Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Religious Music & Entertainment
ISIS Terror in Paris: The Presumption of Guilt

ISIS Terror in Paris: The Presumption of Guilt

Last updated on: November 15, 2015 at 12:15 pm by Kate O'Hare

ISIS Terror in Paris: The Presumption of Guilt 2015-11-15T12:15:46-08:00 Kate O'Hare

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Recently, I took a course that involved public speaking. There was a time limit, and the instructor had a very specific format in mind. I said my first sentence, and he stopped me, warning me that I hadn’t given the information he wanted yet.

I told him it was to be in my next sentence, if he’d let me continue.

So, I went back to the beginning, said the first sentence, and the same thing happened again.

I asked him, “Why don’t you let me fail before you correct me?”

But, you see, he was so certain I was going to fail, that he couldn’t give me the benefit of the doubt long enough to see me actually do it.

And that lack of faith — and respect — irked me more than anything.

There’s a similar phenomenon that’s happened after every militant Islamist terror attack since 9/11. Before the bodies of the victims are cold, people take to social media and blogs to express concern about all the innocent Muslims that are going to be targeted in retaliation.

I’m positive that such incidents do occur here and there. We’re all only human (American Christians included), and sometimes we do not heed the better angels of our natures when faced with senseless death and destruction on a grand scale. But if you can find links to news reports of large-scale violent retaliations against peaceful Muslim communities in the U.S., please toss them in the comments.

Now we’re hearing it again in the wake of the barbaric, brutal — but carefully planned and executed — assaults on a soccer stadium, clubs, restaurants and a packed concert hall in Paris on Friday, Nov. 13. Islamic terrorists claiming to be part of ISIS (or ISIL or Daesh or whatever the frak John Kerry is calling it now) shot and blew up 129 innocent people, and then blew themselves up.

Because, you see, for these people, dying for Allah always includes simultaneously slaughtering for Allah. This is no martyrdom; this is cold-blooded murder.

In no time flat, the calls came out for an end to hate, for anyone who’s seen bodies strewn in the streets to immediately stop their plans to go out and wreak havoc — or at least think ill of, which apparently is just as bad — the next Muslim they see (coupled with a lot of breast-beating about how the homelands of the dead, injured and dying brought this on themselves, that they’re really responsible, not the people who are, you know, responsible).

While there are bleeding, dismembered victims lying in the streets of Paris, the ordinary folk of the Western World have been presumed guilty of the desire to take violent revenge on noncombatant Muslims in their midst (or say something mean, which is apparently just as bad).

At the same time, efforts ramp up to find sympathy for the perpetrators’ point of view, for the ills they’ve suffered, for the crimes they believe were committed against them. They are presumed innocent until it’s proven (and it never is) that nothing was ever done in the world that might possibly have ticked them off.

The purveyors of this bizarro-world thinking are happy to dismiss or wave away the agony of the actual victims — along with that of their countrymen, friends and loved ones — in favor of defending possible victims who might have something done to them by somebody somewhere, at some time which isn’t right now.

And THAT is what we should be most worried about.

Also, at least one of the killers may have been a Syrian refugee who entered Greece — part of Europe’s compassionate willingness to take in the displaced people of that war-torn nation (something the oil-rich Muslim states of the Middle East seem uniformly unwilling to do).

Regarding all of this preemptive hand-wringing and finger-wagging, I have a suggestion. When or if the moment arrives that somebody does something violent in unjust retaliation, arrest and prosecute that person. If somebody says something very mean, remind them to be polite and love their enemy — and demand they apologize to the offended party.

But don’t judge them in advance for things they haven’t done or said, just because some quarters of academia and the media are certain that these people, deep in their hearts, are far worse than the ones who did the wanton killing.

And, by the way, assuming the killers shouldn’t be held fully responsible for what they did is to treat them like a child or a pet, which just can’t help itself, because it doesn’t know better. It’s to imply that these people are lesser beings than we are, that they don’t have their full measure of humanity. Hey, if you want to insult the Muslim world, I can’t think of a better way to do it.

Image: FNC screenshot

Don’t miss a thing: head over to my other home at CatholicVote and like my Facebook page.

Previous Post

November 14, 2015

'Of Kings and Prophets': Crime Writer Tackles the Books of Samuel for ABC

Next Post

November 16, 2015 ISIS Terror in Paris, II: Let's Take the Terrorists at Their Word

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books breaking news digital media Faith practice food interview jane the virgin media movies music NFL Pope Francis Showbiz 101 social media sports technology television Uncategorized video

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz