The Fight over Religion

Hello, I hope all is going well to those who are reading my blog.

Recently, I have been reading a book called American Dervish and it is about this boy who struggles with his study of his religion, which is Islam.  I have been thinking a lot about religion due to the very nature of this book.  I am a protestant and I tend to be open-minded about studying other religions to understand their beliefs.  

This book has caused me to question a lot of what is going on this world right now with religion and religion in the past.  Right now there is fighting going on between the Sunnis and the Shiites, which is the equivalent to the fighting that occurred between Catholics and Protestants.  It took a long time for Catholics and Protestants to accept that there is no use in fighting over religion because it is difficult to change the way one wants to practice religion for God.  

I sincerely hope that one day the Sunnis and Shiites can live together in peace with one another by accepting that they are going to follow different practices when worshiping Allah.  I think the beginning steps would be for those who are moderate when it comes to religion to stop letting extremists destroy people and their living areas.  They need to take the power from the extremists who are causing all of this destruction.  These extremists are terrible for the people living their locally and internationally because they are destroying peoples lives.  

There will always be conflict when it comes to religion.  There are Protestants and Catholics who fight each other sometimes over religion.  We are never going to get rid of the conflict over religion, but we can reduce the destruction and problems that these extremists are causing by helping moderate believers from both sides gain power.  

We as a world need to learn that the world cannot be all one religion or one set of beliefs when it comes to politics.  We have to learn how to coexist with one another regardless of the conflicting beliefs.  We need to derail extremists, which will lower the destruction that they are causing in this world.  

Feeling Hopeless

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324439804578109492792634554.html?mod=WSJ_hps_LEFTTopStories

This article is about women's rights in Afghanistan and after reading this I feel so hopeless for the women there.  Karazi is working with the Taliban and the Taliban has been known for their radical way of viewing Islam.  The religious authority in Afghanistan have deemed it right for men to beat their wives if they are disobedient, this is not the way Islam works.  Never does the Prophet Mohammad say to beat them, he does say one single hit for disobedience. By the way, I am not supporting abuse, I am simply showing a brief point from the Qur'an.  The Taliban has a complete misconstruded version of the Qur'an just like some radical Christians do in regards to the Bible. 

I feel bad for these women in Afghanistan and the Taliban is going to take over again if it has not already done so.  They are leaders of radical Islam, in which, in today's world is never going to win out.  Unless, they keep a tight grip on the people like they do in Iran.  I feel like the war in Afghanistan will be pointless in some regards, we did overthrow the Taliban and we did do destruction to Al-Qaeda, but the people seem to be only a little bit more free than 11 years ago.  What is going to happen to them in the future?  I guess we will find out.

Nigeria

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16330093

Like I said I was going to do I am going to talk about Nigeria. I know that it has been about a month since the Christian church bombings. However, I have something to say.

The Christians got attacked on Christmas day and a number of people did die during those blasts. Then the Christians retaliated by bombing an Islamic school.

I think that both sides are wrong for trying to hurt one another over their religious beliefs. No one should attack a church or a school, it is wrong for both sides. They should not try to harm one another. Definitely Christians should not do it because God would never want us to hurt one another like that. I know that every religion and one point in time has killed many people in the name of God. For instance, The Crusades.

I know the world is not perfect, but Jesus would never have wanted us to try to kill one another.

By the way, I acknowledge that there is not going to be complete peace on this earth and there is always going to someone killing another, I know that. However, you can try to better the world, but perfection will not be achieved.