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To: RC one; Deb
You are engaging in the good muslim bad muslim fallacy. That kind of thinking leads to appeasement and ruin.

There's nothing good about being indiscriminate (unless, like God, you're willing to do the equivalent of making the sun shine and the rain fall on both the good and the bad) or having a lack of discernment (though it's much easier). It's usually the lack of discrimination or inability (or lack of desire) to discern differences that leads to appeasement and ruin.

You're correct. The headline should be changed to: " THINGS THAT DRIVE 97% OF MUSLIMS TO MURDEROUS, BEHEADING FURY"

Again, you're generalizing to an entire group from specific individuals. This is the same fallacy. This would be like someone living overseas characterizing the general American public by what they see on American TV programs.* Or someone characterizing the Christian religion by what they learn from watching televangelists. Or someone characterizing the Mormon religion from watching the Osmonds. Or someone characterizing life in the Wild West by watching Clint Eastwood movies.

There are lots of Muslims who don't follow everything in the Koran literally, just as a majority of those calling themselves Christians fail to follow the basic Christian teachings of both the New Testament and their respective churches. These Muslims and these Christians are basically the same in wanting to have a sense of religion without having it interfere with their lives too much. They want to raise their families, provide a living for themselves, and not have too much drama in their lives.

A few Muslims (few relative to the entire population calling itself Muslim) take an extreme, literal reading of the Koran's call to war against any and everything outside Islam. A few people calling themselves Christian, take an extreme, literal reading of Jesus's call to go into the whole world to preach the Gospel and wind up getting put to death in places like Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and China. This isn't to say that Islam and Christianity are similar but that people throughout the world and throughout time are similar, differences in education and material wealth notwithstanding. There are a few that are very good and a few that are very bad and the rest are swayed back and forth depending upon which group is in ascendency (Edmund Burke made that observation). The same is true of nations and their organizing principles: the U.S. is way, WAY over to one side of the Bell curve both historically and in the present-day world.

*I know someone from England who was afraid to come to Chicago to visit her husband (they got separated into different refugee camps following the genocide in Rwanda) because all the news programs there are constantly talking about how horribly dangerous the United States is, leading them to believe there are gang shootouts on almost every corner.
59 posted on 06/11/2010 4:08:25 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: aruanan

When Clint Eastwood flies a plane into a building or Jimmy Swaggart beheads a non-believer on his Sunday morning TV show or the Osmonds hang an 7 year old boy, I might agree you have a point, but as long as long as Jews are murdered on sight in “Palestine” while Muslims live happily in Tel Aviv, you are criminally enabling a great evil.


85 posted on 06/14/2010 11:04:10 AM PDT by Deb (Beat him, strip him and bring him to my tent!)
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