Why do people not like Muslims?

[Ted Striker]

Moderate muslims need to take responsibility for those extremists that take their religion and pervert it for things like Al Queda terrorism.

Never has the Muslim community as a whole openly condemned these groups who intentionally kill innocents in the name of Islam. Ironically it's the clerics in Iraq that have recently shown the most moderation out of all of them, in condemning the horrible acts that have been committed.

I wonder what would have happened had Al Queda detonated the recent chemical bomb in Jordan? Would the Arab and Muslim communities still look the other way?

It's the same thing with the way Catholics have turned a blind eye to all of the priests who have molested all those little kids.

Yes it's the extremists that give the majority of those groups a bad name, but it's also the responsibility of those in the group to say, "hey THAT is not US, those guys are wackos, they are not true Muslims and what they are doing is WRONG."

Why is it so hard for the Muslim and Arab communities to say that?????????


WHY?

[bipolarbear]

Moderate muslims need to take responsibility for those extremists that take their religion and pervert it for things like Al Queda terrorism.

How?

[:) Smiley]

Don't they have some equivalent of excommunication?

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by bipolarbear

How?

All they have to do is speak up. That's it.

When Sistani says something in Iraq, EVERYBODY listens to what he says. Not only that, most of the time alot of people will want to do whatever he says. One of the main reason alot of the hostages were recently released is because many of the clerics condemned the actions and asked for the hostages to be released.

There are no equivalents in the Muslim world of a Sistani. Nobody who has ever stepped up and said, "these guys are not part of what we stand for."

Unless someone wants to educate me on that voice and who exactly it is. And furthermore why I don't hear it.

Recently in the Arab world, the Emir from Qatar spoke up and said that the Arabs need to stop blaming all of their problems on the Israeli-Palestininan conflict. He said that Arab leaders need to look to themselves to fix their own problems which mainly involve the oppression of their own populations.

Really, when you look at it, the Arab and Muslim communities have turned their backs on the Palestinians just as much and probably moreso than anyone else, hijacking them for their own perverted and political purposes.

"Oh damn I just contracted the clap, if those damn Israelis would just free the Palestinians maybe this wouldn't have happened to me."

Then we have posionous networks like Al Jazerra which is the Arab equivalent of the Jerry Springer show except in this case people actually die on the show.

[Zevico]

I try not to think about this too much.
My view is as such: The majority-or at least a very large portion- of Muslims in the world hate Western civilisation or nations and wish them destroyed. They also think that jews are trying to 'take over the world'.
Therefore, I think it quite reasonable that I dislike that segment of the Muslim population of the world, considering they want to kill me and my family. If I met a Muslim that didn't think that "zionists are evil brutal killers" and "the west is evil, bla bla bla bla" or something like that, I'd be fine with them.

[Az]

Intersting thread. I shall return.

[Monk]

My major problem with Islam lies in that it doesn't allow for individualism. The examples are legion with the close ties between religion and politics being the most obvious. I'm aware that religion by definition presupposes submission, but pictures of Muslims gathered in a religous ceremony on their knees, none of their faces (identities) visible, all united and submissive to the highest degree... there's nothing as scary and dangerous as collective identity at this level.

Another example is the need for leaving a permanent mark on children as a religious statement. I can't help but comparing this to the Christian ritual of inaguration that leaves no mark when your hair has dried up and I wonder why this difference exists.

(edit - let's stay with the topic and not begin talking about circumcision's medical benefits etc.)

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

And I find it quite sad that the religion/civilization has been hijacked to such an extent that OBL can attract a large following.

May I point to the 30 Years War?

Yes, you may. Especially since you seem to be advancing the notion that Arabic civilization seems to be stuck 600 years in the past and you see nothing wrong with that.

[Whaleboy]

There's a slight difference between peacekeeping in Kosovo and blowing yourself up in a crowded resteraunt.

Are you sure? If you take military action, you may see as justified others will not concur, and we of all people should understand that. For example, Palestinians will see suicide bombers as freedom fighters wereas you and I see them as murderers. We may see an action as peacekeeping, another will see it as imperialism, and we are no more correct that they are. The person behind the gun is going to have a different opinion to the person in front of it.

You aren't forcing your views on a person by preventing others from forcing their views on that person.

Different context to a libertarian society, so principles of libertarianism are not neutral when we are dealing with a society that does not operate on the same premises we do. Your best bet is to view it as something of a house of cards. Picture our society as one cell, Islam as another. No matter how libertarian or relativist one cell is, forcing that upon another on the same level is not a relativist act. That means one should use the cell resting on both, what I call a "pseudo-objective", which says "to each society, his own".

People are cretins who need an 'other' to bounce their own identities off.

Very true, after all, we all need our enemies, lest we emulate Socrates.

then all Muslims are in fact fundamentalists

That is uninformed BS.

And I find it quite sad that the religion/civilization has been hijacked to such an extent that OBL can attract a large following.

As I said, cause-consequence. Things like that don't happen on their own, and the West is very far from blameless.

the Muslim community as a whole

A contradiction in terms

Therefore, I think it quite reasonable that I dislike that segment of the Muslim population of the world, considering they want to kill me and my family. If I met a Muslim that didn't think that "zionists are evil brutal killers" and "the west is evil, bla bla bla bla" or something like that, I'd be fine with them.

Interesting, you would choose to like or dislike someone based upon their opinions, not their intent to act upon them?

My major problem with Islam lies in that it doesn't allow for individualism. The examples are legion with the close ties between religion and politics being the most obvious. I'm aware that religion by definition presupposes submission, but pictures of Muslims gathered in a religous ceremony on their knees, none of their faces (identities) visible, all united and submissive to the highest degree... there's nothing as scary and dangerous as collective identity at this level.

You'll find that in all the Semitic religions. You'll note that collective worship and rituals is no barrier to individual thought. Indeed, before we started screwing with them, Islamic civilisation was one of the, if not the most enlightened civilisations on the face of this Earth, where men were trained as poets and philosophers.

[Whaleboy]

Yes, you may. Especially since you seem to be advancing the notion that Arabic civilization seems to be stuck 600 years in the past and you see nothing wrong with that.

Specifically, what makes your way the right way and theirs the wrong?

[Monk]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
You'll find that in all the Semitic religions. You'll note that collective worship and rituals is no barrier to individual thought. Indeed, before we started screwing with them, Islamic civilisation was one of the, if not the most enlightened civilisations on the face of this Earth, where men were trained as poets and philosophers.

Are you seriously arguing that collectivism isn't a barrier to individual thought? I hardly know what to say now.

I'm aware of the fact that the Jews are much like the Muslims in this regard, and I do find that questionable as well. The thing is that the Jews are generally well-integrated, self-supporting and educated to an extent significantly above that of the Muslims. And there are a lot less of them, too.

[Jac de Molay]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


All they have to do is speak up. That's it.

Kudos for the best post yet.

There's two problems IMO. The tendency for Islam to almost invariably lash out and blame others for its own problems, and the allowance of the most radical aspects to hijack the religion as a whole. This is happening in too many hotspots to name. It's up to the moderates and scholars to take back their religion, and quickly.

[our_man]

~~~

[Spiffor]

Ted Striker:

It is difficult for a Muslim cleric to speak up and be listened to, because the Sunni are a disorganized bunch, without an equivalent to our pope. You speak about Sistani, and he's a shi'a, a religion where there is a hierarchy, and a main priest (the Ayatollah).
The Sunnis don't have this kind of hirerachy - as such, any imam condemning a barbarous act (and I trust there are some) will do it in his own little corner.

For example, in France we have tried to prop up the leader of the Paris mosque as the main guy in our Muslim scene. He's an agreeable guy who defends the ideas of tolerance and integration in the French society. Whenever the TV needs a PC Muslim, he gets broadcasted. Yet, it is a purely articificial job done by the TV and the State, because this guy is no more representative of French Islam than Chicago's chief priest is representative of American christianty.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Specifically, what makes your way the right way and theirs the wrong?

Specifically what makes you think I'm at all interested in getting diverted into a relativistic debate on if it is OK to go around murdering civilians to put forth a political/religious point?