Just like whites should be watched in case they decide to kill lots people and eat them because cannibal serial killers tend to be white.

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So, not all anti-terrorism efforts are Islamophobic, but quite a few are (such as frisking every Arab to pass through airport security, etc.),

I think to some extent racial profiling is a good idea, Hispanics are more likely to be illegal immigrants then other races in America, and Arabs are more likely to be terrorists then other people. I’m not saying that we should strip away all their rights, but they should defiantly warrant more attention then other groups of people.

assalam!

yeah i do agree that media often portray islam & muslim in bad lights. but we have to understand that all of it is not intentional and we muslim are also responsible for it some time if not all time.in todays world perception matters more that reality and people dont have time to verify truths so every move we make in name of religion should be of well thought one. Also most mportant aspect of our image building is our acts. do really whatever we are doing in name of Islam is justified by Islam Teachings? or we areusing it for our gains. ask these question first to our self and then try to convince others.

Could that be because the ACLU is representing Muslims in religious intolerance cases? You can't deny that Muslims all over the world have been under suspicion ever since 9/11 and mostly without cause. I won't defend cries of Islamophobia in cases where a Muslim was imprisoned for a parking violation (or held for questioning in a valid lead in a terrorism case), but you can't say that no such thing exists because the majority of anti-terrorism efforts concentrate on holding Arabs or Muslims simply because they're Arabs or Muslims, with no other solid evidence.

So, not all anti-terrorism efforts are Islamophobic, but quite a few are (such as frisking every Arab to pass through airport security, etc.), which is probably what the ACLU meant. I don't know for sure, though, since I've never even heard them say anything like that.

So the ACLU does stupid things. My point was that most of the Cries of Islamaphobia come from the ACLU and CAIR.

Source, please.

The ACLU says many things. It's a group of lawyers, so they'll do whatever it takes to defend whomever they're defending. Heck, the ACLU has even taken up religious cases, where'd they'd probably make sweeping statements about religious discrimination in the form of not allowing a church to be built in the middle of a freeway, or something absurd like that.

quote:

Originally posted by Nephilem:
“all anti terror efforts are Islamaphobic

Who has ever said that?

the ACLU

quote:

Originally posted by Nephilem:
“all anti terror efforts are Islamaphobic

Who has ever said that?

Yeah the extremist do have the loudest voice and are what makes up the face of what we think of Islam. As long as they don’t make sweeping statements like “Islam has always been a religion of Peace” or “all anti terror efforts are Islamaphobic, I don’t really have a problem.
As a side note does anyone have any thoughts on CAIR, they have been sympathetic towards extremists and call nearly every thing Islamaphobia.

Good point, Nephilem. I agree it is a hard word to define. I think it generally means assuming a person is extreme, or discriminating against a person because he or she is Muslim. I agree that extremism and terorism should not be ignored because people are trying not to offend a person's religious beliefs. My experience is mostly with American Muslims, all of whom oppose terrorism and Islamic extremism. There are many religious extremists, but many more non extremist Muslims both in America and abroad. The terrorists and extremists are the ones the media reports on because it is more interesting than a Muslim whose faith compels him or her to act kindly to others. No one would watch a story about a simple act of kindness done by a Middle Eastern Muslim because it's just not as interesting as watching or reading a piece about terrorists who are Muslim. Also, the extremists tend to be the loudest. Planning an attack or planting a car bomb will naturally get more attention-- because that single act has the potential to hurt people--than the millions of Muslims who are doing kind deeds in response to their faith. www.myspace.com/youthventure

One of the important questions in all of this is what really is Islamaphobia?
What happens is that over and over again responses to terrorism are labeled as religious intolerance and Islamaphobia. If a person is using there religion as an excuse for terrorism, the world needs to come down on it hard. And while not all Muslims are extremists, a lot of them are, and because they are using there religion to justify terror, people need to deal with Islamic teachings as well. One vital point is that many Moderate Muslims allies them selves with the Extremists, or don’t take any action against them because they feel it is wrong to add in the fight against members of their own religion. This is even more prevalent among loyalties in the different sects of Islam; Sunnis don’t want to turn in other Sunnis.
Finally all threw out history religions have had to answer for the crimes that their members commit in the name of their God. Islam should be no exception to this.

Nephilem,

I do not have statistics in front of me regarding Islamic extremism. I am mostly speaking from personal experience and from the study of world religions. I personally know many Muslims, and none of them support terrorism. I do not think the global community should ignore terrorism in any form. It's important to remember that some Christian leaders in the United States called the 9/11 attacks by Muslim extremists a wake up call from God, and that this country was allowed to be attacked because of secularism. Many southern Christians defended slavery in the 19th century because they thought their religion endorsed it. Let's not forget the Spanish Inquisition, where thousands of Muslims and Jews were killed under the banner of Christianity. I am not bashing Christianity, but I am pointing out that extremists have been present at different times in different religions. Certainly terrorism of any sort is bad, but stereotyping Muslims as extremists and supporters of terrorism is not only inaccurate, it opens the doors to bigotry and discrimination. www.myspace.com/youthventure let's be friends!

So should we just ignore the radical elements of Islam? Pretend that all Muslims are peace full. I have a question for you; about how many Muslims in the world would you consider to be extremists? Because there are defiantly a lot of extremists out there. Even many of them who would never commit a terrorist act, still support terrorism. So how many of them are Moderate.

I think it's sad that the Muslim faith has been viewed so negatively just because a very small minority of Muslims are extremists. It seems the media is drawn to extremism. Positive work done by Muslims is rarely portrayed in the media, despite many Muslims doing positive things as a result of their faith. Is there a way to help solve this problem? I'm interested to hear others' ideas about how to end the discrimination against Muslims. www.youthventure.org is a cool organization that can help you launch your own organization addressing this very issue, or any other that would benefit your community in some way.

I suppose you must think Mormons are polygamous, then. After all, mainstream Mormons who are monogamous have been unsuccessful at distancing themselves from the tiny minority that does practice plural marriage.

You still fail to understand the enormousness of the problem. Moderates are fighting an uphill battle against ignorance and bad media coverage. People only hear about Muslims in connection with violence, so it's near impossible for moderates to shake that image.

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Likewise, nothing moderates do will have any effect on the extremists

Then the moderate Muslims can fight against the radical ones, or give information on them to intelligence agencies. If only a small part of Islam is extremists, then the moderates should at least be able to distance themselves from the extremists, and make themselves the new face of Islam. Right now the moderates are in a state of partnership with the extremists, because they are in the same religion and that is why we see moderate Muslims becoming extremists on such a large scale.

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Also, if the majority of Muslims are moderate, then how can they be so powerless to condemn the actions of the extremists?

I give you the Catholic Church as an example to show my point. Martin Luther objected to the way the Church was run, so the Church excommunicated him. Did that shut him up? No, he created his own church and started the Protestant movement which split the Church into many pieces. The Church was essentially powerless to stop him no matter how many times it condemned him.

Likewise, nothing moderates do will have any effect on the extremists. They can condemn them, jail them or excommunicate them, but the extremists will simply say they're right, the moderates are wrong, and go on killing everyone. As I said, it's not as easy as issuing a fatwa condemning violence done in the name of Islam because that assumes the extremist Muslims are going to listen.

First of all, saying that Christianity is also a religion of violence does not make Islam a religion of peace.

Secondly you seem to have misunderstood the purpose of Jesus, the law that he was referring to was that the penalty of sin is death. And he fulfilled the law by coming and dying for the sins of the world. Jesus was not put on earth to destroy all other religions; he came to earth to be the Penalty for our sins.

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It is said in the bible itself that Jesus was sent to turn mother against daughter, Father against son... ect. Now that does not seem very "peaceful" either.

This is not what the bible says; basically the Bible says that in some cases the followers of Christ can expect to be rejected by those they love because of their faith

Dear Nephilem,

I do beleive you are forgetting all the times that God told the Jewish nation to go and kill everybody who was foreign to destroy any chance of Judiasm being corrupted by foriegn Gods.

Technically, and I'm not stating I know your religious beleifs, but the God of the Old Testimant is also the God of the New Testimant, Jesus said himself that he did not come to earth to abolish the law but to fufill it, and the Old Testimant was concidered the "law" so Jesus was actually put on this earth to destroy all other religions through any means so Christianity would not be corrupted.

It is said in the bible itself that Jesus was sent to turn mother against daughter, Father against son... ect. Now that does not seem very "peaceful" either.

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But if they repent, and establish Salat and pay the Zakat dues, then let them go their way: for Allah is Forgiving and Compassionate.

Okay so what that is saying is that if they repent, become Muslims, or live in subjugation to Muslims we will leave them alone. That does not mean that there not a religion of violence, it just means that they will kill you unless you do what they say.

http://www.prophetofdoom.net/Islamic_Quotes_Jihad.Islam
This web site will give you a whole list of commands of violence to the followers of Islam, given by Muhammad.

Also, if the majority of Muslims are moderate, then how can they be so powerless to condemn the actions of the extremists? I am saying that unless they condemn the extremists they can expect to be seen as the extremist’s allies.