Emotions begin to surface and minds ponder once again as the 10-year anniversary of a day no American will forget nears.

Children and families will visit the memorial where their mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and grandfathers took their last breath.

They will overlook the devastation that has been mended on the ground, but not in their hearts. Pondering the event that still wreaks havoc in America 10 years later, they can’t help but to wonder, why?

Religious studies professor Hector Avalos argues there is a direct correlation between religion and violence and thinks this relationship has the potential to destroy civilization.

Avalos, a declared atheist, argues that all faiths’ claims are equally unverifiable and un-testable for truth. Avalos said that because of this, there is no objective way to settle religious arguments, which is why they often lead to violence.

“God-based realities are going to cause more confusion,” Avalos said. “You will always have different views of what God wants. Religious rationale gets you nowhere.”

Following the Sept. 11 attacks, a new collection of atheists arose. Avalos thinks this sudden rise of atheists is following a theory he calls secular apocalypticism, which is the idea that religion has the potential to destroy the civilization.

Avalos was a declared atheist several years prior to the Sept. 11 attacks; however, he thinks the attacks are a perfect example of how the relationship between religion and violence has the potential to destroy humans.

“Sept. 11 made me realize even more the danger of faith-based thinking and the potential it has to destroy human civilization,” Avalos said.

Some people argue the Sept. 11 attacks were not related to religion, but rather a result of bad leadership and vulnerable societies.

“I don’t consider 9/11 to be a religious massacre,” said Martin Edelson, president of the Ames Jewish Congregation. “The men who hijacked the planes and flew them into the towers and the Pentagon may have felt that they were acting religiously, but I think that they were simply being used by their leaders who planned the action without a significant religious motivation.”

Emily Hull, treasurer of the ISU Muslim Student Association, thinks the attacks were not religion-based, but a result of personal matters.

“I don’t consider Sept. 11 to be a religious tragedy,” Hull said. “It was a terrorist act. It was caused by the same thing that causes gang violence and all other kinds of violence: people who feel alienated from society, who are angry, who want to prove something. They were able to perpetrate their hatred and anger for revenge on a massive scale.”

Hull, who was born in America, converted to Islam in 2001 after reading books about Islam and she was angered that people began stereotyping the Muslim religion as “terrorists” after the attacks.

“In the last few years, all gains American-Muslims have made toward making people understand that Sept. 11 was not a religiously motivated crime, that Islam doesn’t teach terrorism and that all Muslims aren’t terrorists have been erased,” Hull said. “In fact, we’re moving backward at a rate I’d never thought possible.”

Philosophy and religious studies professor Brian Eslinger also believes 9/11 affected peoples’ perceptions of religion.

“We’ve seen people both polarized by 9/11 and brought into greater dialogue,” Eslinger said. “For some, the actions of 9/11 and the response just confirmed their worst opinions about specific religions or religions in general.”

Some Muslim students also noticed a change in other Muslims’ behavior following the attacks.

“I think that people started to be more careful about dealing with other non-Muslims,” said Ramzi Saifan, president of the ISU Muslim Student Association. “Some of them started to be afraid of going to the mosque. Some women became afraid of wearing the head scarves because of feeling discrimination from the people in America.”