When I look at the world back in the old days, and then again now I have to say it’s funny how times have changed. Christians don’t hold your head so high, lest we forget that it was in the name of our faith that the church burned those who were different and suppressed the furthering of scientific knowledge. It was our church that set mankind back a thousand years. It was our church that raped and plundered, that enforced theocratic totalitarianism for centuries. Muslims do not hold your head so low. When Christianity sent Europe into madness it was the people of your religion which held high the torch of reason to further the pursuit of human knowledge. Without your religion we would likely still be in the dark ages! What is happening now in the Muslim theocracies, the middle east and central Africa is a perversion of your faith (as you well know) just as the early church’s theocracy was of ours.

You will find most extremists and terrorists do not follow the words of The Quran, many do not read it for themselves and know only what verses are cherry picked to support their perverted cause. Most people do not know that the early Christian and Catholic church forcibly suppressed the expansion of the early printing press. They knew that their social system could not be justified by the bible (as they claimed) and if the people could read it for themselves they would risk losing power- likely by force. For ISIS and the other radical groups it is no different. They would see what a perversion of Islam they are committing! A lot of your religion had descended into a dark age of its own. But do not lose hope, our “Christian” nations (though I firmly believe in state secularism) will hold high the torch of reason to further the pursuit of human knowledge for you as you did for us all those centuries ago. I can only hope for a great awakening of members of all faiths, away from religious fundamentalism and the dogmatic denial of science. An awakening against intolerance and bigotry of all kinds. An awakening towards a bright future where we can stand hand in hand and declare that this whole world is ours.