Osama bin Laden’s obituary was featured in The Economist this past week. The article mentioned bin Laden’s famous dictum outlining the fundamental difference between his followers and Americans. Americans love life but his followers love death, he said. Apparently he believed this love of death would defeat those who love life.

Are those who love death stronger than those who love life? The signature act of death worshipers is the suicide bomber. Is this activist a type of courageous martyr, who also makes unwilling martyrs of those innocents he or she kills?

Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist, survived a Nazi concentration camp. Like the victim of a suicide bomber, he suffered because of a fanatic’s belief that his life was not of value. Frankl learned much from his concentration camp suffering, but he wrote in his classic Man’s Search For Meaning: “But let me make it perfectly clear that in no way is suffering necessary to find meaning … To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”

Jesus did not wish to suffer on the cross. He did so because of love, because he wanted others to live. To die so that others may enjoy better lives, it seems to me, is the only reason to choose death. To love not only our life but the life of our neighbor is the beginning of the strength that defeats evil.