Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes the phenomenon of people that commit crimes in the name of their religion while examining Jonathan R. White's book "Religion and Terror". It details religious terrorism and gives several examples from history that can be labeled as these. It clearly defines terrorism and its meaning and recalls several terrorists whom are not terrorists by his definition. It focuses on the terrorist acts of Muslim fundamentalists and compares them to Christian secular acts.

From the Paper:

"In the histories of religious traditions, from biblical wars to crusading ventures and great acts of martyrdom, violence has always shown its presence. An old maxim seems to plague the fight against terrorism: one person's terrorist is simply another's freedom fighter. A major question arose in the wake of the thesis advanced by Samuel Huntington that 'the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural' - a 'Clash of Civilizations' of differing norms and values. Also, the ever-present terrorist violence in the Middle East has not failed to ponder and disturb our thinking of why men would resort to such extremities of violence. Are there shared norms that transcend religion, culture, even civilizations that can and should provide a guide for distinguishing between terrorism and other acts of war or conflict? Robert Kennedy, in his article addresses one aspect of the overall question of shared norms. His purpose is to examine the norms established in both Western Christian and secular and Islamic 'just war' traditions and their modern derivatives in terms of their utility as a guide for differentiating between terrorism and what might otherwise simply be called irregular warfare. The article concludes that, despite the existence of 'fundamentalist' interpretations on all sides, generally shared norms indeed do exist among Western Christian and secular and Islamic 'just war' traditions. The article also concludes that a number of factors contribute to differences of perspective between and among Muslims and members of many western societies. "

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