Long answer short, No!

Looking at my online activity and offline arguments, most of my friends tend to believe that I hate Muslims and Christians. I had to write this post to send across a message that I do not hate religious people, but at the same time, I do not have my love for their religious ideology.

I firmly believe that ‘Ideas should be attacked mentally and people should not be attacked physically’. I have my fight with the ideas and not with the people housing such ideas. By the right of ‘Freedom to have Ideas’, the other person can have any kind of idea, but if I find myself incompatible with that idea, I would be letting out my neural swords at that idea.

I have no problem with Muslims, but I have problems with Islam.

I have no problem with Christians, but I have problems with Christianity.

I have no problem with Jews, but I have problems with Judaism.

I have no problem with Hindus, but I have problems with Hinduism.

I have some issues with the Abrahamic religions, in general. Abrahamic religions are the set of religions that trace their origins to Abraham. Of the major world religions, Islam, Christianity and Judaism form a part of Abrahamic religion. All these religions had a similar core - a prophet who was chased away by a group, got a rigid group of followers and had to take some extreme step to survive. Moses, Jesus and Mohammed - all three prophets of these three religions underwent more or less the same situations. Jesus was crucified, as he did not take weapons. Mohammed retaliated.

The god and his prophet of Old Testament had to be more ferocious and more angry because it was impossible to instill such control over a large group of people. The god of New Testament was more calmer in comparison, as Jesus had to just mould a group that is already under perfect control. The god of Koran and his prophet had to fend pagans and polytheists of the Arabian desert. Their feats had been reported in Old Testament, New Testament and Koran respectively. An adherent of these three religion has to base their whole life on their holy books.

When you shape your life based on the adventures of a group of people who lived thousands of years back in the Middle East, you are bound to exhibit their traits. A fundamentalist is someone who lives as per the fundamentals of his religion. You might be alarmed by the term ‘fundamentalist’ here, as you would look at that term in most of the newspaper headlines linked with violence. But, simply put, if you are not a fundamentalist in Abrahamic religion, you are not following your religion properly. And, by not following your holy book properly, you are going to your hell (as per the same book). So, if you are not a religious fundamentalist, you better re-read your whole holy book and think twice before saying that you are either a moderate or liberal.

An Islamic or Christian or Judaic fundamentalist acts as per his book and that is why he is called a fundamentalist in the first place. Being moderate and liberal are not the other side of spectrum of religious fundamentalism, but it forms the other end of extremism. An extremism in ideology occurs when you take extreme steps to enforce it. So, a religious fundamentalist who takes extreme steps to enforce the fundamentals of his religion is called a religious extremist. A religious fundamentalist who takes liberal steps to enforce the fundamentals of his religion is called a liberal Muslim or Christian. What if taking liberal steps are not suggested in your fundamental? What if the fundamental was written by people who had taken extreme steps and you had to follow the fundamentals ‘by hook or crook’? So, you cannot cherry pick a portion of verse and sell your fundamentals, when you are supposed to implement it with the help of your sword.

Adherents of Abrahamic religion has all the freedom to base their lives on their books and I have all the freedom to find that idea as non-compatible to my set of ideas and to make fun of such ideas. I take extreme care to attack the ideas and not the people housing it. Ideas do not warrant insulation from criticism.

Ideas are like fluid. People are like vessel that hold them. They can be a tumbler or mug or barrel or jar or teapot. You cannot criticise a vessel for the content of fluid that it holds. Say, if you are having a tea in a cup and the tea tastes bitter, you do not blame the cup. If you are having beer in a mug and the beer tastes bad, you do not blame the mug. Similarly, if you encounter a person with ideas and the ideas sound bad, you cannot blame the person. By logic, ideas can be criticised, no matter how sacred it sounds to others. People cannot be criticised for housing such ideas. You do not drink bad soup from a good bowl, but you can manage to drink a good soup from a bad bowl. There goes the difference.

Religious ideas are like hot water in a tumbler or mug or barrel. It was soothing to a person with cold hands, only when it is served hot. As time goes by, the water turns cooler and starts attracting dust and other unwanted particles. If you are stern enough to hold such water for a long time, you do not attract someone to drink your content i.e., ideas. So, when someone says that ideas should be respected, no matter how incompatible it turns out to be, imagine yourself drinking that ugly water (which was once hot and pure).

I hope that I had explained about how I differentiate between people and ideas in the above two paragraphs. I differentiate between Muslims and ideas that constitute Islam. I differentiate between Christians and ideas that constitute Christianity. I might cherish people, but not necessarily respect the ideas they hold in their brain.

To conclude, No! I do not hate Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Parsis, Pastafarians, Communists, or whatever denomination human beings identify themselves with, but I reserve the freedom to unanimously make fun of or criticise whatever ideas they have.