Had an interesting conversation with a Middle Eastern man this morning.... [View all]

[clarice]

He works at the corner store where I stop every morning. We usually just pass pleasantries between us.
He is a nice man. I have no idea if he is a Muslim or not...none of my business....never asked. He is from
Lebanon, but has been here for many years. This morning he seemed much more reserved than normal, so I asked him what was wrong. His English is passable, but a bit hard to understand. He told me that the weekend bombings were very
troubling to him. I tried to console him, telling him that sometimes, religion makes no sense at all. He looked at me with a sad smile and said

"Yes, there are many disturbed (his word) people over there who will kill in the name of God.....but..it's mostly about MONEY" I'm going to try to paraphrase at this point because much of the rest was kinda hard to follow.
Basically it came down to his belief that ISIS, Taliban, etc. are HIDING beneath the umbrella
of Islam but are actually no better than common thugs and thieves, pirates and murderers killing themselves and innocent people
for territory and money. I never considered that angle, and wonder if anyone else has heard something similar.