrong, and the government does have the authority to decide what people should be allowed to believe, then we will really have to rethink everything we have been doing for the last 400 years. We should have no objection at all to the establishment of a Sharia based government in the U.K., and anywhere else that can be subjugated. So, how will it be? If we will be free, then we cannot interfere with Islam and its adherents. If to do so would be suicidal, then perhaps we just cannot be free anymore, and we should admit that our experiment in democracy was a failure. Hurray for the Restoration! (May Hashem save us).

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