I don’t actually have a problem with the idea of laying down one’s life for something you believe in – I can think of several causes I would be proud to give mine for – but there are certain times and places where I do have a problem with it.
Most notably, I have a problem will old men who hold positions of authority in one’s religion explaining to me, in serious, earnest voices, that God (or Allah, or Thor, or whoever) wants me to lay down my life for His greater good. Because:
- If martyrdom truly is such a wonderful state to aspire to, I’d have to wonder exactly how the person urging it on me has managed to live this long.
- Most religions contain prohibitions against both vanity and suicide – to deliberately court (let alone seek) martyrdom seems to me to risk committing both sins.
- It never fails to amaze me how a deity – who is by definition a non-temporal power – can have interests in this temporal world that so closely align with the ambitions of their self-proclaimed followers. It truly is miraculous – or, if you are less credulous, it truly is depressingly predictable.
So I don’t think I’ll laying my life down because someone else told me God wants me too anytime soon. How about you?
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