Friday 29th of March 2024

the birds and the bees...

dawkins...dawkins...

As you might have already known, the year 2009 is also the "Darwin Year." It is the bicentennial of the birthday of the great British naturalist, and sesquicentennial of publication of his famous book "The Origin of Species." Hence we hear a lot these days about evolution, its history and, most important of all, its meaning.

 

By Mustafa Akyol

 

That meaning is what makes the theory of evolution interesting to most of us. Unlike other theories of science, such as the one on plate tectonics, Darwin’s idea deals with essential questions such as where we humans came from. That’s why various ideologies, ranging from Marxism to racism, have tried to make use of Darwin’s theory in order to vindicate their philosophical claims. But none of these philosophical claims have been as ambitious and persistent as the one advanced by the atheists. They claim to know that there is no God, and that Darwin’s theory makes that presupposition highly credible.

 

The fitness of environment 

 

In other words, atheists -- at least the most evangelical of them, such as Richard Dawkins -- interpret Darwinian evolution in an atheistic framework. This often leads religious believers to take a defensive, or sometime offensive, stance against evolution. Atheists respond by referring to the classic science-versus-blind-faith clich [cliché?]. And the vicious cycle goes on. 

 

Yet it is possible to get out of that cycle. For that Darwinism does not vindicate atheism. What it refutes is not theism (faith in God), but only a literalist interpretation of Scriptures. 

 

Let me explain. From the atheist’s perspective, what Darwinism does is to explain life on Earth as the products of two basic dynamics: natural laws and random happenings. (French atheist Jasques Monod  [Jacques Lucien Monod] had called them "chance and necessity.") Once they explain the emergence and variety of life by these two factors, they believe, they will take God out of the picture.

 

But let’s wait a minute, and take a closer look at natural laws. These are the constant rules that govern the physical universe: Water freezes and boils at certain temperatures, certain chemicals react with each other, and apples fall down from trees. We all know that. But there are two good questions that we should ask: Why these laws exist in the first place? And, moreover, what would happen if they were different? 

 

The first question led philosophers throughout history to infer a "Law Giver." That is, of course, a speculation. That’s why the second question might make more sense, because it can help us understand whether there was a purpose behind these laws, or they just popped up out of nothing, accidentally, giving us an accidental universe. 

 

The first modern scientist to address this question, as far as I know, was Lawrence Joseph Henderson, whose 1913 book, "The Fitness of the Environment," examined "the biological significance of the properties of matter." Looking at the amazingly "well-fit" properties of water, and other elements of the environment, he concluded that they were surprisingly "bio-centric." In other words, if evolution were a four-billion-year-long show, its stage was perfectly prepared. 

 

The idea took a new dimension when astrophysicist Brandon Carter proposed the idea of "Anthropic Principle," in 1973, at a symposium honoring Copernicus's 500th birthday. Copernicus had shown that we humans were not at the center of the universe, but Carter’s findings were suggesting that we are actually at the center of its purpose. Because all the constants of the physical laws of the universe were "just right" in order to allow the emergence of life. If the nuclear forces were just a little different, for example, there would not even be atoms in the universe, let alone planets, trees and people. Same "fine-tuning" was found in gravity, magnetism and chemical laws, too. 

 

As the evidence for the Anthropic Principle piled, many physicist started to the doubt and even reject the materialist conception of cosmology. "It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the universe," said Paul Davis, a British astrophysicist. "The impression of design is overwhelming." 

 

Now, in such a "designed" universe, biological evolution does not imply anything other than the unfolding of a cosmic plan for the making of life and its amazing diversity. Philosophically it doesn’t really matter much whether a specific group of reptiles evolved into birds, or some hominids slowly turned into Homo sapiens. What matters is whether there was a purpose behind all this. And the "new physics," to use Davies’ term, strongly suggests that there is indeed such a purpose.

 

Therefore, unless your idea of "creation" is an extremely literalist one which makes you expect a divine hand coming down from the sky to instantly form a new species, you should be fine with such a predestined evolution as a believer.

 

That’s why the Darwin Year is not the year of atheism. Atheists might like to think so, but theirs is wishful thinking, not a realist one.

7 Mart 2009

Mustafa Akyol

 

https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/darwin-year-is-not-the-year-of-atheism-11154116

 

-----------------------------------

 

hurriyet (Liberty) is one of the major Turkish newspapers, founded in 1948. As of January 2018, it had the highest circulation of any newspaper in Turkey at around 319,000. Hürriyet has a mainstream, liberal and conservative outlook. Hürriyet's editorial line may be considered middle-market, combining entertainment value with comprehensive news coverage and a strong cadre of columnists.

 

—————————

 

 

 

Oh bother…

 

Why would 2009 be a year to remember? I have no idea why but it seems this particular year is often popping out as an important marker. For example it’s the year when Barnaby Drake wrote “Democracy has died and nobody noticed”… 2009 could have been the year that the woke movement started to gestate to become a pest of forceful equality through “cancel culture” which is a form of cosmetic dictatorship. AND SCIENCE AND RELIGIONS DO NOT MIX. 

 

 

Jacques Lucien Monod — mentioned by Mustafa Akyol — was more than “an atheist”. He was a French biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965, sharing it with François Jacob and André Lwoff "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis”. 

 

 

Yes, some of life’s species are not sexually differentiated, especially at cellular level. Some little beasts have genetic material that can synthesise other similar beasts — including enzymes themselves — without sex. And they can evolve... And don’t we all know about viruses that come to steal our own lovely proteins, because that’s what they do to reproduce. Without bats — and now humans, poultry or pigs — some viruses would die off. And they need to opportunistically and ACCIDENTALLY adapt to changing environmental factors otherwise they die. The complexity of RNA was somewhat more elusive than that of DNA, possibly because humans wanted to know the source code of their existence. We know. 

 

We are not playing god, because god does not exist. If we mess up, we punish ourselves or blame something/someone else...

 

 

I can see why now at age 80, Richard Dawkins, possibly exhausted by having to fight stupid views, does not bother arguing with the “new” Wokish people or the long established pseudo-godly people any more… If I was him, I would let all of them cook in their own righteous juice till they burn themselves to death at the altar of newly acquired reversed segregative sexual preference and dark skin colour “we all should have"… or reach paradise at the end of times… Oblivion isn’t for the faint-hearted…

 

And I am not racist. Skin colour is a genetic fact, not a choice of psychological fancy, while the rights of all humans have to be respected. I spent a few years in Africa. I know. We (not me), whiteys, have unfortunately invented all sorts of excuses to alienate these rights through slavery and skull measurements. Because human nature (which is different from our understanding of the human condition) isn’t perfect — the complexity of nature goofs with imprecision due to “environment factors” and errors — our understanding of the human condition is confused. 

 

Some of us are born with various ailment from down-syndrome to dwarfism to name some obvious differences from “normal” people who could be secretly sexually inept, carry allergies to cats and to wizards that we dispel with sprays up our noses — until one dies from touching a peanut. 

 

By a “certain age” our intellectual faculties diminish to the point we need nappies for our mental incontinence. Have we reached our optimum of abilities over time, or did we cruise through, without taxing our sense of self, because lazy is the median setting for the majority of humans? Believing in god is the laziest stupidest option.

 

Understanding the "human condition” is not for comfort but it can be exhilarating. Trying to explain the human condition as an evolutionary “accident” is going to attract big flies and annoying mozzies, full of their own rights to believe in whatever god or allah who gave them a paradise to die for — or rights. They still try to kill Darwinism.

 

The writer above, Mustafa Akyol, totally misses the point of Darwinism as he goes off-topic to explain that evolution does not exclude god’s handiwork, while the reality tells us "evolution excludes ANY possibility of god’s existence". Full stop.

 

Relative randomism and Chaos do not mean confusion, but a certain accidental order that is not the invention of a godly designer. He (god is a male) would have had to be mad if He (god is a male) ever existed which he does not... I know this is difficult to explain to people who believe in Noah’s Ark — a moment in legendary history when “god” was sick and tired of his own creation not adoring Him (god is a male) and decided to destroy it. He (god is a male) starts to repopulate the planet with a pisspot in charge of sexually charged beasts. That is senseless and idiotic — but even intelligent grown-ups prefer to believe in this shit than torturing their mind with reality.

 

Dawkins and the “New Atheists” have been under attack for some time for pointing out the precise uncertainty of randomness in us that we’re trying to manage higgledy-piggledy with various philosophical format, none satisfactory — while philosophically dealing without the idea of god does come the closest to reality. 

 

The best interpretation of life is that extracted through the relativity of sciences — which can be BRUTAL without any intent of nastiness nor cruelty (which technology and religious beliefs can do). Our interpretation of life through religious beliefs shows an extraordinary acceptance of hypocrisy and misunderstandings, and the bigots believe in the cruelty of god to excuse our own failures...

 

 

For many years, the religious mob hypocritically dictated the system — and to a great extend, they still do with more unsurpassed hypocrisy, as they claim freedom of religion and the high moral ground. Now wokism has extended this misunderstanding with rights. Rights to control, rather than rights to exist. There is a difference. Major.

 

Meanwhile, the latest popular fantasy that has influenced many kids is coming to term with ageing and its own “cancel culture” problems:

 

The stars of the Harry Potter films will reunite for a 20-year anniversary special on HBO, minus author JK Rowling. Fans and commenters wondered if Rowling’s absence had anything to do with her views on transgender issues.

 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ premiered 20 years ago this week, catapulting actors Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson to superstardom. Warner Bros announced on Tuesday that the three stars – as well as a whole range of supporting actors from the franchise – will travel back to Hogwarts for an “enchanting making-of story” airing on New Year’s Day, entitled ‘Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts’. Hogshit, says Gus....

 

Conspicuously absent from the production is author JK Rowling. A Warner Bros’ press release made no mention of Rowling, and a lengthy Instagram post by actress Emma Watson thanked fans and fellow cast members, but also made no mention of Rowling, whom other Harry Potter actors said they “owe everything” to.

 

 

The dreams are full of it. I would suggest that the sorcerers, witches and magic potions did more to confuse the issues of the “human condition” for kids, than the transgender issue which is far more engrossed in the media than it deserves — while employing an industrial size army of psychologists, surgeons and chemists that would make the Hitlerian Nazis doctors envious. 

 

At some stage in one’s life, we all (may not be all, but a large proportion of us) may feel we are in the wrong body or of the wrong sex. It’s normal when the hormones are being readjusted during puberty and beyond. Should we act on these feelings, we’d all be “trans” and regret it for the rest of our life. This is where science becomes the slave of technologists and charlatans psychologists with a woke tendency of confusing our Y and X chromosomes with our choice of identity. 

 

Mind you this would solve the world population problem, if we dare see that we’ve overshot the providing capability of this little planet, as we breed like rabbit... But fear not, the technologists have the artificial womb in sight, to cater for the destruction of specified genderisation en masse — towards clone duplication. Idiots!

 

And this is where Dawkins and JK are warning us about: the generalisation and democratisation of what should only be considered a rare “medical” intervention into a confusion of gender, on a mass market scale like getting a commodity such as a new iPhone. 

 

Evolution is a bitch that does not provide rights, but only outcomes of an imperfect human body. Yes, “mother nature” gave imperfection to homo sapiens. We know. This is why we have to steal the skin of the bear. For years, men were asked to look at their “feminine side” which was a delusion of purpose to make them understand women and their own insecure emotions. What proportion of feminine/masculine are we made of? Are our chromosomes in conflicts with our hormonal balances? How long does it take to come to term with our various pleasure centres which can be excited by various means into the wrong proportion of feminine/masculinity, to become a habit. The song says it all: “I keep touching myself”… 

 

I love myself, I want you to love me

When I'm feeling down, I want you above me

I search myself, I want you to find me

I forget myself, I want you to remind me

 

I don't want anybody else

When I think about you, I touch myself

Oh, I don't want anybody else, oh, no

Oh, no, oh, no

 

...

 

 

When I  think about you, I touch myself

I touch myself, I touch myself

 

I touch myself, I touch myself

I touch myself, I touch myself

I touch myself, I touch myself

I touch myself, I touch myself

I touch myself, I touch myself

 

https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/200634/The+Divinyls/I+Touch+Myself

 

We have already tackled this subject at: 

is the pleasure of sex democratic...

 

(Gusnote: it took me a few hours to chase this link — as all the search engines have a problem with the world SEX… this articles has more than 7,000 reads)

 

 

 

Anyway, on Darwin’s boat, The Beagle, there would have been moments of homosexuality amongst the navy men. Nothing new. The Romans lost an empire possibly through the refinements of alternative sexualisation (we can’t call it debauchery). Who knows. The barbarians were raping hairy beast with big dongs (?)...

 

Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy FRS (5 July 1805 – 30 April 1865) was an English officer of the Royal Navy and a scientist. He achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, FitzRoy's second expedition to Tierra del Fuego and the Southern Cone.

 

FitzRoy was a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate daily weather predictions, which he called by a new name of his own invention: "forecasts". In 1854 he established what would later be called the Met Office, and created systems to get weather information to sailors and fishermen for their safety. He was an able surveyor and hydrographer. As Governor of New Zealand, serving from 1843 to 1845, he tried to protect the Māori from illegal land sales claimed by British settlers.

 

What a good man. I wonder if his statue has been torn down by the woke forces… or the smelly right-wing pigs?

 

 

Meanwhile:

 

… Some time ago I posted a piece ... on the wildly popular eighteenth century erotic novel Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. In that novel, the author John Cleland wrote an explicit scene were Fanny and a common sailor do the deed. There is a brief moment of alarm on Fanny's part when he was not going by the right door, and knocking desperately at the wrong one, I told him of it:—'Pooh!' says he, 'my dear, any port in a storm.'

By referencing the nearly accidental act of 'sodomy,' Cleland taps into the popular impression that sailors engaged in homosexuality. This is one of the few primary sources that directly addresses this impression.

 

Rictor Norton, at his website Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England, has collected an impressive number of primary sources, though few reference sailors. Something that becomes clear in Norton's work is that there was little or no legal distinction at the time between those who engaged in a single same-sex act, those who were exclusively homosexual, and anyone who fell in between.

 

Indeed, as many historians have pointed out, the sexual spectrum is difficult to define historically. In his A Queer History of the United States, Michael Bronski points out that the very term 'homosexual' wasn't invented until 1869 'to help construct a narrative around a person defined by his or her same-sex sexual desires and actions.' Richard Godbeer, in his essay 'The Cry of Sodom' likewise points to the insufficiency of modern definitions:

Sexual categories have no universal signification; they are cultural products, emerging from and contingent on their specific context. Thus, if we are to understand past people's experience of sex, we need to jettison our own notions of sexuality in favor of the categories they used.

We cannot say that sailors who engaged in homosexual acts identified as homosexual, nor can we say that others defined them as such before they were convicted. Here I used the term 'homosexual' to refer to inclinations and acts, rather than as defining the sailors themselves.

 

British society believed that a lack of access to women gave rise to homosexuality, and there was perhaps no place in the eighteenth century so exclusively male as the navy.

 

https://www.britishtars.com/2018/01/homosexuality-in-royal-navy.html

 

 

---------------------

 

 

Lunch today was educational… Feminism was high on the agenda, because women have had to fight for equality and recognition in business and this fight is still going on... The male chauvinistic attitude as demonstrated by our ScoMo and little Turdy Abbott has had a strong influence on the state of play. Not only the women are debased daily, now, the gay-wokes have highjacked the control of who gets a job in artistic circles or whatever areas once a gay anchor rules the roost… It’s a perversity of cronyism already mentioned here at the Rainbow Flag

 

The rights to exist isn’t in question but the right to control our days as if we were unclean for not being LGBTi is beyond the pale. Traditional families of husband and mothers have as much rights to be, as lesbian couples — all without having to ditch the words of who we are and were and should be. The real woke portion of Western societies is no more than 10 per cent, yet they yell and act as if they owned the whole joint. They don't. Take it easy. Easy. 

 

You can lead your life as you wish and no-one is going to trample you any more. Philosophers like Dawkins have as much right to criticise you for your over-bearing pushes than you have criticised them. And though I don’t know, I believe Dawkins would be sure of the exactitude of what he expressed in the frame of the “human condition” — even if this is uncomfortable for some people.

 

Because the woke movement has moved to the far left, without going fully communist, god forbid, people like Dawkins have been dumped in the ultra-rightwing basket. This is far from the reality but it helps promote the wokish agenda that wants to control YOUR life. Hey go easy… Easy.

 

A fellow like Charles Darwin could not go fully atheistic without being hung by the short and curlies, in the times when religious traditions ruled the English world. As mentioned before on this site, the Enlightenment in Europe, especially in France, was to explain "god was an idea" rather than a reality. In England, the Enlightenment was about commerce (selling stuff), while god was still the main stay in the political arena — and still is with the Queendom of Her Maj… The House of Lords and their Bishops still controls the political English stinking smells.

 

Having been stripped of his “Humanist Award”, Dawkins should feel free of all the bullshit attached to human rights. Hold on. I did not say that human rights were bullshit, but the ritual in defining and applying those human rights without an understanding of the loading factors, turn these rights into despotic values… We are different without having to impose these differences on all. It’s a complex relationship of rights in which respect is a better key than woke.

 

Meanwhile, someone like Assange is still prison on trumped-up charges that would not stick to the glass cabinet of the Magna Carta. His rights have been trampled by a system that pays more attention not to rattle the feelings of god-fearing lesbian than proper rights.

 

I could carry on and on and bore the pants out of your butt, like a Scott Morrison press conference, but I will stop here for now… Darwin opened one of the doors to Atheism in which the main tenets are evolution and adaptation — and god does not exist. Easy...

 

 

Gus Leonisky

 

Atheist.

 

-----------------------------------

 

Further reading? 

 

 

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/17879

 

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/26402

 

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/28619 (Restricted)

 

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/37634

 

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/39429

 

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/18708

 

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/37159

 

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/9900

 

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/40295

 

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/36218

 

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/40177

 

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/27819

 

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/33128

 

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/30391

 

the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad, for the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred...

 

in defence of dawkins and harris...

 

on board the cruise-liner "symphony of the universe"

 

Blame the French satirists for all the ills of the world...

 

banana benders...

 

aspiration of the dust to dust at the pearly gates...

 

beware of advertising...

 

socrates was betrayed...

 

... and then, a lazy god created a fine mess...

 

the battle of the cross...

 

the "culture wars"...

 

De Revolutionibus...

 

the myth of the 10 percent ...

 

art — according to Nietzsche, dr laura d'olimpio, plato, descartes, immanuel kant and gus leonisky...

 

the angry skies…

 

if it quacks like a duck and poops like a duck, it could be a robot...

 

happy insurrection...

 

the nature of free will...

 

the nature of stuff...

 

the end is nigh...

 

eschatology or the end of time, relatively...

 

of nihilistic art and religious beliefs...

 

of shape, forms and fields...

 

operation secular democratic humanism...

 

the ghosts of religion in a secular political world...

 

the interface of uncertainty...

 

are we there yet?

 

religious and economic bastardry...

 

ecumenical royal tours...

 

bloody atheists...

 

acting school...

 

 

8-10-13-16-19-22-23 — the beauty of consciousness....

 

god-bothering ....

 

non-believers crucifying some atheists

 

flying on our own...

 

and god created monkeys out of the same mindless matter...

 

 

and many more on this site. 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the skin of the bear...

bearbear

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fighting monsters...

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster,wrote the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and that appears to be what’s happened to the American Humanist Association.

 By  APRIL 21, 2021  

Once a staunch enemy of religious zealots of every stripe, the association has been captured by the woke cult, a hard-Left ideological movement that is every bit as dogmatic and intolerant as fundamentalist Christians and Islamists.

 

That became clear when, earlier this week, the AHA withdrew the Humanist of the Year award it had given to the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1996 for supposedly using science to ‘demean marginalised groups’. That’s woke-speak for challenging the identity politics of the postmodernist, neo-Marxist Left using logic and reason.

 

Dawkins, who was one of the ‘four horsemen’ of the New Atheism movement in the early 2000s, committed the sin of comparing being transgender to being 'trans-racial'. He pointed out that Rachel Dolezal, an official at the NACCP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ), was vilified by the woke thought police for identifying as black when she was born white, yet the very same people who turned on her will attack anyone who refuses to accept that a person born as a man can identify as a woman.

 

Dawkins’ heresy, then, was to ask why being transracial makes you a sinner in the eyes of the identity-obsessed Left, but being transgender qualifies you for virtual sainthood. Either your identity is circumscribed by your DNA or it is not, said the author of The Selfish Gene. You cannot have it both ways.

 

No doubt Dawkins was being deliberately provocative. Exactly the same question was posed by the philosopher Rebecca Tuvel in an academic journal in 2017, and it led to a firestorm of controversy, with half of the members of the journal’s editorial board apologising for the article and the other half standing by it.

But being provocative – even offensive – isn’t a reason to denounce someone, as the AHA should know. In its 80-year history, it has never shied away from offending people. Indeed, it probably offended swathes of born-again evangelicals when it made Dawkins, who has said some pretty unpleasant things about Christianity, Humanist of the Year.

Why is it acceptable to offend Christians, but not the worshippers in the church of woke?This isn’t the first time Dawkins has been no-platformed. Last year, the College Historical Society of Trinity College Dublin – known as the Hist – withdrew an invitation when student activists protested.

In her letter rescinding the invitation, the president of the Hist explained to Dawkins that some members of the society had complained his views on Islam made them feel ‘uncomfortable’, and she valued the ‘comfort’ of her members ‘above all else’.

But surely the purpose of a student debating society is to provide a forum in which young people can discuss difficult ideas? If some of the Hist’s members disapprove of Dawkins’ views, this would have been a good opportunity to challenge him and engage him in debate.

As the Hist’s most famous member, Oscar Wilde, once said: ‘I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.’

This tradition – of trying to resolve intellectual disputes through vigorous discussion rather than resorting to censorship – is one that used to be embodied by the AHA. Indeed, this is supposed to be one of the principal virtues of humanists in contrast to their religious opponents. Because they believe science and reason is on their side, they’ve always been willing to debate their opponents. Now, it seems, they’ve embraced the very characteristics of the enemy they used to despise.

Organisations such as the AHA and the Hist often claim to be in favour of free speech, but justify the silencing of people such as Dawkins because their views are beyond the pale – ‘hate speech’, as they put it.

But if you only believe in free speech for people you agree with, you don’t believe in free speech at all. As Noam Chomsky pointed out: ‘Goebbels was in favour of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favour of free speech then you’re in favour of free speech for precisely the views you despise.’

Toby Young is the general secretary of the Free Speech Union

 

-------------------

 

Phil Torres does not like the "New Atheist"... In an article published on Salon, Torres concludes:

 

To conclude, let me bring things full circle: At least some studies have shown that, to quote Phil Zuckerman, secular people are "markedly less nationalistic, less prejudiced, less anti-Semitic, less racist, less dogmatic, less ethnocentric, less close-minded, and less authoritarian" than religious people. It's a real shame that New Atheism, now swallowed up by the IDW and the far right, turned out to be just as prejudiced, racist, dogmatic, ethnocentric, closed-minded and authoritarian as many of the religious groups they initially deplored.

 

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/

 

This is bullshit of course. The New Atheists are nothing of the sort. That the far right has taken on SOME of the atheists' argument does not means that the New Atheists support the far right. As mentioned in my essay at top, there is a difference between rights and natural traits. Of all people Torres should know, but he is a young gun with ideas. The others like me have gone through life and have seen blue murders committed under the name of rights. It is my simpleton view that Torres should read his own books and ponder...

 

Phil Torres is a philosopher and author whose work focuses on existential threats to civilization and humanity. He has been a visiting scholar at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and is currently based at Leibniz Universität Hannover. His forthcoming book is Human Extinction: A History of Thinking About the End of the World. For more, go to www.xriskology.com, or follow him at @xriskology.

 

 

In the blurb of his book, A Crisis of Faith, he claims that the New Atheists have not thought of this or that... This is a bit glib and ill-researched. 

 

"A Crisis of Faith puts forth one of the most comprehensive and accessible arguments for the claim that theism is false and faith-based belief is foolish. Drawing from many disparate fields, including epistemology, evolutionary biology, textual criticism, the philosophy of mind and (what the author refers to as) secular eschatology, Crisis attacks the theistic position from multiple angles. In doing so, this book not only delineates established arguments against God's existence, but explores topics that no other atheists have yet considered - for instance, how might cognitive enhancements foment the further secularization of society? Phil Torres puts together an overwhelmingly convincing case that religion ought to become a thing of the past: it's bad epistemology and, in a world marked by radical advances in genetics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, it greatly increases the likelihood of disaster. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the philosophical foundations of atheism and the many practical reasons it ought to be accepted."

 

What Torres does here is exactly the things he attacks the New Atheists for... He should ponder. Though the technologies have improved since "my" (unpublished) book on the subject, written in 1994, in the end my conclusion is "nothing matters". Think about it. Everything else is "occupational noise" as we protect our transient happiness, as the Universe itself is a transient event. This is existentialism.