Return to Evil vs Human

It took some more thinking than I liked to reach a judgment about the permissibility of building the controversial mosque in NY city. The stumbling block was that there is great harm done by fundamentalist Muslims and that harm is highlighted by the picture on the cover of Time of a beautiful Afghan woman with her nose and ears cut off by the Taliban. Thus when there was argument about whether or not to give the Muslim community permission to build a huge mosque two blocks away from the site of the World Trade Tower/9-11 site, it was to me an open question. I lack much sympathy for the Islamic religion—or any religion, but of late the brutality of the Muslims has been particularly chilling. It seemed unnecessary to build the Mosque so close to the site of the 9-11 disaster when it would be so offensive to so many. Also, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League and many of the relatives of the 9-11 victims opposed it. But on more careful thought it is diversity that is the hallmark of the best of America. The advance of diversity is served by allowing the Islamic religion as much freedom as any other religion. I do not pull back from judging religion as one of the permissible insanities of mankind. But if we are to allow it for one religion we should allow it for others.

If I had my way I would remove the stigma against atheism from the public sphere. I think that sometimes it is hard to sort out what the attitudes of the world actually are, then to shift and think about what they should be. In the case at hand there are some who think that the building of the Mosque should go ahead as an instance of diversity. Then there is the criticism of “liberals” who think that Islam is really just like other religions promoting the good of all people when in fact it is authoritarian , the critics say, and prejudicial and has a lethal attitude toward other religions. My original impression was that Islam is very concrete and is the source of a surprising amount of violence. And the violence manifests in a warlike political way as well as violence toward women. It is likely true that there are moderate Muslims who abhor violence and mistreatment of women. But I keep returning to the question of the relative number of fundamentalist Muslims and of moderate Muslims. One thing I came across today was that the Sunni Muslims in Saudi Arabia are the violent ones and that the Shiites are more moderate. Still, whatever the sect, other religions do not countenance the mistreatment of women with their scriptures so much as the Quran does. Of course my temptation is to dismiss the whole religion as evil. But then things come up such as the mosque in NY and I feel obligated to cut them some slack and treat them like a group that thinks differently than I do but is within the realm of acceptable. Also, I have a hard time dismissing 1.25 billion people as evil at heart. The truth is probably that Islam is the most judgmental and violent and anti-feminist of the major religions of the world. Its adherents accept the religion because it provides simple answers and social acceptance, as well as respectability and the other standard benefits provided by other religions. Adherents accept the harsher aspects as far as their particular group accepts them but condemn the fundamentalists who carry it too far. Hersi Ali’s contention is that when push comes to shove they will accept things like suicide bombings because it is being done by their team and it is being justified by their team. It will be the minority who will defy their religious leaders and break away when it goes too far. That is especially true with an authoritarian religion that discourages thinking for one’s self.

So, in getting to the answer to my question of how many Muslims are ready to abuse women and to approve of the use of violence I would consider unacceptable the questions becomes, ‘How do you tell?’ If even the moderate thinkers would turn on a dime and become violent- or approve of violence-- how can one measure that tendency? It seems to me the answer is to look at some historical events where things got pushed to the point where violence was one of the options. What happened with the average Muslim? Just now I am reading about the incident in Bangladesh that happened in reaction to Hindus in India destroying a Muslim shrine. There was widespread violence on the part of Muslims, the majority in Bangladesh, against Hindus. Many religious shrines were destroyed and many people killed. It could be argued that Bangladesh is a poor and backward country, and that is true. But then I wonder if there any advanced Muslim countries.

So far my judgment is that there are probably some good and moderate Muslim people and some good and moderate Muslim groups of people, but that still Islam is the most primitive, violent and misogynistic religion. Opinion subject to modification.