1. Humans do not have "souls". Your "self" or consciousness is a set of operations which your brain is continuously performing -- it is not an entity distinct from the body. It cannot separate from the body and "go to" Heaven or Nirvana or whatever after the body dies, any more than your heartbeat or digestion can continue to exist somewhere if your heart or digestive system are destroyed. Nor can a person be "born in the wrong body", because the person is not a separate entity from the body. This does not mean that we are mere deterministic mechanisms with no free will. How the purely material brain can exercise free will is a question to which we simply do not yet know the answer. This does not mean that free will doesn't exist or that the explanation must be supernatural.
2. Throughout history, science has been our most effective tool for understanding reality. We know this because science enables us to create technology that actually works, something no other "way of knowing" can do. Technology, not ideology or politics, is the main driver of human progress.
3. There is no "god" or self-aware external higher entity of any kind. For a human to bow down in worship to anything is delusional, degrading, and subhuman.
4. At every step, religion has resisted and obstructed human scientific, technological, and moral development. Arbitrary religious taboos should not be confused with real morality, which is innate in humans and a product of evolution like most of our other traits. There are no "good" religions, neither of the West nor of the east, neither of the present nor of the past. It is our right and duty to attack, ridicule, and tear down religion at every opportunity. Although religion is evil, most religious people are not evil. They are victims of a kind of mental parasite.
5. There is no "your truth", "my truth", etc. Claims about reality are either objectively true or objectively false, and can in principle be shown to be true or false.
6. Pragmatism -- getting real-world practical results -- is much more important than ideological or philosophical consistency.
7. A life lived according to someone else's standards, subject to someone else's judgments, is not a life worth living.
8. The essential struggle for freedom, rationality, and compassion is not between countries but within each country.
9. Self-ownership -- control over one's own body -- is the most essential freedom. Economic rights are meaningless without secure self-ownership. Military conscription, compulsory national service, and restrictions on the right to abortion are all forms of enslavement, and it is legitimate to resist those impositions by any means necessary.
10. For a society to be just, women must have all of the same legal, political, economic, and social rights as men have, and the same individual self-determination -- in practical effect, not just on paper. This is one of the most obvious ways in which some cultures are superior to others. I do not accept any man as my equal who does not accept women as his equals. A major reason why society has become more peaceful and humane over the last couple of centuries is the increasing cultural and political influence of women. This benefits everybody, including men.
11. The right of self-defense against unprovoked attack or intrusion is absolute, regardless of whether or not the law recognizes that right. Whoever tries to enter my home without my permission has already freely chosen to forfeit his life.
12. Democracy is essential. Only governments which are freely elected by their citizens are legitimate. The optimum form of democracy is the constitutional republic, where power is held by elected representatives while essential freedoms are safeguarded by being enshrined in a foundational document such as the US Bill of Rights.
13. True Western culture was destroyed by Christianity. The damage cannot be undone and we will never be able to have the world that should have been ours, but we must still strive to purge Christian influences from our civilization and our thinking.
14. In current American politics, the central issue is the class struggle. Inequality has become so extreme that radical re-distribution of wealth will be necessary to correct it. White supremacism on the right and identity politics on the left represent a successful strategy by the ruling financial parasite class to distract the exploited 99% from the class struggle and keep us divided against ourselves by race. A left obsessed with race and identity is a neutered left.
15. In most cases, behavior viewed as undesirable is best dealt with not by banning it outright but by decriminalizing and regulating it.
16. Beauty matters. Just imagine the world without it.
Re your #5,
ReplyDeleteI would point you to Gödel's proof.
FWIW, the economic aspect has a racial element of its own. No one really believes in supply-side economics, but if it can hurt Those People™️ more, a certain type of voter will vote for it.
ReplyDeleteOle: I looked that up and it seems to be a "proof" of the existence of God, which isn't relevant to #5. In any case it looks like just the usual philosopher gobbledygook -- meaningless word-play and axioms contrived to support a pre-chosen preferred conclusion, none of it having anything to do with the real world. Playing games with words doesn't tell us anything about reality.
ReplyDeleteAnon: "Those people" in that context could be any kind of group, not just a racial group. The point is, the obsession with race these days obscures the real problem and divides people who should naturally be allies.
Infidel, you are indeed an interesting and at times confounding gentleman. ;) I read some of your principles and find myself in complete agreement. Some of the others I find inexplicable when juxtaposed to some of your other stated principles. I would love to elaborate as I find your takes on most things to be insightful and fascinating often times. Unfortunately I have precious little time these days for the inter-webs. Perhaps I can return to this post of yours next week if time allows! Cheers!
ReplyDeleteWell at least you are certain.
ReplyDeleteRe democracy, governments being freely elected by their citizens is only the starting point. Once governments have been voted in, how do you ensure they do what the majority want and don't pursue their own ideological agenda? For example, the majority of Britons want the railways to be re-nationalised, yet the government wants them to remain privately run.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a government's job to exactly mirror the public's stance on every issue -- if it were, we'd get rid of representative government and just hold referenda on every decision that arose. Most of the public doesn't have the kind of knowledge needed to make that kind of system work. Maintaining such knowledge would be a full-time job, and most people simply aren't interested in most public issues to that level, nor should they be obligated to be. It's better to have specialists in office who can be held accountable via the possibility of being voted out.
ReplyDeleteEven when elected officials go against the will of the public on some issues, they should still be considered a legitimate government, unlike the regimes in Russia or China which are simply mafias.
Then there are those essential freedoms. Majorities of the US public favor substantial restrictions on free speech and gun-ownership rights. That's why we need the First and Second Amendments. If we just dealt with those kinds of issues via referenda, those freedoms would have been largely destroyed by now.
Well said, and if religious people don't like having their superstiton ridiculed, they should try having a less ridiculous superstition. Religious belief is a choice, not an obligation.
ReplyDeleteIf religions were objectively true, they wouldn't need faith; if faith worked they wouldn't need appologetics, all of which are presuppositional, and so are intellectully and morally bankrupt and worthless.
If religions were objectively true, there would only be one and it would be part of the body of science.
This is a profound and thoughtful declaration, Infidel. I don’t agree with you on every point, but I certainly respect the intellect and humanity in evidence here.
ReplyDeleteSome really great points here. I like the way you think
ReplyDeleteDarrell: Thanks for the kind words. I wouldn't expect many people to agree with everything I said here -- it's more of a "this is who I am" post.
ReplyDeleteRosa: I support treating religion as the absurdity it is, rather than granting it a gravitas it doesn't deserve. In the light of modern knowledge it mostly comes across as laughably ignorant.
Annie: Thank you, I appreciate it. I wouldn't expect many people to agree with every point, but I appreciate your looking at it with an open mind.
Lady M: Thanks! I've been thinking about these matters for a long time.