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Stop Associating Terrorism With Faith
The taking of human lives, in any instance, is a crime against the human family and should not be tolerated. However, to associate deep religious fervor with being the sole inspiration for something that is also socio-politically motivated, is wrong. The term "terrorism" is a broad generalization that risks conditioning the social psyche into an instant negative association with religion, which could lead to a lack of faith. This would be yet another form of terror - that against the spirit of faith, whatever faith it may be. It is when people are afraid - of the future, of economic or social strife, of sometimes basic survival - that they are most vulnerable to extreme ideologies that condone violence as a suitable solution.
In my opinion, the President elect and his cabinet need to effectively remind the people of the free world that the voices of the few do not outweigh the many, that things can change, that through cooperation and diplomatic relationships in the global community we can and will strengthen our ties with the rest of the world, shrinking the opportunities where fear mongering can dwell.
By
Matt Maher
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December 2, 2008; 9:42 AM ET
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Posted by: Farnaz2 | December 9, 2008 9:32 AM
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On the other hand...why blow yourself up for a cause if afterwards you are just plain dead? I mean it really helps to believe that after the explosion you will live forever in Paradise with a God, and have lots of beautiful girls at your service. Why else would Muslims kill "infidels" if not for a major reward in some imagined afterlife?
Posted by: colinnicholas | December 8, 2008 11:19 AM
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I have to say I agree with you. I'm an atheist, and I think this is one issue that always makes me feel very separated from most of the more "vocal" atheists; that is, their tendency to want to blame anything horrible done by a religious person on their religion. After all, if it were just their faith telling them to do these things, I think we'd see a lot more of it than we do right now, after all there are billions of people who ascribe to only the "big 3" faiths. Not saying it can't play a role, but I'd say if religion plays ANY kind of role in someone's decision to commit terrorism, it merely provides them with a sense of justification for what they want to do...a sense of justification that they're specifically LOOKING for. That is to say, they're reading their socio-political anger into how they interpret their faith. People don't need religion to do horrible things, but at the same time the absence of it wouldn't stop horrible things from happening. It's just hard for me to imagine that the reason people perform acts like this is because they wake up one day, read the bible or the koran and say "oh, well I better go blow up a building".
Posted by: Sparrowhawk | December 3, 2008 1:49 PM
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I suppose we could associate terrorism with popsicles or goldfish, but what would be the rationale?