After the attacks of October 7th, Western accounts began circulating verses from the Quran alleging that it incites killing innocent people and justifies violence against them.
Two young men from the Netherlands took this idea and conducted an experiment on people’s readiness to generalize their views about Islam without the slightest effort of thinking or investigating.
They bought a copy of the Bible and a copy of the Torah, and put them both in a bag with Islamic symbols, then went to the street and read excerpts to people.
From the Christian Bible, they read passages such as:
“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”
“If you reject My statutes and abhor My judgments so that you do not perform all My commandments, but break My covenant, I also will do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you.”
From the Jewish Torah, they read passages like:
“And strike them, so that the eyes of all who see them may not pity them, but let no human pity intervene.”
“Then go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
They asked people for their initial opinions, to which they responded with phrases like:
“How can anyone believe this? This is unbelievable to me.”
“The world is changing and I think they should adapt to it.”
“If you were raised with this book and with ideas like this, it will affect your way of thinking.”
“For me, it seems like they are trying to suppress you and force you to embrace what they believe in.”
They also asked people about the major differences between Muslims and others, and people responded that according to the verses read, Muslims are much more aggressive.
The surprise came when the two young men were reading from the books of Christians and Jews.
