Graeme Wood, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, has written an article for that magazine that bids fair to become a classic. It is entitled "What ISIS Really Wants." You owe it to yourself to read the article.
Wood reports ISIS believes that the apocalypse is near, that ISIS is God's protagonist in that battle, that God's plan involves killing many, perhaps most of the world's people, and that ISIS is on board with that goal, is in fact the chosen instrument of God's will.
ISIS's murders, immolations and beheadings are in fact religious acts, "sacraments" a Christian would call them. One is reminded of the worship of Kali, goddess of death, by the Thugs of India who also killed as many as they were able.
Reasoning with people sincerely holding such views is futile, killing them in wholesale numbers is not. They deserve Adolf Eichmann's fate, the gallows.
