i keep watching these videos of people debating bill maher about his view that "islam is the problem". they all get to the same point: you're taking a small group of extremists and conflating that to represent all of islam. i used to agree with that retort. fuck you bill, islam is no worse than christianity and it's US foreign policy that is causing them to hate us and goddammit they've got just cause to hate us and blah blah fuckin' blah. now, i'm not saying that last part isn't true. in fact it is 100% true. but let's look at that defense of bill's seemingly ridiculous opinion.
what if there were no religion, but there were a drug. a drug that gave you inner peace and a sense of self and spirituality. and 1 billion people took this drug daily and based their whole way of life around it. and entire countries based their government on what this drug does for them, its rituals and rules. but, once ever so often, a few hundred of these drug users (or perhaps a drug user who happens to be the ruler of a country) go batshit insane and kill people for not adhering to the way they experience the drug. thousands of people. well then another country (perhaps, the good ol' US of fuckin' A) would put a stop to that shit quickly and violently. and they wouldn't just hunt down and kill those responsible, or topple their regimes (though they certainly would do that), they would outlaw the goddamn drug! "caution: regular use of this drug might make you go batshit insane and hack the head off a fellow human being. ask your doctor if islamijuana is right for you." nope. illegal worldwide and a vicious long-term "war" would be fought to crush the drug's use. (nevermind that you in the us of a have your own drug that works similarly for you. however, it usually only makes you bigoted, ethnocentric and highly gullible.)
i'm not saying we stamp out islam. (or christianity). i'm saying we acknowledge that islam IS the problem. religion, generally, is the problem. but right now, in the 21st century, islam is the most dangerous strain of that drug called religion. like cocaine in the 80's, black tar heroin in the 90s, crystal meth today. islam is the one fucking up the most shit. and that's gotta stop if we're ever going to move on (perhaps evolve a little?) and focus on more important endeavors as a species.
