There is more to-modern "political religions" than political ritual and religious semantics as is normally assumed with,regard to:Nation l Socialism and other totalitarian regimes. Ideologies and political style do matter, but they do not provide the answer as to how "dead certainty" was achieved, bout the ultimate mission. The terror of the revolutionary "furies" and the "sacrifice" of national revivalism provide a historical trajectory for the, proposition. that, in the modern world it is not the violence that, is in the religion, but the religion that is in the violence. Fundamentalist violence - from the Holocaust,to the attacks of 11 September 2001 - must therefore be seen as the touchstone, for an economy of the sacred in a secularised world. Thus, the "morality of violence" (Sorel) feeds into acts of political terrorism and genocide not just by way of legitimation but also as a proof of the transcendent quality of political violence itself.