Main points

My topic is about Religious Extremism. Now looking at Religious Extremism, I wondered how one could counter it. Not only to counter it but to give people here a reason and to convince them that they could help during my presentation. Now one of the few solutions to Religious Extremism is having religious freedom. While religious freedom may not completely rid any country of extremists, it most definitely reduces the amount of people who go to religious extremes.  One of the articles I read completely agrees with this idea stating “The best, if not the only way to counter religious extremism, Gasimoglu maintains, is to open up society to religious freedom for all, democracy, and free discussion – even including Islamist groups. This is the only way, he argues, of depriving Islamic extremism of support by revealing the reality of what extremism in power would mean.” (http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=338).

This source is recent from October of 2010 and states how America is trying to have better relations with the Muslim community in the Middle East but at the same time they are trying to target militants who are extremists in the Middle East. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3918518,00.html

This source from 2006 explains that if you want to beat Extremists, you have to beat them at their own game. What they mean is that you have to appeal to the poor and children. Extremists target children and the poor and try to give them a sense of honor by stating their religion is the only way to have honor and to honor their ‘God’ they must become religious activists that go to extremes. The U.S. and all people’s around the world in order to coexist need to not build a tolerance to religious extremists, but to appeal to the poor, help them and give them a sense of honor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0907/p09s02-coop.html.