Christianity, Islam, and Terrorism
Whereas Christianity tends to weaponize hell, Islam weaponizes paradise. No Christian needs to blow himself up to get assurances of his place in paradise which comes simply through believing. Even for the Catholics who are not completely assured of their salvation, rather than being focused on some outward action, the onus is on confession and absolution. The Christian needs to avoid hell, given that the default for the believer is to enter into paradise. But the Muslim needs to actively get into paradise through some particular actions.
The five main conditions for a true follower of Islam includes belief in Allah and Mohammed, praying five times a day, giving to charity, fasting during Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. Still, these constitute prerequisites but not a guarantee. There is one guarantee though, and that is engaging in Holy War. The doctrine of Holy War, or Jihad, is the surest path to paradise. Dying while fighting the infidel guarantees one entrance into paradise, even without the other prerequisites.
Even in the bloodiest segment of Christian history — during the Crusades — the Pope had to provide plenary indulgences to motivate more people to violence. These indulgences forgave sins during the Crusades, but more importantly, sins committed before the Crusades. Regular people who were afraid of going to hell because of some thing they had done, now had a way to completely absolve themselves. In the face of hell, who wouldn’t resort to unleashing hell on others?
But Islam needs no absolutions, no indulgences. Would-be Muslim fighters are not afraid of going to hell, they are afraid of not making it into paradise. Violence for them is the guaranteed path to paradise. The Christian is motivated to be forgiven for his sins which could deter him to hell; he is already on the path to paradise and is afraid of falling off. His uncertainty comes from making a mistake, and so he must be extra careful. The Muslim is motivated to do some “righteous” action which could bump him onto the path to paradise. He begins already on an uncertain path and is afraid of being left in that uncertainty; certainty comes through committing some action. This is why Islam is much more prone to terrorism. The quest for certainty is overwhelming, and the power of being certain is intoxicating.
Christianity has uncertainty. Islam has more. But while Christianity has confession and absolution as a bulwark against uncertainty, Islam has action. We can guess from this that Christianity would have more internal neurosis and Islam would have more outward actions, which would’ve been not that problematic, if not for the doctrine of Holy War. No other actions are as sure a guarantee as Jihad.
There is another reason, which also points to why Islam is more action-oriented. Islam is hyper masculine (active), Buddhism is hyper feminine (passive), and Christianity is an integration of both the masculine and the feminine. Nietzsche called Christianity the religion of weakness, but missed an important distinction. To risk offending some by using a sexual metaphor in a religious context, in the psychology of the dominant and the submissive, the dominant is outwardly hyper masculine, and the submissive is hyper feminine, but the switch integrates both, and it is this dominant who is able to play the submissive that is the truly dominant one (or rather, the integrated one). Similar to Jungian psychology, it is not the outwardly masculine who is most masculine, for he represses his femininity (or alternatively, caricaturizes femininity in order to dispose it of its power), it is the masculine who is not afraid of femininity and who can integrate it. The meekness of Christianity is not weakness, it is a superior kind of strength: those who are strong enough to allow themselves to be broken.
I am of the opinion that every religion has something to offer, something we can respect. Our job is to understand them. But our job is also to orient them, to align them with the Good that is written inside of us. Islam is in need of its own reformation.
