(more of my sentiment and more about PCism re Islam)

Wanted: a Muslim Reformation
National Post (Canada)
Sept 26, 2003

No religion has a monopoly on violence. Christianity has the Spanish Inquisition and the bloody excesses of the Crusades...."

But it will Not do to take the Politically Correct course and Lump all Religions in the Same basket, at least not insofar as our own era is concerned. Christian civilization underwent a Reformation in the 16th century, embraced the Enlightenment with its intellectual and theological pluralism, separated Church from State and encouraged scholarship and democracy. Judaism has followed a similar process -- as have, more recently, the faiths of the far East. Islam, on the other hand, is still struggling with this transition. And if there is to be peace in the Middle East and an end to terror worldwide, Muslims must accept that their faith is overdue for a doctrinal overhaul...."


"....Christianity still has its fanatical, bigoted elements. But those Christians who advocate the slaughter of non-believers make up an almost imperceptibly tiny fraction of the faithful. Much is made of the intolerant pronouncements of high-profile evangelists. A few deranged anti-abortion snipers aside, however, this is just talk. Even terrorists that claim to be part of the Christian world-- such as Spain's Basque extremists and America's Timothy McVeigh-- typically do not operate under any sort of religious aegis.

By contrast, a large minority of the world's one billion Muslims still adhere to militant interpretations of their faith, including the Wahabi sect of Sunni Islam, centred in and spread by Saudi Arabia. These interpretations all embrace as a central tenet the duty of jihad -- which, despite whitewashing efforts in the West, continues to mean what it has meant since the 7th century: the slaughter or forced conversion of non-Muslim "infidels." With few exceptions -- such as old-school Palestinian terrorists who cling to Marxist rhetoric -- Muslim terrorist groups all explicitly take Islam as their inspiration. Osama bin Laden is a Hero to Hundreds of Millions of Muslims, and al-Qaeda continues to receive financing from a wide array of Muslim charities.
Christians kill. Jews kill. Hindus kill. But no other faith group on the planet has embraced random slaughter in anything approaching the manner of radicalized Muslims.

The mainstream Arabic media is shot through with the most extreme sort of Hatred...
"Muslim advocacy organizations in the West, including Canada's own Canadian Islamic Congress, typically reject the claim that there is a problem with contemporary Islam, preferring to lay the world's problems at the feet of Israel and U.S. foreign policy.

Indeed, any Critical Scrutiny of their Religion is decried as "Bigotry"..... But it is evident these commentators are putting pride of faith above Truth.
The celebrations in the Islamic world on Sept. 11, 2001...."

Original link expired, EDITED... The Full article can now be found here:
http://www.jewishtoronto.com/content...rticleID=85448


And please note the use in all my articles (Manji, Hamid, above) in the Criticism of MAINSTREAM islam.
The oft heard statement that the problem is "Just a few Terrorists" is a strawman and beside the real point:
Mainstream Belief/practices of Literalist Muslims.

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