Actually, I don’t.

The significance of his presentation was summarized in the conclusions he gave, which I quoted and then refuted. And the refutation I presented applies to all those points, individually and collectively.

Just like he bashes theism and the possible motivation of religion.

What topic? The video is the topic, is it not? The OP contained one link and one sentence and nothing else.

But you expected everyone else to address only the aspects of the video that you think are important?

Well sorry, but I feel perfectly free to address the aspects of it that I think are important.

But if you want to get my posts deleted for that, knock yourself out.

You are wrong. I didn't even watch it (so the imagery was meaningless IMHO to the core of the topic), I listened while I cooked dinner, and his points where valid, concise and had backing of evolutionary behavioral adaptations. He used non religious examples of EACH and every single behavioral adaptation and showed how they are used and manipulated to set up the tragedy of the mental state of suicide bombers. Sadly, religion is being USED, as a political tool in almost every single suicide bombing, 99% are an attempt to modify a group of people's behavior, that was presented clearly, and ignored so far by each poster here in this forum.

I am taking detailed notes with citations and am 26 minutes into it with 3 pages of notes, its clear based on the attitude of the dissenters the only way a proper conversation will occur is with a real summary, not a bash.

I have to go to work now, so again my responses will be probably days from now.

Once the notes are posted it will be clear no real conversation about this topic has yet occurred here.

This is simply a difference in definition for “religion”. You (and Dr Andy and Bushi and others) appear to be defining it in terms of “groups”. As if a religion cannot exist when there is only one person that believes in it. But the fact is that the ultimate goal of all religions, and the purpose of believing in them, is always a personal one. The reason why a suicide bomber does what he does is to get himself into heaven. (And yes, in some cases he is allowed to “reserve a spot” for others. Bit still he must get himself there in order to do that. And even then, it is his own personal desire to get them in, not anyone else’s.)

So that’s what I’m talking about when I say “religion”.

Now if you and all those others want to define it in terms of some group agreement or purpose, then fine, that definition would apply to the situation under discussion. Just remember that that is essentially “political” and not “religious”.

No, I don’t think he was considering the spiritual at all. What he was considering was others’ beliefs in the spiritual. He, himself , considers all things spiritual to be delusion.


Really, the biggest fault I see in his argument is that he talks about religion as if it were somehow divorced from evolution. Even in the second video the whole subject is about “morals” being a product of evolution. Now for the life of me I cannot figure out how “morals” could be a product of evolution but not “religion”.

Basically, it’s either all a product of evolution, and he’s pitting evolution against itself by arbitrarily saying that “this” part of evolution is good and “that” part of evolution is bad, or he has to come up with something other than evolution as another causative agent.

As far as I’m concerned, he’s simply working his own biased agenda and dressing it in the sheep’s clothing of “science”.

It's clear to me that real conversation has alredy occured.

But really, since you've just pronounced yourself judge, jury, and executioner, and already passed judgement, there's really no reason to go to the trouble of producing any evidence is there.

How about you just converse about what you want, and I'll just converse about what I want?

But in any case, I'll be interested in seeing your summary interpretation. And I might even comment on it if I see anything that interests me.

I haven't been able to watch the video, however, I have serious problems with anyone who concludes that there are evolutionary links for human propensity for violence.

First off, if such links even do exist, there necessarily must be many more links for human propensity for peaceful living.

Why so? Because it's a farce that the vast majority of humans have a propensity for violence. On the contrary quite the opposite is true!

All we need do is look at the stats for crimes.

The crime rate in the USA is less than 2 percent of the population. If you look around for world-wide stats you find very similar results and often even lower results for most countries. This includes ALL CRIMES. Violent crimes where people are actually injured or killed are less than 0.1 %.

Now let's consider the military. In the USA less than 1 percent of the population is actively enlisted in the military. And most of those who are enlisted are workers who never see actual military action. Other countries have similar stats.

So even if we include the military in with "Crimes" we have basically about 3 percent of the world's population involved in hostile acts.

I'll even go way overboard and assume extremely poor stats here and allow that a whooping 10% of the world's population is engaged in crime and/or violent military action.

That leaves 90% of the population oriented toward peaceful living and just wanting to stay out of the way of the 10% of hostile people (am already huge over-estimate).

So where does the conclusion come from that humans have a propensity for violence?

That's utter bull crap. If anything it's quite obvious that humans have an overwhelming propensity for peaceful living.

So any claims that evolution is responsible for human's propensity for violence is clearly a bogus claim because humans clearly don't even have a propensity for violence! They have a propensity for peaceful living!

Everyone thinks that the world is in such bad shape because the NEWS floods us with constant reports about the behavior and activities of the 1% of hostile people who are doing hostile things.

Also, when one person (or a handful of people) blow up a building and kills thousands of innocent people we think, "Oh my God! The world is full of violent people!"

But that's NOT TRUE!

What is true is that a very FEW violent people mass murdered thousands of people and then everyone starts acting like the vast majority of humans have a propensity for violence?

I don't think so. If the NEWS casts actually reported events based on how many people actually do them rather than based on how horrible and shocking they are, 99% of News casts would be reports on people doing peaceful constructive things. If you blinked you'd miss the very few reports on violence.

It's just totally untrue that humans have a propensity for violence. The actually have a propensity for peaceful living. Most humans just want to get through their day without harming anyone or being harmed. That's the real TRUTH.

So any claim that their are evolutionary links for the human propensity for violence is necessarily a false claim because humans don't even have a propensity for violence! That's a false claim right there.

Most humans have a propensity for peace!

That's what the stats actually show!

In fact, if most humans had a propensity for violence it wouldn't even be safe to go out of your house! (or even stay in it for that matter )

I blame the aliens.

I will watch the video when I have an hour to kill and give you my perspective if anyone is interested.

Billy keeps referring to 'the topic' and I wish he would tell me what the topic is, if it is NOT the video itself.

Is it trying to figure out why people become suicide bombers?

If so, I think its because they feel powerless against a country like Israel (and any country who backs them up like America) who has the nuclear weapons, and the money and continues to raid their country, bashing in doors, kidnapping people, bulldozing houses etc. in a land they have no right to be!!

Is religion responsible for that? Ask any Christian and they will tell you that the Jews were given that land BY GOD.

Which is BULL CRAP.

Without RELIGION there would be no Israel and there would be no suicide bombers.

But that does not mean that I am against religion or spiritual beliefs. I am against people who USE that to control people or use it to blame everything on including war.

War happens for one reason only. To steal land and resources.

Truly. It doesn't require a Ph.D. in psychiatry and evolution to realize that people become suicide bombers out of desperation.

Even the Japanese did it near the end of WWII. It was clearly an act of desperation.

Trying to point to evolution as the root cause of this seem nothing short of lunacy as far as I can see. Or religion. Clearly it wasn't a religious thing for the Japanese, it was merely an act of desperation.

Of course, in the Middle East the people are convincing themselves that they have God on their "side". But then what Christian American soldier doesn't feel the same way?

Obviously there are even atheists who would do such a thing just to protect other people. Who wouldn't give their life if they though it could potentially save an entire oppressed people?

We, being the 'victims' of suicide bombers may look at it as a horrible 'evil' thing. But in the eyes of the people who are oppressed those very same suicide bombers are HEROES who are willing to sacrifice their life for their culture.

Who can say that's necessarily bad?

If an American soldier goes crazy and forfiets his life to save the lives of his commrades we give him the highest honors possible.

But when the enemy does the same thing we deem them to be 'evil' idiots.

It's all just propaganda that totally depends on which "side" your on.

Okay I watched the entire video. I'm not impressed. He is not saying anything new.

He is opposed to the religious indoctrination of children. I agree, and the would include Christians.

He is in favor of 'education.' I agree. But some of the terrorists were very 'educated."

He says that "religion is man made." (I say the aliens created it. )

He implies that 'violence' is part of our ancestry.

So what? Its the survival of the species programming at work. Nothing new there. Then the elite leaders of the world 'create' religion so they can use it to manipulate these 'lower animals' they call 'humans' into wars that do nothing but transfer the wealth and property to them.

I think it is very suspect that lectures like this always seem to go back to Egypt and Israel. Particularly Egypt and the middle east.

I believe this was the main hub of alien activity and where genetic work on humans was done, and the place they call "Eden" where the story of Adam and Eve came from was in that area.

It was not mankind that created religion. The aliens passed their religious idea onto the evolving apes they called "humans" in order to have some sort of control over their wild behavior.

Just as I suspected. It was the aliens.

In all seriousness, and for those of you who don't believe that there are aliens among us: Billy, you said:




Who is "hijacking" what here? A "Religious ideology" is not a conscious thinking entity and it cannot "Hijack" anything.

Someone has "Hijacked" religion.

Religion does not hijack anything.

So who is behind 'religion?'

Ultimately, religious leaders and the most ultimately THE POPE.

And who is entangled with THE POPE?

Ultimately all the world leaders, the Queen, the Presidents, the rich Bankers, etc. It is people like the Bilderburg group who meet every year to decide what war they are going to start next and how they will incite the people to go along with it. THE POPE IS AMONG THOSE PEOPLE.

WAKE UP PEOPLE!

Even if you don't believe there are aliens among us. THERE ARE THOSE WHO SEEK TO OWN THE WORLD.

With them, it is a game where wars are played and the 'men' who fight them are manipulated pawns, nothing more.

Excellent point Jeannie.

And thank you for that clarifying insight into what I failed to see clearly enough.

He’s got it exactly backwards.

It’s the behavioral tendencies that hijack religion, not religion that hijacks the behavioral tendencies.

Actually in the video he made reference to military indoctrination, and nationalism as well.



Really, I seem to remember him making that exact point. I think if you dissenters turn off the emotional responses and watch with a careful objective understanding you will gain more insight into how I took the video.

I agree this lecture had nothing especially new, except lots of recent data, and figures from a war in Iraq, what it did was to bring together this data, and highlight it from the perspective of evolutionary psychology. Vastly interesting, and relevant.


As is standard much of the problem Sky has is with his own definitions.

I personally do not think the body of his lecture had any bashing at all, many figures statistics and correlational aspects, his Q&A did provide some insight into some of his personal opinions, but even that IMHO did not get to the level of bashing, trust me, we can all rip the Mediterranean religions a new one with nothing but examples, heck abra has been the biggest voice in that regard I have heard from anyone, even among atheists . . .



Religions ARE the gathering of ideas, by a group of people that individuals accept. This is called by many people ideology. You do not have to agree to the prior, or following definition, but understand that is its use in the video and by me myself.



I see lots of confusion here over simple terms, hardly a real discussion. A semantic battle of emotional proportions, not a proper discourse.

Lets all be cool, I will post the notes in a day or two and we can all use those notes as a guideline to really dig into this great topic.


---Ohh PS, Sky that mention of deleting a post was not about you, please re-read the post, and notice the quote. Oh BTW I have already reported the post as offtopic, and attacking the messenger not the message, lets all keep to the rules of the forum or discontinue our discussion please. This topic is about psychology as it relates to suicide bombings, how ideology has an impact on that, and really has nothing to do with spirituality, the truthfulness of the existence of any deity, god, or religion itself. Examples of many different ideologies where given in the video, and will be given in my notes.

This seems like a great discussion; I guess I need to watch that video at some point.

Or maybe we should discuss this in a more piecemeal fashion, for clarity; someone could past a quote or a claim and we could argue about it specifically.

Someone made an emotionally charged statement (comparison) about the 'american atheists'... I don't know anything about "american atheists"; but I do know that there are many in the 'atheist community' and the 'nonreligious' and 'anti-religious' community who wrongly believe their thinking is inherently 'more rational' than that of religionists; they believe this while engaging in the most irrational justifications of over-the-top anti-religious beliefs. As an atheist and a somewhat anti-religious person, I find this embarrassing.

I believe our society may benefit from having groups whose purpose is to educate people on the dangers of religion and religiosity - but I know that when such groups get formed, the first people to sign up are likely to be wing-nuts and extremists.

Well said. My take exactly.

Abra, I agree with the idea that most views of the 'specialness' of humans are misguided; we are still primates.

I'm not clear on whether you are suggesting that we ought to look to our evolutionary heritage when making decisions of what we 'ought'. If so, I would disagree. Just because we have evolutionary tendencies towards a set of actions doesn't mean we should accept those actions. I am definitely not opposed to polyamory; but I wouldn't appeal to evolution or 'nature' to justify it, because 'evolution' and nature can be equally used to justify rape and murder.


Nor does the fact that 'our cultural norms deviate from our certain aspects of our evolutionary heritage' undermine the idea that our cultural norms are still influenced, in some way, by our evolutionary heritage. I believe evolution has given us the inclination to love and trust under some circumstances, and to hate and desire violence under other circumstances. Evolution has set up the physiological apparatus, but it has not given us any kind of definite, immutable 'rulebook for the circumstances'. Thus culture (somewhat separately from evolutionary influences) and personal decisions can create new ways for us to express those tendencies.

Reading between the lines, I gather this is one of the points of the video. We have partial evolutionary programming: how do we use that programming? Certain cultural phenomena can 'hijack' that programming for certain purposes - is this what we want to happen?

Do we want those who would lead us to war against each other to tap into those parts of our evolutionary heritage to manipulate us to wage war?

All I can say to that is to again quote directly from his conclusion: “ That because of [religion]’s very design, it is the most powerful ideology, that can hijack these capacities for lethal raiding, murder and suicide. ”

I don’t see any reasonable way to interpret that other than “religion hijacks the tendencies”.

So either he’s contradicted himself, or that earlier reference to “that exact point” was irrelevant to the conclusion.

You got it backwards. Any problem I have with definitions is not with my definitions, it is with other’s definitions. Or more accurately, the difference between my definition and other’s definitions. Which is the exact reason why I am almost always the first one to attempt to clear up differences in definition.

I really don’t understand here.

What is it that you want to discuss?

The OP contained nothing but a link and a single sentence. Nothing about anything specific that you wanted to be discussed. So within that framework I took what I considered to be the simplest summary available – his concluding statements.

Now if you have some specific, individual points you want discussed, then fine. We can do that.

But don’t jump all over me for simply taking what I saw as the most comprehensive summary and addressing that – in the absence of anything else specified by you as the OP.

Until you present exactly what it is you want discussed, there’s nothing, from you, to discuss.

If you wanted everyone else to wait for your presentation of the points you wanted discussed, then I think you should have specified that at the beginning, instead of waiting for someone else to start the discussion and then second guess them.

Ok. My bad. Sorry.

I don't know what you are talking about when you refer to us as "dissenters." Dissenters of what? What exactly is he pushing that we are dissenting? And your assumption that my response is "emotional" is absurd. I'm not a great fan of organized religions either, (but I will defend a person's right to believe what they want.)

When I look at a video of this type I always ask myself what the purpose or agenda is. These things always have some ultimate agenda.

His solution to the problem of people using religion to manipulate the masses into murdering each other was "education." What does that mean exactly? What kind of "education" is he talking about? Is he talking about education that would convince people there is no God so they should forget about their religious indoctrination? Good luck with that assignment. It would take a lot more than 'education' to do that.

Is it his suggestion or agenda to pass laws that children are not to be indoctrinated into those religious ideologies?... and if so, what would be his plan to do this all over the world? (Ultimately, a one world government would be the only way to pass world laws about that.)

And if so, what effect would this have on the idea freedom of religion in America or other countries who have freedom of religion? Would the law be that we can have or learn about religion-- but only after a certain age?

Then if religious "indoctrination" was outlawed, then how are you going to define what is or is not a religion, or religious indoctrination? This kind of thinking opens up a whole new set of problems and 'violent' solutions.

You could invade third world countries who run their country based on their delusional religious ideas and just kill them all, or just drop a bomb on them.

But his efforts are futile because it is the world leaders who use religion to manipulate these countries. They would hate to loose that tool and that power over people. Why do you think they give atheists such a hard time? They have no control over them.

So more power to him in his mission. What he does not know is that after he contributes this ideology and to the destruction of religious freedom, he also contributes to those who seek a one world government. After that one world government is in place, then they will tell us what to believe.

Good point Jeannie, and I’d like to add to it if I may.

If the solution is “education” the what would that education consist of? Telling them that their ideology is wrong and that they should adopt our ideology? How is that any different from what they are doing?

There are only two ways that anyone's ideology is going to change:
1) Choosing to change it of their own free will
2) Being forced to change it by some external agent.

Now if that education consists of simply presenting them with an opposing ideology and letting them choose which one they want to subscribe to, then I’m all for it.

But if they choose not to accept the opposing ideology, then the only thing left is to either leave them alone, kill them, or forcibly impose that opposing ideology on them. (Brainwashing anyone?)

And since (as I’ve said before) religion cannot be logically divorced from evolution, the whole thrust of the presentation is that evolution is the problem!

Say what???

No, I'm definitely not suggesting that we should look at evolution as a 'justification' for anything.

In fact, if atheism (or non-spirituality) is true, then the very idea of "justification" is a meaningless concept anyway.

What's the justification for the existence of a godless universe?

There is none.

This is a huge problem with atheism (and/or non-spirituality).

The sermon goes as follows:


"Look people, the truth is as follows:

The universe is an accident!

Evolution is an accident!

We're an accident!

Now if we don't recognize this and take action to do something about we're going to remain an accident!"


The problem with this whole approach is that in this scenario it truly doesn't matter what we do. We're going to remain an accident in any case!

All we can hope to do in this case is attempt to try to make improvement upon 'the accident' the best we can.

In fact, doesn't that even sound utterly insane? And accident attempting to improve itself?

So is this what we should teach our children:

Dear little ones, you are all just accidents that need improving.

That sounds as bad as the Christians:

Dear little ones, you are all just sinners in need of repentance.

Where does this nonsense stop?

I think it's better to teach our children that they are free agents of divine creativity and they can create whatever they put their minds to creating.

If they buy into it we'll have a better world.

If they don't buy into it at least we won't be any worse off than having brainwashed them to believe that they are accidents or sinners. Both of those are very negative schools of thought.

We should just focus on optimism and trash everything else.

Sounds like a plan to me.

I am really sorry you cannot view the lecture, I am hoping the notes Bushi is taking will give a much better understanding.

For now, let me say that Dr. Andy is not implying that ALL humans are violent. What he is “trying” to get across is that through the process of natural selection humans have a predisposition which under certain circumstances will become apparent. That violence is one of these intrinsic dispositions is a theory Dr. Andy is exploring. He just happens to be using suicide bombers as his model because, like most people, he was trying to understand the motivation behind this act. As it happens the vast majority of suicide bombers are very religious and undertake the act based on religious perspectives.



He does offer, in fact he sites or makes reference to, many studies of which the conclusions all point to this human propensity/or disposition for violence. His offerings are predominantly psychological studies and unfortunately he does not go into great detail about them. But I have studied these experiments so I’m a bit ahead in that respect.

He also explains that women are less likely to be moved to violence and especially suicide bombings. In other words, females are more peaceful, “by natural selection”. One explanation is in our history – all of it not just recorded history. Men have typically dominated over women and children, being the main source of protection for their family. Dependency of women and their more peaceful nature is also a naturally selected quality.

Just to give you a better understanding of this “disposition” it is not that people are violent, but much more it is about the fact that people can be manipulated in such a way as to elicit a violent response based on that disposition. If the tendency toward violence did not exist, it would be much more difficult to get a person to become violent via psychological manipulation.

That’s what Dr. Andy is proposing.

Also Abra, the other link Bushi suggested discusses the natural selection of morals – and the two lectures combine to give a broader view of how both violence and morals come through a naturally selected process. So people are good, and people are peaceful, but people can be psychologically manipulated to do bad things, to be violent. It just proves that ‘good people can do bad things’.



Dr. Andy discusses this, because this is one of the rationalizations that people have used for a very long time. He does, briefly, discuss the Japanese and also other equivalent suicide terroists. What he comes up with is not that these are acts of desperation, rather these acts of violence are based on an irrational belief that the individual is ‘protecting’, doing something good, and that a much bigger reward that this life awaits if the attempt is successful. In nearly every case, the individual does not consider death but rather an eternal heavenly existence because of the ‘good deed’ they are doing.

He covers a lot of material in his lecture and had the lecture appeared minus any connection to the AAI (Atheist Alliance International) it may have been viewed by more open minds. The fact is that religions have been the greatest manipulators of minds throughout history.

I think Governments, since the French Revolution, have adopted these same methods. Marketing and sales people have also learned a great deal about these methods but they are more specific – or less narrow in scope.

Now consider a nation which embraces a single religion. The government knows that within the religious believes of the masses are elements which can be used to manipulate it’s citizens. The purpose is to ensure the continuance of the government and the nation by creating divisive propaganda based on religious concepts. Now consider that the religion, imposed on the people since birth, considers this life with far less regard than the afterlife. Some mighty powerful forces combine when state, citizens and religion are one.

One last thing that comes to mind. In the cases in which women have been identified as suicide bombers – there is more evidence to support that their act actually is one of desperation, or more aptly, one of hopelessness and not that of violence. I won’t go into all that now, there was quite a bit of information about this in the lecture.

I hope this helps you understand that this lecture was not a bash, it was based on strong evidence, gathered and correlated using a scientific method.

Sure wish you could watch it for yourself. I don't expect you would totally agree, but I do think you would find some value in it.