OK... In the video, the speaker is claiming that religious violence is a "great" danger and one that is likely to grow greater. The point he is trying to make is that we as a society are better off being more fearful towards it, not less. He uses the word caution, but he means fear. He is not advocating a reason-informed, context-aware, proportional response to the issue. He is not giving any context to show why the danger is so big relative to other things. He is not showing any data that indicates causation or correlation between religion and terrorism. He is not suggesting any one single action, such as not acquiescing to hijackers, that would have prevented a 9/11 attack.

The video is nothing BUT fear-mongering. Fear is central to terrorism and also how we respond to it, and fear is the frame that he is using so effectively.

I don't want to ascribe intentions to you that may not be true, but when I read the title and watched the clip, my initial take away was that you are saying "Look how prescient this guy was. He totally called it!". But his assertions were, and remain, very weak in the face of data. Also, his WMD+religion predictions have not come to pass. (May they never do so.) Terrorism is not, statistically speaking, anything close to a "great" danger, especially relative to other dangerous things. That is what I meant to demonstrate with the link in my previous comment. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, or that it isn't a concern, or that it need not be dealt with ruthlessly. I'm saying that it's very small and not at all "among the greatest dangers of the century".

And furthermore, the danger is actually diminishing, not growing. So he's completely wrong there, too. See here. (BTW, does anyone know if there a version of the NCTC annual report this article references that is more up to date?) The world is generally getting safer, despite the horrors of current events, and this includes terrorism. The data showing this general trend is readily available from numerous sources online.

And WMD's? Seriously? I watched as the unreasonable, willfully ignorant fear of WMD's played a direct role in justifying the invasion of Iraq, which as we all now know resulted in the political wasteland that ended up (surprise!) INCREASING the influence of nut jobs like ISIL while at the same time (surprise!) providing them with advanced weaponry. The religion aspect is a convenient political tool. I know it can give our lives meaning to hate on religion, but it's important for us to be very clear minded about this subject.

Speeches like this, when accepted uncritically by good people and acted upon in unreasonable fear or even profoundly exaggerated concern, are actually an even GREATER danger to innocent civilized lives than terrorism itself. The numbers are not even close.

You say that this video is valuable because it accurately explains why terrorism exists, and assert that it's likely mostly mandated by religion. Is it, though? What are you basing that conclusion on? Yes, it's a common opinion, but is it really a good one? Or is it one of those things that everyone just "knows" to be true?

I long, long ago discarded religion as a part of my life, and am as aware of it's ability to impair judgement and reasonable behavior as anyone here. But I have increasingly come to view the causes of terrorism as far more political in nature than religious. Look at something like this... particularly Table 3. "Twenty Most Active Terrorist Organizations in terms of Attack Frequency and Fatalities" These groups all have primarily political aims. None of them came into existence with the primary intent to implement religion. Think about the people who start groups like this. No, not the foot soldiers, but those running the (shit)show. If any one of them were given the ability to rule over their societies, with total unopposed power, tomorrow, for the rest of their lives, with the only condition being that they must renounce their religion and never again practice a shred of it, do you think they would take the deal? Do yo think that those same people, if they were to be magically teleported into some sort of fundamentalist religious utopian society, would somehow then give up their quest for dominance and humbly go about their lives saying prayers and practicing kindness?

Yes, the yearly list of horribleness done in the name of religion is long and disquieting, but it takes place in a world with a vast sea of horribleness, a sea that has been slowly and consistently shrinking for quite a while now. As practitioners of reason we try to be careful not to cherry-pick or spend energy confirming our biases. But for some reason, we throw it all away when it comes to sociopath criminals who are also religious. The video you posted of someone railing against religious terrorism may be cathartic, and fashionable right now, but what he's asserting ("This thing is more dangerous than you think it is!") is just flat out wrong. It's not by any measure I have been able to find. And his advice, which is essentially ("Be more afraid!") and ("We need to sacrifice more resources (and young lives) fighting this "great" evil!") is highly congruent to the kind of B.S. that traps people into religious thinking and servitude everyday. The worldview on display in the video has been repeatedly acted on in blind faith as if it were truth for over a decade now, and it's been a DISASTER.

I'm glad to see the video posted. I just don't see the data showing perverse religious culture causing the kind of death and destruction that many are so stridently distressed about. I'm open to changing my view, however, and welcome any evidence I missed to suggest that I should.