Afterlife promises

It has been proven that in the last few years, while civilization and science are full of promises and move forwards ever faster, humans are finding ways to kill and kill themselves fulfilling ancient promises. Actually, people use this advanced technology to kill themselves faster taking more innocent people with them.

Fanatic Muslims, mullahs and presidents give them promises of a paradise with Uris dancing all around and lots and lots of rice, in exchange for their life in this world. As more infidels die, the better their position in this paradise Allah created and there is even a cash bonus. Iran and other Arab states give some extra money and generous help to the family of the bomber, of course undercover.

What is this afterlife promise that leads a young man or woman to strap a belt full of explosives and blindly detonate it in the middle of a square ignoring the fact that the people around him are totally innocent, not aware of his drama or demands, not for any other reason but just because of age? I don't think any three or four year old is aware of what's really going on in Palestine, even if they live there.

Why the promise of an afterlife reward is enough to sacrifice this life? The Pope John Paul II back in 1933 introduced the 'Evangelium Vitae' (the Bible of Life) again. According to this dogma, the human life is holy from the minute of conception to the natural death.

During the Crusades, the Catholic Church was promising eternal life in paradise if a crusader died on a mission to take back the Holy Land. A number of men, with the promise of being able to be with Allah in paradise, crashed planes into the World Trade Center in New York taking some thousands of innocent lives with them.

An American president signs a declaration of war and kills thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghans in the process, many of whom went to paradise in the name of international peace. To that, you can add the soldiers who got killed in the last years in Iraq and definitely went to paradise to join the rest.

I will never forget the pictures on CNN of soldiers praying before the invasion of Iraq. What were they praying for? To kill as many they could? To survive the war? To go to paradise if they were killed? For their victims to go to paradise?

Amazingly, the American president seems to be a strong believer, praying often and mentioning God as often as he can. Has he got a promise for an afterlife paradise position? How many times has he sent somebody to his death? Starting from the period he was Governor of Texas and Death Row to the innocent people who died in Iraq.

The target was Saddam and his followers, but are we even going to find out how many others got killed? How many that had nothing to do with the regime and just happened to live and breathe in the same country?

Does the promise of a holy afterlife excuse murder? Perhaps we are dealing with different paradises? One for the Muslims, one for the Christians, one for the Buddhists and one for the Hindus, imagine if they all met up there? Soon paradise will become hell and I would much rather stay where I am.