very honest and interesting interview with a Muslim Cleric on "What is Islam"

The Muslim taxi driver I recently had in Munich was talking EXACTLY like this guy. Same messages..."if you send bombs to Afghanistan, what do you expect back"...stuff like that.

 

Honestly if you don't think moderate Muslims aren't doing more to get their message out you haven't been paying enough attention. Iman Rauf, the one who is trying to build is the Islamic Center in lower Manhattan is a moderate Muslim, has for years has been speaking on behalf of the US and against extremists and we see what that has gotten him. I heard a debate a couple of weeks ago on This Week where a moderate Muslim was on with a critic of Islam. The critic said that the moderate Muslim was lying to try to cover up her extremism.

Moderate Muslims have done a lot to speak out against extremists yet for their trouble they are still held under suspicion.

 

True there are extremists out there but you cannot judge a whole religion or base policy on them anymore than we can generalize the whole Tea Party movement on the most extreme.

When we end up allowing the extremists to define the terms of interaction the interaction will become more extreme.

 

Do you agree with any of this very honest and well spoken man's views? And to what extent?

 

Look, you want to say there are crazy and wild muslims there, a diverse group of 1 billion people, yea sure there are going to be the wild ones like him out there, theres no denying that. You want to find crazy black people, chinese people, crazy christians, jews, whatever else, you can find those too. its just a matter of reality, they exist amongst all type of people, and it is simply unfortunate. Yet there are the other side, and plenty even the majority who are more peaceful, so why dont you look up speeches by imam rauf of the mosque in nyc, or the aga khan and his works/speeches and see that they have a claim to islam and have millions who share views and to be quite frank, dont consider the physcho above, osama, or any of those terrorists to be of the same religion. Thats right I don't consider them muslims, or brothers, or whatever they want to, they have hijacked the religion in your eyes with their media exposure and hte mentality that the those who shout the loudest are heard the most, but as a scholar and having studied the religion as well as a believer they contradict too much overall and its simply unfortunate on their views nad unfortunate theat these rstrangers views make you feel something about me just bc i am a muslim or just muslims as a whole and just giving this wack more fuel and credibility

 

But why do tea parties want to kill all the Muslims? that's what Savage has stated, and since one person represents everyone else, it must be true by your own logic.

So please explain why you want to kill all the muslims.

 

Don't mind him, he just seeks attention and online popularity. Thats's why he previously supposedly invented a persona (the poster "New Yorker") that argued pretty much the opposite positions of what he argues for now.

 

There is only a very small percentage of Muslisms that believe as this "cleric" does. That is the truth. Because he gets on TV and you and ATW wanted to believe that this is the norm for Muslims it makes sense to you.

Again putting a crazy guy on who claims that he's normal and part of a sizable group doesn't make it real.

 

Unfortunately, there is a grey area where people might not believe 100 % as the cleric does, but parts of it. And unfortunately, if you look at the total number of muslims who are at least susceptible to this guy's crazy "arguments", it is not a negligible number at all, as much as you and other leftists try to downplay it.

 

I'm not suggesting it be ignored, just that it's ridiculous to act like it's a significant percentage of Muslims who are like this.

 

What are you saying? "A lot" of Muslims think the way of the idiot radical in the video...what's a lot? 1% of 1.4 billion is a lot of people right? Or do you mean 75%?

I am just saying that there are people on the other side who want to label Islam a terrorist religion and really have a lot of hate towards them - take ATW for instance. The guy has posted about 40 anti-Muslim threads easily.

The logic I am applying here is simply taking the radical view people of of Islam and applying it back. It's amazing how crazy it sounds. even you say "what are you smoking?"

Yet that's exactly what people are saying about Muslims. Why are they so Violent? guess what, people can use the same logic and apply it to other groups as well.

I would be interested in knowing what you define as "a lot".

 

Here are some actual numbers from the Pew Report (2009 data).







http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1338/declining-muslim-support-for-bin-laden-suicide-bombing

Certainly a lot more than the 1 % you and actual leftists keep trying to suggest.

In the US, the approval among Muslims polled about suicide attacks was at about 20 % a few years ago.

About one-quarter of young American Muslims believe to some extent that suicide bombings can be justified to defend Islam, while nearly 80 percent of all U.S. Muslims reject such attacks, a survey showed on Tuesday.

 

I would actually like to hear Azadre comment on his estimate of what percentage of Muslims are such zealots that they would support suicide attacks.

I know you read these threads...and I know you are still critical of Israel, some probably rightly so, some maybe because it was what you heard a lot when you grew up. But I also remember that you commented once that your view of things has changed since you went to college, and that you realized there were a lot of zealots around you when you were younger. I found this to be one of the most fascinating posts I have read in the D&D, because it is rare for people here to be so honest to say that they have changed their stance on things (other than New Yorker/Sweet Lou, who changes it like he changes his underwear, about once a month at least).

What would your estimate be?