In the Name of God: The Neuron Bomb of Terrorism
Nothing fuels religious extremism more than the belief that one has found the absolute moral truth. Islamic terrorism, for example, has gradually shifted from secular motives in the 1960s to religious motives today. A 2000 study by the state department that resulted in the publication Patterns of Global Terrorism, found that in 1980 there were only two out of sixty-four militant Islamic groups whose mission was religiously based. In 1995 that figure had climbed to nearly half. The figure is undoubtedly higher today.
It is a type of fuel that can lead to what Clay Farris Naff, Executive Director of the Center for the Advancement of Rational Solutions in Lincoln, Nebraska, cleverly calls the “neuron bomb,” after its cold-war counterpart, the “neutron bomb,” designed to kill people while leaving buildings and infrastructure in tack. A schematic of the neuron bomb looks like this:
Arming Device: Belief that God’s enemies must be defeated or destroyed
Concealment: Can be implanted in any human mind
Cost: Practically nothing
Explosive Materials: Anything at hand
Destructive Potential: Unlimited
As Naff explains, the arming device is difficult to defuse: “Unlike the cold war stability brought on by MAD—the doctrine of mutual assured destruction—in this situation we cannot count on knowing whom to blame. We cannot negotiate treaties with them. We cannot count on their will to live. There is simply no limit to what some people will do in God’s name.”
Salman Rushdie minced no words in his analysis of the problems between India and Pakistan, two religiously-based political systems poised intermittently on the brink of nuclear holocaust: “The political discourse matters, and explains a good deal. But there’s something beneath it, something we don’t want to look in the face: namely, that in India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. So India’s problem turns out to be the world’s problem. What happened in India has happened in God’s name. The problem’s name is God.”
To be more accurate, India’s problem—and the world’s—is extremism in the name of God, even in the industrial and democratic West. “All faiths that come out of the biblical tradition—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—have the tendency to believe that they have the exclusive truth,” writes Rabbi David Hartman of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. “When the Taliban wiped out the Buddhist statues, that’s what they were saying. But others have said it too.” (Source)
And it’s not just an Islamic problem. Listen to the words of the current Pope, who when he said them in August 2000 was Cardinal Ratzinger: “With the coming of the Saviour Jesus Christ, God has willed that the Church founded by Him be the instrument for the salvation of all humanity. This truth of faith … rules out, in a radical way…the belief that ‘one religion is as good as another.’” (Quoted in Kristof, cited above.)
Yes, some religions are better than others, and some are worse. How can we tell the difference? Here’s a test: if I am not a member of your religion, or if I don’t believe in your God—indeed if I don’t belong to any religion or believe in any gods—will my liberties or my life be taken away from me? If your answer is “no,” then your religion is better than any religion who encourages or insists that it’s members deprive nonbelievers of life or liberty.
Better according to what standard? Is there a moral standard that stands above all the world’s religions that is based on some transcendent source? There is. And it isn’t supernatural. Stay tuned for my next post for the explanation…
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Good piece. There is lots more like that from David Hartman and his son, Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman, on the Shalom Hartman Institute website. Creative, iconoclastic, dare I even say radical thinking about religion, nationalism, and more in Israel, North America and the world.
I’m surprised that you didn’t mention the Brit Hume incident (commenting how Tiger Woods could save himself by converting to Christianity). A good many of us Americans are hostages in a holy war between Muslim fanatics in the Middle East and Christian fanatics in America. They justify themselves by saying that, unlike Muslim fanatics, they don’t kill innocent people. I think there are a lot of innocent bystanders in Iraq and Afghanistan would beg to differ with that.
So called liberal Christians (and I am becoming more and more convinced that that’s an oxymoron) make the mistake of thinking that most other Christians are as inclusive as they are. But Hume’s statements betray the fact that they are anything but inclusive. It’s my way or the highway, which is precisely and exactly why we need to continually support the separation of church and state. I, for one, am tired of being a hostage in the war between the Islamic and Christian extremists.
Thanks again, Michael, for citing my “neuron bomb” idea. I might just add that recent research at the U. of Chicago confirms that most believers project their beliefs onto God. David Sloan Wilson of Binghamton Univ. plausibly argues that beliefs such as “God has chosen me for an important mission” were adaptive in the EEA. Unfortunately in a global civilization they are as out of place as our ravenous appetites for fried chicken. Or rather more so, since egoistic God-beliefs do worse than clog arteries; they lead to mass murder.
Regards,
Clay Farris Naff
[...] As Michael Shermer sees it: Yes, some religions are better than others, and some are worse. How can we tell the difference? Here’s a test: if I am not a member of your religion, or if I don’t believe in your God—indeed if I don’t belong to any religion or believe in any gods—will my liberties or my life be taken away from me? If your answer is “no,” then your religion is better than any religion who encourages or insists that it’s members deprive nonbelievers of life or liberty. [...]