Convincing Your Own would be a Good Start

I’m beyond exhausted of hearing pleas of profession to the (generally) civilized world from those of the Islamic faith that their religion is one of peace.

If you’re a follower of Islam sitting in a country where you have the freedom to practice and speak your religion, along with millions of others infected with your (or their own) form of religious dogma without the fear of being murdered for it, it’s pretty easy to sit back behind your computer and attack non-believers (literal non-believers, or even those who believe in an alternate faith) of being Islamaphobic.

(By the way, every medium I use to spell that word tries to correct it, suggesting it’s not even a valid word. I can’t find “Islamaphobia” in one single resource of actual fears, including this one which seems pretty comprehensive. The word you are looking for is “Theophobia,” and the only ones who suffer from it are yourselves; precisely why your religion perpetuates the most intolerant behavior and violence against not only themselves, but also the rest of the non-Islamic world).

If you (Islamic-practicing Muslims) want to make a real impact for the virtue of peace in your religion, get out of your comfy chair of freedom and journey to Bangladesh, or Syria, or Afghanistan, or Somalia, or any number of countries rampant with Muslims following radicalized beliefs in Islam and start convincing them that they are interpreting the Hadiths wrong. Stop sharing them with me. I’ve read them and they are just as conflicting and in contradiction with each other as the teachings of the Christian Bible.

End the sectarian violence within your own faith. That might be a good start. Stop killing each other in your self-important argument over which Islamic Prophet is the true Prophet. How can you possibly profess an outward peace when you cannot even demonstrate an inward peace among those who follow the same book? You cannot agree with each other, yet you want others to agree with you?

That seems hyper-hypocritical.

I’m just as sick of seeing peaceful passages of the Qur’an thrown around as I am of the Biblical ones. You cannot, reasonably and with logical conscience, use your religion to pontificate your tolerant virtues while at the same time the acts proclaiming attribution to the same religion are used to justify your righteous virtues, and absolve you from the abhorrently inhumane and oppressive virtues.

That’s an all-inclusive insanity pass to Stupidland. (There, now I’ve made up a word, also).

When you impress upon a rationally-thinking human being to see that your religion is about peace as we see stories of people being murdered, maimed, beheaded, tortured, raped and mutilated in the name of that religion, you sound, well, they simply haven’t come up with a word to describe that level of elevated ignorance yet.

We (those not trapped in mystic and paranoid delusions) will be convinced your faith is peaceful, without your having to tell us so, when the actions speak for themselves. When we see the peace in your religion, we’ll give you that pat on the back you want.

Until then, it is you who have work to do in your projections; not us in our perceptions.

If you are about peace, then demonstrate that. If you want peace, then effect that. If those within your faith are behaving under a misinterpretation of your faith, then tell them that. Teach them, not us. Your efforts are wasted and misguided until you first accomplish that.