Islam needs to reform. Christianity reformed for the most part, going away from things like the Crusades to just hating gays, trans-gender, and other generally overly conservative values like we see in the U.S 'far religious-right.' Islam on the other hand I don't believe has reformed, and those that do 'reform' are now 'moderates' and simply do not believe in a literal teaching of the religion. They, just like their Christian counter-parts, aren't 'extremist' and instead generally intertwine logic and their religion together, as to continue to practice it but not do anything really stupid like cutting people's heads off for some 'prize' after death.

And the ones that claim to be, say, 'liberals' or 'progressives,' aren't true liberals or progressives if they disapprove of my statement. See, as a general progressive myself, I believe things needs to move forward from this kind of behavior. This behavior that we see is not of this time, and I would more closely associate it with the 1300's than now. I also take a right to say these things, and if another 'liberal' or 'progressive' wants to tell me that I'm wrong in saying that Islam needs to reform is simply ignorant. They ignore the facts and believe that everyone is a good person and that any reason that they act out and become a bad person is because someone else was bad to them. That's not always the case. Some people simply take teachings like extremism in the Middle East directly to heart and commit these horrible actions. Instead, defend the ones that don't practice this kind of extremism and speak out against this type of barbaric action. Don't defend the ones that give 'Islam a bad name.'

These attacks are inspired by religion, though amongst other things. It is true that not all Muslims practice a literal teaching of Islam, but it's also true that a large enough portion of them do. I'll go as far as to say that all Muslims are bad people is an incorrect statement, because that'd be like me saying all Christians are bad people because a significant portion of them hate gays. No, they're not all bad people, just the ones that focus on the extremist and literal teachings of their religion.

It's a very difficult problem to solve because you simply cannot 'bomb' the religion away. It's not like they're a foreign government with an official location in a traditional sort of way, but instead it's an idea and a belief system that'll be here long after the cities are gone. Instead of bombing, which many of us feel necessary, we should fight it using ideas. Bring in modern and progressive ideas into these communities slowly, and don't do it in a disrespectful and hateful sort of way. Bring in modern human rights in these nations that support these strict teachings, like Saudi Arabia, and don't support these strict teachings through continued relations that exist. Don't assault the religion directly, instead assault the ideas and actions these people do. Most importantly, any change that happens in a society must be done on the inside, not from the outside. If people want to revolt, they must do it themselves. Society does not change for the healthier if the change is forced onto them and as a community they are not ready. It will never be completely solved, but over the long run it should help.

But of course, this would have all been prevented if religion never existed. Instead, we'd have wars based on goods and resources instead of a 'mystical' being that can't be proved to exist.