Lee, maybe the actual pilots of the planes and their accomplices were not ravaged by poverty but my guess is their ideological rage was fueled by watching their culture, family, and friends ravaged by it. From what Bin Laden preached, it was the huge disparity between the rich and the poor and the abuses of the potentate in Saudi Arabia (and their support by the US) that drove the attacks.
Without those fundamental driving forces, intense religious dogma and the almost inevitable violence doesn't seem to take hold. The same Christian churches that coexist peacefully in the United States (where even their lowest class parishioners don't lie starving on the streets) erupted into unbelievable violence in Northern Ireland under the scourge of economic depression.
Obviously I'd be much more uneasy and fearful walking the streets in Mecca than I would walking down a street in Biloxi, Mississippi simply because of the language I speak and the culture I'm used to but it's a real mistake to start painting a faith or culture with a wide brush. I'd know that of the thousands passing by me on that Mideastern avenue, only a small handful might want to do me harm. The vast majority could care less.
Art
Current Events » in reply to I am an atheist
Hijackers
The whole thread (33 posts)
- "Once a Muslim, always a Muslim"
- re: "Once a Muslim, always a Muslim"
- Don't you mean Barack Hussein Obama
- re: "Once a Muslim, always a Muslim"
- re: "Once a Muslim, always a Muslim"
- It's not about that, though