The below extension of a comment is my reaction to this video:
Mohammed Brand Condoms

Fundie Muslims demand respect for their religion - in itself a hypocrisy.  Muslims, like any other religion, are obligated to disrespect the religions of others.  ‘Respect my religion’ means ‘follow my religion’.

That is, to a follower of a religion, disagreement with the Dogma is disrespect of it.  You can’t disagree with what’s written in the Holy Bible!  It’s scripture!  It’s Holy!  It’s Biblical, even! As such, dissent - a generally rational and useful tool for wrenching out truth and action - becomes heresy. While the punishment for this has waned in these enlightened days, it still breeds a certain closed-mindedness.  Even an attempt at humorous dissent - as this video is (a bad attempt, rife with light-hearted bigotry) - becomes something to despise.

So, I am certain that someone will cast this video as hate - as certain as I am that most people will find it either funny or cringe-worthy.  But it does speak a couple of basic rules on human behavior to me.  Tenative though they may be, here is the list.

The phrase, ‘methinks thou dost protest too much’ applies here; as loudly as fundie Muslims demand respect, have they respect for their own religion?  Or do they see their often violent outbursts of ignobility as a way to forgive their own transgressions against Islam?  Rule 1: The more loudly a person complains, the more likely they are guilty of the subject of the complaint.

Additionally, the more fundie Muslims in particular have a recent history of being loud and confrontational about getting the respect they ‘deserve’ just for adhering to their flavor of bronze age desert fiction.  Rule 2: Those who demand respect the loudest, will receive the least.

Meanwhile, governments (not so much the US yet*, but Eurpoe and Canada have been bad with this) bow down to pressure for ‘respect’, by giving muslims special privileges.  Rule 3: The squeaky wheel gets the grease - even when it’d be better to get a new cart.

Of course, fundie muslims can’t see with the objective clarity that an onlooker can.  They don’t see themselves as protesting too much - they see themselves as righteous.  They don’t understand why we shun their incessent cries for respect as we would a child crying wolf.  They’re frustrated.  It’s rather clear to most that Islam will not spread over the whole world**; we’re simply not listening.  Rule 4: Frustration comes from aspired, but persistently unachieved goals.

We’re tying our best to let you live in our countries, chill with us, be cool humans - and a lot of your more moderate types are exactly that: quite cool.  I’ll admit they’re not mentioned much here - but frankly, they don’t cause problems.  Rule 5: The most visible members of a class will be the representation of that class.

We (speaking unworthily for the secular world) would love it if Afghanistan, to pull an example, turned into an idyllic mountain-ribbed nation of prosperity in whatever form its culture devised.  It’d be a place to spend our tourist money, take snapshots of, meet quality people, and tell our friends about.  Rule 6: It doesn’t matter how paranoid you are; you’re not so important that ‘they’ are out to get you.

Lastly, and this one’s a biggie, it always seems to me that insularity breeds conflict.  When a class of people makes themselves separate from everyone else, it’s unaviodable to start using distasteful pronouns like ‘us’ and ‘them’.  ‘Us’ has this connotation that whatever ‘we’ think, it’s better than what ‘they’ think.  ‘Them’ has a connotation that ‘they’ are a threat to ‘us’.  As such, the initator of this mentality forces it on those they strike out against. Rule 7: The initiator of the ‘Us v. Them’ mindset automatically becomes ‘Them’.  And ‘They’ always lose.

Wow.  Got a lot out of a really bad video.  Go figure.

* The reasons for this have more to do with Christian Fundamentalism in the US than proper secularism.  After all, Europe is mostly secular.  So yeah, we’re doing the right thing, but for the wrong reasons.  Meanwhile, Christians get special priveliges here because they have the voting power to make it so.  I don’t think this is right, but I’m no more in a position to dismantle the natural result of a democratic republic with a Christian pluarlity than I am of a mind to become a dictator.  Fascism just tastes funny to me.  I’d rather see secularism become a majority voice.

** As said before, respect for religion = adherence to religion.  Demanding universal respect, especially in Islam, is demanding universal worship - which, let’s not fool ourselves, is a goal OF Islam.