[Newspoetry] The Opium of the Priestly

[DL Emerick]

Dennett's new book -- Breaking the Spell.
 
I'll get around to reading this one, by Dennett,
even though he is not a particularly good writer.
I'll read him, anyway, because he is published,
and even though he has no adequate credentials
for the topic that he addresses in his writing.
 
I read Wieseltier's savage review in the NYT.
It, and like reviews, will be cited most often,
by those who have no time to think critically,
and only want a sword to wield against visions
violating their vehemence, violence, viciousness.
 
There's no shred of objectivity in the review,
that's not characteristic of the New Republic,
which long ago turned against its own heritage
and decided that the only opinion that matters
was one that was wholly supportive of power.
 
Power always needs religion, as an institution,
for the assertion of immune divine authority
supports the minor premise that follows it,
that there is a basis for divine rights of kings,
a trap into which even the great Locke fell.
 
Cults of personality find highest expression
in following the highest personality around:
for theocrats it is some character of a god,
but for all the rest of us unwashed masses
it is the presidency or the chief executive.
 
Dennett would have written a better book
if he had attacked the Queen Bee syndrome,
because it is power that causes all religion,
science stands against the ideas of creeds --
in the right to say power is an animalistic.
 
Marx wrongly thought Religion was caused
by State, but it was the other way around,
Religion found that Belief was so strong
as a suppressive narcotic against reason,
that a State of Enslavement could be made.
 
 
 
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