If you're not living in a cave, you should know that an individual recently attempted, via a vehicle bomb, to kill civilians in Times Square, New York. This man, Faisal Shahzad, is a Pakistani-American dedicated to Islam...a more extremist version, of course, and is willing to do whatever it takes to follow his version of religion. He has admitted to training to commit acts of terror in Pakistan. He wasn't a "dumb terrorist with a box cutter" as many people incorrectly like to mention, but rather worked as a financial analyst at Elizabeth Arden and has an MBA in computer science and engineering.
If you somehow haven't heard much about Shazad or would like to learn more, please watch this video:
Here are some words from Shazad's plea agreement.
45 FAISAL SHAHZAD,56 Defendant. Plea
"THE DEFENDANT: I have an MBA.
THE DEFENDANT: I want to plead guilty and I'm going
19 to plead guilty a hundred times forward because until the hour
20 the US pulls it forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the
21 drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops
22 the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing the Muslims
23 and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be
24 attacking US, and I plead guilty to that.
"THE DEFENDANT: I have an MBA.
THE DEFENDANT: I want to plead guilty and I'm going
19 to plead guilty a hundred times forward because until the hour
20 the US pulls it forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and stops the
21 drone strikes in Somalia and Yemen and in Pakistan and stops
22 the occupation of Muslim lands and stops killing the Muslims
23 and stops reporting the Muslims to its government, we will be
24 attacking US, and I plead guilty to that.
(emphasis mine)
...Muslim soldier defending Muslim lands. And it's not unintelligent people doing things like this, either. The 7/7 bombers, the 9/11 pilots, and now Faisal Shazad prove that intelligent men and women could be persuaded to commit atrocities after believing absurdities.
...Muslim soldier defending Muslim lands. And it's not unintelligent people doing things like this, either. The 7/7 bombers, the 9/11 pilots, and now Faisal Shazad prove that intelligent men and women could be persuaded to commit atrocities after believing absurdities.
The motivations of the 7/7 bombers were largely religiously motivated as evidenced from a video transcript:
I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe. Our drive and motivation doesn't come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam, obedience to the one true God and following the footsteps of the final prophet messenger. Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.
Youtuber Nykytyne2 has an absolutely remarkable series dealing with 9/11 and the hijackers. Here is one of the videos:
We, as a society, if we are to thrive, need to move away from the idea that people can claim a divine mandate and use divine sanction to discriminate, kill, oppress, harm children, teach children about Hell, cheapen science, misrepresent real knowledge, and undermine all of the real knowledge that humans have attained in our short existence.
If you're a religious person of any brand, you should be speaking out against people like this whether they be violent or not. You should be condemning the Pope (if you're Catholic or not). You should set fundamentalists straight. I know that it's not all of your responsibility and it's certainly not up to you to educate "true believers" with a more reformed version of your type of religion. It's certainly not my responsibility to have conversations with all theists, but I certainly try. I do my best to educate, inform, discuss, and get a message out there for all to view and interact with.
Of course not all Muslims are bombing Subways.
Of course not all Christians are killing abortion doctors.
Of course not all Jews are Zionists who want to see the world come to an end....but religious extremism does come about in the worst of ways from people doing physical harm to those working feverishly to deny rights of homosexuals, paint atheists as immoral people who just don't like God, ban contraceptives, march against condom use and claim that condoms can make AIDS worse, deny charity to children because their parents are homosexuals, etc, etc, etc.
It's time to wake up.
Don't let people ever tell you that you shouldn't speak your mind, criticize ideas, and raise awareness to issues that NEED to be discussed. Be respectful of people...but beliefs don't deserve or merit some sort of "you can't touch me" status. Only M.C. Hammer can say that.