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| Olde Tyme Religion |
| Why: Most suicide bombers are Muslim |
| 2007-07-08 |
| It is from Psych. Today so SALT AS NEEDED # Most suicide bombers are Muslim Suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, but according to Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, when religion is involved, the attackers are always Muslim. Why? The surprising answer is that Muslim suicide bombing has nothing to do with Islam or the Quran (except for two lines). It has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex. What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny. By allowing some men to monopolize all women and altogether excluding many men from reproductive opportunities, polygyny creates shortages of available women. If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all. So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates. By doing so, they have little to lose and much to gain compared with men who already have wives. Across all societies, polygyny makes men violent, increasing crimes such as murder and rape, even after controlling for such obvious factors as economic development, economic inequality, population density, the level of democracy, and political factors in the region. However, polygyny itself is not a sufficient cause of suicide bombing. Societies in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean are much more polygynous than the Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa. And they do have very high levels of violence. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from a long history of continuous civil wars—but not suicide bombings. The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. The prospect of exclusive access to virgins may not be so appealing to anyone who has even one mate on earth, which strict monogamy virtually guarantees. However, the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser. It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Consistent with this explanation, all studies of suicide bombers indicate that they are significantly younger than not only the Muslim population in general but other (nonsuicidal) members of their own extreme political organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. And nearly all suicide bombers are single. |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #20 #16, Thanks for reminding me MHW. A friend in Riyadh told me about the four wives and I have read Sura 4.2 before. Temporary amnesia let me get sucked into the ‘marry only one’ bs. I was really just researching the difference between polygyny and polygamy. |
| Posted by: GK 2007-07-08 15:07 |
| #19 Actually, polygamy is not as important as the requirement that you be established in your career and community before you can marry. This means having your own house and business. Real standards of living have been going down in the Muslim world for several decades, which means you have to wait longer and longer to get married. If you combine that with no contact with unrelated women, you get an epidemic of Blue Balls. Death begins to look less terrible every day. Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2007-07-08 14:17 |
| #18 I never hear of black converts doing this to their daughters - maybe something to look into. While you're probably referring to American blacks, FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) is still practiced in a conspicuously large proportion of Islamic African cultures. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-08 14:17 |
| #17 Two comments: This is what Feynman meant when he was talking about Cargo Cult Science. In my opinion, a few hookers is what these societies need. That's why those AMP girls in Pakistan are so important. |
| Posted by: Penguin 2007-07-08 13:01 |
| #16 the Quran's (4.3)words on multiple marriageare: "And if you fear that you cannot act equitably towards orphans, then marry such women as seem good to you, two and three and four; but if you fear that you will not do justice (between them), then (marry) only one or what your right hands possess; this is more proper, that you may not deviate from the right course. " Moslem apologists typically pull a dowd and say "marry only one" when speaking to ignorant infidels. In fact, if it actually meant "only one" a huge number of hadiths would demonstrate anti quranic behavior and many mid level officials of the later caliphate and many minor tribal sheik of the current era would be guilty of violating the law also note the phrase, "what your right hand possesses" - that means woman captured after their husbands and fathers were slaughtered. |
| Posted by: mhw 2007-07-08 12:55 |
| #15 Im being followed by a Boom shadow, Boom shadow, Boom shadow... |
| Posted by: Jusuf Islam 2007-07-08 12:44 |
| #14 If this article were true then I'd think there would be lots of China-men blowing themselves up. Second, not to defend any tripe in the koran, but I think a lot of the clitoral circumsicions/pre-adolescent sexual abuse are the result of F8cked up tribal mores that predate 632 a.d. and were infused or joined to the muslim faith. One of the officers I worked w/who was born a muslim (also a female & no longer a muslim) made this claim to me about the only requirement being that women cover their breasts and dress modestly; was the result of subsequent religious headmen delivering fatwas that they actually do not have the authority to deliver. Her family left islam upon immigration to the states for the obvious reasons. IMHO, islam is one bad variable, but couple that w/the tribal nature of the bedouin arab or supersticious african societies and you get a veritable molotov cocktail. I wonder if those that convert to islam in the west take on any sort of these beliefs or mores wrt clitoral circumsicion, etc. I.E. - I never hear of black converts doing this to their daughters - maybe something to look into. |
| Posted by: Broadhead6 2007-07-08 12:32 |
| #13 Strange. The Qur’an is the only religious book, on the face of this earth, that contains the phrase ‘marry only one’. SOURCE See item 2. |
| Posted by: GK 2007-07-08 12:09 |
| #12 There are large numbers of men in every society who don't get laid, and it doesn't cause them to explode. In fact most of them have successful careers as car salesmen and estate agents, not jihadists. |
| Posted by: Lumpy Uneating5303 2007-07-08 11:09 |
| #11 Salt has been pretty good today! |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-07-08 11:07 |
| #10 Remember also that what they believe is mostly from the commentaries on the Koran, not on the Koran proper. That is where most older religions get their really impressive distortions. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-07-08 10:00 |
| #9 It has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex. Horniness causes boom booms. I don't buy that. Too Freudian and too much of a psychobabble expalnation. Islamic religion fuels the suicide bombers. We have snake-handlers in the South. They seize upon a particular passage in the Bible and that becomes a very important part of their beliefs. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2007-07-08 09:45 |
| #8 This article is nonsense. They are doing it because they actually believe what it in the Koran. |
| Posted by: Ol Dirty American 2007-07-08 09:37 |
| #7 So they're f*cked in the head. Who didn't know that? |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2007-07-08 09:20 |
| #6 If this is true, we should look for increasing suicide bombers among Chinese and Indian youths as there has been a lot of female infanticide. Not that I'm holding my breath. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2007-07-08 08:20 |
| #5 1/ There have been women suicide bombers. 2/ Some of the suicide bombers are married. My own analysis leads me to believe that koran followers have 1/ The death cult. 2/ Smashed superiority complex. This leads them to try and remove the evidence of the fact that following the koran leads to a shithole, not paradise and the death cult element leads them to remove themselves from reality at the same time. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2007-07-08 07:46 |
| #4 I would worry most about Hindus. The belief in re-incarnation lightens death worries for non-Brahmans. It's karma, baby, that gives it a substantial impediment. What good it would do to you to be reborn as an ant? |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2007-07-08 05:20 |
| #3 Un-informed article. The largest known group of suicide bombers remains the Jap Kamikaze. At 220 plus, Sri Lanka Tamil Elan bombers topped Arab and Persian numbers until 2003. I would worry most about Hindus. The belief in re-incarnation lightens death worries for non-Brahmans. Polygamy produces human-bombs? Damn, and I was going to visit Utah. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2007-07-08 04:59 |
| #2 Why no Mormon suicide boomers, then? |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-07-08 04:54 |
| #1 It is the combination of polygyny and the promise of a large harem of virgins in heaven that motivates many young Muslim men to commit suicide bombings. Nice try and not without some merit. However, I'd give more creedence to Phyllis Chesler's theory as it relates to rampant child sexual abuse in Muslim cultures. According to Minnesota based psychoanalyst and Arabist, Dr. Nancy Kobrin, it is a culture in which shame and honor play decisive roles and in which the debasement of women is paramount. In an utterly fascinating and as-yet unpublished book, which I will be introducing, the Sheik's New Clothes: the Psychoanalytic Roots of Islamic Suicide Terrorism, Kobrin, and her Israeli co-author, counter-terrorism expert Yoram Schweitzer, describe barbarous family and clan dynamics in which children, both boys and girls, are routinely orally and anally raped by male relatives; infant males are sometimes sadistically over-stimulated by being masturbated; boys between the ages of 7-12 are publicly and traumatically circumcised; many girls are clitoridectomized; and women are seen as the source of all shame and dishonor and treated accordingly: very, very badly. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-08 04:42 |