{"id":33020,"date":"2016-04-25T10:42:54","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T16:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=33020"},"modified":"2016-04-25T10:42:54","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T16:42:54","slug":"did-you-ever-play-a-game-called-marco-polo-heres-another-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/04\/did-you-ever-play-a-game-called-marco-polo-heres-another-one.html","title":{"rendered":"Did you ever play a game called “Marco Polo”? Here’s another one."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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\"Marco<\/a>
A fourteenth-century illustration of Marco Polo traveling
(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I don\u2019t deny for a moment that there are major problems in the Islamic world today, and that a great deal of evil has been and is being committed by Muslims in the name of Islam.<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t appreciate being told, as I routinely am in emails and elsewhere, that I\u2019m whitewashing the Islamic world, that I\u2019m defending ISIS, that I see no problem with Muslims beheading Christians, and so forth.<\/p>\n

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Such statements are either ignorant or they\u2019re lies. \u00a0I\u2019ve been denouncing Islamist violence very publicly, for years.<\/p>\n

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What I do deny is that all Muslims are evil, that every Muslim wishes to kill Christians and establish a theocratic dictatorship, and that Islam, as such, is irredeemably evil and has never contributed anything of value to humanity. \u00a0I\u2019ve read a bit about Islam, I\u2019ve actually met several Muslims, and, although I can\u2019t say that I\u2019ve read as many anti-Islamic websites as some of my critics have, I\u2019ve come to understand a few things about the faith, its adherents, and their history.<\/p>\n

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I find myself between those, mostly on the Left, who either argue that there are no real problems in the world of Islam or that, if there are, they\u2019re all the fault of the West, and those who want claim that Islam is irretrievably evil and that all Muslims are our enemies.<\/p>\n

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I believe that\u00a0circulating baseless anti-Islamic propaganda simply inflames things and terrifies people. \u00a0It helps neither in understanding the real problems nor \u2014 largely for that reason \u2014 in thinking about ways to solve them.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s an item<\/a> about one popular anti-Islamic quotation that\u2019s made the rounds on the internet:<\/p>\n

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Another fake anti-Islam quote from the far right<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n