And what is the link, as you see it, between religion and violence?
It’s quite simple and direct. And inevitable. If you truly believe that your neighbor is
going to hell for his unbelief, and you believe that his ideas about the world are putting the souls
of your children in peril, it is quite sensible to drive him from your community, or kill him.
Religion, by promising an eternity of supernatural rewards and punishments, raises the stakes
enormously. Which is worse, a child molester or a heretic? If you really believe that the heretic
can endanger your child for all time, there’s simply no contest.

isn’t our conflict just with Muslim fundamentalists?
The distinction between “fundamentalists” and “moderates” has not really emerged in the
Muslim world. Most Muslims are “fundamentalist” in the sense that they really appear to
believe that the Koran is the literal and inerrant word of God. In any case, Islamic
fundamentalism is only a problem for us because the fundamentals of Islam are a problem for us.
There is a pervasive piece of wishful thinking circulating among religious moderates, and it
could get a lot of us killed. The idea is that all religions, at their core, teach the same thing. This
is myth. The principal tenet of Jainism is non-harming. Observant Jains will literally not harm a
fly. Fundamentalist Jainism and fundamentalist Islam do not have the same consequences,
neither logically nor behaviorally. Read the Koran. Osama bin Laden is playing it more or less
by the book. Anyone who says that there is no basis for his worldview in the doctrine of Islam is
either dangerously ignorant or just dangerous.
We must hope that the Muslim world is full of moderates who abhor the worldview of
Osama bin Laden. But where are they? We cannot just assume that they exist. And the horrible
truth is that if they do exist, they will be easily marginalized by their coreligionists.
7. But we’ve all seen moderate Muslims in the news, disavowing the actions of Islamic militants.
Have we? We’ve seen the occasional Muslim disavow the actions of Osama bin Laden,
saying things like “Islam is a religion of peace,” but this is not a sign of Muslim moderation.
We’ll know there are Muslim moderates in this world when they get on television and say things
like: “There is much in the doctrine of Islam that should not be taken literally. It is, for instance,unacceptable to believe that people can get into Paradise by killing infidels and dying in the
process. In fact, we’re not even sure Paradise exists. Nor are we sure that the Koran was written
by the Creator of the universe. The Koran is an ancient book of religious wisdom, some of it
applies to our modern circumstance and some of it does not.” Find a Muslim who can talk this
way, and you will have found a Muslim moderate. You will also have found someone who is
guilty of blasphemy and liable to be killed in almost any Muslim community on this earth. This
is the problem with Islam.
8. This is all pretty inflammatory.
Yes. There really is a deal-breaker lurking here, and there is no use denying it. We
should all be genuinely shaken by the knowledge that an entire civilization appears to think that
the Koran is the wisest book ever written. How we have a conversation with 1.3 billion people
about the dangerousness and illegitimacy of their core beliefs is a problem for which there may
be no easy answer. But we must come to terms with the fact that the spread of technology has
moved us to a crisis point. There is no possibility at all of our having a cold war with an Islamist
regime that has acquired long-range nuclear weapons. More importantly, moderate Muslims,
wherever they are, must come to terms with this. And they must find some way of marginalizing
and containing the cult of death and martyrdom that has emerged in the Muslim world.
9. But some would say that it is not religion, but history, that explains Muslim—and specifically
Arab—intolerance. Doesn’t the Israeli occupation play a role here?
You cannot deny that the Israeli occupation is at least part of the problem. The Israelis
settlers are themselves religious extremists who are putting us all in danger. Their notion of God
as some omniscient real-estate broker is one of the principal sources of conflict between the
West and Islam. But anyone who thinks western or Israeli imperialism solves the riddle of
Muslim violence must explain why we don’t see Tibetan suicide bombers killing Chinese
children. The Tibetans have suffered every bit as much as the Palestinians. Over a million of
them died as a direct result of the Chinese occupation of their country. Where are the Tibetan
suicide bombers? Where is their cult of martyrdom? Where are the throngs of Tibetans seething
with hatred, calling for the deaths of the Chinese? They are not likely to exist. What is the
difference that makes the difference? Religion.

you argue that not all cultures
are morally equal, and that those that are morally superior have the right to impose their
cultural values on others.
Yes. I think the civilized world has the duty, ultimately, to rescue the poor people in the
developing world who are living under tyranny. It does not much matter if this tyranny is
imposed from the top, by a dictator, or from all sides, by the tyranny of ignorance. This should
really be viewed as a problem of education. People who don’t understand how diseases like
AIDS spread must be educated. People who don’t understand that women should be accorded all
the civic and moral privileges of men must be educated. People who think you can get to heaven
by flying planes into buildings must be educated. Whether they must be conquered first and then
educated is for them to decide.