Someone finally said it on a major cable outlet -

[pinto]

"Moderate christians are like moderate muslims. Extremist christians are like extremist muslims."

Guest on Fareed Zakaria's GPS (CNN). Obviously an over simplification and an hyperbole. But the analogy has some value, imo.
Was stunned to hear it said so simply on a national show. I think his point was to say that both religious traditions have a mainstream center and an extreme fringe element.

(ed to add) Discussion touched on the many muslim groups denouncing the taking of the school girls in Nigeria to be sold as sex / manual slaves. Ah, it was Nicholas Kristof from the NYT.

Missed the guy's name, I was listening to the show puttering around this morning. GPS gets re-run at the top of the hour in the US.

[skepticscott]

1. Can you even define

"Moderate" and "extremist" in this context? From whose perspective are "moderate" and "extremist" judged? If god tells you to do something, and you do it, can that possibly qualify as "extremism", or are the "extremists" those who deviate the most from what god teaches and commands?

What is there that precludes someone from being a liberal extremist?

[struggle4progress]

3. Can you distinguish between the YMCA and the KKK?

This seems a very tricky and subtle problem in some quarters

[cbayer]

2. There are moderates and extremists in most groups, religious or not.

Sometimes you need them, like we needed ACT UP early in the AIDS crisis.

Other times, they keep the majority from really being seen or heard because they are so loud and in your face.

But I think it's important to make the distinction at times.

[pinto]

4. Good points.

Yeah, ACT UP was up front and there when we needed some presence. Some viability in the Reagan years. Followed or concurrent with the French and American medical responses, lives were saved or the rapid lethality limited as much as possible.

I did a few "die ins" during that time. And there came a time to focus on access to health care, encouraging comprehensive care for those infected, support services, etc.

All had a place in the picture.

[LostOne4Ever]

5. Doesn't help much if you happen to live in a country

where both moderates and extremists are both bad.

In Egypt, even the moderate Muslims think apostasy should be punished by death. Uganda, they have no problem passing anti-gay laws where people get thrown in prison for life.

If I was a citizen of Saudi Arabia and dared question the existence of god, I don't think the moderates would exactly be my best choice of allies.

Similarly the extreme fringe left of these movements is not necessarily bad. In many of the countries I listed above they are the ones pushing for basic human rights.

In a secular country like ours we are lucky that the moderates have embraced things like secularism and basic human rights. Things very easily could have gone far differently had their not been people out their critiquing religious thought through out our history.

And who have those people been? Almost always it has been the liberal extremist who have been the ones pushing us that way. Yesterdays radical is todays liberal and yesterdays liberal is todays conservative afterall. Had we listened to the liberal extremists in the past we would be much further than we are currently.

The fact that we just recently got to the point where the public accepts same-sex marriage (at least in the country overall) is sad. We should have been at this point decades ago!