The Insanity Never Stops

A recent news article highlights the insanity inherent in religion as well as its deleterious effect on the progress of mankind.  There is apparently a movement afoot amongst conservative Catholics to declare that Galileo was wrong and the church right regarding the Earth being the center of the universe.

The goal of such people is, of course, to protect the church's reputation and to restore the church to world dominance as this quotation from one of their leaders makes clear:

"Heliocentrism becomes dangerous if it is being propped up as the true system when, in fact, it is a false system," said Robert Sungenis, leader of a budding movement to get scientists to reconsider. "False information leads to false ideas, and false ideas lead to illicit and immoral actions — thus the state of the world today.… Prior to Galileo, the church was in full command of the world, and governments and academia were subservient to her."

The proponents of this historical and scientific revisionism, of course, see the heliocentric view of the universe as a conspiracy of sorts by the church's political enemies to squelch the church's influence.

As long as ridiculous worldviews are given preferential treatment and shielded from criticism and inquiry, then there is no limit to how ridiculous they can get.  Even to the point of denying well established facts and persecuting those who dare to speak the truth.

The Truth About Islam

This has been a very un-productive month or two.  I have been very busy with personal matters.  I could not, however, fail to pass along a link to a very revealing article about Islam.  The author is one of my favorites--the ever insightful Luis Granados.  Once again, I cannot recommend his blog highly enough.  It should be required reading for all.

The article discusses a case of a trumped up blasphemy accusation made against a British educated Pakistani professor.  It seems the professor had the temerity to champion secularism and humanism.  Worse than that, apparently, was the fact that he advocated settlement of Pakistan's conflict with India by accepting the current de facto border as the actual border.  The trumped up nature of the charge was obvious and it provides further evidence of the true nature and purpose of religion:  Controlling people for political and economic gain.

Holy War--Against Non-believers!

The religious are already at war with us non-believers.  Many of us just haven't noticed because they think that war has to involve overt homicide by trauma.  It doesn't.  There are many other ways to wage war such as social and economic discrimination and, more importantly, efforts to undermine the marketplace of ideas to deprive your opponent of support--sometimes even in his or her own mind.

I strongly recommend that all non-believers read Machiavelli's "The Prince" and Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" as a starting point for understanding many of the tactics used by the religious.  While these are the sorts of works that non-believers typically have no interest in, or are actually repulsed by, you should have no doubt that many religious leaders and "thinkers" have made a thorough study of them and the translation of the principles in them into active, modern strategies.

An essential part of this type of warfare is the use of political and social means to gain control over weapons and supplies just in case overt hostilities become necessary.  Anyone who has been keeping up with efforts to fight theocracy in the U.S. military knows that the religious are way ahead of American non-believers on this score.

Take a look at what happened in other countries, such as Chile, Argentina, and Spain.  The religious took over the military, then, when they felt they time was right, the country.  During that process they murdered as many secularists, suspected secularists, leftists and suspected leftists as they could find.  Victims weren't even necessarily true leftists.  There were instances where someone was killed merely for having worked as a volunteer in a charity that served the poor.  (Ironically, working as a volunteer to help the poor is exactly the sort of thing one would expect Jesus to do if he were alive today.  Clearly, modern Christianity has been perverted to serve those who seek money and power and is no longer a source of morality.)

The important point here, however, is to alert non-believers to the fact that believers (many if not most of them) are already at war with us and that we need to be on our guard with them at all times.  The war is a "cold war" at the moment.  As in all cold wars, the game focuses primarily on politics--gossip and public opinion.  In essence, they try to convince as many people as possible that non-believers are bad people.  They wish to pressure us into conforming or, failing that, turn us into outcasts.

A very important aspect of this cold, political war is economic.  By trying to make us non-believers into outcasts, they are attempting to "kill" us by making it impossible for us to obtain the means of making a living, not to mention the means of reproducing, or, just as important, the means of empowering ourselves.

I think that this effect of economic discrimination sheds light on the affinity so many "Christians" in the U.S. have for right wing politics.  After all, removing the social safety net makes the threat of discrimination a deadly one.  Of course, naked empowerment is not the only motivation behind the unholy alliance between Christianity and right wing politics.  Right wing politics also fits neatly into their anal-retentive, punitive mindset.  Regardless of the complexity of their motivations, however, it should not be forgotten that their goal is to get rid of non-believers by one means or another.

Faith Is the Rejection of Reason II

I have written to express this opinion before, that faith is the rejection of reason.  Today I want to add some revealing quotations on the topic that I recently came across:

"Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom… Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism…" --Martin Luther

"For reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but – more frequently than not – struggles against the Divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God." --Martin Luther

From the horse's mouth, as they say.  Apparently, even religious people, when they are being honest (which isn't often), know perfectly well and admit that faith is the rejection of reason.

In more recent times, however, this position has become untenable because "reason" as an ideal has become more popular.  Thus, you will often meet modern religious people who will deny that reason and faith are incompatible.

Usually, what they mean, however, is that reason and logic can and do function normally even if the existence of god is taken as a given--an assumed fact.  This is, to an extent, true.  The rules of logic will still work the same.  Any conclusions reached, however, will not be reliable because, as I explained before, reasoning is unsound if based on false factual assumptions.  Therefore, until the religious can prove that their god's existence is a fact, the assumption of it as a fact renders all reasoning that follows an exercise in futility--or worse.

In other words, the acceptance of a factual premise that is not a fact violates the most basic precepts of logic.

How do we know whether or not a suggested premise is a fact?  Simple, apply the rules of logic to it before assuming it is a fact.

Bias Against Non-believers IV

The recent controversy about the cross at the World Trade Center site has generated some very hateful and threatening comments by religious people against atheists.

A spokesperson for American Atheists appeared on Fox News to discuss the fact that such a monument would be un-Constitutional if erected by or for the Government.  Also, many of those killed in the terrorist attacks were not Christians.  The cross therefore does not represent all those killed and could be seen as insulting or offensive to those non-Christians who were killed or to their families.

Afterward, Fox viewers let it all hang out (their hatred and insanity, that is) on the Fox News facebook page.  Someone at Fox apparently deleted the threats of violence almost as quickly as they were made, but diligent non-believers captured many of them before they were deleted.

Some of these expressions of "Christian morality and love" can be seen here at the American Atheists' site.

Update 8/9/11:  A news story on Yahoo News reports that the Fox facebook page in question was taken down after less than 36 hours but had already accumulated more than 200 threats.   One site claims there were more than 8,000 death threats on the Fox News page before it was deleted.

Creepy and Deranged

In his book, "50 Reasons People Give for Believing in God", Guy P. Harrison mentions the tendency of many Christians to speak of their eager anticipation of the end of the world--according to biblical prophecy.  He says that they don't seem to appreciate how creepy and deranged this sounds.  His comments on this phenomenon are so good that I would like to quote part of them.

"Not only do many believers anticipate the end of the world as we know it, but they are happy about it.  Some people actually think it will be great when blood runs in the streets and the skies are ablaze from nuclear explosions because it will mean that their god is fulfilling the master plan.  I suspect they look forward to having a big 'I told you so!' moment, too.  Many believers have no idea how creepy and deranged all of this sounds to an atheist.  I, for example, tend to think that mass death and destruction are bad things.  So it's tough for me to understand how so many believers of various religious can get all giddy over an event in with billions of people will die agonizing deaths.  But somehow they do.  This stuff really excites them."  Harrison, p. 344.

I have heard this sort of thing most of my life because I grew up in a part of the U.S. dominated by fundamentalists.  There are a lot of people who say this sort of thing, even if you don't hear them say it every day.  (See also this article.)  Perhaps even a few of the "nice" Christians you know in the community or at work are among them.  You may not know that they think and say such things simply because you have never gone to their church or discussed religion with them at any length.  You may think that the apocalypse-mongers are a lunatic few.  Take it from me, however, they are legion.

I would like to point out that this sort of thing doesn't just sound creepy and deranged, it IS creepy and deranged.  More to the point, it is not something a sane person would say or even think.  I consider it a prime indicator that religion is, in fact, a form of mental illness.  This insane longing for the extermination of mankind is both suicidal and homicidal at the same time and is one of the reasons that atheists sometimes refer to christianity as a "death cult".

What disturbs me even more is the reception such thoughts receive when actually spoken out loud.  They are accepted as perfectly normal--sometimes even by non-believers.  In fact, because they are often seen as a sign of religious fervor, they are even seen as signs of virtue. 

I have seen people who literally had a maniacal gleam in their eyes, who spouted such insanity and expressed a determination to dedicate their lives to bringing this insane result about treated as if they were especially sane, good, and responsible citizens and given positions of authority and responsibility denied to the vast majority of their peers.  I can only assume that their insane ideas helped to ease their paths to positions of authority and responsibility because generally they spoke of little else and were well known for thinking and saying such things.  Thus, those who chose to promote them had to know.

Furthermore, a large number of religious people are actively dedicating their time and money (sometimes their whole lives) to bringing this apocalypse to pass.  This wholehearted dedication to ending life on Earth (at least, human life) is evil and insane.  Those who think this way and act on it should be in mental institutions.  Instead, we place them in positions of authority--even the Presidency of the U.S.

Religion as Narcissistic Personality Disorder II

In several previous posts I have discussed the ways in which religion and religiosity seem to be a form or symptom of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  I recently came across a quotation from Sam Vaknin, an expert on narcissism whose writings I linked to in one of those posts.  That quotation helps explain succinctly why religion is, at a minimum, often a symptom of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

"[N]arcissists - both men and women - are chauvinistically conservative. They depend to such an extent on the opinions of people around them - that, with time, they are transformed into ultra-sensitive seismographs of public opinion, barometers of prevailing winds and guardians of conformity. Narcissists cannot afford to seriously alienate those who reflect to them their False Self. The very proper and on-going functioning of their Ego depends on the goodwill and the collaboration of their human environment."

In other words, the eager, diligent, and thoughtless conformity of the religious is necessary to attain the approval of others, which, apparently, is more important to them than anything--even the truth.  The willingness to sacrifice all other concerns in order to obtain ego gratification can be called the central characteristic of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  The name for this gratification is "narcissistic supply"--a relatively generic term coined by Dr. Otto Fenichel in recognition of the fact that different narcissists will have different ways of gratifying the needs of their egos.

Religion as Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Religion as Narcissistic Delusion

Religion as Narcissistic Delusion, Part II

Religion as Narcissistic Delusion, DSM-IV