The schism over global climate change (GCC) has become an intellectual chasm, across which everyone perceives the other side as Koolaid-drinkers. Although I have mixed views of my own about the science of GCC, and have closely grilled a number of colleagues who are front-line atmospheric scientists (some at JPL), I’m afraid all the anecdotes and politics-drenched "questions" flying about right now aren’t shedding light. They are, in fact, quite beside the point. That is because science itself is the main issue: its relevance and utility as a decision-making tool.
There is no reason at all why groups with differing values cannot co-exist in the same society. All that is required is that neither attempt to coerce the other to live in a certain way.
Associating the Enlightenment with abstract reasoning runs smack up against what should be considered the Enlightenment’s greatest insight—that humans are inherently delusional beings, able to talk ourselves into anything at all.
In her book A History of God, Karen Armstrong notes that atheistic ideologies can lead to atrocities as readily as theologies. But then she smears Nietzsche by repeating the falsehood that he was somehow an inspiration for Nazism, and that his atheism somehow contributed to Nazi atrocities. The accusation is an insult not just to Nietzsche but to the victims of the Holocaust.
According to the results of a recently concluded poll, IEET readers are decidedly down on the “social and political developments” of the past ten years.
The Evolution of God is a fascinating account of the development of god-concepts over time, from pre-agricultural societies to the spread of Christianity and the rise of Islam. However, there’s a problem.
The dominant trajectory of Enlightenment thought over the last three hundred years has been towards atheism. Most transhumanists are atheists. But some transhumanists, like many of the original Enlightenment thinkers, are attempting to reconcile naturalism and their religious traditions. Some transhumanists even believe that the transcendent potentials of intelligence argue for a new form of scientific theology.
Science is implausible to untutored human common sense, but that in no way casts doubt on the correctness of well-established scientific findings. Feelings of transcendence are simply that—feelings—and, as such, have no capacity to reveal truths about a world external to the people who have them.
In a recently concluded poll, IEET readers showed a mix of attitudes toward the “scientific discoveries and technological accomplishments” of the last ten years. Now we want to know what you think about the social and political developments of that same period.
What are the current unresolved issues in transhumanist thought? Which of these issues are peculiar to transhumanist philosophy and the transhumanist movement, and which are more actually general problems of Enlightenment thought? Which of these are simply inevitable differences of opinion among the more or less like-minded, and which need decisive resolution to avoid tragic errors of the past?
In recent years, we have witnessed a flood of books, aimed at the popular market, issuing robust challenges to theistic religious belief. A rather puzzling expression, “the New Atheism”, has been applied to this body of work, particularly the contributions of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. They, in turn, are sometimes referred to, apparently with affection, as “The Four Horsemen”.
Abstract: If God is morally perfect then He must perform the morally best actions, but creating humans is not the morally best action. If this line of reasoning can be maintained then the mere fact that humans exist contradicts the claim that God exists. This is the “anthropic argument.” The anthropic argument is related to, but distinct from, the traditional argument from evil. The anthropic argument forces us to consider the ‘creation question’: why did God not create other gods rather than humans? That is, if God is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect then why didn’t He create a world populated exclusively by beings that are perfect in the same way that He is—ontological equivalents—rather than choosing to create humans with finite natures and all the suffering that this entails?
Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, West Germans as well as East Germans are regularly polled on their stance toward religion. When asked whether they believe in God, most East Germans simply respond by saying: “Nope, I’m perfectly normal.”
It’s all too easy to get one’s own narrative wrong. A pattern-seeking brain takes the raw materials of a messy life, viewed in retrospect, and knits a script with you-know-who in the heroic lead. It’s like a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling a 747.
Fear is a great motivator. Throughout history, successful leaders have known how to use fear to unite and to manipulate their followers. Usually this fear is of “the other,” a group that looks different, talks different, or worships a different god.
How does the concept of “cognitive diversity” relate to those of neurodiversity, neuroconformism, neurotypicality, and brainwashing? Is Aspergers syndrome and autism something we should cure or embrace?
Continuing our extraordinarily popular series of LORCs (Links Of Required Clicking), we’re back again with a new quartet of links that you simply must click.
Freedom stands for something greater than just the right to act however I choose—it also stands for securing to everyone an equal opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The struggle between religion and reason for the hearts and minds of the people goes back at least as far as ancient Greece and has been played out time and again through the ages.
This essay will be translated and made part of the materials at this meeting of Italian Catholics considering radical life extension and human enhancement.
It has come to our attention that the censors running the “Great Firewall” on China’s access to the internet have blocked access to ieet.org, transhumanism.org and humanityplus.org.
When it comes to other people’s views on controversial issues, they should be classified within a two-dimensional parameter space, not just on a single line of agree/disagree. The other dimension is the all-important sensible/crazy axis.
Progress in spaceflight technology has halted at a level that is insufficient for colonization of the solar system, let alone for voyages to the stars. That grim fact was not obvious to me when I wrote the original version of this essay thirty years ago (Bainbridge 1982), but it is apparent now.
Does religion have any proper role in education? Can faith-based teachings, whether conducted in school, at home, or in places of worship be of benefit to individuals and societies?
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