If you believe in Islamophobia...

[blastingcap]

There are people out there who know nothing about Islam but denounce it anyway. Some call them Islamophobes.

There are people out there who know nothing about Islam but support it anyway. Call them what you will.

There are also people out there who know plenty about Islam and denounce it as well. Call us sane. Don't call us Islamophobes, especially if you are one of those people who knows nothing about Islam. Instead of saying "Most Muslims aren't like that," please educate yourself first and realize that Muslims living in the West are not representative of Muslims worldwide but nevertheless have the potential to become radicalized like in Belgium if they don't integrate and becomes secular. And keep in mind that they didn't poll some of the more extreme Muslim countries, so the averages you see are actually understatements of how extreme most Muslims are.

www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-problem-with-moderate-muslims/

Also note that in many Muslim-majority countries, it is illegal to build churches/temples of other religions, or in some cases even own a Bible or other non-Islamic text? In some cases if you aren't the "right" sect of Islam then you are beaten up and killed, too? Even in supposedly "moderate" places like Indonesia and Turkey?

http://www.newsweek.com/persecution-indonesias-ahmadi-muslims-68737

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/dec/17/turkey.international

Why is this? If one decries hardcore fundamentalist cults/churches like Westboro Baptist (the infamous "GodHatesFags" church), many people are ok with that. But the same people rush in kneejerk "defenses" of Islam. Is it because they are ignorant? Do they not realize that Islam has not had a Reformation and still says stuff like how women's testimony is worth 1/4 that of a man's, allows honor killings, tolerates slavery, and where leaving Islam (going atheist or converting to another religion) or being gay is punishable by death?

You can't have it both ways: Either you are for minorities' rights, including women's rights and gay rights and freedom from slavery and freedom to practice whatever religion you choose, or you are with Islam.

The worst part is how under Islamic law, apostates should be given the death penalty, and how a surprisingly high percentage of the Muslim world agrees with this penalty. So many people feel intimidated when they try to leave. http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/ (Ask Muslims in Muslim-majority countries how they feel pressured to toe the line: https://www.reddit.com/r/exmuslim )

This is a map of states that have the death penalty for apostasy (also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam and http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/05/28/which-countries-still-outlaw-apostasy-and-blasphemy/ ):

This is for fun:

 

[alcoholbob]

Liberals want to turn the West into al-Andalus yet think it's going to turn out differently this time, because reasons.

 

[feralkid]

Liberals want to turn the West into al-Andalus yet think it's going to turn out differently this time, because reasons.

No they don't, you silly goose.

 

[Moonbeam]

Another word for brain dead is fear. There aren't many Muslims where I am, but there's lots of fear mongering Christians. Would you please kill all of them for me. Mass murder is the proper response, no, when the other guy is evil. And I know better than all others on this planet, what evil is. Hahahahahahahaha. Kill kill!!!!!!!!!!

If you are really so afraid to live, why brick yourself up in a cave instead of wishing death on the rest of the human race. Think of the children who aren't mentally ill yet.

Fear turns people into shit. And where, do you suppose, you will find the enlarged amygdalas?

 

[MongGrel]

Liberals want to turn the West into al-Andalus yet think it's going to turn out differently this time, because reasons.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Liberals want to turn the West into al-Andalus yet think it's going to turn out differently this time, because reasons.

Seriously, why the heck would you bother posting something so bloody nonsensical.

 

[Moonbeam]

Seriously, why the heck would you bother posting something so bloody nonsensical.

Nonsensical is in the eye of the beholder. Scientific research into conservative and liberal brain differences reveal the peer reviewed fact that conservatives more than liberals rationalize away things that affect their ego notions negatively. They allow fear to influence the direction of their thinking, allow, as in can't help it.

The only cure I can see is to find a cure for irrational fear. It certainly won't be reason or good sense since that is exactly their problem.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

There are also people out there who know plenty about Islam and denounce it as well. Call us sane. Don't call us Islamophobes, especially if you are one of those people who knows nothing about Islam. Instead of saying "Most Muslims aren't like that," please educate yourself first and realize that Muslims living in the West are not representative of Muslims worldwide but nevertheless have the potential to become radicalized like in Belgium if they don't integrate and becomes secular. And keep in mind that they didn't poll some of the more extreme Muslim countries, so the averages you see are actually understatements of how extreme most Muslims are.

Be careful what you post. Some mamby-pamby SJW nutjob might blow the content of your posts out of proportion and context and start screaming that you're advocating genocide and racial hatred.

 

[alcoholbob]

Seriously, why the heck would you bother posting something so bloody nonsensical.

Because I knew it would give you a rise.

 

[Vic]

Americans don't agree with each other, but we're supposed to believe that people from other countries are all in lockstep agreement. Christians don't always see eye to eye with each other, but supposedly Muslims do. Other countries have laws that persecute religious minorities, we need to do the same in order to not be like them.
If you stop and apply a little logic, it's easy to see why the fearmongerers are not sane.

 

[michal1980]

Americans don't agree with each other, but we're supposed to believe that people from other countries are all in lockstep agreement. Christians don't always see eye to eye with each other, but supposedly Muslims do. Other countries have laws that persecute religious minorities, we need to do the same in order to not be like them.
If you stop and apply a little logic, it's easy to see why the fearmongerers are not sane.

ahh more bigotry from the left.

Everyone that disagrees with the left is a racist, or a nut job, or not sane.

Except you know Mulsims, because even though they disagree with most liberal teachings they must be embraced.

 

[Vic]

ahh more bigotry from the left.

Everyone that disagrees with the left is a racist, or a nut job, or not sane.

Except you know Mulsims, because even though they disagree with most liberal teachings they must be embraced.

You're not very smart, but you sure do try hard at being stupid.

Read the OP again. He was the one who said that this opinion that all (or most) Muslims are in agreement was the only sane opinion.
As for Muslims, I know that there are evil people among them. Just like I know that there are evil people among Christians and among Americans. And also among every other religion and nationality, race and creed, there are both good people and bad people.
The issue here is judging people based on arbitrary tribal affiliations, instead of each person's individual merits.

Which begs the question, why are today's "conservatives" so adamant in judging people by their affiliations rather than their merits? The answer IMO is entitlement. You might be a loser, but you're a white Christian conservative loser, not some godless infidel. You might have dropped out of high school, but you're still smarter than any "liberal sheeple," even the educated and successful ones. You might have a criminal record, but at least you're not a "thug." And you might want laws that violate the Constitutional rights of others, but they won't affect you, so you're still a "small government patriot." Because you deserve more than they do.

 

[realibrad]

You're not very smart, but you sure do try hard at being stupid.

Read the OP again. He was the one who said that this opinion that all (or most) Muslims are in agreement was the only sane opinion.
As for Muslims, I know that there are evil people among them. Just like I know that there are evil people among Christians and among Americans. And also among every other religion and nationality, race and creed, there are both good people and bad people.
The issue here is judging people based on arbitrary tribal affiliations, instead of each person's individual merits.

Which begs the question, why are today's "conservatives" so adamant in judging people by their affiliations rather than their merits? The answer IMO is entitlement. You might be a loser, but you're a white Christian conservative loser, not some godless infidel. You might have dropped out of high school, but you're still smarter than any "liberal sheeple," even the educated and successful ones. You might have a criminal record, but at least you're not a "thug." And you might want laws that violate the Constitutional rights of others, but they won't affect you, so you're still a "small government patriot." Because you deserve more than they do.

It depends on the affiliation right? I mean, if you are saying that judging people on affiliations is bad, then I suppose you would have no problem with having a child molester watch your children, as child molester is just an affiliation. Or maybe you are saying that we should not be judging people off their affiliation based on their beliefs. In that case, if you had a 12yo son, would you feel safe letting a people from NAMBLA watch your son?

The point is that Islamic terrorism accounts for a disproportionate amount of terrorism in the world. Even in the west, where Muslims are far more likely to have a better life, we still see a disproportionate amount of terrorism.

What about being Muslim makes people do more terrorism then other groups?

As an atheist, I don't think one religion is right and because Islam is just as wrong as any other religion, I make my observation from what people claiming to be Muslims do.

Also, did you look at the links the OP posted? I bet not, because if you did, you would have seen that generally, Muslims are in agreement about some scary things. Take a look, and realize that its correct to say that they are in agreement on many things.

 

[Vic]

It depends on the affiliation right? I mean, if you are saying that judging people on affiliations is bad, then I suppose you would have no problem with having a child molester watch your children, as child molester is just an affiliation. Or maybe you are saying that we should not be judging people off their affiliation based on their beliefs. In that case, if you had a 12yo son, would you feel safe letting a people from NAMBLA watch your son?

The point is that Islamic terrorism accounts for a disproportionate amount of terrorism in the world. Even in the west, where Muslims are far more likely to have a better life, we still see a disproportionate amount of terrorism.

What about being Muslim makes people do more terrorism then other groups?

As an atheist, I don't think one religion is right and because Islam is just as wrong as any other religion, I make my observation from what people claiming to be Muslims do.

Also, did you look at the links the OP posted? I bet not, because if you did, you would have seen that generally, Muslims are in agreement about some scary things. Take a look, and realize that its correct to say that they are in agreement on many things.

Not wanting a child molester to babysit my child would be a decision based on that person's individual lack of merit, and not because of their group affiliation. Molesting a child is a genuine criminal act, which they must have committed in order to be part of that group.

Based on what the media tells us, a lot of people would believe that it's correct to say that all Christians are in agreement against gay rights and same-sex marriage, but that would actually be wrong. Large numbers of Christians, including some major denominations, support such rights. And a lot people believe it's correct to say that all Christians believe in Creationism, yet the largest of all Christian denominations teaches the big bang and evolution.

 

[realibrad]

Not wanting a child molester to babysit my child would be a decision based on that person's individual lack of merit, and not because of their group affiliation. Molesting a child is a genuine criminal act, which they must have committed in order to be part of that group.

Based on what the media tells us, a lot of people would believe that it's correct to say that all Christians are in agreement against gay rights and same-sex marriage, but that would actually be wrong. Large numbers of Christians, including some major denominations, support such rights. And a lot people believe it's correct to say that all Christians believe in Creationism, yet the largest of all Christian denominations teaches the big bang and evolution.

And they would be wrong about those issues. For fun though, how do most Muslims feel about gays?

There is not parity on many important issues. Far too many Christians blocked gay rights. That said, far fewer Muslims are for gay rights compared to Christians.

The point that the OP was making, is that Muslims on far too many issues are not progressive which leads to bad outcomes.

Why do you think Muslims commit terrorism in far greater numbers when compared to Buddhists, or Christians?

 

[MajinCry]

If you wouldn't want a child molester to babysit your kids, how'd you feel about having someone who idolizes a child molester to babysit your kids? Mohamed often molested Aisha whilst she was on her period, and she was a nine year old girl.

Bukhari Volume 1, Book 6, Number 298 - "The Prophet and I used to take a bath from a single pot while we were Junub. During the menses, he used to order me to put on an Izar (dress worn below the waist) and used to fondle me. While in Itikaf, he used to bring his head near me and I would wash it while I used to be in my periods (menses)."

Now, call me crazy, but if someone worshipped Jimmy Saville as a prophet of Yahweh, I'd think much less of them. I wouldn't even leave them alone in the same room with my mother, nor my sisters.

And Jimmy Saville is nowhere near as monstrous as Mohamed; yet to hear of Saville hunting down women and taking them as sex slaves (Sahih Muslim Book 8, Number 3433), nor have I heard of Saville instructing men how to rape sex slaves (Bukhari Volume 3, Book 34, Number 432). Mohamed? Oh, you betcha.

 

[blastingcap]

Read the OP again. He was the one who said that this opinion that all (or most) Muslims are in agreement was the only sane opinion.

Don't put words in my mouth. I was saying that people who use the term "islamophobe" indiscriminately should think again, because it does not apply to all people, and it's hypocritical since those very same people are often the ones saying stuff like "not all Muslims are like that." Well no shit, but not all people labeled as Islamophobes are against Islam due to ignorance or bigotry, either. Let that thought sink in.

I did not say a negative opinion of Islam was "the only sane opinion." And nowhere did I say that all Muslims are in agreement--in fact I did the EXACT OPPOSITE and linked to the Pew poll. In other words, I would be the FIRST to tell you that Muslims do not all think alike.

The point you seem to be missing is that Muslims in the US hold views that are non-representative of the average Muslim worldwide. Muslims in the US tend to be more secular, and more tolerant of other religions... that's great, but that's only something like 3 or 4 million people out of a worldwide Muslim population of 1.6 BILLION people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States#Demographics (Side note: American blacks who convert to Islam because they are pissed off that slavery existed in the US under Christianity are completely ironic morons IMHO. The slave trade in Africa flourished under Islam, the Quran's precious Prophet owned slaves himself, etc. In fact, Saudi Arabia didn't ban slavery until the 1962, almost a CENTURY LATER than in the USA and only because of international outcry, not due to a religious change of heart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline)

You are right, we can draw distinctions:

The problem is definitely not Ibadis... Allah bless them. It ain't the Shiites either. (Although Shia-controlled states like Iran and Syria harbored AQ for years and during the 2003 Iraqi war, they did so apparently to try to strike back at the US and Israel, and as part of their endless attempts to try to deflect attention away from their minority status and towards hating Israel and the US instead. Twelver Shia are not inherently as crazy as Sunnis because they have basically be definition already made innovations on the Quran and thus can't be as hardcore fundie.) You can strip out some other minor sects like the Ahmadiyya, too.

No, the single biggest problem is Sunni Islam--particularly the Wahhabi school coming out of the Gulf states like Saudi Arabia. That strain has infiltrated Sunnis worldwide.. and unfortunately Sunnis are by far the largest sect (about 85%). There are various schools of thought in Sunni Islam, ranging from the *relatively* benign (Turkey) to the hardcore fundie (Saudi Arabia, Daesh, AQ, etc.).

I could go on but I don't want people to miss the key points:

1. American Muslims are 3-4 million total, out of 1.6 billion Muslims, and are typically way the hell more integrated and secular than your average Muslim worldwide. By and large, American Muslims already in the US aren't the problem.

2. The use of the term "moderate" Muslim or "moderate" Islam has been abused to the point where it's meaningless. The hidden assumption when people use terms like "moderates" is that the moderates outnumber the "extremists." But what if the so-called "extremists" outnumber the moderates? So I think we ought to use terms like, secularist vs fundamentalist instead of moderate vs extreme.

I encourage people to look at the Pew poll results to get an idea of what the "average Muslim" thinks, though in actuality the average Muslim is probably even harder core than what that poll says, because they didn't poll the harder-core fundie states. Furthermore, one needs to weight the polls by population so big-population countries like Pakistan and Indonesia weigh more heavily than smaller countries.

Furthermore, people should look at what life is like for non-Muslims and for secularist Muslims in Muslim-majority countries. In many such countries, Secularists are beaten, killed (https://news.vice.com/article/fourt...year-hacked-to-death-by-machete-wielding-gang), and marginalized:
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-problem-with-moderate-muslims/
http://www.copticsolidarity.org/med...-later-egypt-yet-to-rebuild-scorched-churches

3. And to end this as I began: indiscriminate use of the term "Islamophobia" is wrong and offensive. There are many people out there--including many ex-Muslims (https://www.reddit.com/r/exmuslim)--who dislike Islam not because of xenophobia but because we've examined the scriptures and practices and found it silly and/or repugnant.

I don't blame most Americans for thinking that anti-Islamic sentiment is just cover for racism or xenophobia or whatever, because I was one of those people who figured that a popular "religion" like Islam couldn't be that bad. Right? Right?

But in recent years I looked into the topic myself and what I found was truly disturbing. Many Americans and the American media are clueless about what the Quran and Hadiths actually say, how the Quran be used to justify almost anything due to the schizophrenic Mecca vs. Medina books of the Quran (Mo preached love and tolerance in Mecca but as his armies grew in strength he started preaching war and intolerance against infidels as an excuse to make war and capture land/women/property, and most Islamic scholars believe in abrogation meaning that the warlike later passages override the peaceful earlier passages... but some imams try to hide this dirty laundry by trying to ignore the warlike passages as best as they can).

Many people are also unaware that the most severe strains of Islam have grown rather than shrunk over the years. Unlike Christian-majority countries which have been on a long glide-path towards secular atheism, Muslim-majority countries have grown MORE severe than 60 years ago. You can see for yourself by looking at photos of, say, college students in Egypt or Afghanistan in the 1950s and comparing that to today. (One could argue that this is the result of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which tried to get various peoples and sects to work together. Post-collapse, Saudi Arabia, with British support, picked up the slack as the spiritual leader of Sunni Muslims. Unfortunately this meant that any messages of Ottoman tolerance were replaced by petrodollar-funded Wahhabi propaganda instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism)

Regarding Saudi Arabia, due to our addiction to oil, we've looked the other way for far too long. It's an unnatural and terrible alliance we have with Saudi Arabia, and in order to break it without collapsing our economy, we need to get off oil and replace it with renewables or something else.

 

[OutHouse]

here are the moderate muslims.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=319_1424442183

 

[Victorian Gray]

here are the moderate muslims.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=319_1424442183

And these are your neighbours.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2015/nov/21/american-muslims-in-united-states-photographs

 

[OutHouse]

And these are your neighbours.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2015/nov/21/american-muslims-in-united-states-photographs

and what are their answers to the questions the imam ask in the video i posted??

 

[Victorian Gray]

and what are their answers to the questions the imam ask in the video i posted??

Fear, why do you let it rule your life.

People like you are being played by the assholes in Daesh on the one hand and by the anti-Muslim propagandists like Geller on the other. Played like Paganini's favorite violin.

 

[OutHouse]

Fear, why do you let it rule your life.

People like you are being played by the assholes in Daesh on the one hand and by the anti-Muslim propagandists like Geller on the other. Played like Paganini's favorite violin.

would you call the muslims in that video moderates?

 

[sportage]

I'm confused....
Do we now "LIKE" hispanics?
Or did we just add Muslims to the hate list?
Please clarify, white folks.

 

[Omar F1]

Do you seriously think you have became expert on Islamic religion matters, based on your research? Yes or No please.

Also, do you think that the majority of Islamic scholars and most of muslim individuals are blatantly lying to the west, when we claim that IS does not represent Islam in any way?

Is there the slightest chance that myself, whom never sat a foot on US soil, could possibly be more educated and knowledgeable about the US' many social/federal/state systems, history and the average life of American citizens, more than the educated American scholars themselves?
Taking into consideration that I've read a few books/articles, followed the news and watched many movies.

Can I have unbiased/rational answer here...

 

[KMFJD]