Facebook Faith #15 - All Religions Are Not Equal (Presently)

In response to the Boston bombing, I have seen this meme drift through my newsfeed a number of times. I understand the overall point it is trying to make and I can sympathize. For peaceful Muslims, it is a terrible thing to be lumped in with all of this tragedy.

However, I don't care for the attempt to equalize it with Christianity... because honestly, it fails. I think the folks at Westboro church are loons, bigots, and awful human beings; but do we really believe they in any way compare to bombers? Westboro protests funerals, but they have yet to cause one.

One only needs to scan the papers and news stories of countries where Islam is the dominate religion - honor killings are justified, blasphemy laws are enforced, your death will be called for if you leave the faith - to realize there is a wide chasm between these religions presently.

I don't think this is any big credit to Christianity. Christian countries have only become more civilized as they have become more secularized. It would not take too much of a back turn of the clock to get those Christians protesting homosexuals to be burning them at the stake. Church Father John Calvin would have given no objection to my execution.

I also question the memes use of the word "most". Is that data driven, or just a personal impression? That has not been my impression at all. My impression is that "most" would never perpetrate violence, but there remains a sympathetic chord when violence is done to someone insulting Islam. It is that sympathy that provides the fertile soil in which the violence of the more extreme elements takes root. Perhaps I am wrong, but I would like to see some data.

If there is a comparing to be done amongst religions, it is this: The Islamic nations serve as a warning of what will happen to ANY nation that turns over its reins to religion.  Remember that the next time you pull the lever for the congressman wearing a cross on his lapel.