The Aggresion Flows From Islam?

Submitted by John R (United States), Dec 7, 2006 at 20:28

I would have to applaud you Dr. Pipes for your candor by saying that the aggression does not flow from the religion of Islam. This considering many of your supporters on this board do not believe it and are rife with litanies of anti-Muslim sentiments.

This aggression results not from some perverse impulse to inflict damage for its own sake; nor does it flow from the religion of Islam,

Terrorism does not flow from the religion of Islam.

Taken in context of the entire article, that's a big, confusing statement that probably arises from our problems of coming up with appropriate names for entities we talk about.

Nevertheless you present a very strong argument here that is quite hard to dispute even for people who disagree. That was a very intelligent article.

If I get it correctly, you are saying Islamism is the problem and not Islam. Is that what you are saying? Utopians who use Islam to further their causes are the problem, not Islam. Is that what you are saying? The way I've been seeing it is people whose religion is Islam committing or believing in violence and terrorism against non Muslims because of the influence of their religious beliefs, in addition to – or not – of utopian political ideas that largely result from Islamic beliefs.

I am game to your argument. Consider this. Let's see a survey of how many moderate Muslims support the movements of radical Islamic leaders or organizations. If the figure is over 75% support, I'd say the terrorism flows from the religion of Islam. It's an Islamic belief. It's the religion. How much of moderate Muslims support Al Queda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Ahmoud, and all those rhetoric? If the figure is below 50%, ok fine, it's a minority, Islam is not the problem but the utopians. I wonder if this survey might have some relevance to the argument.

John R.

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