Terrorist Attack in Nice Has Grave Ramifications

At least 80 bodies lie on streets of Nice, France, after attack.

Just a few hours ago, new reports around the world flashed the tragedy of yet another terrorist attack in France, this time in Nice. As of this exact moment, 77 are dead, but some 50 are still listed as being in critical condition raising the possibility that reports about there being as many as 100 fatalities are a distinct possibility. The act came in the form of a lorry or truck driving along an avenue over a distance of some 2 km (1 mi) at some 30 mph purposely swerving and veering to try and kill as many as it could. There were many children hit as well as adults.

Bob Baer, a former CIA analyst, terrorism expert, and contributor to CNN, immediately saw the ramifications of this new and inventive way to heartlessly destroy people: "In the long term, it will contribute to the rise of far-right political groups in Europe and around the world." Why? Because national security is a political issue and the masses will quickly vote into power far-right leaders who promise better protection. But, along with this change in the political climate, will come new laws which suspend civil rights and override privacy privileges liberal democratic societies have boasted of. In France, this will mean more votes for Marine Le Pen's National Front party. Baer also noted that this increasing fear of terrorism was partly behind the Brexit vote and its promise to control immigration. Why? Because immigration is linked, in turn, to undesirables entering the country and stirring up terrorist activites or radicalizing Britain's Islamic youth who have travelled to Islamic State to serve in their armies.

To solve this problem, it is sometimes necessary to analyze it first and find out the connections that are so polarizing our societies right now.  For this reason, it is hardly accurate to impugn those opposed to immigration as racists. Certainly there will always be a minority that are, but the majority of those opposed to immigration are uncomfortable with those peoples who national heritage is so monolithically linked to one particular religion and its ability to coerce its members into fidelity to the faith and the ease with which it can radicalize its youth into believing killing horrifically is somehow a virtue and not a negative in its values.

Believe it or not, this is not unique to Islam for the Western Judeo-Christian religions have also been plagued by it over the course of history. When we think of medieval times and the Spanish Inquisition, we realize that both Catholics and Protestants were quite capable and even eager to vanquish each other from their lands in the names of the God of Israel and Jesus Christ. So too are some orthodox Jewish sects dwelling currently in the modern State of Israel. In North America right now there are dangerous sects listing themselves as Christian who impose the harshest punishments and practices upon their members. The corruption of true Christianity and the true Judaism certainly sets no example for anyone to follow. For this reason, the poplarity of Christianity has diminished markedly recently, enhanced by the widespread sexual abuse of Catholic children and young women by the clergy pretending to be men of God.

Yet the current trends remind me of an essay I once read that, at first, struck me as absurd, but later made me reflect further upon it. The author wrote an essay about the link between violence and the media. He argued that the influence of the media was dangerous to our youth, not because of the realism of its violence but, in fact, because of its lack of realism. He argued that a cowboy decking another cowboy was portrayed too lightly on Westerns; that a real, honest-to-goodness deck would have left a real cowboy with missing teeth, blood running out of his mouth, possibly permanently demaged eyes, and a broken jaw that would have left him howling in screaming pain that wasn't captured by the movies. That a real-life shooting of a person would leave a real-life pool of blood with body parts sprayed over the area with the result of shocking anyone whoever really got to experience this violent act. His solution was, therefore, not to ban violence in the media, but to show its real-life effects. I still don't support his theory but you have to give it to him: He's on to something you might want to ponder a little further.

I use this example to illustrate that the problem with terrorism is not religion per se not even the corruption of various religions. The problem with terrorism is that too many people are raised in the wrong religions that have the wrong values and allow for their own corruption and radicalism. 

"A comparison between the concept of martyrdom in Islam on one hand and in Judaism and Christianity on the other illustrates the emphasis on violent jihad within Islamic jurisprudence. In Islamic practice, the martyr is one killed in jihad. He is entitled to special status in paradise and on Judgment Day. In Judaism and Christianity, a martyr is someone who endures torture and death rather than renounce his or her belief.....There is little tolerance for idolaters within Islam: the first article of faith is the profession, la ilah illa-llah (there is no deity but God).[Muhammad Ibraheem Surty, The Qur'anic Conception of al-Shirk (London: Luzac, 1982)] Muslim jurisprudence considers shirk to be the worst form of disbelief.[Qur'an, 28:17, 31:13, 36:74, 37:158. ] The Qur'an commands Muslims to kill those who commit shirk[Qur'an, 4:4.] and is replete with examples calling for jihad against idolaters. For example, sura (chapter) 9:5 reads, "When the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters whenever you find them, and take them captive or besiege them."[See, also, Qur'an, 2:193. Sura 8:39 reads, "So fight them so that sedition might end and obedience is wholly Allah's"; and sura 9:123 states, "Fight the unbelievers who are near to you, and let them find ruthlessness in you."[See, also, Qur'an, 2:244] Muslims living under the rule of idolaters are obliged to fight their rulers.[16] The Qur'an likewise commands believers to conduct jihad against hypocrites,[‘Ali ibn Muhammad al-Mawardi, Kitab al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyah (Beirut: Wilayat al-Dinn, 1996), pp. 30-1, 44-5, 50-1.] seize them, and do away with them.[Qur'an, 3:167-8; 4:82; 4: 88-91; 4:145; 9:12; 9:73; 66:9.] All infidels, unbelievers, and hypocrites—those who commit blasphemy or treason—are relegated to hell.[Qur'an, 9:73; 47:12; 98:6.]

Prominent Muslim scholars consider the general jihad declaration against the unbelievers to be crucial to Islamic success.[20] Those who sacrifice their material comfort and bodies for jihad win salvation. By their sacrifice, they obtain all the pleasures of paradise, be they spiritual—the close presence of God—or material.[Qur'an, 3:195; 9:72; 47:4-6, 15; 61:11-3.] As an additional incentive, Muhammad promised those mujahideen who fight in a jihad war a reward of virgins in paradise.[Qur'an, 44:51-4; 52:17-20; 55:47, 50, 52, 56, 70, 72; 56:22-4.] Importantly, those conducting suicide bombings do not consider themselves dead but rather living with God. As sura 2:154 explains, "Do not think that those who are killed in the way of Allah are dead, for indeed they are alive, even though you are not aware." Therefore the prohibition on suicide need not apply to bus bombers or other kamikaze jihadists. Martin Lings, a British scholar of Sufism, argues that this linkage between martyrdom and paradise was probably the most potent factor that Muhammad brought to the annals of warfare, for it transformed the odds of war by offering a promise of immortality.

The Hadith collections, the second important source of Shari‘a after the Qur'an, devote considerable attention to jihad, most often in terms of military action against non-believers. Indeed, most Islamic theologians in the classical period (750-1258 C.E.) understood this obligation to jihad as military. There is a whole genre of hadith known as fada'il al-jihad (the merits of the holy war), based on the nine-volume Hadith collection of Muhammad ibn Isma‘il al-Bukhari (810-70) and considered to be the most respected and authoritative collection. He dedicates almost one-third of his fourth volume on jihad as physical holy war against infidels. For example, he relates a hadith of Muhammad commenting that there are one hundred stages in paradise for those who fight for the way of God.  Only those who participate in jihad deserve paradise without any checks and reservations. To exemplify this notion, Bukhari relates a story of a woman asking Muhammad if her son, who was killed in the battle of Badr, is in paradise, and he replied that her son is in a higher paradise.

Consistent with the Qur'an, these hadith generally demonstrate the necessity for Muslims to spare no means to spread Islam by force and strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of God. The main motif of jihad in the Hadith reinforces the concept that death on the battleground in the cause of God leads to paradise and receipt of a "sacred wedding" to black-eyed virgins. From among 262 traditions that are mentioned by Abdallah Ibn al-Mubarak (736-97), a renowned Khorasani scholar who concentrated on jihad warfare as the most important method to Islamic success, thirteen reinforce the concept of virgins in paradise as a reward for martyrdom. 

The Hadith also emphasize the necessity for all believers, whenever called upon, to commit to a jihad war. In one example, Bukhari cites Ibn ‘Umar, one of the transmitters of accounts about the Prophet traditionally accepted by Muslims, who relates, "Muhammad said: ‘I have been ordered to fight against all the people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's messenger, and offer the prayers perfectly, and give the obligatory charity. So if they perform all that, then they save their lives and property from me and their reckoning will be done by Allah.'" And, in another, a transmitter narrated, "O Allah, you know that there is nothing more beloved to me than to fight in your cause against those who disbelieved your messenger." (Burkey, David. The Religious Foundations of Suicide Bombings. The Middle East Quarterly, Fall, 2006, pp. 27-36) 

I do not indict Islam as being a false religion. I indict all religions as having layered many false layers of traditions that are harmful and, like Islam, completely uninspired. All of them, incidentallyl, draw upon many pagan traditions having nothing to do with the real God. 

While religion is a problem with much of our world today, it is specifically false religion, not true religion, that is the problem. I believe that the true religion is an empirical one that is provable on many levels. In fact, that an invisible God exists is empirical lest how can we explain the origin of invisible forces and invisible laws of physics? That the Christian Bible is the true source of a true religion I can easily demonstrate through fulfilled prophecy (and a lot of it, too!) and the historical, archaeological confirmation of its existence and its surroundings. (The Quran has been criticized for having no archaeology and no broad prophecies but only narrow prophecies about Mohammad himself.) The existence of Jesus of Nazareth can be confirmed by at least 11 non-biblical references which only the dedicated skeptics can discuss on an absurdist level of reasoning. 

What I CANNOT support are the many pagan and false doctrines that have spread in the name of Christianity nor those that have inundated Judaism too. Hard to dismiss that the early Christianity of Christ was already being corrupted by Gnostic-Buddhist traditions when no mention of fathers, abbots, nuns, monasteries, prayer beads, veneration of relics, priestly celibacy, chants, or monks are contained in any of tis pages. Hard to dismiss that the early church observed God's holy days in a New Testament way rather than invent their own based on pagan Saturnalia and Ishtar traditions. Hard to dismiss that Protestantism only got rid of the Buddhism in corrupted Christianity and not its pagan observances. 

The New Testament teachings of Christ plainly teach peace and non-political involvement. So did the Apostle Paul and the early churches continue this traditions. There were no original instructions to Christ's little flock to destroy the world and all its people. He taught them to obey the authorities and become lights in a dark world around them. So many false doctrines and practices have laden believers with guilt and hang-ups that should never have been passed down to them. 

Religion is a dirty word nowadays for very good reasons but it isn't the truth that is threatening the world: It is the falsehoods and wrong conclusions that have corrupted adherents' minds and made them easier to radicalize and embrace devilish ideas, perhaps inviting possession of the devil himself.