Too funny! Peace be upon Him!
Just like all religions, it is a religion of peace; until it isn’t.
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If any religion were manifestly a religion of peace, it wouldn’t ever need to say so.
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Any religion based upon a mythology that includes within its pages, exhortations to kill all who do not conform, fails to be a “religion of peace” by definition.
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When I was a kid during the events of 9/11, Islam showed me how violent and destructive religion can be. So no, I’ve never believed it was a “religion of peace”. That’s just absurd. If a religion’s followers have to declare it’s a peaceful religion, then it’s not.
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I don’t think there are religions of violence. I think there are people of violence who use religion as a cover for bloodlust.
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With the possible exception of the Jains, I don’t think any religion is a religion of peace.
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You’re correct. I just wish people would quit using it as an excuse to justify their wrongs.
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The question of whether a religion is, in and of itself, violent, or if it is more of a people problem, reminds me a lot of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. Yes it takes a shooter to pull the trigger, but the point of guns is that it makes murder easy and efficient, and encourages impulsive “solutions” to interpersonal problems.
I’d argue that most religions have a similar problem: they can arguably be great when used responsibly, just like guns (legitimate self-defense, sports like target shooting); but quite often aren’t used responsibly. In fact, statistically, a person not trained and practiced in firearm handling is more likely to bring tragedy to their home by keeping a gun “just in case”.
I have known people in places like this to argue that religion should be absolved of all its peccadilloes on the basis that the harms of religion represent a misuse of same. My counterargument is that most religions make extraordinary claims for themselves – to be both important and even necessary for a society to be moral and ethical, for example – yet are in my experience and observation very unwilling to be responsible for those who malpractice or misuse the belief system, or for those times when its own leadership completely fail to live up to their own standards (think, pedo-priests and televangelists). Finally, religion represents an inherent power imbalance in its relationship to its adherents: fundamentalist Christianity for example holds the threat of hell over its adherents, as well as a monopoly on influence with the deity including access to paradise, which inevitably leads to abuse of adherents, and sometimes, even non-adherents – look at the authoritarian state enthusiastically endorsed by authoritarian Christians in the US.
At the end of the day whether a religion is “peaceful” or not is in the eye of the beholder. To whatever extent religions promote peace, it tends to be “peace for me but not for thee”. Sure, there are individuals who rise above that, sometimes WAY above that. But for the most part it ends up being a license to be an asshole.
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