I read this article by Steve Chapman, cautioning folks to not denounce the Muslim community because of extremists, and I think it bears repeating.
America has over 900 hate-based organizations. One of the major categories includes “Christian-based” hate groups that cause violence at abortion clinics, harass non-white ethnicities, and tell gays and lesbians, “God has a place for you in hell.” Do we say,”Oh man – those Christians are crazy! Better condem the WHOLE lot of them!!” No. If I disagree, I don’t disagree with all of Christianity… I disagree with the organization and its members.
If it is not the act of an organization, then it could just be the person has broken down. This, IMHO, is what I think happened in Florida and at Fort Hood. Don’t bother trying to blame the military, the Muslims, the employer, the high school these guys came from or whatever… these people just went nuts, and need to be held accountable for their actions.
Every group, every race and every politcal party has individuals who go off the deep end. If there is an organization behind the activity, be my guest to condemn the organization; otherwise be prepared to accept the individual as repsonsible for their actions, and leave the blame where it belongs: on the person who made a poor choice!
Yet worldwide no other group has shown such a propensity for subhuman behavior and barbaric violence as the Muslims. Evidence supports the hypothesis that, as a group, Muslims are far more prone to terrorism and violence than any other population group.
That has to be factored into any proposed reaction to any situation involving them.
So you are making an argument to condemn a religion? Who lead the crusades? Who lead the inquisition… Christian extemists….
No; I’m making an argument to take into account the proclivities of the adherents of Islam in to account when dealing with them.
You cited historical examples of violence done in the name of Christendom; I cited current events as examples of violence done by Muslims. There’s a big difference from a pragmatic sense.
Seen any Christians attacking embassies and foreign businesses or trying to murder people over cartoons recently?
I think we can agree on the middle ground – take the research into consideration. The answer is yes, there are hundreds of Christian driven hate organizations operating within the United States alone; and if you search for the data you will find that the pattern violence is there. It is impossible to distill either of our arguments into blanket simple terms – you have a worthy perspective. I just get annoyed when “mob mentality” kicks in and people start passing around the anti-Muslim emails. It creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
NOTE: My stats on hate groups comes from varied Southern Poverty Law Center publications.
Yes; there are hundreds of nominally Christian groups that are labeled as hate groups operating in the US, just as there are hundreds of non-Christian hate groups doing so. None of them match the scope of the Muslims when it comes to actual violence though – and that’s not even dealing with Muslim hate groups, just “run of the mill” Muslims when they get angry.
NOTE: The Southern Poverty Law Center is somewhat biased against Whites, which make up the bulk of the Christian hate groups. Behavior that would get a White group listed by the SPLC won’t necessarily get a non-White group listed. They can’t really help that; they were founded to specifically track White hate groups and that bias still exists as part of their, for lack of a better word, corporate culture.
But…Despite all that, I agree that the reactionary nature of the “mob mentality” is to be avoided and discouraged, not just because it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy but also because it ends up harming a lot of innocent people.
Your comment on SPLC is true – I struggle in this “age of misinformation” to trust even my own sources 100%. The only issue I cannot quantify in your last comment is the one in italics. Can you show some data that supports your comment that the average Muslim is more violent than any other average person of any other religion (or if I am misunderstanding feel free to restate)?
Serb Christians stormed a US Embassy in Belgrade, and earlier this year:
“ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) – … Christian mobs, seeking revenge for the killings of Christians in the north, attacked Muslims with machetes, set fire to them, destroyed their houses and torched mosques in two days of violence in Onitsha, where 93 people died.”
To some extent I want to be treated as a a person, even though I am white and Christian. To some extent, I am sure there are some statistics that can be used to profile me BECAUSE I am white and Christian… so getting closer to the crux of our debate: Given you are able to demonstrate a basis for your assessment… how can it be leveraged (“taken into account”) without being considerd prejudiced against an individual?
I’m pretty sure the events I listed above are only part of the story told to others trying to portrait the evils of Christianity…I wouldn’t want to walk into a room and have people taking those articles “into account” when they deal with me.