The attacks bother me too, and the seriousness of the issue has really gotten to me today, because today I was questioned by a
child regarding religion. The boy was a nice kid and actually seemed to like making my acquaintance, despite the age difference. I'm not entirely sure how I got myself into such a discussion with a child, but somehow it happened.
"Are you Christian? I am," he said. I informed him that I was Muslim.
"Okay, but don't you think Islam is kind of a bad religion? Like, it has terrorists and all, and everyone hates women in your religion, and people kiss a black stone," the child said with perfect seriousness.
"That's more of a traditional thing," I answered, not sure how to explain it to him.
"Yeah, but what about the terrorists? And, like, Belgium and Paris? Why do people do
that?" he asked. "Christians don't do that. Christianity is a religion for everyone."
I was impressed by his belief, but I couldn't find a way to explain anything that's been going on. How am I supposed to make excuses for almost the entirety of the world's second largest religion? Nobody can do that. Unless there is large-scale reform, it's pretty much impossible to convince the world that the blame is on people and not on Islam.
In the end, I basically admitted that many people who called themselves Muslims were doing very wrong things. From the kid's point of view, I was agreeing with him. I told him something like this: "I don't hate the religion itself, I hate what people are doing to it."
Needless to say, he didn't buy a word of it.
The fact that a sixth-grader can criticize an entire religion and be right about it is very sad. And it's also sad that I had no legitimate explanation to give him. We all know about hadiths and corruption, but that is not something one can explain to a kid. It's even harder to explain everything to adults, who aren't as gullible as kids. I am so tired of making excuses for the terrorism, cruelty, and tyranny practiced by a considerable percentage of my religion.