Interesting profile. I have wondered what it would take to blow
yourself up. I figured a really really strong belief in the
afterlife. Wrong!!!!

The Surprises of Suicide Terrorism
It's not a new phenomenon, and natural selection may play a role in
producing it
By Josie Glausiusz
DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 10 | October

http://www.discover.com/issues/oct-03/departments/featdialogue/

[exerpt]
So what's the root cause of suicide terrorism?
A: As a tactical weapon, it emerges when an ideologically devoted
people find that they cannot possibly obtain their ends in a sort of
fair fight, and when they know they're in a very weak position, and
they have to use these kinds of extreme methods.

What's the typical profile of a suicide terrorist?
A: Generally, it's not someone who is off the wall. They can't be
effective killers. Usually it is someone who is smart, who shows a
willingness to give up something, who is patient, who is quiet.
Competent people who don't draw attention to themselves, and who are
perfectly willing and able to meld into society.

How on earth does anyone sane work up the gumption to blow himself up,
together with what is often hundreds of bystanders?
A: Exactly the same way that you get soldiers on the front line of an
army to sacrifice themselves for their buddies. What these cells do is
very similar to what our military, or any modern military, does. They
form small groups of intimately involved "brothers" who literally
sacrifice themselves for one another, the way a mother would do for
her child. They do it by manipulating universal heartfelt human
sentiments that I think are probably innate and part of biological
evolution. In fact, I think most culture is a manipulation of innate
desires. It's the same way that our fast-food industry manipulates our
desires for sugars and fats, or the way the pornography industry
manipulates people to get all hot about pixels on a screen or on wood
pulp.

[..............]
So what's your strategy for combating suicide terrorism?
A: I think it has to be a multilayered strategy. You've got to be able
to--and this I'm all for--go after the guys who operate the cells.
Take them out. Get rid of them. Jail them or kill them, because they
are not willing to compromise. What do you do with somebody who says,
"All Americans and Jews have got to die"? The point of talking to such
people has passed. Whatever the grievances were that caused such
people to have such ideas, if they show that they're willing to
implement them, then you've just got to make a decision whether you
want to see this guy survive or you and your people survive.

[..............]

Why then has religion survived in so many cultures?
A: Because humans are faced with problems they can't solve. Think
about death. Because we have these cognitive abilities to travel in
time and to track memory, we are automatically aware of death
everywhere. That is a cognitive problem. Death is something that our
organism tells us to avoid. So now we seek some kind of a long-term
solution. And there is none. Lucretius and Epicurus thought they could
solve this through reason. They said, "Look, what does it matter? We
weren't alive for infinite generations before we were born. It doesn't
bother us. Why should we be worried about the infinite generations
that will be after us when we're gone?" Well, nobody bought that. The
reason that line of reasoning didn't work is because once you're
alive, you've got something that you're going to lose.

Another problem is deception. Look at society. If you've got rocks and
stones and pieces of glass and metal before you, and you say, "Oh,
that doesn't exist," or "That's not really a piece of metal," or
"That's not really a tree," someone will come along and say, "Look,
you're crazy; I can touch it; there's a piece of metal there; I can
show you it's a piece of metal." For commonsense physical events, we
have ways of verifying what's real or not.For moral judgments, we have
nothing. If someone says, "Oh, he should be a beggar and he should be
a king," what is there in the world that's going to convince me this
is true? There is nothing. If there is nothing, how are people ever
going to get on with one another? Especially non-kin. How are they
ever going to build societies, and how are they ever going to trust
one another so they won't defect? One way that humans seem to have
come up with is to invent this minimally counterintuitive world
developed by these deities, who are like big brothers who watch over
and make sure that there will be no defectors.