No

by Alex Kee

Created on: April 01, 2008   Last Updated: May 30, 2011

Religious intolerance is inherent in all religions, otherwise it won't be a distinct religion on its own.

Even the most ecumenical religion: Bahai, can be considered to bear traits of religious intolerance as it claims to accept all religious teachers and prophets of the past, present and even of the future, but when a particular religion like Islam takes exception to the Bahai's stand and claim that Muhammad is the last prophet, the ugly head of bigotry will be raised from both opposing sides.

That said, we do not need Geert Wilder, Salman Rusdie, Nikos Kazantzakis or even Dan Brown works of facts or fiction to promote religious intolerance.

Every religion promotes its level, flavor, expression and management of religious intolerance, somewhat like anything else in life, including economics and politics.

A subject and matter as subjective as religion is never science and I would ever doubt if I would treat it as an "art", it is just a matter of "beliefs" and best left to the intimate confines of the self.

Views on Islam held by liberal atheist secularist-leaning people like Geert Wilder sought not to promote religious intolerance but set us thinking how irrational we can be if our whole being had been intoxicated by the opiate of religion.

Look back into history and it will be pretty obvious how much blood has been shed, lives lost and resources squandered all in the name of fighting religious wars and to think that the giant share of the insanity comes from the very people who presumably acknowledge Abraham as their common patriarch!

Catholics killing Jews, Protestants killing Catholics, Muslims killing Jews and Christians and in turn get killed by both Christians and Jews etc through the history of these so-called "Abrahamic" religions who claim to worship the one and true God and seems to kill and exterminate others who believe otherwise so as to do their god a favor!

I am one who reserves my comments until I have witnessed, read or seen an event, book or movie respectively, because I do not believe in quoting something without having verified the facts myself.

Ask the many who are protesting about "Fitna the Movie", if they have watched for themselves, the movie that they are protesting against, chances are that they have not or had refused to, because their prejudice forbade them to do otherwise.

They have somewhat reasoned for themselves, albeit unreasonable and irrationally, that any movie branded by their leaders as "anti-Islam" can never be good to deserve watching.

In fact it is forbidden for them to watch such movies lest their "akidah" or faith be shaken.

The intolerance is not so much induced from the outside but eddied from the inside of a closed mind, caged in by religious indoctrination, dogmaticism and bigotry.

The best way to silent people like Geert Wilder on his claims that the Koran contains seditious material that threatens the peace, tranquility and security of the Dutch Constitution is not in calling for its ban but to refute his claims by counter arguments.

Surely we have enough scholars (both Muslims and non Muslims) in this whole wide world to refute Geert Wilder in his claims that the verses he extracted verbatim from the Koran, is what he claim to be.

If Geert Wilder had told us a lie in that these verses where not found in the most common version of the Koran or that he had twisted the interpretation to suit his "Islam bashing" agenda, expose him and he will be silenced, forever! Surely this is not a difficult thing to do, especially for religious scholars or is it?

By demanding that Geert Wilder's Fitna Movie be banned because it propagated hatred against Islam will not achieve its aim, in fact it will be counter productive as forbidden fruits always taste sweeter.

The best reply to people like Geert rather is for Muslims and non Muslims alike to act and behave rationally and rebut and rebuke him point by point.

More importantly, it is for the majority of peace loving Muslims to come out from their closets and show it to the world, the true face of Islam that had been hijacked by the minority that had gave their beautiful religion, an ugly image.

If the majority voice of the peace loving Muslims all over the world can this time unite and act rationally, intelligently without violence but with discourse, discussion and exchange of ideas, all forms of extremism can be defeated.

If however, again, the silent majority continue to act passive and let the minority hijack the situation with violence and irrationality as in the case of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, it will spell doom for whatever remnant of goodwill there may be in Islam.

And by the way, there is a gulf of a difference between Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses vs Geert Wilder's Fitna in that the former is a work of fiction and the latter, an allegation based on what presumably was extracted from the book that originated from Heaven, the Koran, claimed by the Muslims to have preexisted in Heaven before it was revealed to Prophet Mohammad.

No, neither Geert of anyone's views on Islam promote religious intolerance; it is inherent in anyone who adheres to an organized religion, even an atheist included, because it centered upon the consciousness of the self, not far different from the subjective preference or "taste" for a particular food, wine, entertainment, life style and world view.

Life is boring without diversity.

Viva la difference!

Learn more about this author, Alex Kee.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.