1. Comment #37743 by roach on May 5, 2007 at 3:10 pm

Very interesting. But I don't think Islam is a beautiful religion. I've only read 15 or so pages from the Qur'an but it wasn't pleasant. I'm sure there are lots of beautiful people who happen to be Muslim though.

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2. Comment #37745 by Nails on May 5, 2007 at 3:15 pm

i don't know enough about the koran to comment, but i do know some muslims who are genuinly nice people.
And some that arn't. One of whom gets up my nose because he takes his kids out of primary school when they are taught about christianity.i wonder if they will be removed from science lessons later inlife just in case they become 'polluted' with ideas such as evolution etc.
And from a guy who used to work in a slaughter house.
And guess which animals are killed there?

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3. Comment #37746 by Nails on May 5, 2007 at 3:22 pm

Just a small point from near the end of the video - a teenage 'recruit' with all the teenage angst, worsened by living in a sexually repressive society is promised 72 virgins and wine(?) if he blows himself up and takes an infidel with him.
So, no sex before marriage or booze when alive, but all you want if you blow yourself up?
Why is it acceptable in heaven if not on earth?
71 & Gatorade, that was a good one.

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4. Comment #37753 by TheHardProblem on May 5, 2007 at 3:50 pm

I saw this interview the other day, very interesting. I bet Sam Harris would be very interested in this documentary and the research.

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5. Comment #37755 by phil rimmer on May 5, 2007 at 3:55 pm

The ideas expressed in Suicide Killers seems to go against those expressed by Scott Atran in the last Beyond Belief forum.

Irritatingly for Sam Harris Scott argued that he had evidence that it was not Islam that was a key factor in helping to create the necessary mindset for a suicide bomber.

Can anyone point to any other information other than this movie that can help us decide for ourselves?

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6. Comment #37765 by Luthien on May 5, 2007 at 4:22 pm

1. Comment #37743 by roach on May 5, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Very interesting. But I don't think Islam is a beautiful religion. I've only read 15 or so pages from the Qur'an but it wasn't pleasant. I'm sure there are lots of beautiful people who happen to be Muslim though.

Oh, that really irritated me when he said it was a "beautiful religion"...

For a nice (but very long) list of cruelties, check out
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/cruelty/long.html

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7. Comment #37772 by maton100 on May 5, 2007 at 4:35 pm

Nothing new. Fanatics think they are making the world "pure." Stuff a bar of Lever 2000 up their fundy ass.

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8. Comment #37802 by filthyatheist on May 5, 2007 at 6:56 pm

The problem with this analysis is that the Tamil Tigers were the first group to develop the suicide bomber, in the modern era, and they are secular. Putatively Marxist. (see Robert A. Pape, 'Dying to Win' - up to 2003 the Tigers carried out more bombings than Hamas or Islamic Jihad)

Iraq had never had any suicide bombers at all before the illegal invasion.

Curiously, this video and some of Sam Harris' writing (and all of Christopher Hitchens bumptious ravings) nicely dovetail with the propaganda needs of the present US/UK warmongers.

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9. Comment #37830 by He'sAVeryNaughtyBoy on May 5, 2007 at 11:24 pm

Beautiful religion my left testical.

Whilst in Malaysia last year I discovered a copy of the Koran (in English) in my hotel room. Since I'd just started on my journey from an atheist bordering on agnostic to an out and out 9.99999 atheist, I decided I want to fully understand what I would be opposed to. I managed to get through 4 of the little chapters (surahs, or what ever they are called) and promptly threw the book across the room in utter disgust at the vile evilness that man was capable of writing.

It is not a beautiful religion, it is a vile, represive, totalitarian, inhumane abomination.

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10. Comment #37834 by Vardu on May 6, 2007 at 12:19 am

Religion is a little like that black stuff brought to Earth in a meteorite from the latest Spiderman movie that seems to bring out the very worst in people.

Islam has had a few golden moments, but they have been vastly over-shadowed by its worst excesses. Even the great poems of Sufism rose above a universe of seraglios, castration, impalements, murder, and legalized theft that pious souls disdained to notice.

Religions everywhere entail being small, being forgiven, heaping unending praise on an authority who exempts one from reflection and on an omnipotence who preserves one from the dangers of action, piling up good deeds like an advanced payment and sacrifices like rent money. And then there is all that silly business of pretending to see the salvation of others as a means of realizing one's own salvation, or imagining salvation as happening after death so that one can create a living death for oneself during life.
Such are all religions, and such is the ideology of humility.

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11. Comment #37845 by luke on May 6, 2007 at 1:52 am

Whats wrong with the comedy central site, it keeps threatening to show me the clip then showing me the most annoying cheverolet advertisment over and over again. Whenever I click play on the clip it shows the crap ad then moves on to the next clip, which also wont play. I just get the ad over and over. It's driving me mad.

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12. Comment #37854 by Luthien on May 6, 2007 at 3:12 am

10. Comment #37834 by Vardu on May 6, 2007 at 12:19 am

...imagining salvation as happening after death so that one can create a living death for oneself during life.

Great line, I am going to steal that one for debating with christians :-)

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13. Comment #37855 by Logicel on May 6, 2007 at 3:13 am

Sounds like Rehov thinks that extreme practitioners of religious superstitions are the problem, and not the 'benign' moderate practitioners. Yet, it is the emphasis on accepting faith-based ideology without any evidence that is the problem, regardless if it is secularly or religiously based. This regarding of groundless faith as being good is the nasty little nugget of unrelenting ignorance that is preventing humanity from advancing to a more rational stage of being.

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14. Comment #37862 by Absinthius on May 6, 2007 at 3:52 am

the "two for flinching" is hilareous :D

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15. Comment #37891 by Damien Trotter on May 6, 2007 at 6:12 am

72 virgins.

This belief is totally illogical! The desire for 72 highly-skilled and experienced prostitutes would be a far wiser conviction.

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16. Comment #37893 by Flagellant on May 6, 2007 at 6:22 am

Not necessarily Damien - I think the general idea is to live in paradise forever, not simply to die from a surfeit of pleasure...

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17. Comment #37894 by Vinelectric on May 6, 2007 at 6:53 am

What about the miserable and hopeless existence of those Palestenian suicide kids. Does this play no role whatsoever? This case is completely different to 9/11 where brainwashing alone transformed educated middle class men into braindead monsters.

Decades of Israeli brutality worked on corrupting the mentality of the desperate Palestenians and this explains why it took so long for this type of sucide cult to emerge. Interestingly the leaders of the fundamentalist Wahabi sect denounce such attacks, not out of sympathy to the innocent victims, but because unless you try exceptionally hard to twist the meaning of the scriptures or adopt Machiavellian principles there is no way you could justify these attacks from an Islamic perspective.

72 virgins are promised for those martyred in conventional warfare and not for suicide missions. Hamas would not agree much to the dislike of the most fundamentalist Wahabi leaders. However the majority of muslims approve of the attacks so as not to be seen as traitors to the Palestenian cause. Unfortunately there is no sympathy for Israeli victims.

I hope Rehov has considered that in his documentary.

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18. Comment #37895 by Vinelectric on May 6, 2007 at 6:57 am

Muslims are taught that the utmost reward anyone can have is to see the face of God. 72 virgins is just part of a long package of pleasurable rewards for the different senses (food, wine, music..etc being some of the others).

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19. Comment #37915 by John Phillips on May 6, 2007 at 8:41 am

What I find interesting is that a culture that largely denigrates women apparently finds its ultimate reward partly in the arms of multitudes of those same women.

Additionally, all those many acts deemed vile, corrupt, debauched etc. when done in our earthly form are deemed appropriate reward for those brain washed loons who kill others in furtherance of their self perceived religious aims.

I think Mr. Spock would have had a comment or two about the illogicality of it all and I would add one about the hypocrisy of it all.

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20. Comment #37926 by Frostbit on May 6, 2007 at 10:08 am

Another one that thinks Islam is a "beautiful religion". Obviously, he's not scrutinized the "good Book".

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21. Comment #37929 by ranjani on May 6, 2007 at 10:19 am

In light of this article, is somebody interested in making a comment on Scott Atran's claim, that suicide bombers are seldom motivated by rewards bestowed on them in the afterlife? I was wondering if somebody saw his talk in the beyond belief conference which was followed by a lengthy series of exchanges with Sam Harris on this point. One thing that came across loud and clear in the beyond belief conference was his evasiveness when challenged by Dr.Dawkins and Sam Harris to provide the true motivation of suicide bombers. I am still puzzled by why he would not accept proclamations of these bombers to die for Allah at their face value.

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22. Comment #37931 by bitbutter on May 6, 2007 at 10:26 am

Id like to watch the documentary. I'm disappointed that Rehov declared that 'this is not Islam' though. On what authority is he able to distinguish between 'true' Islam and other varieties? cherry picking.

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23. Comment #37946 by Norseman on May 6, 2007 at 11:28 am

I saw this film a while ago. It was VERY pro israel, atleast from my european point of view.

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24. Comment #37970 by Pantore on May 6, 2007 at 2:09 pm

Yeah forget about the worst terrorist-groups on earth: USA & Israel who invade country after country, bombing them to pieces just because their terrorist-leader had a message from god...

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25. Comment #37973 by sane1 on May 6, 2007 at 2:31 pm

23. Comment #37946 by Norseman on May 6, 2007 at 11:28 am

I saw this film a while ago. It was VERY pro israel, atleast from my european point of view.

Pro Israel how? Like, ah, anti-suicide bomber?

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26. Comment #37978 by scooternyc on May 6, 2007 at 2:46 pm

"brainwashing"

This was the most honest and powerful thing he could have said.

As is all religion - brainwashing.

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27. Comment #38120 by luke on May 7, 2007 at 2:55 am

Is there anywhere else I can see this interview? for some reason comedy centrals website just shows advertisements and youtube is banned in Thailand. How can I see this interview?

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28. Comment #38558 by nine9s on May 8, 2007 at 3:49 pm

The problem with this analysis is that the Tamil Tigers were the first group to develop the suicide bomber, in the modern era, and they are secular.

So what? The only other group of people to follow suit are fundamentalist Muslims. As Harris says, where are the Christian, Jewish and Buddhist suicide bombers? Doesn't that say something about Islam?

Iraq had never had any suicide bombers at all before the illegal invasion.

Again, so what? When Germany invaded Holland, how many Dutch people suicide-bombed other Dutchmen? When Iraqis bomb eachother, the fault lies with the Iraqis doing the bombing. Nobody "causes" suicide bombing except the individuals who decide to do it. Unless of course you want to make the curious argument that Americans are free to choose not to invade Iraq, but Iraqis are constrained by their animal nature to kill eachother.

Curiously, this video and some of Sam Harris' writing (and all of Christopher Hitchens bumptious ravings) nicely dovetail with the propaganda needs of the present US/UK warmongers.

Right. Sam Harris is a stooge for Bush. Yeah, I see it.

By the way, what to you would be a reasonable cause for war? Anything? What kind of rationale would a person need to accept for going to war, without being called a "warmonger" by you?

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29. Comment #38575 by Bonzai on May 8, 2007 at 4:33 pm

I think some suicide bombers are definitely motivated by religion, but it is a gross generalization to say that reward after death is the only possible motivation.

For those who insist 72 virgins are the prize sought what is in it for the female suicide bombers? There was even one 60 year old woman who blew herself up.

There are other powerful motives. For examples, honour or an all consumming desire to revange.

According to Robert Fisk, in the bloody aftermath of an Israeli bombing of a UN camp in Lebanon, he heard a grieving old man carrying a decapitated baby in his arms praying for God to turn him into a missile so he could avenge the death of the dead child. I read somewhere that many Palestinian suicide bombers had witnessed their families being killed, abused or tortured by the IDF and indeed not all Palestinian suicide bombers are muslims, there are Christians and even atheists among them. I'll try to dig up some links when I get around to.

Rewards after death also cannot explain the Kamikaze pilots. While there was a religious like fervour in Japanese Emperor worship, there was never a belief that the man was immortal, let alone being a god with the power to reward martyrs after death. None of those pilots believed that if you read their dairies and letters. But there was a strong belief that it was their duty to sacrifice that way and they would dishonour their families if they ran away. Honour and shame are very powerful motives for martyrdom. Some terrorist experts suggest that they may play a more important role than Islam in creating Palestinian suicide bombers. The suicide recruits are not always religious, but many have low self esteem and had a deep longing for approval and admiration from their peers.

During WWII, there were also reports of resistant fighters who went on suicide missions knowing that they would die for certain. I read a story about a Chinese soldier who strapped himself with bombs and ignited the fuse when he climed up a heavily fortified bridge the resistance wanted to destroy in order to stop the advancing Japanese army.

There were suicide terrorists in Europe in the late 19th century who were nihilists, nihilists don't believe in anything, not even God.

There are many reasons that may inspire people to commit the apparantly irrational act of killing others along with themselves.

I agree with Scot Atran that Dawkins and Harris lack nuance in their understanding of this subject. Some of you thought Harris won the debate because he made his point with great clarity comparing to Atran. I am not surprised in the least because the person who is convinced of his simplistic truth always sounds more confident and coherent. You need to make a lot of qualifications and preface your points with "if" and "buts" in order to set up a nuanced argument. To some people that appear as hesitation and evasiveness. Born again Christians argue with greater certitude than thoughtful atheists espeically on morality because they know all the answers, but I doubt that anyone here would conclude that the born agains win these debates simply because they appear to be more sure of themselves.

When some Western born lapsed muslims suddenly "got religious", go visit Pakistan and return to try to blow up a train in the name of Jihad or some remote "muslim cause" such as "Palestine, that IS Islam inspired insanity. In these cases there is no other context. But when other context exists we should be cautious against jumping to conclusions.

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