Everyone by now has heard of two high-profile incidents of coldblooded murder in the past few days: that of George Tiller, a doctor who performed abortions, including late-term abortions, and that of Pvt. William Long, a soldier standing outside of an Army recruiting station.
Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, Private Long’s killer, claims to have committed his crime because he was “angry about the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.” He thus faces charges of terrorism for every person that he hit or endangered with a bullet – 15 counts in all.
Here there is yet another frustrating example of a man driven to homicidal foolishness by the brainwashing of religious extremism – here, Muslim extremism.
In fact, these two murders, of Dr. Tiller and of Pvt. Long, bear a striking similarity despite their obvious differences: both are the result of that perverse manifestation of ideological dedication – religious terrorism. According to U.S. federal law, domestic terrorism is defined as, among other things,
“activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion”
The murder of Pvt. Long indeed clearly falls into this definition. Does not also the murder of Dr. Tiller? Motivated by religious extremism, a crazed man shot a doctor who performs late-term abortions, ostensibly intending it as a protest against the allowance of abortion by the government. That is terrorism.
Once again we have a reminder of the complicated beast that is religion. While it brings some people to extraordinary acts of just courageousness and virtue, it brings others to violence and destruction. Like any ideology, there is danger when adherents accept the tenets of any religion with too much faith and not enough reason. For it is only that religion that is tempered and diluted in its faith, which rejects all justification, by reason, which requires justification, that allows a moderate life in civilized society.
