Engineers of Jihad

[Penta]

In the Algerian insurgency, pharmacists were over represented. I do think there is something about being torn between the culture of science and the culture of religion that causes personal turmoil which, for a tiny portion of people, manifests itself in violence. The violent are punishing the world for their own internal turmoil.

Practical linkage, maybe I'm insane: This makes Campus Ministry types an actual tool in the fight against terrorism, then - you really would seem to need clergy/religious in universities that could check students from drifting off in such directions, to act as spiritual directors.

...Then again, the notion of Campus Ministry as I and probably most people are familiar with it (the friendly campus priest/minister/rabbi/clergytype who's part traditional religious leader, part counselor, part youth group leader) is a distinctly American phenomenon, huh?

[marct]

Practical linkage, maybe I'm insane: This makes Campus Ministry types an actual tool in the fight against terrorism, then - you really would seem to need clergy/religious in universities that could check students from drifting off in such directions, to act as spiritual directors.

Hmmm, that makes so many assumptions, I'm not sure I even want to touch it !

I think the main "problem" I have with this is the phrase "spiritual director". There's a real assumption here that there actually is a spiritual direction that this person can lead people in and, perhaps most importantly, that anyone wants to go towards. I haven't looked at the stats for a couple of years, but I would guess that they probably haven't changed much in the past 5 or so, which means that probably less than 40% of Canadians believe in any form of spiritual direction coming out of established religions.

...Then again, the notion of Campus Ministry as I and probably most people are familiar with it (the friendly campus priest/minister/rabbi/clergytype who's part traditional religious leader, part counselor, part youth group leader) is a distinctly American phenomenon, huh?

Let's see, at Carleton (Ottawa, Canada), we have an Anglican (Episcopalian to you south of the border types ), an RC priest, an Imam, a Rabbi, a couple of Wiccan priestesses and various and assorted others. They really only act as "spiritual directors" to their own groups, although the cookies are usually pretty good in the Chaplaincy .

Marc

[Adrian]

Perhaps there is also the random chance factor. Marc Sageman wrote that most terrorists are recruited through pre-existing personal contacts. Perhaps engineers are overrepresented because, by random chance, a few earlybirds were engineers, and they simply recruited their friends?