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of Muslims being half-mad, violent, uncivilized and without rational impulse control; just the things one would think would promote the creation of "terrorists".
We just aren't privy to the life experiences that those people face under their oppressive regimes, so it's hard to relate. Furthermore, I would hazard to say that for most Americans, any cursory review of their religion (Islam) simply leaves us thinking it's bizarre and extremist--and given that we hardly hear of Muslims but that it's related to some sort of unrest, problems or even terrorism, it all seems to "fit". So, if you don't bother to think deeper and consider the hundreds of millions of other peaceful, probably reasonable people who call themselves Muslims, it's all too easy to simply write them all off with the stereotype. Of course we all recognize that stereotypes don't apply very strongly when we're considering individuals... but that's not enough for us to "get along" with this large, relatively unknown/misunderstood group of people.
As for the strangeness of their religion (with the disclaimer that it's recognized that any "strangeness" largely represents simple ignorance and lack of familiarity on the part of the beholder, as well as the simple fact that it really is considerably different from anything we've experienced in our world), the reasons it's "strange" is that it is very different and even "alien" when considered under the social and cultural norms of ours and most "Western" nations. We find it hard to consider it 'normal' for people to be so devoted to their religion that they absolutely must stop and pray many times each day, and even that in their prayers they show submission/devotion by pressing their foreheads to the ground, the forehead being a particularly holy part of their being... There is also a large and seemingly vast quantity of religious teachings, rules, rituals and so forth--so much that it begins to make sense that their "religious leaders" tend to have to be "scholars" of their religion--to a far, far greater degree than in Christianity--which seems, by comparison, to have a much more compact (though not necessarily more rational) body of beliefs, rules, rituals etc. Also, many of the Muslim rules and rituals make about as much sense to us as saying that to obtain a blessing from G_d, you must dress in a pink robe, stand on one foot while barefoot after washing your feet with beer, and do so facing Northeast under a full moon on the third week of the month in an odd-numbered year, while wiping your left earlobe with spit, obtained by sucking on a crystal of amethyst blessed by seven nuns, and then only using the spit obtained the seventh time you spit, all while muttering the phrase "We are the Knights who say Kneeee" 70 times under your breath and then hopping up and down twenty times and standing on your head holding small pebbles between the third and fourt toes, from the left, with both feet. If you mess up even one word, you must start over. You must start by 9pm in the timezone of Bagdad, and finish by 17 minutes before 11pm. If you pass gas... you must say 7,700 "Hail Ali-baba's" and repeat this whole ritual every day for a month in addition to all the other rituals. And this would be to have the blessing of good digestion, but if you don't do this, you'll offend your G_d, and suffer great punishment. It would also be one of the simpler, briefer and less important ones--but critically important even so. Anyway, the point is, to a modern, western mind, this all seems pretty strange and it's but the tip of the iceberg. It's also the case that one imagines that anyone who'd follow such a detailed, strange collection of stuff must really be pretty much of an extremist... Obviously, given that there's thousands of bits and things and every person varies in their dedication to the religion--just like with Christianity--, most people don't do most of the things called for and each group emphasizes different ones... It's just that to our eyes, having not been educated and trained and entrained from a young age... it's a bit much. Heck, if I "had to" follow such a lifestyle in order to be a part of society, it might be enough to drive even me to want to wear high explosives--just to escape having to do this and get to heaven where I collect my just deserts and live in great comfort and have everything I could want including all the sex of whatever flavor I could possibly want, and then some. Fortunately, I don't have to and don't subscribe to those or any other such superstitions.
So there we have it. A bunch of delusional, believers in an extremely demanding religion who live under terrible governments under awful conditions, and who appear by the reports, to have a tendency towards violence and intolerance (much like our very own Rethugs)... Whether that reflects reality or not... probably not, but remember--reality, according to the Rethugs in Charge, is overrated (and not something they and therefore our whole nation to some extent, bother with).
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