Excerpt #25 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
The world of suicide bombers and the culture that creates them is secretive and terrifying.
“Lured by promises of financial stability for their families, eternal martyrdom, and unlimited sex in the afterlife, dozens of militant Palestinians aspire to blow themselves up. Their goal: to kill or injure as many Jews as possible.”
“In return for ‘martyrdom,’ Hamas (the Palestinian militant group) tells youths that their families will be financially compensated, their pictures will be posted in schools and mosques, and they will earn a special place in heaven.
“They also are promised something more risqué: unlimited sex with 72 virgins in heaven. The Koran, the sacred book of Islam, describes the women as ‘beautiful like rubies, with complexions like diamonds and pearls.’
In one of the passages of the Koran, it is said the martyrs and virgins shall ‘delight themselves, lying on green cushions and beautiful carpets.’
Since the time of Mohammed (approximately 1400 years ago), martyrs have always been considered those willing to die defending Islam.” (Excerpted from a piece by Jack Kelley that appeared in USA Today.)
If the most common contemporary exponents have been Islamic militants, it has not always been so.
In ”Inside Terrorism” (Columbia University Press, 1998), Bruce Hoffman, an American scholar who has studied the subject for the RAND Corporation, lists examples from Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Christianity, and concludes: ”More than 2,000 years ago the first acts of what we now describe as ‘terrorism’ were perpetrated by religious fanatics. Indeed, some of the words we use n the English language to describe terrorists and their actions are derived from the names of Jewish, Hindi and Muslim terrorist groups active long ago.”
I will make my body a bomb that will blast the flesh of Zionists, the sons of pigs and monkeys. I will tear their bodies into little pieces and cause them more pain than they will ever know. – 11-year-old Hamas student
KIDS BECOME WHAT WE ARE.
Religious Violence
Angry mobs stabbed and set fire to bystanders in rioting that erupted after a newspaper suggested Islam’s founding prophet, Mohammed, would approve of the Miss World beauty pageant.
Schools and shops closed midday as hordes of young men, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great,” ignited makeshift street barricades made of tires and garbage, sending plumes of smoke rising about the city.
Others chanted, “Down with beauty” and “Miss World is sin.”
The violent demonstrators in the northern city of Kaduna (Nigeria) burned churches and rampaged through the streets until hundreds of soldiers were deployed to restore calm and enforce a dusk-todawn curfew.
At least 50 people were killed and 200 injured. (From an Associated Press article)
With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil – that takes religion. – Steven Weinberg