Islam and the supposed evils of theism

People in the West who strongly oppose and condemn Islam don’t do so merely for political reasons.  Some anti-theists and militant secularists use Islam as a particularly egregious example of the evils posed by religion in general.

Are they justified in doing so?  The evidence suggests that they are not.

Here are a few more passages that I’ve drawn from John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think (New York: Gallup Press, 2007):

In Indonesia, those who say that 9/11 was unjustified support this response by citing religious principles (“It is against God’s law,” “God hates murder,” or “It is against Islam”) as well as humanitarian ones (the loss of life was tragic, and so forth), while those who say that 9/11 was justified cite political grievances to support their response, not religious justifications.  (161)

Esposito and Mogahed base their book upon an enormous global Gallup poll, which they describe in considerable detail.  So their conclusions are founded on a remarkably solid, broad, and methodologically sound base.

In Gallup’s research, what researchers didn’t find became as important as what they did find.  For example:

• Gallup found no significant difference between women and men in support for religious law.
• There is no significant difference in the level of personal piety between the majority who condemn terrorism and the fringe minority who condone it.
• Those who condone terrorism admire Western freedom and liberty as much as the moderate majority.  ((182)

They . . . used sophisticated techniques to determine key drivers for such things as extremist views.  Was it poverty?  Illiteracy?  Hopelessness?  Religious fanaticism?  The answer was no on all counts.  (183)

[T]hey asked residents of predominantly Muslim countries about the moral justifiability of attacks on civilians, and they posed the same question to a representative sample of Americans.  What did they find?  Levels of support for this common definition of terrorism were no higher in Muslim lands than they were among the general American population, and with few exceptions, did not exceed percentages in the single digits.  (183)

Diagnosing terrorism as a symptom and Islam as the problem, though popular in some circles, is flawed and has serious risks with dangerous repercussions.  It confirms radical beliefs and fears, alienates the moderate Muslim majority, and reinforces a belief that the war against global terrorism is really a war against Islam.  Whether one is radical or moderate, this negative attitude is a widespread perception.  (164-165)