June meeting topic: Must suicide bombers be fundamentalist Muslims?
Sunday, June 14, at 12:00 noon
Location: The Orient Restaurant
The answer is no, according to Scott Atran. In fact, they rarely are. Atran is a social scientist who has studied every incident of suicide bombing. He claims that there is no documented case of a fundamentalist Muslim becoming a suicide bomber because of the influence of a radical mosque. Instead, the major cases result from relatives or groups of soccer friends who form a tight-knit social group, often with a charismatic leader. Atran has testified to Congress and published several times in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. We will play a recording of his talk to the Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0 Conference. We will also play the emphatic response and disagreement by Sam Harris at the same conference. Location: The Orient Restaurant, Towson. Directions: Take Baltimore Beltway exit 26 or 27 (York Road or Dulaney Valley Road) through the traffic circle to York Road, and go three blocks on the right to the Orient. Take a left to the parking garage on Chesapeake.

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