Religions of Peace Are Only Created Through Reformation


Religions are only peaceful when a society forces the religion to adapt and add a peace or peace-like tenet to the faith. We see this with every major religion, and to this day there are still extremists in just about every major religion. I myself have started questioning faith as a whole, and it led me down this path, a path where religion is slated as barbaric and a means for war that keeps groups and tribes of people from being peaceful and loving of each other. This was also partially egged on by the constant news stream of Trump and his “Attack on Muslims”, and as my curiosity persisted, I decided to look up Islam and its core tenets, as well as other faiths such as Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism to be fair. What I found was quite astonishing really: All faiths have a violent minority, and due to this violent minority this causes great partisanship between warring religions, extremely similar to the Democrat-Republican relationship in government. I personally believe this is the reason why there is so much religious extremism and terrorism in today's world, but a lot of it you have to dig a little deeper than the average person sees. Location is very crucial too, as India pays a great dividend of their time to Hindu terror compared to the United State’s “War on Terror” which is more provocatively aimed at Islam than any other religion.
The standard argument relating to the current state of Islam brought forth by members of its own faith is rather simple, and there’s a majority who tend to agree without any question. The simple argument is, “There is no such thing as a religion of hate”. This answer may seem innocuous and reasonable, but with simple research one can see that religions are not as peachy and sweet as they seem. Most religions are peaceful at it’s core, Most. However, teachers, priests and followers of the religion change the faith into the most evil form of itself. Islam is the greatest victim of this, but that is not to say Islam doesn’t provoke hate within its texts either. We see in the beginnings of the Qur’an (At- Tawbah 9:29) to “Fight those who do not believe in Allah or the Last Day…” To simply put it, that ANY form of violence against non-believers, and it’s evident with hate groups such as Isis, Hamas and Boko Haram. This is Islams fatal flaw, and the entire middle eastern world is there to back it up. In fact, Sharia law is another example of barbaric behavior brought by religion. Over 80% of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Palestinian territories believe that Sharia law should be the law of the land. This is the same law that advocates for the amputation of the hands if you steal and criticizing any part of the Qur’an is punishable by death. It’s needless to say that a reformation is certainly needed, yet in the same place that the reformation needs to happen, they are still holding on to their perverse ways emphatically.
This is not to say the other religions I mentioned are in the clear either. To forget about the Christian Crusades against the Muslims as well as hate groups claiming to be tagged along the Christian faith like the KKK is ignorant at best. The KKK is ideologically on par with ISIL in the sense that they both want their own version of humanity under a unified people: One wants Allah to be the binding point whereas one wants a single race to be its binding point. Christianity, like many religions is contradictory as well. Not only is the idea of an all powerful being subject to an easy debunking, but the “love thy neighbor” yet against gays standard in the bible is quite confusing. The one thing we see that is readily evident is this: Christianity, along with other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism don’t directly say in their holy books to harm others. Extremists of these religions have to actually take the book out of context to harm and hurt others.
Buddhism and Hinduism, the religions that never hit the mainstream news. Hateful groups have even infiltrated these faiths and managed to subscribe a hateful bias towards the faith itself. India is subject to attacks by groups of the Hindu faith on a now regular basis. Attacks on Christians have surmounted to over 300 per year in India and continue to rise, whereas Buddhist monks are now attacking Muslims to “prevent islamic expansion.” As well as to preserve their faith.
While religion has many followers that are peaceful and lax in comparison to the extremist counterparts, it is still a unifying base for many people, much like a favorite sports team is people within a community. The unifying base provides a comfort to people, because it is there you can be with people who share your same viewpoint, and make you feel more connected within that certain community. When that community, or unifying base is attacked, followers team up and do what will help their status rise within that community, even if that means violence. This, is where religion is violent, and the reformation must firstly address. For some religions it may take more than others. Islam is a great example of a religion needing of a top-to-bottom reformation, compared to Buddhism who needs a mini-reformation in order to keep their religion alive while not trying to harm Muslims.
When the average person thinks of religion, they tend to think one of 4 different speculations: That a big man in the sky is more of a child's fable than realism, that the big deity is the only obvious solution to everything in the world, or that they partially believe in the idea but don’t commit to either side, essentially being in a large grey area. Regardless of the belief about religion, the extremism it causes affects virtually everyone, and every religion needs a reformation to stop the killing and hate between innocent people, because if we could all live by one core tenet shared by these religions, its that human life is invaluable.
For more information on Islam and other religions:
PragerU: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AkAGc5nOXw&t=168s
Pew Reserch Center: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/09/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/













