Define, "what is a Muslim"? there are so many problems with this. If we consider Muslims to be those that make the required statement then sure, most Muslims are awesome (despite Islam itself being bad - because we can make that distinction). However, if we narrow our definition and say that a Muslim is one who follows the teachings in the Qur'an and hadiths (ya know, the definition that a Salafi might use) then we end up with a bunch of people who most definitely advocate, implement or support violence in the name of their teachings. It is those motherfuckers that we ought to be worried about - not the huge numbers who profess to be Muslim (or Christian etc) but actually ignore the teachings when it contradicts their innate (superior) sense of morality - and apart from a few mystical mumblings would be hard to distinguish from a non-religious rationalist in their day-to-day practices.
So if your post was meant to mean, "Most Muslims are actually ok" then I agree with you. Just don't forget about the Muslims (and Christians etc etc) that are not ok because their religion commands them to do evil. To paraphrase Sam Harris, "How often do you lie awake at night worrying about the Amish?", and "The problem with Islamic Fundamentalists is the Fundamentals of Islam; if the fundamental of Islam were not violent then we wouldn't have to worry about the fundamentalists, would we?". The same goes for Christian or Jewish fundamentalists - as the fundamental of those religious are also barbaric, with a sprinkling of some nicer rainbow stuff on top. So I don't hate the playa, I hate the game. The Muslims are ok, but political Islam is not. However we can't give Islam a free pass to do its evil just because we like a large fraction of those who profess to be Muslims (but actually don't practice Islam as it is laid out in the Qur'an).
As the physicist Steven Weinberg said, "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.". So yeah, most Muslims are good people (but bad Muslims), the good Muslims are bad people (according to Enlightenment values).
Free speech has a limited right to offend, and defamation and hate speech are such limitations.
I agree, there are limits to free speech. Those limitations are not relevant to the discussion of the video at hand. I'm glad you agree that Free Speech has the right to offend. That is the right that is actually in play.
and you say "all Muslims are like this"
Did I? Could you please re-read my post and find where I said this. You won't find it. You simply have made stuff up and are projecting your hyper-sensitivity on to my post. This is typical of those desperately trying to be politically correct at the expense of simply applying impartial reasoning and seeing where that will take you. Then you have the gall to insult me as "ignorant" after you have just fabricated a quotation against me. Who is the ignoramus here?
You'll find I said no such thing. I very well understand the proportions between actively violent Muslims, passive Muslims who agree with the violence (which is a very significant proportion of the 1.6 billion Muslims on the planet, which I lump in as supporting the troublemakers - so the total is not just a small fringe as you suggest), and then the Muslims who only live in Muslim countries and don't actually practice the teachings at all (the good guys by Western standards). I didn't want to burden my initial post with this distinction, since it wasn't necessary - only the ones who inflict violence are of significance to non-Muslims, since they are the ones that affect us. So please stop projecting what appears to be an apologist agenda, thanks.
You are showing plenty of ignorance yourself.
Nope. It is you that is ignorant of my position. I've already pointed out that you have projected incorrect assumptions (and even included a fabricated quote in your post - how dumb is that?). Now it fair enough that you are ignorant of my position since I didn't want to overburden by posting with my full analysis of the complexities of the situation: which I assure you, I understand very, very well - since I listen to what everyone is saying, including the vile words uttered by the Salafis and extremists [something most Westerners deliberately ignore]. In fact, I would suggest that there is a high probability that I understand the situation much better than you - your lack of knowledge of all the numerous factors is why you struggle to understand what I'm trying to say.
However, I hope we can agree that most Muslims are good people (which necessarily makes them bad Muslims); those that are good Muslims (strictly following the barbarity commanded in the Qur'an and hadiths) are bad people; the fundamentalists Muslims are the ones we ought to be worried about - and therefore it is right to focus on them, while still acknowledging many Muslims are still good people; religious fundamentalists are violent because the fundamentals of the religions are violent; Free Speech include the right to offend; and religions impose commandments that make good people do bad things (which I would then argue is a good reason to discourage the propagation of such religions - just as we ban hate speech for good reason).
