Ok, so in what way was the NYC bomber affected by the concept of Martyrdom in Islam?
And isn't the number of Muslims being killed (and considered as martyrs) not a reflection of those killing them? Isn't the much lower number of suicide bombers merely a reflection that there's a lot of killing going on?
And I make the point again - in the US and Europe, there are more terrorist attacks by non-Muslims than by Muslims. The Hutaree example is a good one - they are a bunch of apocalyptic Bible literalists who were planning to kill US citizens - because of their religious belief. Nutters, to be sure. Now - from the stats I've seen, in the US there are more of these Christian nutters than Muslim fundamentalist nutters who agree with eh's view of Islam. Certainly there are more carrying out attacks (abortion clinics and the like) - and fortunately the majority result in few if any deaths.
Edit - and concerning Goldstein, in his case he was part of a US terrorist organisation - the JDL - who had carried out bombings against US citizens on US soil. He emigrated from the US and carried out a terrorist attack in Hebron. He received his religious indoctrination in NYC. Which shows that the Bible has been used (or misused) to justify terrorism. Now, given that the Bible is a much more violent book than the Quran - and given that historically much more violence has been carried out in the name of the Bible (notably against Jews), then don't all the criticisms being laid against Islam and the Quran apply even more to the Bible?
Logically, yes - but you'll easily come up with explanations that we shouldn't taint a whole religion because of the actions of the radical extreme or historic episodes. Muslims employ exactly the same arguments.
Cheers,
Shafique