What Makes People Tick?

The Times of Israel reports that Pope Francis spoke out about anti-Semitism: In comments made to veteran Portuguese-Israeli journalist Henrique Cymerman Thursday, Francis was quoted as saying that “anyone who does not recognize the Jewish people and the State of Israel — and their right to exist — is guilty of anti-Semitism.” Source: ‘Not recognizing Israel as Jewish is anti-Semitic, Pope says’ | The Times of Israel | 28 May 2015 Below, the Tweet from international journalist Henrique Cymerman: In an email we got from Pope Francis:"Whoever does not recognize the Jewish People and the State of Israel falls in antisemitism" — Henrique Cymerman (@Henrique_B_C) May 28, 2015 Seventy years after the end of the Holocaust, as the internet connects and unites the world and people are able to make up their own minds based on the information freely available to them online, isn't it about time that we all kick anti-Semitism to the curb? The Nazis and those who helped th...

ISIS, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, Boko Haram, the al-Nusra front... No doubt there are groups just as bloodthirsty that are not on this list because I can't think of them off the top of my head. These are all names of organisations I wish I'd never heard of. Because these names belong to terrorist groups that seem to find it necessary to kill, hurt, harm and maim; to execute people, to enslave and rape women, to terrorise and kill and cause destruction in an effort to further their own cause.  The cause they are attempting to further (to impose / to enforce) is Islam. Or rather - their own radical and violent interpretation of Islam with current actions seemingly geared entirely toward the spread of (their version of) Islam through any means. While I am a student of the world's peoples and religions and consider myself someone who attempts to walk in another's shoes to understand them and learn what it'...