"Plenty of other populations are "impoverished, uneducated and downtrodden" but don't bully and blackmail the rest of the world into being sensitive to their su

"Plenty of other populations are "impoverished, uneducated and downtrodden" but don't bully and blackmail the rest of the world into being sensitive to their superstitions." This is the killer argument for the "critics of Islam" side. After all, lots of Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Native Americans etc are dirt poor, and many of them live under very oppressive regimes. They don't go around blowing up airliners or flying planes into buildings and claiming sanction from their religions. Colonialism isn't enough of an answer either. Many countries have come out of colonialism without a pan-generational rage against the west. Hindu or Buddhist immigrants to the United States don't rage against "immoral" culture and kill innocents to prove their cultural superiority. So prima facie there does seem to be something screwy about Islam that encourages such behavior (but I won't explore this any further on this post). This doesn't say anything about individual muslims though. Once can claim communism is a terrible way to structure a society and still believe that individual communists can be decent people. This is the subtlety both sides (Islam "bashers" and apologists) lose sight of. The bashers want all muslims to be demonized and deported and so on, while the pro Islam folks want everyone else to tread softly around Islam, refrain from criticizing its "holy" books and "prophet" and treat it with "respect". Both arguments are obnoxious.