I think the phrase you're looking for is "extremists have used $RELIGION to justify their actions throughout history, to the horror of most its practitioners". You can largely replace the specific religion with of an organized belief system of your choosing.
> Islamophobia is a made up word designed specifically to silence criticisms of Islam without having to address them. No other religion has such a word or such protections.
I don't care if you have criticisms of Islam. But in the wake of the rise of stochastic terrorism especially among nationalist sentiments throughout the world, I do very much care about people echoing the same dog whistle arguments against Muslims on a thread where it's off topic.
Hard to interpret your last part. Seems like you're saying you don't oppose criticisms of Islam, you just think nobody should be allowed to make those criticisms.
It seems like a religion that draws leadership that looks to exploit it for political gain.
If you explore border and internal conflicts around the world today a depressingly large percentage of them list Muslims as combatants, sometimes on both sides. The only recent exception that comes to mind for me is the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Some of this is just due to the number of followers of the religion. When you have so many people they're bound to be caught up in fighting. But when those fighters use their religion as the casus belli for their conflict it's harder to ignore.
