Calvinball Fatwas

For a decade, from 18 November 1985 to 31 December 1995, the creator of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes – Bill Watterson – demonstrated how to beat the clerics at their con games, which are various versions of Calvinball.

In Calvin and Hobbes, Watterson depicted all clerics by the little boy Calvin, named after the French theologian John Calvin (1509–64), who (according to the dictionary that comes with this Mac OS–X) “attempted to reorder society on reformed [religious] principles” – of course, as with all theocrats, with him in control:

[Click to enlarge. All comics in this post © Bill Watterson.]

[Note: because Google's Translator doesn't translate the captions, I'll add them below each strip. Thus, for the above: 1) Calvin (C): "I'm at peace with the world. I'm completely serene." Hobbes (H): "Why is that?" 2) C: "I've discovered my purpose in life. I know why I was put here and why everything exists. 3) H: "Oh really?" C: "Yes, I am here so everybody can do what I want." 4) H: "It's nice to have that cleared up." C: "Once everyone accept it, they'll be serene too."]

The other principal character in Calvin and Hobbes was, of course, the tiger Hobbes, whom Watterson named after the British philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), who (from the same source) not only “believed that human action was motivated entirely by selfish concerns, notably fear of death” but also and importantly saw that a firm basis for any society is self-interested cooperation.

[1) C: "Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available." 2) C: "Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise." 3) C: "And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads." 4) H: "I wonder which you are." C: "I pragmatically turn my whims into principles."]

Watterson ascribed to his Calvin (similar to all clerics) an unconstrained imagination. For example, to Calvin his plush-toy tiger – his best friend, Hobbes – was not only alive but also had distilled the wisdom of the ages. Thus, consider Hobbes’ following distillation of the famous statement by the Greek philosopher Xenophanes (c.570 – c.475 BCE): “If cattle and horses, or lions, had hands, or were able to draw with their feet and produce the words which men do, then horses would draw the forms of gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make the gods’ bodies the same shape as their own.”

[C: "Made in God's own image, yes sir!" H: "God must have a goofy sense of humor."]

With such characters, Watterson had set the stage for Calvinball. Thus, just as all theologians invent games that people are to play according to arbitrary clerical rules, the rules in Calvinball are “anything we make up.” Like all clerics, Calvin would manipulate people’s greed and fear so that he could win the game – so that he could rule – just as did John Calvin, who notoriously and successfully urged the execution of Michael Servetus for the “crime” of blasphemy (i.e., challenging the arbitrary claims of the ruling clerics). No doubt Calvinists would be quick to point out that John Calvin urged (to no avail) that Servetus not be burned alive but “only” have his head chopped off – but I’m unimpressed. When someone writes, as did Calvin to Servetus, “I neither hate you nor despise you; nor do I wish to persecute you; but I would be as hard as iron when I behold you insulting sound doctrine with so great audacity”, my interpretation is that Calvin had personal reasons to kill with an axe rather than with fire (to promote his version of “The TRUTH”), rather than reasons derived from any empathy or sympathy.

[1) C: "I like people. I'm interested in people." 2) H: "You??"

3) C: "As an audience I mean." H: "Oh."]

In contrast, who wouldn’t be impressed by Watterson?! His genius was to show how Hobbes could beat Calvin at his own game (Calvinball), because Hobbes not only understood human nature but also understood that Calvin (i.e., all clerics) wanted to win – wanted to rule – no matter the cost. An example of Watterson’s genius is given in the “Sunday special”, shown below, which I hope readers will open in a separate window (or even in a second browser from the source website) and then refer to it while considering the text that follows.


[1) C: "I got a goal!" 2) H: "OK, the score is oogy to bogy." C: "I already had oogy!" 3) H: "You just ran into the Invisible Sector! You have to cover your eyes now, because everything is invisible to you!" C: "Invisible Sector?? I didn't know we had an Invisible Sector! Where is it?" 4) H: "You can't see it; it's invisible." C: "How do I know I went in it then?" 5) H: "You can't see anything, right?" C: "OK, so how do I get out?" 6) H: "Somebody bongs you with the Calvinball! I get another point!" C: "Hey! Ow! Why you…!" 7) C: "That was a rotten rule! I decree no more Invisible Sectors! …In fact, I'll show you! You just ran into a Vortex Spot! You have to spin around until you fall down!" 8) H: "Sorry. This Vortex Spot is in the Boomerang Zone, so the vortex returns to whoever calls it! You spin!" C: "That's not fair!" 9) H: "You know the Calvinball rules." C: "Yeah, yeah: anything we make up. Well, you'll pay for this." 10) C (spinning): "This game lends itself to certain abuses." H: "Guess how you get out of the Boomerang Zone!"]

Similarly, we need to keep “bonking” the clerics on their heads until they learn, as did Calvin: “This game lends itself to certain abuses.” A case in point occurred this week. As reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), another brave Muslim challenged the ruling clerics. The challenger [Hobbes] was Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, “former dean of Islamic Law at Qatar University.” He challenged a fatwa (ruling) “issued earlier this month by prominent Saudi cleric Abdul Rahman Al-Barak” [Calvin] “denouncing and calling for the killing of two Saudi writers for articles they had published in the Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh.” Obviously the rules in the Saudi clerics’ version of Calvinball are not for the timid.

It’s a fairly complicated story, but if you’ll make the time to investigate the details, I expect that you’ll be amazed to find how backward the crazy Saudi clerics (the Wahhabis) are: they’d fit in perfectly in John Calvin’s time, ~500 years ago. They know “The TRUTH”.

In brief, the story has the following main elements. 1) According to Muslim clerics, if you disagree with them (about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – or whatever), then you’re an apostate and deserve to die. 2) An apostate deserves to die because an apostate in Islam is the same as what we in the West call a traitor; in their rule, they ignore the difference that a Western traitor is one who takes up arms against those who think differently, whereas in Islam, it’s “traitorous” to think differently; thus, by Western standards, Muslim clerics who issue fatwas calling for the death of apostates are traitors – to humanity. 3) The brave response by Al-Ansari was, in essence and in my words: “Who in hell do you clerics think you are, claiming power to call for someone’s death for being an apostate, without the accused having his day in court?” The rest of the story has yet to unfold, but we can hope that Hobbesian Muslims will be successful in bonking enough sense into the Calvinistic Islamic clerics, so they’ll see (as Watterson saw) that their game “leads to certain abuses” – that they won’t like!

Actually, though, Watterson saw more. He saw that the clerics could be indisputably beaten at their game of Calvinball by liberated women, such as Calvin’s babysitter, Rosalyn. Watterson’s daily strips speak for themselves:

[1) C: "So what's the game I get to play if I'm good?" R: "You can decide. Pick your favorite game." 2) C: "Is this a trick? Can we really play my favorite game??" R: "Sure, why not? What is it?" 3) C: "Calvinball!!" R: "Calvinball??" 4) C: "Get out the time-fracture wickets, Hobbes! We're gonna play Calvinball!" R: "What the heck is Calvinball?"]

[1) C: "Other kid's games are all such a bore! They've gotta have rules and they gotta keep score! Calvinball is better by far! It's never the same! It's always bizarre! You don't need a team or a referee! You know that it's great, 'cause it's named after me! If you wanna…" 2) C: "Uh, feel fee to harmonize with Hobbes on the Rumma Tum Tums." R: "This was a mistake."]

[1) C: "I've got the Calvinball! Everybody else has go in slow motion now!" 2) R: "Wait a minute, Calvin, I don't…" C: "You have to talk in slow motion too. Liiike thisss." 3) R: "Thisss gaaame maaakes noooo sennnse! It'ssss aasss iffff you'rrrre maaakinnngg iiiiit uuuup aaas youu gooo." 4) C: "Hobbes! She stumbled into the Perimeter of Wisdom Run!!" R: "Oh…"]

[1) R: "If I'm in the Perimeter of Wisdom Run, then I get to make a decree." C: "A decree? Um… OK." 2) R: "I decree you have to catch a water balloon that I throw high in the air." C: "Oh, no!" 3) C: "Man she picked up the nuances of this game fast!" R: "Ha! This is fun!"]

[1) R: "OK Calvin, you have to catch the water balloon!" C: "Aaa!" 2) C: "Ha! I'm in the Corollary Zone! If I catch the balloon, the thrower has to bend over and hold still!" R: "What?!" 3) C: "I caught it!! Ha ha ha ha!" 4) C: "Oh this going to be sweet!" R: "I'm taking Hobbes prisoner!"]

[1) C: "Hobbes! Don't guard Rosalyn! I'm going to get her with this balloon!" R: "The tiger is my prisoner!" 2) C: "I guess I'll just have to soak you both then! Ha ha ha!" R: "Sorry, Calvin, I touched you with the Baby Sitter Flag." 3) C: "The Baby Sitter Flag?? What's that?" R: "It means you must obey the baby sitter…" 4) R: "…who says it's a half-hour past your bedtime now. Let's go in." C: "Awwwwww! Darn Baby Sitter Flag."]

[1) C's Dad: "Our house is still standing. That's a good sign." 2) C's Mom: "We're home! Is everything OK?" R: "Fine." 3) R: "Calvin did his homework, then we played a game, and Calvin went to bed." C's Dad: "It's awfully late for jokes, Rosalyn." 4) C: "I've noticed that when we play games with girls, you get captured a lot." H: "Some of us are just irresistible."]

Shucks, Watterson saw that even a little girl, Calvin’s next-door neighbor Susie, was able to knock him off his tyrannical pedestal:

[1) C (to fallen snowman): "As I have created you, so can I destroy you!" 2) C: "Therefore, in recognition of my supreme power, you must worship me!" 3) C: "Yes, bow before mighty Calvin and tremble, for I am the eternal, all knowing…" 4) "PAFF" (as Susie hits Calvin with a snowball).]

While wishing all Hobbesian Muslims success in their struggle against their clerical Calvins and wishing especially all Muslim women well in their struggle for liberation from patriarchal and clerical tyranny, I’ll close this post with comments Watterson made in his 1990 Commencement Address at his Alma Mater, Kenyon College:

Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you’ve learned, but in the questions you’ve learned how to ask yourself… Reading those turgid philosophers here in these remote stone buildings may not get you a job, but if those books have forced you to ask yourself questions about what makes life truthful, purposeful, meaningful, and redeeming, you have the Swiss Army Knife of mental tools, and it’s going to come in handy all the time… Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you’re really buying into someone else’s system of values, rules, and rewards… To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble…

www.zenofzero.net

"Truth" and Consequences

In an earlier post, I tried to honor some of the brave Muslims, secular Muslims, and ex-Muslims who, at great risk to themselves, are trying to help humanity break free from clerical dogma. I admitted to my limited knowledge of all those who should be so honored. Here, to start, I’d like to add three more names to the honor role: the “Iranian dissident” Abd Al-Karim Sorush, the “Kuwaiti columnist” Ibtihal Al-Khatib, and the “Libyan liberal” Muhammad Al-Houni.

From the Middle East Research Institute’s “Arab Culture Blog”, in turn from “Rooz, Iran, 16 March 2008”, the following information about Sorush is available:

Iranian dissident intellectual Abd Al-Karim Sorush has said that Muhammad’s inspiration for composing the Koran was earthly, like a poet’s inspiration when writing his poetry. In response, senior Iranian ayatollah Nouri Hamadani called Sorush’s statements worse than Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses… In a demonstration in Qom, some 100 clerics and their students demanded [Sorush’s] execution…

That brings to mind the warning from the Roman poet Caius Valerius Catullus (87–54 BCE): “I can imagine no greater misfortune for a cultured people than to see in the hands of the rulers not only the civil but also the religious power.”

History has shown that Catullus’ premonition was well founded: such “misfortune” occurred during the darkest days of Europe’s Dark Ages, when Christian clerics ruled and the punishment was torture and death for expressing opinions different form those of the clerics’, and similar is now occurring in most of the Muslim world. But it’s being confronted by such brave Muslims as the “Kuwaiti columnist” Dr. Ibtihal Al-Khatib. For example, on Al-Arabiya TV (on 14 March 2008) and in the face of “numerous death threats for her criticism of Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah…”, she stated:

I want a state that is not based on religion – a civil state… one of the conditions is to protect people who want to practice their religion… establish a civil regime that protects everybody, and tells you that, just as you are free to follow your Sunni path, I am free to follow my Shiite path, and Christians and Jews have their rights too… This way we are all equal and protected by the secular regime, which treats us all without discrimination.

Recently, Michael Shermer summarized the dynamic well:

…as soon as a group sets itself up as the final moral arbiter of other people’s actions, especially when its members believe they have discovered absolute standards of right and wrong, it marks the beginning of the end of tolerance, and thus reason and rationality. It is this characteristic more than any other that makes a cult, a religion, a nation, or any other group dangerous to individual freedom.

The danger to individual freedom from those who claim some “absolutes” (some “absolute standards of right and wrong” or some “absolute truth”) was recently addressed by the “Libyan liberal” Muhammad ‘Abd Al-Muttalid Al-Houni.

Before showing you what I mean, however, I should first acknowledge that Al-Houni’s criticisms of the suggestion to implement some aspects of Shari’a law in Britain (suggested by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams) are much more perceptive than were mine (given in an earlier post). Thus on the one hand, Al-Houni explains that even if Shari’a criminal law were excluded (i.e., if implementation were restricted to Shari’a law regarding personal status), Williams’ suggestion is tantamount to abandoning human rights (especially the rights of women and children). And on the other hand, Al-Houni points out that Williams’ suggestion emboldens Muslim fundamentalists:

At present, these [fundamentalists] are picking fights with the secularists in Islamic countries, and their attitude is: “How can you oppose shari'a law in your own countries when we see that the Anglican Church is seeking its implementation in Europe?”

This message is wrong, and it is detrimental to all pleas for modernism and secularism in the Islamic world. Such [pleas] are weak enough as it is, overpowered as they are by the tsunami of Islamist extremists who accuse [those who voice] them of subordination [to the West], treason, and heresy. Such statements by some Anglican clerics are nothing less than support for the ideas of Islamist extremists, and are also an attempt to make fundamentalist religious thought triumph over secular thought in the Islamic countries.

I believe that monotheistic religious fundamentalists, whether Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, can, despite the deep-seated historical hostility among them, ally with each other and join efforts to wage war on Enlightenment thought… The[ir ideologies all] contain the same germ – the claim to absolute truth that applies to all times and all places.

I note that the “Libyan liberal” Al-Houni’s remarks are made more poignant by the above-mentioned experiences of the “Iranian dissident” Abd Al-Karim Sorush and the “Kuwaiti columnist” Al-Khatib.

I also acknowledge the wisdom in Al-Houni’s assessment, and in this post, I’d like to comment further on his point that all religious fundamentalists make the grievous error of “the claim to absolute truth that applies to all times and all places.” My summary (which isn’t certain, but whose probability of validity seems to be very close to unity) is:

Religious truth isn’t real, and scientific truth can’t be realized.

To see what I mean by that summary and, thereby, to understand the error made by all religious fundamentalists, it’s critical to appreciate that “truth” is an ambiguous concept, which is the reason for the quotation marks. Specifically, “truth” has different meanings in open vs. closed systems.

By system I mean as given by the first entry in my dictionary: “a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole…” By closed system is meant that the system is “complete unto itself, distinguishable from and not interacting with its external environment”. Examples of closed systems include games (from games of chance to all sports), pure mathematics (in contrast to applied mathematics), stories, and all organized religions. An open system, in contrast, interacts with its environment. Examples of open systems include human cells, immune systems, and bodies, educational, legal, and governmental systems, transportation systems, and so on. To see the different meanings for “truth” in open vs. closed systems, consider some examples.

In closed systems, truth is unambiguous. In the game of poker, for example, it’s true that a flush always beats a straight; in the game of bridge, the ace of trump beats all other cards; in baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out; in pure mathematics, 1 plus 1 always equals 2; and so on. Similarly, in one of H.C. Anderson’s fairy tales, for example, it’s true that a little boy was the first to remark that the Emperor had no clothes; also, as all connoisseurs of Superman comic books know, Superman is invulnerable to everything except kryptonite; in the Torah, it’s true that Moses received commandments from God; in the Gospels, it’s true that Jesus is the Son of God; and in the Koran, it’s true that Muhammad received messages from the angel Gabriel. Each of those statements is true within its respective closed system; stated differently, each statement is certain.

In open systems, in contrast – that is, in reality – truth can’t be determined with certainty; at most, it can be approached only asymptotically; at best, we can ascertain only the probability that some claim is true. Newton’s “laws” (or better, Newton’s “principles”) of motion, for example, seem to be true (with Einstein’s correction to Newton’s second “law”), as do Maxwell’s equations of electrodynamics and the “laws” of thermodynamics (with Einstein’s correction to the first “law”). But we can’t be certain of the truth of any such scientific principles: someone may yet demonstrate their limitations (and no doubt win a Nobel Prize in Physics for doing so). That is, because we can never know with certainty what might be “around the next bend” (in space, or time, or space-time), then we can never be certain about any open-system truth.

As a result, in reality, we’re forced to deal with probabilities. We must hedge even on the claim that, in reality, 1 + 1 = 2 . For example, if you react one molecule (or one mole) of carbon dioxide with one of water, the result is not two molecules (or moles) of carbonic acid but only one. Similarly, if you get one hole in your jeans adjacent to another hole, then again, 1 + 1 = 1 (albeit a bigger hole). With regard to such examples, pure mathematicians would quickly point out that the mathematical concepts of addition and of uniqueness have been violated, but as Einstein said:

Insofar as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Further and importantly, for a claim to be scientific (that is, for a claim to realistically describe some aspect of nature), then as Karl Popper maintained, it must be falsifiable (that is, it must be possible to test for the probability that the claim is true, which simultaneously is a test for the probability that it’s false, since the sum of the two probabilities is unity). His extension to Einstein’s statement (which was quoted in the previous paragraph) is commonly known as Popper’s principle:

Insofar as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and insofar as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.

As examples, whereas it’s impossible to falsify the claims that God appeared to Moses in the form of a burning bush, that the crucified Jesus appeared to the apostles, that the angel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad, etc., including the impossibility of falsifying the claim that God exists, then it follows from Popper’s principle that such claims have nothing to do with reality.

In reality, it’s impossible to show that any scientific claim is true (i.e., that it’s probability of being true is exactly unity) – or that it’s false (i.e., that it’s probability of being true is exactly zero) – including the claim made in this sentence! Such a counter intuitive result seems to be justified, however, because in spite of Descartes’ claim to the contrary, we can’t be certain even that we exist: all of us may be just simulations in some humongous computer game! Consequently, if we can’t be certain of even our own existences, it follows that we also can’t be certain of any claim made to some scientific truth.

Nonetheless, hope continues that we can asymptotically approach scientific truth fairly closely, since (for example), I estimate the probability that I exist (and by extension, also that you exist) to be unity to within about 1 part in 10^25 (i.e., 0.999999999999999999999999 ). For example, for isolated physical systems (isolated in attempts to make them closed) it does appears to be true that electrical charge, momentum, and mass-energy are conserved, but again, we can’t be certain – although I expect that most physicists would put the probability that such results are true to be at least 0.999999999999999; that is, to at least to within 1 part in 10^15 (if I counted all those nines correctly).

Such results for reality are in stark contrast to truths in closed systems: in pure math, it’s certain that 1 + 1 = 2 (it’s a definition, as Russell and Whitehead demonstrated); in baseball, it’s certain (i.e., the probability is exactly unity) that “three strikes and you’re out”; in poker, it’s certain that a flush will beat a straight; in Judaism, it’s certain that “the Jews are God’s chosen people”; in Christianity, it’s certain that “Jesus was born of the virgin Mary”; in Islam, it’s certain that “there’s no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger”; and so on. Within each of those games, such truths are contained in the rules of the game, but as soon as one steps out of those games into reality, none of such claims is perforce true – and many if not most are just plain silly. For example, the last time I was at bat, I must have swung and missed at least 50 fastballs (pitched by my daughter!), before being “out” – because I was worn out! [In honor of the creator of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson, we call it “Calvinball”.]

When the distinction between open- vs. closed-system truth is clear, then the significance of the quoted remarks by the Iranian dissident Abd Al-Karim Sorush, the Kuwaiti columnist Ibtihal Al-Khatib, and the Libyan liberal Muhammad Al-Houni can become clearer. For example, Al-Houni’s comment, “The[ir ideologies all] contain the same germ – the claim to absolute truth that applies to all times and all places”, can be restated in a form such as: “The foolish religious fundamentalists of the world (whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or whatever) don’t seem to realize that their claims to absolute truth are simultaneously admissions that they’re dealing only with closed systems: similar to ideas in games, comic books, sports activities, pure math, and fairy tales, all religions are just closed-system games.”

Similarly, Al-Khatib’s plea for separation of religion from politics, so that “we are all equal and protected by the secular regime, which treats us all without discrimination” can be seen to be a plea that all people have the freedom to believe what they want (be it the beliefs in some religious fairy tale or as evaluated from the best available evidence), since forced belief in some state-supported “truth” has always been and always will be detrimental to the people – except, of course, for the political and clerical parasites promoting such nonsense and leaching off the producers of the world.

And from the response by the clerics to Al-Karim Sorush’s suggestion that “Muhammad’s inspiration for composing the Koran was earthly, like a poet’s inspiration when writing his poetry” (which is totally reasonable assessment in the open-system known as ‘reality’ but which conflicts with the closed-system truth of the clerics) becomes clearer. Again, the response was: “In a demonstration in Qom, some 100 clerics and their students demanded [his] execution…” Thereby, one gains a glimpse of the hideous lengths to which the damnable clerics of the world have gone and continue to go to protect their closed-system truths, their fairy tales, their word games, and their parasitic existences.

The French writer Émile Zola (1840–1902) summarized it well:

Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church [and the last mosque] falls on the last [cleric].

Zola risked his career and his life when he wrote, in a front-page article in the Paris daily L’Aurore in an open letter entitled “J’accuse” to the President of France:

The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice. I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity, which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul.

Similar could be written by the brave Muslims, secular Muslims, and ex-Muslims now confronting fundamentalist Islamic clerics, who foolishly, intolerantly, and hideously claim that their closed-system truths are true in the open-system known as reality.

And of course it’s not just Islamic clerics who perpetuate such stupidity. As E. Haldeman-Julius said of all of them:

[The clerics] have tricked, terrified, and exploited mankind. They have lied for “the glory of God.” They have collected immense financial tribute for “the glory of God.” Whatever may be said about the character of individuals among the clergy, the character of the profession as a whole has been distinctly and drastically anti-human. And of course the most sincere among the clergy have been the most dangerous, for they have been willing to go to the most extreme lengths of intolerance for “the glory of God.”

Yet, maybe I should add that I expect that most clerics are too dumb or too poorly educated to realize that religious truth isn’t real and scientific truth can’t be realized, but I suspect that leading clerics in every religion know that they’re pedaling stupidity but are hooked on the profits that their con games provide.

www.zenofzero.net

An Open Letter to the King of Saudi Arabia

His Majesty Abdullah Ibin Abdul Aziz Al Saud
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques
King of Saudi Arabia

Sir:

This morning I’ve been reading news reports of your call (made this Monday at the Saudi seminar “Culture and the Respect of Religions”) for a dialogue among Muslims, Christians, and Jews. From a variety of sources (including the official Saudi Press Agency), you’ve been quoted as saying:

The idea is to ask representatives of all monotheistic religions to sit together with their brothers in faith and sincerity to all religions, as we all believe in the same God… I have noticed that the family system has weakened and that atheism has increased. That is an unacceptable behavior to all religions, to the Quran, the Torah and the Bible… We ask God to save humanity. There is a lack of ethics, loyalty, and sincerity for our religions and humanity…

The Associated Press reports that you’d like to meet “with our brothers in all religions… so we can agree on something that guarantees the preservation of humanity against those who tamper with ethics, family systems, and honesty.” The Kuwait News Agency states that “[King Abdullah] asserted the importance that the three faiths confront [the phenomena] of family breakups and atheism in the world as well as working to maintain moral values.” Times Online reports:

“I want to call for conferences between the religions to protect humanity from folly,” [King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia] told a forum in Riyadh… “If God wills it, we will then meet with our brothers from other religions, including those of the Torah and the Gospel to come up with ways to safeguard humanity,” he added. The king, who is the guardian of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, said the major faiths shared a desire to combat “the disintegration of the family and the rise of atheism in the world.”

In this open letter to you, I want to address the four issues that you’ve raised: 1) ethics and morality, including honesty, 2) atheism, 3) faith, belief, and sincerity, and 4) weakening family systems and other concerns about the “preservation” (or maybe better, the “future”) of humanity, in hopes to “save” humanity from “folly”. I’ll start with the concepts of ‘morality’ and ‘honesty’, without pedantically discussing differences between ‘morality’ and ‘ethics’ (since I take ‘ethics’ to mean, as given in my dictionary, “a set of moral principles”).

To begin, I’d ask you to consider identifying the fundamental moral principle promoted in all three of the “holy books” of the religions that you identify, namely, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. If you’re honest with yourself, I expect that you’ll agree that the fundamental moral principle is “Obey” [the god as described in respective “holy books”]. If you disagree, please let me know. Some Christians might disagree with me, claiming that the fundamental moral principle promoted by Jesus is “love” (both God and one another), but if so, they’d be ignoring the fact that both his first and second commandment are, in fact, commandments – to be obeyed.

Subsequently in each of the identified “holy books”, sets of moral principles are defined, leading to prescribed personal and interpersonal ethical behaviors. In general, most atheists don’t have too many objections to some of the resulting moral codes promoted in the identified “holy books” – although we certainly make exceptions for the cases of truly horrible policies promoted in these books, e.g., dealing with slavery, misogyny, and brutality such as torture (e.g., in Hell). In general, we reject any philosophy that promotes fear and hate.

By being aware of our identifications of inadequacies in the “holy books”, you can see that “atheists" (and “agnostics”, “free thinkers”, “scientific humanists”, et al.) thereby reject the clerics’ fundamental moral principle of “obey”; instead, we replace it with the fundamental moral principle: “evaluate”. This fundamental moral principle then leads us (each in his or her own way) to other personal and interpersonal moral principles, such as “everyone has an equal right to claim one’s own existence”, “be kind but with keenness”, “love within limits”, and so on – as I detail in my on-line book and which have been recognized by humanists since the time of the Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and many others.

Please be aware that when it comes to applying our fundamental moral principle (viz., “evaluate”), we are very sincere. Thus, we always do our best to hold our beliefs only as strongly as relevant evidence warrants. Consistently, we have faith in the “practical method” or the “scientific method” (guess, test, and reassess), with which humans tamed fire, developed better hunting tools, domesticated animals, built irrigation systems, and which subsequently has provided humanity with progressively more improved ways to be productive, to tame and control nature, to help humanity survive (with developments from the wheel and sailing boats to genetically improved crops and the internet). In all cases, we try to be as honest as possible with ourselves, with other people, and with nature.

In contrast, theists (such as those whom you would assemble for dialogue) claim that there is a god controlling the universe, whom all must obey; we respond: “Show us the data.” Theists claim that their god can work miracles; we respond: “Show us even just a single example of your god’s miracles.” Theists claim that all creation contains millions of their god’s miracles, including the universe and life itself. But since the total of all electrical charge, momentum, and energy in the universe almost certainly still sum to exactly zero, evidence suggests that the universe created itself via a quantum-like, symmetry-breaking fluctuation in a total void, leading to the Big Bang; further, a huge body of evidence suggests that life on earth ‘simply’ evolved once an autocatalytic molecule first replicated itself.

In spite of such evidence, theists maintain that their god certainly exists; in contrast, as best we can we evaluate the probability that total nothingness could pop a god into existence and find it to be astoundingly smaller than the probability that total nothingness could have popped this universe into existence. Theists insist that their god dictated moral principles for humanity; meanwhile, we evaluate the evidence and conclude that the foundations for morality were established during evolution of cooperative species (such as dolphins, elephants, monkeys, and humans), foundations that are now programmed in our genes for their survival benefit, and that human extensions to those innate moral principles have been constructed by humans to provide frameworks for smooth operations of societies.

Thus, we evaluate the theists’ claim that their god exists – and conclude that it’s supported by zero data, it’s devoid of any theoretical support (or even common sense), and in short, it’s simply a silly speculation concocted by savages and promoted by scientifically clueless but politically conniving clerics, saving them the need to work for a living. As Voltaire said: “A cleric is one who feels himself called upon to live without working at the expense of the rascals who work to live.”

In view of such differences, what then of humanity’s future, including the future of families? I appreciate your concern about the future of all families and I hope that you’ll dig deeply into relevant data to evaluate the root cause of the current deterioration of especially Muslim families. If you do, when you get past the totally unnecessary and truly terrible, sexual frustrations of Muslim youths, the hope-shattering unemployment rates (with even the ~30 percent unemployment in your country enviable compared with the more than ~70 percent rate among Moroccan youths), and the many other dysfunctional features of the patriarchal nature of most Muslim families and societies, I trust that you’ll determine that the root cause is the stupidity of Islamic clerics, with their self-serving fundamental moral principle that people are to obey (rather than evaluate). According to Islamic clerics, what people are to obey (under threat of eternal torture in an imagined hell) are rules that may have been appropriate in 7th Century Arabia but that are now terribly inappropriate for the 21st Century; it’s like trying to drive forward in an automobile, through heavy traffic, while looking only in the rear-view mirror.

One consequence of such clerical stupidity (both Muslim and Christian) is the unsupportable rate of population growth in most Muslim, African, and South American countries. Please realize that, in centuries past, the prime purpose of matrimony was to provide community approval and support for conceiving and rearing children, but now, there’s roughly an order of magnitude more people in this poor old world than it can sustainably support at levels that people obviously desire. Consequently, fewer children would be highly desirable. On the other hand, though, all mature humans have very strong sexual desires, as all clerics obviously realize – and then try to control, to gain power over the people. I therefore would be glad if, in your own position of power, you’d do what you can to weaken your clerics’ control on the sexual activities of people in your country. In sum, what’s obviously desirable is more loving and sexually fulfilling relations between consenting adults – and fewer unwanted, unloved children.

Another consequence of such clerical stupidity is the deplorable unemployment rates in Muslim countries, resulting not only in frustration and emigration but also terrorism. One way for Muslim societies to dig themselves out of the pit of unemployment despair is, as you know, to build knowledge-based societies. In recent decades, China and India have made major progress in that regard, and I applaud your attempt to improve education in Saudi Arabia. But I’m sorry to feel the need to alert you to the likelihood that you’ll be unable to achieve your goal – so long as education is controlled by the clerics. For you to achieve your goal, children must learn critical- (or evaluative-) thinking skills, but that will be impossible until you make major progress constraining the clerics’ promotion of their stupid dogma. As Lemuel Washburn said: “A dogma is the hand of the dead on the throat of the living.”

I’m therefore very concerned about the future, even if humanity is able to achieve a population level at which sustainable and fulfilling development of all people becomes possible. What threatens us most is the “folly” in forming “beliefs” unsupported by evidence, which is the hallmark of all organized religions. To counteract such folly, to pry the clerics’ “hand of the dead [off] the throat of the living”, somehow we must stop the damnable clerics of the world from promoting their stupidity; somehow we must help humanity exit the clerics’ horrible vicious circle, in which they capitalize on children's necessary trust in their parents to indoctrinate children into believing religious balderdash; somehow we must get the children of the world to learn and to apply critical-thinking skills in their daily lives; somehow we must get people to learn that the clueless clerics of the world are running the world’s longest running and most evil con-game ever conceived – and doing so primarily for their own benefits, so power-mongers and parasites that they are, they can continue to control and to leach off the bounties generated by the producers of the world.

Consequently, I’d be very pleased if in your position of power, you could drain the power of Saudi clerics. As a single and simple example, I hope that you’ll immediately oversee the release of Fouad Alfarhan from prison and dismiss those administrators responsible for his incarceration. I don’t know him except from some of his blogs, but even though he does appear to be a theist, this young man (commonly called “the king of Saudi bloggers”) seems to have developed some critical-thinking skills and obviously he’s trying to help Saudi society, as best he sees how. In addition, obviously he’s a devoted husband and father. If you would see to his immediate release (indeed, you might profit from meeting with him and learning from him), I’m sure that his family will be very pleased – and I will take some pleasure in entertaining the possibility that, through your actions, humanity’s future will brighten.

Longer term, I hope that you, too, will make the “leap of faith” to trust your own mind to reach sound decisions based on evidence rather than on childhood indoctrination, folklore, emotions, etc. To help yourself in that regard, I encourage you to look at the list of “4,862 gods, goddesses, deities, avatars, incarnations, angels, demons, and various spirits…” over which so much human blood has been senselessly spilled and whose clerics have polluted the minds of innocent, helpless, trusting children. From that list, you’ll see that already you reject the vast majority of gods that silly humans have concocted and that their clerics have promoted (for their own profit) – with the exception of the “one true god” (Allah, Jesus, or Yahweh) that unfortunately you have not yet been able to see is just another clerical hoax. Meanwhile, we billion-or-so atheists, free thinkers, secular and scientific humanists, etc. make no exception for the one remaining god: we’ve consigned all 4,862 of them to the dustbin of human mistakes. We hope that someday, soon, you’ll do similar.

In conclusion, Sir, let me put it this way. Both of us being old, we’ll soon die, and all evidence points to the obvious: when we die, while our elements recycle in this earthly environment, nothing of us will remain but our modified DNA molecules (living for the past billion-or-so years and now hosted by our children) plus memories of us that are carried by the living. For humanity’s sake, I hope that memories of you will be of a great reformer who saw through the hideousness of all clerical con-games and who strove to help all children of the world develop and maintain faith in themselves and in the scientific method, thereby helping intelligent life to continue. After all, when all is said and done, that’s the most worthwhile purpose for each and every one of us to pursue.

Sincerely,

“Another Seed of the Stars”

A. Zoroaster, B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D.

www.zenofzero.net

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda… Did!

I suppose that some translation is again in order: “woulda, coulda, shoulda” is “American speak” for “I wish I would have… I could have… I should have…” In particular, the “woulda-coulda-shoulda moment” that I have in mind was one of the many times when I later reprimanded myself: “Why didn’t I say…?!”

In my own defense, I’ll quickly point out that, normally when I find another proselytizer at my door, I just abruptly say “No thanks” and shut the door. This time, however, I was too startled to respond as usual: when I opened the door I found (standing in front of her mother) a pretty little girl about six years old in a pink dress. In her crystalline voice she said (as nearly as I can remember): “We were in the neighborhood and wondered if you wanted to ask any questions of God.”

Disarmed by her innocence, I blurted out “Oh, you poor little girl”, added “No thank you”, and began shutting the door. Through the closing crack in the doorway, the mother shouted out: “What do you mean ‘poor’?” Would that, before I shut the door, my mind had been open enough to say something similar to: “To have such a mother as you!”

Think of it. That mother could have been teaching her child critical-thinking skills, by showing her how to apply the scientific method in her daily life (“guess, test, and reassess”), in activities from finding a lost toy to determining how to get the neighbor’s dog to stop barking at her and from how to fix a broken toy to how to make friends. She could have been teaching her child some basic physics (how all matter is composed of atoms, the composition of atoms and some examples of nuclear reactions, how carbon atoms are formed in the Sun and how heavier atoms are formed in dying stars – which now reside in her), some basic chemistry (how atoms interact with each other in solids, liquids, and gases, how atoms form molecules, how molecules interact in chemical reactions from cleaning to cooking, how our bodies use chemical reactions – so she can live and play and think), some basic biology (how some molecules can serve as catalysts, the nature of autocatalytic reactions, replicating molecules, DNA – which contains the information to make her what she is), and so on.

Thereby, that mother could have been teaching her child that she was a part – a thinking part – of the entire universe, leading her to understand the Swedish author Rolf Edberg's beautiful summary:

On a little speck in the universe, there is a species in which billions of years of evolution have led up to a mind through which the cosmos can experience itself, and nature can investigate her own nature.

Instead, that stupid woman was teaching her child the science of savages: that some giant Jabberwock in the sky made the world, was watching her every move, and would punish her fictitious “immortal soul” for “eternity” unless she obeyed her mother and the mother’s damnable, stupid clerics.

But in contrast to the woulda-coulda-shoulda moment with that stupid mother at the door, one of the few cases when I did look back and tell myself “Good job!” recently occurred while I was in the dentist’s chair having my teeth cleaned with some ultrasonic blaster – guaranteed not to hurt – except, of course, when the blast gets near two of my sensitive teeth, in which case it rockets me out of the chair.

This particular “dental hygienist” (as they like to call themselves) seems to be a nice-enough Mormon lady (though maybe with slight sadistic tendency, for she seems to take pleasure in going over my sensitive teeth, still another time). She also seems to take pleasure in babbling away (e.g., about her son, studying to be a chemical engineer). But every few minutes she does have the courtesy to take that blasted thing out of my mouth, to permit me to respond to her latest half-dozen-or-so questions (which thereby, apparently seem to be mostly rhetorical): Isn’t it a nice day? What did you think of that storm? Do YOU understand why our taxes are so high?

Anyway, in one of those rare instances that she apparently thought it polite to remove the apparatus from my mouth after asking only a single question, she asked (I don’t remember why, but it must have fit in with the monologue she had been delivering): “Are you a Catholic?”

In a daze, having returned only an instant earlier from a painful orbit from that launching pad called a dentist chair, with my sensitive tooth still smarting, with my mind still reeling from the noise of the blaster, and just before I dutifully re-opened my mouth for another of her assaults on my stamina, I responded: “No… I’m free.”

“Oh,” she responded, seemingly startled, but she quickly regained her composure and went back into my mouth with her ultrasonic blaster. But for the rest of the session she was uncharacteristically silent, with no more questions, rhetorical or otherwise.

Well, okay, maybe it doesn’t seem like much to you, but when driving home, I thought to myself: “Yah, good job! For a change, I said what I meant and meant what I said.”

Now, whereas I’m a registered Bright, perhaps fellow Brights are disappointed. Probably they would prefer if I had said: “No, I’m a Bright.” But come on, Brights, be honest: not only would that have been ineffective, it wouldn’t have seemed right.

It wouldn’t have worked, because after saying I was a Bright, I’d need to explain that a Bright is someone with a naturalistic worldview – and then, no doubt I’d need to explain to that particular dental hygienist what “naturalistic worldview” meant, while she continued to wave her ultrasonic blaster around, trying to get back to her torture routine.

And it wouldn’t have seemed right to say I was a Bright, because although it’s great if someone identifies you as a Bright, it doesn’t sound good if you identify yourself as such: it can leave the impression that you consider yourself bright, in contrast to all the dimwit theists.

So, you see, I liked my response: “I’m free.” She knew (she knows) what ‘freedom’ means – and I suspect that my response made her think.

Think about what? Well, I don’t know about her, but I know what it made me think about. After I returned home (my safe house – no ultrasonic blasters!), I checked again to see how Robert Ingersoll (1833–1899) said it.

And I’ll end this communication with his – because I don’t want any more of my dribble polluting his magnificent statement: when “Ingersoll the Magnificent” speaks, the rest of us mere mortals should sit quietly in awe and maybe even reverence that once, such a one walked amongst us.

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths – there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world – not even in infinite space.

I was free: free to think, to express my thoughts – free to live to my own ideal – free to live for myself and those I loved – free to use all my faculties, all my senses – free to spread imagination’s wings – free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope – free to judge and determine for myself – free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past – free from popes and priests – free from all the “called” and “set apart” – free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies – free from the fear of eternal pain – free from the winged monsters of night – free from devils, ghosts, and gods.

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of my thought – no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings – no chains for my limbs – no lashes for my back – no fires for my flesh – no master’s frown or threat – no following another’s steps – no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words.

I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain, for the freedom of labor and thought – to those who fell on the fierce fields of war – to those who died in dungeons bound with chains – to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs – to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn – to those by fire consumed – to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.

www.zenofzero.net

"The secret of freedom... a brave heart."

In The History of the Peloponnesian War (431–413 BCE), recounting the Athenian leader Pericles’ Funeral Oration (delivered after the first year of the war with Sparta), the historian Thucydides (c.460–400 BCE) wrote the following passage, which I hope youngsters still study:

Fix your eyes on the greatness of Athens, as you have it before you day by day, fall in love with her, and when you feel her great, remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action… For the whole earth is the sepulcher of famous men; and their story is not graven only on stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men’s lives. For you, now, it remains to rival what they have done and knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom and the secret of freedom, a brave heart, not idly to stand aside from the enemy’s onset.

But I’m sorry to say, it appears that many Westerners have not taken that message to heart. Yet, some have – and so have some brave ex-Muslims.

An example of a “brave heart” is the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders. In last week’s post I suggested why he shouldn’t release his promised film (entitled Fitna, Arabic for ‘chaos’ or maybe ‘ordeal’), which he said would show that the Koran (or Quran or Qur’an) was “a fascist book inciting hatred and killing.” In that blog, I didn’t question Wilders’ bravery but argued that, rather than release his film, he could help Holland and humanity more by hiring some comedians to try to rid the world of all religions using ridicule.

This week, Wilders announced that he wouldn’t proceed with a March 28 press conference where he intended to show his film (although it’s expected that the film will become available on the internet). As reported by Thomas Landen in the Brussels Journal:

The Nieuwspoort Press Center in The Hague, which is run by a board of journalists, publishers and government press officers, demanded that Wilders pay 400,000 euros for extra safety measures. “Apparently, you have to be a millionaire to organize such an event,” Mr. Wilders said. “Even if I had the money I am not going to spend it on a press conference.”

Viewed from essentially any angle, the entire episode seems sad – and bad – save for Wilders’ courage.

Of course Wilders’ freedom of speech to criticize some “holy book” shouldn’t be constrained, and the Dutch Foreign Minister’s statement that “…freedom of expression doesn’t mean the right to offend” is about as despicable as they come. But as described in the above-referenced article by Landen, for Islamic extremists to threaten Wilders’ life (and this week, even threaten the lives of children whose last name is Wilders, even though they’re unrelated to the politician) and for Wilders to be living in Army barracks for his protection are absolutely horrible. We must defeat the terrorists.

Further, for a member of the board of directors of the Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever Corporation (no doubt most concerned about Unilever’s sales in Muslim countries) to state to the Dutch media that “Geert Wilders is evil, and evil has to be stopped” plus call upon the Dutch people to “rise in order to stop Wilders from preaching his evil message” are enough for me to boycott Unilever products. Even few prostitutes, I suspect, adopt profit as their prime motive.

And if that’s not enough, consider the following paragraph from Landen’s article (referenced above):

Last week Henk Hofland, the nestor of Dutch journalism, proposed on Dutch television that the Dutch authorities lift Geert Wilders’ police protection. “Let him feel what it is like for those whose lives he endangers,” Hofland, the former editor of NRC Handelsblad, the leading newspaper in the Netherlands, opined. Mr. Hofland, who was given the title “Dutch journalist of the century” by his colleagues in 1999, asserted that, if Dutch citizens get murdered in retaliation for Wilders’ opinions on Islam, not the assassins are to be blamed, but the politician. Apparently, to Hofland and his ilk being critical of Islam is worse than slaughtering innocent people in the name of Islam.

Both the courage of some people and the cowardice of others are astounding.

Last week in this blog I gave another illustration – an astounding illustration – of courage. I quoted what the brave Syrian-American Wafa Sultan said on Al-Jazeera TV. She deserves America’s Medal of Freedom. This week, the “Saudi intellectual” Turki Al-Hamad provided the world with another astounding example of courage. On Al-Arabiya TV, he stated the following:

The taboos in Saudi Arabia are different from the taboos in Lebanon, and from the taboos in Egypt, and so on, even though I believe that in all these countries, they tend to view the taboo itself as fundamental. This was not the case in the past. I believe that we've reached the point where everything is ruled by prohibitions. Everything is prohibited unless it is proven to be permitted. This is the problem of Arab society and culture. Instead of making progress, we are regressing – and if only we were regressing in a reasonable manner. Unfortunately, we are regressing in a superstitious and unreasonable manner.

We… have forsaken this future for the sake of myth. We live in the world of the supernatural, not in the real world, which we have completely neglected…

In the past, our society was more open, more accepting of other opinions and different behavior. But [in] the so-called 'religious awakening' – and I regard it as a religious 'slumber,' not as an awakening … everything has turned upside down. The dead have taken control over the living.

I blame the political regime. I blame the Arab intellectual. I blame the prevalent culture. It is a mixture of many things. Let me give you an example. The prevalent culture is backward, yet the political regime uses this culture to glorify itself, without realizing that it is destroying the future. That's one reason. Another example is when intellectuals turn everything into ideology, riding a wave of populism and flirting with the peoples, instead of enlightening them. They flirt with the peoples and follow them, rather than leading them. I place the blame to some extent on these intellectuals. The prevalent culture is stagnant. It does not recognize the ‘other’, and does not want to recognize that it is one of many cultures in the world. It considers itself to be the ‘number one’ culture – the world itself. Therefore, as said by a poet from the age of pre-Islamic ignorance – and I believe that we are still living in that age – “We are a people of worthy of world leadership – or the grave.” We cannot live in the middle ground between these two extremes, and that is the problem…

From the early 20th Century to this day, we constantly hear people say: “We should adopt the good things [from the West] and ignore the bad.” You cannot do such a thing. When you consider the products of modern civilization – the car, the computer, and so on – these are all products of a certain philosophy, a certain way of thinking. If you adopt the product, but ignore the producer – you have a problem. You cannot do such a thing. [For us,] the product is new, but the thought is not. We move forward with our eyes looking backward.

After this period of my life, I am very pessimistic about the possibility of making real changes in our culture and society. I hope I am wrong. In any case, this does not mean we should not try. Future generations will ask what we did about this. At least we tried; at least we made our voice heard. Time will tell whether we were successful in achieving any result…

Perhaps some people might be unimpressed with Turki Al-Hamad’s courage (and I expect that there are brave producers of this TV show who also should be congratulated, especially given the recent rulings by the Arab Propaganda ministers, mentioned in an earlier post). But if people are unimpressed, they should realize that in 2006, the cowardly fool Osama bin Laden included Al-Hamad in his list of those who should be killed:

The freethinkers and heretics who defame Islam, and mock and scorn our noble Prophet – their case and the law concerning them have been clearly expounded by Imam Ibn Qayyim [Al-Jawziyya]. He made it clear that the crime committed by a freethinker is the worst of crimes, that the damage caused by his staying alive among the Muslims is of the worst kind of damage, that he is to be killed, and that his repentance is not to be accepted...

Among these heretics is Ahmad Al-Baghdadi in Kuwait, and Turki Al-Hamad in the Land of the Two Holy Shrines – a fatwa concerning the latter was issued by Sheikh Hamud Al-'Uqala – and many others like them.

It is intolerable and outrageous that the heretics are among us, scorning our religion and our Prophet… Therefore, you must fear Allah and do His will. Do not consult anyone about the killing of these heretics. Be secretive in carrying out that which is required of you.

I describe bin Laden as a coward (as are all Islamic terrorists), because it takes zero courage to die believing that you’ll be instantly transported to paradise for eternity, and I describe him as a fool (as are all Islamic terrorists) for staking his life on an idea that doesn’t have a shred of evidence to support it.

But I must leave it to competent, future historians to identify all the brave and intelligent people who were raised as Muslims and tried to transform and/or eliminate still another of the past’s silly superstitions. Nonetheless, I would call their (and the reader’s) attention to those Muslims, “secular Muslims”, and ex-Muslims who endorsed the St. Petersburg Declaration, namely,

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Magdi Allam, Mithal Al-Alusi, Shaker Al-Nabulsi, Nonie Darwish, Afshin Ellian, Tawfik Hamid, Shahriar Kabir, Hasan Mahmud, Wafa Sultan, Amir Taheri, Ibn Warraq, Manda Zand Ervin, and Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi.

I encourage readers to study what they wrote. It starts with:

We are secular Muslims and secular persons of Muslim societies. We are believers, doubters, and unbelievers, brought together by a great struggle, not between the West and Islam, but between the free and the unfree.

We affirm the inviolable freedom of the individual conscience. We believe in the equality of all human persons.

We insist upon the separation of religion from state and the observance of universal human rights.

We find traditions of liberty, rationality, and tolerance in the rich histories of pre-Islamic and Islamic societies. These values do not belong to the West or the East; they are the common moral heritage of humankind.

We see no colonialism, racism, or so-called “Islamaphobia” in submitting Islamic practices to criticism or condemnation when they violate human reason or rights…

As more examples, there are the brave and intelligent ex-Muslims (all of whom have received death threats by Muslim maniacs) who produced and signed the Manifesto: Together facing the new totalitarianism, namely:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Chahla Chafiq, Caroline Fourest, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Irshad Manji, Mehdi Mozaffari, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, Antoine Sfeir, Philippe Val, and Ibn Warraq.

I again encourage readers to study what they wrote; it starts with:

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity, and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammad in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilizations or an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism, and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom, and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people…

In addition, Ali Sina deserves special recognition, for the many contributions at his website, such as the Letter to Mankind. This letter from “the ex-Muslim Movement” includes the following:

Today humanity is being challenged. Unthinkable atrocities take place on daily basis. There is an evil force at work that aims to destroy us. The agents of this evil respect nothing; not even the lives of children. Every day there are bombings, every day innocent people are targeted and murdered. It seems as if we are helpless. But we are not!

The ancient Chinese sage Sun Zi said, “Know your enemy and you won’t be defeated”. Do we know our enemy? If we don’t, then we are doomed.

Terrorism is not an ideology, it is a tool; but the terrorists kill for an ideology. They call that ideology Islam…

We are a group of ex-Muslims who have seen the face of the evil and have risen to warn the world. No matter how painful the truth may be, only truth can set us free. Why this much denial? Why so much obstinacy? How many more innocent lives should be lost before YOU open your eyes? A nuclear disaster is upon us. This will happen. It is not a question of “if” but “when”. Oblivious of that, the world is digging its head deeper in the sand.

We urge the Muslims to leave Islam. Stop with excuses, justifications, and rationalizations. Stop dividing mankind in “us” vs. “them” and Muslims vs. Kafirs. We are One people, One mankind! Muhammad was not a messenger of God. It is time that we end this insanity and face the truth. The terrorists take their moral support and the validation for their actions from you. Your very adherence to their cult of death is a nod of approval for their crimes against humanity.

We also urge the non-Muslims to stop being politically correct lest they hurt the Muslims’ sensitivity. To Hell with their sensibilities! Let us save their lives, and the lives of millions of innocent people.

Millions, if not billions of lives will be lost if we do nothing. Time is running out! “All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” Do something! Send this message to everyone in your address book and ask them to do the same. Defeat Islam and stop terrorism. This is your world, save it.

Although my opinion is incidental, I would like to humbly express my gratitude to each and every one of those people (and I’m sure, many others should be mentioned, but in my ignorance, I have failed to identify them), for so bravely trying to help humanity.

Meanwhile, in contrast to my praise, the following illustrates a little of the stupid, maniacal responses from Muslim extremists:

Now we have drawn out a hit list of a “Who’s Who” guide to slam into. Take your time but make sure their (sic) gone soon – oh, and don’t hold out for a fatwa it isn’t really required here… Has anyone got that Christian kaffir “Ibn Warraq’s” real name yet…?

Well them [sic)] disbelievers [the signatories] have in effect signed a death wish via this statement so to hell with them, we’ll just provide the help that they so dearly crave.

Still, though, the question continues: What actions should we take to stop the cowardly, stupid, Muslim supremacists? Certainly I’m in favor of bombing their terrorist training camps (wherever they are, including Pakistan), exposing their hate-filled handbooks (such as the Koran), and ridiculing their stupid supernaturalism. But none of that is enough. Just as a single murderer can terrorize a community, it takes only a tiny number of fanatics to terrorize a nation: it’s astoundingly simpler to destroy than to create; any fool can throw a monkey wrench into a machine; any idiot can be wrapped with explosives that are wired to blow up within a crowd; a small group of trained Islamists can find a way to detonate a weapon of mass destruction in the West.

To stop them, I must admit that threatening to retaliate for any further attacks by eliminating Mecca seems increasingly appealing: given that the terrorists are living in a fantasy land in which they and their “holy shrine” are protected by an invisible f[r]iend in the sky, then as H.L. Mencken suggested, heaving a dead cat in their sanctuary could be the most sensible approach to get them to smarten up. To those who say that it's unwise to fight hornets by striking at their nest, that it’ll cause an even bigger swarm of hornets to attack, I’d point out that there’s already a huge swarm of them; so, a good start toward eradicating them is to put on protective gear and fire-bomb their nest. Therefore, as a first step, I’d encourage the U.S. Congress to withdraw our agreement to the Article of the Geneva Convention that prohibits destroying “cultural and historical sites” and to promulgate: if Muslim maniacs conduct another large-scale attack on the West, then the President is to request Congressional approval for obliterating Mecca – of course with suitable warnings, so that those who desire could abandon it and those who desire could "protect it" with their "martyrdom" . If consequences would include the needs for a regime change in Saudi Arabia and incarcerating all Wahhabi clerics, then so be it.

Yet, for the longer term, I’d suggest an additional approach. Since the long-term solution to Muslim madness is to educate Muslim children to learn how to think critically (i.e., to learn how to hold beliefs only as strongly as relevant evidence warrants), then I’d encourage all western nations to establish their own, new type of Peace Corps. Maybe call them IPSO FACTOs: International Peace Squadrons for Objective, Factual and Appropriate, Critical Thinking and Operations. I’d like to see at least a million European and American Muslims per year (committed to freedom and to human rights and who have been tested to demonstrate that they understand and can instruct others in critical-thinking skills) fan out across the Muslim world and, fluent in the language and sensitive to the culture in the country of their destination (maybe for a two-year assignment), teach Muslim children how to apply the scientific method in their daily lives. For that matter, we could help humanity if suitably trained and suited IPSO FACTO members (Muslims, Christians, Free-thinkers, whatever) were deployed also to much of Africa and South America.

But even that wouldn’t be enough: it’s not enough that a few intellectuals are brave; it’s not enough to be protected by brave men and women in uniform; it would not be enough to threaten to bomb Mecca or to send out IPSO FACTO members to teach children critical-thinking skills. As an illustration of why it’s not enough, consider the final few paragraph of Landen’s report (referenced above):

The Dutch showed what stuff they were made of two years ago, when they made life impossible for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an elected member of their parliament, just like Mr. Wilders. Her neighbors sued to get her removed from the apartment where she was living under police protection. The court of appeal ordered Ms. Hirsi Ali to leave her house within four months, invoking… the European treaty for Human Rights. As the judges said:

The court considers in its ruling that the neighbors have been put into a situation that has contributed to them feeling less safe in their own house. That feeling is extended to the communal living spaces of the apartment complex, but also to their own apartments. The court argues that this is a severe violation of one’s private life (as per Article 8 of the European Treaty for Human Rights).

Ms. Hirsi Ali [now living in the U.S.] was booted out of her own house by virtue of the European Treaty for Human Rights because Muslim fanatics threatened her, thereby causing her neighbors to “feel less safe in their own house.” Soon, Mr. Wilders, whatever one thinks about his opinions, his motives or the wisdom of his decisions, will be booted out – also in the name of grand principles such as human rights – because he makes others feel less safe. That is his crime: While the majority of the Dutch are willing to submit, he is not.

Thucydides said, “The secret of freedom [is a] brave heart”, but it doesn’t follow that, if you’re brave, then you’ll feel free: the brave fight so that their loved ones, who in a civilized society should include their neighbors, will be free.

For my part, I have checked that I can rapidly assemble the gun in my bedroom and I’ve decided to apply for a permit to carry it while I go for my daily walk: I don’t feel so free as I did when I was a youngster, but I hope that, eventually, my grandchildren and other youngsters will feel freer.

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From Walden to Wilders to Wisecracks

Thank Science for the Internet!

With it, for example, a stimulating virtual tour of Walden Pond is just a click away.

In my experiences, the virtual tour of Walden Pond is as stimulating as being there – and if you have fond memories of your own special part of nature, then maybe the virtual tour is even better than reality.

For Henry David Thoreau (1817–62), Walden Pond was his own special part of nature – and of reality. In 1845 he borrowed an ax, bought $28.12½ worth of building materials, and built himself a cabin adjacent to Walden Pond, near Concord, Massachusetts (on land owned by his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson). For the next two years and two months, the cabin was Thoreau’s home.

While at Walden Pond, Thoreau refused to pay taxes, because he was opposed to slavery, the poll tax, the Mexican war, and the Massachusetts’ religious tax, as he explained in his 1849 essay “Civil Disobedience”. Below is a little from his famous essay, in which I’ve taken the liberty to try to modernize some spelling and punctuation.

I did not see why the schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest the schoolmaster…

It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case…

I perceive that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies. And so a man…

I think sometimes, “Why, this people mean well; they are only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how. Why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to?” But I think, again, “This is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind.”

Again, I sometimes say to myself, “When many millions of men, without heat, without ill-will, without personal feeling of any kind, demand of you a few shillings only, without the possibility (such is their constitution) of retracting or altering their present demand and without the possibility (on your side) of appeal to any other millions, why expose yourself to this overwhelming brute force? You do not resist cold and hunger, the winds and the waves, thus obstinately; you quietly submit to a thousand similar necessities; you do not put your head into the fire.”

But just in proportion as I regard this as not wholly a brute force, but partly a human force, and consider that I have relations to those millions as to so many millions of men, and not of mere brute or inanimate things, I see that appeal is possible… But if I put my head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal… and I have only myself to blame. If I could convince myself that I have any right to be satisfied with men as they are, and to treat them accordingly, and not according (in some respects) to my requisitions and expectations of what they and I ought to be, then (like a good Muslim and fatalist) I should endeavor to be satisfied with things as they are, and say it is the will of God.

And above all, there is this difference between resisting this and a purely brute or natural force: that I can resist this with some effect. But I cannot expect, like Orpheus, to change the nature of the rocks and trees and beasts.

As for why, in the first place, Thoreau chose to leave Concord and live in a cabin, in his 1854 book Walden, or Life in the Woods, he explained:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, [to] see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

In his 1854 review of Walden, A.P. Peabody wrote:

The economical details and calculations in this book are more curious than useful; for the author’s life in the woods was on too narrow a scale to find imitators. But… [Thoreau] says so many pithy and brilliant things, and offers so many piquant, and, we may add, so many just, comments on society as it is, that this book is well worth the reading, both for its actual contents and its suggestive capacity.

For example, there’s Thoreau’s:

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Some of those who were influenced by Thoreau to “strike… at the root [of evil]” included leaders of the anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, and trade unionist movements, as well as Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In contrast, the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders (leader of his “Freedom Party”, which won nine of 150 seats of the lower house in the 2006 elections) has recently been busy “hacking at the branches of evil.”

The particular branch of the evil tree of religion on which Wilders has been hacking away is Islam. In multiple ways he’s let it be known that soon he’ll release a 10-minute film he has produced in which he promises to promote his quoted ideas that the Koran is a “frightful and fascist” book, a “fascist book inciting hatred and killing”, and that “it should be banned, just like [Hitler’s] Mein Kampf”, which is the only book whose distribution is banned in the Netherlands. As you probably know, Muslims worldwide have begun to react violently to Wilders’ plan.

This week, in a letter to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskant, Wilders wrote:

If I had announced that I was going to make a film about the fascist character of the Bible would there have been a crisis meeting of Holland’s security forces? Would I have received as many death threats as I have done since announcing I was making a film about the Koran? Of course not. The fact that a 10-minute film not yet shown could, according to some, lead to economic boycotts, riots and other horrible things says everything about the nature of Islam. Nothing about me…

Well, actually, I disagree: it says (or at least suggests) quite a bit about Wilders.

• It suggests that he’s hacking away at only one branch on the tree of religious evil, while standing on another branch of the same tree; thus, even though it has been stated that “he considers himself an atheist”, notice that every webpage behind the homepage at his site ends with the phrase “God bless [the] PVV [Partij Voor de Vrijheid, i.e., Wilders’ Party for Freedom].”

• It suggests that he’s a hypocrite, because if he has read the Bible (and he might be expected to have read it, given that he was raised a Roman Catholic and he “received his secondary education at the… R.K. St. Thomas College”), then he would know that the Bible is also a “fascist book inciting hatred and killing”; therefore, he could equally well advocate banning the Bible.

• And most importantly, if his prime goal is to gain more political power to prevent the Islamization of the Netherlands, then it suggests that he’s chosen to hack at the branches of the tree of religious evil rather than chop at the trunk or dig at the roots.

Nonetheless, I agree with Wilders that the Koran is a “fascist book inciting hatred and killing” and that “Islam is not a religion; it’s an ideology” – as is Christianity (but not Judaism or Hinduism), in the sense that the word ‘ideology’ (but not ‘religion’) has come to mean promoting the widespread adoption of a set of ideas.

Also, I certainly agree with Wilders and disagree with the Dutch Foreign Minister, Maxime Verhagen, who tried to criticize Wilders with the foolish remark: “…freedom of expression doesn’t mean the right to offend.” As Salman Rushdie wrote:

At Cambridge University I was taught a laudable method of argument: you never personalize, but you have absolutely no respect for people’s opinions. You are never rude to the person, but you can be savagely rude about what the person thinks. That seems to me a crucial distinction: people must be protected from discrimination by virtue of their race, but you cannot ring-fence their ideas. The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible…

It does matter. People have the fundamental right to take an argument to the point where somebody is offended by what they say. It’s no trick to support the free speech of somebody you agree with or to whose opinion you are indifferent. The defense of free speech begins at the point when people say something you can’t stand. If you can’t defend their right to say it, then you don’t believe in free speech. You only believe in free speech as long as it doesn’t get up your nose. But free speech does get up people’s noses.

Earlier, H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) said similar:

The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected… We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

Yet, although I support Wilders’ goal, I don’t support his plan to hack at only one branch of the evil religious tree: not only is it futile, it’s probably worse than useless.

Further and unfortunately, it’s been found to be essentially pointless to try to chop at the trunk of the tree: the wood is hard and our axes blunt – and the damnable clerics of the world have erected a huge barrier around the tree to protect their own parasitic existence. Capable con artists that they are, they’ve capitalized on the people’s ignorance, grief, fear, herd instinct, etc., they’ve offered their faithful flocks fanciful solace and fictitious rewards, and the obedient fools then indoctrinate their children in the clerics’ balderdash. So, the vicious cycle of ignorance continues for still another impenetrable generation.

Many brave axmen have attacked the trunk of the tree, from the Buddha, Confucius, and Socrates, to Epicurus and Seneca the Younger, and from Robert Ingersoll, Bertrand Russell, and many more, to Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Karl Marx made some progress, but the cost in sweat and blood was incalculable. He wrote:

Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Substantial quantities of data (historical and current) support his subsequent claim that improving economic conditions would and will weaken religions, but other data show that it’s not enough. For example, most of the 9/11 and other terrorists were not economically deprived – nor was bin Laden.

But Marx also saw that alleviating economic hardships would be insufficient to eliminate religion:

Criticism [of religion] has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses…

It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

But it’s not enough to criticize religion: to describe all religions as infected legalism, polluted and putrefying politics, and discredited, defunct science is just hacking at the branches and ineffectually chopping at the trunk. In reality it’s been found, in most cases, that such criticism is worse than useless, since it just stimulates the bunker mentality of the religious – as illustrated by the reactions to the Danish cartoons and the recent reactions even to suggestions about Wilders’ film. Thus, rather than examine their beliefs, religious fanatics explode bombs wrapped around their waists and fly hijacked airliners into skyscrapers – so they can continue to waste their lives within their religious fantasies and worse, by far, maim and kill others in the process.

Yet, in addition to hacking at the branches and chopping at the trunk of the evil religious tree, many people have, in fact, made substantial efforts digging out its roots – again including the Buddha, Confucius, and Socrates and so on, and including Freud, who wrote:

While the different religions wrangle with one another as to which of them is in possession of the truth, in our view the truth of religion may be altogether disregarded. Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities. But it cannot achieve its end. Its doctrines carry with them the stamp of the times in which they originated, the ignorant childhood days of the human race. Its consolations deserve no trust. Experience teaches us that the world is not a nursery… If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man’s evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.

Digging still deeper, the huge problem encountered is the enormous number of roots that feed the evil religious tree, including (as I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog) power mongering of clerical leaders, pandering by politicians, male chauvinism, misogyny, and worst of all, child abuse. Further, beneath it all – indeed, not just in the root system but within the very moisture of the soil that nourish the roots – is the root cause of all religions, namely, ignorance.

One of the brave souls digging at the ignorant source of religion – one of the bravest of the brave (whom the FBI should be protecting) – is the American-psychiatrist Wafa Sultan, born and educated in Syria. Here’s some of what she said on Al-Jazeera TV on 21 Feb. 2006:

Why does a young Muslim man, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up? In our countries, religion is the sole source of education and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched.

More than 2400 years ago, Socrates succinctly summarized similar ideas:

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

Further, at his bogus trial, after he was convicted of the trumped-up charge, “Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods in which the state believes, but brings in other new divinities; he also wrongs by corrupting the youth”, Socrates reportedly said:

To fear death, gentlemen, is nothing else than to think one is wise when one is not; for it is thinking one knows what one does not know. For no one knows whether death be not even the greatest of all blessings to man, but they fear it as if they knew that is the greatest of evils. And is not this the most reprehensible form of ignorance, that of thinking one knows what one does not know?

And yet, just as in Socrates’ day and before, the clerics of the world continue to be guilty of “the most reprehensible form of ignorance”, claiming that they know what they don’t. In fact, they provide little evidence that they even know what ‘knowledge’ means.

Therefore, if Wilders (or anyone) would seek to banish religious ignorance from their nation (or preferably, from the world), the best way to dig out the roots of the evil religious tree is to ensure that all children are taught how to develop their own “critical-thinking” (or “evaluative-thinking” or "scientific-thinking”) skills, which is a topic that I recently addressed elsewhere. In a nutshell, the skill is to apply the scientific method in one’s daily life, and thereby, to hold beliefs only as strongly as relevant evidence warrants. If everyone did that, the evil tree of organized religions would soon wither away.

Unfortunately, however, the clerics have hatched a hideous Catch-22. For obvious reasons, they oppose “their” children learning critical-thinking skills. You can’t keep a con game running for more than 5,000 years by permitting people to think for themselves! Therefore, to break free from the clerics’ Catch 22, to exit their vicious circle, to strike at the roots of their evil, more must be done: the acidic soil on which religion and the clerics feed must be buffered.

To buffer that acidic soil, it’s critical to recognize that religion isn’t rational; it feeds on emotions. As C.W. Dalton wrote in his 1990 book The Right Brain and Religion:

Believers are interested in fulfilling emotional and spiritual needs, not intellectual needs. In some cases, one might as well try to use reason on a dog. For many people God is primarily a warm feeling. How can one argue with a warm feeling? Arguing with someone who places reason below faith and biblical authority is blowing against the wind.

Actually, though, there is an effective way to “argue with a warm feeling”. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp on 30 July 1816:

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them…

Stated differently: the most effective way to “argue with a warm feeling” is with another feeling; in particular, the cold feeling generated in religious people when they are ridiculed for having been so foolish as to buy into a con game perpetrated by a bunch of clueless clerics. As H.L. Mencken (the most famous of the reporters at the Scopes trial) wrote:

The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.

In her appearance this week on Al-Jazeera TV, in remarks for which Al-Jazeera has subsequently and unfortunately (but understandably) issued its “deepest apologies” for comments that “offended Islam”, Wafa Sultan saw some of it:

The Muslim is an irrational creature ruled by instincts. Those teachings have deprived him of his mind, incited his emotions, and reduced him to the level of an inferior creature that cannot control himself or react to events rationally…

If you want to change the course of events, you must reexamine your terrorist teachings, you must recognize and respect the right of the other to live, you must teach your children love, peace, coexistence, and productive work. When you do that, the world will respect you, will consider you in a better light, and will draw you in a better light.

But I think that H.L. Mencken saw it and said it more clearly:

The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe – that the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power and hence a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.

Therefore, my recommendation to Wilders would be that, if he wants to help both his homeland and humanity, then he shouldn’t release his film criticizing the Koran. Not that the criticism isn’t correct, but it’ll just harden the Muslims’ bunker mentality. Instead, he should (for example) hire some competent comedians whose wisecracks would ridicule all religions, excoriate all clerics, and most importantly, get all who bought into their clerics' con games rolling in the aisles -- not in some religious trance but laughing at themselves for paying fortunes, forfeiting their freedoms, for permission to live within fairy tales!

Similarly for all of us: rather than argue with religious people, it’s better to poke fun at them – as best seems fit. Maybe I’ll provide some illustrations in another blog, but meanwhile, some fun suggestions can be found at some of the great comics on the internet, such as at the homepages of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Russell’s Teapot, and the links provided there.

www.zenofzero.net