Hi paddymac, great thread.

Missionaries are not terrorists, IMO, but they do spread evil. Evil, in my definition, is anything that blocks the good that humans can do. Terrorism is the use of violence (either threatened or enacted) to accomplish political ends. It is evil to tell people what in the supernatural is "true" and what is not. It is evil to tell people to depend on an intermediary (priest, pope, imam, or anyone) when trying to figure out their conscience. It is evil to plan for the afterlife and neglect the present life. It is evil to build a beautiful cathedral as long as schools and hospitals are ugly. It is evil to pray when work could accomplish something. It is evil to tell people about Heaven and Hell but not about basic biology. But it isn't terrorism unless you terrify people - even Hell & Brimstone preachers don't fall under that heading, they may be getting their church donations by threatening future punishment but not by meting it out in the present and they saying I did it for the children, or something. For Fallwell to be a terrorist he'd have to tell people to bomb abortion clinics, or something... Wait.. OK, they are terrorists when they preach violence for political ends, even if that end is just getting their particular myths into the supposedly secular legal system. But if all they are preaching is religion, they may be evil, but they are not terrorists. If they crusade against the other religions, they can become such only too easily.

(Mrr, DARFC)