Defending western values against the attack of Islam

Great Debates
301

[QUOTE=phil in the_]
So, I ask you Valteron, is that the trade off? To defend women and gays we all must turn into bigots? There really isn’t any middle ground. A place where we can call out those who practice discrimination against women, gays and YES, Muslims too?
[/QUOTE]
The funny part (okay, more sad really) is that the only person giving him validation in this thread also wants to protect his country’s values. Of course, one of the things he wants to protect against is Valteron and others of his orientation getting married.

Bigotry makes for strange bedfellows.

302

What is strange about it? Most of the Muslim world was not directly involved in the conflict of WWII. It was not “Muslim” nations that disputed over resources from 1937 to 1945. WWII then put many other (non-Muslim) colonial lands in a position to revolt and establish their independence. Following WWII, India and Pakistan did immediately become mutual aggressors, but the U.S. and U.S.S.R. exerted direct (militarily backed) political pressure to keep most M.E.N.A. countries from engaging in foreign adventures. Once Iran broke free of the U.S. and Afghanistan tore up the U.S.S.R.'s intervention (following which the U.S.S.R. broke up and lost most of its ability to apply pressure), the Middle East began to get more directly violent. Similarly, with the collaps of the U.S.S.R., the U.S. could no longer rationalize keeping their Indonesian puppet in power, so that country began to flex its muscle. There is nothing mysterious (or “Islamic”) about the current situation. One need only look at the actual events that led to the current situations.

Really? And what are the dates for this study? (Not when was it conducted, but what are the time periods that is studied?)
Did it include the clashes in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa prior to 1975? Or did these studies carefully wait until enough Muslim dominated nations had finally gotten out from under colonial control so that they could engage in their own brawls. Did the study of wars with more than 200,000 casualties include Vietnam? Cambodia? Rwanda? The Brazilian genocide? The Kurdish uprising in Turkey, (not the Armenian genocide, but the later Kurdish revolt)? The Guatemalan insurgency against the American imposed government? All of those included more than 200,000 deaths and occurred in the 20th century. Note how few of them involved Muslims (except as victims of other Muslims in Turkey).

By shaping dates (and ignoring outside circumstances), one can make many different points. From 1866 through 1960, there were dozens and dozens of race riots in the U.S.–all but a couple of which were whites going into black (or Asian) neighborhoods and destroying property and killing people. From 1965 through 2005, there were another couple of dozen riots, generally black people rioting in their own neighborhoods. Did whites suddenly get civilized? Did blacks suddenly stop being civilized? Or is there some other set of circumstances that resulted in a change to which group initiated the violence and what sort of violence occurred? A thorough study of riots in the U.S. from 1900 - 1945 would produce a radically different set of results than a similarly thorough study of riots from 1960 to 2005. Each could produce one set of claims about people that would stand in radical contrast to each other. Would it be a legitimate exercise to make a case for the “nature” of the people involved by studying only one or the other?

This discussion will proceed more smoothly if you stop making claims about what I have said that are false.

My specific statement was that “the current terrorism arose.” Once it was out, it very definitely spread. However, it arose among the Wahabbists. Even your attempt to paint terrorism as a worldwide “Islamic” phenomenon supports that: “Palestinian suicide bombers, Al-Fatah, Hamas, the people who carried out 9-11, the bombings in the London subways, the bombings on Spanish trains, the bombing of the Bali nightclub, . . . , the guys who slit Daniel Pearl’s throat on TV” are, indeed, followers of Wahabbism. (There are persistent rumors that the Russian school was blown up by Putin for propaganda purposes, but if it was blown up by Muslim Chechnyans, they have been receiving a lot of support from Wahabbist al Qaeda for many years.) Once the genie was out of the bottle, however, far too many weak groups have begun to see that form of terrorism as a useful tool. (Unfortunately, (for them–I am thankful for it), they do not have a ready supply of B2s, Tomahawks, and armored divisions to hurl at their opponents, so they use what they have.)

303

[QUOTE=Valteron]
I regret that the earlier part of this thread got hijacked into discussions of which countries murder gays and opress women. While the points I made in this regard are in my opinion quite valid, they are only part of the bigger picture. But homophobia and sexism in Islam are just two of the distrurbing trends in this religion, and do not deserve all the attention.
[/QUOTE]
Then tell us of these other trends. I am curious as to what aspect of my ethics or moral code could you possibly use against me, in the hopes that I start to agree with the Islamophobic bigotry you have spewed in this thread. I don’t think there is such quality.

I think Pipes is an idiot, and judging by what you wrote of him I don’t put to much faith in this Huntington fellow. But thanks for the advice.

In just your last post you compared Muslims to Nazis. Do you now doubt that some of what you said here was bigoted?

304

[QUOTE=Valteron]
IPhil, it is easy to yell “bigot”.
[/QUOTE]
Even Pipes, who many feel deserves the bigot label (I’d put him in that camp myself), says that 10 to 15 percent of the Muslims worldwide are “Islamists.” Considering who that statement is coming from, I’m going to guess that that’s not an underestimate (gross exaggeration, sure, but not an underestimate).

I am far more worried about the much larger percentage of Americans who still think GWB is doing a great job than (at most, and likely far far far less) 15% of the Muslim population. The former is far more likely to cause harm to my “western values” than the latter.

305

[QUOTE=Valteron]
As Sam Harris says in “The End of Faith”:

“The reality is that the West currently enjoys far more wealth and temporal power than any nation under Islam is viewed by devout Muslims as a diabolical perversity, and this situation will always stand as an open invitation for jihad. Insofar as a person is Muslim – that is, insofar as he believes that Islam constitutes the only viable path to God and that the Koran enunciates it perfectly – he will feel contempt for any man or woman who doubts the truth of his beliefs.”
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Valteron]
I wish you would read Sam Harris, if you have not already done so. He has a fairly long passage on the liberal delusion that it is our fault if the Muslims hate us, for having controlled them through colonialism etc. One might just as easily say that the peoples of the Balkans are justified in hating Mulsims because of the centuries of conquest, occupation and control by the Ottoman Turks, or that the people of India are justified in hating Muslims because of the centuries of conquest and rule by the Islamic Mogul Emperors.
[/QUOTE]
Y’know, a few months ago, several posters began submitting claims that they had found this wonderful author that so clearly expressed what needed to be said against religion and belief. I intially put him on my reading list to check him out. I’ve got to tell you, though, after the two links to Op-Ed pieces by Harris that were posted in the last three weeks or so and then these two quotes, I’m not sure it would be worth the bother. (If these were also taken from Op-Ed pieces, I may still cut him some slack–short blurbs to be wedged into six colum inches of the Sunday paper do not allow for much exposition.)

His claim for “Islam” as though it is the sort of moniolithic bloc that Valteron needs it to be is just stupid. Let’s take one of our current worst enemies: Iran. Every person who visited Iran from around 1985 through late 2001 and every poll of the Iraninan people from the same period, (and a few since then), described a people who were sympathetic to the American people and desirous of resuming their Western trends. They were not happy that the U.S. had propped up the Shah with the most aggressively Gestapo-like secret police in the world, but they were willing to let bygones be bygones, attributing most of the problems to the U.S. government, not to the society or the people. They have done their best to continue to modernize their country and were actively working to change their government through the electoral process. Then the U.S. president decided that he would name them as an “axis of evil,” including them in an artificial group that included their worst enemies. Their repressive government immediately took steps to dissolve all the opposition parties so that they could no longer vote for moderate politicians and it began taking steps to irritate other nations, using the reactions of those nations to whip up anti-Western attitudes. It is true that the top oligarchy that controlled the nation was always hostile to Western values and such anti-Western attitudes could be found throughout the more rural villages that had little exposure to education or Western ideals, but until that ruling clique was given a great propaganda opportunity, the people, by and large, wanted no part of Harris’s fantasy.

Similar (if less clear) examples can be found in other nations, as well. The attitudes foolishly described by Harris as those of “Islam” are explicitly the attitudes of people who have been prevented from seeing Western values or who have suffered directly from Western nations’ actions. I am not saying “it” is “our fault.” I am pointing out that the situation is more complex that Harris wants to pretend with his simplistic attack.

If we look at Valteron’s favorite whipping boy, France, we find that even though Muslims have been members of French society for decades, all the recent conflicts are, indeed, recent. What is the difference between French Muslims in 2007 and French Muslims in 1977? Well, for one thing, with the increase in immigrants, there has been an anti-immigrant backlash that has often been displayed as anti-Muslim activity. (See clairobscur’s post linked earlier.) Just as most Catholic immigrants to the U.S. between 1850 and 1950 became “more Catholic than the pope” and embraced a very conservative brand of Catholicism in reaction to being treated harshly as Catholics, so, I suspect, something similar is happening in France. The fact that this phenomenon is occuring at the same time as the rise of Wahabbist power in the Middle East is coincidental in itsef, but that rise in power gives European immigrants something to clutch as an ideal or a motivation. Then somebody with his own agenda (like Harris) comes along and reads the signs wrong to fit into his own little world view.

306

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Really? And what are the dates for this study? (Not when was it conducted, but what are the time periods that is studied?)
Did it include the clashes in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa prior to 1975? Or did these studies carefully wait until enough Muslim dominated nations had finally gotten out from under colonial control so that they could engage in their own brawls. Did the study of wars with more than 200,000 casualties include Vietnam? Cambodia? Rwanda? The Brazilian genocide? The Kurdish uprising in Turkey, (not the Armenian genocide, but the later Kurdish revolt)? The Guatemalan insurgency against the American imposed government? All of those included more than 200,000 deaths and occurred in the 20th century. Note how few of them involved Muslims (except as victims of other Muslims in Turkey).
[/QUOTE]

Wow, Tom, you are lashing out a bit all over the place here, much like I used to do in my bad old days. :stuck_out_tongue: I have learned not to get mad at being contradicted.

First, have you read The Clash of Civilizations? It is a 1996 book whose full title includes and the Remaking of World Order. I have no indication that the quoted studies are by people who carefully waited until enough Muslim dominated nations had finally gotten out from under colonial control so that they could engage in their own brawls. This would imply assumed Islamophobic malice on their parts and I am not ready to jump to that conclusion.

I have already said in posting #302, to which you are responding, that the Ruth Leger Sivard study was about conflicts taking place in 1992.

The Gurr analysis examined 50 conflicts in 1993-94. The six wars mentioned by Gurr appear in the same paragraph and are therefore presumably for the same period or at least partially in those two years.

Given that Huntington’s book is a 1996 analysis of the remaking of world order, I find it entirely logical that he would analyse recent conflicts. His book, which traces present and future trends, is making the point about Muslim countries in the 1990s (and I would say in hindsight in much of the 2000s decade).

I have never denied that the white Christian west was capable of murderous beligerence. Interestingly, the most important and most murderous conflict of recent history, WWII, was arguably caused by the arrogant and supremacist philosophies of two nations, Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan, both of whicvh believed they had a divine destiny to conquer and control. This is not exactly the same as the ideas in Islam, but then Germany and Japan did not have identical philosophies either.

But to dredge up the Viet Nam War and every other conflict is more of a rant than an argument, I fear. I am talking about how we face up to Islam in the 21st century, not who wins the prize for the most vicious civilization of the past centuries.

[/QUOTE]
My specific statement was that “the current terrorism arose.” Once it was out, it very definitely spread. However, it arose among the Wahabbists. Even your attempt to paint terrorism as a worldwide “Islamic” phenomenon supports that: “Palestinian suicide bombers, Al-Fatah, Hamas, the people who carried out 9-11, the bombings in the London subways, the bombings on Spanish trains, the bombing of the Bali nightclub, . . . , the guys who slit Daniel Pearl’s throat on TV” are, indeed, followers of Wahabbism. (There are persistent rumors that the Russian school was blown up by Putin for propaganda purposes, but if it was blown up by Muslim Chechnyans, they have been receiving a lot of support from Wahabbist al Qaeda for many years.) Once the genie was out of the bottle, however, far too many weak groups have begun to see that form of terrorism as a useful tool. (Unfortunately, (for them–I am thankful for it), they do not have a ready supply of B2s, Tomahawks, and armored divisions to hurl at their opponents, so they use what they have.)
[/QUOTE]

Okay, you did say “arose”, which to my mind implied that it is the result of one sect. So the curent terrorism arose among the Whabbists and spread to other parts of Islam, a detail you did not originally mention. It is an interesting historical deatil but we are talking about Islamic terrorism today.

307

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
The fact that this phenomenon is occuring at the same time as the rise of Wahabbist power in the Middle East is **coincidental ** in itsef, but that rise in power gives European immigrants something to clutch as an ideal or a motivation. Then somebody with his own agenda (like Harris) comes along and reads the signs wrong to fit into his own little world view.
[/QUOTE]

Coincidental? I guess if a fact goes against your viewpoint, it is easier to push it away as a coincidence. Also, I note that Harris, whom you admit you have not actually read, is one of those people with an agenda. Funny how it is always the people we disagree with who have an “agenda”. What about you Tom? Do you have an agenda other than Truth and Justice? Or are you agenda-free?

308

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
The only place we part company with anti-Islam bigots like you and Valteron is when it comes to your desperate insistence that theocratic-extremist repressive fundamentalist Islamism is the same thing as the religion of Islam in general.
[/QUOTE]

Now I ask you to be kind enough to point out where I drew that equivalence.

Oh, and you call me a bigot based on my position (with no proof of bigotry), I call you a shithead for you position. That moved us along nicely, didn’t it. :rolleyes:

And don’t even think of giving me a TWEET,** tomndebb**. This “bigot” tactic is childish bullshit and needs to be pointed out as such.

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
The Muslim ex-terrorist you cited seems to have enough basic common sense to draw a reasonable distinction between specific entities like “Salafism”, “radical Islam”, and “Islamism” on the one hand, and Islam per se on the other. I wish you and Valteron would emulate him in grasping that simple concept.
[/QUOTE]

Again, show me where I said they were one and the same. If you’d like go look at some other threads on the subject. In each case I explicitly stated that NOT all Muslims are barbaric murderers. I look forward to your response. Either that or better reading comprehension on your part followed by accurate representations of others’ positions.

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
The fact that Valteron and you have to keep resorting to such a feeble strawman argument is proof of the weakness of your position. If we actually were making excuses for theocratic-extremist Islamist atrocities and repression, you’d be right to complain about it. But we’re not.
[/QUOTE]

Mr. Pot, have you met Mr Kettle? You’re pointing to one sentence from the article. I included the summation to give people a handle of what was covered in the article. Did you read it? The point is that the excuses and moral, religious, and cultural relativism offered up prevent the threat from being identified for what it is.

The only strawman offered up here has been by you, claiming that I beleive ALL Muslims are mudrerous barbarians. Once again, show me where I claim that all Islam is filled with murderous, barbaric imbeciles.

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
All we’re saying is that Islam as a whole does not equal its subset of theocratic-extremist Islamism. Both you and Valteron seem quite intelligent enough to understand this; I can only conclude that you prefer to keep denying it because, as I noted before, what you really care about is not actually defending Western values, but just insulting Muslims.
[/QUOTE]

Try to pay attention here, Kimstu: I’m not interested in insultiing any religion. I don’t practice any myself, but I respect thouse who do. What I don’t respect are murderers and barbarians using a religion for a banner and a shield. The threat has got to be recognized for what it is. In every thread all I have called for is vigilance. And we need to be vigilant because NOT all Muslims are terrorists or barbarians. If I thought they were, I’d advocate locking them up or kicking them out of the country en masse. But I haven’t done that. Go ahead, look that up, too.

309

[QUOTE=magellan01]
Oh, and you call me a bigot based on my position (with no proof of bigotry), I call you a shithead for you position. That moved us along nicely, didn’t it.

And don’t even think of giving me a TWEET, tomndebb. This “bigot” tactic is childish bullshit and needs to be pointed out as such.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, I was just re-reading the last page or two and was about to admonish Kimstu for his use of the word bigot, but since you have decided to take the law into your own hands, he gets a pass and you do not.

If you need to be childish, go to the Pit.

[ /Moderating ]

310

[QUOTE=Valteron]
Wow, Tom, you are lashing out a bit all over the place here, much like I used to do in my bad old days. :stuck_out_tongue: I have learned not to get mad at being contradicted.
[/QUOTE]
What ARE you on about? I asked a specific question that you have now answered. In other words, a snapshot was taken of the world in which a specific set of circumstances are operating over a fairly small (five year?) period from which you wish to extrapolate grand claims about a billion people on the earth throughout history.

I’m not mad, I am bemused (now that I am sure that my understanding of your claim is correct) at the lack of logic in your argument.

311

[QUOTE=Valteron]
Coincidental? I guess if a fact goes against your viewpoint, it is easier to push it away as a coincidence. Also, I note that Harris, whom you admit you have not actually read, is one of those people with an agenda. Funny how it is always the people we disagree with who have an “agenda”. What about you Tom? Do you have an agenda other than Truth and Justice? Or are you agenda-free?
[/QUOTE]
Harris hads an agenda. Everyone who has posted favorably about him has claimed that he has an agenda–that of getting people to give up religious belief.

I am still willing to read his works, but if they are as poorly argued as your quotations and the two Op-Ed pieces I saw linked, I am going to wind up very disappointed.

It appears, (subject to revision when I get a chance to read a fuller work) that he is the atheist C.S. Lewis. They each make a lot of points in a clear style to which their normal audiences can nod their heads. They each make a great witness for those things that their audiences already do [not] believe. They periodically provide profound statements that should give people who agree or disagree pause to ponder. However, they gets rather squishy in arguments addressing a knowledgeable reader who does not already subscribe to their [lack of] beliefs.

312

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Actually, I was just re-reading the last page or two and was about to admonish Kimstu for his use of the word bigot, but since you have decided to take the law into your own hands, he gets a pass and you do not.

If you need to be childish, go to the Pit.

[ /Moderating ]
[/QUOTE]

Ahh, well this is wonderful. You ackowledge that Kimstu was out of line, but because I responded to her lame, childish tactics while drawing attention to their lameness and childishness, her transgression is forgiven because you view mine as worse.

Your reasoning gets more, more, let’s say* interesting* all the time.

And least you obeyed my order and didn’t TWEET me. We are making progress. :slight_smile:

313

Lighten up. I did not give you a Warning. I simply noted (again) that you are unable to follow the rules or play nice with others.
I am fairly sure that Kimstu is capable of reading this exchage and recognizing that she was out of line.
You, I’m not so sure.

314

[QUOTE=Mapache]
Actually, QG, it wasn’t a long time ago; it’s still going on. Those of you who live in the USA, or anywhere that the Catholic Church is a minority religion andrestricted by the Constitution in their behavior
[/quote]

The restrictions in the US on the Roman Catholic Church are the same restrictions applied to other religions. It doesn’t if it’s a minority or a majority religion.

By “get away with it,” do you happen to mean “operate within the law of the country concerned”?

Did the RCC send them out to do that or does it just happen to be these particular lawbreakers are Catholic?

May we see a citation for this, please?

Or even for this? By the way, “Opus Dei thugs”? Am I now reading another Dan Brown novel?

I’m under the impression that someone who publicly instigates an illegal act is also breaking the law. Is that not the same where you are?

Yeah, look at the oppression this thread’s OP wants to implement!

315

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Lighten up. I did not give you a Warning. I simply noted (again) that you are unable to follow the rules or play nice with others.
I am fairly sure that Kimstu is capable of reading this exchage and recognizing that she was out of line.
You, I’m not so sure.
[/QUOTE]

Me? I’m all lightened up. But since almost three-and-a-half hours transpired between her transgression and my response, may I suggest you spend a little less time protecting Islam and a littler more time doing what your title indicates you should be doing. After all, both halves of that equation will lead to a better, more peaceful world. :wink:

Onward.

316

[QUOTE=magellan01]
Me? I’m all lightened up. But since almost three-and-a-half hours transpired between her transgression and my response, may I suggest you spend a little less time protecting Islam and a littler more time doing what your title indicates you should be doing. After all, both halves of that equation will lead to a better, more peaceful world. :wink:
[/QUOTE]
Did you suffer badly in those three and a half hours? Did your computer fail to give you access to click the “report this post” icon? I admit that among chasing down the irrelevant links that you and Valteron provided, helping my son fix his bike, cooking supper for the family, and checking my e-mail for reported posts, I did not examine every other post looking for transgressions. Note that I did find it, however.

317

I’ve been following along with the give and take in this thread, and at this point I cannot for the life of me see what the OP thinks he’s doing here, unless his primary intent is to attempt to whip up hatred of muslims. Well, clearly he wants a fight with tomndebb as well, but that’s another issue.

I’ve read the various cites put forward in favor of the OP’s premise and all I can say about them is this: I have for more than twenty years worked for a European-based oilfield service company that has operated in Muslim-dominated countries for decades. I personally have worked for extended periods in Egypt and Tunisia, and have visited Abu Dhabi on business, and am fully convinced that each of those locations is governed with repressive policies that I would not much care to live under. Nevertheless, these are policies of governments, not individuals.

I worked with mainly muslim personnel in the countries mentioned above, probably totalling more than 20 people. As a company trainer based in Paris from 1990 to 1998, I also routinely taught classes made up entirely of Libyan and Iranian personnel, among others. Currently, in our US-based operation, we have at least 10 muslims working for us in various capacities, who are mainly emigrants from Pakistan, the Persian Gulf region, and the Sudan.

In all that time not a single one of my muslim colleagues has ever indicated the slightest resentment over my enjoyment of any of the things the OP claims all muslims are fighting to abolish, such my dietary habits, my affinity for the grape, my moderately liberal western outlook, my sexual habits or mode of dress. None has ever made the slightest attempt, either here or in the countries I’ve visited, to convert me to Islam, at the point of a sword or by any other means. None has ever expressed a particular desire to see western civilisation brought down. None, to my knowledge, had ever participated in anti-western activities, but of course I could not known every one of their beliefs and intentions.

I’ve had a few set-to’s with some of these people here and there, but the issues in every case I can remember were either personal or based around one’s method of speech or mannerisms; in other words the sort of cultural misunderstandings that can happen anywhere. The fact is, I’ve seen more casual anti-American bigotry from French or British people (and please understand, that was not a lot) than I ever did in North Africa or the Middle East.

Based on my own experiences, I therefore must say that I don’t think the OP’s premise holds much water.

Although the OP seems unwilling to come out and say so, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that he is advocating the repression of all muslims based on the actions of a few. This seems hardly likely to promote greater tolerance of western liberalism than already exists among the muslim population. Since I cannot agree that counter-bigotry is the appropriate response to bigotry in others, I have to reject the OP’s arguments in favor of such coutner-bigotry.

318

The problem here seems to me that one side is too willing to smear an entire religion, while other side is too willing to yell “Bigot!” when someone points out problems within the religion.

Tell me: After the 7th or 8th time a priest was charged with molesting a child, would I have been a bigot if I posted a message wondering if there was something wrong with the Catholic church today? How about if the Church turned out to have a history of burying knowledge of said incidents, or of otherwise treating the issue in a way that we saw as being inappropriate for its severity?

If Christian fundamentalist leaders started calling for the deaths of various ‘enemies of the faith’, and followers around the world began carrying out these wishes, would I be a bigot if I wondered if something was wrong with fundamentalist Christianity as it is being practiced today?

Islam may be a fine religion. I’m sure the vast majority of Muslims just want to go to work, raise their kids, enjoy their lives, and worship God in a way of their choosing.

But there is definitely something rotten in the core of organized Islam today. There are far too many Mosques teaching hatred - not just in the Middle East, but throughout the world. There are far too many Muslims willing to resort to violence in the name of their faith. There are far too many Muslim leaders who are unwilling to denounce the violence of some Muslims.

I remember immediately after 9-11, there was an interview with a leading Muslim scholar in Britain. He started out with boilerplate lamenting the loss of life in the attack, and then immediately launched into an attack on the west in the context of explaining how you could understand why they happened. The west did A,B, and C, and got attacked for it. He might as well have said, “Go team!”

When lunatic religious leaders issue Fatwas calling for the killing of authors and moviemakers, there’s not nearly enough condemnation of it from the Muslim community. Again, if Jerry Falwell came out tomorrow and said, “I call upon my followers to kill Al Franken”, there would be an uproar from within the Christian community. If someone did go on to kill Franken, and then James Dobson came out and said, “Good work, Christians. Now kill that bastard Bono.”, there would be dozens of threads on this board tearing apart fundamentalist Christianity.

I’ve posted the links many times to various polls gauging reaction to 911 and support for Bin Laden in the Muslim world, and it’s distressingly high, ranging from as high as 65% in countries like Pakistan to 15-20% in countries like Indonesia. That’s not ‘a few Muslims’ - that’s hundreds of millions of them. Countries like Denmark are facing severe threats from within the Muslim population - enough to create a chilling effect on that society.

When the cartoons depicting Muhammed were published, it wasn’t just a couple of crazies who reacted violently to it. There were riots around the world. The cartoonists had to go into hiding in fear for their lives. Newspapers and TV programs caved into pressure immediately and refused to air them. Many of them were quite candid why: They were afraid. I think it was CNN who flatly said they didn’t have the right to risk the lives of their employees by making an editorial decision. The threat of Muslim violence acted as a chilling effect on the expression of free speech, and that is flatly unacceptable.

You can separate the current structure of ‘organized’ Islam from Islam as a faith, and you can separate Islam as a faith from Muslims as people. Only criticism of Muslims as a group because they are Muslims constitutes bigotry.

Reasonable arguments can be made about the current state of Islam, both pro and con, without engaging in bigotry.

319

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
Tell me: After the 7th or 8th time a priest was charged with molesting a child, would I have been a bigot if I posted a message wondering if there was something wrong with the Catholic church today?
[/quote]

Yes, because, you see, 7 or 8 incidents when there are thousands (maybe tens of) priests and millions of Catholics is hardly indicative of a major trend.

Again, depends on the numbers, the circumstances, etc.

See above. You can’t take a few or a dozen or even a hundred examples and think with any logic that that tiny proportion of the whole is representative of the whole. Hell’s bells, I’m by no means a math whiz but it hasn’t taken me years to grasp this very simple concept. Evidence is not evidence unless it’s got some sort of weight behind it.

“A” Muslim scholar.

How do you know? Do you attend mosque weekly to hear what’s said there? Do you get Arabic newspapers?

How much international news do you hear? Seriously. How much of the day-to-day business do you hear from any of the Muslim countries? For that matter from anyplace else on earth?

Do you mean that survey?.

Oh ye gods. Must the right to ‘free speech’ be fought in defense of insulting another’s religion? What about the brouhaha in the US over the Chocolate Jesus?

More to the point, what about Americans threatening to kill other Americans who spoke against Bush and the war? That’s ok, I guess, because it’s white people on this side of the pond.

320

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
How do you know? Do you attend mosque weekly to hear what’s said there? Do you get Arabic newspapers?
[/QUOTE]

Now, now. And if he did, would you accept? No. You and others would claim “…b..b..b..but it’s only one mosque…some papers…”.

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
More to the point, what about Americans threatening to kill other Americans who spoke against Bush and the war? That’s ok, I guess, because it’s white people on this side of the pond.
[/QUOTE]

:rolleyes: Uh, what about it? How many people were in fact killed for speakiing against the war and Bush. For that matter, I’ll ask for a cite concerning the threats themselves.