Not at all what I meant. I apologize for nobody's wrong doing and hold them fully accountable for their own individual decisions.
My point was, and not necessarily directed at anyone, that people get so upset and defensive of Muslims when they are unfairly characterized by their "fringe" extremists, but not so much as when it is done to Christians.
The line item thing was only done to get my point across that the extremist section is more prevalent (it is national policy in many countries) in Muslim cultures than in the Christian West but yet, it is a more sensitive subject to make any negative generalization about Muslims. Broad generalizations of Christians are passed off as jokes and likely even true, but generalizations about Muslims are ignorant and unfair. I'm not excusing generalizations of any group of people, but it is unfair to pretend that the generalizations are treated in a similar fashion in America.
Need an example? How much media attention would there have been if a Californian atheist decided to burn some Bibles? (I would really like for this question to be answered). My guess, zero. Would the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, and President of the United States have commented on it? Absolutely NOT! It would have seemed absurd for them to involve themselves in such a petty freedom of speech issue, wouldn't it? But its a whole different story if some idiot leader of a church of 50 wants to burn a Qu'ran. Then it is absolutely imperative that the highest leaders of the nation make it known how terrible an act this is. Do you see the double standard I'm trying to get at?
If I say there is a widespread evil hijacking of the teachings of Mohammad for politcal reasons, I am somehow Islamophobic. If an atheist says that Christians have misused the Bible for political reasons (which is absolutely true), they are historians and open-minded, but definitely not Christianphobic (not even sure how that word would spell out, because its not something that has probably ever been used).
Could I at least get an acknowledgment that there is a taboo in speaking ill of any connection between Islam and terrorism. Its as if many in this country would like us to believe that the terrorism is somehow entirely disconnected from Islam. As if its a small band of rag tag mountain men rather than entire political organizations with worldwide financial support. We could return to that mentality, but it didn't really work the first time.
Incorrect characterizations are the worst wrong you can think of? Murder isn't worse? Rape? Simple assault? Kicking a dog? Leaving chewed gum under a table? I can think of much worse things than misleading characterizations.
My point was, and not necessarily directed at anyone, that people get so upset and defensive of Muslims when they are unfairly characterized by their "fringe" extremists, but not so much as when it is done to Christians.
The line item thing was only done to get my point across that the extremist section is more prevalent (it is national policy in many countries) in Muslim cultures than in the Christian West but yet, it is a more sensitive subject to make any negative generalization about Muslims. Broad generalizations of Christians are passed off as jokes and likely even true, but generalizations about Muslims are ignorant and unfair. I'm not excusing generalizations of any group of people, but it is unfair to pretend that the generalizations are treated in a similar fashion in America.
Need an example? How much media attention would there have been if a Californian atheist decided to burn some Bibles? (I would really like for this question to be answered). My guess, zero. Would the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, and President of the United States have commented on it? Absolutely NOT! It would have seemed absurd for them to involve themselves in such a petty freedom of speech issue, wouldn't it? But its a whole different story if some idiot leader of a church of 50 wants to burn a Qu'ran. Then it is absolutely imperative that the highest leaders of the nation make it known how terrible an act this is. Do you see the double standard I'm trying to get at?
If I say there is a widespread evil hijacking of the teachings of Mohammad for politcal reasons, I am somehow Islamophobic. If an atheist says that Christians have misused the Bible for political reasons (which is absolutely true), they are historians and open-minded, but definitely not Christianphobic (not even sure how that word would spell out, because its not something that has probably ever been used).
Could I at least get an acknowledgment that there is a taboo in speaking ill of any connection between Islam and terrorism. Its as if many in this country would like us to believe that the terrorism is somehow entirely disconnected from Islam. As if its a small band of rag tag mountain men rather than entire political organizations with worldwide financial support. We could return to that mentality, but it didn't really work the first time.
Incorrect characterizations are the worst wrong you can think of? Murder isn't worse? Rape? Simple assault? Kicking a dog? Leaving chewed gum under a table? I can think of much worse things than misleading characterizations.
fftopic: I will go crash now and let this go :back2topic:
