Jesters do oft prove prophets...

Islam may be the "terror threat" that gets the most publicity, but please do not let that fool you. Every religious zealot is a major threat, and as far as I'm concerned a Christian with a thing for burning books, protesting entertainment, and blowing up abortion clinics - as well as running their propaganda in the Christian-friendly media - is just as dangerous as a Muslim car bomber. Probably more so, since I'm in more direct danger of getting my freedom impeded by a Christian fundamentalist than a Muslim extremist.

Take a minute and use some serious thought: when you add up all of the hate, and the anger, and the violence, and the destruction that's ever occurred throughout the history of civilization, ninety-nine percent of it was in the name of someone's God/Gods. And I guarantee you that Catholic and Protestant religions have caused just as much death, if not more, than the Islamic and Muslim faiths have. Do you recall that little series of things called "The Crusades"? What about the Inquisition? The Holocaust? Thought so.

Let us also not forget the famous quote I'm about to paraphrase: "To prepare for the future, we have to learn from the mistakes of the past." In other words, we need to eliminate the problems that previously plagued our forebears. The problem isn't just Islam, but organized religion in general. We're too advanced of a worldwide culture to rely upon outdated and outmoded concepts such as mythology-as-fact. That worked for the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews because they had to explain to themselves why things happened like they do. We don't need that now that we know most of the answers.

Don't get me wrong, we don't know the answer to all the questions by any stretch of the imagination, and we never will. But we know enough and are learning more every day, and that should be good enough for anyone. It's time to snuff it all out, folks, because it causes us way too many problems.

All I have to say is that you can't argue that Islam is the only war-waging religion. There are places in the Christian Bible that some people used to think called out for the elimination of non-Christians, and they used that as a means to justify the "cleansing" that they tried to accomplish. I'm sure some people still see it that way. But I think, if The Bible and any other religious documents were originally meant to advocate peace as everyone says they were, that that message was lost in translation a thousand years ago when everyone decided to start using them as a justification of their actions.

In other words, everyone just uses their particular books in any way they want so they can make it seem as though it is their duty to disrupt the lives of others. Hell, even I do it, except that my book is entitled The Anarchist's Cookbook... but that's a different rant altogether.

Back to the history lesson: Socrates once said, "Question everything". I can't think of a more timely lesson than that. People act like history isn't important anymore, because we're not exactly living in that past. No matter how Muslims are acting now, you can't just forget that every religion and every culture is guilty of the same sorts of crimes against humanity. Even us so-called "civilized people" over here in America (the Salem Witch Trials, slavery, or McCarthyism, anyone?). Just because none of that stuff is happening now doesn't make it any less important to remember the folly of such events that we allowed to occur, so we don't allow them to happen again.

I'm not using our pasts as a means to justify the present actions of others, but you cannot dismiss them as not being of consequence just because they aren't happening now. We see these people as a threat because we do not share their way of life. How do you think they see us? The same way. And that's the problem. We can sit here all day long and spew about how we're so right and they're so wrong, but they see it the other way around, and there's nothing we can do about that but eliminate the threat. I'll be the first to agree with that.

But I want you all to remember THAT'S why I'm preaching the importance of history: every great civilization has fallen at one point or another to someone who decided that civilization's way wasn't the highway. Now, whether or not that power is Islam remains to be seen, but the fact remains that every society's days are numbered from the moment of their inception, and whether it happens sooner or later is up to the leaders we choose and the choices they make. Judging by that, I'd say that we're all, quite frankly, fucked. Enjoy life while you still can.

P.S. - Look at me, actually quoting SHAKESPEARE in my title. Righteous.