Islamophobia: Over-reaction or Sensible Response

Fear is a normal human emotion. It can be a self-inflicted hinderance or a powerful motivator. Sometimes its weight crushes us to inaction. Sometimes it lends us to misdirected hostility. Sometimes it lights a fire beneath us, making it impossible to ignore the immediate threats and problems which we face.

Rational fear, colloquially known as healthy respect, is a positive thing. It's that voice in your head saying things like 'don't walk blindly into traffic' and 'hand-feeding a wolverine is generally a bad idea.'

Irrational fear is fear in the absence of potential threat, and is therefore counter-productive. Fear of the non-existant is the obvious example. Fear of the benign, such as clowns or cracks in the floor, is clearly also irrational. Even where a real threat is present, it is possible for a person to hold an irrational fear; as a person living in North America it would not be rational for me to fear trampling by elephants. Though that fear could become rational if I were to travel to Africa or get a job with the circus.

When an irrational fear becomes too powerful to ignore, we call it a phobia. Merriam-Webster on the word phobia: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation

Exaggerated, inexplicable, and illogical...that certainly describes heliophobia (fear of the sun), amathophobia (fear of dust), kathisophobia (fear of sitting down), and lachanophobia (fear of vegetables). These things pose no direct threat, so to fear them is irrational.
But what about selachophobia (fear of sharks)? Virginitiphobia (fear of rape)? Spermatophobia (fear of germs)? Those things can and do cause harm to people on a regular basis. Fear of sharks, rape, or germs is entirely rational, to a degree. When swimming in the ocean, the rational man does not ignore the large dark shape moving toward him underwater. However, he also recognizes that not every dark shape is a shark and only a small percentage of swimmers are bitten.

So it seems rational fears can become harmful phobias if we do not keep them in check.

This London blogger makes a clever comparison. His point is made through satire in typical British fashion. The author wrote this back in 2005, and it is even more relevant today.
toffeewomble.blogspot.com...

Which category does modern Islamophobia fall under -- rational fear based on a real threat, or grossly-exaggerated and illogical phobia?

Dithcuth.

The Isis fighters beheading foreign journalists in the name of Allah seem pretty real to me.

Islamophobia is based on ignorance.

Most muggers, robbers, and criminals are poor people, but that does not make all poor people to be perceived as any of such listed.

I have been in many Muslim countries (yes as a US Marine/20 years of service) and have been treated well by 99.9% of Muslims. On patrol I have been fed watered and hugged.

Anyway we are are brothers and in this day and age ignorance is no longer an excuse.

I am not afraid of Muslims. Nor am I afraid of Islamic Jihadis.

I'm a soldier. My job, when it comes to threats from anyone, including Jihadis is to



Hatred of anyone for people based on religion or any other factor of their culture isn't a phobia.

Homophobes aren't afraid of gay people. They're just assholes.

I don't know about 'fear'; deeply suspicious certainly.

It was exceedingly naive of globalists to import Muslims into the free world in the numbers that they have...but then that's a general argument against mass immigration without any democratic mandate.

Muslims aren't ready for peaceful coexistence in the free world.

If they ever will be, they're not ready yet.

Sadly the -suffix phobia has been so badly misused by so-called intellectuals that its true meaning is now secondary. Most use it to mean dislike, hate of, instead of its true meaning, fear of.

originally posted by: markosity1973
The Isis fighters beheading foreign journalists in the name of Allah seem pretty real to me.

Yes but are you a foreign journalist in IS controlled territory?
If not then even bringing it into the discussion is irrational.

The average Muslim is nothing to fear and statiscally theres a better chance of being killed by lightning or being mauled to death by a dog or Hippo than there is of dying in a terrorist attack.
What does somewhat scare me about Islam is the ones who immigrate to the West and refuse or are unable to assimilate in anyway, Using my home of Australia as an example there are areas in Sydney that are almost entirely Muslim, this in itself is not an issue, I have no problems with Halal food or restaurants etc etc and every community has its little enclaves but was is disturbing is their willingness and aggressiveness in making others bend to their ways.
A few years ago there was a big whoha when every weekend some Muslims would go to a popular beach and the men would block access to a popular rock pool there so the women could swim without us dirty Aussies being able to see them.

Realistically the above example and similar things are a tiny matter and really dont effect my day to day life, especially since I dont live in Sydney, but it does disturb, anger and even scare me on occasion.
I wonder what will happen in 50 years if these people continue to grow in numbers as a community and still stick to ways I would consider to be UnAustralian.

Is this Irrational? probably but to me its still a concern

a reply to: OpenMindedRealist

"Phobia" is irrational. Irrational can't be sensible.

a reply to: InverseLookingGlass
That statement is true.

I take it you believe Islamophobia is an accurate description for the wariness toward Muslims we are seeing around the world today? That there is no rational reason to fear attacks by Muslim extremists?

Do you think during the 13th century there were people in Europe and Asia who similarly feared invasion by Mongols? Would you have called them irrational?

Has anyone anything to say about the link in the OP?

a reply to: OpenMindedRealist

I read your link and raise you

www.thereligionofpeace.com...

Bear in mind this article is USA centric and the list only covers the last 40 years. If one is not at least suspicious of Islam, they are either Muslim themselves or have been hiding under are rock for the past couple of thousand years.

Im not sure if Im a islamaphobe you be the judge:

I don't want islam in the schools
I don't want to follow any SHaria laws while anywhere in America.
I do want islamic terrorist called Islamic Terrorist.
I do want Islamic Terrorist hunted down and sent to their maker.

Oh and I just heard Duke Unversity is going to allow the islam call to pray chant will be projected across the campus on Friday's. I think that a bunch of crap!

So perhaps I may be a little on the fearful side. Guess what? Im totally cool with it too!

OpenMindedRealistThe likelihood of anything really dangerous happening in your average persons life is pretty slim, therefor people actually enjoy fear, because their own lives are pretty boring with very little risk. This appetite for fear can be satisfied 24hrs a day on rolling news and there's a demand for it. Most people's lives are extremely dull and uneventful, but people love fear, like they love horror movies and roller coasters.

a reply to: OpenMindedRealist

It's a grossly over-exaggerated threat that has bred irrational fear in everyone.

Odds of Dying by Terrorist Attack: 20,000,000 to 1

The Terrorism Statistics Every American Needs to Hear

originally posted by: sirlancelot
Im not sure if Im a islamaphobe you be the judge:

I don't want islam in the schools
I don't want to follow any SHaria laws while anywhere in America.

Neither of these two things are going to happen or are even CLOSE to being implemented.

I do want islamic terrorist called Islamic Terrorist.

Why? What's wrong with just terrorist? Why is it SO important that the adjective "Islamic" be used?

I do want Islamic Terrorist hunted down and sent to their maker.

As does most people.

Oh and I just heard Duke Unversity is going to allow the islam call to pray chant will be projected across the campus on Friday's. I think that a bunch of crap!

Duke University is a private university so they can do whatever they want when it comes to religion. If you have a problem with this, take it up with Duke's university heads.

So perhaps I may be a little on the fearful side. Guess what? Im totally cool with it too!

Fear causes people to make bad decisions. You are cool with having an irrational fear of something and are ok with the subsequent bad decisions you will be making because of it? You are ok with believing the hype and media brainwashing saying that all Muslims are bad? I thought this was ATS. I thought we deny ignorance here, not embrace it...

It's Christians that I worry about. Those mofo's will circle globe murdering people by the millions. When Christians go to war millions of people die. Islam? Does not scare me. I live around many of them and they are not hurting anyone unless your worried about being over-fed.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

The odds of being attacked by a shark are also very low, until you shrink the sample size down to only the people who regularly swim in the ocean. Statistics can be misleading.

And fear does not cause everyone to make bad decisions. That is dependent upon how we handle our fear. Ask any soldier and they will tell you fear never goes away. The military teaches them to cope with fear, even using it their advantage.

a reply to: markosity1973

History, IMO, is the main reason to fear Islamic extremism. Your list demonstrates that the lunatic fringe of Islam is still quite active.

a reply to: MALBOSIA

In the simplest terms: you live in a warped reality, amigo.

Where are these millions of violent Christians you speak of? Between your parietal lobe and cerebellum?

You seem to imply that if you've met a few Muslims, you've met them all. Sounds like prejudical generalization to me. Or maybe just naivete.

You know that saying, "guns don't kill people, people kill people"?

Islam doesn't kill people. Terrorists kill people.

Yes, Islamophobia is an irrational fear. It isn't irrational to be wary of terrorists who misuse Islam to kill others.

I don't fear guns - I fear irresponsible and unstable people with guns.

a reply to: kaylaluv

By what you just said, your fear of "irresponsible and unstable people with guns" is irrational.