Charlie
Hedbo
As
mystics experience and philosophers deduce, God is a name for the superlative
degree of nothingness, the abominable singularity that constantly threatens
reason from within. Religion is the accretion disc that forms around the
intolerable mystery, the scab that covers the wound that cannot heal. The sane
believers renormalize the equations of theology to avoid absurd solutions and
resort to idolatry and superstition to protect themselves from the murderous
implications of the faith. Since only a suicidal fanaticism is fully consistent
with monotheism, it’s literally true: you can’t look on Yahweh face-to-face and
live.
Even
atheism is not necessarily a perfect defense against this lethal nonsense. It
depends on how you gloss the slogan “Nothing is sacred.” Which is why there is
such an obvious affinity between the jihadis and the Red Brigade terrorists of
the Nietzschean left. Or to make the same point in the other direction, you
might say that the real Shahada of the Salafis is “There is no God, and
Muhammad is his prophet.” Allah is the emptiness in the middle. There really
isn’t anything in the Holy of Holies. That’s the obscene secret.
Perhaps
the votaries of the Assassins were being redundant when they said “There is no
God. Everything is permitted” since what they based their sect upon was the
recognition that God was a way of referring to our terrible freedom. That
everything is permitted is God.