Zonie63
Posts: 2826
Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: naughtynick81
So what has race got to do with religion exactly? A muslim can be someone from any race. A christian can be someone from any race.
My point is that there are people who will use the "racist card" whenever a person criticises islam. There is a huge difference between being anti race than there is to be anti muslim or anti [insert religion here].
What's you say?
People are going to use political labels however they want. Whether they call people "racists," "socialists," "communists," "fascists," "leftists," "rightists," etc. However, I usually try to bypass the labels and find out exactly what it is that's being addressed. Every situation is different, so it's best to not get too hung up on labels or the kind of wordsmithing that gets done in political discussions.
Having said that, though, if you say that you're anti-Muslim, it implies that you're against an entire group of people of about 1.6 billion people, of which only a small percentage would be actual terrorists or murderers. To condemn an entire group just because a few of them are bad might be labeled as "racist" under certain circumstances. Perhaps it may not be technically correct, but the underlying implication is that a person is condemning an entire group for their race, ethnicity, or culture (of which religion is part).
Of course, it's also true that the Christian World and the Muslim World have been at odds with each other for some 1200-1300 years. A lot of long-term damage has been done on both sides, so it might be something both sides will have to come to terms with eventually. To just declare oneself as "anti-Muslim" is counterproductive and will only lead to more problems. While I'm agnostic and somewhat anti-religious in general, I would still support and welcome any kind of reconciliation, or at least, agreeing to disagree on their religious differences. That would be a step in the right direction, but to be "anti-Muslim" is a step in the wrong direction. Turning up the heat on them might force the moderates into the embrace of the extremists, which could lead to even more drastic terrorist events.
A lot of Muslims whom I know personally have come here to the U.S. and don't really see us as bad people, nor do I see them as bad. We can amicably disagree over our religious differences without making an issue of it, as long as there's mutual respect for each other's beliefs. Of course, I'm not ignoring the number of fanatics and extremists who want Islam to take over the world, but I leave that to the professionals in our military and intelligence community whose job it is to keep an eye on them, estimate their numbers, their military capabilities, and do whatever is necessary to keep the terrorists in check. As long as we can do business with the moderates on fair and amicable terms, then they'll have a personal stake in maintaining peace and rejecting extremism. We don't want to push them too far, and I think most of them realize that they don't want to push us too far either.
But apart from the legitimate concerns about terrorism and global stability (which only involves a few governments and extremist groups), I don't see that there's any rational reason to be "anti-Muslim" entirely. Whether it's racist or not is beside the point. It just seems a bit dangerous and unnecessarily provocative to start advocating along those lines. It might just lead to more trouble. (Although from reading some of the other posts and threads, it seems that your M.O. is to be a bit of a troublemaker anyway, but perhaps you don't mean to be. Still, there's ways to rile people up, and there's ways not to rile people up.)
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RE: Race and religion - 
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