I don't believe that Islam is evil

I suppose, when I decided to post on the shouldn't-be-an-issue of the not-a-mosque at not-Ground-Zero, that I should have expected someone to come along and lecture me on how eeeeeeevil those Muslims are, and how they're out to destroy us, and how we're facing an epic War Of Cultures, and like that. To be fair, the commenter didn't actually do that here on my blog. He* just left a somewhat snarky response with links back to his own blog... which is entirely devoted to that topic.

I'm underwhelmed. I'm also unconvinced.

I’ll admit, I don’t know very many Muslims; also I’m in an urban area, working with educated professionals, which may skew my sample further. But the Muslims I do know are much like the Christians I know: they’re basically just people doing their thing.

And, yes, they could be that way in spite of their faith, rather than because of it (or it could have nothing to do with their faith). But the simple fact that they’re no more barbaric than the people around them indicates to me that their faith is not the deciding factor when it comes to barbaric behavior.

Christian beliefs lead people to shoot others and blow up buildings. Is Christianity, then, a barbaric religion?** Political beliefs lead people to shoot each other. Are political affiliations barbaric? Or is it simply that people with a tendency towards extremism will find some belief to support that tendency?

A lot of the less palatable aspects of Islam are actually associated with Wahhabism. While the Wahhabis are fairly wide-spread (including most of Saudi Arabia, for example) they no more represent all of Islam than Evangelicals represent all of Christianity. According to some Muslim leaders, by contrast, an attack on Canada or the U.S.A. is an attack on Muslims. The guy in charge of the community center in the general vicinity of Ground Zero? He's a proponent of the latter viewpoint.

Pakistani Demonstrators Last Year Protest Taliban Flogging of 17 Year Old "Seen" With Married Man (Image Credit: Associated Press; h/t Marzie)

Islam is not a single, monolithic entity. It's as varied and divided as any other major religion. And while some versions of Islam are associated with some very barbaric behaviors, Islam itself isn't the cause of those behaviors. At worst, you could argue that Islam overall isn't doing {much/enough} to prevent them.

I also think there’s a certain amount of information bias involved. We hear about a terrorist attack on the U.S. – attempted or actual – and if the perpetrator was a Muslim, that fact will be all over the news. (Mainly, I think, in an effort to pump up rating by making it sound even scarier to mainstream Americans.) If, on the other hand, the perpetrator is something else – Christian, Hindu, whatever – then the news reports won’t mention their religion at all, except perhaps as an afterthought. Then, too, American news tends to focus on things that affect Americans – understandably – so while the recent history of Ireland (for example) includes a fair amount of non-Islamic terrorism, those events were effectively invisible in the U.S.

There's another kind of information bias here, too. As outsiders, we don't really know what parts of the Koran are customarily ignored or downplayed by mainstream Muslims. (Just as I, though raised as a Christian, never felt bound by my religion to support slavery; nor was I afraid that if I was disrespectful to my father, he would have me dragged to the gates of the city and stoned to death. Why? Because modern Christians have effectively done away with those passages in the interest of having an orderly and just civilization.)

Let me close, on an only-semi-related note, with an observation from Kung Fu Monkey on terrorism and the Epic Clash Of Civilizations (and if you haven't, you should really go read the whole thing):

Maybe it's just, I cast my eyes back on the last century ...

FDR: Oh, I'm sorry, was wiping out our entire Pacific fleet supposed to intimidate us? We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and right now we're coming to kick your ass with brand new destroyers riveted by waitresses. How's that going to feel?

CHURCHILL: Yeah, you keep bombing us. We'll be in the pub, flipping you off. I'm slapping Rolls-Royce engines into untested flying coffins to knock you out of the skies, and then I'm sending angry Welshmen to burn your country from the Rhine to the Polish border.

US. NOW: BE AFRAID!! Oh God, the Brown Bad people could strike any moment! They could strike ... NOW!! AHHHH. Okay, how about .. NOW!! AAGAGAHAHAHHAG! Quick, do whatever we tell you, and believe whatever we tell you, or YOU WILL BE KILLED BY BROWN PEOPLE!! PUT DOWN THAT SIPPY CUP!!

... and I'm just a little tired of being on the wrong side of that historical arc.

Seriously. Even President George W. "Invade 'Em For Their Own Good" Bush insisted that we are not at war with Islam.

So please don't insist that I have to recognize some nonexistent Epic Final Struggle just because your life lacks meaning and purpose. I have better things to do with my time.

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* Commenter's sex isn't clear; I'm guessing.
** Yes, I know this is a wonderful opening for all sorts of cheap shots. Please resist the temptation.