A forum post, and my e-mail response...
"There is no denying that due to all the bad press and terrorist attacks from extremist groups that many people have become more aggressive in their views to certain religions and races.
I personally believe that religion is a stupid thing and has caused more problems than god, more people have died due to religion based wars than anything else in history.
But while i [really] hate terrorists with a passion and hope that they all die in appalling ways everyone does have to remember that its a tiny minority of people who are doing this and the rest of the people who follow the same faith should not be blame. How would any christians or catholics feel if they had a social war against them because a few [nasty men] decided to blow people up. This includes Shieks (i think thats how its spelt) who are being persicuted even though there faith has no extremists that have acted in a violent manner.
Any ideas on this."
My response reads as follows:
just wanted to say in actual fact, land has caused more wars in history then religion... but I appreciate the comment that "religion" has caused a lot of problems... I also appreciate that you state it's not "god" that causes the problems, and I agree... it's not God, per se, that has caused the wars, it's men wanting to do what they "feel" is right, and justifying what they do...
The problem may well be, that in this day and age of post modernism, everyone is entitled to their own opinion etc, that we technically have no moral standing on which to actually stand to tell people that they're doing wrong... What's offensive to one person may well be perfectly acceptable to others. We do indeed need tolerance of different people's beliefs, however where does the line get drawn to say where someone's beliefs contradict someone else's, who has the final say in what is allowed...?
This is technically the social war that goes against the Christian faith... Christians believe in one God, one way to God, Jesus Christ, and no other... yet what society is doing is saying, "that's nice for you, just don't tell anyone else they're wrong..." The problem for Christians is simply that they've remained silent for sooo long that now if they stand up for something people start to say, "well why didn't you say anything about this other thing...?" you saw what happened with the Jerry Springer Opera where they called Jesus "a little bit gay"! Christians stood up and expressed offense, and what happened? They got told to be more tolerant and to lighten up...
To sum up... I agree, Terrorists suck...but I think that to say that I think it's slightly naive to say that Christians don't get any flack... they just often don't do anything about it...
that's all...
sorry it's been so long since I posted anything... been kinda busy...
JF