Death Cults and the Birth of Nations

An excellent piece on PBS points out parallels between ISIS and the Kmer Rouge - the idea that "purification" - slaughter of "unbelievers" on a vast scale - is necessary to create the ideal secular state. Sadly this is a very common theme. It can be detected in Hitler's "final solution", in the Inquisition and the genocidal conquest of Palestine outlined in the Bible. We can't help but notice that the Old Testament is full of capital crimes -- many having to do with violations of religious custom and many specifically justified in the name of "purification".

According to many Christians who take such things seriously, we are forgiven for our many sins because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. This is known as "being washed in the blood". Without this sacrifice (the story goes), we would *all* be slaughtered by God and that would not be punishment enough - we'd be sent off to suffer unspeakable pain for all eternity!

It's easy to disregard such nonsense in the relatively liberal world of modern Christianity. Not so in Islam, which speaks endlessly of the eternal wrath of God and describes the eternal suffering of souls whose only crime was *not* to believe in Islam. The career of Muhammed is basically a story of one mass slaughter after another in the name of Allah.

We must face this apocalyptic vision - perhaps our most horrible habit of the human mind -- to welcome the slaughter of innocents by the millions if it could theoretically "purify" the world for our world view. Without such insanity, it is hard to explain (for example) our cheerful march to war and the unrepentant slaughter of civilians in the "war against terror".

ISIS is showing us a true and alarming truth. In their case, their war is a specifically a naked attempt to purify the world of unbelievers. Is it so far-fetched to think that our response is a mirror image? Do we not hear the tones of vengeance rather than justice in the speeches of our politicians? Do we not hear that our objective is the utter destruction of ISIS and it's "evil"? Does this destruction not involve the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians?

Just saying ...