Name:   copperline - Subject:   On telling the good guys from the bad guys. Date:   12/7/2015 1:55:46 PM

My suggestion is that we need to have conversations with Muslims where we live and keep talking to them with the basic assumption being that most people (Islamic and Christian) want to live in peace, raise their children, and have a secure future.    Toward that end, it would be a good idea for all of us to contact a local Muslim, introduce ourselves and commit to mutual respect & peace.

I've worked around plenty of Muslims... around Universities, in hospitals and associated medical fields....   frankly, we never talked much about religion & politics because I was pretty sure my beliefs were inconsistent with theirs.   That looks like a mistake to me now.

By the way, I also avoided talking to many Christians for the same reasons.   To be sure, I have been around far more Christians guided by their fundamentalist ideology & ready to go to war with non-believers than Muslims adhering to radical apocalyptic notions. Religious fundamentalism is the problem here, and the only way to combat it is thru common sense and a whole lot of calm dialogue.