This letter is in response to a column written by Ben Crawford and published on Jan. 27 entitled "Absolute certainty essential ingredient for horror."
In response to yours and Mr. Johnson’s discussion, I would like to interject with my own opinions. I happen to agree with you concerning the idea that most religions do, in fact, claim certain truths, particularly when it comes to a god or gods. After all, the idea of a religion is that you are able to come together with others who share similar beliefs in such a god or gods.
However, I think that is where our similarities end.
The existence of a deity is something that many religions have in common, as is a religion’s ability to be used as a tool for understanding the world around and beyond us. However, just because religion is used as a tool in those ways does not mean that religion is as easily created as other tools, like a hammer or nail. The ideas inherent in any world religion were not just thought up overnight. Most religions have taken thousands of years to evolve to what they are today and most are still evolving. To say that they were man-made is one thing; to say that they were easily made is another entirely and is one example of how exercises in tact may help your career as a journalist.
For those who follow a particular religion, it is almost certain that the morals instilled in them by their religion were highly influential in the decisions they made concerning politics, science or any number of other fields that don’t necessarily have anything to do with religion. Religion would not have been unnecessary at all. It would have been the guiding force in their lives. Any philosopher would be able to tell you that.
Moving on, I find it appalling that you would compare Christmas, a holiday which has its roots in religion, despite the fact that many people practice it secularly, to female genital mutilation, a practice which is not religious in nature. FGM, while disgusting and reprehensible, is done for a variety of reasons, depending on the culture practicing it, namely as a method to control the libido.
Christmas is, in fact, a religious holiday. It celebrates the birth of the man that Christians believe opened the gates of Heaven for the world. Yes, the practices come from places all over the world. Yes, the actual date of this man’s birth was months away from the date it is celebrated. But Christmas is a holiday that brings people all over the world together in celebration as a part of their religion.
Female genital mutilation is commonly and mistakenly thought to be part of some religious cultures by both some practitioners and by those ignorant to facts. There is, otherwise, no connection to religion. The fact that you thought to make that comparison is a very good indication that you know absolutely nothing of the difference between needlessly offending a large group of people and using just the tiniest bit of thought by naming a practice that is actually comparable, rather than one that is going to make the most people look at what you’ve written simply because of how inflammatory it is.
Which brings me to the subject of retaliation. If a group feels wounded, odds are they will indeed retaliate. That does not mean that they’re going to go on a killing spree. Retaliation describes some sort of revenge; it doesn’t necessarily mean that because I am angry about the blatant disregard you seem to have both for the people reading your article and for the amount of thought or research you put into your articles I am going to physically harm you in any way the next time I see you. In this case, my retaliation is in the form of this letter. To say that everyone who retaliates is going to kill someone is just ridiculous.
One last point I’d like to make concerns what you say about the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Those specific attacks very clearly had to do with religion. In that regard, you are correct, in my opinion. However, I think the point Mr. Johnson was trying to make was that a different attack of similar force could just have easily been carried out for any number of reasons.
Take the San Antonio movie shooting, the Isla Vista killings, or your pick of the thousands of attacks that have occurred for nonreligious reasons. It is impossible to say that if the men in the above mentioned shootings had preferred bombs to guns, whether their actions would have been more devastating than they were. Those shootings had nothing whatsoever to do with religion of any kind, and could very easily happen again and again and again. Why? Because people are inherently violent, Mr. Crawford, not religions.
Perhaps instead of writing a response to this letter detailing how vicious certain people who adhere to certain religions are, you should use the time to do a little bit of research and take a look at some of the texts used by modern religions. Take a look at how much violence is taught in those texts, and then compare it to the nonviolent messages within the text.