Subject: FW: Another man's reality.
As the young British born mujaheddin fighter who was drawn to the cause of fighting with IS because of what he saw as the immorality and decadence in the West and his corollary by contrasting this with a story of martyrdom and salvation after death through what he had read and understood in the Koran. He swopped the reality of this life for a promise after death.
The power of religious teaching has seen people give up their secular lives for a life within the church, to engage in anything from a monastic life, an evangelising priest in Africa to the vicar with a withering congregation in a run down inner city diocese. The power of the word of god strikes people in many ways and the fervour of their conviction which usually stays with them throughout their entire life. Faith is and remains a benign gift and, apart from the annoying surety of their belief which they naturally want to impart to all their friend, they provide a welcome bedrock of common decency within society at large.
Between the person bent on Jihad and the Evensong worshipping clergy there seems an unbridgeable gulf but considering that belief comes largely from a common source, the Abrahamic interpretation of the creation and gods definition of what he expected of people, it's a wonder that the religious ferment has provided such disparity. The patriarchal domination inherent in the Koran and the Old Testament has many echo's and yet the Muslim faith, unlike the Jewish seems to have this call to arms as a root belief and which when coupled with their concept of martyrdom as a way into heaven makes them almost impossible bedfellows, not only for the Jewish community but for all of us.
The communal unity that the Muslim faith holds, involving a strong congregational praying routine and a dress code which rivals even Eton for exclusivity, then in our western, socially fragmented society where individualism is lorded over family, is it any wonder that the calling to a brotherhood in a distant land, even one in the sky seems so appealing.
Between the person bent on Jihad and the Evensong worshipping clergy there seems an unbridgeable gulf but considering that belief comes largely from a common source, the Abrahamic interpretation of the creation and gods definition of what he expected of people, it's a wonder that the religious ferment has provided such disparity. The patriarchal domination inherent in the Koran and the Old Testament has many echo's and yet the Muslim faith, unlike the Jewish seems to have this call to arms as a root belief and which when coupled with their concept of martyrdom as a way into heaven makes them almost impossible bedfellows, not only for the Jewish community but for all of us.
The communal unity that the Muslim faith holds, involving a strong congregational praying routine and a dress code which rivals even Eton for exclusivity, then in our western, socially fragmented society where individualism is lorded over family, is it any wonder that the calling to a brotherhood in a distant land, even one in the sky seems so appealing.
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