Category Archives: Atheism

Who is responsible for the eco-terrorists on our roads?

Ultimately, our managerial class and its totalitarian drive

The self-righteous people blocking roads in this and other countries currently think they need to do this to save the world. They don’t mind endangering lives and damaging property. They’ve made that abundantly clear. For what purpose they want to save the world they don’t seem to know, at least they don’t say. The reason for that is clear: The currently dominant belief-system in the West assumes that there is no purpose in the universe. To formulate an ultimate purpose would run counter to that narrative. Thinking about that would expose the emptiness of their outlook. So they instinctively avoid doing so. Instead, all they say is that they want a future. Don’t we all? So why are they behaving like maniacs?

Apart from their above mentioned belief-system, which inevitably leads to depression, here are some reasons they have lost all reason:

  1. In 2018, the BBC told staff they no longer need to invite climate-change “deniers” on to its programmes, suggesting that allowing them to speak was like letting someone deny last week’s football scores. This callous disregard for science and the scientific, always enquiring and, yes, sceptical method has entrapped young people in the delusion that what they are hearing over the airwaves (and many other media) is scientific “truth”. (We saw the same procedure, BTW, “on stilts”, during the Covid pandemic.)
  2. The managerial class in governments around the world and education have no interest in nurturing critical thinking. They are comfortable with a populous that is quivering with hysterical fear. Such a populous will do as it’s told and not disturb their work. Work that is striving for totalitarian rule. This is the fundamental drive behind Tony Blair’s famous mantra on education. What he really meant was: “Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda.”
  3. The churches do not seem to realise that the whole eco-ideology (which in its core is anti-human) is a counter-religion to Christianity. Indeed, many churches appear to be co-opted by this counter-religion. So here, too, a counter-narrative that could give hope is blocked off.
  4. Thus, these deluded people sticking themselves to the tarmac, gantries, works of art and whatnot have no reference-point in reality. All possible outlets for sensible counter-narratives to unfounded doomsday-scenarios have been effectively blocked off. They are totally lost. Unless reason and proper scientific discourse is allowed back into the public sphere, this is only going to get worse.

Postmodern Understandings of Language and Power – Explanations and Refutations

Article by Otto King.

Excerpts:

Can language express truth? Can language give us a clear picture of reality?

Discussing Postmodernism has become almost prosaic given the intellectual climate of the 2010s. However, it has posed questions which directly challenge the most classical assertions of how we understand the world around us. For that alone it is worth responding to. 

Postmodernism also remains relevant because much of current thinking is rooted in Postmodern ideas. This goes beyond just academic circles: it is easy to catch Postmodern ideas in everyday discourse. Nothing is unusual about hearing someone retort in an argument “Well, that’s subjective,” or if they are more well versed and a little bolder “That’s just interpretation, there’s never really any one meaning.” 

These ideas originate from Postmodern language theory in particular. What is referred to as “Postmodernism” refers to a specific idea of language and how it functions. These ideas were shaped by numerous thinkers in the 1960s and 1970s: most popularly through French thinkers like Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, who took the core ideas on language and related them to concepts of power, oppression, and freedom. 

[…]

The argument is that all human thought is done through language and that language has an intrinsic “messiness” to it. It relies on words and signs which Postmodernists claim can have countless meanings and interpretation. Without unified meanings Postmodernists argue that it becomes impossible to have singular representations of things in the world, meaning there is a large degree of interpretation to what is deemed reality–therefore, reality is never separated from a subject. 

[…]

What Postmodernists are arguing is that the ideas of a culture limit what language can say about reality.

If true, this has significant implications, because every human body of knowledge (“epistemology”) has relied on the intuition that language can at least roughly represent reality. Without that foundational assumption, it is impossible to make any claims about the world or have any form of understanding–consequently defeating the possibility of having knowledge entirely.

To the Postmodernist, classical accounts of truth–like that of Plato’s–which use language via propositional logic, or other bodies of knowledge which rely on the experiential, reason, or narrative cannot tell us anything about the world, due to their use of language. The strong Postmodernist must therefore reject science, history, and philosophy, as they attempt to rationalize the world using language.

This is synonymous with the Postmodern rejection of “totalizing” narratives, also abbreviated as meta-narratives. We will return to this, as it is linked with Postmodern views of freedom and what is dubbed the “domination of language.”

If language cannot tell us anything about reality, then how can we understand the world? 

The answer is that social construction is the prime shaper of reality. This means that, in a Postmodern paradigm, it is impossible to separate reality from the experience of a subject rooted in social-cultural circumstances. Instead, reality is something which is interpreted and must be represented, so it cannot possibly be understood objectively. The world is therefore quite literally constructed out of how it is represented by a culture through language. Language and culture are seen to shape our notion of reality to such a degree that it is impossible to understand reality outside of them. 

This is why history is deemed an impossible pursuit in a Postmodern context. The argument is that the cultures and, therefore, the languages of the past and present are so different that they become alien to each other. The modern historian is detached from the framework with which people of the past understood the world–i.e.: their meanings and language. Because of this, it becomes impossible for a modern historian to truly understand the past. 

Ideas such as truth, value, and justice are also seen as meanings which are constructed through language and projected onto reality. In a Postmodern context, this means that these ideas must be seen as derived from human beings–not the world nor nature. 

[…]

Postmodern discussions of politics tend to revolve around this idea of language. 

Power, therefore, becomes closely linked with language in Postmodern thought as a consequence of language’s ability to shape psyche. Thinkers like Foucault focus especially on power because they view language as a subtle, insidious form of power. It is seen as something which dominates people not through coercion or force of arms, but by shaping how they are even allowed to understand the world. In the view of Foucault and many Postmodern thinkers, power is not necessarily held by the rich elite or politician, but instead those that shape the discourses and ideas which everyone–from the rich elite, to the politician, to the layman–use to understand the world. Because of this, strong Postmodernists have a certain skepticism of bodies of knowledge like history, science, and religion or what they call “metanarratives,” since they are viewed as means of dominating our conceptions of the world.

[…]

Foucault posits that because language only selects certain parts of reality, it only provides a partial glimpse of reality. Those selections, to Foucault in particular, are tools of domination and power: reality is shaped in accordance with what those who have power want to be believed. Language is therefore restrictive in how it shapes reality and the fact that it only allows certain discourses, in accordance with those in power. 

Before I delve into a criticism, I would once more like to clarify that “those who have power” in this view is not discussing shadowy bureaucrats or a secret cabal of world leaders planning every event throughout world history. Instead, it is framed as those who have traditionally shaped ideas and discourses in Western thought. Foucault is referencing everything from the classics, the enlightenment thinkers, and science when he talks about “power.” 

[…]

Waking Up in a Nightmare

Due to our loss of a connection to God

Article by Todd Hayen

Excerpts (my emphases):

This topic is complicated. Of course the powers that be want us all to think that if it weren’t for the WHO, doctors, vaccines, and medical science, half the world would be dead by now.

That may actually be true, but what exactly would be killing us?—the natural world?—or the man-made world? It would be difficult to make this assessment, due, obviously, to the fact that there is no place on earth not infected by the greedy, and often evil, hand of man.

Other than medical issues, how else has technology diminished our lives? From a very broad perspective, what has gone down hill as technology has advanced up hill? Violence? Disease? Depression? Suicide? Anxiety? A feeling of meaninglessness? Less true happiness (being high with adrenalin and other ingested drugs doesn’t count), Loss of family values? Child abuse? Drug abuse? Alcoholism? Pedophilia? Isolation and abandonment?

[…]

Technology has attributed, maybe more indirectly, to gun violence in all the fundamental ways this article suggests: the degradation of the culture, the focus on consumerism and materialism rather than human values and character, the isolation and abandonment of the young (particularly young males) the loss of soul and spirit, and thus the loss of human morals, i.e. the loss of love.

[…]

Can we train ourselves to not be so obsessed with consumerism? Or not be so obsessed with living forever (our relentless pursuit to perfect the human body with technology), or avoiding the commonly experienced pains and sufferings of the body? What is it from the past that we had that we no longer have that kept all of this in some sort of sublime order?

I believe we had more of an understanding of our spirit and soul than we do now. Yes, a lot of that awareness was brought to us through religion, but unfortunately as the materialist paradigm descended upon us religion lost its stature. We need to come back to a deep awareness of nature, and our part in it, to understand that we were designed to live and subsequently die a particular way (in harmony with nature and with an acute awareness of the mystery of creation surrounding us). We must learn to love again.

[…]

Not many people seem to be concerned about our loss of soul, our loss of humanity, our loss of being human, and our loss of a connection to God. Yes, I said it, the “God” word. I mean it too.

That, to me, is the real threat, and if not addressed properly, it will be responsible for our eventual demise.

The churches, at least those in the West, are failing to see this or, if they do, are failing to act on it. They will have to change course, and soon.

When you remove the sovereignty of God

you transfer this sovereignty to a totalitarian state

James Delingpole interviews Reverend Jamie Franklin about “Lessons On Freedom From [Fyodor] Dostoyevsky “.

At the 1:50 minute mark, Franklin summarises the insight of the Russian thinker and author with regard to the episode “The Grand Inquisitor” from “The Brothers Karamazov” thus:

Dostoyevsky realised that when you remove the sovereignty of God from a nation, a civilisation, you inevitably transfer this sovereignty to a totalitarian state . . . It’s what’s happening now in our country [the United Kingdom].

How to combat this? Near the end of the 9 minute video, Franklin explains:

Dostoyevsky says that you will often encounter objectionable thoughts [of others]. You will be tempted to take them by force. Jesus teaches us to take them by humble love.

C.S. Lewis predicted medical tyranny

in this exquisite sci-fi trilogy

Writes Kennedy Hall:

Lewis – perhaps best known for his Christian apologetics and Chronicles of Narnia series – wrote a science fiction trilogy that was aptly named The Space Trilogy. The three books that make up the series are called Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. Each book can be read independently; however, read as a whole they are more exquisite and meaningful.

The third installation presents a scenario most analogous to today’s world. In it we find a global conspiracy largely led by academics and scientists, who are hell-bent (literally) on ushering in a world that is overtly sanitary and free of any intellectual or biological germs.

I believe that it was Lewis’s Christian sense that allowed him to be more accurate than Orwell. Orwell wrote of the government as an immovable and impenetrable force, whereas Lewis portrayed governments as a bit weak and thus controlled by nongovernmental organizations.

Since Lewis was not an atheist like Orwell, and therefore not a materialist, he understood that the most important thing was not force, but mentality and belief.

From Finite World to Infinite Growth

The Malthusians decided in their hubris and arrogance that because they couldn’t see a solution to a problem they’d defined, that solution did not exist.

Tom Luongo has written a piece called “From Currency Resets to Limiting Infinite Growth“

In it, he writes:

In a recent article on this blog, I did a quick and dirty takedown of the globalist talking point about infinite growth in a finite world.   That gaslighting was at the core of the conflict in the big story of the Marvel Cinematic Universe of films, which centered on Thanos coming to bring balance by destroying half of the life in the Universe.

Davos has gaslit two entire generations of westerners in the Malthusian talking point that you can’t have infinite growth in a finite world. All of their economic dogma is predicated on this.

It doesn’t matter that this talking point is predicated on an inane premise, truth is, after all treason, at this point in the economic and cultural cycle. But, to try and explain quickly for the slow-witted. GDP growth is not necessarily real growth. It’s just spending. It says nothing for the quality of the spending or whether, in real terms, the people spending the money are materially better off than they were at a previous point in time.

What isn’t measured by GDP is VALUE. Value is what we crave, the ability to plan further into the future, using our ingenuity to find better mousetraps to build and more efficient, and yes sustainable, ways of deploying scarce capital and time.

When you have a monetary system and regulatory regime designed to thwart that to stop growth then you have the world we live in today. That infinite growth is a subjective, not objective, measure…. not in GDP terms but in the ‘alleviation of human misery’ terms.

Davos absolutely doesn’t want this because a world where everyone gets maximal value for their time is a world without our need for them.

Thanos in the Marvel films makes the same mistake Davos and Huxley made, deciding in their hubris and arrogance that because they couldn’t see a solution to a problem they’d defined, that solution did not exist. This justified their acquisition of power unlimited to re-make the world in their image.

I liked his conclusion in particular:

At that point you will then see what the real growth rate of the world is.  Gary North used to say that prior to the early 1800’s the real rate at which wealth compounded was ~1% annually.  Then something changed and it doubled to 2% and that scared the bejeesus out of the elites because too many people were getting rich too quickly to need them to look out for their interests.

Now you know why the Club of Rome began in the 1850’s, why central banking was so bitterly fought over here in the US then. It’s why Marx’s insane ideas were adopted by those with generational power.  It was to STOP our growth as a species, not keep it from destroying the planet, but their system of unearned privilege.

From Darwin to Hitler

The revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality

Writes Charles Burris:

In his book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (2004), Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics (a movement wanting to control human reproduction to improve the human species), but also on euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles.

Here is Weikart’s talk on the subject.

Jordan Peterson and the Puffer Fish

The famous psychiatrist speaks about consciousness and sexual selection

Check out his answer at a Q&A at Cambridge University (prompted, about 10 minutes long). He is answering a question about the notion of humans as simple biological machines. He describes how biologists concentrate on the natural selection of Darwin’s theory of evolution. However, they ignore that Darwin also talked about sexual selection. And that, says JP, presupposes consciousness. That means that consciousness must have been there before humans became what they are. As an example of an animal that appears to have consciousness, JP describes the work of the puffer fish male. And of a spider.

Continue watching after he finishes to hear one of the organisers wrap up the event, and explaining how happy he is that, despite being “cancelled” by the University three years ago – because he was photographed shaking hands (after another event) with some guy who was wearing a t-shirt with some text on some on it someone found offensive.

Here’s the puffer fish he talks about in action, creating an unbelievable structure on the seabed to impress a mate.

The Inescapable Triad of Religions

Power, escape and dominion - of which power religion is currently dominant in the world

I’ve recently posted an article by Doug Wilson about Gary North. Now Bionic Mosquito (B. M.) has written an interesting article on Doug Wilson.

Quotes:

Who is Doug Wilson? Douglas James Wilson (born 1953) is a conservative Reformed and evangelical theologian, pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, faculty member at New Saint Andrews College, and author and speaker.

What does he say about himself?

Theology that Bites Back: I want to advance a Chestertonian Calvinism on education, sex and culture, theology, politics, book reviews, postmodernism, expository studies, along with other random tidbits that come into my head. In theology I am an evangelical, postmill, Calvinist, Reformed, and Presbyterian, pretty much in that order.

Not someone the mainstream would embrace.  Also, not someone that many Christians would embrace.

Regarding the basic, inescapable triad of religions (that of power, escape, and dominion), B. M. writes (and quotes):

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