Just a note: there were some very good comments about the
Western tendency to misjudge Islam, and one writer made a
very clear set of statements about what Muslims really believe.
This is important. Islam has a great tradition of
open-mindedness, intellectual pursuit, reason,
and tolerance which has been hijacked by fundamentalist
extremists, the same way fundamentalist extremists have
hijacked other major religions. When you get down to it, most
mainstream religions (Christianity, Juadaism, Islam...) have
acceptance, tolerance and forgiveness as major tenets. Alas,
a fringe of their believers these days seem to
forget that, as people destroy
one another in the stolen name of faith. One of the tragedies in
Afghanistan is that the lunatic extremists have misappropriated
the name of Islam in their women-hating savagery. But
as pointed out by others here on the list, they aren't
acting as Muslims, they are acting as extremists.
And, remember that women-hating extremists exist in
our Western society too. They may espouse a different religion,
but they are just as extreme, and just as dangerous. WE ignore
them at our peril.
--
-susan
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S L Forsburg, PhD forsburg at salk.edu
Molecular Biology and Virology Lab
The Salk Institute, La Jolla CA
http://pingu.salk.edu/~forsburg/lab.html
Women in Biology Internet Launch Page
http://pingu.salk.edu/~forsburg/bio.html
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