The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #87904   Message #1648967
Posted By: Lonesome EJ
15-Jan-06 - 03:50 PM
Thread Name: BS: Religion=good folk doing bad things?
Subject: RE: BS: Religion=good folk doing bad things?
Most suicide bombers do what they do, not because of religious reasons, but because their homeland is being occupied by a foreign government. In those contexts, the suicide bombers have not been from only one religion. Their religion is incidental to the political reasons for their act of suicide bombing.

The fact that terrorist groups have demonstrable short-term goals does not in the least suggest that they are not primarily motivated by their religious dogmas. These individuals live in communities which define themselves in religious terms. Suicide bombing, in the Muslim world at least, is an explicitly religious phenomenon that is inextricable from notions of martyrdom and jihad, predictable on the basis of these notions, and thus sanctified by their logic. It is no more secular an activity than prayer is.
I am not aware of suicide bombings in China, and thus can't comment on them or the motivations of those involved.
Regarding Webster and his dictionary, fine. Noah had a very limited imagination. That's probably good, or we would be consulting dictionaries that constituted 14 volumes. In any rational discussion, there needs to be some basic agreement on what the subject is. It would be difficult to discuss the pros and cons of capital punishment if half of the participants believe slaughtering chickens is murder.

By the way...what is Folk Music? ;>)