©2008, UrbisMedia
Religion has been responsible for numerous wars over the centuries, probably more than any other cause. From the Crusades to Kosovo, and before and after, people seem to think that one of the prime duties their deities wish them to perform is that they go out a slaughter some people who don’t believe in the make believe they same way that they do. Very often, there is a good deal of looting, raping, and conquering of territory along with the objective of ridding the earth of infidels.
As a result of this process, over time there have emerged two circumstances that, ironically, might have brought about at least one salutary result—the prospect that nuclear weapons, although desired and acquired by several nations among which there are religion-based animosities, might actually not be employed as weapons of mass destruction because they are potentially “weapons of metaphysical destruction.”
Consider the Middle East. Recently, Iran, feeling threatened by both the US and Israel that some Judeo-Christian missiles are going blast their nuclear facilities, deciding to do a little practice missile launching themselves and saying that, if they are attacked, they will in turn attack Tel Aviv. It is the Tel Aviv that caught my attention, partly because I have a daughter who goes there for her job from time to time, but also because it was specifically Tel Aviv, and not Jerusalem. Why should they disclose that city they would target? Isn’t that giving your own military strategy away?
Could it be because Jerusalem is a holy city to the Muslims, as it is to Judaism and Christianity. Jerusalem contains the Dome of the Rock. It was built between 687 and 691 by the 9th Caliph Abd al-Malik. It has also been called the Mosque of Umar, the rock in te center of which is assumed by Muslims to have been the launch pad from which Muhammad ascended into Heaven accompanied by the Angel Gabriel. Up there, he consulted with Moses and then returned to earth with some new Islamic prayers. So, it is a major Islamic holy place and definitely not something Muslims would like to hit with a missile.
Of course this is also the site of the Western Wall of the Second Temple, a major holy place of Judaism. The Dome of the Rock sits on top of it. Jews would not be happy if a missile destroyed the wall. They could always retaliate by taking out Mecca, Islam’s holiest place, where the devout go to make their haj, one of the requirements of Muslims. That might set off a counter retaliation, maybe a missile that takes out Nazareth. Oh, oh, that would piss off the Christians and maybe pull that “Christian nation,” the good ole US of A into it. The Americans could blast the Iraq city of Najaf into smoldering pebbles, taking out the the site of the tomb of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib in Iraq, whom the Shia consider to be the righteous first Imam. The Iraqis would be in a retaliatory fix because it seems that they have hidden their weapons of mass destruction so well that even they can’t find them.
No matter, because, meanwhile, the destruction of Mecca would have aroused the anger of Osama bin Laden (you remember him, even if Bush can’t seem to). Recall that it was the presences of the American military on the holy sands of Saudi Arabia that inspired him to plan and execute 9-11. He’s hiding out in Pakistan or Afghanistan, somewhere in those mountains. He would have to retaliate by making another attack on American, this time on The Crystal Cathedral, home of the “Hour of Power” in garden Grove California, and American holy place. This would in turn require an American retaliation (we’ve got missiles “up the whazoo”), taking out most of the mountain range between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but, of course, missing bin Laden.
Muslim Pakistan will take this as an attack from the nuclear arsenal of their arch enemy, mostly-Hundu India, and therefore unleash their missiles and incinerating the holy Indian city of Benares on the Ganges River to ashes, which is, of course, what they do there. But this would piss off the Indians, as you might expect, who would take out the Pakistani holy places of Quaid-el-Azam`s Mausoleum, Allama Iqbal’s Tomb, Badshahi Mosque, and the Golden Mosque. You don’t even want to know why these are important holy places.
In a matter of days holy relics, the bodies of imams and saints and rabbis, bibles, torahs and qurans, pews and domes and arches and all sorts of religious paraphernalia would be floating around in mushroom clouds. In short order other religions would see an opportunity to vanquish the holy places of their competitors. The Greek Orthodox Church would get Putin to take out the Vatican, Britain would begin bombing old Norman Churches, Bush would see an opportunity to target Salt Lake City, so that Republicans would never have to deal with a Mormon candidate like Mitt Romney, Hindus and Muslims, Buddhists and Baptists, Cao Dai and Falun Gong, Anglicans and Animists, Sikhs, Scientologists and Seventh-Day Adventists, you name it, they would all be going at it, smashing one another’s churches, synagogues, mosques, ashrams, holy rivers, tombs, sacred cities and shrines. Whew! That would be quite a mess.
Now if these countries ended up wiping out all of their religious sites they might even wipe out their religions, which would now have no places to fight over and pray from for the death of their enemies. Hmmmmnmn, that might not be so bad.
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© 2008, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 7.14.2008)