It’s the exact same reasoning as you used. A small minority of the followers of a religion does horrible things to innocent people so everybody who follows that religion must be horrible people. And it’s actually even more on point for the Catholic example, since the RCC is 100% more centralized and authoritarian than Islam, and the Church hierarchy has proven in the last ten or fifteen years that the pedophile priest problem really isn’t that important a problem at all, and even if it is, it’s a problem caused by somebody other than the Catholic hierarchy.
You cannot implicate an entire religion based on the actions of a very small proportion of the membership, most which very small proportion are nutters and reprobates.
Depends. If they invoke the doctrine of the KKK, particularly if by name, and it happens with more than one church-burning group, I’m absolutely going to hold the KKK complicit.
Yes, it is a reaction. After 9/11 we were desperate to believe, with the great urging of our leaders, that the murderous even was the work of just a small band and had nothing or little to do with a religion with over a billion adherents. We were asked to ignore the previous WTC bombing, The USS Cole, Bali,etc. And we went down that road. But we now see that it wasn’t just those few guys. After the bombings in Spain and England, the other attempts in the U.S., the Fort Hood shooting, as well as the other murders by a member of our own military at the beginning of the Iraq war, we’re re-evaluating that analysis. We’re reacting now to a fuller picture, one in which 9/11 is the focal point, but not sole event.
Of course you can! He just did. Do try and keep up, won’t you?
And this would be a good time to metnion that at no time has anyone suffered a terrorist attack by fanatical, fundamentalist Unitarians. Just thought I’d point that out. Carry on.
You’re forgetting that something like 28% of Muslims believe that the murdering of innocents is justifiable or sometimes justifiable.
And if you (pl) had a young boy who was an alter boy and didn’t immediately become wary of the program and the church after the facts came to light, you’d be a fool and a horrible parent.
And what makes you think the percentage of Christians or Jews or Hindus or whatever isn’t just as high? At least as high; look at all the support from Christian Americans for killing tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Not to mention all the other hundreds of thousands of innocents we’ve killed over the years, to the cheers of an adoring American public.
I think it would probably be like 90% of Americans who think that. They sure don’t have a problem with “collateral damage.” I get savaged on this board every time I say it’s never ok to kill innocent peple.
Yes, it’s obviously become trendy and acceptable to demonize Muslims. I believe most American Evangelical Christians see them as evil and subhuman. Muslims are the new Jews.
I’m not defending the US by pointing out how bad other places are. I’m not even saying these other places are horrible, in several of the situations I link to it’s clear the authorities do not endorse the actions. Germany, Canada, etc actively prosecute violence against Muslims. The Srebrenica massacre has lead to war crime hearings. So don’t make the mistake I’m going ‘These places are horrible, so the US is fine’.
Rather, I’m trying to point out it is not a US only issue. If this is treated as if the preacher in Florida or the 9/11 mosque are the only anti-Islamic things in the world, then the discussion is going to be completely off base on what the problem is. The Americans against Muslims have no influence over people in Canada, Germany, England, etc. Whatever the problem is, it is far wider than just a few moronic pinheads in the US.
:rolleyes: Collateral damage in a war, which we take great pains to minimize, is not even in the same ballpark is intentionally killing innocent people. Period.
I would say that the islamic world has a big problem…most islamic countries do not have many basic freedoms that we in the west take for granted.
However, it seems that in islamic society, it is de riguer to blame the west for everything…from sexual immorality to corruption…those JEWS and CHRISTIANS did it TO US! It is NEVER the fault of islam…always those corrupt westerners, with their immoral behavior! They even don’t stone adultresses!
It is telling that hundreds of muslims died in riots protesting a few cartoons carried in an obscure Danish newspaper-imagine, people actually dying for something that silly.
We did not try to “minimize collateral damage”. On the contrary, we’ve taken a very casual attitude towards killing random Iraqis. We used cluster bombs on Baghdad, we forced citizens trying to flee Fallujah back into the city so the we could kill them later while claiming they were all terrorists (because after all, if they weren’t terrorists they would have fled, right?), we killed people for stepping out of their houses or out of cars because someone stepping out of a house might theoretically be about to attack. And then there’s the fact that the war was wholly unnecessary, an act of pure greed, malice and aggression - we have even less justification for Iraq than Osama had for 9-11.
We took pains to specifically kill civilians in WWII and from my experience, most Americans are fine with it.
And yes, I believe that most Muslims are thinking in terms of collateral damage in self-defense. This suggestion that theyre all bloodthirsty and evil is absurd.
That’s true, the Pentagon and the WTC were perfectly legitimate military targets. We would certainly argue that if we tried to take out similar facilities against an enemy.
I don’t claim to understand the mind of people who think that the rational response to someone burning a book or drawing a cartoon is to kill people, but for you to claim that it is “exactly” the same thing is ridiculous on it’s face. You live in a society that makes distinctions in criminal law depending on intent. Do you think that those laws are wrong. Do you think that if I have an epileptic seizure and wind up veering off the road and killing a child is “exactly” the same as me aiming my car into a playground filled with kids and hitting the accelerator?
