This thread is for discussing Massimo Pigliucci's Rationally Speaking article entitled Of terror and insanity. (Special Edition)

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N. 15, 15 September 2001




"In the City of God there will be a great thunder, Two brothers torn apart by Chaos, while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb, The third big war will begin when the big city is burning" - Nostradamus 1654

I can only hope that this horrible hoax, because that is what this alleged quatrain from the "prophet" Nostradamus is, was perpetrated accidentally and not by somebody taking advantage of or poking fun at the human tragedy that hit the United States on September 11, 2001. Several other similar verses were released over the Internet, and self-styled Nostradamus "expert" John Hogue immediately took to the media for a special appearance on the Art Bell show commenting on what Nostradamus "really" predicted. To decrease my faith in humankind even further, my wife came home the other day from her job at the public library telling me that all the books on Nostradamus are gone and the public still calls for more.

It shouldn't take a course in critical thinking to realize that the suspicious thing about prophecies (even those that are not actually written after the fact) is that we realize what they were predicting only after the events. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, but one could reasonably ask what is the point of a prophecy that can only be understood when it's too late. The interpretation of a single prophecy always depends upon what time the interpretation is taking place, as the vague poetic lines are stretched and cut to fit whatever has just happened or what seems likely to happen. So, rather than coming to the true understanding of a prophecy, what we're really doing is making it up out of thin air, just as the prophet did originally.

What good are psychics if they can't warn of specific, imminent danger? For example, multimillionaire mind- and future-reader Sylvia Browne was on CNN's Larry King Live just a few days before the terrorist attack. She wasted her talent warning skeptic James Randi that he had something wrong in his left ventricle (Randi is in good health, but it is also a good bet that an elderly white American male will eventually have something wrong with his heart) instead of warning everybody on live national TV of what was about to happen. It was her chance to prove herself, and she blew it.

Of course, the true believer always has a ready answer: the point of the prophecy is to make you realize the power of mystical and religious inspiration, annihilate your pride in reason and open your heart to God, not merely to save human lives.

And speaking of God, rabid Christian fundamentalist Jerry Falwell was also out for publicity immediately after the tragedy. Was he praying for the victims and offering spiritual guidance to the rest of the nation? No, he was busy explaining why this all happened. According to this monster the reason all those people died was twofold: First, evil exists (an observation about which one can hardly disagree, although definitions of evil differ) and, second, God has lifted his umbrella of protection and allowed the tragedy to occur. Apparently, God lifted his protection because of too much secularism, not allowing kids to pray or read the Bible in school (which is not true), and allowing porn on the Web.

These statements are so outrageously stupid and offensive to the memory of the people who died that you would expect them to be immediately chastised by any reasonable Christian who was listening to Falwell's show. Alas, millions of people are hooked on the words of a man whose worldview is similar to that of the fringe religionists who rejoiced at the attack. It is frighteningly easy to imagine someone prone to Falwell's thinking style becoming someone like bin Laden under different historical circumstances. Falwell, after all, does want to turn the United States into the Christian equivalent of Taliban Afghanistan.

This morning I was riding the bus to work and they were broadcasting a local radio talk show where people were understandably upset at the events of the previous days and were trying to come to grips with the surreal situation. I imagine most of the callers had spent the previous Tuesday in a state of mind similar to my own, shocked by the news, unable to fully comprehend the scope of the tragedy or the sickness of the minds that planned it and carried it out in cold blood. But of course most of the callers to the show went immediately beyond the specific event to further-consciously or not-their religious agenda. A typical comment was "we need to turn this nation to God."

Well, wake up people, this nation is turned to God. Constantly. God is all over this nation, from the now ubiquitous signs on our highways to the highest number and density of churches that ever occurred not only in the US but probably in any other time or place in the world. Over 95% of the citizens of the US profess belief in a personal God, and about half of them hold onto at least some of the most fundamentalist views espoused by the innumerable sects that have developed at an incredible pace over the last century. Why would God "lift his umbrella" from one of the most adoring places on the whole planet?

More importantly, what kind of a horrible God allows thousands of innocent people to be wiped out in an instant just because somebody posts pornographic pictures on the Internet? Ah, but I forgot that this is the same sort of God that told the Jews to exterminate entire races because they didn't please Him enough, and added that they should slaughter their enemies' children and-for good measure-rape their wives (see Genesis 34:13-29, Exodus 17:13, 32:27-29, Numbers 16:27-33, 21:35, 31:17-28, Deuteronomy 2:33-34, 3:6, 7:2, 20:13-14, and the list can go on and on). Is this the sort of God that our nation should turn toward? I suggest instead that we try to nuke Him if we can find where in the Hell He hides!

As the reader can see, this is an angry column. I rarely allow myself this sort of unbridled frankness, but too much is too much even for somebody attempting to style his life after the moderate advise of Epicurus. These people must be stopped, and I'm not talking only about the Islamic fundamentalists, but about any sort of fundamentalist-religious or not-who thinks he's got the answer to all the world's problems, if only the world would submit to his iron-fisted rule. It is time for all people of good will and good sense to say: Enough!

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Chris

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"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." - Nelson Mandella

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These people must be stopped, and I'm not talking only about the Islamic fundamentalists, but about any sort of fundamentalist-religious or not-who thinks he's got the answer to all the world's problems, if only the world would submit to his iron-fisted rule. It is time for all people of good will and good sense to say: Enough!

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I agree with the above statement, and I would include those voices, and they are legion, who feel Corporate Global Capitalism is the universal solution to all of the world's problems. This would involve the vast majority of US politicians, pundits, CEOs, bankers, stock brokers, and industrial managers, as well as more than a few working class stiffs who have swallowed the bait for their own crumb-coated servitude.

Here are a few resources for understanding the Religious dimensions, and perversions, of this Corporate Market Fundamentalism:

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From a religious perspective, the problem with market capitalism and its values is twofold: greed and delusion. On the one hand, the unrestrained market emphasizes and indeed requires greed in at least two ways. Desire for profit is necessary to fuel the engine of the economic system, and an insatiable desire to consume ever more must be generated to create markets for what can be produced. Within economic theory and the market it promotes, the moral dimension of greed is inevitably lost; today it seems left to religion to preserve what is problematic about a human trait that is unsavory at best and unambiguously evil at its worst. Religious understandings of the world have tended to perceive greed as natural to some extent, yet rather than liberate it they have seen a need to control it.

The spiritual problem with greed -- both the greed for profit and the greed to consume -- is due not only to the consequent maldistribution of worldly goods (although a more equitable distribution is of course essential), or to its effect on the biosphere, but even more fundamentally because greed is based on a delusion: the delusion that happiness is to be found this way.

Trying to find fulfillment through profit, or by making consumption the meaning of one's life, amounts to idolatry, i.e. a demonic perversion of true religion; and any religious institution that makes its peace with the priority of such market values does not deserve the name of genuine religion. RELIGION AND THE MARKET

By David Loy
Faculty of International Studies
Bunkyo, Japan
Copyright, 1997 by David Loy

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Most of us have a sense of what religious fundamentalism is. The Free Market is one. All adherents of the Free Market see their lives driven to the worship of the One All-Powerful and Jealous God -- Capital. Underpinned by its theology -- economics -- it has numerous huge temples in the form of shopping malls that are bent on driving out all the little corner churches propounding insignificant little heresies such as "the humanness of chatting to your own friendly butcher."

Our lives rotate around the worship of Capital and many of us, like suicide bombers, drive ourselves to death as sacrificial lambs (or martyrs) at the altar of success. (Heard of "shop till you drop?" ) You cannot leave your home or switch on your TV without being confronted by its missionaries or having a pamphlet thrust in your hand: "Convert Now or You Will Lose Out! Buy Now. The Sale Ends Today!" So successful, however, have their missionary activities been that we restrain our annoyance at these intrusions, while we might not do so with Jehovah's Witnesses.

The major symbol of this religion, the notorious "M" arch of McDonalds, has driven out that other symbol of a now old-fashioned religion, the crucifix of Christianity, as the most widely recognized symbol in the world. It's as if the arch is telling the cross: "The Lord, Your God is One; You shall have none others in my presence."

Paradise awaits those who believe and hell to those who reject or who fail -- or who have failure written in their destiny. ("The unemployed are just lazy; the poor shall always be with us." ) Consider Free Market images of the ideal: The Gloriously Carefree Resort! The perfect toilet for you! The BMW accompanied by your very own sex-bomb, etc. How do they really differ from the images of paradise presented by other religions that sometimes have your own sex-bomb (an houri or two) thrown in as an added incentive?

The religion of the Market is also a fundamentalist one. The struggle against socialist countries is unashamedly described as a "crusade" with collateral damage. ("There are no innocent victims in our crusade against Cuba; those children dying under our sanctions are the offspring of infidels. So who cares?" )

There is damnation for those who do not believe as we do, and even for those who fail despite being faithful practitioners, as most are. (And, inevitably, many must fail. Under the market economy, success can only come to a minority, for -- and here lies the damning rub -- its paradise is founded upon an earth that has limited resources.)

This fundamentalism of the Market, with Capital as its God, seeks to convert all other cultures in its image, utilizing them for consolidating the system. It presents itself as the only way, and claims that outside its pale there is no salvation for the world, but only the hell-fire of destruction or the limbo of "primitivism."

As Buddhist thinker David Loy has said: "The collapse of communism makes it more apparent that the Market is becoming the first truly world religion, binding all corners of the globe into a worldview and set of values whose religious role we overlook only because we insist on seeing them as 'secular.' "
TO WHOM SHALL WE GIVE ACCESS TO OUR WATER HOLES?
by Farid Esack

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"At the apex of any theological system, of course, is its doctrine of God. In the new theology this celestial pinnacle is occupied by The Market, which I capitalize to signify both the mystery that enshrouds it and the reverence it inspires in business folk.

Different faiths have, of course, different views of the divine attributes. In Christianity, God has sometimes been defined as omnipotent (possessing all power), omniscient (having all knowledge), and omnipresent (existing everywhere). Most Christian theologies, it is true, hedge a bit. They teach that these qualities of the divinity are indeed there, but are hidden from human eyes both by human sin and by the transcendence of the divine itself. In "light inaccessible" they are, as the old hymn puts it, "hid from our eyes."

Likewise, although The Market, we are assured, possesses these divine attributes, they are not always completely evident to mortals but must be trusted and affirmed by faith. "Further along," as another old gospel song says, "we'll understand why."

As I tried to follow the arguments and explanations of the economist-theologians who justify The Market's ways to men, I spotted the same dialectics I have grown fond of in the many years I have pondered the Thomists, the Calvinists, and the various schools of modern religious thought. In particular, the econologians' rhetoric resembles what is sometimes called "process theology," a relatively contemporary trend influenced by the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. In this school although God wills to possess the classic attributes, He does not yet possess them in full, but is definitely moving in that direction.

This conjecture is of immense help to theologians for obvious reasons. It answers the bothersome puzzle of theodicy: why a lot of bad things happen that an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient God -- especially a benevolent one -- would not countenance. Process theology also seems to offer considerable comfort to the theologians of The Market.

It helps to explain the dislocation, pain, and disorientation that are the result of transitions from economic heterodoxy to free markets."

The Market As God
Living in the new dispensation
by Harvey Cox

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Edited by: Dissident Heart at: 9/7/04 10:18 am