Truth on the Net

I was seriously savaged recently when I posted a comment on Mechanical Crowds blog. I was just putting forward an opinion on Islam and violence. Apparently, where I was wrong was in generalizing about the whole Islamic community when only the small group of Muslims is violent.
I was also lambasted for using the net as a reference point for information because you can't believe everything that's on the net.

Then I read an article in the newspaper that lamented the lack of information on Wikipedia about Australian authors. Questions were raised about the veracity of Wikipedia because anybody can post articles on this encyclopaedia.

This put my mind into a train of thought regarding the nature of Truth, Peace Loving Muslims, what we judge to be the truth, and how we formulate our opinions.

I don't usually engage in arguments online as I can't see any point in trying to convince somebody that my opinion is correct and theirs is wrong. It's even worse when an argument turns to name calling and personal attacks. That just goes to show that people who resort to this can't really put a cohesive argument together, are too emotional, and aren't worth bothering about.

Nevertheless, my thought processes have been stimulated and that's what really matters.

The first issue I want to raise is the constant mantra that not all Muslims are violent.
True.
Statistics isn't something you can argue with.
But on the other hand, as rational human beings, as observers of human behaviour, we can make assertions about certain behavioural patterns that emerge as apparent but do not necessarily get reflected in the statistics.
Here's one story that I feel proves my point, but yet can be argued against using statistics.
The point I want to make is this, maybe not all Muslims are violent = true. But Muslims have a predisposition to violence that is intrinsic to their beliefs and their peaceful nature is only disturbed when their religious beliefs surface to dictate their passions and their actions. This contrasts to all other religions.

The second issue, is about how we absorb and filter information as intelligent beings.
I don't adhere to the concept that if something is on the net, then it is questionable as having any underlying truth. It seems that people who hold this view are biased toward the printed word.
OK, so if it's in a book then it must be more plausible? I think not. I've read enough bullshit in books to know that any source of information whether printed or online must be analysed and evaluated by the mind. I can give examples of books by Velikovsky (pseudo science) and the most famous book of misinformation Hitler's Mein Kampf as examples of this. L.Ron Hubbard (pseudo religion), Creationist textbooks denying evolution etc etc.