> and certainly didn't have a religion that promoted extremism
Lets cut through the code words then and have a direct counterexample to what you're trying to say.
Nigerians are primarily Muslims. They are also highly educated and among the most entrepreneurial immigrants to the USA. And while there's a "Nigerian prince" joke every now and then, they really are doing relatively well in the USA. Like, "better than Asians" with regards to college education statistics.
Nigerians are basically the perfect counterexample to the "Religion" (aka: Islam) problem that is so often brought up. High rates of college completion, high rates of business / entrepreneurs, high-rates of integration. Overall, clearly net-positive to the USA.
> Other Asian immigrants in the US were also either not religious, or (like with Koreans and Filipinos) adopted the same religion as the dominant culture.
What about Indians? Who are usually either Hindu or Muslim? Indians are also highly educated and start a large number of businesses.
I'm personally Catholic. I'd obviously prefer it if immigrants would come with the same Religion as me, but the statistics are in. Nigerians, Indians, and a whole host of other immigrants kind of do perfectly fine in America. There's no need for them to be Christian or otherwise "mainstream".
Indeed, bringing in immigrants on the basis of religion is severely anti-American IMO. America is certainly big enough to sustain Hindu, Muslims, and other religious groups. Especially if those people are coming in highly-skilled, highly educated, and overall are a benefit to our society.
Ok, then what is the problem then? It's not racism; Nigerians are a lot darker than Arabs. Maybe it's a cultural problem, combined with religion: you never hear of Nigerian Muslims committing terrorist acts in the West. Islam is a big, big religion, and Muslims from some cultures simply don't have any kind of bad reputation (I'm thinking Malaysia here), while others certainly do.
So maybe it is religion, just not the whole religion, but rather particular sects. All Christians are not like the Pentecostals or the Mormons, and similarly all Muslims are not the same.
Its certainly a problem that's specific to particular sects.
The sect of Osama Bin Laden was "Wahhabism", which is relatively rare outside of Saudi Arabia. And even then, the Saudi Princes who work with the USA are often pro-Wahabbism, so the USA can't even deride that sect (even if its the primary sect of Al-Qaeda). Because there's still "good guys" who follow that particular sect.
Note that the "Bin Laden" family was a very rich and entrepreneurial group of people. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_family) Some of them were huge investors in the US before their "black sheep" messed up their family name forever.
The Middle East is complicated. Like, super super complicated. Honestly, the bin Ladens in general (aside from the infamous one) should be welcome to the USA. A bit unfortunate about their "black sheep" sibling.
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Besides, if "Religion" was the problem, why did the USA DESTROY the only secular, maybe even atheist, group in the Middle East? (aka: Iraq Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athists).
Reason: the world is complicated. And thinking about it in terms of Religion only is a mistake. ISIS for example is a combination of yes, Wahhabism, but ALSO has the support of former Ba'athists.
And the Ba'athists believe in Secularism and secular law. They seemed to have joined in the ISIS fun not because of religious reasons, but because they wished to take over Iraq and saw aligning themselves with the fundamentalist Wahhabists as the best path forward and creating a unified Arab State.
So yes, we are fighting secular (arguably an atheist) groups in the Middle East. The world is a very complicated place. Yes, we have enemies some places, but Muslims exist across the entire world. You can't paint the issues of one region as a blight on all Muslims.
Even then: I'd imagine that we should welcome the many Iraqis who have helped the USA and are now getting targetted by ISIS in their country. We have friends in the region and we are turning them away with our immigration policies. We've turned our back on our closest supporters of that region, and I wouldn't be surprised if a large number of them have died because of their pro-US support or actions.
Oh right, Pakistan is where the Muslims come from. Apologies, its sometimes hard to remember everything about the world.
But yeah, neither of those are Christian. Both are IIRC Polythistic religions, about as different from Christianity as possible. Muslims for example believe in Abraham and the existence of Jesus. Their story is... very different but Allah is clearly the God of Abraham / Yahweh.
So if anything, Muslims are "closer" to the mainstream religion of the USA than Hindu's or Sikhs
> But yeah, neither of those are Christian. Both are IIRC Polythistic religions, about as different from Christianity as possible.
Many Hindus believe that the numerous deities are different forms or aspects of one ultimate deity. As such, they are much closer to monotheism than you think. It can be described as "inclusive monotheism", as opposed to the "exclusive monotheism" of the Abrahamic religions.
Sikhism is not polytheistic at all, it is very monotheistic.
Christianity itself has been accused of polytheism. Many Jews, Muslims, and non-Trinitarian Christians argue that there is no real difference between Trinity and tritheism. Many Protestants accuse the Catholic and Orthodox cult of Mary and the Saints of bordering on polytheism. Mormonism (admittedly on the fringe of Christianity) sees the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as three separate "beings", although it redefines the word "God" to refer to those three beings collectively. Mormon theology also implies that God the Father has a wife (the Heavenly Mother), and of other gods ruling over other universes (or parts of the universe.)
In my observation, religions that are extremely far apart generally get along better than religions that are much closer. Also, polytheistic religions just don't seem to have compatibility problems with other religions. The religions that get along the worst are the Abrahamic ones: Muslims and Jews hate each other, Christians hate Jews (more so in the past), Sunni and Shia Muslims hate each other, and Catholic and Protestant Christians have had many conflicts even in recent history (Ireland).
Of course, part of this could just be physical proximity: these warring groups tend to be neighbors or even in the same places, causing friction. But, for now at least, we have lots of Indians (Sikhs and Hindus) here in the US and don't have the problems with them that we do with others.
> In my observation, religions that are extremely far apart generally get along better than religions that are much closer
This seems to be more true of mutually exclusive religions that are historically geographically close together for an extended period of time than ones which happen merely to be doctrinally similar, and to be more (but certainly not exclusively) true of political conflicts between religious communities rather than theological conflicts.
> But, for now at least, we have lots of Indians (Sikhs and Hindus) here in the US and don't have the problems with them that we do with others
Part of that is because the people who would have problems are still mistaking South Asians with Middle Easterners and also (whether or not they do that) assuming they are Muslim. Give it some time, they’ll get their own targeted hate. (Hinduism already gets some through the Christian anti-yoga movement.)
I think that MAYBE a case can be made against the Wahhabi philosophy / sect (and similar sects). Maybe, but that's the furthest I'd go towards deriding a religious group in its entirety. Things are especially complicated because a large number of pro-Wahhabi Saudi princes are working very closely with the USA on this issue.
I don't think that Muslimphobia is an appropriate response to Antisemitism.
Look: the Nazis were primarily Christian. We recognized the political movement of the Nazis as independent of their religion.
People today still don't realize that the Ba'athists of Iraq (who eventually joined with ISIS) were SECULAR. Hint: Religion is at best, a minor component to the violent middle-eastern philosophy. The Middle East is far more complicated than a group of religions.
There is a concept, and this concept goes BEYOND religious grounds (as it is taking hold in the Ba'athist reminants of Northern Iraq). Middle Easterners long for the re-establishment of their lost Empires from the middle ages. They dream of a reunified Arab State. (Or at least, that's the shared dream of the violent ISIS members in general)
And yes. Ba'athists believe it should be secular and pan-religious. They're also authoritarian and incredibly violent. But its important to keep these political groups in mind. But yes, even the secular groups dream of re-establishing their former empire. And yes, Wahhabists believe it should be a religious theocracy. But there's a lot of subgroups to this political movement.
Don't mistake the political situation with the religious undertones. Besides, a Muslim from Nigeria typically doesn't give a rats ass about this "pan-Arabic" stuff. So the religious stuff is purely a distraction.
I see your point, I don't see why it is relevant, I know about Ba'ath, etc.
I know that Jews have been suffering more attacks in Europe recently including one in Berlin that wasn't a jew but wore a kippah to "prove it was not dangerous" and got attacked. So ignoring the issue or just sidelining issue is not ideal.
Its certainly an issue. But antisemitism / Holocaust deniers are kind of a universal group. Not only are there certain Arab groups who are Holocaust deniers, but there are also Right-Wing KKK Members who were making their anti-Semitism quite clear just a few months ago.
Antisemitism is on the rise. But blaming it squarely on Muslims is just plain wrong. The above Swastika was found at the infamous Charlottesville "Unite the Right" Rally.
I don't necessarily have answers. But I'm also not entirely sure why Muslims get all the blame here. There are plenty of Muslims who are literally thousands of miles away from these incidents (ie: Nigerian Muslims) who really shouldn't be lumped together with the rest of the crap going on.
Lets cut through the code words then and have a direct counterexample to what you're trying to say.
Nigerians are primarily Muslims. They are also highly educated and among the most entrepreneurial immigrants to the USA. And while there's a "Nigerian prince" joke every now and then, they really are doing relatively well in the USA. Like, "better than Asians" with regards to college education statistics.
https://www.chron.com/news/article/Data-show-Nigerians-the-m...
Nigerians are basically the perfect counterexample to the "Religion" (aka: Islam) problem that is so often brought up. High rates of college completion, high rates of business / entrepreneurs, high-rates of integration. Overall, clearly net-positive to the USA.
> Other Asian immigrants in the US were also either not religious, or (like with Koreans and Filipinos) adopted the same religion as the dominant culture.
What about Indians? Who are usually either Hindu or Muslim? Indians are also highly educated and start a large number of businesses.
I'm personally Catholic. I'd obviously prefer it if immigrants would come with the same Religion as me, but the statistics are in. Nigerians, Indians, and a whole host of other immigrants kind of do perfectly fine in America. There's no need for them to be Christian or otherwise "mainstream".
Indeed, bringing in immigrants on the basis of religion is severely anti-American IMO. America is certainly big enough to sustain Hindu, Muslims, and other religious groups. Especially if those people are coming in highly-skilled, highly educated, and overall are a benefit to our society.