Bill wrote:
>
> BTW, let me put up a question about al-Qaeda. Is it just me or is
> there some basic flaw (besides people) in the major recent religions
> that allows them to descend into unprovoked violence against
> nonbelievers?

Depends on what you count as provocation.  Attacking the next city as an
imperialist act and saying it's for the glory of your city's patron
goddess is a tradition going back so far it was one tribal group
invading another tribal group's hunting valley.  But doing it because
your religion teaches that there religion is wrong is definitely new on
a time scale of millenia.

Which viewpoint applies to the First Ones?  When it was a competition of
kicking over young species was it really not yet bad?  When it changed
to wiping out the species serving the competition it did become about
calling the other guy wrong, but was it really any worse?  It got the
offenders kicked out of the galaxy at that point.

> Christians racked up the Crusades and the witch hunts
> among other things.

Provocation was imperialist expansion by the new Muslim religion and the
nations with majority Muslim citizens who then shut off travel to the
sacred sites.

> The Old Testament shows that Jews attacked when
> diplomacy could easily have sufficed in the book of Joshua, for
> example.

Lot's of big empires taking over the regions near Jeruselum in the Old
Testament.  Not sure what the details were in that particular case.  But
the Old Testament is filled with a group using God as an excuse to
commit genocide, slavery, rape and such.

> Isn't al-Qaeda nothing more than the co-opting and corruption
> of the Islam by radicals, just like had happened with Judaism and
> Christianity before?

Western influence is corrupting the youth.  MacDonalds and Nike and Coca
Cola are popular therefore the nations of origin need to be attacked. 
The way I depict it sounds pretty lame but it's the sort of stuff Bin
Laden made speeches about.

Let's not forget that similar happened with polytheists.  The Viking Age
was triggered when Christians stopped trading with Heathens and the
resulting economic changes among the polytheists led them to launch
attacks all over the place.  Sure, some of the famous Viking raids were
retaliation against the embargo but who thinks that was the reason for
raids on Baghdab or Constantiople?

Be sure to pay attention to that question when watching the arc about
the war and what happened to the Vorlons and Shadows after the war. 
It's a large theme in the series.
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32