What The Fox Is Up With All The Hate

So I flip on TV and I see all these windbags hollerin’ about a Mosque being built at ground zero.  From the sounds bellowing from these ignorant asshats you would think that Osama Bin Laden himself was erecting the hotel Sharia in place of the Twin Towers. 

After hearing the claims of how this is a security threat and how the building of this structure is a slap in the face of those who suffered most on 9/11 I immediately shit my sweat pants.  By golly they’ve done it again!!  The terrorists are coming to destroy our American way of life!  Then I took two minutes to actually read up on this so called ground zero Mosque. 

First off, it is not a Mosque but rather a community center that has a prayer room in it.  We might as well call the YMCA up the street a cathedral on the account of its Chapel.  Secondly it is two blocks from ground zero, and thirdly WHO GIVES A FUCK!!!!! 

Like many major religions, Islam has many different incarnations and sects.  The particular faction of Muslims in charge of this community center are Sufies, that’s right the same Sufies who Islamic extremists blow up on a regular basis.  So why in the blue hell would they want to support terror?!?

Semantics aside, why should it matter at all what sect or for that matter, what religion is building a structure there.  Are we to all assume we are at war with Islam and all of its followers?  I tried to run down this logic in my head and came up with this:

-America was attacked on 9/11

-We declared war on terror

-The hijackers were Muslims

-All Muslims are terrorists

-We must be at war with Islam and all Muslims

That logic seems a bit frivolous to me.  I’ll tell you why; I AM SCARRED SHITLESS THAT AMERICA WILL DECLARE WAR ON ME!!!!

If that is indeed the logic we must use in facing down the horrors of terrorism, then I got problems.  If we are to assume that everyone who practices Islam not only condones the events of 9/11 but wants to kill all Americans, then the same must be said for Christians.  That bothers me because I am a Christian, and there has been all kinds of bat shit wacky things done in the name of my religion.  There have been cults, money scams, racism, homophobia, and Kirk Cameron, all using Christianity as their foundation!  But most troubling is the violence.

Some people call violence used to intimidate a group of people a hate crime.  That is all fine and well but to me it is just terrorism.  When you beat a homosexual to death because you feel he is violating you God’s law and want to send the rest of the gays a message, I’d say that is terrorism.  Let’s look at the word terrorism as defined by Webster’s for a quick second shall we?

ter·ror·ism
Pronunciation: 'ter-&r-"i-z&m
Function: noun
1 :  the unlawful use or threat of violence esp. against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion
2 :  violent and intimidating gang activity terrorism > — ter·ror·ist

When an abortion doctor like George Tiller is gunned down in his Church, that is an act of terrorism.  It was meant to send a message to others like Tiller:  We hate you and if you act out of the boundaries we set in our own religious beliefs you will die.  That is the definition of terrorism.  Now I don’t agree with what Tiller was doing, but as a Christian I would never turn to violence in the name of my God.  This is why the aforementioned logic worries me.

Do the acts of Christian terrorists become mine?  I don’t think abortion is right, but I have never gotten violent over it.  One of the reasons I have not is because violence is against my religion.  According to some Christians (a very small minority mind you) Tiller got what he deserved, what God wanted.  So which one of us is right?

How about the IRA?  Protestants vs. Catholics!  Do the terrorist acts of the IRA or any other terrorists who commit murder in the name of Jesus become those of all Christians?  I say HELL NO!!

Just because there is a minority of nut jobs out there that want to pervert my very beautiful religion does not mean that the rest of us agree with them.  The vast majority of Christians abhor violence, even in the name of combating things we stand against.

So why should it be different for Muslims?  Why do so many Americans believe that all people of Islamic faith are in lock step in their beliefs?  There are billions of Muslims, so that would be quite a feat.  If that were really true however, that a billion people were united in the destruction of all Christianity, I think we would be wiped out by now.  Because I know for a fact that not even a million, or even a couple thousand of us Christians can be in total agreement on even fundamental aspects of our religion, let alone an entire war on another religion.  Billions of united terrorists would easily overtake us if they all thought the same. The truth is, like Christians, most do not believe in violence.  The belief that all Muslims are terrorists or terrorist sympathizers is not only insanely far fetched but outright ridiculous!!  This led me to concoct some logic of my own:

-There is no way a billion people all share the same exact belief of what Islam is

-People who think an entire religion is out to murder them are brain-dead cowardly meat-bags wallowing in their own pool of vitriol, hate, and ignorance.

-Those that say the community center is part of a Islamic Extremist plot are in need of a rag to clean up the mess they are wading in.

I know I know, not really logic, or even resembling logic, but it expresses how I feel about people who perpetuate a stupid meme that Osama Bin Laden himself would have us all repeat:  Christians are at war with Islam.

Nothing can be farther from the truth.  The truth is God does not make us hate, he does not make us kill each other, he does not make us afraid of that which we do not try to understand.  We do that all on our own.  We are not at war with a religion, but rather with our own ignorance.  So far ignorance is up by a few….