The poison of unthinking religious fanaticism

[fpb]

Atheism is one of the most brainless religions I know of. And it is particularly sad when it has a hold of an otherwise courageous and principled person, such as, in this case, one of Britain's few admirable journalists, Nick Cohen. I have a lot of time for this man, but unfortunately, having inherited atheism from two generations of revolutionary forebears, he is completely incapable of being rational whenever he sees a member of any opposing religion. And so, to my complete disbelief, he has just published an article basically treating Climategate as a right-wing ramp. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/06/nick-cohen-global-warming-conservative-backlash What is terrible about this is that Cohen is an honourable man who has time and again gone against his own party for the sake of his principles. But in this case principles curdle into blinding obsessions and simply prevent him from even taking a look at the evidence. It has been tainted by the unholy hands of Sarah Palin and Tony Abbott, and so, by definition, it is beyond the pale and no decent man can read it without being corrupted! Heart-breaking.

Comments

[affablestranger.livejournal.com]

I'll have to try again later to see if I can access the Guardian site. The link stalls as soon as it says "waiting for guardian.co.uk". I reckon lots of people are linking to it and/or reading it.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

This is amazingly well-written tripe - a strange phenomenon. He's right about the Green movement being led by the arch-entitled and their children, although that's truer in Britain and the US than on the Continent, I'd expect; and if you YouTube those University of East Anglia academics getting trounced on US talk shows, they are your textbook lower-middle-class types with stringy hair and boulder-sized chips on their shoulders. (One day we may meet and I'll tell you my Jimmy Goldsmith anecdotes, such as they are. Impressive brain, raving - but charming - lunatic, and of course no-one dared contradict him.)