A Game of Thrones
When airliners crashed into the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11, America got wind of a war that had long been raging. For a long time, parts of the Islamic world saw the West as evil in general, and America particularly as “The Great Satan”.
Why?
Well, as layered and complicated as the deepest answers to that question are, suffice it to say that their vision of God demands a particular way of viewing the world and living in it. American values, virtues, policies, and postures were — and are —antagonistic to their vision of God’s vision. Therefore, the death of thousands was, somehow, necessary and even justified.
Those pockets of the Islamic world are not alone. Humankind, has a long history of religious violence. In fact, since Cain killed Abel, violence, and death as an adjacent to misguided religious practice, may occur more regularly than peace. Jews and Christians need only read their own religious text to see that our story has been one of gods at war. Or, at the very least, God (and gods) as an excuse for war.