[AltaGuy]

Originally Posted by Itse

It was mentioned before in the article Thor linked that I quoted.

Islam is a religion. It's a much more complex thing than ideology. In fact, within Islam you can have two completely contradicting ideologies.

Islamism is an ideology that Islam should rule the society. They're as much a political movement as they are a religious one. Secular Muslims are their polar opposite.

To generalize, if you use problems of Islamism as representative of all of Islam, you are doing exactly what the secular Muslims are begging you don't do. You are essentially wiping moderate, secular Muslims completely out of sight, as if they don't even exist.

It's kind of like talking about the US as if Sanders and Clinton and Obama and Trump all have the same problems (that are fundamentally related to them being Americans).

It's also important to remember that not all Islamists are violent. Some are pretty much the Muslim equivalent of GOP religious right. Not great for the society if you ask me, but a legitimate part of it, perfectly capable of respecting democractic processes, and certainly not terrorists, or even supporters of terrorism.

I think it's perfectly okay to bash Islamists in general though, and I do think they're in part to blame for extremist terrorism. I also think the doomsday preachers within GOP should take responsibility for some of the right wing terrorism in US.

Christianity is not the same as those others. Again, Christianity is not an ideology. It's a lot more complex thing, to the point where I don't really see much point in discussing "problems with Christianity". It's at best of historical interest at this point anyway, Christianity has become such a wide spread of ideologies and movements. Same with Islam.

Communism, fascism, corporate capitalism, those make much more sense as singular things to talk about.

A blanket condemnation is exactly the difference. The extreme right discusses the problematic parts of Islam with the purpose of dehumanizing and ostracizing all Muslims and creating the storyline of "clash of civilizations" that serves their political interests.

Wow - I missed some fun in this thread!

Anyway - thought I'd quote this particular post because it's brilliant.