Muslims are fierce about protecting their freedom. But if you think they are just being violent and aggressive, or** trying to conquer the world as dz put it**, then I think you need to take a closer examination.
Did you read my entire post, or just pick out things that you could quote out of context in order to make it sound like I was saying something inflammatory? Really, Sister Amy…I thought we got along better than that.
My point isn’t that “All Muslims are always trying to take over the world because they’re just plain bad people.” It is actually quite the opposite. I don’t believe that all individual Muslims want to destroy the non-Muslim world, but then I don’t believe that individual Muslims are the problem. The problem is the competing verses in the Qur’an itself that hamstring peaceful Muslims, by verses that extoll them to “slay the polytheists, wherever you find them, seize them, beset them, be in ambush for them everywhere” (Quran 9:5), and remind them that “fighting is prescribed for you, though it is distasteful to you” (Quran 2:216). Even if these have completely reasonable contextual explanations, as someone who, by virtue of my religious affiliation, is constantly reminded by the loudest, stupidest voices of the Muslim world that “polytheist” includes me because I have “associated partners with Allah” by worshiping GOD INCARNATE, I couldn’t frankly care less what sort of apologetic pretzel-making you must perform to the Islamic message to make these verses (and others like Quran 8:38-39) fit together with others like 2:256 (the famous “no compulsion in religion” verse).
This is the problem for many well-meaning Muslims: Verses so open to interpretation, with a million different undercurrents in Islamic thought that push them in one direction or another. Some are violent, some are peaceful, but there is no cohesion because the source material is also of two minds about violence.
As far as “taking over the world” is concerned, have you really not heard about al-Jama’a al-Islamiya, al-Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, Eritrean Islamic Jihad, etc.? I am not one to demonize the entire Muslim world by the actions of extremists, but to pretend as though there is not a serious, sustained and concentrated effort on the part of many Muslims to overthrow world governments and install Islamic theocracies in their place is just being willfully ignorant of world outside of your Islamic bubble. It doesn’t do anyone any favors, Muslim or non-Muslim.
To pre-empt any “But what about when Christians do ____, huh?” counter-argument that probably WON’T be coming from Amy since she knows better:
In the USA, there have also been problems among extremist Christian groups (generally racist paramilitary types, like the “Christian Identity Movement” losers) seeking basically the same thing, but with a “Christian” theocracy instead (with their own very specific and bizarre interpretation of scriptures providing the law, just like Al-Qaeda) . We send those jerks to jail forever or they get killed in armed conflicts with the government in the mountains of Montana or whatever. Fine. Extremism is not only the problem of Islam. I don’t think anyone would argue that, and I’m certainly not arguing that in this or any post. The difference is in how Christians view their own extremists, what they do about them, etc.
