The WaPo jolts us with this:
Americans are twice as willing to distance Christian extremists from their religion as Muslims
That is based on a recent Public Religion Research Institute survey:
Perhaps the most striking questions, though, were a pair in which the pollsters asked whether people were willing to distance terrorists from the religions in whose name they claimed to be acting. (The questions were: "When people claim to be Muslim/Christian and commit acts of violence in the name of Islam/Christianity, do you believe they really are Muslim/Christian, or not?")
Americans were nearly twice as willing to assume that those saying they were committing violent acts in the name of Christianity weren't real Christians than they were to make the same distinction for Muslims. (Many terrorist acts, of course, are a subset of this category.)
Bizarre. Despite all the video of the Pope leading chants of "Death to Iran" and the New York city riots following the display of "Piss Christ"? Bishops issuing orders to the faithful to kill offensive writers? Forgotten. And I'm not even talking about the theatre that was burned down after it tried to host "Book of Mormon".
The WaPo includes the inevitable high-minded assurance that rubes who don't believe that Islam always and everywhere means peace are giving the terrorists just what they want:
Part of that is probably a result of familiarity; more Americans understand the basics of Christianity than Islam and may be likely to assume that Islam provides more allowance for violent acts (47 percent of respondents considered the values of Islam "at odds with American values").
Regardless, this also shows that the Islamic State is being successful. Its goal of driving a wedge between the West and the Muslim world relies on precisely these sorts of distinctions.
Hmm, the Great Unwashed are more inclined to take Muslim violence as an expression of an Islamic tilt towards violence and intolerance. Do we have any hashtags for that? I suggest: #ISISsaysTheyAreIslamicButIDK
And for the gun nuts responsible gun rights advocate and owners out there: #IslamMeansPiece
#ISISsaysTheyAreIslamicButIDK
Posted by: Sue | December 14, 2015 at 10:31 AM
#peopleareidiotsworkstoo
Posted by: Sue | December 14, 2015 at 10:32 AM
Contrived survey gets expected result becomes talking point du jour.
Posted by: boris | December 14, 2015 at 10:32 AM
muted gasps
Posted by: peter | December 14, 2015 at 10:35 AM
I'm being hijacked by ads.
Posted by: Sue | December 14, 2015 at 10:36 AM
Bezos must regard Sally Quinn as a great theologian.
Posted by: Captain Hate on the iPhone | December 14, 2015 at 10:40 AM
Consider the kunyas they take, they are all from islamic history.
Posted by: buccaneer morgan | December 14, 2015 at 10:40 AM
As are the names of the organizations.
Posted by: buccaneer morgan | December 14, 2015 at 10:42 AM
--Part of that is probably a result of familiarity; more Americans understand the basics of Christianity than Islam and may be likely to assume that Islam provides more allowance for violent acts...--
The assumption is warranted because it objectively and undeniably does.
The difference between our elites and ordinary Americans is that we understand the basics of islam considerably better than the high handed bastards trying to use our corpses as "teachable moments".
Those who can do, those who can't teach. Those who can't even teach become journalists or get themselves elected somewhere.
Posted by: Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki | December 14, 2015 at 10:43 AM
Bitter clingers in the Beltway cling to "Islam is a religion of Peace" propaganda.
Posted by: henry | December 14, 2015 at 10:54 AM
#TypePadIsIslam
Posted by: Captain Hate on the iPhone | December 14, 2015 at 10:56 AM
Sura 008.012
Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them."
Happy Monday.....
Posted by: matt | December 14, 2015 at 11:00 AM
Another pernicious attempt at moral relativity and moral equivalence.
There are no "Christian Extremists" and there are no "Christian Terrorists".
This is yet again an attempt to plant the notion of "christian Fanaticism". in the mind of those either being polled or reading the poll.
The proper response to such questions should be "Christian Extremists? Whatever are you talking about?"
It is very telling that the Left cannot even attempt to control their hatred of Christians.
Posted by: squaredance | December 14, 2015 at 11:02 AM
Help me out here. I can't seem to place the last mass shooting committed in the name of Christ.
Posted by: JMHanes | December 14, 2015 at 11:03 AM
Ansar al sharia, helpers of the holy law, has nothing to do with Islam.
Posted by: buccaneer morgan | December 14, 2015 at 11:03 AM
Brevik was a pagan, the so-called mosque torcher wins an anarchist.
Posted by: buccaneer morgan | December 14, 2015 at 11:05 AM
henry:
"Bitter clingers in the Beltway cling to "Islam is a religion of Peace" propaganda"
That really is incredibly apt.
Posted by: JMHanes | December 14, 2015 at 11:05 AM
OhEmGee you guys, how quickly you forget the Christian terrorists. Does Crusades ring a bell with any of you?
/sarc
Posted by: Sue | December 14, 2015 at 11:10 AM
-- I can't seem to place the last mass shooting committed in the name of Christ.--
Even if there were 100 per year the fact would remain that each one was in violation of every tenet of Christianity and in alignment with none of them.
As matt noted in only one of the many instances, a mass shooting in the name of allah is in perfect alignment with many verses of the koran and hadith.
Posted by: Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki | December 14, 2015 at 11:13 AM
Of we followed the French model, we would start shutting down the entire deobandi network, in bostoms link.
Posted by: buccaneer morgan | December 14, 2015 at 11:13 AM
People seem to look at what the violent say, not what those who are peaceful say. Let’s listen instead to what all the peaceful of each religious persuasion say.
On which side are the crickets?
Posted by: sbw | December 14, 2015 at 11:22 AM
To paraphrase Forest Gump, Islam is what Islam does.
Posted by: jimmyk | December 14, 2015 at 11:22 AM
JMH@ 11:02-- sure John Brown at Harper's Ferry, you know christian fanatics seeking abolition of slavery.
Posted by: NK | December 14, 2015 at 11:33 AM
Ig-- alignment? Mass murder is a free pass to eternal paradise.
Posted by: NK | December 14, 2015 at 11:34 AM
well, Matt as the late Alan Sherman once sang, it is difficult to give up smoting.
Posted by: peter | December 14, 2015 at 12:00 PM
I tried to click through, just to see how awful the WaPo link is, but apparently I've reached my limit of free articles for the month there.
I'm just inconsolable aboutt that. Truly.
Posted by: James D | December 14, 2015 at 12:10 PM
JD: if you really need to read that article, generally you can just delete your browser cookies for the site in question (or try another browser). Do not know about WaPo as I make it a policy to avoid it, but it works from just about everyone else.
It is, I grant you, all too much work to just to read an article in one of the Prog organs--just passing the info along.
Posted by: squaredance | December 14, 2015 at 01:11 PM
Apparently the WA Post does not read the NY Post, which quotes FBI veteran John Guandolo, who said, "Evidence exists to demonstrate that a greater level of adherence to Islamic law correlates to a greater likelihood of violence."
IMHO 'Radicalized Muslims' is a term used here to describe mainstream Muslims in the Middle East. I suspect that in the ME, peaceful Muslims are the ones that have become 'radicalized'.
Posted by: Publius | December 14, 2015 at 01:28 PM
I forgot to add the NY Post article. My bad!
http://www.aina.org/news/20150713165943.htm
Posted by: Publius | December 14, 2015 at 01:30 PM
Ah! Can't imagine how that slipped my mind, NK!
Posted by: JMHanes | December 14, 2015 at 01:40 PM
Yeah I was gonna blog about that, but...
/Bloody Mess>
Posted by: Tom Maguire | December 14, 2015 at 02:14 PM
Publius - I think this is the link -
http://nypost.com/2015/12/13/theyre-so-nice-until-they-get-religion-and-want-to-kill-us/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow
Posted by: Janet | December 14, 2015 at 02:31 PM
So I guess Worldwide Wrestling is *not* a religion? #AskingForAFriend
Posted by: Tom Maguire | December 14, 2015 at 02:36 PM
I was going to say the Yankees, but #whadoiknow?
Posted by: Jeff Dobbs | December 14, 2015 at 03:26 PM
some old JOM comments -
"Christians who are violent toward or subjugate their neighbors do so in violation of the tenets of their faith and the instructions of the founder of their faith.
Muslims who are violent toward or subjugate their neighbors are obeying the tenets of their faith and the instructions of its founder." - Ignatz 9-23-09 JOM thread
"The Koran instructs Muslims to be violent. If it didn't, they'd be more peaceful. The Koran itself is the root of much of the world's problems, and that fact should not be sugar-coated. If more people read what's stated in the Koran, by Allah, I think it would contribute much more to insight than phony "religion of peace" invocations." - Extraneus
Posted by: Janet | December 14, 2015 at 03:53 PM
and another one ...not sure who I was responding to -
...it is O.K. to not only murder non-Muslims -- "infidels," who do not submit to Muslim authority -- but to murder Muslims as well who will not accept the most rigid Muslim lifestyle and submit to rule by a Muslim caliphate.
That is Islam. It is what the Koran teaches. The non-violent Muslims are those that have become secularized. Any turning back to orthodoxy or foundational documents like the Koran will only lead to more violence.
The road to hope for Muslims and the rest of us leads toward conversion or secularization. The religion of Islam is evil. - Janet
Posted by: Janet | December 14, 2015 at 04:05 PM
We once had a campaign to pray for the conversion of Russia, which succeeded. (Putin is practicing Russian Orthodox.)
We need a campaign to pray for the conversion of Muslims.
Posted by: cathyf | December 14, 2015 at 04:36 PM
I'm reminded of an old cartoon where an advertising agency rep explains the failure of a dogfood marketing campaign to the client. "The dogs don't like the dogfood."
Well the problem here on the "he's not a true Muslim" campaign is that people generally resist eating horse manure, and when that's what the politicians are passing out, it's tough for the public to swallow.
Now that doesn't mean that Obama and Jeh Johnson won't keep shoveling the stuff--but the public ain't buying.
Posted by: Comanche Voter | December 14, 2015 at 05:17 PM
No Janet, if you are still here, the link I used to answer your question of yesterday was in my 1:30 pm above.
Also found in my LUN
Posted by: Publius | December 14, 2015 at 07:45 PM