A Simple Rule

[DeistPaladin]

What I'm violently opposed though, is the all muslims are the same rhetoric. That's why I don't care much for Sam Harris, just to give one example. I also saw some threads on this very board that nearly made me lose my lunch. Proposing things like forcibly taking away children from muslim parents or confining all muslims within certain areas and bomb them off and on for good measure is straight from the handbook of how to become a good nazi. That's on the same wavelength as violent antisemitism and has nothing to do with opposing religion.

Has Sam Harris said or written such things? Even on the Bill Mahar show, Sam opened the discussion with "Islamic Theocracy" which does focus on the radicals. Affleck immediately became red with rage and tried to silence him with charges of "racism" and "bigotry", only proving Sam Harris correct.

Sam Harris' point is that moderates are just watered down religious people that don't represent what the religion teaches. They give cover to the extremists by validating the claim of divine revelation for their scriptures. They may be nice people but they're not who we're talking about when we discuss what a religion is about.

That's my point as well. The radicals represent a religion.

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New Rule for Evaluating a Religion's Teachings:
For any religion, show me your radicals and I'll show you what your religion teaches.

Given the situation you described, how is this rule helpful?

Because the rallying cry for the coexist crowd is, "What about the moderates? Your painting with a broad brush."

The new rule makes it clear that while moderates may be nice people, they don't represent what their religion really teaches.