Yes AHA and FFRF have gone woke, but one big atheist/humanist org remains that hasn’t: the Center for Inquiry. Its CEO Robyn Blumner was head of the Richard Dawkins Foundation before it merged with CFI and its former CEO Ronald Lindsay wrote a devastating take down of woke ideology in book form titled “Against the New Politics of Identity.” Free Inquiry, the CFI magazine for which Lindsay has recently assumed the editorship has published opinion pieces critical of males competing in women’s sports and other excesses of the woke left. I quit FFRF a few years back when I saw the direction they were going, but I still feel I have a home at CFI.
Oh, most significantly of all, in 2023 Skeptical Inquirer, CFI’s other magazine, published the great article by Jerry Coyne & Luana Maroja that the established biology journals wouldn’t touch, “The Ideological Subversion of Biology”https://skepticalinquirer.org/authors/jerry-a-coyne-and-luana-s-maroja/
I will just add that I know that CFI took a financial hit when their woke donors packed up and left. So if the “reality based community” thinks that it’s important to have a single non-woke humanist organization, now is the time to support CFI. (No I don’t work there, I just admire them and throw a few dollars their way each year.)
Alas, CFI is also woke, and Robyn Blumner is a coward, only coming out of her safe space recently to pretend she's been brave. Back in 2018, I was the branch manager for Portland, having served on the Portland advisory board for 11 years as Communications Chair, managing our social media. I posted the first detransition support group on the CFI Portland Facebook page and someone at CFI tipped off the Trans Mafia (yes, they have a Facebook page), who coordinated a social media mob who demanded I be fired. Robyn told me, "These girls are not our problem," and demanded I post a public apology. I refused so she apologized on my behalf as if I was the monster for questioning Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. Robyn also took down the peer-reviewed study by Dr. Lisa Littman that I posted. Robyn squashed freedom of inquiry, backed the bullies, and silenced courageous voices. No, CFI is not the leader we need. Try Atheists for Liberty, a nonpolitical atheist group that is not woke.
Dani, it's discouraging to learn about this incident. It certainly doesn't sound good. I don't expect or wish CFI to lead the way in the battle against the gender delusion, but they should always stand for freedom of expression and reasoned argument, as they are doing now by reprinting the Coyne letter to FFRF in Free Inquiry with links to the article it was a response to. I'd like to know what Robyn would say in defense of her actions. In any case, in the past couple of years they've been taking consistent stands against identity politics and they're joined at the hip to the great Richard Dawkins.
«I do not apologize for trying to lower the temperature and the hostile back-and-forth online conversations that were happening, or for trying to redirect the attention and energy of CFI Portland toward the broader range of issues that CFI deals with.»
There is no «broader» issue than protecting womens rights and childrens safety.
«[A]t the time when you were posting definitive claims that most girls who experience Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria will de-transition, the reported medical science was pointing in the other direction.»
No, the definitive claim is that a vast majority of ROGD girls with no «transition» outgrow their gender dysphoria, as all medical science that existed in 2018 agreed on. The claims of «trans» proponents of the opposite is simply not true.
That's too bad. Clearly, Blumner & CFI were very slow to recognize the significance of this issue. One shouldn't have needed the Cass Report to recognize the problem, but it looks like they did. Perhaps that shouldn't be surprising (though not excusable) given most of their membership is politically liberal/left leaning. Too bad Blumner can't muster an apology for missing the pseudomedical scandal of the 21st Century. I'm hoping that CFI now has their head more or less screwed on straight, but I bet there is nothing like unanimity among their ranks on the gender delusion.
Nominal C of E. In my late teens, found the rituals, community, appealing, so started a deeper study. Result, a wondering, doubting, then progression to appalled. Bertrand Russell a strong influence, settled my views last 75 years. It seems tragic, all this reason can be undermined (with some glee) by a few silly extremists. I did quite like Dawkins's "Cultural Christianity" idea - that we could accept the later, loving, decent, work by many. Music, children, certainly fulfils MY spiritual needs. Hope we can find some way out together - militant theocracy is growing in power. Forgive an old man's ramblings... Will.
Worse than “lack of meaning” in my view is the possible loss of basic intellectual grounding. I thought some things were so self-evident that they would remain safe.
My bewilderment that the latter, shaken since 2016. Let me add, in the early days, I strongly defended "Woke" as being informed people understanding and supporting minorities, the less fortunate. Attacking JK Rowling, (with G Soros etc) a rare, really rich decent person of principal shook me.
Anything that once resembled an atheist/humanist/skeptic "movement" is just about a total loss. A shame - the free exchange of ideas was once valued, or so it seemed.
I can't go towards that "reason must know it's place" direction that you maybe seem to be flirting with.
Strictly speaking, I guess I agree with that statement - at a funeral service I wouldn't generally be raring to go with the "Well Actually"s.
But however we make sense of the world, it has to in principle make systematic sense that caches out to rigorous explanatory stuff in principle. Human failure to do that, at any point in time, is a complex mix of human limitation in general and the circumstances of the time and context where the failure happens. **But it doesn't mean that making systematic sense itself is at fault.** This is true even in shockingly and cartoonishly dramatic failures like FFRF.
And I think this might be where a lot of fashionable anti-woke re-religion stuff is getting tripped up at. It's a defensive crouch in the face of failure, but a failure local to the politics of the last 20 years - kind of a blip in historical time. And in the face of a very unstable looking future. But I think it's poorly thought out, and a cop out really - and I hope you don't go there.
I mean I don’t think I will ever believe, if that’s what you are worried about, nor am I abandoning my way of thinking.
But the failure we are seeing here must be taken seriously. There are many ideals that cannot be fully realized in the real world. I hope this isn’t one of them, but I am shaken by what I have seen.
If I can shove my oar in here, speaking as an evidentialist Christian: There's a sense in which I actually agree with gnashy that many of these public intellectual trajectories are essentially fideist. They're not really disputing that Dawkins and the Four Horsemen won, on some level (the "left-brain" level, although I hate that kind of talk), they just want to propose it doesn't really matter. Whereas I would want to propose the claimed New Atheist victory was false all along.
Thank you for your observations! It seems that ideas that are ideal on a personal, local level, tend to be unscalable. As Ben Shapiro wittily notes, a family should be run as a communist unit: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
However, when scaled up to state level, it never works. The same seems to be the case with the only two tenable idea structures that work for me as an individual, atheism and anarchism: They cannot be implemented on corporate levels without being corrupted.
The Democrats claim to be on the side of science was credible given the fight against creationism being taught in schools in the early 2000s. But it seems like a lot of them didn't care for the science all that much, they just hated Christianity.
As you point out, a lot of the people fighting against transgender ideology are Christians, who cite science and reality (and are correct here of course) but I'm pretty sure they don't actually care for broader science either, only when it aligns with them.
Reason is being brandished by both sides, but remains a slave to passion.
That delights me no end. The incredibly daft belief that the mammalian species Homo Sapiens can change sex at will (or even against it!) is wrecking the organisations set up by brain dead uncritical leftists. I predict the Amerikan Democratic party will never be in power again until they disavow transsexualism.
One thing, the FFRF didn't 'invite' Coyne's response - he requested the opportunity to respond. Not only was it granted, Gaylor reviewed and okayed it before posting it.
I assume from your about page that you are a ex Muslim. As an ex Catholic atheist I have a different view. You say:
"I wonder if I have greatly overestimated human reason."
I would say you definitely have. You add:
"I had mostly thought about the “ceiling” that faith created–the ways in which religion hindered progress, scientific achievement and understanding."
I don't know how familiar you are with Christianity, but Christianity laid the intellectual groundwork for science and whilst it is certainly true that religion in general places a 'ceiling' on things, ceilings are not bad things in themselves. Of course, ceilings can be a bad thing like everything else, but they also provide direction and purpose.
What most ex Christian atheists seem reluctant to acknowledge is that whilst we have given up belief in God, we have not shed the values that we inherited from Christianity. Specifically the belief in the value of equality which seems to trump every other conceivable value these days.
You say: "atheists appear to be more likely than the religious to hold this particular unscientific dogma".
This is true, but that's because they value equality above all else. To treat trans women differently from biological women is to treat them differently and not as equals.
That last sentence sounds like double-talk. I'm not even clear on what you are trying to say. Are you saying the claims of biological males who claim to be transgendered must be accepted in the name of equality?
Does it violate the principle of equality, as you understand it, to treat men and women for some purposes? We knew that (for example) racially segregated restrooms, as in the South in the Jim Crow Era, violate such principles. However, most people think that real biological differences allow sex segregations in restrooms, changing rooms, and athletic activities.
If we accept the idea that sex segregation can be acceptable even under a regime that generally favors equality, then why would we possibly object to using objective biological definitions in establishing membership in the male or female category?
"Are you saying the claims of biological males who claim to be transgendered must be accepted in the name of equality?"
Err, no.
"However, most people think that real biological differences allow sex segregations in restrooms, changing rooms, and athletic activities."
So do I, but not those who argue for trans rights.
"If we accept the idea that sex segregation can be acceptable even under a regime that generally favors equality".
I agree that it is and should be, acceptable.
"then why would we possibly object to using objective biological definitions in establishing membership in the male or female category?"
Personally I do not object at all, but those who argue for trans rights do object. One, because they reject the idea of objective biological facts, and two, because they value equality above all else.
To be precise: The alleged proponents of «trans» rights, are not after real-life equality, but an idealized version they call «equity». Equity in this sociological sense, purports to cancel real-life inequalities by trying to calculate assets minus liabilities on an individual level, and compensate alleged unfortunate individuals by giving them individual advantages.
This, of course, is the core belief of intersectionality that lead to oppression olympics.
In this context, it is about prioritizing men that say they are women, over women, based on the notion that a man that says he is a woman, in general ranks higher on the oppressed/unfortunate pyramid than any woman.
I wonder how intelligent AIs have to become before we realize the greatest things about being human doesn't revolve around intelligence - and certainly not the funded elite intelligence required to relieve the common man of his need for self-sufficient intelligence. Considering how few on the Left really talk about teaching and grading virtue in public schools, but just banning prayer it comes as no surprise that so many end up with a god-shaped hole. Because when you are single-mindedly trying to outsmart your fellow man, well there's a problem with that strict a meritocracy. If you don't believe me, let's have our best in our nations capitol go against Chinese in theirs. Mathematics anyone? Classical piano?
It seems obvious to me that atheist midwits would suggest that the Inquisition wasn't so bad, but to not retort with the reason the Soviets suppressed their Christians and then slaughtered and starved arbitrary numbers of them, there's a lacuna. I'm not suggesting that atheist philosophy is not capable of moral discernment, but there is a substantial difference between authoritarianism and the motivations of the faithful. The faithful Christian, at least, seeks atonement from original sin, which is the axiomatic acceptance of human fallibility. That is the kind of humility Leftists cannot abide, nor fundamentalists. But who actually believes evangelical Christian fundamentalism is what animates Americans as a blanket proposition? Have we forgotten who built hospitals and schools?
I was stunned to hear Rabbi David Wolpe explain that Christianity taught the world that there is room for secular and canon law. But there's always something new to learn from the position of humility. The very ubiquity of Christianity is a demonstration of its compatibility with everything everywhere all at once. That's the message of the Apostle Paul. You may still bend the knee to Caesar, but we're still brothers in Christ, that realm of moral discernment and the ambition of self-improving virtue that continues. You don't have to believe in any supreme anything to recognize the intellectual virtues of putting virtue before intelligence. Christians I know have and eat both cakes. Like that dude Maxwell whose equations are still rather stunning.
In the end, humanity needs to deal with evil. There are all kinds of intelligent ways of making deals with the Devil. That's what any effective State Department or Intelligence Service does in every nation. I think too many atheists would rather just beat up the faithful than actually combat evil. This is a corollary to my thinking here. https://mdcbowen.substack.com/p/the-return-of-evil?utm_source=publication-search
Granting privilege to "fundamental truths" doesnt specify which ones. One of the failures of any religion is to ignore the evolutionary (and therefore social and cultural) history of human beings and how their social arrangements, when adaptive, enabled peace, cooperation and
progress. Evolution tells us that militant autonomy guided by nonscientific ideology leads to
not just authoritarian religion but to the strident assertion of personal autonomy, including
selection of one's gender. Natural selection in our simian and sapiens precursors weeded out
practices that were dangarous, such as incest. Over the eons the balance between social
consciousness and autonomy was adjusted in order to allow both as needed. What has happened to day is the assertion of privilege over social relationships and adaptive
practices that minimized irresponsible behavior in the community. Today's strident and irrational self important threatens social relationships in major dangerous and maladaptive ways that are socially disruptive and evolutionarily maladaptive. Understanding evolution and the still present pressures it exerts is urgent. Biological forces never disappear. We need to heed the practices that promote social responsibility, not individual authority that can
One thing I really do not like is the utilitarianism of religion that, recently, some well-known atheists seem to think might be okay. Let's give the masses their opium if we (the knowing) must in order to have a more civil society. That seems wrong to me.
Yes AHA and FFRF have gone woke, but one big atheist/humanist org remains that hasn’t: the Center for Inquiry. Its CEO Robyn Blumner was head of the Richard Dawkins Foundation before it merged with CFI and its former CEO Ronald Lindsay wrote a devastating take down of woke ideology in book form titled “Against the New Politics of Identity.” Free Inquiry, the CFI magazine for which Lindsay has recently assumed the editorship has published opinion pieces critical of males competing in women’s sports and other excesses of the woke left. I quit FFRF a few years back when I saw the direction they were going, but I still feel I have a home at CFI.
Yes, thank you!
Oh, most significantly of all, in 2023 Skeptical Inquirer, CFI’s other magazine, published the great article by Jerry Coyne & Luana Maroja that the established biology journals wouldn’t touch, “The Ideological Subversion of Biology”https://skepticalinquirer.org/authors/jerry-a-coyne-and-luana-s-maroja/
I will just add that I know that CFI took a financial hit when their woke donors packed up and left. So if the “reality based community” thinks that it’s important to have a single non-woke humanist organization, now is the time to support CFI. (No I don’t work there, I just admire them and throw a few dollars their way each year.)
Alas, CFI is also woke, and Robyn Blumner is a coward, only coming out of her safe space recently to pretend she's been brave. Back in 2018, I was the branch manager for Portland, having served on the Portland advisory board for 11 years as Communications Chair, managing our social media. I posted the first detransition support group on the CFI Portland Facebook page and someone at CFI tipped off the Trans Mafia (yes, they have a Facebook page), who coordinated a social media mob who demanded I be fired. Robyn told me, "These girls are not our problem," and demanded I post a public apology. I refused so she apologized on my behalf as if I was the monster for questioning Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. Robyn also took down the peer-reviewed study by Dr. Lisa Littman that I posted. Robyn squashed freedom of inquiry, backed the bullies, and silenced courageous voices. No, CFI is not the leader we need. Try Atheists for Liberty, a nonpolitical atheist group that is not woke.
Dani, it's discouraging to learn about this incident. It certainly doesn't sound good. I don't expect or wish CFI to lead the way in the battle against the gender delusion, but they should always stand for freedom of expression and reasoned argument, as they are doing now by reprinting the Coyne letter to FFRF in Free Inquiry with links to the article it was a response to. I'd like to know what Robyn would say in defense of her actions. In any case, in the past couple of years they've been taking consistent stands against identity politics and they're joined at the hip to the great Richard Dawkins.
You can read her defense of this incident on Coyne's substack. She blames Trump. https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/12/29/a-third-one-leaves-the-fold-richard-dawkins-resigns-from-the-freedom-from-religion-foundation/#comment-2124759
Very explicit non-apology:
«I do not apologize for trying to lower the temperature and the hostile back-and-forth online conversations that were happening, or for trying to redirect the attention and energy of CFI Portland toward the broader range of issues that CFI deals with.»
There is no «broader» issue than protecting womens rights and childrens safety.
«[A]t the time when you were posting definitive claims that most girls who experience Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria will de-transition, the reported medical science was pointing in the other direction.»
No, the definitive claim is that a vast majority of ROGD girls with no «transition» outgrow their gender dysphoria, as all medical science that existed in 2018 agreed on. The claims of «trans» proponents of the opposite is simply not true.
That's too bad. Clearly, Blumner & CFI were very slow to recognize the significance of this issue. One shouldn't have needed the Cass Report to recognize the problem, but it looks like they did. Perhaps that shouldn't be surprising (though not excusable) given most of their membership is politically liberal/left leaning. Too bad Blumner can't muster an apology for missing the pseudomedical scandal of the 21st Century. I'm hoping that CFI now has their head more or less screwed on straight, but I bet there is nothing like unanimity among their ranks on the gender delusion.
Nominal C of E. In my late teens, found the rituals, community, appealing, so started a deeper study. Result, a wondering, doubting, then progression to appalled. Bertrand Russell a strong influence, settled my views last 75 years. It seems tragic, all this reason can be undermined (with some glee) by a few silly extremists. I did quite like Dawkins's "Cultural Christianity" idea - that we could accept the later, loving, decent, work by many. Music, children, certainly fulfils MY spiritual needs. Hope we can find some way out together - militant theocracy is growing in power. Forgive an old man's ramblings... Will.
My needs are fulfilled too! But are we the few?
Worse than “lack of meaning” in my view is the possible loss of basic intellectual grounding. I thought some things were so self-evident that they would remain safe.
My bewilderment that the latter, shaken since 2016. Let me add, in the early days, I strongly defended "Woke" as being informed people understanding and supporting minorities, the less fortunate. Attacking JK Rowling, (with G Soros etc) a rare, really rich decent person of principal shook me.
Anything that once resembled an atheist/humanist/skeptic "movement" is just about a total loss. A shame - the free exchange of ideas was once valued, or so it seemed.
Incredibly sad. Many good minds, trapped in a vortex.
I can't go towards that "reason must know it's place" direction that you maybe seem to be flirting with.
Strictly speaking, I guess I agree with that statement - at a funeral service I wouldn't generally be raring to go with the "Well Actually"s.
But however we make sense of the world, it has to in principle make systematic sense that caches out to rigorous explanatory stuff in principle. Human failure to do that, at any point in time, is a complex mix of human limitation in general and the circumstances of the time and context where the failure happens. **But it doesn't mean that making systematic sense itself is at fault.** This is true even in shockingly and cartoonishly dramatic failures like FFRF.
And I think this might be where a lot of fashionable anti-woke re-religion stuff is getting tripped up at. It's a defensive crouch in the face of failure, but a failure local to the politics of the last 20 years - kind of a blip in historical time. And in the face of a very unstable looking future. But I think it's poorly thought out, and a cop out really - and I hope you don't go there.
I mean I don’t think I will ever believe, if that’s what you are worried about, nor am I abandoning my way of thinking.
But the failure we are seeing here must be taken seriously. There are many ideals that cannot be fully realized in the real world. I hope this isn’t one of them, but I am shaken by what I have seen.
If I can shove my oar in here, speaking as an evidentialist Christian: There's a sense in which I actually agree with gnashy that many of these public intellectual trajectories are essentially fideist. They're not really disputing that Dawkins and the Four Horsemen won, on some level (the "left-brain" level, although I hate that kind of talk), they just want to propose it doesn't really matter. Whereas I would want to propose the claimed New Atheist victory was false all along.
Thank you for your observations! It seems that ideas that are ideal on a personal, local level, tend to be unscalable. As Ben Shapiro wittily notes, a family should be run as a communist unit: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
However, when scaled up to state level, it never works. The same seems to be the case with the only two tenable idea structures that work for me as an individual, atheism and anarchism: They cannot be implemented on corporate levels without being corrupted.
The Democrats claim to be on the side of science was credible given the fight against creationism being taught in schools in the early 2000s. But it seems like a lot of them didn't care for the science all that much, they just hated Christianity.
As you point out, a lot of the people fighting against transgender ideology are Christians, who cite science and reality (and are correct here of course) but I'm pretty sure they don't actually care for broader science either, only when it aligns with them.
Reason is being brandished by both sides, but remains a slave to passion.
This isn't anything new. The Atheist Community of Austin had a schism way back in 2019 over this same kind of thing.
That delights me no end. The incredibly daft belief that the mammalian species Homo Sapiens can change sex at will (or even against it!) is wrecking the organisations set up by brain dead uncritical leftists. I predict the Amerikan Democratic party will never be in power again until they disavow transsexualism.
They did indeed; nearest thing I've ever heard to an answer about what Stephen Woodford said that was transphobic was, "the transphobic parts."
One thing, the FFRF didn't 'invite' Coyne's response - he requested the opportunity to respond. Not only was it granted, Gaylor reviewed and okayed it before posting it.
I assume from your about page that you are a ex Muslim. As an ex Catholic atheist I have a different view. You say:
"I wonder if I have greatly overestimated human reason."
I would say you definitely have. You add:
"I had mostly thought about the “ceiling” that faith created–the ways in which religion hindered progress, scientific achievement and understanding."
I don't know how familiar you are with Christianity, but Christianity laid the intellectual groundwork for science and whilst it is certainly true that religion in general places a 'ceiling' on things, ceilings are not bad things in themselves. Of course, ceilings can be a bad thing like everything else, but they also provide direction and purpose.
What most ex Christian atheists seem reluctant to acknowledge is that whilst we have given up belief in God, we have not shed the values that we inherited from Christianity. Specifically the belief in the value of equality which seems to trump every other conceivable value these days.
You say: "atheists appear to be more likely than the religious to hold this particular unscientific dogma".
This is true, but that's because they value equality above all else. To treat trans women differently from biological women is to treat them differently and not as equals.
That last sentence sounds like double-talk. I'm not even clear on what you are trying to say. Are you saying the claims of biological males who claim to be transgendered must be accepted in the name of equality?
Does it violate the principle of equality, as you understand it, to treat men and women for some purposes? We knew that (for example) racially segregated restrooms, as in the South in the Jim Crow Era, violate such principles. However, most people think that real biological differences allow sex segregations in restrooms, changing rooms, and athletic activities.
If we accept the idea that sex segregation can be acceptable even under a regime that generally favors equality, then why would we possibly object to using objective biological definitions in establishing membership in the male or female category?
"Are you saying the claims of biological males who claim to be transgendered must be accepted in the name of equality?"
Err, no.
"However, most people think that real biological differences allow sex segregations in restrooms, changing rooms, and athletic activities."
So do I, but not those who argue for trans rights.
"If we accept the idea that sex segregation can be acceptable even under a regime that generally favors equality".
I agree that it is and should be, acceptable.
"then why would we possibly object to using objective biological definitions in establishing membership in the male or female category?"
Personally I do not object at all, but those who argue for trans rights do object. One, because they reject the idea of objective biological facts, and two, because they value equality above all else.
To be precise: The alleged proponents of «trans» rights, are not after real-life equality, but an idealized version they call «equity». Equity in this sociological sense, purports to cancel real-life inequalities by trying to calculate assets minus liabilities on an individual level, and compensate alleged unfortunate individuals by giving them individual advantages.
This, of course, is the core belief of intersectionality that lead to oppression olympics.
In this context, it is about prioritizing men that say they are women, over women, based on the notion that a man that says he is a woman, in general ranks higher on the oppressed/unfortunate pyramid than any woman.
Thank you for the clarification. I did not understand earlier whether you were describing a view or endorsing it.
You might find this interesting: https://aeon.co/essays/i-now-think-a-heretical-form-of-christianity-might-be-true
I wonder how intelligent AIs have to become before we realize the greatest things about being human doesn't revolve around intelligence - and certainly not the funded elite intelligence required to relieve the common man of his need for self-sufficient intelligence. Considering how few on the Left really talk about teaching and grading virtue in public schools, but just banning prayer it comes as no surprise that so many end up with a god-shaped hole. Because when you are single-mindedly trying to outsmart your fellow man, well there's a problem with that strict a meritocracy. If you don't believe me, let's have our best in our nations capitol go against Chinese in theirs. Mathematics anyone? Classical piano?
It seems obvious to me that atheist midwits would suggest that the Inquisition wasn't so bad, but to not retort with the reason the Soviets suppressed their Christians and then slaughtered and starved arbitrary numbers of them, there's a lacuna. I'm not suggesting that atheist philosophy is not capable of moral discernment, but there is a substantial difference between authoritarianism and the motivations of the faithful. The faithful Christian, at least, seeks atonement from original sin, which is the axiomatic acceptance of human fallibility. That is the kind of humility Leftists cannot abide, nor fundamentalists. But who actually believes evangelical Christian fundamentalism is what animates Americans as a blanket proposition? Have we forgotten who built hospitals and schools?
I was stunned to hear Rabbi David Wolpe explain that Christianity taught the world that there is room for secular and canon law. But there's always something new to learn from the position of humility. The very ubiquity of Christianity is a demonstration of its compatibility with everything everywhere all at once. That's the message of the Apostle Paul. You may still bend the knee to Caesar, but we're still brothers in Christ, that realm of moral discernment and the ambition of self-improving virtue that continues. You don't have to believe in any supreme anything to recognize the intellectual virtues of putting virtue before intelligence. Christians I know have and eat both cakes. Like that dude Maxwell whose equations are still rather stunning.
In the end, humanity needs to deal with evil. There are all kinds of intelligent ways of making deals with the Devil. That's what any effective State Department or Intelligence Service does in every nation. I think too many atheists would rather just beat up the faithful than actually combat evil. This is a corollary to my thinking here. https://mdcbowen.substack.com/p/the-return-of-evil?utm_source=publication-search
Granting privilege to "fundamental truths" doesnt specify which ones. One of the failures of any religion is to ignore the evolutionary (and therefore social and cultural) history of human beings and how their social arrangements, when adaptive, enabled peace, cooperation and
progress. Evolution tells us that militant autonomy guided by nonscientific ideology leads to
not just authoritarian religion but to the strident assertion of personal autonomy, including
selection of one's gender. Natural selection in our simian and sapiens precursors weeded out
practices that were dangarous, such as incest. Over the eons the balance between social
consciousness and autonomy was adjusted in order to allow both as needed. What has happened to day is the assertion of privilege over social relationships and adaptive
practices that minimized irresponsible behavior in the community. Today's strident and irrational self important threatens social relationships in major dangerous and maladaptive ways that are socially disruptive and evolutionarily maladaptive. Understanding evolution and the still present pressures it exerts is urgent. Biological forces never disappear. We need to heed the practices that promote social responsibility, not individual authority that can
allow mischief and anti social behavior.
This sounds like atheism+ all over again
One thing I really do not like is the utilitarianism of religion that, recently, some well-known atheists seem to think might be okay. Let's give the masses their opium if we (the knowing) must in order to have a more civil society. That seems wrong to me.