Foolstroupe: "I'm tired of all this world madness where one group of people torture and kill others to prove that their imaginary friend of Goodness and Light is better than the others' imaginary friend of Goodness and Light and that their own is the ONLY ONE TRUE Supreme imaginary friend of Goodness and Light!"

Hmm. Though you're generally on the ball, I'd have to take issue over this one, in the kindest possible way! I think the religious motive explanation has been way overstated too often in the past. It's used to explain away for example, all kinds of extremist Isalmic acts (e.g Jihad) and so on. I've heard it used also to explain that the Israeli Jews have a kind of 'chosen people' complex, a Divine right to trample who they wish. Like I've said, I think it's been way overstated.

While I accept that there are those on both sides who harness their religion into a political ideology for murder and mayhem, they are very much in the minority. I am more socialist in outlook, and would like to quote Pink Floyd ('The Great Gig in the Sky') for what it's worth for a nice summary:

"With, without
And who'll deny, it's what the fighting's all about?"

The root of the trouble everywhere tends to be have and have not, powerful and weak. religion provides the icing on the cake, provides soem with a kind of ready-made vocabulary (though often with a lot of semantic abuse) with which to articulate their aims and outlook. In the same way 19th century colonialsts found their justification in Social Darwinism (and still do, under the guise of 'modernisation theory' and 'spreading democracy'). People talk of how young muslims are being radicalised by extremist Islamic clerics. Perhaps so, but it is the ground layer of social injustice, disenfranchisement, poverty, etc., etc., that makes them so vulnerable to being moulded in this way in the first place. As I've said before, provide people with a voice, justice and a satisfying life and you'll find far fewer extremists. This simplest-of-solutions is of course that world leaders insist on ignoring: it just couldn't be that simple, could it? As the YES MEN would say, they 'have a much firmer grasp on theory', great economists and so on.

Even in Crusader times, the crusaders had their eye on the riches of the east as much as the liberation of the Holy Land.