My religion can beat up your religion…

I ask “Why” –  a lot.  Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.  In fact, that is the primary reason for my little piece of the blog-o-sphere – it is an attempt by me to understand the world around me. I’m attempting to understand why all this craziness is happening with the radical Islamic extremists, Hamas vs. Israel.  Seems the world is just going nuts.

The other day, I stumbled upon a pretty neat Tumblr picture posted by Rod Christiansen that is pretty cool.  It is a map of the world with a little circle drawn around the Mid-East.  90% of the world’s problems arise out of this area; which is also home to the three of the worlds main religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity). A summary for those, like me, who love charts.  My basic question is: why can’t we all just get along? I then ran across another cartoon which had more to do with my questions. I liked this cartoon and it’s accompanying article by the user “Nayzak.”   Nayzak’s (from his posts, I assume he is Muslim) take is that there are no verses in the Qur’an instructing Muslims to strap bombs upon themselves and blow up as many people as possible nor that there are versus instructing Muslims to kill their wives.  In the commentary surrounding his artwork, he makes the comment that if no one is attacking, there is no reason for a Muslim to attack another.  In shourt, the only legitimate use of force is for self-protection.  I wonder if the fanatics are reading the same Qur’an as Nayzak?  I would invite you to visit his cartoon/article and review the comments.  I found the article to be interesting; but what I really enjoyed reading were the follow on comments.  I would ask that you pay particular attention to those comments posted around 12/7/2012, between 1/3/2012 – 2/17/2012, and between 4/30/2011 -5/2/2011.  I think the comments on these dates were the most insightful.  After reading through the comments however, I still have questions:

• Why is that the Muslim faithful do not rein in their fanatics?
• If Islam is truly the faith of Peace, why are Christians (and other sects of Islam) in Iraq being killed?
• Why does ISIS want to exterminate the Yasidis?  I don’t understand!!!
• Finally; why do the citizens of Gaza allow their government to continue to send rockets to Israel, when they know how Israel will respond?  If Hamas was a government [truly] concerned about their citizenry; they would stop.  I don’t understand the thought process.

I don’t understand, and would really like someone to explain to me where all this killing (in the name of Allah [or some other entity]) is for the greater good of mankind; I just don’t get it.  Is there a religious war looming between the West and Islam?  I hope not; I wonder how the other religions in the world are going to react? Will Islam attempt to overcome them also, or do they just not like Christians & Jews because of our similarity?  On the other side of the spectrum, we have Sheik Yer’Mami (gotta love that; not one bit of satire there!) whose satirical website offers an interesting, while opposing view to the one above (Nayzak’s). The Sheik wrote about whether we should respect religious differences between the West and Islam.  If nothing else, it was a unique perspective.  There are websites all over that give conflicting information, and if you read far enough you’ll find sites that condemn either the Qur’an or the Bible.  The Sheik had a pretty good read that compared violence in the Bible to violence in the Qur’an.

There was (she has passed on) a journalist and author, Oriana Fallaci.  In 1979 she interviewed the Ayatollah Khomeini, shortly after the revolution which overthrew the Shaw, and the imprisonment of the US Embassy staff.

My faith (I believe each person’s faith is unique to them, there is no cookie cutter approach) is built around forgiveness and tolerance of others.  I may not agree with you; but you have the right to believe what you want – as long as it doesn’t impact the rights of others, me included. What are our rights?  I discussed this in my last post about America’s core values, and what is meant by “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”  I believe most people are comfortable within their “ism” of which ever religion they adhere to, I am not here to expose one religion over another.  I have been accused of oversimplifying many things, and religion is one of them.

Here is my example and how I feel about the various “ism’s” with each religious sect.  Let’s assume for a second that Chicago is Heaven.  My way of getting to Chicago is probably a little different from your way (you have your reasons for your route, as I do mine); but just because I like my route, it doesn’t make it the only way to get to Chicago.

My country (the USA) was founded on the understanding and tolerance of others.  Our forefathers believed in a “creator” but didn’t go much further than that.  I believe the separation of church and state is such that our government will not mandate one religion over another, not that there should be no reference to the “creator” at all.  After all, our Declaration of Independence talks about rights bestowed upon all men by their “Creator.”

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

There is a social contract in America between the government and it’s citizenry, they government’s function is to enable its citizenry with the opportunity to pursue their happiness, which, as the founders understood it: would be the working towards the greater good, not just of this country, but the greater good in general, which in turn promotes self-worth.

Til next time…don’t let your “ism’s” cloud your thoughts or guide you astray.