Leland W. Ruble, book review of The God Psychosis: Humankind’s Ultimate Black Plague by William Harwood, April 7th, 2009
THE GOD PSYCHOSIS: HUMANKIND’S ULTIMATE BLACK PLAGUE
Reviewed by LELAND W. RUBLE

At present I know of just a few authors who are, as William Harwood is, of writing so extensively and so knowledgeable on a variety of subjects, and in the realm of religion, is one of the most qualified in exposing the numerous faults, idiosyncrasies, and fantasy that masquerades itself as a legitimate way to achieve nirvana (heaven), or if disregarded and not believed, guarantees eternal torment in a delusional hell concocted by the priestly authors and apologists of religious psychosis.

In this current book, the author further exposes the loony, rabid antics of religious fanatics and those politically allied with the theofascist right in zealous attempts to recreate a world dominated by the unscientific, the delusional, the fabulous, and the deranged. These are individuals whose personal lives are totally predicated on beliefs which have no substance in reality, and who since they are not confined, continue to infect society with lunatic expressions of a godism that exists mainly in their brains and not the reality in which we actually exist. The author makes a valiant, intellectual attempt through a series of articles (31), plus 46 book reviews, and 4 letters to the media to expose the corruption, folly and delusional attempts by religious apologists to remake the world into a lunatic asylum for believers in the irrational beliefs of a god as depicted in so-called holy books.

The claims of religious apologists and their allies are thoroughly exposed as the author deftly whacks in words, those who pretentiously hawk their religious delusions on the world stage. Those politically allied with the theocratic, theofascist right, are also salvaged as the author exposes their true nature and deceptive ambitions.

For instance, in the article, If Ann Coulter Was 30,000 Years More Evolved, the author had this to say: “Ann Coulter is at the very least a serious contender, since she epitomizes the intrinsic meaning of ‘evil rabid canine.’ She is as permeated with theofascism as Thomás de Torquemada, as contemptuous of democracy as Joseph Stalin, and she has the compassion of Attila the Hun and the redeeming social value of Adolf Hitler” (p. 43).

If you were perked up by that brilliant summation of Coulter, rest assured there are many, many other just as luminous phrases by the author in this book. Here’s another from the article Planet of the Gullible—and the Parasites Who Fleece Them, the author writes: “Of the 6.6 billion human beings on Planet Earth, only 2.2 billion know, believe or suspect that they are not the domesticated livestock of an omnipotent petmaster in the sky, since they are aware that ‘gods’, as such Sky Führers are called, have never revealed their existence, and almost certainly do not exist. That leaves 4.4 billion gullible marks who are currently being controlled, manipulated and swindled by one or another god’s self-appointed scriptwriters, lawmakers, and tax collectors” (p.73).

To read more lucent phrases from the author, get the book and add it to your library for reference and the sheer enjoyment of reading one of the foremost author’s currently dispelling the illusions of gullible, implausible god beliefs. The religious community likely will rant and rave, and exhibit numerous temper tantrums if some of their more notorious spokespersons should be so curious as to read this book. However, their infantile inability to logically refute what the author states, is premised on the fact that their religious servitude has rendered them permanently incapable of ever providing a rational, realistic argument for belief in the illusive fantasy of an existing god. And the author knows from his vast knowledge of religion, politics, and many other issues, that until they emerge freely from the delusions that confine them to god belief, they will continue to wallow in that vast wasteland of supernatural fantasy. To get a better idea of what this book consists of, here is the author in his own words on the back cover of the book: “Godworship is a contagious form of insanity that is within 300 years of exterminating the human race. God addicts are not committing anthropocide, by environmental pollution and overpopulation out of malice. Rather, they are convinced the world is coming to an end in their lifetimes, at which time a deus ex machina is going to carry victims of its mind-AIDS off to a Cloud Cuckoo Land in the sky, and sentence the sane, intelligent and educated minority to be tortured with flamethrowers for eternity in an underworld Auschwitz that can only be described as a sadist’s dream. No one who reads a Tanakh, Bible or Koran with his brain in gear can fail to recognize that the character called ‘God’ in English mistranslations is the most sadistic, evil, mass murdering psychopath in all fiction, and that those allegedly holy books are the most obscene paeans to evil ever written, with Mein Kampf and the Left Behind series their only serious competitors.

"Be warned. Unless humankind exterminates religion within 150 years, there will not be a human being left on earth in 300 years.”

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Dr. William Harwood, THE GOD PSYCHOSIS: Humankind’s Ultimate Black Plague
Reviewed by Bernard Katz in American Rationalist
(2009, World Audience, Inc., 423 pp., pbk, $20.)

Here’s a collection of essays and book reviews–as well as slam-dunk comments–from Dr. William Harwood, one of our favorite iconoclasts and contributing editors. The glue that holds this vast array of themes together is his opinion that "Godworship is a contagious form of insanity that is within 300 years of exterminating the human race."

He explains: "God addicts are not committing anthropocide, by environmental pollution and overpopulation, out of malice. Rather, they are convinced that the world is coming to an end within their lifetimes, at which time a deus ex machina is going to carry victims of its mindAIDS off to a Cloud Cuckoo Land in the sky, and sentence the sane, intelligent and educated minority to be tortured with flamethrowers for eternity in an underworld Auschwitz that can only be described as a sadist’s wet dream. No one who reads a Tanakh, Bible or Koran with his brain in gear can fail to recognize that the character called ’God’ in English mistranslations is the most sadistic, evil, mass-murdering psychopath in all fiction, and that those allegedly holy books are the most obscene paeans to evil ever written, with Mein Kampf and the Left Behind series their only serious competitors. Be warned. Unless humankind exterminates religion within 150 years, there will not be a human being left on earth in 300 years." Supporting this prophecy are 31 essays in the section titled "Contents," 56 book reviews, and many letters written to TV stations, magazines and newspapers. These are short machine-gun like bursts, most of which hit their mark. In short, this is a miscellany of ammunition that fits the guns of any atheist and freethinker.

In the section titled "Contents," for example, you can find the following self-explanatory essays: "The Bible: Can any thinking person mistake it for nonfiction?" "Are All Godworshippers Insane?" "Salvaging pseudoscience," "Does God hate Creationists?" "Shit, piss, snot, phlegm and Jesus," "Barack Obama: godphuqt prostitute or typical lying politician (tautology)?" "Why Is Barack Obama a Christian?" "Why do Minorities Worship the Majority’s God?" "The Nazi Pope," "Losing My Religion" [This is a self-confession]. Here he also takes on Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, and George W. Bush.

Under "Book Reviews" Harwood has such intriguing titles as "The Skeptic’s Guide to the Paranormal," "Jesus is Dead," "Atheist Universe," The Quotable Atheist," "The Improbability of God," "The End of Biblical Studies," "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know," "Does Science Make God Obsolete?" "Did Man Create God," "The Messiah Before Christ," "Shattering the Christ Myth," "The Myth of Nazareth: The Invented Town of Jesus," "Living Without God: New Directions for Atheists," "Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Secularism," "The Age of American Unreason," "Misquoting Truth," and "Is Christianity Good for the World?" And don’t forget about the last section, "Letters to the Media." If you are a habitual contributor to the Internet or letters to the editor, this is an inspirational goldmine. For example, Harwood took TV personality Ben Stein to the woodshed, writing: “I am aware that that all proponents of intelligent design are dangerously insane. But are your lies in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed simply a function of your insanity, or are you fully aware that you are an unmitigated liar?”

However, there is one glaring contradiction. Harwood agrees with psychiatrist Thomas Szasz’s theme in, "Psychiatry: The Science of Lies." Harwood writes: “...Thomas Szasz has been trying to tell the world for half a century...that psychiatry is pseudomedical humbuggery [that] has not penetrated the brainwashed skulls of True Believers.” And that “Being an expert in mental illness is like being an expert about ghosts and unicorns.”

He couldn’t be any more negative than this, could he? Yet in his letter to James Patrick Holding, posing as Robert Heinlein’s fictitious "First Prophet", Harwood writes: “...I must advise you that, by exposing a believer (yourself) as a raving psychopath, you are harming the cause you espouse.” Then in another "First Prophet" letter to Maryella Vause he writes: “You make us all look like raving psychopaths.” And in an anonymous letter to three United States Senators, he writes: “First act as President of the United States: Order the following persons taken into custody for psychiatric evaluation, to determine whether they should be committed to institutions for the intellectually impaired.”

To turn his own arguments against himself, let me refer to his letter to James Patrick Holding, which I paraphrase: “I must advise you that by first knocking psychiatry as a pseudoscience and then describing in three letters that psychiatry is a legitimate science for evaluating behavior, you are harming the very cause you espouse!”

Reading these hard-hitting verbal bombs reminded me of H. L. Mencken’s caustic and telling comments. Throughout these essays you’ll find such memorable critical remarks as "Missionaries are a particularly vicious kind of parasite, consciously seeking to expand the number of card-carrying tithe-payers on whom they sponge," "There are two kinds of people who believe that the Judeo-Christian bible is inerrant truth: those who have not read it, and those whose brainwashing rivals the Manchurian Candidate," "All alleged knowledge can be divided into three categories: science, pseudoscience, and fantasy. Validly obtained information is science. Information obtained by any invalid methodology posing as scientific is pseudoscience. Information attributed to a metaphysical source that cannot be tested is fantasy," "So why are the ’when God does it, it’s not evil’ preachers deafeningly silent about their imaginary playmate’s seemingly definitive denunciation [by allowing states that voted for Huckabee to be hit by tornadoes] about the states that voted for a hardcore biblical literalist who...believes that the earth is flat [because the Bible says so in 14 different passages]." These are just a few of the projectiles you can take from Harwood to enliven your letters, speeches and conversation.

I also think the publisher ought to be highlighted. World Audience (www.worldaudience.org) is a global consortium of artists and writers, producing quality books and the literary journal audience, and the audience Review. Since Harwood’s trenchant views include many of the important rebuttals to religion and the current characters now stalking the earth, this is a rare opportunity to gather them in one book. Do so.