First off, Thank you Tarquin. You have made my points in a much more eloquent way and I appreciate that
To leon: You still seem to be missing the entire point here, regardless of what you believe, or what other people in this thread believe, to make your points you are stating things as fact which are historically inaccurate at best, and you are also bringing in irrelevant points so as to make yourself look as though what you are saying is right. If you can't have debate without putting others down don't join in, end of.
Flach, your points about education are wonderful, the way I see it is that while we may not be able to 'fix' anything, through education one can bring everyone up to a theoretical intellectual level playing field, so that discussion and debate can be had cross culture and cross religion.
"Fundamentalist Islam is dangerous. So is fundamental Christianity. So is fundamental Athiesm. By and large, they're all pretty comparable in terms of the atrocities that are committed though, and to deny that is either irresponsible, a lie, or both.", Tarquin
Encapsulates my point perfectly. The problem I have with what a lot of people have been saying in this thread is the focus on Fundamentalist Islam, and the selective removal of all the things that have been done in the name of other gods and other religions.
Fundamentalism as a concept involves believing that everyone else is wrong, and this is very dangerous territory to get into. When you believe that what you are fighting for is 'just', whereas everyone else are murderers, pillagers, rapists etc you can justify any means, simply by it being against the 'infidel'
This is exactly what happened in the crusades, it is what, I would argue, happened with Bush's invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it is what has manifested itself in the form of suicide bombers and such like.
The problem as I see it, is hugely influenced by economic divide. Those people who become susceptible to fundamentalist causes are primarily (and I am generalizing a bit here) young, poorly educated people who are living below, and often far below, the poverty line. It gives them something to live for, and the huge division of wealth in the richer nations of the world leads to massive resentment which can lead into anger and then hate. If more was done on the education side of things, and more was done to ensure that those who live below the poverty line get as many chances as possible to improve their quality of life then, in my view, the beginings of discussion can be had.
It has been shown time and time again that humans are afraid of things they don't understand. This has led to war upon war and persecution of every faith/colour/creed on the earth at some point or another, in some place or another.
If we educate ourselves and others in the things that we don't understand, wouldn't we be less likely to jump to extremes?
