Do you see a clash of civilizations coming between the Islamic and Western worlds?

Saturday 21st November, 11:00 AM JST

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WilliB at 07:17 PM JST - 26th November

Damien:

" There are fanatics on both side "

No, there is no balance here. Scan through your local newspaper and see how many religious motivated bombings, beheadings, burnings, kidnappings, etc. you find committed by Jewish or Christian fanatics. It will be a short search.
Nihonlover at 10:30 PM JST - 26th November

Hi Willi B ... Not quite true man ... i am not a religious person ... just a liitle curious about it ... please don't go by what priests or fathers say or media say... use a little common sense ... why oh why is there such big spur in so called religious war ... because war with communists are over .. now we need a new front ... that's why ... what is arabia? remember both jews and arabs are semitic people originated in babylon or what is today's iraq. please read bible and koran side by side with a desire to learn AND AN OPEN UNBIASED MIND... read yourself and not listen to what other muslim or christain fanatic say and then come to a conclusion... i feel people who think about deeply .. cannot support useless war
Nihonlover at 10:38 PM JST - 26th November

BTW i am a positive christian muslem jew lover ... ... i think this is a temporary phenomena .. perhaps it will go back to normalcy in next three four decades ..
NihonRyu at 11:35 AM JST - 27th November

I am actually quite relieved that we don't have too many Muslims here in Japan yet so I don't see a clash here anytime soon and hope Japan thinks about putting some restrictions on the number of new Muslim immigrants as large numbers of them could potentially affect our society as it has in some European nations. I just don't think Islam is very compatible with Japanese society and work environment.

My experience hiring muslims here in Tokyo were that they asked for too many special favors for e.g. setting up a special prayer room in the office just for them to pray every day and permission to go off to mosque in the middle of the work day every Friday for a few hours, creating eating decisions difficult at a group setting for people due to food not being halal, pork, etc.. looking uncomfortable around the tradional afterwork kampai beers with other coworkers, etc..

I guess the issue is many seem to have a difficult time seperating their religious needs/practices with their work environment and tend to ask their employer to amend to their religious needs compared to practicing their religion on their personal time on the weekend or after normal working hours, etc.

All in all I probably would opt to hire a non-muslim v.s. a muslim if all other qualifications being equal as it seems they were harder to integrate successfully with either the Japanese or multi-national gaijin teams due to their strict adherence to religious practices.

I am sure that is not true of all Muslims but many that I have met and interviewed for positions seemed to ask for special treatment to accomadate their religion as a basis for employment.

Some additional thoughts: I heard in the U.S. some Muslim Walmart employees working at the check-out would refuse to handle/scan pork or alcohol and created some issues. I believe this was just a few handful of cases but was thinking if the nurses from Indonesia/Malaysia that will be coming to Japan to help off-set the lack of nurses here begin to refuse helping old oji-sans and oba-sans to eat their Charsiu ramen as it contains pork or refuse to help them sip sake or something this would create a serious problem for us here as they would not be able to do their job adequately or as expected.
Damien15 at 03:29 PM JST - 27th November

WillB,

No, there is no balance here.

Ok, how many arab nations has killed 5000 some of their own citizens, just because they could have a reason to kill people from other religions? How many muslim countries has invaded christian nations? How many muslim newspapers published images of their soldiers kicking christian nations citizens? I'm sure the list is even shorter.
Damien15 at 03:40 PM JST - 27th November

The Koran is littered with insults against and condemnations of Jews and Christians.

Koran says that the only reason that a new religion was sent to humans is, because humans changed the Bible as they see fit. There are several versions of Bible, but only one Koran. Islam recognizes Jesus as a prophet of same god, but at the same time says that Islam is the only way to heaven, because Bible was changed and no longer is creation of god.

To me it's all bull crap. I hate religion, just because of the fact that it creates differences between us. But what I hate more is the ones who think their religion is better then others and all others will go to hell. If god has created this conflict, I'm not sure if he really love us, or even exist.
kinniku at 04:59 PM JST - 27th November

Damien15,

I realize I am not part of your conversation. However, perhaps you could be specific in the list of questions you have posted in your 3:29pm post? I especially can't understand your 5,000 citizens comment. What are you talking about? Just curious.
Damien15 at 05:46 PM JST - 27th November

Kinniku,

Looks like I can't talk abotu that but the official number is 2,976.
kinniku at 05:47 PM JST - 27th November

Damien15,

Never mind. I didn't realize you were going on about ridiculous 911 conspiracies.

The fact of the matter is that people have to learn to let other people live their lives as they wish and worship as they wish. The problem with any extremist group is their desire to change others to their way of thinking, living and doing things.
Nihonlover at 05:54 PM JST - 27th November

it is a hype ... fanned by some media ...
Dilbert14 at 08:24 PM JST - 27th November

Kinniku,

people have to learn to let other people live their lives as they wish and worship

Very True. I believe common person knows how to do that. Fanatics have different agenda though. They want to involve common person with their cause, and so far, they are succeeding. There are more people in both religions, hateful to each other as a result of this.
Dilbert14 at 09:52 PM JST - 27th November

and counter theories are not ridicilous. they are the real truth.
kinniku at 08:32 AM JST - 28th November

they are the real truth.

They are ridiculous conspiracy theories not based on fact that tend to fan the flames of the very clash that is described in this question. You are certainly not in a position to claim otherwise. Stick to reality. Ridiculous conspiracy theories merely make the person claiming the conspiracy a part of the religious fanatics you spoke of in your post.
Dilbert14 at 02:15 PM JST - 28th November

How about exposing some religions fanatics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince
telecasterplayer at 02:44 AM JST - 29th November

Hey, all you people planning to end the world with your imagined "clash of civilizations": go fight the war yourselves. send your own sons, pay for it privately, no more tax-payer funded armies. have your precious war, leave the rest of us out of it.