The OCD Diaries

Whenever we see terrible things like the ISIS attacks in Paris, something happens on Facebook: Many people become experts on religion and politics, and still more people get anal when people don’t observe a tragedy exactly as they would. Terror attacks bring out the best in some people. In others, it brings out self-righteous tomfoolery.

Mood music:

https://youtu.be/IN9REo4Le6g

Whatever your political and religious beliefs, the attacks prove that your agenda is the correct one. One guy posted so many memes about Obama being a secret agent for ISIS and the so-called Muslim brotherhood that I almost believed it after a while.

If you had the French flag superimposed over your profile picture, you were a racist for ignoring the attacks that happened a day before in Lebanon. You were an anti-Semite because you didn’t include Israel, which is attacked every day.

If you tried to make the point that terrorists don’t represent the whole of Islam, you got shouted down by the right wing for not accepting that Islam is in itself an evil, savage religion.

If you dared to point out that there is in fact evil in the world and that the bad guys must be destroyed, you got shouted down by the left wing for being intolerant and politically incorrect.

Where do my views fit into all this? As usual, somewhere in the middle.

I don’t believe Islam is in itself an evil religion. I know a lot of people who follow that faith and they are decent people who work hard and want what’s best for their communities. But I don’t think we can ignore the fact that far too many bad guys are twisting Islam to their evil purposes. People of Islam need to be a lot more vocal about it than they have been.

I’m not a gun-toting NRA supporter and I don’t buy into the rhetoric about liberals taking the good guys’ guns away. But I don’t think gun-control laws have helped all that much, since bad people continue to get around those laws.

I believe there is evil in the world, and there always has been. When bad guys plot to kill innocents, the good guys need to kill them first.

I believe that the best thing we can do to make a positive difference in the world is be good to other people. I believe that being good to people requires a whole lot more than putting slogans and statements on Facebook. It requires spending one’s time to do things for others, whether it’s helping them deal with a work-related challenge or a crisis in confidence and faith or helping them get food and other things a lot of us take for granted.

I believe that self-righteous people are generally assholes who have nothing better to do with their time than to put down others who disagree with them. If I ever get like that, I hope someone slaps me down hard.

I also think the vast majority of people are good. When danger strikes, we’ve seen many acts of compassion time and again.

That’s why I still have hope, even when the self-righteous pollute the Internet.

Candelight vigil for Paris

Recent beheadings at the hands of ISIS have caused a spike in news-show rhetoric about the need to profile those who look like Muslims as a way to stop terrorists. My Facebook feed is frequently overrun with talk about how Islam is a savage and evil religion.

We’re doing what we do best when scared: painting entire groups and faiths with the same bigoted brush.

Mood music:

I understand the anger.

I absolutely loathe ISIS. Every time I see footage of innocents beheaded, I want to throw up. I felt the same way when watching the violence committed by insurgents in Iraq a decade ago. I have no stomach for murder. When it’s done in the name of religion, it makes me feel worse.

I won’t lie to you: When seeing this violence, my imagination has run wild with thoughts about how great it would be to wipe out these bastards with nuclear weapons. I’ve thought about how fitting it would be to see these guys getting their heads cut off. In that regard, I’m not much better than the people who litter my news feeds with hate and cries of vengeance.

But when I reflect some more, I always come back to a stubborn fact — evil exists in all religions.

I’m a Catholic whose faith was shaken by the news of widespread sexual abuse at the hands of priests. It’s also hard to understand the blood spilled in the name of Christianity in places like Northern Ireland. Christians have done terrible things in the name of Christianity since the beginning. The Crusades are but one example.

What I always come back to is this: Non-organized religions breed evil. So do individuals. Organized religion breeds evil, too.

I consider myself faithful in the belief that Jesus Christ is my savior — the guiding hand through the minefield set by my personal demons. If that makes you uncomfortable, so be it. I see it as a personal relationship. The problems begin when people make it about more than that and attach politics to the mix.

I don’t buy into the rhetoric of organized Christian denominations that invites hatred of gays and others who don’t follow doctrine to the letter. That malarky is the seed that leads to violence against homosexuals. As a Catholic, I do have high hopes that Pope Francis is going to move us away from that. This statement is especially telling.

Most people follow their faith, be it Islam, Christianity, Judaism, what have you, peacefully. They don’t turn it into a political vehicle or a militaristic recruitment drive. I’ve met a lot of people of different faiths in my travels. In talking with them, a shared distaste for religious extremism always comes to the surface.

If we stopped blaming entire faiths for the evil acts of a few, we might actually get somewhere as human beings.

Battle between Crusades and Mongols Source: SodaHead

Tag: ISIS

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The Good and Evil in Every Religion