‘Lord Russell, what will you say when you die and are brought face to face with your Maker?’ He replied without hesitation: ‘God,’ I shall say, ‘God, why did you make the evidence for your existence so insufficient?

Yesterday was the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. For the sake of not politicizing a national tragedy, we thought today would be a better day to discuss terrorism, religion, and what it means for something to be caused.

Let’s suppose we’re doctors, and we’re being sloppy scientists. We’re testing two medicines, medicines X and Y, but some subjects accidentally receive both. Medicine X by itself doesn’t cure anyone of the disease, but when paired with Y, it sometimes does. Medicine Y, though, sometimes cures the disease on its own. What grounds could we possibly have, then, for assuming X cures the illness?

If you were to look at a map of suicide bombings, you would see it almost exclusively overlap with geopolitical[1. Of course, religion plays a part in geopolitical conflicts, but it remains only that, a part.] conflicts in a small part of the globe. If you were to look at a map of Islam, you would see it almost everywhere. In no domain of science could anyone look at that pattern of data and conclude that it is Islam alone, rather than poverty or lack of security, that causes suicide bombing. The science-police would personally come and confiscate your science-club card.

The Tamil Tigers, a secular, nationalist group in Sri Lanka, popularized the modern suicide attack and performed the most suicide attacks in the 20th Century. Take the most populous Muslim country, Indonesia; despite a thriving extremist movement in Aceh, there have only been 32 terrorist attacks since 1981. In 2013, there were 2852 attacks in Iraq. There are 23 million Muslims living in China, more Muslims than there are living in Syria. There have been 307 terrorist attacks since 1970 in China, though this number may perhaps be under-reported by the communist party, the most famous being done by the Muslim Uighur separatists from Western China. Regardless of this extremist group, the number in China is less than half the number in Syria. If religion causes terrorism, why are the vast majority of suicide bombers from, and the vast majority of suicide bombers in, war-torn and politically tumultuous areas of the globe, often occupied by Western powers? Why are Muslim immigrant communities in the United States not teeming with violence and radicalism, when the Western enemies of Islam are just blocks away? Why did two jihadists need to order Islam for Dummies on Amazon?

As atheists, we love evidence. We also pride ourselves on being rational. We constantly argue about correlation not equaling causation, and we’re the first to remind believers that anecdotal evidence is not sufficient evidence. When the evidence is in, as good scientists and science enthusiasts, we change our mind to suit the evidence. Why is it then, that the belief that religion causes violence is so widespread among the atheist community?

The science is already in, and it doesn’t seem to implicate Islam as the primary instigator. Take Cutting the Fuse, by Robert Pape, where he writes “Overall, foreign military occupation accounts for 98.5% — and the deployment of American combat forces for 92% — of all the 1,833 suicide terrorist attacks around the world in the past six years [2004-2009].”

And further, to quote the Suicide Terrorism Database:

[T]hough religion can play a vital role in the recruitment and motivation of potential future suicide bombers, their real driving-force is a cocktail of motivations including politics, humiliation, revenge, retaliation and altruism. The configuration of these motivations is related to the specific circumstances of the political conflict behind the rise of suicide attacks in different countries.

The Rhe Muslim Uighur separatists, though Muslim, are an embattled minority facing violent state oppression that is essentially an occupation. There are obviously a number of variables responsible for suicide bombings and terrorist attacks around the world. To point out just one variable, which at best has been shown to play a role in motivation, and claim that this is the variable that caused these attacks, is simply irrational.

Social scientists frequently make claims about causation. The causes of human behavior are empirically testable, so enough arm-chair theorizing. I’d challenge anyone to find any scientific study supporting the hypothesis that religion itself causes violence and terrorism. Why is the evidence so insufficient? With such insufficient evidence to show that religious beliefs directly cause suicide bombings, why aren’t you withholding belief until the evidence proving it arrives?

My mother and my father were immigrants. It was hard enough for them to be white immigrants in the United States, but regardless of where my parents are from, when people look at me, they see an American. I think the last thing a family trying to start a new life in the United States needs is privileged white people using bad science and poor reasoning to tell them their religion promotes violence.