"Our strategy must clearly oppose the sinister tendencies to associate terrorism with Islam...."
- Pakastani President Musharraf
There is a tendency to associate terrorism with Islam, particularly in cases where the terrorists claimed that they were indeed Muslims.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
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5 comments:
Associating terrorists with Islam is like associating Bolsheviks with communism. Sure, there exists a relationship, but that doesn't mean that we should use the actions of a group of people who clearly don't understand what either Islam or communism is to denounce either ideology's principles.
Statistics show correlations, not cause and effect.
There is a statistical correlation between car bombs and people calling themselves Muslims.
Although it would be an interesting hypothesis that they use car bombs because of the way they interpret the Koran.
Elizabeth says the terrorists clearly don't understand what Islam is. Oh really? It may be much more plausible that they are the only ones who fully understand it. They are the true believers, the ones who take Muhammad at his word and are taking the actions required of them. It is the so-called moderate Muslims that clearly don't understand Islam.
Christianity has similar issues. Most moderate Christians have very little idea of what is required of them.
Is it time to clarify "freedom of religion" to mean "freedom of peaceful religion"?
I think it might be a national debate worth having.
Then we can examine the Religion of Peace and see how it holds up.
Ah, but violence is already illegal. If you're going to make "violent religion" illegal, do you mean that you would prosecute people who perpetrate violence (which would be redundant to the laws already in place, and thus unnecessary), or do you mean that you would prosecute people who have not actually committed any violence? If you mean the latter, then how is the religion violent?
If you're really going to espouse the freedom of the religion, you have to advocate it for religions you disagree with or find distasteful or even disturbing. To advocate the freedom of religion only of people who agree completely with you is to not advocate freedom at all.
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