Category: Atrocities

Sacramento Baptist Preacher Praises Orlando Massacre

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Political, Religion4 Comments

Here is one demented preacher that gets to speak from a podium. I have a very hard time believing that people can sit in his congregation and listen to this sick man and still believe there is a god.

Calling gay people pedophiles from a religious pulpit is ironic. Last I heard, it’s Catholic priests, youth pastors all over the country and fundamentalist Mormons, who are getting headlines for systematically violating children. Show me one headline where a gay person touched a child.

Here is his message:

Baptist Preacher

Recordings of the sermon by Pastor Roger Jimenez surfaced on the Verity Baptist Church’s YouTube account.

“If we lived in a righteous government, they should round them all up and put them up against a firing wall, and blow their brains out,” Jimenez said in the sermon.

 

Book Review: Prophet’s Prey – by Sam Brower

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Books, Four Stars, ReligionLeave a comment

Prophets Prey

San Brower is a private investigator who took on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, as it is commonly referred to, and gradually, over years of painstaking work, exposed it and its leader and “prophet,” Warren Jeffs, as an organized criminal enterprise of massive proportions.

Prophet’s Prey is his chilling exposé of the Fundamentalist Mormon religion and the endless, brutal crimes perpetrated by the “leadership” all in the name of God.

The FLDS is acult with its headquarters in Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah, two neighboring towns in a remote and isolated strip of the country, bordered by the Grand Canyon to the south and cliffs to the north. Pretty much all the people who live there are part of the cult.

The Mormon religion was founded by Joseph Smith in 1820. In my opinion, Smith was a pedophile and a con man. He started a religion to create a lifestyle for himself. When he eventually was murdered, Brigham Young, another autocratic child abuser and power-grabbing dictator built up the Mormon church. One of the tenets of the religion was polygamy. When the practice started becoming unpopular in the United States about 100 years ago, the “mainstream” Mormons renounced polygamy.

Some of the faithful didn’t like that, and eventually split off to start the FLDS. It exists to this day.

The flock is not allowed to listen to the radio, watch TV or movies, read books, listen to music or get an education. Most children stop school at the elementary level. The people have lived in this environment their entire lives and are completely brainwashed about what the “real world” is like. They think they are God’s chosen people, and their leader is the prophet who speaks God’s will. Everyone is in on it. The doctors and nurses in the hospital. The judges. The police. The mayor. The bishop. The contractors. The health inspectors. The teachers. You can’t escape the reach of the church leadership, and their word, their will, is God’s word and will. People blindly follow orders, whether the orders are legal or not.

When God wants the prophet to be “sealed” to a 12-year-old girl in marriage, then the father of that child has no choice but give up his daughter. Systematic child abuse, rape of boys as young as five to eight years old in the guise of God’s will, and getting underage girls as young as 12 and 13 pregnant by the dozens is apparently commonplace and normal in that environment.

Prophets Prey 2

A recently married and newly pregnant Veda Keate, the thirteen-year-old daughter of convicted child molester Allen Keate. Shortly after Allen gave Veda in marriage to Warren, he took an underage bride of his own. He is serving thirty-three years in Huntsville State Prison in Texas.

— Brower, Sam (2011-08-01). Prophet’s Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (p. 311). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Prophets Prey 1

Ora Bonnie Steed posing with underage sister wife Veda Keate. Warren wrote that both conceived their babies during the same “heavenly session” with him. Veda also appeared in a photo in a National Geographic cover story on the FLDS, along with her daughter Serena. The caption in the magazine identified them only as two of the children taken in the raid on the YFZ Ranch.

— Brower, Sam (2011-08-01). Prophet’s Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (p. 311). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

“Heavenly session” is what the man of God and FLDS leader calls group sex with multiple underage girls at the same time – because somehow that helps the salvation of the world. The entire religion buys into this.

One girl, who eventually escaped, tells her story of growing up in a house with 20 bedrooms and 16 bathrooms with her father, his six wives and 52 children. This seems normal to them. Yet, we all know that this kind of lifestyle is not supportable. Most American’s have trouble supporting a family of four or five people with two incomes. How does a man support six wives and 52 children?

By having five of the wives apply for welfare as single mothers with the State of Arizona or Utah, or both. By sending boys as young as 11 off to work on construction sites as slave laborers. By sucking as much money as possible out of the system, out of our taxes and welfare money. They call it “bleeding the beast” and justify it since they are God’s chosen people.

Prophet’s Prey is a shocking book that provides a view into what almost seems like an alternate universe. It is astonishing that these things can be going on right now, in our time, with very little interference from law enforcement of any kind. After reading Prophet’s Prey, you will never think about the Mormon religion the same way again.

The “mainstream” Mormons are distancing themselves from the Fundamentalists. I don’t buy it. It’s the same messed-up cult, just a different, more drastic flavor of it.

But read about it yourself, and be your own judge. Prophet’s Prey is a must-read book for any educated and responsible American.

Rating - Four Stars

Other articles and reviews I wrote related to Mormonism:

Play Review: The Book of Mormon

Mormon Apostles Paid Off

Mormon Handcarts

Romney Going Psycho about Mormonism

To Mormon or Not to Mormon

Mormonism in Decline

Institutional Lies and Deception of Mormonism

Atrocities in Mormon History

Mormon Doctrine on Race (White and Black)

Mormons and Masturbation

Mormons Baptize Jews Posthumously

Book Review: Wife No. 19 – by Ann Eliza Young

Park Romney’s Book and Mitt Romney’s Waffling

Book Review: An American Fraud – by Kate Burningham

 

Book Review: Kiss Every Step – by Doris Martin with Ralph S. Martin

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Books, Four StarsLeave a comment

Kiss Every Step

A few weeks ago, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I walked into our local Barnes & Noble in Escondido for a little browsing. Near the door was a little old lady with a display easel and a stack of books. She looked up at me, held one of the books, and said “This is my book!”

Kiss Every Step 1
[picture credit: The Charterian]
It took me a few moments of talking with her before I realized that she was Doris Martin, and she pointed to herself on a photograph of prisoners in front of a cattle car in Auschwitz.

Doris Martin is 90 years old, and she spends her afternoons standing in the lobby of our book store telling her remarkable story of survival. I had the honor of buying a signed copy of her book, and talking with her for a few moments. She was 13 years old when World War II started.

It won’t be long now before all eye witnesses of this terrible time in the history of humanity will no longer be alive. I am grateful for every book they wrote, every story they told, and every tear they shed. Because those stories need to be told, as an everlasting lesson to those of us lucky enough to be born decades after the maelstrom of evil we now call the holocaust.

I find it despicable that there are actually people around today, called holocaust deniers, that claim the entire thing didn’t actually happen. It’s a spit in the face of every living Jew, it’s a trampling on the graves of every one of the 12 million Jews that were slaughtered, and it’s a terrible insult to those who lived through this awful time and survived to tell the story.

Doris Martin is one of those. She spent three years in a labor camp in Ludwigsdorf as a young girl. The book tells the story of her parents and her siblings, a Jewish family lucky enough to have all members survive the war and reunite afterwards. The odds must have been one in a million. Perhaps they were the only ones.

Kiss Every Step is a book everyone should read. It illustrates what happens when a minority, in this case a religious one, gets ostracized and cast out of society, initially through subtle regulation, soon through brutal discrimination and racism, and finally by outright, open, unfettered, blatant murder.

It happened in 1933 in Germany.

Unfortunately, and frighteningly, traces of this are happening right here, right now, in 2016 in the United States of America. Watch out!

Rating - Four Stars

Link to the official website of Kiss Every Step

Other posts related to the holocaust in this blog:

Visualize 12 Million People

Movie Review: Sarah’s Key

Book Review: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich – by William Shirer

Book Review: Auschwitz – by Miklos Nyiszli

Book Review: Five Chimneys – by Olga Lengyel

Book Review: Man’s Search for Meaning – by Viktor E. Frankl

Book Review: Yellow Star – by Jennifer Roy

Rantings of a Kook: Holocaust Denier – Ingrid Rimland Zundel

Holocaust Memorial in Iowa

Book Review: All the Light We Cannot See – by Anthony Doerr

Book Review: Der Gelbe Stern – by Gerhard Schoenberner

Book Review: Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl

 

 

Saudi Ambassador Calls Atheists “Terrorists”

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Commentaries, PoliticalLeave a comment

Our government should cut all ties with Saudi Arabia. It undermines all our values. It attacks our people. It ignores the refugee crisis in its own orbit of influence. It takes our money. It foments terrorist acts like 9/11. It buys our military equipment.

And we’re just fine with it all? And we’re worried about North Korea? Really?

Easter Message on Gun Violence, Automobile Accidents and Islamic Terrorism

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Guns, ReligionLeave a comment

On December 2, 2015, 14 people were killed and another 22 seriously injured in a violent attack in San Bernardino by Islamic terrorists.

Statistically, every other day a child is shot and killed in the U.S. from gun violence.

Over the last three months and ten days, that’s 14 people dead from Islamic terrorism and about 50 children (I am not counting adults here) from “run of the mill” domestic shootings and accidents.

Which is the bigger threat and danger to Americans? And which does the media remind us about every day?

There you have it. I said “Islamic terrorism” because there is something very wrong with a religion that incites people to mass-kill innocent others and stone apostates and infidels. Let’s not forget, however, that Christians did just that when they burned witches and tortured heretics.

But the real threat to Americans and to dying in America as an innocent is by automobile accidents (about 30,000 a year) and domestic gun violence (another 30,000 a year, about half of which are suicides) vs. a couple of dozen due to Muslim nutcases.

That is what occurred to me on this Easter Sunday morning.

Double Standard around Suicide Bombers

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities2 Comments

An Islamic suicide bomber killed at least 25 people at a soccer stadium south of Baghdad today. Nobody talked about it. It hardly made headlines.

When it happens in Brussels, it’s world news, we wrap ourselves in the Belgian flag, our presidential candidates go off the deep end with carpet bombing threats.

It’s like Belgian lives matter, but Iraqi lives don’t?

All lives matter. Not just French, Belgian and American lives.

The Story of the Brown Shirts – Start of Fascism in the U.S.

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Political2 Comments

Journalist at Trump RallyToday there were headlines again about Trump staffers (in suits) beating up a credentialed journalist. There are videos of that event all over Facebook. The picture on the left shows a clip of the journalist on the ground, as he is trying to fend off one of the attackers.

In the last few months, there have been many occasions where protesters were attacked by Trump security forces or even fans and supporters. The YouTube below shows “The Young Turks” excellent monologue and many short video clips of example after example of fans abusing protesters.

Trump even brags about it. “Maybe he should have been roughed up. What he was doing was disgusting!”

So the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, while he is still early in the primary campaign, already tramples on the First Amendment. He says that protesting against him at an event is disgusting, and this fans get violent. The message is, don’t exercise free speech at a Trump campaign event.

What do you think this man will do once he is president?

As disturbing as these pictures are, here is a lesson from history:

In Vienna, as we have seen, he was intrigued by what he called the “infamous spiritual and physical terror” which he thought was employed by the Social Democrats against their political opponents.* Now he turned it to good purpose in his own anti-Socialist party. At first ex-servicemen were assigned to the meetings to silence hecklers and, if necessary, toss them out. In the summer of 1920, soon after the party had added “National Socialist” to the name of the “German Workers’ Party” and became the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or N.S.D.A.P., as it was now to be familiarly known, Hitler organized a bunch of roughneck war veterans into “strong-arm” squads, Ordnertruppe, under the command of Emil Maurice, an ex-convict and watchmaker. On October 5, 1921, after camouflaging themselves for a short time as the “Gymnastic and Sports Division” of the party to escape suppression by the Berlin government, they were officially named the Sturmabteilung, from which the name S.A. came. The storm troopers, outfitted in brown uniforms, were recruited largely from the freebooters of the free corps and placed under the command of Johann Ulrich Klintzich, an aide of the notorious Captain Ehrhardt, who had recently been released from imprisonment in connection with the murder of Erzberger.

These uniformed rowdies, not content to keep order at Nazi meetings, soon took to breaking up those of the other parties. Once in 1921 Hitler personally led his storm troopers in an attack on a meeting which was to be addressed by a Bavarian federalist by the name of Ballerstedt, who received a beating. For this Hitler was sentenced to three months in jail, one of which he served. This was his first experience in jail and he emerged from it somewhat of a martyr and more popular than ever. “It’s all right,” Hitler boasted to the police. “We got what we wanted. Ballerstedt did not speak.” As Hitler had told an audience some months before, “The National Socialist Movement will in the future ruthlessly prevent—if necessary by force—all meetings or lectures that are likely to distract the minds of our fellow countrymen.”

— Shirer, William (2011-10-23). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (pp. 42-43). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.

All the way back in 1921, twelve years before Hitler came to power, he recruited thugs, trained them into strong-arm squads, called them Sturmabteilung (storm division) – which later became known as the S.A., the precursor of the S.S. They were paramilitary groups who wore uniforms with brown shirts, and were basically Hitler’s private security force. They were all volunteers. At events, they intimidated protesters, and had no problem beating up the opposition. Sometimes they would arrive at the rallies of competing politicians and break them up violently.

95 years later, in 2016, this is what’s going on at Trump rallies. This is how fascism starts.

And it never ends well.

 

 

23144 Bombs in Six Countries in 2015

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Political, War2 Comments

Muslim Hating Duck

I found this gem on my Facebook feed today. It seems to me we are massively generalizing and spreading hate toward one group of people in retaliation for crimes of others of that group. This has been done many times before, against nations, or religions, or ethnic groups or races throughout human history. It has never ended well.

It was a horrible crime what happened in 2001, and it deserved retaliation. We retaliated, and in the process changed world history, probably for the worse. But it needed to be done.

How much retaliation is enough?

The United States has dropped 23,144 bombs in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia in 2015 alone. We will never know how many people were destroyed by these bombs. Not all bombs hit anything or anyone. Some bombs hit hundreds of people at once. For every dead person, there are dozens of loved ones who lose their father and breadwinner, and their lives are also destroyed, even though they get to go on living.

If only one person per bomb died in these six countries, it would be over 23,000 people dead. I cannot believe that all 23,000 people that died from these bombs alone were guilty. Many were innocent children, born long after 2001.

And this was only 2015. How many bombs did we drop in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014? Can anyone count them?

When will we be done retaliating? I would guess we have killed or caused the deaths of 1,000 people for every person that died in 2001. By sending our soldiers into these wars we have caused more deaths of our soldiers alone than people died on 9/11. Are we just going to keep bombing countries forever now?

First Bush spent seven years destabilizing the Middle East. Then Obama spent seven years trying to get out of the mess. Bush was successful in destabilizing. Obama was unsuccessful getting out of it. It hasn’t worked at all. The Taliban now control more of Afghanistan than at any time since October 2001. Iraq is in shambles and in control of an Islamic Fundamental Terror group, a bunch of religious nutcases. Does anyone understand that it’s not working? Both countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, have a million people dead and are worse off now than they were in 2001.

Perhaps, only perhaps, if we stopped shooting at people, they would stop shooting at us, and they would get bored of hating us?

I don’t see how stirring up the American public to hate Muslims is going to solve this problem.

 

Turkey and the Oil Smuggling Business

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Political2 Comments

According to Russia, there are 12,000 ISIS tanker trucks parked at the Turkey-Iraq border, carrying cheap oil to Turkey. Turkey denies that it’s buying oil from ISIS.

Turkey is in a lot of hot water lately. First, it shoots down a Russian jet that may or may not have been inside its borders for a few seconds. Then it looks like it’s importing ISIS oil.

If we want to “eliminate” ISIS, it’s a lot cheaper and much more effective to do so cutting off its money, rather than bombing it. It looks like the money is flowing from Turkey.

With Turkey being a member of NATO, it is wandering on dangerous paths. How hard can it be for the CIA to figure out where 12,000 trucks are going and who is paying for the oil, and to whom?

If Turkey is indeed involved in funding ISIS, we have to have a strong talking to. If Turkey is not, whose oil is it?

None of that should be very hard to figure out. Follow the money!

Now there would be a good use of the NSA and CIA. That’s what we have them for.

Added on 12/29/15 at 4:11pm:

One of my Turkish friends on Facebook added this FB comment – which sheds some light on this. I feel that it belongs here for the record:

I guess I have to say something. 1. Yes, the above matter will have to be looked at with scrutiny and objectivity. 2. I do not believe anything is happening there without the knowledge and perhaps approval of US officials. The area is full of spies. 3. There have been thousands of people (journalists-colonels-generals- lawyers-judges arrested killed or imprisoned in Turkey in an effort to conceal the dirty gains and relations of the corrupted power holders, for which you(west etc) are turning a blind eye. I think if you genuinely want to solve this problem you need to see what really is going on in Turkey & the region, and reveal all the dirty ties. And cooperate with decent Turks not the dirty politicians who give everything you want – sell their soul, there God, their Allah in exchange for a financial gain.

Message in a Sock

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, ChinaLeave a comment

I found this on the front-page of Reddit. Here is the Reddit post with all comments. Of course I cannot attest to the authenticity of this note. Somebody found it in a sock he bought. But if it is even remotely authentic, it is frightening. The products that we buy every day at Target and Wal-Mart (see the Made in China labels on all your Christmas presents) are manufactured in part by victims like this man. This is going on today, while we are out shopping.

Injustice in China

To all members of society who support justice, please help.

My name is Ding Tingkun. I am a 39-year-old man. I live in China, Anhui Province, Lingbi County, Damiao Town, Shatan Village, No. 6 Group. Because I went to Beijing to report corrupt officials in person, on 29 June 2014, I was framed by the Damiao Town government leaders for “extortion.” I have since been shut in the Lingbi County jail. I have suffered great mental torment. My wife was forcibly locked up in a mental hospital, and both she and I have been crippled by injury! On 22 May 2014, my father was murdered in the Damiao hospital!

Please, anyone who reads this letter, please pass this letter on to our country’s leader Chairman Xi Jinping, and through the media bring these things to light! Thank you!!!

Local corrupt officials have no law and no heaven. They publicly oppose the central government’s policies, satisfying their superiors but deceiving the public. They cover up the truth of things. They painstakingly arrange schemes to manufacture false charges!

I resolutely support the Chinese Communist Party’s central leadership and Chairman Xi Jinping’s honest, people-loving good government!

Seeker of Help: Ding Tingkun

24 June 2015, jail

Older brother Ding Qiang’s cell phone: …

Mass Killings and their Outcomes

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, WarLeave a comment

A few days ago this image showed up on my Facebook feed, and I shared it.

Bomb You

When you shoot people, they will try to shoot back.

Not many governments have the huge resources available required to deploy drones. The United States is one of the few. If you want a better understanding of our drone program in form of a movie, watch Good Kill and get yourself shocked.

Here is a post that elaborates on this: Do Mass Killings Bother You? – by David Swanson.

Our drones are killing machines, doomsday robots we only knew in science fiction movies a few decades ago, that descend out of nowhere, unheard, unseen, and shoot missiles. We have documented cases where the United States has shot missiles into wedding parties, killing dozens of innocent people, women and children, because there was a terrorist in their midst.

We also have a policy to “double tap” which means we shoot another missile into the aftermath of the first one. Since the rescuers on the ground know that, they don’t go into the original death scene and this ensures that the wounded there are slowly dying in agony with bystanders watching from a distance, unable to help or risk their own lives.

This is war at its very, very worst.

Do we think that a young boy who sees his mother, his father, his siblings murdered this way, might be inclined to join the jihad and fight the people on the other side of the planet that send killer robots their way? You bet. I am sure I would too if I were that boy and an American killer robot had blown away my mom and dad.

People Bomb You. You Get Angry. You Bomb People.

This bombing is done by the American government. Our president orders it. He does it in the name of the American people, in my name, with my tax dollars.

And I don’t like it at all.

Islamic Terrorism

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Religion2 Comments

Islamic Terrorism

Looks like the San Bernardino shooting is another incident of Islamic Terrorism on United States soil.

Sorry to all the 99.9 percent “good” Muslims. They too have a responsibility. It sure appears as if their religion and their God consistently motivated the believers to kill innocent people to further the control of the religion over its people. Islam appears to me to be a very violent and deadly religion.

Christianity was just like that, but mostly between the years 800 through 1600, at its height during the crusades. It kind of got over this tendency, except in the United States where there are still a few Christians who think it’s a good thing to kill providers of certain medical services in the name of their God. But Christian terrorism is nowadays fairly small.

Muslims, however, should clean up their ranks and straighten out their religion. This is not working very well for them right now. Their extremist arm is obviously trying to pull the world into WW III. Nothing would suit them more than everyone dead, and the caliphate flourishing, keeping women dumb and enslaved, keeping the elite rich, and making peasants of everyone else. Let’s all go back to the year 1200.

Shootings and Terrorism

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Guns3 Comments

In the aftermath of yesterday’s tragic shooting in San Bernardino, where three shooters, one woman and two men, wearing fatigues, possible body-armor, and ski masks shot people at random, killing 14 and wounding another 17, officials said the following:

Terrorism cannot be ruled out

How in the world was this not terrorism? We have a word to describe three people committing premeditated mass murder at a facility for disabled people. That word is “Terrorism.”

Maybe it was not Islamic jihadist terrorism, but it was terrorism nonetheless.

The Colorado Springs shooter a few days ago was a Christian. The media didn’t call that terrorism either. Sorry folks. That, also, was terrorism, perpetrated by a Christian. I hate to say it. We have such a thing as Christian terrorism, and atheist terrorism, and batshit crazy nutcase terrorism.

But let’s all agree to calling it what it is:

Terrorism

 

Saudi Man Sentenced to Death for Atheistm

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Religion, War1 Comment

ashraffayadh

A Saudi man was sentenced to death basically for being an atheist. The link below for The Guardian provides more detail.

The religious police first detained Fayadh in August 2013 after receiving a complaint that he was cursing against Allah and the prophet Muhammad, insulting Saudi Arabia and distributing a book of his poems that promoted atheism. Fayadh said the complaint arose from a personal dispute with another artist during a discussion about contemporary art in a cafe in Abha.

— TheGuardian.com

Here is a regime that is extremely rich due to the oil bonanza in the Middle East. The United States supports this repressive (almost medieval) regime. Here is the link to the Saudi embassy web site.

What kind of country must kill those that don’t subscribe to its official religion? Christian countries did this for centuries. Muslim countries have always done it and are still doing it now.

And we stand by and watch and sell them F-35 fighter planes.

Reason in Exile – Excerpt from The End of Faith – by Sam Harris

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, ReligionLeave a comment

Here is the first page, the two introductory paragraphs, of The End of Faith by Sam Harris.

THE young man boards the bus as it leaves the terminal. He wears an overcoat. Beneath his overcoat, he is wearing a bomb. His pockets are filled with nails, ball bearings, and rat poison. The bus is crowded and headed for the heart of the city. The young man takes his seat beside a middle-aged couple. He will wait for the bus to reach its next stop. The couple at his side appears to be shopping for a new refrigerator. The woman has decided on a model, but her husband worries that it will be too expensive. He indicates another one in a brochure that lies open on her lap. The next stop comes into view. The bus doors swing. The woman observes that the model her husband has selected will not fit in the space underneath their cabinets. New passengers have taken the last remaining seats and begun gathering in the aisle. The bus is now full. The young man smiles. With the press of a button he destroys himself, the couple at his side, and twenty others on the bus. The nails, ball bearings, and rat poison ensure further casualties on the street and in the surrounding cars. All has gone according to plan.

The young man’s parents soon learn of his fate. Although saddened to have lost a son, they feel tremendous pride at his accomplishment. They know that he has gone to heaven and prepared the way for them to follow. He has also sent his victims to hell for eternity. It is a double victory. The neighbors find the event a great cause for celebration and honor the young man’s parents by giving them gifts of food and money. These are the facts. This is all we know for certain about the young man. Is there anything else that we can infer about him on the basis of his behavior? Was he popular in school? Was he rich or was he poor? Was he of low or high intelligence? His actions leave no clue at all. Did he have a college education? Did he have a bright future as a mechanical engineer? His behavior is simply mute on questions of this sort, and hundreds like them. Why is it so easy, then, so trivially easy— you-could-almost-bet-your-life-on-it easy— to guess the young man’s religion?

— Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason