Believe it or not, I was raised a Christian, granted, I was not much of a Bible thumper or a churchgoer. However, looking back, it was more of me just following along with family tradition than my own personal enlightenment. I stopped identifying as a Christian at 15. A year later, I stopped identifying as a deist. None of it was due to some lack of faith, but rather, it never made sense to me to spend my life worshiping a deity out of dogma.
Part of that reason was due to me learning that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all worship the same god, with Christianity being originally an evolution and ultimately a rejection of Judaism and Islam being an evolution of both Christianity and Judaism as a rejection of both. For the past couple of millennia, Christians, Jews, and Muslims have persecuted each other, waged wars against another, and debated with each other in the name of galvanizing, polarizing tribalism with political and socioeconomic twists at every turn.
Despite my rejection of belief in really anything, I am not an atheist of the variety of Dawkins and Harris where religious adherents need to be saved with reason and logic. That's a quixotic and damning endeavor -- there's quite a few people out there that have made the resolution in their lives that they need to believe in something bigger, more perfect, and more incorruptible than themselves and score points with that figure. Sometimes the push is benevolent, other times, not so much. In other words, you'll probably rarely ever see me bash Christianity, Islam, or Judaism at least the religion itself; it is up to its adherents to interpret the belief systems to the best of their understanding.
Interpretations can be positive. Faith based charities. Faith based community initiatives. I mean hell, just the other day, I read about how churches were helping to address the growing problem of homelessness in suburban Dallas. Other times, especially when religious teachings and interpretation are synthesized with politics, it can be damning -- even to the point of being deadly.
I've been mulling this in recent days as I've watched Islamophobia rear its ugly head after the terrorist atrocities in Paris and the debate surrounding Syrian refugees. Over the past few days, I've seen and heard some of the most ridiculous shit -- a dozen protesters outside of a mosque in Irving; Fox Business commentators apparently comparing Syrian refugees to dogs; incessant fear mongering about refugees; and really disgusting rhetoric from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Obama is now catching hell about his irritated response at an international summit last week about the Islamophobic rhetoric being spewed out over refugees by the Republican Party. Then again, folks are looking for a certain fire from Obama...that's simply not in the former law professor turned politician.
As France, the United States, and Russia embark on an indiscriminate bombing campaign, many are clamoring for an aggressive response against ISIL in response to the terrorist attacks in Paris. The United States has been increasing activity against ISIL, including successfully killing "Jihadi John", which was regarded by analysts and the United States themselves as more of a moral victory rather than anything of real tactical significance. Mainly because ISIL, while a political extremist group, simultaneously functions as a sophisticated criminal organization.
I've resisted being Islamophobic as an atheist. Being an Islamophobe prevents anyone from being able to seriously understand what even leads to terrorism in the first place. Islamic terrorists claim they commit acts of atrocities because their religion permits it, but the reality is that terrorism is an irrational, criminal, and disgusting response to issues that are rooted in politics and socioeconomics -- more so than the religion itself. It's amazing to me that a handful of brutal and damaging acts by only a handful of a given population can seemingly become a microcosm of everything that's wrong about all of a religion's adherents and a personified metonym of the things we fear most.
Terrorism is a grave concern to me. National security is a grave concern to me. But the demonizing of an entire population due a narrow-minded understanding of global affairs is an bigger worry for me. It has become disgusting to me, even as an atheist, to see a wide swath of innocent, law-abiding human beings vilified as a sociopolitical punchline; as if it's their responsibility to answer for the violent and sick individuals that don't even speak for them.
Islamic terrorists and their sympathizers are motivated by political and socioeconomic conditions that have been spurred by years of foreign policy blunders by the West, domestic policy fuck-ups by their own home countries, socioeconomic disadvantages, and political upheavals. These issues have shaped the region not for the past decade, not for thousands of years, but just since World War I.
The way anyone understands the world at large and the reality of their surroundings is always going to be shaped by what they are willing to and able to understand. We'll gleefully scratch the surface of deep rooted issues and reach the most flawed conclusions possible because that what we're able to do. However, we will at times refuse to ask questions that may yield answers that render us uncomfortable and challenge our deepest convictions, no matter how foolish they are -- irrational Islamophobia included.
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