Why Do Americans Still Fear Muslims?

From my perspective, people have provided counterpoints against your arguments and you have simply dismissed them without really addressing them (i.e., "that's a propaganda site, therefore I can dismiss anything from it without actually addressing its veracity"). Also, after seeing you twist around my arguments to suit you, I find it rather ironic that you're upset by people purportedly doing the same to you.

You were given examples of violent Buddhists, but you persist in painting Islam as a uniquely violent and dangerous religion.



People who are satisfied and happy with their lot in life are not easily persuaded to commit atrocities. One of the necessary factors in making a terrorist is a sense of injustice. If you look at where most terrorists actually come from, the lion's share come from Saudi Arabia, which is one of the most repressive states in the Middle East AND has ties with the United States that many of its citizens resent. Yes, some radicals have come from the United States, but they're a minority within a minority.



I strongly disagree. Radicals are statistical outliers. They are the minority. The majority of the adherents represent the "fundamentals" of their religion, since a "fundamental" is adopted and practiced by the majority (such as the sacraments, in the case of Roman Catholics). Radicals take those and carry them to an extreme.



Yes, I would. We have to be vigilant even now about people like Rick Santorum trying to get into higher offices where they can warp policy to suit their religion, but that doesn't mean I should regard all Christians with suspicion.



... uh, what?

Slavery was not unique to Muslims. Thomas Jefferson himself owned slaves. I have absolutely no clue what point you're trying to make here, other than making yourself look silly. Let me ask you this: what were our ships doing over there in the first place? Yeah, I'm sure absolutely NONE of them were involved in the slave trade themselves.

Also, our current WARS in the Middle East (let's not pussyfoot around and call them something mild like "occupations", especially considering the civilian death toll) are certainly contributing to anti-United States sentiment.



What do you say to the peaceful Muslim populations in the United States, Malaysia, Singapore...?



Dude... You're comparing apples and oranges. To start with, there are far more Muslims than there are Buddhists, to the tune of 1.5 billion to 376 million (since 2005). There are also far more Muslims that are currently being negatively impacted by our foreign policy than Buddhists, which is why the United States is often targeted and/or demonized. That alone could account for the disparity.



I wouldn't say that fundamentalists only arise because of the actions of others. That's overly simplistic. However, our foreign policy certainly isn't helping things. Looking OBJECTIVELY,

a) The United States is waging two wars and is carrying out military and espionage actions in others that violate their sovereign rights
b) The United States has been the most aggressive nation since the turn of the millennium, hands down
c) Our government has tried to suppress things like civilian deaths (Wikileaks)
d) We were lied to about the likelihood of WMDs in Iraq
e) We spend over half of our budget on the military and "hostile foreign relations"

The most dangerous country on the planet right now is the United States.



Yes, combining religion and politics is a Bad Idea. But a) Islam is not unique in that regard, and b) You don't need religion to be dangerous (look at the present United States, or Cold War era Russia).

You also haven't really addressed the fact that the United States is currently far more dangerous than any group of Muslim radicals.

Why do Jews hate Nazis that was over 50 years ago? Why do Muslims assume all Americans fear them?

Here're some photos of our soldiers treating the body of a 15 year old Afghani boy they murdered like an animal's.

Unconscionable. Inexcusable. Heartless.

I actually fully agree. But, just to make sure you remain consistent here, you do agree that any news of terrorists celebrating the deaths of noncombatants, or treating bodies badly, would be EQUALLY as unconscionable, unexcuseable, and heartless…right?

That goes without saying.

Our country already intensively scrutinizes and condemns Muslim radicals. As a nation, we don't spend nearly enough time in introspection. Disproportionate attention leads to disproportionate conclusions (i.e., as I've already mentioned, we spend far more on war than curing cancer, and we have 9/11's death toll every two days because of it).

I'm guessing the -rep I got was for linking those photos. I will apologize for not prefacing the link with a more explicit warning, but I won't apologize for linking them in the first place. Our country puts our soldiers up on a pedestal to keep us from criticizing the war by proxy, which includes suppressing news of their crimes. Soldiers are not heroes by default. That's bullshit. Soldiers who do the right thing are heroes, and the right thing may not be what they've been told to do by their superiors.

Listen Musuko, I don't believe anyone here is saying that the united states is in any way perfect. Plenty of topics have been made about how badly foreign policy, as well as internal policies are handled by the united states government. The problem here, however, is radical muslims.

To me, there are many causes for radical muslims doing what they do. One of those causes is when we invade their land, or they feel encroached on, I don't deny that. But one of the major causes is most certainly Islam itself, combined with the state enforcement of the religion, and in fact, several countries that enforce fundamentalism.

That's not to say there aren't plenty of muslims that are moderate, and tend not to think about the more crazy aspects of their religion. It's no different from when moderate christians say, "Yes, I know the bible condones slavery, but I don't."

As long as people are willing to look at their religion and say, "I don't agree with all that bad stuff, but I'm keeping the god part, and any good thing I may find." I'm ok with that. The problem I have, however, is that these people present the problem of respecting faith. I have recently had a conversation with a muslim that said I don't have the right to say I think Mohammed was a pedophile. He said, "You need to be more respectful of my faith." And I informed him, "No, actually I don't. I only need to be respectful of your right to have it."

All day long will I say the bible is morally reprehensible, and the islamic texts promote violence and the subjagation of other religions far more than I feel is good. I can back these claims up with verses.

But, to me, while I like moderates far more than fundamentalists, we have something that needs to be addressed. The only difference between fundamentalists, and their moderate brethren, is that the fundamentalists stick to the fundamentals of their religion. Both the fundamentalists and the moderates believe in irrational things, the moderates are just more accomodating.

I feel a lot of problems, though certainly not all, would be solved if Islam was abandoned altogether in favor of...something else, anything else, something that doesn't promote violence as much as Islam.

Never said that they did. My point is that we're spending too much time focusing on the boogeyman and not enough time looking introspectively.



The subject of the thread is, "Why do Americans Still Fear Muslims?" Not, "Why are radical Muslims a problem?" That's a very loaded statement.

If we were discussing things like the dangers of swimming pools or tobogganing, I wouldn't've interjected with, "BUT OUR GOVERNMENT IS MORE DANGEROUS GAIS!!!" even if it were true, because that's an unrelated supposition. Unlike swimming pools and tobogganing, however, our government has actively portrayed Muslim radicals and countries like Iran as being more dangerous than they actually are, and exploited that representation to violate other states' sovereign rights and our civil rights as citizens. Note that I'm not saying that they're not dangerous at all, but are they worth the Patriot Act, the TSA, over a trillion dollars spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (almost the same amount as our deficit, coincidentally!), the loss of our soldiers' lives, the deaths of innocent Middle Eastern civilians, etc.?

You have a point about the dangers of religion mixing with politics. That's a concern I can absolutely get behind. However, giving an oppressed populace another enemy other than their own tyrannical state is extremely counterproductive, and our view of Muslim radicals is doing nothing to ameliorate that.

ignorance, lack of tolerance

its another case of racial profiling, just like any of the hundereds of others. (Warning: Spoiler contains a few examples, by no means was this posted with the intention of offending or upsetting anyone)


To Put this as simple as i can...the majority of americans are lazy on both levels, both physical and mental. this is a case of mental, its easier to just judge someone and move on than, to actually give them a chance.((and yes i was born and rased in the states so i can take that shot at other americans and feel no remorse)

American's historically are a xenophobic, racist people with little to no redeeming quality to their name after it's independence. America itself has also been built on the backs of hundreds of millions of dead minorities; take the Jackson Administration Indian Removal policy for example, it effectively expanded American territory into the rich Mississippi Valley and killed and removed hundreds of Indian settlements in that process. Or perhaps take the Mexican-American war where the U.S basically took California and New Mexico from Mexico and payed them a shitty price to cover up the fact that they beat up a weaker nation, also funny enough, one of the factors contributing to the war was the idea that America's racial and moral superiority allowed them to travel across the continent and proclaim it's Manifest Destiny over the North American continent.

How about America's treatment of the Vietnamese? My Lai is a fine example of American brutality, fear and racism of other peoples. History has proven that America is always wrong on the race/religion question, the founders got it right right with the secularism idea, but the fact remains that the Evangelist are happy to try and put a stop to that.

To directly answer your question; It's because America is always afraid of outsiders, they hate anything that is foreign and non-American and perceive any nation that might threaten America in any way as America's enemy. The media got a cycle see, where they scare the living shit out of people so they conform and listen to their corporate masters. 9/11 was a attack on America for it's imperial ambitions in a region where it should have no say and most American's either don't care or don't know about American meddling. So, they scare the shit out of the population to support a war that allows them to rob the Middle East of it's oil, keeping America's power checked in the region while keeping those pesky Chinese and Russians away.

It's all apart of the plan to keep America's dominance over the world and keep making the rich rich and the politicians elected.

Some Americans fear Muslims because on September 11, 2001, a group of Muslim extremists hijacked 3 civilian aircraft. They then crashed one into the World Trade Center in New York City, one into the Pentagon in Washington DC, and the other one into the middle of nowhere. Relatively minor losses were sustained at the Pentagon, but the World Trade Center was lost completely as people either jumped to their deaths or were burned alive in the upper floors. The rest of the people remaining in the building (businessmen, custodians, firemen, etc.) were killed when both of the towers collapsed out of nowhere.

This was caused by people who said that they were Muslims. Plain and simple.

Personally I've never had a problem with Muslims. That's probably because I didn't lose anyone on 9/11 like so many others did.

Lack of education on the fact. In my freshmen year of high school, we studied the three main monotheistic religions, their beliefs, and how this impacted the modern world. well, there I learned that less than 1% (don't quote me on that, I only know it's between 0.1 and 4%) of Muslims are extremists , and are willing to commit acts of violence for their religion. People are afraid that all Muslims are terrorists, but this stereotype only proves their ignorance and fear towards something they don't know.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1038953/One-British-Muslim-students-say-acceptable-kill-Islam.html#ixzz1eYu5OKTX

One third of British Muslim students believe it is perfectly fine to kill for Islam. 0.1% to 4% is a fucking joke. Who are you kidding?


Islam, the religion of peace:

Yeah, but don't worry! It's just because the United States is "intolerant"

"Police Sorry For Puppy Ad That Upsets Muslims"
LMFAOOOOOO

A Little Big Planet recall because of Koran references? What the fuck? PC at its best. This is crazy.

Maybe Americans fear them because of the news,propaganda and such. Maybe it is because of 9/11. I'm sure there are many other reasons as well.

The Quran does have some violent verses that if translated directly into English or any other languages without proper research and full understanding of the context as well as the time it was revealed to Muhammad(SAW), it might sound dangerous.

Believe me. i live in Malaysia and I'm a Muslim(albeit quite lazy one). We have lived with the Chinese and the Indians as well as the other races for many,many years. If the Quran does preach violence, you would see me in the news running with an AK-47 in my hands shooting at everybody, everyday.

But we did not do that. if even 4% of all Muslims are terrorist, there should be 400 000 Muslim terrorist in my country.Enough to start a war. But there is no war. Huh~.Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.I'm just voicing out my opinion.

why do americans still fear muslims?

well lets start, i belive that since we have our troops there people think that they will try to attack USA once again.I also heard on the news a few years ago a.bout the FBI arresting a Muslim for trying to bomb a place, even that only the 0.05% of the Muslim population in America is a terrorist some people will still think "what if he/she is one" and thats something sad since for a few persons the rest have to pay for it.

As for me, i never thought of a Muslim person that i know in real life as terrorist.

you all should visit Indonesia(not in Bali Island), 85% people in Indonesia is Islam, I'm Islam. try Jakarta, Yogyakarta, in Indonesia people don't care about race,religion, or skin color. as long there good people we will accept you nicely !! in Indonesia all Muslim also hate who doing in WTC 9/11, because of them all non-muslin in Europe and America hate us, because of them discrimination Muslim people happen. it's their fault .

Oh?
Americans do?
By the looks of it, hey, my perspective,
biggest shit ever.

Why?
Damn, if you ever sit down and think of everything about this and ponder over it all over and over again, you'll see that Muslims aren't people who really likes violence, with Ramadan and all that stuff, but the point here is, you can't change the past, and the past makes up all of the present, and that's what I think is the best answer. It's all about the past. But, the only thing that is very impressive about Islam, and probably, the scariest, is the followers' devotion to the religion.

I'm Jewish, used to be orthodox. My grandparents were pretty much my only family members not to get murdered in the holocaust (and my current grandmother is an Auschwitz survivor). So I hate it when people make a sweeping judgement over an entire religion. It was done to the Jews before... "that's why we have perpetual war..."

+1 rep (not really) to the person who knows that reference.

Yeah, as if they'd ever teach anything controversial in school.

And will people please stop saying it's because if ignoranceâ„¢, intoleranceâ„¢, xenophobiaâ„¢, or racismâ„¢? It's not that simple.