Ignoring the possible roots of Hanukkah, throwing secularists under the bus

Shock me that the "pergressuve" Texas Observer would do this, but it gave TCU prof David Brockman the space to do exactly that.

At the Observer, Brockman talks about how the religious of Texas can take comfort in "sparks of light" to battle the current political darkness.

With Judaism,  he ignores that Jews of Maccabean times got lucky (and weren't all that up to that point, as Yonathan Adler attests on purity, on festivals and Sabbaths, and more, including the actual targets of Antiochus Epiphanes), and also ignores the likelihood that Hanukkah came from the Persian, Zoroastrian, Yalda Night, also known as Chelle Night. Both former Iranian Jews and Syriac Christians (shades of Saturnalia?) have dipped into it, and we of course know the many other Achaemenid influences on emerging proto-Judaism. We don't know if it was first celebrated for eight days; that was derived from Sukkot. The story is from the "deuterocanonical" 1 and 2 Maccabees; the "miracle of the oil," which was seven days, not eight, is pure myth and comes from the Talmud, several centuries later.

Diwali? Not even a winter festival. Brockman is kissing the butt of vague religious pluralism. Also, Sikhs and Jains observe it, not just Hindus.

With a purely lunar calendar, Muslims don't have a solstice event. And, since he also kisses the butt of the Neoplatonist/Gnostic Kabbalah, one wonders if Brockman is a Zionist.

As for this:

One need not subscribe to any religion to recognize and draw strength from this insight. The idea for this essay came to me during a visit this fall to Houston’s Rothko Chapel, which transcends religious boundaries and embraces people of all religions and none. Avowedly multifaith and ecumenical, it stands in stubborn protest against the divisiveness and hatred metastasizing across our nation.

Multifaith and ecumenical is not secularist. Besides, I can get insight about the daylight portion of days lengthening again while hiking and birding.

Finally, a reminder that Laplace is "the reason for the season." 

'Karma' 2.0 — a secular spin on Edward Arlington Robinson

Ennui was in the air, and one lament

From me, one of a few confusing flaws

In divers of self-images. Because

The world round me would not march to my bent,

Was I to answer for my discontent?

I pondered, and the reason for it was 

A purveyor of a religious cause

Warning the world that it must repent.

 

Accepting a wonted disgust at this

I magnified a fancy that I wished

His own evil led to an end so grim.

Then, my eye rove, found solace if not bliss

And, from the pavement before me, I fished …

A dime for myself who was dead to men.

 

====

 

“Karma,” by Edward Arlington Robinson

 

Christmas was in the air and all was well

With him, but for a few confusing flaws

In divers of God's images. Because

A friend of his would neither buy nor sell,

Was he to answer for the axe that fell?

He pondered; and the reason for it was,

Partly, a slowly freezing Santa Claus

Upon the corner, with his beard and bell.

 

Acknowledging an improvident surprise,

He magnified a fancy that he wished

The friend whom he had wrecked were here again.

Not sure of that, he found a compromise;

And from the fulness of his heart he fished

A dime for Jesus who had died for men.

Holy Week: A secularist perception 30 years out

Salvador Dali's ethereal version of The Last Supper, not the Lord's Supper. The title is theologically correct per Matthew.

It's actually been a bit over 30 years since I graduated from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri with my master's of divinity degree, realizing before graduation that, at minimum, I wasn't a fundamentalist Lutheran.

But, I "searched" for a couple of years, looking mentally at more liberal Lutheranism, and bits of other more liberal Protestantism, too. I looked at Unitarianism. Went to a few services. Looking for a possible full-time career, as I realized I couldn't do liberal Lutheranism, either, I inquired about the Unitarian ministry. I was told I'd have to do another full-year internship, and then, there was still no guarantee of a hiring, of course.

Went to a few meetings of the St. Louis chapter of The Ethical Society; already then, it may have been the largest outpost of the organization.

I also ran through Buddhist ideas, what I knew then, in my head. (And, yes, once again, contra Robert Wright, it's a religion. Still is.)

I didn't think much about Hinduism, despite Eckankar having an office or whatever across one side street from the seminary's grounds. (Said grounds, with lots of semi-forested area, also attracted several people I am guessing were Shinto. And, real Shinto, not Meiji state Shinto.) Never thought about Islam.

Anyway, I passed on all of them, and by 30 years ago, was a confirmed secularist. Here's the last of a six-part series on my journey.

A few years later, encountering the self-help world, I tried to do that. Even read some of the "manifestation" type books, and — I couldn't.

About 20 years ago or a bit more, I got lost while hiking in Canyonlands National Park, in late July. I ran out of water. I cycled through prayers to Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Olympian and Norse divinities, Vishnu and more — and then stopped.

Anyway, here I am today.

Whipping through friends' of friends' Facebook pages yesterday, I saw .... gack.

Along with pious Lutheranism, cheapish memes. AI-generated versions of Maundy Thursday and Palm Sunday art. (This sets aside Hyam Maccoby's claim that this event probably happened on Sukkoth, not Passover [if it happened at all].)

Not on Lutheran friends' of friends' pages, but elsewhere, I've seen the "If Jesus had a gun, he'd still be alive." Some wingnuts may be trying to "own the liberals" with that, but others may not have a clue that most varieties of Christianity preach a substitutionary atonement. So, no, Jesus with a gun defeats the whole purpose, according to Christianity. (And yes, the idea that many self-professed [self-alleged?] Christians might be that theologically illiterate is no shock to me and shouldn't be to you.)

Anyway, even without the more cringey stuff on friends' of friends' pages, college or seminary alums of mine, I realized just how foreign that all is to me. 

It's not as distant as it may be for an Orthodox Jew, let alone a Buddhist, but ... it's foreign.

That said, Gnu Atheism — especially Jesus mysticism subvariants that seem to believe Jesus MUST BE and MUST BE PROVEN TO BE nonexistent for atheism to be firm, are just about as foreign. And possibly even more stupid. It's definitely more illogical.

And, with that said, as a good secular humanist, as long as fundagelically religious — and Gnu Atheist — neither pick my pocket, nor break my bones, per Thomas Jefferson, I have less and less interest on a regular basis at going attack dog on either one.

The humaste version of the 12 Divarim

"Humaste," as written about before here and here, is my secularist equivalent of "Namaste."

"Divarim"? The Hebrew word for "sayings," plural of "dabar." In the Tanakh/Hebrew Bible, or Christian Old Testament, both Exodus and Deuteronomy record a list of them. Related to USofA church-state issues, Catholics/Orthodox/Lutherans/Anglicans have one version of 10, Calvinists have a second version, and Jews have a third.

So, we're combining all three into 12, and putting the Jewish first one at the end, as this ex-Lutheran learned it in his confirmation class salad days as "the close of the commandments." (That one is "I Yahweh your god am a jealous god, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, even unto the third and fourth generation, but showing mercy to the many who keep my injunctions" or similar translation.)

The 12 shall be edited as needed to fit the "humaste" and also to count a-theistic religions like those Buddhists.

1. You shall have no metaphysical principles before humanity. Per Martin Luther's Small Catechism explanations, this means that we should fear, love and trust humans to be human above all else.

2. You shall not make unto yourself any graven image. Obviously, no metaphysical principle should be elevated, but also no human being should be placed on a pedestal unduly. Neither should any material matter, especially one artificially elevated by an "influencer."

3. Do not invoke metaphysical principles in vain. This of course does not mean avoiding blasphemy, as it doesn't exist for secularists. This means not invoking for help, nor blaming for personal or larger failures, any metaphysical entity or principle. This obviously includes non-existent so-called deities, but also includes non-existent so-called karma, "luck" as anything metaphysical and so forth.

4. Remember a day of rest and keep it sacred. Sacred may not be the best word. Maybe tabu, in its original meaning, or herem, to go to the Hebrew — something separate. Americans in particular not only don't have good work-life balance, they don't have good work-life separation.

5. Remember your elders and other purveyors of wisdom; you will live better, and possibly live longer. This includes remembering that you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Epistemic humility is the flip side of good skepticism.

6. Do not murder. Do not participate in societal systems that perpetuate murder. This includes a country's military forces, as almost any "defensive" war really is not, and is usually premeditated. This includes a country's policing forces, which are a necessary evil, but in reality are usually corrupted with class bias and race bias. Also, beyond this, do not murder the human spirit. This includes perpetuation of the soullessness of much of modern capitalistic life.

7. Be faithful sexually, relationally and more. This starts with being faithful to your own sexual self and desires as long as nobody else is harmed. Relational fidelity includes more than romantic and sexual fidelity; per Damian and Pythias, it includes being faithful to friendships. It includes being faithful to contracts and agreements freely entered into.

8. Do not steal. This includes not aiding and abetting theft whenever possible. It includes going beyond that to protecting individuals' employment rights, non-thieving ownership rights and more. In other words, it proactively means supporting strikes and other collective bargaining, doing one's best to buy food and products from companies that have good labor relations and more. It also includes supporting equitable progressive taxation — with notes that here in the US, sales taxes, goods and services taxes, and Social Security taxes are all generally inequitable in a regressive way.

9. Do not lie, perpetuate disinformation and more. Lying is more than false witness, and disinformation goes beyond that. But, claims of disinformation should not be used to suppress honest discussion, as in the origins of COVID-19.

10. Rather than not coveting your neighbor's wife, believe that personal relationships, whether yours or somebody else's, between two adults, are relations of equals and that one partner does not control the other. Beyond romantic relationships, per No. 7, this includes noting that employers do not control employees, and government regulations that try to promote that must be fought against.

11. Going beyond not coveting employees, per the 10th Commandment or the latter two thirds of the 9th and 10th combined, this includes noting that personal servants have rights just as much as any other employees. Beyond "servants," it means fighting against slavery globally and getting rid of the prison labor loophole in the US and 13th Amendment.

12. Gods do not exist, but in the cases of things like child sexual abuse, family iniquities often do perpetuate themselves across multiple generations. Taking this seriously and fighting back against sexual, physical, emotional, religious, or other abuse of vulnerable children is a serious humaste charge.

Top blogging of 2024

 As usual, these are the most read pieces from last year, whether or not written in 2024. "Evergreen" ones will be noted by approximate date of publication.

At No. 10, a piece on a mishmash of problems at r/AcademicBiblical (which seems to continue to head downhill) and other biblical criticism subreddits.

At No. 9, since 2017, I have continued to say "Goodbye to 'History for Atheists'" and Tim O'Neill's Samuel Huntington-like Catholic Chistianism.

At No. 8, an exemplum of what's wrong with r/AB, "The Unbearable Lightness of Chris(sy) Hanson," who is independent, and arguably a researcher but most certainly not a scholar.

No. 7 goes to the world of aesthetics, which is part of philosophy, and specifically, to the world of classical music. That's my savage critiquing on how what could have been a good book about 20th century American classical music got butchered.

No. 6? Yes, until proven otherwise, Morton Smith is still the forger of Secret Mark.

No. 5? It's from five years ago, but trending because I posted it at the ex-Lutheran subreddit. The idea of "Gun Nuts in the Name of Luther" and its lies by omission on biblical interpretation will probably jump up more in Trump 2.0.

At No. 4, from early 2024? Contra philosophy of religion prof, it's not fundagelicals vs other Christians, and it's not even literal vs liberal religious believers in general. It's secularists vs everybody else on treating climate change as a climate crisis.

No. 3? Riffing on Rolling Stone et al, in 2023, I wrote about "Fascism in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod." I expect a resurgence in Trump 2.0.

No. 2 was also from 2023, and riffed on Paul Davidson of "Is That in the Bible," as well as, via him, my reading of Idan Dershowitz's then-new monograph on what Moses Wilhelm Shapira may actually have found. "Standing Josiah and Deuteronomy on their heads" tied together a number of threads in biblical criticism.

And at No. 1?

A very evergreen, 2007, "More proof the Buddha was no Buddha." (I have a new piece about Stephen Batchelor coming up in a week.) For more on my thoughts in general, click the Buddhism tag.

Sarah Bakewell gets philosophy (and related) wrong again

Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope by Sarah Bakewell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After three-starring (perhaps high?) Bakewell's "Existentialist Cafe" book, I thought I would give her another shot. This is an extended review of what's on Goodreads.

This also is a three two-star, and it also has some of the same issues as that, the biggest being falling between the stools of something in a more formal style and depth versus something more casual. With that comes the issue of not writing something long enough for a more formal book, and a circumscribed scope as well.

The second is once again privileging Sartre over Camus, and, related to that, somewhat whitewashing Sartre by omission on his biggest sin.

We'll get more to whitewashing in a minute, because, he's whitewashed less than somebody else.

A small, but not THAT small issue? It’s limited to the “west” only. Yes, Rumi is a half century older than Petrarch, but you certainly could work him in. You could definitely add much more from non-Western thinkers of newer times.

Big problem? Minimizing. Like Le Bon David’s racism. Maybe she learned that from Julian Baggini?

I had seen a few nagging things throughout earlier chapters, but stuff that probably wouldn’t add up to more than a half-star. Then, I saw the Hume minimizing at the end of the “perpetual miracles” chapter and oops! Hume was not alone, of course; plenty of Enlightenment leading lights, whether humanists or not, were racists. Look at Locke, even if not generally called a "humanist." (Perhaps Bakewell figured he was too much to whitewash.) Look at the Reformation. Luther’s early adversary Eck, considered a religious humanist, was even more an anti-Semite than Luther. I then thought of Rumi.

She does address it in the next chapter. But, only in brief and lumped with others. The real question is whether these people should be considered humanist in the first place, and no, that’s not “presentism,” not since Hume was called out at the time — and she mentions it! She also doesn’t wrestle with the issue of the Enlightenment developing modern ideas of “race” in general, and at least some of them — Hume included — articulating the idea of polygenesis. She also doesn't discuss Hume's ethnic, or ethnonationalist, stereotyping of Italians and others. I cover ALL of this in detail.

One Chinese and one Cambodian get mention in passing in the post WWII era. Manabendra Roy does get a half a page. That’s it. The non-West is presented as only a backdoor. Within the West, Sartre of post-WWII is presented as countering Heidegger. No Camus at all. (She very much privileged Sartre over Camus in Existentialist Café as well.) Nor any mention of Sartre’s ongoing toadying for Stalin. The Sartre error is compounded here re humanism, not existentialism, because she explicitly calls Communism anti-humanist.

Frankly, I think, based on the two books together, her view of Sartre is outrightly hagiographic.

Here in the US? Though Zora Neale Huston is on the cover, she gets a throwaway mention and that’s that. On Frederick Douglass, there's no mention of him being not so humanistic about American Indians, as well as stereotyping Germans and Irish. (This says nothing of Hume's ethnic stereotypes on top of his racism.)

Also missing, as far as this not being in-depth? Until mention of the Humanist Manifesto, there's really not a lot of "meta"-level discussion of what humanism was considered as being, at times, other than an antiquarian belle lettres for the early Renaissance humanists. Nor

And gets on my newly created "meh" shelf. And, I recommend against reading her further. I'm not going out to hunt her Montaigne bio. I've read enough of his individual essays, I know the basics of his life, and I fear she probably has mucked things up if a more in-depth bio. And, I just don't get what critics see in her. 

Vita brevis, ars longior. You had two bites at my reading apple; I don't have time for a third.

View all my reviews

The Self-Besotted Philosopher and other political nuttery at Only Sky

Yes, that's you, Jonathan M.S. Pearce. That is, if it's not The Self-Besotted Asshole.

As I told him on Twitter a month ago, his insistence that I had to watch one of his three different daily videos on geopolitics to really understand the Russia-Ukraine war came off like History for Atheists' Tim O'Neill insisting years ago that I had to listen to his podcast.

They're peas on a pod to a fair degree, only Pearce's asshole stretches wider.

This is an expansion of a post about the ongoing nuttery of Gnu and semi-Gnu Atheism at Only Sky, from a month ago.

Specifically, I got into a Twitter spat with him over that post.

And in that post, I linked this: "Putin's Russian sacrifice at the Chinese altar." It's a compendium of modern Western imperialist stances against both countries, something any Nat-see Nutsack, per a term at my main blog, would love.

And, yes, the political bothers me as does the Gnu or semi-Gnu Atheism. Especially given, per one of my previous blog posts, with this link, Pearce is already a documented Islamophobe. As does the fusion of secular humanism and atheism I noted a year ago. None of that is likely to change. (Sadly, Patheos totally 86-ed all atheist blogs when chasing away said bloggers; the Wayback Machine may have them, but maybe not.)

Spanky has since told me all about his separate "channel" for geopolitics and talked about a genocidal dictator. I trumped him with the 2014 Odessa genocide, which he didn't directly refute, the Amnesty International report on Ukrainian war crimes, reading Ivan Katchanovski and more.

He came back with a shitload of shit. After again saying watch my videos he came on with smears. Said I was being a Putin apologist. Called Katchanovski a "Kremlin apologist," and cited this blog with his name on it, full of post-Maidan smears and half truths, plus the Bulwark, as proof. (If the author's proposed name is real, of course a Ukrainian Lt. Gen, retired, Igor Romanenko, is going to make up bullshit.) 

Romanenko's first piece is a repost of Cathy Young at The Bulwark. Second? From Ian Roms at British site The Sceptic. Roms himself appears to be some sort of all-around wingnut, and a Zionist genocidalist. The site he writes at was formerly "Lockdown Sceptics." In other words, COVID bullshitters.

Taras Kuzio, cited in multiple pieces? Much of his early work, per that Wiki link, was funded by the CIA, even if he was personally unaware. He also has beaucoup research ties to neocons and general US (and UK) Nat-Sec Nutsacks,™ 

Later smears on Katchanovski portray him as not really an academic and more. In reality, though not having a Wiki page, sadly, he is very much an academic. He is cited in both the English and Polish Wiki pages about the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and is polite enough to describe the OUN as nationalist-fascist rather than Nazi-fascist, as some others do. He also, interestingly, studied under Seymour Martin Lipset, known as "one of the first neocons," when Lipset was at George Mason. Maybe some Ukrainians, and some Nat-Sec Nutsacks, expected a Katchanovski would not turn out as he did?

I've wasted enough time on Romanenko other than to note his slurs extend well before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

I don't know the pre-war dislike of Katchanovski other than his refusal to spout the post-Maidan party line on the Maidan. The first piece by Romanenko, a massive undigested lump in both English and Ukrainian, is from 2015. 

Here's what seems to be a good, relatively neutral analysis of Katchanovski's claims about the Maidan. The author claims that he overstates some things, like conclusiveness of who fired from the Hotel Ukraine, while adding that a fair amount of his big picture holds up. (That site's "about" calls itself a left-wing Ukrainian media group focused on economic issues. Note that Katchanovski's first book was about labor issues and that's his background with Lipset.)

Spanky Pierce then claimed, contra his OnlySky piece, that he does actual complexity on this issue. Said the AI piece was controversial.

I called him out on the straight smears. Called him out on his "complexity" claims being hypocritical. Said I knew AI had been called controversial and knew by who and why. Muted and exited Twitter convo.

And, since then, I see he's hoist by his own lying petard. A January piece has him openly calling this a proxy war (a rare bit of honesty in his take on something), and going on to say "we" must win this.  

The piece is also disgustingly anti-Kantian, talking about NATO wargaming via Ukraine, etc. In other words, fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian used as an object.

And, late last year, he showed himself in one piece to be both a conspiracy theorist and also either a liar or ignorant about past years of history of Russia-Belarus relations. In fact, on his conspiracy theory, two months later, Belarusian opposition leaders, who would have reason to stoke a Putin poisoning if it happened, admitted Belarussian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei was a suicide.

And, since you claim to be a philosopher, you want me to watch your videos knowing you wrote THAT?

That said, beyond his Western imperialist blatherings, there's nothing worth reading in Only Sky's whole "war and peace" vertical. M.L. Clark doesn't say anything wrong on Israel, but she doesn't say anything you couldn't find in The New Republic 3 years ago, in The Nation 5 or more, and in Counterpunch 20 years ago. Daniel Sharp claiming the Iraq War was worth it is of course monging for neoconservativism. Andrew Fiala, in arguing for a war crimes tribunal, does admit that Ukraine has committed an apparent violation or two, and then goes on to talk about My Lai and Abu Ghraib trials. Both were actually laughable. The people giving orders generally escaped trial, and even those following them generally got off lightly. Why? The US was trying itself, of course. Interesting that Falia does NOT talk about Slobodan Milosevic being in the ICC dock. Nor does he talk about the hypocrisy of the US not being an ICC signatory. Nor, beyond torture of Iraqis and other war crimes, does Fiala talk about US use of depleted uranium. Let me introduce you to Joshua Frank on that subject.

And, with that, that's enough wasted for many months. The only thing to add is that this is again proof that atheism and secular humanism aren't necessarily the same thing.

No, let me add one other thing.

In that previous post, I misspelled his last name. (I had gotten it correct in previous posts.) He called me out on Twitter. I apologized, said I would correct it, and did. Never a thank-you back.

Self-Besotted Philosopher, or Asshole.

Per Pierce's comment below, and my reply, let's go to this tweet:

What a bizarre situation when someone (@real_gadfly) is incredibly rude about you in a public piece, and when I mention he's spelled my name wrong, then adds a further insult at the end for me not thanking him for correcting my name?!?! How bizarre. (I hadn't even checked back.)

— Jonathan MS Pearce (@ATipplingPhilo) May 21, 2023

Going beyond whether I was rude or not, he doesn't engage with the facts on the ground. Being a conspiracy theorist on Russia-Ukraine issues right there means his opinions on anything associated with the war deserve discounting.

Openly admitting this is a proxy war, plus his Islamophobia? Calls into account any claim of his to be a secular humanist.

And, per my comment below, he utters a shitload of smears on Twitter then accuses me of being rude? 

Tell this to your Jason Boyd fanboi. Or is it sock puppet with 33 following, 0 followers, no tweets, and only replies apparently being to you.

As for Boyd? 

Once a legend always a legend..being rude is ignorance.
Ignore it.

— Jason Boyd (@jboyd49642) May 21, 2023

Since I'm not ignorant, then I'm not rude! Thanks! You're also right on JMSP being a "legend," but probably not in the way he meant it.

Update, June 27: I'm sure JMSP and others at Only Sky are, like US-UK mainstream media and Nat-sec Nutsacks, gloating triumphally over the non-coup (as in, it was a mutiny, not a coup) of Yevgeny Prigozhin and claiming this means Russia is about to fall apart. They'd be wrong.

Why a secularist ex-Christian thinks an atheist Jew celebrating Hanukkah is silly

 I had written a bit about this in a takedown piece (my second) about OnlySky a few weeks ago. I had been thinking about a more in-depth pullout about this issue anyway, but Jonathan M.S. Pierce, aka The Besotted Philosopher, getting tetchy about that led me to figure that to spite him as a sidebar, this was a good reason anyway.

And, with that, let's dig in.

Paul Golin, not previously critiqued by me, talked about why an atheist Jew celebrates Hanukkah. As I noted last month?

First, as far as being historical? The events afterward didn't play out exactly as presented in 1 Maccabees. I've blogged about that before. I blogged about that more at my main blog. He also ignores, contra Shlomo Sand and many others, as I have also discussed, that Hanukkah is originally pagan. Since the menorah ran dry, as in had no miraculous refill night after night, since Hanukkah has pagan roots and since, per Yonathan Adler, the Torah in general wasn't widely observed until AFTER the Maccabean revolt, if Golin is intellectually honest in act as well as thought, he's just doing a Jewish-tinged solstice event. And, yes, that is exactly what Hanukkah was as a pagan festival.

So, he's like an ex-Christian still celebrating Christmas but not fully secularizing it. 

It would be like me, if I still celebrated Christmas in anyway, not only talking about Santa, but talking about a nativity or religious Christmas carols, but yet saying "I'm a secularist."

Of course, there's a deeper issue at root.

And, that is the tension, and this one is not limited to the English language, between "Judaism" as a religion and "Jewishness" as an ethnic identity. Given that Paul said "there is neither Jew nor Goy," outside of White nationalists trying to exploit Christianity, it's neither a linguistic nor a deeper identity issue that Christians face.

Ergo, it's not an issue that ex-Christian secularists face.

Now, given that, per Adler, Hanukkah eventually led to Judaism as we know it today, but not necessarily Jewishness, is it better to for an atheist Jew to celebrate it than Passover? It also has religious, metaphysical elements (setting aside that it totally didn't happen), but it is arguably as much or more the origin of ethnic Jewish nationalism than is Hanukkah.

Of course, if you're an atheist celebrating ethnic nationalism, there's the deeper question of whether or not you're an atheist who's not a real secular humanist? I celebrate (not too loudly) the Fourth of July, but not German-American Day.

The twosiderism of transhumanism vs Dark Mountain

 Via Massimo Pigliucci, Paul Fidalgo offers a critique of sorts of both transhumanism (not limited to Ray Kurzweil's Singularity) and the "collapsitarian" movement, led by a group called Dark Mountain.

Many people who read here probably know what transhumanism is.  For those who may not guess on collapsitarianism, it's a name given to an idea that has also been around for some time, with an additional dollop. The old idea is that civilization was a mistake. The new idea is that climate change and related issues will lead to its fracturing, that we can't fix that, and that we might as well accept it.

Here's my take on Fidalgo's take.

Transhumanism, IMO, like much of such futurism, has strong libertarian roots. Like colonizing Mars and other such nutteries, first, it doesn't address who would be able to afford this at start (nor, in the case of colonizing Mars, who would agree to be the soma-fueled worker bees). Fidalgo partially addresses this, late in the long piece, with a "don't leave people behind," but doesn't get straight into the largely libertarian politics behind that, even though he does focus later in the piece on Zoltan Istvan.

I agree in large part on the collapse-predictors. Like author Fidalgo, I reject the seeming Roussellian attitude that a pre-industrial style of life was "intended," is noble or whatever.

Beyond that, re the "civilization as a mistake" angle, even though the Dark Mountain people don't expressly mention overpopulation, if you're turning your back on civilization, you can't ignore it. And, that's my ultimate rhetorical question: Are you volunteering to be part of the 90 percent, or whatever, "cut"? I've never seen any such group be honest about this. 

That said, back to the transhumanist side and civilization to this point. Per a commenter on Massimo's Facebook group, the bottleneck of energy production and consumption includes the destructiveness associated with such production and consumption.

The Istvan part is interesting. Didn't know his past as a Natl Geo reporter. Sounds like there's probably some psychology behind all of this. He of course ignores the energy issues for transhumanism, as well as the libertarianism it's based on.

And, per Fidalgo, I am reminded, with this, of the "Sargon" episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. Finally, and I think Massimo would agree, that re theories of consciousness as being embodied, a mind "stored on a machine" (if even possible, and almost certainly not) would no longer be a mind.

Fidalgo's piece, especially the riffs on Shakespeare in the last one-third, isn't bad overall, but I think could have been sharpened even more.

American Humanists blow St. Anthony of Fauci an air-kiss

The American Humanist Association has named Fauci its Humanist of the Year. That's St. Anthony of Fauci the teller of Platonic lies. And, of further Platonic lies after that. And, not even a Platonic lie, just a National Institutes of Health definitional hair-splitting lie, about gain of function work at WIV.

In reality? Zeynep Tufekci, one of the first people to call out Fauci's original lie on masks, and to since then explicitly call out tribalism and also say the lab-leak hypothesis should be taken more seriously than BlueAnon will take it, is MUCH more deserving.

Humanism, especially good secular humanism, should be about honesty and integrity, among other things. Fauci lacks honesty and he lacks the integrity to admit these Platonic lies, too.

In addition to BlueAnon tribalism, I suspect that AHA sees this as a fundraising cash cow, more disgusting yet. Given the mix of gushing and wagon-circling at places like Tippling Philosopher, sadly, they're likely right.

I was worried about having nothing for this blog this week. Sadly, that's been solved.

And, beyond the disgust at Fauci, I'm not joking about Tufekci, whom I've "anointed" as a public intellectual, as being a better choice,

That said, I can list several previous recipients that underwhelm me as well. Some underwhelm a lot; some underwhelm moderately. They include:

• Rebecca Goldstein (crappy author, philosopher and critical theologian)
• Bill Nye (attention whore)
• P.Z. Myers (need I say more?)
• Steve Pinker (Ev Psych whore, crappy author, hasn't read his own book on writing thoroughly, let alone taught it to wife Goldstein)

The moderate underwhelmers include

• Jennifer Ouellette
• Jared Diamond

Man’s Mindset vs. God Grandeur

A riff on, but no apologies to, Gerard Manley Hopkins

MAN’S MINDSET

The world is charged with the mindset of man

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do we then now not think our plan?

Generations have gone, have gone, have gone;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wear’s man’s smudge and shares man’s smell; the soil

Is hard now, as foot can feel, worn to bone.

And in all this, nature is badly spent;

            There lies the dearest drearness deep down things;

And as the last lights of the black West went

            No morning at the brown brink eastward springs —

Spiritus Mundi flees from the rent

            World, pale with dead mist; no comfort it brings.

Secularists, please take a moment of silence for Paul Kurtz.

If one could finger one person as a “founder” of modern, post-World War II secular humanism in the United States, it would be Kurtz, the creator of Humanist Manifesto II and an energizer of a more activist, more engaged secular humanism. Beyond that, he founded Prometheus Books to give secular humanism its own “voice.”

Well, he died today.

Sadly, in a power struggle and a philosophy struggle, the Council on Secular Humanism booted him from his leadership posts two years ago. Kurtz had opposed the rise of “New Atheism” or “Gnu Atheism” if you will, due to a confrontationalist psychology it espoused, which I have previously argued was and is a “tar baby” mirror of Christian fundamentalism’s evangelism style.

No, Kurtz wasn’t perfect, and perhaps could have been a better financial manager of CFI.

That said, Wikipedia’s entry well sums up Kurtz’s philosophy in one short paragraph:

Kurtz believed that the nonreligious members of the community should take a positive view on life. Religious skepticism, according to Paul Kurtz, is only one aspect of the secular humanistic outlook.

Indeed. And, vis a vis Gnu Atheism, Kurtz wanted to look at positive ways to collaborate with religious people of faith, positive ways to present what secular humanism is about and more.

I don’t know who will be the primary leader of his new (of 2009) institution, Institute for Science and Human Values. But, let’s hope that there’s a centralized voice for carrying on his vision about secular humanism.

Gratitude without god

When I first heard of this idea, a decade or more ago, I was in a psychological place where I was learning more and more about the idea of gratitude.

But, at the same time, I was pretty well down the road to my secularist, contra-metaphysical philosophical naturalist stance of today. I had tried “working with” ideas of “spirituality” but found what I was seeing promoted under that guise was New Agey-type metaphysics that, even if technically not religious, was indeed metaphysical and impossible to square with my re-emerging philosophical naturalism.

But, I was still trying to wrestle with this issue.

Having heard the phrase “an attitude of gratitude” in both New Age-type settings and from traditional ministers, and it being, for various reasons, an idea that I agreed with, I was trying to figure out how to be grateful if there wasn’t anyone to whom to be grateful.

Finally, I realized that I was mentally enshackled by the New Agey “present situations” that I had recently been in, plus my childhood religious preacher’s kid background.

Instead, why couldn’t I simply have an “attitude of gratitude” without a personal object for my gratitude?

And, so I do today. Little mental tools such as reminding myself of three good things that have happened for/to me today, especially if I had an active part in any of them, help this process.

The new job I have is reason to be grateful. I don’t have to listen to a boss asking me to resign (and himself not being grateful for me not doing so, since another person did leave a week after I would have completed my 30 days notice), threaten to “forget” my paycheck, or other things. I have work that’s fairly easy, still OK on pay, and fairly non-stressful while leaving open a growth curve.

I have the possibility of thinking about new work-creative outlets with the “timing” of the economy continuing to improve, as seems likely, albeit still slowly.

I have a life free from debt, the ability to live frugally without living stingily. That includes being a smart grocery shopper and knowing how to cook healthily while on a budget.

I’m grateful for modern medicine, including psychological counseling and medications as needed. Being a methodological and philosophical naturalist, I’m grateful for the scientific mindset behind it.

I’m grateful for the Internet. I’m grateful for the skeptical, critical thinking ability to recognize the dark side of the Internet itself, as well as seeing through most all of the spam, urban legends and such to which the Internet has given impetus.

Anyway, I don’t need to show you all my “gratitude list,” though I do believe journaling like this is a helpful psychological tool.

Let’s get back to my main point. Just as one can be moral without god, religion or metaphysically-oriented spirituality (karma is just as evil a “stick” as hell), one can be grateful as a state of being without needing a good to whom to tell that.

R. Joseph Hoffmann: frenemy of modern secular humanism

R. Joseph Hoffmann, religious scholar, former chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, and former associate editor of the journal Free Inquiry is a good secular humanist in many ways.

He’s insightful enough about the realities of religion, and knowledgeable enough about the history of secular humanism, that Gnu Atheists can’t refute most of his claims against their atheist evangelism and the concepts on which it is built.

But, in a blog post like this, “Complacency and Excess,” he earns the title above: “frenemy of modern secular humanism.” I’m not a fan of neologisims that are Internet or entertainment derived, but I make an exception in this case.

I’ve said before that Hoffmann’s brand of humanism is an Enlightenment-era humanism, one from the era when scientists were still “natural philosophers.” I don’t know if Free Inquiry founder Paul Kurtz was quite as much that way as Hoffmann is, but Hoffmann is definitely that way.

For example, in a blog post of about a month or two ago, he went beyond criticizing overblown claims some neuroscientists make for what tools like fMRIs of today show about brain functioning to, at least as I saw it, criticizing the entire idea of daring to make too much scientific investigation of what the mind is.

The “frenemy” part, and related concerns, starts here:

Let me stay with that last point for a minute–the belief that only science can answer all of our questions.

While it’s true that many Gnus believe that, not all do. More to the point of my previous critique, successors to fMRIs, CT scans, single-emission positron scans, etc., may just reveal much more of the brain’s working, on a smaller scale, and in something nearer to “real time.”

Next comes a “huh” comment like this:

Can the numinous collapsing of all empirical religious traditions into the word “religion” (equivalent to the equally mystical collapsing of all scientific inquiry into the word “science”) be justified on the basis of a prior assumption–because that’s what it is–that gods don’t exist?

I agree with the idea behind the first half of the quote. Liberal Episcopaleanism is nothing like the Church of Christ, for example. But, the part in parenthesis is a head-scratcher, at the least.

First of all, when did “collapsing” become “mystical” in this instance? Second, is Hoffmann confounding “science” with “scientism”? Take away “mystical” and I’d agree with his parenthetical observation IF that is the case. But, IF that is the case, then Hoffmann’s engaging in either sloppy verbiage or goalpost shifting.

And there's more that to come, if you'll look below the fold.

Why do secularists make "just war" arguments?

For example, take Massimo Pigliucci's argument for bombing Libya. It's a "just war" argument.

I raise this for several reasons.

First, most notably, the idea of "just war" arose from Christian dogmatic theology, namely starting with St. Augustine. From Thomas Aquinas, and onward, it got wrung through a sophistic wringer, and not just by Catholics, once the Protestant Reformation arrived.

Now, could one argue for something similar to a "just war" from a secularist point of view and with secularist bolstering?

One could try, I'll certainly concede, using tools such as evolutionary psychology. And please, only the real thing, not Pop Ev Psych.

But, a philosopher like Pigliucci ought to know that the idea of "justice" is philosophically iffy on utilitarian and other grounds.

First, can we even talk about "justice" in the abstract, whether retributive or distributive?

With Walter Kaufmann, I say no. I specifically refer to his hugely thought-provoking book "Without Guilt and Justice," which pretty thoroughly eviscerates John Rawls like an eight-inch herring.

To put it simply, neither form of justice, in the abstract, can be universally applied in the concrete. To execute what seems "just" to some, even many, will always or nearly so be unjust to somebody.

So, should we let a utilitarian hedonistic calculus apply?

But, that leads me to the old Chinese or pseudo-Chinese parable, with the ongoing refrain of "could be good, could be bad."

What seems "just" to and/or for the majority now may not five months, five years or five decades from now. Maybe not even five days from now.

So, no, we shouldn't.

So, what CAN philosophy tell us in situations like this.

First of all, looking elsewhere in the East, something like Taoism can tell us all decisions are fraught with uncertainties and shades of gray.

Second, we can move on to Iranian philosopher Idries Shah, who uttered the aphorism, "There are never just two sides to an issue." While that itself is a bit too black-and-white for me, it nonetheless has a large kernel of truth.

Take the air strikes against Libya.

There is:
1. The tribal rebels' side (or sides, depending on how much or how little coherence they have;
2. The U.S. side;
3. The Franco-British side;
4. The Turkish side;
5. The Arab League side;
6. Gadhafi's side;
7. The Russian side;
8. And, though we've not heard from Beijing yet, surely, the Chinese side.

Even if we narrow the issue of "justice" here, rather than play realpolitik, at least the first three, if not the first five, are all legitimate "sides." And, all with different definitions, at least in narrow particulars if not major strands, as to what might be "just."

And, also, since "just war" ultimately has religious roots, shouldn't we be careful about it for that reason, too? Monotheistic religions deal in black and white; I prefer my philosophy with more nuance. And, my secularism in general.

Atheist visibility increases

Even to the point that Dallas’ own Metroplex Atheists gets profiled as part of National Journal’s cover story (PDF).

It’s part of a trend of such stories, as the New York Times also exemplifies.

Key to atheists, agnostics, antitheists and other secular humanists raising our activism profile is a new umbrella coalition of secular humanist groups, Secular Coalition of America.

As the National Journal story notes, it's the rise of New Atheists like Chris Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Dan Dennett contributing to this surge, not just in the U.S., but other English-speaking countries, too.