On Medium: What Happens After Philosophy Eats its Tail?

Here's an article about the Liar Paradox, peak subversion in philosophy, Kafkaesque modernity, and how a transhuman sage might conceive of all truths as varieties of fiction.

On Medium: Christendom’s Betrayal of Jesus's Counterculture

Read on to explore the Roman Empire’s grotesque co-optation of Jesus, which led to Christendom's neutralization and betrayal of the perennial countercultures.

On Medium: How the Roman Empire Humiliated Monotheists

Here's an article that meditates on Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor poem to help explain how the Roman Empire forced an existential decision on the ancient Jews. 

On Medium: How Modern Economics Still Serves the Plutocrats

Read on about relativism, agnotology, and how even post-neoclassical, more eclectic economics still makes way for the plutocratic effects of American-style capitalism.

On Medium: How We Lose Ourselves in a Stream of Digital Refuse

Read on about the deeper meaning of the content feeds featured in the creator economy, into which we seem to seek oblivion like the individual who's made insignificant in the context of deep time.

On Medium: The Hidden Depths of the Democrats’ Ineptitude

Here's an article that explores the history, the culture, and the nature of politics which account for why social progress goes against even the American grain.

On Medium: Why Religion Shouldn’t Be Rational

Read on about religion's true purpose, Christianity's sophistry or pseudo-philosophy, and the neo-Nietzschean search for respectable modern religious faith.

On Medium: Are We Naturally Wasteful?

Read on about wow Georges Bataille and cosmicism indicate that it might be all too natural for us to be wasteful and to destroy ourselves with so-called progress. 

On Medium: Economic Rationales For A Tyranny of Sociopaths

Here's a lengthy critique of neoclassical economics and of how that pseudoscientific framework obfuscates and rationalizes the self-destructive reality of capitalism.

On Medium: The Monstrous God of “Hellbound”

Read on to explore whether Netflix's “Hellbound” is the greatest televised challenge to theistic religion.

On Medium: Beyond the Consumer's Dream of Ultimate Knowledge

Here's an article that explains why the human pursuit of knowledge is likely endless because knowledge isn't a neatly packaged product but an expression of our open-ended minds and cultures.

See, for some context, one of my earlier explorations of this problem, "Reason, Attitude, and Ultimate Reality."

On Medium: Being Happy is the Meaning of Life — for Adult Babies

Read on about how Albert Brooks’ use of positive psychology to explain life's meaning amounts to a conservative excuse for capitalism’s takeover of philosophy.

My New Paperback Anthology is Out!

Behold, my new paperback anthology is out now on Amazon! It's called Religion's Travesty of God. 

This was originally meant to be my ultimate volume on religion, the comprehensive new atheist book I would have liked to see on the market. Half would be devoted to religion, and the other half to problems with atheism and secular society. But the book became too long so I divided it in two. 

This volume tackles religion, it's still over 500 pages, and it's the one that presented me with some Kafkaesque obstacles behind the scenes, which I wrote about here. The next volume, which I'm currently working on, will take on atheism and secular society. Both draw mainly from my Medium articles. 

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And here, by way of odd celebration, is one of my bookshelves. See if you can spot some books on it that might have influenced my writings over the years.

On Medium: Is Atheism Progressive?

Read on to explore the social consequences of godlessness, and whether atheism is for the best, as new atheists like to spin the matter and to sell their message.

Is Having Children Always Wrong?

There have perhaps always been misanthropic curmudgeons. But their unremitting pessimism has metastasized on the intellectual dark web, as they’ve availed themselves of the social media tools that are notorious for creating feedback loops that can nurture even the most outlandish of poisonous discourses.

David Benatar is perhaps the most prominent antinatalist, for example, believing that procreation is immoral since it causes untold harms in opening the next generation to the inevitable hardships in life. And Benatar debated Jordan Peterson on the matter.

Gary “Inmendham,” whom I debated onYouTube in 2014, has for years hammered away at conventional society for rejecting antinatalism and misanthropy. And a blogger who writes under the name “Existential Goof” follows much of Inmendham’s framing of the issues.

A Case for Antinatalism

Here’s the start of Existential Goof’s case for antinatalism, that is, for the ending of human procreation and thus for the indirect suicide of our species:

my thesis is that if one accepts an atheistic and materialistic conception of reality, then there can be no such thing as a good or a bad that is not defined exclusively by the feelings of sentient organisms. There is no basis for having a preference between two different outcomes outside on the impact that those outcomes are going to have on the feelings of yourself, or other sentient organisms. The gulf which exists between pleasure and pain is what drives preference; and if not guided by this, then all choices would be as arbitrary as the result of a meaningless coin toss.

He says also that nature punishes those who have no kids. Thus, he says, “Only when we allow ourselves to outsmart the unintelligent forces of natural selection will humanity realise that the only rational course for us to pursue is that of the extinction of ourselves, and of all life. We can then realise that, in a game in which nobody can win, the best option left to us is to cut our collective losses.”

On Medium: Religious Faith: A Free Pass In A Trivial Game

Here's an article about the dubious role of religious faith in the transition from animistic magic, through polytheism, to monotheistic alienation and secularism.

On Medium: The Puzzle of Why Zulie Rane Blocked Me for Criticizing Her Sales Advice

Read on for the follow-up to my criticism of Zulie Rane's advice on how to succeed as a freelance writer. This time I draw some lessons about the creator economy from Zulie Rane's decision to "block" me on Medium for levelling that criticism.

On Medium: Are Atheists Overconfident in Reason?

Here's an article about how reason historically undermined itself and turned new atheism into a futile sales job.

On Medium: Facets of Childishness in Ancient and Modern Societies

Read on about the quest to find the adults in the room despite the myriad ways most of us neglect to fulfill our potential or to use our freedoms wisely.

On Medium: Is Nature Too Divinely Self-Creative to Need an Intelligent Designer?

Here's an article on how science points away from inferior religions towards a better one. The article replies to a critic of my earlier examination of the design argument for theism.

On Medium: How Zulie Rane Whitewashes the Selling of Stories

Here's an article about why your writing may be too good to be sold.

On Medium: Atheism and the Burden of Refuting the Preposterous

Read on about how farcical debates spring up from atheistic statements of the obvious, and how the atheist is in the position of the boy who cries out that the emperor's wearing no clothes.

On Medium: Technopower and Strange Salvation in “Dune”

Here's an article on how "Dune" suggests that the secret of entheogenic creativity might have to rescue us from the technowizardry of our demonic, superhuman future worlds.

On Medium: The Curse of Bureaucratic Myopia at Kindle Direct Publishing

Here are a case study in how a bureaucracy can lose touch with reality, and some reflections on how a Kafkaesque catch-22 might be a tragic blessing in disguise.

On Medium: The Deeper Reason Why Skeptics Should Scoff at Christian Miracles

Read on about the difference between the profundity of authentic religion and the crassness of Christian literalism.

On Medium: Thomas Huxley’s Scientism and the Agnostic’s False Modesty

Here's an article that explores the potential for plausible forms of agnosticism, given Thomas Huxley's implausible scientistic formulation of the initial concept.

On Medium: Theistic Overreach and the Audacity of Secular Humanism

Here's a response to a rabbi that addresses scientific progress and the will to disbelieve in God.

On Medium: Why Only a Few Content Creators can be Superstars

Here's an article about how the dominant, most successful creators need herds of sheeple, and sheeple want to be ruled.

On Medium: Do Atheists Have or Lack a Belief In God?

Read on about atheism’s implications, the indifference to God, and whether atheists can dismiss theism or whether atheism amounts to the equivalent of a religion.

On Medium: The Parody of Religion in “Midnight Mass”

Here's a philosophical exploration of the Netflix series "Midnight Mass," focusing on its parody of how religion likely develops from a dubious source. 

On Medium: Are Atheists Hypocritical for Rejecting Faith-Based Evidence?

Here's an article that clarifies the differences between how religious and scientific or philosophical beliefs are sustained, and how some worldviews are more faith-based than others.

On Medium: Do Atheists and Theists have the Same Burden of Proof?

Read on about how historic shifts in default assumptions have stacked the deck against theists.

On Medium: Intimacy in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”

Here's an article about "Eternal Sunshine's" bittersweetness, how the movie's medium reflects its message, and the primacy of selfish love.

On Medium: Retreating to Faith When Struck by Unarmed “Militant” Atheism

Read on about why even “Backyard Church’s” easy-going Christianity is bad enough. 

This article responds to Eric Sentell's reply to my previous article on the feebleness of Dan Foster's ten arguments for Christian theism.

On Medium: Would Societal Collapse Degrade or Improve Us?

Here's an article about postapocalyptic fiction, original sin, and salvation by philosophy.

On Medium: The Rajneeshees’ Unmasking of American Hypocrisy in “Wild Wild Country”

Here's on article about how a documentary series shows that American culture is unlikely to be upgraded.

On Medium: An Atheist Eavesdrops on a Clash Between Christians

Here's an article on how to understand the conflict between classical theists and theistic personalists.

On Medium: Must Atheists Prove There’s No God?

Here's an article about how we play the odds with rational generalizations, due to the pragmatic side of atheistic epistemology, and why proof is irrelevant in nature. 

This is the first in a series on some confusions about the nature of atheism.

On Medium: Exposing the Sham of Televised Political Debates

Real on about narcissism, infantilization, and the fear of exposing the humiliating truth: why real debating is alien to politics and to television, but not to all new media.

On Medium: Existential Morality in “Crimes and Misdemeanors”

Read on about how Woody Allen wrestles with God’s absence in a rotten world: the argument from evil, and comic relief from the incel critique of conventional hypocrisy.

On Medium: Hyperreality In “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain”

Read on about Bourdain’s life, suicide, and quasi-enlightened alienation from drugs, writing, travelling, filming, and fame.

On Medium: Is Deadpool the Most Enlightened Superhero?

Read on about comic book subversions and the dread of superpowers: from WWII propaganda and Nietzschean transhumanism to psychedelics and posthuman enlightenment.

On Medium: Revelatory Monologues in “Amanda Knox”

Here's an article on how a documentary uses its characters’ vices against them to present the deeper truth.

On Medium: The Feebleness of “Backyard Church’s” Ten Arguments for Theism

Explore what happens when a hapless Christian runs the gauntlet of reason.

On Medium: Outcasts in Cinema: “Saint Maud,” “Kajillionaire,” and “Nomadland”

Read on about how pop culture reckons with its excesses and victims.

On Medium: The Toothless Rage of Vaccinated Americans

An article about infantilization, hypocrisy, and the lopsided radicalism in the American culture war: why Democrats are so easy for bad-faith Republicans to troll.

On Medium: Depths of Subversion in “The Green Knight”

An article that explores the movie’s somewhat muddled post-Christian themes, including chivalry, Gnosticism, paganism, deep ecology, and feminism.

On Medium: From Pipe to Software: “Brazil” and the Evolution of Bureaucracies

Read on about the mechanisms of total control, and the relevance of Terry Gilliam's movie to a paperless dystopia.

On Medium: Tyranny and the Horror of Being God

Here's a thought experiment of recognizing the plight of being a deity, and how human tyrannies reflect the relation God would have to the world he created.