Are you an Islamophobe?

[Invisible Sky Fairy]

Islam sucks just like all other religions.

If anything, the whole "Avoid insulting it, or if you absolutely must insult it be sure to include that others are just as bad as a way of softening the blow" mentality that even other atheists seem to display makes me hate it more.

If that makes me "islamophobic"...well, okay then.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Agreed, it is totally irrelevant. However, being bigoted is applicable to all religions, and not just Islam. In all religions, they always play the victim card, and to be brutally honest, Islam is one of a long list of many who love to play the victim to get support. It is one way of getting sympathy from everyone.

True. But a strong case can be made for anti-Islamic bigotry existing in the West, a case that was in place before 9/11 and GWoT, but certainly exacerbated by those events.

By the way, such bigotry should not engender sympathy for the aggrieved, but rather contempt for the bigots. That's my view, at least.

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Who would support the labels passive Islam and aggressive Islam? As in, that is the way they interpret and practice it.

I would think "peaceful Islamist" and "violent Islamist" would be more accurate. They both cleave to the same faith, the same book. Just like moderate and fundamentalist Christians, they cherry-pick their support. As a result, using the broad term for the entire faith, "Islam", seems inaccurate. I think it would be more to the point to add the suffix "-ist" in order to point up the individual nature of the decision being taken (between peace and violence).

And I would change the modifiers from "passive" and "aggressive" to "peaceful" and "violent" because, firstly, "passive" and "aggressive" are both milquetoast descriptors which do not tell you what is actually going on -- a body might be blown apart by a passive or aggressive design (passive: land-mine; aggressive: artillery barrage). If someone is being violent, calling it "aggressive" leaves too much rubber in the words for misdirection to slip in.

Secondly, peaceful Muslims are often not at all passive, and violent Muslims are often not aggressive, taken at face value.

Forgive my little burst here, but accurate language is a hobby-horse of mine.

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I accept this distinction, I gladly welcome peaceful secularist Muslims in the west. A problem with this is answering the question "who's violent?" - For example, a Muslim who thinks gays should be executed but doesn't protest or actively seek to implement that measure - Is this person violent?

That Muslim would be extremist, but not violent ... yet.

[robvalue]

Parkers: yes I later amended it to violent and non violent I think that covers it fairly well. Indeed, maybe peaceful is better than non-violent.

I like the idea of making a clear distinction. Violent and peaceful Islam. It's not saying Islam is violent or peaceful, just that people use it in different ways. I don't see how such a distinction could be considered offensive, as you are automatically excluding all "moderates" (hopefully) as soon as you talk about violent Islam.

The idea of "True Islam" is fucking ridiculous and really grinds my gears. There is no such thing. It's all arbitrary made up in the first place and people can make up more or modify it as they please. No one is qualified to say who is doing it "right".

[DeistPaladin]

... the whole "Avoid insulting it, or if you absolutely must insult it be sure to include that others are just as bad as a way of softening the blow" mentality ...

I believe that's an example of the Tu Quoque fallacy, i.e. "'X' isn't so bad because 'Y' does it too."

[Invisible Sky Fairy]

I believe that's an example of the Tu Quoque fallacy, i.e. "'X' isn't so bad because 'Y' does it too."

Well, yeah. It's the only reason I can find as to why the heck so many people feel the need to drag Christianity into every Islam discussion.

[Dystopia]

Religious people are not a monolithic group, when I say "X religion is violent" I'm not saying all practitioners of that specific religion are violent.

[Sterben]

I believe that's an example of the Tu Quoque fallacy, i.e. "'X' isn't so bad because 'Y' does it too."

Well, yeah. It's the only reason I can find as to why the heck so many people feel the need to drag Christianity into every Islam discussion.

Cause you can't have a discussion on the matter of Islam without taking into account the Christianity aspects. The two major religions in a bout of ideology? It's only the trigger to WW3, nothing major ya know right?

[Invisible Sky Fairy]

Well, yeah. It's the only reason I can find as to why the heck so many people feel the need to drag Christianity into every Islam discussion.

Cause you can't have a discussion on the matter of Islam without taking into account the Christianity aspects. The two major religions in a bout of ideology? It's only the trigger to WW3, nothing major ya know right?

I'd expect Islam to be brought into Christianity discussions, or at the very least for the comments to go deeper than "Christianity also sucks", if that was the reasoning. Neither seem to ever happen. Instead it always just boils down to;

"Hey, this Muslim jackass did something bad."
"There are also Christian jackasses."

Which is just stating the painfully obvious.

[Pizza]

Religious people are not a monolithic group, when I say "X religion is violent" I'm not saying all practitioners of that specific religion are violent.

This mostly. It's sad we can't have a real debate regarding Islam without Neocon Christians using it as a justification of violence against Muslims who are not terrorists and who are closer to moderate and liberal Christians ideologically.

[WinterHold]

Well, from my opinion, lots of people are. And because Muslims are humans after all, people take any "shitty human behavior" a Muslim does then blame it on Islam.

In many cases, it's nothing but a cultural conflict. I for certain, know that the Arab culture has negative things, so when people see that, they assume directly it's "Islamic".
Despite many good Muslims showing proper attitude and advocating for peace, love, living & laughing, people still judge.
The media has a huge impact on this, and we know for certain that in many cases, the crowd just follows the stream.

From my view, there is a lot of "islamophobia" on the move, especially the cases of hate crimes, like the ATHEIST WHO KILLED THE MUSLIM GUY AND HIS SISTER & WIFE, which if a muslim did it to an atheist, atheists would've spent years crying and preaching about "those evil terrorist muslims".

Bullshit and racism at its best.

Personally, no I'm not. I'm only against the type of Muslims, who want to convert by the sword, and display violent behavior, but again, I'm against ANY HUMAN who wants to do that.