Before we are told what to think, we have to learn how to think for ourselves; otherwise how can we hope to interpret the true meaning behind words?
If we put an over 18 certificate on all religious books, I wonder what type of world our children would grow up in?
Perhaps a world still with religions, but with religions supported by the understanding of men, a world not lost in the anger and confusion of boys hoping to be accepted by them.
Worryingly though, the answer is our children would grow up in the same world – because a growing number of devout <insert your religion here> haven’t actually read the books they base who they’re on for themselves. Instead, feverish folk are going along with what jittery folk say, and in turn, churning out idiotness.
But, it’s okay though – because somebody at some point read it somewhere. Probably. At least, he said he did.
At what point do we stop blaming God, and stand up and say – man, shut the fuck up. You are an idiot.
God might reasonably think today “Religion hasn’t worked out. Wars and killings, division and hate; all caused by a few simple rules I thought might work out, if I put them in place.”
Rules no fucker is reading, or abiding by anyway.
God would banish religion to hell, for what it’s done to his children.
I know I would, if I was the Dad.
And then I think, hold on…
For me to blame religious folk for war, is no different than religions blaming religions for wars.
The responsibility is ours, as individuals.
The responsibility is mine.
To draw my own moral line in the sand, to define who I am not by a book, or by a father’s hand, or by friends, or by government.
I get to decide who I am.
No matter what happens to me, no matter how horrible, how much loss; I decide who I am.
So to judge religion on the worst sum of its parts, is wrong; unfair, unjust.
There are billions of peaceful people practicing all sorts of religions all over the world who are lovely.
Unlike this American twitter user; a misguided believer in his own enlightenment, who I fear represents a growing demographic. One of those idiots I mentioned earlier, who hasn’t actually read the Bible, and thinks he knows all about Islam because Fox News isolated a few out of context passages from the Qur’an to explain American foreign policy to the mentally under 5′s…
Fools aside, from young Muslims who haven’t read the Qur’an to angry Christians who think they know what’s inside a book they’ve never held in their hands – WE DO live in a world where most of us are lovely, beautiful people.
We get on with our lives; go to work, love our families.
We look out of the window of buses, travel on the same route, and watch our hands get old repeating the process.
Because we love our families.
Because we are beautiful.
Intelligent.
Wise.
Two men in Woolwich committed an act of horror, which has shocked every person in the UK with a heart.
Everyone who feels, everyone who loves; every father, woman and child.
The news shocked every Muslim, every Christian and Catholic.
The news shocked every person from every religion.
The news shocked every atheist, just the same.
The collective breath of disbelief reminded me not of our differences, but that beneath our safety blanket of what we choose to believe (or not believe) in; we are just people.
Splodges of fat covered in skin. Eyes sensitive to light.
The same.
The actions of two men, who represent the smallest minority of the most lost and manipulated minds to have ever existed, should not influence the logical, free thinking, healthy mind of the human being born free from such thinkings.
If the insane actions of the radicalised minority make you believe all Muslims are the same; then you were likely already a racist, and you were just looking for something to give foundations to hatred.
I want Muslims to know that the BNP/EDL – these white men, young, illiterate, drunk by midday – do not represent me.
They do not represent so many of the normal, beautiful, happy, folk in the UK today.
And I am not alone.
And I, in-turn, want Muslims to understand that I know these radical Muslims do not represent the majority of Muslims.
Because I am not an idiot – The UK is no.15 in the world IQ rankings*. So, the good news is – there are loads of us who are not stupid.
The media (the pretty fucking racist media) love to portray the city of London at war; but we are not at war, we are struggling towards peace.
There are millions of people all over the UK who think and feel just the same.
Both the BNP, EDL and “terrorists” are extremists – each wasting the process of evolution that has gone before, that has carried them into now.
They all believe that the actions of the few, represent the desire of the many; because it’s the only way they can excuse their violence.
The BNP/EDL blame all Muslims for the act of a few Muslims, as if a normal Muslim bloke sitting at home on his PC in Brixton has a single fucking clue what two extreme idiots are planning to do in Woolwich.
And the Muslim extremists blame the English people for the acts of our entire government. As if me, a bloke sitting at his PC at home, who is not in the army and voted against going to war – is to blame for the fact that we did.
That’s how dumb this is!
The Muslim extremists/BNP/EDL are the few – judging themselves, judging themselves back.
They are the same as their enemy; they are the enemy they think they have.
Fortunately the majority of people in this country are not the idiotic fighting few.
The many are good, we are kind, we love Muslims, we love all people who do the best they can.
No matter what God someone prays to, no matter what colour their skin.
No Muslim is to blame, for the act of crazy men.
I send love and respect to the Muslim community, for widely condemning the attack.
How the Muslim community has responded has built trust, not eroded it.
If before there was no direction, a general sense of not knowing what to do within the Muslim community – a sort of “these guys can’t be serious can they?”
Then now, today – every good Muslim knows – call the police; tell somebody.
Talk.
The Muslim community has come out in defiance against the attack.
The community has said they will work with the police; they have welcomed and participated in open conversations on live news channels.
Leaders of Mosques have confronted the hate with peace, they have confronted the accusations with explanations, the confusion with answers, and they seek to find the resolution as quickly as possible.
They are in shock too.
They can do no more!
When the two men who committed this horrific murder finally speak, their madness will be televised for all to see.
These horrific acts bring intelligent people, with hearts, closer together.
And as for the BNP and Muslim extremists – these groups only exist at polar opposites from everything that makes common sense; that is their point, to fight on the edges, for nothing other than to fight on the edge.
We cannot compare the madness around us, to us; we cannot make the madness on the edges of reason effect our reasoning.
Otherwise, we would have chaos.
The BNP/EDL and religious extremists want to break because they can’t have. They wish to make the outside, the inside. To turn order into chaos; where they would turn on themselves.
The good news is, the closer the reasoned majority in the epicentre of our societies get to each other, the closer we are to connecting the dots and reaching conclusions of understanding and logic.
And on this last point, I leave you with a tweet I noticed on twitter this morning from @PigeonCake…Which pretty much sums a lot of the ridiculousness up:
The madness of the fundamentalist does not define religion or the fundamentalist – their actions have no definition, however, they do ask questions that define me.
Who do I want to be? What do I want in my heart? How do I want to think, and feel?
Who do we want to be?
Do we let the actions of madness, fill our hearts with hatred? Do we pick up the baton these two men dropped, and continue running with it?
Fuck. No.
We get up.
We move closer together, the Muslim community and the wider population.
We work together.
We bury a soldier, a father and we mourn.
We learn the lessons; we put as many regulations as we can in place to ensure as best this does not happen again.
We make eye contact.
We shake hands.
We communicate.
We build peace.
We leave hate where it ended, on the end of a bloody knife in Woolwich.
*source of Global IQ rankings: http://www.getiq.net/charts.jsp
