Criticizing religions is vitally important

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Feb 2, 2022 at 01:32

Dear Dr Pipes,

Thanks for discussing in your above article how unfortunate the events of 9/11/2001 were. We cannot stop children tfrom being born on September 11 but I doubt that any man will propose to a woman on 9/11 for many many decades.

While Islam should have been analyzed and criticized in the aftermath of 9/11, the world's respect for religious sensibilities and Muslim's infinite ability to lie, misrepresent and find excuses for their religion worked together to create a situation in our society where we started to actually refrain from mentioning the word Islam in a negative context instead of crticising Islam for its malpractices.

It was after 9/11 that I learned about the famous Quranic verse 5-32 for the first time. This verse, in part, says that killing one person is like killing the entire world. Muslim apologists used this verse over and over again to indicate how good Islam was. But this verse also shows how much Muslims can hide and lie on behalf of Islam. After many months of hearing about 5-32, I decided to research it. I was shocked to discover that just the next verse (5-33) recommends brutal murders of those who challenged Muhammad and Islam. Islamic apologists never mention 5-33 when they brag about 5-32.

It is very important for the media, politicians, academics, and, in fact, for common people to politely and truthfully question all religions. That makes religions better. Luckily, all religions barring Islam, allow open discussions about them. Islam punishes open discussion about it with murders. This special treatment extended to Islam must come to an end.

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