Thursday, October 31, 2013

Hardline Atheists Condemn Sleep and Sex as Irrational

Dateline: SPRINGFIELD, MI—Speaking jointly at a press conference after coming to a unanimous decision at this year’s Skepticon, held at Missouri State University, representatives of the New Atheist movement condemned sleep and sex for being irrational.

“Religious faith is clearly unreasonable,” said author Sam Harris, “but so are your unconscious dreams and so is your sex life. If we’re going to survive the coming technological advances, we’ve got to smarten up and cut all ties to our primitive ancestry. We’ve got to become posthuman.” Asked how Harris handles his biological needs for sleep and sex, he told reporters that he expects we’ll soon develop the technology to allow the brain to cope without the input of the irrational subconscious and with a permanent state of insomnia. Until then, he said rationalists should keep a journal of their dreams and “berate and flagellate” themselves each morning if the dreams they recall having had “descend into the fantastic.”

“As for sex,” biologist Richard Dawkins cut in, “it helps to be British. Puritanical prudishness and the effeteness following the decline of your country’s empire go a long way to making you sufficiently embarrassed about sex’s animalistic aspects to learn how to repress your wayward lusts.” Reminded that Dawkins has written about the need to appreciate nature’s beauty, he said that poetry and a sense of wonder are alright “as long as one employs the deflationary technique of understatement and keeps a stiff upper lip.”

The biologist PZ Myers pointed out that the problem isn’t just irrationality; it’s when irrationality becomes dangerous. “People kill for God, but they also kill for sex,” he said. “Families break apart due to affairs. When we’re overcome by sex hormones we may not wear protection and so we transmit diseases. Moreover, we set a terrible example, hiding our degrading sex life, keeping that skeleton in the closet even as we rightly ridicule religious folks for their lunacy.” Our unconscious biases, too, he said, “drive us to all manner of counterproductive prejudices. We mustn’t allow our unconscious to rear its ugly head, not even in our dreams.”

Biologist Jerry Coyne added that we can maintain the human population using artificial insemination, “to avoid the follies of romance and sexual play.” He said that as a child he loved to dream he was Superman and he could fly just by holding out his arms. But when he learned we can fly only with airplanes or the like, he “condemned that dream as a piece of foolishness.” Dawkins went further, saying we should punish our kids when they “indulge in games of pretense. Faith-heads abuse their children by teaching them nonsense,” he said, “and we rationalists must do the opposite, teaching them reason and science; else there shan’t be a counterweight to religious superstition and we’ll be on the brink of extinction.”

Historian Richard Carrier told a story of how a little girl approached him at Skepticon, holding a ball of aluminum foil and calling it the moon. “I told her it’s not the moon and that if she tried to hold up the moon it would crush her flatter than a pancake. The girl ran off crying and I relished each and every one of those tears, because they signaled her growing disenchantment with the world. We can’t afford to be irrational anymore; technological advances have raised the stakes too high.”

Philosopher Daniel Dennett reported that he’s working on a device to alert him when someone nearby is entering REM sleep, during which time the person “would be expected to have begun spoiling her rational mindset with a foolish dream.” He warned that he intends to drive around at night, to locate “the offenders against Reason,” and to blast his car horn “to set things right.” Dennett then proudly showcased the new logo for New Atheism. It features a stylized drawing of a man, holding a hammer in each hand and smashing his heart with one hand and his genitals with the other.

21 comments:

  1. Nature is responsible for everything, including their "post human" fantasies.

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  2. This is normal, but anti-natalism is NUTS!

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  3. Frankly I'm surprised Steven Pinker didn't have a cameo in there. Maybe something about how hyper-rationality has made us all less violent.

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    1. Yeah, there are lots of other New Atheists that could be skewered in this way, including the liberal feminist ones. I had to draw the line somewhere, because I'm trying to keep these satirical news reports short.

      I wonder whether Pinker is right that people themselves are no longer as violent as we used to be--because now we have machines to destroy other species and the earth for us, and to subdue each other using soft power, without the need for so much overt spilling of blood and guts.

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    2. I follow quite a few anthropology sites, and I don't think there's an anthropologist in existence that agrees with Pinker. He cherry-picked to support his hypothesis by excluding any conflict involving more than I think 3 or 4 people. Which means he totally ignored any and all institutional violence including warfare. I don't think anyone can look at the 20th century and think it was less violent than anything in antiquity.

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    3. I wouldn't be surprised if Pinker were wrong on this. He strikes me as passive-aggressive, as a superficially mild-mannered guy who's actually a control freak who thinks of himself as an omniscient deity. Folks with enormous egos usually have tragic flaws, so the trick is to look past all the excellence which sustains their over-inflated self-image and find the blunders left behind by their blind spot. Also, Pinker's part of the modern establishment, so I suppose he's invested in defending it against radical postmodern critics such as Nietzschean pessimists who think there's no such thing as progress because we're animals cursed with something like original sin.

      Still, I don't see how Pinker could justify overlooking conflicts with more than 3 or 4 people. How is that not arbitrary? Is it because he's focused on individuals, not societies?

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  4. "Dennett then proudly showcased the new logo for New Atheism."

    Haha!

    http://tinypic.com/r/qsny9c/5

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    1. Did you draw that, Dietl? The only difference is that I think the hyperrationalist should be smashing his heart rather than his head. But that's still pretty cool and amusing.

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  5. Yes, that was me. Sorry I misread it as head. Here is the new version:

    http://tinypic.com/r/2cr4vtz/5

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    1. Ha! Thanks, Dietl. Here's how I was thinking of the logo:

      http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=9r1xxk&s=5#.UnPffxB77xQ

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    2. Looks great! I guess now it's for Dennet to decide ;-)

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  6. My my, quite set upon...something unnamed, when you so flatter that unnamed things via reductio ad absurdum of that which threatens it.

    I tend to call the unnamed thing the human continuum. A set of logistical boundaries, much like any sport or boardgame has. Made it up after having read the God Delusion by Richie to the D, given how I took him as marching all over something which he as much relied on, even if with different logistical parameters than the relgious folk.

    But I guess it'll stay at him stepping all over something that he relies upon himself (if a different version), whilst he is reduced to reductio ad absurdum by the otherside to elevate something they must not name for such would sully it with the emperical.

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    1. Heh, this is a pretty cryptic comment, Callan. What is this unnamed thing I'm presupposing which counts against the implicit criticism of New Atheists? The criticism is that they pretend to be ultra-rational, that they reject religion on cognitive grounds even though religion may be more about practice, like sleep or sex. The criticism seems unassailable to me.

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    2. Heh, this is a pretty cryptic comment, Callan. What is this unnamed thing I'm presupposing which counts against the implicit criticism of New Atheists?
      It's easy - the thing you're coming from when you reductio ad...criticize.

      The hard bit is taking oneself as coming from anywhere in doing so. Exactly - you ask me what the unnamed thing your coming from is, because it's so hard. Indulge me a question on that - do you think you are coming from nowhere with your critique? Absolutely nowhere?

      that they reject religion on cognitive grounds even though religion may be more about practice, like sleep or sex.
      Now the god delusion might be a long read (hmmm, pot meet...), but it's a bit of a lazy read to have read that.

      The grounds are that Dawkins can give disproval qualifiers for his belief - for evolution, a rabbit skeleton in the wrong fossil record and he will readily admit poof goes his belief (I imagine though it'd involved a hard night of drinking though!).

      What religions provide a method of disproving ANY of their claims, Ben?

      It's not like we think dreams are real when we wake up - they sort of come with a disproval method built in. As to sex, what particular human invented agenda are we assuming to be true in being lured into it's lures?

      Lots of questions - but I'm most curious about any claim of coming from absolutely nowhere in terms of applying a critique.

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    3. When did I say I'm assuming nothing when I criticize certain views? Of course I'm assuming everything else I've written on this blog.

      Yes, natural selection is falsifiable and theology isn't. That's because the former's a scientific theory whereas the latter's a work of fiction. But it's a piece of pretentious ultrarationalism to assume that theologies should be evaluated on cognitive, scientific grounds so that they can be disposed of as soon as we determine they don't correspond with the facts. Of course they don't correspond with the facts! They're fictional and therefore counterfactual. So what? Do you stop reading novels or going to the movies as soon as you realize those stories are unfalsifiable? Evidently, we have a taste for fictional stories. That has to do with the practice of being human.

      Dreams and sex are also matters of practice, not of rational belief that's dumped as soon as we prove it's not justified according to scientific standards. That's the point of this satirical piece: New Atheists are practically inconsistent in leaving sleep and sex alone while attacking religion. Granted, religion may be more dangerous and therefore more questionable on pragmatic grounds; still, ultrarational New Atheists usually treat religious beliefs as mere falsified scientific theories, which is like condemning a dream or a fiction because neither can be proven by an experiment. This ultrarationalism is so wrongheaded, because we're animals! Stop the pretense or you'll make a fool of yourself! Be more Nietzschean in your atheism! That's my advice to these scientistic New Atheists.

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    4. When did I say I'm assuming nothing when I criticize certain views? Of course I'm assuming everything else I've written on this blog.
      Which is? It does not seem to be included within the critique at all. And so for it's absence, is agrandised while the other is denounced.

      Yeah, I know the human tradition is to just give crap to the other guy. I'm not saying the usual thing is to include atleast traces of ones own position in the critique (though I think to some degree you did include your own position to some degree with the 'two guys trapped in an elevator' story you did awhile ago). I'm just underlining why like to keep the focus on just the other guy, as we dismantle them. I guess I should probably even include my own position here or else I do the same - just looking at the, as I estimate it, one sideness - it bugs me.

      Yes, natural selection is falsifiable and theology isn't. That's because the former's a scientific theory whereas the latter's a work of fiction. But it's a piece of pretentious ultrarationalism to assume that theologies should be evaluated on cognitive, scientific grounds so that they can be disposed of as soon as we determine they don't correspond with the facts. Of course they don't correspond with the facts! They're fictional and therefore counterfactual. So what? Do you stop reading novels or going to the movies as soon as you realize those stories are unfalsifiable? Evidently, we have a taste for fictional stories. That has to do with the practice of being human.

      No, they aren't 'fiction' AT ALL. They are only fiction when those who speak of them will readily refer to them as fiction. What were talking about are ideas that people WILL NOT refer to as fiction.

      Your idea they treat it as fiction, is a fiction you will not refer to as a fiction.

      Here's the thing - such folk think they are being ultra rational already, when they cannot call a fiction a fiction.

      They themselves promote the idea of ultrarationality because they think they are ultra rational (it's all 'obvious'). They themselves promote the idea of disposing of ideas that aren't true. The people who can't call a fiction a fiction are the ones most promoting of and most bent upon the eradication of fiction! How much fantasy fiction do you think the pope reads? I bet Dawkins reads more!

      But what I've just said hinges on the foundation idea that they do not call their religious stuff a 'fiction' at all. I'm guessing you wont agree with that, for how obvious it is to you that what they practice is a fiction? Or am I wrong?

      On the second paragraph, people treat their sleeping dreams quite differently than they treat their religions. When you attack 'scientistic New Atheists' for attacking people who treat their religion like they treat their sleeping dreams, you've not one but two straw men.

      Sorry man, you're out of eden. You treat it all as a fiction, but you think all the religious folks treat it all as fiction, so you're still in eden with them all.

      They don't. You're not with them. At all. You have nothing in common and your cause of protecting fiction? They would despise your words and very intent in doing so. For in their own words, they do not deal in fiction!

      I already raised the idea of the human continuum because I think Dawkins relies on certain beliefs that are eroded when he slashes and burns various other beliefs without any control vector. To a degree I am out of Dawkins eden, some of his 'true' is as I see it just fiction. And he'd despise me for it. And to some degree I am in an eden that I would despise someone for treating my truths as fictions, even or especially when they want to preserve them as fiction. Multiple, pocket edens.

      But I over extend, as usual, and my foundational idea probably wont even be found palatable.

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    5. I agree, Callan, that many religious people, especially those we'd call religious fundamentalists, wouldn't call their religious beliefs fictions. This is because their religions are backlashes against modernity and the Scientific Revolution: they foolishly compete with science by construing their myths as literal truths, as quasi-scientific theories. Those folks are confused about the nature of religion. More informed religious people understand the difference between myths and objective, scientific theories, and while even they wouldn't use the word "fiction" to describe their religious beliefs, in effect they see them as such when they speak of them as metaphors and myths.

      Actually, I do think of my philosophical beliefs as speculative stories. I don't believe there's an undead god in the same way that I believe I'm currently typing at a computer. As I say in my article on the virtue of speculation, a speculation has the potential to guide and inspire us like an artwork, except that instead of being a musical composition or a canvas with paint on it, this artwork is made of ideas. Ideologies and worldviews are artworks at the philosophical level; they're things we create to escape from the dire facts and to give us options for changing those facts to our benefit. I'll say more about this in next Monday's article, which will be about why normativity and meaning should be understood in aesthetic terms.

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    6. This is because their religions are backlashes against modernity and the Scientific Revolution
      Really? You're saying it's not the same old religious activity we had one thousand years ago, two thousand years ago or even longer ago?

      and while even they wouldn't use the word "fiction" to describe their religious beliefs
      I think it's rather like AA - you have to admit your an alchoholic. If you don't, you'll just slip back into drinking.

      Without a direct statement it's fiction, they'll just slip back into...whatever you might call it...eventually.

      You'd probably agree in regards to AA and having to admit it/accept it, but you might not agree it applies to this sort of matter. But as I see it, the avoidance of directly calling it fiction and instead sashaying around with metaphors and myths will just end up at more drinking.

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  7. Modern fundamentalisms do largely date from the industrial revolution eras. Not that there have not been periods of religious enthusiams before, certainly, but earlier versions were at least peripherally related to the institutional Catholic church, not the denovo sects which today dominate protestant fundamentalism. So I agree with Benjamin.

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  8. I absolutely and unabashedly love this satire for my own irrational reasons, good job!

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    1. Thanks, You might be interested in my article on the different kinds of atheism:

      http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2013/06/clash-of-atheists.html

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