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"The astounding events of this morning are just
another sign of the judgment of God upon our nation. We have turned
our backs on God and we are now reaping the horrible consequences
of our error."- Radical anti-abortion group
"Operation Save America" (OSA)'s public statement on
the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre, dated September 11,
2001. Taken from their website.
"I really believe that the pagans, and the
abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who
are actively trying to make that an alternate lifestyle, the ACLU,
People for the American way - all of them who have tried to
secularize America - I point the finger in their face and say,
"you helped this happen"."- Delusional
Christian fundamentalist Jerry Falwell, blaming humanism for the
destruction of the World Trade Centre and the loss of thousands of
lives. Aired on the 700 Club, September 13, 2001.
"The people are close to an all encompassing
punishment from Allah if they see the oppressor and fail to
restrain him"- Infamous Islamic terrorist Osama Bin
Laden in his 1996 fatwa,
blaming all of the economic and humanitarian problems of the Arab
world on the Saudi Arabian government's failure to expel
American "infidels" from their land. He felt that this
failure was bringing down Allah's punishment upon them. Notice
how Bin Laden's thinking perfectly mirrors that of
Falwell and the OSA.
On September 11, 2001, one of the most destructive terrorist attacks in history took place. Hijacked airliners were flown by suicidal Islamic "holy warriors" into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, destroying both towers and killing thousands of innocent people. A separate attack was made upon the Pentagon in Washington DC on the same day, and a fourth hijacked aircraft was en route to Washington DC for yet another attack when its passengers, having been forewarned of the terrorists' intentions by cellular phone, apparently rose up and fought the terrorists, bringing the plane down with no survivors in a grassy field somewhere in Pennsylvania.
This was a day of great tragedy. Out of respect for the dead, most were reluctant to exploit it for their own ends. Many websites blacked themselves out for one or two days, while others (such as mine) made statements of sympathy and remained silent for several weeks before saying anything else. However, the forces of religious fundamentalism demonstrated no such restraint, and in a stunning display of ruthless opportunism, they immediately seized upon the attack as an opportunity to advance their political agenda. Mere hours after the attack, the Christian anti-abortion group "Operation Save America" released a public statement on their website, blaming secularism for the attack and saying that "the astounding events of this morning are just another sign of the judgement of God upon our nation". They quoted from Bible passages in which Israel was ruthlessly punished for failing to obey God, they bragged that Christian religious leaders had been warning of just such a catastrophe for a long time, and they cheered when Jerry Falwell echoed their sentiments two days later.
They were hardly the only ones. No less prominent a public figure than President George W. Bush used the attack as an opportunity to build the "bridge between church and state" of which he had previously spoken1, and declared a "National day of prayer" after the attack. Across the nation, public leaders participated in an orgiastic outpouring of religious faith: multiple prayer services for Congress, the Senate, etc. "God bless America" emblazoned on lamp posts, splashed on newspaper headlines, and uttered countless times by countless elected officials. In a New York service to honour the memories of the victims, the President invited representatives of no less than eight religious denominations to speak, but not one secular speaker. This was no accident; George W. Bush is, after all, the man who declared June 10, 2001 to be "Jesus Day" in Texas, who insisted that religious charity groups should be given federal funding even if they practice religious discrimination in hiring (while reserving the right to judge which religions deserve such funding, of course), who referred to his war on terrorism as a "crusade", and who supports "student-led" school prayer (thus permitting in-school events in which the majority can exclude the minority).
And what about the estimated 30 million Americans who have no religious belief? Did President Bush imagine that they had nothing to offer? Their shoulders were unsuitable for crying on, their grief was less real, their donations were less valuable? Unsurprisingly, the answer is yes. After all, he did ask all Americans to "pray" for the victims, leaving those of us who do not pray to ask whether he thinks our contributions are needed or wanted. Moreover, in his Inauguration address many months earlier, he had stated that "some needs and hurts are so deep they will only respond to a mentor's touch or a pastor's prayer", and reiterated his longstanding intention to provide federal funds for religious groups. Is it any surprise, then, that he had no interest whatsoever in any kind of non-religious professions of grief and sorrow? He was being guided by his faith: in a time of crisis, he instinctively used his position to subject the entire nation to a massive public proselytizing, in which he promoted a disturbing form of national "unity": the Judeo-Christian majority was unified in both religion and purpose, while those of differing viewpoints were marginalized and made to feel unwelcome.
"To pretend that Islam has nothing to do with Terrorist Tuesday is to wilfully ignore the obvious and to forever misinterpret events ... there may be moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate."- Ibn Warraq's statement on the World Trade Center attack, quoted by the Council for Secular Humanism.
Almost as quickly as the Christian Right exploited the tragedy for its own ends, religious apologists of all stripes immediately sought to exonerate Islam for the fanaticism of its radical adherents. But who to blame for inflaming this hatred, if not Islam? What to blame, if not the poisonous hatred which lies at the heart of religious fundamentalism in all its forms? What could have possibly inspired such anger, such contempt for human life? The answer should come as no surprise: they couldn't blame Islam because it's a religion, so they blamed their favourite bogeyman: our own secularism.
Never mind that Bin Laden's biggest gripe is the presence of "infidels" on "holy land". Never mind that Bin Laden refers to his hated enemies as "Judeo-Christian Crusaders", thus resurrecting ancient medieval hatreds (which President Bush inflamed by describing his war on terrorism as a "crusade"). Never mind that Bin Laden looks for (and finds) justification for his "jihad" within the Quran. Never mind that the Quran, like the Bible, preaches against violence on one page and then praises men who kill unbelievers on the next. We were reminded (so many times that I lost count) that this was not "true Islam", by people who apparently ignored Quranic passages such as "fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them", or Muhammad's statement that "I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but God is worshipped". Never mind all of that: according to Time Magazine and many others, Osama's biggest gripe was with secularism, and it stemmed not from his religious beliefs, but from a "hatred of freedom".
Rather than address the real roots of the problem, we were told that the Arab world resents our material wealth and secularism, thus playing into the hands of those who believe that materialism and impiety are the root cause of all misfortune. In a September 24 "Special Report" whose cover was emblazoned with the ubiquitous "God Bless America" slogan, the notoriously religionist Newsweek Magazine even published an article entitled "A Peaceful Faith, a Fanatic Few" (a massive distortion of Islamic history) in which it made the outrageous statement that "[Islamic militants] would respect the U.S. much more ... if we were in fact a Christian state." (as if they care how America conducts its internal affairs, when they have a laundry list of complaints about the effect of American foreign policy on their own countries).
Night after night, television pundits and politicians were practically falling over each other in their haste to remind people that Islam is a "religion of peace", despite the violence in the Quran and Muhammad's exhortation to impose religious theocracy upon the entire world. Night after night, television pundits and politicians were desperately trying to convince us that Osama Bin Laden goes much farther than Islam permits, when in fact, his goals are far more limited than Muhammad's goals ever were. Muhammad clearly exhorted his followers to impose Islamic law upon the entire world, and to take whatever actions are necessary in order to achieve that goal. Bin Laden, on the other hand, has ambitions which are clearly provincial in nature. He is trying to change the Arab world, not the entire world. In his infamous 1996 fatwa, did he declare war upon secularism or democracy in general? Did he sound the call to arms to conquer the world? No; he complained bitterly about violations of Islamic law and holy places within the Arab world, with no apparent interest in the world outside. Moreover, most of his ire related to matters involving his homeland, Saudi Arabia. He complained that it should have more economic and political clout, given its valuable oil reserves. He quoted from the Quran incessantly, and he demanded revenge for injustices committed against Arabs by America (some of which, like it or not, are very real). And the complaint he made most often was that Americans were on the Holy Land. How much more evidence do we need, before we're willing to admit that Bin Laden's religious beliefs lie at the root of his behaviour, or that Islam is so extreme that he could have used it to justify much more?
President Bush himself took great pains to publicly point out that Islam is a wonderful, peaceful religion, and that we should not blame Islam or individual Muslims for Bin Laden's actions. I agree that we should not blame Muslims, since there are many varieties of Muslim belief, just as there are for other religions. But to claim that Islam itself is a peaceful religion is to betray a staggering depth of ignorance. Islam was a religion of bloody conquest for centuries (does the name "Ottoman Empire" ring a bell?), and actions speak louder than words. The Quran's praise for "holy warriors" is simply not compatible with aspirations to be a "religion of peace". If you want a real religion of peace, look to Buddhism, or perhaps to some of the modified versions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam being practiced by all those religions' respective moderates. But if you go to the roots of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, all of which grew out of the Old Testament God, you will find only hatred, intolerance, and the sword.
No one benefits from religious moderates burying their heads in the sand about the true roots of their fundamentalist peers' hatred: it comes from the holy books of their respective religions, and no amount of misinformation and propaganda can change that fact. Islamic fundamentalist hatemongers such as Bin Laden are mirror images of Christian fundamentalist hatemongers such as Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. Both sides denounce the other as evil. Both are angered by their own governments' failure to subject their citizens to religious law. Both justify their actions by quoting holy books instead of explaining how they might make the world a happier place. But both are essentially inward-looking: they blame the religious infidelity of their own people for practical problems such as the failure of America's security and intelligence organizations which led to the World Trade Centre's destruction, or the destructive infighting which has long kept the entire Arab world in a marginal state. Their concern over secularism elsewhere in the world is currently nonexistent. For now, at least, their interest in other nations is limited to those nations' effect upon their own provincial interests.
Catch 22: if you believe that God is responsible for all things that happen in this world, whether good or bad, how do you explain bad things? Answer: blame yourself for them. Blame yourself for not following God's laws, and bringing down his righteous wrath upon you. Blame your neighbours for the same thing. Blame your government for letting it happen. Blame anyone but the God to whom you give thanks when things are going well. And when someone dies in one of your holy wars, apply this same mentality to them: after all, if you blame yourself when bad things happen to you, you can just as easily blame your victims for the bad things that happen to them, right? Instant absolution: they brought it down upon themselves.
But what if you're convinced that some of your victims were truly innocent? No problem: after all, they went to Heaven early, so you actually did them a favour by killing them, right? That's precisely the rationale that Osama Bin Laden gives for the innocent victims of his terrorist activities. Not coincidentally, it's also the same rationalization used by medieval Christian crusaders in order to justify their atrocities, as well as modern Christian fundamentalists trying to explain the atrocities of the Old Testament.
No one ever dares ask the looming question: would an atheist have committed the suicide attack upon the World Trade Centre? No one dares ask that question because they already know the answer, and it's not the answer they want to hear. They know that an atheist would have never committed that attack, because an atheist, unlike a religious zealot, values his own life. There are very few things which would make an atheist sacrifice his own life: as an atheist, I would willingly give my life to protect the lives of others, especially my wife and children. But would I give my life to protect something as immaterial as a religion, or to promote the goals of some deity? Not a chance. That would be considered a shameful admission of selfishness in the religious world, but is it really so bad? Should I aspire to "fight for what I believe in", like the zealots? The harsh reality is that when someone values a system of beliefs above his own life, it is not that difficult to take the next step, and value it above the lives of others as well. Unlike religious zealots, humanists would never sacrifice their own lives for anything but other human lives. Humanists never elevate anything above human life, which is why there has never been a humanist crusade, inquisition, or jihad.
A few days after the attack, I saw a preacher on a Buffalo television station quoting the famous line that "there are no atheists in the foxholes". He apparently failed to notice that there were no atheists among the hijackers either.
1Speaking to the press, January 29, 2001, quote taken from The Complete Bushisms.
Last updated: September 29, 2001
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