<p>There are quite a few examples…
There are more. I didn’t go through all the pages of this thread.</p>
<p>As for taking provisions in Islam:
Islam is a religion where you have to take everything in context. There’s no getting around this. It’s simply the way the religion works. </p>
<p>Having gone through the pages of this thread I see that a few CCers have seemed to notice how offensive some of these posts are. It’s nice to see that 
So thanks to those who posted those comments.</p>
<p>Thanks for taking the time to point those generalizations out. But are they untrue? My understanding is that the Taliban attempted to create a state in which every aspect of Islam was practiced literally. The result was a horrible society based on one human rights violation after the other. Am I wrong or missing something?</p>
<p>I have no problem changing my opinion about Islam. i wish I could but I don’t see tolerance in my area by muslims, I don’t see tolerance by muslims on television, radio, or newspapers. I see Egypt have a chance at freedom but its newly elected muslim brotherhood applies Islam to defeat anyone who disagrees with them.</p>
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</p>
<p>How exactly is one supposed to know which Muslim is extreme or fanatical (or will become fanatical) and who isn’t and won’t? If someone had pointed his finger at the surviving Boston bomber in March, CAIR and the entire “moderate” Muslim community would have cried foul - he was just a dope smoking kid in Boston, right? If you look at some societies where the name “Osama” skyrocketed in popularity after 9/11 and say we should stop immigration from there, the same “moderates” will object. The mantra of give, give, give more doesn’t work - Nidal Hasan was a doctor; the Boston bombers owned a Benz. How much more was America expected to give them?</p>
<p>Both parties would be better off in the long run if we looked at how Islamic countries such as Pakistan handle this situation effectively.
[Report</a> blames Pakistan politicians, security for anti-Christian riots - CSMonitor.com](<a href=“http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2013/0526/Report-blames-Pakistan-politicians-security-for-anti-Christian-riots]Report”>Report blames Pakistan politicians, security for anti-Christian riots - CSMonitor.com)
They realistically recognize that it’s very difficult for the two factions to live in peace, so they make sure the non-Islamic minorities are small and kept in their place. They recognize that even though only a small fraction of people of other religions could resort to violence, they play it safe and keep them very small and powerless, and can show good results in the minimal amount of non-Islamic violence there.</p>
<p>This is so silly. If this was a conversation about “The Germans” who killed Jews, or “The Americans” who killed Native Americans, nobody would be offended. You would think it’s absurd if anyone thought every single American or German was committing genocide and nobody would need to clarify that it wasn’t all of them. You’re choosing to be offended and it actually prevents conversation. Choose not to be offended, especially if everyone has said that they are not referring to all Muslims.</p>
<p>
It’s interesting that you mentioned Germans, and not Japanese. You may be aware that during World War II, Japanese-Americans were sent to camps as a result of just the kind of thinking that worries some of us. German-Americans weren’t sent anywhere. Wonder why?</p>
<p>Hunt, you did not make a point that anybody reading this thread isn’t completely aware of.
Wonder why?</p>
<p>
It’s very unfortunate that Muslims in your area are intolerant. Living around intolerant people is a horrible experience.
But, yes, those generalizations are untrue. The thing is, like I said, you have to look at parts of Islam within the contexts of all the others. So the literal interpretations of the Taliban are often, bluntly, untrue. Like, for example, how they claim that rape victims should be punished for having sex outside of marriage, but they don’t punish the rapists. Sounds like an underhand attempt to create a very patriarchal society while using religion as an excuse. Even if they did believe that rape is treated the same as consented sex in Islam, then the rapist would be punished too.
This might be something many people would disagree with me on, and I don’t think it would be productive to debate it.
But even if they aren’t invalid interpretations, they’re still only interpretations. You can’t generalize a whole religion based on one branch that the majority of followers condemn. Perhaps a significant portion of Muslims are fanatic, but every Muslim not in that group has a seething hatred for it.</p>
<p>
I have repeated again and again that I know no one is making generalizations about most Muslims being terrorists or the like, but people are making generalizations about Islam. those are two different things, and just because one is a bit better then the other, it doesn’t mean the other isn’t likewise a horrible thing to do.</p>
<p>
I’m not sure what you mean… I’m referring to “Muslims” that have tried to advocate antisemitism and the like.</p>
<p>Stressedoutt, whether these generalizations are “true” or not is irrelevant. If there are enough people who act on them, which there are, then that is all that matters. The families of the victims are not comforted by being told that their loved ones’ killers weren’t real Muslims. Your attitude is the problem. You are being hysterical and offended by the justifiable anger and outrage at behavior that is barbaric by any measure. It is the behavior that is the problem, not the outrage or the fear and you are among the legions of people who have confused that. There have been acts of terror by people attributing those acts to their Islamic faith. You may not think that represents Islam, but they do and you don’t get to wish it away. They claim to be Muslims, therefore they are. They claim to be acting in furtherance of their goal to advance Islam into the west, therefore they are. There are places in England and in parts of Michigan where non-Muslims are unwelcome and are harassed. That interpretation of Islam is incompatible with western values and must not be tolerated. We have shown that we are unwilling to defend our civilization and its values, God help us.</p>
<p>Very well said.</p>
<p>Bravo Zooserman…Well said.</p>
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</p>
<p>Germany did not attack America. In fact, we attacked them first. German certainly deserved it given what they had done in Europe and their allegiance with Japan, but the fact remains we attacked Germany first.</p>
<p>Germany declared war on us in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor. We then declared war on Germany.</p>
<p>I interpreted the bolded words “religion of hate and intolerance” as referring to the specific beliefs of those Muslims who in fact believe in killing people, in undermining the West and so on. I didn’t see it as a reference to all Islam. As noted, I can talk about Germans killing Poles, Russians, Jews, Gypsies, etc. and no one thinks that refers to every single German. </p>
<p>Many Muslims believe there is a problem with the religion, as the bolded words say they have “a real problem with that religion.” I posted comments by two referring to the constant preaching in his Saudi mosques of hatred and violence and by an Egyptian complaining about the backwardness of his religion. I noted a book by a Muslim professor that detail - read it - issues that Islam has with science. I can dig up much more. These are comments by Muslims. </p>
<p>I have also posted comments made by influential, politically powerful Muslims that are so absurd, so nasty they read as unhinged to Western eyes. I can post lots and lots of those: calling for the extinction of Jews, for the demolition of Christian society and their holy places, etc.</p>
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</p>
<p>Well that certainly weakens my argument, but it still seems different to me that Japan actually bombed America while Germany just joined in because its buddy Japan had started a fight with us. If Japan had not attacked America, would Germany have done so? I’m not sure about that. </p>
<p>Of course, I am not suggesting it was ok to put Japanese Americans in camps. It was horrible.</p>
<p>
When was I preaching to the families of victims? </p>
<p>
No, I’m not. The anger and outrage against these barbaric acts, as you call them, is completely justifiable, and I am not offended by that.</p>
<p>
I never said otherwise.</p>
<p>I’m lost. Are you saying that I shouldn’t be at all bothered by the fact that people are calling my religion hateful and intolerant, among other things? Fight fanatical Islam all you like, and I will personally join you. But when someone says that Islam is a hateful religion, what exactly do you expect my reaction to be?</p>
<p>@Lergnom I never said that fanatical Muslims don’t exist. I would also like people to recognize, however, that there are peaceful interpretations of Islam that many Muslims follow. They love the religion of Islam and believe that it is one of peace.</p>
<p>So to say “Islam is X” and making broad generalizations of the whole religion based only on one branch of the religion so to speak (if you consider it to be a branch of the religion), you run into problems. That is all I am trying to say. Do not say that Islam is inherently X based on what many Muslims don’t believe in.</p>
<p>@zoosermom Which areas of England would those be exactly? </p>
<p>I live in an area of England with a very large proportion of Muslims - so large and noticeable in fact that the area has its own colloquial name relating to that. You’ll find it much easier to buy paneer or ras malai locally than you will bacon. 90% of people who live here are either students, South Asian or Arabs. I fall into the former category - I’m a white British female. </p>
<p>And yet strangely enough, despite having lived here for almost 2 years, I’ve never had a problem. I can go shopping in my local market where almost all the goods (& sellers) are of Asian origin, and I’ve never had a problem. I saw a reservist soldier walking through the area a couple of days after the attack in Woolwich, in uniform. I saw a Christan street preacher yesterday in an area about a mile up the road with even more Muslims than here. No one was interested in what he had to say (including me!) but he was ignored, not harassed, despite trying to foist his beliefs on others. </p>
<p>I have no doubt that there are isolated incidents where things have been said to people, but it is quite seriously not a problem in this area, so if be interested to know of any areas where there is a significant problem.</p>
<p>You know what has worried me most in the wake of this attack? Not muslims, but the far right. The EDL are a particularly nasty bunch of white thugs who will come out onto the streets periodically and cause an awful lot of trouble, to the point that the city centres where they tend to gather to “protest” become no-go zones on those particular days. They have very much been making hay whilst the sun shines on this one, and it’s not pretty. I’d much rather live next door to a family of muslims than a family of EDL supporters, put it that way.</p>
<p>There’s been post after about how Muslims are mostly moderate. Well let’s see. Will any moderate Muslim step forward and admit that Islam is not perfect? Perfection is an extremist viewpoint. You can not be moderate if you believe in perfection.</p>
<p>@boomting</p>
<p>Those that are poor tend to more likely have a lot of hatred and anger, particularly the Muslims who tend to believe that Britain is the scapegoat to all their problems “back home,” (even if they’ve lived here 1-2 generations) and thus tend to be extremists. Those that are poor tend to live in places like London where it is very crowded and where there are many of their own kind; 45 percent of immigrants live in immigrant-majority areas (either “immigrant” or “Muslim,” I’m not quite sure). You are living in the suburbs, where the people aren’t refugees from very poor countries because then they couldn’t afford to live there in the suburbs. </p>
<p>Therefore, since you only consider anecdotal evidence from the suburbs where extremism, particularly of the Islamic kind, is not as rampant while not considering poorer parts of London and stuff, where Islamic hatred toward other religions is more common and evident in the way people operate in their daily affairs. Your comment is hardly a proof.</p>
<p>It’s easy for you to say that you hate the far-right while living in your own little single-family house in London suburbs, surfing “the telegraph” for news and netflix for movies, and living among upper-middle class Islamic businesspeople from Saudi Arabia and college-educated Chinese that aspire to become doctors and lawyers, but you leave out the whole picture.</p>
<p>If you were moderately nationalistic British person living in ground zero for Islamic refugees and asylum-seekers for certain Middle-Eastern countries(known for their extremism) in certain poor “ghetto” areas while also living under enforced and policed Sharia Law (especially for women) and where policing is sparse and the government’s soldiers are under constant threat of terrorism, I assure you you’d be screaming nationalistic slogans from every rooftop if there were a lack of repercussions (ie. being labelled “far-right” and thus ignored at all costs by anonymous people on the internet).</p>
<p>@tomatox1</p>
<p>No! I live in an inner city area of a northern city that is nowhere near London, certainly not affluent, and until relatively recently had a penchant for gangland shootings (I’ll be happy to inbox you the details, if you want to check it out). Affluent? Anything but. The best figures I could find, which do cover the slightly larger area of the parliamentary constituency (which will have a population of ~80,000) the child poverty rate (defined as a family income of <60% of the national median) is 37%, against a national average of 20%. A neighbouring constituency has the UK’s highest rate of child poverty (47%). </p>
<p>Many of the locals are first generation immigrants (to the extent that Pakistan has a branch of its embassy here!), and you can quite easily walk through the market and hear barely any English spoken. Wearing of the niqab is common; the hijab near ubiquitous amongst Asian women. I can assure that an upper middle class Saudi businessman would not touch the local area with a bargepole, and there are very few Chinese in the immediate vicinity, with a degree or otherwise. Most immigrants who become affluent, either in the first or subsequent generations, tend to move out to fashionable and predominantly white surburbia. </p>
<p>This IS ground zero for Islamic immigration. Policing is not that sparse - there was a crackdown on gangs a few years ago which led to a significant reduction in shootings (they’re still relatively rare, thanks to gun control, but they were high enough to be alarming, and they were certainly high by UK standards, not that I want this to turn into a gun control debate). In what way do you think that Sharia law is enforced? There’s a small (non-residential) army base very close by, and I have never seen anything happen there. I have seen soldiers leaving, in uniform, to walk through the area. The aforementioned Christian street preacher went unharassed. Zoosermom’s statement that non-Muslims are unwelcome and harassed is simply not true in my area, hence why I’m interested to see if she can back up her assertion. </p>
<p>As for me? I live in a rented shared house (couldn’t afford to live alone), read the Guardian and can’t afford a netflix subscription. Middle class background, arguably, though my family fall into a category that puts us in the lowest income bracket for university financial aid, and there is long term unemployment in my immediate family. </p>
<p>Most of those who support the nationalist far right (especially the EDL / BNP) fall into a demographic that can be characterised by being young, white, male, poor, poorly educated, unemployed / in insecure employment and with a deep sense of pessimism about the future. And they probably own a balaclava. I can assure you that the middle classes would not be seen dead anywhere near the EDL.</p>
<p>[Islamists</a> Chanting ?Allahu Akbar? Attack Kissing Couple Protest in Turkey ? One Person Stabbed (Video) | The Gateway Pundit](<a href=“http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/05/islamists-chanting-allahu-akbar-attack-kissing-couple-protest-in-turkey-one-person-stabbed-video/]Islamists”>Islamists Chanting "Allahu Akbar" Attack Kissing Couple Protest in Turkey - One Person Stabbed (Video) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft | 2)</p>
<p>Tolerance in Turkey?</p>