Islam, and radical Islam specifically, are not the sole ingredient transforming random people into murderers or suicide murderers.

It is an ingredient. Eric Hoffer's _The True Believer_ is a good sketch of the phenomenon. Among the disaffected, some will latch onto any available dogmatic belief system. As long as radical Islam is in the news, and is accessible, some among the disaffected will choose that path.

Not all dogmas result in blowing yourself up in crowds, or setting off bombs or gunning down people in theaters. Doesn't it make sense to preferentially attack those dogmas that bring out, at present, the worst characteristics in their adherents?

It would be great if our foreign policy in the past 1.5 (or 3, or 5, or 7) decades hadn't been a disaster and promoted unrest in the region, because that undoubtedly increased the seriousness of our current situation. We (by that I mean our leaders who make foreign policy and military decisions) should try to learn from history and not repeat the same mistakes, although they all (no matter their politics) seem to do a very poor job of that. But the question of why radical Islam is such a problem now is irrelevant to the question of whether we should fight radical Islam. It's not a very reasonable thing to conclude that because we're partly responsible for the rise of radical Islam, we should do nothing and let it conquer the world if it wants.

Religion is the way the leaders of these groups convince their followers to blow themselves up. Without religion it would be completely against their self interest to do so.

That's not exactly true; e.g. in the UK, there was a lot of terrorism in the past by IRA - although Ireland and the UK have different religions, I don't think that was the main issue. The main issue was divisions between two groups of people and the resulting inter-group hate.

On the other hand, religion is probably the most important, yet arbitrary and completely illogical, divisive influence in the world. So, religion most definitely is to blame.

All religions are mental cancer, some just have more serious consequences than others.

How do you explain that a person without any social or political grievances decide to abandon their computer science degree to fight for an Islamic state? [1]

[1] Jihadi John: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/02/27/the-horror-...

Crazy people can be found from all walks of life. Unfortunately many of those people do not receive the mental health services they need. It's not the religion that makes people crazy, it's the lack of other social support services available to the very few that really need it. Instead of the support they need, these people get a radicalised church offering meaning and the promise of a better life.

> I don't buy it.

How about reading the exact sources in order to avoid even being in position of having to "buy" anything? For example the core texts? Just get one and read it. Don't let anybody tell you anything, especially don't trust any claimed "interpretations," read it yourself, in your language, undiluted, not just one sentence, but at least the whole chapter where it appears, take notes, then discuss.

And then if you question the translation you read, there are enough online sources which display the different translations which can be then compared. You can even search where any word is used through all the texts. Just don't believe anybody who says that you can't do that.

Just like I don't have to know ancient Greek to understand what's written in the Odyssey.

Then investigate if there are any known interpretations by the influential scholars that are equivalent to western approach to other religions "that it shouldn't be taken literally." Investigate the practices and how the ideas are actually applied in real life. Study history to know how they were historically applied and which effect they had. Know the context.

(I'm not going to discuss this further here, this is my only post, but I stand to my claim that everybody can read and understand the sources and research how they are viewed by the influential scholars, and that these facts can be calmly discussed, and that the discussion should not depend on the groupthink or faith but the actual knowledge of the topic discussed. Don't write "I don't buy" this or that, discuss the facts you actually know, then somebody can contribute to your knowledge by stating the facts he knows etc).

Moreover I haven't seen anybody else who wrote what I see only you write: "You and many others seem to post that there is a mental cancer infecting 1.5 billion people on this planet, and at any time it could transform its host into a bloodthirsty murderer seemingly at random."

Careful readers are advised to read what others really wrote (e.g the post to which you respond wrote just "I would argue that religion is the variable that plays the dominant role in this war of ideas"), not what you claim (or somebody else claims) it is supposed to mean.

Analyzing your post in this light, it appears to be strikingly manipulative and dishonest, distorting what others actually wrote and promoting non-thinking and blindly believing (your attempt to discredit somebody with something he hasn't even written).