For unless we believe that this all-merciful, fatherly, peace-loving, and ever-beneficent God wills for his believers to kill each other in His name, we must conclude that religions are repeatedly corrupted to pit the children of God against each other. So perhaps we might interpret the image-of-God idea to mean, All persons have a basic right not to be killed, but they can forfeit that right if they commit a serious enough crime. ), Also according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus said to love our enemies. "To kill in the name of God is a grave sacrilege. The LORD will swallow [up his enemies] in his wrath, and fire will consume them. This terrorist group has a long list of enemies, from the United States to the Arab oil sheiks. Killing Muslims became itself a form of penance for Christians for remission of their sins. There's even a passage where Jesus seems to permit his disciples to carry swords, and by implication to use them in some situations, though that passage appears only in Luke 22 and is very ambiguous. From the time of Muhammad and for nearly thirteen hundred years after, Islam waged religious wars against whole populations, forcing conversion to Islam (excluding Jews and Christians, known as "the people of the book") as a means by which to spread its faith. Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2000), ch. (Perhaps I could even be morally obligated to do so.) (Firestone), Turning to Christianity, its early history was characterized by a fairly strict form of pacifism. Killing one another “in the name of God” is nothing new to the marred and scarred history of mankind. The major Christian response to the spread of Islam manifested as the Crusades, which spanned the 11th to 13th centuries. In spite of the many differences among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, they share a fundamental belief in God as compassionate and just. (See the powerful argument voiced by Fyodor Dostoevsky's character Ivan in the "Rebellion" chapter of The Brothers Karamazov.). Muhammad was said to have practiced non-violence early in his prophetic career but soon came to believe that God commanded the use of force, not only in defense of his growing religious community (Qur'an 22:39-40) but also in the form of offensive jihad to expand the territory of Islam. Killing in the name of God in Pakistan State-backed sectarian violence is on the rise in Pakistan as authorities cosset and back hellbent Islamic Sunni radicals (Arguments from silence are notoriously weak, however.) Someone inferring a mandate to wage indiscriminate, offensive war from Qur'an 9:5, "Kill the idolaters wherever you find them," could only do so by ignoring the particular historical context of that passage, verses elsewhere that urge defensive and limited uses of force only, such as Qur'an 2:190, "Fight in the path of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits, for God does not love transgressors," and numerous other verses praising patience in adversity and nonviolent preaching. . Yet the situation in the Middle East is far graver than this. John Ferguson, War and Peace in the World's Religions (Oxford University Press, 1977). The 2003 Iraq war, though subsequently bringing the Shiite majority to power, ignited a bloody conflict between Shiites and Sunnis that continues to this day. David Perry, a list of recommended web sites on ethics and warfare, http://home.earthlink.net/~davidlperry/weblinks.htm. Killing in the Name of God The Problem of Holy War Dr. David L. Perry Adapted from an Ethics at Noon presentation given at Santa Clara University on 25 September 2001. (Joshua 6:21 and 10:40). The same religious traditions that affirm God to be compassionate, merciful, and just, also include more disturbing claims that promote religious hatred and intolerance, and sadly have provided a rationale for aggressive holy war. But Muslim leaders were permitted by Muhammad to kill all captured soldiers and male civilians if they were not Muslims or had abandoned Islam. This is probably the attitude of most Muslim people today. But jihad can also mean holy war. Senior Fellow, Center for Global Affairs, NYU, Sign up for membership to become a founding member and help shape HuffPost's next chapter. In the Islamic tradition, there is a similar mixture of values restraining war along with others promoting it. In many Christian worship services, it is a common practice for someone to read aloud a passage from the Bible, and indicate the end of the passage by saying, "The Word of the Lord," after which the congregation responds, "Thanks be to God." Such an elevated God inspires a more personal religion wherein virtue is internalized, selfishness is nullified, and a sincere jihad against the biological responses to fear, fight or flight, and insecurity is waged within. Under these conditions, religious freedom goes hand in hand with personal freedom, which is central in promoting all religions' fundamental tenets of brotherhood, compassion, amity and peace. And that cry of theirs ceased not, till We made them as a field that is mown, as ashes silent and quenched." Now if we can agree together in the rejection of total war, we still need to wrestle with some contending ethical perspectives on the use of force. Giving voice to this truth, Einstein said that without religion, science was lame. As a result, those communities have often nurtured people of extraordinary kindness and courageous commitment to justice. There may even be a genetic tendency in our species, like that of our chimpanzee relatives, to attack and kill others for no reason except that they aren't "one of us." What they cannot legitimately claim, though, is that their position is the authentic expression of their faith. Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many Buddhist teachers have shown that it is possible to convert some enemies into friends through nonviolent responses to injustice and to restrain ourselves from lashing out against perceived enemies.