21 Lessons for the 21st Century

by Yuval Noah Harari

Yet even suicide doesn’t prove an absolute commitment to a single story. On November 13, 2015, the Islamic State orchestrated several suicide attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. The extremist group explained that it did so in order to take revenge for the French air force’s bombing of Islamic State activists in Syria and Iraq, and in the hope that France would be deterred from carrying out such bombardments in the future.18 In the same breath, the Islamic State also declared that all the Muslims killed by the French air force were martyrs who now enjoyed eternal bliss in heaven. Something here doesn’t make sense. If the martyrs killed by the French air force are indeed now in heaven, why should anyone seek revenge for their deaths? Revenge for what, exactly? For sending people to heaven? If you’ve just learned that your beloved brother won a million dollars in the lottery, would you start blowing up lottery outlets in revenge? So why go rampaging in Paris just because the French air force gave a few of your brothers a one-way ticket to paradise? It would be even worse if you did manage to deter the French from carrying out further bombings in Syria, for in that case fewer Muslims would get to heaven.

lmao :D