"All religions cause violence" is a false apology.

Submitted by Rajeev (United States), Jan 25, 2011 at 01:41

Dear Dr Pipes:

Your reader Ed Melik presented the argument that well meaning liberals repeat over and over again. He cited from history that a lot of violence had been caused by Christians thoughout the history and so religion, in general, is to be blamed for violence. By implication, Melik probably means that no particular religion can be held overly responsible for violence.

This well meaning argument must be refuted because if not refuted this argument will lead to falsehood. Ironically, while Melik was preparing his long essay citing intances of violence by Christians from 12th to 16th century, those-who-cannot-be-true-muslims were preparing bombs for the Jan 23 blast in the Airport in Moscow. Acts of violence committed five centuries ago cannot justify acts of violence committed five minutes ago. Even if the Christian violence of the past were as religiously motivated as the Islamic violence of today, and even if it were as endemic as the Islamic violence is today, the point remains that, Christians have learned to substitute religious bigotry by modern thought and Islamic fanatics have not.

No single cause in the history of humanity has been behind so many wars at so many places and for as long periods the cause of defending Islam, its God, and its icons from others.

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