Latest: SLOP seeks to become the intellectual beacon of the theist-right-light

[Flea]

So, after Bandler finally let the Holocaust denial flag fly one too many times and Linz banned him, SLOP sort of lay there basking in the sun like a fetid marsh stewing in its own juices until Linz's new Great White Hope, Bruno Turner, came along. They did podcasts and everything! The idea being that Yaron Brook is a lousy public speaker, so they'd produce something far better. The one I was able to watch any of began with Linz butchering Italian--I guess Linz decided that if Brook could butcher a beautiful language, then he'd butcher a beautiful language even more grotesquely. Anyway, some people, including, one gathers, regulars there, made comments sotta voce to Turner that he of course reported to Linz, like any good enforcer does:

Bruno, we'll never go broke overestimating the number of craven cowards, cultists and lickspittles within OrgOism. That includes the very people right here you've just rightly called out on other threads for their uselessness and gutlessness. It includes the jellyfish who attacked me to you in secret Faecesbook societies when we started our series.

(Seriously, who thought it wouldn't get back to Linz? Maybe that was their way of informing him his performance in the series was lacking, or maybe they thought Turner was a man of enough honor not to report something told to him in confidence? And who knows if Turner even reported their comments correctly?) So, Linz sicced his new enforcer on the denizens of his own swamp. Turner wrote (highlights given; I urge you to read the whole thing),

One of her philosophy's most crucial points is complete and total atheism, as opposed to agnosticism.

Given her rejection of God is in more than one place indicated as being based on "moral" grounds (i.e. her distaste), she in fact comes out to be a hater of God and anything that could possibly be above human beings.

Her "ideal man" is in fact her god; in other words she is an idolater.

Her idol is a fictional character of her imagination, and her philosophy is the attempt to change human nature to become such a being.

To the extent her idol is a "light bringer" he is very close to being a satanic symbol.

Rationality, which in its pure form can only be of God, as recognized by nearly all the major philosophers, is in her philosophy given place only within man. However, since a man can obviously never obtain pure rationality, because he is in fact a creature of dual nature - animal and rational being - he can never attain this ideal.

Linz then indicated 100% agreement with the non-religious sections of this screed. Luke Setzer and Gregster then asked the obvious question whether Turner is a Christian, and being a forthright brave new intellectual in the Perigo mold, Turner ignored the actual question (a simple "yes" would have sufficed) and went on the attack: " You useless cucks, who contributed NOTHING to MOGA, can you argue with what I said?" After more back and forth with Turner posing as an independent thinker while considering it a valid argument to count up the number of previous thinkers who argued there must be a god (far from the only logical fallacy in his new patented SLOP Swampwater), Linz's camp follower Olivia replied:

If the world of Objectivism actually bred “first hand” thinkers, the movement would be successful beyond words.
Appallingly, it did not, hence the cultism... and the “Ayn Rand said... Ayn Rand said” squawking mentality which always relies on a written prescription from her on every single topic, for all time.

Luke’s “anyone who rants this is clearly not an Objectivist” line is a classic example.
Just like many Christians say “anyone who doesn’t believe such-in-such, is clearly not a Christian.”

As a thinking human being, I have been influenced by many philosophers, writers and thinkers, but what sits well in my own conscience when everything gets weighed up in my own mind will be the motivating principle into actions or arguments.

Again, the question of whether a site that claims to be Objectivist is still actually Objectivist in any meaningful sense is studiously ignored--can't have your cake if you eat it. Luke Setzer replied in part:

Thanks for making it abundantly clear that this is no longer an Objectivist site.

Y'all have fun.

I will be sure to renew my monthly contributions to ARI this coming week despite my disagreements with them on immigration since they expose fine young people like this one to the philosophy.

At least they are not prattling about how rotten are the foundations of Ayn Rand's thought while also praising the rationality of God and concurrently saying they want to MOGA, a hash of contradictions if ever I heard one.

Indeed. (Though I would urge him not to contribute to ARI; among other reasons, his money would would mostly go to salaries.) No response to this has been posted yet; I doubt it will be particularly insightful, just Linz dismissing from his sight yet another of his former friends and admirers, with abuse piped in from the heroically posed enforcer and camp follower.

This wouldn't be worth comment except for the fact that Linz calls his site Objectivist--it's in the damn name. One wishes he would show the independence of mind and heroic endeavor needed to finally create his alternate theory of Non-Sacrificism or Selfism or whatever other watered-down alternative to "selfishness" (which alienates people, doncha know, and a brave herioc individual can't have that!) he keeps claiming he is hatching. Please do, Linz--if it's as good as you claim it is, we'll all be the better, and if (as seems rather likelier) it's more SLOP Swampwater, then at least you will clarify what is currently as foggy as the modern world you so hate. But to do so, Linz would have to do at least two things: (1) Get off his lazy ass and actually produce something, and (2) assuming he were as honest as he claims, stop calling his site "Objectivist." A person who argues, as Linz does, that the body-soul dichotomy is in fact valid, that abortion should be banned once the fetus has a heartbeat, and that Rand was an unemotional Vulcan, among other things--why would he want to call himself an Objectivist?

(The amusing part about her supposed lack of emotion is this complaint: "She had no idea of convivialism—with good food, good wine, good fellowship, good converstion—except in the entries in her journals when Roark, Dominique, Mallory and Mike got together after work. These are very brief, non-defining passages, alas." So basically, because she didn't have her protagonists get together after work for a cold one or two [I leave it to you to consider whether he is even correct here], and because she didn't make that a Leitmotiv of her fiction, then she was an unemotional Vulcan. In other words, she didn't include everything under the sun in her novels, regardless of whether they even pertained to the plot--that is, she actually was so much of an unemotional Vulcan as to exercise esthetic selectivity! A supposed Objectivist condemning Rand for not being a naturalist? That's some truly fetid SLOP Swampwater!)

So, if Rand was so wrong on so many basic issues, if the coy theist enforcer and the studiously irrelevant camp follower are the only good ones of the bunch, why continue calling yourself Objectivist? That's obvious: It's the only branding the guy has. If he left off "Objectivism" and renamed his site more accurately as, say, "Emotionalist Spittle Duct," how many hits would he get in searches? None. He would fade even further into irrelevance. So, like any second-hander, he keeps the name while doing nothing to earn it and, indeed, doing his damnedest to undermine it for his admirers, but not forthrightly enough to save his integrity or, alas, lose his brand. He poses heroically as the great alternative to Rand, ready to correct all her mistakes and create something new and valuable and admirable, but in actual deed he just sits there holding court in an ever-diminishing salon, a bullfrog in a fetid swamp, damning the small channel of Objectivist water trickling into it through the occasional Google hit while making damn sure not to dam(n) it all off, because then his tiny corner of the world would all dry up and he wouldn't be able to market any more SLOP Swampwater. Second-handers are pitiful, Objectivist second-handers most of all.

[Peter]

I have always liked the playful argument that IS the Christian "make believe" the only "make believe" when there are still Apollo, Zeus,  and Poseidon. Do not forsake the old gods! 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

F,

That's a hell of a rant.

Get it out of your system.

Michael

[anthony]

The inherent problem lies in (not) connecting idealism to reality. Reality doesn't accede to one's (often) rationalistic ideals one finds, so one either re-thinks and reconnects, or likely collapses into subjectivity and skepticism.That's the inevitable route to ex-Objectivist. For a philosophy entirely constructed out of reality and the mind, no one can blame the philosophy, rather accept upon oneself the fault and lack of rigorous thought. 

Testing times. I believe there's frustrated disillusionment within Objectivist circles for not having made enough inroads to strongly influence politics and voters. Which shows signs of intrinsicism, as if expecting the great majority of people to accede to 'revealed knowledge'. Anti-real, also. Times (in politics) we have to make the best out of the material we've got, knowing there's far worse alternatives.

[william.scherk]

This lovely Florida woman, known by some as President Trump's 'personal pastor,' just got a job in the White House ...

Not that there is anything wrong with the laying on of hands ... that's Paula, immediately to Trump's right.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, anthony said:

I believe there's frustrated disillusionment within Objectivist circles for not having made enough inroads to strongly influence politics and voters.

Tony,

I, for one, do not feel any disillusionment, frustrated or otherwise, for not being able to influence politics and voters based on ideas I gleaned from Objectivism.

I (we) helped elect Donald Trump to the presidency and he embodies the essence of a man who rationally deals with reality to produce top quality products and has stamped his name on the entire world--all before he was president.

He did it without war-profiteering, too.

That's about as Randian as it gets.

Rather than feel frustrated, I feel proud.

Just look what he is doing for (and with) America. Rand has her hand in this. And so do I. And so do you.

Wear it with pride. You deserve it.

Michael

[Peter]

It’s one year until the election on November 3, 2020. Should we start an election 2020 thread or is it too soon? The following is a legitimate site if you ever want to contribute. contact@victory.donaldtrump.com

And today, in my personal email, I found a letter from The President. It lists his accomplishments that coincide with every objectivist/patriot’s criteria for a successful President. Peter

Peter, One. Year. In just 365 days, the American People will decide if we are going to Keep America Great, or if we’re going to let our great country fall into the hands of a Never Trumper SOCIALIST. The Left has been watching my every move for the past three years and hoping that my administration and I will fail. But, because of your support, we just keep WINNING. Just take a look at everything we’ve accomplished so far:

Created the BEST economy ever Brought two radical ISIS leaders to justice Appointed two conservative Supreme Court Justices Implemented the nation’s most historic tax cuts Rebuilt our nation’s military Brought the unemployment numbers to a record low Strengthened our borders like never before - the WALL is being BUILT Initiated the denuclearization of North Korea And so much more After looking at all of our HUGE WINS, do the Democrats honestly think they can beat me in 2020? They’re insane! . . . .  Donald J. Trump President of the United States. end quote 

Does anyone see similarities between Ronald Reagan and President Trump? How close are those two noteworthy gentlemen to being a Randian President? Peter

Notes. INTERVIEW WITH JACK WHEELER by Karen Reedstrom  MAY 1996. . . . Q: Another one of your "lives" deals with the Freedom Research Foundation. Can you tell us about that?

Wheeler: After the '66 Reagan campaign, I got into philosophy, and by the time I got out with my Ph.D. we'd had the debacle of Vietnam, then Watergate, then had just elected Jimmy Carter. After all that I did not want to have anything to do with politics in any way whatsoever. Even though I had my doctorate in philosophy, I decided to just organize and lead expeditions. And I wrote the Adventurer's Guide. But then Ronald Reagan was elected President, and all of these people that I used to know, when we were kids in Youth for Reagan, all of a sudden they're in the White House. The one thing that I'd loved about Ronald Reagan, along with what he said about getting the government out of our pockets and off our backs, was that he was so unapologetically anti-communist. I've always hated the Left for being so pro-socialist, pro-marxist, pro-communist. I began thinking about the Soviet Union and ended up writing an article for Reason magazine. It was entitled "How to Dismantle the Soviet Empire." . . . . 

[Brant Gaede]

9 hours ago, william.scherk said:

This lovely Florida woman, known by some as President Trump's 'personal pastor,' just got a job in the White House ...

Not that there is anything wrong with the laying on of hands ... that's Paula, immediately to Trump's right.

Pray away my prey.

Pray away.

--Brant

quo vadis, Objectivism, quo vadis?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

8 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

quo vadis, Objectivism, quo vadis?

Brant,

Objectivism does not go there, that's for sure. I consider that a bug, not a feature, too.

Not the Christian mythology part. The Christian bonding part.

To unite people around a shared goal, you need social glue. The kind of stuff Paula offers is perfect social glue and sold in the finest capitalistic tradition of great marketing. (It's funny, too. Hard atheists within the Objectivist world laugh at the marketing of people like Paula White when, if they want to practice capitalism out in the world rather than just inside their heads, they should learn to do marketing as well as she does.)

Another thing works as social glue, though. Throwing rocks at enemies. Within Objectivism--and leftism, for that matter, you can find plenty of people throwing rocks and mocking. 

That feels good at the moment, but it doesn't result in very happy individuals. When you look at what these people do--and not just at what they say--throwing rocks is really all they've got. When all you do is look down your nose, the only direction you can go is down.

Guess who else in the super-mainstream discovered this secret of positive social glue within Christianity rather than rock-throwing? Capitalistic tradition and everything?

I may not agree with the history as fact that is presented in these things, but I love transcendence as the goal and I also love the storytelling as metaphor.

If Objectivism is ever going to get off the ground as a formal movement, it needs to offer people an interactive path to transcendence in the public square. I don't see anyone in leadership positions who identify themselves as a part of the Objectivist movement who have what it takes to motivate people to become better by looking inside themselves, choosing to rise, transmuting that idea into physical reality and allowing the emotional payoff leading to ecstasy to emerge. Most of these so-called leaders bitch about others and that's about it.

Then they go back home and bitch at their spouses and families.

 

Rand provided transcendence in her novels, but not interactively in the public square. Still, I will never forget the blinding sense of validation and transcendence I felt on my first read of Atlas Shrugged. That was my first contact with Ayn Rand's ideas and it was life-changing.

President Trump offers interactive transcendence in the public square. Make America Great Again and Keep America Great. That's how he got to be president without being a part of the warmongering globalist crony swamp.

I have no problem with Paula White standing next to President Trump and laying her hands on him along with other pastors while praying. She--and the others--are promoting increase, physical and spiritual. I would much rather see that than see Yaron Brook of Peikoff or any other Objectivist intellectual standing next to him. They would promote finger-pointing and minimizing others.

I luvs me some transcendence and I'll take it where I can get it.

That's why I don't throw rocks at Christianity except when it's used as a weapon against good people by power-mongers. Ditto for Objectivism.

(I do throw rocks at leftism in general, though. Too many piles of innocent dead bodies.)

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Speaking of Kanye West--and we better speak about him since he is the Number One success in the music world right now, here is how I used to see something like his turn to Christianity.

The world is perishing in an orgy of self-sacrifice as shown by Kanye West's recent shift from thug to pure mystic and altruist, taking his masses of followers with him.

That feels good and sounds good from an O-Land lens (especially since it paraphrases Rand), but what does it explain?

Not much.

Even as a value judgment (which is what it mostly is), it is not accurate. The world is not perishing. The world is more prosperous and safer, and more suited to reproduction, for humans than it has ever been in mankind's history. Homo sapiens is one of the most successful species on this planet. There is scientific literature galore measuring this.

But from an O-Land perspective, the main thing is to ignore Kanye West and even doubt he is an artist, thus stay isolated from mainstream culture. I'm not saying one has to consume Kanye's music to not be isolated. But I am saying that to ignore Kanye West to the point of not even having an opinion except to parrot a Rand phrase to bash him in a way that kinda fits is a clear statement that Objectivism, for such a person, is not about living on earth, at least not the earth that presents itself, but instead, it is about accepting a mental frame for living mostly in his or her head.

I know about this because God knows I did it enough. As the saying goes, it takes one to know one. And I see this shortcoming all throughout our subcommunity.

I now see what is happening with Kanye West as in the following video, although I have some issues with some of the points Jonathan Pageau makes. But looking into deeper meanings always results in differing views, so this is no biggie for me. Linking current culture to the big picture mankind has universally displayed throughout the ages is enriching, both spiritually and intellectually. Even if one gets it wrong and later tries to get it right. That is now more important to me than carrying the need for ideological purity according to someone else's vision.

I hope you like this guy (Jonathan Pageau, not Kanye, although Kanye rewards a good hard listen, even for people like me--I'm not really a fan  ). Pageau provides awesome food for thought. I particularly like to bounce back and forth between a view like his and what I have gleaned over the years from Rand. Some folks may not like it, but for me, it's as cool as all get out.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dayaamm!

I hope I didn't scare anybody with Kanye.

I admit, he has done some vulgar stuff, and then add vulgar to it.

But he's rationally capitalistic through and through in how he manages his profession.

If people in O-Land want a piece of the ever-growing pie as large as he's got, they have to look at him to see what he does right and what he does wrong. Nobody's forced to buy his stuff, right? The trade is all voluntary.

So something's working for him.

When I look at him, it's called a case study.

Or do the people in O-Land not want to earn a piece of the ever-growing pie as large as he's got?

Thank goodness President Trump did not have that particular problem. If he did, he would not have become president against all odds.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

When Rand was getting back at Branden (1968) she stated that Objectivism would destroy those who didn't totally embrace it. Or, don't accept it halfway. It's its own  avenger.

But to get blown out of her context made Nathaniel a new and happy free man.

Objectivism in the 1960s a la Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden et al. was a powerful intellectual and cultural force off Atlas Shrugged and through NBI. But it was of its time and had no legs except as it informed individual lives, mostly for the good and sometimes not.

Part of the reason is Rand and Branden were an intellectual power couple. Another is 80 Ayn Rand type campus clubs listening to sundry NBI lecture courses via tape subscription. It wasn't just intellectual, it was quasi religious. I remember a tape machine recorder/player on a white tablecloth altar here in Tucson and several rows of seats occupied by students of Objectivism--if we called ourselves anything--then I decamped for New York and everything went on steroids.

BTW she was right, but it was HER Objectivism she was talking about. The one it took Leonard Peikoff 30 or 40 years to not quite master. Nathaniel took quite a bit less. But Objectivism as its own avenger is a gun that shoots back at the shooter. That Objectivism is the wrong Objectivism.

It's reality that does the avenging. It's Objectivism a la Rand brokering reality that avenged. Rand congruence is not reality congruence. That's assessing the wrong book.

--Brant

[william.scherk]

More of Paula ...

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

17 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

When Rand was getting back at Branden (1968) she stated that Objectivism would destroy those who didn't totally embrace it. Or, don't accept it halfway. It's its own  avenger.

Brant,

I don't think Rand would have understood meme culture on the Internet.

She might have since I don't channel her. My crystal ball broke down a few years ago and I have had a hell of a time getting it to work again.

But the real world and the fictional AS world Rand lived in was full of gatekeepers. So her entire perception of human society was one where nobody had roaming freedom--they always had to ask permission if they strayed off permitted roaming paths. At Rand's time, fully free roaming was something that existed in the past, not in the present. But in the world today, because of the Internet, free roaming is making a comeback. The rule of thumb is to sin first, then then ask for forgiveness later, rather than ask first for permission.

(This got longer than I intended, so I added some headings to make it easier to read. I could improve the headings and elaborate more on each item, but this is just a post on the Internet...  )

 

The real destroyer

That inversion--not any specific ideology--is what has destroyed people in high castles (real and metaphorical). Objectivism as its own avenger against those who do not adhere to an ideological purity baseline only works in a world full of gatekeepers. How can you tell a person he or she is doomed without Objectivism when they carry access to most of mankind's knowledge in their pockets?

But that fact doesn't make Objectivism--or any other set of formalized ideals--obsolete. It only makes their spread and adherence different than before. Out in the meme and Internet world, Objectivism really has become an avenging angel against the bad guys, but it now happens in a form totally different than the way Rand promoted her ideas--that is, Objectivism has become a cultural pillar in that independent thinkers take from it what they resonate with and use that part in their own lives.

People could do this before the Internet, but that process was culturally insignificant. Back then, they could only get Objectivism from the culture in the slices and slants the gatekeepers portioned out. And man, did power corrupt. Look at the mess the ARI folks did rewriting Rand's own words and history because they wanted to control access. Even Rand herself did her gatekeeping fudges, for one example, when she went through We The Living to take out some of the Nietzsche she no longer agreed with, then said she didn't do that and dared anyone to say she did.

 

How Objectivism is spread and used

Today, people basically say, "Who gives a crap?" If one person is acting too authoritarian, people get their information from another. As I said, they take from Objectivism what they can get behind according to their values, not any values handed down from on high. Then they show and comment on what they believe and think, and how that is working for them. Others get to opine and interact. In other words, there is a total cultural saturation of discussion, high-fives, bickering, and so on. We can call this living Objectivism, not just being instructed on it from insiders.

Lots and lots and lots of people do it this way all over the world--and that hogs the attention time away from the orthodox gatekeeper folks. After all, each person only has 24 hours each day. And here's a corollary social reality for ya', people prefer to talk to those they know rather than gatekeepers.

What's more, in this way, Objectivism has become far more powerful politically and culturally than it ever was in the pure state controlled by insiders. That means it is decentralized no matter how much gatekeepers and gatekeeper wannabes howl. Unless humankind destroys the Internet, gatekeepers are never coming back as the main model of packaging and spreading ideas. Not even the tech giants are able to keep political agenda censorship alive, and, man, are they trying.

 

Purity

If anyone wants pure Rand the way she wrote it and said it, they can get that. If they want to belong to an insider group around Objectivism, they can get that, too. And if they want to check Rand's own premises or apply her thinking in ways she never imagined, and do it all publicly, they can get that all over the place. They can get Objectivism in any form they wish. Their minds are their own so they get to choose, not have gatekeepers choose for them.

That doesn't mean Rand and her more ortho disciples do not have any control. They can control the fact and form of their notion of the pure version of Objectivism. They just no longer control other individuals by doing that. All they have in order to enforce their form is their own little in-group. They can keep the independents out. Big deal. So what? The only thing that accomplishes out in reality is it makes them feel good. Humankind in general doesn't care and doesn't want in.

As for the rest, these ortho insiders have to persuade--and persuade on a public platform in competition with a whole lot of different individual takes on Objectivism. There's no way to shut other folks down anymore. They lost control of what they should have never controlled in the first place.

Also, so long as there is an Internet, there will be memes and other communication forms to wreak havoc on control freaks, authoritarians and even copyright laws. (I'm not against copyright laws, I'm for them. But I don't like it when they are used as weapons for mind control.)

 

Freedom

There's another word for all this.

Freedom.

Objectivism, which includes freedom in it's set of ideals and principles, now has to exist in a world that is much more free than when Rand created her works. In other words, Objectivism now has to co-exist with freedom in reality, not just in the preaching of it. That means Objectivism will live or die on its merits, and that means, on the value it provides to individuals, not on the protection and enticements of gatekeepers. Insiders will never admit it, but they fear such freedom will kill Objectivism.

I don't. 

I see Objectivism alive and well and growing--inside the minds and lives of individuals of all kinds of different persuasions. It's not growing much inside authoritarian structures (which are becoming more irrelevant each day), but it's going gangbusters inside the individuals out in the real world. For an easy example that is well-known, even the now-leftie Silicon Valley upended everything humans knew, and many of the prime movers did it fueled by Objectivism. 

In that form, I say, "Long live Objectivism!"

It will, too. Live long...

 

Michael

[Flea]

After a blessed but too-short interval in which Linz had another fit of the vapors and took down his sandbox so that we need no longer pay attention to his intestinal vapors, he reopened his doors and posted his latest conspiracy theory, basically that Satan is alive and well and living somewhere like New Jersey:

We're back, after I took time out to try to come to grips with the enormity—by which I had become beyond-gobsmacked—of the evil prowling through the universe... [Linzian rodomontwaddle deleted.] I still can't come to grips with any of it, except to think there has to be a force for evil at loose which is greater than the sum of parts such as this parade of cockroaches.

I don't mean an Occasional Cortex look-alike with a pitchfork. I mean an incomprehensibly, cosmically vicious antecedent force into which such sub-maggots gleefully tap.

He then asked for debate from the crowd of yes-saying courtiers who still hang out there, and of course provoked his enforcer into repeating Catholic thought on the matter. Because, you see, the Objectivist identification of the power of ideas has no hold on the mind of a man who is immune to the power of ideas. It's all a conspiracy! He's a typical emotionalist who responds, not primarily to ideas, but to pretty colors, sounds, and twitches of the loins when seeing pretty-boys like Reagan and Kennedy. (Women, you see, think with their loins, and thus, he has said, should be stripped of the vote. Then after claiming that only gay men are man enough to fight in the armed forces alongside the manly men they haven't converted yet, he turns right around and shows himself to be by his own standards a particularly effeminate gay man by fawning over how manly Reagan and Kennedy and Lanza were, never mind whatever wretched or evil ideas they might have held, like some star-struck girl who needs to have the vote stripped from her.) So, he's already said that Catholicism is better than Objectivism because it has produced great art (in fact, the Church did nothing of the kind; it patronized some and tolerated others, and actual Church composers probably hold no interest for the guy), and mark my words: As soon as his enforcer informs him by private channels that in fact the Catholic prohibition on homosexuality is not doctrine set in stone and binding on all believers but simply propaganda for the unwashed masses to prevent the privileges of the clergy from spreading to the laity, he'll be popping communion wafers every night to go with the three bottles a night of communion wine he already downs before posting his latest thoughts emotings. (His enforcer will then smile at his superiors and say, "Didn't I do good gaining us another ally?" And they will sigh, shake their heads, and mutter something like, "We have to deal with the crooked timber of humanity every day--but a bent toothpick? What was he thinking?")

[Jon Letendre]

The people Linz says seem able to tap into some force, they worship Satan. They rape and murder children in his name. Recognition of these facts in no way implies belief in deities.