Good News: Most American Muslims Don’t Want to Kill You
I’m a little late talking about this issue, but since I haven’t posted anything since October, just be happy with what you get.
On May 22, the Pew Research Center released a study that I’m sure most of you have already heard about. The headline on their report was “Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream.” Of course, anyone who actually looked at the results knows that the most important word there is mostly. Pew learned that a mere 26% of U.S. Muslims under the age of 30 feel that suicide bombing of civilian targets to defend Islam can be justified. For the entire Muslim population on the whole it was 13%. When I think about the kinds of feelings that would make someone say “I don’t know” or even refuse to answer the question, I think I’d be justified in adding in the 9% of people who did one or the other for a grand total of 22% of the total Muslim population, but let’s just work with the 13% for now.
Pew estimates that there are 1.4 million Muslims living in the United States. So, this means that at least 182,000 American Muslims are down with suicide bombing. Does that sound like good news to you? We’ve seen what 19 can do. 182,000 can lead to a very bad day indeed. Now 13% doesn’t seem very high at first glance, but it depends on what you’re talking about. If a diet product has 13% as much fat as the regular version, that sounds pretty good. However, if I were to ask you to get into a box with 100 cobras, but assure you that 87 of them have been defanged, 13% starts to seem pretty damn high. Always remember to multiply probability by severity of outcome for a real sense of what’s going on. If there’s a 13% chance I’m going to get a papercut today, I don’t really care. If there’s a 13% chance that I’ll be beaten to death in the street, that’s clearly too high.
Another bit of good news from the survey is that only 5% of American Muslims have a favorable view of al Qaeda. 10% have a “somewhat unfavorable” view. I think the real story here, however, is the 27% that didn’t know or refused to answer. Hmmm… Let’s think about this… Why might someone refuse to answer that question in a telephone poll? This is America. It’s not like the government is tapping… oh, that’s right. Never mind.
So, what do we learn from all this aside from the fact that 182,000 Americans wouldn’t flinch if somebody blew up himself up in your favorite Starbucks? We learn a little more about the role of religion in terrorism. I can’t remember how many times people have told me that Palestinians are driven to don suicide vests in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv because they’re poor, or because they’re politically oppressed. In this country, where our Muslims are mostly middle class and we constantly trip over ourselves to avoid the appearance of racial profiling or the slightest offense to the “religion of peace,” what’s the excuse of these 182,000 people if not Islam itself?
~I AM~
P.S. A note on the death of Reverend Falwell: yippee
June 1st, 2007 at at 4:42 pm
Allow me to be the first to welcome the new guy, ~i am~.
I’m glad to hear from you and I hope you’re able to post more often. You going to let us know what you’ve been doing?
June 1st, 2007 at at 9:35 pm
Glad I checked in – welcome back. I think you’re many times more likely to be killed by a Christian than a Muslim, if that’s any consolation.
June 2nd, 2007 at at 9:14 am
cadmus:
It’s nice to hear from you, too. I’ve been staying very busy. My business has been doing pretty well, and we just bought a house in March. That just swallows every last second of time. I also just sort of ran out of things to say for a while. So, I’m back. I don’t know if it will last, and I can’t make any promises about posting frequency, but I’m giving it another go.
June 2nd, 2007 at at 11:43 am
A few points
Saying suicide bombing is justified in a telephone poll is seeing the intellectual or principled argument
and isn’t the same as supporting it in any practical way. I’d guess that faced with the relaith most wodl be horrified ot see fellow humans kiiled and maimed. And although it’s probably a controversial point I’d suggest that there are conditions in which many (but not all) ‘normal’ people form all backgrounds might resport to extreme measures. The new Battlestar Galactica explores this idea sensitively.
Without any control (how many Americans woudl take up arms to defend their country if ) it’s risky to attribute this support to being a Muslim as opposed to particular international circumstances.
June 3rd, 2007 at at 4:56 pm
**Saying suicide bombing is justified in a telephone poll is seeing the intellectual or principled argument and isn’t the same as supporting it in any practical way.**
What intellectual or principled argument is there for martyring yourself for a religious cause? The 2 are mutually exclusive. Suicide to gain entrance to heaven is not a rational act. It is an act of faith.
I respectfully disagree and assert that agreeing with suicide bombing in a phone survey is precisely the kind of practical support that ~I AM~ is saying that Americans should be concerned with.
**And although it’s probably a controversial point I’d suggest that there are conditions in which many (but not all) ‘normal’ people form all backgrounds might resport to extreme measures. **
I will say right now- that if my children are threatened, you’re damn right I will go to extreme measures.
But what, exactly, is the extreme measures these middle class American Muslims were giving the go-ahead to suicide bombers for???? They (the extremists) are not fighting for freedom or justice. They are trying to get 72 virgins and an eternity of honeysuckle pie. They are trying to achieve a theocracy in which women are property that will be terminated if it shows a glimpse of ankle flesh to a male.
June 4th, 2007 at at 10:57 am
Good to see you back. And to think I removed you from my blogroll a couple of weeks ago because I thought you were gone for good.
I haven’t had a chance to read the Pew Report yet but hope to do so.
June 4th, 2007 at at 2:04 pm
Welcome back, I AM! I “had faith” that you would return, eventually.
June 4th, 2007 at at 2:11 pm
Now to comment on the topic at hand.
It’s disturbing to me that there are that many who feel that suicide bombing innocent civilians is justified for any reason. It is also disturbing to see videos of children wearing little suicide belts and being taught that it is a good thing to kill themselves along with other human beings in the name of some imaginary sky daddy. Check out Apostates of Islam website for first hand facts about this “religion of peace.”
And saying that “some christians would do it too if they had the chance” doesn’t justify muslims doing it, and it doesn’t solve the problem that muslim extremists are already offing themselves and others in the name of Allah on a daily basis.
June 6th, 2007 at at 5:37 pm
**And although it’s probably a controversial point I’d suggest that there are conditions in which many (but not all) ‘normal’ people form all backgrounds might resport to extreme measures. **
I will say right now- that if my children are threatened, you’re damn right I will go to extreme measures.
You’re both right, but I think you’re a bit off point. This poll didn’t ask about suicide bombing in general. It asked about suicide bombing against civilian targets in the defense of Islam. If we can’t blame THAT on Islam, what can we blame it on. And frankly, even if a substantial number of Christians said that they’d support suicide bombing of civilian targets in defense of Christianity, is that a point for Islam or an indictment of Christianity? People very rarely blow themselves up for anything other than religion.
June 18th, 2007 at at 9:23 pm
More than a quarter of US young muslims think suicide bombing is a good idea???
Well, I recently made up some t-shirts and coffee mugs that say “Atheism Cures Religious Terrorism.” Just very pointedly illustrates the link between religion and the insanity in the world today. I plan to wear this quite a lot in coming days. I think I will buy a couple for my young Muslim friends. Time for some self-defensive atheistic evangelizing indeed!
If anyone wants to see the t-shirts etc they are posted here:
http://www.cafepress.com/CureTerrorism
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