OK, first things first - I in no way hate religion, or religious people. Yes, I am an atheist, but because I always felt like I had religion, particularly Christianity, forced down my throat. But this is not why I hate ISIS or, as it's known now, Islamic State.
Before I go on, I have to say that just because I hate ISIS, doesn't mean I hate Islam as a whole. There are many people that I have met over my life, plenty of whom have been, openly or otherwise, Muslim, and have never given me offence, given any reason for me to be offended, or had cause to be offended by me while we knew each other.
In fact, it would probably be better for me to say I hate the extremism PORTRAYED for the moment by ISIS. Before ISIS, it was Al-Qaeda, but now it's ISIS.
Now, as usual, I will try and define ISIS in basic terms. Within Islam, to my knowledge, there are two faction that are more often than not at loggerheads with each other: Sunni Islam, which is the main branch of Islam, and Shia Islam.
Shia Muslims believe that Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law Ali became his successor in the Caliphate, or Islamic government when Mohammed died, whereas Sunni Muslims accepted Mohammed's father-in-law , Abu Bakr as the first Muslim Caliph, or President/ Prime Minister. Now of the two, Sunni Islam is the more "popular", with Sunni Muslims making up 87-90% of the world's Muslim population in 2009.
ISIS is part of what's known as the Salafi movement, which is part of Sunni Islam, and is, as far as I can tell, has a strict and puritanical approach to Islam. At the risk of being totally ignorant, it's a bit like the beef between Catholics and Protestants during the reign of Henry the 8th, only for Islam. They just don't like all the fancy frou-frou bells and whistles of worship.
But I don't have a problem with what Islam and ISIS stand for. After all, they're going through a difference of opinions; nothing that Christianity hasn't done before.
What I DO have a problem with, though, is that ISIS is trying to force their religion on anybody and everybody they come across, and anyone who tells them to feck off and do one is immediately branded an infidel and bumped off.
My even bigger problem with ISIS is their determination to destroy anything and everything that is pre-Islamic in the Middle East and the entire world, like their threat to destroy the Tower of Pisa.
I loathe anyone who denies any part of history. People who say the Holocaust didn't happen, I loathe. Idiots who believe the world is only 2,015 years old, I loathe, although I'll admit that idiocy happens. I'll have to live with that. What I really struggle with is why ISIS has to destroy history because it doesn't fit with religion.
And the reason I struggle with it is, ironically, because of the odd bits of history that I do know. Like the fact that, despite the bloody history between Christianity and Islam, the Ottoman Turks managed to conquer parts of Eastern Europe up to Transylvania (where they had their plans buggered by a particularly bloodthirsty prince Dracula - can't think who he is!).
Besides conquering Christian territory, they didn't give a damn about religion. All they really asked for was taxes, tributes, and soldiers for more wars. At a time when violence was a more visceral and up-close part of life than it is today, they afforded as much religious tolerance as they could give, and that was that.
I highly doubt that ISIS will stop destroying their own history. I have no doubt, though, that they will eventually regret it, and I dare to hope that they will pay the price for it. After all, in the last 10,000 years or so, we've gone through countless religions, from believing there are gods in all forms of nature, to believing in gods with animal heads, to monotheism.
Only whatever gods are out there know what we'll be believing and worshipping 10,000 years from now. But 10,000 years from now, history will be just as priceless as it is now. Because it makes sense of the world we have now. Religion is just a security blanket for what may or may not come after we close our eyes for the final time.
With all the religious disturbance going on today, I'm put in mind of something wonderful that H.L. Mencken said, and something that I try to live by now that I'm non-religious. I'm not religious because of two reasons:
1) I refuse to believe, or continue to believe, in any and all religions that ask us to kill each other for their own gain. Granted, this is exactly what ISIS is guilty of today, but Christianity has been just as guilty of it in the past, in the Crusades, and in its persecution of the Druids and the "pagans" of Ireland and Britain.
2) For centuries, religion has tried to pigeon-hole the population into its own definitions of how to live a "good life". For me, that is basically intrinsic in have a sense of morality. I have my own moral code, thanks, and that is summed up in three words: Compassion, Tolerance, Empathy.
I will give the respect that I get, and it is that sentiment that H.L. Mencken expressed so wonderfully for me:
"Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right."
Yes, there might be a God waiting for me when I die. And I will more than happily tell him as much to explain why I haven't believed in him. But the chances are he doesn't exist, or he isn't alone. Either way, more than one someone is going to lose out on that bet. And where religion has gone wrong is living up to Jesus Christ's basic tenet: Do unto others as you would be done by.
So I have no love of ISIS because, despite fighting and killing and committing war crimes in the name of Islam and Mohammed, they aren't really fighting for his principles, as he said in his final sermon:
"All mankind is from Adam and Eve; an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action."
So ISIS can call me an infidel and a non believer and an apostate all they want. Until they live up to their own Prophet's principles and words, I can only respect the Muslims that live up to Mohammed's request for "piety and good action".
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