DON'T FORGET THAT IF A RELIGION IS 1% EXTREMIST OR A PERSON IS THAT IT DOES NOT MATTER
People feel pressured, especially politicians seeking votes, to water down how a religious faith can lead to people, maybe a small number, committing acts of hate and violence in defence of the religion or for they see themselves as soldiers of God. The small number is not the point. They pander to the lowest common denominator by saying things like there is less violence done by the religion than something else or by concentrating on the good members. Its just another form of extremism to water down the truth about religious extremism. How do you think society got people to fight in the wars of the the past? By glorifying the cause and using the good side to do so.
Calling a person an extremist is about declaring a person just an extremist.
In fact the person may be 99% okay but the 1% is the problem. That is what can
give rise to a tragic extremist action that leaves many dead. And extreme is not
a binary thing. It keeps changing. The reason you want to label the person is so
that you can blame the ideological action not the person as if persons don't
really do harm. That is summing the person up as an action and dehumanising
them. It is about you trying to label them as other so that you don't see your
own extremism or potential extremism. If they are just an extremist then there
is no point in trying to reason with them or about them. It is paradoxically
extremist to talk such rubbish which only adds to the problem. We must remember
that the extremism of a religious terrorist is not the only extremism to worry
about. The person who denies being extreme and how finds a way to excuse or even
applaud what the person has done is in a sense worse. It is not an extremist -
it is a person like you and me and you and me can do it too. That is why we need
to stop this "religion is okay for not all in it are bad" talk. It is a
distraction.
It does not matter when a religion says its pro-violent scriptures are true if
it is the vast majority of the members or a handful who are obedient to those
vile directives. It is about what the religion as in doctrine teaches. Religion
thrives on the lie, "The bad do not act in our name." It's a lie to use an
argument that is that irrelevant and beside the point.
An all-knowing God who knows what human nature is like for distorting is to
blame for the violence linked to the Koran even if it is true [which it is not!]
that it only is pro-self-defence and nothing else. God could be doing that
deliberately and thus he could be manipulative.
Anything that offers the ONE, TRUE RELATIONSHIP with God or the one true religion is claiming everything good. So if this relationship usually expressed by religion is the one truth and the ultimate good then all that is good in you Mr or Ms Atheist (your talents, your courage, your compassion, your gratitude) by definition really only belong to the religion. You are stealing them or blind to how good the religion is. You are judged. That is an extremist bullying attitude and one religion will hate the other for each one thinks it knows the right way to worship God.
Don't be an extremist yourself by making out it is a numbers game and small percentages barely count.
