A little sleight-of-hand with Logic and History

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), May 24, 2007 at 17:33

Thanks for taking the time to comment. But there's a serious problem with your logic and your examples from history.

To ask whether tens of thousands of Moslems have developed an indiscriminate addiction to violence because of widespread calls for violence by hundreds of preachers and others (like bin Laden and Zawahiri) claiming to speak in the name of Islam is in no way to say that violence is "exclusive" to the religion of Islam. Indeed it's just because violence is such a problem for Human Nature that most cultures try to build firewalls against it.

In contrast many in Moslem societies worldwide seem to be trying to tear down whatever firewalls to violence exist. How could we have so many examples of Moslem violence springing up in so many countries if there weren't a general acceptance and even deep approval of violence among Moslems?

We have some behavior in the West that looks a little like this, but really isn't on close inspection. I refer to preachers like Pat Robertsoon and the just-deceased Jerry Falwell who engage in wild talk. But if you pay careful attention, they threaten 'God's" violence (and of course they know exactly what he thinks) toward unbelievers and slackers and sinners who teach Evolution, tolerate homosexuality or women having control of their own reproduction, in the form of hurricanes or other natural calamities.

But they do not go that final step and urge their people of "faith" to go out and personally engage in violence themselves.

Big difference. Big firewall. But many preachers of Islam do urge and praise such violence as being "pleasing to God."

As to the historical examples you give, most Westerners are deeply appalled at the terrible examples of mass violence in their history which you mention.They are also ashamed, usually without feeling personally responsible because they weren't alive at the time, of the mindsets that in any way initiated and justified such violence. As one result of their knowing and learning from this history, their societies have become much more diverse and peaceful than they ever were before.

In contrast, Moslem societies everywhere seem to be eager to erase all differences and to become all alike. And not satisfied with this, they seem to want to force everyone on earth to become a Moslem. But this is so unnatural, to want to fit all humans into one mold, that this desire, combined with an approval of violence, has predictably led to increasing outbreaks of violence among Moslems themselves.

Indeed, in Afghanistan and Iraq, especially the latter, most deaths are the result of Moslems killing other Moslems. So pronounced is this propensity to commit violence that more and more people are talking about the danger of a huge civil war throughout the heartland of Islam.

I have been amazed and appalled that there is no shame among Moslems in other countries at what their fellow Moslems are doing to each other in Iraq, at least no shame that is publicly discussed and leads to any widespread condemnation of the disgraceful violence in Iraq.

Political cartoons are criticized and lead to widespread riots, but there is no public protest against the horrific violence in Iraq anywhere'

And so I would repeat, when are we going to seriously ask if too many Moslems have developed a tragic addiction to violence because of what their religious teachers, and laymen speaking in the name of religion, say is good in the eyes of God. If it remains taboo, as it is now, to ask this question, then I fear we are going to have more and more violence

Against Jews

Against Christians

Against Westerners in the Middle East

Against Westerners in the West and, above all,

Against more and more Moslems against more and more other Moslems of a slightly different version of the Moslem religion in Moslem countries.

If Moslems themselves are unwilling or unable to ask this question, then It's time for others to stop being suicidally polite, or politically correct, and ask that question,

Ron Thompson

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