The average Muslim doesn’t fly planes into buildings and the average Christian doesn’t act like Fred Phelps (he of www.godhatesfags.com) however some complain that Muslims don’t do enough to protest terrorist actions commited in the name of their religion and others complain when Christians don’t go out of their way to distance themselves from the fanatics.
Does an adhearant have a moral or ethical obligation to make their voices heard when they dissaprove the way a minority are representing their religious beliefs, especially when the minority is getting all of the ink, so to speak?
It seems to me that if I thought that someone was misrepresenting my God that my God would want me to represent a little better myself and that would therefore make me morally obligated, but how does this obligation manifest itself? Do I have to take to the streets in protest or is knowing in my heart enough?
The problem is, it’s very difficult to passionately advocate being reasonable.
Mainstream clerics and members of every faith do condemn the acts of extremists, but, because this is reasonable behaviour, it doesn’t make the headlines in the same way that fanaticism does. A press release expressing support for the law isn’t as newsworthy as a street protest in favour of breaking it.
Let’s say you are an adherent to a viewpoint that in its entirety is often cast as “extreme” or dismissed out-of-hand as nutso fringe stuff.
Sometimes having some extremists who adhere to your viewpoint but take it way out to the nth degree can simultaneously draw general attention and make the nonextremists among you sound a lot more reasonable in contrast. Especially if the extremists enunciate their position well, are internally self-consistent, and don’t come across as batshit nutso except for the extremity of their position.
Greenpeace probably benefits the Audubon Society. PETA probably does not benefit the Humane Society. Fred Phelps was probably once appreciated more by the Southern Baptist Conference, but I would imagine less so since he began protesting against the armed forces and picketing folks’ funerals and whatnot. Martin Luther King is often said to have been the beneficiary of Malcolm X being around. The Mental Health Consumer’s Association no doubt likes having us Mental Patients’ Liberation Front types around, and many of us in turn have a secret fondness for Lenny Lapon and Leonard Roy Frank. (“Why no, our little group doesn’t think psychiatrists should be put on trial for crimes against humanity, although certainly some branches of the movement do. I just want an end to forced treatment. I’m even OK with electroshock remaining legal, as long as it’s with fully informed consent and passes a fresh new application for safety with the FDA instead of being grandfathered in. See how reasonable we are?”)
To answer the question, I think mainstream adherents have an obligation to denounce extremist behavior within their general faction if and when the extremists begin doing actual damage, or if and when the extremists begin monopolizing the agenda. In the former case, the obligation is to the general public; in the latter case, the obligation is to themselves as moderates.
exackly. for example, the fact that the london subway bombers had been kicked out of at least one church for their extremism isn’t as juicy as finding some fringe church that supports them.
IMO, demonizing muslims as a whole only feeds the extremist factions and increases their desire to be naughty.
