# 58% associate Islam with extremism
# 50% associate Islam with terrorism
# Just 13% associate Islam with peace

Part of the problem is that people are getting information from completely biased sources:

# 57% obtain most of their information about Islam from the TV news
# 41% obtain their information about Islam from newspapers
# Just 3% get most of their information on Islam from Muslim organisations

After all, when you want to know about (say) the BP oil spill, you don’t go to the TV or newspapers. You want a website run by BP itself, since they’re the unbiased experts on the topic.

Accordingly, a bunch of Muslims have put together a site talking about how much they like Muhammad. It’s got video testimonials, inspiring quotes from modern-day scholars like H.G. Wells, timely examples from the Ottoman Empire and Muslim-occupied Spain, and a bright and cheerful color scheme.

The one thing it doesn’t do, alas, is provide any evidence to refute the poll results.

If people believe that Islam is associated with terrorism, it’s a complete non sequitur to respond that Muhammad was interested in Women’s Rights and Education.

For one thing, neither of these is particularly related to terrorism. More importantly, it doesn’t matter what Mohammed said. People associate Islam with terrorism because there are lots of prominent terrorist groups who explicitly claim Islam as their motivation. People think Islam has backward views on Education and Women’s Rights, because there are Islamic countries that have religiously-motivated backward policies on Education and Women’s Rights.

If your goal is to convince people that Islam and terrorism have nothing to do with each other, you might want to put up a webpage or two addressing the reasons why people think they do. (For extra credit you might consider condemning the people responsible for creating the impression, who — you’ll be surprised to learn — aren’t the TV stations and newspapers.) If your goal is to convince people that Islam is progressive on Women’s Rights, you might want to talk about the parts of the world where Islam is used to justify denying rights to women.

After all, even BP isn’t trying to deny that an oil spill is happening!

No, responsible people are stuck speculating about what’s going to happen to him now. Responsible people like President Obama:

It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know: no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice—in this world, and the next.

You might expect that I’d be disapproving when the President starts confidently asserting what’s going to happen in “the next” world. But you’d be wrong. In fact, I quickly realized that “Next-World Justice” is the key to otherwise-intractable political reforms.

For instance, I feel pretty confident that in a generation or two, assuming we haven’t gone extinct, that we’ll look back on the current-day practice of imprisoning users and sellers of recreational drugs as some sort of medieval barbarism.

However, my “let’s legalize drugs, so that people don’t have to be locked behind bars for engaging in the same recreational activities you did” letters to the White House have not managed to elicit a response. (Unless you count the autographed picture of Bo, which I don’t.)

But my new approach (“Drug users will suffer enough in the next world, so can’t we leave them alone in this one?”) seems like it has a much better chance of working, as it’s worded in Obama’s own language.

For my next act, I’ll try to convince the CPSC that people who sell pre-1985 children’s books will get their just deserts in the next world too!

Most (Christians / Muslims / Hindus / Jews) manage to go through life without ever engaging in religiously-motivated violence. And while violence is never justified, we should be more tolerant and try to understand how people might have legitimate grievances about (procedures that we’ve repeatedly denounced as “murder” / the concept of “honor” our community has relentlessly promoted / the indignity of having to live under a non-Hindu government / free speech promoting a different form of superstition from ours).

In any event, we should be very careful with our words, as it wouldn’t be fair to blame an isolated incident on (religion / religion / religion / religion).

4: noticed gaping logical errors in C.S. Lewis books

5: found the “Captain Kangaroo” episode “Mr. Green Jeans and the Argument from Design” utterly uncompelling

6-7: watched “Superbook” and became concerned that none of my Bibles allowed me to time-travel

8-10: after watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, realized that the Old Testament was completely silent on the Ark of the Covenant’s face-melting powers and began to wonder what else it left out

11-13: discovered the powerlessness of prayer to jumpstart puberty

14-18: internet erotica

19-20: attended college Bible meetings for the free pizza

21-23: internet erotica

24: got kicked out of friend’s wedding for taking joke photos in confession booth

25-28: internet erotica

29: poorly-timed Manhattan vacation resulted in near-death at hands of religious fanatics

30: poorly-timed Bali vacation resulted in near-death at hands of religious fanatics

31: poorly-timed Casablanca vacation resulted in near-death at hands of religious fanatics

32: poorly-timed Madrid vacation resulted in near-death at hands of religious fanatics

33: poorly-timed London vacation resulted in near-death at hands of religious fanatics

34: poorly-timed India vacation resulted in near-death at hands of religious fanatics

35+: internet erotica