hmmmmm...yes a lot of the world's conflicts can be traced back to religious differences (the crusades, the inquisition, islamic terrorism/ISIS). To be honest, I think it is disingenuous when individuals following certain religions denounce these radicals as 'not a real muslim/christian/hindu etc when they are quoting scripture to justify their acts of barbarity. Religions should own these extremists, admit there is a problem, and seek to reform in order to stamp out these extreme interpretations. It also annoys me greatly when any valid and rational discussion/criticism of religion in the public discourse is dismissed with made up words like "islamophobia".
However, on the other side of the equation, militant atheism has done the world no favours either; the regimes of Mao in China and Stalin in the soviet union actively persecuted those who practiced a faith. Perhaps the message out of all this is be tolerant of all beliefs in a secular society, whilst also seeking to actively combat extremist beliefs with facts and reason.
See the thing is, it's not as black and white as that. Religions can't just 'weave out' the extremists - they don't represent the religions views so the people of the religion aren't the ones accountable for their actions. For instance, if a group of athiest people went around terrorising religious people in the name of athiesm - the world would be like "oh that's an independent rogue group,"
Furthermore, religious people have tried to tackle down the extremists. Isis is more likely to kill someone who is muslim (but not following their interpretation of Islam, [this is the point im trying to make, just because the umbrella term of "Islam" is used it doesn't mean that every interpretation is the same... and they vary quite significantly]) than a Christian. So what should people do? Should the Muslim community denounce them? Well that's already been done. Should the Muslim community take up arms against them? Well that's happening currently, and it does seem to be working to a limited extent but the ideology still exists.
What are they meant to do? Religions do admit it's a problem - they have endured first hand the pain inflicted by these terrorist groups so it's not up to us who are observing from afar to belittle their attempts.
And the thing that people must understand is the socio-economic status of these people. For instance, look at Iraq. The country was heavily destabilised - during the late 1990 and early 2000s,
unemployment was 50% 50 freaking percent! Half of the population did not have an income coming in! Now imagine how easily it would be to grab a homeless person on the street and brainwash them - not even, they could be fully aware of how barbaric these groups are but the promise of not starving and having a roof over their head would keep them going until their barbarism becomes a norm. And if this never occurs, the radical group could just pick out another person, and then another person and another person because there are just so many poverty stricken and starving people. - Now i'm not saying it's justified, of course it's not. But something like this would not be able to happen in Australia because our government treats the population very well.
Like let's look at Man Haron Monis (That's how you spell it right?) - The retard tried to join a bikie gang, and the gang beat him up and stole his motorbike. - He tried to change his sect of Islam but both major sects denied his beliefs because he was just so radical! - Why are religious leaders meant to be accountable for him?
tldr; religious leaders should not take responsibility for extremists who would kill them if they had the opportunity to.
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