God, Martyrs, and Mean Girls of the Middle East

How we define God influences every aspect of our lives. Is God human-like, formless, something else entirely? I call God a self-aware infinity. I believe it’s a good definition, though I’m sometimes met with blank stares when I use that definition with a Catholic, for example. It seems that some, maybe many, people, never actually think about what God is like aside from some sort of awareness there’s the Creator. They don’t even believe, they just repeat the mantra they have been taught to mindlessly repeat. With God, there’s an inextricable link with the afterlife, reward and punishment, and eternity as such.

The way we define God is naturally going to reflect how we define the afterlife.

Afterlife is linked with reward and punishment, of course. How these two concepts are defined can tell us a lot about who we’re dealing with. What’s paradise like? Is it purely about the physical pleasure? Are there intellectual pursuits as well? How we view heaven and hell mirrors our minds. If one’s view of the world links martyrdom with killing as many ”Zionists” as possible, then it’s no wonder negotiating with that mindset is extremely unlikely to succeed. Negotiations deal with the corporeal – while such fanatics don’t look at the corporeal, but the eternal reward after. Negotiators, even the most skilled ones on the planet, can’t possibly give anything to a fanatic who can’t wait to unite with his version of God.

One would need to redefine the concept of the afterlife of these fanatics but you can’t do it without making them forget all they’ve been inculcated with for years, often since birth. Besides, how do you edit a holy book that’s already perfect in their eyes? Yet, redifining the belief system of fanatics as early as possible is the only way to change them. Once their belief is set in stone, reaching them is impossible, unless some kind of divine intervention is involved, because whatever you say to them will be warped by their worldview.

Greta Thunberg refusing to watch the Oct 7 footage? Is it surprising? Hardly. Her identity is linked to the belief that ”Israel is evil” and she is a ”justice warrior.” Just look at the language she uses – ”Israeli Occupational Forces.” There’s no getting through to someone like that. Too late. If she were to admit she was wrong, her identity would crumble and her conscience would hit her hard. People with identities linked to a particular ideology treat any questioning of that ideology as an attack on them. On their sense of self. Of how the world is supposed to be. No wonder they react fiercely, even fanatically, to anyone challenging their worldview.

They are defending who they are. To them anyone challenging them isn’t trying to make a point or win a debate – he or she is evil incarnate, targeting their very core, and must be treated as a threat. Fanaticism, be it Iranian or some activist’s, is ultimately the same at its core, just wrapped in a different ideology, making it seem different from the outside, yet not being different at all.

That’s why ridicule is such a powerful weapon (I asked God to make my enemies ridiculous – Voltaire), because stripping away authority, the emasculation, is the worst fear of any authoritarian – be it a member of a theocratic regime such as Iran or a Z-patriot. Their ideology differs in details but it shares the underlying fanaticism. Look at the language they use. They don’t write, ”Such and such general died.” No. ”Martyred.” It’s always about martyrdom. Death is venerated and honored. Strip the veneration and self-deluded honor away and watch these fanatics go from being taken seriously to the main characters in a ”Z-patriot and Iranian general walk into a bar” jokes. Indeed, the IDF post about Iran’s top leadership a while back on X – Mean girls of the Middle East – is exactly the right way to go.

Why would there be just one hell and one heaven? Many rooms in God’s kingdom. I’ve always thought rooms mean dimensions, not literal rooms. In Hebrew hell dimension, for example, a punished genius might want to discuss geopolitics, only to be told by the warden of hell to go back to cha-cha-cha, show more legs, and keep polishing Hebrew. Or another version of hell where the most dangerous anti-Israel fanatics are cursed by God and forced to serve in the Israeli Army. As women, of course. The worst fate of all in their belief system.

The sheer shock of such a metamorphosis would make a rebellion among the new ”recruits” highly unlikely. Plus they are going to have to learn to pray extra hard for their prayers to be taken seriously by God, if their prayers from hell can be heard at all. It would also depend if hell is temporary, more akin to a purgatory, or eternal and irreversible. It’s believed that in hell, our senses are actually more acute. Again, makes sense, given that more acute senses means a more effective punishment.

Then again, no matter how convinced we are that we can read the mind of God, that’s chutzpah at best and folly at worst. We have no guarantee God takes kindly to those who claim to have figured Him out. Having an awareness there’s a God and praying to God and having the arrogance of claiming one knows all about God are two dramatically different things.

Iran threatens Israel with ”painful fate,” but it’s ultimately God who’ll decide who has the last laugh. And something tells me it won’t be the Iranian regime laughing when all is concluded.