When people logically point out the actual statistics on Muslim terror or point out that other religions like Christians have terror and mass murder, a common response by some is along the lines of Well real Christianity doesnt teach violence, but Islam does. Actually this is a logical mistake. SOME people in Christianity are crazy and do violence....for example as I mentioned earlier, the Lords Resistance Army in Uganda who chops off heads and arms and does forced conversions. THEY think and say that THEY are the real Christians and they can argue and quote scripture and the Bible verses as good as any Sunday school teacher about how the rest of us are not practicing our religion properly. We peaceful Christians say Whoa, not my religion, those guys are crazy. This is EXACTLY what we have in Islam. Some crazy people, like the Taliban, who say that their religion says something ...then a vast majority who disagrees. The one difference in America and the West is that we have a number of armchair quarterbacks who read some info about Islam on the web and thought it made them an expert. Sadly, in many cases that info was manipulative and designed to increase conflict. They say with such authority Muslims believe XYZ....when even Muslims themselves disagree on the meaning of the religion. We have to be logical and look at real stats...as well as what people actually do and say. Some will read this and say No, but the real interpretation of Islam is that it condones violence.... and then they will point to a quote or an anti-muslim site or an extremist Muslim who did or said crazy things. But we must see that anyone could play that game with Christianity as well. Anders Breivik, a Christian radical who murdered 77 people in Norway a few years ago said in his manifesto that the Protestant Church members were not real Christians. Was he right? We can find all kinds of violent verses in the Bible....as well as many commands that simply are not followed. This doesnt mean they are representative of our faith. Who gets to decide who is really the representative of a faith? I have an acquaintance who was the Muslim chaplain at MIT, he is an imam and a scholar with a PhD in religion. He is a good family man and condemns violence. On the day 9-11 occurred he (and thousands of others by the way) wrote a condemnation of the attacks and he has been consistent on this since before 9-11 and ever since. Who is to say that he is not a real Muslim? Some extremist? A Christian person who read something that anti-Muslim hate speech leader Pamela Geller wrote? I once had a Christian pastor tell me that the Bible says that the moors, who are the negro, are the mark of the beast. Im Christian but he could out quote Bible verses for me any day of the week. If he said I wasnt a real Christian is he right? Who exactly has the right to say what a religion really believes? Is it only people who says so, who read a certain blog or is it based on certain education, rank or recognition in the religion? The world is a big place. There are crazy Christians and crazy Muslims - there are bad leaders and mass murderers on both sides. Like Christianity, even within Islam there are wide and far differences in what people believe. In my tiny town there are 10 different major types of Christian, in America there are thousands ranging from Reverend Phelps to gay churches from civil rights leader Christians to KKK members, Christians who are scientists and Christians who dont believe in science. Christians who believe the Bible says not to eat meat or worship on Sunday, Christians who love the Pope and Christians who think the Pope is the antichrist. When we go global the differences are even greater: we see Christians who combine voodoo with various rituals, we see violence and extremists, silent monks and so on. Islam is as broad or more so - far beyond Shia and Sunni we have thousands of styles, cultural influences and beliefs. My Facebook wall includes Texan Muslims who eat bacon, my long bearded Muttawa friend from Saudi Arabia, a blond woman from Massachusetts, Muslims who drink beer, wear bikinis, brilliant business people and crazy nuts. We must judge people on what they do and say not presume to judge an entire religion on what someones perception is.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 19:03:00 +0000
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