What makes you unbelieve Crash ?

I would like to discuss one small part of what you said. I think that is a bad example because it seems to imply that there was a Religious Motive for what the 9-11 folk did.Often, the people that you are speaking of, and Terrorists in general, are working from a basis other than religion.True, they have a strongly held belief that they are right and that their actions are right, but it can be any strongly held belief.If there was a miracle and suddenly, at dawn tomorrow, every Jew in Israel awoke to find that they had converted to Islam, the suicide bombing in Palestine would still go on.The mass murders in Cambodia, Russia, Nigeria, Mosambique, Ethiopia and many, many other instances are not because of religion.But suicide bombings or other horrific acts can and are committed by people without strongly held beliefs. There are those that kill for fun, because someone got in their face or for money.Simplistically relating the strength of ones religious beliefs to anything as horrific as terrorism is simply unsupportable.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Of course. Absolutely.Let's assume that as you suggested, tomorrow morning, every Muslim in Palestine and every Jew in Israel wakes up to find that they are Atheists. Would anything change?IMHO, no. The Atheist Palistinians will still be living in the camps and the Atheist Israelis will still be living in the cities. The Athiest Araffat will still want to be the leader of the Athiest State of Palistine and want the Athiest Israelis driven into the sea.While religion is often used and misused as a way to motivate horrible acts, it is not the only thing that would lead people to sacrifice themselves for a cause. It could be Booth shooting Lincoln, the assasin(s) that blew up Alexander II, the Athiestic pogrom of Stalin, Mao or Pot.And under it all, the most common REAL cause is that some group wants to change facts on the ground, to gain power or wealth.Al Queda misuses religion. No one will argue that. But the underlying cause is not ISLAM, it is that they want to change the power structure in the Middle East.Acts of violence, whether those of 9-11, shooting Lincoln, Kennedy, Roosvelt, Reagan often require belief in something, but it could be a philosophy, political cause, power, freedom or wealth.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I agree that some belief in an afterlife might add to someone's ability to carry tsuch an act through, but I also believe there are many, many examples of people being willing and even eager to commit murder or other horrible acts for any strongly held belief.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The sacred holy temple thing is simply what is being used to justify what is really about land, power and posession.What is happening in Palestine is NOT about religion. It is about who will occupy the land, who will be in power. If overnight, all the parties became devout atheists, the issues of power, the issues of control, would still exist. All that would change would be that the fanatics would have to come up with some other justification (race, oppression, color of eyes) to use to inflame some people.If you look at the history of man, basic ingenuity has never failed to find some justification.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Christian or Muslim.Just as Hitler and the Nazis misused Christianity to justify their horrific acts, the 9-11 terrorists misused the teachings of the Koran to justify theirs.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion