it's not the same thing...
When will folks get it through their thick skulls that just because some who claim to be Muslims commit acts of terrorism, that not all Muslims are terrorists. Why is that this flawed logic, this blatant breakdown in deductive reasoning has taken become so widely accepted?
It just doesn't follow, people. It just doesn't follow!
Just because some men beat their wives, therefore all men are guilty of domestic abuse? No, that doesn't follow. A Doctor diddles a patient while they're under anaesthetic, therefore all doctors are sex offenders. Nope, no truth there, either. Yet somehow it is acceptable to claim that all Muslims are terror threats, simply because of the actions of some.
I think one of Islam's "PR" problems is they don't have a formal "command" structure like the Catholic Church does. There are respected local leaders who effectively take the title Immam (sic? excuse my ignorance) from no greater authority than the respect of their peers. As far as I'm aware there is no process of ordination or formal authority. Everything is decentralised.
This leaves them open to so-called "journalists" describing every nut who opens his mouth as a "muslim leader". Generally speaking, they're no such thing. The closest analogy to the Christian world would be the over-zealous young who frequently claim, say and do the oddest things in the name of their religion. These young zealots, though, are routinely ignored, written off by the media as over-exciteable youngsters. Yet somehow these same overexciteable youngsters of Muslim faith are deemed to speak for their entire religion.
Then you get nuts like Cr Paul Donovan, saying straight out that Islam is a violent religion. I heard him call in to 774 ABC yesterday morning. There is no transcript I can find, but apparently his views are well known. He claims that the Koran contains a number of "war chapters".
Well, newsflash, Councillor and all you other holier-than-thou types. There's a fair bit of violence in the Holy Bible, too. You don't get to pick and choose which parts of your own holy volume you choose to live by, while holding another religion to every archaic verse in their book. So, in honour of all those Christian types who want to hold Islam to every verse in the Koran, I introduce to you a new, regular segment:
"Ancient, Hideous Verses in The Bible".
Join me as we shed some light on some of the things that apparantly all Christians must agree with, since it appears in their sacred text!
