Is The Afterlife To Blame?

Theo Hobson, writing in The Spectator (UK), lays out a five-click analysis and rebuttal of this series of questions, arising after the London bombings, that it's not Islam to blame, it's religion and belief in the afterlife:

For these atheists, the suicide bomber is the essential religious believer: in love with another world, careless of this one, cosmically selfish. This horrific potential for inhumanity is present in all religion, while religion denies that this world is all that there is.

Their thesis, come to think of it, is faithful to the gospel according to John Lennon: ‘Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try; nothing to kill or die for, above us only sky.’ If only people would stop believing in another world, then enlightened folk like us could get on with healing this one.

Are they right, these fearless freethinkers? Have they cut through the flim-flam and nailed religion? Have they got its number?

Hobson effectively brushes away the argument, pointing out that "the first suicide bomber" was Sampson who did not believe in an afterlife; nor did the Kamikaze bombers in World War II -- both were motivate by a strong desire to serve their religion and their nation.

Our atheists are simply wrong to think that a belief in paradise is so uniquely dangerous. But will I not concede the point that it can be dangerous to believe in heaven, that in the case of Islam it does often seem to be dangerous? No. It strikes me as a very minor factor in radical Islamism. Some aggressive political movements have this religious component, some don’t. It is offensive to the millions of believing Muslims to suggest that their belief in paradise is the root cause of Islamofascist violence; that their true representative is the suicide bomber. This is a terrible thing to say to some poor family in Leeds or wherever; a vile insult.

All interesting enough. But what's most interesting is the on-line survey that accompanies the story. Only 44% agree with Hobson. The other 56% hold to the atheist's view that believing in an afterlife is dangerous and leads to violence.