Suicide attacks, religion, and ethics
And if it turns out the shootings and suicide bombings in Paris were carried out by Islamists - then what?
Can we, in all seriousness, claim that Islam as a religion has nothing to do with it? Can we, in all seriousness, claim that Islam does not provide a justification and an excuse for fanatics to kill innocents?
More importantly, can we, in all seriousness, claim that the afterlife promises of all Abrahamitic religions, the prospect of going to heaven, is not a determining reasons that suicide attackers blow themselves up to the dozen each day?
Wars may be started because of economical factors. But religion provides an excuse for warmongers to surrender to blind hatred and fanatism. Religion, interpreted strictly, is an ideology. However, is is even more effective as it baits its followers with promises of salvation and a “gurarantee” of an afterlife.
Claiming that the suicide attacks carried out by Islamists have nothing to do with Islam is more or less like claiming that the crusades had nothing to do with Christianity. After all, a huge amount of people remained at home, peacefully sitting in front of their hearth fires. After all, crusades, inquiiton and witch burnings were ultimately all the acts of fanatic individuals who incited the masses.
The ideologies of the Third Reich and communism were at their most dangerous where they became a doctrine of belief and salvation. The blind faith in a doctrine, a system, an order of the world always harbors the danger of spawning fanatics who have lost any sense of right and wrong to blind obedience. But (Abrahamitic) religion is more dangerous than all of them because:
- it replaces the awareness of personal responsibility for as well as consequences of one’s own behavior with a belief in ethics of a “higher” origin. Following a moral code no longer stems from a conscious decision, but from a gregarious obedience to a “higher” entity.
- it entices people with promises of salvation of eternal happiness and immortality in the afterlife
- and, most importantly: religion in itself demands a blind faith in things whose existence is defied by rational thought. “To believe is not to know.“ WIth that, a religious way of life by definition propagates a form of thinking and acting of humankind that is not based on rational or ethical consideration. As we can see when dealing with religious fanatics, the question of whether a religion preaches non-violence or a holy war therefore becomes a matter of its interpretation - regardless of which religion we look at. To put it more simply: The problem aren’t people who, while reading their holy book, only acknowledge passages that propagate murder and manslaughter. The probem are people who are willing to consider the revelations of a holy book their moral guideline and don’t see anything questionable in this way of thinking.
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