Holy ********* Crazy

[*michaelsean*]

(06-12-2017, 12:30 PM)Dill Wrote: The US is in conflict with a number of Muslim groups at the moment, not Buddhist or Hindu. One consequence of this is attacks on Americans and American interests at home and abroad. Hence SSF targets Islam, not other religions.

This conflict does not produce the same reaction in all Americans, though. Only some have a predisposition to render it in black and white, Us vs Them terms. Only some use the actions of a few to negatively characterize the whole, just as Americans in the past targeted Jews or Indians or blacks or socialists.

Those Americans then select fragments of news and history and religious tradition to construct a monolithic enemy which threatens "who we are" as a people. Hate sites and hate books hoping to explain the conflict in ways that further intensify it then produce the kind of groupthink we see on the internet today regarding Islam. SSF participates in this. He can refer you to books and websites which "explain" Islam in this manner. And he has not been trying to examine this conflict from any other standpoint. Until very recently, he was wholly unaware of efforts by Muslims to mitigate and bridge the conflict he seeks to exacerbate. He has not sought familiarity with scholarship on the Middle East to balance his views and get a better understanding of the conflict as a whole. That why his views on Islam are so limited and partisan.

How would you account for SSF's behavior? What reasons for it have you identified?

Your first paragraph.  Nothing else is needed. He didn't just randomly pick Islam over Christianity or Judaism.   Nobody is attacking other people based on religion.  

If for example or maybe when Christians try to force prayer where SSF doesn't believe it belongs, then he will comment on Christians. Not Muslims and not Jews.