Kliebenstein 1 Tara Kliebenstein Stephen Topf English 114B March 17, 2014 Religion and Terrorism Imagine America

filled with a population of people who have injected themselves with a cure to stop them from aging for eternity. Would this change society for the better or for the worse? In The Postmortal by Drew Magary, an injection to cure aging has been accidentally discovered. Many people thought this discovery would be the solution for death, but instead it increased the possible outcomes for the ways of dying. Humans were now susceptible to die from illness, murder, or chronic disease instead of peacefully dying in their sleep from old age. Many ethical dilemmas occurred due to the invention of the cure. One of the main issues that are present throughout the entire novel is the dispute between different religious beliefs, or can also be seen as ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to believe that one's ethnic or cultural group is centrally important, and that all other groups are measured in relation to one's own. This is a current issue we face in American society. While many people with no religion were in favor of the cure, the remaining Christians opposed the idea of increasing life expectancy if it was out of Gods control. These two opposing groups created a revolution leading up to the death of many innocent people using tactics such as bombings, murders, and pure torture. The pro-death and pro-cure protestors clearly prove that ones individual, religious beliefs can have a heavy impact on the actions one will presume daily. Collectively, religion is a quarreling topic in the European society; the idea of ethnocentrism as well as the dispute between different

Kliebenstein 2 religions can lead to terrorism and can only be stopped through the tolerance of one anothers beliefs. The ideas of ethnocentrism and disputes between different religions have been displayed heavily throughout our universal society. For example, Americans disagree with one another due to the fact that this population varies amongst many different types of religion. According to Major Religions of the World Ranked by Number of Adherents, a pie chart shows that 84% of Americans claim some sort of religion including, Christianity, Hinduism, Islamic, or Buddhism, as to where the other 16% claims no religion whatsoever. America has become so diverse with different ethnicities of people just as much as it has become with the different types of religion. Although this is a positive attribute, it can be considered negative to those who have an ethnocentric worldview. The problem Americans have is that many claim to be entirely religious by setting morals to follow in their daily lives, yet contradict themselves when it comes to accepting the morals that other people may have. The problem with our universal society is that many people look to violence when disagreeing with one another, which can lead to the death of a human being. An example of our world leading up to violence due to different views on religion is the 9/11 attack on the twin towers. On September 11, 2001 the patriotism of America exceeded to an all time high. Four planes were hi-jacked by terrorists in mid-flight. Two of those planes crashed into the World Trade Center causing the twin towers to go up in flames and eventually, collapse completely to the ground. As a result, nearly 3000 innocent people were killed in the 9/11 outrage. In the web article Did Religion Cause 911? by Brad Hirshfield, he states, religion drove those planes into the building. It's painful to say, especially for a person of

Kliebenstein 3 faith, but it is we who need to say it most. And, at the risk of being even more provocative, it is Muslims who need to say it the most among those who are religious. (Hirschfield paragraph 1). Hirschfield believes that Muslim terrorists obtained an ethnocentric perspective due to the way we ran our government, and our different religious practices and used terrorism as a solution. He simply states, religion was the cause of the attack on the World Trade Center. The problem Americans face in present-day is stereotyping all Muslims for the attack of the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, all Muslims are under the radar when it comes to airports, business structures or any public place with an immense amount of people. An article titled, Muslims in America, post 9/11 by American psychologist, Rebecca Clay, is an interview on a Muslim psychologist, Mona Amer who wrote an article about the mental health of Muslims. Clays headline states, Americans acceptance of Muslims has continued to deteriorate since 9/11, research finds, and Muslim Americans have responded with resilience but also depression and anxiety. This is a representation that Americans have gained ethnocentricity against the Muslim culture. According to Clay, after Amer wrote her article, the publicity didn't just bring kudos from her colleagues. It also prompted death threats from strangers (Clay paragraph 1). This is another representation that dispute between different religious beliefs can lead to violence. Although the men who hi-jacked the planes were Muslim, that does not mean all Muslims are held accountable for the deaths of those people. Humans cannot look to violence when they dont agree with one anothers views. In order to gain an unbiased worldview, the universal society has to learn tolerance and acceptance of other cultures. In The Postmortal by Drew Magary, he makes religion a recurring issue throughout the novel by creating the two opposing groups, pro-death and pro-cure. The pro-death group

Kliebenstein 4 consisted of many religious people with ethnocentric views, opposing the idea of the cure. These people felt as if it was immoral to increase life expectancy through a series of three injections. The pro-cure group is the opposing side that believes the cure is not immoral and proceeds with receiving the injections. The idea of the cure created major conflict amongst one another and eventually led to violence, or in other words, terrorism. In the very beginning of the novel, the pope makes a public announcement about the cure, codifying it as a sin and promising to excommunicate permanently from the Roman Catholic Church anyone found to have received it, including priests (Magary 12). This statement was contradicting because even though receiving the cure is against the Christian religious beliefs, the bible states that God accepts everyone regardless of what sins they may commit. In Romans 5:8 the bible states, But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ dies for us. This quote means that even though Christ knew that people would sin after he sacrificed his life for them to live, he still sacrificed himself anyway. In other words Christ is accepting the fact that humans will sometimes make the wrong decisions, but is willing to forgive his sons and daughters rather than leave them behind. This contradicts what the pope says, because rather than attempting to help people of the Roman Catholic Church who proceed to get the cure, the pope states that they will no longer be accepted and vanished from the church for good. He also states, from this point forward, the Vatican officially condemns the taking of the cure as a sin and an excommunicable, unforgiveable offense (Magary 13). This statement also contradicts the faith of Christianity, because another verse of the bible, 1 John 1:9 says If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all righteousness. In other words, there is no such thing as an unforgivable offense and the Pope uses his speech as a threat to make people refrain

Kliebenstein 5 from getting the cure, which is a verbal form of violence. Following the popes speech, a terrorist attack took place in a doctors apartment building that was providing people with the injection for the cure. Many people have opposing ideas about the cure and religion influences these ideas heavily. Not only does Magary prove that the different beliefs between religions can lead up to terrorism, but our media portrays this idea as well. Henry S. Wilson, Director for the Global Theologies, writes the article Terrorism and Religion, and he states that people who argue with different religious beliefs will ultimately lead up to violence. In his introduction of the article, he proclaims Religions teach about ultimate claims on believers lives and provide a core vision for it, which invariably colors its followers, socio-political aspirations, engagements, and behaviors (Wilson paragraph 2). Wilson is stating that people who claim or do not claim a religion live by their beliefs daily and those beliefs highly influence what we do and how we act in our lives. Our religion is something that inspires us to affiliate ourselves with different groups of people and acquire certain behaviors. How does this lead up to violence? Wilson also states, Whether the future of humanity will be shaped by the clash of civilizations, the clash of ignorance, the clash of religions and ethnicities, or confrontations between the West and the rest, is hard to predict (Wilson paragraph 2). He is simply stating, because of the different ideas and beliefs people are influenced by, including religion, it is nearly impossible for Americans or countries to peacefully unite. Sadly to say, Wilson means there will always be different social groups that do not have the same beliefs. There will always be clash of social groups. If people cannot tolerate one anothers religious beliefs, it is nearly impossible for violence to not become an issue amongst people with different values.

Kliebenstein 6 Personally, I am a Christian. Although, I do not go to church every Sunday and I do commit certain sins, I live my everyday life through a Christian faith. After reading The Postmortal, I realized how greatly of a social issue religion has become. We face many social conflicts in the world that seemed more obvious to me such as ethnicity and social class. Over many centuries, race has been the number one social issue that amounts for the most hatred amongst people. The different color of peoples skin led to many revolts and outbreaks, and eventually terrorist attacks. After reading this novel, it is easy to compare the social issue of race to the social issue of religion due to the many different forms of religions being practiced currently. Religion has become such an impacted social issue because there are so many different beliefs. For example, the beliefs of Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Muslim, etc., are all different types of religions being practiced in our universal society. These religions vary incredibly in their daily behaviors, practices and, routines. For instance, meditation is a key form of practice for the Buddhist religion, as to where the Muslim culture practices a ritual called fasting (to abstain from all foods during certain hours of the day.) Although these rituals are harmless to people outside of ones religious beliefs, many people are not accepting of these practices because it is not something that they consider their own personal values. Another reason religion is a total social issue is because it is a sensitive topic for discussion. Many people, including myself, are afraid to mention religion in fear of offending someone who practices different or no religion. Unfortunately when Americans do not agree upon certain aspects regarding religion, it can lead to arguments, and eventually violence. In order to end the violence due to different religious beliefs we have to be respectful of the different rituals being practiced around us. For as long as eternity, there will always be people who practice different

Kliebenstein 7 religions and as we go further in life, we may discover new religions. We have to be able to understand and tolerate the different types of religions in order to respect where others spiritual beliefs are coming from. This does not mean that we have to change our religious beliefs to end the disputes and violence. Instead, we have to be accepting of other religious practices in order to understand them. Overall, the idea of ethnocentrism and disputes between different religions leading to terrorism has been portrayed in many incidents. It is evident that religion has become a major social aspect in our society as well as The Postmortal. We have faced several incidents in America where different religions have conflicted leading up to the act of terrorism, such as the 911 attack. Following this attack, many people took an ethnocentric approach in deeming all Muslims as responsible for the 3000 lives that were lost. Many people lost their lives to this terrorist attack, similar to the novel. I was never entirely aware of how major of a social aspect religion truly is to our society. After reading the novel, I agree with Magary that religion has an incredible influence on our actions. It is imperative that we use our religious faith as a positive attribute rather than an act of violence.

Kliebenstein 8 Works Cited "Adherents.com." Major Religions Ranked by Size. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.

"Ethnocentrism." Princeton University. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.

Hirschfield, Brad. "Did Religion Cause 9/11?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 09 Sept. 2011. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

"Terrorism and Religions." Terrorism and Religions. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Mar. 2014.