letters to surfers

Can you give us the model that moves the terrorists to kill themselves and thousands of others. and how do we fight it?

by Robert Brow   (www.brow.on.ca)


In God of Many Names I use three questions to get at an individual person's religion or ideology.
What is your ultimate goal in life?
What prevents the attainment of that goal?
What are the means you propose to attain what you long for?
This model analysis must be set out without caricature and to the total satisfaction of the person we are questioning.

The present group of terrorists (as opposed to Anarchists and Nationalists) seem to view heaven as their goal. Sin is failing to obey the will of Allah. The means to move from the present evil in our world to God's heaven is obeying God's will as revealed in the Qur'an. And that requires engaging in a holy war (Jihad) against evil (in this case the American way of life, and the use of overwhelming power to promote it). When the inner logic of a person's faith has become clear we may tentatively give that species of religion or ideology a name (as in Botany or Zoology). In this situation the model is Islamic (as opposed to Trinitarian Theism) and the sub-species seems to be Wahhabism (see any encyclopaedia).. Most other individual Muslims reject Jihad as the means to correct sin in our world.

In Creative Love (the model commended on this website) we recognize the right of others (as God does) to live by any model of religion or ideology that they choose. But there is also the right of personal and national self-defense. We love enemies but we assign consequences for what they do and intend to do. So in dealing with an unseen pervasive enemy Model Theology becomes particularly useful.


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