Why do people only think that there are extremists in Islam?

[thefinerthingsinlife]

There are so many extremist in other faiths too, yet people always say we need to stop Islam because its extreme.

In my eyes it's a case of who ever shouts the loudest are the voices that are heard.

I'm fed up of hearing it and when I try and explain that all faiths have extreme minorities and that the majority are reasonable people.

Are these people truely that narrow minded?

Opps I mean when I try to explain that the majority are reasonable, people look at you like your clueless

Riven have you got any links for the Christian extremists/FBI? I'd be interesting in reading that.

Thats exactly the problem people take whats written in the paper as gospel, and use it to preach hate.

Thank you, thats an interesting watch/read

Obviously there are extremists in all religions.

But if we confine the debate to the UK...

The thing with the IRA, for example, is they were blowing stuff up for political ends. This made it possible to eventually negotiate with them and reach a peaceful solution (more or less). Also, they didn't generally set out to maximise civilian casualties.

I believe the Tamils' campaign was similarly motivated - a discriminated-against minority trying to gain self-government.

Islamic terrorists are mainly pissed off with the 'decadence' of the West, though, no? All those 'sluts' in Tiger Tiger that needed a nail bomb to teach them the error of their ways... So how do we compromise?
I grant you Iraq and Afganistan don't help, but I do resent the fact that I am strongly opposed to both wars, and am still as likely to be blown up on the street as the next person.

So maybe not so much that people think Islam has more extremists, just the ones there are are more dangerous ?

Just think of the peace in the world if there was no religion. There are nutters everywhere, it's just that some think they are better than others

Islamic fundamentalism scares individuals more because the whole population is seen as a legitamate target. Christian Fundamentalist tend to target specific people such as abortion clinic workers, and it doesn't really happen in the UK so its not given much thought. As most people in Western Europe and North America are either Christian, have a Christian background or have been imersed in a broadly Christian culture they have less fear of the unknown with Christian Fundamentalists than Islamic ones which can seem very other to a lot of people.

ripeberry I fear the violent loons would find something else to use as an excuse for their tendancies.

politics
land
resources
families
posessions
culture

and so on and so on. People always find a way to attack people they don't like for some reason.

I think that the reason people are so scared of Muslim fundamentalists is because

They have carried out recent "big news" attacks on us / "people like us"

The media report it a lot

We (the west) know that they (Islamic terrorists) want to kill us all / destroy our way of life / everyone including children are legitimate targets

The approach advocated by these types of people are practiced in various places around the world with eg the taliban, people burning girls schools, all sorts of stuff that gets reported, and it scares people shitless and hardens their attitudes

Exactly, ISNT.
Religion is an expression of human nature, noth good and bad.

The last big terrorist attacks on the UK population were carried out by muslim fundamentalists. I think it's as simple as that really.

The fact that they are well organised with training camps and so on puts them in a different league to the average christian loner with a vendetta against whatever it might be.

the fact that there are so many films on teh internet with all sorts of people espousing death to westerners, that there have been recordings made in mosques in the UK of people stirring up extremist feeling.

We have a lot of fundamental reigious types around here, of various different sorts, but they haven't committed any terrorist acts AFAIK.

It must be shitty for all the people who aren't involved in extremism, but I think that when you have people blowing up the tube in your name and posting videos of people being beheaded and so on, then there's going to be a reaction.

Thats exactly the point, the media report about islamic extremists alot because it sell papers ect.

This is since 9/11 and the bombings on the tube though. It is in the context of those two events, and other high profile attempts that have been thwarted.

When the IRA were active, stories about Irish people with explosives on them were on the news.

I'm not sure why this comes as a surprise?

Coincidentally I noticed the headline on the front of the local paper today, when I went out to get my lunch, was about a desecration at a mosque and the headline referred to "anti-islam thugs" or something like that - the word "thugs" was definitely there. It was a whole of front page cover-story.

It has also been all over the papers when there has been racist grafitti in Jewish areas recently and there was some desecration of a Jewish graveyard which was on the local news as well.

In our area I think we get told when there are actions against any of the religious communities.