Ernst

Overarching Argument: 

1. Americans are not very good at understanding other cultures 
2. International financial networks, multi-national corporations, media conglomerates, and the internet has created a world where it is impossible to keep one world impossible to keep one culture isolated from the rest 
3. Colonial rhetoric of European supremacy served as a justification for conquest and domination 
4. There is no religion that is viewed as negatively as Islam is in the eyes of the Western world. 

New ideas:

1. Every claim about religion needs to be examined critically for its political implications
2. Religious language expressed on a mass scale is essentially rhetorical 
3. Religion is not a subject of facts, but a field where every statement is contested, and all claims are challenged
   1. Religious statements on an extreme shouldn’t be accepted at face value. One should always question “who benefits from it (the extreme statement)?”
      1. Evidence
         1. Extremists can use religion to justify actions that are extremely violent because “their struggle is based on truth and the fight against evil” 
         2. Governments can also label their opponents as “religious fanatics”. Which allows governments to dismiss their opponents as “irrational and incapable of responding to reason” on the basis of religion