Fear, Violence, and Religion

I've always been put off by the major organized religions. Catholics (which I am), for example, seem to gather support by instilling the fear of going to hell (and let's not forget those dirty pedophile priests). Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons (at least in my town) actively recruit with pushy door-to-door tactics. I've never felt that I needed to sit in a church and hand over large chunks of my paycheck to have a relationship with God, but that's just me. As far as the Muslim faith is concerned...well, I'll be honest in saying I don't know very much about the Muslim faith...but it does seem that it is marked by extremism and violence when things don't go a certain way. They call it "jihad," a blanket term that can mean anything from ongoing peaceful struggle to full out bloodshed. I call it a sorry excuse to have a temper tantrum with explosives.


Take for example the reaction to the Pope's comments this week:

CNN



How many times have important figures in the Muslim faith denounced Christians publicly...yet they get pissy when someone throws a stone back in their direction. And now that the Pope hasn't apologized sufficiently (as far as they're concerned), extremists are going to run around killing people until he does.

"If the pope does not apologize, Muslims' anger will continue until he becomes remorseful."

The Muslim community at large is pissed at the Pope for saying that their religion has been historically spread by violence, yet they are resorting to violence to force an apology?

If an important figurehead in the Muslim community had said something similar about Christians, it wouldn't even have been a blip on the radar. The Pope certainly wouldn't be calling for his followers to start blowing up mosques and gunning down innocent people.

The Muslim community wonders why the rest of the world views them negatively in general. How are we to understand their beliefs if their first reaction to any kind of criticism is to blow shit up?

Before anyone gets pissy with me, I'm not saying that all Muslims are terrorists or that they are bad people, just as I am a Catholic and I don't run around molesting altar boys. I just find it sad that those who are considered leaders of the Muslim faith aren't more responsible in their rhetoric, and that they passively encourage violence among their followers.


It's shit like this that will bring on the end of the world. I think we're definitely on the path.


Religion, in my opinion, should be about helping people, the greater good, spirituality, finding peace...all that happy crap. Why is it that NONE of the leaders of mainstream religions seems to be interested in these things???