The questions about these violent acts are constant: Why? What can we do? And so on. I think the solution could be more simpler than anyone thinks, or dares to suggest. This is obviously my opinion, so I’m sure I’ll have a few disagreements with people over it. These are my own views.
Firstly, with these attacks in London and Manchester; for a moment, take religion out of it and look on it from the outside. The people who did these acts are violent people naturally. They would be the muggers, people who start a fight on a Friday night, child molesters, wife beaters, mentally unstable, frustrated crap footballers and so on.
Anyone like this doesn’t really need justification on these acts. However, as we rule everything by laws, which are clear and rarely ambiguous, we know that you cannot kill in any circumstance. Even retaliation is not allowed in most cases and only defensive stances are justified.
However, when you have the law of the book; the Bible, the Quran, which is still enshrined in law (i.e. religious freedom), means that our standard laws come a distance second to essentially a book with a lot of made up stories, based on peoples lack of understanding that earthquakes are tectonic plates clashing together and that when the moon covers the sun, you don’t need to shit yourself.
So, as we rule everything by laws created by us, you have a separate rule book based on vague fantastical statements and statements which are clearly justifying violence in order to defend their right to believe in these vague fantasy statements. As mentioned, these are violent people and they look at any excuse to commit acts. As they see the book above any law created by man, then that’s their justification. It’s like a devout Star Wars fan beating seven bells out of someone with a light saber because they think he’s going towards the dark side – it’s all made up and contradictory (especially the prequels, George).
The people who commit these terrorist acts are naturally violent. They are just looking for an excuse, and their book allows them to justify it in their interpretation. The law is quite straightforward to interpret, but a religious book isn’t. Maybe it says “don’t do violence”, but then it could be insular: Don’t do violence to people in your club, but it’s okay elsewhere.
You will then say, well it’s the bad guys’ interpretation. Exactly correct. There a various vague examples of causing violence, either defensively or offensively in the Quran and the Bible. But even these statements might have been mistranslated down the centuries. If that was British Law, it could be translated as: “Anyone not believing in the UK laws, shall be terrorised until they agree with the laws”
If British law was vague and allowed you to act on people who offended you, or against people who were not supporting the England team in a World Cup, then violence like this would happen more (usually after the first two games).
Possible Solution?
So how do you solve it? When you have book formed nearly 2,000 years ago in primitive times, where violence was prevalent, having hold over large swathes of the population, the law of the land, needs to step in and control religious freedom. There are numbers of statements in all religious books which justify violence, including against women. Simply research yourself and you will see.
The solution is to ban ALL religion, until it is lawfully reformed to survive in the modern age. A reformation needs to take place so the “head office” changes the books to meet with modern day science and remove any fantasy elements.
Forced reformation of the book, with clear statements as a preface (it’s just a book – revisions happen in all books). Any fantastical comments must be denoted with the fact there is no evidence for this. Any violent instructions, however ambiguous must be removed. This will reduce it to a simple guidebook, saying on how to live peacefully, which is what most people of religion claim it is for. It must also be acknowledged that other religions exists and have similar questions about their more unusual cult-like statements and rules, as well as reference to atheism and the that it’s based on scientific fact.
If no reformation is agreed, then any form of religion is to be banned.
Christianity had it’s “Age of Enlightenment” a few hundred years ago, not within any official means, but people simply moved towards science. However, echoes of it’s violence still occur in the United States and African states.
Immediate action on existing laws and arrest anyone who makes a violent comment based on religion justification, either via social media or any other outlet.
A bit harsh? What about the peaceful majority? Unfortunately, with a vague fantasy rule book being followed by millions causing violence due to certain sentences, then being harsh will save lives.
The hardliners always take control, because moderate religious people don’t care enough to act, same as the politically charged extremists. The question of the “silent majority” was superbly answered by Brigitte Gabriel on a panel a few years back (find it on the Internet), her response was that the silent majority are always going to fail. The violent minority always lead and this is human anthropology. The stronger always survive – and to be strong, you generally have to be violent. The silent majority were mildly anti-semitic but wouldn’t cause violence and were silent when Hitler came to power. The silent majority didn’t expect a hard-line Islamic state when the Iranian Revolution occurred. What is a moderate Muslim or Christian? They won’t kill, but they are against homosexuality or having sex before marriage. Unfortunately, that’s where the commonality with the violent sect comes in – because it’s all in one book.
Women protesting forced hijab days after the Iranian Revolution, 1979 – source: Rare Historical Photos
In my opinion, you follow your religion to the full, or you aren’t religious. You can’t pick and choose the nice bits, i.e. “thou shalt not kill”, because your fellow (violent) man will also pick: “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death.” – which means Ryan Giggs would be in hiding.
None of these people who do these acts are really interested in the actual causes for Muslims, namely Palestine and Western attempts to impose democracy in the Middle East. Islam like Communism, is a homogeneous group with no country identity. Everyone’s together, which is an idyllic solution for world peace. But no one’s in it together to help each other out. It’s a fact that inter-Islam violence between themselves has caused more deaths than external attacks, but any Western intervention tends to push all this under the carpet.
Majority of terrorist attacks are against Muslims – source BBC Website
Imposing democracy on a country based on religion doesn’t work. Hardliners such as Saddam (always on a first name basis), Qaddafi and Assad controlled the violence with violence. Essentially, they were “our arseholes” and prevented more violent sects taking control. What happens is that the violent people always take control, in the same away, the violent people will cause acts like what happened here. Islam is not capable of being a guidebook to running a country. The values are still stone age, like other religions, with their strange rules and panic over getting a hard-on, then blaming women for it.
But then why cause the violence here? Why not integrate? The interpretation also means that the entire world needs to be Islamic, so when people say to send them back to their own countries to cause issues there, they don’t understand, that their interpretation means that the entire world must be converted. This is similar to Communism; the plan was to convert the entire world.
There are various reasons to a lack of integration. My thoughts on it are that in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s when there was immigration, mainly economical, most of the people did attempt to integrate. However, racism based purely on colour of skin was rife, so people withdrew into their own culture – and even had suitcases at the top of their wardrobes just in case of deportation. So it was in this environment that an us against them culture spring up. Closer integration occurred when the Labour Government came into power in 1997. However, the error made was that people could still prioritise their own cultures, instead of integrating more. This is from both sides. Some ex-pats in Spain, still don’t learn the language.
Even I sometimes go on the defensive when you see comments on social media about “kill em all, etc.” Or “Send them back to their own countries” because you’re not sure if it’s down to just not liking people of colour. I’m non-religious and fully atheist, but steel have a tinge of defensiveness, so I can see where in-built communities have an us against them idea.
So to summarise:
- Reform religious books; the Bible, the Quran with notes and references showing that certain statements have no evidence.
- Forcing religions to reform their “guidelines” otherwise risking a ban.
- A clear set of guidelines on the front saying that any forms of violence are against the Law.
- Full equality based on gender and sexuality.
- Making your country and your laws priority over [fantasy] books.
- Arresting any reference to religious based violence or threats via social media.
- Making any form of racism an arrest-able offence.
So there – problem solved. I now suggest everyone goes off to have a wank and not feel guilty about it 🙂