One of the more well informed articles on Islam I’ve read recently]
I found this via Ryan Bell (the “Year Without God” guy). Someone argued extensively with him that the article is trying to single out Islam. It does somewhat, but only in that it is one article and can’t cover the entire world. I tend to agree that the Koran and Hadith scriptures themselves have more direct violence, directed by the founder, than others. The Old Testament actually has a lot, but you also have a lot of Jewish leaders who are open to textual criticism, or even that God doesn’t hear prayers and such. And of course Christians have a new Testament, where Jesus only threatens punishment after life, or at least he’s not leading people to war.
The author defines the problem well and has a couple suggestions near the end. I wish he would have included that if Christians did more to clean up their own fundamentalism problem, they would have a stronger position for asking Islam to do the same.
He characterizes the centre of the problem by a quote from Muslim born British cabinet member Sajid Javid, in response to Paris events, “The lazy answer would be to say that this has got nothing whatsoever to do with Islam or Muslims and that should be the end of that.” It would have been great if he ended there, instead he continued, “These people are using Islam, taking a peaceful religion and using it as a tool to carry out their activities.” That answer is just as lazy. It has a great deal to do with Islam and we need to understand the ideology or we will never be able to deal with the violence.
Yes. Recognize Islam for what it is. Understand what it is. It affects all of our lives, now. Accepting 3 word sound-bites like “Islam is Peace” or “Islam is Evil”, is not a productive way forward.
I figured this out in the months following 9/11. But it’s been pretty slow going for most others.
“Religion and peace” History tells us that is an oxymoron.