The idea of moderate Islam is wishful thinking.

Right. And every Christian bombs abortion clinics and drags gays behind pickup trucks. Give me a break.

I call BS on this claim, and think you listen to too much Boortz and Beck.

I have no idea who 'Beck' is and I can guarantee you that I have never listened to Neil Boortz. I am not saying that all Muslims are extremists. I am saying that the extremists are running the show and moderate Islam has been hyped up by people on both the left and the right (even George W. Bush, for chrissake) when it just isn't there.

Over a third of young British Muslims think that people who convert away from Islam should be punished by death. 74% of young British Muslims think women should have to wear the veil. That's British Muslims, not Saudi or Iranian Muslims.

Either we live in different worlds, or you don't get out much..

Pakistan - the United States' "moderate" partner in the fight against Islamic terror - is planning to set up an "Apostasy Act" which would allow for capital punishment for any man who leaves Islam and would put in prison for life any woman who does similarly (that's the Muslim conception of women's rights, btw). And in Thailand, it's becoming the fashion for Muslims to slice the heads off Buddhists.

This is, of course, purely sociological and economic deprivation and has absolutely nothing to do with believing in a book which tells it's readers to engage in savage acts of barbarism with those whom they have theological disagreements with.

Dickhead. 'Tis not often that I resort to random expletives but you really are a fuck.

I know alot of people who would put 'muslim' on a census, yet have no wish to blow me up - or even blow up my freinds who would put 'christian' on a census.

Many of them even wear Nike trainers.

You think there's some fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam? Bollocks, the parralels outweiegh the differences. How about you experiment with mixing with different cultures before posting your niaeve veiws? Or at least come to terms with the fact that you know fuck-all about islam, or "how the world is".

The muslims I know are all almost all "moderate". Yes there's a culture gap, but it's no greater than that between me and my christian friends. Islam is not an "evil religion" as you depict in your description. It's just another monotheistic, evangelical religion.

Infact, shit, Tom, you almost sound like an extremist?

*ahem* I appologise. I've had a loittle to drink and am perhaps shorter on temper than usual.

Howevwe - I would like citations as to where you found your statistics.

You're not saying that all Muslims are extremists, but there is no such thing as moderate Islam. What exactly are you saying, then?

When it comes to religious concepts, I am not sure I believe any polling data. People say what they are expected to say. Sam Harris is fond of bringing up the fact that 44% of Americans believe God will bring about the Apocalypse within 50 years, or that 80% of Catholics believe that they are really eating the body of Christ at Communion, or that 70% of Christians believe in Hell. Of course they are going to say those things - but whether they truly believe it is another question. As evidence, just compare the polling numbers of how many people say they go to church every week with the actual numbers of people in said churches.

Of course there is moderate Islam. Yes, there are also extremists - but you'll find extremism in every human endeavor, from religion to sports to dieting. To judge all by the actions of those on the fringes is easy to do, but does not advance the argument in any constructive way.

"You think there's some fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam?"

Not in theory, no. There's a slight difference in practice, although the similarity between 12th century Christianity and 21st century Islam is shockingly similar.

"The muslims I know are all almost all "moderate"."

Good for them. Almost all of the Christians I know are moderate too, but that doesn't change the existence of fundamentalists. It is wishful thinking to think that moderate Islam is anything other than a small minority. I wish it wasn't. I wish the tolerant, liberal Muslims who respect women's rights and so on were the majority.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C05%5C28%5Cstory_28-5-2007_pg12_6
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2085869,00.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070602/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_broadcasters_threatened_1
http://www.stophonourkillings.com/News/article/sid=1699.html
http://www.stophonourkillings.com/News/article/sid=1682.html
http://www.cps.gov.uk/london/cps_london_news/honour_crimes_conference/
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Trends&loid=8.0.415753580&par=

And the statistics:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/29/nmuslims29.xml

"You're not saying that all Muslims are extremists, but there is no such thing as moderate Islam. What exactly are you saying, then?"

Simple. Moderate Muslims exist, but moderate Islam as a concept does not. They are very minor exceptions to a rule. Our idea of a 'moderate' is actually very, very far to the right. A 'moderate' Muslim is the equivalent of a fundamentalist Christian, a 'liberal' Muslim is roughly equivalent to a 'moderate' Christian.

There are a few voices of sanity out there - the Ibn Warraq's and the Irshad Manji's - but they would not be necessary if moderate Islam was the dominant force in the Muslim world.

Just wondering why exactly it would be nice "if Muslims bought Nike trainers, listened to Queen and Stevie Wonder".. Is it not okay in your world to buy Asics trainers and listen to Cheb Mani and Zakir Hussein? If not why not? I ask because you sound like some sort of music Nazi with a fetish for Nikes.

Extremists are not running any show (unless you count the G8 leaders as extremists). It is just that it's more useful to report that persons X, Y and Z did something violent as opposed to persons A through W did nothing at all.

"Is it not okay in your world to buy Asics trainers and listen to Cheb Mani and Zakir Hussein? If not why not? I ask because you sound like some sort of music Nazi with a fetish for Nikes."

Poetic licence and metaphor, dear.

Your report was "met with criticism from Islamist groups including MPACUK and the Muslim Council of Britain, and was subject to a critical response by Drs. Marie Breen Smith and Jeroen Gunning of the University of Aberystwyth in The Guardian who claimed that the research was designed to support the Conservatives' agenda, and was therefore of no value in understanding extremism in Britain."

THey are hardly minor exceptiopns to the rule - they are the major exceptions to the media and predjudices you choose to subject yourself too.

Islam is a peaceful religion, I personally believe that Islam is just as peaceful as Christianity has been, although I do not believe that the things that Christians do are right, I have the same feeling about Islam. Christians have been violent and so have Muslims, so have Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Druze, Pandeists, Agnostics, Atheists, and whatever the hell you can think of.

I used to believe that Islam was just like any other major religion such that there are both moderates and extremist movements within. However, there are two things that changed my mind.

First, the moderate Islamists have in general stayed oddly silent about the acts of extremists. It is as if most secretly want the extreme acts to continue. The cartoon incident is a good example.

Second is a study I read that strongly suggested that polygamy leads to violence, regardless of which religion or culture it is practiced in. This is because it makes wives in short supply, and a man who cannot obtain a wife often becomes violent and desperate, perhaps because testosterone levels are higher for single males. Most suicide bombers are single.

Trying to Christianize the Islam?

O.K. I guess Mormons are violent people according to what Tablizer says.

Re: "O.K. I guess Mormons are violent people according to what Tablizer says." - Because they were a relatively small group within a larger country, those who couldn't get wives could fairly easily leave the group and blend in just fine with monogamists. I'll see if I can find a link to the study.

Polygamy leads to violence, Tab? Where'd you read that study? Can you link to it? Sounds interesting.

Very 'them and us' thinking, Tom, I'm dissapointed.

I might as well take the holocaust as evidence that 'christians' can never be truly civilised. But I don't. People are complex, creative things and more is possible than you'd think at first glance. Germany seems to have calmed down in only a few decades, for example.

If you go around giving the impression that anyone from an Islamic background is doomed to be a jerk, ... what impression does that give? How would you respond to such thinking if you happened to come from an Islamic background? (can you even imagine that? is it a problem if you can't?).

And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry also has a few hints that immoderate behaviour (arms manufacture, hoarding, indescriminate sale) is still highly popular in once-quite-Christian nations. Is it caused by the influence of Christianity? or by the decline of Christianity? Or is such an analysis too simplistic to capture what's going on. I suggest you're being equally simplistic in your analysis of the Islamic world.

Correlation doesn't establish causality; don't they teach that any more?