Religion and Terrorism: how to stop their affinity?
Terror attacks sometimes and suicide terror attacks always direct our attention toward religion. It seems that maybe all religions in some sense have dangerous, lethal potential because they suggest another kind of reality which is always this better one. We could avoid this nightmarish application of religion when we changed our thinking about religion. Europe did it through philosophical Enlightenment, especially the French Lumière which ended religious conflicts in Europe. It seems that there is some correlation between critical approach toward religion understood as a fiction and the absence of religiously motivated conflicts. Religion is used to improve mental state of believers. Its aim is not to describe the real world but to provide a symbolic and metaphorical model of the reality for psychological purposes.
When religion is understood in terms of truth and false about the world, it may cause lethal conflicts. This approach is a basic one among nations without Enlightenment period. The better one is a functional approach in terms of psychotherapeutic utility. Religion understood as a private psychotherapeutic tool, not as a source of the true knowledge about the world, will lose its lethal potential.
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