Note that the “21%” refers to Muslims guessing regarding support among other Muslims and does not represent actual attitudes discerned through scientific polls. I have seen “estimates” by Americans that the Tea Party movement makes up 30% - 40% of the entire U.S. population, (or Tea Party guesses that they make up 60% of the population), when in reality, they have only made it to 18% of the just the Republican party.
I already noted similar numbers in my post, contrasted against
So more non-Muslim Americans than Muslim Americans support violence against civilians.
The link takes one to an abstract page from which one can click on the Full Report that include the following observations:
And the accompanying chart to this second paragraph shows that absolute opposition to suicide bombings among U.S. Muslims was up to 81% in 2011 from 78% in 2007, so the numbers were trending away from support for terrorism.
Those that endorsed suicide bombings (in any context at all) dropped from 22% to 19%, which is to say down by 1/7th, pretty significant in only 4 years I’d say. At that rate there’d be none in 30 years.
The more important figure notes that non-Muslim Americans are more comfortable with killing civilians than Muslim Americans are. Nice attempt to change the subject, though.
I am sorry to be such a pest…the statement I’m trying to get you to support is the one you reiterated in Post 101:
"Of course, when similar questions were asked of the general American population, 24% said that bomb attacks aimed at civilians are “often or sometimes justified” while another 6% said they were “completely justified.”
“So more non-Muslim Americans than Muslim Americans support violence against civilians.” (underlining by CP)
I did look over the entire Pew report, and I just can’t seem to figure out where it gives this number, which I find extraordinary.
I may be just too slow to figure this out, but it seems to me that you are saying the Pew report polling supports a notion that 24% of the general American population supports bomb attacks aimed at civilians, and 6% of them feel such attacks are completely justified. Further, it seems to me you suggest these percentages are much higher than they are within the Muslim community.
Do I have that correct, and if so can you help me find it in the Pew report you cite?
cp
It’s not a Straw Man (hint: you said something and I directly responded to it) and I’m not changing the subject anymore than your “off-hand comment” was.
I also think it’s pertinent that the question isn’t "bomb attacks aimed at civilians are “often or sometimes justified” as tomndebb has paraphrased it, it is “suicide bombing/other violence against civilians is justified to defend Islam against it’s enemies… Often/sometimes/rarely never”, and 13% American Muslims have picked Often/sometimes/rarely (almost entirely sometimes/rarely).
You posted a single snide comment that implied that the trend was insignificant followed by an off-topic claim that the trend was the result of bribery. Had I made a claim that the trending was significant, you might have a point, but I did not and you do not. In fact, you bring nothing of substance to the discussion.
‘Similar’ doesn’t tell you much of anything though. I can come up with plenty of scenarios in which bomb attacks on civilians can sometimes be justified, so if just asked “Can bomb attacks on civilians be justified”, I would say yes, sometimes. Are they justified in the ‘defence of Islam against its enemies’?
Just made the one small observation that you want to make an extended blustering empty reply to. I’ll leave you to the burning question of whether Muslims are people too.
I don’t have that book, but juxtaposing those two sources (the Pew report and this one) as if they created a parallel is highly suspect.
Support for extremism (as demonstrated, for example, by support for the idea of a blindly-directed attack on innocents) is vastly more common among Muslims than any other broad category bounded by religions or political affiliations, and certainly more prevalent among Muslims than “the general American population.”
(Would you mind listing the reference 77 which Esposito’s book is supposedly using as support for this?)