Comments on: Less Wrong, More Rite (II)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 17:13:07 +0000

I’m scared.

By: Eli

Eli — Wed, 21 May 2014 12:42:56 +0000

Actually, the real reason Rationalist Solstice is cringeworthy and awful is because winter itself is cringeworthy and awful. The entire enterprise should be moved to the other end of the year and have its rites rewritten to include the traditional all-night party held for the Summer Sun Celebration.

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By: Tim Freeman

Tim Freeman — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 07:14:44 +0000

I tried watching Raiders of The Lost Ark at least a decade after it came out, and I did cringe at the bad acting and had to stop watching. I remember Harrison Ford on an airplane acting out conflict that had no purpose. His body language was off and I could tell the script made no sense to him at that point. So cringes aren’t sufficent to create fandom.

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By: John Tyson

John Tyson — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 20:32:36 +0000

My theory is that this is because of the historical artifact of “right-winged” ideologies being religious. Let’s assume that for a moment.

Let’s also assume that people are actively looking for ideologies that increase their self-image. Those are usually leftist (victim-worship, blaming the rich-and-powerful, pro-inclusion, etc.).

Then it’s pretty clear why those people should be drawn towards secularism: Not because it makes sense, but because it makes sense *and* inflates their ego.

In other words, the fact that atheist is more correct than theism isn’t the motivation, it’s the *means*.

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By: Multiheaded

Multiheaded — Thu, 02 Jan 2014 06:12:23 +0000

In Anti-Nietzsche, Malcolm Bull confronts the modern-day ubiquity of that strange and lonely man going mad in Turin. Nietzscheanism is everywhere; Bull points out quite rightly how strange it is that a philosopher famous for his oppositionalism is so scarcely opposed. Socialists, feminists, and Christians swear their fidelity to the ideas of the anti-egalitarian, misogynist and atheist Nietzsche.
However, Bull points out that defeating him isn’t an easy thing to do. Nietzsche writes about the will to power; if you try to critique his ideas, you’re only asserting your own will to power over his. Nietzsche writes about master and slave morality; if you try to overturn his principles, you’re only proposing your own master morality. Nietzsche’s works are full of conflict, war, and dynamite; if you try to fight him, he’s already won. So Bull doesn’t try. As he puts it, Nietzsche wants us to ‘read for victory,’ so he reads for defeat. Bull’s tactic is for us to accept Nietzsche’s philosophy in its entirety but to position ourselves on the ‘wrong’ side of every opposition. Rather than trying to raise ourselves to Übermenschen, we should become less than human; we should abandon the aesthetic; we should arm ourselves with nothing except our weakness, because we are weak. Bull encourages us to ‘read like losers.’
It’s a fascinating idea, but I think there’s something he’s missed. There’s no need for us to read like losers, because Nietzsche writes like a loser.

http://samkriss.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/philosophy-for-the-weak/

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By: Damien

Damien — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 18:08:31 +0000

There’s a strong association among freethinking, socialism, and feminism, going back to the 19th century, and not exclusive to the US. It’s by no means a mere accident of the current two-party system. Religion — especially ones like Christianity or Hinduism — is frequently used to provide support for social hierarchy and inequality, economic political and gender; religious doubt thus erodes such baseless inequalities.

Of course some nominal atheists find quasi religions of their own, whether Marxism, Objectivism, or free market fundamentalism.

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By: Pawel Aleksander Fedorynski

Pawel Aleksander Fedorynski — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 08:13:15 +0000

It so happens that of the two major political parties, the one which is less friendly towards Christianity is also more friendly towards poor people. This fact is likely an accident of history and there’s no logical reason for it to affect any atheist’s opinion on say free market economy, but for a certain kind of person it does create a strong emotional reason to lean left. I propose that it’s the same kind of person who would be more into joining movements and communities, you can call them “socially oriented people”. I think that’s sufficient to explain your observation.

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By: Michael Edward Vassar

Michael Edward Vassar — Wed, 25 Dec 2013 02:50:22 +0000

How about famous atheist musicians who write songs about the Tax Man?

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By: nyan_sandwich

nyan_sandwich — Tue, 24 Dec 2013 03:41:30 +0000

>about ideas like progress, pacifism, humanism, social justice, unity, of humankind et cetera that neither make nor need any reference to God.

This made me chuckle. Are you *sure* you’re not religious?

That said, I have remarked that it’s a tragedy that the christian social tradition didn’t survive the loss of God, so it’s nice to see people attempting to reconstruct some of that in a way that is at least nonoffensive to a sane worldview.

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By: Doug S.

Doug S. — Tue, 24 Dec 2013 01:55:19 +0000

This seems to be one of the mechanisms by which post-revolutionary governments are systematically taken over by the most radical elements of the revolution. Moderates tend to lack the courage of their convictions; unless you’re Jon Stewart, it’s usually hard to get people to march in the streets carrying signs saying “BE REASONABLE!” On the other hand, radicals tend to be much quicker to go to extreme measures, including kicking out the moderates by force; the French, Russian, and Iranian revolutions were all taken over by the most radical elements within them. (The founders of Israel were well aware of this failure mode and made damn sure it didn’t happen to them.)

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