I know lots of Musims, there are several that I consider friends, and two of my closest friends are Muslim.
I have never asked any of my Muslim friends and acquaintances what they think of violent passages, and perhaps I will consider doing so. But that doesn't change the fact they are nice, peaceful, ordinary people! They absolutely believe ISIS are awful just as we do.
I would very much welcome you to seek dialogue with your Muslim friends and report what they said here. I am genuinely interested if the experiences that I've had with my Muslim acquaintances are actually representative.
Again: I also had considered them to be very nice, peaceful and "ordinary" until they engaged in clearly antisemitic behavior and, in the talks that followed, admitted that they believe Sharia law to be of higher virtue and higher importance than universal human rights.
I said in my earlier post that I don't wish to debate the violence of the religion itself, because although I am a scholar of religion and I do study Islam, I don't feel I am well educated enough on the subject to be commenting. However, I do want to be quite clear that to say that the majority of Muslims are violent or think violence is okay or think ISIS are doing a good thing is completely false.
I will agree that most Muslims will condemn ISIS, mostly because many mainstream scholars have distanced themselves from this group.
However, I highly doubt that most Muslims will admit that teachings that condone or encourage violence in the Quoran are false - nor that the behavior exhibited by their prophet are false.
Considering recent opinion polls, even the support of the Islamic State is something that many individuals seem to be underestimating, with support going up as much as 7% of all French citizens (corresponding to 27% of young Muslims).
http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/New%20EU%20Members-Combined-July%202014-V3.pdf
If you look at a
summary of different opinion polls, you will find support for Al Qaida or Bin Laden in ranges above 25% in all Muslim countries except for Turkey.
25% is really not something I would consider an "exception".
Surely, some studies indicate that numbers of "Westernized" Muslims (that prefer secular law over Sharia law) are in the majority - this is something I dearly welcome. Nonetheless, with percentages around 37% for individuals under 25 supporting Sharia law, I would consider that to be a cause for great alarm.
Further studies in Germany conducted by the
Institute for Criminology have shown that adherence to Islam increase the risk of committing violent crimes, whereas adherence to
all other faiths decreased the risk.
(See page 9: "A high degree of religious faith can be protective from delinquency. It should be noted that there are differences in faith: A high devotion to the Christian faith reduces violent behavior, whereas adherence to Islamic faith increases the risk. [...] Furthermore, religious faith does not hinder integration of young migrants, this does not apply to Muslims however.")
=> I have a question for you now: Do you believe that all of these studies are faulty? Do you really believe that there is nothing, absolutely nothing to the notion that Islam directly contributes to violent crime, terrorism and political extremism?
How do you explain the findings in both these studies and the polls?
In my opinion you must be blind if you don't see that the media is demonising Islam. And I live in Europe.
I don't see anyone demonizing Islam except for Muslims themselves.
Like I said, I have no problem with immigrants of all faces of the planet - I have no problems with religious individuals that don't share my faith and most certainly no problems with individuals who aren't religious at all.
I do have problems when an ideology is becoming rampant under the guise of "religious beliefs" - especially when these so-called moderates suddenly chant "death to the jews" the moment they feel the courage to become politically active.
