Religion and Suicide Bombing

I read an interesting article that talks about a conference that just took place in Oklahoma (a hotbed of counter-terrorist thinking. Who knew?) Check out the article here

I recommend that you all check out this article, but something interesting that I got from it concerned suicide terrorism. One of the speakers, Robert Pape, of the University of Chicago, noted that most people have this idea that suicide bombing is always motivated by religion. He points out that this is not the case, and that religion is usually not the cause for suicide bombings. He states the one group which uses suicide bombings, the PKK, has Marxist and anti-religion beliefs. Another, the Tamil Tigers, do not have religious motivations. He also says that when Al-Qaeda in Iraq has used suicide bombs, it has been to slow the spread of democracy, not for any religious motivations.

I thought this was an interesting idea because I for one have considered religion a main motivation for suicide bombings, but the actual data proves otherwise.