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Religion An Excuse. THE Excuse. Draft 2

Religion, in the present day society, acts as the backbone of all ongoing conflicts.
This a line most commonly used by atheists to defend their stance on the reason for
modern day warfare. Most recently, the 9/11 attacks in the United States caused the
greatest uproar in islamophobia. People needed something or someone to put the
blame on. They needed a sense of closure and a sense of justice to what had been
done to their loved one. So they blamed Islam. They stated that the religion
advocated war and terror amongst people. They described that Islam was the real
antagonist in the entire show. We, as humans, have completely forged our opinion
on conflict based on what the media had drilled into our brains. We see what is on
the surface but not what is beneath. We hear but we never listen to the fact that
what we are being narrated is not the truth. This has to stop. We need to realize
that we cannot blindly blame a religion for all the ongoing conflict that has plagued
our nations. We need to use our intellects and realize that society has misused
religion as a means to validate such conflicts.

One study has shown that in a record of all wars recorded throughout human
history, a whopping 7% were religious in nature (Philip, 2004). The other 93% of
wars were extensively linked with the motivation of opposing a government or
opposing the political, economic and social structures of a state. Furthermore media
has also played a huge role in our understanding of current global conflicts. News
agencies such as CNN and FOX News have often been questioned on the credibility
of their news and their sources. The industry has manipulated the truth in order to
create an atmosphere of confusion and bewilderment amongst our society.
Regardless of such issues, people are still oblivious to the actual truth, that no
religion, let alone Islam, preach terror and violence.

The most prominent cause of the perspective that religion (especially Islam) is the
foundation of all current global conflicts is the event of 9/11. All the evidence
against the perpetrators of the incident was directed towards Al Qaeda a militant
Islamist organization which, at the time, was led by Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden
justified his actions by stating that they did not kill civilians as the towers were
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occupied by the supporters of the economic powers of the U.S. and such people are
abusing the world. According to Bin Laden these civilians were not innocent and
therefore his actions do not go against Islam, as Islam preaches against the murder
innocent lives, even in a holy war. Consequently, as people were not knowledgeable
of Islam, they blindly believed that the religion preached violence and terror and
therefore was the root of the problem. Here again religion was aggressively misused
(out of context) as a pretext in order to justify ones actions.

However one of the main questions we are dealing with here is Does religion
actually cause violence? A poll conducted by the website, debate.org,
quantitatively displayed that over 53% over people actually believe that religion
causes violence and terror. Many recounted the past events of the Holocaust, the
9/11 attacks and current killings of the Christians by the extremist group ISIS. But
what people fail to understand and comprehend is that the perpetrators of such
crimes take religious scripts out of context and pick and choose what they think
justifies their actions. For example, a verse in the Holy Quran states the following
Whoever kills a person [unjustly]it is as though he has killed all mankind. And
whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind. (Quran, 5:32). Such
a verse clearly states with no ambiguity that Islam teaches advocates peace,
unity and humanity among mankind. But people like Bin Laden and Hitler have bent
and twisted words from such texts to fit their argument. We as intellectual
individuals must realize this and alter our perspectives and misconceptions of
religions and their roles conflicts.

Our perception and our opinions on global conflicts have been widely molded by
what we chose to hear and what we chose to see. We have been practically brain
washed by ourselves. We need to open up our minds and stop falsely blaming a
religion for a conflict, when in reality, that religion played no significant role in the
crime. We use religion as an excuse in order to validate our actions and our
thoughts. We twist words from religious scriptures out of context and mold them
into something that others perceive as the truth. This is not only immoral but
absolutely repugnant. We, as a united community, should be utterly ashamed of
ourselves.
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Phillips, C. (2004). Encyclopedia of Wars (3-Volume Set). New York:

Infobase Pub.