Date: Dec 08, 2008
…September 11 defendants ask to confess at Guantanamo…
…September 11 defendants ask to confess at Guantanamo…
You know…
I think it is fine that they want to confess, yet the fact that they “want” martyrdom presents a hard conflict.
If they are guilty, I believe they “deserve” to die…even though I don’t support or promote the death penalty…
I do think it has a strong chance, of doing more damage than good, to put these men to death…The real problem here, is that they could become immortalised icons, of islamic terrorism…and, this could inspire restless and angry muslims who are looking for a target to blame, to take up terrorism themselves.
As an atheist, it is bizarre to contemplate how these men think…
Of course, I was raised in the baptist, christian church…but even there, they taught us that life was a “gift from god”…and ending it is some type of “offense against god”. There were not these concepts, of “wanting” to die in the name of religion, or being rewarded all the more, “because” you died in an act of religion inspired terrorism.
I see the end of your last breath, as “the end”…I have encountered nothing of substance, to support that there is anything for us, beyond that point…and we likely go back to whatever state we were in, prior to our own birth…
“What” is that state?…
Near as I can see, it is “nothingness”…and represents and intriguing parallel between buddhism and atheism…where the ultimate end, is in experiencing complete “nothingness”…In buddhism, this is the perfect state of peace, and a desired destination.
In islam, they (the men, anyway) want 72 virgins all their own, and boys to act as their servants…Presumably, this points towards a much more sexual focus…if not a selfish one, as well…You’re going to spend eternity getting laid, and waited on hand and foot by boys?
There is nothing to support this, other than strongly wishful thinking, and vivid imagination…Yet, there are people who are banking on the chance that it “is” part of reality…
Maybe they think the alternative is too horrible?
…but, it seems to me…If you return to nothingness and lose all sense of awareness and feeling…if you lose the ability to comprehend, because these aspects of you no longer exist…then what exactly is left to worry about?
I think, it is a very unhealthy thing, not being able to come to terms with your own mortality…or the probability that “you” will not exist anymore, someday…and it is sad, that so many people feel they need to fight this…or be afraid of it…
…So we get all of these wonderful stories, about being the master of your own sex harem…or walking down streets of gold, and living in mansions…
So many people desperately want to hold onto some semblance of what they know today, right now, as “living”…so, they define death, and “after death”, in terms of how life is experiences.
…but, in reality, I think…deep down, we all realise that no matter how much many of us may “want” that…and no matter how wonderful it possibly would be…there is nothing to support it…
It is all “faith”…or, wishful imagination…
What happens with the terrorists in the news story, honestly is not so much important…They will likely just fade away into nothing, and never even realise that they don’t have their promised 72 virgins…In fact, this would not be punishment, it would be release…
Punishment would be forcing them to live out the rest of their natural life, in a prison cell…knowing that they will never be turned into a martyr…
…That is the only chance of forcing them to be aware, of even so much as the fact that they “are” being punished for their atrocious acts of inhumanity.
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