While I wish this were true, do you not think the primary impetus is (likely) religious? I would wager these people are not crazy in any clinical sense; they have been deluded by a religious upbringing and culturally supported religious fervor. It is disingenuous to say that religion is not a contributing factor, if not the primary factor.

It is like Steven Weinberg summarized: With or without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Recognizing this is important for assessing the situation and how to counter the problem – this is not a circumstance where more mental health services will make the tiniest difference. It requires intelligent debate about education, philosophy (including religion), and how to convey to people that any religious beliefs that cause the deaths of others are simply wrong.

Religion is not per se horrible – obviously the super-majority of religious people are fully functional contributing members of society and should be protected just like everyone else - but it has been used throughout history to conduct a huge number of atrocities.

> While I wish this were true, do you not think the primary impetus is (likely) religious?

Not really; religious identity politics are often used by leaders (whose motivation seems to be more power-seeking than genuinely religious) to connect with foot-soldiers (whose real impetus seems often to be desperation to improve conditions for their family, or themselves, or to redress wrongs they feel have been done to their family or themselves, or to feel connected to a group and gain meaning.)

And you see the same thing done in other places with racial identity politics, economic class identity politics, national identity politics, etc. (And, in many cases, many of these are at play in the same movement.)

I probably ascribe to much influence to religion alone on its adherents, especially in the middle-east. That said, it seems the sheer number of crazy wars people have fought in the name of religion - the 30 Years' War, The Crusades, the Sudanese War, etc... - would indicate that at least some number of the participants are involved purely because they think Heaven/Jannah/something else awaits and a god is being pleased.

Desperation, poverty, redress of (centuries long) wrongs, and seeing no other option than to join the movement do make sense as motives though.

> the 30 Years' War, The Crusades, the Sudanese War, etc... - would indicate that at least some number of the participants are involved purely because they think Heaven/Jannah/something else awaits and a god is being pleased.

I haven't studied all of those wars, but my understanding has been that behind every religious explanation for war is a political power struggle.

Religion is used to get ordinary people to go to war, certainly. If it wasn't religion, it would be something else that speaks to people's emotions and desire to belong to a group. (Patriotism, 'Duty', 'Honor', etc.)

For two of your examples:

The crusades cemented the power of the Papacy and Holy Roman Empire in Europe, partly by sending a lot of armed powerful people to fight elsewhere. It also was an attempt to reunite Catholicism under the Roman Pope (i.e. it was a massive land/tax/power grab by the Pope at the time). Fighting other faiths occurred, and was certainly used as a reason for people to leave their homes and travel hundreds of miles to fight foreigners. (I'm pretty convinced very few people do that willingly.)

The whole Protestant reformation taking off at all (Luther was not the first person to rail against the perceived hypocrisies of the Catholic church) and subsequent 30 years war was generally driven by a desire of the various princes and kings involved to remove themselves from Catholicism. The 30 years war also quickly devolved past Protestants vs. Catholics and largely into various factions jostling for power.

Religion is simply a very powerful button to press, especially when pressed by someone the person under discussion sees as a person of authority or power figure. Aiming to please is very strongly embedded in human nature, combined with religion it can be powerful enough to make people do the most horrific and stupid things.

If you go down that route you'll have a hard time explaining 'Jihad John' and the many western youths (including some that are extremely pale skinned) and that suddenly feel the need to join IS or do something else that is profoundly stupid and against their self-interests in every way.

That doesn't have anything to do with religion.

Everyone has an existential crisis in their life, and desires to become a part of something greater than themselves.

The traditional institutions in Western society that promoted this sense of belonging have been eroded in the recent decade, which could explain the trend toward joining organizations like ISIS and their ilk.

That is much closer to the root cause than most analysis I read in the media. But it's a much harder problem to tackle and does not make for infotainment and so will get a lot less airtime.

There are apparently some driving elements behind that: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/26/cage-campaigner...

At the larger scale, religious justifications are no more relevant than socialism's role in turning some rural Cambodians into ruthless killers (as opposed to the state-terrorism): http://johnpilger.com/articles/from-pol-pot-to-isis-anything...

"Jihad John" was from Kuwait and lived outside of UK most of his adult life.

Jihad John gets an excuse to rape random women and kill people. It gets him outside the social structures that would not condone these sorts of aggressive activities. I don't think it's against self-interests for messed up people.

French too living in France, but sorry I am fed up of hearing that. Don't you think there's something wrong with Islam and its worshippers in the current days ? Not a single week without hearing about an attack made by islam integrists: Beiruth yesterday, Ankara few weeks ago. It is global, not a few crazy people, tens of thousands of them. Muslims in France have had hard time condeming the Charlie hebdo's attacks and many approved them. There's a strong tendency in the muslim communities these days to reject any Western values. If Islam was once peaceful it is not anymore.

I disagree, strongly. I disagree because specifically this is the reaction that these attacks are supposed to provoke leading to a further split of society and if possible an even more fertile ground for further radicalization. Essentially that's the other stroke of the piston. If you really want the engine to stop then please do not react in the way these assholes want you to.

Islam has nothing to do with this whatsoever, no more than say a Christian shooter in some cinema in has anything to do with Christianity. Islam as a religion has a ton of issues that make this particular kind of thing very hard to get rid of and it is a sad coincidence that many youths that are easily misled are receptive to all sorts of bs but to generalize across a billion or so people because of what a few assholes did is simply wrong.

You can simultaneously fight against right-wing politicians who would capitalize on terrorism and also acknowledge that these aren't "crazy people who happen to be Muslims," these are committed killers who are murdering in the name of a particular strain of revolutionary, extreme Islam. If a well-organized and philosophically consistent group of Christians were organizing mass shootings with motives gleaned from radical Christian theology, you would be completely justified in pointing to a problem within radical Christianity. For example: I'm a moderate Catholic myself. I condemn the Westboro Baptist Church and their strain of apocalyptic nonsense. If you want to criticize fundamental Christianity on the basis that it spawned those maniacs, go ahead. Just the same, please don't pretend that somehow these acts are completely divorced of Islam. We're not stupid, we can distinguish between moderates and terrorists. It's intellectually vapid to say over and over that somehow an ideology firmly based in one religion cannot be criticized on the basis of their professed beliefs and motivations.

Disenfranchised youths and teenagers in general are very impressionable. This makes them highly sought after as 'marks' for radicalization. Whether they are already believers or whether they re-discover their religion is besides the point, the whole thing has about as much to do with religion as the war on drugs has to do with curing addiction. It's just a means to an end, a handle to get a grip on these people so they will do what they're told to do. The fact that religion pre-selects for people who have a very hard time separating fact from fiction most likely also has nothing to do with it because even atheists commit terrorist acts.

The puppeteers are the ones that matter, the 'terrorists' are for the most part tools in the hands of masters at playing them believing they are making the world a better place (and how wrong they are).

I make no distinction between idiots of any plumage, be they muslim, Christians, atheists or something else, organized or acting alone. They're a plague on society and should be dealt with, preferably long before they can become a problem in such a way that becoming a problem never even enters their minds because they're too busy living and appreciating life.

This is a naive viewpoint masquerading as cynicism. There exist sane true-believers. The puppet-masters are true-believers, as well. It might be more uncomfortable to accept this fact -- but it is a fundamental truth that people out there hold competing values, and they're willing to kill and die for them. The "opiate of the masses" explanation is an old idea and fails at explaining revolutionary jihadism (as Marx failed to explain the world in general).

> There exist sane true-believers.

I don't doubt it but those don't typically go around committing mass murder.

As far as the 'people are willing to kill and die for them' bit goes, that's a pretty good definition of insanity to me. After all if an idea was placed in your head and you then go out and use that idea as justification for murdering innocents that you have no personal grievance against (the one universal that most people seem to agree on is a bad thing) then there is something not entirely right in your head.

>Islam has nothing to do with this

There seems a bit of wishful thinking there. We don't know the details but it seems quite likely Islam does have something to do with this.

It's a fair bet that quite a few or even all of the attackers (but let's stick with probably some) share the Islamic religion. But that does not mean that Islam per se has anything to do with it, what it points to is that religion is a tool that can be used to subvert people into committing acts that they would otherwise likely not engage in, especially when they're young, impressionable, stupid or all of the above.

So even if Islam is nominally involved and even if the fact that religious people have a fringe element (like all people!) that does not mean Islam is the cause of this. Just like Catholicism is not a religion centered around pederasty and just like atheists don't generally go around shooting people.

I guess it's the style of attack that makes you think Islam. On the other hand if 150 innocents get killed by drones you think USA and by tanks and artillery you might guess Russia or Israel. I'm not a fan of any of the above.

it's not a coincidence. I think the correlation between Islam and violence is too strong to ignore for tolerance and political correctness sake.

If we accept all that people claim to be true, Kissinger, Bush and Blair et. al. cannot be any exception. Then what suggestions one gets from the correlation between "upholding democracy and human rights" and the butchery in brutally murdering tens of millions in the last several decades (from Algeria to Cambodia to the genocides in Iraq through sanctions and slaughtering)?

The correlation is simple: A bunch of fanatics has managed to hi-jack a substantial portion of their youths who are vulnerable because of their age and outlook on life nominally sharing the same faith with their handlers who they look up to, and doing their deeds for them (because they're too old, too cynical or too cowardly to do such deeds themselves).

So the correlation is strong but a lack of tolerance will fuel the generation of more of these, not less.

Correlation vs. causation fallacy.

Your reaction is emotional, Islam has nothing to do with this whatsoever is not valid for the hundred victims and the hundreds of people who loved those victims. And I think that Wahhabism/Salafism is responsible for this and an unknown amount of atrocities against in the first place other Muslims.

Islam may not have anything to do with this. But certainly Muhammad does have something to do with this. If you read his biography, it's full of active violence. Muhammad is totally different from Jesus or Siddhartha Gautama.

> Islam has nothing to do with this whatsoever

I recognize your username and I know you are highly intelligent, but how can you ignore all the daily evidence, crime statistics, the shows of intolerance + hatred + violence that Muslims put out towards the natives, all the logic and reason, and all the correlations about the Muslim population in Europe?

Because 'Muslims' are many, and terrorists are few.

The Muslims that I know are very much upset about all this and fear for their future, if anybody is upset at the acts of terrorism by their nominal brethren it is them because they are confronted on a daily basis with the fall-out from all this. The scary bit is that the backlash against them drives them to become defensive and that's the one thing that should not happen.

> Because 'Muslims' are many, and terrorists are few.

There is much more to the story than fitting Muslims into the categories of: "non-terrorist" and "active-terrorist".

The fact still remains that Muslim [and other immigrating] populations in Europe negatively impact every single metric of social-ills (rapes, murders, acid-burning attacks, honor-killings / enormous housing and welfare costs / emergence of no-go zones / overall intolerance towards you / and so on and on).

This is the further split of society that you are talking about. It happens when you bring in incompatible groups into your home, and groups that do not reciprocate your good will, tolerance, and open mindedness.

It makes no difference that terrorists are few when double-digits (20%-90%) of Muslims (depending on region and % of population they make up) think that death should be the penalty for apostasy, that suicide bombings are justified, and so on.

So, let's first establish that these are individuals and that while for some of the individuals targeted your claims hold true there are many others that did successfully integrate. For the rest I'll ignore those but they exist and their numbers are vast, much larger than the numbers of those that failed to integrate but since they're not 'part of the problem' I'll pretend we're not talking about them (though they should be talked about because they apparently hold the key to at least a part of the solution).

You're forgetting a few not-so-juicy details. Most of these people that failed to integrate carry local passports and to the law they are just as French (or Dutch, or German or whatever) as the rest of the people living there.

As a rule all these countries practice freedom of religion so whatever the effect the immigrating (grand)parents had on the statistics of decades past the problem is the effects today. And you can't attack anybody on grounds of religion without opening up the traditional make-up of the country as well so that's right out because it would make a great many people in various power structures extremely nervous.

The failure then is to fail to fully integrate these people, part of the failure is theirs, part of the failure is ours.

The fact that the younger generation (and definitely not all of them!) are unable to get work, unable to find meaning in life and unable to get ahead no matter how hard they try creates a level of frustration that I can only imagine, but which broke through partially in the riots in France a couple of years ago.

As far as the 'double digits' are concerned, right now an ultra-rightwing party holds > 25% of the vote in NL, that doesn't make all the Dutch racists any more than 30% of the Muslims agreeing with some or all of the terrorist activities makes all of the Muslims supporters of terrorism.

It's each and every person as an individual that matters.

And if a person specifically supports these acts then you can go after them with whatever tools are available but until then there is no reason to act in a generalizing manner. That only makes the problem (potentially much) worse.

> It's each and every person as an individual that matters.

The human race has been based on groups/collectives since its inception. Even before we were Homo-sapiens, we were forming natural groups that defined us - with each group producing, collecting, and evolving individuals of similar attributes and behaviors.

Once you mismatch a group into another, some type of violence always arises.

And we are mismatching on a lot here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0sRmpvdIIk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2nlIfn8tNA

In addition to the above, the recent floods of immigration into Europe is also not working because the groups that are coming in are largely doing so for the immediate benefits (ex: mindset that thinks welfare is "salary") and not because they recognize and respect European values.

The further this goes on, the worse it gets, and its becoming a disaster.

Let's say your singling out of Muslims as somehow worse than the rest of humanity has any basis in fact or reason: what's the conclusion? close the borders; kick out the muslims; round up those who won't leave; make the rest sign a loyalty oath?

Muslims are in the West, much to your horror, and the reasons they are here just might have something to do with France's imperial past and present. But they're here: so what's your solution fella?

> Because 'Muslims' are many, and terrorists are few.

The same holds for fascists. Fascists terrorists are driven by their ideology, which in itself can be evil and wrong. That many adherents to an ideology are not violent is in itself not an indication of lack of evil. Even if there were billions of fascists, this wouldn't prove lack of evil of fascism.

The reason that people out of principle will not condemn Islam in western society is that is seen as 'another culture' and a 'minority' in the West. Both aspects are seen as a source for racism, which is bad. But therefore it seems hard to truly look at Islam as a possible source of evil. And I think it is.

Most muslims are peaceful => true. But what if we see it differently? From 100 terrorists, how many of them are muslims?

Furthermore, the terrorists want to create division between Muslim and non-Muslim / west and middle east. They know what our knee-jerk reactions will be and are hoping we will follow through on them.

Thank you for keeping your head on straight in times like these, an upvote alone is too little to express my genuine admiration, you're in the middle and you still manage to see sharp.

Crazy people that happen to be muslim extremists.

Yes, but crazy people exist in all walks of life. Fortunately most of those walks of life do not co-incide with organizations trying to point those crazy people against their fellow men. It's unfortunate that in some circles this does happen and clearly there is a problem but - and for a die hard atheist this is a tough one - the Muslim religion per-se is not the problem here, if it were you'd know about it because there are a billion+ of them. Every religion and every fringe has extremists, whether they are animal rights activists, anti-abortion groups or religious groups is hardly relevant in the end they are crazy people first and criminals second. How they got to be that way is yet another problem and bears close study because that is where the real problem lies.

I have no problem with muslims (or not more than with christians for instance). I'm just pointing that these terrorists are not simply crazy people. They are muslim extremists. They kill for a reason, they've been brainwashed by guys that have a very specific agenda.

Crazy people that identify as muslims, emotions are running high but lets not pause our common sense in fear of "offending" someone somewhere. Leaning to left-wing extremism, going to a public gathering tomorrow and posting an inspiring slogan on Facebook doesn't do any justice for the dozens killed either.

This is about people following CRAZY IDEOLOGY.

> we CANNOT allow right-wing political extremism to use them to gather power. THIS IS NOT ABOUT MUSLIMS, IMMIGRANTS OR WHATNOT. THIS IS ABOUT CRAZY PEOPLE.

People who oppose rampant immigration, incompatible cultures, and hostile groups, are "extremists"?

You are living in a climate where Muslims flood out into the streets and chant death threats (and then kill people) because someone made a joke about Muhammad.

Bending over to these people and blaming yourself is not the way forwards - unless you want more of this chaos.

France has one of the largest Muslim populations in Europe, and 20% of this group are brazen enough to sympathize and justify with terrorism when polled. There is a correlation here.