Martyrdom

A spokesman for Jemaah Islamiyah, a southeast Asian terror group linked to al-Qaida, is claiming responsibility (that is, taking "credit") for a car-bomb attack yesterday in Jakarta, Indonesia, outside the Australian Embassy. The attack killed 9 people, and wounded 173. Once again, the victims include innocent women and children. (, in its report, includes photographs, the first of which is too horrible to describe. The pictures are here.)

Here's a paragraph from the AP report:

"We decided to call Australia to account, which we consider one of the worst enemies of God, and God's religion of Islam," the statement said. "Here we were able to call it to account today in Jakarta, where one of the mujahedeen (holy warriors) was able to execute a martyrdom operation with a car bomb in front of the embassy."

Not terrorism, mind you: a martyrdom operation. Hmmm. Too bad that Allah didn't see fit to reveal to his prophet Jesus what the prophet Mohammed would later teach: jihad, complete with "martyrdom operations." Since Mohammed was born in A.D. 571, well after the Roman Empire had ceased to persecute Christians, all those deaths could have been avoided if Allah hadn't kept this important practice a secret until Islam was revealed in A.D. 632. Those foolish Christians wouldn't have had to wait until A.D. 313 and the Edict of Milan to end their persecutions; or until A.D. 395 for Christianity to become the official, and only, religion of the Empire. They wouldn't have had to endure crucifixions, burnings, beheadings, and other quaint and curious forms of torture and execution. No, if they'd only been given the concept of jihad, they could have taken up swords, formed armed bands, ambushed Roman soldiers -- and when that proved to be too costly, they could have gone to unsuspecting villages, into the marketplaces, and there taken hostages, threatening to kill them, and actually doing so, to force the Roman government to capitulate to their demands. They could have swept across the Empire as the forces led and inspired by Mohammed would sweep across the Arabian Peninsula, and then the Holy Land, and the north of Africa, crossing into Iberia, and conquering the Byzantine Empire and the Balkans, threatening Europe at Tours and Vienna, as well as moving into India and China. Why, if Allah had only told the prophet Jesus about jihad, the spread of Islam could have come much sooner, much closer to the heart of Europe, and so to spread across the world.

When one prophet says, "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword," and the next says, "Take up the sword in holy war," that's confusion, at best -- and we know who is the author of confusion. The evil one must be truly taking delight in how his teachings have sown confusion, and hatred, and murder in the name of religion. The evil one must also be enjoying the degradation of the lives, and deaths, of the holy martyrs, who reveal the power of love, and of faith in Jesus Christ, not a prophet, but the incarnate Son of God, by the twisting of their sacrificing themselves by calling those who kill and maim others in the process of their own suicide "martyrs" and their actions "martyrdom operations."

Let's tell the truth about this...