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Unfortunately, I am currently living in, let's just say, a pretty liberal Swiss like country. I would consider myself a center right kind of guy; here I'm looked upon as far right. lol.

The topic of Islam has come up a couple of times in conversations this past year here, the general belief is that Islam is a peaceful religion, but like any group it has its extremists.

I'm not fully up to play on all things Islam, so in line with the thread and the comments so far I'd appreciate any clarifying thoughts on the matter.

My understanding and reply to questions tends to revolve around, that although a majority of Muslims tend to be "relatively" peace loving people, the "radical" minority has three things to its advantage that strongly risks Islam never really becoming a pluralistic member of the free world.

1) Due to the more peaceful elements of Islam still being relatively young in their proselytizing, the extremists in general have in-effect a religious warrant for terror and aggression. A deep seated belief that Christians and especially Jews are a lower life form and should die is held at least culturally, and in many cases practically.

2) The peaceful majority will likely and often do curtail to the extremists demands when forced to choose. Basically due to generally held beliefs in Islamic Law a "Good international citizen” (i.e. pluralism, human rights, etc) is a “bad Muslim", and a "Good Muslim” will struggle to be what we would consider a good “international citizen"

3) A world view lacking individualism and personal progress, gives the radical conservatives a virtually never ending stream of human resource for their goals of violence.

Always important to have an educated point of view on such things, correction and clarification welcome.