Is the current level of hatred against Muslims in North America and Europe due to reasonable & rational concerns about the majority of Muslims in our lands, or an extremist exaggeration of the thread fueled by bigotry? - - - Updated - - - the vast, vast majority of Muslims in our lands are peaceful and law abiding. they don't commit terrorism. they don't call for terrorism. all this hate against them is mostly due to irrational fear and bigotry. ...no unlike what we saw against the Jews in the 1930s Europe.
It's the same hysteria we have when we are at war with anybody. No different than the Japanese in WWII or our enemies during any other conflict. The modern age of social media and instantaneous news and internet has allowed the public to see much more than ever before. So now we get the media flooded with images and videos of radical Islam and general public gets this false picture that the minority of Islam is the majority. I'll tell you one thing. You will be hard pressed to find anybody more welcoming and hospitable than a Muslim. I know plenty of Muslims and they are by far the nicest and most hospitable people I have ever met. They are so nice that I flat out told them one day that I feel uncomfortable and a bit guilty because I don't feel like I am expressing my appreciation well enough. You think your grandmother is nice when you come visit? Go have dinner at a Muslims house. I don't even like hanging out with them half the time because they are so nice. I rarely invited them to my house because there is absolutely no way I could ever match the hospitality that they give when I come to their house and I would feel bad. Hell my one buddy literally tried to give me his car. It took me a week to convince him to please sell it to somebody since he was moving don't just give it to me. It was a nice Chrysler 300C on nice rims. The dude literally just walked up to me and gave me the keys and said "Do you like my car, I am moving away as you know, this is my gift to you". I had to draw the line and pull some reverse logic on him and say that it would offend ME if I accepted his $30,000 car as a gift. Muslims are great people. I dated a Muslim girl at one point for a few weeks as well then I had to move away. You think your wife or girlfriend treats you well? Date a Muslim woman...
The two nicest people I have ever met in my life, were two Muslim Americans. secular, non-religious Muslims. one was a former Marine.
You are probably a very nice person who is comfortable in their own skin and hospitable.. Good people attract good people..
Well I tend to treat all people the same which is with kindness and respect until they give me a reason not to. I've found that every race, religion, ethnicity, culture etc has it's good people and it's bad people. I treat people as individuals not as part of a group. I believe people would be shocked at just how "normal" most people actually are. We tend to generalize people into categories and paint false perceptions about we think they will act. I say just give people a chance. I make friends with everybody. I am a black guy from the South. If we use the common generalizations about people then I shouldn't even have most of my friends. But it's not uncommon at all to find me going muddin with my redneck buddies, then going to float down the river in an innertube with a beer cooler with my other redneck buddies, then going to a skate park with my skater buddies, then going to dinner with my Muslim buddies, then going to a rave club with my goth buddies, then watching football with my Army buddies etc. Just give people a chance, get to know other cultures, experiment, have a good time. Never in my life would I have ever thought that I, as a black man, would have so much fun going to a country music festival with my redneck friends or going to hookah party with my Muslim buddies. Life would be so lame if we only interacted with those who were just like us. Go out and live a little, you just might like it.
I could not vote in your poll due to the poorly worded choices. The closest available would be "Irrational fear, motivated by bigotry & intolerance"...but I feel the fear to be rational based on world events, and my bias equally rational based on cultural difference surrounding a great many things....primarily the way women are treated.
If they are secular and non religious then they are not Muslims. Muslims follow the religion of Islam.
Lets test your Hysteria theory. Travel to Syria, and take some pictures of yourself travelling throughout the countryside having a good time with all the nice people.
I'll be glad to show you some pictures of me having a good time with some nice people in Afghanistan. I have no reason to go to Syria. I have been invited to Saudi Arabia and the UAE by some friends next fall and I will likely be taking a trip there if I get the time. Ill show you some pictures then. You can walk around believing that all Muslims are the boogeyman if you want to. I suppose I can relate to them better because I understand first hand how it feels to unfortunately be represented by a radical minority. Black people get a bad rap due to the ghetto thug idiots who flood the media and act like fools. So people such as myself get treated differently in society due to their behavior. Radical Islam is a threat, Islam is not. Most Muslims are not part of Radical Islam. That makes about as much sense as letting the KKK be the representation of all Christians because they consider themselves Christian. I have zero worries about one of my Muslim buddies slitting my throat at his house when I visit, and I am a US Soldier... I'm sorry if you feel differently.
The question is interesting, personally I've got good Muslim friends and I don't hate that world [like Italians in general, despite a part of the peninsula has been invaded and dominated by Muslims in history. On the contrary, they left an heritage may be even superior to the Norman one]. Unfortunately human mind tends to generalize, so that if on TV news we hear about Muslim terrorists doing this, Islamists doing that ... there is an eventuality of mass identification. Not to add that we are very near to Islam [meaning the geographical area where Muslims are the large majority] and there are strict relationships among Italy and Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco [a bit less with Libya after the war ...]. Our fishers fish substantially with Muslim fishers [in the same waters] and many Italians spend their holiday on the African side of the Mediterranean Sea.
Any sane, intelligent person who understands that this militaristic, barbaric, intolerant cult is a threat to a free society is being nothing but realistic.
There will always be irrational fear and hatred of something that is not known. The problem is the more you learn about Islam the more you understand that both the non-violent Muslims and the violent Muslims are both following the Koran and Sunna. The majority of Muslims in the world and all that I know are peaceful decent people. Both the non-violent and violent are inherent outcomes of Mohammad's teachings of Islam and neither are wrong for choosing which part of Mohammad's teachings they follow. It may seem illogical to us since we were raised with Western Greek logic but it is not considered to be illogical in Islamic culture. You will find that some Islamic governments will protest the atrocities while following Sharia law themselves due to Western and world pressure but the rank and file understand that ISIS is also doing Allah's work. I have no problems with the religion of Islam but I do feel we should be concerned with the political aspect of it since they are one in the same. Look at Birmingham England, England's second city who not has a greater percentage of Arabs in schools now. The culture of Birmingham will eventually be run by Muslims and Sharia law, whether instituted or not, will be a center point for making decisions by Muslim officials. England is looking the other way now because any attempt to point out any problems receives a great outcry and threats from the Muslim community. As one Muslim in England put it on Youtube, "This is Baghdad." Christians Warned Not to Preach in Birmingham’s Muslim No-Go Area
Well Im not saying all Muslims are the boogeyman but if I were you I wouldn't travel to Syria. I realize that you have no reason to go there and I actually would not want you to go there. However in Syria, there are a vast number of Muslims who would kill you and not think twice about it. My question would be if the majority of Muslims are not radical then why would they let a minority of radical muslims to not only exist but thrive? Silence is condoning their actions.
The same reason why the minority of black people make the majority of us look like wannabe thug idiots who destroy our own communities when we get mad and kill each other so often that Martin Luther King Jr is probably rolling in this grave. Many Muslims DO speak out against Radical Islam. Our media is just only concerned with the negative part so thats all we see. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/french-muslims-protest-extremism-25774577 http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/09/22/Muslims-Rally-in-Toronto-Against-Radical-Islam http://www.worldbulletin.net/muslim...s-of-german-muslims-protest-against-terrorism Those were just in the last few weeks alone. I bet you didn't see that on Fox News did you.
sorry, but the minority of thug criminals blacks don't make ALL black people look bad. that concept only works if one chooses to accept and embrace negative stereotypes.
Well two out of three links are here and the other link in Germany. What about the Middle east? Where is the Muslim outrage and why have they not done anything about it? Surely based on the sheer numbers alone, if the majority of muslims feel this way, they have the numbers to squash radical islam overnight. A couple of thousand people in the current muslim population is roughly .0001% That's a long wayyyy to go to get to 51%
folks keep saying that Muslims aren't speaking out against ISIS and other extremists. how do we know this? do they check Arab/Muslim newspapers and news channels? or do they just assume.
http://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/update/2014-06-21/protests-against-terrorism-in-iraq/ http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middl...gainst-attack-police-2014217224610567113.html http://english.alarabiya.net/en/New...ia-s-Alawites-protest-against-the-regime.html You also must understand that protesting in the Middle East isn't the same as protesting in the Western world. Many of these people live in countries that do not afford them the same rights as we have here. Radical Islam also has a nasty habit of intimidating and killing those who dare oppose them. Many peaceful Muslims would rather remain silent over speaking out against them and risking their lives and the lives of their families. History has shown time and time again that it doesn't take a large majority to rule the masses under an iron fist. If you lived in a place like Syria under the rule of Radical Islam would you be willing to openly take to the streets and protest against them?
No but they do a pretty good job of getting our whole race stereotyped and causing the general public to picture "thug" when they think of black people. It only works if somebody chooses to accept stereotypes. Well thats what the general public tends to do which is why I have a multitude of examples of being treated differently in society on many occasions from job interviews to getting sat at a restaurant.
I don't rightly know. I know I do a double take when I see one. Perhaps that should be expected, what is on the news 24 hours a day. Muslims beheading people, Muslims flying planes into buildings, Muslims killing others for the only reason they are not Muslims or not their particular brand or sect of Muslim. AQ is Muslim, ISIS is Muslim, Iran is Muslim. This new terror group Korashan or how ever you spell it is Muslim, the war on terror is against Muslim's. This comes into our living room 24hours a day 7 days a week and more and more about Muslim's killings or invading or firing rockets. On the other hand we, the military work hand in glove with the military of Egypt, Turkey is in Nato, a Muslim country, Iraq and Afghanistan are Muslim, Qatar, UAE, Saudi, Jordan, and a bunch other countries are our allies. But one does not hear much about this, the average Joe Public is getting the first paragraph, not this second. Perhaps your question is should we blame the average American for being a bit bigoted against Muslims? Especially when very few speak out against the terrorist acts. The image most Americans get on TV is Muslims being terrorist and beheading people, being the bad guys of the world. I know the good side of Muslims and the help they have given us as allies, yet even I do a double take when I see one at the grocery. I will work side by side with an Egyptian or Jordanian soldier and trust my life to them. But I still do a double take when I see one in the grocery.
err...that was 13 years ago. - - - Updated - - - yes, how come the media wants the American people to hate Muslims?
The media loves negative coverage its what gets ratings. It's not just with Islam its with everything from pop culture to foreign policy. Thats why when Peyton Manning donated a million bucks to various charities earlier this year it wasn't on the front page of any main stream news organizations but when Ray Rice cold clocked his wifes lights out or when Adrian Peterson whooped his son too hard it was all over the front pages of every news organization in the country. Or like in Ferguson when people were protesting they loved showing people acting a fool and destroying the city for days but they only gave about a 30 second snippet to the peaceful protesters who were praying peacefully together in a local church.
Are you equating 'secular, non-religious Muslims (by the way what exactly is a "secular, non-religious Muslim, wouldn't there be a point where they would no longer be Muslims? Kinda like describing a person as being an 'atheist/christian' ya think?) Being a former Marine doesn't mean anything. I'm a 'former Marine', I still put my pants on one leg at a time. The issue with Muslim Americans isn't found in their religious beliefs. Who really cares? It's their profound silence. The ones that do speak out seem to excuse the goings on in the Mid-East and use those of us that would like to see some AMERICAN-Muslims reaction that supports their new homeland, the way Sharpton and Jackson use any negative incident between black and whites as proof of white hatred toward blacks. It's all bulls**t. You state the usual; "my best friend is a _______"
