Who Is Responsible For Words, Over Actions?

When it comes to criticizing Islamic beliefs and trying to pin down how much blame to put on the words of the Qu'ran that terrorists claim to be killing in the name of, I often find myself wavering between different viewpoints. While I very much disagree with Sam Harris and what is, in my opinion, his rather pigheaded way to approach the issue, I'm also not on the wishy-washy liberal "religion of peace" apologetics that you often hear on the other side. I definitely agree that the reasons behind terrorism are complex, multifactorial and not as simple as just pointing to a holy book and saying there! Problem solved.

The reason I bring this up is because I constantly think about this issue as it is brought up. The most recent episode of the Non-Prophets did just that when discussing the reasoning behind the Chapel Hill shooting, where an atheist shot and killed three Muslim neighbors of his, although whether "in the name of atheism" or not still remains to be determined. The hosts bring up the fact that there is no atheist dogma, and thus there is nothing inherently "in" atheism which permits, condones or encourages violent actions against others, unlike most monotheistic religious texts. This I totally agree with, but then the discussion went one step further. Russell talked about how he went to a seminar on Islam in Austin, and how while he thought their beliefs were weird, he did not feel like it was in any way reasonable to hold them responsible for the Charlie Hebdo shootings, any more than it is to hold atheists responsible for the recent shooting in North Carolina. To this Jeff hesitated, saying he didn't feel the same way, because of what was said before: Muslims have a holy book which contains violence, and atheists don't.

While he did not say it in so many words, he sort of implied a shared responsibility of Muslims towards what is written in their holy texts, if not for the individual actions of the religious followers themselves. While it is obviously not any of the Muslims alive today who are responsible for writing them, a question could be raised as to how much responsibility you have for what is written in the text that you claim to believe is the word of god.

This idea that Muslims are somewhat responsible for what their religion says is something that is also very prevalent in the right wing. This huffing and puffing about every single Muslim individual and group in American having to openly and publicly denounce every single terrorist act committed anywhere in the world before they are allowed to speak a single word in public (which many of them do, despite the fact that, in my opinion, its not their responsibility) is something seen often on Fox and the like. This got me thinking, at what point are you responsible for the words of others? They claim to believe that this text is the word of god, that is true, but there is no picking and choosing with holy books. You have to either take the whole thing or nothing. The right wing would never take responsibility for every word of the Bible (I doubt many of them believe that cotton-polyester blends are an abomination), and yet they do place a good deal of responsibility of what is written in the Qu'ran at the feet of Muslims. My question is, how fair is it to claim that someone who has not written a text has responsibility for what it says and, by extension, what others do with those words?

And, for consistency's sake, how fair is it to lay responsibility down at the feet of a person who actually did write the words in question?

Ladies and Gents, remember Bill O'Reilly?

So Bill was famously in the middle of a little controversy (and now finds himself in the middle of a larger one, but one thing at a time) involving his coverage of an abortion provider named Dr. George Tiller. O'Reilly repeatedly referred to Dr. Tiller as "Tiller the Baby Killer", along with dehumanizing him in many different ways. Once Dr. Tiller was murdered O'Reilly, never one to back down, defended his use of the term and his campaign against this man.

I despise Bill O'Reilly, so any opinion of mine on his share of the responsibility for Dr. Tiller's murder would be tainted. However, what I am asking for is consistency. 

If you think that someone who didn't write the words in their text, but simply believes in its holiness, should share some responsibility for others' actions in the name of that text, then you definitely, definitely have to think that O'Reilly, who actually composed these words, shares responsibility for what was done to Dr. Tiller. 

By the way: I in no way am comparing Jeff from the Non Prophets to Republicans, or in any way suggesting that he believes that Muslims share responsibility for the actions of terrorists. He was simply the spark that ignited this train of thought.