Originally posted on dailyspeech.net on March 23, 2006
Even as I have moved, personally, from fundamentalist Christian to agnostic, I strongly support freedom of religion. We have a Constitutional guarantee of such in the United States, but this right is not universal across the world.
Prior to 9/11, my life partner was very open and tolerant to people from all walks of life, including people of all faiths including Islam. That changed after 9/11. My very socially liberal partner has a real difficulty being fair minded toward Muslim people and is predisposed to hate and despise all Muslim people.
I personally have not changed my attitude toward people of any faith, including Islam. And I have had some very heated arguments with my partner about the unfairness of his "broad brush" attitude of Muslims, condemning all Muslims because of the actions and words of extremist Muslims. Unfortunately, he is not alone. Islamaphobia is on the rise in the Western world and that is unfortunate.
Even as an agnostic, I can look at my fundamentalist Christian brethren with an open-mind and realize that even though some extremist Christians agitate and try and impose their values on society as a whole, often times as cynical political ploys full of hypocrisy, that the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians are well meaning caring good people trying to live a life in peace and dignity and by a set of deeply held principles. Good for them.
Although I have limited experience, personally, with Muslim people (my former manager is Muslim), I expect the vast majority of Muslim people are the same as devout Christians, well meaning caring good people trying to live a life in peace and dignity and by a set of deeply held principles. And good for them!
I fully appreciate how precious the Muslim faith is to Muslims and how holy Allah is to them and the sacredness of the Prophet. I honor that belief and respect it even if it is not my belief. And people who choose to worship Allah, read the Quran, honor the Prophet, pray toward Mecca five times a day, and make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lives, good for them. This is a precious thing.
But when clerics of their faith advocate the cold-blooded murder of a person who chose to leave that faith and worship a different god, that puts a deep blot of shame on the Muslim faith and make it that much harder for open-minded people like me to defend Muslims to others and even for me to continue to respect their faith and their people.
One of the main reasons my partner is less inclined to respect the majority of Muslims is because he has not heard much outcry from reasonable Muslim clerics and people against extremism in the Muslim world, particularly extremism that relishes and even encourages physical violence, cold-blooded murder.
Christians may no longer be marching in religious crusades "killing heathens, infidels, and witches" as they were 500 years ago, but the West is still quite guilty of spilling innocent blood throughout the world, and the United States has their hands bloody. This quite justifiably should infuriate the victims of such violence.
But, regrettably, our world is caught, as usual, in a vicious cycle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. You kill my people and I will kill your people. That is a sad commentary on the human species.
And despite my respect of religious people, I am sad to say religion has been a source of much violence throughout human history. It is sad when a religion, in this case Islam, feels a need to execute a person just because he has left the faith. Why is that man such a threat to Islam? Go ahead and shun him, if you will. But execute him?
When will the human species evolve beyond such mindless fanaticism and irrationality? Probably not in my lifetime. That's too bad.
