Why are bigots so incapable of differentiating between muslims and non-muslims?

[Dezerte]

I think it's reasonable to fall back onto generalizations if the information in question cannot be obtained without extreme difficulty. For example, if we know that a drug tends to work better in African Americans, but we don't know why, then I think it's reasonable - if not only logical - to prescribe this medication preferentially to African Americans.

I'll agree to some extent. In your example we are acting upon empirical evidence (i.e. information) of this drug being effective, which is different from acting based upon anecdotal evidence. In the case of anecdotes I think it's important to recognize how our mind works; how we are able to rationalize something even if fallacious, is very interesting (to me at least).

Now you may be able to use the same argument to argue that people of ethnicity X is over-represented in violent crimes and thus justify that you treat X differently, but that is still a correlation and not a causation (e.g. your different treatment of X may be one causation, their socioeconomic status could also be a factor etc). These are complex issues, and what we do know in Sociology & Psychology is that there is no one causation for human behavior.

I don't think you can rationalize (without being fallacious, e.g. cognitive dissonance) a generalization that is based on anecdotes.

[Northy]

They would in general denounce terrorist acts never the reasoning for or behind.

That's what I've found out as well. I've gleaned that radical Muslims want to cut out fucking heads off, and moderate Muslims want radicals to cut our fucking heads off for them.

[ElDoorO]

I'd like to just note that this is a loaded question and starts off with bias. Kind of hard to get an honest answer if you aren't going to be intellectually honest yourself.

[Slaskra]

This part made me laugh.

Damn, beat me to it.

[-Nurot]

I have brown skin, because I happen to have been born in Pakistan. But I'm also an atheist. I spent most of life in Canada. And yesterday, was the first time in my life that someone actually came up to me and yelled islamophobic insults at me. It was some old guy. I told him, I'm not a muslim and he didn't believe me. He told me to go back to my own country. I told him I renounced my Pakistani citizenship long ago and that Canada is the only country that I am citizen of. He didn't seem to understand me and just kept on reiterating the "go back to your own country" bullshit.

I was surprised that something like this hadn't happened to me sooner. I've gone 18 years without experiencing something like this. Maybe it was just an isolated incident. I know that the majority of Canadians I've interacted with were decent and tolerant people. But it did piss me off quite a bit, that I was associated with the scumbags in ISIS based entirely on my skin colour. Dismiss this as random whining if you wish but I feel that stuff like this is a legitimate problem. What I experienced wasn't that bad but other non-muslim brown people haven't been so lucky. It's quite frustrating to read an article about Sikh people being targeted because a pack of viscous bigots were too stupid to tell the difference between Sikhs and Muslims: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1751841.html

People harbor ill-feelings especially after incidents happen on a greater scale. France was one of those times. It was just like post 9/11, back then if you didn't support the war in Iraq you had to be anti-american. Even in mostly democratic states there's always a handful of backwoods ideologists.

I was fairly vocal, in high school, (2002-ish) about politics. Keep in mind I'm; American, as Caucasian as they come, and Christian, and I got called a "towel-head" and told "go back to Afghanistan. There's a very real segment of American's who still are truly afraid of people with different ideas, races or creeds and in times of conflict they feel weak and helpless and lash out at anything they think might challenge their backwards way of living. Don't let it bother you, but be cautious especially in times of conflict, when Xenophobia flares up among the masses.

It was no surprise the man was older, but there's a very real segment of the newer generations that feel the same way and its not going to change anytime soon.

[Kurioxan]

Thats xenophobia not necessarily islamophobia. To be fair, its impossible for anyone to differentiate what your religious belief is, to ask people to is a tad unreasonable.

That said, yes just idiots being idiots, sad for us all...

[Trample]

Education.

This. Because intolerance comes from ignorance... If you're not educated, you become intolerant because you don't understand/know anything.

[zenkai]

I have brown skin, because I happen to have been born in Pakistan. But I'm also an atheist. I spent most of life in Canada. And yesterday, was the first time in my life that someone actually came up to me and yelled islamophobic insults at me. It was some old guy. I told him, I'm not a muslim and he didn't believe me. He told me to go back to my own country. I told him I renounced my Pakistani citizenship long ago and that Canada is the only country that I am citizen of. He didn't seem to understand me and just kept on reiterating the "go back to your own country" bullshit.

I was surprised that something like this hadn't happened to me sooner. I've gone 18 years without experiencing something like this. Maybe it was just an isolated incident. I know that the majority of Canadians I've interacted with were decent and tolerant people. But it did piss me off quite a bit, that I was associated with the scumbags in ISIS based entirely on my skin colour. Dismiss this as random whining if you wish but I feel that stuff like this is a legitimate problem. What I experienced wasn't that bad but other non-muslim brown people haven't been so lucky. It's quite frustrating to read an article about Sikh people being targeted because a pack of viscous bigots were too stupid to tell the difference between Sikhs and Muslims: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1751841.html

For the same reason everyone thinks a white person is a Christian

[Allybeboba]

I have brown skin, because I happen to have been born in Pakistan. But I'm also an atheist. I spent most of life in Canada. And yesterday, was the first time in my life that someone actually came up to me and yelled islamophobic insults at me. It was some old guy. I told him, I'm not a muslim and he didn't believe me. He told me to go back to my own country. I told him I renounced my Pakistani citizenship long ago and that Canada is the only country that I am citizen of. He didn't seem to understand me and just kept on reiterating the "go back to your own country" bullshit.

I was surprised that something like this hadn't happened to me sooner. I've gone 18 years without experiencing something like this. Maybe it was just an isolated incident. I know that the majority of Canadians I've interacted with were decent and tolerant people. But it did piss me off quite a bit, that I was associated with the scumbags in ISIS based entirely on my skin colour. Dismiss this as random whining if you wish but I feel that stuff like this is a legitimate problem. What I experienced wasn't that bad but other non-muslim brown people haven't been so lucky. It's quite frustrating to read an article about Sikh people being targeted because a pack of viscous bigots were too stupid to tell the difference between Sikhs and Muslims: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1751841.html

Isn't this post bigoted against bigots? He has went his entire life without one single comment and the second he gets one he comes to a gaming forum to complain about it? Pathetic...
BTW, Jews have 4x more hates crimes committed against them than Muslims. Obama should be more worried about Jewish people getting hurt than Muslim people.

[Kurioxan]

This. Because intolerance comes from ignorance... If you're not educated, you become intolerant because you don't understand/know anything.

Eeeeeh. no.
A lot of educated people are xenophobic.
Xenophobia is a natural reaction, as humans are tribal animals, there is quite a big correlation between amygdala function and xenophobia, xenophobic people are "hyper vigilant" and see threats where others won't, in a world so connected, diverse, heterogenous, and full of information, this will happen.

Education helps to dampen it a bit as it teaches people to filter information and differentiate things, but thats it, dampens.
Xenophobia was crucial for our evolution, and those hyper vigilant people were valuable members of a society that would keep it protected and safe.
Sadly, its no longer a necessary attribute in the modern world.

[Deleted]

Because if they had the intellectual capacity to differentiate, then they wouldn't be bigots.

First response covered it really.

As for it happening to you OP then that sucks. Best just to take it as some old dude who doesn't quite have their wits about 'em anymore. You said most you've met are decent people so i'd focus on that rather than the few outliers whose opinion doesn't matter.

[Deleted]

Because Islam is official religion of Pakistan and of many other countries.
Because your country is a Muslim majority country, 96% being Muslims. Even less in other countries, since other theists got simply killed off or forced to convert.

That's why.

[Deleted]

Eeeeeh. no.
A lot of educated people are xenophobic.
Xenophobia is a natural reaction, as humans are tribal animals, there is quite a big correlation between amygdala function and xenophobia, xenophobic people are "hyper vigilant" and see threats where others won't, in a world so connected, diverse, heterogenous, and full of information, this will happen.

Education helps to dampen it a bit as it teaches people to filter information and differentiate things, but thats it, dampens.
Xenophobia was crucial for our evolution, and those hyper vigilant people were valuable members of a society that would keep it protected and safe.
Sadly, its no longer a necessary attribute in the modern world.

I agree with you that it is part of our primitive psychology, but most intelligent people transcend it. Those that don't are looking to exploit it for their own purposes in others eg banks must be really happy that everyone is talking about immigration/islamic extremism and not trying to stop them steal our money.