If a sick person is to be treated properly, an accurate diagnosis is essential. Whatever treatment follows that diagnosis must be followed meticulously and decisively, until the sickness is finally expelled from the body. If not, the illness will inevitably recur. The same applies to one of the most serious ills affecting society. One of the chief reasons why we can't find effective solutions to this century's social problems is that their causes aren't properly identified. When dealing with any social problem, the first thing to do is establish what causes give rise to it. Otherwise, whatever measures are taken can only be temporary.

The roots of terrorism are often sought in concrete matters; and thus the fight against it, aimed at these superficial targets, cannot provide lasting results. In order to free the world from terrorism, the principal factors behind it must be identified and eliminated.

THE TANGLED WEB OF TERRORISTS' LOGIC

It's not possible to defeat terrorism by security measures. By itself, military force is only likely to meet with increased violence, producing a vicious circle in which bloodshed continues to be answered with more bloodshed. When embarking on the fight against terrorists, we need to understand-and then combat--their way of thinking, the way they view life and other human beings, and how they justify their use of violence.

A terrorist believes that he can succeed only by using violence. He wants people around to fear him, and cloaks himself in pitilessness, ruthlessness and aggression to bring that fear about. Anyone opposing his ideas is an enemy, whom he regards as an object that needs to be eliminated. In his article, "Terrorists View us as Targets, not as Humans," psychotherapist and Journal Sentinel writer Philip Chard examines the terrorist mindset and how they justify violent attacks aimed at defenseless people:

"Researchers have glimpsed aspects of [the terrorists'] psyches. Most prominent among these is their capacity to view their victims as things, as objects, as statistics that, they hope, will show up on a casualty list.

Terrorists believe they can achieve their aims only by violence. Through violence they spread fear in society, which they hope to add to their power.

"They don't want to experience their victims as human beings, as they would a friend or loved one. Rather, they strive to view them as pawns on a political chessboard. Consequently, from their own vantage point, terrorists don't perceive themselves as killing 'people.' In order to slaughter with ease and callous indifference, they mentally dehumanize us into 'targets' ... Their 'cause,' whatever it may be, is sufficiently sacred, noble or desperate that it justifies the carnage they instigate ... For most terrorists, their chief interest resides in effects, not persons ... They are after ... the impact of the massacre, not the experience of the massacre itself. Terrorists want to murder hope, or a way of life, or the spirit of a group of people or an entire nation. They destroy human beings because they believe doing so is the fastest and most direct route to that goal."11

Philip Chard draws our attention to a most important matter: that terrorists feel not the slightest pang of remorse at the death of others. On the contrary, the more they can kill, the more successful they consider themselves to be, and rejoice in that fact. Such minds can quite happily shoot innocent people and bomb small children. For them, shedding blood becomes a source of pleasure. They cease to be human and turn into savage monsters. If one of them does evidence the slightest remorse, he is immediately branded a traitor by his more radical comrades. Being more radical and more bloody is considered to be more devout in the cause, so the zeal to kill increases constantly. Since any dispute can easily be defined as treacher, terrorists invariably use guns against each other, and carry out attacks on other splinter groups within their own ranks.

This passionate attachment to violence goes deeper beyond political ideologies and in fact stems from an underlying misconception about human nature. The terrorist mindset finds its inspiration from the materialist philosophy and Darwinist thought. Darwinism regards human beings as animals and maintains that living things evolve through a struggle for survival in nature. Eliminating the weak, so that the strong can emerge victorious, forms the essence of any terrorist's twisted thinking.

THE TERRORIST MINDSET WAS BUILT BY DARWINISM

According to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, there is constant conflict in nature, and a ruthless competition for survival. The strong always defeat the weak, thus enabling progress. Out of that concept came the idea of the "struggle for survival" and such terms as "the favored races" (European whites) and "inferior" ones (Asian or African races). This racist logic laid the groundwork for hatred and conflicts all over the world. In turn, Darwin's idea of "the survival of the fittest" justified a great many movements that led mankind to hatred, enmity, conflict and war.

Darwinism still indoctrinates people with the deception that humans are no more than a highly developed animal species, the result of blind chance and have no Creator. This theory maintains that the world once consisted of nothing but inanimate rock, soil, and gasses. By sheer coincidence, life emerged as a result of the effect of natural forces like wind and rain and lightning on organic molecules. The theory goes on to explain all life on earth, including human beings, as a product of the blind forces of nature and mere chance. Yet this theory of evolution is a huge deception that violates the most basic laws of chemistry and biology and defies all reason and logic. (For more on this subject, see Chapter 7, The Evolution Deception). However, the theory is imposed on modern society with an enormous propaganda and people indoctrinated with this idea believe themselves to be the products of chemical and biological accidents - free of all responsibility to the Creator and His moral code. Moreover, those under the spell of Darwinist logic-seeing life as a battlefield and therefore, justifying all kinds of wickedness in the struggle for survival--are brainwashed with the terrible idea that it's normal to treat other people like animals, even to exterminate them.

The savagery of terrorism is felt in almost every country in the world. According to U.S. State Department figures, the year 2000 saw an 8 percent increase in terrorist incidents over 1999.

People educated with such ideas transformed the 20th century into one of savagery, supported conflict as part of Darwinism, and even regarded war as the most important means of furthering their aims. "Dialectical conflict" became the so-called justification for the massacres carried out by Communist ideologues. Over the course of the century, Communist terror cost the lives of some 120 million people. Darwin's nonsensical "struggle for survival between the races " and "natural selection" became the foundations for Nazism. Adolf Hitler claimed that only the superior races could-or should-survive. The Fascist terror he inspired unleashed a wave of slaughter across the entire world. Some 55 million people died in World War II, which began as a result of the Nazis' policies of war and occupation. Those in the 21st century who still follow those ideas, regard violence as the only way and want this century to go down in history as one of terror.

Darwinism's theory that man is a warring animal, with which so many are subconsciously indoctrinated, has wreaked dreadful harm on mankind. Terrorist attacks are echoes of that. Darwinist slogans that maintain that only the strongest can survive, praise violence, support conflict, and see war as a virtue need to be thrown, once and for all, into the dustbin of history. Darwinism's overthrow can undermine all of those ideologies that support conflict and violence.

On the other hand, the definition of human nature by the monotheist faiths is much different Christianity, Judaism and Islam--the three religions believed in by most people in the world--all oppose the Social Darwinist value called conflict. As we'll see in greater detail in subsequent sections, each of these religions aims at bringing peace and security to the world, while opposing the oppression, torture, and killing of the innocent. Conflict and violence, they agree, are abnormal and unwanted concepts, violating the morality that God has set out for Man. Darwinism, on the other hand, regards violence and conflict as essential, and therefore justified. In short, the source of the world's terrorist nightmare lies in atheism and its contemporary equivalents: Darwinism and materialism.

Since schools in many countries teach Darwinism as clear scientific fact, new generations of terrorists are inevitable. From that point of view, it's urgent to prevent young people from being taught that they're the result of chance, descended from animals, totally unfettered with no duties towards God, and can survive only by emerging victorious in the struggle for survival. Anyone brought up to believe such concepts will inevitably be selfish, aggressive, ruthless, and prone to violence. Such young people are easily susceptible to anarchic and terrorist indoctrination. Following such ideologies, they can become cruel enough to kill children and murder their own brothers and sisters, without batting an eyelid. The communist, racist and fascist terror groups that have plagued the world for the last hundred years are the products of just such an educational system.

That being so, we need to expose the true rottenness of terrorist logic. People need to be awakened to the fact, as effectively as possible, that all those who support and believe in Darwinism are mistaken. Man is not unfettered and irresponsible. We do have a Creator Who watches us at all times, knows even our innermost thoughts and Who, in the hereafter, will call us to account for all our deeds. Our Lord has created Man different from the animals, in that we possess a soul, reason, free will, judgment and powers of discrimination. If a weak-willed person, easily angered, regards himself and others as mere animals, he can act in a totally ruthless manner and easily do them harm. It makes no difference if those others are totally innocent children. But anyone who possesses reason and conscience and knows that he bears a soul, given him by God, holds his anger in check--no matter what the circumstances. His judgment and conscience will always prevail. Never will he do the slightest thing for which God might one day call him to account.

Modern schools teach Darwinism as if it were a scientific fact. This dissemination of Darwinist philosophy helps the rise of social violence, including terrorism. Indoctrinated with the idea that conflict and struggle are a part of life, young people slowly begin to regard violence as perfectly normal and even take pleasure in it.

In the Qur'an (91: 7-10), God reveals that Man is inspired by both evil and the will to avoid it. Therefore, it's not some imaginary evolutionary process that underlies moral degeneration and the commission of crimes. Immorality and crime come from the evil side of human nature, which can only be defeated by personal devotion to the moral values that God has taught to humanity through religion. If people have no faith in God and don't believe they must ever account to Him for their actions, they have no reason to avoid committing evil in the forms of personal greed and dishonesty or social evils like wars, racist killings, gang wars or ruthless skinhead assaults. On a less dramatic level, it accounts for why people are left to starve, and for the rampant injustice and ruthlessness in the world today. There is no end to the cruelties of those who regard Man as only an animal species, believing that they, like animals, are engaged in a struggle for survival. Not believing in God and the hereafter, they induce others to forget about them too.

Every human being bears a soul breathed into him by God, and is responsible to the Creator Who created him out of nothing. In the Qur'an (75: 36-40), God reminds those who think of themselves as totally unfettered that they were created, and will be resurrected after death: "Does Man reckon he will be left togo on unchecked? Was he not a drop of ejaculated sperm, then a blood clot which He created and shaped, making from it both sexes, male and female? Is He Who does this, not able to bring the dead to life?"

So far, we have concentrated on how Social Darwinism, believing that violence is the solution to every problem, encourages violence and is the foundation of terrorism. That is why demolishing the Darwinistic theory--which teaches that man is an animal, that only the physically powerful can survive, and that human life is a battleground--will also demolish one of terrorism's mainstays. The most effective means of protecting people from the nightmare of terrorism is spiritual education. Societies can achieve permanent peace only when their individuals learn to live by proper morality. Beyond that, other measures, rules and precautions to regulate the life of society can go only so far, but can never eradicate the scourge of terrorism.