i always felt the so-called 'communist' states were perhaps extra brutal and inhuman because they had lost the civilising effects of religion for a few generations, you made me wonder if their collective seperation from religion possibly made them less fanatical fighters.

sure they were indoctrinated with some equally irrational premises as claim most religions, but at the end of the day, if there is no pie in the sky, will a man risk laying down his life so readily?

does it perhaps make him more cunning, as he's no longer distracted by time spent scrying runes, deciphering theologies, or reading the future in sheeps' innards, crystal balls, tarot cards or tea leaves.

he can keep his eye on the ball...

how to get what he wants with the least friction.

pragmatism over craziness, i'll take it.

but is there another kind of craziness that ensues when you try to deny the religious impulse through force and try chanelling it into worshipping the ideal state, or the dear leader?

or is the religious impulse a left-over vestige of something archaic, like a coccyx?

or is it the pavlovian response to millennia of indoctrination by the various religions that have swayed our virgin belief-systems so often and drastically that we feel empty if we try to replace 'it' with 'pure reason', or 'science', or shopping, or videogames for that matter

that's what i wonder.

and yes i still do believe too, and indeed 9/11 may well be one of the signs and wonders presaging the grand finale of a whole era of human existence, as is climate change...

2012, said the mayans...

see what happened in Enterprise, Alabama yesterday?

if i was a reader of signs i would be seeing this last bout of usa storms as a warning not to fuck with iran, but my imagination was always a bit weird...

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty