The world has been terrorized for decades now by murderers who specifically cite Christ as their inspiration too. Does this mean that they represent the principles of Christianity? Of course not, so lets be very careful about making sweeping generalisations and stereotyping a group of people based on the action of a few. Don’t forget that killing innocent people is strictly forbidden in the Koran, and that the Christian faith is considered a legitimate faith in the Koran. As far as whether or not this is being denounced enough, if you’re listening many are denouncing it. Did enough people denounce Pat Buchanan enough when he suggested that Hugo Chavez should be assassinated? There was much more press about what he said than about the people speaking out against what he said. The reporting of these incidents is similarly one sided. It wasn’t that long ago that Catholics and Protestants were killing each other in Norther Ireland either, so lets not suggest that this kind of thing couldn’t happen within the nominal Christian world. And I also agree that Northern Ireland now shows us that it is possible to move past this kind of conflict.
Exactly, what is the common thread among all this violence? Religion ! Do you ever hear of Agnostics going at it? I mean people are killing people over what....CARTOONS !! ****ING CARTOONS !!! How utterly ridiculous is that? DD
Well, it’s not just a cartoon to them. There are all kinds of tribal conflicts of one sort or another, though, and some of them use religion as a focal point and some use other things. Street gangs don’t use religion much. They use respect or territory as the excuses for their wars. This conflict is not about the true ideals of the religion. It’s a corruption of it and it uses it as an excuse, but the root of this is really in other issues.
I don't disagree with any of that, but if you take away one of the biggest hot points, it can't hurt, right? DD
The problem with that is that real faith and religion is a very positive force, IMO. Of course I would also say that our spiritual nature is a reality that can’t be gotten rid of, but I think you would agree at least that there are many groups of people who believe in a faith/religion who do very good things in the world because of that faith. Perhaps it’s because of this and the respect and to a significant extent power that goes with it that religion becomes such a target for those who wish to corrupt it and use it for their own purposes.
