Why it is irrelevant whether Islam is a "religion of peace"

People will think of Islam what they will and all the dozens of sects of Islam will have their own interpretation of what it is and what it stands for, just like every other bloody religion and ideology on this planet. Let me say it out front: I don't believe Islam is a "religion of peace." In fact, I wholeheartedly reject that notion. But then, just because something isn't necessarily peaceful does not mean that it is automatically bad.

If those who are so obsessed with the idea that Islam might not be a "religion of peace" and they hold the concept of "peace" so highly, why do they not associate themselves with pacifist organizations? Pacifists are the ultimate peaceniks; they believe that no principle, religion, or idea is worth defending, fighting for, and killing for. They would rather die or have their beliefs repressed and exterminated within a generation than stand up and defend them so that they may live on and propagate. My general rule is that any principle or belief not worth fighting and killing for is worthless and should be thrown out with the garbage. To me, that makes pacifists an even scarier lot than the most suicidal of mujahideen; sure, a pacifist is not going to cut your head off, but a pacifist is also not going to stand up and defend your civilization and would rather see it perish so that he/she can satisfy their self-centered and guilty conscience. Even worse, the weltanschauung of the pacifist is based on the totalitarian notion that a permanent peace is possible.

What few realize is that the very idea of a permanent peace is a relatively new concept; few, if any, prior to the nineteenth century believed in such a thing. (This is detailed in Michael Howard's fantastic little book, The Invention of Peace.) Peace was an abnormal, temporary, and rare phenomenon; war and conflict, on the other hand, were perfectly normal and considered to be a natural aspect of life. It was only in the nineteenth century that the idea of a permanent peace, coupled with the idea that war and conflict were abnormalities, was popularized in Western culture. Those who are obsessed with bringing about this permanent peace, the universalists and theologians of the left and right, do not realize what a totalitarian notion this is. As Gaetano Mosca has said, such a permanent peace is possible

"only if all the civilized world were to belong to a single social type, to a single religion, and if there were to be an end to disagreements as to the ways in which social betterment can be attained... even granting that such a world could be realized, it does not seem to us a desirable sort of world."

I agree with this notion. A permanent peace can only be obtained if a totalitarian society were to exist. For that matter, conflict, in the form of economic and political competition, coupled with reason and a Faustian scientific will to power, and even war, is what brought the West, and America in particular, to the position that it occupies in the world today. Unfortunately, this civilization is moving away from that very heritage.

Where would America be today if we had not crushed the feudalistic and anti-industrial Confederacy, forcibly kicked the great European empires out of the Western Hemisphere, crushed the Japanese and the Germans, and participated in a titanic half-century struggle against Communism in every corner of the world? If we had rejected all of this conflict and competition due to an obsession with some notion of a permanent peace, this country would be a mere speck on the map and may have even ceased to exist. Instead, because of conflict and competition, we are the strongest country in the world with the most dynamic and technologically advanced economy around.

The issue here is not whether Islam is a "religion of peace"; religions of peace, civilizations of peace, ideologies of peace, die out and fade into the footnotes of history. Therefore, the debate as to the peacefulness of Islam is a false debate, unless it takes all of these factors into consideration (something I have yet to see). "Peacefulness" is not necessarily a good thing.

So, let us end this silly debate about whether Islam is a peaceful religion; it's irrelevant. What we should be asking ourselves is this: "Should our country and civilization be a 'civilization of peace'?"