Customer Reviews

Soldiers of God: Primal Emotions and Religious Terrorists

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Soldiers Of God: Primal Emotions And Religious Terrorists by former academician, neurobiologist, psychologist, and biotechnology expert Jay D. Glass, deftly examines the human motivations that can so bend a person's mind as to make them give up their lives and/or kill for their concept of God. From the anti-anxiety effects of faith; to the religious maskings and sanctioned cravings of violent, rapacious, homicidal behaviors; to wanting to be somebody that motivate human beings to their core, Soldiers Of God is a harsh yet insightful look at the workings of disturbed human minds which is specifically written so as to be of interest to the academic community and fully accessible to the non-specialist general reader. Soldiers Of God is especially recommended reading for students of the Psychology of Religion, and a seminal contribution to International Terrorism Studies reference collections.

The author draws on Evolutionary Psychology and Sociobiology, outlining the path that leads to terrorist's conviction that they serve their God by giving their own life while killing infidals. The "why" of terrorism seems to be a mystery to most people, who can't understand why "terrorists" would perform these "evil" acts.....never realizing that those who commit them do not consider them evil at all, but extremely holy and good. Those who we call suicide bombers think of themselves as blessed martyrs.

The book presents insights about what allowed humans to survive and prosper in tribes, with their inate human anxiety, insecurity, territorialism, and hierarchy seeking. The coping mechanisms and motivations developed over evolutionary time, are the same drives that leads to the same tribal behaviors played out in the modern world.

The ideas presented in this book are profound, which is why I gave it 5 stars. Some of the writing is somewhat sloppy, with leaps of faith and a couple inaccuracies, but well worth reading. I would recommend Franz de Waal's books on primate behavior be read concurrent with Soldiers of God.
Scotty

The appeal of evolutionary theory is that it can explain a broad range of behaviors elegantly and satisfactorily with little need for ad hoc rationalizations of untidy deviations from theory. In the hands of a skillful theoretician and writer, even baffling behaviors that would appear to compromise fundamental evolutionary imperatives, such as those of survival and reproduction, can be accommodated to an evolutionary perspective, rendered more comprehensible, and be shown to fit with theory. One such behavior must surely be the volunteering for suicide missions by young adult humans who will generally not have gained the chance to reproduce by the time their short lives have come to a spectacular end. In his book Soldiers of God, Jay D. Glass attempts to bring this behaviour under the lens of theory, using "the facts and logic of science to solve the mystery" (as he puts it) and specifically to "bring a perspective informed by sociobiology [to provide] insights into" the primal origins behind the emotions that motivate us [and presumably especially suicide bombers] to act the way that we do (p. 17)." He fails in this endeavour almost as spectacularly as his subjects are successful theirs; his work is poorly written, theoretically muddled, logically inconsistent, and factually wrong.

To see the rest of my review of this book go to Human Nature Review [...]