June 02, 2010[Updated 04/06/2012]
NewsRescue OpEd- We are all used to religious terrorism. Thanks to names like Osama Bin Ladin, Or American Al Qaeda, the world is highly sensitized to religious extremist terrorism and fanaticism. But what we all missed is a greater menace and terrorism in our midst. A more dangerous and illusive organization, that has killed so many more than religious terrorism has and threatens to kill more and more as it expands globally and its prophets gain more and more converts.
Indeed nonreligious terrorism claims lives everyday in so many countries world wide, especially in the western world, but intentionally fails to be branded as such, to diminish public fears.
Common definitions of terrorism refer to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal, and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians). Nonreligious terrorism, completely fits this definition.
Related: NewsRescue- Cuckoo, Gaga! Youngsters with Guns Gone Wild: From Afghan to France!
On Wednesday, a 52 year old man, Derrick Bird, embarked on a rampage that began near Whitehaven and ended when he turned a gun on himself. His story was reported in the media as that of a crazy person. Simply crazy, no complications, no indoctrination and no affiliations. His investigation will almost certainly not lead far. The type of books he reads, will not be examined so long as they are not popular religious books. If he has Richard Dawkins’ ‘The God delusion’ open on his table, police officers will fail to notice…and if they do, will fail to publicize this. Similar rampage murder suicides are no news to us. They happen so regularly, people shooting up schools, the Virginia tech case, shooting up places of work, Walmart killing sprees.
[smartads]
In China, almost every other day, there is a sad report of a disenfranchised person going to schools and using the available weapons in China,- knives, cleavers, etc. to stab and murder little children. Dozens of children have been killed in this sick spate and hundreds injured. Like in the western world, these killings usually end or are planned to have the same ending- suicide.
What we probably missed is the fact that such killing sprees almost never occur in traditional religious societies. Yup. Africa, the Muslim world and religious Asia (India) do not know these types of killing sprees. They do not witness this type of insane terror. In Africa, when a person kills, there is damn well a clear reason. Perhaps crazy, but clear. He almost certainly killed for some money ritual, or just for money. In the Middle East, when a person kills, well, perhaps he is a robber, or he is a terrorist or maybe he is killing under the umbrella of some ridiculous cultural ‘honor,’ ‘re-establishment’. But that’s it. People never go on blind, so-called psycho killing sprees.
The psychos in these cultures become armed robbers or religious terrorists, with a clear reparable and defined objective. A social menace that can be understood, recognized and repaired with social adjustment. Poverty alleviation in Africa. The Israeli issue in the Middle East. But what of the menace of nonreligious terror?
Doctrine that gains converts to this ideology are spewed everyday. Richard Dawkins is not short of cash making ideas to write about and distribute, on how God should be hated and how religious people are insane.
Charles Hitchens, and Ali Hirsi are not too far behind, producing doctrine upon doctrine for a growing team of nonreligious folk out there who are very combatant, seizing every opportunity to insult and attack religious environments and ideas, on the internet and off. They wear T shirts to instigate and propagate, they use handles that declare their ideology and their follower-ship of the Dawkins doctrine.
Why do their killings escape our notice as acts of organized terror?
It is simple. We are looking for an ideology in killings, we are looking for a plain red flag- a religious book, a religious verse or even just being religious. When nonreligious people kill, we fail to associate it with their being non religious, especially in the western world. If this happened in non-western nations it would be picked instantly.
The doctrine is actually clear-
Religion is a doctrine of accountability to a Creator. Our bodies are borrowed and so are those of fellow man. We can never kill ourselves or innocent others, except we are are psycho, like seriously psycho to forget the accountability for sins and crimes.
Nonreligious doctrine is a doctrine of unaccountability. Unaccountability after death. It is a doctrine of disbelief in God, or a Controller in charge, to put it mildly, and to be realistic, these days, it is actually becoming more of a rebellion and fervor against a Creator, believed in or not.
The nonreligious person feels that once he can terminate his killing spree with a suicide, he is off, his chapter is closed, it ends there, he actually took the people he killed’s pain away as he ‘removed them from an unnecessary cycle of joy and sadness in life’ and he took his away too as the minute he pops the cap in his head. He and his pain are over. No hell, no accountability, no recompense.
This doctrine is actually so dangerous, because it spreads silently and easily under the radar. People read books about unaccountability, and then suicide and murder-suicide clubs are officially or unofficially formed and these believers in a doctrine of unaccountability, go on to make that phone call, write that letter, or make that terror video explaining that they will no longer be seen, and then they go out to terrorize and prove to the world that God does not exist, it all ends here, and they have taken the pain away.
California, US Oikos Christian College student-terrorist shooting leaves 7 dead
Chinese media aggressively censors news of successful murder spree suicide terrorism in a bid to limit it, as they understand clearly how contagious this dangerous terror doctrine is.
It’s the difference between thinking and believing in a doctrine that sees each life as an amazing gift and creation of splendor, and the other doctrine that sees life as a coincidence and perchance arrangement of sorts without any intelligent and decisive plan behind it. Joseph Stalin, a famous nonreligious menace in power, in his reigns of terror, killed over 40 million people. More than religious wars have ever killed. And he did so because of this ideology of unaccountability. A lack of fear of a Creator and regard for human life. The Chinese Mao Zedong, another famous nonreligious individual who had the reigns of power is estimated to have killed up to 72 million innocent people.
It is time we recognize this very dangerous situation we are in and this brand of terror that is actively propagating and plaguing the western society. I bet from now you’ll see the pattern.
