Delusions

Pragmatic Realism

Non-Fiction - Religion/Philosophy
244 Pages
Reviewed on 06/16/2012
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Author Biography

Architect, sculptor and prolific writer. His special interests cover a broad spectrum of arts, sciences and philosophy. His fiction and non-fiction attest to his particular passion for the scope and the development of human potential. He authored more than twenty-five books, fifteen of them novels, under the pen name Stan I.S. Law.

His life attests that his View of Reality leads to success and happiness. A refugee from Poland at 13, then at 33, having overcome the difficulties of schooling in a foreign language, he left England for Canada in search of new horizons. Later his family scattered, his house burned to the ground, the firm—where he worked for many years—bankrupt… he began his search for the secret of life. Now he is a successful writer, happily married for 25 years, with an assured future.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Robert Rose for Readers' Favorite

In "Delusions: Pragmatic Realism" Stanislaw Kapuscinski takes his well-educated mind and (often) humorously debunks the many delusions that make religion and science easy targets. I share his concerns about the power of each in limiting the freedom of individuals to find their own answers to the issues or problems that face all humans. How did we get here? What are the (if any) purposes of life? What happens when we die? Are we alone in the universe? Can we be ethical and moral without believing in a god? What is determined (genes) and how much do memes shape our lives - so how much responsibility do we have for our actions?

Stan was raised as a Catholic and educated by the powerful Jesuits. Despite his efforts to be free from the errors of religion and science by his eclectic reading and writing and his assertion that he is an atheist, I don’t think he has freed himself from his early indoctrination. In my profession as a teacher and counselor I have learned how difficult it is to free people from their early conditioning. My job (as Stan says) was to coerce my students to do what they were told and the same thing was done to me by the bureaucrats who held my life in their hands. In being innovative I paid a price for my freedom. I felt that he has little regard about how difficult it is for the average humans to overcome all the negative conditioning they face from the institutions of their culture. I found most would take believed security and certainty over freedom with its consequence of personal responsibility. They are the Fundamentalists who believe their POV is without error and therefore limit their flexibility and creativity.

I did not agree with some of the author's predictions. As a futurist I know how difficult it is to make accurate predictions based on insufficient or incorrect data. Also, the predictor’s bias comes into play. However, I would definitely say that his explanations of his POV are well-conceived and deserve to be read. If they are read with an open mind, they will give fair representations of the strengths and weaknesses of religion and science.