Do not throw the baby with the bath water

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Jul 30, 2015 at 17:36

Dear Dr Pipes,

I strongly object to the views of the people who want to dismiss all religions for all of the time due to the wrong doings of some religions some of the times. Your reader Psychokiller28 from Italy has exactly done that when he suggested that all religions should be abolished. Religions are not a matter of choice, they are a matter of necessity because our stupid minds will never stop thinking if there is a power greater than ourselves and how does that power want us to behave. And, because our stupid minds will always keep asking us to differentiate between what is wrong and what is right even when what seems right does not necessarily bring good results (and vice versa).

I as a apparently-polytheistic respect Judaism for firmly proposing and describing monotheism for the mankind. I also respect Christianity for its message of love and respect. I respect Hinduism for entertaining a diverse class of views on the nature of the God. I respect Buddhism for the middle-path. For, crying out loud, I even respect Islam for many of the good hadiths. But I do not respect anyone's need to destroy statues, to convert people with deception or allurement, to propagate caste system, or to kill anyone for their belief or lack-there-of. Today's Islam is not so much a religion as a rallying cry for a political movement. And that is what needs to be curbed. There is no need to discard all religions for some aspects of some religions.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".