Vol. 1 No. 7 - September 18, 2006

“Three passions, simple but overwhelming strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.”

These words of Bertrand Russell (recorded in the prologue to his Autobiography) have been reverberating in my mind ever since I first read them – in 1980 – as a young student about to endeavour to think for the first time.

It was with truly eschatological fear that I witnessed the unfolding events around Benedict’s Mohammed reference this week.

That the current “representative of ‘god’ on earth” can evoke tension extraordinaire by pronouncing unflatteringly on “the last prophet of ‘allah’ on earth” translates into dehumanising idiocy.

An overreaction?

Hardly.

Recall, if you will, the Danish “cartoon crisis” of 2005. Dozens lost their lives in the ensuing protests.

Enough said.

Religion must go.

But what then about human contentment… about human happiness?

In this issue, the claims of religious belief systems in dealing with reality are compared with a scientific paradigm… in search of happiness.

Contents

Publisher’s note

Editor’s note

In pusuit of happiness

Papal fallibility

Meet the new evangelicals

The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots Of Jesus And David

Benedict XVI cartoons

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Tart Remarks, Vol. 1 No. 7 – September 18, 2006