US Muslims struggle with condemnation

[Thumpalumpacus]

If you were part of the same organization that white person claimed to be a member of you might be asked those sorts of questions by people wanting to know what your view of the groups beliefs were.

Remember this is a religion not a race, you weren't raised to be a white man and there's no white man belief system, so it's slightly different circumstances.

Certainly, but that's not the dynamic in play here; the dynamic is in-group versus outgroup. That's exactly why the media asks any Muslim for their opinion on the matter, as if they all view the Koran in the same manner. They don't, especially here in America.

But say if you were to go ahead with that analogy, I'm sure throughout American history it's very common, especially these days, to have a vast vast VAST amount of white people who will put themselves at risk, sometimes even their lives at risk, for the sake of racial equality in America and for black civil rights and so on.

But in western countries you do get Muslims saying "These aren't real Muslims." but I don't know if there's a level of total outrage.  I don't know if many Muslims are going over there to fight ISIS, I think more of them are going over to abroad to fight FOR ISIS rather than against them.

To be fair, while, say, during our American civil rights movement in the 60s, while there were certainly whites who were involved in it, the overwhelming majority of whites were either apathetic about the matter, or actively opposed to the movement. And more to the point, once the individual had shown his sincerity to the movement, he wasn't asked to speak out about every transgression against blacks, as if his opinion were representative -- although a portion of the American public took solace in their words, no doubt.

I agree that not all Muslims should have to make a public apology but some genuine non forced condemnation goes a long way I think, on the one hand it is relieving to see a lot of Muslims condemning ISIS.  On the other hand it's scary that all you have to do is interpret a book a different way and you could end up joining ISIS.

I certainly agree that interpretation being as subjective as it is means that extremism can make -- and has made -- headway. However, there are plenty of non-forced condemnations of plenty of terrorist attacks, that get little coverage here in America at least.

A positive example was in the news today involving a knife attack and a Muslim bystander shouted out something like "You ain't muslim bruv, you're an embarrassment." And that's slightly encouraging, it wasn't forced it was just a reaction.

A negative example would be when someone I know was talking to a Muslim who I also know, saying to him something like "They don't like homosexuality in Islam do they? They can be executed in some of those Islamic places."  And the Muslim who is usually talkative about most topics just flatly said "Yeh."  And It was just a feeling I got but the silence after that was a bit awkward.

Well, no one likes to be confronted with the internal contradictions of their own belief system. That's not to excuse his terseness, but I could think of several reasons he might be so circumspect aside from silent agreement in the matter. Perhaps he was ashamed of it, and didn't want to have to address his sharing a common bond of holy book and holy rituals. Perhaps he felt he was being asked to answer for views he didn't hold, but didn't want to cause a scene. Perhaps he was worried about his girlfriend.

I'm not saying that proves he's homophobic, but if that was me and someone said "Hey Paul, a lot of atheists are left wing communists."  The very first thing I would do is explain I don't have much interest in Communism and I don't really politically swing on either left wing or right wing.  And I don't even condemn Communists but I'd be quick to point out false associations with me being an atheist just out of the principle of it.

I hear you; I face that same sort of thing insofar as I'm a somewhat conservative atheist, and like you in your hypothetical, under certain circumstances I do pick up the cudgel and start hammering home points. But at other times, I don't have the time or inclination to educate others on the flaws they carry in their assumptions about me. Knowing that I don't speak for any atheist but myself, I make that decision by myself under the circumstances; and I'm happy to extend that benefit of the doubt to Muslims, and treat them as the individuals they are.

Thanks again for your patience and understanding.