Do 9/11, San Bernardino and Nice illustrate a problem with Islamic theology?

[trotsky]

117. "We rarely hear from actual shoot/bomb/kill terrorists."??

Well, primarily that's because they are killed in the attacks themselves. But of the ones we HAVE heard from, there is no question religion is heavily in their thoughts, and not just simplistic "me good them bad" nonsense you're peddling. And plenty of otherwise devout Muslims who AREN'T terrorists drink, eat pork, maybe even engage in homosexual sex.

You seem to want to dehumanize these murderers, to make them stupid or simple or even non-thinking at all, to set them apart from the rest of us decent normal human beings, or the actively horrible people who are training them (and therefore are so smart they don't really believe the religion themselves?). Newsflash: religious terrorists are mostly if not all "normal human beings" themselves, with normal intelligence and everything. Able to function in society and even engage in complex planning. Who knew?

Let me ask you this: how many people volunteering at a church's soup kitchen do you think would be able to provide the "reasonably cogent theological construct" for why they are doing it? Or are many of them simply going to say "Because Jesus said to care for the poor."? Are you going to dismiss their devotion to their religion because they don't process it at a deep enough level for you?

I think your point is lost in a bigger reality: very, very few people even CARE to explore their theology to its academic peak. They don't need to. What they do understand is reasonably complex in its own way - it's coherent, and it makes sense to them. That's part of the appeal of religion with its simplistic models and messages.

I believe what you are doing here is trying to reframe the "No True Scotsman" fallacy (where you have failed in the past), adding elements from PZ Myers' "Courtier's Reply." Essentially then declaring that religious terrorists only superficially qualify for the label of the religion they claim, because they simply cannot understand the detailed aspects of their religion's most advanced ideas.

I'd settle for "I killed them because scripture says X and it justifies the taking of life because God thinks Y is more important than Z, as we can see in story A".

Kind of like when Scott Roeder killed George Tiller because he felt stopping the "murder" of "unborn babies" was more important than Tiller's life, based on his understanding of the bible? He used that defense in his trial. But I guess since he didn't quote Thomas Aquinas he wasn't a true religious believer, huh?