Scott Adams digs an all-too-common atheist hole:
If you think about it, wars are generally fought because of a false sense of certainty. Usually some leader thinks he is a God, or talks to God, or descended from the Gods, or thinks God gave his people some particular piece of real estate. The leader’s opinion is the most certain in the land. People flock to certainty and adopt the certainty as their own. The next thing you know, stuff is blowing up.
This wildly ignorant assertion is completely incorrect, as Mr. Adams would know if he knew any military history or had even bothered to spend 5 minutes consulting the Encyclopedia of Wars, (Phillips & Axelrod, 2005). Only about 7 percent of the 1700+ historical wars recorded there have even a remote connection to anything religious, indeed, the only certainty that exists in the typical war-making leader’s mind is that waging war will serve his immediate purposes, whether that be his personal desire to rule over a larger kingdom, to seek revenge upon an enemy or to give the masses sufficient distraction from turning their violent attentions upon him.
I quite enjoy Mr. Adams’exercises in philosotainment, but his belief in rational ontology as a substitute for historical reading does occasionally lead to some rather amusing howlers. Such as the all-too typical one cited above.
For those who claim to be more intelligent and educated than the norm, atheists ironically demonstrate an reliable tendency to say tremendously stupid things betraying the lack of a decent education.