Originally Posted by Jim in CT
WDMSO, there are many drivers of radicalization, as you astutely said.
"it's societies and socioeconomic conditions and religious and cultural concepts that drive extremism one wont stand with out the other"
Then please explain the guy who shot up his office in California recently, or the Fort Hood shooter? These were not desperate, poor people who had any conceivable reason to hate the west. These were people who were doing well in the west.
There is one common thread that connects all of them, and it's not ignorance, poverty, hopelessness, desperation, or living in a third world craphole (while some terrorists share these things, certainly not all of them do). Furthermore, there are huge numbers of desperate, poor, hopeless Christians out there (Africa, central America). And they aren't slaughtering innocent human beings because they think Jesus wants them to.
The overwhelming majority of people killed by terrorists in the last 15 years, have been killed by Islamic terrorists. Not Christian terrorists, not Jewish terrorists, not Mormon terrorists, not Hindu terrorists, not Amish terrorists, not Buddhist terrorists Yet all these religions have poor followers, living in the most miserable places on Earth (maybe not the Amish, but you get my point). Why is that? When one religion, and only one, stands out as inspiring its faithful to act this way, there's got to be a connection.
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