No doubt this happens. But when it does, is it always because those members are muslim, or could it perhaps have to do with how they are conducting themselves?
Like I mentioned in my last post, trolls are just as likely to be Islamic as the members of any other faith. Again, these aren't the people I'm talking about.
Additionally, I may be disagreeing with a Muslim on a particular issue, along with a Christian and Hindu, but that doesn't necessarily mean we are in agreement with each other on the issue either.
I've still noticed situations where people who've been repeatedly and consistantly at each others throats in other threads basically wind up giving each other a high five in some of the Islam bashing threads.
The fact is that regardless of religion or lack (or even revulsion) there of, most of the people in here are from basically the same culture with more or less the same mores and social values. Whatever disagreement they may have on certain issues there's bound to be unspoken agreement on countless other issues.
Those commonalities become apparent when someone who doesn't share them shows up, and they usually serve as a basis of at least temporary solidarity against the outsider.
The bottom line is, there are a set of unspoken rules of conduct on RF.
This is part of the problem: there are all kinds of unspoken rules of conduct within western culture itself that we, people who were raised in it and have lived in it all our lives, aren't even consiously aware of until someone violates one of them.
When someone does our first reaction is to assume malicious intent or elective ignorance on the part of the person in question.
It's sort of like, "Everyone knows you're not supposed to do that..." or "Anyone could see that
that was meant as sarcasim" or "No decent, intelegent person would re-act to such and such that way...".
We've all been programed by our society and surroundings to a large extent, most of that programming is sub-consious and our adherence to it is automatic, and to a large extent our perceptions are based on or filtered through the fundemantal precepts of that programing.
When we interact with someone from another culture, who may have received an even slightly different programing, our initial reaction in any confrontation---when someone's reactions don't match what our own would be in similar circumstances--- is "There's something wrong with this person".
This is to say nothing of the language barrier: a lot of the Muslims in here speak English as a second language. There are nuances of meaning dependent on context that we are, again, unconcious of, and that even someone who's mastered the language may have never been exposed to.
There may be some ribbing, and disagreements, but generally when something starts to look like bashing, it's because the recipient of the "bashing" isn't playing by these rules - whatever beliefs that person holds.
Not always. There ar plenty of threads that start out bashing Islam as a whole, usually with some pre-drawn conclusions implied in the title.
