Sam Harris makes me chuckle

Like many post-moderns, Mr. Harris saw in the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks a chance to advance his ideological dogmas.  Here's the whole piece if you can't find any other comedy routines to enjoy.

Here is the part I liked.  

“Whatever else may be wrong with our world, it remains a fact that some of the most terrifying instances of human conflict and stupidity would be unthinkable without religion. And the other ideologies that inspire people to behave like monsters—Stalinism, fascism, etc.—are dangerous precisely because they so resemble religions. Sacrifice for the Dear Leader, however secular, is an act of cultic conformity and worship. Whenever human obsession is channeled in these ways, we can see the ancient framework upon which every religion was built. In our ignorance, fear, and craving for order, we created the gods. And ignorance, fear, and craving keep them with us.”

Look at that again.  Notice the bold print.  In other words, in a way reminiscent of Christopher Hitchens and other Atheist zealots, he has said that religion is the cause of evil in the world.  And more to the point, evil that isn't the result of religion looks an awful lot like they were treating things like religion when they did their evil, so that goes to show you religion is the cause of evil in the world!

I know, most thinking people would laugh their gourds off at logic like that.  Religion is evil because all the evidence proves it, and evidence that doesn't support it doesn't count since we've already concluded religion is evil.  Uh huh.  If Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin or Pat Robertson said something like this about any other topic, folks would blow beer out their noses in laughter.  It's a testimony to the fact that both our modern journalism and higher educational institutions are in such a mess that he isn't whipped off the stage with chords of contempt and derision.

Instead, he's a darling of the Atheistic zealotry movement that has found its niche since 9/11.  Cheered on by the media, embraced by academia, and generally seen as a god-king for informing us that his dogma regarding the evil of dogmas is eternally true, and that we must eliminate all the religious traditions he hates, Harris continues to demonstrate that compared to a 21st century Western pundit, your average peasant in the Middle Ages is beginning to look pretty darn smart.