The Curse of Religion

by Frank R. Zindler

After the horrific events of 9-11 - a date which itself symbolizes the mega-emergency that has ushered in our new century - it is impossible to remain silent concerning the religious roots of the atrocity and the threat that religion poses to the survival of civilization. America, instead of recognizing the role of religion in creating the disaster, has indulged in an orgy of prayer. "God Bless America" appeared overnight on every advertising marquee and light-board from San Diego to Bar Harbor. No one seems to have asked what good a blessing could do after such unimaginable destruction of life and property. Not even the most hopelessly religious sign-makers could seriously have thought their god would restore to life even one of the thousands killed in New York and Washington. In mindless desperation, religious slogans were displayed all across our beleaguered nation. More mindless still were the ubiquitous moving-headline signs that commanded survivors to pray: "Pray for America," "Pray for the U.S.," or simply "Pray!"

What about the fact that the kamikaze terrorists themselves prayed at least five times a day? Of no effect were the millions of prayers that had been prayed daily on behalf of America. The prayers of the millions could not overpower the prayers of the few. Even today, most Americans cannot see the lesson in this simple fact. Few recognize the stupidity - not to mention the unconstitutionality - of our Evangelist-in-Chief ordering a national day of prayer and mourning on behalf of the victims of the terrorist attacks in America's front yard.

But stupidity is the brighter side of the response by the powerful and famous. There was a malignancy in some responses as well. On Thursday, 13 September, just two days after the destruction of the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon, Jerry Falwell sat for an interview by Pat Robertson on The 700 Club. Falwell blamed the attacks - at least in part - upon pagans, abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, the American Civil Liberties Union, and 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'," Falwell declared. After agreeing with Falwell on at least some of his outrageous claims, Robertson later that day released a statement to the effect that America had insulted God and lost divine protection. "We have insulted God at the highest level of our government. Then we say, 'Why does this happen? ... It is happening because God Almighty is lifting his protection from us."

One must suppose that "the highest level of our government" must be President Bush - the man who has brought Christianity into government as no president before him has ever dared. Was it Bush's endless statements in support of religion that angered the deity? His creation of an Office of Faith-Based Initiatives in the White House? His choice of Jesus as his favorite philosopher?

At least a few commentators recognized some of the religious underpinnings of the horror, however, pointing out that fervent belief in the Islamic doctrine of Paradise was a large part of the force that sustained the suicidal behavior of the terrorists. Unlike Christians and Jews, who pay only lip-service to a belief in immortality beyond the grave, Muslim kamikaze martyrs really do believe that if they die in jihad they will be instantly translated to a paradisiacal world in which they will be satisfied in every whim by sloe-eyed houris. Although it is safe to assume that no self-aware homosexuals ever apply for the religious office of suicide bomber or murderous martyr, young Muslim men fighting against fears of latent homosexuality might very well enlist in such 'service' in order to demonstrate to themselves as well as the world their genuine machismo.

An actual example of this supposition may in fact be found in the case of the 33-year-old Egyptian Mohamed Atta, the man believed by many to have piloted the American Airlines jetliner that crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York. A will that Atta wrote in 1996 was found in a suitcase left at Logan Airport. In it, Atta left instructions for his funeral (this was written before he had decided upon cremation) which betray a misogyny and loathing of women that equal the attitudes of his namesake prophet as they are enshrined in the Qur'an.

"Everybody should mention God's name [at my funeral] and that I died as a Muslim, which is God's religion... The people who will prepare my body should be good Muslims because this will remind me of God and his forgiveness... Those who will sit beside my body must remember Allah, God, and pray for me to be with the angels... When you bury me, the people with whom I will be buried should be good Muslims. I want to face east toward Mecca... The person who will wash my body near the genitals must wear gloves on his hand so he won't touch my genitals... I don't want any women to go to my grave at all during my funeral or any occasion thereafter... I don't want a pregnant woman or a person who is not clean to come and say good-bye to me because I don't approve of it."

As readers will realize after reading Ibn Warraq's "Islam, the Middle East, and Fascism" beginning on page 21 of this magazine, Atta as well as the remaining terrorists had every right to consider themselves good Muslims. The Qur'an and the Hadith (oral tradition) provide plenty of justification not only for their self-description but for their deeds as well.

The teachings and practices of Islam were sine qua non for bringing about the most horrific scenes the world has seen since Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

But the harmful role played by Islam is only the most obvious part played by religion in creating the conditions for this atrocity. Judaism and Christianity have played their part as well in creating the conditions in the Near East that have stoked the engines of terrorism. In the Fifth Commandment, believers are ordered to "Honor your father and mother, as Yahweh your God commanded you, so that you may live long, and that it may be well with you in the land which Yahweh your god is giving you." It was the pernicious myth with which this commandment ends - the myth that Yahweh had given Canaan (Palestine) to the proto-Jews on the condition that they slaughter all previous inhabitants of the region - that inspired the Zionist reconquest of the 'Holy Land.' Needless to say, the people who were displaced by the Zionists from lands their families had held for more than a millennium did not leave quietly. They fought for their homes.

In America, meanwhile, Christian preachers and televangelists who also believed in the myth of the Fifth Commandment and the apocalyptic belief in the necessity of Jewish Return contributed further incendiary elements to the religiopolitical mixture. Hopeful that Israeli infliction of the most egregiously biblical forms of punishment upon the Palestinians might lead to their longed-for Armageddon, these religious loonies never objected to the bull-dozing of homes belonging to parents of children suspected of being stone-throwers. They never protested the endless massacre of people trying to defend or regain their homeland.

This late in history, there probably was nothing our government could have done to forestall the unspeakable evil we have just endured. Nevertheless, it is not impossible that the fuse might have been pulled from the dynamite had the Clinton administration pressured Israel to withdraw its 'settlements' from the occupied territories and do what it could to block new ones. Fear of the Religious Right as well as the Jewish Lobby has prevented all American governments from making any real effort to be even-handed in the Arab-Israeli imbroglio. George W. Bush's recent snubbing of Yasser Arafat and letting it be known that he was persona non grata at the White House told the world that America was on the side of Israel, no matter what biblical things that nation might do.

Reasonable people may disagree with many parts of my assessment of the situation, and there may be essential pieces of the puzzle of which I have been unaware. Nevertheless, all reasonable people will have to agree that America is a country cursed by religion - even if it is not a nation abandoned by a god as Rev. Robertson teaches. The present crisis will not be resolved by civic orgies of religious revival; they can only make it worse.

Faith - belief without evidence that can lead to irrational acts - is the greatest danger facing civilization today. The greatest acts of terrorism in the world today are not the suicide bombings of present concern. Rather, they are the daily swindles occurring in mosques, churches, synagogues, temples - and, alas, homes - around the world that are the most profoundly terroristic acts. In these supposedly sacred sites, otherwise rational people are persuaded to believe that the real world in which they have their being is of less value than a fervently wished-for world beyond the grave. Don't worry about solving the problems of this world. Allah, Jehovah, or Jesus has something better awaiting you in a hidden world - provided you obey his prophets, priests, preachers, rabbis, or mullahs.

The superstitions that euphemistically are called "The World's Great Religions" are really nothing more than failures of reality-testing. Faith-based actions cannot solve the problem: they are the problem. Failure in reality-testing has never led to success in anything except the corporate success of the superstitions that parasitize the minds of men, women, and children and sap their mental and moral strength. The greatest terror threatening civilization is religion. The most ferocious terrorists are those that seduce innocent folk into supposing that they must worry more about an undetectable world in hyperspace than about the world in which they live and love and have their being.

After the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City and part of the Pentagon in the District of Columbia, President George W. Bush led the religious attack on the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States by issuing the proclamation reprinted below. It is not known who wrote it nor exactly which part of "the Constitution and laws of the United States" has vested in Mr. Bush the authority he claims with which to command prayer and candlelight religious vigils.

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked America in a series of despicable acts of war. They hijacked four passenger jets, crashed two of them into the World Trade Centers twin towers, a third into the Headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense at the Pentagon, causing great loss of life and tremendous damage. The fourth plane crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside, killing all on board but falling well short of its intended target apparently because of the heroic efforts of passengers on board. This carnage, which caused the collapse of both Trade Center towers and the destruction of part of the Pentagon, killed more than 250 airplane passengers and thousands more on the ground.

Civilized people around the world denounce the evildoers who devised and executed these terrible attacks. Justice demands that those who helped or harbored the terrorists be punished — and punished severely. The enormity of their evil demands it. We will use all the resources of the United States and our cooperating friends and allies to pursue those responsible for this evil, until Justice is done.

We mourn with those who have suffered great and disastrous loss. All our hearts have been seared by the sudden and senseless taking of innocent lives. We pray for healing and for the strength to serve and encourage one another in hope and faith.

Scripture says: "'Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted." I call on every American family and the family of America to observe a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance, honoring the memory of the thousands of victims of these brutal attacks and comforting those who lost loved ones. We will persevere through this national tragedy and personal loss. In time, we will find healing and recovery; and, in the face of all this evil, we remain strong and united, "one Nation under God."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Friday, September 14, 2001, as a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims of the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001. I ask that the people of the United States and places of worship mark this National Day of Prayer and Remembrance with noontime memorial services, the ringing of bells at that hour, and evening candlelight remembrance vigils. I encourage employers to permit their workers time off during the lunch hour to attend the noontime services to pray for our land. I invite the people of the world who share our grief to join us in these solemn observances.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-sixth.

George W. Bush

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