To wonder if many terrorists are not religious fanatics at all? Just nihilistic and violent

[fromparistoberlin73]

I have been reading the profiles of the Paris murders . These people don't strike me as being devout and religious folk. They all have a track record of crime , alienation and violence. I suspect the same of many others . Did they even give a shit about the cartoons? Or did they just relish a chance , a cause that allowed them to vent whatever festering violence they had?

This had been nagging at me for some time . To address the issue we need to understand the drivers , and it's hugely complex .

Rather than slating Islamic fundamentalism (and I am not massive fan) would we be better served looking at prisons and what goes on there as that seems to be the root cause in many cases ??

In answer to the OP
If terrorism were nothing to do with religion, just evil folks doing evil, there would be a good spread across the globe.
Indians, Chinese, Brits...etc
Catholics , protestenst, bhuddists...etc
Liberals, Conservatists, progressives...etc

but the facts are that there is no even spread.
at the moment , 99.9% of terrorist acts are confined to one small grouping.

yes I see Hidden but to some extent the church used to be a bit like that, services in Latin, persecuting 'heretics' so I wonder whether eventually we will see this in Islam.

My guess states that (given the chance) wicked people would do wicked things, anyway.

Holocaust, Mao's famines, Rwanda, all the Chinese rebellions and their attendant massacres, the Killing Fields, the Terror...

I don't see a lot of religion in those.

The obvious advantage in the case of a religion is that God said it was OK.