India Stuart
12/3/12
Kimball Essay In Kimball’s book, When Religion Becomes Evil, he addresses five simple warning signs of corruption and evil in religion. The five simple warning signs he addresses are: absolute truth claims, blind obedience, establishing the “Ideal Time”, the end justifies any means, and declaring holy war. These warning signs are easy to spot in writings and actions of those who are involved in religious corruption. The book highlights and details each sign as well as giving examples to represent each. In the four pages of notes left behind from the terrorist involved in the 9/11 attacks these signs were also represented. The first of the five signs, absolute truth claims was represented in the notes multiple times. The terrorist takes different verses from the Qur’an and tries to justify the actions they are going to commit. The words of the Qur’an are interpreted in many different ways by Muslims and in this case the terrorist was only interpreting the different verses in a way that would be beneficial to him. “Sacred texts provide a rich source of wisdom and guidance in the vicissitudes of life. Like all things powerful, sacred texts can be misused through a kind of sanctification of the whole and through selective reading and interpretation. Sacred texts are the most easily abused component of religion (Kimball 2008).” The terrorist takes the words of the Qur’an and twists them in his own mind to make it seem as if the actions are acceptable. Some of the examples given in the notes include the idea of the Day of Judgment and also the idea of if you die striving to get closer to God you will automatically go to paradise. The terrorist uses these ideas to justify the actions he will eventually commit. Blind obedience is the second of the five signs Kimball includes in his book. This sign is not represented nearly as much in the notes left behind before the attack. The only thing that was written a bit on this topic was the fact that the notes were written by the ringleader of a carnage that led the attacks on 9/11. The notes didn’t include any writings or ideas on the topic specifically. “Corrupt religion frequently includes coercive pressure tactics designed to keep members in line (Kimball 2008).” In the notes left behind the terrorist wrote a little bit on the routines that he had to follow on the night before and also of the day of the attacks in order to completely fulfill his duties to his organization. There wasn’t very much depth or detail on the idea of blind obedience but after reading the book and also the notes I understood the terrorist probably had to do a lot work to stay a part of the organization. The warning sign of establishing the ideal time wasn’t really described or shown in the notes because they didn’t go into very much detail. He writes a bit on the topic and explains how he is following with the Qur’an and doing what he feels is necessary in order to fulfill the work of God at the right time before the world gets any worse. Another warning sign that isn’t represented very well in the notes was the sign of the end justifying any means. The terrorist uses the idea of using the attacks against people to rid the world of the evil. He uses some verses from the Qur’an in order to justify the actions and allow himself to feel like he is doing good for the world. The last of the five signs was the idea of Declaring Holy War. In the notes left behind from the terrorist he explicitly states the idea of declaring a holy war to purify the world in order to please God. In the notes left behind the terrorist writes about how he feels like you have to fight for God in order to achieve salvation and go be with God. The notes left behind do include all of the five signs that Kimball writes about in his book. If the notes would have been discovered by someone before the attacks the events on 9/11 may have been stopped. In order to really know when a religion does become evil the signs are nice indicators and are simple and easy to see in any religion. According to Kimball all religions are susceptible to corruption through these five simple signs. We need to pay more attention to the religious leaders in today’s society to make sure they aren’t heading into an evil state.