This ideology is not necessarily responsible for much of the terrorism in the world.
It is, as a matter of fact. You see, "the world" is not limited by Europe, Americas and Australia.
For the record; nearly every single major religion, except maybe Buddhism (but not excluding Hinduism) is responsible for atrocities, violence, war.
But no other major religion is actively calling for conversion of all-non believers and extermination of those who refuse to convert. I don't really care that Christians did the same 1800 years ago. We aren't 1800 or 1400 years ago or even 100 years ago. We are now.
The Christian record is not any better than the Muslim record...
Well, at the very least, Christians did not had a specialized assassins order...
Inquisitions
I wonder, do you know how many people were executed by the Inquisition over the course of 700 years?
Or what were the goals of the Holy Inquisition?
Crusades
Counteroffensive operations to retake their ancestral lands (by 634 A.D. Christians were living in Palestine for, well, 634 years) and deal with piracy in the Mediterranean sea, which crippled the trade in Europe (have you ever tried to walk from Florence to Paris?)
Molestation of THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN, based in/on Judeo-Christian ideologies...
https://www.google.com/search?q=molestation+of+children+is+muslim+schools
Funny how you are looking for ideological foundation of simple pedophilia.
They're all just humans misinterpreting a text
And what exactly makes you think that you are not misinterpreting these texts? Speaking of which texts, have you ever actually read any?
that is meant to roughly convey an idea, like an analogy or metaphor.
There are many verses, some of them are metaphoric, some are not.
The words themselves are inferior to the experience they're trying to convey. Many have lost sight of this, and are now hung up on specific words.
Riiight...
And when the forbidden months have passed, kill the idolaters wherever you find them and take them prisoners, and beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent and observe Prayer and pay the Zakat, then leave their way free. Surely, Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful.
These people are human Timothy, and they've done nothing to you. They have an organic logic circuit (Brain) in their skulls, just like you. This brain processes feelings and emotions and fear and happiness, just like yours. These people have families and mothers, just like you.
Well, Nazis all had brains, emotions and families. Apparently, being a biological human doesn't really mean much these days.
It is oppression that is responsible for terrorism.
Well, by this logic oppression of the white people is responsible for white terrorism.
However, the situation is quite a bit more complicated than that. Sporadic acts of terror by unhappy or mentally derange individuals isn't quite the same as a terrorist campaign. While the former can be mostly characterized as acts of protest that are supposed to draw attention but have no stated goal, terrorist campaigns, that are often disguised as a "grassroot protest" are in fact a form of asymmetrical warfare.
A terror campaign would always have a clearly stated goal, something along the lines of "do X or we will keep killing your people", are be controlled by a third party (because once the true leaders of the movement that is behind the terror campaign are known they will be liquidated), and are well financed.
It is ignorance that is responsible for terrorism.
Not really. Organizing a terrorist attack is not an easy task. Living to organize another one is much harder than you can imagine. Training a suicide bomber is really very complicated process. Even in severely oppressed populations only so many individuals are willing to just die like that. The instinct of self preservation is very strong, much stronger than hatred, hence so little viable suicide bombers and so many failed suicide attacks - and a way to identify a ticking human bomb: they tend to be nervous.
For as long as we promote and stoke and breed the idea of "Us and Them" WE will never thrive. If WE as a species can help each other, we will all benefit. A rising tide lifts all ships.
You think we could thrive under Islamic rule, with fully established Sharia law? You know, with throwing homosexuals off roof tops and stoning of infidel wives?
truly try to empathize...
I find it extremely hard to empathize with people who believe that throwing gays off roof tops is appropriate and that I should die if I refuse to adopt their backward ways.
I have to clarify that I'm not gay and I don't have much sympathy towards gays (or any other racial or religious group for that matter) yet I still believe that throwing people off roof tops for doing something that I personally disapprove of is not appropriate.
You realize you're only hating yourself.
Sancta Simplicitas...
One more disclaimer about "Us and Them" - WE are NOT our Governments!
Oh, yeah. Our governments are better informed. If you knew even like 1% of what I know (and I know very very very little) you'd probably be suffering from a very severe form of PTSD.