Vol 2 No 7 - February 26, 2007

Acetifying an innocuous idea

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Me nearest and dearest often describe me as being “music intolerant”.

Although I am certainly intolerant of people advocating a flat earth, phrenology, palmistry, astrology, magic and a sweet potato cure for AIDS, I am concerned about this ariose accusal… was it not I, on my way to restructure my student loan, in the early 80’s, who abandoned my pecuniary purpose of the day to see Pink Floyd’s The Wall? And see it again – four times that first day, and again, four times the next?

Music intolerant. Pur-leaze.

O, and I am also, of course, certainly, intolerant of people advocating the God-hypothesis as a legitimate alternative weltanschauung worthy of consideration and respect.

I warm too, to a “nice tune”, and to indicate my ability to rise above mere platitude on the topic of music, I hasten to add that I am able to prize philharmonic prestidigitation.

However… given half a chance I’ll slip Steve Hofmeyr’s Pampoen into the car stereo (I seldom, if ever, simply listen to music without also engaging in some other activity, such as driving) and I have been known to favour – to the absolute horror of my teenage daughters – a show (poorly attended, truth be known) by Lance James[1] at last year’s KKNK, to one my family enjoyed, at exponentially higher cost, by some character named after The Christ and a small lizard.[2]

But when my daughters introduced me to Bok van Blerk’s De la Rey late last year, I was hooked. Right away.

I have little affinity for Elizabeth’s islet and her people. To the best of my knowledge, such as I have, courtesy of a Broederbond high school history teacher with a career curtailed by his abject inability to wield ‘Liza’s lingo, the Kakies slipped glass slivers into the porridge in concentration camps they used to defeat the Boers in what ranks, to this day, as one of the most unfair wars on the regrettable report card of humankind.

But I did not, and I do not, need a rousing song to muster my ill feeling for the British – their regular trouncings on the rugby fields and cricket pitches of the world humours me sufficiently.

No, what grabbed me about De la Rey, was the catchy tune and the metre, the cadence, of “De la Rey De la Rey, sal jy die Boere kom lei, De la Rey De la Rey…”

It could, for all I care, jab at the idiocy of the KKK, or whatever… I like the tune and I love the round sound of “De la Rey De la Rey – lei – De la Rey De la Rey.”

I am inevitably reminded of one of my all-time favourite Monty Python skits – The Cheese Shop:

Customer: … I thought to myself, "a little fermented curd will do the trick", so, I curtailed my Walpoling activities, sallied forth, and infiltrated your place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some cheesy comestibles!

Owner: Come again?

Customer: I want to buy some cheese.

Owner: Oh, I thought you were complaining about the bazouki player!

Customer: Oh, heaven forbid: I am one who delights in all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse!

Owner: Sorry?

Customer: 'Ooo, Ah lahk a nice tuune, 'yer forced too!

Owner: So he can go on playing, can he?

Customer: Most certainly!

I suspected from the outset, and Van Blerk and his cadre confirmed as much, that it is all about a catchy tune – play it backwards even, and no message about the wholesale slaughter of political unpopular fellow nationals can be heard.

Says Sean Else, co-owner of the record company that produces Van Blerk, “It could have been about De Wet or De la Rey. Any of the great generals.”[3]

Adds partner Johan Vorster, “For me it’s about the melody. You can’t make Kemp rhyme. You can’t make Beyers rhyme. Much less some other surnames.”

“De la Rey – lei – De la Rey.”

Kemp, Schkemp; Beyers, Schmeyers – it simply can’t be done.

Asked Carte Blanche anchor Ruda Landman: “But you (Bok van Blerk) would go to a Boeremag[4] audience?”

Van Blerk: “If they pay me, yes. Why not?”

Why not, indeed?

A catchy tune. Money to be made. Publicity money cannot buy… a smiling, nay laughing artist, all the way to the bank.

And for me, personally – Steve Hofmeyr has competition… Pampoen and Die Blou Bul Liedjie[5] may never regain the prime spot on my car stereo: “De la Rey De la Rey, sal jy die Boere kom lei, De la Rey De la Rey…”

So, it’s all right then?

No. I’m afraid not. It’s not all right.

There are various socio-political arguments that acetify this innocuous song into something noxious. It is somewhat impossible to page through an Afrikaans publication at present and not see some opinion on “Bok van Blerk’s De la Rey.”[6]

I do not purport to contribute to this debate. I am almost completely ad idem (almost surely) with leading South African social commentator Max du Preez on De la Rey.

I think – and yes, I do realise that this was a somewhat long introduction to what is a rather concise point – that De la Rey is a compelling analogy on the presence of “God” in society at large.

“God” is a rather harmless idea in the minds of simple people who mostly can be convinced of just about anything: that the earth and the universe is but 6000 years old; that the dead somehow live forever after their initial demise… and so on and so forth.

But this “God” idea, in the minds of some believers, is manifested in war and oppression on an unprecedented scale – this selfsame insipid “God” can, and does, spurn the most horrible deeds.

It would be better to do away with this God hypothesis altogether – the loss of that warm fuzzy feeling of belonging a small price to pay for the eradication of all manner of atrocity perpetrated in the name of “God”. It’s a no-brainer, really. But, of course, it is never that easy, is it now?

“God” can not be undone. But “God” must be kept in check. Or rather, the people who harbour “God” in their minds should be kept in check.

“God” must go.

Although we can hardly hope for a society in which God is rejected (some 53% of Americans have recently indicated that they would not vote for an atheist presidential candidate[7]), we can at least stop behaving as if the God hypothesis is worthy of our collective respect.[8]

Ditto De la Rey.

Enjoy it. Hum it. Be entertained.

But be vigilant. Keep those baloney detectors switched on and calibrated.

De la Rey is a rousing popular Afrikaans song by a hitherto unknown artist that is seen by some to rally White against Black.

Who was Koos de la Rey?

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[1] Rumoured to be the father of Country music in South Africa… certainly the senior Country statesman.

[2] Exceptionally talented South African artist Chris Chameleon.

[3] 18 February 2007. Carte Blanche. (South African Dstv actuality program.) Producer : A2 Productions. Presenter : Ruda Landman. Researcher : Wynand Grobler.

[4] A political right wing motley of aggrieved Whites shaking lilliputian fists at the colossal Black democratically elected African National Congress government.

[5] Songs by South African superstar Steve Hofmeyr, the latter a rousing song in honour of Hofmeyr’s beloved Rugby Franchise, The Blue Bulls of Pretoria.

[6] Even the renowned South African business weekly, Financial Mail, carried comment, by Rapport (the world’s largest Afrikaans weekly) editor Tim du Plessis – De la Rey rides again … looking at the emergence of a new Afrikaner.

[7] Charles Smith. February 25, 2007. Hilary, Obama se sepie. Rapport. 23.

[8] With acknowledgement to A.N. Wilson, Against Religion.

Vol.2 No.6 - February 19, 2007

Like a thief in the night…

In writing this article, I am availing myself of the great liberty of eisegesis.

I recall my obfuscation, befuddlement and discombobulation, although I had not at the time the vocabulary to identify my youthful confusion and incomprehension in quite such definitive terms, when first my Afrikaans Language high school teacher, Broederbond membership card all but pinned to this beige safari suit lapel, announced that one may read into a text something not intended to be portrayed by an author… something even contrary to an author’s purport.

Mused the Apostle Peter in his second epistle (chapter three, and verse ten… although authorship is hotly contested): “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

Written, of course, before he became the Vicar of Christ and the founding champion of the Stool that to this very day carries his illustrious name and is occupied, currently, by one Josef Ratzinger – very much not a Semite. Before, too, he took up office as Keeper of the Pearly Gates.

Methinks this “thief in the night” analogy apposite to the beguiling banter employed by the faithful in desperate attempts to muster even a valeity of support and credibility, incredulous as it may be, for religious tenets.

Man, I’m having fun with this!

A former, Apartheid regime, South African Minister of Foreign Affairs, Roelof “Pik” Botha, had the misfortune this last Saturday, to have an article on “creationism and evolution” published in a leading Afrikaans magazine, By, the week-end edition insert to the daily Die Burger. Entitled Wees ons onkundigheid genadig (Have mercy on our ignorance), Botha suffered the ignominy of stating “The theory of evolution bestows on God infinitely more power than does creationism… and should there be a form of continued existence after death, I should look forward to it, for my life here on earth was pleasant.”

My initial reaction was one of incredulity and mystification. My tashe quivered with amusement as I read and I broke into a gentle chuckle.[1]

My subsequent reaction was one of botheration. What was it that irked me so?

Eventually I was piqued. So I called a senior journalist friend and suggested that the editor of By be drawn and quartered at midday, Monday, upon Church Square in Cape Town. My friend stilled me and suggested that the editor of By was in fact an extremely competent journalist and…

I know. Of course I know. Liza Albrecht has my complete respect as an editor. I think she represents the future of (Afrikaans) journalism.

What vexed me about Botha’s article? And was it even important enough to merit indignation?

I turned to the Internet. As I am wont to do. I posted Ondermynende joernalistiek (Undermining Journalism) on Kletskerk – a thread that attracted some 300 hits to date, and some 40 responses.

I am discomfited, huffy even, probably incensed, because Botha, either by design or unwittingly, sneaked in one for “The King”. Like… a thief in the night: surreptitiously, furtively; sneakily.

I think it irresponsible and frankly, disrespectful to readers, for an editor to publish an article by a renowned and widely respected, iconic even, individual from a nostalgic recent past, suggesting – even only suggesting – the possibility of divine intervention in the origin and development of life and the universe, and the possibility of eternal life beyond the grave.

It is, I maintain, as irresponsible as would be the publication of an article suggesting that a sweet potato diet could possibly – even only “possibly” – cure AIDS… Even if such AIDS article strongly addressed the magnitude of the pandemic and the absolute need for continued research and vigilance to counter and obliterate the disease.

“The average By reader” – religious to at least the extent of squirming at the idea of the nullity of “God” will doubtlessly have her conviction that the God conjecture is a quite legitimate alternative weltanschauung worthy of consideration and respect, fortified by the article. It simply is not a legitimate alternative![2]

Botha’s underhanded remarks remind me of a parable by Douglas Adams, as retold by Richard Dawkins in Lament for Douglas: “A man didn’t understand how televisions work, and was convinced that there must be lots of little men inside the box. manipulating images at high speed. An engineer explained to him about high frequency modulations of the electromagnetic spectrum, about transmitters and receivers, about amplifiers and cathode ray tubes, about scan lines moving across and down a phosphorescent screen. The man listened to the engineer with careful attention, nodding his head at every step of the argument. At the end he pronounced himself satisfied. He really did now understand how televisions work. ‘But I expect there are just a few little men in there, aren’t there?’"

It is unacceptable for a leading secular newspaper to have the God hypotheses and eternal life promoted in its pages.

It is demeaning. It is pseudoscientific. It is derisory. It is opprobrious.

It must be opposed by sentient people rising to the challenge of incessantly indicating the irrationality of the God hypothesis; calling foul without fail when its mendacious head shows above the trench of wanton otherworldliness.[3]

I am ad idem with Richard Dawkins: "I am utterly fed up with the respect we have been brainwashed into bestowing upon religion."[4]

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[1] A reaction shared with Baron Gruner, the Austrian murderer who killed his wife in the Splugen Pass and came to the attention of Sherlock Holmes in one of Dr Watson’s renderings entitled The Adventure of the Illustrious Client. (As I have mentioned before, I am too having fun!)

[2] See Irreducible idiocy, TART Remarks, January 29, 2007.

[3] January 29, 2007.

[4] Michael Brooks and Helen Phillips. 18 November 2006. Beyond belief: In place of God. New Scientist. 2578: 8-11, reporting on a November 2006 La Jolla, California, symposium entitled "Beyond belief: Science, religion, reason and survival", hosted by the Science Network, a science-promoting coalition of scientists and media professionals convening at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Vol 2 No 5 - February 12, 2007

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Religious belief and societal health

This article is a somewhat adjusted version of Matthew Provonsha’s piece, New Study Reveals that Religion Does Not Lead to a Healthier Society, in Skeptic, Vol 12. No.3

It is commonly held that religion makes people more just, compassionate, and moral, but a 2005 study by Gregory S. Paul suggests that the data belie that assumption. In fact, at first glance it would seem, religion has the opposite effect. The extensive study, “Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religi-osity and Secularism in the Prosperous Demo-cracies,” published in the Journal of Religion and Society examines statistics from eighteen of the most developed democratic nations. It reveals clear correlations between various indicators of social strife and religiosity, showing that whether religion causes social strife or not, it certainly does not prevent it.

In South Africa, the Church is crying out against crime – the scourge of the young, otherwise robust democracy. The moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church, Dr Coenie Burger, and his counterpart of the Apostolic Faith Mission, Dr Isak Burger, often exclaim in unison that some 80% of South Africans identify with Christianity and that such am overwhelming unifying creed should be able to stem the wave of crime that threatens the very fibre of the South African “miracle”. Considering the number of traditional African religions represented by the balance of the population, one would expect that a nation with such an overwhelming religio-moral identity should be one where crime is the exception, rather than the rule.

Yet, alas, South Africa is riled by a crime wave that threatens to take the country apart. Could it possibly be that religion is part of the problem, and not part of the solution?

Paul writes that his study is a “first, brief look at an important subject that has been almost entirely neglected by social scientists… not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health.” However, the study does show a direct correlation between religiosity and dysfunctionality, which if nothing else, disproves the widespread belief that religiosity is beneficial, that secularism is detrimental, and that widespread acceptance of evolution is harmful.

Paul begins by explaining how far his findings diverge from common assumptions. He even quotes Benjamin Franklin and Dostoevsky to show how old these common-misconceptions are. Dostoevsky wrote, “if God does not exist, then everything is permissible.” Benjamin Franklin noted, “religion will be a powerful regulator of our actions, give us peace and tranquility within our minds, and render us benevolent, useful and beneficial to others.”

To this day, the belief that religiosity is socially beneficial is widespread in America, especially amongst politicians, as Paul notes: “The current [at that time] House majority leader T. DeLay contends that high crime rates and tragedies like the Columbine assault will continue as long schools teach children ‘that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized [sic] out of some primordial soup of mud.’” But this view is not exclusively Republican, Paul explains, or even conservative: “presidential candidate Al Gore supported teaching both creationism and evolution, his running mate Joe Lieberman asserted that belief in a creator is instrumental to ‘secure the moral future of our nation, and raise the quality of life for all our people,’ and presidential candidate John Kerry emphasized his religious values in the latter part of his campaign.” Surveys show that many Americans agree “their church-going nation is an exceptional, God blessed, ‘shining city on the hill’ that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly skeptical world. ”This assumption flies in the face of the actual statistical evidence that Paul examined.

The study focuses on the prosperous democracies, because “levels of religious and nonreligious belief and practice, and indicators of societal health and dysfunction, have been most extensively and reliably surveyed” in them. Also, “The cultural and economic similarity of the developed democracies minimizes the variability of factors outside those being examined.” With a database of 800 million people, this study is far more reliable than results based on smaller sample sizes used in other such studies. The data are also current and extensive, collected in the middle and latter half of the 1990s and early 2000s from the International Social Survey Programme, the UN Development Programme, the World Health Organization, Gallup, and other well-documented sources.

For this study’s purpose, “dysfunctionality” is defined by such indicators of poor societal health as homicide, suicide, low life expectancy, STD infection, abortion, early pregnancy, and high childhood mortality (under five-years old). Religiosity is measured by biblical literalism, frequency of prayer and service attendance, as well as absolute belief in a creator in terms of ardency, conservatism, and activities.

Paul’s results are presented in nine charts. The first compares acceptance of evolution with various indicators of religiosity. From this Paul concludes that, “The absence of exceptions to the negative correlation between absolute belief in a creator and acceptance of evolution, plus the lack of a significant religious revival in any developed democracy where evolution is popular, cast doubt on the thesis that societies can combine high rates of both religiosity and agreement with evolutionary science. Such an amalgamation may not be practical.” He adds: “When deciding between supernatural and natural causes is a matter of opinion large numbers are likely to opt for the latter,” and that, “Conversely, evolution will probably not enjoy strong majority support in the U.S. until religiosity declines markedly.”

All of the subsequent results that compare religiosity against dysfunctionality show a basic correlation between the two, though anomalies exist. Paul’s second figure (Figures 1 and 2 here) shows a positive correlation between religiosity and homicide rates.

The United States is a strong exception, experiencing far higher rates of homicide than even (strongly theistic) Portugal, while Portugal itself is beset by much more homicide than the secular developed democracies. Hardly a “shining city on a hill” to the rest of the world, Paul writes that, “The most theistic prosperous democracy, the U.S., is exceptional, but not in the manner Franklin predicted. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly.” This deviates immensely from what most Americans consider to be common wisdom: that religion is beneficial. “But in the other developed democracies religiosity continues to decline precipitously and avowed atheists often win high office, even as clergies warn about adverse societal consequences if a revival of creator belief does not occur.” Despite the best efforts of “pro-life” Americans, abortion rates are much higher in our Christian nation, and lowest in relatively secular ones such as Japan, France, and the Scandinavian countries (Figures 3 and 4). In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies (Figures 5 and 6). This would seem to indicate that there is a positive correlation between religiosity and dysfunctionality, but what does that mean?

The question is one of causation, and there is no clear answer. Whether religion leads directly to dysfunctionality, or religions merely flourish in dysfunctional societies, neither conclusion from this study flatters religion. The first tells us that religion is a hindrance to the development of moral character, and the second that religion hinders progress by distracting us from our troubles (with imaginary solutions to real problems). This study is complicated enough that I do not think that we can draw definitive negative conclusions about religion. But we can at least conclude, contrary to popular belief in this country, that it is not a given that religious societies are better, healthier, or more moral. What we can be clear about from this study is that highly religious societies can be dysfunctional, whereas by comparison secular societies in which evolution is largely accepted display real social cohesion and societal well-being. As is always the case in science, more data and additional research will help clarify our conclusions.

Correlational evidence is never conclusive, remarks Richard Dawkins[1], but data by Sam Harris, in his Letter to a Christian nation, are striking:

“While political party affiliation in the United States is not a perfect indicator of religiosity, it is no secret that the "red states" are primarily red because of the overwhelming political influence of conservative Christians. If there were a strong correlation between Christian conservatism and social health, we might expect to see some sign of it in red-state America. We don't. Of the 25 cities with the lowest rates of violent crime, 62 percent are in "blue" states and 38 percent are in "red" states. … Of the 22 states with the highest rates of murder, 17 are red.”

The broad trend, argues George Monbiot[2], looks clear: “the more secular, pro-evolution democracies have… come closest to achieving practical ‘cultures of life’.

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[1] Richard Dawkins. 2006. The God Delusion. Batma Press. London. 229-230.

[2] George Monbiot. Better off without Him.The Guardian. October 11, 20

The possible correlation between religious belief and societal health is considered this week.

The ideological fanaticism of Richard Dawkins’s attack on belief is unreasonable to religion – and science, says Alister McGrath, calling Dawkins “England’s grumpiest atheist”.

Thousands of churches face closure, demolition or conversion in the next decade, leading to the demise of some branches of Christianity in Europe, according to experts.

In this winter of their discontents, nostalgia for Ronald Reagan has become for many conservatives a substitute for thinking. This mental paralysis -- gratitude decaying into idolatry -- is sterile: Neither the man nor his moment will recur. Conservatives should face the fact that Reaganism cannot define conservatism.

As a child, Ayaan Hirsi Ali fled violence in Somalia with her family. As an adult she fled Kenya to escape an arranged marriage. She left her adopted Holland after she was caught up in political turmoil and had her life threatened.

Jesus, with a copy of The Guardian, and Mo, reading Schopenhauer, sort out some cosmic plumbing problem… and there’s something on a Muslim “race”…

O, and there’s a remark about a haggard pastor.

Vol. 2 No. 4 – February 5, 2007

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The poor man’s smart bombs

BAGHDAD, Sunday, Feb. 4 — A mammoth truck bomb obliterated a popular central Baghdad market on Saturday, ripping through scores of shops and flattening apartment buildings, killing at least 130 people and wounding more than 300 in the worst of a series of horrific attacks against Shiites in recent weeks.

An injured man was lifted onto a bed at a Baghdad hospital Saturday. The huge bomb struck shoppers in the largely Shiite enclave of Sadriya.

The attack was the work of a suicide bomber who detonated about one ton of explosives in the bustling Sadriya market, in a largely Shiite enclave at 5 p.m., as shoppers finished buying food for dinner and men sipped coffee at cafes nearby, the police said. It was the deadliest single bomb blast since the United States invasion almost four years ago.

The New York Times, At Least 130 Die as Blast Levels Baghdad Market , February 4, 2007

The attack was the work of a suicide bomber…

The suicide bombing phenomenon is the direct result of teaching children the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end, that life somehow continues after death, that a better life awaits the just in some god.

I am fagged out by the claim of religion’s apologists that 9/11, Gujarat, Beslan, Hai al-Amaal, to mention but a few recent examples of religious atrocity, are simply about power. Religion is not to blame, the vindicators hold – religion is good and just and salutary. Religion, so the whining goes, is merely exploited by unscrupulous political charlatans seeking personal power and wealth. I, for one, am delighted to learn that the problem is so mundane and trivial. This problem should be easily remedied. Simply destroy the hold these mountebanks hold over hapless, over credulous, naïve believers – ensure that the dullards are not exposed to exploitative religion abused to subjugate them.

It is elementary, my dear wowser: Had children of Islamic parents not been exposed to religious instruction, no measure of political messianism will have succeeded, and continue to succeed, in producing a line of extremist would-be suicide bombers beating down the door for the privilege to be detonated, for that passport to paradise with its concupiscence and its spizzerinctum – It’s religion, stupid![1] Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities.[2]

I know the research and the arguments… One of the worlds foremost authorities on the subject, Robert Pape[3] has created the first comprehensive database of every suicide terrorist attack in the world from 1980 until today. With striking clarity and precision, Pape uses this unprecedented research to debunk widely held misconceptions about the nature of suicide terrorism and provide a new lens that makes sense of the threat we face. (See box.)

Is suicide bombing now “debunked”? Reflects Michael Radu, a specialist in international terrorist groups and Co-chairman of the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Center on Terrorism, Counter- terrorism, and Homeland Security, offers this view: “But with the exception of the LTTE’s [Sri Lankan Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam-LTTE, Marxists/ Hindus/ Tamil secessionists] acts, all other [suicide] terrorist acts were committed by Muslims, and of those, all except those by the PKK/Kadek in Turkey and Arafat’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades were committed by members of openly Islamist groups. The LTTE/PKK cases led some to dismiss the role of religion in the motivation of suicide terrorists, but on further analysis, the exception indeed proves the rule.”[4]

In July 2006, Al Qaeda released a recruitment video, encouraging Muslims to carry out new attacks similar to the July 7 bombings in London last year. Pape notes that the video is stunning in its absence of religious declamation.[5]

Also in July 2006, Robert Whalley, Former UK Home Office Director for Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence, chaired a meeting on suicide bombings where this perspicacious remark was made by Dr Samuel Grier, Dean, NATO Defense College, “Those most vulnerable for recruitment into the on-going suicide bombing epidemic were immature young people, those with psychological dysfunction, and those that had been coerced to join the fight. Islam played a role here, but only in the way it had been instrumentalised by extremist leaders to exploit the vulnerable.”[6]

Discussant Jonathan Paris, of St Antony’s College, stressed, at the same forum, that suicide bombings were not the result of socio-economic conditions or social exclusion. He believed that the root of the problem lay with the persuaders, the key leaders and often charismatic recruiters. The key to Muslim radicalisation, he said, could be found in the teachings of the Imams.

Sam Harris recalls a Palestinian suicide bomber who said that what drove him to kill Israelis was “the love of martyrdom… I didn’t want revenge for anything. I just wanted to be a martyr.”[7]

Nasra Hassan, Director, United Nations Information Service and Spokesperson United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, started her research on suicide bombings because she found it impossible, as a Muslim, to understand why people chose to blow themselves up in the name of Islam. Her work had therefore focused on suicide bombings by Muslims and she had, by July 2006, built up a database of approximately 400 Muslim suicide bomber profiles. Her research suggests that as a suicide bomber required a sponsoring group, such groups required a sponsoring community and a belief system that sustained them.[8]

Hassan eloquently describes the religious dynamic of the “Human Bomb” phenomenon when she recalls video footage of a planner kneeling with two young men and all placing their hands on a copy of the Koran. Then the planner says: “Are you ready? Tomorrow, you will be in Paradise.”[9]

In The End of Faith, Harris objects to all brands of the religious product. “Criticizing a person’s ideas about God and the afterlife is thought to be impolitic in a way that criticizing his ideas about physics or history is not,” he notes. ”And so it is that when a Muslim suicide bomber obliterates himself along with a score of innocents on a Jerusalem street, the role that faith played in his actions is invariably discounted.”[10]

Harris encourages us to think of communism and fascism as religion-like cults, making the case that intolerance is the sine qua non of every authoritarian regime. We should deplore the religious fanaticism of suicide bombers and the secular totalitarians equally.[11]

The absurd folderol that death is not the end of human life, but rather the beginning of some supreme life, especially a life supersaturated with unbridled sex and gross opulence, lies at the very base of the suicide bombing phenomenon. This… religion, this pernicious bane, this pestilent destructive force, this grotesque parody of thought, this egregious abuse of intelligence that is Islam, is at the back of the suicide bombing phenomenon.

72 virgins. A guerdon for flagitious male[12] deeds of terror.

72 virgins. Wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. Chaste as hidden pearls. Each sufficiently uninitiated in sexual enjoyment to accept her master’s every effort in subservient worship, “O, most honorable, most profound, most proficient, most practiced, most skilful, most virtuous stud.”[13]

The Prophet Muhammad, beguiled by the indefatigable Gabriel’s intermittent revelations, was apparently heard saying: “The smallest reward for the people of paradise is an abode where there are 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine, and ruby, as wide as the distance from Al-Jabiyyah (a Damascus suburb) to Sana'a (Yemen).”[14]

Islam knows full well, as do automobile manufacturers and makers of yogurt, that you’ve got ‘em for life if you promise ‘em sex – lots of it, and varied. Promise testosterone enriched teenagers an eternity in the embrace of 72 subservient wenches and they will, as a sea of blood and a mountain of body parts grimly bear witness, gladly blow themselves and unsuspecting passersby to smithereens, hard-on at the ready.

The specific Islam mutation of the nefarious religion virus is peculiarly annihilative in its own uniquely destructive way. Islam represents sui generis turpitude and indeed escapes exoteric aspersion only by being none more ridiculous and ruinous than analogous anserine beliefs – Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism or whatever ism it is whomever happens to believe is provoked of some ideogenous deity at any given point in time. Attrocities committed under the aegis of religion are well documented and no less abhorrent than Hai al-Amaal. Yet among the emphatically purblind idiotologies (sic) masquerading as belief systems, Islam, by reason of its particular martyrdom mandate, is a decidedly obtuse variant. Insufficient words and phrases exist to define this hubristic disgrace, this ridiculous nonsense impertinently presumptive of creed.

This damning charge against Islam is exacerbated by recent scholarly opinion that the sexual debauchery awaiting cathected martyrs in the Muslim hereafter, the unconditional copulation promised to the faithful, may be a false claim after all! Syriac words substituted for the Arabic, indicate that the amative maidens may mean nothing more than "white raisins" of "crystal clarity". It may well be that the context dictates that food and drink is being promised, and not unsullied maidens! It may well be that millions of people have been killed over the centuries so that the martyrs can enjoy “chilled raisins” (or drinks) in Paradise while the unfaithful and damned infidels have boiling drinks elsewhere.[15]

I can hear it already – the voices of the apologetics wailing in unison, “This is not what Islam is about; suicide is forbidden in Islam!”

Yeah. Right. This is not what Islam is about… but this is what happens in Islam’s milieu. Just about exclusively.

Now, before Christians recline on the soft platitude “we are certainly not like that”, let me hasten to add that shipping Billy-Ray from the shores of the Mississippi to the back streets of Baghdad on a wing and a prayer ain’t much different to strapping some dynamite to the lad’s torso and handing him a detonator.

Any religion, meme, totemism, philosophy or je ne sais quois that propagates the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end should be rejected with contempt. Said Albert Camus, “If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”

To tolerate religion because it is not the exclusive vehicle of evil, identifies religion as a vessel of evil and denies us the opportunity to eliminate at least one known crucible of evil.[16]

The solution is an obvious one: Although we can hardly hope for a society in which formal organized religion is rejected, we can at least stop behaving as if religion is worthy of our collective respect.[17]

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[1] See Nathan Bond, It’s religion, stupid, LitNet Religious Literature, January 22, 2004.

[2] Attributed to Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).

[3] Robert Pape. 2005. Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Random House.

[4] FRONTPAGEMAGAZINE.COM. October 9, 2003. Radical Islam and Suicide Bombers.

[5] Robert Pape. September 11, 2006. Chicago Tribune. 5 YEARS AFTER 9/11: The growth of suicide terrorism.

[6] Samuel Grier. July, 6, 2006. An IISS Forum in cooperation with the Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust. (A discussion on suicide bombings held one day before the first anniversary of the July 7, 2005 terrorist attack in London that killed 56 people.)

[7] Richard Dawkins. 2006.The God Delusion. Bantam. London. 304-305.

[8] Nasra Hassan. July, 6, 2006. An IISS Forum in cooperation with the Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust.

[9] Nasra Hassan. November 19, 2001. An Arsenal Of Believers: Talking to the "Human Bombs". The New Yorker.

[10] Susan Jacoby. September 12, 2004. A Review of The End of Faith. The Los Angeles Times.

[11] James McManus. October 31, 2004. A review of The End of Faith. The Chicago Tribune.

[12] Until Wafa Idris, then a 28-year-old Palestinian medical assistant, detonated herself on one of Jerusalem’s busiest streets, the privilege of exploding for Allah was a strictly male honour. But Islam is making grand strides towards gender equality – several Islamic Sheiks have confirmed that women are suitable candidates for explosive martyrdom… if, should the operation take longer than a day and a night, she is accompanied by a male relative.

[13] The eternal paradisial reward for female blow-ups remain uncertain at this time. Perpetual falling asleep in strong arms after long talks by candlelight suggests itself, but the sexuality of the “new Islamic woman” may be compromised by such timidity… a program of alternate gang-bangs and cunnilingus perhaps?

[14] From Hadith 2687, collected by Al-Tirmidhi (9^th century CE) and quoted in the Koranic commentary of Ibn Kathir (14^th century CE). Hadith is Arabic for Tradition and contain records of the Prophet’s attributed adages and actions.

[15] This interpretation is argued by Christoph Luxenberg in his 2001 book, Die Syro-Aramaische Lesart des Koran. (Cf. Ibn Warraq, Virgins? What virgins?, Special report: religion in the UK, The Guardian, January 12, 2002.)

[16] Nathan Bond. Ibid.

[17] With acknowledgement to A.N. Wilson, Against Religion.