Premier Christianity published an interesting article today entitled Why France has produced a recipe for endless Islamist terrorist attacks. In it, the author lists a series of steps that lead many French Muslims to take extreme measures to be saved by Allah from their guilt. Here’s my summary.
1. Muslims live double lives
Living in the permissive, worldly, sexualized French culture provides too many opportunities to drink, drug, and sleep around, and many Muslim youth can’t resist these social pressures.
But inside, they still believe Islam is true. They believe they are accumulating sins against Allah.
2. No one is allowed to openly criticize Islam
So these proto-jihadis go through their life thinking that Islam is true and they have a growing problem.
The Islamic beliefs of these Muslims are almost never seriously challenged. They’re told all their lives, by their leaders and their families, that Muhammad was the greatest man who ever lived; that the Qur’an has been perfectly preserved; that the Qur’an is filled with miraculous scientific insights etc….People who dare to tell Muslims the truth about Islam are called ‘racists’ and ‘bigots’ and ‘hate-mongers’ and ‘Islamophobes.’ And this makes it very easy for the Muslim to dismiss any criticisms of Islam. So the Muslim goes through life convinced that Islam is indisputably true.
Also, no one evangelizes them while they are out in the world. And we need to.
3. They decide to become good Muslims again
But the problem is, since the general soteriology of Islam is that your good deeds must outweigh your bad deeds to even be considered for Allah’s mercy – you see, even IF your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, Allah can still reject you. Except in one case.
4. Islam’s Get out of Hell Card – Martyrdom
Islam creates an untenable situation when believed in a free society – secular society gives people too many opportunities to indulge in sin (and freedom IS good, I’m not slamming it), but Islam then nearly hopelessly condemns the Muslim to an eternal hell worse than even the traditional Christian view of Eternal Conscious Torment (which I think is wrong).
So what is the desperately guilty young Muslim youth to do?
If you get killed while waging jihad, Allah guarantees you’ll go to Paradise. So even if you’ve spent years violating basic Islamic teachings, Allah makes you an offer. Die while killing unbelievers, and your salvation is assured.
5. Islamic Apologists think they were only worldly, not Muslim
Those wanting to not blame Islam look at the wanton lifestyle of most of these youths, and suppose that they weren’t real believers anyway, since their lifestyle did not match. But what they are missing is that the combination of their profligate life and a return to Islam (most become devout right before they kill) that is causing this explosion of violence.
CONCLUSION
Islam is not compatible with freedom and human rights. Not in any time, in any culture, in any version. Shariah is not the law of God, but the law that leads to death.
And putting Islamic youth into a secular, worldly, sinful culture is a recipe for creating jihadis, because eventually, the bomb of their guilt and the pressure of no other way to salvation eventually kills the Muslim and anyone near him.