So is it being part of the group or the virgins awaiting them? BTW, with all the suicide bombings going on, hasn’t heaven run out of virgins yet?

Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber

Suicide bombers are not mentally ill or unhinged, but acting rationally in pursuit of the ‘benefits’ they perceive from being part of a strict and close-knit religious enterprise, according to a University of Nottingham academic.

Research by Dr David Stevens, of the School of Politics and International Relations, suggests that the widely-held view of suicide bombers as brain-washed religious fanatics, vulnerable through youth and poverty, is not an accurate one.

Dr Stevens argues that while religion plays a central role — there are few instances of non-religiously motivated suicide attacks — the suicide bomber is also driven on another level by a rational thought process. This is the desire to be part of a group that engenders strength and solidarity from strictness, and encourages members to submit totally to the collective aims of the group.

Being part of an exclusive group with very strict beliefs requires intense commitment, and engenders a deep belief in shared experience and self-sacrifice, according to a recent paper by Dr Stevens.

Suicide bombers are thus motivated by a “simple cost-benefit analysis”, in which the ‘benefits’ of self-destruction outweigh the cost. The benefits are perceived by the terrorist to be so great — in terms of membership of the group, achievement of collective goals, the promise of benefits in the after-life, and so on — that they outweigh the cost.