Christos Tyrranos?

The discussion between Jeff Harmsen and me is still, in my opinion, raising interesting points. However, I think I’ll subdivide the latest batch to make it a bit more accessible to others.

This is on the issue of tyrants using religion to get their way:


EJ:
Re tyrants: take away religious delusions and many would be powerless. For example, how would they recruit suicide bombers without the notion of black eyed virgins?

SR:
An interesting question arises: what particular tyrants are you thinking of? What great tyrants of history have recruited suicide bombers? The only “tyrant” you have actually cited is George Bush. Leaving aside whether that is an accurate description, is he really using suicide bombers?

“Suicide bombing” is not really a completely new phenomenon; the Japanese used it in WWII, at least one member of the Ukrainian resistance did it against the Nazis, and the Tamil Tigers used it against Rajiv Gandhi. But suicide bombing is mostly associated with modern Islamism. What tyrant is controlling them? Islamism in some form is currently in power in only one country, Iran. But the suicide bombers have not been Iranians, but Iraqis, Saudis, Brits, Yemenis, Palestinians—people over whom the government of Iran, even if tyrannical, have no direct control. They also tend to be from a different branch of Islam, Sunnis, over whom the Ayatollahs of Iran have no religious or moral authority.

No—to the extent that the “suicide bombers” are under anyone’s control, it is figures like Osama Bin Laden who are inspiring the movement. Now, OBL may be a very bad man, but he is not a tyrant. A tyrant is someone holding political power in some jurisdiction: “an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution b: a usurper of sovereignty 2 a: a ruler who exercises absolute power oppressively or brutally” (Webster’s).

EJ:
(These young men, by the way, are sex starved so that the idea of a harem in heaven is especially appealing.)

SR:
You are making a few more false assumptions here. Many suicide bombers are women; many more are married men.

Setting aside the detail of the virgins, it does seem logical that a promise of paradise might be a lure to someone to kill themselves. The problem here is that Islam offers no such promise. Note the term: “suicide bombing.” In Islamic teachings, suicides go straight to hell. Let alone what happens to the murderers of civilians, women and children who have not taken up arms against them. Few Muslim clerics will endorse the notion that suicide bombers are exempt from these basic commandments.

So religion, and the promise of paradise, does not seem to be a real factor. Those devout enough to care would be devout enough to know it is at best a highly dubious thesis that blowing themselves up will get them into paradise.

Can’t blame religion. Islamism is something else.

EJ:
At the very least, without religious delusions tyrants are seen for what they are. George Bush for example, would never have been voted in without the Bible belt's support.

SR:
You have this bezactly ackwards. As noted, tyrants are those who seek to rule unrestrained by law or constitution. It automatically follows that they want religion out of the way: it is an independent source of authority, and it can be used to restrain their actions. Hitler, as noted, sought to control and suppress the churches. Lenin, Stalin and Mao were aggressively atheist. Mao’s Red Guards tried systematically to destroy all traces of religion. Pol Pot sought to shatter every statue of Buddha in Cambodia, and to kill every monk. Kim Il-Sung outlawed all religion and killed every priest and nun. Robespierre closed all the churches and declared a compulsory state religion of reason and the “Supreme Being.” Saddam’s regime was militantly secular and suppressed the Muslim clergy (he also, interestingly, offered money to suicide bombers). Milosevic’s was atheist. Name another tyrant, and we’ll have a look; but it all seems pretty consistent.

Conversely, tyrants who have not suppressed religion often live to regret it. It was largely the Catholic Church that brought down Marcos, and the Communist regime in Poland (arguably having repercussions throughout Eastern Europe). South Africa’s oppressive apartheid regime was brought down in good part by Bishop Tutu and his Anglican Church; Jim Crow in the US by Rev. Martin Luther King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In ancient Israel, this was the role of the prophets. In pre-modern Korea and China, tyrants were regularly overthrown by the opposition of the Confucian religious establishment. Knowing this, the current Chinese government is going far out of its way to suppress the Falun Gong.

Another consideration is that, if the citizenry believe in things like eternal life, this weakens the tyrant’s ability to make threats. His obvious power is to execute, torture, or bribe. None of these inducements work so well when one believes in a life after death or in a final moral reckoning.