How is that any different than asking what is it about Christianity that attracted people responsible for violence in the Spanish Inquisition, Irish Catholic and Protestant unrest or the Crusades? Or what is it about Christianity that attracts John Allen Burt (the Christian spiritual adviser) to anti-abortion convicted murderers Michael Griffin and Paul Hill?
Islam is the excuse for violence today, just like different interpretations of Christianity were supposedly responsible for millions of deaths in the past. People of violence flock to whatever justifies their desire to harm others. Blaming Islam or Christianity (words in a book) for the actions that people choose to make seems about as consistent as blaming guns for killing people. The downside is that focusing on guns instead of mental illness distracts us from understanding and preventing mass shootings. Similarly, focusing on Islam at the expense of other causative factors such as a history of drug use with known links to psychotic behaviour isn't helpful either (see Peter Hitchens comments regarding the link between a history of cannabis use and western jihadists - http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/10/peter-hitchens-dont-make-an-islamist-conspiracy-out-of-a-few-cannabis-crazed-losers.html).
Acknowledging that the religion is not to blame, does not stop us from accepting that police can and should most efficiently prevent possible terrorist attacks by focusing efforts on radical Islamists. We can also accept that people who have come from Islamic countries may be less likely to hold values such as separation of church and state, free speech and property rights and that immigration from these countries should be secondary to immigration from other countries that share those values. To acknowledge that people who believe in Islam today may be more likely to hold belief incompatible with western values is different from blaming the belief system itself. One is purely a factual statement (x is correlated with y, but that does not mean it is causative), while the other says that x is correlated with y and is causative of y. The latter seems wrong because it implicitly absolves individuals of their choices by blaming the belief system itself.
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How is that any different than asking what is it about Christianity that attracted people responsible for violence in the Spanish Inquisition, Irish Catholic and Protestant unrest or the Crusades? Or what is it about Christianity that attracts John Allen Burt (the Christian spiritual adviser) to anti-abortion convicted murderers Michael Griffin and Paul Hill?
Islam is the excuse for violence today, just like different interpretations of Christianity were supposedly responsible for millions of deaths in the past. People of violence flock to whatever justifies their desire to harm others. Blaming Islam or Christianity (words in a book) for the actions that people choose to make seems about as consistent as blaming guns for killing people. The downside is that focusing on guns instead of mental illness distracts us from understanding and preventing mass shootings. Similarly, focusing on Islam at the expense of other causative factors such as a history of drug use with known links to psychotic behaviour isn't helpful either (see Peter Hitchens comments regarding the link between a history of cannabis use and western jihadists - http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2014/10/peter-hitchens-dont-make-an-islamist-conspiracy-out-of-a-few-cannabis-crazed-losers.html).
Acknowledging that the religion is not to blame, does not stop us from accepting that police can and should most efficiently prevent possible terrorist attacks by focusing efforts on radical Islamists. We can also accept that people who have come from Islamic countries may be less likely to hold values such as separation of church and state, free speech and property rights and that immigration from these countries should be secondary to immigration from other countries that share those values. To acknowledge that people who believe in Islam today may be more likely to hold belief incompatible with western values is different from blaming the belief system itself. One is purely a factual statement (x is correlated with y, but that does not mean it is causative), while the other says that x is correlated with y and is causative of y. The latter seems wrong because it implicitly absolves individuals of their choices by blaming the belief system itself.
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