Sounds like only one gunman

Police confirmed it. I guess it's like their Rush Limbaugh. The host took the call off-air.

Hope everyone gets out safely.

as much time as needed to reach a peaceful resolution. They also said they have not had direct contact with the gunman yet.

At least three people have been seen inside the cafe with their hands up against a window, and holding up a black flag with Arabic writing.

The BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner said the flag was similar to but not the same as that used by the Islamic State militant group in the Middle East.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-30473983

All this strife over different versions of Abrahamic nonsense and mythology...Sickening.

Ramen.

Islam is making it challenging for any other religion to keep up with their level of violence and depravity. That's putting it nicely.

I already dissed Christianity in the religion forum,

but when I touched on Islam, some islamophobia self-appointed sheriff immediately jumped in.

equally repressive and equally violent. I agree that there is potential for any zealot to be dangerous, yes. It's just that the dangerous ones have been muslim zealots, lately.

I would argue there are degrees.

Jainism, Zen Buddhism to some extent, are intrinsically non-violent.

The Maya religion, which required human sacrifice, was inherently violent.

The literal words of the Old Testament or the Quran are inherently violent.

Which is why today's religious violence is now a near muslim monopoly.

Western nations might be violent, but not in the name of religion.

It can get mildly annoying.

Your post made me

will not happen, then maybe we can be as outraged as we are, or were, over the innocents killed, and wasn't the Heavenly Father Bush's adviser on that, in Iraq alone, men women and children.

One dead human being for no reason is a horror. One million is an atrocity beyond belief. And yet, there isn't much talk about it here.

Do the Iraqis and Pakistanis and Yemenis, Libyans, Syrians, view us, Christianity, as terrorists?

I don't know, but if religion is the cause of all the brutality, I would think they would view all Christians as terrorists as some of us view all Muslims as terrorists.

I hope all those people get out of this safely.

I despise violent people, no matter what their religion or ethnicity is.

In the treaty of Tripoli, it's written the US is NOT a Christian nation.

And who said all MEers are Islamic?

Same ignorance as saying we are all Christians.

My point was, why bring religion into it? We are not on safe ground around the world, where we ARE viewed as a 'Christian Nation' by doing so.

They are criminals, period. Every country has them, we certainly have more than our fair share. But the vast majority of people regardless of ethnicity or religion, are not criminals.

What is happening right now to those hostages is a crime, the perps are criminals.

What happened to the Iraqi people was/is a massive crime, the perps are criminals.

To this day, I have no idea why GW decided to invade Iraq.
Whatever his 'reasons' might have been, they were wrong.
But since I do not know them, I cannot reason about the source of the loss of life in Iraq.

But in Australia today, I know why some people are being held hostage.
It's in the name of Islam. The flag being displayed in the coffee shop says so.

Or, to amend your sentence,
What is happening right now to those hostages is a crime, the perps are criminals in the name of Islam.

supported his invasions of other countries. He was asked in an interview, eg, if he received advice from Bush Sr, his father. He responded that he looked to his 'heavenly father' for advice.

He also stated at a summit regarding the Israeli/Palestine peace process, that 'god told me to invade Afghanistan'. He also said 'god told me to invade Iraq' and that god had told him to help create a Palestinian state and to make Israel secure, and 'I will' he said.

This country is majority Christian, which is why most people did not object to his 'talking to god' about all of this.

There are one billion Muslims in the world. Most of them did not give Radical Muslims who kill innocent people permission to speak for them.

It is bigotry beyond belief to blame millions of people for the criminal actions of a relatively small number of people who are of the same ethnicity and/or religion, for those crimes. I personally know people from the ME who despise these radicals more than anyone in this country.

But if you insist, then Bush spoke for every Christian in the US, which is a majority of Americans, when he invaded Iraq.

Nice way to let criminals off the hook, blame it on something other than their own criminal actions.

Those criminals in Australia speak for themselves.

Bush did not speak for me and I am a Christian.

And anyone who broad brushes any group like that will ensure more crime against innocent people, as we saw here after 9/11.

I hope these criminals in Australia are caught and I hope that happens before they harm any of their innocent victims.

You try to put on balance an islamist hostage taking and GW's invasion of Iraq, on the basis both actions are violent.

The huge difference is that one is religiously motivated, the other had no legal religious rationale.

The war in Iraq was not fought by Christian crusaders with Christian motivations. Even if Bush was a weird guy who could hear a Christian God talking to him, he had to sell the war to Congress. He could not have sold it to the Congress of the United States by stating 'God told me so'. He could not even have referred to Christian values as an underpinning for war, if only because of the separation of Church and State (praise be to the Founding Fathers). He sold that war to a secular Congress on a bundle of half baked truths and a bunch of ill-conceived reasons.

Now, the hostage takers in Australia are waving the flag of Islam. Their actions are in accordance to the letter of the Quran. You tell me lots of muslims abhor what the islamist/jihadists do. True. But a sizable minority of worldwide muslims support those same terrorists based on their understanding of one religion, Islam. That in itself should be proof enough there is a problem with Islam in today's world.

Jains or Buddhists are not going to set up bombs in Central Park anytime soon. And if a crazed Jain did tomorrow, you wouldn't have millions of Jains supporting him.

PS: the Catholic bishop of some African country recently opposed a campaign of vaccination because he feared these vaccinations would have an effect on the fertility rate, ergo diminishing the size of his future flock. That bishop will have probably killed more people than the hostage takers i Australia will.

God is not great.

I hate all religions equally

Depending on how many there are, if they could get them all around the same time, then they could save the hostages.

if it means saving all the hostages.

While it would be great if these terrorists gave up peacefully, I doubt that will happen.

May they come out safely.

rorism.

Apparently, one of the terrorists is using hostages as human shields. (so they understand the danger of snipers being used against them)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Sydney_hostage_crisis

confirmed.