Opinions about Islam just foment fear

Sadly, the last two Sunday’s Montana Perspectives’ disparagement of Islam (Daily Inter Lake, Jan. 11 and 18) serve more the interest of fear and division than of sober understanding and the rightful condemnation  of evil. The flow of history that historians refer to as memetic theory (scapegoating) played out well in the anti-Muslim comments the opinions and editorials expressed.

I don’t believe it is an overstatement to say that every religion on the face of the earth, past and present, has had evil manifested in its name. How can we, a supposedly Christian nation, so easily forget the genocide, terrorism, and evil perpetrated in the name of Christ? Is the Christian religion an evil to be feared because the Ku Klux Klan claims Christian identity, or because Timothy McVeigh professed to love Jesus when he blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, or because of the forgotten massacres of Muslims carried out by Christian forces? The religious geography is largely shaped by evil executed in its name.

To be clear though, my point is not to castigate religion; because then, I would have to account for the inexplicable “problem of good” organic in world religions.

Rather, I am trying to point to something that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said so much better than I ever could: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

And finally, to paraphrase forensic psychiatrist and former CIA officer Marc Sageman: The problem with Islamic terrorists is not Islam, but ignorance of Islam, and a Muslim education might well have deterred them. —Bob Muth Sr., Kalispell