Religion’s misguided missiles

Richard Dawkins is professor of the public understanding of science, University of Oxford, and author of The Selfish Gene, wrote this Guardian Unlimited article that slices right to the heart of the suicide pilots last week:

“If death is final, a rational agent can be expected to value his life highly and be reluctant to risk it. This makes the world a safer place, just as a plane is safer if its hijacker wants to survive. At the other extreme, if a significant number of people convince themselves, or are convinced by their priests, that a martyr’s death is equivalent to pressing the hyperspace button and zooming through a wormhole to another universe, it can make the world a very dangerous place.”