[1ST SERIES] IS “ISLAMIST” SUICIDE BOMBING IN THE MIDDLE EAST REALLY MOTIVATED BY RELIGION?

[1^ST SERIES] IS “ISLAMIST” SUICIDE BOMBING IN THE MIDDLE EAST REALLY MOTIVATED BY RELIGION?

BY:  DAN PETERSON

The so-called “New Atheists” differ from previous generations of vocal unbelievers (e.g., Bertrand Russell and Antony Flew) by not merely repudiating the existence of God but aggressively denying the moral legitimacy and cultural value of religious faith. They’re fond of citing the great 17th-century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal: “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully,” he said, “as when they do it from religious conviction.”

And nothing has played so well into the hands of the New Atheists in this regard than the violence associated over the past couple of decades with fundamentalist Islam. It’s believers in God, partisans of the New Atheism observe, who strap bombs to their backs and fly airplanes into buildings. “For good people to do evil things,” the outspokenly atheistic Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg has famously said, “that takes religion.”

Of course, matters aren’t quite so simple as some imagine. Pascal himself, for instance, was a very devoted Christian, and Weinberg shared his 1979 Nobel Prize with Mohammad Abdus Salam, a devout Anglo-Pakistani Muslim who quoted the Quran in his acceptance speech. But the fundamental problem with blaming religion for suicide bombings may surprise many readers: The data simply don’t support the charge. Not by a long shot.

In 2005, Robert Pape of the University of Chicago published a vitally important book titled “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.” It’s based upon meticulous analysis of every suicide attack occurring anywhere in the world between 1980, when modern suicide terrorism began, and 2003.

Pape’s case is factually rich and rigorously argued. “The data show,” he concludes, “that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world’s religions. In fact, the leading instigators of suicide attacks are the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are from Hindu families but who are adamantly opposed to religion.”