Religious believers always talk about how God grounds morality. The view is that religious people can be immoral and that non-religious people can be moral, but it is all based on God\u2019s standard. That being the case, when a religious person does something immoral, they know it and they have to repent. But the problem is that the standard isn\u2019t really clear. Various god believers have very different ideas about what that standard it. Osama bin Laden is the perfect example.<\/p>\n
Most people don\u2019t realize that Osama bin Laden was born with a silver spoon and lots of brothers and sisters. All he had to do is sit back and relax and he would have lived a life of luxury with not a care in the world. However, unlike his brothers and sisters, he actually believed the religious nonsense that he was taught. As a result, he rejected \u201csecular materialism\u201d and became a \u201cfreedom fighter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bin Laden believed in Allah and thought that the Koran should be taken seriously. The Taliban shared his view and so when the Russians took over Afghanistan, bin Laden joined the fight because he thought it was the moral thing to do. Trained by the CIA, Osama helped to win freedom for the Taliban, which ironically meant a life of restricted freedom for most people.<\/p>\n
His work with forming al-Qadea had to do with his view that \u201cThe West\u201d is immoral. Bin Laden, like many religious believers in America, believed that without God (Allah) there can be no moral standard. The difference is that he believed that God\u2019s moral standard compelled him send planes into buildings and kill 3000 people.<\/p>\n
While he could have been mistaken about God\u2019s moral standard, it seems that would be a reflection upon God. As I stated before, God\u2019s moral standard doesn\u2019t seem all that clear. People can sincerely believe all kinds of different and contradictory things and attribute them all to God\u2019s clear and unchanging moral standard.<\/p>\n
People have argued that Adolph Hitler didn\u2019t really believe in God and wasn\u2019t really Catholic in his heart. They say that he just used the language of God to deceive people and get them to do what he wanted. That may or may not be true and there is no way to really know for sure. But that argument can\u2019t be made with Osama bin Laden. He gave up the playboy lifestyle because of religious conviction. His million dollar compound was closer to a shack with a million dollar security system. Osama bin Laden really did believe in God.
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