The Reason Behind it All

I gave a little of an introduction in my nothinkerbehindthethought blog http://nothinker.blogspot.com/ entitled Reading the Qur'an which I posted on November 1st and was the genesis for this blog.

Let me start off by saying I am not what you would consider a religious person in the technical sense of the phrase. I am certainly a spiritual person and I have a healthy respect for things deemed holy. At the same time I am skeptical of religion and do not subscribe to the existence of a higher power. The idea of God, or a higher power is not important to me but it is extremely important to countless people on this planet. I know this not only because of observations in society but because I went to college to become a Christian Pastor and at one time in my life my religious beliefs were the only thing that really mattered to me in the world.

I have read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation at least four times and I can't tell you how many times I have read various individual books in the Bible not to mention my scholastic training. Thus I am usually quite comfortable discussing just about any Biblical topic

Islam is in danger today from extremists within the religion but more so from ignorant intellectually lazy citizens who see a bomb go off and simply write the act off to fanaticism. Furthermore they see acts of terror as having their source in the Qur'an.

Look, the President goes on TV after 9/11 and says we are not at war with Muslims yet every time he talks about the so called war on terror Islam is somewhere in his phraseology. i.e. IslamoFascists, Islamists and Islamic Extremists. Any flag waving red blooded American can't help but think "terrorist" when they think of Islam.

Think of the impact the President could have made if he said "Folks I sat down and read the Qur'an for myself and I can tell you personally from my reading and my own understanding of it, these acts of terror are not condoned. Furthermore I would encourage all Americans to read the Qur'an for themselves and educate themselves about the religion and culture so we better understand our peaceful Muslim friends and allies. Perhaps then we can work together to combat the threats we all face from terrorism. My friends we have nothing to fear from peace loving Muslims, think about it folks, if the Qur'an condoned terror we would have some real problems because that would mean every devout Muslim would be committing acts of terrorism. The fact that they are not committing terrorist acts in droves should say something about the nature of the Qur'an and Islam"

Again I have no idea what I will discover as I read this book. Based on some of the history I have heard about the Prophet Mohammad, blessings be upon him, violence and war were part of the experience of Islam. However, that is the case for most theistic religions. I know from my reading of the Bible and most recently my reading of the Bhagavad-Gita, that war and violence committed by human beings tends to be woven into divine will. These texts, scriptures etc. have been used to justify all kinds of atrocities so there is always the potential that people and governments could use their holy books to justify acts of violence upon infidels, witches, natives, homosexuals, idol worshipers or any one else worthy of divine wrath.

Islam however has the distinct misfortune of being projected through the lens of the western perspective. There are people who have no idea of the history between Christianity and Islam and how thousands of years of bad blood and policies have affected this relationship. It wasn't that we woke up one morning and people were flying airplanes into buildings because they hate democracy. I don't condone violence but I can tell you that hog wash about how terrorists hate democracy, freedom and the American Past Time is all propaganda to make it seem as if America can do no wrong in the world.

At any rate I'll stop here and get back as I read through the first Sura.

MYBWH&P!