That's true for England and Wales as well.

The Grauniad article title says that Oliver is the most common male baby name in the UK, but... there's "Muhammad" (15th place), "Mohammed" (23rd place), and "Mohammad" (57th place).

If you add all of these together, they rise to 1st place in the list.

The top 100 baby names in England and Wales in 2013 | News | The Guardian

I wonder what caused the previous generations of hatred to arise - the ones before 9/11, Guantanamo and its aftermath.

Our support for Israel? Our treading on the sacred sands of the Arabian Peninsula and its oil fields? Our break-up of the Ottoman Empire, which for a very long time had kept a very tight lid on things in the Near East? Our creation and support of the Shah and his ham-fisted attempt to lift his people out of the 14th century?

If we had kept entirely out of the Near East would they not still hate us because of even earlier issues, such as driving the bastards out of Spain and launching the Crusades to take back the Holy Lands? Or the even earlier wars between the Muslim Arabs and the Byzantine Empire - before the First Crusade was even dreamed up in the West?

I suspect it's just the inevitable clash of civilizations and religions. Perhaps ISIS should stop doing stupid things like beheading innocent westerners and Syrian and Iraqi soldiers. That's the best way to unite the rest of the world against them and inviting a bloodbath of them and their adherents. It's only a matter of time before the Iranian Revolutionary Guard moves in and comprehensively wipes them out - no quarter will be given and no one will stop them until the job's finished.

If you've been reading the news you already know that at least 4 out of the 6 planes we sent have been flying sorties and dropping bombs every day, maybe up to 80 or 100 missions by now. Sometimes it's machinery, sometimes it's weapons, sometimes it's fighters and sometimes it's innocent bystanders.
Poking Putin isn't just a strut; it's campaigning. He sewed up the expat Ukrainian vote right there (and it's big). I just watched the cpac video of John Baird's speech on Ukraine and he almost got through without being smug and barely managed not to spit while speaking. They don't have to make any such effort to villify ISIS, they're doing their own pr and just because it's far away doesn't matter, never has.

It is supposedly the true word of their god. I have not read it. There is no misinterpretation going on, the terrorists follow it literally, that's the problem. If 21st century Christians followed the Bible literally, it would be a similar problem, and the religion could be seen as equally threatening. Have you read the Koran?

The problem is that a fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran (or any scripture - even Marxism for that matter) can provide a comforting world view and companionship to an alienated and lonely person. Therein lies the danger.

In our highly modern, complex world with its innumerable technological and other choke points, how can we square freedom and liberty with allowing the free spread and inculcation of a radical and clearly dangerous system of thought, with the safety of billions of innocent people at stake?

The holy book is clear about what to do when you capture a city: “Put to the sword all the men in it”. As for the women and children, “You may take these as plunder for yourselves.”

Yes it is. And you will note that for the past few hundred years there have been no group of Christians that have followed such instruction. Not so with the IS.

I have certainly read the Koran, and it is just like the Bible - it can be used as a tool for whatever outcome you want. The Koran is open to interpretation, if the people wielding it are a decent reasonable bunch then no problem, if it's being used by a group of blood thirsty women hating savages, you know it's not going to be good.

There are lots of corners in North America where I would personally not fancy being sequestered with groups of Bible believers...any group that believes anything 'strongly' should be avoided at all cost, whosoever they follow.

Well, I can't claim to have read a great deal of it. But I've browsed a bit in The Holy Quran as translated by Abudllah Yusuf Ali in 2003.

It's not an easy read. But then again neither was the Bible when I had to read it in Madrassas as a child, a religious indoctrination organization commonly referred to as "Sunday School".

The thing about Canada is they devour a lot of moose limbs.

Not only "can" it be used as a tool by the violent/deranged, it is being used as a tool. It's a powerful piece if work, and it is somehow being used to warp modern minds. When you listen to the families of fundamentalists, especially those that have martyred themselves, they chose their path according to deeply held religious belief. There is too much denial in the West about the danger inherent in religion, too much "faith" in the poetic qualities of the texts or their antiquated moral teachings.

If you're a student of marketing and communications, you'd know that religion is the first known implementation of "branding" implemented by humans, and that today, marketing is fundamentally based on the very same basic principles.

Not that religion was ever consciously intended for that purpose, but for the fundamental need of any self-aware species to answer the question of purpose and have something to believe in, over time, we've learned the power of "branding" our views to achieve mass acceptance over other ideologies or "brands".

The exact same principles apply when selling you iPhones or Fairy liquid. They too, are a "brand" of "religion", based on precisely the same human psychology that made Islam or Christianity what it is.

Over the centuries, we've always used religion as an excuse for just about everything. It doesn't require a historian or theologist to know that the principles of any religion have historically always been modified, or patently ignored, for the sake of soliciting (or imposing) it on a mass scale.

From the very beginning of religion, our leaders have almost exclusively used it as a "branding" platform for achieving power and glory, and as history shows, many, if not most have either deluded themselves into rationalising their power through their religion, or were never true believers in the first place.

My point is that like any so-called "religious" crusade, in patent truth, ISIS has nothing to do with religion. It is entirely about power and glory. Religion is only the branding behind it, as it always is.

Much as it's nice to hear the views of a reasonable bitch (!) I don't think the parallels with branding are particularly relevant. Assuming that it a religious crusade is purely about "power and glory" is a modern atheistic interpretation, and a slightly arrogant one at that. What you're saying is that believers don't truly believe in their religious instruction, when in fact they do. Religion is so intricately tied in with personal identity, and that's what makes it so potentially dangerous.

exactly.

Islam has no pope, patriarch of Constantinople or Queen. Not even an accepted way of translating its holy book, let alone a way to interpret it. Its institutions are exceptionally weak. If a claim is made in the name of Islam, no matter how outrageous, nobody is really able to refute it on a religious basis.

In Christianity, you can't just make any claim - its institutions are strong enough to completely disavow you. This has been true since the protestant wars were settled. Since then, people in the West have had to find other things to dress up their actions with. For example: communism, anarchism, fascism, nationalism, pinochet-ism.

One could argue that ISIL is well on its way to becoming the Islamic 'pope'. If it wins the day, history will be re-written so it will be seen as a benign force. Much will be heard about the atrocities of the enemies. About its own atrocities, not so much.

If it loses, it will be remembered as yet another horrible episode in the long history of mankind. Nothing too exceptional, mind you.

twas ever thus.