Fascinating Blog: One Cosmos

This new blog, One Cosmos, is off to a terrific start. The author (known as Gagdad Bob at LGF) writes things I wish I had, and in fewer words.

Which is perhaps no surprise, for not only being a Clinical Psychologist, he's also an author with a published book. The reviews there, as well as here, are well worth reading!

One paragraph begins with the arresting observation:

A casual survey of history reveals that human beings are a deeply troubled species.

Or consider this jab:

For such individuals, there will always be a nostalgic longing for what they missed, this infantile utopia in which frustration does not exist and desire is instantly converted to satisfaction. A few of these individuals will be lucky enough to obtain lifetime tenure at a major university, but the rest must deal with an unyielding world that does not mirror their unresolved infantile needs.

Or see this profound observation:

I am reminded that one of the pivotal differences between Islam and the Judeo-Christian tradition is that in the latter case, God is thought to have created the world just once "in the beginning," in accord with fully rational principles that may be comprehended by human beings. Allah, on the other hand, rules by whim, creating the world moment by moment, so that it is futile--not to say blasphemous and grandiose--to try to fathom his ways. Allah's radical freedom results in tyranny, obscurantism and fatalism on the ground.

On Political Correctness, he writes:

Political correctness is a specifically western perversion of Christianity, since Christianity is the religion that elevates the ultimate victim to the status of Godhood: God is the innocent victim and the innocent victim is God.

Therefore, improperly understood, this Christian cognitive template puts in place a sort of cultural "race to the bottom" in competition for who is more oppressed, and therefore, more godlike.

I've often tried to make the following point, but he does so in this posting very effectively:

The default religion of human beings is the practice of human sacrifice. This is a pathological virus planted deep in the heart of the human species, which has been given insufficient attention. Virtually all primitive cultures and ancient civilizations engaged in it. For reasons I try to explain in my book, there is something spontaneously "holy" or "sacred" in the taking of innocent human life.

Obviously, the foundation stone of Judaism is the injunction against human sacrifice, when God tells Abraham not to kill him a son out on highway 61. Superficially, Christianity may be seen as a resuscitation of the sacrificial motif, with the murder of the innocent Jesus, but in reality, this is clearly intended to convey the idea that when we murder innocence, we murder God. The crucifixion of Jesus is meant to be the last human sacrifice, with Jesus standing in for our own murdered innocence (and our own murderous selves).

Unfortunately, Islam seems to involve a reversion to the sacrificial impulse, and a return to "mere" religion. If one reads the Koran, one is struck by how frequently Allah instructs his followers to murder in his name. While Christians have obviously behaved badly in the past, there is nothing in the actual Christian message that justifies it.

This big-picture view of Judeo-Christianity and its importance in the elevation of human civilization is often overlooked, to our detriment.