The usual favorite boogieman of parents and right-wing Chicken Littles worred about The Terrorists usually wears a turban, and is depicted as one of Those Damn Muslims. Yet if you really look at it, it's the faithful of a different stripe who seem intent on bringing about The Destruction of America, especially when considered as The Enemy Within. A few examples should make this clear:

Timothy McVeigh, terrorist and mass murderer who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City. Catholic.

Robert Hanssen, the FBI agent who passed secrets to the Soviets for two decades, including much information that led to the deaths of American operatives. Catholic to the max. In fact, he was a member of Opus Dei, the Vatican's very own al-Qaeda.

And now there's Bruce Ivins, who was apparently the Anthrax Terrorist. No innocent victim of Popish programming in childhood, this evil man actually converted to Catholicism before undertaking his nefarious deeds.

Well, I hope this knocks the scales from a few eyes, though I hold out little hope for change. Four hundred years since Guy Fawkes, and yet we continue to allow the Popish hordes to continue to live freely and walk freely among us. So in the end, it will be our own folly that does us in.

Ah, I love being scurrilous on a Sunday night.....

...but it's most likely to be a fanatical member of that religion, or a member of a religion that breeds fanaticism by nature.

Hinduism isn't necessarily a fanatical or exclusivist religion, and yet there have been individual murderous, fanatical Hindus. Even Buddhists go off the rails sometimes.

For mass killings, though, you need a really intolerant faith. And the leading candidates there are, in order (at least in modern times): Islam, Christianity, and Judaism...the major monotheisms.

Whenever you insist you've got the ONLY God, and are the ONLY ones with the truth, you create the atmosphere for fanaticism. That's why exclusivist religions should be avoided.

FWIW

Hinduism isn't necessarily a fanatical or exclusivist religion, and yet there have been individual murderous, fanatical Hindus.

Aren't the Tamil Tigers obstensibly Hindus? There have also been terrorist (depending on the definition) attacks by Hindus against Christians in India, if I recall correctly.

Now, I think that Hinduism isn't as expansionist a religion as most brands of Christianity and Islam but...

I actually don't see much danger from Judaism (except as it provides the philosophical underpinning of the other two). Partially because they lack the numbers outside of Israel to have much impact and partially because they also aren't expansionist to any great degree and don't actively seek converts. Jews seem to have the attitude that, "It's OK if you agree with me but, if you don't, don't bother me."

The only religious document that says you should wipe out people from the face of the earth and destroy them without mercy, women and children, is the Old Testament.

So those religions who still follow the Old Testament would be my answer.

...are the product of Tamil nationalism, not so much a religious phenomenon. There have been conflicts between Hindu fanatics and both Christians AND Muslims, it's true, but to me that's more the product of individual and small-group fanaticism than religion-wide. Maybe Konark girl could correct me if I'm wrong here?

Judaism seems more of a threat to me because it's so interwoven with Zionism and the Jewish State, and because they're so aggressively militarist and well-armed with nuclear weapons. But I'd agree that even there, religion isn't the major component. On an invidivual religious basis, Jews are indeed more tolerant and willing to live and let live.

Yes, but Tamil nationalism is strongly identified with Hinduism in many minds. The Tigers struck out at Muslims as well as Sinhalese, who carry a strong Buddhist cultural identification. The Tigers seemed to prefer death over capture which also seems to show a quisi-religious bent.

But maybe the Tigers sought to put forward a facade to increase the bonds with Tamils both on Sri Lanka and in India.

This is mostly from memory but it might have a kernel of truth.

Tamil Tigers don't really have any links to Hinduism (apart from fact that they happen to be Hindus). There's no implicit or explicit religious agenda there.

'Hindu terrorism' has been carried out by groups like VHP (Vishwya Hindu Parishad) etc, with the very explicit agenda of 'defending Hinduism from corruptinginfluence of Abrahamic religions.' Their philosophy seems to be that, while Hinduism is not expansionist, it needs to be defended against the religions that ARE expansionist, namely Islam and Christianity. And they've also accused the secular Indian state of 'pandering to minorities' and 'insulting and degrading Hinduism -- which, after all, is the 'true' religion of the nation' (sounds familiar ????).

I hadn't realized that Hindu fanaticism was so dedicated to anti-Christian and anti-Muslim actions. That "true religion of the nation" stuff does indeed sound familiar, I'm sorry to say.

Is it a large movement, or pretty small? A lot of popular support?

Complex answer -- there's the BJP party in India which is very much like the Republican party -- it supposedly runs on a pro-business pro-free-market platform, but its REAL base is the Hindu religious right, and it pandered quite opnely to all 'Hindu grievances' about how Muslims and Christians were being 'pampered' by secular India and cultural relativists while Hindus were being ignored and persecuted, and it also created the 'leftist secular bogeyman', these supposed traitors who was supposedly always criticizing India and thus giving 'comfort to its enemies'.

They started ascending in popularity in early 1990s, and then had control of central govt for about 4 years, not a good period in India either for seculars or for minorities. The VHP-types got encouraged and started carrying out physical assaults against Muslims and Christians, culminating in the quite horrific Gujarat massacres. That started a backlash, and while the BJP still keeps power at the state-level in Gujarat (which is basically India's Texas, no hope of ever dislodging them from there), they got absolutely walloped in the national-level elections.

They've kept a lower profile since, but they'e still around!

So why did the Tigers ethnically cleanse portions of the North of Muslims at one time? Did they assume that anyone that wasn't Tamil would be opposed to their control? Not a bad assumption but is it true?

I don't really know and I'm not trying to be argumentative. I read an article long ago that said the Tamil revolutionaries (Tigers included) identified with the Hindu religion and received some support from that identification. The contrasting attitudes towards violence of the Buddhist Sinhalese and the Hindu Tamils was give as one of the reasons that the central government of Sri Lanka was having such a hard time suppressing the Tigers.

I suspect their slaughtering had more to do with cleansing along 'ethnic' lines than 'religious' lines. There are relatively few Muslims who are of Tamil origin. I can't swear that there was never ANY element of Hindu identity, but there's never been any signs of camaredie between them and the groups in India who were operating from an undisguised platform of "violence in the name of Hinduism."

You got something there. We shjopuld remove all Moslems and Catholics from America.

Dd

Sure, and you have ANY idea how bad the shortage of doctors and medical professionals would be if you tried to remove all Muslims from USA? There are just so many illnesses you can cure with prayer and whiskey alone, you know!

I agree, and we should add Protestants to that list as well. The, of course, we can get back to a large spacious country with almost nobody living here....

There are just so many illnesses you can cure with prayer and whiskey alone, you know!

Well, Duh! That's when you pull out the jar of bear fat! Smear it on anything, and it'll clear things right up!