Expressions like “Islamic terrorism” or “militant Islamic terrorism” have thus become familiar coinage in our time, especially in the discourse and public imagination of citizens in Western democracies. The history of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has seen a great deal of terrorism that is widely and understandably viewed as principally religiously-inspired - and, in fact, principally inspired by one specific religion.

The subtitle was, “How Religion Poisons Everything.” This assumption sometimes carries with it the thought that religion is predominant, or even unique, in embodying the tendency to violence. An extreme expression that encapsulates this and much else is in the subtitle to the American publication of Christopher Hitchens’s book, God is not Great. There is a widespread belief - amounting almost to a cultural assumption in many influential circles - that assigns to religion an inherent tendency to violence. “At this time, in this place, when it came to the political problems, which included bombs and guns and death and maiming, ordinary people said ‘their side did it’ or ‘our side did it’ or ‘their religion did it’ or ‘our religion did it’ or ‘they did it’ or ‘we did it’, when what was really meant was ‘defenders of the state did it’ or ‘renouncers of the state did it’ or ‘the state did it’.” (Anna Burns, in the voice of the central character of her novel, Milkman.)

This is a slightly edited version of the Dianoia / IRCI Public Lecture on “Religion, War and Terrorism” presented by Professor Coady at the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, on 15 October 2019.

Religion poisons everything book