They're all irrelavent in the content of them, the only important parts are the actual lessons to take from most of the stories. They were written in a time when violence, slavery, sexism, and all sorts of sordid stuff was acceptable. Only an idiot could possibly read them and believe they are still relavent in today's world.
Idiots are not restricted to religions, all religions and non religious groups have idiots among them. No religion is perfect, ALL of them areligions flawed, and all of them are massively out dated.
It appears the OP is seeking to address the sad truth that in much of the media, all muslims are being attacked for the actions of the extremists, which does not seem to happen with other groups. Sadly, the OP's observation is correct. People from other groups perform despicable acts, whether in the name of religion or just as a recognizable member of a religion. However, the US media does not seek to use those extremists to paint the whole group as evil. For example, despite the multitude of priest child abuse cases, there is no attempt to define all christians as pedophiles. Not all christians are KKK members. Yet when it comes to muslims, the media has no second thoughts about labeling everyone associated with that religion as evil. It is very easy to label a different group as evil and foster blind hatred towards them. Especially if it feeds into a narrative created by particular political and social groups. This is most clearly demonstrated by the multitude of hate-mongers on these forums (ok, not just these forums - there are a lot of easily led fools outside as well). Oddly enough, this is also exactly what the terrorists want. Their best recruiting tools are : 1) to find poor, young men who have been marginalized and kept out of work by the stigma against muslims (perpetuated by the anti-muslim rhetoric), and offer them the chance to fight for their dignity; 2) to show true peaceful muslims that their entire religion is under attack and they better fight back violently; and 3) to show that since they will be considered and treated as terrorists anyway, there is no reason not to fight back against all the people who hate them. Every time the media and the sheep condemn all muslims for the acts of a tiny minority, they perpetuate and reinforce the extremist's world view that there is an "us against them" conflict. It is the belief in this position that spurs recruitment to their ranks, and justifies (to them) any violent acts ostensibly done in the name of self-preservation of their persecuted religion. This is not new to the world, or even the US. Until we can separate the actual evil from the blind bigotry against an entire group of people, and stop feeding into their narratives, we will never end, or even contain, the terrorists.
“The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?” ― George Orwell, 1984 Terrorism isn't about religion. It's about power. Terrorism, like war, is the continuation of politics by other means. Terrorism is a violent method of politics pursued by the weaker party in order to obtain power. Religion can be a motivating factor for groups to commit terrorist acts, but "the use (or misuse) of moral arguments does not in fact distinguish religious from nonreligious terrorists, for the latter also rely upon such arguments to justify their acts." (Terry Nardin) The object of terrorism is terrorism, and the goal is power. The term "Islamic terrorist" is widely used by the media and a popular theme is that this is a "religious war" but the fact is the vast majority of the victims of groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS are actually other Muslims. Muslim terrorists kill far more fellow Muslims than Christians. Fact. Yet the media never describes them as "Islamic victims". Only the terrorists are labeled "Islamic". Go figure. Virtually every single American Muslim organization has publicly disavowed both the ideology and the practices of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, but yet we constantly hear from the media every time there's an attack "When are Muslims going to condemn these terrorists?" Yet there's never a similar call from the media for Christians to denounce Christian terrorists when they bomb an abortion clinic. These people are rightly seen for what they are. Radicals who don't represent Christianity. Why then aren't Muslim terrorists rightly seen for what they are? Radicals who don't represent Islam. About 23% of the world's population is Muslim. Roughly 1.6 billion people. Around 62% of Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region. More Muslims live in India and Pakistan than in the entire Middle East-North Africa region. Muslims terrorists don't represent all these people or Islam. The terrorists are a tiny minority. Just because you shout God’s name while committing murder doesn’t make your actions representative of a religion. They're not Islamic terrorists. They're just plain terrorists, pure and simple.
Op it's because of the jihad(holy war). The Muslim religion calls for the extermination of any religion other than the Muslim one. However not all Muslims are like this is say maybe about 1-5% are affiliated with terrorist groups. People of Muslim religion are cool people and are extremely nice, just because you see it on the news doesn't mean it's true. It's journalism, they like stretch this out so far it's almost a lie with a truth to it. It's in other words propaganda, they want you to hate them so you join the military or support what ever radical thing we do in the east.
The Bible calls for the extermination of non believers too. "Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel." Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT "They entered into the covenant to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and soul; and whoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman." 2 Chronicles 15:12-13 "Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock." Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT I'm not sure what the livestock thing is about. Parts of the the Bible are pretty brutal. There are laws that command that people be killed for reasons such as working on the Sabbath, being gay, making fun of bald people, cursing your parents, or not being a virgin on your wedding night. It's a tad bit hypocritical when Fox News takes parts of the Quran and uses them to label Islam a violent religion, while completely ignoring all the violence in the Bible.
As stated before, extremely old books, out dated and completely irrelavent in a modern, (relatively) moral society. They are used for personal gain by talented preachers and people in positions of influence to brainwash young naive minds.
Maybe the Muslims ARE the bad guys and terrorists in the Middle East! Have you thought of that? Go Israel.
Black Dragon - do you see any Christians or Jews destroying whole villages and burning cattle on the news? (Israel does this in the west bank, and it gets coverage.. But elsewhere, no) The reason islam gets violence coverage is because a group of Muslims are slaughtering people left and right, and creating videos to show the world each time they kill someone.
As much as I might agree with certain opinions. It must be remembered that the cause of the terrorists actions is to cause that fear and hated. But most misconceive the intended target. They do not want fear in infidels. That's a bonus. They want their alleged fellow Muslims forced into persecution and left with no other choice, other than to join a jihad. Of course this only works if people oppress innocent Muslims and in particular those with a vulnerability towards such influence. And unfortunately in today's society they are far more common than we would hope. Judging an entire people because of the actions of the few. Misrepresenting any faith and calling for violence will only ever increase persecution, divide and hatred. Your neighbour did hopefully did not commit murder. But they may be Muslim, Christian or any other religion. If you don't condemn the terrorist you are as bad as them. If you hate innocent people because of their actions. You let them win. When a people of any faith demand peace strongly enough. It follows.
You ever notice that when Israelis do it the western media doesn't call it "Jewish terrorism"? Like I said, just because you shout God’s name while committing murder doesn’t make your actions representative of a religion. I think the reasons why the media covers it the way they do is a bit more complex. For one, sensationalism sells. The scarier they can make the threat the more money they can make. Secondly, I think the narrative is being prodded along by a lot of religious leaders in the west in an effort to marginalize the competition. If you can paint a religion as a bunch of terrorists, it's a lot easier to do things like ban the building of mosques and deny people the right to practice their religion.