What today's suicide bombers and other perpetrators of evil share is a neutronium-plated conviction that a deity is smiling at them.
By James Terminiello
We live in an age where the question must be asked and answered:
Is religious mania a form of mental illness?
When a young couple drops their 6-month old at grandma's house and goes off armed to the back molars to massacre a host of unsuspecting partygoers, you try to conceive of a mind set that could motivate them to perform such unspeakable acts.
National pride? Ethnic solidarity? Defense of their way of life and world view? No. They don't wash. There is just not enough substance to compel a functioning brain to suspend all logic, discard all reason, and ignore any of the higher human emotions such as kindness and mercy, and unleash yet another disturbingly familiar blood storm.
To perform such atrocities, you must be convinced, utterly convinced, of the righteousness of your cause. You must, deep in your soul, believe with every molecule of your being that what you do is for the ultimate good and even decreed or, at least sanctioned, by a higher authority. And that authority must be beyond human scope. It must be divine. And so we arrive, via a convoluted path, at religious mania.
Do not think that I am on some anti-Muslim screed. Yes, followers of Islam deserve a pounding for not standing up en masse with a resounding cry of "Stop the madness!" But, there are many reasons for that, some of them even understandable to Western minds.
RELATED: Christie: "Radical Islam" our greatest threat
Religious mania has always been with us. It is hardly limited to one faith or one region of the world.
In World War II, 2,000-plus Kamikaze pilots tried to ram their suicide planes into the advancing U.S. Navy to defend their homeland against the "white peril" in the name of a diminutive god-emperor. The devoted followers of Stalin and Mao murdered millions -- and those leaders took pains to represent themselves as god-like figures. The reprehensible "Rev." Jim Jones convinced his flock -- men, women, and children -- to toss down poison rather than be repatriated to the horrors of the United States.
What many of today's suicide bombers and all those other perpetrators of evil acts share is a neutronium-plated conviction that a deity is smiling at them and is going to be lavish with rewards.
Let's be careful not to associate those who are orthodox in their belief -- or those who have a particularly strong spirituality about them -- with those who percolate with religious mania. It is clear that someone walking into a prayer meeting only to shoot down the unsuspecting participants has a seething anger. Anger, coupled with a desire to accomplish something in the name of a religious/spiritual cause, seems to be a great commonality among these killers.
Many of these individuals seem to feel it is necessary to sacrifice themselves on the altar of their ultimate truth. While history has honored many who have given the last full measure of devotion (think Davy Crockett at the Alamo, who pretty much had no choice), today's suicidal killers seem to revel in going consciously into the fray and ending their lives in a flourish of gore. Truly remarkable.
Sigmund Freud thought that religious beliefs were rooted in fantasy and illusion, and could lead to psychosis. Some scientists believe that there is a neuro-biological basis for hyper-religiosity and have tied it to obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia. But science is as susceptible to politics as any other discipline, and there is often a reluctance to delve into areas that could challenge fundamental aspects of our societies and the human condition in general.
Well, it is time to remove those blinders.
It is clear that something deep and potent is driving an alarming number of people worldwide to perform acts that can only be described as obscene. Far too many seem to believe that a god figure supports and even motivates their actions. And if they view it as God-sanctioned, whatever they do is more than good, it's mandatory.
Is that not religious mania? If so, is that not a sign of dangerous mental illness? Can such people be detected by various characteristics and patterns of behavior? Can that data be used to keep them from acquiring weapons? Can that data be used, in the name of our self-defense, to prevent them from entering our society? And could that place us on a human rights slippery slope?
Perhaps. But right now that slope is being regularly lubricated with the blood of the innocent -- and that must not be allowed to continue.
James Terminiello writes from Glassboro.