1. Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90

Comment #146159 by gwolf on March 18, 2008 at 5:38 pm

If I didn't know better, I'd say this was the death of the future that I would have preferred to look forward to. By that I mean that people like Clarke, Asimov, Sagan and Rodenberry -- some seared by the Second World War -- dreamed powerfully of a world that had accelerated long past its tribal and sectarian divisions of infancy; all was clean and bright, lit by shining knowledge, supreme forever over superstition and excessive greed. You've heightened my thirst and longing for knowledge, mankind's truest and greatest adventure.

Come back Arthur and light the torch of intelligence for our path as you always did so well. We need your inspiration more than ever.

George Wolf

2. The Video: Bill O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #34359 by gwolf on April 23, 2007 at 9:40 pm

As Richard pointed out, Hitler was a Roman Catholic, and I've seen good evidence that he never refuted his religion.

The crack about Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot being atheists is blatantly misleading. In general, our attitude towards religion boils down to, "Show me the evidence!" By contrast, Communism is making as outrageously declarative a statement about the existence of gods as Monotheists. Doing this puts them in the same class as certain Buddhists and Confucianists, who also don't have gods. Communism behaves like religion in all other ways; it has its own sacred texts, martyrs, more-than-human heroes, personality cults, a "priesthood," the most ridiculous hypocrisy, states that seem to prove the opposite of what is being preached, and finally schisms and heresies that act as masquerades for cultural and other national divisions.

In short, communism has a lot more in common with monotheism than a member of either group would like to admit.

George Wolf

3. Richard Dawkins and the dangerous delusion of religion

Comment #26238 by gwolf on March 17, 2007 at 11:55 pm

Monotheism has had personality cults, revered texts containing much propaganda, people who inherit their beliefs from their parents, schisms, heretics, arrest and punishment for dissent, gross hypocrisy and state support.

Communism has had personality cults, revered texts containing much propaganda, people who inherit their beliefs from their parents, schisms, heretics, arrest and punishment for dissent, gross hypocrisy and state support.

Monotheism and Communism agree that the latter is "not a religion" because communists don't believe in Monotheism's god. I disagree with both. Being "not a religion" is just a dodge for communism, a way of achieving a fake intellectual respectability that it doesn't deserve, much as Roman Catholic theology has a respectability it also doesn't deserve. Whether or not you decorate your air castle with crucifixes or not, an air castle is still an air castle, and not worth buying at any price.

George Wolf

4. Carl Sagan's Cosmos for Rednecks

Comment #25837 by gwolf on March 15, 2007 at 11:41 am

*Sigh* If only it applied to just our American Rednecks...

George Wolf

5. How my eyes were opened to the barbarity of Islam

Comment #24751 by gwolf on March 8, 2007 at 10:23 am

Phyllis Chesler's piece underlines that fundamentalists of different religions have more in common with each other than they care to admit. As I read her piece, I was struck by how much the story reminded me of similar pieces written by women who had escaped fundamentalist Mormon polygamists in Utah and Arizona. The veneer of culture either there or in Afghanistan was nothing in comparison to the fear and violence that dominated their lives. We also hear of both continuing to be pursued or denounced afterwards as weird for having fled their "paradise."

George Wolf

6. Books on Atheism Are Raising Hackles in Unlikely Places

Comment #23862 by gwolf on March 3, 2007 at 8:26 am

H. Allen Orr wrote and Peter Steinfels quoted:
"Dawkins has a difficult time facing up to the dual fact that (1) the 20th century was an experiment in secularism; and (2) the result was secular evil, an evil that, if anything, was more spectacularly virulent than that which came before."

The quoter and the quotee have fallen for the old "Communism=Atheism" lie. The reasoning is that because Communism is associated with disbelief in Monotheim's god it is in fact atheism. Actually, communism behaves like a religion, and its lack of a single god is a straw man argument put out by monotheists as anti-atheist propaganda. Some forms of Buddhism and Confucianism also have no gods and yet they too behave in other ways as religions.

Specifically, communism has a theology, schisms, heretics, personality cults, martyrs, "holy books," a few shrines, and most famously of all great hypocrisy. Its beliefs have an emotional hold on its devotees that is neither rational nor enlightened, but as with religion has highly addictive qualities.

So, the 20th century was NOT an "experiment in secularism." Instead it witnessed the birth of a new, virulent strain of religion, deadly for the same reason that the 1918 flu epidemic was deadly; it was a new parasite. Evolution favors the survival of both the host and the parasite. It isn't out of charity. It's because a parasite that swiftly kills off its hosts finds it has no hosts and therefore nowhere to go. Sure enough, we found that as the century progressed, communism became less virulent and its host population came to resist it in various ways. However even now we find that in places where Communist "missionaries" are still active (Nepal and India most prominently) it still reaps large numbers of victims.

And for all the good that religion has supposedly done, I'd say that the combined victim heaps of Monotheism and Communism are higher than for any other "cause" in all of history. According to Professor R J Rummell of the University of Hawaii (http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html), Communist regimes killed more people than Nazi Germany -- most of them after World War II no less. The totals:
Nazi Germany - 20,946,000
USSR - 61,911,000
"People's Republic" of China - 76,702,000

I hereby announce that Peter Steinfels and H. Allen Orr are the newest co-recipients of the Holy Inquisition/Islamic Mutawa/KGB Golden Rack, an award for those who fail to see the resemblance between those three organizations. The award is best savored in solitary.

George Wolf

7. Presentation on Atheism

Comment #22882 by gwolf on February 23, 2007 at 7:15 pm

He points out how the rapture appeals to people with lower class orientations, characterized by a strong present-orientation or "high time preference," as some economists characterize it. In other words, the rapture belief draws people who lack the self-discipline and foresight to work hard, improve themselves, save money and plan for their futures.

I can put this more succinctly. The Rapture appeals to people whose lives are truly a "hell on earth" because it offers the seductive fantasy of a quick and glorious escape. The only way we can appeal to such people is if we find a way to improve their lives.

George Wolf

8. Executing Saddam Hussein was an Act of Vandalism

Comment #15900 by gwolf on January 3, 2007 at 4:40 pm

Yipes! Richard Dawkins agrees with me! I published a letter making the same points in the Washington Post shortly after Saddam's capture. I reposted it in the forum area here at:

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=64979&highlight=#64979

on December 30, shortly after the execution, where you may read it.

I'm glad that the idea has some currency.

Sincerely,

George Wolf