"Could we get some otherwise normal humans and somehow persuade them that they are not going to die
as a consequence of flying a plane smack into a skyscraper? . . . Offer them a fast track to a Great
Oasis in the Sky, cooled by everlasting fountains. Harps and wings wouldn't appeal to the sort of
young men we need, so tell them there's a special martyr's reward of 72 virgin brides, guaranteed
eager and exclusive. "Would they fall for it? Yes, testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to
get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next. . . .
"Give them a holy book and make them learn it by heart. . . . As luck would have it, we have just
the thing to hand: a ready-made system of mind-control which has been honed over centuries, handed
down through generations. Millions of people have been brought up in it. It is called religion. . .
Now all we need is to round up a few of these faith-heads and give them flying lessons.
". . . I am trying to call attention to the elephant in the room that everybody is too polite--or
too devout--to notice: religion, and specifically the devaluing effect that religion has on human
life. . . . Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end. . . .
"There is no doubt that the afterlife-obsessed suicidal brain really is a weapon of immense power
and danger. . . .
"Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East which
motivated the use of this deadly weapon in the first place. . . . To fill a world with religion, or
religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised
if they are used." --Richard Dawkins, The Guardian, Sept. 15, 2001