MattC
13th December 2009, 11:06 AM
In an attempt to relieve it, therefore, I am going to take XKCD's advice and try science in an attempt to answer the "no Christian bin Laden" claim and others like it, perhaps best espoused by Dinesh D'Souza in his USA Today column "Don't Blame God for Terrorism." (http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/11/column-dont-blame-god-for-terrorism.html)
If religious beliefs in life after death are the source of terrorism, where are the Buddhist suicide bombers? Nor has anyone been able to identify the Christian bin Laden, the Christian equivalent of al-Qaeda or Hezbollah, or the Christian "nation of martyrs" patterned along the lines of post-Khomeini Iran. The vast majority of people in the world believe in God and the afterlife, yet hardly any of them launch suicide attacks in the hope of hastening their journey to heavenly bliss.
D'Souza, judging by his publication history, has a great deal of knowledge upon religious matters and affairs - throughout the column he speaks quite well and effectively upon the religious matter at hand, albeit painting atheists with a very broad brush during the process. However, the relevant passage quoted above is not religious in nature, but is rather entirely secular - bringing it into the field of science. Mr. D'Souza's invocation of Robert Pape's Dying to Win is a good start for literature upon suicide bombing, but it is surprising that his studies (whether of the "rhetoric of the Islamic radicals" or otherwise) seem to have gone no further, for if it had the answers to his questions are not difficult to locate.
In general the passage above makes three very general claims which I shall strive to answer:
1) there is no Christian equivalent to Osama bin Laden
2) there are no Christian organizations comparable to Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah
3) there is no Christian "nation of martyrs"
The first two questions essentially depend upon the underlying proposition that there are no Christian terrorist organizations - bin Laden is the leader of an Islamic terrorist group, specifically al Qaeda. As D'Souza does not list any relevant qualities of al Qaeda to be used as tools for comparison, any attempt at proper comparison is essentially equivalent to shooting in the dark, but nevertheless some surprising similarities can be found with a trivial amount of research.
It is well-documented that many Islamic terrorists are affiliated with the Wahhabi sect of radical Islam, so in an attempt to demonstrate the parallel nature that D'Souza alleges is nonexistant it makes sense to locate a comparatively radical sect of Christianity, many examples of which can be found within the literature. Perhaps prime amongst them (from an American-centric viewpoint) is the Christian Identity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_identity) sect, whose ethnoreligious tenets spawned leaders like Robert Jay Mathews (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jay_Mathews) and James Ellison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ellison_%28polygamist%29).
The organizations founded by these two individuals accurately respond to D'Souza's second point. Robert Mathews' founding of The Order (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_%28group%29) (also called the Bruders Schweigen, "Silent Brotherhood" in German) is directly responsible for the murder of Alan Berg and a variety of other crimes, primarily aimed at procuring funds though with no shortage of violence. Ellison's The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Covenant,_The_Sword,_and_the_Arm_of_the_Lord) committed numerous firearms violations and practiced mock assassinations. Further, in 1983 three members of the organization attempted to dynamite a natural gas pipeline in an attempt to spark a race riot in Los Angeles - they failed, thankfully.
This third claim of D'Souza's hinges upon two things - nationhood and martyrdom. dictionary.com defines a martyr (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/martyr) as "a person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause" and a nation (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nation) as "a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own." Iran is most certainly a nation, but it's important to note that Khomeini took over that nation at the head of a radical party of that nation. Before assuming control, Khomeini certainly employed elocution of this style - the oratorical evolution from a "party of martyrs" to "nation of martyrs" is a reflection of organizational success rather than abrupt creation. Accordingly, one need not look very hard to find a radical group of Christian martyrs, members of far-right Christian groups who commit anti-abortion violence in the United States certainly qualify. Shelley Shannon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelley_Shannon) certainly deserves the title, acting upon her beliefs sent her to prison for a long while. Scott Roeder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Roeder) can be similarly served.
It is clear from Mr. D'Souza's comments on atheists that religion, to his mind, plays an important role in the creation of morality. If this is true for Islam as well as Christianity, it is then perfectly just to hold Earthly representatives of these deities responsible for their willingness to provide moralistic justification for atrocities.
~ Matt
If religious beliefs in life after death are the source of terrorism, where are the Buddhist suicide bombers? Nor has anyone been able to identify the Christian bin Laden, the Christian equivalent of al-Qaeda or Hezbollah, or the Christian "nation of martyrs" patterned along the lines of post-Khomeini Iran. The vast majority of people in the world believe in God and the afterlife, yet hardly any of them launch suicide attacks in the hope of hastening their journey to heavenly bliss.
D'Souza, judging by his publication history, has a great deal of knowledge upon religious matters and affairs - throughout the column he speaks quite well and effectively upon the religious matter at hand, albeit painting atheists with a very broad brush during the process. However, the relevant passage quoted above is not religious in nature, but is rather entirely secular - bringing it into the field of science. Mr. D'Souza's invocation of Robert Pape's Dying to Win is a good start for literature upon suicide bombing, but it is surprising that his studies (whether of the "rhetoric of the Islamic radicals" or otherwise) seem to have gone no further, for if it had the answers to his questions are not difficult to locate.
In general the passage above makes three very general claims which I shall strive to answer:
1) there is no Christian equivalent to Osama bin Laden
2) there are no Christian organizations comparable to Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah
3) there is no Christian "nation of martyrs"
The first two questions essentially depend upon the underlying proposition that there are no Christian terrorist organizations - bin Laden is the leader of an Islamic terrorist group, specifically al Qaeda. As D'Souza does not list any relevant qualities of al Qaeda to be used as tools for comparison, any attempt at proper comparison is essentially equivalent to shooting in the dark, but nevertheless some surprising similarities can be found with a trivial amount of research.
It is well-documented that many Islamic terrorists are affiliated with the Wahhabi sect of radical Islam, so in an attempt to demonstrate the parallel nature that D'Souza alleges is nonexistant it makes sense to locate a comparatively radical sect of Christianity, many examples of which can be found within the literature. Perhaps prime amongst them (from an American-centric viewpoint) is the Christian Identity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_identity) sect, whose ethnoreligious tenets spawned leaders like Robert Jay Mathews (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jay_Mathews) and James Ellison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ellison_%28polygamist%29).
The organizations founded by these two individuals accurately respond to D'Souza's second point. Robert Mathews' founding of The Order (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Order_%28group%29) (also called the Bruders Schweigen, "Silent Brotherhood" in German) is directly responsible for the murder of Alan Berg and a variety of other crimes, primarily aimed at procuring funds though with no shortage of violence. Ellison's The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Covenant,_The_Sword,_and_the_Arm_of_the_Lord) committed numerous firearms violations and practiced mock assassinations. Further, in 1983 three members of the organization attempted to dynamite a natural gas pipeline in an attempt to spark a race riot in Los Angeles - they failed, thankfully.
This third claim of D'Souza's hinges upon two things - nationhood and martyrdom. dictionary.com defines a martyr (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/martyr) as "a person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause" and a nation (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nation) as "a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own." Iran is most certainly a nation, but it's important to note that Khomeini took over that nation at the head of a radical party of that nation. Before assuming control, Khomeini certainly employed elocution of this style - the oratorical evolution from a "party of martyrs" to "nation of martyrs" is a reflection of organizational success rather than abrupt creation. Accordingly, one need not look very hard to find a radical group of Christian martyrs, members of far-right Christian groups who commit anti-abortion violence in the United States certainly qualify. Shelley Shannon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelley_Shannon) certainly deserves the title, acting upon her beliefs sent her to prison for a long while. Scott Roeder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Roeder) can be similarly served.
It is clear from Mr. D'Souza's comments on atheists that religion, to his mind, plays an important role in the creation of morality. If this is true for Islam as well as Christianity, it is then perfectly just to hold Earthly representatives of these deities responsible for their willingness to provide moralistic justification for atrocities.
~ Matt