To Noah: Poll talk

First you attack the credibility of the poll. Next you state categorically that Muslims are mandated to lie to non-Muslims without any supporting evidence and so the poll is totally unreliable. I have read the Koran too and I have not come across such a mandate.

Noah just as you find the article based on a survey by a respected US university, or the results given by reputed pollsters like AC Neilsen and Pew meaningless, Michel and I also find a one-time poll in Jordan a centre of the ME conflict as indicative of Muslim thinking across the board, or the non-participation of Muslims in a peace rally as the aggressive intention of most Muslims in the USA, far fetched in the extreme. I recoginse that Muslim attitudes are medieval to the say the least. Islam may approve of lying in certain special circumtances (this is particularly true of the Shias) but to say that Muslims are as a religious duty expected to lie to non-Muslims is baseless. Most Muslims are not even aware of what their scriptures say as they know no Arabic and very few take the trouble to read a translation.

The religion of Islam if examined closely does seem to require intolerance, cultural subversion and terrorising of infidels. But I believe the majority of Muslims are not guided by the dictates of the Koran, just as Christians, Buddhists or Jews are not guided by their scriptures, but are normal people trying to make sense of the world with the help of their holy book, raise a family in a stress free world, live a normal life not very different from yours.

Noah your reality seems based on personal experience with some Muslims and polls and rally numbers. You place too much reliability on them. I too have had unsavoury experiences with Muslim but am unwilling to generalise to practially the entire 1.2 billion community.

On the other hand this poll brings out the uncomfortable fact, which you probably refuse to believe, that more than 50% of Americans are not uncomfortable with intentional attacks on civilians. Unless you assume that Muslims only open their mouths to lie to non-Muslims you will have to agree that with even a 50% margin of error Muslims have about the same attitude towards intentional attacks on civilians as Americans as indicated by the Terror Free polls. That is an uncomfortable truth you are faced with. And your reaction is no better than that of some Muslims brought face to face with the depradations of members of their community. Undermine its credibility.

The article I posted was just an indicator. If it was wrong even by a wide margin still it would go to show your figure of .0001% Muslims as peaceful as a wild guess rather than any scientific estimate.

The article asks the question: 'Do these findings mean that Americans are closet terrorist sympathizers?' And rightly says 'hardly'.

Also I cannot fault the other conclusion in the article:

'Indeed, the far-too-frequent stereotyping of Muslims serves only to reinforce the radical appeal of the small minority of Muslims who peddle hatred of the West and others as authentic religious practice. '