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But maybe religion is the problem. Any sort of fundamentalist has to ignore reality to embrace an alternate reality centered around faith and lack of logic. Whether Christian or Muslim. Hell, the Japanese believed that their emperor in WW2 was a living god, so buddhism was used to incite war and massacre millions.
As far as social and cultural influences, what religion does not provide that? Every freakin' religious holiday and festival from Ramadan to Christmas, Easter, Diwali, what have you. If you are steeped in religion then you have had your head boiled.
Ann Coulter is the christian version of the hatred spouting kill all jews and infidels imam.
Maybe the more hardcore fundies a religion has, the more dangerous it is. Mormons in Texas, statuatory rape of teenage girls in the guise of spiritual polygamy. A high concentration of Jews, settlement camps and fighting in Palestine. A radical christian US president who talks directly to god, a war on Iraq under false pretenses. Christians killing abortion doctors. It seems to me that there is a very high concentration of fundy islamists so there is a high proportion of "nutjobs" willing to murder in the name of allah.
As far as mental illness, what indicates that he was mentally ill?
That muslim community center in Silver Spring, MD is located less than a mile from where I spent my childhood, and my stepfather still lives there. My mom used to call New Hampshire Ave the highway to heaven because of the plethora of religious institutions along it. Over the course of about ten miles, you had St Johns roman catholic, The cambodian buddhist temple, the episcopal church my family went to occasionally growing up, the russian orthodox complete with onion domes that shared property with the MCC, and further up you had the jehovah's witnesses, who nobody liked. I know I missed others.
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