Monday School: Is Islam a race or a religion?

It’s that time again, the first day of the week which means it’s time for Monday School! Still the best place on Open Diary to get “The Rational Corrective To All That Nonsense They Tried To Teach You Yesterday!”

Today’s lesson is a very interesting one: Is Islam a race or a religion?

Today’s lesson was actually inspired by a few entries that were posted on Open Diary over the weekend. It started when an entry was posted by Fair Warning, in which he expressed his displeasure with the bahavior of certain people of a specific religious creed. Now if someone believes that certain group of people are not acting very nice, he has every right to voice his displeasure. The part that I had a problem with, which is what many people had an issue with might have been his wish that Obama would send a drone to destory them. While I happen to agree with Fair Warning and his right to now agree with the people if Islam, I do not agree with his assessment that we should bomb them with drones. Violence only provokes further violence.

In response to that entry, a friend of mine named Mad Twin Films posted his own entry in which he displayed his obvious offense to what Fair Warning had said. Mad Twin has ever right to be offended, just like Fair Warning has every right to be offended by the violence that is ongoing in Lybia and other nations. I happen to agree with Mad Twins that it’s wrong to call for anyone’s death just because you disagree with them, but at the same time that is what Fair Warning was upset about as well as the people rioting in the middle east are not respecting other’s rights to free speech while calling anyone who disagrees with they heretics and inciting violence against them.

The part I happen to disagree on with Mad Twins was his labelling of Fair Warning as a bigot, suggesting that his words are racist. This is where things get tricky, because what race was he offending? Fair Warning was upset at people inciting violence that lead to the death of people last week. I’m also offended by last week’s violence as well and hope that the people responsible for it are arrested and brought to justice. Fair Warnings words are not racist for a very, very simple reason: Islam is not a race, it’s a religion.

Let’s look at the definition of the word race: A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.

Now do people of Islam fall into this category? What do all the people of Islam have in common? Do they all look the same? Nope. Are they all the same shade or colour? They are not. The only thing every person of Islam has in common is their religion. Nothing more, nothing less. Having the same religion is not enough to warrant calling a group of people a race. We don’t refer to Christians, Buddists or even Hindus as different races, so why are muslims/Islamic people trying to label themselves as a race of people?

Lately, people of Islam have been using race as a way to curb speech or things they don’t agree with. Recently, people in the UK were arrested for burning copies of the Koran According to what I have been reading, these people were arrested for “Inciting racial hatred.” Sure, people are going to be upset if you torch a holy book, but that’s called free speech. If that person owns that copy of the Koran and they choose to burn it, there isn’t a thing anyone else can do about it. Ditto if some dude in Norway wants to draw a cartoon of Mohammad. If you want to voice your disapproval of that comic, that’s your right to express your opinion, but you can’t supress other people’s free speech to satisfy your need to stand up for your faith.

Let’s get back to the subject at hand: Islam is religion. Here is the definition of religion; a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. Islam seems to fit this one a lot better than it does the definition of race. To argue how absurd this is, I’d like you to look at the following picture and tell me how many followers of Islam you see in it:

So how many of the six people shown above are muslims?

How many of you guessed 2?

The answer is 6. All of them.

This is why Islam is not a race. There is no specific color or type of muslim. People may think there is, but it’s really not true. I have a friend here in Canada who is a Muslim and he’s got blonde hair, blue eyes and no one would know he was a muslim unless he told you.

People of religion are bonded by creed, not race.

Thats why we don’t consider Christians to be a race of people, nor Buddists or any other religion for that matter. The same can be said for Islam: it is a religion, not a race. People who think it’s a race and trying to use a race card to shut down free speech need to be put in their place immediately, because organized religion does not deserve the right to hide behind another sheild from criticism… not while we’re just starting to peel away the one they have now.

There is one flaw that I did find when reading Fair Warning’s entry. When discussing violence that is going on in the world, he shouldn’t have just picked on one group in particular. Throughout history, all the rest of the religions, especially Christianity have all got blood on their hands… and rather than just pick on one religion, he should have put them all together in a small pile and condemned them together. Every single organized religion, not just Islam, is total bullshit. Their fairy tales are unproven superstitions. Religion has been the biggest con to ever be used on mankind, and unlike Fair Warning, I go a step further and condemn them all for inciting violence, sexism, homophobia and yes… RACISM as they rare specific sections in all religious books that have been used to look down on people for being different colors or genders.

When someone tries to defy religion, especially in Islamic countries that Fair Warning was complaing about… people can and have marched down to the offending person’s house as an angry mob, dragged that person into the street and stoned him to death for blasphemy.

Blasphemy is not a crime in modern societies because of a little something called free speech. People of all religions don’t like free speech because it leads to questions and those questions lead to thinking which is not what religions want us to do for ourselves. When we find the answers to those questions, we become educated and then that education leads us to let go of our fairy tales and join the real world of science and laws that a proven with something called, what is that again… evidence!

If you don’t believe how extreme Islam has gotten in the last few decades, just ask Salman Rushdie whose fatwa bounty has risen to 3.3 million dollars this past week. Could you imagine if some Christian group tried to put a bounty on Dan Brown’s head for writing the ‘Da Vinci Code’? There are people out there who want Rushdie dead, and the only thing he did to offend them was write a book. I don`t know about you but that is the real definiton of “Inciting racial hatred”. It`s also what I would call conspiracy to commit murder, and the people who put the fatwa on them should be wanted for crimes against humanity for trying to put a hit out on someone just for writing a book.

Islam has never been the sole cause of violence in the world. The IRA, KKK and many other groups have given every religion their fair share of crazy nutballs. Islam, just like every other religion out there, has their own fare share of nutballs but lately theirs have been going to extremes and that is why people like Fair Warning are getting frustrated and voicing their anger at people who are not deserving of it. We don`t condemn all Christians for the actions of the KKK, so why are we condemning all Muslims for the actions of a few thousand people around the entire world? We can`t and we shouldn`t, but there isn`t anything wrong with voicing that frustration, everyone (even Fair Warning) still has the right to free speech.

Based on what I`ve posted today, it`s clear to see that calling Islam a race is a mistake that needs to be corrected. It`s a religion, and it should remain that way not only for proper classification but to also prevent people from using their right to religion to try to silence our right to freely express ourselves. We have a right to call religion on their bullshit, especially when everything they claim to be true doesn`t have a shred of evidence to back up a single claim. Unlike Fair Warning, I go a step further and reject all religion as being false and the biggest con to ever be forced upon mankind.

Disagree with me if you want, that`s your right just as much as it`s my right to post this entry in the first place. Religion doesn`t get a free pass from me, and until I see some real evidence they`re nothing more than man made works of fiction that have no place in the classroom, the board room and in our governments. Thankfully I live in a nation where I can exercise my right to free speech to express that statement, a right I hope that all people will one day be able to share.

Peter