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Originally posted by JS357So today RHP decided to burp on this one.
There is my OP omitting my as usual, brilliant intro and recap, including rationalization on why this post is on this forum.
So is it really their religion?
excerpt:
"Another point that Dawkins doesn’t consider is that the majority of suicide bombers have been secular atheists. Professor Robert Pape, author of Dying to Win: the The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism has spent his career collecting all instances of suicide killings back to 1980 and then statistically correlating it. To most people’s surprise, the majority of suicide bombing was done by secular atheists.
Now if we were to fall into the same sort of bigotry Richard Dawkins falls into, we might add up the number of atheist suicide bombers in history and divide it by the number of atheists that have lived since 1980 and then do the same thing with believers. Because there have been far fewer atheists in the world than believers, the case looks grim for atheism and probably by an order of magnitude or more. Perhaps it’s actually atheism that causes suicide bombers, right?
But Pape actually found that the real correlation between ideology memes and suicide bombers wasn’t religious views at all but, as Wikipedia quotes him “to compel democracies to withdraw military forces from the terrorists’ national homeland.” In fact, Pape found that suicide terrorism’s main personal motivation is actually personal altruism – a willingness to give up their life to exert pressure on the foreign occupiers of their homeland. If we were to assess what type of ‘ideological meme’ they were willing to die for, it would be simple ‘nationalism’ rather than religion. [1] "
http://www.millennialstar.org/what-is-religion-part-1-are-religions-memes/
04 Oct 12
1 edit
Originally posted by JS357Whilst the organization is applying rational strategic value to the suicide bomber as a weapon, that does not really explain the readiness of the actual individual bomber to die for the cause, and what part religious belief plays in that decision.
So today RHP decided to burp on this one.
There is my OP omitting my as usual, brilliant intro and recap, including rationalization on why this post is on this forum.
So is it really their religion?
excerpt:
"Another point that Dawkins doesn’t consider is that the majority of suicide bombers have been secular atheists. Professor Robert Pape, author ...[text shortened]... religion. [1] "
http://www.millennialstar.org/what-is-religion-part-1-are-religions-memes/
Even in the case of the 'Kamikaze' pilots the belief that the emperor was a God probably played a major part in the decision making process of the individual pilot, whilst the strategists in the Japanese high command may have simply identified what an effective weapon a piloted bomb would be against the US carrier fleets.
By definition people who are prepared to die rather than deny their religious beliefs are religious martyrs rather than nationalistic martyrs.
I have not read the study in question, however I would have serious doubts about the impartiality of Millennialstar as a commentator on either Pape's study or Dawkins theories.
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04 Oct 12
Originally posted by kevcvs57Unfortunately my introductory comments were not in my re-post which corrected RHP's erroneous posting of my original.
Whilst the organization is applying rational strategic value to the suicide bomber as a weapon, that does not really explain the readiness of the actual individual bomber to die for the cause, and what part religious belief plays in that decision.
Even in the case of the 'Kamikaze' pilots the belief that the emperor was a God probably played a major part ...[text shortened]... e impartiality of Millennialstar as a commentator on either Pape's study or Dawkins theories.
Theists of the Christian variety on this forum (which are the predominant theists on this forum) and some non-theists here, and Dasa, seem to be in lock step on the question of what motivates suicide bombers who are Muslims. I think you are correct to assume that the suicide bomber's aims are toward enabling a government that will indeed have strong Islamic (Sharia) content, fulfilling his own personal political dream, but the organizational aims are at bottom nationalistic, in that they seek to motivate the West to exit and discontinue what these people see as Western capitalistic colonialist exploitation, so that organization can exploit the resources they see the West as exploiting now.
You hint at this when you say that the organization backing the bomber is applying rational strategic value to the suicide bomber as a weapon. I believe that policy makers do better to view suicide bombing, and for practical purposes, suicide bombers as motivated by nationalism. I think the focus on characterization of bombers as driven by religion is a strategic mistake if it controls policy, a mistake which I suspect the people on this forum, that I mention above, would make. And I think this mistake might be exploited by politicians on our side.
04 Oct 12
Originally posted by JS357I agree for the most part, political leaders in the West should focus on their negotiations with the strategists rather than pointing at their weapons as a way of avoiding responsibility for the situation that gives rise to them.
Unfortunately my introductory comments were not in my re-post which corrected RHP's erroneous posting of my original.
Theists of the Christian variety on this forum (which are the predominant theists on this forum) and some non-theists here, and Dasa, seem to be in lock step on the question of what motivates suicide bombers who are Muslims. I think you are ...[text shortened]... ve, would make. And I think this mistake might be exploited by politicians on our side.
04 Oct 12
Originally posted by JS357I would say you are generally correct. It has always been politically incorrect in the US, but when 9/11 happened the rest of us immediately said "Americans should ask themselves what they have done to make people so angry with them as to be ready to die to express their anger."
I think the focus on characterization of bombers as driven by religion is a strategic mistake if it controls policy, a mistake which I suspect the people on this forum, that I mention above, would make. And I think this mistake might be exploited by politicians on our side.
I think this was the general reaction when someone committed suicide in North Africa sparking off a revolution.
But instead, the US has focused on the religious aspect, and instead of saying 'why do they hate us politically, what did we do wrong?', they say 'well they hate us because we are not Muslims and all Muslims just want to wipe us off the face of the earth, so we will fight back!'.
05 Oct 12
Originally posted by twhiteheadThe also hate us because we support Israel. So we must fight back. 😏
I would say you are generally correct. It has always been politically incorrect in the US, but when 9/11 happened the rest of us immediately said "Americans should ask themselves what they have done to make people so angry with them as to be ready to die to express their anger."
I think this was the general reaction when someone committed suicide in Nort ...[text shortened]... s and all Muslims just want to wipe us off the face of the earth, so we will fight back!'.
07 Oct 12
The post that was quoted here has been removedSo the 'vast majority' of Japanese people in 1940 did not believe that the Emperor was a living God?
One Japanese Officer hardly constitutes a rebuttal of my naive stereotyping.
Only hang on, I actually do not remember saying that " all Japanese
were superstitious enough to believe in the possibility of life after death."
My general point was that it is not a black or white situation and more likely to be a more subtle blend of Faith, Nationalism and doing whatever is required in a desperate struggle.