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The True Route to Utopia
The appeal of prophets often lies in their ability to paint a picture
of  an  irresistible  utopia,  and  to  convince  us  that  this  better  world  is
almost within our grasp.  Marion Keech, the woman who
communicated with extra-terrestrial Guardians, promised her
followers that they would shed all earthly ills and bathe in blessings
they could scarcely imagine--after they had been whisked away from
our decaying galaxy.  William Miller, the founder of Seventh Day
Adventism, predicted that God would come to rearrange the world we
know, and that those who followed Miller would find themselves
possessors of a sparkling new paradise.  And Karl Marx explained that
the elimination of capitalism would trigger the creation of a whole new
human nature, one which would flood the greedy dens in which we
live with brotherly goodwill.
The supernatural predictions of Keech, Miller, and Marx all
failed to materialize.  And yet, in a strange way, every one of them bore
the seeds of a hard-nosed truth.  The power of ideas to draw individual
humans into a structured mass can make the utopian prophecies of
world-views come true.  If the system of belief pulls together a large
enough superorganism, the faithful will, indeed, taste a bit of heaven.
Nearly two thousand years ago, a group of believers drew
together around Joshua, a young carpenter from the relatively
impoverished northern hill-town of Nazareth, convinced the parable-
spinning woodworker was the Messiah.  The believers were Jews, a
people who had been living under the oppressive thumb of distant
conquerors on and off for nearly 750 years.6  At the moment, the Jews
were dominated by the arrogant, militaristic Romans, who had
swallowed up the Hebrew state and made it part of The Empire.  The
prophets of old had predicted that someday a savior would come who
would liberate the Jews from their humiliation.  That champion would
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