I should have known better...

I posted on CL R&R this morning. As the title says, I should have known better than to walk into a flame war. I thought, idealistically, and naively, that I could make a difference and turn people's minds. However, it was the church where the lame don't walk and the blind definitely don't see. My main problems were this: 1) Christians who believe they're persecuted, 2) The idea that Islam (or any religion) PROMOTES violence and "holy war", 3) Statistics citing the number of times terrorist acts have been perpetrated by supposed Muslims (of course ignoring the fact that "Christian" acts of violence are in equal or greater quantity). 4) Quotes from the Koran demonstrating that Islam promotes violence.

Come on. We live in the old U.S. of A. Christians make up 90% or greater of our population. You're not persecuted by any means, and further more, you often persecute those who are not in the 90% and some who are even within.

Terrorism is NOT a function of any religion, but extremists. One post contradicting my point of view admitted that all religions have extremists, but then continued to cite how Muslims were the greatest perpetrators of violence in the last century. Hardly.

Statistics are statistics. As a sage roommate of mine once said, "72% of people make up statistics in conversations." (tongue planted firmly in cheek) Thanks Vijay.

I could just as easily find quotes in the Bible as in the Koran that seem to promote violence of some sort. Simply because it's stated there is not an indication that the religion as a whole promotes violence. Hell, if we want to go there, some would have you believe that because the word "Satan" occurs in a subordinate clause of a sentence, that means that "Satan" is subordinate to "Yahweh".

Unfortunately, I live in middle America. People here are so blindingly convinced that the president and other Republicans truly represent their interests, simply because he claims to be a Christian. Welcome to the real world, folks! Ain't it fun?!