Paris, Terrorism, Islam, and You and Me.

Once again terrorists have struck at a Western city, and once again it is Paris. And yes, the terrorists have been identified as Muslim and members of the violent and aggressive Islamic State. There, I've used the words 'terrorists', ''Muslim' and 'Islamic' all together. No-one can say I'm soft on terrorism.

But if the problem is Islam, if there is something intrinsic and essential about being Muslim that is causing the violence, then there are only two solutions. Either convert every Muslim to some other religion: Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism (or atheism) even by force, or alternatively, kill them all. If you want to only kill the extremist Muslims, then you are admitting that not all Muslims are responsible for violence and so the problem cannot be Islam but something added to it in this particular case

Islam is not the problem. Yes, it can be used to motivate or justify violence, but so can democracy, patriotism, capitalism, revenge, pride, nationalism, language, loyalty, even love can motivate violence (love of country, love of fellow soldiers, love of royalty). The problem is not the reasons people give for committing violence, it is the willingness with which people commit violence, the readiness with which we are willing to kill.

There really is a moral equivalency between our side killing them and their side killing us. As outraged and grief-stricken we feel at the Paris killings, that is how outraged and grief-stricken Yemenis feel when we bomb their families. Ask yourself whether you would rather live in Paris today, after 120 people out of a city of. Million were murdered by a handful of terrorists, or live in Baghdad during the American invasion, when by December 2005 just one US air force wing had dropped five hundred thousand tons of explosives on Iraq. Think there was anybody terrified by that?

We all assume that the cause someone kills for is what's important, rather than the fact that they are killing, period. Since we only kill for reasons that are important to us, our violence is always justified. Since the enemy kills for reasons that are not important to us, such as getting foreign troops out of Saudi Arabia (bin Laden's reason for 9/11), they are always wrong. If the reasons they killed for were important to us too, then they wouldn't even be the enemy, they'd be allies or surrogates.

It is wrong to blame religion for causing violence, but it is right to criticize religion for not ending violence. How would the US fight any of its wars without faithful, God-fearing, peace-loving, Jesus followers ready to kill and torture and bomb others? The difference between a US bomb killing a family of Iraqis and an ISIS gunman killing a family of Parisians is that in one case we agree with the cause and in the other we don't. Both groups are just as dead. If we didn't believe that what we kill for is more important than whether or not we kill at all, if we didn't believe that the things we value are worth killing for and the things they value are so clearly not worth killing for, well, then, what would we do? How could we function? How would we be able to fight wars at all?

Blame religion for not making every violent, war-like, hate monger on whatever issue and on all sides (including ours) ashamed to open his or her mouth. Complain that religion has not been effective enough in bringing peace to wars fought for other things. It has not made enough people better enough to stop this shit from happening again and again. But then, what has? Maybe we need stronger, better, more positive religion. Maybe, if we are religious people, we should be calling out our leaders and brothers and sisters. When you think of all the reasons people kill each other: domestic abuse, drug deals, money, territory, revenge, anger, and yes, God, maybe the problem isn't religion. Maybe it's people.