In the news muslims have been constantly assailed for violence.., yet it is a very small portion of those who claim ...yes claim to be muslim who do violence, killing scores...including muslims...what is your opinion?
religious labels are tricky, religious doctrines are as well, particularly those which are extremely old,, for they hold a history/timeline of both cultural context AND spiritual and people can nitpick instead of seeking context and entirety
I believe individuals of all religions are diverse, and that their core can be reinforced by their interpretation of religious teachings,
but the mind naturally categorizes and puts things in boxes to make them easier to assess and recall, and it takes a desire to UNLEARN the tendency to stop at that INITIAL natural response and view things instead in entirety and context
in my opinion, 'muslim' tells me no more about a person except that they have values based upon their INTERPRETATION of islam and that interpretation will be driven by the type of person they are
so hateful and violent people exist in every religion, they just do, and every religion has plenty of history for them to find the parts that out of context support their hatred and violence
because we are a western political culture, the very association of religion with our values or politics is 'unconstitutional' and unamerican,
but in middle eastern religious cultures, the values and politics are directly tied to religion
so where we have 'patriotic' people who do horrible things in the name of protecting our constition/nation
there is an equivalent of 'religious' people who do horrible things in the name of protecting their religion(or their interpretation of it)
short answer, no , I dont believe muslims are any more violent than anyone else
I just believe they are muslims FIRST and so in all they do and live , it is based upon what they have interpreted in their religion
whereas , american christians, for example, are americans first,, so all they do and live is based upon what they have interpreted as 'american' and 'constitutional'
the labeling is different, but the natures (violent, hateful, dangerous, peaceful, loving, kind) are not,,
I bet middle eastern and religious nations here plenty about what awful things westerners have done, and associate it simply with the fact that we are westerners,,,,,its a hard habit to break,, that type of boxed in mentality