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From Zeitgeist to Poltergeist, Part 10 of 13

“the right of the stronger, a right which, as we see in Nature, can be regarded as the sole conceivable right, because it is founded on reason”
-Adolf Hitler1

The Topics Covered in This Essay Are As Follows:
Imagine Utopia

Imagine Utopia
From Stephen Sackur’s interview with Richard Dawkins:

“‘Stalin, Mao – maybe they happen to be atheists. But they did not do their deeds in the name of atheism. They were kind of religious in a way, in the sense that they had a belief system which was idealistic, which was utopian in a warped kind of way. They really believed that the end justified the means.’ After offering the additional analysis that religious fanaticism motivated the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001, Dawkins went on: ‘I would challenge you to find a single case where anybody has done something like that, motivated specifically by atheism. They happen to be atheists, but that is different.’”2

It is interesting to note that Richard Dawkins is religious in a way, in the sense that he has a belief system which is idealistic, which is utopian in a warped kind of way. Consider that he wrote the following:

“Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition (religious riots between Hindus and Muslims where more than a million people were massacred), no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers’, no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, no ‘honour killings’, no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money (‘God wants you to give till it hurts’). Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing an inch of it.”

John Lennon also stated (March 4, 1966 interview with Maureen Cleave for the London Evening Standard),
“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

Imagine, with reality and history, a world with no religion. Actually, forget imagination and know for a fact that a world without religion would still be a world in strife, pain and suffering due to riches, poverty, territory, material goods/resources, politics, racism, emotions, abortion, sexism, science, rage, jealousy, envy, lust, hopelessness, domestic violence, gang violence, freedom, atheism, natural disasters, disease, insanity, mass/serial murders, drug abuse, etc., etc., etc. In a world without religion we would still have everything that we have today but done in the name of _____________ (fill in the blank). It is no less than astonishing that Richard Dawkins can even entertain such a thought after the 20th century, the most secular and the bloodiest century in human history.

Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, Arguing for Atheism

“I am not convinced by Dawkins’s argument that without religion there would be ‘no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers,’ no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’_.’ In my opinion, many of these events-and others often attributed solely to religion by atheists-were less religiously motivated than politically driven, or at the very least involved religion in the service of political hegemony.”

Not that Richard Dawkins is unaware of the various completely unreligious causes, for instance he wrote “war might be motivated by economic greed, by political ambition, by ethnic or racial prejudice, by deep grievance or revenge, or by patriotic belief in the destiny of a nation.”3 So then, why imagine an irreligious utopia?

It may be of interest to not that the Encyclopedia of Wars (New York: Facts on File, 2005) was compiled by nine history professors who specifically conducted research for the text for a decade in order to chronicle 1,763 wars. The survey of wars covers a time span from 8000 BC to 2003 AD. From over 10,000 years of war 123, which is 6.98 percent, are considered to have been religious wars.

Indeed, in his 30 Worst Atrocities of the 20th Century Matthew White writes:

“We’ve got rich countries and poor countries; industrial and agrarian; big and small. We’ve got people of all colors – white, black, yellow and brown – widely represented among both the slaughterers and the slaughterees. We’ve got Christians, Moslems, Buddhists and Atheists all butchering one another in the name of their various gods or lack thereof. Among the perpetrators, we’ve got political leanings of the left, right and middle; some are monarchies; some are dictatorships and some are even democracies.”4

The organization Jews for Jesus has made the following statement:

“The reality of anti-Semitism should not be discounted, but the reality of true Christian love should not be written off, either. Those who have God’s peace in their hearts will follow the example of Jesus and show love, not hate, for Jewish people and for all people_Perhaps no one is facing the fact that the problem is not one religion, one political system, or one philosophy which is so warped and perverted that it causes a holocaust. Perhaps the most horrible fact of the Holocaust is that it serves as further evidence that man’s very nature is warped and perverted, carrying within it mankind’s greatest curse.”5


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