If your religion had a lot of extremists carrying out terrorist attacks what would you do?

My public indignation bringing the very real risk of immediate decapitation, I would likely just pull the plug and move to Montpelier, Vermont. Yesterday a guy was arrested in our area who is accused of killing someone in a bar fight there last January. The paper said it was the first slaying in Montpelier in almost 100 YEARS.

Granted, the population there is only about 8,000 (smaller than Petticoat Junction, I’ll bet), but maybe I’d study what those people do (and DON’T do), then start my own religion with those traits as its foundation.

Just sayin’....

They may say they are doing things in the name of religion, but it’s not godly to kill innocent people especially children and God would never ask anyone to commit suicide to kill others in his name.
If terrorists came out saying they were Baptist and killing people in the name of God, I know they are delusional fanatics and are not representing my religion so I would not turn my back on my church.

All religions have their own set up fundamentalist kooks.

Take mine – Judaism. I’m progressive / left wing / liberal. Compare me to the nutty wacko Hasidim who wear the streimels and dress in 17th century clothing, and who enforce beliefs every bit as backwards and reprehensible as the Taliban in Afghanistan. We may both be Jewish, but their interpretation and practice is 180 degrees different from mine.

Then there are the remnants of the old Jewish Defense League (Meir Kahane’s people) who used to take offensive action and set off bombs in NYC. Again, Jewish people who did things I opposed vehemently.

Religion sees to give people the impression that they have license to do damn near anything.

If I knew about their activities I’d turn them in.

I would condemn them vocally, but I would not leave the religion. Yet even if I condemned them, there’s a chance no one would hear, and if they did, they wouldn’t care if it didn’t fit their agenda. A common complaint any time a terrorist attack committed by a Muslim occurs is that “Muslims aren’t speaking against this” or “where are all the moderate Muslims?” The fact is that many Muslims do speak against it, but it’s not exactly newsworthy and it doesn’t help anti-Islam agendas.

It is difficult for me to imagine believing in religion. One of the great things about science is that it contains within its framework a way of contesting scientific statements. If you can describe an experiment that demonstrates just one set of circumstances that contradicts a supposed scientific truth then the theory in its current form is no longer acceptable. The transition from Newtonian physics to relativity and quantum mechanics was completely bloodless.

Regarding Catholicism, I can see a good case for leaving the religion. The problem is not with a few errant priests, but with the bishops, cardinals and popes who knew about what was going on and simply moved the priests to new parishes. The problem is systemic.

I would consider doing what some decent Muslims are doing, which is giving them up to intelligence agencies.

The whole reason that Western governments are shy about talking badly about Islamic murderers is that nearly every Mosque in the US and Europe and even in parts of the ME, particularly Saudi Arabia has somebody inside them listening and reporting.

They do this on the condition that people not speak badly of the Faith or the Prophet. But they do it none the less, and as mentioned, occasionally at the risk of death suitable for an infidel.

I could as easily ask, “if your political party had a lot of extremists carrying out terrorist attacks what would you do?”

@snowberry But people don’t have as much devotion to political parties as they do to religions. If my political party were breeding extremists, I’d have no issues leaving them (if I thought that would help). But leaving a religion is different. They can’t be as casually dropped as a party can. Political parties aren’t something you’re emotionally and spiritually attached to (at least I hope not). You could advocate a political party’s dissolution if it were breeding extremism. Not quite the same when a religion seems to be doing it.

As a Baptist, I’ve been asking myself that question.

If I identified with a religion which one or two radical sects had decided to use terrorism to prosecute chauvinistic goals, I would definitely become vocal about the mainstream interpretation of my religion’s peaceful ideology. I would organize and ask others to do the same in order to combat the exposure the minorty who use terrorism to get their minority views across.

Obviously, in this case, I’m talking about Islam. People need to know that there are 72 official, recognized, separate sects of Islam of varying stripes—which means there are at least 72 different interpretations of Koran. A minority of politically motivated Muslims have hijacked this religion in the press and have given non-Muslims, most of whom have no idea of Islam and have never seen a Koran, the idea that it is a violent religion that promotes pedophilia by doctrine. This is untrue, and I would be there, as a Muslim, to counter and correct every press report that even hints that this is the Islam followed by the majority.

This is being done, but not done enough. The world press is huge and this requires a huge world-wide campaign by the devout majority of moderate muslims to keep pounding on this and change the perception of the societies who feel victimized by the terrorist factions.

@filmfann Can you elaborate?

@DominicY I too know Muslims who speak out against these criminal extremists, and I’ve seen Muslim clergy do it too. Unfortunately, the news barely covers it.

Having said that, I don’t think it’s necessarily the job of good, every day Muslims, to speak out, only because they simply are good, and these other people are criminals, and the religion is just a tool the criminals use. I think many people do feel compelled to say that those criminals don’t represent the faith.

I think of my Mormon friends, they don’t constantly say “my sect or group are not polygamists, and certainly not pedophiles” every time we hear about child brides in some extreme Mormon group in TX or UT.

@LostInParadise I just think of Catholics as having a strong Catholic identity, even if they aren’t very religious, so that seems difficult to give up. Those Catholics already don’t really buy into the religion in its strictest form. Plus, if some bad men at the top did some really wrong things, it doesn’t necessarily mean a religion that is over 2,000 years old is to just be discarded, maybe it just needs some of the people who have weaseled their way in thrown out. What I mean is, if Catholicism was ok with that Catholic person, adult, before the scandal, I can’t see a scandal like that changing their belief system. It doesn’t make sense to me. But, I don’t think it has to make sense to me, it’s obviously a personal choice.

I’ll add that, part of the reason I don’t get it, is because the Priest scandal was not a surprise to me at all. I’m always wary of men in power who are around children. I think very few are actually bad people, but I’ve always known to be wary of coaches, teachers, clergy, neighbors, etc. none of those bad men have necessarily anything to do with schools, sports, or religion overall. IMO.

Depends on who the targets are.

I would reevaluate my beliefs and my religion.

All my life people have told me how wonderful their religion is. I’ve looked into many religions and they are all riddled with problems. I have many questions that are not answered well. God gave us a brain so we can think and reason not to blindly follow religions that do not make sense. That’s why I follow no religion.

Being agnostic i’d wonder about the efficiency of their methods, I mean, death by fence up arse…really?

@DominicY Hitler was as extreme as they get, and he was a master of terror.

Edit

His followers were also fanatical in the extreme. As extreme as any Muslim fanatic is today.

@snowberry
He made Germany Great Again.

lol

@snowberry Sure, fanaticism isn’t limited to religion, but I’m not sure why you flipped the question to political parties. This question isn’t an attack on religion. It’s asking what you would do if people in your own religion (or let’s say, extremely dedicated political party) were carrying out violent acts that you didn’t agree with.

^^Thanks for saying that, this question absolutely is not meant to be an attack on religion.

Here’s the thing, these pissants infiltrate any group. I am certain that lots of so called Trump opposition was not Hillary supporters, but rather radicals who were interested only in causing mayhem, to encourage that behavior in American citizens.
They get people riled online, at campuses, at political rallies, wherever they think they can get people started. Their goal is to get us to kill of each other.

@JLeslie, in regards to your Catholic friends, do they realize the Catholic priests have been behind all sorts of underhanded dealings for centuries? Many a ruler has been influenced by “divine” advice whispered from greedy or vengeful lips.

It really depends on the circumstances. I am sure the British forces condemned the actions of the Irgun, but they were terrorists that fought to oust the British.

One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.

(I am in no way condoning the terror attack in Manchester. I am just answering the question.)

“None of you belonged on Bajor. It wasn’t your world. For fifty years you raped our planet, and you killed our people. You lived on our land and you took the food out of our mouths, and I don’t care whether you held a phaser in your hand or you ironed shirts for a living. You were all guilty and you were all legitimate targets!”

@Patty_Melt I can’t speak for my friends, but I’d say probably yes. Even my very religious Catholic MIL, who tends to be naive, and is not very educated (6th or 8th grade, I don’t remember which) said to me about ten years ago that now she sees being a Priest is a “job.”

If you ask my opinion I don’t think it matters what bad priests have done, the Catholic religion is what the individual Catholic makes it. If they find peace and order in it, and it helps them be good people, I’m fine with it. My Catholic friends find comfort in the rituals, enjoy the traditions, and most of them still practice birth control, they are accepting of other religions, they are inclusive, not exclusive, some are pro-choice politically, the vast majority were pro gay marriage, they have the religion for them, and understand not everyone is Catholic. The church is strong on science, accepts, evolution as a scientific theory, understand the importance of separation of church and state.

None of that excuses some of the absolute horribleness that has occurred within the church, but I think it’s also naive to think it doesn’t happen in other places of worship.

Maybe because I’m Jewish it’s easy for me to separate religious belief from religious identity. A large percentage of Jews are secular. In America we even divide up reform, conservative, orthodox, and then there are further divisions from there. Christians don’t really have that in any formal way that people can openly admit they are atheists or don’t agree with parts of the Bible or whatever. Disagreement is kept quiet for the most part, except in Catholicism I see it, if we separate the Catholics out from other Christians. Some feel ok admitting when they disagree with the Pope, or old school traditional rules, although sometimes they are almost ridiculed as cafeteria Catholics. But, often it is noncatholucs ridiculing. Like when a non-religuous Jew takes a day off for Yom Kippur.

I do know Baptists who aren’t supposed to dance or drink who do, and I know Mormons who cheat and have a Coke now and then or a drink. I don’t mean to say only the Catholics seem to have the ability to “cheat” and still feel and identify as Catholics.

My whole point is, if a person identifies with Catholicism, their religion, as having given them good things in their life, I don’t see why they would leave so fast, because the bad stuff is easily dismissed as not what the religion is supposed to be or meant to be.

@JLeslie, I agree that religon is good for a lot of people. It provides them with a center, a sense of direction.
I was just wondering about your friends who chose to leave. They apparently had a cut off point. It made me curious.
I used to work as a cake decorator in a Kosher bakery.
I don’t know if you are familiar with Reisterstown, Maryland, but it is sort of known as Baltimore’s little Jerusalem. Baltimore is funny. There are all sorts of ethnic neighborhoods which are the various towns which make up Baltimore. There is a town which is nearly all Dutch, another Polish, and so on. We had everything you described, the Orthodox, reform, and conservative.
There were the guys who had the curly sideburns who would not look at me because I wore t shirts and shorts to work. (It is darn hot back by that oven).
There were those who thought it was darling that I was learning to write Hebrew, so I could do cake inscriptions as suited their needs.
Some of the patrons loved my talent, and that I tried very hard to make what they envisioned.
I gained respect when I made my first Torah cake. It was for a grade school teacher, second or third, I forget. He wanted to celebrate his class having read the books of Moses. He drew out for me how to write the Hebrew portion, and the part in English, and which should be in red. It was that cake which made me realize I should learn to write the Hebrew characters.
The cake turned out wonderful. I used a ¼ sheet cake, with a jelly roll at each end, iced all together to make it one piece.
When he came to pick it up, they called me out front. When I appeared, all the customets gave me an ovation, t shirt and all.
The acceptance was spectacular for me. I asked Rabbi where could I get a basic learning book to write in Hebrew. He sent me to a school supply, where I was recommended a kindergarten reader. Lol. I learned about Aleph bais (sp?) And how each letter was created as god made various parts of the universe. That was when I realized Hebrew was more to Jews than just communication. It was considered a personal gift created by god for them.
I never understood the Hebrew words spoken to me, but I could write them.
I became “that darling gentile girl at Moshe’s”.

@Patty_Melt Nice story. :). Thank you for telling me it. The jelly roll sounds genius to make the Torah cake.

If a Jewish group started targeting Palestinians, and killing them, and blowing up government buildings because the government protected Muslims equally, would you expect the Jews you knew from the bakery to consider leaving the Jewish faith? What would they be instead? Completely secular? Convert to Christianity? What? I just can’t imagine it.

Being Jewish is so much a part of what they are. Especially, the very observant Jews, most love the religion. There is a reason for everything, they see God in everything, they work to please God, they are an integral part of their communities, bound by something they see as very special. Even if they completely condemned what this one crazy Jewish group was doing, do you think they would see it as their religion was now completely corrupt?

During my time there I did learn a few things about how Jews tend to view “the community”.
A woman who worked there was still single. They made a pact with a man in New York to marry her. This was not done through her parents and him, but through her Synagogue and his.
There were Jews who escaped the Nazis by pretending they were not, and leaving Germany. After, they still played not Jewish. I forget what that is called, but those I know had a very strong feeling about such people. Everything is very tight as a community, but…
I was told the Rabbi who run our bakery was on his third strike. He had failed two businesses which had been set up for him, and if he did not make a go of the bakery, tbey would turn their backs to him.
As I see it, the community works very hard to stay connected, function, follow the rules. If someone proves to be a failure, as with a woman too long unmarried, or a man who cannot manage any business well enough to provide, then they are turned out.
Based on that, I think it would not take long for the community to distance itself, as a single organism, from this faction which fails to uphold the basic beliefs and pursuits of the community.
Am I far off the mark, in how I interpret things from my outsider’s view?

@Patty_Melt Oh, yes it’s true, those Jews will turn their backs on their own children if the child leaves the community or marries a shiksa. Think the movie The Jazz Singer. This is different than leaving Judaism altogether. The people who are shunned, ostracized, or declared “dead” I think usually wish there was a compromise. They don’t necessarily leave the religion, the religious practice forces them out. I think a lot of those Jews go to modern orthodoxy, or become conservative or reformed Jews, some to strip themselves completely of their Jewish identity.

My FIL was raised Jewish. The family was religious, his first language was Hebrew. He didn’t like being Jewish, he didn’t like being a minority and being treated badly by others at times. He became enamoured with a Catholic girl at a very young age, and started going to Catholic mass. He eventually married her in the Catholic Church, and raised all of their children Catholic. My husband is one of those children. I think my FIL still thinks of himself as Jewish in a way. He “left” the religion as a teenager frustrated by circumstance. I also think he feels Catholicism and Judaism are basically the same, he doesn’t get caught up in the detail, not even the detail of Jesus. I guess that makes him more Jewish than anything, but he still goes to Catholic mass almost every week. He has a very strong faith in God.

Christians have a long history of condemning those who preach one thing and do another and that go against Jesus teaching.
Violence, hatred, and persecution are against core Christian values.
All which is constantly being crossed.
As with any faith. You have those who practice what they preach, and those who will use the faith as a weapon to control others.
If people actually practiced their faith (Which love is often the core) the world would be a kinder place.

^^ Well put! Thank you! I have no patience with manipulative, controlling, and or violent people. (Drama queens seem to be experts at these traits.)

It’s odd, but everyone hates drama, unless of course it’s their own! In that case, it’s totally justified, and they don’t recognize it as such. Drama queens are always dangerous to the continuity of any community, religious or otherwise.

@Pandora Interesting. That’s not how I picture it. It always seemed to me that Christians are forgiving for Christians. That whole everyone sins thing. If you’re not a Christian then there is nothing you can do, you could be the best person in the world, but it doesn’t count.

I don’t feel this from all Christians, but it’s always kind of there in a general way when conversation comes up about Christianity as a religion. When talking about the details.

Unfortunately, there are MANY ‘practicing Christians’ walking around who, no matter what, always abide by the old ‘WWJD ?’ thing:

(‘What would jerks do ?’)

^^ LOL, yep, you got that right! They have no clue, and they make the rest of us look terrible by association.

Here is what I have observed about Christians.
I was born on Sunday. The following Sunday I was in Church. I was brought every Sunday. Every year I was awarded a one year pin for attendance. My mom told me that unlike some other babies, I never fussed. She could watch my eyes and see I was listening to every last thing.
I was started Methodist. I was around ten, and requested we check out other l Churches.
We did.
Boy, them Lutherans scared me! Nazarenes teach their boys how to tie their shoes and their tie at the same age.
Finally we settled into a Baptist Church where I took part in starting a teen Christian pop group. Sometimes we visited other Churches, and played for donations at their special occasions.
Since then we moved, I joined the Navy, got out, traveled and moved around. I’ve had opportunity to view lotsa people, neighborhoods, Churches around the continental US. Just sayin’, this doesn’t come from what I see on tv or dream up.
Jews have a hard fast set of rules. There may be some subtle differences in how observant they are about their religon, but it is beyond that. It is about origin, family origin, origin of law, origin of all things, and that stays with them wherever they go, whatever they choose.
Christians use god as a father, a judge, a scapegoat, and occasionally a teacher.
Christians make god, Jesus, and heaven what suits them as an individual.
Stoners laugh raspy and say Jesus smokes dope and here’s a burnt offering for you.
Psychopaths think god is their puppeteer and makes them do things he wants done, like kill people, and rant about the evils of people “he” disapproves of.
Some think he is a magic hand that will reach down and pluck them from disaster.
Some think god is a psychiatrist, and will listen to their troubles and help them sort out their confusion and fears.
Inherantly good people are good. Inherantly bad people are bad. God does not save anyone, forgive anyone, punish anyone.
People who convert are already inside who they are, and had been maybe living in an environment contrary to that.
Churches are gathering places for like minded and like hearted people to find each other. When those people are good spirited people, like @snowberry, I am all for that. Prayer is a good thing. It brings people together, and like lurve parties can bring people into a circle of warmth and acceptance.
I don’t believe in any god, but I’m fine with knowing that people do. God in the hands of good people is a good thing. God in the hands of freaks is just some excuse to wreak havoc.
So, there’s what I see with Christians, down through the ages, from what I’ve observed. I could go deeper, but that’s the gist of it.