Interview with Bruno and the Baron

Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600) Monk who defied the church with his vision of an infinite universe almost a 100 years before Isaac Newton.

Baron d'Holbach (1723 – 1789) "Father" of modern atheism. Author of the first book on outright denial of the existence of God, The System of Nature.

Bruno was bombastic, vain, utterly sure of himself.
The Baron was calm, supremely rational, with soft demeanor but intellectually firm.
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INTERVIEWER: Gentlemen thank for agreeing to this joint interview. It is hardly likely that you’ve met since you lived about 200 years apart. Let me introduce you. This is Giordano Bruno, 16th century poet, philosopher and monk of the Dominican order. And this the Baron d’Holbach, a Prussian by birth but a revolutionary Frenchman by intellect. [they shake hands]

BARON: I do not see how you could have supposed a Dominican monk and I would have something in common to talk about. It is well known that I have expressed a deep aversion to religion and all things religious.

BRUNO:I, also, am bewildered. I have become aware of the Baron’s chief work, something he calls The System of Nature. I too, have written of Nature. But more grandly.

INTERVIEWER: What was your book about?

BRUNO: My book’s title was Of the Infinite Universe and the Many Worlds. It is a celebration of the magnificent work of God! It shows how our Earth cannot be the center of the universe. God’s plan is grander than that!

INTERVIEWER: I think there is something of importance linking your thoughts, one to the other. Perhaps I’m wrong. If I am, I will apologize for troubling you – Friar Bruno, let me start with you.

BRUNO:[interrupting] Don’t call me Friar! I renounced that foolish appellation.

INTERVIEWER: How then shall I address you?

BRUNO: I took the title of ‘Doctor of the More Developed Theology’ or ‘Professor of Pure Wisdom.’ Either one will do.

INTERVIEWER: Well then... Doctor – Why did you leave the monastery and renounce your Dominican vows? Why did you wander all over Europe?

BRUNO: May I be frank? I am a Neapolitan. My blood heated my body too much. I had to throw off the suffocating monk’s robe and its vows of celibacy. Not all the snows of the Alps could quench the carnal fire that burned inside me. But it was not only my body, my mind was on fire too. I could not be silent.

INTERVIEWER: What set your mind on fire?

BRUNO:It was Copernicus. I read his book and I saw the light. I saw infinity. The Earth was not the center of creation. Even the Sun was not the center. I tried to tell everyone that the infinite cosmos was the creation of an infinite God. 

INTERVIEWER: I see, you tried to bring the new science of the time into theology. [turning to the Baron] Isn’t that what you were trying to do Baron?

BARON: No, not at all. We, my French colleagues and I, were bringing the new knowledge of the world to the people of the world not to the clergy. The clergy would have none of us and we certainly wanted nothing of them. They were, and will ever be, the supporters of ignorance. We tried to write a compendium of all knowledge, the first encyclopedia, and would have all people benefit from it.

INTERVIEWER: I understand you were the major contributor to the Encyclopedia, both with money and by writing articles. Didn’t you write over four hundred articles mostly in the natural sciences? Voltaire called you the most learned of the all philosophers.

BARON: [modestly] I tried to do my part.

INTERVIEWER: You also wrote many other books. One of them was called Christianity Unveiled in which you vehemently attacked religion.

BARON: Yes

INTERVIEWER: Did you really say that all children are born atheists?

BARON: Yes, I did write that. Children know nothing of a deity until their parents teach them to fear a supernatural power.

INTERVIEWER: On what did you base your disbelief in the existence of God?

BARON: I based it on rational thinking. If God wishes to be known, why not manifest himself to the whole earth in an unequivocal manner? In place of so-called miracles could not the All-powerful not write his name, his will, in a manner not subject to dispute? No one then would have been able to doubt his existence.

INTERVIEWER: Didn’t you fear retribution? 

BARON: From god? If he is infinitely good, what reason would we have to fear him? If he knows everything, why inform him of our needs and weary him with our prayers? If he is everywhere, why build temples to him? If he is inconceivable, why concern ourselves about him?

INTERVIEWER: [Short pause] You were critical of the clergy also. Why were you so hostile toward them?

BARON: For many reasons... but foremost because their control of education barred the way to the increase in scientific knowledge. They looked on the freedom of men to think as a threat to their power. They hang superstition like a blanket over the mind of man and ally themselves with political power to maintain control. The fundamental evil for the common man is the alliance of the priests and the political rulers.

BRUNO:[annoyed because he is overlooked] Excuse me but I too suffered because of the arrogance of those in power.

INTERVIEWER: But didn’t you find a haven within the courts of Europe? Didn’t Henry III appoint you a professor at the College de France? Didn’t you live at the French ambassador’s home in London for two years and didn’t he often take you to the English court? Queen Elizabeth admired you and you had several private conversations with her. You even lectured at Oxford.

BRUNO:Bah! To hell with royalty and the colleges ! They treated my message as a exciting new idea that amused them for a time. They then turned away.

INTERVIEWER: Why?

BRUNO:The thought of an infinite God as the spirit of an infinite universe made them uncomfortable. The arrogant clergy would not understand. They revered the writings of Aristotle more than they acknowledged the thoughts that their own minds were capable of.

INTERVIEWER: You doubted the teachings of Aristotle?

BRUNO: Yes, I dared to question Aristotle. I declared there is no Prime Mover. There is motion in every part of the universe. God is not an external intelligence. It is more worthy for him to be the internal principle of motion of the universe.

INTERVIEWER: That is a very strange idea.

BRUNO:They found other ideas of mine even stranger. My studies showed me that the stars appear small because they are distant. I declared that the stars, each one of them, are suns much like our own. And around each one of them are planets like the Earth. And on them are men and women, loving and hating, laughing and crying just as we.

INTERVIEWER: Isn’t it that the idea that got you in trouble with the Inquisition? If there were an infinite number of Earths there would have to be an infinite series of revelations and divine visitations. Clearly church doctrine proclaimed the one and only son of God was of this Earth. Therefore your ideas were heretical.

BRUNO:They could not see my vision. An infinite universe requires an infinite God.

BARON: My dear sir, why should that be true? If there is no evidence for a divine power why postulate that it exists? If one accepts nature as that which simply is – then the notion of supernaturalism falls away. We have no need of that hypothesis. I agree with you that everything in the universe is in motion. The universe consists of only particles of matter and their motions. Nothing more.

INTERVIEWER: That is a very materialistic view of existence. But I notice that you both agree on that point.

BARON: That is true. It is obvious that if all motion were to stop then time itself would stand still.

BRUNO:[grandly] I repeat, it is the spirit of God that moves all – the planets, the stars, the universe itself. I see God in the unchangeable laws of nature, in the light of the sun, in the beauty of all that springs from the bosom of mother earth.

BARON: Particles make up everything that is. They act according to unchangeable laws of nature -- but it is their own laws of being. No God is necessary. The more our knowledge grows, the more overwhelming is the evidence that the universe acts only through natural causes without the spirit of any deity.

INTERVIEWER: Were there others that shared your views Baron?

BARON: It was around our dinner table that these ideas were discussed.

INTERVIEWER: Who were your guests?

BARON: My wife chose our guests. It pleased her to sometimes include men who would be in opposition to my views. On one occasion a guest, I believe it was the philosopher David Hume. He avowed that all men must have some deep sense of the divine and he did not believe that any real atheists could exist. I advised him to look around the table and he would see 18 of them.

INTERVIEWER: I have heard the ideas discussed around your table formed the ideological basis of the French revolution?

BARON: Perhaps. We did discuss how the collusion between the priests and the aristocracy produced the fiction of the divine right of kings. We arrived at the conclusion that a good government derived its powers from the consent of the governed. I believe that idea spread in France and to the British colonies in America.

INTERVIEWER: Your salons held every Thursday and Sunday were famous all over Paris and intellectuals vied for invitations. Wasn’t Benjamin Franklin one of your guests?

BARON: Yes. He was an interesting man. We discussed his experiments with electricity.

BRUNO:(Interrupting) It seems that the Baron had all that is necessary to live a life of happiness. He had money, intellect, a beautiful intelligent wife, friends – not all of us are so lucky.

INTERVIEWER:: You are referring, of course, to the poverty and chaos of your own life.

BRUNO: Yes

INTERVIEWER: But didn’t you bring that on yourself? You seem to have enjoyed enraging people with your diatribes. And why, when you knew the Inquisition had burned your book did you return to Italy? To Venice.

BRUNO:For the love of true wisdom and zeal for contemplation, for these I exerted myself. I left Frankfort to go to Venice where I thought there was enough freedom for me to pass unnoticed. And I went out necessity. I had to earn some money. I went as a tutor in one of its illustrious families. I thought them friendly to my thought but they were leading me on. They reported me to the Inquisition.

INTERVIEWER: What were the charges brought against you?

BRUNO: Strangely, no mention was made of my vision of an infinite God in an infinite universe. They accused me of rejecting the idea of the Trinity and denying that the church wine cup held the blood of Christ. They said I had called all priests asses who defiled the Earth with their hypocrisy and avarice. They accused me of maintaining that carnal pleasures was natural to men and women and not a sin.

INTERVIEWER: Did you do all of those things?

BRUNO:Yes – Yes I did! But I didn’t confess it outright. I had hopes I could convince the inquisitors in Venice that I was repentant. I was in their hands from May to September when the authorities in Rome asked that I be sent to them.

INTERVIEWER: What happened in Rome?

BRUNO:Nothing happened. I sat in a dark cell without books or writing materials for a year before they even examined me. For 7 more years there were periodic questionings and long periods of starvation but I grew obdurate. I would not retract.

INTERVIEWER: Why did they keep you so long under those conditions?

BRUNO: I do not know. But in 1600 the Pope declared me guilty. When the verdict was read I said “You who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it.” It was the last thing I was able to say. They tied my tongue so that I could not speak. Later, they bound me to a stake and burnt me.

INTERVIEWER: It is said that when the fires were lit and the crucifix was offered to you on a long pole for you to kiss you turned your head away.

BRUNO: [softly] That is true.

[pause]

BARON: I am truly sorry, sir, for your pain. I admire you for your steadfastness and your vision. The happiness of the human race requires that religious superstition be overcome so that reason can elevate the mind to thoughts far greater than a vengeful God and his cruel clergy.

INTERVIEWER: I understand now where I got the sense that there was a link between you two. There is a line of thought that begins with the Greek philosopher Democritus in 370 B.C. that everything is made up of small particles in motion.
It was Bruno’s thought that there was within the universe a principle of motion and called it God. d’Holbach thought that motion was intrinsic to the particles themselves.
Both agreed that this universe is governed by natural laws.
Both challenged the religious authorities of their time.
I want to thank you both for being here and for doing what you did. Your names will be gratefully remembered. [They shake hands all around.]

The Problem with Fundamentalist Religion

As I define it, fundamentalist religion is the strict adherence to traditional beliefs and practices of a religion including, but not limited to, the literal interpretation of holy texts. The problem with fundamentalist religion is that it leads people to not only be immune to reason, but also to behave in ways which are harmful to themselves and others.

The Problem with Faith

In its 2012 platform on education, the Republican Party of Texas made a statement that it opposes the teaching of critical thinking skills because it “challeng[es] the student’s fixed beliefs and undermin[es] parental authority.”[1] Why would this be? It is because religious fundamentalists, such as those who hold political sway over the Texas Republicans, believe that unquestioning faith is a supreme virtue. This is also why many fundamentalist Christians fear sending their children to non-religious universities. As Republican Rick Santorum stated “62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it,” which as it turns out is not a true statistic.[2]

Recall that faith is a belief in something which is not supported by evidence. Thus, to unquestioningly adhere to beliefs based on no evidence means that no amount of reason or evidence should be able to change a true believer’s mind. As I explained in my post regarding blind faith, humans naturally rationalize their beliefs and ignore evidence which contradicts them. However, this stubbornness is outright encouraged in fundamentalist religions, which makes them far more immune to reason than other ideologues.

Beyond being unreasonable, fundamentalists are also far more likely to be taken advantage of by politicians and religious authorities. Regarding politics, people often vote for Republican candidates even when they stand for policies that go against their best interest. Why? Because the Republicans use far more religious rhetoric and promote far more socially conservative causes than do the Democrats.[3] As for religious authorities, consider televangelists and faith healers who scam their followers out of millions of dollars, and clergy who successfully molest children for years without ever being held accountable. Trusting those who put up a façade of religious purity leaves many strict theists vulnerable to being hurt and supporting those who do not have humanity’s best interests at heart.

The Problem with Fundamentalist Beliefs

Religious fundamentalists hold onto beliefs and ideas which were devised back when humanity knew much less about science, human psychology, and ethics than we do today. Consider this quote from Abraham Lincoln, the American President who was so progressive that he freed the slaves “I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people… while [negroes and whites] do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”[4] Despite being far more enlightened than most men of his day, Abraham Lincoln was still a racist by our standards. Religious fundamentalists often adhere to beliefs which were formed far earlier than Lincoln, yet are just as backward as his historically moderate racism.

Intolerance

Fundamentalists have very concrete ideas about how people ought to live, and how society should be run. Those who do not fit their mold are despised as unrepentant sinners and/or agents of evil. Given their conviction, religious fundamentalists do not keep their disdain to themselves. Often, they lash out at those who they dislike, leading to much unnecessary suffering. Consider these examples provided by the ACLU:[5]

• Religiously affiliated schools firing women because they became pregnant while not married.
• Business owners refusing to provide insurance coverage for contraception for their employees.
• Graduate students, training to be social workers, refusing to counsel gay people.
• Pharmacies turning away women seeking to fill birth control prescriptions.
• Bridal salons, photo studios, and reception halls closing their doors to same-sex couples planning their weddings.

Misogyny

The vast majority of successful societies throughout human history have utilized a patriarchal social structure.[6]As such, the traditional view of women is that they are inferior to men, and are often treated poorly as a result. This perspective is reinforced by the world’s major religions, and stridently kept alive by their fundamentalist adherents. For example:

Christianity:

• In 1 Peter 3:1, wives are told explicitly to “be in subjection to your own husbands.”
• In both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, women are not allowed to be ordained as priests.[7]
• Fundamentalist Christians fervently oppose abortions even in cases of rape and incest.[8]

Islam:

• Women are encouraged to cover their bodies lest they tempt men to sin by thinking lustful thoughts, but studies have shown that sexual harassment among conservatively dressed women is commonplace in many Islamic countries.[9] 
• Domestic violence is also very common in Islamic countries, as it is fully endorsed in the Quran.[10][11]

Hinduism:

• In Hindu India, it is common to blame victims of rape, and allow rapists to go unpunished.[12]
• In the Vedanta, it is said that only males are allowed to study the Vedas, which is necessary for achieving full realization of one’s soul.[13]

Psychologically Damaging

A recent study including over 8,000 people in 7 countries has found that religious individuals are more likely to be depressed than those who are non-religious. On top of that, the most religious tended to be twice as likely to be depressed.[14] While it is probable that depressed people may be more likely to seek emotional benefits from religion, I would argue that for some, religion can do more harm than good. For example, gay teens are 3.4 times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual counterparts.[15] The homosexual teen suicide hotline “Trevor Lifeline” reported that nearly twice as many calls come from Southern US states than from Northeastern ones.[16] For those who are not familiar, the Southern states are known for their religious conservatism, and the Northeastern for their secularism. Thus, it is likely that at least a portion of these gay teens committed suicide because they felt shame for their innate sexual preference.

Beyond gay teens, religion can also incite shame and guilt for doing or thinking things which are perfectly healthy (e.g. premarital sex, masturbation, doubting beliefs, etc.) This shame may also be coupled with the petrifying fear of spending eternity in hellfire for displeasing God. On top of that, fundamentalist religions prescribe many unnecessary rules of conduct, dress, cuisine, ritual, etc. that can be burdensome to the practitioners. Consider the plight of Islamic women, for example. Living in fear of sexual and physical abuse certainly isn’t conducive to psychological health.

How Fundamentalist Religion is Ruining the World

Radical Islam

Radical Islam poses one of the greatest threats to the stability and safety of our society. In 2011, Sunni Muslim terrorists accounted for 70% of the all terrorist murders, and over 95% of suicide bombings are conducted by Muslim extremists.[17] In addition to the violence perpetrated by Muslim terrorists, one of the major tenets of fundamentalist Islamic doctrine is that democracy is in contradiction with the sovereignty of Allah's law.[18] The Hizb ut-Tahrir Movement in particular has gained significant momentum in much of Europe.[19] This sect publicly eschews violence, but regularly holds rallies and protests accompanied by statements such as “Britain will be an Islamic state by the year 2020!” to promote its goal of overthrowing democratic governments in favor of a global caliphate.[20]

Degenerating Public Trust in Science

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution hasn’t set well with religious fundamentalists since its inception. Today in the United States, 35% of Americans believe God created humans in their present form around 10,000 years ago, and 26% believe God guided our evolution.[21] This has led to many battles in religiously conservative states to include curricula regarding intelligent design and creationism as well as anti-evolution messaging in public school science classes.[22][23] This isn’t a uniquely American problem either, as South Korea nearly passed a law to drop references to evolution in their public school textbooks.[24] This isn’t only a Christian problem either, as only 8% of Egyptians, 11% of Malaysians, 14% of Pakistanis, 16% of Indonesians, and 22% of Turks agree with Darwin’s theory.[25]

So why does this lack of acceptance in the theory of evolution matter? For starters, it is how humans came to exist in our present form, and misleading our children about it robs them of a full understanding of their own humanity. Beyond this, I personally know a person who went to a Christian college that teaches creationism in its biology classes, yet has both an accredited nursing and PA program. This has the potential to endanger public health, as evolution is central to the study of biology and thus medicine.

In addition to these issues, denying evolution undermines trust in science. This is why religious individuals are far more likely to deny global warming than those who are unaffiliated with any religion (Total U.S. population 47%; Unaffiliated with any church 58%; White mainline Protestants 48%; White, non-Hispanic Catholics 44%; Black Protestants 39%; White evangelical Protestants 34%).[26] This matters not only because the vast majority of climate scientists believe it is a real threat, but also because it has the potential to severely diminish humanity’s ability to thrive on this planet.[27]

Ruining our Political Systems

In the United States, the Republican Party has recently been taken over by religious fundamentalists.[28] This means that half of the world’s richest and most powerful country’s government is being influenced by people who are both immune to reason and firm believers in harmful nonsense. This is why in 2011, 1,100 reproductive rights laws were introduced by state lawmakers during a time when the unemployment rate was 8.2% and over 400,000 children remained in the US foster care system.[29] This is also why in 2013, the federal government was shut down in part due to provisions in the Affordable Care Act, which provided free access to contraceptives to women.[30] Finally, it is also why in recent years, we have had one of the least productive Congresses in US history.[31] In short, fundamentalist religion is ruining my country, and in effect, making the entire world much worse off.

Conclusion

Among all topics I’ve covered in my blog, the problem with fundamentalist religion is one of the most difficult to explain succinctly. There are simply too many examples, too many angles of approach, and too little room to fully detail the degree to which fundamentalism is awful for humanity. Ultimately, the problem is that fundamentalists stubbornly believe in harmful ideas and feel compelled by their religious fervor to make life miserable for the rest of us. Given their large numbers and political influence, their negative impact on humanity will likely be felt long after society fully moves away from such belief systems.

"The Tokyo Rose Case"

The University Press of Kansas has added a new volume to its Landmark Law Cases & American Society series: Yasuhide Kawashima, The Tokyo Rose Case: Treason on Trial (2013). Here's a description:

Iva Ikuku Toguri (1916–2006) was an American citizen, born on the 4th of July. Her parents, first-generation Japanese Americans, embraced their new nation and raised Iva to think, talk, and act like a patriotic American. But, despite her allegiance to the United States, she was forced to spend most of her adult life denying that she was a traitor or that she was World War II’s infamous Tokyo Rose.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Iva was nursing an ailing aunt in Japan. Prevented from returning to home, she was viewed with suspicion by the Japanese authorities. They hounded her to renounce her American citizenship, which she adamantly refused to do. Pressured to find employment, she joined Radio Tokyo. Known as Orphan Ann, she did nothing more than emcee brief music segments on “The Zero Hour” during the war’s last two years. She was never called “Tokyo Rose” by anyone and was but one of only a dozen or so English-speaking females heard on Japanese airwaves.

In need of money to return home after the war, she made the mistake of allowing herself to be interviewed by two ambitious journalists who were certain that she was the Tokyo Rose, even though she denied it. The published story brought Iva to the attention of American authorities who tried and convicted Iva for treason, despite the lack of evidence and a reluctant jury. She was then stripped of her citizenship and sent to prison. 

Yasuhide Kawashima’s account of Toguri’s trials are deeply rooted in Japanese language sources, American legal archives, and the cultures of both nations. He identifies heroes and villains in both the United States and Japan and also highlights broader concerns: the internment of thousands of loyal Japanese Americans, the meaning of citizenship, the nation’s commitment to the idea of fair trial, the impact of tabloid journalism, and the very concept of treason.

Iva was eventually pardoned in 1977 by President Gerald Ford—she was the first person in U.S. history to be pardoned for treason—and had her citizenship restored. Yet when she died in 2006, obituaries continued to identify her as Tokyo Rose. Kafkaesque in its telling, Kawashima’s tale provides a harsh reminder that the law does not always render justice.

Genghis Khan

The entire Mongol Empire, at its peak, covered some 12.7 million square miles, which is 22% of all the land area on Earth. The tactics that enabled such conquests can be traced primarily to Genghis, the empire’s founder and first Khan. His birth name was Borjigin Temujin, and he devised a versatile attacking style, that of missile cavalries: his best archers were not trained merely to shoot, but to shoot accurately while riding horses at full gallop. They could even shoot accurately directly behind the horse at full gallop. No infantry force in the world at that time could have withstood such soldiers, and all the nations the Mongols invaded were overwhelmed very quickly.

Genghis’s legacy has been cemented by his conquest of Khwarezmia, which is most of modern Iran, along with parts of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Genghis originally respected the leader, Ala ad-Din Muhammad II, as another conqueror, but when Genghis sent emissaries to strike up commerce with Ala ad-Din, the latter killed the diplomats and sent the rest back with shaved heads as an insult. First rule of Genghis Khan: don’t insult Genghis Khan.

He invaded Khwarezmia with 200,000 men, as many as half of these mounted archers, and split his army into smaller forces designed to conquer more territory faster. In military schools, this is always advised against, but Genghis’s scouts indicated that Ala ad-din was waiting with stronghold defenses, which suited Genghis’s desire for maneuvering room. His armies surrounded the walled cities of Samarkand, Urgench and Bukhara, and utterly destroyed them, one after another. On the third day of siege at Burkhara, the Turkish generals inside decided that they did not have the food and water to outlast Genghis, and so sallied a force of 20,000 cavalrymen and infantrymen, who attacked in the open steppe outside the city. Genghis’s army slaughtered them, to the last man.

Then he finished the siege within another 2 weeks, killed the Turkish soldiers who survived, sent the rest of the population’s youth into slavery, and executed everyone else, men and women deemed inefficient for labor. Seeing that the Turkish attempt to free itself from siege failed so well, Genghis next besieged Samarkand, whose garrison sent 50,000 veteran troops against Genghis’s army when it pretended to withdraw piecemeal. This was a simple plot that worked magnificently. His men retaliated, flanked on both sides, enveloped, and shot the Turks down in a massive pile of human and horse carcasses. He saw no need to preserve their horses since his did not seem to be at risk. Ala ad-Din arrived with a relief force of several tens of thousands, but could not approach because of Genghis’s mounted archers. The other 50,000 or so defenders of the city were executed to the last man, as was every single civilian, whose heads were arranged into a giant pyramid outside the walls.

Urgench was not so easy to attack, since it was built on swamp land around Amu Darya River. Genghis sent his men in without fear, and they lost significantly more men than usual due to the urban street fighting. The high end estimate of Turkish deaths, both civilian and military, in Urgench is 1,200,000, but much more plausible is 250,000 to 500,000. The rest were enslaved. This was one of the bloodiest genocides in history.

A Christian Fundamentalist Nation - Ideological Disaster

In the eighteenth century the West shifted from mercantilism to capitalism. Mercantilism was an economic system that gave governments wide-ranging regulatory powers over commerce, mostly to ensure a positive balance of trade. It also allowed for strong guild structures and protection for domestic industries. However, the Industrial Revolution ended mercantilism and brought to power a business class that wanted to be free to operate without government oversight.  

As the capitalist worldview evolved, it made a fetish out of the “free market” and viewed government as, at best, a necessary evil. Any sort of regulation was seen as the equivalent of slavery, and the proper role of officialdom was reduced to maintaining internal order (police), defending the realm (military) and enforcing contracts (the courts). Any government involvement in social welfare was disapproved of because it allegedly promoted laziness among the poor, but this was just a convenient myth. The real reason for keeping government activity to an absolute minimum was the rising business class’s fear and loathing of taxes. 

In Europe the rationalizations for capitalism remained primarily secular, looking to the maximization of efficiency for the sake of profit. In the United States, however, where little good happens that is not ascribed to an overseeing God, secular rationalizations were soon complemented with the notion of divine will. God wanted unregulated economic freedom and minimalist government to prevail. 

This religious view continues to exist. Today’s struggle to return us all to minimalist government and maximum economic “freedom” is led by a collection of fundamentalist Christian right-wingers and Tea Party mad hatters. Chris Hedges lays out a worst-case scenario of the drive for power by the Christian right in his recent article “The Radical Christian Right and the War on the Government.” He tells us that “the public face” of this political force is “on display in the House of Representatives” and its main ideological aim is to “shut down the government.” Hedges also points to Texas Senator Ted Cruz as the archetypal fundamentalist politician leading the charge against big government. Hedges thinks this is just the first step toward the real goal of men like Cruz, which is to make the U.S. a Christian fundamentalist nation. 

The Ensuing Struggle 

In the struggle that has ensued, the radical conservatives’ enemy is the Democratic (or “big government”) Party in general and President Obama in particular. As an indication of just how isolating and distorting ideology can be, focus groups of conservative Republicans have revealed a deeply held conspiracy theory. According the researchers who conducted this study, “What drives the Republican base . . . [is] a genuine belief that Obama has a secret agenda to drive the country in a socialist direction.” They also believe that he is the head of a cabal. He seems to be a politician who “came from nowhere” and therefore is “propelled by some secret forces.” The focus groups revealed  this belief to be held by “two out of every three self identified Republicans.”  

In the 2010 election a combination of gerrymandering of voting districts to help elect Republicans and a high conservative turnout gave Republican Party control of the House of Representatives. It also brought a strong plurality of radical right-wing conservatives into the House. Both these radical politicians and many of their constituents shunned the sort of compromise that is, or should be, at the heart of democracy. For the radicals principle was more important than compromise. That attitude led to the recent political confrontation with its shutdown of the federal government and the near default on the public debt.  

Within days of the shutdown, moderate Republicans began deserting the radical conservatives and expressed their willingness to end demands for such things as the defunding of federally subsidized health care, popularly known as “Obamacare,” the elimination of the government deficit, and a radical reduction in government programs and regulatory power. However, it was only when Republican majority leader John Boehner finally allowed a vote on the floor of the House that these moderate Republicans could join their Senate colleagues on a resolution which restored the flow of funds that reopened the government and saved the nation from default. In so doing the moderates split the Republican Party in two.  

Victory Denied 

What the moderate Republicans did was deny the radical conservatives their victory. For that was what a shutdown of the federal government and a default on the debt represented to the conservatives. Ideologically the goal of these radicals is to reduce government’s role in society to a minimum. They hoped the ability to shut down the entire federal operation would position them for negotiating its eventual minimization. Second, the campaign to reduce federal taxes to a minimum through the creation of a bare- bones balanced budget was to be aided by their ability to push the Treasury Department to the brink of default. All the conservative Republicans had to do was sustain these two tactics long enough to make the Democrats concede. That was what they could not do, thanks in good part to the desertion of the moderate Republicans.   

The battle is not over. The resolution supported by the moderate Republicans opens the federal government through December 2013 and allows sufficient funding of the debt through February 2014. So we may well face a second round of disruptive confrontation.   

In the long run, however, things do not look good for the Republican Party. Many radical conservatives have come to see their moderate compatriots as worse than any liberal Democrat. They see them as traitors to principle – as politicians who ran scared in the face of the Obama’s “socialist” agenda. Under these circumstances most of the party’s energies might well be taken up with self-destructive infighting. The Republican Party now runs the risk of shrinking down to its radical base while its moderates are defeated in primaries, flee to the Democratic Party, or stake out positions as independents. Democratic voters may now be motivated by the recent spectacle of disruption to turn out in higher numbers to win back the House from the Republicans. If that happens, the Republican Party will be hard put to stay alive as a single entity.  

Conclusion 

Ideology is a form of debilitating shortsightedness. It replaces reality with an idealized version that usually has too little to do with the real world to be workable. The economic aspect of radical conservative ideology is fatally anachronistic. Earlier, in the nineteenth century, it led to devastating business cycles of boom and bust and left much of the population without basic services. The Great Depression should have been its death knell. As to the size of government and range of its activities, we must keep in mind that there are nearly 317 million people in the USA. Going back to a pre-Great Depression (much less an eighteenth- century) government structure would undermine social stability by withdrawing all the protections that keep destitution at bay and unleashing all the prejudices that present federal law discourages. Ignore these facts and eventually you will have real revolution on your hands. The radical conservatives are stubbornly blind to these problems because they call in doubt their “principles.”  

All such shortsighted ideologies, be they of the right or the left, have proven unrealistic, and so have failed. Unfortunately, they have wreaked havoc in the meantime. We have only seen a shadow of the potential for damage of the present ideological challenge. Let’s hope we can avoid its full force. 

Morality and God : If you don’t believe in a God, why not go around killing people, why not rape ?

Someone asked me: If you don’t believe in a God, why not go around killing people, why not rape ? After all, there is no one to judge you right ? My observation is that, often these types of questions are asked by people who tend to view the world in a very narrow minded perspective. I often redirect the question at themselves, “If you believe there is no god, will you go around raping women and killing people ? ” You’d be surprised to notice how many people would actually nod their heads saying “yes”. These are the type of people who are very dogmatic in their beliefs, and not willing to think over it. One might even say, Ignorant. An educated person would likely not to shoot these type of questions, because he/she will have recognized the implied message here. As great minds like Einstein pointed out, “If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed”. Even this, is an overstatement. Religion does not use fear to motivate a person away from bad and towards good. Religion, uses Punishment and Reward to motivate fearful human beings away from “Sin” and towards “Religious Virtues“. As you continue reading you can discover, Good does not mean “virtue”. This is precisely why religious cults like the suicide bombing community consider themselves to be “good” with respect to their beliefs. In their perspective, It’s a virtue to blow things up. These cults literally brainwash and reprogram the minds of the followers.  It’s a “Sin” to consume alcohol, but mass murder is perfectly fine. Why ? Because it’s a “Virtue”. These ignorant religious extremists honestly believe that they are doing ”good”. After all, they’ve got god on their side. They have the Devine permission. Perfectly normal human beings can be brainwashed into thinking in terms of sin and virtue instead of Good and Bad. Therefore, any sadistic deed can be rationalized and reverse engineered to fit their beliefs.

Isn’t it crazy that people are willing to blow people up, based on their ignorant, selfish, and foolish religious cult based on nothing but “faith” ? My point is, religions and religious cults can program perfectly normal human beings  into doing the worst imaginable things, and make them believe that they are doing good. After all they are simply fighting for a bigger cause, aren’t they?  The reward is unimaginable. Good and Bad has nothing to do with Sin and Virtue.  Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and other religions are not much different from these cults. If you go back in history, you’d see exactly the same “virtues” as the suicide bombers now do. Fortunately religion was smart enough to evolve.  Religions can’t wait to overpower the majority. And when they do, the very next thing we might notice is, every woman will be wearing a black veil. This is not morality, this is stupidity. Our cousins who share 99.5% of our DNA, they do have morals and rituals. Where do they get their morals from ?  The Devine scriptures and ape like prophets ? Human beings are not evil. We can be selfish, ignorant and foolish. Nonetheless, we always have a positive intent in everything we do. Even the suicide bomber has a positive intent. After all, seventy-two virgins in heaven is a big reward, don’t you think ? Now thinking of commenting ?

The answer is No, I won’t run loose raping women. Hence i don’t require my women to be covered in veil.  I want to be as good as I can be. I don’t mind being a sinner, because one can be a sinner and still be a good person. Consuming poke, Drinking Alcohol, homosexuality are all considered to be sinful deeds in most of the religions. In Islam, even  music and art are forbidden. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism,  condemns protective sex.  Protective sex ? Oh yea, this makes perfect sense to me. The more children  can mean more followers, the more followers will give them more power. Protective sex means fewer followers, and therefore no wonder it’s a sin.  But does that make you a bad person ? Non-belief and doubt is a sin. Does that make you an immoral person ? Morality does not come from religion. If you answered Yes, in the absence of god you will go around shooting people and raping women, you must be ashamed of yourself. You are not a free thinker yet. You are being brainwashed into thinking what you believe is the truth, and everything else is simply untrue. How do you know ? The worst part about being brainwashed is not knowing it’s been done onto you. My advice for you is to study how cults operate. Study human behavior and belief systems. Beliefs are like programs installed inside your mind. You can uninstall them.  First, You must be aware of it. It doesn’t make sense to run a thousand year old program inside your head. These belief systems are unconscious. It takes thinking to overcome your limitations.  It doesn’t cost you to think your own thoughts, and form your own opinions. This is what makes us truly intelligent as human beings.

Once again, No, I won’t run loose raping and murdering . If I did, you’d probably notice a lot of dead bodies next to the churches and mosques. I’m just kidding. I try to have true morality. I do good not because I expect a heaven, and I stay away from bad not because I’m afraid of an angry and insecure god who will punish me for eternity, but I do good because I want to be a good person. It’s inside everyone of us. It’s in my nature, because I’m a product of nature. I’m not afraid of god. Fear is not what makes most people good. If you are a good person only because fear and wishful thinking motivates you to be one, have you really been a good person all your life ? You’re just another religious person. It’s just too easy. It’s not fear that can makes us good, it’s understanding reality and acting in harmony with it, that makes us truly good.

Atheists vs. Agnostics (Yet Again)

People who claim agnosticism as their theological position are basically admitting they don't know what they're talking about. It's a lame cop out. Do you believe in God? Yes or no?

No= atheist
Yes= theist

"I don't know" is an answer to a different question.

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All agnostics are either theists or atheists. That's true. Either you believe in a god or you don't. There's no tertium quid. However, I think atheists pick on the self-proclaimed agnostics way too much. Yes, for many, the label "agnostic" is definitely a cop out, because they would rather not admit their non-belief in a god.

There is a distinction that should be made between lack of belief and the positive belief that there are no gods. "I don't believe in a god" is much different than "I believe there is no god." While the latter implies the former, the former certainly doesn't imply the latter. "Atheist" simply means "no god," as in, "no god in my current belief system." A lot of people think the label atheist necessarily implies "I think there is no god," but that's not the case. I am certain many agnostics shy away from the atheist label because they don't want to deal with incorrect assumptions and baggage that goes along with the label.

Relevant to this is the distinction that should be made between descriptive labels and cultural labels. A descriptive label is meant to describe or help other people understand a person better. "I'm a vegetarian." "I'm pro-choice." "I'm a Christian." Labels are often used in an attempt to help other people know where we stand or how we think. Sometimes labels confuse as much as they clarify, and oftentimes they help segregate members of society, but the pure intent of a label is to communicate a position or a belief. A cultural label has connotative associations, and like-minded people use a cultural label to identify each other and form bonds of community and shared social norms. "Atheist," for example, as a cultural label implies a group of people who usually take issue with religion, uphold evolution and the scientific method, and promote skeptical inquiry. Of course, not everyone who uses the atheist label uses critical thinking or skeptical inquiry, but I'm referring to a generalization. "Christian" as a cultural label carries its own presuppositional baggage as well. We use such labels to identify ourselves as "card-carrying" members of a group or movement. A lot of self-proclaimed agnostics don't use the atheist label because they don't see themselves as associated with that particular subculture. Neil deGrasse Tyson is that kind of agnostic.

Our language fails us in our present time to provide a clear distinction in our labels. People have used the adjectives "strong" or "positive" to describe the atheism in which one holds a positive belief that there is no god, and "weak" or "negative" atheism to refer to simple lack of belief without the belief or conviction that a god does not exist. Moments like this one are when I like to dig up this old chart, dust it off and put it on display, because it continues to be relevant:

Here we see that "agnostic" and "atheist" are not different options in the same category, but different labels referring to different categories altogether. "Atheist" deals with the realm of ontology, or reality, whereas "agnostic" deals with epistemology, or what we know (or don't know) about reality. Agnosticism says, "I have no knowledge about a god." Atheism says, "my view of reality doesn't include a god." There might be - and often is - correlation between one's agnosticism and one's atheism; i.e., "I don't know, therefore I don't believe." But calling oneself an agnostic doesn't answer the question of whether one's current view of reality contains any kind of god.

Likewise - and as an aside - agnosticism can be separated into two categories: "strong" agnosticism, in which one believes no one can have adequate knowledge of the divine, and "weak" agnosticism, in which a person simply speaks for oneself - "I don't know" - without claiming that knowledge of god is impossible. One could say that weak agnostics are agnostic about strong agnosticism.

Then we must consider what I call the "God Grading Scale" (GGS), which is a way of taking into account how we view the varying god concepts out there, and the idea of a god in general. For example, most people in our world today are strong or positive atheists vis-à-vis Zeus and the other gods of Olympus. In other words, most people have a positive belief in the non-existence of such deities. All the people I know rank Zeus pretty low on their GGS. Christians, Muslims, and Jews rank the God of Abraham highly on their respective GGS, and rank gods like Zeus, Vishnu, Baal, and Quetzalcoatl fairly low on their GGS. Some atheists rank all god concepts low on their GGS, but not all do. I met an atheist who was a strong atheist concerning the God of the Bible, yet said he "wouldn't be surprised" if he were to discover that the divine concept found in Hinduism were true. Clearly, my friend ranks Yahweh much lower than he does Brahman on his GGS.

More often, atheists either give all god concepts a similar (or similarly low) grade on their GGS, or they grade the current competing god concepts low, yet leave room for at least the possibility of the existence of a god of some sort; thus, they may give this "unknown god" of the Areopagus (ἄγνωστος θεός) a somewhat higher grade than the other "known" gods of humanity. Many atheists are strong atheists concerning the known god concepts, yet weak atheists concerning the idea of god in general (the unknown god, si vous voulez).

I began this entry by voicing my opinion that atheists pick on agnostics too much. I understand why: many atheists feel like they're on the front lines, enduring the negative stigma associated with the label while they feel agnostics are hiding behind their label. I can sympathize with agnostics as well. Many of them want people to understand why they think the way they do. They want their label to communicate what matters most to them; namely, the search for knowledge, and the conviction that belief should be based on logic and evidence. Labels carry with them the intrinsic property of generalization, which runs us close to the edge of overgeneralization. I think people on either side of the label fence can do better, given a little more effort. I think more understanding and more open communication is in order.