Radical Islam, and Germany under the Third Reich

The explanation for why so many people of the Middle East hate the U.S. and supporters of Israel, and are willing to die while killing innocent people, runs along the following lines: They are poorly educated, live in poverty, see no hope for their own futures, hate Israel and the U.S. because they are outside the restaurant window looking at the feasting with their noses pressed up against the glass, and are fueled by religious teachings that promise Paradise if they go out in a blaze of glory.

Now, consider Hitler, Nazis, and Germans who willingly worked to exterminate Jews and conquer Poland and France: They were educated, did not live in the same sort of dirt-poor poverty, had reason to hope for their futures, and were not motivated by religious teachings that promised Paradise except for believers of the Christian faith.

You are thinking, but how about religious teachings to the effect that the Jews were the Christ-killers and deserved to die, coupled with the Nazi mind-set that the world conspired against Germany after World War I and the Jews were the chief conspirators? You are getting to my point, which is that human nature is fundamentally evil, malicious and destructive, and religion is fuel for the fire.

God, who turned us all loose to exercise free will, must weep daily.