| I'm guessing that you are advocating a total ban on religion? (Presuming that this plan of action is doable)
The point you made about the religious fanatics blowing themselves up is interesting. If we take 2 terrorist organizations based on some religion, the Northern Irish loyalists (protestants) for example and of course, Al-Qaeda, we'll see that neither side have any true basis from their religion. The Irish paramilitarists are just going around killing other Christians, not because God told them so, or that they believe Jesus came back from the grave, but because they don't want to be re-absorbed back into the Catholic Ireland. On the other hand the Al-Qaeda extremists uses a faulty interpretation of the Qur'an as their fundamental moral justification for killing innocent civilians. Note that the real meaning of Jihad is not a "Holy War" as most people believes, but is rather "struggling". Muhammad himself was quoted in the hadith as saying that the lesser Jihad was physical struggle and the greater Jihad was the struggle of the soul. Therefore the "Jihad" that these extremists are fighting for are not for Allah, but for the faulty interpretation that they are obligated to stop "McDonaldization" (My history teacher's term for Westernization) through violent means.
So basically I'll just sum up my point:
Many of the religious extremists labeled as terrorists do what they do not because God tells them to, but rather because they have different cultural beliefs and values to those they oppose.
This leads us to the following overview:
Religion itself is not a bad thing, it's the interpretation that can deal the fatal blow to society. |