You really think that the sincere belief that you will spend an <i>eternity</i> in heaven and secure a place in heaven for 70 family members of your choosing and earn the love of God has nothing to do with it? It&#x27;s hard for people who are not religious fundamentalists to understand that some people <i>really</i> believe this with as much certainty as you and I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow. This belief is precisely why so many of these attacks are suicide attacks. Ask yourself why so many suicide bombers? Why blow yourself up when you can make a bomb and then another and another? Mohamed Merah answers this question: &quot;We love death more than the infidel loves life&quot;. To these people death is not death. This life is just a test, a test that you can ace by blowing yourself up, death is not the end but the beginning of the real and infinitely long life.<p>No doubt there are other factors involved, but to deny this key enabling factor which makes suicide terrorism an eminently rational thing to do is laughable and makes you blind to an important and maybe even the most important strategy against religious terrorism: education that sheds doubt on the literal interpretation of holy books. When you have even 1% of doubt that this is what God wants you to do, you may not be so inclined to blow yourself up.<p>I&#x27;m fully aware that this is a very unpopular observation to make, but ask yourself not whether it would be nice if this were false, but whether it is <i>actually</i> true or false. Wishful thinking does not get us anywhere.