Religious Violence or Moral Monstrosity

Our world has largely entered a phase of religious wars and religious terrorism. This is becoming global. In the Middle East – at the very heart of the matter, even if it doesn't seem so at first glance – religious wars are being waged which, in some important aspects, represent modernized replicas of the Crusades. In Bosnia in the nineties, it was a dominant characteristic of religious wars. Terrorism from Nice to New Zealand is extremely religious...

The recently delivered verdict for Radovan Karadžić is in this context because he INSTITUTIONALLY waged war against Muslims and Catholics, and his "political creation" is eminently based on religious violence. This is not about the verdict for Karadžić but for his work, or rather his creation, because he acted institutionally. His "political creation", or rather – some institutions within it – pay him tribute and awards in various ways. What can be said about the moral perspective of such a society?!

Therefore, the violence that our world carries with strong inertia is becoming universal, and it is becoming religious, and this type of violence is the worst, most dangerous kind because it can only quench its "thirst" through the total and absolutely brutal destruction of the Other. Religious wars/violence are the most fanatical and cruel. Of course, this also applies to religious terrorist actions. Why?

Because in religious acts of violence/terrorism, the goal is not only the destruction of entire societies, as in the Middle East, in Bosnia, as is the case with the Rohingya, etc., meaning it is not only to eliminate the Other, as a member of another religion, but the true, "exalted" goal is to eliminate them in such a way that their religion – with all its abundance of the most sensitive particularities – is presented as something that is supposedly worthy of the greatest possible humiliation and rendering meaningless, and on the other hand – that one's own religion is presented in supposed sublimity, in a superiority that, as such, must not tolerate "otherness". In religious violence, the main goal is not the physical liquidation of the Other, but the main goal is the liquidation of their faith as the most sublime content of the individual and their community, the liquidation of the Idea, the liquidation of God. The destruction of the individual in their "physical entity" is actually only an accompanying phenomenon of the main aspiration to destroy their religion, which always implies a collective.

Our world has largely entered that phase, and this is a truly terrible fact and the most ominous foreshadowing of the future.

This type of violence rests on a particular paradox. Namely, the religious criminal (who is a superhero in his own eyes and in the eyes of his community) commits the greatest possible violence against his "own God", against his own religion. He demonstrates his and his group's total madness with his crime, demonstrates total insanity and sacrilege of the highest order because there is absolutely no God who can forgive the destruction of other lives in His name, with the gravest humiliation. Such an act is simply always incompatible with the Concept, the Being of God as such. It is particularly frightening that the perpetrator, with his action, usurps the right of his "own" God to judge anyone's faith.

A believer in any faith – especially at the moment when they are in a place of worship and in prayer generally – is in the most sublime state of spirituality. It is a state of the highest peace, contemplation, positive emotion, devotion to universal spiritual values. This state of theirs is simply ineffable. To kill such a person in such a state of sublime reconciliation with themselves and with the World represents something that cannot even be named as a crime because his act is an expression of complete darkening of the mind and total ethical monstrosity. Try to imagine, then, what state the monster is in and what message they are sending (a word must be used for them, although none is entirely adequate) who enters anyone's place of worship and kills people in order while they are praying to God. This is against all reason, against God... And what about the politicians who incite this, and whom we have elected and do not challenge?!

However, while watching a link circulating on the internet these days showing several thousand New Zealanders, most of whom, it seems, are not Muslims, humbly listening to the call to prayer in sorrow, I thought: As long as there are such expressions of empathy, there is hope for this world in its tragic faltering.