TIME magazine this week carries a piece in which an “expert” in matters regarding the afterlife speculates on Osama bin Laden’s post-mortem existence.
I kid you not.
Vanderbilt professor and Islam expert Leor Halevi reckons it all hangs on what type of death one think he died. Halevi says for those who believe he died a martyr, the state of the world’s most notorious terrorist’s corpse matters not one jot.
The New York Daily News left readers in no doubt as to where bin Laden is skulking now
The moment martyrs die, they’re given new bodies in paradise and enjoy a blessed existence.
But it’s not just through death on the battlefield that Muslims can gain the status of martyrdom.
Our expert tells us that people who die in terrible ways, for instance in childbirth or in a building collapse, will also get new bodies in paradise.
However, the spirits of Muslims who die an ordinary death, Halevi says, are more or less stuck with their bodies until resurrection.
Spirits have bodies?
This ain’t too bad if they died free of sin, but if they’d been baddies – a nibble of bacon here, a swig of vodka there, I guess – the state of their bodies becomes a serious issue. They’re punished by what’s called the torture of the grave, meaning they get keep their bodies, “in full decomposing glory”. Nice!
So what gives with those 72 Virgins.? Says the Time report:
If you think he’s a martyr, well that’s a given.
Note: While on the subject of barminess, I see that readers have been feeding the troll, Bill Boswell. This odious little reptile has been bombarding the blog with his Christian crap all week, and, as I have been travelling extensively for the last few days, I have not always had time to trash his stupid comments. If some slip through, please do not rise to the bait. Just ignore the twat, whose sole purpose is to annoy genuine commenters and to disrupt our threads.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
May 8th, 2011 at 11:00 am
You couldn’t make it up, oh wait, I think that is precisely what they are doing.
As for the latest troll, I actually thought he must be a wind up, surely nobody could be that ignorant and obtuse. He actually does not know that extensive use of caps lock and great long strings of question marks make him look like an idiot.
May 8th, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Useless fact for today.
An anagram of Osama Bin Laden is Lob da man in sea.
May 8th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Where is he? Nowhere. As a matter of interest though, I wonder if his ‘acquisition’ of 72 virgins serves a double purpose. Heaven for him/Hell for the virgins. And does their Holy Book Of Lies And Legends specify what gender the virgins are?
Stonyground:
Someone on Pharyngula was speculating the other day that the reason for the bad spelling in fundy posts is that they haven’t actually learned to use the caps lock. They’re trying to type with one finger permanently on the shift key…
Tony:
Salaam, bin done.
Barry Duke:
What we were doing was more baiting than feeding. Sorry.
May 8th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Where is he now? Well the oxygen carrying blood has stopped flowing around his brain so everything that was Bin Laden [except body] has been obliterated. As for his body: hopefully at the bottom of sea having his gentleman’s parts eaten by fish. Obvious really, unless you are religious and believe that life after death nonsense.
May 8th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
If people are going to make shit up the least they could do is make it good and entertaining.
May 8th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Daz & Angela K
You are equally right. He is both nowhere and fish food.
But the clue is in an anagram of the question…
Bin Laden: Where is he now? = NB nowhere: Inside whale?
May 8th, 2011 at 6:01 pm
Apart from the fact he should have been given a proper trial which even the Nazies got for doing a whole lot more and not dealt with summarily with a bullet, who cares?
May 8th, 2011 at 6:49 pm
This was disappointing, the guy didn’t touch upon issues such as if a fish ate a bit of Bin Laden and that bit became a part of the fish, and the fish was eaten by a person and that fish became part of that person, how does god decide who gets the part of the mad jigsaw puzzle he has set himself when it comes to bodily resurrection?
There are tomes written about this very topic by christian and islamic scholars and all we get is a lightweight piece of fluff. It’s all very well saying martyrs get a new bespoke body, but it’s more complicated than that.
Actually, Ilkley Moor bah’t tat makes more sense.
May 8th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
This brilliant planet that recycles from death, life. Natural processes hopefully, will make Bin Laden something, far better than what he was as a human. Perhaps become part of a beautiful coral reef rather than a religious nut case.
May 8th, 2011 at 7:54 pm
What’s always baffled me about the promise of eternal paradise (with or without the virgins) and the threat of everlasting torment in hell is how anybody these days can be so dumb as to think it’s true.
Okay, in the past when education was the privilege of the elite few it would be nigh on impossible for a lowly peasant to even begin to question what his scholarly priest or imam was saying from the pulpit. But today?
Yet there they are, millions of mindless Bob Huttons and Stephen Greens, all spending their lives worried to death in case they haven’t made the grade, or in Hutton’s case wallowing in self-congratulatory arrogance that he most certainly has made the grade. What a bloody waste of time.
May 8th, 2011 at 8:55 pm
I can think of eternal hell. Having to put up with religious people and their discrimination of others for all eternity. The religious believe that they have made the grade – so-called “Saved”. They then spend the rest of the time judging others, causing ever increasing division within society, through wars, destruction and death. I was a little disappointed, having looked forward to The Big Question all week that, Richard Dawkins, didn’t appear quite as robust in his argument regarding the validity of the Bible in today’s society. Excuse me – the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible. Beautiful prose it may be, but divine truth, it isn’t. A Jew believes Jesus was a false prophet, a Christian believes Jesus is God – where does that leave our Judeo-Christian Bible – down the toilet I think!
May 8th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
JR
QFT!
May 8th, 2011 at 10:57 pm
@JR
I sat down this morning to watch this programme and was quite elated when the young bible scholar stated that she thought the bible was not fact.
However, as you rightly noticed, Dawkins was not his usual razor sharp self. He appeared tired and I do hope his health is ok.
May 8th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
I’m not quite clear. If you believe he died a martyr, then he’s in heaven; but if you think he was a schmuck, then he’s down in hell. What if you change your mind? Is there a massive rapid transit system continually shuffling souls back and forth?
May 8th, 2011 at 11:47 pm
Yes I found the Bible scholar Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who presented the BBC Two “The Bible’s Buried Secrets” very informative. Unfortunately Right Reverend Michael Nazir Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, seem to give partisan condescending retorts towards her constructive comments and wasn’t polite enough to let her finish. There did seem quite a number of the god squad in the audience who spontaneously applauded when the Evangelical Alliance chap said “If Jesus said it – I believe it.” There was a thought provoking discussion, prompted by a member of the audience, on the issue of slavery and how the Bible has been manipulated, to justify morals on the one hand and crimes of humanity on the other.
May 9th, 2011 at 12:19 am
@ Daz:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmN2cVOr5W4
May 9th, 2011 at 10:53 am
I quite enjoyed that programme too, JR.
The funniest thing to me was when the black academic who mentioned the Bible & slavery (Dr ? Henry) was talking, Nazir-Ali butted in, then Dr Henry said something like ‘Let me finish, I didn’t interupt you’, and some twonk said ‘But he’s a bishop’. Dr Henry’s cynically raised eyebrow to camera was enough to have me in fits.
To be fair, Nazir-Ali and Christina Rees, the daft Anglican synod member (isn’t she their ‘advisor’ on education?)weren’t winning the studio battle and came over as arrogant and, frankly, a bit out of their depth intellectually. The other Christian commentators, such as the bishop in the audience, were more open on the Bible’s failings as a hard and fast, all time, guide to morality.
May 9th, 2011 at 11:32 am
A better view of death can be found here.
http://www.penmachine.com/2011/05/the-last-post
May 9th, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Pete H
You owe me a keyboard, mate. I just spurted coffee over mine!
Kev. Yeah I saw that the other day when PZ linked to it. What a marvellously dignified last post.* A lesson to us all.
What’s this programme everyone’s on about? If Dr Stavrakopoulou’s on there, I want to see it. Her series a while back was great, though too short.
*rushes off to hunt around iplayer*
*Pun unintentional, though apt, I suppose
May 9th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
I know this might sound base, but if you get to spend eternity in paradise, well, I mean, how long are 72 virgins going to last?
By the way, the CAPTCHA code for this was 3FUK
May 9th, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Daz,
The programme is The Big Questions:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007zpll
May 9th, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Thanks Pete.
Weirdly, what with all the religiots on there, even a creationist, the only person I actively disliked was Reverend Michael Nazir Ali. He ignored/dodged points, flatly lied about archaeological evidence, talked over people and constantly interrupted. Thoroughly nasty man. I agree Dawkins wasn’t on top form. He even seemed to actually come close to losing his temper at one point. Most unlike him.
Anyone know anything about Lez Henry? He made some good points, quite calmly and clearly. I jotted down the title of his (presumably latest) book, as they showed it on screen. Just wondered if anyone has read him.
May 9th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Agreed on the Reverend Daz, most unpleasant he, was. Also agree on Mr Henry, thought he talked a lot of sense.
For the poster who mentioned someone saying “He’s a bishop!”, it sounded very much like the host, Nicky Campbell.
May 10th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
“I don’t believe it” I have just read an article “This hand-wringing over Bin Laden is not just distasteful – it’s potentially suicidal”
By MELANIE PHILLIPS and found myself agreeing with her. I am going to lie down in a darken room.