Islam is not bad, too many of you are ignorant of history.

[HappySqurriel]

superchunk said:

HappySqurriel said:

I have a decent understanding of history ... I also have a decent understanding of the present. Just because other religions have had brutal histories, and it could be argued that Islam was a more "advanced" religion centuries ago, doesn't change the fact that some of the most backwards and brutal cultures today are based in radical Islam.

It would be fantastic if we were seeing an Islamic "reformation", but I'm not convinced that we're not in the early days of an Islamic "inquisition" ...

I fully agree with your first paragraph, however, in that light its inaccurate to state that Islam is evil or Islam just teaches hate, etc. Because it doesn't as proven by its own history. Just as what happened during the Dark Ages wasn't Christianity as its defined by any Bible.

Instead we are living in an age where Islam is controlled by fanaticism and extremism. Just as Christianity was previously.

I however, disagree with your final pessimistic thoughts. I read plenty of news and writings from people who are part of these uprisings and the underlying theme is not a focus on Islam, but a focus on liberalism and moving towards common western philosophies of freedoms.

My pessimism comes from knowing that revolutions tend to start out with the best intentions, and the government that emerges after the revolution rarely embodies the vision of those intentions.

For the most part, these countries do not have strong political movements that are able to govern by themselves and (most likely) the initial government will be formed by a coalition that is best able to cobble together enough support to govern; when you add to this that there is a high likelihood that a variety of extremist movements will gain significant support in an election, it becomes highly probable that one or more extremist parties will play a major part in the new government. If this happens these extremist movements will try to use their power to shape the country to suit their needs.

These extremists movements are not all going to be radical fundimentalist-Islamic movements, but some will be and they will probably be some of the stronger movements; mainly because when votes are split dozens of ways, a voting block of 5% or 10% really has a massive impact.