There are four segments of this video that can be accessed at baneoffafnir 's youtube page.

For those of you who don't know who Scott Atran is, he is an American Anthropologist that studies "the ways scientists and ordinary people categorize and reason about nature, on the cognitive and evolutionary psychology of religion, and on the limits of rational choice in political and cultural conflict. His work has been widely published internationally in the popular press, and in scientific journals in a variety of disciplines. He has briefed members of the U.S. Congress and the National Security Council staff at the White House on the Comparative Anatomy and Evolution of Global Network Terrorism and on the The Devoted Actor versus the Rational Actor in Managing World Conflict, and he has been involved in conflict negotiations in the Middle East."(wiki)

scott atran website

He has attended both Beyond Belief Seminars and clashes with Sam Harris over the idea that religion is a primary motivator for violent extremism and terrorism from extremists that are Muslim. He sees religion as a primarily benign force that can be used to do bad things, but that it is not necessarily one of the major underlying reasons for Islamic extremism/terrorism. He has done a number of studies in the Arab world talking to Muslims and the families of suicide bombers and portrays the causality for their actions as basically soccer friends in small tigh-knit neighborhoods with a commonality that get together on soccer fields and coffee shops and form bonds together. They see images on AL-Jazeera of Arabs getting killed on tv by Americans and want to strike back. He feels that the Islamic religion is not really part of this, but rather that many of the suicide bombers are not religious at all and know nothing about the Koran. He feels that most of these suicide bombing terrorists are not recruited by anyone, but rather it is a spontaneous act by people disgruntled by the lack of morality and justice they see when their fellow Arabs are killed.

Here is Atran's speech at Beyond Belief 2.0 that iterates what I have stated above.

For Sam Harris' final refutation of Scott Atran from Beyond Belief 2.0, check this out. They both allude to having a possible debate(maybe with Ayaan Hirsi Ali) about the role of religion and terrorism in the Islamic world.

So I guess what I am asking is, Do you think Scott Atran is full of shit or does he have some valid points? Has anyone read his books? Is anyone familiar with his work that can validate his ideas, because they seem quite radical and contrary to most of what the common consensus on the subject says.

Here are his books if you have not heard of them

In Gods We Trust

The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature