It’s not really a proper argument, is it?

By Colin Jackson

If you put a Lego brick on top of another each time that someone made this argument, you would end up with a tower the same size as the Burj Khalifa.

The argument in question is one of fallacy, but it is repeated constantly across the globe.

When criticising Islam, people often say “But people do bad things in the name of Christianity too…”

When criticising Christianity, people often say “But people do bad things in the name of Islam too…”

The trouble with this argument is, that it’s not actually an argument. It’s a distraction from the issue at hand.

Just because other religions are bad, it does not mean that the one being questioned should be exempt from criticism.

People often present this argument to me when I’m ranting about the ills of religion, and it is incredibly galling. It suggests that censuring a harmful thing should not be done, because there is another harmful thing out there. It takes the attention away from the thing which is being criticised, and gives it to another thing.

Consider this conversation.

“Ben punched me”

“Yes, but Mark punched Sarah”

“Does that mean I can’t be upset about what Ben did to me?”

Criticising one religion is a good thing to do. It’s downright idiotic to try and shut people down when they are talking about the issues of a religion, with the justification that other religions have issues too.

You wouldn’t refrain from censuring someone convicted of grievous bodily harm because another person committed murder.

There is no reason why any reasonable person would try and exonerate something which is absolutely and definitely guilty because something else is guilty too. It makes no sense to the greater good to do this. People must acknowledge the ills of individual religions, without constantly comparing them to others in an attempt to invalidate the ills raised.