Red,

Other than a few facts and ideas about how men have the capacity for violence and/or suicide, and religion being used to encourage or enlist this behavior, what do you feel was the purpose of this lecture?

I think in most cases of suicide bombers, men or women, their is a feeling of hopelessness within their cause or predicament, and a lack of other more effective weapons, so they become the weapons.

In their mind, it is easy to imagine that as far as the war is concerned, they have little chance of dominating or inflicting damage with the resources they have so they resort to suicide bombing because they consider themselves dead already, or eventually. I think the promise of an afterlife with virgins is secondary.

Now there's a post I have no disagreements with. Redy did a good job of describing many of the highlights of the presentation.

If one accepts the most basic premises, then the rest follows fairly logically.

So all I'm really saying is that I don't accept the most basic premise - evolution as the sole cause for both the propensity and the manifestation.

If that were true then one would have no choice but to admit that the phenomenon itself is evolutionary in nature.

Look at it this way: If the whole phenomenon is itself based on evolution, then what is it we are trying to do in attempting to “solve it”? Solve evolution itself? But then what is it that is doing the solving? What is it that is external to evolution itself that is trying to solve evolution?

If the propensity toward violence is evolutionary, then so must government and religion and psychiatry be evolutionary.

So who or what is trying to solve what?

As best I can tell, it boils down to “rationality” trying to solve “irrationality”.

And from there it’s a matter of
1) deciding what consitutes “irrational”, and then
2) coming up with a “rational” solution

Now Dr. Andy has proposed a fairly good target for hanging the “irrational” label on, which the majority of people I know would generally agree with.

So what is the “rational” solution?

Education?

And how exactly is that supposed to work? Are we supposed to send a teacher into every Al Quaida cell and teach them all critical thinking skills? Or send an agent into each household to ensure that the children are not indoctrinated into some irrational belief?

Seriously.

“A chicken in every pot” is a great sounding campaign promise. But when it gets down to who’s going to raise, slaughter and deliver the chickens, you have to start making decisions that effect individual people on a very personal level.

Without a very specific and personal one-on-one interaction, the whole thing is just a pipe dream – whether it’s “a chiken in every pot” or “rationality in every mind”.

Well, that sounds good on paper, but I'm not buying it.

The first reason being obvious. If what Dr. Andy suggests were true then why weren't the Japanese always using kamikaze pilots?

It seems to me that the evidence that a 'desperate situation' was required before people would be willing to do this was paramount.

So I would offer that up against Dr. Andy's hypothesis.

I'm also in agreement with JB on this one:



I personally feel that is seems far more obvious that people do thing more out of desperation than for the idea of a reward for a better afterlife.

Look at what the Arabs are up against? An utterly formidable Army of the United States of America.

If they play by the RULES, they are guaranteed to LOSE!

Absolutely 100% guaranteed to LOSE!

There is utterly NO HOPE in the idea of fighting against a giant using 'fair tactics'.

There is also NO HOPE that diplomacy can get anywhere (especially when George Bush was the President of the USA because Bush's idea of diplomacy was simple, "YOU SHUT UP and I'LL MAKE THE DEMANDS!"

What kind of diplomacy is that?

So the people have no ulternative. Diplomacy is OUT, and fighting fair is OUT. The only thing to do is to either SURRENDER or DIE.

And for many of those people dying may actually appear to be the better choice (even if it is a totally misguided ideal).

Sure, the idea that some creator will great them with open arms after they die might be a small incentive in the back of their minds, but to think that this is their main motivator?

I think not.

I just don't see the evidence for it.

Like I say, if Dr. Andy was right then why didn't the Japanese START the war with kamikaze pilots? I think it was clearly an act of desperation when all other options appear to be failing.

The evidence just doesn't support Dr. Andy's hypothesis, IMHO.

- Japanese kamikaze pilots have been driven by the honour of giving up one's life for the victory over the enemy!

- Suicide bombers' reasons are a)material and b)reliogious phanatism:
a) their families are well reimbursed for the sucrifies;
b) a glorious afterlife (filled with numerous virgines, etc.)
__*_ No patriotic reasons what-so-ever! No glory, just selfish interest!
(in fact, they usually have 5-6 kids -- always enough to spare!)
Those people are completely dehumanized by their religious leaders...
By NO MEANS, they are NOT (and far from) the Japanese kamikaze patriots!!!

Those, who have the resources, emigrate to the West... Others continue making kids in hopes of earning enough to emmigrate...

Hmm actual discussion has begun now that the anti atheist flames have died down a bit.



Sky, I have to take this as your own ideas, as I never heard anything like this presented. Lectures are informational. Without understanding the phenomena we can do nothing.

As far as evolution is concerned I think you should read the selfish gene by Richard Dawkins, it will help answer many of your questions, if you send me your email in a PM, I can loan you a copy. All biology, all physiology is the direct result of evolutionary processes, differing selection effects certainly, however as we all should know . . . physiology is the direct foundation of all behavior. The difference the human mind brings to the table is that we can shape our own evolution, but only through knowledge.


Only non atheist come to those conclusions whilst characterizing atheism, no atheist I know use the word accident when describing the complexities of nature, please stay on topic, this lecture is not about atheism. Right now you are just bashing to bash. I hope those posts are deleted, but I doubt it as I know the mods favor belief.

I really think if you can't deal with the points raised in the lecture then you need to stop breaking the forums rules.
YOU ARE ATTACKING THE MESSENGER. Its really kind of disturbing the reaction to atheism some of you guys present . . .


Insightful, jane. I agree the two are different, they share a few parallels, but the context is very different.

Many suicide bombers are not in any kind of desperate situation. The religious leaders recruit people who have psychological needs, usually the need to belong and already have strong religious ties. Typically the recruit is well off, well educated, not in any immediate desperate situation, and would not normally have done such an act, if we believe many of there friends who never knew ect . . .

Regardless of your belief in whatever, everyone must accept the cold hard fact that ALL suicide bombers are religious, and are supported in there activities by individuals who have shaped there very ideas around a political goal. Typically the suicide bomber is not just religious but is a part of a few specific religions that have doctrines for such activities written in scripture.

It does not take atheism to see that. It does not take some kind of authoritarian response to deal with it (sky . . .), rational knowledge IMHO is just as powerful, if not more powerful tool then any reactionary violent response. We should praise people like Dr Andy Thomson for studying these tragedies with an eye to science.

I still see many of the responses in this thread as emotional backlashes against atheism, its a shame really, this is such an important topic.
You have not seen the presentation, you do not have any idea what your talking about. He made direct relationships to context of situation, such as desperation, its a small part of the minority of suicide bombings but it was addressed.

All I see in ALL of your posts abra is lashing out at a strawman, due to an emotional response against atheism.

You accused Firedude of making an "ad hominem" attack on Dr. Andy simply becasue he pointed out Dr. Andy's affiliation with known anti-religious groups (which is not even an "ad hominem" attack at all if true). If Dr. Andy truly is affiliated with such anti-religious groups then that information should be known. It doesn't accuse Dr. Andy of not knowing what he's talking about. It simply reveals his agenda affilations.

On the other hand, here you make a direct "ad hominem" attack against me claiming that I'm merely lashing out at strawman due to an emotional repsonse against atheism. Talk about a double standard!

I didn't need to see the video directly to commment on many of the ideas that have been brought up. Both Sky and JB watched the video and have commented on what they saw.

I do agree with JaneStar, that a "direct parallel" cannot be made between kamakazi pilots and the suicide bomber's in the Middle East situation, but just the same it appears that Dr. Andy addressed that issue himself and according to Redykeulous he did conclude that even in the case of the Japanese it could be 'reduced' to religious motivations.

This suggests that no atheist would ever become a suicide bomber which I personally don't buy into.

I do see Dr. Andy's point! I have no doubt that people are far more apt to become suicide bombers if they can be convinced that what they are doing is favored by their creator. I can't argue with that at all. However, what I can argue is that even in a non-religious culture people could be convinced to become suicide bombers by simply convincing them that when they die they will be viewed as extreme heroes by their community.

In other words, I hold that the EGO alone, could be enough incentive to drive people to doing these kinds of things, especially if they feel that their entire community is going to be viewing them as a hero who sacrificed their life for a cause.

In short, I totally disagree that religion is the "cause" of suicide bombers. Religion may very well be the "cause" of a war, though.

Like JB and Sky, I'm all for wiping out the Mediterranean religions via EDUCATION.

But I agree with them both that what Dr. Andy appears to be selling is "fear mongering" toward religions.

I personally believe that "pure atheism" (i.e. a denouncing of any an all spirituality) can indeed have just as profound an affect!

If people are convinced that there is no hope for any life after death, that may very well drive them to believe that life is a worthless accident to begin with, so why not just blow people up, including yourself?

As a psychiatrist he should be well aware of those negative aspects of a "belief" in "atheism". And yes, a hard-core rejection of any spirituality is indeed a "belief". It's a "belief" that life is just a meaningless accident.

IMHO, that kind of spiritual hopelessness can indeed cause people to view life as totally worthless and meaningless.

After all, if we believe Dr. Andy that we are nothing but a bunch of utterly stupid primates that have genetic diposition toward violence how is that supposed to be uplifting?

Sounds like a pretty dismal picture to me. If I believe that scenario I'd say, "Yeah sure, I'll be a suicide bomber for the cause. Why not? Life is just a meaningless accident anyway!"

So you can call my opinions "Strawman" all you want. As far as I'm concerned the only point that I'm making is that to preach that we are nothing more than a hopeless accident isn't any better.

A LOT of people are indeed "restrained" by the HOPE that in the end there is some sort of supreme being that actually cares and will be 'just'.

If the entire masses of planet Earth were totally convinced that there is no supreme being (or spiritual hope of any kind), I think you'd see crime and disrepsect for follow man and life in general SKYROCKET!

So yes, I confess, that my position is that a belief in 'spirituality' is actually positive thing.

What makes the Mediterranean religions so dangerous is the concept of a jealous godhead who endorses bigotry against 'heathens'.

That's the REAL PROBLEM. The problem is not spirituality in general. Spirituality can be a wonderful thing once the ugly egostical jealous godheads have all been hung out to dry.

It sounds to me like Dr. Andy is just trying to say, "Look what these beliefs in spirituality cause! Let's all face the fact that there is no such thing as spirit! We're just an evolutionary accident!

Well, from my point of view that's an extremely overly-simplified and unintelligent approach that's never going to work. Even if it's true! We're better off NOT knowing that! And we certainly don't need to be preaching that picture on pure faith!

Faith that life is just a meaningless accident?

Who wants to place their faith in that?

Of course, I must confess, that my comments are indeed responses to some of the things that Sky had written from his observations of the actual video. So I am placing my "faith" in his reporting here. JB also watched the video and seems to have come away with a simlar impression I think she even said something to the affect, "So what exactly is his agenda anyway?"

Is his agenda to denounce all beliefs in spirituality?

Is his agenda to push a "belief" that life is just a random accident and nothing more than this?

Is is trying to say that it's better to "believe" in so spirituality, than to believe that their might actually be a supreme consciousness of some sort?

Can you describe in a nutshell precisely what his "agenda" is?

Sky claims that the man didn't truly offer any actual solutions, all he did was try to make a case for how dangerous a believe in religion can be, thus implying that he's pushing atheism and non-spirituality.

If Sky misunderstood that, then I'm all eyes!

Can you offer to describe precisely what this man's message actaully is other than "Religion is bad, Atheism is good"?

If you can, then perhaps I do need to watch the thing myself. Does he support uplifting spiritual concepts at any point in his presentation? Or does he seem to be implying that anything short of pure atheism and total rejection of anything spiritual is the only 'solution'?

If so, I personally feel that such an approach is terribly short-sighted.

I must again refer to my most basic ideas on understanding in that respect. If a true understanding is achieved, then a problem can truly be solved. And if one does not understand something at all, then it cannot be solved at all.

In other words, the degree of workability of any solution is directly proportional to the degree of understanding of the problem.

And since the proffered “understanding” in the video does not lead to any workable solution, I conclude that there is very little, if any, true understanding of the problem (or understanding of the true problem) to be had there.

I appreciate the offer and I will send you my email in PM.

But just so you know, this particular statement “physiology is the direct foundation of all behavior ” is one I do not agree with.

If you had said something more like “observation of physiology is the only means we have of determining behavior” or even “physiology is behavior”, then I could agree. But as stated, I don’t.

On the contrary, Abra’s posts have all been directly related to either the exact words of Dr Andy himself (the “conclusion” I quoteed), or someone else’s comments on those words. Dr. Andy himself specifically stated that the “most important” conclusion of his presentation was “...religion is a man-made phenomenon. A dangerous man-made phenomenon.”.

So I don’t see an attack on that position as being either ad hominem or strawman.

Facts are facts and I don’t recall anyone disputing them.

All anyone (including me) has done here is dispute either the conclusions derived from those facts, or the resulting opinions as to how the problem should be solved.

And the fact that Dr Andy is a very prominent and vocal atheist is a fact that, I personally consider, should not be ignored when evaluation his conclusions.

An ad hominem is when you say something about a person and make out like that invalidates there argument. Arguments stand on there own in logical discussions.

I made it specifically clear that if he meant to say his post in anyway was claiming the presentation was invalid then it was indeed ad hominem.

However I stated your argument is invalid because your argument is invalid, it was secondary to my refutation of your argument that you are responding emotionally to atheism, the two posts are seprerate and so was the meanings of my two separate statements, one does not rely on the other. You have not seen the presentation and where directly wrong, which I gave a specific reason for . . . as in what you complained about WAS addressed, and not an argument against the presentation, but one small facet of it, in fact in favor of it.

Abra, you need to start thinking if you are going to engage me, otherwise its fruitless for me to respond to you.

Sky as far as solutions, the knowledge itself IS a solution in regards to this fundamentalist mindset. When a person understands the manipulations used by politically motivated religious imams, or clerics it is then FAR harder to be subject to the pressures.

Knowledge IS power is regards to behavior. When you understand the source of the behavioral pressure, you can change it yourself.

The source of much strife on these forums is extremely poor critical thinking skills. A lack of a presented solution does not invalidate a presentation.

Honestly I am starting to remember why I decided to stop posting here.

I am not going to quote the posts a second time, your a big boy you can reread them.

Other than the use of the term “knowledge” instead of “understanding”, that first sentence is exactly what I said. (I don’t have a problem with the identification of the two words in this context, but if you do, then we can go into that.)

So we seem to agree on that point.

But I don’t see any need to go any farther with the knowledge/understanding than “they’re being manipulated”.

What difference does it make if there is an “evolutionary propensity”? There’s no way of solving that. Knowledge certainly does not solve it. (Which, interestingly enough, indicates right there that it may not be true – if knowledge truly is a solution.)

And as far as “religion” goes, the problem is not the religion itself. As has been said many many times, it is the people who use the combination of the “evolutionary propensity” (if such even exists) and the personal beliefs to further their own agenda, that are the real problem.

And really, even the people are not the root of the problem, it is the abberration of thought (i.e. belief in an unworkable solution – as in a suicide bombing) that is really the problem.

In other words, if the both the maniputoators and their targets did not already think aberrantly in one way or another in the first place, there would be no possibility of an aberrated thought process being manipulated.

Bottom line – the problem is not what one thinks or the ideals one holds (whether they are religious, political, familial, spiritual, or anything else) but how one thinks – the aberrated thought processes that derive invalid conclusion from the available data.

And the proof of that is in the pudding - it leads very clearly and directly to the true and complete solution – de-aberrrate the thought processes and the whole problem disappears.

Now here’s an interesting thought that points out a problem with evolutionary link.

If you agree that it is the aberrated thought processes that are the root of the problem, and you agree that physiology is the foundation of all thought, and you agree that evolution produced the physiological forms, then it seems to me that those very aberrated thought processes themselves must be a product of evolution.

But, considering a billion years of evolution, which produced the “higher” life (i.e. physiological) forms, combined with the postulate that all thought processes are physilogical in nature, then how is it that these contra-survival propensities never changed (as Dr Andy very clearly and specifically pointed out and which was in fact the very foundation of his argument regarding the evolutionary link.)

This is why I think that "evolution" is completely irrelevant at best, and a complete strawman at worst.

Billy said:



Do you suppose the people he was lecturing to did not know these things already? I think most of what he said was/is common knowledge, so again, I did not find the lecture very informative.

I will sum it up:

1. Our 'genes' are partly responsible for our propensity towards violence and war. (This is the survival of the fittest programing. There is nothing new here.) We are basically 'creatures' trying to survive.

2. Humans can be manipulated via using their religious beliefs and indoctrination towards violence and war, and need to be 'educated' enough that they are aware of their 'weakness' in that area. (Their weakness being their 'delusion' in believing there is an afterlife, and hopefully education will convince them that there is no afterlife and no God.)

This 'education' is probably what he would like to force feed or 'indoctrinate' all children with instead of any religious ideas.

So was the lecture 'informational?" I can only speak for myself. I say it was not anything I did not already know about and understand.

(And this is precisely why I don't belong to any 'religion' myself.)

"Without understanding the 'phenomena' we can do nothing."

Here is a 'hint' of his agenda. He is planting a seed. He is not leading a cause but planting a seed that suggests that we 'educate' children in a certain way, so that they will not buy into all that religious bull crap and be manipulated into going to or participating in war.

Let's say we actually accomplished that all over the world. Okay, then the children would just refuse to join the service, and they would refuse to fight if asked to do so. That would be the solution to world peace.

No armies, no war, no countries, no politicians, no government.

BECAUSE in order to be recognized as a country, you MUST have military capabilities, which means you must have a military, weapons, governments and politicians.

He wants to overthrow the world and all government(s). He is taking on the big guys. He probably won't get very far. His is a hopeless cause, he may as well become a suicide bomber. He has NO IDEA what he is up against.

If you think the world economy could survive without war, then you might want to read "The Report from Iron Mountain." Don't worry about whether it is a fraud or not, just digest the material. Its very interesting.

What's to engage?

Like JB wrote:



Truly.

From what I can hear from Sky and JB there isn't even anything here worth "engaging".

I think Jeannie has a point, without even going into the whole "agenda" thing.

What exactly is it the Dr Andy want's us to understand?

I think it's pretty well summarized by him in his own conclusions.

"the horrors of our evolutionary history, and the murderous legacy it has left in all men. "

"the capacity for suicide that resides in all of us – men and women"

"religion is ... a dangerous man-made phenomenon"

"[religion] is the most powerful ideology, that can hijack these capacities for lethal raiding, murder and suicide."

And again I have to say ... where's the solution? The first one cannot be solved at all. That's ove and done with.

The second one can only be solved by somehow reversing the effects of evolution itself - which is pretty much a self-contradiction (evolving to a state where evolution no longer effects us???).

The last two can only be solved by eradicating religion, whereupon we end up at the same evolutionary self-contradiction.

So I don't see where this "understanding/knowledge" does any good. It's certainly not going to help solve anything.

And if we look at "Without understanding the 'phenomena' we can do nothing [about it].", the obvious conclusion is that there is no understanding because we can do nothing [about it].

I was going to respond to individuals but there are several trains of thought which have more than one supporter so I’m just going to address some of the overall ideas and arguments which I’ve seen presented here.

Someone asks about “Dr. Andy’s agenda” while someone else asked what possible solutions could there be if, in fact, humans have a selected trait toward violence. So I will address these first because they are about “the agenda”.

Bushi has already explained that in science understanding why something occurs is the first step in determining how to interact with the thing in question. Therefore Dr. Andy’s agenda is to show how he has arrived at his ideas. This is all important for all scientific work, it involves peer review. Others take the information and attempt to disqualify it. This is exactly the reason why Bushi, myself, and others get frustrated—because so many people are not disqualifying the supportive elements that Dr. Andy supplies. Rather, people are giving opinions without offering any supportive evidence to quantify those opinions.

So the agenda (of Dr. Andy) was to present the supporting evidence of his hypothesis. That is all.

Moving on: Some people seem to be stuck in a all or nothing state of mind. When we say there is a genetic predisposition we are stating that an increased susceptibility exists. It is not a dominant characteristic, it is a characteristic that predisposes us to violence under certain conditions. The lecture presents the religious aspect as one of the major contributors to conditions which bring out the violence of some suicide bombers. He is not speaking in generalized terms, he is speaking of the fanaticism that can occur through multi-level indoctrination of beliefs.

EXAMPLE: As a whole, the Islamic faith is just as peaceful and peace loving as any other religion in the world (including Christians). A person born and raised in the U.S. can be proud to be an American, and can still practicing the Islamic faith. They are no more likely to become a suicide bomber than a Christian American. But let’s compound the indoctrination, let’s imagine this individual is born and raised in an Islamic state – meaning the people are governed based on the traditions of the Islamic faith.

Let that soak in – think really hard about that. Has the federal government of the United States EVER used nationalism as a tool to manipulate American Citizens??? THINK – look at history, not too far, check out the past 50 years – or the 10 or the past 2…..

WE the majority of United States citizens allow the government to use their propaganda to alter our thoughts, to align us to political agendas—they use the idealism of a national identity to make us believe, think and act as suits their purpose. FORTUNATELY, we live in a free society and a great deal of the time, someone sees through it. We hope it will be the News agencies, the media (the watchdogs of democracy). But I digress.

So, a man-made abstract concept like nationalism can change the minds of the masses – NOW IMAGINE that your nationalism and your religious beliefs must be synchronously aligned. You are not FREE to believe as you will, you MUST conform to the state’s ideology. And so from birth you are indoctrinated from several aspects.

At some point your government demonizes a whole other country, all their ideologies, and all their citizens. Will you defy your government, your beliefs, your family? Even if you secretly maintain that your government is wrong, does that totally disqualify your religious beliefs?

NO – in fact what can happen is just such a person is coerced into joining some group (usually a terrorist organization) under some religious and political guise. It is presented to the person as an honor, a religious honor, and an opportunity to show their family, community, and government the level of their commitment. REMEMBER this person still holds their religious convictions it is the state they are at odds with but to say so undermines their religious beliefs.

The psychological tool being used to manipulate this individual is cognitive dissonance. There are hundreds of studies with empirical and outcome specific evidence to support this fact. It is such easy tool to use that salespeople employ it on a regular basis.

Eventually, the individual must find a way to resolve the dissonance – and this is where the irrational begins to override even highly educated individuals.

Keep in mind that we are talking about fanaticism. It is through the fanatical believes of a person that the predisposition for violence can emerge to create a suicide bomber. Dr. Andy is presenting his evidence to support this claim.

Can any of you dispute the evidence he has shown? THAT is what this discussion is supposed to be about. If you want to render an opinion, that’s fine but do not claim that Dr. Andy’s work is invalid based on your opinion when you can’t refute the claims. INSTEAD at the very least support your own opinion with evidence.

(next post – the reference to the kamikaze pilots)

There seems to be some disagreement about the differenced between the WWII Kamikazy pilots and the more current day suicide bombers.

There is little difference, in fact there are much more similarities than anyone has recognized.

First, the culture of the Japanese, most especially in the early 1900’s is much like that of many of the middle eastern states. First of all, while there are several religions at work within the Japanese state, there is a general acceptance that these religions overlap in all the areas required to create a singular cultural ideology. This was not a mistake, this was an evolution forced by the rulers for many centuries. Like the Islamic state mentioned in my last post, the Japanese hold their beliefs in common with the state. This means the state dictates the nature of culture and that culture become imbedded in the religions.

Unless you have some knowledge about the culture at that time and how intricately woven the philosophies of all belief systems combine this may be difficult to envision as equivalent to the Islamic states. So you will have to take my word or do your own research.

At any rate, when a group of Japanese soldiers is “asked” to join a special task force – there probably are not many who do not volunteer. You never question authority, their authority is accepted, and the honor of your family is always on your shoulders, so you volunteer.

When the assignment is laid out before you and it is to be a Kamikaze, everything inside you may scream, NO, WHY? Cognitive dissonance. You CANNOT back out, your family honor and its future security depends on your actions and your actions MUST be what authority dictates. So you resolve your dissonance through irrational thought. It is better to die to save may families honor (upholding my dually indoctrinated beliefs – religious and state) than to live in shame.

This is not desperation, this is a DIRECT result of psychological manipulation which can only occur when there are fanatical beliefs at the core of the individual.

Although women suicide bombers tend to be rare (as the cultures which create the bombers) are male dominated and women are not equals so are not asked AS EQUALS to participate. Rather their indoctrination leads them to become suicide bombers OUT OF DESPERATION.

This is also a point well documented and well covered in Dr. Andy’s lecture.

Suicide bombing was used by Japanese, Vietnamese, Sri Lankans......and many other nationalities . They did to free their countries from tyrants and not to screw virgins in after life .

RESOLUTION – what can we do to intervene, to stop these irrationally violent acts?

Here is my opinion and how I support it.

OPINION: At this point, the most powerful nations in the world have a vastly different view of growth than ever before in history. These nations are no longer seeking to colonize or even to cease other lands by force. There is simply too much at stake for this kind of warfare. However, this is not the case in the middle east. They struggle over land for religious reasons, just as early Europe did for centuries. From the violent warring conflicts of religious ideologies and the desire to rule from a singular religious point of view irrational acts of violence emerge, one such act is the suicide bomber. In my opinion these countries need to be absolved of their religious dictatorships and freedom for the citizens of these states is of utmost importance to relieve these conflicts and the violence.

MY SUPPORTTING EVIDENCE:
1. The history of suicide bombings as outlined by Dr. Andy and the psychology surrounding the violence of state dictated religions.
2. The social psychology I have learned pertaining to cognitive dissonance, authority, culture, and our reactions when placed into situations that challenge our beliefs.
3. What I know about the culture of the Japanese and why I believe there is little difference between the Kamikaze pilots and the suicide bombers
4. What I have learned about the history of developing countries and what I see in the world. This empirical evidence suggests that when people are free to believe as they wish, and feel they are properly represented within their governments and its laws, they are less likely to be manipulated to the point of extreme violence.

Notice I have not specifically given an opinion on whether evolution provides a genetic predisposition for violence – however, I do submit to you that psychological state is “naturally” more inclined to allow our need to be sociable when our ‘beliefs’ are truly individual and not so much dictated by group indoctrination. This need for sociability IS a product of natural selection.

I have no desire or need to 'dispute' his 'evidence.' I see it as basically his reason for feeling the way he does. I don't dispute it at all. For every agenda or opinion there is always a body of evidence to "support it."

All I am asking is this. Once he "lights a fire" into his audience of fellow atheists, and they all 'understand' then what does he propose is the next logical step? What do they do now? How will they educate the world? How do you un-indoctrinate an entire country? How do you 'educate' fanatics?

And yes our own citizens are constantly indoctrinated. We are told who to hate. I am 60 years old. Our enemies used to be Communists. Then Russians, then Japanese and Germans, etc. Now its "terrorists."

I just found his lecture to be pointless and boring and his opinions obvious. Its not that I diametrically appose anything he is saying, I just don't know what his point in saying it is. I would ask him, okay, now what? Where do we go from here?

The US and NATO are still evil and are still occupying other nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan . It is just beyond me that they are doing this in front of all the world in 2009 !!!.