douglas - //Just dusting off the Peace In Our Time script for you to use in your defence of the indefensible, Andy.
Douglas - in your rush to condemn my position, you may have failed to read my post carefully enough to see this -
"I do not for one moment condone has actions, or believe that his death should overshadow the loss of the innocent people who died ..."
I can't see much, if any 'defence of the indefenceable there.
//Your loose use of 'hate' and 'hatred' as by so many today suggests a lazy shorthand approach to those daring to disagree with your rosy view of the world.//
Anyone anywhere is entirely free to disagree with my 'rosy view of the world', absolutely no 'daring' is required.
//Disgust, disdain, disbelief at the attitude of appeasement toward the unspeakable maybe. But not hatred for all and sundry as your slightly hysterical spraff implies.//
I am, and never have, and never would, espoused 'appeasement' of these dreadful people and their heinous acts - that is not what I said.
My point is, if we simply shrug our shoulders and tell ourselves that this is how Muslims are, and it will never change - then it indeed never will change.
My approach is that simply knee-jerk hatred as espoused so frequently and easily on sites like this do nothing to help anyone, including the people who whip themselves up into a frenzy of misplaced self-righteousness.
Hatred is what drives extremists, based on misunderstandings of how anyone outside their perverted view thinks and feels.
My point is that to do the same simply perpetuates the whole system, and maybe a little compassion for a child lost would be a good start.
And no, that doesn't make his life any more valuable than those innocents he killed - but we all share this planet, and we have to try and find some way of changing the thinking of these people, and shoulder-shrugging and knee-jerking, and self-righteousness are what drive them - we should be ware of letting it drive us as well.