We all have our personal "theories" about what motivates religious terrorists. To go from personal theories to real ones, we need to study the issue scientifically. One recent study draws the provocative conclusion that ritual participation more than religious belief may be behind suicide attacks.
From a scientific standpoint a suicide attack represents an extreme form of parochial altruism -- a self-sacrificial act made on behalf of one's in-group, involving aggression against an out-group. Religious belief, some have argued, is the prime motivator for such an attack. The attacker believes that his or her sacrifice will lead to a glorious reward in the afterlife (e.g., Islam's famous 70-some-odd virgins-awaiting). This explanation can be called the "belief hypothesis," and it would predict that those who demonstrate increased devotion to religious beliefs or deities would be more supportive of suicide attacks. In the context of a recent study (Ginges et al., Psychological Science, 20, p. 224), devotion was measured by prayer frequency. Thus, those who prayed more were assumed to be more devoted, and some preliminary analyses confirmed that this was indeed the case.
A second possible explanation is that suicide attacks are motivated by an especially powerful emotional commitment of an individual to his or her social group (called the "coalitional commitment hypothesis"). Past research has established that communal rituals can engender strong group commitments (think of how fraternity initiation rites produce strong bonds among "brothers"). Thus, those who participate more regularly in communal rituals should be more strongly bonded to their groups and therefore more likely to support violent attacks against out-groups. In the current study, attendance at regular worship services was used as the index of one's ritual participation, with the hypothesis being that increased ritual participation should produce stronger support for suicide attacks.
Simply stated, then, the research question becomes: Is it prayer (devotion/belief) or attendance at church, synagogue, or mosque (ritual participation) that more strongly predicts support for suicide attacks? (Note: preliminary analyses further verified that attendance at worship services was either not a reliable predictor of religious devotion or was a significantly weaker predictor than prayer frequency, thus confirming that ritual participation and prayer frequency were tapping separable constructs).
The authors tested these two hypotheses using surveys measuring people's self-reported frequency of both prayer and worship attendance, and their support for suicide attacks (or acts of parochial altruism in general). Surveys were conducted among Palestinian Muslims (both West Bank and Gaza residents), Indonesian Muslims, Mexican Catholics, British Protestants, Russian Orthodox Christians, Israeli Jews, and Indian Hindus. In every sample surveyed it was attendance at worship services that predicted support for suicide attacks and not prayer frequency. Indeed, in at least one subsample (Indonesian Muslims) prayer frequency was negatively correlated with support for parochial altruism; that is, more devoted Muslims were more likely to oppose suicide attacks.
To further validate their findings, the authors conducted an experimental manipulation with Jewish "settlers" living in either the West Bank or Gaza. The study was based on a "priming" paradigm where a subtle, often subliminal, reminder of a particular concept temporarily increases the concept's influence on one's attitude or behavior. For example, previous priming studies have found that if people are reminded of some religious (God, spirit) or legal (court, police) concepts, they act more generously in subsequent economic games. In this priming study, half of the settlers were randomly assigned to a synagogue prime where they were subtly reminded of synagogue worship while the other half were exposed to a prayer prime, where they were reminded of praying to God. After this, subjects were asked if they regarded Baruch Goldstein's 1994 attack on a mosque to be "extremely heroic." Significantly more subjects receiving the synagogue prime (23%) affirmed this statement compared to the prayer prime (6%). Given that 15% of control subjects (unprimed) affirmed the statement, there is an indication here that the prayer prime actually lowered baseline levels of support for Goldstein's attack. Furthermore, note that even among the synagogue prime condition, the vast majority of subjects did not affirm the statement.
There are a number of important lessons to draw from this research. First, as just one study of a complicated issue, it by no means definitively explains suicide attacks. However, it does provide support for the notion that forming group identities and emotionally binding people to those identities are important driving forces behind this behavior. While religious ritual is a highly effective group-bonding mechanism, it is not unique in this respect. Fraternities, military services, and social/political movements make use of the same basic principles and processes. Furthermore, as the authors of this study point out, ritual and group bonding are also fundamental to human community and all the positives associated with that. This research simply highlights the dark, dangerous side of our highly social nature.
Second, this study should give pause to those who trumpet simplistic slogans regarding the religion-violence issue. This issue is not simple. Ritual bonds people to groups, and powerful emotional bonds can heighten support for aggression against out-groups. Religious ritual, it appears, can be particularly potent in this regard. By the same token, however, there is evidence that heightened devotion to religious beliefs may actually curb out-group hostilities. Specifically what beliefs might have this effect and how to further cultivate them are important questions for further studies.
Finally, this research demonstrates that questions about religion and inter-group violence can be addressed scientifically. Strong opinions about religion and its role in promoting or defusing violence are rampant. Far too often those opinions are based solely or primarily on subjective experience, personal feelings, or one's favorite self-serving historical anecdote. Opinions or judgments informed by actual research are far rarer and infinitely more valuable. If contrasting parties on either side of the religious/secular divide are to communicate constructively on this issue, they might start by agreeing to make science rather than slogans the basis for their discussions.
If their law causes harm to their own Muslim people, then, we wouldn't have to bother or say anything about it, would we? I don't think we have to bother at all. But their law mostly makes the harm to people who are not in their religion.
All these will come to an end gradually once - the Christians stop invading Muslim lands and occupying it for Oil and also stop supporting the dictators and kings over there for selfish interest.
Be neutral in the Israel / Palestine problem.
All the wars of the 20th century were fought by Christians against others or among themselves -
the 2 world wars among Christians, Korean and Vietnam wars against Buddhists, the two Iraq wars
and Afghanistan against Muslims --
Christians killed more then 56 million yes MILLIONS in the name of Christianity in the last 2000 years This is not counting the 20+ million killed in the two world wars and other wars of 20th Centary..
Fact 1) Frequent prayer is correlated with strong devotion.
Fact 2) Frequent prayer is negatively correlated with suicide attacks.
Based on this, you've stated to the following:
Hypothesis) Strong devotion is negatively correlated with suicide attacks.
Why do I use the word hypothesis and not conclusion? Because you've made a basic error when interpreting statistics. You failed to show any correlation, negative or positive, between devotion and suicide attacks. You only showed a relationship with prayer.
To explain why this is a problem, consider a different example:
Fact 1) Frequent exercise is correlated with eating a higher calorie diet.
Fact 2) Frequent exercise is negatively correlated with being overweight.
Hypothesis) Eating a higher calorie diet is negatively correlated with being overweight.
This hypothesis is almost certainly false, since a high calorie diet often contributes to being overweight. Yet, I've used the exact same steps of logic that you used, just with different concepts.
So... I'm not convinced. There's no reason that people cannot be devoted through means other than prayer, and end up just as suicidal.
Especially when it comes to self-reported information. I would like to see how one quantities their level of devotion/dedication to their faith compared with these acts of devotion. Maybe I would feel better with a definition of "devotion" not related to the prayer or participation in formal ritual.
1) Every muslim knows with absolute certainty that suicide is a one-way ticket to eternal punishment in hell. A person who knowingly kills self is not a martyr.
2) In Islam, a martyr is a person who is killed while defending his life, country, family, religion, honor etc. The biggest reward for a martyr in the afterlife is the forgiveness of God. They will be rewarded with paradise and be protected from hellfire. 70 virgins is really not the point of martyrdom. Anti-muslim propaganda machine uses this over and over to ridicule muslims as crazies who want to die to get a personal harem. Not very useful to understand us...
3) Suicide attacks did not originate among muslims, neither in the old times nor modern. Just read about the Christian Zealots of Cordoba, and read about Tamil Tigers.
4) I personally believe we need to look into psychopharmacology, hypnosis and narcotics to understand some of the behavior, coupled with extreme desperation and hopelessness
But the problem is that the one who committs suicide while also killing non-combatant men, women, and children, often other Muslims, in a public place etc... is not really a martyr or a mujaahid, so say many Islamic scholars, but a person who has been toyed with and their emotions and grievances have been manipulated.
No one should committ suicide bombings whatsoever, they are prohibited in Islam. But perhaps the reason why a young woman would do such a thing is if she lost her husband or other family members who were killed by the enemy and wanted revenge etc... God knows best.
"...And do not kill yourselves, indeed Allah is ever most-merciful with you." -- Surah 4, Ayah 29
In addition the Prophet Muhammed (peace and commendations be upon him) said, “…and whoever kills himself with an iron weapon, then the iron weapon will remain in his hand, and he will continuously stab himself in his belly with it in the Fire of Hell eternally, forever and ever.” -- Reported by al-Bukhaaree and by Muslim in the Book of Faith.
So even suicide is prohibited in Islam in the first place. Could you imagine someone continously blowing themself up in Hell over and over as punishment!!?
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That which would drive someone to suicide bombings is partially due to what would drive anyone to any kind of suicide, extreme desperation and despair and frustration. In addition the fact that the enemy of one's people has far greater weaponry and suicide bombings may seem to some like one of the only ways to get in amongst the enemy and cause damage back to them and scare them away, plus the prescence of evil and machivellian preachers who would, to further their own political goals, encourage desperate youth to do something like that with the promise of honor and glory in this Life and Eternal reward in the Hereafter.
I reject suicide bombing and am not justifying, just psychoanalysis.
Some people do that for other matters to, like those who already believe in democracy so they go and seek verses that they believe seem to support their view and other matters.
Old fashioned nationalism; of course it's comfortable to declassify our enemies as maniacs.
If one places such an importance on what happens AFTER death, it marginalises what happens DURING life.
: )
I mean if Israelis do not see the reason why Palis are committing such atrocities...its because they are doing it themselves...ppl need to focus on the core issue, and less about who dies, and how... since it brings in emotion, and emotions can drive ppl nuts...
Anyone who does SB or even agrees with it, is mentally not okay...