you feel that atheists are being attacked and it's a payback thing.. Okay, I can live with that.

i don't see a lot of attacks on atheists but I don't deny it's happening out there..

FYI, you say that "more enlightened people came up with a code of laws" which is ironic, since Islam was essentially a code of laws in the beginning. Furthermore throughout history, the leaders of the Islamic faith have been much more like lawyers than what we consider to be clerics, priests or preachers in the West. In fact, the primary focus and role of Islam throughout history was to govern, establish societal rules and mediate differences between people. It was much less about "mysticism" and "the supernatural" than most people think.

Furthermore, I feel like our government and the nut-jobs on the right like Sarah Palin are trying to create an enemy of Islam to justify our invasions and wars in that region. In other words, they drum up fear and misinformation about Muslims to gain popular support for whatever invasion we're preparing to do. Unfortunately, it's fairly easy to do this climate and the average American is scared to death of Muslims. Personally, I think that's just crazy.  

What's especially ironic is that Muslims have two sets of rules, one for Muslims and the other for people of different faiths. Muslims have lived alongside people of different religions and faiths throughout their entire history and perhaps done it better than Western examples (say the Catholic vs. Protestant violence).  You're correct in that Muslims tend to take a hard stance against former Muslims who have left the faith (infidels) than those who were raised in another faith.

Yes we're struggling with Islamic fundamentalists right now... however, I would argue that by supporting various regimes in the Middle East that do NOT have the best interests of the people in mind... that we've elicited some wrath from the people of that faith.   Islam is about "the people" and the "collective well-being" of the people.. and it's not about rich Saudi princes controlling the region. Unfortunately, America has chosen our allies in the region based on who can keep oil prices stable versus regimes that benefit the people of the region. Any hatred we've gotten as a result of our policies is well-deserved in my opinion. Instead of looking at it realistically and pragmatically, it is Americans who try to turn it into a religious war. The last thing we need is to be thinking in terms of a "religious war".... IMO, we should be more evolved than that and we should at least be able to discern a grain of our own responsibility, but we're not that evolved and we don't take responsibility... we get suckered into the fear-mongering and we get manipulated.

by ilovecenk99 on 02/15/2010 11:19:29 PM EST

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