Morals are sets of principles that guide human actions for the purpose of attaining a goal that can be said to be good or beneficial. The deepest morals cover the most basic topics such as a right to life, the avoidance of dishonesty, and the rights of people to own things without fear of having them taken without cause. Many people are in agreement about these basic morals as they are beneficial to all. This mutual agreement is known as the Social Contract. This might encompass an agreement not to kill, in order to avoid being killed, or an agreement not to steal, in order to avoid being the target of theft.
Religions teach that the underlying goal of morality is the appeasement of a higher being or God. This is what is ultimately considered good. Religions adopt a more absolutist belief system than what is present in the secular Social Contract.
When morals appear to be in conflict, an ethical dilemma occurs, which needs to be resolved before action can be taken. Under the social contract, it is popular to identify which course of action is a "greater good," which means the action that will best serve the goal of the deepest morals. Therefore, it is better to steal than to kill; it is better to kill one innocent than to kill twenty innocents.
Religions sometimes do not adhere to this form of ethical logic, always holding paramount the need to honor God and casting aside any other course of action that can be seen as not honoring God. Therefore, when a religion has a violent precedent in its history and has beliefs that God at some time called people to behave violently, it is easy for members of such a religion to justify violence as bringing honor to God. There is no ethical dilemma in their minds as they do not see killing in this situation as bad. While in the secular world a choice to kill in a situation is often seen as a lesser of two evils, to a terrorist killing may not be an evil at all, so long as they are doing it in the name of their God.
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