Can Religion Justify International Terrorism? (Essay Sample)

CAN RELIGION JUSTIFY INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM?
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Can Religion Justify International Terrorism?
Religious terrorism is a form of violence perpetrated in the name of God. It is not unique to one faith. However, in recent years, it has been perpetrated mostly by radicalized individuals affiliated to Islam. At the international level, it is mostly carried out by highly organized militant groups with extreme views on religion. Such terrorist groups usually go for easy targets such as civilians or diplomatic missions. They consider their actions justified on religious grounds.
International terrorism has no religious justifications because it is a violent act that contravenes the doctrines of all faiths. All religions either advocate pacifism or permit the use of violence only in self-defense. Religions also teach people to exhaust all peaceful means of resolving conflicts before resorting to violence. This is not the case with religious extremism; terrorists never attempt to resolve conflicts peacefully before resorting to violence. They also attack forbidden targets such as innocent people, a clear deviation from religious teachings on violence use. Thus, the actions of terrorists are not justified on religious grounds.[Peter R. Neumann, Old and New Terrorism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009), 106.]
International terrorism does not also have religious justifications because it is entirely based on misinterpretations of religious doctrines. Extremists purposely misinterpret the teachings of certain religions to serve their interests. For instance, if they intend to prejudice certain individuals against a group of people, they can use a biased definition of good and evil from religious texts to portray perceived opponents as evil. This not only creates hatred for certain groups of people but also motivates individuals to engage in extreme acts of terror, including self-sacrifice. It also leads to radicalization, an emerging trend in modern terrorism that has attracted the attention of many scholars.[Alex Schmid, The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2011), 231.]
Borum studied radicalization and discovered four key stages that lead to the development of radical ideas and justification of violence. First, an individual experiences a sense of dissatisfaction or grievance, often pertaining to some perceived deprivation in his life. This is followed by perceptions of injustice, usually blamed on the perceived deprivation identified in the first stage. The third stage involves the attribution of blame; an individual considers himself a victim of injustice and assumes that someone else is at fault for it. The last stage is the erosion of social and psychological barriers that inhibit aggressive behavior. In this stage, a radicalized individual justifies his actions by creating perceptions of imminent threat that require self-defense.[Randy Borum, Psychology of Terrorism (Tampa: University of South Florida, 2005), 28-29.]
Krueger and Laitin studied the economics of terrorism in an attempt to understand its dynamics. They tested the correlation between povert...