Michael Julian Thompson
4:46 PM
September 9, 2010
Our vision of Islam today is so skewed due to the 9/11 attacks and fear mongering media, that a recent census by Gallup showed that 53 percent of Americans view Islam unfavorably. Only 42 percent said they viewed the religion in a favorable way. How could it be that in a country founded by people searching for religious tolerance the majority of its citizens are now scorning other religions? Deepak Chopera explores this question of how Islam got a bad rap.
Chopera writes that in the same Gallup census 63 percent of those interviewed said they know little about the ideas and history of Islam, which is evidence to diagnose the disapproval as ignorance. Born in India and raised with Muslim children, Chopera says that he has no negative thoughts toward Islam, however he suffered from the same ignorance of the ideas it honors. After studying Muhammad and his view of himself, Deepak came to the conclusion that this information was needed to raise Islam's "approval rating" in the west.
Chopera finally comes to the conclusion that looking at Islam unfavorably isn't about the facts but more the emotion. He also comes to peace with the fact that bias will always be there when thinking or writing of Islam, but the ability to have mixed emotions is the mentality America needs to maintain.
This article spoke to me right off the bat. I completely agree with the mentality of Chopera in combating bias and his views on what fuels American prejudice. One example I would have wanted to use would be Muslim extremists vs. Christian extremists. The Quran Burning is an exhibit of Christian extremism because it is a direct slap in the face to all American Muslims. There won't be a solution to this mental pollution but for now we can just accept the fact that there are different people in the world.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/deepak_chopra/2010/09/right_thinking_and_wrong_thinking_about_muslims.html
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