http://randi.org/jr/091701.html

Thank you for your understanding of the suspension of this page last week. We were just so preoccupied with our sorrow and dismay, that it seemed the only thing to do. This present page has gone up a few days early, to try making up for the discrepancy. I'll try to answer many of the questions and comments that were received from you in the past week.

As you all know, at the JREF we teach and promote critical thinking so that others can think about matters, instead of playing pretend games that are more attractive than reality. When religious zealots show the savagery we saw on the 11th, our goal takes on a new and far more immediate importance. Certainly, the process of critical thinking would have been totally foreign to these people, and is I'm sure a process that cannot occur to their successors. As long as blind fanaticism rules a culture, those who are poisoned by it will not be able to think their way to a logical and reasonable solution of problems. Those who instructed these suicides, who gave them the framework upon which they constructed their view of the world and of themselves, made hatred and bigotry into virtues. Examining evidence and coming to logical conclusions, was not part of the process for these misguided people. There are two kinds of bravery, in my opinion:

one can enable a man to kill himself and others with the unwavering expectation of paradise, the second kind enables us to look at the world honestly and directly, and to do whatever we believe is right, without expecting rewards from imaginary friends who live somewhere in the sky.

(I will mention here that my own personal views of mid-Eastern politics and our involvement, have undergone serious changes in the last week. I may expound upon that subject on another occasion.)

I begin this week with the observation that not one "psychic" foresaw the horrendous World Trade Center/Pentagon destruction that took place last Tuesday. And, "psychic" John Edward appeared on TV for a full hour with Larry King just the night before, but didn't pick up on the event, which was less than 12 hours away. The Edward appearance was also, by opinions I've received, a fiasco that King tried to salvage, to little avail. In a week or two, we'll run here a complete analysis — from a skeptical point of view — of that show.

On her Internet page, Sylvia Browne, not missing a beat, assured us — as if we needed to be reminded — that she is "not omniscient," and therefore didn't see this greatest disaster in US history coming. She said that though "in 1999" she had "warned of terrorism, clearly the timing was wrong." No, Sylvia, that was in 1998, for events you predicted would happen in the year 1999! Yes, the timing was off — by two years and seven months — and it referred to "terrorist attacks in Florida and London," not in New York, nor in Washington. And now, Sylvia warns us on her page, "Be aware [beware?] of the Palestinian Republic of Bundi." Okay. Bundi is a town in India, not a republic, and it's not Palestinian, but I'll sure keep on the alert. Get this:

just at the time that the authorities were investigating about whether Osama bin Laden or another agency made the attacks, Ms. Browne told us that she'd "been given the information" that "Bin Laden and another group" was behind them. No comment.

But I ask you to remember that Sylvia also predicted in 1998 that Bill Clinton would be exonerated in the Paula Jones case, and that AIDS would be in full remission and breast cancer was going to be absolutely preventable and cured by the end of 1999. Louis Farrakhan, she averred, would move to the Middle East to live. In 2000, she predicted, the Democrats would win the election with Bill Bradley, and David Letterman would quit his nightly late show that year. These whoppers were accompanied by a whole string of earthquake predictions, all just as accurate. Prediction appears not to be one of Sylvia's strengths.....

In a box beneath the vapidities she offered about the terrorist events, after asking readers to pray for everyone involved, dead and alive, Sylvia Browne advertised that for a mere $4,867 you can go to Greece and Turkey in October and celebrate her 66th birthday with her.

While we're reeling from this tragedy, trying to bring consolation to those people who were murdered while pursuing their daily labors, leaving orphans and grieving friends and family behind, Sylvia Browne wants us to go on a party with her? I cannot imagine that anyone would take this occasion to promote her business, but Browne has done so.

A reader commented on this kind of opportunities that "psychics" would have as a result of the terrorist disaster:

[I fear for the families and friends of the victims of this terrorist attack, not for their loss and grief, but for the human rubbish that will take advantage of these innocent people by bringing them "messages from beyond" from deceased loved ones. I'm sure there are "psychics" already circling like vultures to feed off the carnage.]

How true. And as an observation on the usual banality and unfailing uselessness of the psychics' declarations, another reader wrote:

[It sure would have been nice if Sylvia could have tipped off New York City. How can it be that the most impactful event in recent history, an event that profoundly affected hundreds of thousands of souls, can completely slip by a master psychic's radar? But it sure is a relief to know that Brad and Jennifer's marriage won't work out, though.]

This tragedy brought us together as perhaps nothing else ever has. The world rallied to our situation in a show of support that dwarfed other examples. New Yorkers, usually labeled "unfeeling and callous," showed their true character by pitching in and doing incredible feats of selfless rescue and relief. The hundreds of NYC firemen who marched to their deaths, are martyrs whose heroics we cannot ever honor sufficiently. Volunteers stepped forward without hesitation, by the thousands. America chose to become stronger in the face of horror. We fought, rather than retreating from our injury. Personally, I feel a fierce pride that I asked this country to adopt me, and that my wish was granted.

Immediately, the question was asked: Why did this happen? When I heard President Bush designate the attack as an act of war, I perhaps took a different view of what he meant, and what I agreed with. To me, this is not a time to look for revenge. That's for people less civilized than we. I'm looking for protection of those I love, and I see two ways of arriving at that goal. First, obviously, stop the fanatics.

They are working with medieval notions of what's right, and the rewards that await martyrs. Second, stop the system that teaches ignorance, fear, superstition, and bigotry, the system that has infected those zealots for whom there can be no re-education.

And, I must add, please do not make the error of thinking that these Taliban-inspired terrorists are typical of the Muslim population. They are exceptions, radicals who are rejected by the followers of Islam.

We will not agree with certain Muslim principles — that husbands own their wives, for example — but we also have no right to impose our social mores on them. If, that is, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty is not to be re-worded. We have already had groups of youths attacking mosques to vent their understandable but misdirected anger.

This cannot be any sort of response worthy of our citizens.

Here are the closing paragraphs of Richard Dawkins' recent piece in The Guardian newspaper, UK:

[There is no doubt that the afterlife-obsessed suicidal brain really is a weapon of immense power and danger. It is comparable to a smart missile, and its guidance system is in many respects superior to the most sophisticated electronic brain that money can buy. Yet to a cynical government, organisation, or priesthood, it is very very cheap. Our leaders have described the recent atrocity with the customary cliche: mindless cowardice. "Mindless" may be a suitable word for the vandalising of a telephone box. It is not helpful for understanding what hit New York on September 11. Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from.

It came from religion. Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East which motivated the use of this deadly weapon in the first place. But that is another story and not my concern here. My concern here is with the weapon itself. To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used.]

The crass, narrow-minded, intolerant, insensitive, savage, statement that "religious leaders" Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson issued about the incident — saying that New York City deserved this disaster as God's punishment for allowing the homosexuals and the feminists to function freely there — was a shock, but not really a surprise. These "leaders" are as filled with hate as were those who guided the jet planes into their targets and were vaporized along with their victims — but they haven't that degree of courage and conviction. I abjure these men and their despicable statements. If we in the United States have our version of a Taliban, it's hiding behind their doors.

I apologize. Those were a few things I just had to say.

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http://www.norahjones.com
"We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean.

We are ready at last to set sail for the stars." -- Carl Sagan

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