True Believers

In this timely, but controversial book, Dr. Robert Milton offers new scientifically oriented explanations for the events of 9/11 and 7/7. The attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and London mass transit, says Dr. Milton, represents an unsavory historical summit - a kind of new age - related to genetic, neurological, and psychological motivation. The Golden Age of Terrorism is upon us! The why, he answers with compelling succinctness: is because we learn to believe before we learn to think. While he gives a realistic nod of acknowledgment to economic inequities, abject poverty and exploitation of Middle East oil as contributors to Terrorism, he pursues - to a logical scientific end - what he calls a still more basic cause: the motivations of belief. While Western Imperialism, the US support of Israel, and the war in Iraq capture the headlines as primary causes of todays Terrorism, Dr. Milton demystifies the myriad of alleged causes put forth by politicians and the media - even agreeing with those who say the emergence of Islamic extremism as a result of Quran teaching, is preposterous. True! Says Dr. Milton, it is not the words of any scripture - Christian or Muslim - that cause the problems of Terrorism. It is belief in interpretations of them. To instill a particular religious belief as the prime motivating directive is the goal of terrorist training. How such beliefs obtain and remain within our nervous systems is the subject matter of this book. The tendency to believe, this book asserts, is hardwired into the human nervous system. The content is not. Perhaps, we have no more choice about believing than we do about the color of our eyes. The cultural, psychological, and neurological basis of belief is explored and exposed, revealing one enlightening twist after another. Even the chapter on intelligent design, which Dr. Milton, as a scientist, advocates, reveals still another point of view. Terrorisms Golden Age is timely update on the sciences related to malevolent human motivation.