Is "Islamophobia" the same as antisemitism?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Generally speaking, I find Islam to be a reprehensible, backwards, intolerant, murderous, xenophobic, racist, misogynistic and anti-intellectual as a religion. I can't say the same for many Muslims I've met and indeed am friends with, despite their often wacky views. They're still just people. I am 'islamophobic' in that I really, really am scared of the religion and it's teachings, but I'm certainly not going to dismiss all Muslims negatively based on their religious beliefs.

I look at the wide range of countries and states, that have Islam as their main religion and the cultural notion falls apart. You'd be very, very hard pressed to find any similarities between Muslims in, say, Sierra Leone to Muslims in Pakistan. Indeed, the varying sects seems to have such a unique social culture as well as a unique hatred for one another that I think conflating Islam as a cultural movement above and beyond the religion would be a mistake.

Muslim is certainly not a race, at any rate. So try as they might to make that claim, they will constantly fail.

As to what the word islamophobia actually means? I make the claim that it is a nonsense term used to prevent people from critiquing the religion of Islam. Often 'racist" will get banded in With that critique which automatically stifles the debate, which in turn leads to wider community tensions and ultimately a few guys strapping a bomb to their chest and blowing up a bus in a city. All because a topic has been made taboo and nobody can have an honest and open discussion about it without being threatened.