Security, Human Rights and Religion. Part two.

Part two of Security, Human Rights and Religion. In recent years several terrorist attacks have been launched against targets in different countries, the most noticeable being the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. What was the "mind set" of the people who planned it and carried it out? I feel that is a critical question, and will it be possible in the future to alter that mindset?

Two other very much smaller incidents in the last year also warrant the question about mindset. In one of them two young men in Kabul, in cold blood, shot and killed a white Christian woman, in another, local female teachers, and female pupils, had acid thrown onto their faces. In thinking about the first incident one can surmise that the mindset of the of the two young men was a rock solid belief that what they were doing was praiseworthy, that killing a person because that person's religion was different to theirs, that their religion called for them to take action. That far from feeling any regret they could bask in the glory of doing right, that their consciences would not bother them at all.

I felt that a key word is "conscience", how can one live with one's conscience if, in conjunction with a friend or not, you had shot and killed, at point blank range, a defenceless woman. I suppose one answer is, because of what you had been taught for many years, some of those years as a child, that any person you suspected of teaching a religion that was at odds with yours should be killed. How many hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, through the years, in the name of religion? [Did any of the Gods smile?]

For the meaning of conscience a Concise Oxford Dictionary gives "a person's moral sense of right and wrong". A reference source on the internet gives two meanings 1/ The awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one's conduct. 2/ Conformity to one's own sense of right conduct.
This second meaning made me think long and hard, it more or less seems like an "anything goes" clause. It had more impact on me than the meaning given in the Oxford dictionary yet is it so different?

A simple litmus test for people living in the UK. In one of the World's continents female children were useful members of the family, as they could be used to increase the families'
assets by an arranged marriage, they had to be paid for. In another continent a reverse situation applied, the end result being that female babies, in some parts of the continent, were not welcome and, at times in the past this led to unfortunate action. The question for UK residents is "Does either or both of those practices bother your conscience"? I think that both of them would bother the conscience of most people living here, but, conversely, many people living in those two continents would not have a quarrel with their conscience. It throws into pin sharp focus the question of "Conformity to one's own sense of right conduct".

To be continued in Part three of "Security, Human Rights and Religion"

Frederick W Gilling 04/09/2009