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On Tuesday, Pew released a poll indicating that support for suicide bombings is on the decline in the Muslim world, among other things

A Rising Tide Lifts Mood in the Developing World
Sharp Decline in Support for Suicide Bombing in Muslim Countries
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=257

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Dwindling Muslim Support for Terrorism

Even as many people around the world express more positive views of their lives and countries than they did five years ago, opinions about regional issues and concerns are a mix of good and bad news.

Among the most striking trends in predominantly Muslim nations is the continuing decline in the number saying that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians are justifiable in the defense of Islam. In Lebanon, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia, the proportion of Muslims who view suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians as being often or sometimes justified has declined by half or more over the past five years.

Wide majorities say such attacks are, at most, rarely acceptable. However, this is decidedly not the case in the Palestinian territories. Fully 70% of Palestinians believe that suicide bombings against civilians can be often or sometimes justified, a position starkly at odds with Muslims in other Middle Eastern, Asian, and African nations.

The decreasing acceptance of extremism among Muslims also is reflected in declining support for Osama bin Laden. Since 2003, Muslim confidence in bin Laden to do the right thing in world affairs has fallen; in Jordan, just 20% express a lot or some confidence in bin Laden, down from 56% four years ago. Yet confidence in bin Laden in the Palestinian territories, while lower than it was in 2003, remains relatively high (57%).

Opinion about Hezbollah and Hamas varies among Muslim publics. Views of both groups are favorable among most predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia. And Palestinians have strongly positive opinions of both militant groups. But majorities in Turkey have negative impressions of both Hezbollah and Hamas.

The survey also finds that, amid continuing sectarian strife in Iraq, there is broad concern among the Muslim publics surveyed that tensions between Sunnis and Shia are not limited to that country. Nearly nine-in-ten Lebanese (88%), and solid majorities in Kuwait (73%) and Pakistan (67%), say Sunni-Shia tensions are a growing problem for the Muslim world, and are not limited to Iraq.

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Will never be true until their “religion” comes out of the dark ages. Except then they will have to face the critical scrutiny that Christianity has - and will not survive except as a cult. Which it is now.

Its does NOT mean the Muslim World has become moderate. Rather, many Islamists have realized that the more extreme variants are threatening to discredit the entire project and the way to get there is through the tactics of "legality." It doesn't mean they're reconciled to freedom or to democratic governance, since the Sharia, the Law Of God, takes precedence over human institutions and legislation.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

If they would just commit suicide, I wouldn’t care. It’s that they commit an act with double effect: blow up Christians and Jews, and themselves in the process. Blowing up Christians and Jews is wrong. Eliminating their hate-filled savage selves would not be a bad thing.

If Christians could defy logic, authority, fear, and mortal danger to rise above the horrors perpetrated by so-called "Christians" in the Middle Ages--e.g. torture chambers established in the name of God (what could be a greater blasphemy, not to mention perversion?); executions, often brutal, for heresy; the murder of non-believers; et al.--perhaps Muslims may hear the Voice of God also.

The mind struggles to comprehend how so-called "Christians", when torturing and killing, could deceive themselves into believing that they were serving God when they were obviously serving Satan; that, when they committed such atrocities in the name of God, they were not committing the ultimate blasphemy; that in worshipping the god of death, torture, and violence they were worshipping not God but Satan. The mind struggles to comprehend how Muslims could be similarly misguided.

Christian emergence from the horrors and delusions of the Middle Ages was a long, hard time coming. Muslim emergence is taking longer, if indeed it will come at all.

However, after giving Puritanism a final fling under Oliver Cromwell, the English had had enough of horror, violence, and the perversion of God's will and worship and ushered in a more enlightened civilization. Perhaps Muslims will do the same.

This is not to encourage mindless optimism. Denial is the most dangerous thing there is.

And it is definitely not to encourage the routine mindless optimism, denial, and delusion of the psychotic Left.

It is merely an observation.

I guess all the people in favor of suicide bombing already blew themselves up.

Muslims Mellowing According to Survey

The Bush Administration has cited a Pew Research Center poll as a justification for its decision to fund armaments for the Fatah faction of the Palestinian government. According to the poll, “only” 70 percent of Palestinian Muslims now believe suicide bombing is justified. This is down from the 94 percent figure from last year’s poll. The Administration also took encouragement from the poll showing that the United States’ image in Muslim-majority countries has risen to “abysmal” from last year’s “horrible.”