A message to Islam

[Reforged]

I agree that there has to be Muslims encouraging human rights and making a stand against extremism but at the same time Muslim extremists are quite violent and probably won't hesitate to kill someone they view to be guilty of heresy. You can see why there isn't a strong Muslim opposition to extremism when you take this into account.
How do you counter something like that which is so widely spread and has so few scruples?

There are pictures you can goggle on the net, of the dominance of the KKK and Christian bigotry and facism that had a grip on America, even after the Civil War had defeated slavery. There was a point when Christian bigotry had a majority of our country.

We constantly combat even in the west attempts to create fascist monopolies, even if they do not currently exist now. I look at the oppression minorities in America have over come and because we are the same species do not see it as impossible for the same thing to take hold there. Will it take hold is certainly a different issue, but not impossible merely because of our evolution and part of that evolution is compassion.

I have no doubt if the Constitution was suddenly forsaken, the ban on monopolies it fosters, could very easily allow Christianity to backslide into the same tribal behavior it had prior to the age of Enlightenment.

I think you do a disservice on focusing on Islam as a label when you should simply focus on it as a current climate. If Christianity can grow out of it's attempts at facism, Islam can too. But they need both inside pressures and outside pressures to do it, just like it took blacks and women to stand up for their rights in spite of a bigoted sexist Christian majority.

Change Christianity took hundreds of years. The good thing about Islam is that it is changing in a much faster media and facism is scrutinized and challenged on a much easier scale now. I don't expect change over night, but I do think with effort it is possible to inject a Muslim Jefferson and a Muslim Age of Reason.

I think the alternitive of setting up taboos is not what the west should be doing. I think the only thing we can do is say "Look, protest all you want, all we ask is that you don't get violent".

I said before that I am under no ellusions that there is a garuntee that things will get better. But I can only point at the west and it's own internal struggles and tribal beefs and say, it did happen there. I'd like to at least make the attempt to set up future conditions that allow for free speech and non violent protest.

I want for Islam and the Middle East the same conditions I have here. I want them to live in a world where they don't have to fear their leaders, or even different sects of the same religion. I want them to feel free to criticise the west and Isreal. But that all depends on how they, even on a local level among themselves handle dissent. They wont get it using violence. Even withing the different sects of Islam, using violence only serves to divide them even more.

I cannot stress enough, that the asshole who made that video is an asshole and a bigot. But here in the states, as an atheist, I don't murder someone or call fo rthe murder of others, merely because they offend me. The worst any one will get from me, when they are just being assholes, but are not being violent is my voice in response.

While that is somewhat true I don't think even in 1950s America it would acceptable to stone a pregnant woman to death. The KKK had more of a presence but they still had to operate behind closed doors to some extent. This definitely isn't the case in the middle-east. I think if you wanted to draw any kind of comparison you'd need to go back to inquisition times. If any progress is to be made with the situation in the middle east it will be a slow, bloody process that will doom many innocent lives to torture and to death simply for not agreeing with the extremists. If our history is anything to go by this process will likely last for afew hundred years. This isn't even taking into account the different factors that are involved in this situation that were not present during the times we were undergoing this type of transition.
I think change will come eventually but we can not say when or in what form. We can't really influence it that much, unfortunately. It is the evolution of a nation and that can not be rushed. The attempt would meet resistance and be seen by many as infringing.