This chapter's discussion of belief was reasonable, though I've seen it before in the various books I've read about psychology, philosophy, cognitive science, and other areas. Besides, it was overkill since Harris's religious arguments rely on one core idea: beliefs without evidence are illegitimate.Also, Harris overstates the extent to which anyone, even atheists, possesses a rational and fact-based belief system. While experiences and contemplation shape people's beliefs, you shouldn't discount the importance of visceral emotional reactions.

Quote:Why the particular method of strapping a bomb to one's self and detonating it in a public place? Wouldn't a jihadist be more valuable if they could continue to fight? If they could kill just as many infidels with a machinegun, wouldn't that be the better method?Maybe it's the unique situation that reflects the method. The Egyptian tourist-killing jihadists used machine guns a few years back. In Israel, I would think, every Arab is looked at with suspician. As soon as there was even a hint he was carrying a gun, an armed response would be there very quickly. Where would he hide the machine gun? In a violin case? I would think any violin case would be subject to random searches very quickly. Why not plant a bomb? Rucksacks would also be searched, as would any bag. It's difficult to think of a more effective method for delivering a bomb without being noticed than suicide bombing. Why didn't the IRA use suicide bombs? (i) UK is a freer society, planting a bomb is relatively straightforward (I'm guessing Mr MI5 man! ) (ii) Irish catholics look just like the English in physical features & dress, and speak the same language, and can easily immitate English accents. So why did the London Islamic bombers use suicide bombs? So many questions. Enough. I'm off to watch my recording of the latest episode of 24. Send for Jack Bauer, that's the answer.

riverc0il: Unless I misunderstand things, is not Martyrdom is considered a great thing in Islam.It is, but until recently it's always been associated with being killed by an enemy while in battle, or with dying as the result of religious persecution. Its association with suicide is, as far as I can tell, a recent accretion. Five years from now, it might be argued with equal force that suicide is not a form of martyrdom. What has made it so in our contemporary situation is a particular reinterpretation of Islam in accordance with the technology and social circumstances that make such bombings practical.These guys are not lining up for psychological evaluation before straping a bomb to their chests, so we will never know the exact mental processes happening prior to their decision.There are probably ways of evaluating the validity of my argument. Three specific ways occur to me. The first is psychological evaluation of suicide bombers who fail -- that is, either those that back down, those who are apprehended before detonating their bombs, or those who fail through mechanical malfunction. The second is that some suicide bombers actually may have submitted to psychological evaluation at some point in the past, before they joined a jihadist movement, for instance. The third is a comparative method -- even when direct interview is impossible, many of these people leave enough biographical information that it may be fruitful to compare their lives to already well-established psychological profiles.To my knowledge, no one has attempted anything of this sort, but then, my knowledge is limited, as this is a subject I'm just starting to explore. But even short of having this sort of evaluation, I don't see why we should assume that religious doctrine holds absolute sway over their behavior given a) that studies of our own and other cultures indicate that the situation is rarely so simple, and b) that there's a simple and perfectly reasonable psychological explanation available.We might also argue their psychology was corrupted by leaders of the movement. When an authority figure tells you to kill yourself, it has been done in cults (Hail Bop).The cult angle doesn't especially help your case, given that most cult members have a rap sheet of prior psychological problems. Even ignoring that factor, there's major difference between incidents like Jonestown or the Heaven's Gate cult and the sort of prolonged infiltration that took place in preparation for the WTC/Pentagon attacks: namely time apart from the leaders of the movement. Study into Communist thought reform has revealed that "brainwashing" suffers in effectiveness whenever the subject is removed from the social context which supports the reform. If it were the case that the hijackers were merely "corrupted" by the al Queda leaders, you'd expect them to go through a certain level of withdrawal during their immersion in American culture. That they did not suggests that their alienation from Western culture and their determination were aspects of their own personalities, and not elements introduced through fairly recent indoctrination.All of this is, as I see it, beside the point in terms of whether or not those individuals were suicidal before being called upon to orchestrate their own martyrdom. That there were more capable than most, I'll concede, but it still seems to me that their method was determined in large part by an eagerness to die, one that is more explicable in terms of their disatisfaction with their own lives than in terms of the promises of martyrdom.Your point only suggests that Bin Laden is smart and the men he is commanding to kill themselves are pretty dumb.I think that may be a valid inference, although I wouldn't couch it in those terms.Though I would be frankly amazed that cult groups like Heavan's Gate would all lie down on a bed and drink poison and not be extatic that their leader's prophecy was about to come true.I'd be amazed to learn, were it possible to answer such a question, that those same people wouldn't have done exactly the same thing in the name of another cause. I can't see them as people with stable personalities who had the misfortune of getting roped into an irresistably attractive prophecy. To me, their actions make the most sense when you view them as people who were deeply disatisfied with their circumstances, and who hoped to alleviate that disatisfaction by rendering their life entirely to a cause.To commit suicide, you absolutely MUST desire to die, that is an absolute requirement for committing suicide.Not true. I've dealt with suicides, both on a personal and academic level. People who commit suicide are often motivated less by their perceptions of death than they are by their certainty about the undesireability of life.But the reasons why that desire to die exist is what we are debating.Taking that as a platform into a related subject, I would say that the mode of jihadist suicide bombing is in large degree a reaction to the perception that many in the Middle East seem to have about their place in the world. Social condition, prolonged political crisis, the condescension of Western globalism -- these are likely all precipitate factors in creating the sort of malaise that makes it possible to utilize suicide as a weapon.We just disagree on whether someone could commit suicide thinking they are contributing to an important goal and be happy doing so.Not really. I suspect that those who actually go through with suicide bombings probably do feel some measure of happiness in doing so. What I'm arguing is that their decision to die in that manner is the result of a deep, disturbing unhappiness that seems to have permeated their lives up until that moment. Offer them a better way of alleviating that unhappiness, and I suspect that fewer people would volunteer for suicide bombing duty.

Quote:Not true. I've dealt with suicides, both on a personal and academic level. People who commit suicide are often motivated less by their perceptions of death than they are by their certainty about the undesireability of life.But if life is undesirable, that would seem to indicate a desire to end life?You have really good points. A predisposition towards general unhappiness or lack of satisfaction with life would seem to be a factor in suicide attackers. Such as that they might see their death being more important than their life. So I conceed that a predisposition towards unhappiness or lack of satisfaction would be an important factor. Socio/Political/Economical also seem to have an impact. Though I still do not think we could rule out the influence of leaders, especially religious leaders using Jihad and Martyrdom as a motivator. The recent change from Martyrdom being the result of being killed as a defender to being killed as an attacker is an interesting re-interpretation of scripture, one that Harris does seem to point towards as a problem of religion (in general, I do not think he singaled out Islam in this regard... he may have but I forget at this point).You raise an interesting point that a study and research regarding the psychological disposition of Islam Suicide attackers does not seem to be readily available (or if it is, it certainly is not known and/or had much scrutiney from the scientific community yet). I would be interested in learning more if such reserach surfaces.

As an aside, you can compare the three kinds of deaths someone may choose to support a cause:1) Killing others2) Suicides (such as Vietnamese burning themselves in protest).3) Suicide bombersYou can subdivide 1 and 3, depending on whether the victims are military, civilian, or a combination.While I don't have any profound insight, my visceral reaction is quite different when I consider those different cases. In particular, 1+2 does not equal 3.

The suicide rates in Islamic countries are MUCH lower than in the USA and UK: accordng to WHO. Does this indicate that Islanm provides more meaning to life than Western Culture? The other low rates appear to be in the Carribean. So sun-soaked beached sipping Tequila, or Mohammed - take your choice Or could Rastafarianism give you the best of both worlds?

riverc0il: But if life is undesirable, that would seem to indicate a desire to end life?Bingo. I suspect that the order of importance begins with the desire to escape life. It starts as a dissatisfaction with one's current circumstances, and expands as the person begins to see less and less hope of escaping from those circumstances, or as they build a conviction that moving to a new set of circumstances will do little to decrease their satisfaction. To some degree, this probably ends as a wretched sense of self. It's too pat to say that the suicidal person hates him or her self -- that may be true in some cases, but in just as many cases it's probably more on the nose to say that the one circumstance that they see as most inimical to their satisfaction is some unchangeable element in their own being. As such, I'd say that suicide is rarely seen initially as a transition from one set of circumstances to a better set of circumstances. It's simply an escape, just as some creatures will run off the edge of a cliff rather than face a particularly dauting opponent.Second in the order of importance is some ritual or process by which that suicide is given some sort of meaning, and I think that is most effective when it is perceived to act retroactively. That is, when the act of one's death confers some sort of meaning on the whole of the person's life. In doing this, it may be perceived that they have somehow bettered the circumstances of their life, even as they left it. That gets into tricky territory, though, so I'd take the previous sentence with a grain of salt.In an Islamic culture, I suspect that it's absolutely essential to confer meaning on one's own suicide. The injunction against suicide (is there one? can anyone confirm that?) may put so much moral force against the act that very few Muslims would actually commit suicide if it weren't given some sort of roundabout sanction.I'm not arguing that so many Muslims are suicidal that they reinterpreted the Koran in order to allow it. What I'm suggesting is that jihadists like al Qaeda have found a way to unleash suppressed suicidal feeling as a weapon. But without that already present and suppressed feeling, I doubt that suicide bombings would be feasible for sheer lack of a candidate pool.mal4mac: The suicide rates in Islamic countries are MUCH lower than in the USA and UK: accordng to WHO. Does this indicate that Islam provides more meaning to life than Western Culture?Doubtful. Without having any hard evidence to back it up, I would say that the difference probably lies in the weight of the moral injunction against suicide. Cultural factors seem to predominate in considerations like these. The suicide rate in Japan, for example, may seem inordinately high to us. But quality of life is not necessarily the primary determining factor -- the fact is, that suicide has a different cultural history in Japan. There is a certain moral weight in favor of suicide as a way or maintaining personal and familial honor that still resonates in Japan, to the point that it is almost viewed as an obligation in some circumstances.

This discussion is infinitely more interesting than the chapter that inspired it.Quote:I suspect that the order of importance begins with the desire to escape life. It starts as a dissatisfaction with one's current circumstances, and expands as the person begins to see less and less hope of escaping from those circumstances, or as they build a conviction that moving to a new set of circumstances will do little to decrease their satisfaction. To some degree, this probably ends as a wretched sense of self...MadArchitect, I think you're pathologizing suicide bombers unneccessarily. What you're suggesting is logically similar to arguing that all Germans participating in what we collectively call the Holocaust (so sorry for invoking Nazis but Harris did bring them up first!) were a certain kind of person either vulnerable to their leader's schemes, unaware of the full extent of them, or coerced into their actions. Harris quotes from Goldhagen's book Hitler's Willing Executioners that these German's were instead ordinary citizens -- a product of their culture. (I hope that's an accurate summary of Goldhagen's book. I've heard him speak but haven't read the full text.)Given Islamic religious culture and the quotes Harris provides from the Koran in a later chapter, I don't think suicide bombers need to be pathologized as either especially unhappy or unsatisfied with life -- beyond the degree to which their religion sows the seeds of dissatisfaction, that is. And I think it's dangerous to say, "well, these people were unhappy," in the same way it's dangerously inaccurate to say the terrorists of 9/11 were all poor and uneducated. ***************The Gimp Parade

blue lily: MadArchitect, I think you're pathologizing suicide bombers unneccessarily.Perhaps, and I may have been a bit unclear as to where the line is drawn. I wouldn't say it's at all likely that suicide bombers are, other than an inclination towards suicide, good little citizens. Even if jihad didn't offer a way out of the Islamic prohibition against suicide (again, can anyone confirm that prohibition? -- I'm worried that I may be assuming too much about the culture) these inidividuals would probably be lining up to serve the cause in one way or another. And that's to be expected -- the factors that lead to the sort of hostility that we see in jihadists are mostly the same factors that would lead Middle Easterners to feel grave dissatisfaction with life.That said, I've seen a number of articles on failed suicide bombings and they sometimes convey the impression that the intended bombers were not, themselves, convinced of the righteousness of their mission. So there likely are some people who sign on for these sorts of missions with a less than assured connection to its political or religious intent. Suicide bombers are probably not all confused and manipulated, but some probably are. Either way, it seems reasonable to me so suppose that both the confused and the assured are acting out of a common emotional drive, one that directs them towards suicide. The bombing is secondary to them, while being, naturally, primary to those of us who may suffer the consequences.What you're suggesting is logically similar to arguing that all Germans participating in what we collectively call the Holocaust (so sorry for invoking Nazis but Harris did bring them up first!) were a certain kind of person either vulnerable to their leader's schemes, unaware of the full extent of them, or coerced into their actions.There is some similarity, but I'd put the emphasis on the latent historical and cultural causes at play. Nationalism was the defining concern for the majority of German Nazis. That cause derived from a deep level of dissatisfaction with Germany's recent history, a longing derived from the myth made of more extended German history, and the perceived position of Germany and German culture in relation to the rest of the world. Those factors cannot be extended to 100% of the German population, but there's been enough quality research and work to confirm that it's true in broad strokes. I'd say something of a similar sort is at play in the Middle East, though, thankfully, it's not as comprehensive as Nazism became in Germany. I'm not arguing that your average Joe Nazi or your average suicide bomber are unusually susceptible to coercion -- what I'm suggesting is that there's something within the cultural mileau that portions of the population feel in common, and that certain elements in the culture have erected institutions or forms of conduct that have a great appeal for those who hold that feeling in common.Ultimately, what I'm saying is that, given the fact that so many people have chosen what is obviously an unusual form of conduct, one that is marked by certain consistent elements that you don't necessarily find in other cultures, there is likely some common thread that unites most, if not all, of them.And secondly, that if we were looking at suicide in almost any other cultural context, we'd assume almost as a matter of course that the intended suicide was extremely dissatisfied with the circumstances of their life. It's interesting to me that we don't assume it here, and that so many people are so willing to draw a causal link between the suicide and religion when religion itself is presumably explicit in its condemnation of suicide.You do, I think, make a very valid point in saying that religion may be one of the factors that has contributed to this malaise. In that regard, I think it's worthwhile considering that Islam may have played a part in shaping the mentality of suicide bombers. That is, at least, a more fruitful and reasonable way of looking at it than assuming that Islam has explicitly mandated and justified suicide bombing.

Ok...I know I am late...but here goes...RivercOil:Quote:Is this just a Western and Middle East problem? How about faiths in Japan? Just a thought.I think that Western and Middle Eastern faiths are the crux of the problems we are facing today more than other faiths. Maybe Harris should have made it clear he was talking about 2 of the 3 MAJOR faiths that are influencing the world of yesterday and today. And not only that...but he might have done better to emphasize that it is the extremes of these faiths that presents the real problems of a faith based existence.Any faith that can make it possible, and once possible OK, to burn people because someone thinks they are a witch is a dangerous faith and deserves to be scrutinized to the fullest. Just because Christianity, Judaism and The Muslim religion may produce people and actions that are good does not necessarily excuse the potential ludicrousness and dangerousness of these faiths.Yes...without faith, people may behave badly...but I feel it is a duty to point the finger at any unjustified, unprovable belief that can make it easy for such crimes against humanity to occur. Lets get rid of as much as possible that makes it justified to persecute other.Quote:There is much science has left unanswered and I belief faith that leaves open possibilities where science has no answers is legitiment belief in the sense that Harris suggests is rational even though I remain an athiest.This is "God of the Gaps" no? How can we say this is legitimate? When we look back, we can see that now that we know the answers to some questions that we did not know before, the faith that was applied then was not legitimate...it was an acknowledgement of ignorance. I do not see that as rational. I see admitting that we do not know as rational...but we will continue to explore. There is no reason or imperative to slip in the god-shaped placeholder.Quote:Faith can exist, and does exist, without reliance on ancient scripture advancing acts of hate and aggression.But those same dangerous aspects of faith have remained with many people over the past few thousand years. In fact, the religions that are most prevalent today are the religions that were founded on these ancient scriptures. They still persist. SO we have every right to question them and expect answers and explanations.Quote:Faith outside of organized religion isn't even paid lip service by Harris, it is out right ignored, which I contend is a major weakness in the book and I would love to see addressed.Perhaps...but I am more concerned about those faiths and religions that are making my life difficult to live and killing or hurting others for being who they are. Maybe Harris aimed too high...but I appreciate much of what he is saying.Mr. P. The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.Once you perceive the irrevocable truth, you can no longer justify the irrational denial. - Mr. P.The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy PiperEdited by: misterpessimistic  at: 5/19/06 4:07 pm