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When reason fails to guide us in our everyday lives, we turn to faith, to religion; we close our minds; we reject austere reasoning. This rejection, which is a faith-based social and intellectual malignancy, has two unfortunate consequences: it blocks the way to knowledge that might enhance the quality of life and it opens the way to charlatans...

God-Botherers and Other True Believers

Acknowledgements







Introduction







PART I: FAITH AND POLITICS







Chapter 1. Faith, Reason and Consequences











Three kinds of faith



Only believe!



Humanism



Oneness



A Point of View







Chapter 2. Religion and Persuasion in Politics











Religion and Political Involvement



The Problem of Order



What should go on and what does go on



Defining Situations



Information Costs: Political Clairvoyance



Creating Trust



Persuading Reality-testing







PART II ANTAGONISTIC RELIGIONS







Chapter 3. Desert, Marketplace, and Forum











The Religious Right (and Left) Hypocrisy



Render therefore unto Caesar



Modes of Clerical Involvement in Politics



Antagonism



Paraclerics: Repenting Religion as a Weapon: Mrs. Schiavo



The Religious Mode of Political Persuasion







Chapter 4. The Need for Enemies











Pol Pot and Secular Religion



"Ardent and Even Hysterical Passions"



Manufacturing Enemies



Group Sentiment and Violence



Hitler's Faith



Fascism and Christian Fascism







PART III: A RELIGION OF LOVE







Chapter 5. Gandhi: The Freedom Fight











The Freedom-Fight



Peacemaking Failures







Chapter 6. Gandhi's Charisma











Calculation Charisma: the Mass Audience



Charisma: Elite and Entourage



Single-Mindedness







Chapter 7. Gandhi's Religion and Political Reality











Gandhi and Hitler



Faith and Responsibility



Secular Disciplines in the Freedom Fight



Gandhian Morality and "Sectarian" religions



Gandhi's Universalism and Political Action







Chapter 8. The First Cause and the Last Word











Propagating the Faith



Walk Gently



Morality and Evolution



Oneness and its consequences: diseducation



Oneness and its consequences: strife ~



Diseducation and Authority



Only Think!







References



Index