Islamic Religious Violence

Religious violence is spreading around our globe. Whether it’s Jewish religious violence via the decades old, Bible-based, illegal and cruel Israeli occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and Palestinian East Jerusalem or Muslims and Christians killing each other in the Central African Republic, or Sunni and Shiite Muslims slaughtering each other in the Middle East, it is painfully obvious religious violence is on the rise.

Currently the most violent of the Islamic religious terror organizations is Islamic State. Islamic State was made possible by religious violence conducted by US politicians from both parties against Iraq. The US war against Iraq was religious violence because it was promoted by the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament based neocon movement and it was fought for the benefit of the religious/Jewish state of Israel. Prior to the war against Iraq, al Qaeda was not able to get into Iraq. After the US politicians started the war, al Qaeda did get into Iraq. Soon after that, Islamic State was born out of al Qaeda in Iraq. Since then they have taken over large areas of Iraq and Syria to which they bring religious based murder and slavery. Thankfully they've been pushed out of those areas after prolonged military fighting. They are now branching out to conduct and/or inspire Islamic acts of religious violence and terrorism in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia.

Too many people in power insist that Islam is NOT a religion of violence. They claim groups like Islamic State have somehow "hijacked" Islam for their own violence based purposes. They call Islam “a religion of peace”. This could not be further from the truth.

The only permanent way to end religious violence is to end the various “revealed”/hearsay religions themselves, since they are the true source of religious violence. The best way to do that is by getting the individual members of the “revealed”/hearsay religions to apply their innate God-given reason, which all of them have, to the teachings found in their “holy” books. Once they do this they will see their religion is man-made and violates what God/The Supreme Intelligence gave them - their innate reason. Maajid Nawaz is a former supporter of Islamic religious violence and jihad. He said on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria: GPS, “People that join ISIL (Islamic State) genuinely think they’re bringing about an end of days scenario, they genuinely believe they’re working on behalf of God.” By getting these people to apply their innate God-given reason to Islam and the Quran, many of them will realize the fact that God gave us reason and not religion and will free themselves from Islam and all “revealed”/hearsay religions. This will eventually cause the end of Islamic religious violence, and when carried over to people in the other "revealed" religions, the end of all religious violence.

It is also important to point out profound flaws in the alleged "prophet" and founder of Islam, Mohammed. For just one example, one of his wives, Aisha, was only six years of age when Mohammed married her and she was only nine years old when he first had sex with her. It's impossible to respect an adult man who would have sex with a child.

Add to Islam’s founder, Mohammed, being a pedophile, as shown in the above paragraph, the call in the Quran for violence against women and it's easy to see why Islam is wrong and dangerous. Surah 4:34 teaches, “Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great.” It sounds more like Mohammed was “high” if he believed God told him men should scourge/beat women. To have a law/command like this is an insult to The Supreme Intelligence/God and to humanity, kindness and reason.

I had a reveling online exchange with a Muslim. He inadvertently exposed a very weak and very important fundamental part of Islam. He responded to a post to a news article I made. My post was attacking the whole idea of divine revelations and "revealed"/hearsay religions. He wrote:

"I'll simply state the 1st principle of Islam which also serves as a Muslim's declaration of faith is as follows -

"I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship besides Allah; I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah

"For the Muslim, for the believer it follows that there's an explicit trust that what we receive from Muhammad in the form of revelation is as he received same from Gibril (Gabriel), Allah's agent, and that this is Allah's revelation. In the 1st principal/declaration there is an explicit characterization of Muhammad vis-a-vis Allah specifically and revelation generally. There's no confusion regarding his role and his means of consort with Allah is identical to that of preceding Prophets excluding Moses (A.S.) who we believe had direct discourse with Allah without the agency of Gibril."

It is easy for Deists to rationally destroy this Islamic claim to revelation. For example, how can anyone "bear witness" who did not witness the alleged event which they claim they are bearing witness of? Bringing this very important fact to the minds of sincere Muslims at best will cause them to stop supporting Islam and to become Deists or some other type of freethinker. At a minimum it is planting real seeds of thought in their minds that will eventually bear fruit. This applies to all people currently in a "revealed"/hearsay religion. Notice that the Muslim referenced Islamic belief that Moses was an elevated prophet of God who actually had direct communication with God. All of the Abrahamic "revealed"/hearsay religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Mormonism claim the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament to be at least an important part of the word of God and embrace the genocidal killer, Moses, as a man of God. Knowledgeable Deists can educate the sincere followers of these "revealed"/hearsay religions to the fact that they are being lied to regarding the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the New Testament, the Quran and the Book of Mormon being the products of divine revelation and Moses being a man of God.

The Deist Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck." All Deists need to work together to help people free their minds from religious gullibility/"faith" and to get back to their gift from God of innate reason. This is the only long term solution to the problem of religious violence.

Below are documented calls to religious violence found in the Quran, along with attempts to justify them by Islamic apologists, as well as reason based refutations to the weak claims made by the Islamic apologists. The below is taken from my book, God Gave Us Reason, Not Religion. (For additional objective articles on Islam, that were written by people who left Islam for Deism, click here and here.)