My rebuttal to a letter to the editor

You would have to say some pretty intense things for us to not run a letter to the editor you sent in. We have run some radical letters for the idea that we serve as a public forum for anyone who wants a platform for their opinions.

The letter to the editor we are running today certainly isn’t the most inflammatory one we have received in my time here, but it is concerning enough to me that I wanted to address it for two reasons. First simply to point out we run letters that may be inflammatory because of the public forum service, certainly not because we agree with it. The second is that there are some factually wrong and irresponsible things said in this letter.

First off the idea that whatever ISIS does represents the religion of Islam is ludicrous. Clearly no religion followed by 1.6 billion would preach to kill the remaining three fourths of the world, or we would have a much larger world-wide problem. In a sample size of any random number of 1.6 billion people there are going to be some violent and confused ones.

I don’t intend to put in the effort to research if ISIS was in fact a fertility goddess in Egyptian mythology or the in-depth reasons for the Armenian Genocide. But, I have had the pleasure of taking a classes on Islam and conversing with Muslims and I know the first pillar of Islam is a declaration of faith, committing to the idea of one God. So you know, like Christianity or Judaism.

I also know that if you search hard enough you will find horrifying statements in many religious texts, or even governmental documents, and they will all likely be out of context and an irresponsible representation of that document.

I don’t agree remotely with these statements, but I do respect the right for people to voice their opinions in this paper. I just won’t always let them go without a rebuttal.

— Jeffrey is a senior majoring in journalism and minoring in religious studies. He has repeatedly tried to get the point across that people’s faiths aren’t necessarily reasons for their actions, so sorry if you’ve read him argue this before. You can reach him dahdahjm@gmail.com or on twitter @dahdahjeff.