'Islam no longer religion of peace' Muslim Charlie Hebdo journalist hits out at extremists

[trotsky]

29. It's why this topic is so hard to discuss, yet so important.

Any attempt to have a discussion about violence finding roots in religion is usually met with knee-jerk defense of religion (which itself arises from bigotry against non-believers, because obviously if someone can't be religious and violent, they must be non-religious!). A true discussion must look at ALL the factors, and not just simply rule out the ones we don't want to be part of the analysis.

I mean, let's face it, the people who wrote those texts lived in a primitive and violent world. Their holy texts are naturally going to be primitive and violent. Centuries of the human experience have given us much better ways to look at morality and justice - but they are complicated and require thought. Far too many people - even allegedly liberal and tolerant folks - would rather just point to a book and claim all our answers are there. And when you point out that clearly some parts of that book are NOT all that great, it upsets them, and they lash out.