1. Comment #60007 by heathen2 on July 31, 2007 at 12:16 pm

Thank you Christopher Hitchens for your assault on the coercive and threatening Islamic position. If there are so many moderate and peaceful Muslims, why don't they speak out against the hate and violence perpertrated by the extremists? Because they are afraid too. For their lives.

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2. Comment #60012 by scottishgeologist on July 31, 2007 at 12:31 pm

Or maybe the moderate and peaceful ones arent quite so moderate and peaceful? After all those nutjobs who tried to attack London and Glasgow recently would no doubt have appeared moderate and peaceful to the people that they worked with instead of being jihad-driven fifth columnists.

Who knows how many of this type are in our midst?

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3. Comment #60013 by heathen2 on July 31, 2007 at 12:42 pm

I know some people of the Muslim faith (they were born into it at least) who are well educated, bright, liberal and tolerant. I have the greatest respect for them. They are from my parents' generation. I am sure they are atheists, but they would never say as much, yelling about their beliefs is just not their way, as with most atheists. I wish they would speak out, but I would fear for their safety at the same time.

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4. Comment #60016 by nancy2001 on July 31, 2007 at 1:29 pm

Excellent essay. I agree with every word.

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5. Comment #60017 by Elli on July 31, 2007 at 1:30 pm

My instincts tell me that with the proliferation of the internet and the explosion that is the "information age" that it must surely be easier to combat the ignorance and propaganda that can infiltrate the less developed world. I would have thought that even in fairly undeveloped parts of the islamic world, that access to internet would be somewhat common. And with all this, I really would have thought that young people would be exposed to a world of ideas that would help to combat the stupidity and myopia of much of the communities of which Hitchens speaks. But my intuitions appear wrong. It seems that either because of or in spite of the internet boom, religious fundamentalism, especially in the Islamic world, goes from strength to strength. It may not be as counterintuitive as I first thought, but it still amazes me that with all this access to information, that people can still seemingly willfully close their minds to it all. The good news is that with people like Hitchens leading the way, the antidote is also going from strength to strength and I certainly hope that the problem of religion's poisonous fangs can be alleviated in my lifetime. I would love for my future children to grow up only having to learn about these problems in history books.

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6. Comment #60019 by beautyscientist on July 31, 2007 at 1:36 pm

The truly tragic thing about this article is that the author is now quite likely to be physically attacked as a direct result. The muslim threat of violence is a very real threat to our free speech.

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7. Comment #60020 by Russell's Teapot on July 31, 2007 at 1:41 pm

I can't for the life of me imagine Hitchens using the word "tummy" while talking...

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8. Comment #60025 by John the Atheist on July 31, 2007 at 2:17 pm

Sam Harris once said:
"There is no possible future in which aspiring martyrs will make good neighbors."

I completely agree with Mr. Hitchens, allowing these whack jobs to infringe on our freedom of speech is dangerous and cannot be tolerated. Let's flood NY representatives and Hillary Clinton with mail and phone calls stating our case.

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9. Comment #60030 by RascoHeldall on July 31, 2007 at 2:47 pm

A few weeks ago I wrote to the Muslim Council of Great Britain, asking if they would consider staging a demonstration against extremist interpretations of Islam. This would allow them to show their disgust at the barbarous behaviour of those acting in the name of their faith, while assuring those who are growing in fear at the rising Islamist threat to feel that the barbarians really were in the minority, and that they did not represent 'mainstream' Islam.

They didn't reply.

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10. Comment #60031 by Fire1974 on July 31, 2007 at 2:48 pm

I've just returned from a Target store where I was surprised as hell to find 'God is Not Great' in their meager book section. I've already enjoyed the audiobook from iTunes(it's read by Hitch himself), but I had to buy a hard copy from Target just out of civic duty. I recommend anyone who can to do the same,(but leave the last one just to maintain the exposure). I wonder if it's in Targets in Kansas( I'm in NY state)?

BTW: This article is yet another brilliant distillation of Hitchen's astute wisdom.

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11. Comment #60036 by oarwhat on July 31, 2007 at 3:11 pm

I purchased my copy from Target as well. I couldn't stop myself. I am in Ca, so I do not know about Kansas, but I would hope they would carry it.

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12. Comment #60038 by Fire1974 on July 31, 2007 at 3:29 pm

I found my copy right next to Pope Benedict's Book. I couldn't have shelved it better myself.

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13. Comment #60045 by Russell Blackford on July 31, 2007 at 4:37 pm

Hitchens is correct, but what sort of nutjob would think that throwing a book of any kind in a public toilet is a good way of making his point (whatever it was)? Referring the matter to the police is a ridiculous overreaction, of course.

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14. Comment #60046 by Fire1974 on July 31, 2007 at 4:41 pm

I don't know who this book flushing guy is but, at the very most, he is unwittingly brilliant in exposing these CAIR people for the promulgators of theocracy that they are.

The Christian Right should feel very exposed as well. But I think they're too 'rapture ready' to notice.

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15. Comment #60048 by Dr Benway on July 31, 2007 at 4:42 pm

It's an offense against plumbing. Why are the plumbers not speaking out?

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16. Comment #60052 by BAEOZ on July 31, 2007 at 5:06 pm

Dr Benway:

It's an offense against plumbing. Why are the plumbers not speaking out?

Agreed, but even worse what about the poor person who needs to do number 2s and can't hold on? That is willfully and knowingly inflicting suffering on a sentient creature. It's plainly unethical.

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17. Comment #60054 by Goldy on July 31, 2007 at 5:20 pm

Funnily enough, after reading this, I find this in todays paper
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.cfm?c_id=301&objectid=10454948
I'd never put a book in a toilet - flooding is awkward to explain. Pages aren't much use as toilet paper either. I did know a guy at uni who reckoned the best paper for spliffs was from a Gideons bible - they had the right quality for a rollie paper. I tried reading one once - too arcane for me. If only they'd write these damn books in English...but then, would it be the word of god?

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18. Comment #60061 by Will in Aus on July 31, 2007 at 5:51 pm

So true. It is sad when people are no longer free to express their viewpoints on such an important issue without fear of violence.

On another note, I am nearly finished "God is Not Great", and I must say it has been very enjoyable. At times I have had to take out a dictionary and look up the meanings of some unfamiliar words, but I just see this as an opportunity to expand my vocabulary!

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19. Comment #60069 by Friend Giskard on July 31, 2007 at 6:32 pm

A commenter on another site makes an interesting suggestion for future Koran flushers.



Instead of just flushing the Koran, flush a glued together hybrid of the Koran, the bible, and some other "holy" books.



If the police wish to treat this as a hate crime (as they are doing in this case), they have to be specific about which part or parts of the flushed volume warrant such a grave charge.



If they openly seek to protect only the Koran, their hypocrisy is revealed.



On the other hand, if they make a show of treating the flushing of the other "holy" books with equal gravity, everyone will naturally ask why flushing a bible only becomes a hate crime when the bible happens to be attached to the Koran. Up until now, the desecration of (non-muslim) religious symbols (e.g. Piss Christ, and a million other examples) has been protected as a right of freedom of expression.

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20. Comment #60078 by Goldy on July 31, 2007 at 7:50 pm

Just wondering, if you flush an English translation of the Koran, does that count? I seem to recall in Arab News that the word of God version was in Arabic and Arabic only. Of course, the columnist added, that translations are good and even necessary, conceding not everyone was familiar with Arabic. However, he stressed only in Arabic was it the word of God.
Makes me wonder about the other books - do they count when translated?

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21. Comment #60081 by hasty toweling on July 31, 2007 at 8:44 pm

Reading this, I had the same feeling that I remember having when I first read 'The Great Gatsby'. The man writes on a level that I'm simply incapable of.

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22. Comment #60093 by itman on August 1, 2007 at 1:41 am

I can't help feeling that some of the Muslim overreaction is to do with more than just religious beliefs. Maybe in some cultures and countries, people are unemployed or disempowered in some way and see religion as a way of increasing their self worth. That doesn't justify their reactions of course, I am just saying that perhaps there is more to it than just believing in god.

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23. Comment #60094 by AdrianB on August 1, 2007 at 1:43 am

Elli, if you ever have the misfortune to stumble across an (even moderate) Islamic website you will have any optimism dashed quite quickly.

I once did a search on something by Richard Dawkins and got a forum on a UK Islamic site which was being, how can I put this, less than polite about Mr Dawkins. There was a thread there where a rather sensible Muslim chap suggested that they became more vocal in their disgust terrorism, and to my surprise he was shouted down 99 to 1 by the other "moderate" Muslims in what I can only describe as arguments from denial. It really did seem that many of these young men believe that the 7/7 bombers were planted by the UK secret services.

I can back this up from personal experience, since my kids are very good friends with the children of a moderate middle-class Muslim family in the area. They are a very nice family, and for this reason I will always remain anonymous on this site. One day my 7-year-old boy comes home from school and tells me that the twin-towers were actually blown up by George Bush. It turns out he was told this by his 7-year-old friend from the Muslim family (I nearly wrote Muslim child!!!), and I thought that I better mention this to his mother. She broke into tears when I told her. It turns out that their oldest son must have poisoned their youngest son. Since moving to big school their teenage son has found religion, ditched all his previous "English" friends, and his schoolwork has suffered. They are very worried about him. How many similar stories are going on in the UK at the moment?

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24. Comment #60098 by Philip1978 on August 1, 2007 at 2:01 am

Itman,
Unfortunately it is everything to do with religious beliefs, I would say that is the first and foremost reason for all this ridiculous outrage. You have to remember that they work on the premise that the Qu'ran IS the inerrant word of their god. No ifs, not buts, that's it, cherry picking does not happen.

So everything they do is centred around the book being right and that the world needs to be Islamic because Islam is perfect. Look at what happens to apostates who leave the religion, look at what happened with those stupid cartoons, look at Salmon Rushdie, it all points to a direct outrage to their religion being ridiculed and they cant cope with it. Political issues etc are second in line to their Faith and the notion that the world should be Islamic and those who oppose it must die. That's the extremist view, the moderate view simply gives these maniacs a platform to stand on.
Sad isn't it
Philip

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25. Comment #60099 by Major Bloodnok on August 1, 2007 at 2:08 am

My immediate response to the headline was "because they're likely to go totally apeshit and start burning stuff and killing people over it". Nice to see that Mr. Hitchens comes to pretty much the same conclusion (albeit using lots more words).

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26. Comment #60100 by Fanusi Khiyal on August 1, 2007 at 2:09 am

At this point, it would do us all well to remember Marlowe's play in which the protagonist burns a copy of the Quran and defies Allah to do anything.

Here are the words:

>>Now, Mahomet, if thou have any power,
Come down thyself and work a miracle:
Thou art not worthy to be worshipped
That suffer'st flames of fire to burn the writ
Wherein the sum of thy religion rests:
Why send'st thou not a furious whirlwind down,
To blow thy Alcoran up to thy throne,
Where men report thou sitt'st by God himself?
Or vengeance on the head of Tamburlaine
That shakes his sword against thy majesty,
And spurns the abstracts of thy foolish laws?--
Well, soldiers, Mahomet remains in hell;<<

The hell with Muhammed, the hell with Allah, the hell with the lot of them.

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27. Comment #60101 by itman on August 1, 2007 at 2:23 am

Philip
You are right. But what is it about Islam that makes its followers so fierce? OK the Catholic church hasn't got a spotless record when it comes to killing those who do not follow its precepts but at least they seem to have grown out of out and out butchery.
I am reminded of the Fremen in Frank Herberts novel Dune, who go on to launch launch a holy war on the rest of the universe. These people MUST be stopped from intimidating us.

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28. Comment #60104 by Philip1978 on August 1, 2007 at 2:41 am

Have you read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?

I would actually compare them to the inhabitants of the planet Krikkit, when at last they achieved space capability they flew out side of the massive cloud that had encompassed their planet. Upon first witnessing the glory and splendor of the Universe, they casually, whimsically, decided to destroy it, remarking, "It'll have to go." So anything that wasn't Krikkit was declared war on.

This is I am afraid to say the exact mentality of Islamic Extremists, Religion has poisoned their minds to the point of xenophobic rage which cannot be extinguished. As Sam Harris points out in End of Faith, these guys are not like your Catholic or Jew who can cherry pick away at their religion to their heart's content. These people ACTUALLY believe it, totally and utterly through and through, no equivocation, no remorse. The Qu'ran has a multitude of passages and sentences that make the bible's Deuteronomy book look playful in comparison! Its all about burning, putting to the sword etc all those who oppose Islam or leave it, very very scary.
I know what you mean about what the heck drives these people into a massive frothing session, I would still advocate it being Islam, plain and simple as that
Silly sods
Philip

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29. Comment #60107 by _J_ on August 1, 2007 at 2:54 am

Hey, Fanusi - round of applause for the Marlowe quote!

Never got round to reading Tamburlaine. Sad to think that, had Tamburs gone on to perform the exact same demonstration on the Bible, not only would the play not have been performed but Marlowe would likely have been on the receiving end of some hefty state retribution.

[Please note, ever-watchful buffoons of Righteous Response, that no incitement to incinerate your favourite fairy tales is intended.]

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30. Comment #60109 by scottishgeologist on August 1, 2007 at 2:59 am

I think the problem is that Islam is now where Christianity used to be in the middle ages. Since then, with the inexorable advancement of science, reason, education and the enlightenment, together with the rise of standards of living in western countries, christianity is now watered down, liberal and cherry picked till theres no substance in it. As a consequence it is no longer the blood thirsty death cult it used to be.

(Of course it could be argued that some of the stuff that comes out of America actually runs counter to this)

Remember Luthers famous quotes on Reason:

"Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has" and "Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding"

I would argue that Islam is caught in the same mindset, and give it a few hundred years, it too will get watered down, liberalised and ultimately diappear (well, maybe..)

Only trouble is, can we wait that long? The religious nutjobs in the middle ages had swords, bows and primitive firearms. You could only do mass killing for your god if you had large numbers of people.

The one hope I can think of is that a lot of those who CLAIM to be Muslim are actualy just nominalists who were brought up that way, and not devout jihadists.

Which perhaps goes back to heathan2's original comment

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31. Comment #60110 by tieInterceptor on August 1, 2007 at 3:08 am

EVERYONE here, please DIGG this article, we got only 7 digs so far,

lets see if it takes off to front page. I'ts just one click

;)

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32. Comment #60114 by Philip1978 on August 1, 2007 at 3:22 am

I dug it TIE!

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33. Comment #60117 by pewkatchoo on August 1, 2007 at 4:05 am

Speak for yourself Hitch! I am not scared of offending anyone and do it quite a lot!

I have just managed to get hold of your book and see that you are doing quite a bit of offending yourself. Great stuff. I particularly liked the Heaven Hates Ham bit. So much so that I immediately registered it as a .com domain. I will be using it for pointing out the absurdities of god and religion and for anti-religious humour, so I hope you don't mind my being so presumptious. Wait up for some Heaven Hates Ham t-shirts.

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34. Comment #60125 by pewkatchoo on August 1, 2007 at 4:29 am

Do you all remember the event in Glasgow where those guys piled into the terrorist nutters? Well it made me think about muslims in Scotland. I think that, for the most part, muslims who moved to Scotland have pretty much integrated into the society and there are, so far as I am aware, no islamic ghettos there. In fact, it is a fair bet that Scottish muslims would have piled into those clowns too if they had been around. I don't know why this is or even if it is an incorrect perception.

This is not to say that all is sweetness and light in weegie land, it is not. They have their own sectarian lunacy with Rangers and Celtic keeping the whole 'Prods versus Tims' idiocy going. They don't need to import a whole new brand of sectarianism to an area that is already rife with it. Long may this continue.

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35. Comment #60126 by Aragon on August 1, 2007 at 4:30 am

I don't think today's Islamic radicalism trends can be understood without putting into perspective of historical events that have been taking place in the Middle East during past two decades. I think taking a stand against radicalism on a solely religious and philosophical ground is not sufficient and will take us nowhere. The fact of the matter is, prior to and during the collapse of Communism, United States supported radical Islam in the Middle East to break Soviet Union and Ba'ath party dominance -interestingly US is still -secretly- supporting a pro-Islamic government in Turkey-. Eventually Soviets and Soviet backed Afghan Communism collapsed and this created an enormous power vacuum in the Middle East and in Afghanistan. Radical Islam essentially took advantage of that vacuum. What is also ignored through the Western media is the very ambitious Sunni Arab Nationalism -Osama being its icon- behind radical Islam -which is often in fight against Shiits-. Unlike other religions, Islam provides a strong political and economic framework for theocratic dictatorship to flourish (see Iran and former Talaban regime). The bottom line is there are historical errors on the part of Western policies and there are fine power balances in the Middle East -I am not even getting into Palestine issue to retain our focus here-. These people want -or want to ignite- radical political climate change, essentially they want to control their future and resources (especially oil). You cannot argue radicalism solely from the point of absurdities of religions. You have to ask yourself why radical Islam has been on the rise in the last two decades.

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36. Comment #60127 by IQHQ on August 1, 2007 at 4:39 am

Aragon

Excellent post, and a timely reminder ;)

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37. Comment #60129 by phasmagigas on August 1, 2007 at 4:45 am

scaremongering? I doubt it. If you took a placard that said something like 'islam can be dangerous' and walked through a town in the UK with a high muslim population like Bradford or Blackburn, I just wonder how long it would be before there was a full scale riot and death threats?? If you did the same in an american town (you couldnt find the christian equivalent in the UK) with 'christianity can be dangerous' you would get some foul comments but I highly doubt you would get a riot developing. Is my prediction re the riot an exaggeration. Im not sure.

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38. Comment #60131 by phasmagigas on August 1, 2007 at 5:01 am

In the UK at least there is something very different about what islam and identity compared to christianity and identity. Following islam seems to have more in common with being a football supporter. A group of islamic boys can often be seen confidently walking amongst the non muslims and unless I am imagining things their attitude is very much 'i am islamic and you are not' rather like 'I support football team X and you do not' during a match but the islamic team is always playing. The 'default' christian who is likely to be a little old lady who didnt really give it any thought does not have this attitute, and nor would a group of 4 'christian' boys who wouldnt give a damn about it anyway. It is incredible to see hundreds of people regularly going to the mosque, the only thing ive seen that emulates the 'vibe' is when there are 100's of supporters going to a match. It is quite charged and does bring out all those innate tribal qualities. If you were to ask one of the muslim guys 'tell me about yourself' after his name he would likely say 'I am a muslim' (even if he wasnt going to pray). The problem with many muslim young men is that they (and does this sound familiar) honestly believe they are BETTER than those heathens who they live amongst, I know many muslims from the UK and trust me, they have little respect for non believers, I have muslims close within my own family and so know first hand some of the attitudes.

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39. Comment #60132 by phasmagigas on August 1, 2007 at 5:02 am

scottishgeologist I LOVE that avatar!!

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40. Comment #60140 by Dr Benway on August 1, 2007 at 5:53 am

Aragon, I agree that we need to think wholistically about our present cultural clash with Islam. Religiosity waxes and wanes for a reason. Still, I see value in a focused attack upon faith as a basis for knowing something about the world, and for acting boldly. Two reasons:

1. Religion is a knife in the drawer politicians pull out and use when convenient for economic or political reasons. Better a dull knife than a sharp one.

2. By attacking faith generally, we're not singling out Islam, Christianity, or any particular set of beliefs. We're not taking cultural sides. Moderate muslims can use the same anti-supernaturalist arguments without betraying their sense of community solidarity. In fact, I think the notion of "Muslim people" ought to be understood as something distinct from "practicing Muslim." Presently the separation is confusing at best. I see no way to support people who view themselves as culturally Muslim but not particularly religious, apart from an attack upon faith as a valid basis for political action. "Faith is private," is a meme I'd like to hear more often.

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41. Comment #60149 by NormanDoering on August 1, 2007 at 6:20 am

PZ Myers linked this article:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--vandalismquran0727jul27,0,6882662.story

It seems that the Koran in the toilet incidents were just part of a larger campaign to make Muslim students feel threatened. Only two sentences clue me in: "The incidents came amid a spate of vandalism cases with religious or racial overtones at the school... someone scrawled racial slurs on a student's car at the Westchester County satellite campus and on a bathroom wall at the campus in lower Manhattan."

Granting that Muslims viewing treatment of the Koran as a sensitive issue, viewing their "holy" book as a sacred object and seeing the mistreating of it as an offense against God boarders on being psychotic, but arresting someone for doing it in this instance is more akin to keeping people from throwing things at Gorillas in the zoo than enforcing thought crimes.

You shouldn't be blaming or provoking American Muslims for the action of a few nuts from a crazier than normal sect. That invites violence that doesn't have to be.

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42. Comment #60151 by Henri Bergson on August 1, 2007 at 6:29 am

Hitchens is a great writer, and brave to transgress the clichéd ideals of the so-called liberals and muslims (who form a brotherhood here in the UK).

This article reminds me of Churchill's polemic against Islam (http://winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=137). ("No stronger retrograde force exists in the world".) – Incidentally written BEFORE the Communist advance in Afghanistan and BEFORE the official establishment of Israel in the 1940s. So much for the historical-context appeasement by the 'liberals' here.

I don't think we need distinguish 'muslim people' from 'practicing muslim' as we already have that proper distinction: muslim and Arab/Persian. That is why anti-islamism is not racism.

I liked Hitchens' last book, 'god is not Great', but consider it a little unstructured with a few flaws (for example, Kant did not disprove the ontological argument for God by writing that 'God is not a predicate'; rather Kant wrote, successfully, that 'existence is not a predicate' – at the time a fatal blow to a common 'proof' for God's existence.)

But I'm nit-picking. Keep it up Hitchens (but don't pray for it!).

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43. Comment #60177 by denoir on August 1, 2007 at 8:35 am

While there are certainly a lot of religious nut cases in the Middle East it is quite interesting how the extreme islamist movement is flourishing in the west (especially in Europe).

My take on this is that there is a problem with our secular liberal systems that provide a fertile ground for islamic extremists. We can note that the situation in Europe is not mirrored in the US - and draw some conclusions from it.

First of all, there is the social situation. With the very strong social protection, in Europe, you can choose not to work and still have a fairly good quality of life. You can choose not to integrate - and that is what is happening - closed cultural communities are created that are de facto not part of the rest of society. In the US, you have to work to survive and thus have to integrate in one way or another. Americans, all being immigrants at one point or another in recent history are also far less xenophobic than Europeans are - which facilitates integration.

The second reason for the success of Islam in Europe would be because of the nature of the liberalism practiced. It is an 'anything goes' type of view based on cultural relativism. Tolerance includes the tolerance to intolerance. Such a system can always be exploited by the intolerant. In the US you have a far more conservative system, with the Christians taking up a lot of space. While the US is über-liberal in economic questions, it is ultra-conservative in social ones.

While I don't have a good idea of how the first problem (integration of immigrants) should be solved, the second issue is relatively straight forward. Secular liberalism is a value system and does not include the tolerance to intolerance. That value system has to be defended or it will be destroyed. That much is a mathematical certainty. If your tolerance extends to the intolerant, they will break the system from within.

It is also important to recognize that all value systems stand on an equal footing. You can never derive 'ought' from 'is'. You can't in any way prove that minimizing suffering is a better value to say not using electricity on Saturdays. Some form of weak anthropic argument could perhaps be made (that value systems that lead to our doom would go extinct pretty fast), but hardly a convincing one. This is the root of the flawed multiculturalism ideology. What it misses is that there are serious problems when different value systems clash - which they inevitably do. There is no way of reasoning around it - which value system you chose is a question of preference and belief. No science or reason can help - 'ought' cannot follow from 'is'. Therefor it is a battle of arbitrary and mutually incompatible value systems and if you want yours to survive, you have to defend it at least as vigorously as the other value systems are being defended by their adherents.

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44. Comment #60180 by LeeLeeOne on August 1, 2007 at 8:41 am

WILL IT BLEND?! If only I had a blender large enough, but would it be too unethical to take copies of a koran, a bible, a torah, a god is not great, darwin's theory of evolution, steven hawkins' universe, a few metaphysical/wiccan/witcraft books, panda's thumb, a mystic tale of celtic lore, washington post, slate, wall street journal (you get the idea, anything "respected" and "not respected" - don't care who does the respecting or disrespecting), and blend them one by one to see "Will it Blend?!"

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45. Comment #60185 by Slainte on August 1, 2007 at 9:09 am

I like the reference made in the title of this article: God-Fearing People. While the religious are to fear, i.e. revere, god, the non-believers are to be frightened of him because of the righteous wrath he promises. However, the phrase "god-fearing" has another tint to it. Namely, people like us who have to fear the actions of god's followers. As Hitchens outlines, there is an expectation on behalf of believers that we should cower in the face of their threats or acts of violence. Not only should we oppose such expectations, we should also be proud of the rational and decent approach by which we live our lives. I'm not afraid to offend Muslims or any religious sect; it's just that I'd rather ignore them altogether. Sadly, they make it hard for anyone to ignore them.

Let the believers fear their gods. I, for one, am sick of having to fear the followers of god. Like the old joke says, "I like [insert deity here], it's his followers I can't stand."

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46. Comment #60205 by Dr Benway on August 1, 2007 at 10:07 am

Henri:

I don't think we need distinguish 'muslim people' from 'practicing muslim' as we already have that proper distinction: muslim and Arab/Persian. That is why anti-islamism is not racism.

You mean Muslim and Turk/Chechen/Arab/Persian/Kashmiri/Afghan/Indonesian/Malaysian/North African. Where Muslims dominate, it's difficult to separate local tribal identities from Islamic culture generally.

Ayan Hirsi Ali, who is neither Arab nor Persian, makes the distiction between Muslim people and Islam. I can see how this distinction serves the cause of secularism.

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47. Comment #60210 by Henri Bergson on August 1, 2007 at 10:13 am

Benway,

Are you denying that most muslims are Arab or Persian? If we get rid of the religion, why call them 'muslim people'? That will just further their segregation and inhibit integration. The point is to lose their 'muslim' identity, just as one seeks to lose a caucasian's 'Christian' identity.

Ali's distinction was just intended to mean that hating Islam does not mean hating muslims personally. Just like you can hate the North Korean regime without hating North Koreans.

Ali's distinction was not to do with respecting 'community solidarity' as you mean. This solidarity is the problem! You twist words my good doctor.

I find you are an appeaser Benway. People like you are part & parcel of the muslim problem in the west.


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48. Comment #60345 by Dr Benway on August 1, 2007 at 4:26 pm

Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country.

I think a little bad faith can smooth the way sometimes.

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49. Comment #60561 by ranjani on August 2, 2007 at 8:55 am

Most muslims are NOT Arab/Persian. Here is breakdown of Muslim populations across the world. As Dr.Benway pointed out, Indonesia has about 180 million, followed by Pakistan which has about 139 million, Bangladesh with about 115 million and the fourth on the list is India with about 109 million muslims. Even China has more muslims than Iraq.

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50. Comment #61210 by sexysecularist on August 4, 2007 at 7:37 am

An anonymous blogger just posted a little something called http://infidchallenge.livejournal.com/">The Infidel Challenge, asking people to publicly support the right to free speech in the face of muslim intimidation by desecrating the q'uran (along with any other text or symbol of their choosing, if they choose to add something in) and taking pictures or filming it.

Excerpt:

"If you are a Muslim and have stumbled upon this: I respect your right to burn the Bible, to burn the American flag, to burn the Israeli flag, to urinate all over The Satanic Verses and to destroy whatever other copies of intellectual property you would like, so long as you've purchased that copy yourself. I respect your right to believe what you choose to believe. That does not mean that I am required to respect what you believe, and it does not mean that I will kowtow to threats of retaliation."

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