It’s really cute how one will see the sickness in their own culture only through another. When the pope first said what he said, I could of sworn it was a sublimated attack on historical Christianity, not Islam.
But what we’re really afraid of his how the virtues and powers of Islam as a cohesive system/group/empire parrallel that of the Christian West, America in particular, and when we’re anti-Islam, we’re really anti what-we-did-to-get-where-we-are-coming-back-to-get-us.
because all the advancements in society, progress in terms of liberalisms and “rights” only came out of a peace created by violence and domination of the populace: and we fear that that will be used by others on us, which, god forbid, will happen soon, and is a little bit inevitable.

formermuslim
this would be advocating saying “SOME muslims are the problem” and “SOME readings of the Quran are the problem”
how will this fix things? well it won’t fix everything. but baseless hatred always makes things worse, makes otherwise good people angry and defensive. By avoiding/ limiting that response, the real problems can be addressed.

I think the problem is a general battle between the traditionalism and some sort of freaky ‘modernism’. The islam of today is perhaps the most traditional out of what is mainly practiced of other faiths – more of it is orthodox (old-skool) than most of any other faith – and thats why it sticks out like a sore thumb. Whereas other ideologies in general (not talking about the preserved orthodox parts but in general) seem to have ‘adapted to the times’ (not implying that this is necessarily a good thing) islam in its practices and ideology has remained constant since its inception – and this is pretty much uniform around the world. In recent times, crazy people calling themselves followers are blowing stuff up – so have drawn attention to the faith – which people compare to their ‘modern views’ and sometimes they don’t get it – if it was any other faith it perhaps wouldn’t polarize things as much as it is now.
In several ‘muslim majority’ lands upon colonisalisation the orthodox method (based on islamic teachings) of govt, education, politics etc were corrupted or de-established. When the imperialists left, it was left in a mess. They subsequently developed in a ‘mixed-system’ kinda way – this screwed up some central things. The reaction to imperialist de-establishment of institutions like that of education caused some ‘conservative’ reactions i.e. the saudi ‘wahabbi’ system which is not in harmony with traditional islamic thought – hence weak. Also some liberal reactions i.e. turkey (a ‘secularised islam’ – not too different from current practice of christianity). This weakness in such ‘reactionary’ movements was not existent in traditional islamic societies, one manifestation of such weakness is poor scholarship (known better as ‘dodgy imams/clerics’ who may incite or perform terrorism). This particular manifestation, interestingly enough is not only in ‘conservative’ (by conservative i mean ‘wrong’ but in the direction of ‘literalism’ whereas the ‘right stuff’ was balanced) reactions but equally in liberal/secular reactions to colonialism. Also it is not only the fault of colonialism – that was maybe a big ‘happening’ that did stuff, but society was in decline (islamically speaking) in many of these places where colonialism took place.
Basically, let us not simplify things – that just feeds our desires and helps us (wrongly/immaturely) to quickly classify people/religion/acts/events but doesn’t solve anything -neither does it lead to eventual comfort in mind

Thanks Y Love. I feel closer to religious Muslims (of the liberal tolerant kind) than atheist Jews. Islam has a lot to offer, intellectually, theologically, and spiritually. While I find much happiness in Judaism, it feels so right to open up inside towards the best that other traditions have to offer. Not some fake ‘tolerance’ but shared religious experiences…. I’m so grateful for folks like Eliyahu McLean, or Arthur Waskow for laying a Jewish groundwork for that.

rebecca m:”but baseless hatred always makes things worse, makes otherwise good people angry and defensive”
This attitude about “you shouln’t say that, it will lead to baseless hatred” is seriously undermining the quality of debate in Jewish circles. It’s the Jewish version of political correctness. Some things should simply be said out loud. You know what they say: The truth hurts.
And I can guarantee you, as a former-muslim, Islam is the problem. Unfortunately I am not sure most of you have had a scientific education. Which means that when I generalize, you will always find that one person who proves to be the exception to the rule. You know: “I have plenty of muslim friends. They are great people”