Michael Parenti is coming Out With A New Book this Month (March ) "God an His Demons"

[Rakhmetov]

http://www.amazon.com/God-His-Demons-Michael-Parenti/dp/1616141778/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268538398&sr=1-1

[Tatarin]

Great! There is no better thing that sitting at the fire, drinking chockolate-flavoured tea and reading Parenti. :D

[al8]

Mmm, looking forward to reading it. His other books are excellent.

[RedStarOverChina]

Is it like one of those Richard Dawkin books or is there something new in there?

[Sendo]

Is it like one of those Richard Dawkin books or is there something new in there?

uh...what?

[RedStarOverChina]

Judging by the title, I assume it's a book about the failings of religion.

Nothing wrong with that, but it seems the arguments against religion have been exhausted. So I was wondering if I'd be wasting my time reading stuff I already knew.

[jake williams]

Except that Michael Parenti actually likes and respects the American working class, whereas at least Harris and Hitchens despise them, and Dawkins while an excellent scientist is a basically a liberal.

[MarxSchmarx]

Except that Michael Parenti actually likes and respects the American working class, whereas at least Harris and Hitchens despise them, and Dawkins while an excellent scientist is a basically a liberal.

It's also worth pointing out that Dawkins's scientific contributions, while respectable, are dwarfed by his popularizations of other people's work (most notably Maynard Smith and Hamilton) and later crusade against creationism. Indeed, there is probably a generation of biologists who, although inspired by Dawkins's "Selfish gene", are loathe to cite it in their scientific articles.

[Sendo]

Dawkin's is quite anti-scientific. I'm not the first to point out that his bourgeois thinking allows him to think that capitalism is "natural" and eternal and looks towards evolution to explain and fabricates a false history of the human species to fit his deterministic behavior models.

and redstatoverchina, I misunderstood your comment. I don't find Parenti's works to be rambling polemics, but rather, well-argued Communist analyses of history of culture and politics and are instructive in and of themselves, even without the theory. I thought you were comparing his writing styles.

As an anti-religion work. Parenti's talks have never been about how religion is for the stupid, or how it "tricks" the working class, but rather points out the hypocrisies and their denial of material reality.

The effect is to inspire people to attack capitalism materially and not idealistically.

[x359594]

Except that Michael Parenti actually likes and respects the American working class, whereas at least Harris and Hitchens despise them, and Dawkins while an excellent scientist is a basically a liberal.

All important distinctions. Harris and Hitchens are neo-conservative ideologues who use the criticism of religion to justify the "war on terror" and refute moral objections to torture and imperialist war by capitalist ruling elites; they present themselves as unsentimental realists cutting through religious cant while in fact they're nothing more than apologists for the agenda of the Western bourgeoisie.

[Rakhmetov]

here's a preview:

http://www.michaelparenti.org/godandhisdemons.html

[RadioRaheem84]

But Michael Parenti is god.

LOL. Just kidding. Seriously though, I hope it's not a weak anti-working class tirade like the books by Harris and Hitchens, or a laughably bourgeoisie liberal book like Dawkins.

I trust Parenti though. This will probably be the first real attack on religion in a book since Marx that's come out in the mainstream.