The people who commit these atrocities in the name of Islam are not true Muslims in any sense. They're nothing more than batshit insane radicals who execute horrible atrocities and through some contrived, maligned sense of dogmatic approval they attempt to explain their actions to the uneducated masses by appealing to the Qu'ran and religion. They're not Muslims, just like militant evangelicals and the Westboro Country Baptist Church aren't Christians (yet picket funerals in the name of religion), either.
Sir you can caveat your posts by saying anything you want in your own defense but it absolutely does not change the fact that you do not understand the basic tenants of Islam nor fundamentalist fringe groups that carry out horrible acts while using it's name (Islam) as a guise for their own crazy. Just because a group or groups come out and carry out extremely violent acts in the name of <insert religion here> does not mean it is anything short of willful ignorance to claim that an entire religion is inherently violent. And how are Muslims going to collectively stand up to extremism? It's not as if many people are in a position to stand up to well-funded militant extremists with automatic weapons. Joe Blow Muslim is just trying to get by like everybody else and is more than likely extremely far-removed from this bullshit. The people who DO support and promulgate this behavior are uneducated, extremely poor villagers and individuals without any semblance of proper education or knowledge of anything worldly.
So I'm clueless about Islam because I'm unwilling to defend the religion as a whole because of the acts of a relative few?
I disagree. Islam, as practiced by millions and millions of people is just f'ing backwards. I am sorry if I'm being ethnocentric here, but there is just too much BS perpetrated around the world (and i'm not talking about exclusively terrorism) in the name of that religion. I could start a list that would take pages but I don't have the desire to write it nor do I think you are ignorant enough to not know.
Islam has worked in many places. They had their shit together far more in the middle ages than Christians. Largely it is pretty good in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. I have met and am friends with many Muslims so I have seen the good side of the religion (hence my caveat), practiced in a responsible and caring way - the way any religion should be.
There are Muslim scholars who have raised the BS flag and all Muslim leaders in most Muslim countries denounce these acts, but I see little real action to prevent these acts. At least by anybody other than the US and GB. I don't care who's been bad 30 years ago or who will be bad 30 years in the future. Right now, radical Islam is a major problem, worldwide, and I don't see the people who's good names are being dragged through the mud doing enough to stop it!
Roger, most Muslims are good folks, trying to make an honest living. But holy crap, I see a spade here, and I'm gonna call it a spade!
Some things in life do not change, fanatic Muslims and their sadistic cult being one of them.
