Pity the poor children

Published this week was the transcript of a recording of a Muslim in Britain teaching his son to hate. The Muslim's name is Parviz Khan. He pleaded guilty to plotting the kidnap and butchery of a British Muslim soldier (cutting his head off “like a pig”), a butchery that he “planned to film and release for propaganda purposes.” Below is some of the transcript of his “shouting at his five-year-old son when he made a mistake” reciting the Koran:

“Who do you kill?” asked Khan.
“America kill,” said the boy.
“Who else you kill?” said Khan.
“Bush I kill,” said the boy.
“And who else?” demanded Khan.
“Blair kill, both people kill”…
Then the pair began chanting at each other.
Khan said: “Kuffar [non-believers]” the boy said: “Kill.”
Khan said: “Mushrik [polytheists]” and the boy said: “Kill.”
Then it continued with: “Hindu?… Kill… Sheedi [blacks]?… Kill…”

Such hideousness stirred memories of hideous images in my mind. For example, last week I saw the video of kids in Iraq being trained as terrorists by Al Qaeda. That brought to mind my seeing little kids in Pakistani madrassas (they can’t be called schools), rollicking back and forth as they read or recited the Koran. Think of kids forced to memorize such hate from the Koran as is listed here.

Of course, it’s not just Muslim kids who are subjected to such stupidity. Through the Atheist Blogroll (see link on the right) I went to the Atheist Media Blog and unfortunately watched the video “Cutting Edge: Baby Bible Bashers”. The grownups shown are adults? They're Christians? Pity the poor children!

In turn, that Christian hideousness reminded me of what I didn’t want to remember about the “Pastor” Fred Phelps, the “god hates [this-than-and-the-other thing]” leader of the Westboro Baptist Church. Among the many Phelps videos available on the web, maybe have a look at this one: the poor little kids (Phelps’ grandkids) obviously don’t understand what they’ve been taught to hate.

Which brought to mind the horrible but valid line by the TV-cartoon character Homer Simpson: “Kids are great… You can teach them to hate what you hate…”

Any normal sense of decency demands to know: how could parents (such as Phelps’ oldest daughter) treat their children so horribly? But then, the answer is obvious from reading the book Addicted to Hate by Jon Michael Bell (with Joe Taschler and Steve Fry) about the Phelps family: throughout their lives, Phelps beat his children (both boys and girls), as well as his wife, mercilessly; throughout their lives, they’ve lived in terror.

In turn, although the authors of the book didn’t provide many details (probably because they’re lost), there is the following about Phelps’ own father:

Fred’s father was a veteran of World War One, and throughout his life suffered from the effects of a mustard gassing he’d taken in France. He found work as a detective for the Southern Railroad to support his family. The railroad security force or “bulls”, as they were called, had a reputation for brutality when they patrolled the yards to prevent the itinerant laborers, washed out of their hometowns by the Depression, from riding the freights. “My father,” says Pastor Phelps, “oft-times came home with blood all over him.” Suddenly he stands up, turning his face away, and exits.

I'd bet that Phelps learned how to hate and to abuse children from his own father, just as Hitler no doubt learned how to hate (especially Jews) from his own father, who beat Hitler mercilessly – apparently responding to his own beatings for being a “Jewish bastard”, after his mother had been impregnated by the son of the Jewish family who had hired her as a maid and who wouldn’t let their son marry her (Hitler’s grandmother).

Thereby, what the writers of the Simpson series failed to mention is that the most effective way to teach kids how to hate is to show them hate.

In particular, I’d bet that the Muslim who was recorded teaching his child to hate was taught how to hate by his own family, since emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of children (both boys and girls) is rampant in Muslim countries. For example, the following is from an assessment by Jamie Glazov entitled “The Sexual Rage Behind Islamic Terror” published at FrontPageMagazine.com on 4 October 2001:

Throughout the Islamic Middle East, men and women are taught to be vehemently opposed to pleasure, especially of the sexual variety. Men are raised not only forbidden to touch women, but to even look at them. Sex before marriage is not just a sin – but a criminal offence. It is punishable by a severe beating at best, and an execution at worst.

The sexual privileges that are allowed in Islamic cultures are permitted to men. Women’s sexuality and social independence represent major threats to male supremacy and are tightly controlled. Thus, as the Moroccan feminist Fitna Sabbah reveals in her book Woman in the Muslim Unconscious, there is a disturbing conflict in the Middle East between sexual libido and repression. A deep-seated fear of, and hostility to, individuality prevails, and its main expression exists in misogyny.

Socially segregated from women, Arab men succumb to homosexual behavior. But, interestingly enough, there is no word for ‘homosexual’ in their culture in the modern Western sense. That is because having sex with boys, or with effeminate men, is seen as a social norm. Males serve as available substitutes for unavailable women. The male who does the penetrating, meanwhile, is not emasculated any more than if he had sex with a wife. The male who is penetrated is emasculated. The boy, however, is not, since it is rationalized that he is not yet a man.

In this culture, males sexually penetrating males becomes a manifestation of male power, conferring a status of hyper-masculinity. It is considered to have nothing to do with homosexuality. An unmarried man who has sex with boys is simply doing what men do. As the scholar Bruce Dunne has demonstrated, sex in Islamic societies is not about mutuality between partners, but about the adult male’s achievement of pleasure through violent domination.

There is silence around this issue. It is the silence that legitimizes sexual violence against women, such as honor crimes and female circumcision. It is also the silence that forces victimized Arab boys into invisibility. Even though the society does not see their sexual exploitation as being humiliating, the psychological and emotional scars that result from their subordination, powerlessness and humiliation is a given. Traumatized by the violation of their dignity and manliness, they spend the rest of their lives trying to get it back.

The problem is that trying to recover from sexual abuse, and to recapture one’s own shattered masculinity, is quite an ordeal in a culture where women are hated and love is interpreted as hegemonic control.

With women out of touch – and out of sight – until marriage, males experience pre-marital sex only in the confines of being with other males. Their sexual outlet mostly includes victimizing younger males – just the way they were victimized.

In all of these circumstances, the idea of love is removed from men’s understanding of sexuality. Like the essence of Arab masculinity, it is reduced to hurting others by violence. A gigantic rupture develops between men and women, where no harmony, affection or equality is allowed to exist. In relationships between men, meanwhile, affection, solidarity and empathy are left out of the picture. They threaten the hyper-masculine order.

It is excruciating to imagine the sexual confusion, humiliation, and repression that evolve in the mindsets of males in this culture. But it is no surprise that many of these males find their only avenue for gratification in the act of humiliating the foreign “enemy,” whose masculinity must be violated at all costs – as theirs once was.

Violating the masculinity of the enemy necessitates the dishing out of severe violence against him. In the recent terrorist strikes, therefore, violence against Americans served as a much-needed release of the terrorists’ bottled-up sexual rage. Moreover, it served as a desperate and pathological testament of the re-masculinization of their emasculated selves.

In his powerful on-line book entitled Psychohistory: Childhood and the Emotional Life of Nations, Lloyd deMause presents compelling evidence for his thesis that:

…the ultimate cause of all wars and human misery is the parental holocaust of children throughout history – an untold story of how literally billions of innocent, helpless children have been routinely killed, bound, battered, mutilated, raped and tortured and then as adults have inflicted upon others the nightmares they themselves experienced.

In Chapter 4 of his book, deMause states:

It may seem simplistic to conclude that most of human destructiveness is the restaging of early traumas and that what we must do if we wish to put an end to war and social violence is teach adults how to stop abusing and neglecting and begin respecting and enjoying their children, but I believe this is precisely what our best scientific evidence shows.

It is of course extremely difficult (and as Karl Popper warned, it can be extremely dangerous) to conduct large-scale experiments to test psychological and social theories, but as deMause describes in his Winnicott Memorial Lecture, entitled “What the British Can Do To End Child Abuse”:

The results of outlawing the hitting of children are dramatic. In Sweden, the first country to abolish corporal punishment of children… [the law] not only has public support… [hitting children – even in its mildest forms – {has} been reduced from 53% to only 11%], but in addition, only 6% of younger Swedes today say they support corporal punishment. Practice in Sweden, as well as attitude, has changed… with only 3% of school children saying they had been slapped by their parents, and only one child in 25 years having been killed by their parent. The results of this dramatic decrease in hitting have been spectacular. The number of children needing social work care has decreased by 26%, the number of youth convicted of theft declined by 21%, the rates of alcohol and drug abuse by youths have declined dramatically, and the rate of youth suicide has also declined. What is most astonishing is that in Sweden and in other countries outlawing the hitting of children the populations actually began by being in favor of corporal punishment, but after their legislatures passed their anti-hitting law despite this pro-hitting mood, the general public gradually became more and more opposed to corporal punishment, without any dramatic intrusion by the state into family life.

I wonder if this experiment in Sweden is why, after a two-week visit, I expressed my feeling to my host that “Sweden is an island of tranquility in an ocean of insanity.”

In Chapter 9 of his book deMause goes even further:

That gods are usually perpetrators restaging early physical abuse is the answer to Freud’s question: “Why does religion seem to need violence?” When violence against children disappears, religious and political violence will disappear. Religions and politics as we know them will no doubt disappear also. Religions work by constructing sacred spaces that contain triggers for switching into trances in order to access people’s alters and obtain some relief from their tortures.

Consistently and as a case in point (see the second plot in my earlier blog), among all nations Sweden is most advanced in rejecting the god idea.

All of which brings to mind what the Buddha so perceptively said 2500 years ago:

In this world, hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible.

We could now add: to dispel hate, violence, and all gods from the world, teach all children in the world to love – by showing each and every one of them that you care for their welfare.

www.zenofzero.net

Islam's Dark Ages Grow Dimmer

This week, Islamic clerics and colluding Muslim politicians have forced the Arabs farther back into their clerically imposed version of the Dark Ages. Here’s a brief summary of the news as given at the Middle East Media Research Institute blog:

The ministers of information of the Arab countries agreed on a document during their meeting in Cairo on Tuesday {2008/02/12} that would limit the margin of freedom of satellite TVs, in the event they “insult the [political] leaders and the national and religious symbols”. The document authorizes a host government to withdraw the license of any TV, or freeze its activities, that violate these rules.

Yesterday (2008/02/15), a more complete, Associated Press report by Maggie Michael contains the following:

Cairo, Egypt (AP) – Arab governments have adopted new rules meant to rein in satellite television talk shows that have become forums for rollicking criticisms of Arab regimes and discussions of taboo topics.

The “Charter of Principles” approved this week by Arab information ministers is being viewed by the region’s media circles as a concerted move to muzzle stations.

The charter prohibits criticism of Arab leaders and religious figures, warning in vague terms of the harm to social peace, national unity and public morals. It demands “adherence to objectivity, sincerity and respect to the dignity of the countries, nations and their national sovereignty.”

The new rules allow countries to suspend, terminate or refuse to renew the licenses of TV network offices that violate them. Qatar, whose government funds the popular station Al-Jazeera, was the only nation of the 21 Arab states not to sign the charter.

“Some satellite channels have deviated from the right path,” Egyptian Information Minister Anas el-Fiqi told the ministers who gathered in Cairo on Tuesday. “There are violations that have taken place, violations taking place around the clock, which require a serious stance”…

A case in point (of such “violations”) was recently described by Marwan Kraidy in a report entitled “Hypermedia and Governance in Saudi Arabia”. Saudi Arabia is ostensibly a monarchy, but behind the monarchs, it’s controlled by the fundamentalist (Sunni) Wahabi sect of Islam. This is the same sect that uses Saudi oil revenue to build mosques and spread Islam nonsense throughout the world, with a budget of approximately $3 billion per year (which is larger than the Soviet’s propaganda budget at the height of the Cold War) and similar to the Soviets, with the goal of emasculating the U.S. Constitution and similar Constitutions in other Western countries. The following paragraph is my brief outline of Kraidy’s informative report.

In Saudi Arabia, from the early 1960s when TV was first introduced until recently, all television programming was strictly controlled by the Wahabi clerics. During the 1990s, satellite TV became available, enabling Saudis to watch programs originating from other Arab-language stations. For 18 months starting in December 2003, the Lebanese “reality television show” Star Academy became available to Saudis, and it was enormously popular: viewers called in on their cellphone and sent text messages and e-mail to vote on the performances of contestants (both male and female).  The Saudi clerics also voted on the show, issuing the following fatwa (i.e., “religious ruling”):

…the Committee [the Permanent Committee for Scientific Research {cough, cough} and the Issuing of Fatwas] thinks that they [the Star Academy shows] should be banned and it is harem [forbidden] to watch them, finance them, take part in them, call them to vote or to express admiration of them…

The clerics were specifically and adamantly against “the free mixing of the sexes”, the “blatant promotion of immorality” (e.g., the display of women’s hair!) – not to dwell on the horror of people voting for what they wanted. These were the same Wahabi kooks that resisted the introduction of the bicycle into Saudi Arabia (calling it “the Horse of Satan”), and still into the 1960s, a special permit was needed to ride one!

Yet, in spite of the clerics’ ruling, the people continued to watch the program and to use their new communication technology to vote their preferences. Thereby, it appeared that humanists might be able to mark down an impressive win for modernization over barbarity.

But now, with this week’s signing of the new “charter” by the Arab Information Ministers, Islamic clerics in cahoots with politicians are obviously committed to pedaling backwards. The AP report by Maggie Michael (referenced above) continues as follows:

Call-in shows in particular are viewed by governments as potentially threatening or embarrassing, broadcasters say.

“Now any single individual can embarrass the government on TV,” said Ahmed Moslemani, host of “The First Edition” on Dream TV. “These talk-shows were like a disaster to the government, because the public doesn’t need opposition parties to voice their demands.”

In the past month, Clock TV – owned by Lebanese and Libyan investors – canceled plans to start a new talk show called “Hour by Hour,” after the Egyptian government objected to it, apparently because it feared it would become a new voice of criticism.

Khairi Ramadan, who was to host “Hour by Hour,” called the charter a “huge step backward.”

“Free speech in Egypt will not be the only victim here, it’s the whole Arab world,” said Ramadan. “There are serious fears of this charter and the bigger danger is to come.”

How, I wonder, could we help Muslims break free from their clerical chains? If we could succeed, we’d simultaneously defeat the Muslim supremacists – with much less drain on our budget and our soldiers’ blood.

Of course it would be best if the Muslims broke their chains by themselves, but the clerics have the poor people brainwashed into believing that their way is the way to a dream world of eternal life in paradise. Illustrative of the people's resulting obedient behavior is the following quotation, which summarizes ideas about government and society promoted in Saudi Arabian schoolbooks:

Western principles of democracy are not part of the Saudi political worldview. The Saudi regime is based on Islamic Law [Shari’ah], one of the basic tenets of which is complete obedience to one’s rulers – even if they are oppressive – as long as they do not order their subjects to do something contradictory to the Shari’ah. The Muslim subject should not only obey his rulers but also love them, whatever their nature, and be patient vis-à-vis their oppressive measures – if these are taken. [No dictator could wish for more!] The reason for this is: an organized government, even an oppressive one, is much better than anarchy. [As if there were no other options!] Within this framework, duties, rather than rights, should be the citizen’s main concern.

Would that there were some Muslim revolutionaries of the caliber of James Madison, who in 1785 said to the Virginia General Assembly:

What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient allies.

And what a difference between this new Arab “charter” restricting TV and what Jefferson described about the freedom of the press in a 1787 letter to Colonel Carrington:

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Failing the leadership of a Muslim Madison or Jefferson, could we help?

I expect that bureaucrats in our Departments of State and Defense would be too timid to produce similar (but soon to be eliminated) programs and then beam them to every Muslim household with a TV. I can imagine our bureaucrats and politicians would be too concerned with repercussions (e.g., to their own jobs) if the Saudis retaliated by restricting oil flow, arousing the oil-addicted American public.

As an alternative, could a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) do similar? An NGO, funded by anonymous donors could hire Muslim TV producers, directors, and actors (who will probably lose their jobs because of the new charter), set up shop almost anywhere (from somewhere in the Mediterranean area to somewhere in America), and beam satellite-TV programs to all Arab countries. Thereby, we could help drag the Arab world out of their clerically imposed Dark Ages into enlightenment.

As Jefferson wrote in an 1820 letter to William Jarvis:

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.

But the Arab “Information Ministers” (a euphemism for “Propaganda Ministers”) obviously prefer the assessment of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi’s Propaganda Minister:

Not every item of news should be published. Rather must those who control news policies endeavor to make every item of news serve a certain purpose… It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion.

All of which illustrates the wisdom in the remark by the brave ex-Muslim Salman Rushdie (against whom Muslim clerics issued a fatwa ordering his death for “insulting Islam” in his book The Satanic Verses):

Fundamentalism isn’t about religion; it’s about power.

www.zenofzero.net

I dunno…

For those familiar with the English language but unfamiliar with the way Americans massacre its pronunciation, “I dunno” is the usual way we pronounce: “I don’t know”. It’s sorta [sort of] like [similar to] the way we say “doncha know” or “donchano” [don’t you know]. Anyway, I dunno what this fellow Rowan Williams is up to.

As you probably know, he’s the Archbishop of Canterbury (AB of C), the head of the Church of England (C of E), “leader of the 77 million-strong worldwide Anglican Communion”, and this week, once again managed to stimulate calls for his resignation. Today, according to a BBC news report:

…at least two General Synod members have called for Dr. Rowan Williams to resign… Colonel Edward Aristead told the Daily Telegraph: “I don’t think he is the man for the job… One wants to be charitable, but I sense that he would be far happier in a university where he can kick around these sorts of ideas.”

Alison Ruoff, a Synod member from London, said: “many people, huge numbers of people, would be greatly relieved [if he resigned], because he sits on the fence over all sorts of things, and we need strong, Christian, biblical leadership right now, as opposed to somebody who huffs and puffs around and vacillates from one thing to another.”

Brigadier William Dobbie, a former Synod member, described the Archbishop as “a disaster, a tragic mistake.”

And you think you had a bad day! But then, British tradition seems to be that AB of Cs can’t be fired – by tradition, they execute them!

As you probably know, also (unless your internet connection is down – or you have more important things to do!), Williams got himself in trouble (this time) by stating during an interview on BBC Radio that adopting some (Muslim) Sharia [or Shariah] law in Britain seemed “unavoidable”, adding that “Certain provisions of Shariah are already recognized in our society and under our law, so it’s not as if we’re bringing in alien and rival system” and that Muslims shouldn’t need to choose between “the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty.”

Sensing potential votes (they’re good at that), politicians of all stripes leaped on him. Some examples (all from BBC News reports):

“The prime minister believes British law should apply in this country, based on British values.” [Spokesman for Prime Minister Brown]

“To ask us to fundamentally change the rule of law and to adopt Sharia law, I think, is fundamentally wrong.” [Home Office Minister Tony McNulty]

“[The] implication that British courts should treat people differently based on their faith is divisive and dangerous.” [Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission]

“Dr. Williams seems to be suggesting that there should be two systems of law, running alongside each other, almost parallel, and for people to be offered the choice of opting into one or the other. That is unacceptable.” [Baroness Warsi, “shadow community cohesion minister”]

“Equality before the law is part of the glue that binds our society together. We cannot have a situation where there is one law for one person and different laws for another… There is a huge difference between respecting people’s right to follow their own beliefs and allowing them to excuse themselves from the rule of law.” [Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg]

Quite a tempest brewing in the British teapot! Yet, if you read Williams’ original speech, you might conclude (as did I) that it’s rather mundane and unfortunately quite pedantic. In a nutshell, it’s close to: “Look, if people want to settle their disputes by arbitration without involvement of the courts, then go for it; if they want to settle their disputes with the help of the local Imam, then fine; Jews have a long tradition of doing similar.”

But I can understand the reactions. In his BBC interview, Williams was “just plain stupid” (or better, politically naïve) to have taunted the British bulldog (confined by its own customs, bound by more than a thousand years of its own laws, and recently wounded by Muslim supremacists) with the raw meat of Shariah.

Further, it’s certainly not the first time that Williams has demonstrated that he’s “out of touch” with the people, particularly those in the C of E: approving the ordination of women and gay clergy, opposing the teaching of “intelligent design” in science classes, using Homer Simpson cartoons to get kids to think about morality, describing the Jesus nativity story as “a legend”, and so on. In sum, I rather like the guy!

Yet, what I don’t know – and in the limited time I have to waste on the question, I don’t plan to continue to try to find out – is whether the guy is a nut or a genius. That he’s intelligent seems clear, but it’s equally clear that he isn’t grounded in reality: he’s hooked on speculation; he obviously feels no need to test his ideas against data.

As one of many examples, consider his denial that believing in God is equivalent to believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy:

“The thing is, belief in Santa does not generate a moral code, it does not generate art, it does not generate imagination…”

Oh? Really? Care to test your claim against data?

Another example is in his 13 October 2007 speech criticizing Richard Dawkins:

As I’ve said, what we’re saying as religious people, is not that God is the explanation of this or that bit of the universe which we can’t otherwise explain; even the very beginning of the universe. We are saying that the nature of our relationship with the universe, a relation of understanding, thinking and exploring, rational expectation, that that very structure requires some comprehensive energy at another level that sustains it as what it is [Italics added]. And because that comprehensive energy at another level is not the product of other things, doesn’t have a history, isn’t the result of processes going on; it’s perhaps an appropriate object for contemplation, given that we are not going to find successful or comprehensive words for it, but can only gaze into what is undoubtedly mysterious, but not mysterious in a way which simply says this is a puzzle somebody one day might solve.

Really? A “comprehensive energy at another level”? A mystery that he doesn’t want solved? Sure: I can go along with the speculation (for example) that the universe was created by a symmetry-breaking fluctuation in “total nothingness” that “still exists outside our universe” (a speculation I examine in the first chapter of my book), but 1) until we get some data dealing with “total nothingness”, then it’s all speculation, 2) I certainly would like to get some data to try to solve the mystery (which might be possible in the Large Hadron Collider), and 3) I sure as hell ain’t gonna waste my time worshipping “total nothingness”!

As for the mystery of Williams, himself: that he’s a bleedin’ mystic is abundantly clear. For example, read some of his poems; it’s clear that, like a little kid in love with a fantasy hero, he’s madly in love with Jesus:

He is a stranger to them all, great Jesus.
What is there here for me? I know
what I have longed for. Him to hold
me always.

Also, read some of his speeches: it’s clear that he really has convinced himself that he knows God’s purpose – as if an omnipotent, omniscient god could have a purpose!

But I don’t know Williams’ purpose. Yet, maybe there’s a hint of it in the speech (referenced above) in which he criticizes Dawkins. Throughout the speech he refers to a play by Mick Gordon and A.C. Grayling entitled On Religion. Near the end of Williams’ speech he quotes the play, with the young man who’s decided to become a priest saying to his atheist mother:

I’m not trying to pretend it’s not dangerous, sometimes. I think that’s absolutely the case. I just think that one of the things to do in terms of a strategy (and I’m being realistic and pragmatic here OK?) because we have to ask ourselves: what sort of strategy for dealing with nutters are we going to adopt? Do we want an all out culture war between your pure enlightenment thinking and bad religion? Or is there a value, is there… let me put it another way: is the answer to bad religion no religion or better religion? Who’s more likely to defeat bad religion, good religion or atheism? [Italics added] That’s a question, a real question. So stop attacking me, Mum, because I’m your hope. You’re never going to turn the world’s religious into atheists. If that’s what your battle is, if that’s what you’re trying to do, you’re going to lose and so are we all. The best you can hope for is to turn bad violent religion into better religion, that’s what I’m trying to do.

I’d entertain the possibility that such is what Williams is trying to do: trying to turn bad religion into good religion. Perhaps that’s what this latest row (over Shariah law) is about: maybe he’s trying to turn “bad violent religion [as promoted by Muslim supremacists, “the nutters”] into better religion.” If that’s his goal, however, he’s facing a slight problem: as he could determine from readily available data, Muslims have a different opinion about which is the “good religion” and which is the “bad religion”. They’ll think he’s “the nutter”!

Therefore, just as he’s displayed political naiveté in his choice of words and in his apparent conclusion that he can speak as an individual while being head of his church, I think he’s being naïve if he thinks he can change other people’s opinions about their religions – so long as such opinions are based on speculations rather than data. I’d go even further: in my opinion (based on data trends), no religion (including his own) will survive if it’s based on the untestable speculation that the universe is controlled by some invisible lover in the sky. If he desires to turn “bad religion into good religion”, I’d advise him to consider what M.M. Mangasarian wrote almost a century ago:

“Religion is the science of children; science is the religion of adults.”

www.zenofzero.net

Your Most Important Assumption

We all adopt many assumptions or premisses: that our ideas exist, that we exist, that there exists a reality external to our minds, and so on. I doubt that I’d get much argument if I claimed that one of our most important premisses deals with “the nature” of “reality”, for example, if we assume that it’s entirely natural (as do all Brights) or that it contains various “supernatural entities”, such as goblins, ghosts, and gods.

In addition, we all make many important decisions, for example, those dealing with trying to survive, to help our families survive (whatever we consider to be the extent of our “families”), to uphold and promote our values, and so on. I doubt that I’d get much argument if I claimed, also, that one of our most important decisions is how to obtain knowledge about the nature of the reality external to our minds.

But I may cause some controversy with the claim (argued below) that everyone’s most important assumption is one’s decision about how to gain such knowledge.

In philosophical terms, my claim is that epistemology (the study of the grounds and nature of knowledge, itself – from the Greek word for ‘knowledge’, epistēmē) trumps all other branches of philosophy, such as logic, ethics, aesthetics, ontology (existence theory), and so on, including the philosophies of science, religion, politics, law, etc. In all other branches of philosophy, epistemology is fundamental, since it addresses the basic question: How does one “know” what one claims to know?

There’s no doubt that we all possess substantial knowledge: our abilities to keep our hearts beating and to digest food, our innate sense of morality, etc. Yet in general, we don’t need to use our analytical capabilities to make decisions dealing with such innate (or instinctive) knowledge. After a billion-or-so years of experimentation, Nature “programmed” such knowledge in our DNA. As examples, if a projectile is coming at your head, don’t think about it, duck! Similarly, if you see a child in danger, you’ll immediately try to save the child. Those species that didn’t pass on such knowledge to their offspring (to help themselves and their “families” to survive) are extinct. Much of ethics, therefore, is instinctive.

Much of esthetics, too, seems to be instinctive; it may even be inherent in the “nature of nature”, that is, derived from fundamental symmetries contained within reality, itself. But I don’t want to go into that, now. It’s a complicated subject at the frontiers of modern physics and the bases of “the standard model” of elementary particles and of string theory.

In contrast to our possessing such innate and maybe even inherent knowledge, to gain new knowledge about the reality external to our minds we must make a fundamental decision: How is such knowledge gained? Exploring possible answers to that question leads to what I consider to be everyone’s most important assumption. To begin to see why I consider it so important, consider options chosen by people in two different groups.

Theists, those who adopt the premiss that various “supernatural entities” exist in the reality external to their minds, thereby and subsequently decide that knowledge about reality can be gained by “listening to their hearts”, by “just having faith”, or similar. All such “methods” are various versions of the “proof-by-pleasure logical fallacy” (viz., if it feels good, it’s “true”). If theists have enough faith (so it’s claimed), they can move mountains – and if they’re unsuccessful, it demonstrates only that they don’t yet have sufficient “faith”!

Scientific humanists, in contrast, adopt the fundamental premiss that knowledge about reality can best be obtained – or even, can only be obtained – by the scientific method: “guess, test, and reassess.” They learn by experimenting. Oh, they might try the theists’ technique of moving mountains by “thought control” (aka telekinesis), but when that doesn’t work, scientific humanists (aka “practical people”!) use dynamite and earthmovers!

The fundamental mistake made by all religious people is to succumb to wishful thinking. That’s consistent with one meaning of the word ‘belief’, which with ‘lief’ the Anglo-Saxon root word meaning ‘wish’, then one meaning of ‘belief’ is “wish to be”. The farther theists fall into their fundamental error, the more “fundamentalist” they become. In the limit, in the depth of their depraved “thinking”, such fools fly hijacked airplanes loaded with passengers into skyscrapers, convinced in their fantasy that they’ll be instantly transported to a fictitious paradise, where they’ll live eternally with 72 perpetual virgins available to competently relieve them of their sexual frustrations. They “believe” it so – they wish it so – so (so they claim), they “know” it’s so.

Scientific humanists, in contrast, decide to try to gain knowledge about reality not from wishful thinking but via the scientific method – not because it “feels good”, not because they’ve been indoctrinated in the method since childhood (although they have applied it, by themselves, ever since they were babies!), but solely because it seems to work. If it stops working, if it’s found to have fundamental flaws (but it hasn’t yet, as far as I know), then they’ll abandon it – for whatever works better! Using the scientific method (“guess, test, and reassess”), ancient hunters made bows and arrows, ancient farmers planted seeds and domesticated animals, ancient engineers built irrigation canals and developed wheels, ancient doctors learned techniques of healing, and so on it has gone, out to an including building airplanes, skyscrapers, and the internet – which Muslim maniacs use to kill people.

I use the contrast between the behaviors of scientific humanists and theists (aka unscientific antihumans) to defend my claim that everyone’s most important premiss is one’s decision about how to gain knowledge about reality. My reason for this claim is that (as I’ll briefly illustrate below) one’s choice about how to gain such knowledge is more important than one’s choice of worldview, goals, values, principles, policies, plans, practices, etc., because one’s choice of how to gain knowledge dictates the rest.

Ayn Rand wrote something similar in her book Philosophy: Who Needs It?

Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute – and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to grasp? The nature of your actions – and of your ambition – will be different, according to which set of answers you come to accept. [Italics added]

In fact, if the scientific method of gaining knowledge is adopted, then it can be used even to test our other basic premisses, such as that our thoughts exist, that we exist, and that the universe is entirely natural. Thereby, ontology (the theory of existence) can be seen to be rather silly: existence isn’t a theory to be proven but a hypothesis to be tested – by application of the scientific method.

To illustrate why I consider our most important decision (our most important premiss) to be how to gain knowledge about reality, I’ll list the following abbreviated statements. I go into details elsewhere.

• Whereas one’s claim of knowledge about reality leads directly to one’s worldview, therefore, how one chooses to seek knowledge defines one’s worldview. Thus, on the one hand, if you decide that knowledge about reality can be obtained only via the scientific method, you’ll conclude that the universe is entirely natural, thereby defining your worldview. On the other hand, if you decide that knowledge about reality can be obtained by wishful thinking (by just “believing”), then similar to all theists, you’ll conclude that the universe is filled with “supernatural entities” (from the “sacred spirits” of the shamans to the resulting gods and ghosts and goblins of “modern” mystics, from astrologers to clerics).
• Whereas one’s worldview dictates the purpose (or purposes) one chooses to pursue in life, therefore one’s purpose follows from one’s choice of how to gain knowledge about reality. Thus, if your worldview is that the universe (including all life) is entirely natural, you’ll likely adopt the premiss that a prime purpose is “merely” to help intelligent life to continue (e.g., by attempting to expand knowledge). On the other hand, if you conclude that the universe is populated, for example, with one or more omnipotent and omniscient gods, you’ll likely adopt the premiss that your prime purpose is whatever some sufficiently skilled con-artist cleric dictates to be the god’s (or gods’) desires (e.g., “go forth and multiply”, “kill the unbelievers”, and similar stupidity).
• Whereas values can be measured only against some purpose, then once one’s purposes are adopted, then one’s values can be established; therefore, values also follow from one’s epistemological choice. If, for example, you adopt the purpose to help intelligent life to continue by attempting to expand knowledge, then you would place substantial value on learning as much as you can and on sharing your knowledge. On the other hand, if you adopt the purpose to do as some alleged god desires (as dictated by some con-artist clerics), then you’ll place substantial value on doing whatever your clerics recommend (e.g., giving alms, paying tithes, having more children, etc., out to, in some cases, flying jetliners into skyscrapers).

Thus, a hierarchy of premisses is established, starting with the most important premiss (how knowledge is to be gained) and below which are premisses dealing with (in order): worldview, purposes, values, principles, plans, practices, procedures, and so on.

In his book The End of Faith, Sam Harris summarized well the stupid, fundamental assumption of all theists:

We live in an age in which most people believe that mere words – “Jesus,” “Allah,” “Ram” – can mean the difference between eternal torment and bliss everlasting. Considering the stakes here, it is not surprising that many of us occasionally find it necessary to murder other human beings for using the wrong magic words, or the right ones for the wrong reasons. How can any person presume to know that this is the way the universe works? Because it says so in our holy books. How do we know that our holy books are free from error? Because the books themselves say so. Epistemological black holes of this sort are fast draining the light from our world.

As far as I know (based on the scientific method, i.e., relying on experience), the only way to stop the light of the world from draining into such “epistemological black holes” is to do one’s best to enlighten others, not only to help them see that everyone’s most important premiss is how to gain knowledge about reality but also to see that the only sensible ways to gain such knowledge is via the scientific method. And thus this blog and my associated book.

www.zenofzero.net

Some Reasons for Religiosity

In science, when data show as much scatter about a proposed theory as is shown in the first plot below, it suggests that the theory needs serious revision. After commenting on the first plot, I’ll suggest other possible reasons why people are religious.

The data shown in the first figure are from the latest (2007) results in the Pew Global Attitudes Project. I’ve copied the figure from the Project’s most recent report, which summarizes data from 45,239 interviews (!) in 47 “publics” (46 nations plus the Palestinian territories). For this figure, “Religiosity” was measured as follows: “Respondents were given a ‘1’ if they believe faith in God is necessary for morality; a ‘1’ if they say religion is very important in their lives; and a ‘1’ if they pray at least once a day.”

Legend notes (additional color codes): Green – Mid-Eastern Countries (Israel being the “outlier” with high GDP and low religiosity); Orange – Latin America; Brown – Asia (including Muslim Indonesia down to mostly secular Japan and China); one dark-blue dot (on the trend) is Canada; the other (the “outlier”) is the U.S. (as indicated on the graph).

The following are some obvious features of and questions about the above plot.

• The U.S. data (far right) seem anomalous (compared, e.g., with Canada and West Europe): I expect that during the coming decades, Americans will become either less religious or less wealthy.

• I expect that data for West Europe reflect influences from the Enlightenment and capitalism and that data for East Europe reflect remnants of communism (low religiosity and struggling economies).

• Illustrated especially with Africa but also with most of South America and the Middle East (except Kuwait – and no doubt, Saudi Arabia, if data had been collected), the poorer the people the stronger their religiosity: when reality is harsh, it’s easy to slip into a dream world with a promised paradise. Exceptions for their geographical areas are Israel, Japan, and China.

More generally, with so much scatter in the plot, the question arises: why plot religiosity against wealth?

To illustrate another possibility, the figure below shows religiosity against scores on the most recent (2006) international test for “science literacy” for 15 year olds as given in the left-hand column (“combined scale”) of Table 2 of the report for the Program for International Student Assessment (U.S. Department of Education). I’ve used data only for nations also sampled in the Pew Survey; in the case of China (without distinction from the Pew Survey), I’ve assigned the “three Chinas” (Taipei, Hong-Kong, and Macao) all the same “religiosity” for China as given in the Pew Survey (17%). Also, for illustrative purposes, I’ve first normalized the science-test scores and then plotted their anti-logarithm (on a logarithmic scale); so, the science scores appear as they would on a linear scale. In turn, I chose the logarithmic scale as most convenient to display the range of religiosity given in the Pew Survey. Their measure for religiosity is given in the table on p. 33 of the referenced Pew Report: importantly, it’s the percentage of interviewed people who agree with the statement that a person must believe in God to be moral.


On this plot (click to enlarge it), the U.S. again seems to “buck the trend”, as does S. Korea: people in both countries are apparently more religious than would be expected based on their science-test scores. In contrast, the former Soviet countries Poland, Russia, and Bulgaria seem less religious than one might have expected based on their science-test scores.

But this plot, too, raises a host of obvious questions.

• How much of the better-than-expected science-test scores for the U.S. and S. Korea (“better than expected” based on their religiosity – even though the U.S. test scores are a disgrace!) might be attributed to “teaching to the test” rather than teaching to develop critical-thinking skills of the students?

• How much of the worse-than-expected science-test scores for former communist countries can be attributed to poorly financed and organized school systems?

• How much of the increase in religiosity of American and S. Korean adults is from their childhood indoctrination in religion?

• Correspondingly, how much of the decrease in religiosity of adults in former Soviet nations arises from their lack of religious indoctrination?

And more significant than any of the above questions is the obvious criticism: the plot is silly! That is, the measure used for religiosity (the percentage of people who agreed with the statement that one must believe in God to be moral) is just an inverse measure of a part of scientific literacy: no student who has at least a little competence in biology would agree with such a stupid statement!

Thus, a scientifically literate student would know that moral values (e.g., as recently reviewed by Stephen Pinker, “including a distinction between right and wrong; empathy; fairness; admiration of generosity; rights and obligations; proscription of murder, rape and other forms of violence; redress of wrongs; sanctions for wrongs against the community; shame; and taboos…”) are “an innate part of human nature.” They’re encoded in our DNA, because they promoted our survival – they’re not supplied by some giant Jabberwock in the sky! Like dolphins and monkeys, humans are social animals: dolphins will periodically swim beneath a wounded cousin, lifting it to the surface, so it can get some air; monkeys “scream bloody murder” when they “discern” injustice – and they then proceed to try to punish the “cheaters”. Therefore, the second plot suggests that American students aren’t being exposed to basics about evolution, courtesy science teachers who are incompetent (religiously indoctrinated?), intimidated by the “Religious Reich”, or whatever.

All of which then exposes failures to address the basic question: Why are people religious? Alternatively, revealing my bias better: Why do so many people believe in such clearly invented balderdash? Elsewhere, I’ve commented on a few such possibilities, including (listed alphabetically):

Addiction, Animal-training, (seeking) Answers, (out of) Arrogance, (wanting) Assurance, (feeling) Awe, (feeling) Betrayed, (desiring to) Belittle (others), (seeking) Career-advancement, (seeking) Certainty, Childhood Conditioning, (seeking) Comfort, (seeking) Company, (seeking) Control, Cowardice, Credulity, (seeking) Customers, (fearing) Death, (lost in) Dreams, Egomania, Epilepsy, (seeking) Eternal Life, (out of) Fear, Following (leaders), Foolishness, (seeking) Friends, (out of) Frustration, (desiring) Goals, (out of) Greed, (seeking) Guidance, (out of) Guilt, (to get out of the) Gutter, (seeking) Happiness, Herd instinct, Hero worship, (seeking) Hope, Hypnosis, (unconstrained) Imagination, Ignorance, Indoctrination, (out of) Inquisitiveness, (lacking) Judgment, (seeking) Kinship, (desiring) Kindness, (seeking) Knowledge, (intellectual) Laziness, (out of) Loneliness, (searching for) Love, Megalomania, (seeking a) Mate, (searching for) Meaning, (out of) Misery, Narcissism, (fear of) Ostracism, (an) Opiate, Pack instinct, Parental pressure, (seeking) Peace, Political (purposes), (some other) Psychosis, (seeking) Purpose, (unanswered) Questions, (sheer) Rationalization, Revelation, Savagery, Schizophrenia, (seeking) Security, Selfishness, Selflessness, Socialization, (seeking) Support, (following) Tradition, (simply) Training, Tribalism, (unease caused by) Uncertainty, (to relieve) Unhappiness, (because of) Visions, (marriage or other) Vows, (out of) Weakness, (seeking) Wisdom, (living on) Wishes, Xenophobia, Yearnings (for assurance, brotherhood, comfort, development, empathy, friends, guidance, heaven, insight, justice, kindness, love,…), Zonked out (on drugs).

To determine the relative importance of such reasons (and surely childhood indoctrination and poor training in critical-thinking skills will be found to be two of the most important reasons) will require much more thorough surveys than those conducted in the Pew Global Attitudes Project. Yet, I sincerely congratulate the people associated with the Pew Research Center and their sponsors (The Pew Charitable Trusts and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation) for their good start.

www.zenofzero.net

Don’t let theists negate you. Negate them!

Words can be powerful, not only to communicate ideas and emotions but also to confuse and intimidate.

For example, consider the Greek word theo meaning ‘god’. From that root arises ‘theism’, which (like any other ‘ism’) is an ideology – in this case, an ideology based on belief in the existence of some god. [An ideology is a commitment to the ‘truth’ of some idea rather than the idea of ‘truth’.] In turn, someone who adopts a theistic ideology is a ‘theist’.

Similar to all ideologists with an “us-them” (or “on-off”, “black-white”, or “good vs. evil”) mentality, theists identify the “them” (the bad guys) as “atheists”. The word ‘atheist’ is derived by adding the Greek prefix ‘a’, meaning ‘not’, to ‘theist’, i.e., ‘a-theist’ (just as the word ‘atom’ is derived from Greek parts meaning not-divisible). Thereby, if all evidence leads you to conclude that the universe is natural, then theists “negate you”: you’re not one of them (the good guys), living in a fairy tale, drunk on supernatural delusions.

Phooey on them! I refuse to be labeled an atheist. I don’t “not-believe” in god: I’ve estimated the probability of the existence of any god to be astoundingly small (somewhere around 1 chance in 10 to the 500th power) – but it’s not exactly zero. Therefore, I’m not an atheist: I’m a theist who’s concluded that living one’s life based on the possible existence of any god is dumb.

I also refuse the label ‘agnostic’, which with the Greek prefix ‘a’ (not) and the Greek word for knowledge (gnosis) means “not knowing”. I admit that I don’t know the exact value for the probability of the existence of any god, but there is enough evidence (or more accurately, lack thereof) to conclude that one would need to be bonkers to live in a supernatural daydream, making decisions based on assuming that any god exists.

Besides, though, it’s astoundingly inefficient and potentially confusing to try to communicate ideas using negatives. For example, rather than inform you that, when I finish typing this, I plan to go for a walk, how about if I told you that, when I’m no longer typing, I don’t plan to eat, have a shower, or go for a drive? In fact, after typing this, there are billions of things I don’t plan to do!

Similarly, rather than accept the theists’ negative description that I’m an atheist or an agnostic, I adopt a positive attitude and inform them that I’m a scientific humanist. If they want, I can inform them what “scientific humanist” means. But I’ve found that they rarely want to learn anything new – which seems to be typical for “theists”, or more appropriately (negating them), for unscientific antihumans!

www.zenofzero.net

The Probability of God

I was recently asked to explain my estimate (or better, my “guesstimate”) for the probability of the existence of any god. As I wrote in a recent post, my guesstimate for the existence of any god is somewhere around 1 chance in 10 to the 500th power; that is, 1 part in 10^500; i.e.,

0.000000…[continue for a total of 499 zeros]…001

which is the smallest probability I’ve ever encountered. That’s why I also wrote that the probability that any god exists (or has ever existed) is “zilch” or “zip” (or “zippo”). Perhaps my explanation (see below), for why I say that the probability of the existence of any god is so miniscule as to be ignorable, would be of interest to others.

It’s not simple to explain briefly. I’ve written two chapters on the topic in my free, online book, namely, Chapter Ih (dealing with “Hypotheses, Probabilities, and Evidence” and introducing Bayes’ method) and Chapter Ii (entitled “Indoctrination in Ignorance”, where I show the method used). To try to cut those two (long!) chapters down to a single (long!) paragraph, I’d try this.

Whereas Bayes’ method can’t be used to estimate the probability of the existence of any god (in spite of Unwin’s silly attempt to do so, in his book The Probability of God) – because there’s no reliable evidence to support the existence of any god – therefore, one is left with estimating the probability that any god COULD exist. In outline, the argument contains the following two steps.

(1) The probability that YOU could ever come into existence is certainly less than 1 part in 10^100 (using a very crude estimate for the probability that a symmetry-breaking fluctuation in the original “total nothingness” could have created the universe). I expect that the probability that any particular person could ever come into existence is the range from 1 part in 10^100 to 1 part in 10^200. Yet, the evidence supporting the proposition that you exist confirms your existence to within about 1 part in 10^25. It’s not “certainty”, as Descartes claimed, because (for example) we all could be simulations in some humongous computer game!

(2) The probability that “the original nothingness” could have proceeded directly to popping a god into existence is very much smaller than the probability that it could have created you – unless, of course, you have the capabilities that a god allegedly has. My “guesstimate” is that the probability that “nothingness” could have popped a god into existence is in the range of 1 part in 10^200 to 1 part in 10^1000, which for discussion purposes, I use 1 part in 10^500. But the evidence supporting the proposition that any god exists (in contrast to the evidence supporting the proposition that you exist) is zip. Therefore, if I’m to base my beliefs on evidence (as I desire), then consistent with Sagan’s “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, I conclude that the probability of the existence any god is the same as the probability that a god could have ever come into existence, i.e., ~1 part in 10^500.

If theists (aka “unscientific antihumans”, aka “god believers”, i.e., those who “wish” that their god exists) would like to find some comfort in such an argument, they might be pleased to know that string theory (or brane theory) suggests the existences of somewhere around 10^500 possible universes (or better, ‘multiverses’, or just plain ‘verses’, meaning ‘turns’). If that’s correct, then such a result plus the above guesstimate for the existence of any god would suggest that, in one of the verses, there might be a god – but then, the chance that there’s a god in ours is back down to the ~1 chance in 10^500.

I’ll add that the counter-argument that “God has always existed” can be dismissed for lack of evidence. In fact, in reality, no data support the contention of the existence of any infinity, such as the proposed infinite lifetime of any god (or for that matter, anyone’s “immortal” soul). Even adding together the numbers for all sand grains at all seashores, stars in the sky, and hydrogen atoms in our universe, all evidence supports the proposition that infinities occur only in games, such as pure mathematics and religions.

zenofzero.net

How to Stop Suicide Bombers

As much as I appreciate the attempts by people such as Robert Spencer who are doing what they think best to try to stop suicide bombers (e.g., see his Jihad Watch) and as much as I welcome the new initiative by Marvin Hier (the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center) to try to stimulate the UN “to designate suicide bombings as a crime against humanity”, yet it pains me that such intelligent and dedicated people are fighting the good fight with one hand tied behind their backs – or worse and more accurately, each with their two hands locked in prayer.

Spencer’s most recent book is Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t. According to a Reuters’ article this week, the ad to be put out by Hier’s group states:

Suicide terrorists believe they act in God’s name and enter paradise as holy martyrs. Religious leaders must use every sermon and every publication to denounce this belief as nothing less than an abomination of faith and a perversion of all that is godly.

No! Suicide bombing is NOT an “abomination of faith and a perversion of all that is godly”; it’s a product of religious faith and a consequence of “godliness”. As Richard Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion:

However misguided we may think them [the terrorists], they are motivated, like the Christian murderers of abortion doctors, by what they perceive to be righteousness, faithfully pursuing what their religion tells them. They are not psychotic; they are religious idealists who, by their own lights, are rational. They perceive their acts to be good, not because of some warped personal idiosyncrasy, and not because they have been possessed by Satan, but because they have been brought up, from the cradle, to have total and unquestioning faith.

As much as I wish it weren’t so, I doubt that we’ll ever rid the world of the scourge of suicide bombing by the methods advocated by Hier, Spencer, and so many others; their way, more likely, will make matters worse. In essence, the message of such theists is: “You Muslims are wrong; your ‘holy book’ is wrong.” To which, loud and clear – deafeningly loud with each suicide blast – comes the bombers’ answer: “NO! YOU’RE THE ONES WHO ARE WRONG! GOD IS WITH US!”

In contrast to theists, scientific humanists have a simple, clear, rational, and scientifically defensible response to both sets of stupidities: “You’re both wrong; the evidence for the existence of any god is zip; suicide bombing is neither ‘godly’ nor ‘ungodly’; it’s a war tactic used by power mongers to extend their parasitic existence and their power over the people; it’s developed by brainwashing children in religious balderdash, and it’s deployed by maniacs unable to think for themselves.”

The way to stop such madness is to purge all theists of their god delusions. A critical step is to stop indoctrinating children in clearly invented balderdash; it’s another form of child abuse; instead, teach children the scientific method (“guess, test, and reassess”), which is the essence of critical thinking.

That is, the real “crime against humanity” is perpetrating belief and faith in God. Worldwide, spread the word: anyone and everyone who believes in God is bonkers. As Richard Robinson wrote:

We ought to do what we can towards eradicating the evil habit of believing without regard to evidence.

And we must stop such madness, such evil, since the consequences are potentially so serious. As Sam Harris wrote in The End of Faith:

Our technical advances in the art of war have finally rendered our religious differences – and hence our religious beliefs – antithetical to our survival. We can no longer ignore the fact that billions of our neighbors believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom, or in the literal truth of the book of Revelation, or any of the other fantastical notions that have lurked in the minds of the faithful for millennia – because our neighbors are now armed with chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that these developments mark the terminal phase of our credulity. Words like “God” and “Allah” must go the way of “Apollo” and “Baal,” or they will unmake our world.

So please, Robert and Marvin, stop and think what you’re doing – and then, pause even longer to think about your thoughts, including their origins. Think about what Robert Ingersoll wrote more than a century ago:

For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said “Think”; the many have said “Believe!”

As much as I’m sure you’re trying to help, I’m also sure that you can’t help humanity by, in effect, telling the terrorists that your god is better than their god. Think about what Bertrand Russell wrote:

What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires – desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way… So long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence [italics added], they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.

Think about it: there’s no evidence to support anyone’s “belief” that any god has ever existed. Your faith in your god and your “holy book”, just like the terrorists’ faith in their god and their “holy book”, is a product of your childhood indoctrination and your unconstrained imagination. Instead of having “belief and faith in god”, hold beliefs only as strongly as relevant evidence warrants and, thereby, develop faith in the scientific method.

In reality, theists (aka “unscientific antihumans”) are the disbelievers and infidels: they disbelieve in the value of evidence; in their application of the scientific method, they’re infidels.

www.zenofzero.net

Most Americans Support Muslim Terrorists

To the claim that “Most Americans Support Muslim Terrorists”, the first impression of most Americans would probably be something similar to: “That’s absurd!” But although first impressions may be “the most lasting”, they aren’t necessarily correct.

I’d agree that most Americans don’t support Islamic TERRORISM; in fact, data support the conclusion that not even most Muslim Americans support Islamic terrorism. Thus, a 2007 Pew Research Center survey found that “only” 13% of all American Muslims approve of suicide bombings, although that percentage is higher for younger American Muslims: approximately 25% of them “support suicide bombings to defend religious beliefs”. In any case, the data show that “only” approximately 300,000 Americans support suicide bombing.

So, if “only” about 300,000 support terrorism, why do I claim that “Most Americans Support Muslim Terrorists”? Well, first, notice that I claimed that the majority supports Muslim TERRORISTS not TERRORISM.

Of course, most Americans don’t support Muslim terrorists militarily or financially, but they do support them even more significantly: they support the terrorists' ideas – morally and philosophically.

Again and again it’s been found that, although “blood is thicker than water”, ideas are thicker still – and the thickest idea of all is belief in God.

And by claiming that MOST Americans support Muslim terrorists, I mean that somewhere in the range of 80 to 90% of all Americans do: that’s the usual estimate for the percentage of Americans who state that they believe in God. (The percentage is not firm, because the results depend sensitively on how the question is asked.)

Most Americans adopted belief in God, because it’s what they “want”. That’s consistent with one meaning of the word ‘belief’: with ‘lief’ the Anglo-Saxon root word for ‘wish’, they “believe” what they “wish to be.” As Julius Caesar said, “Men willingly believe what they want.”

Further, these same Americans are proud to express their belief in God, because they were brainwashed when they were children into believing that it’s “good” – that it’s a “virtue” – to believe in God.

Thereby, most Americans support Muslim terrorists, who have been similarly brainwashed when they were children that it’s “good” – that it’s a “virtue” – to believe in God. That is, most Americans support the terrorists in that they support the “virtue” of believing in God.

Of course, these same Americans (mostly Christians) would tell the Muslim terrorists that they’re “naughty”, because their understanding of God is wrong, or their prophet is wrong, or their “holy book” is wrong, but understandably, the terrorists respond that the Christians (and Jews and Hindus and…) are wrong – not about believing in God, of course, but in not believing in the Muslim’s God, prophet, “holy book”, and so on.

Well, people, sorry to be a party pooper, but you’re both wrong. There is another meaning for ‘belief’ – and it sure would help humanity if everyone learned what it is. This other meaning for ‘belief’ has nothing to do with “wish to be”; for example, if I have a picnic planned for today and say, “I believe it’s going to rain”, it means that in spite of what I “wish to be”, I think it’s gonna rain!

Thereby, you gotta be careful with the word ‘belief’. If someone says that he believes that the Patriots will win the game, it may mean that he wants them to win the game – or it may mean that he has estimated the probability that they will win and concluded that the odds are in the Patriot’s favor.

To illustrate the confusion, I could say: “Even I sometimes believe that God exists, but I’ve never believed that God exists” – by which I’d mean: “Even I sometimes wish that God existed (because it would be a relief to think that someone could clean up the mess we’ve made of this wonderful world), yet my best estimate of the probability that any god ever existed is zilch (more specifically, somewhere around 1 part in 10 to the 500th power).”

But meanwhile, most people (Americans or Muslims) who tell the pollsters that they “believe” in God, are NOT giving their best estimates of the probability of God’s existence, but expressing their “wish” that God exists. When they were kids, would that they had been taught – not that belief in God was “right” – but the wisdom that W.K. Clifford wrote in his essay The Ethics of Faith: “It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”

Consequently, by continuing in their god delusion, most Americans thereby support the Muslim terrorists’ continued “faith” in their own god delusion. As the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig, wrote: “When one person suffers from a delusion, it’s called insanity; when many people suffer from a delusion, it’s called religion.”

So, fellow Americans, to defeat the Muslim terrorists, we don’t need to send more of our brave youth to the battlefield near Baghdad, we don’t need to break the buck building new bombers and battleships; instead, what we need is a deafening battle cry, bellowed out from every bleacher in the land: “There are no gods!”

Maybe even a chant, led by cheerleaders:

There are no gods, but there’s no need to grieve;
Work out the odds: it was all make believe!

And on our currency, rather than “In God We Trust”, something similar to the above would be a great slogan – but maybe something shorter. How about a contest? Some obvious entries:

God is dead
God never existed
God was a delusion
Jesus is just a myth
Allah is all gone
Allah ain’t answerin’
Allah was all la-la-land
Muhammad was mad
The god game is over
Allah didn’t show
God lost
God, nothing
Allah, zip

www.zenofzero.net

Huckster Huckabee Hawks His Hubris

With Romney’s religious rant (see my earlier post), I had hoped that we had reached the low point in the current round of platitudes that passes for campaigning for the position of President. Now, however, with Mike Huckabee (Baptist preacher and former Arkansas governor) climbing in the popularity polls, his pronouncements have plummeted politics to a new low in ignorance and arrogance, i.e., hubris. Of course, Huckabee puts a different spin on it. He says he’s climbing in the polls because God’s on his side: “Divine Providence helps my poll numbers.”

“But why,” one might ask, “would God be on Huckabee’s side?” Well, the answer to that question is obvious to anyone who is sufficiently brainwashed so that, like Huckabee, thinking is no longer a viable option: it’s because Huck has “faith”. And he tells us how he “found his faith” (in an invisible sugar-daddy in the sky) when he was ten years old: “I went to Vacation Bible School for all the wrong reasons – I was told they’d give me all the cookies I could eat and all the Kool-Aid I could drink. But that day I got something better than cookies and Kool-Aid. I got the Savior.”

Isn’t it heartening that the free world might be led by someone with a worldview of a ten-year old? Surely he’ll be able to successfully confront the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has the mental development and the worldview of a six-year old and claims: “There is no truth on earth but monotheism and following tenets of Islam and there is no way for salvation of mankind but rule of Islam over mankind.” You’ll show him who has the better savior, won’t you, Huck? After all, you’ll have more nuclear warheads to fire – and as everyone knows, happiness is having Rapture Time just a button away.

And it’s heartening, too, to have Huckabee spell out his goal: “I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn’t have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives.” Of course it’s great to know that Huck, like any good huckster, has all the answers – but I admit that I’d feel better if he had some idea about which answers go with which questions.

For example, “accepting Jesus Christ into our lives” isn’t the right answer to the question: How can we improve the critical-thinking skills of our children? Nor is it the right answer to questions such as: What are the best ways to stop Islamic terrorism? What mix of coal, oil shale petroleum, and nuclear energy will most rapidly, safely, and economically get us to energy independence? What’s the best way to constrain the military- industrial- congressional- bureaucratic complex? What’s the best way to ensure that American workers are competitive in a global economy? And so on. In fact, if one aligns all such questions with Huckabee’s single answer (“accepting Jesus Christ into our lives”) his answer seems to be correct only for a single question: “How can you best dupe Christians into nominating a fool for president?”

For those who feel that the word “fool” is too strong, I know of no better word (although “dumb”, “clown”, and “nut-case” are close contenders) to describe someone who says, as did Huckabee: “I think that students also should be given exposure to the theories not only of evolution but to the basis of those who believe in creationism.” Here’s a fellow who must have never taken a science course in his life – but he’ll do what he can to have children taught the science of the savages who wrote his “holy book”. After he gets creationism taught in science classes, no doubt he’ll want “equal time” for astrology to be taught in astronomy classes, alchemy in chemistry, faith healing in health science, “speaking in tongues” as a foreign language, magic numbers in mathematics, and of course, Huck’s all time favorite: “laying on of hands” in sex education.

But, says Huck-a-fool, it’s not important that he “believes” in creationism. He rhetorically asks: “Is a president going to sit in the Oval Office and really make a decision on what’s being taught… on creation or evolution?” He adds: “The answer is no.” But can this fool be trusted? How is his answer consistent with his statement: “Faith doesn't just influence me. It really defines me. I don’t have to wake up every day wondering what do I need to believe…” But the question is, Huck-old-boy: How do you reach your “beliefs”? Based on what you “wish to be” – as in wishing to live forever with your “savior” – or by estimating the probability that any claim is “true” based on the most reliable evidence? Similarly, Huck-a-nut, how do you gain your “faith”? By the scientific method, finding that all predictions of your hypotheses are validated, or by “listening to your heart”, succumbing to the “proof-by-pleasure” fallacy?

And then, Huck-a-clown, I assume to test if you can bury your foot even deeper in your mouth, you tell us that our freedoms come from your god. Really? The only freedoms that the damn clerics (such as you) claim were given to anyone by their god are the freedoms to sell one’s daughter into slavery and beat one’s slaves to death (of course in the manner specified by the Bible), the freedoms to stone to death all witches, infidels, homosexuals, and others who practice “abominations before the Lord” (such as thinking for oneself), and other such Biblical idiocies and atrocities. In reality, Huck-a-dumb, the freedoms that we’ve managed to gain weren’t given to us by any god. Saying so dishonors every woman who demanded women’s rights, every Black who sought civil rights, every police officer who protects our rights, every soldier who fought for, won, and still secures our rights, and every person who is a producer, rather than a parasite, who gives our country the economic strength so that we’ll have the ability to protect our rights.

And with respect to your hope and goal, “I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ”, then I dearly hope that you’ll soon wake up. Obviously you’ve never studied any science, but have you at least studied some history? Do you know anything about the origin of our Constitution? Have you ever heard of the concept of separation of Church and State? Is there any chance that you ever read The Treaty of Tripoli, which the Senate passed unanimously and was signed by President Adams in 1797? I’d call your attention, especially, to the part that states: “As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion…” And oh, if ever you do wake up, after you’ve had your first look at science and history, why don’t you try to learn about the concept of hubris and nemesis? Maybe you’ll understand why I predict that your hubris, your horrible combination of ignorance and arrogance, will soon plunge you back to the obscurity where you belong. I mean, surely-to-science the vast majority of Americans isn’t so stupid as you; surely it’s just a minority, living in the dream world of the Christian Reich.

Yet, that’s not to say that I disagree with everything Huckabee has said. For example, there’s his: “Politics are totally directed by worldview. That’s why when people say, ‘We ought to separate politics from religion,’ I say to separate the two is absolutely impossible.” Yet the question is: who wants a president who adopted the worldview of savages when he was ten – and is still clinging to it like a child who clings to his security blanket?

Further, Huck-old-boy, whereas you stated: “I have always said you don’t punish a child for the crime of a parent…” (with which I agree), then explain: Why do you need a savior, if it was your great-great… great grandparents (Adam and Eve) who allegedly sinned (by eating fruit from the tree of knowledge)? Or do you mean that theirs was the unforgivable sin of learning something new? You wouldn’t ever do that, would you?

And I agree with Huck’s: “America today is a deeply troubled nation. But its primary problem is not a political but a perspective problem.” Where I disagree is with his perspective: his perspective is that ‘belief’ means “wish to be” rather than an opinion about probabilities derived from evidence, and his perspective is that ‘faith’ means “blind trust” rather a decision resulting from the best possible evaluations.

For example, Huck-a-dumb “believes” in god (in spite of a total lack of evidence supporting such an opinion), because he wants to live forever, whereas I have “faith” in the scientific method, because evaluations show that it works. Thereby, I understand why Huck-a-nut quotes Proverbs 3, “Trust in the Lord, and lean not upon thine own understanding”: Huck-a-dumb doesn’t have any understanding. Consistently, Huck-a-fool affirms the Baptist Faith and Message statement: “The Holy Bible… has truth, without any mixture of error… all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.” The trouble is, Huck-a-clown doesn’t have a clue what “true” means: ‘truth’ has meaning only for closed systems (such as all games, including all religions); in contrast, for open systems, in reality, ‘truth’ can be approached only asymptotically, via the scientific method. And as for “trustworthy”, how’s this: I think that far more trustworthy than any claim in the Bible is the idea that Huckabee should NOT be a candidate running for the justifiable right (given to him by the people, not any god) to occupy the White House; more appropriate would be if he were running from medical authorities who justifiably want him incarcerated in a nut house.

Nonetheless, I agree that Huck seems to have “a big heart”, has developed skills at giving other people’s money away, and is quite an entertainer. But those are desired traits of a local preacher, not the president of this country.

Therefore, Huck, what I’d recommend is that you stop running – both for the presidency and from the authorities. The latter really wouldn’t be so bad as you apparently imagine. So your father beat you mercilessly when you were a kid; so you replaced him with an imagined merciful father in heaven; it’s okay; lots of kids do that – and lots of fathers, too. Your father beat you because he was brainwashed into believing it was best – by a bunch of clerical parasites; the same occurred for you; so, you beat your kids; and you passed the same message on when you were pastor. But it’s time to get over it all. Forgive your dad; try to make amends to your own kids and your congregation; and move on.

Don’t you see, Huck? You’re not the “right stuff” to be president. Instead, think about this: when your psychiatrist thinks you can handle it, go to a real university, get a real education and a real degree; then, see where you might be able to go from there – as a producer rather than a parasite.

www.zenofzero.net

Ridiculing Romney's Religious Rant

Keltoi: I disagree with your comment:

On a related topic, the presidential candidate for the U.S. presidency, Mitt Romney, gave a fairly good speech last Thursday. It was a good reminder that there should be no religious test for office.

First, I disagree with your assessment of Romney’s speech: I would describe it not as “fairly good” but “absolutely horrible.”

For the possible benefit of others, I’ll start with some background. In my view, the Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney (former governor of Massachusetts and a Mormon) felt it necessary to give the speech (the text of which is available online) because he was slipping in the Iowa polls relative to Mike Huckabee (a former governor of Arkansas and Baptist pastor). Therefore, Romney’s political strategy was to give a nationally advertised and televised speech to “defend” his “religious credentials”, under attack by many evangelical Christians, better described as the “Christian Reich.”

Now, look at some of the details in his speech. Early in it, setting its tone, Romney proposed:

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

Really? “Freedom requires religion”? “Religion” meaning in some way to “commune with God”? Because I’ve found no evidence to support the existence of an invisible friend in the sky that Romney calls “God”, then I can’t be free? Romney has an invisible friend in the sky who requires that HE be obeyed, and yet, I’m the one who isn’t free? And exactly what shade of black is Romney’s white?

Then there’s Romney’s: “religion requires freedom.” Really? Aren’t the Iranians, Pakistanis, Saudis, and so on, religious? Are they “free”? Isn’t Romney religious? Is he “free”? Really? Free to think outside his indoctrination? Can he even think for himself?

And look again at: “Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God.” How does Romney “discover” his “beliefs”: by evaluating evidence or by “listening to his heart” – or similar to Bush, by responding to what “his gut” tells him? That’s how Bush got us into the Iraq war; it’s called the “Proof by Pleasure Fallacy”. Rather than “commune with God”, how about communing with relevant data?

And then there’s Romney’s: “Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.” Really? What evidence supports such as stupid statement? How about if his claim was at least stated more clearly: “Freedom and the science of savages called ‘religion’ endure together, or perish alone”? Is Romney a candidate for President of the United States or President of his Church? Did his bachelor’s degree in arts, his master’s in business administration, and his law degree really provide him with appropriate preparation to convey to the American public his scientific model of the universe?

Later in his speech, Romney had special condemnation for “secularists”:

… in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It’s as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

Look again at Romney’s “the religion of secularism.” No doubt it’s meant to be a damning indictment, but what is its meaning? Secularism means separation of Church and State – and in case Romney doesn’t know, it’s a concept contained in our Constitution.

But if by ‘religion’ is meant “ideas to cling to” or “ideas that hold a group together”, and if Romney meant by ‘secularism’ something similar to “scientific humanism”, then I would agree that there is a “religion of secularism.” It means something similar to: reject the science concocted by savages (i.e., “the God idea”) and replace it with the best ideas that the scientific method has been able to generate ever since the science of savages was found to be stupid. As Mangasarian said: “Religion is the science of children; science is the religion of adults.” From which it follows that Romney has the mental development of a child.

And as if to confirm that idea, Romney added:

We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from “the God who gave us liberty… Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government.”

What nonsense! No god gave Americans liberty. I am an American and I do not “acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God.” What liberty we have was paid for by the blood and limbs and lives of those who fought the tyrants who would impose their stupid ideas on us – such as their stupid religious ideas – and just as Romney and Muslim terrorists seek to do.

In sum, Romney’s ideas are more closely allied to those of the Dark Ages than were those of the founders of this country, not only Paine and Jefferson and Madison, but even John Adams, whom Romney quotes:

In John Adam’s words: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion… Our Constitution,” he said, “was made for a moral and religious people.”

What Romney neglected to mention (amazingly convenient for him) were that the quotation from Adams was contained in a letter to army officers and that the concepts in the letter are wholly consistent with Adams’ application of Seneca the Younger’s principle:

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

Thus, although what Romney quoted shows that President Adams considered religion to be “useful” (especially for manipulating the troops), other quotations from Adams shows that he considered religion to be “false”. Some examples of Adams’ assessment follow:

The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.

Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public?

The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

The quandary that Adams found himself in, derived from his application of Seneca’s principle, was described well by Cliff Walker, who created “Positive Atheism’s Bill List of Quotations” (from which the above Adams’ quotations were taken). Walker wrote:

Oft-Misquoted Adams Quip

What you see in a great many atheistic quotes lists:
“This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it!!!”
– John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson.

What Adams was saying, in its actual context:

“Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, ‘This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!’ But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell.” – John Adams, quoted from Charles Francis Adams, ed., Works of John Adams (1856), vol. X, p. 254

John Adams is here describing to Thomas Jefferson what he sees as an emotion-based ejaculatory thought that keeps coming to him. This was not his reasoned opinion. Although John Adams often felt an urge to advocate atheism as a popular worldview (because of the sheer abuses perpetrated by religious charlatans), he was of the firm and reasoned opinion (basically undisputed in his day) that religion is essential to the goal of keeping the masses in line.

Knowing what we know today, to say this is pure slander against atheists. And yet it is still quite popular, especially among the uneducated, the widespread acknowledgement of its falsehood notwithstanding.

Thus, Adams was not above presenting such travesties as his National Day of Prayer and Fasting proclamation. These acts reflected his view that the masses needed religion to keep this world from becoming a bedlam. However, Adams, like Washington and Jefferson, did not apply this reasoning to himself – as we can plainly see from the quotations in the main section: religion was good for the masses but not for John Adams (for the most part), who was above all that and needed no piety in order to maintain his own sense of civility.

Meanwhile and in contrast, it’s not clear to me if Romney’s statement, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind”, means that he regards such nonsense as “true” or as just “useful”. But even giving Romney the benefit of the doubt that he’s smart enough to manipulate the masses, I’d bet that he “truly believes” that he has an invisible friend with him who wants him to take up residence at the White House – rather than a nut house!

Consequently, Keltoi, I also disagree with your: “It [Romney’s speech] was a good reminder that there should be no religious test for office.” Of course I agree that there should be no religious test for office, but I would maintain that anyone who claims to have an invisible friend in the sky with him is unfit for any political office.

And wilberhum, although I rarely disagree with you, I don’t think that your comment is sufficiently penetrating. You stated

We shouldn't judge anyone based on religion. Each and every religion has good and evil people in them.

I recall the great comment by Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg:

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Yet, I think that Weinberg’s assessment should be generalized – to something of the form:

With or without some ideology driving them, good people would be doing good things and evil people would be doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes some crazy ideology, such as Nazism, Communism, or any of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism.

www.zenofzero.net