I was wondering what blueangel was talking about. I couldn't find his/her Q'uran post anywhere in this thread.

I think its in the one about Radical Islam....she posted 3 "quotes" from the Q'uran that she got off the internet and pretty much harassed _Opi_ to give her an explanation about them.

I think that if Americans gave 2 shits about anything not involving the USA, we would have heard about this story. The Daily Show did a gag showing the covers of all the international Newsweeks, with the US one. On all but the US cover the story was "Losing Afghanistan?" On the US edition, the cover was "My Life in Pictures" Welcome to the attention span of the American public.

That said, I do not think the two actions (9/11 hijacking and this hijacking) are comparable. If anything, this the equivalent to taking a hostage, something that happened in Amish country, in Iraq and in several other places over the past weeks.

I think the major difference in why some people call for Muslims to "speak out" is because of the reasons for the violence. To clarify:

If a Muslim blows himself up for his twisted views of jihad and Allah's will, and is supported by other people using "Allah" as a justification, it makes it seem like the religion approves of this.

If a Christian attacks a school house full of children and does not do so "in God's name" then his religion is not being held accountable for his actions. If he did say "this is God's will" and his church condemn's him for it, again only he is accountable for his actions.

I say all this knowing that the vast majority of Muslims are no more violent than I am.

Also, take into consideration the number of Catholics who are called upon to defend/denounce the actions of priests, the pope, etc. and all Benedict did was quote a dead guy. (He had a good point, but he should have totally known better) It's not just Muslims who are being called to denounce those who harm their religion.

Very true but "involving the USA" is relative.

A lot of the things going on the Middle East aren't directly involving the USA but Americans make it their business to know about them and/or intervene somehow. All in the name of "fighting terrorism." They need to edit that to say all in the name of "fighting terrorism that may or may not have a trickle down effect on the US. We can never be sure so we need to keep a close watch on THOSE PEOPLE."

I really haven't heard calls for violence from Catholics or Protestants lately.

I take it you haven't been listening to Fred Phelps, Randall Terry, or Eric Rudolph lately, then.

I'm not familiar with Randall Terry or Eric Rudolph, but as a resident of Kansas I'm aware of Fred Phelps. How many "Christians" of all those that profess in the world are like that though, less than a percent?

You just named three people. There are thousands of militant muslims. No comparison.

Uh . . . really?

Three people who lead groups of people. My point is, in terms of mainstream Christianity, they are a radical fringe group. They reflect mainstream Christianity as well as the islamic extremists reflect mainstream Islam.

Out of millions of Christians, there's way more than "less than a percent."

Just look at the list of hate groups and the FBI watch lists and find that a large percentage of those groups place Christianity as their core. Those are just the people who have been detected as members of well-known hate/domestic terrorist groups.

Right!!

The tendency for people to say "oh, those Christians are the exception and not the rule" reflects the double standard. Muslim is one of the largest (if not the largest???) organized religions in the world. Yet, it has grown a reputation of being violent and anti-American based on a series of events from the past 5-10 years. People don't say "those Islamic extremists aren't the rule."

There are extremists for everything...however, I think you'd have a very difficult time showing that Christian extremists commit acts of violence even close to the level that islamic extremists do

Yes but there's a difference between "America" and "Americans"

For the most part "Americans" didn't care about the Middle East. "America" in the form of the government did.

I think all the Abrahamic religions have gone through their violent phases. Israelites killed to get into the Promised Land and there were militant zealots who expected Jesus to overthrow Rome. Christianity's major ones were the Crusades, but also witch hunts and Inquisitions. Islam is dealing with a similar thing right now. This does not mean that all people in any religion are violent, just that some have used religion for violence.

Pope Benedict's comment that started yet another fight was basically trying to say that God (by whatever name) and violence do not mix. God is rational, terrorism and violence are irrational.

Oh and shinerbock no, there isn't a lot of Catholic violence right now, but if you don't think that sexual abuse is just as bad as violence, you have some other issues. The percentage of clergy who abused children was small, but still the majority was called upon to denounce them. Just as the percentage of muslim militants is truly small, but the majority is called upon to denounce them.

But violence is not the only standard. Think of corruption, of abuse, etc. Violence is just more in your face.