What is something that people think is dangerous but in reality is completely harmless?

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Muslims.
- On the surface level, yeah. But if you dig a bit deeper a religious person upholds the idea that religious belief is reasonable. When people have the opinion that religious belief is reasonable it causes measurable harm to everyone on this planet.
  An individual believer cannot be separated from the religion.
  
  My point was that people fear the average person who works a common job raising a family but is also Muslim. There's definitely crazy religious zealots in Islam, but they are the minority of the ~1.5 Billion.
  
  Yeah individually religious people can be fairly benign. The fundamental problem is with religion.
  Extremists are able to hide behind the guise of religion because non-extremists enable them. Because the only way for “moderate” religious people to oppose religious extremists is to admit that it’s all metaphorical bullshit.
  
  I think you mean that the problem is with extremist, not with religious people. Also, people where I live do oppose them because being an asshole is generally against Islam. (I live in a Muslim majority region)
  
  I meant oppose in the theological sense. Religious extremists are given legitimacy by religious moderates. (I live in a Christian majority region)
  
  Not all religious people are fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims (and Christians and Hindu and Jews and Buddhists etc etc) are moderate to progressive believers who aren't necessarily any more toxic than those of us who aren't religious.
  Not separating individual believers from the religion and each other is every bit as bigoted and stupid as claiming that all atheists eat babies just because I do.
  
  This is a very narrow viewpoint in my opinion. I'm not denying religion has caused harm, but a large portion of people have found it to be a means to do good (and I mean legit good that almost everyone can agree on, things like foodbanks, stopping addictions and so on)
  
  That's ridiculous, secular people do lots of good all the time. In fact, religious people have a far greater chance of doing harm, because they sometimes believe in things like homophobia, misogynism, genital mutilation etc. If people didn't have religion to back up these evil ideas then we'd see less of them.
  
  Any culture can be harmful and secular people can and often do good.
  
  I’m not a Catholic, so I don’t consider bad deeds to be ok so ling as you do a few good.
  
  Someone call a plumber, /r/atheism is leaking again
- As an Icelandic guy in Palestine I confirm this is true.
  
  How are you finding Palestine in general. I'm planning a trip in a couple years to visit the done of the rock and although I'm a Muslim in a very white blonde hair blue eyed American with very limited Arabic skills.
  
  It's pretty nice all in all, I reccomend it. The old city of Jerusalem is a bit tense but the rest is chill. Since you're blonde blue-eyed and would like to go to Al-Aqsa mosque I'd reccomend bringing some proof that you're a Muslim. :)
- I don't know about this one man.
  I'm sure that most common day Muslims are fine normal people that live their lives as decently as anyone else.
  And there are crazy ass Christians and Jews and Buddhists out there of course. But the kind of crazy levels Muslims can attain are astronomical!
  I mean... The dress code of women alone are just out of this world...
  
  Extremists are extremists.
  Everyone’s got crazies.
  Muslims as you said.
  For Christian’s in the US they are the largest terrorist group.
  https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/s894/BILLS-116s894is.xml
  For Jews (I am Jewish and Half Israeli) look at the current Israeli administration.
  Frankly it doesn’t matter what religion, dogma, ideology, or doctrine you follow. Replace label X with Y. Someone will always take the rhetoric to far.
  
  A lot of that has more to do with modern politics than with religion, most of that is a reaction to Western Imperialism. Look at the way women dressed in the 50s and 60s in Tehran. Even Indonesia, the country with more Muslims than anywhere on earth had a female prime minister before Hilary even ran.
  
  There's definitely a lot of crazy ass Muslims as well as Jews, Christians and Buddhists like you mentioned. However, I think the fear is irrational. Most of them just want to raise a family and live life. There's extremists in all groups: every race, every religion, every political belief system, etc. This doesn't mean that the minority extremists should define the majority.
  
  I love to read. As a young teen, I read lots of religious texts. As an autistic teen I found religious people illogical and wanted to understand them better. Old / new testament, buddhist dhamapada, hindu vedas, quran AND hadith (you need to read the hadith to understand historical context of many surah).
  I've also lived amongst muslims for most of my life. Taken at face value, it's a horrible, divisive, violent religion and imo with exception of some genuinely peaceful sects (eg ahmadi, who are considered not real muslims by majority) is not very compatible with modern western societies.
  Everyone should take the time to read the quran, educate yourselves. Learn which surah are abrogated by later ones, and which parts majority sects live their lives by. You might be shocked or surprised. FWIW I think all fundie religions are incompatible with modern western societies, before you think I'm singling islam out.
  My favourite excerpt from islamic texts is from hadith, might not have it word for word but it's when Mohammed wants a new wife, suddenly gets a commandment from god that it's allowed, and his wife (Aisha) says "Oh how your god rushes to fulfil your whims". Even she knew it was bullshit.

387 comments