The Knoxville Unitarian Universalists Church Shooting

From this week's reading, I chose to write analysis and synthesis of the story by Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and loathing in America. The author narrates in the story about the event surrounding the 9/11 and made some predictions about the possible consequences of war that are going to start to happen due to the attack on the American soil. To state one of the author's predictions that he said for sure will happen and what really we experienced and witness today that his predicts are for real happening. " it will be a religious war, a sort of Christian jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides"(Thompson, 2001, p.7). As the author stated in the story, media and political figures played a major role in decorating the attack as if it was a religious war carried out by religious extremists, who want to start a new crusade war of the 21st century. It was never mentioned as politically motivated attack, but of rootless extremists who want to get rid of Christianity. As a result hatred between Muslim and Christianity increased more than ever. Since the 9/11 attack there has been an increasing

In a very tragic moment in the year 1999 It was said that a man named Larry Gene Ashbrook ran into a church and started shooting. He was carrying a 9mm, and a 380-caliber handguns and a pipe bomb. Larry killed 7people and himself after this and wounding 7 others. larry was being accused of other crimes and he was said to be very violent to his father after his mother died nine years before the shooting with all this on his shoulders it drove him mad and he wanted people to feel his pain of being alone and accused of doing things he didn 't do.

Religious terrorism is regularly portrayed as demonstrations of unreasonable, silly and indiscriminate violence, along these lines offering few, if any what really spur religious terrorism measures. This presumption about religious terrorism comes from different nations, groups and individual’s. Unbalanced regard for prophetically catastrophic terrorism, and an absence of qualification between religious terrorism and its mainstream partner. This article, in this manner, expects to do four things: characterize and separate religiously inspired terrorism, confidence, and activism along the lines of faith and violence. Furthermore, prescribe a scope of religion, confidence, and terrorism systems in view of these perceptions.

In many cases it is natural to interpret the events of September 11th as purely evil, however, Lincoln argues that the terrorist attacks were profoundly and intensely religious. For this reason, Lincoln attempts to clarify what religion does and how it can be used to legitimate violent acts such as the terrorist attacks of September 11th. To support his argument, Lincoln offers a definition of religion that is more precise than the definition previously discussed in this essay. Lincoln argues that within religion there is a religious maximalist approach and a religious minimalist approach. The maximalist approach is the,“conviction that religion ought to permeate all aspects of social, indeed of human existence”(Lincoln 5). Essentially maximalists believe that religion should be considered the most important thing above all else. In contrast, minimalists believe that religion should be "restricted to an important set of (chiefly metaphysical) terms, protects its privileges against state intrusion but restricts its activity and influence to its specialized sphere”(Lincoln 5). Lincoln then goes on to define religion as having four parts. The four parts being; discourse, which contains speech acts that create a social reality in which people live, as well as, textual examples of “transcendence.” Secondly, there is practice which consists of the rituals and ceremonies of religion. Thirdly there is, community which refers to the people practicing the religion and constructing a religious world around it. Lastly there is, institution which is the recognized regulation and representation of the religion, its practices and community. All of these factors make up Lincoln’s more specific definition of

Terrorism is something that is brought up in our modern life as Americans quite regularly, though often not outright. We discuss heightened plane security and about whether it is appropriate to fear those who look different than us who are boarding the same plane. We talk about Apple and if it is worth losing our own personal privacy in order to gain insight on terrorist groups. We add a French flag over our Facebook profile pictures when a country like ourselves faces a reality we silently hope we will never have to face. In Juergensmeyer’s Terror in the Mind of God, the reader is forced to think about terrorism in a way that we are not used to, talking about terrorists as real people, with real motives, who could affect our own lives.

In the reading from Terror in the Mind of God, the author Mark Juergensmeyer aims to explain to the reader what religious terrorism is and dig deeper into why violence and religion seem to be tied, searching for “how terror could be convinced in the mind of God”. The chapters we read for class had a main focus of what terrorism is, what it is not, who is committing these acts of terrorism, and what is they are trying to achieve through the acts of violence. In the last chapter of our reading, Juergensmeyer reflects on how effective previous attacks have been and outlines the only options he sees available in response to our modern global terrorism.

Secular terror is anything that does not have to do with religion; however, religious tactics can be used to get ahead in secular terrorist organizations. Religious terror is based on the protecting, converging, and maintaining beliefs of a religion upheld by a religious terrorist group. Although different tactics are carried out by each different group of terror, they have some core features in common, such as emotionally evocative symbols, rituals, and myths (Alcorta, Phillips, Sosis, 2012). With their differences and similarities, the question at hand is which terror is greater? Religious

Terrorism in America tends to be a product of many issues, population as well as conflict that has co-existed within the nation's borders. Uniquely United State has been known for its ability to contain multitudes in relative harmony. According to investigations, majority of terrorism in the history of America is motivated by an extreme distrust of the ideal American democracy that has given opportunity for every individual to claim loyalty to, in addition to benefiting from American system. Nevertheless, the enormous variation in expressing terrorism, domestic terrorism have been explained severally as a violent claim over who or what is authentically American.

It is necessary to examine the historical context of Muslim terrorism in the United States to understand the evolvement of Muslim extremism today. Juergensmeyer (2003) supports this stance by stating that contemporary acts of violence are influenced by historical violence perpetrated in the religious past. The assumption could be made that Muslim extremism in the United States is a more recent phenomenon; on the contrary, this is not true. By understanding history enlightens to where foundations and structures were built to support Muslim extremism and terrorism activities that exist in the United States today.

The physical and symbolic attacks on the United States and its political and cultural powers that occurred on September 11, 2001 opened a new academic debate on the issue of terrorism. The abundant literature on the topic, which predominates in the West, reflects an unfaltering focus on Islam and the Muslims, attributing to them the adjective ‘terroristic’.

As discussed above, there exists a deep relationship between terrorism, religion and politics. Of concern though, is the fact that the middle ground or rather a peaceful resolution to the social conflict, polarization and divisions that have emerged as a result of differences in religious as well as political ideology might not be forthcoming in the near future. The reason for this grim reality is that both sides of the divide do not seem to see eye to eye on many

Terrorism is a political action ensued using violence and intimidation, yet has no correlation with race or religion; therefore, the assumption and stereotype that terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS are fueled by a ‘violent’ religion, Islam, is false. In actuality, Islam is built on altruistic and nonviolent principles, and unfortunately the majority of people seem to have unfairly institutionalized all Muslims as jihadists and anti-Semitic, even going as far as to deduce all individuals practicing their faith as terrorists themselves. This often bigoted and racist presumption had led to further conflicts, and ultimately terrorism coupled with the parochial views of many has made life particularly arduous for the peaceful Muslim Americans

The study of terrorism is a growing field, primarily due to the world’s interest in the subject matter. Although death by terrorist attack is rare in the United States, as common as death by asteroid or comet (Jackson 2011: 132-133), many citizens view it as a primary concern that threatens the nation. Because of the world’s fear of terrorism, it has gained a huge budget of its own and has become a primary topic/focus. Terrorism: A Critical Introduction, written by Richard Jackson, Lee Jarvis, Jereon Gunning, and Marie Breen-Smyth, examines the orthodox study of terrorism. While analyzing the orthodox scholarship they find and discuss a few key issues. Their critique includes methods/research, emphasis on non-state actors, Western

The world today is witnessing hostile terrorist activities at different regions. Terrorist activities are known to disrupt peace at a domestic and international level, it is often seen that number of groups, owing allegiance to some political ideology or some particular religious beliefs, have chosen the path of violence and terror to achieve their objects. These vested interests are rabid fundamentalists or fanatics having no sanctity for life, having no principles or values. They believe in the power of the gun and want to achieve their objects overnight.

Religious terrorism occurs when the use of terrorism is systematized by an ideology and fanatical interpretation of a religious text. Terrorist group functioning in the absence of this pretext create junk. Religious terrorism functions on the basic of five essential principles. These are: means justify the end, holy war, blind obedience, absolute truth claims and the ideal times . Kimball explains that ‘truth claims’ are essential point in a religion “at which divergent interpretations arise. Extreme interpretations of ‘truth claims’ provoke the ideology upon which religious terrorism is based. However the “authentic religious truth claims are never as inflexible and exclusive as zealous adherents insist. The staunch ‘truth claims’ professed