Forty-some years ago, I sat in on meetings of the presumptuously-named Philosophers Club, which met in the home of its San Diego founder, a young man who would go on to become the leader of the American Humanist Association. Members of the club prided themselves on their rationality. They eschewed religion. Most were atheists, others agnostics. Several belonged to Mensa, the organization for people with high IQs.
One man I remember in particular. He was a late-middle-age German expatriate who spent his days calling in to radio talk shows, using the moniker “The U-Boat Captain.” At club meetings he made long, syllogistic arguments that ended up going nowhere, and he never failed to warn us of the dangers of “priestcraft.”
