Of course, if they could get laid here on earth, the temptation would be a lot lower. Polygamy leaves lots of young men with no chance of finding a woman.

It is no accident that monogamous cultures are more stable and less violence prone than polygamous ones. The mormons may be held up as a counterexample. However, they are a small group embedded in a larger monogamous context.

I wonder where all the virgins come from, or what crimes they must have committed to be punished in this way, getting just 1/72nd of a suicide bomber for eternity.

The guy on the video talked about getting "a river of honey." I like honey, but a river of the stuff would mostly be wasted. A jar a week would be more than enough. Where does it come from? Where does it go to? Is there a honey sea? I guess you could spread it on the virgins.

Why virgins? It's not like they would know what they're doing - but, neither does the ignorant pawn convinced to go kill himself.

I've always wondered where the "72" comes from. Why not 70? or 65?

I don't really care why suicide bombers expect finding as a reward in their mythical afterlife. Debating on this is a moot point. We clearly know that their religion calls for such things. Debating it is like having a dog defecating in the middle of the living room and debating on the color of the feces.

The whole "Evil Western Propaganda" is pathetic. If your religion is quoted to be linked with THOUSANDS of suicide attacks worldwide and you do BLOODY NOTHING to deal with it, blaming misunderstanding from the West will do nothing. How can we misunderstand the riots over a cartoon featuring your Santa-Claus? There's nothing to understand about sublime savagery but the fact that is savagery.

Hilarious, Norman, about the honey.

Polygamy leaves lots of young men with no chance of finding a woman.

My friend Satoshi (and the late Alan S. Miller) talk about this in their book (now very affordable in paperback), Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters.

The book includes a piece on why most suicide bombers are Muslim, linked here:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20070622-000002.xml

According to the Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, a comprehensive history of this troubling yet topical phenomenon, while suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, when religion is involved, it is always Muslim. Why is this? Why is Islam the only religion that motivates its followers to commit suicide missions?

The surprising answer from the evolutionary psychological perspective is that Muslim suicide bombing may have nothing to do with Islam or the Koran (except for two lines in it). It may have nothing to do with the religion, politics, the culture, the race, the ethnicity, the language, or the region. As with everything else from this perspective, it may have 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.

P.S. Don't do this at home, kids -- put two links in a comment. It will send you directly to my spam filter. Post a separate comment for every separate link, and wait about 30 seconds between posting them. Thank you! The Management.

Am I wrong, or would 72 sluts be more fun?

I wouldn't push the plunger until the clerics resolve the raisins-vs-virgins issue.

There was something lost in the translation. It's not 72 virgins. It's one virgin.....and she's 72.

So what do you think will come of the Chinese practice of aborting baby girls because they are limited to one child? I'll bet it's not suicide bombing, and I'll bet it's not good.

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.

So what motivates their families to praise them afterward? Religion.

As long as little brother hears from Mom and Dad as well as the community at large about what a hero big brother was to "martyr" himself, he'll be motivated to do the same.

So what do you think will come of the Chinese practice of aborting baby girls because they are limited to one child? I'll bet it's not suicide bombing, and I'll bet it's not good.

A great many restless and frustrated men. To avoid popular unrest and cull the populatino of angry young men, the government will wasge war with the West.

You'll recall that Ayatollah Khomeini kept urging young Iranians to die for Allah right up till the day he himself died of old age in his bed. Lots of folks have noted that suicide bombers are almost all young men (or even children), but hardly anyone seems to have noticed that almost all of the mullahs & imams who promise them virgins in paradise are old, or very old men. Think about it: a miserable, sickly, impotent old man could spend eternity in paradise as a young, handsome stud with a permanent throbbing boner. All he has to do is strap on a bomb belt & push the plunger. Yet for some reason, every single Muslim cleric would rather die of old age in his bed right here on Earth, just like Khomeini. Gosh, you'd almost think it was all a big scam...

so basically this is violent population control to make up for the ruling classes' interest in having multiple wives? or something...

Mark D, the thing about China is that it isn't a religious thing, and it isn't as much a class thing either... They can reverse the tide in a short amount of time, and it is the potential to find a mate that can keep people going on even if they are single. If you know that you never can? Well why not go on to the next life where things are more rosy. It may be that the jokes on them, and they get 72 brand spankin' new blow-up sallys. Virginal and brainless...

Come on Amy, who wants a nintendo for xmass?? It's a Wii or an Ipod.

Khomeini had the most ironic funeral in history. I'm still hoping to buy his beard on Ebay.

Nope, they believe that blowing themselves while murdering other people ...

That is a very disturbing mental image.

Um Eric the Wii is a nintendo

I was watching a cartoon, dont remember which one. But the suicide bomber shows up in heaven asking for his virgins, and an angle of the lord leads him to his harem.

Populated by 72 teenage boys playing dungeons and dragons

Soory the nintendo comment was for sean

Come on Amy, who wants a nintendo for xmass?? It's a Wii or an Ipod.

Okay, off on the mental grab for personal electronics names. (I occasionally play with Gregg's Super Monkey Ball -- and no, that's not a sexual euphemism.)

I did not watch the link, but I heard that the IDF has caught would-be bombers who wrap their junk in metal or pieces of flak jackets so that it will be intact for the virgins.