Islam and Idiots

The argument about the inherent violence of Islam might have some validity if the same critics would just admit the same inherent violence in Judaism and even Christianity. Judging religions on the basis of the behavior of their proponents could be misleading, but not really. Their scriptures do justify violence on various criteria. Certainly Islamic terrorists justify their barbarism with their scriptures in the same manner that Zionists justify stealing Palestinian land or lives, or the way Christians have for centuries. You could point to as many barbaric practices demanded in the Old Testament as they claim exist in the Quran. And last anyone counted, Christianity has been used to justify the genocide of millions more women, children, Native Americans and African slaves than Islam.

The violence of Zionists or of Christians isn’t just a distant genocide away either. Consider Ben Carson’s justification of torture such as water-boarding (something Christians invented and perfected during the Inquisition), or Trump’s call to register all Muslims (including American citizens) echoing the Nazi Party policy of the past. Then again, all the assertions that this is a “Christian country” might be accurate if you consider that there are now more mass murders committed in one year than there are days in the year, but what we should REALLY be concerned with is the possibility of an Islamic terrorist? You have more chance of being killed by someone calling themselves a Christian than a Muslim on the streets of Detroit.

An accurate reading of religion and the history of their proponents might justify the claim that all religions are inherently violent (even Buddhist monks have been on a killing rampage in Myanmar), but not of the inherent violence of one over the other. Or one could wistfully claim that religion is a path to peace, until humans get involved.