Why Religion and Terrorism Are Opposites

[rug]

To be religious, to be close to God, is to understand His love and mercy and the protection of innocent lives.

By Hesham A. Hassaballa, April 28, 2013

With the relief that the alleged perpetrators behind the horrific Boston Marathon bombings have been neutralized comes an intense search for one simple question: Why? Why would Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, refugees from a war-torn land, suddenly become blood-thirsty terrorists who attack the very country that took them in?

Theories abound. An initial report indicated that the two men's "religious beliefs" motivated them to attack innocent spectators at the marathon. It turns out, however, that this is wrong. Now, officials indicate that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the main motivators. Whatever the truth ends up to be, it is still barbaric and wrong (and completely un-Islamic) to kill innocent civilians out of anger for a country's foreign policy.

If you, as a citizen, are unhappy with your country's foreign policy, then become a policymaker yourself and change it for the better. Or elect other policymakers who have a better point of view. Or become politically active and try to motivate the grassroots to change the policy. Or run for office and work to change the policy that way. Or stage a protest. Take to social media. There are many ways to voice your opinion. You don't kill people out of anger for a policy. You just don't kill people.

Having said that, the speculation that religion may have motivated the brothers to commit their terrible crime leaves me speechless. In fact, a long front-page article in the Wall Street Journal detailed how the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, became increasingly "devout" before the terrorist attacks. This increased "religious zeal," goes the strange logic, led to his becoming a violent terrorist.

http://www.patheos.com/Muslim/Why-Religion-Hesham-Hassaballa-04-29-2013

Hesham A. Hassaballa is a Chicago-based physician and writer. He is author of, most recently, Noble Brother: The Story of the Prophet Muhammad in Poetry  Faithful Word Press).

[Goblinmonger]

1. ...............

[rug]

4. . . . .

[Warren Stupidity]

2. **snork**

fuck it, now I have pretzel bits on my keyboard. Please post a warning next time.

[Arugula Latte]

3. "...His love and mercy and the protection of innocent lives."

What a pantload. To put it bluntly, your god sure sucks at that.

If there is a deity that has the ability to protect "innocent lives" it can't be bothered to do that much.


Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

[edhopper]

5. Umm?

"If someone becomes more religious, if someone becomes closer to God, it should make him—if anything at all—more peaceful and loving, not more violent. If increased Islamic religious practice—such as refraining from drinking alcohol or eating pork, praying five times daily, fasting during Ramadan, etc.—is a sign of an increased connection with the Lord, then the last thing one should become is a murderous terrorist."

It should, but it doesn't. Your religion might be the opposite of terrorism, but to far too many, it is the same. And the history of religion has been just as close to terrorism as it has to godliness.

So while i feel for your dismay, your assumption is full of crap.

[Humanist_Activist]

6. The more zealous someone's religious beliefs become, the less regard they have for humanity...

or of human lives, after all, human souls last forever, so they are more important.

[dimbear]

7. I have sympathy for the writer's attempt to master English. Words like

'opposite' and 'speechless' take some time to grasp. A good starter lesson would be to see that a spicy taco isn't the opposite of food, rather it is a variety of food. One man's interpretation of food.

More or less.

[LostOne4Ever]

8. Apples and oranges

To be religious, to be close to God, is to understand His love and mercy and the protection of innocent lives.

Yet many people of deep faith have proven just the opposite.

I see religion as a tool. If the person following that religion does good, then all praise belongs to that person. If the person commits an atrocity, then the responsibility is on that person.

I do not accept the idea that if a person does good in the name of their religion then that religion gets credit, while if they go and kill someone in the name of their religious beliefs then they weren't a "True" or a "sincere" believer and they shouldn't be considered a member of that religion, and that the religion is blameless. In fact, that is one of my pet peeves when these type of things happen.

If someone claim that they did an action in part because of their beliefs then either 1) As I believe, the actual responsibility belongs to the person solely or 2)the religion deserves part of the credit as well as part of the blame for their actions. You cant have it both ways.

I dont know why the brothers did what they did, but I personally believe the blame lies with them solely. That said, they were muslims, and the older brother in particular was deeply religious. To deny that is not being honest.

Its not so much that terrorism and religion are opposite as they are apples and oranges. One is a belief system, and the other is a political act. Politicians manipulate peoples beliefs all the time to get them to go against their conscience. They do with peoples relgious beliefs, as well as with their other more secular beliefs.

As far as im concerned, the people to blame for terrorism are the politicians behind it and the fools who allow themselves to get manipulated.

[AlbertCat]

11. To be religious, to be close to God, is to understand His love and mercy and the protection of innoc

That's HIS love and HIS mercy....

Leaves the religious person off the hook, don't it. Has nothing to do with THEIR love or lack of it.

[rexcat]

9. Could it be that...

this author might have it wrong and god wanted these two in Boston to set off bombs at the Boston Marathon? On the other hand maybe they justified doing harm to other humans based on their twisted religious beliefs.

This article reads like a NTS... Sorry I just don't buy the author's hypothesis.

[Phillip McCleod]

10. this is just the 'no true scotsman' taken to its' ..

.. *illogical* extreme. i've been hearing it on my morning radio show (stephanie miller) all the time lately. anything *bad* that happens is, by the impromptu redefinition of the word 'religion', *never* motivated by the 'true' faith. it's always a perversion.

i submit to you that the *opposite is true*.. liberals believers are on the wrong side of history on this one. religious traditions are by their nature conservative, especially the faiths 'of the book', where doctrine is written in thousands of years of blood. these books *do* in fact command the truest of believers to treat other people like subhuman shit.. it is only by cherry-picking that any of them can be made compatible with modern ethics.

i submit to you, in fact, that medieval crusaders, orthodox jews stoning women for wearing sleeveless shirts, and jihadists are in fact following their scripture more closely than modern christians or chasidic jews or liberal muslims. they adhere more exactly to 'the book' .. whatever it is.

in India, it's the brahmans enforcing the social stratification that keeps the 'untouchables' untouchable .. because they are the ones adhering most strictly to *tradition* to what is written down and unchangeable.

maybe.. maybe maybe liberal believers *can* change their religions to be more liberal.

for how long? a generation? maybe two?

BE HORRIBLE TO OUTSIDERS .. is written in more places than .. BE KIND TO EVERYONE.

[AlbertCat]

12. Bingo!

"Thou shalt not kill" really means "Thou shalt not kill other Jews"... because they kill everything that moves for the rest of that book.... and in many of the others.

[Phillip McCleod]

13. all it takes is *reading it* it to know this as fact. \n