I'm with PPF#1 on the 11th September stuff, but I have to side with others on the 'all Muslims are extremists' thing - religion is all about interpretation. If you doubt this, here's a situation I personally run into on an almost weekly basis: how many Christians do you know who think that being gay is 'wrong because the bible says so', but who would say that stoning your neighbour to death for working on the sabbath is 'not applicable to modern times'. Try asking a fundamental Christian whether taking the inhabitants of a neighbouring country as slaves is still ok!
Every religion has its freaks and idiots. Remember the uproar about the Mohammed cartoons? Check out the current debate and outcry about a cartoon series lampooning the Catholic faith!
I know Muslim folk who are happy to co-exist with other faiths; they're happy to debate points of doctrine etc., but they're absolutely against violence, and completely disassociate themselves from religious terrorism.
Don't get me wrong, there are some things associated with the Muslim faith that I'm not exactly ecstatic about (role of women, homophobia), but the more I look into these, the more convinced I am that they're more interpretation issues than underlying doctrine. I also recognise the right of other people to believe in fairy tales, so long as they don't try to inflict their beliefs on me. As do many of my religious friends, come to that.
