Should we fear Islam?

When Mohammed first started Islam he lived in Mecca and had few followers. He was surrounded by Jews, Christians and various tribes of pagans and infidels. By pagans I'm referring to the Christian term meaning any person or persons who worships a god/gods other than the God associated with the Jewish/Christian/Islamic faiths. 'Infidels' is an Islamic term for anyone who doesn't follow Islam. Being surrounded by hostile or potentially hostile peoples/religions and with very few followers Mohammed began preaching a message of peace and tolerance.

The peoples of these various religions reacted like most people do when someone new arrives on their doorstep preaching that their god is inferior and that they should change their ways. They became intolerant and eventually drove Mohammed and his followers out of Mecca. Which to me is somewhat ironic since Mohammed is supposed to be so close to God you'd think he and his followers would be invincible to such actions.

In any case, the newly formed religion of Islam relocated to the city of Medina, then known as the city of Yathrib, and Mohammed was able to unite the warring tribes of Medina under Islam. His base of followers reached a saturation point in the population where they outnumbered anyone who was not of Islam. As time went on and his list of followers grew the message turned from that of peace to one of intolerance and by the end of his life to a message of hatred and outright murder. It's no surprise that there were those in Medina who did not follow the teachings of Mohammed and equally no surprise in the knowledge that they were either assassinated or forcibly converted. 'Convert or Die' I believe is the proper term.

Once Medina was securely under Mohammed's control he turned his eye on Mecca and spent the next eight years warring with the tribes of Mecca until he and his followers finally conquered the city. Historical records vary as to why he warred with Mecca; did Mohammed start the conflict or were the followers of Islam provoked by raids and attacks by the tribes of Mecca? That's a tough call and I'll leave it to the historians to argue over but I have a couple of thoughts on the issue.

Firstly, throughout history religions have murdered and oppressed those who believed in something other than the main doctrine so it's no wonder that the peoples of Mecca would resist the teachings of Mohammed. He was basically saying, 'Your religion is wrong and your prophets are wrong or outdated. Here is a newer, stricter religion that promises to oppress you even more than your old religion.' (I'm paraphrasing here. As a comedian and satyrical author I'm allowed a certain leeway.) I'm almost certain that this line of thinking in the minds of the people of Mecca played at least some role in the 'why' concerning the attacks on Mohammed and his followers.

Secondly, (I love the symmetry in this) throughout history religions have murdered and oppressed those who believed in something other than the main doctrine so it's no wonder that the peoples of Medina would move to forcibly convert and attack the city of Mecca regardless of whether they were provoked or not. Basically saying, 'Your religion is wrong, etc. . . CONVERT OR DIE!'

So what does any of this have to do with the more modern question of whether or not we should fear, or at the very least be truly concerned about the spread of Islam? Well here again we have a two part answer:

First, in Islam if something is taught in the beginning (chronologically as it was written) of the Koran then a new contradictory rule is taught near the end then it's the rule at the end that is to be followed. For example: If in the beginning the Koran said everyone should wear red hats then red hats are the only hats allowed. But near the end it said Mohammed declared blue hats were the best and only blue hats should be worn then, according to Islam, hence forth the red hat rule is out and only blue hats should be worn. Well, the early teachings of Islam were of peace but as time went on the message turned to intolerance and violence. This means that the people we consider 'violent extremist' are actually following the Koran as it was meant to be followed. The 'peaceful' Muslims are basically dropping the ball when it comes to following the word of their religion. Let us all pray, yes even atheist like me, that the mass majority of Islam never figures that out.

Second, Islam is moving across the world at a record pace and in an insidious form. At first a few move into a community, then more and more, then they start converting the local population and when that certain level of 'population saturation' is reached they start enforcing they're laws (Sharia law) and rules on the other peoples of the community. A quick example would be the recent article out of Scotland where the police of a local municipality created a new 'non-emergency' phone number and in order to promote it they handed out fliers with the picture of a puppy, a new recruit to the K-9 unit. Originally there were reports of outrage by the Muslims in the community because they consider dogs to be 'unclean'. In this particular instance the Muslims haven't attained the 'population saturation' levels needed in that particular community to enforce their laws so they've backed off and suddenly they don't have a problem with the cute little canine. But remember my words here when I say that when the numbers of Muslims in that community reach a certain level the puppy on a poster is going to be the least of their (non-Muslims) concerns.

The next twenty years should prove frighteningly interesting as small nations, not just cities or small communities, reach that 'saturation point' and the men are forced to grow beards and the rights of women are completely revoked and the women themselves are reduced to something akin to slavery. The terrorism of the future is not likely to be 'Islamic Extremist' bombing non-believers (infidels) but non-believers of all varieties bombing 'Islamic Extremist' in a attempt to regain the freedoms that are very soon to be ripped away from them. It's amazing how they (Muslims) use the freedoms of speech, etc, afforded them by these communities/nations to overwhelm the ideals of the free and then oppress them.

Based on the information given above, most of which I learned from Wikipedia, am I a bad man for feeling this way? Would anyone who reads this article be a bad person if they don't instantly condemn me? I've never considered myself an intolerant person but the more I learn about Islam and the other major monotheistic religions the more their followers inspire me with fear.

But our society has become so twisted in it's 'Political Correctness' that people of faith of all stripes can proclaim, 'Convert or Die!' with no repercussions while I could end up being ostracized, publicly ridiculed and labeled a 'hate monger' just for voicing my opinion. I didn't say I wanted to harm any of them. I'm just saying they scare me and history tells us that we all should be scared of religious fanatics.

If you've read this article and at any point thought to yourself that I could be putting my very life at risk by what I've said here then you've already answered the question of whether we should fear Islam.

In my opinion, if I'm still allowed to have one, Yes, be afraid. Be very afraid.....