I can understand the reluctance of some liberals to tie Islam with Islamic terrorism -- this country is full of idiots, after all, who need the barest excuse for violence, and couldn't tell a Muslim from a Sikh to save their lives, and I have no desire to encourage these idiots. On the other hand, turning a blind eye to the obvious never ends well.
So I found this interesting, one former apologist apologizing to the people he used to accuse of Islamophobia: The Critics of Islam Were Right (http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-critics-of-islam-were-right-an-apology-to-ayaan-hirsi-ali-sam-harris-bill-maher-and-other-so-called-islamophobes-137416/).
The only nit I could pick in his article was this:
QuoteIslam is a manmade religion (emphasis on the man part) and like all manmade religions, has serious moral shortcomings and requires rigorous criticism.
Of course I'm not picking on the shortcomings and need for criticism, what made me all squinty-eyed was the business about
Islam being a man-made religion. Under most circumstances, I'd consider it to go without saying that the author accepted all religions, including his own, as man-made, but considering the source is the Christian Post, I'm not at all sure. Still, it's a small nit.
So far as nits go, I actually think it's a big one, at least it's a very telling one. It demonstrates that the author likely considers any religion other than his own to be man-made. To that way of thinking, 999 religions can be discarded as the product of man's imagination but he just happens to believe in the ONE religion out of ALL of them that was written by a really real invisible magical man in the sky.
It would never cross his mind that his is equally as much rubbish as the ones he dismisses and for all the same reasons.
The problem, as the article illustrates, is that many westerners refuse or can't separate Islam from Muslims. To them, it's all one and the same. If you're a Muslim woman, of course you must like covering up. If you're a Muslim man, of course you must believe every bad idea in the Koran.
Of course, the other problem is recognizing that Christianity, Judaism, and most other religions are usually violent and misogynistic too.