Western intellectuals no longer have the capacity to understand let alone analyze religion, faith and belief. This helps explain why they keep falling back on 19th century sociological arguments for these murderous incidents rather than taking "extremists" motives in their own words seriously. 
When people threaten to kill you because of who you are - you should take them at their word.  
When a religious text divides the world into two and gives permission for one half to murder, despoil and dominate the other for the sake of "God" - we should take it at its word.
We just need to see things for what they are and not what we wish them to be.
 I fear it will take a new generation, skeptical of the illusions of modern utopian social  liberalism, to start writing opinion pieces that make sense.