Religion and "moderates"

I want to tell you all a little story. It involves my nephew, who was around 22 and living in Scotland at the time, where he played in a cricket team. The team was made up of various ethnicities and religions. During an after season party, my nephew happened to mention to one particular young man that he was an atheist. The man he told was a Muslim, around the same age as him, maybe a little younger. He was also supposedly a friend and team mate. So what did my nephew get as a response to this innocent remark?

A punch in the face!!!

This man is not someone you'd consider an extremist. He is unlikely to strap a bomb to his chest. This is the reaction of a “moderate.” Violence against non-believers is so inbuilt to the Muslim belief system, it was an automatic reflex. Those who claim the majority of Muslims are “moderate” in order to defuse tension and hatred towards Islam, should maybe be spending their time teaching these people how to actually be moderate in their beliefs. Teach them to respect other people's opinio...Wait, what am I saying? This would go against their religion and make them infidels too. Never mind!

Tolerance

Islam, as I stated in my last post, is an evil religion, however, I would like to say that fundamentalist Christians are not much better. Their attitude towards homosexuality is appalling, (as is Islam's by the way), and their conviction in their beliefs are no less baffling. The difference is the actions that are taken based on these beliefs. While fundamentalist Christians might picket a soldier's funeral, waving banners with vile claims of their god's hatred of “fags”, they still do not go to the lengths of extremist Muslims. By the way, calling them “extreme” is really a misunderstanding, they are simply following their scripture. Moderate Muslims are only different in the fact that they don't strap bombs to themselves. To say there's a difference in their beliefs would be incorrect, for Islam is not a peaceful religion as is so often claimed by “moderates.” They are just not following the scripture precisely, but rather, letting their non-religious, rational, evolution-born morality have a say. They know it's wrong to kill people, despite what their faith teaches. With these people I have no problem, they are free to waste their lives believing in whatever ridiculous hate filled deity they wish (though I would of course prefer if they didn't, wouldn't it be a much more pleasant world?). What I have a problem with is a world where these faiths that allow such extremism are tolerated. Not just tolerated, given special treatment. Given an extremely wide berth. Well, as you can probably tell by now, I will not humour the notion of religious tolerance. I of course will also not incite hatred against anyone of faith, or act inappropriately towards such people. I would treat them as I do any other human being. However, I believe the tolerance needs to end. It should simply not be acceptable for religion to trump all else. I'm ending my tolerance right here.