+120 Fears such as Judeophobia, Christianophobia, and Islamophobia are downright stupid. Groups like these are HUGE, and completely diverse. A person can't be afraid of someone just because they have a different opinion as them, and it's wrong to associate millions of innocent people with terrorists and other completely unfair stereotypes. People who don't get this need to be educated about it, amirite?

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Phobias are a mental illness, it's not really their fault.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

"The suffix -phobia is used to coin terms that denote a particular anti-ethnic or anti-demographic sentiment, such as Americanophobia, Europhobia, Francophobia, Hispanophobia, and Indophobia." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_phobias). So it's not really a fear, so much as a prejudice and belief that everyone in one group acts the same way.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

(Your+name+(optional)): Very first sentence of the article you linked me: "The English suffixes -phobia, -phobic, -phobe (of Greek origin: φόβος/φοβία ) occur in technical usage in psychiatry to construct words that describe irrational, disabling fear as a mental disorder..."

by Anonymous 12 years ago

Yes, but if you scroll down, you will see that in these cases they are discrimination terms, not necessarily an irrational fear.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

(Your+name+(optional)): Oh, oh. I get what you're saying, my bad, I misunderstood. In that case, YYA.

by Anonymous 12 years ago

You're misusing the suffix -phobia a little, not a lot, but phobia I think is not good for this. It can't really be stupid all the time since people have irrational unexplainable fears of a lot of things, I have mottephobia (fear of moths) and slight ecclesiophobia (fear of churches) if you think that's stupid... you're a jerk. Anti-Christian, Anti-Jewish and Anti-Islam are different than their respective phobias. If they fear them for specific reasons, yeah, it's a bit ignorant, but if it's just because of some mental thing, it's different. You done got educated about it, word up.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

It's pretty sensible to be afraid of a group of people if you are repeatedly given reason to be. If you're openly gay and living in the Bible belt, and are constantly harassed by deeply religious Christians, it makes sense that you'd be afraid of those who you meet in the future. Obviously it's not ok to spew hatred at them, but feeling a little uneasy around them is justified. I'm uneasy around a certain religious group because my previous experiences have given me reason to be. Stereotypes have nothing to do with it.

by Anonymous 11 years ago