Islamic fundamentalists reacting to American foreign policy commit a horrific crime against humanity and secular tolerance is to blame?
To blame the deeds of religious extremists on secularists is absurd. What is really depressing is a lot of their followers actually believe them.

How low can you go
Pat and Jerry exploited this heinous act to further their own cause, they used it to attack all those that they see as a threat to their extremist views, i.e. all those that do not follow their particular brand of fanatical fundamentalist Christianity.
Self appointed spokesmen of God.
They claim to know the mind of God, to know what God wants, and it always coincides with what they want. Claiming to know what God wants is claiming to be the voice of God.
They manipulate the dumb masses by claiming what they want is actually what God wants.
If you claim that your words are actually God's words and people believe you, this gives you extraordinary power.

In common
The fanatical Islamic fundamentalists that conceived, planed and executed this horrific deed, share an equally intense hate of pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians and secularists as Pat and Jerry and their followers. They also claim to know the mind of God, to know what God wants, and it also always coincides with what they want.

Pat, Jerry and Bin all use religion to manipulate the dumb masses. They use religion as a means to the Power that they lust after.

Group punishment
The Abrahamic god, the god of Pat, Jerry and bin Laden, is prone to punishing a group for the sins of a few. He also punishes children for the sins of their parents.
According to Pat and Jerry their god was angered by the behavior of American liberals, gays, feminists, secularists, etc., so he allowed the slaughter of 3000 innocent Americans, only some of which were liberals, gays, feminists, secularists, etc.

Excuses
Jerry and Pat are looking for excuses, it is obvious that their god failed to protect America.
The claimed powers of their god failed to materialize.
God had certainly not 'blessed America' on that day.
Bin Laden's god was the more powerful god on the day.
When your god's claimed magic powers fail, blame the people, or better still blame your enemies.

Real Reasons
Those fanatical Islamic fundamentalists did not randomly choose America with a dart board and a map, they had their reasons.
Foreign policy
American foreign policy certainly played a role,
Religion
so did the fact that America is predominately a christian nation. Muslims and christians have been killing each other for over a thousand years. Millions of muslims were ruthlessly slaughtered by crusaders.
Secularism
Kill the infidel!
Another reason is the mildly secular nature of American so called democracy. If there is one thing that fundamentalist muslims hate more than christians it is nonbelievers.

Non reason
It was certainly not because Americans 'love freedom' like Bush would have dumb Americans believe.

Ultimately
Stupidity is to blame.
Sept 11 could only happen because there are people dumb enough to believe their religious leaders. It takes a high level of stupidity to believe a priest or mullah who says if you hijack a jetliner and fly it into a building you will be rewarded with a harem of 72 virgins in paradise.
First you have to be stupid enough to believe in an afterlife, to believe in your own immortality.

Profit
Sept 11 has resulted in a sharp rise in military spending. A lot of capitalists are making a lot of money out of Sept 11.

ITS A MAD MAD WORLD
The state of human intelligence
What makes events like the Sept. 11 mass slaughter possible?

STUPIDITY
The bottom line, stupidity made it possible.
Its the fact that there are people stupid enough to believe in an omnipotent god, in an afterlife, in the juvenile fantasy of being serviced by 72 virgins in paradise as a reward from their god for mass murder and suicide, that is to blame for the death and destruction at the World Trade Center.

Humans maybe the most intelligent species on earth, but that does not necessarily mean that the average human is particularly intelligent. The fact that you can get fully grown humans to fly jetliners into a skyscrapers does not say much about the level of human intelligence.

Those suicide hijackers were not exactly shinning examples of human intelligence, yet they were not below average. Their beliefs were not any more absurd than the beliefs of all the other monotheists on this planet. They all believe in a mass murdering, yet somehow benevolent, omnipotent god, they all believe in their own immortality.
The difference is that suicide hijackers acted on their beliefs.

RELIGION
Make no mistake about it, religion was the primary motivation behind the attack on the World Trade Center. The suicide terrorists behind the attack were motivated by the belief that they were fighting for their religion, against an enemy of their religion.
To believe that the WTC attack was not a religious act is so off base its actually delusional.
Their primitive beliefs in immortality, an afterlife with 72 virgins in paradise as a reward for doing Allah's work, are religious beliefs. The suicidal nature of the attack was made possible by these beliefs.
The terrorists truly believed that this act would please their god and he would reward them. They believed that this is what their god wanted, that they were doing 'God's work', they were fulfilling 'God's will'.
That they actually did these deeds shows just how strongly they believed these myths.

The attack was motivated by religion, by the belief that Islam is the one and only true religion and all other religions are false, anti-God and a threat to Islam and must therefore be destroyed. The attackers believed that they were fighting a holy war, a 'Jihad' against an enemy of their religion, an enemy of their god.
They were instructed by Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization, who are motivated by religion, by the belief that Islam is under threat and that they therefore need to fight for their religion.
Bin Laden despises America primarily because of its christian nature. He is angered by the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, not because they are American but because they are christian.
He has often stated that the Americans defiled Saudi Arabia by having christian troops in that muslim country.

Irrational beliefs lead to irrational acts
The World Trade Center suicide attack is a prime example of how irrational religious beliefs can lead to insane actions. The lunatics that hijacked and then flew those passenger jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, did so in the insane belief that they were immortal and that this action would guaranty them a 'life' in paradise where they would have a selection of 72 beautiful virgins to fuck. It is a sad reflection on the state of human intelligence that people can believe something so absurdly ludicrous.

Shared beliefs
The Twin Towers are in a country where nearly ninety percent of the population believe in an afterlife.
The suicide terrorists and most of the citizens of the country they attacked both believe that they are actually immortal, they both believe in a judaic monotheism, they both believe that they are the only ones that follow the one true god and they are both willing to die for what their clergy tell them this mythical god wants, and they both believe that this god is on their side. Allah Akbar or God bless America.

Actions speak louder than words
I really doubt the sincerity of christian belief because their behavior is inconsistent with their claimed beliefs. They claim to believe in heaven, a place of infinite bliss that all good christians go to when they die. If they really believed this, they would celebrate death. After all the person who had died was now in an infinitely better place.
After the World Trade Center massacre, Americans (the most christian people on the planet) were baying for vengeance before the dust had even settled. If they really believed that all those that were killed (except for the corrupt ones) were now in an infinitely better place, they certainly would not have displayed such emotional distress and such a lust for revenge. Surely if someone you loved went to an infinitely better place you would be happy for them? I think that deep down christians know that their beliefs are a delusion.

Doing God's work
Both the suicide terrorist and the abortion doctor murderer believe that they are doing 'God's work'.

Afterlife
Belief in an infinite afterlife reduces the value of real life, it cheapens life, it makes this real life seem rather insignificant, after all what are eighty years of suffering on earth if one is going to exist in heaven/paradise for infinity. If life on earth is viewed as merely a temporary stepping stone on our way to an infinitely better place, then suicide and murder are not such a big deal. Death is just a passageway to an infinitely better life. If humans are immortal then murder and suicide are no big deal, in fact the murderer is doing the victim a favor.

Mutually exclusive
Basically Judaism, Christianity and Islam worship the same god, its their sub gods, prophets and worship rituals that differ.
These three monotheistic religions are known as Abrahamic faiths because they trace their heritage to Abraham, a biblical patriarch. The problem is that central to these religions is the claim to be the one true path to that god, which by implication accuse others of being false. They all claim a monopoly on truth. They all believe in the intrinsic superiority of their religion over all the others.
There will never be peace on this planet as long as there are religions that claim to be the only true religion, that claim that all other religions are false religions.

People who believe they have an infallible lock on divine revelation will often feel justified in using violence and terror against dissenters and unbelievers.

Hate
Any religion that claims to be mutually exclusive breeds hate. All religions that claim to be the only true religion, that claim all other religions are false, stimulate animosity, intolerance, hate and violence. Other religions are seen as a threat, an enemy, even as evil. This intense competition between religions has caused more hatred, violence and wars than any other factor in history.
Words like infidel, heretic, godless heathen, pagan, unbeliever, gentile, blasphemer, crusade, jihad, etc. stimulate hate.
Religions that believe in evil, that have anti-gods, stimulate paranoia, fear and hate.

Religions that use threats of infinite torture to coerce people into following them are evil.
Religions that threaten punishment for non adherence, that use fear to gain converts are evil.

Most christians will find the beliefs of those mass murdering, suicidal hijackers with their afterlife in paradise being serviced by 72 virgins, to be ludicrous.
They will, of course, not see how absurd their own beliefs of immortality, an afterlife in heaven or hell and an omnipotent personal god, are.
Even though their beliefs are so similar they each see the other's beliefs as absurd.

Rather Christianity
There is no doubt that today, islam is a far more oppressive, intolerant, fascistic, fundamentalistic, fanatical, backward religion than christianity.
The extreme oppression of woman in islamic theocracies is a crime against humanity. In these countries woman literally have less rights than animals.
As an atheist I would much rather live in a christian country than in an islamic country.
In all the christian countries atheists can proclaim their atheism without threat of execution or prison, although in America, a public official would be committing career suicide. There is no christian equivalent to the muslim Fatwa.

Copyright © Alfred Karius