Ignorance & etc.

In all of my experience as a Religious Studies Major, I've never had to explain the concept of why religion is a good thing to so many people at once.

Explaining "Why Islam isn't to blame for everything wrong in the world" to a bunch of conservatives (one of whom, I believe, said "Sarah Palin absolutely swept the floor with that Biden fella."), is not an easy task. However, I managed to convince at least one person in the room that Islam is NOT the reason for the world's wars, the oppression of women, or all the religious nutjobs in the world.

Also, terrorism.

The world's largest terrorist group is not the Taliban, but the Tamil Tigers, who existed in Sri Lanka from the 1970's to 2009. The Irish Republican Army is easily the most well known terrorist organization, not to mention the crazy ("Christian"--the scare quotes are there for a reason) fundamentalists who blow up abortion clinics and kill doctors in their own churches.

For a religion that is supposed to be stuck in the dark ages, Islam was very progressive. Women and men could celebrate weddings together, Muslims helped pioneer anatomy, astronomy, mathematics, and science in general. Hell, they were even okay with Christians and Jews doing their thing more than Christians were with other Christians. It wasn't until the 50's, when a weird group of people (led by men like Sayyid Qutb) took what 18th century thinker Mohammad Al Wahab said seriously. Even though this dude was taken as seriously as, say, Glenn Beck, the fringe of people who thought "hey, let's just take these 1400 years of progress down a peg, oh, and treat women like shit" somehow caught on, and that's how the new "backwards Middle East" was established.

I, as a Religious Studies major, didn't find this out until my junior year of high school. This is kind of worrying. If people don't know about what Islam gave the world, people will keep citing it as a plague upon humanity, like my conservative peers, and see nothing wrong with their own religion, which is probably just as problematic.

I agree, Sharia Law and the bizarre code of conduct that allows women to be stoned to death if they show their face are things that have to end. But, guys, don't go blaming what millions upon millions of people believe in, and practice in peace.

Seriously. It's not cool.