Ignorance of Religion Isn't Bliss

Here's James Carroll with a column about the relationship between religion and violence:

I am a religious person because I believe that religion can be a way of resisting violence. But that assumes a religion both self-critical and repentant for all the ways it keeps getting sucked into violence — especially with fantasies of a violent God. Today, Islam is on the hot seat because some Muslim nihilists cause mayhem in its name, but Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Confucians — and those who adhere to the rationalist religion-of-no-religion — have all taken their turns with this bat, even if each of these traditions is based on the call to compassionate love.