The secular suicide cult

***QUOTE***

MASTER ZAP SAID:
[Quoting me] If the truth does us no good, then why should we care?

Because it's the truth, perhaps?

I, like Dawkins, care about the truth.

The problem with theism is that they are too afraid to face the truth. The truth is big, ugly, scary, and doesn't fit into the cartoon universe they want. So they invent the cartoon universe variant of it, and live happily in this imagined falsehood.

Does the truth scare ya? To quote Dawkins; "Well, that's just tought."

[Quoting me] So, as soon as we learn enough to find out that certain positions are losers, we can safely ignore them and redirect our attention to positions which are more promising—which would be beneficial if they were true.

I.e. wishful thinking.

Yet another post in the triablogue series of "we obliquely admit our worldview is nothing but wishful thinking".

Guys, we knew that already.

ANONYMOUS SAID:

You have tipped your hand once again.

Your anti-science rants are amusing and give a window into the compartmentized mind of a fundie calvanist and therefore worth the occasional read. However, engaging any effort into real substantial give and take with you is futile. There is no give, only take. You are exactly a representative of what you rail against, an arguer full of claims that offers no return on the inevestment, if your investment is looking for someone who is engaging you in an intellectually honest manner.

The fact that you only wish to "invest" your time on claims that give you a feel-goody answer highlight your bias and your inability to search for truth. Your arguments, while full of sophistry, are nothing more than you propping up your hopes and desires.

pffft.

***END-QUOTE***

One of the striking things about unbelievers is how some of the act like kids who colluded to cheat on the exam. Only, when they hacked into their teacher’s computer, they pulled the wrong test key.

So, instead of getting all the same answers right, they get all the same answers wrong. Corroborative error.

Reading the above, notice how “free thinkers” with their “critical thinking skills” are indistinguishable from groupthink?

As was clear from my original post, I’m not talking about known truths, but about known truth-claims.

Opposing positions make various truth-claims. So, in principle, there’s a two-step process:

i) Learn the truth-claims, then:

ii) Learn which truth-claims are true (or false).

My point, which went over the heads of the nullifidian commenters, is that where certain truth-claims are concerned, once you complete the first step, you can skip the second step.

When Dawkins comes to a blind alley, he counts the bricks.

When I come to a blind alley, I turn around and look for another way out.

When Dawkins is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he writes a book on The Cancer Cure Delusion.

When I’m diagnosed with terminal cancer, I get a second opinion or explore experimental therapies.

When the prison guards tell Dawkins that escape is futile, he measures the gas chambers for new drapes.

When the prison guards tell me that escape is futile, I go right ahead and look for a hole in the fence.

If Dawkins were counseling a five-year-old dying of leukemia, he’d tell the kid:

“You’re a lucky accident, a colony of bacteria, a host for DNA parasites. There are all sorts of things that would be comforting. I expect an injection of morphine would be comforting—it might be more comforting, for all I know. Wouldn't it be lovely to believe in an imaginary friend who listens to your thoughts, listens to your prayers, comforts you, consoles you, gives you life after death. But the universe doesn't owe you condolence or consolation; it doesn't owe you a nice warm feeling inside. So you'd better live with it, because there is nothing after it!"

At least, that’s what he’d sat if he didn’t lose his nerve at the last moment.

As for me, I pray with the child and share the gospel with him.

One of the ironies about so many unbelievers is how dutiful they are. How loyal they remain to the Grim Reaper of Darwinism.

If the Darwinian Reaper orders them to march off a cliff, they salute smartly and go marching right off the cliff, with drums rolling and flags flying.

If someone speaks slightingly of him, they rush in to defend the honor of the Darwinian Reaper.

They will volunteer for any suicide mission the Darwinian Reaper proposes. They will swell with pride at the privilege of being cannon fodder for the Darwinian Reaper.

On a related note, one of the oddities of human nature is that many people will kill themselves en mass who would never kill themselves one-by-one. The sense of camaraderie is what makes mass suicide possible.

The mob psychology of the Darwinian community is interchangeable with a suicide cult. Before he finally died, Bertrand Russell was the cult leader.

His passing left the cult without an inspirational—or, should I say, expirational?—leader to rally around. But after their dark night of the soul, the Darwinian faithful have found a new leader in Dawkins.

At the time of writing, Dawkins is making a nation wide tour to plug his new book, The God Delusion.

He only plays to a sympathetic audience in carefully selected venues. He plays to the galleries with finger-waging oratory—like a graying father-figure who trades on the appetite of the young for parental approval.

A suicide cult is a shame culture in miniature. Loss of face is the social glue.

That is why, if a member chooses to leave the cult, his defection is treated as an act of betrayal. For the only thing which gives the members the courage to kill themselves is the sense of solidarity. Who is any individual to let the team down?

And this is why Dawkins constantly resorts to emotive rhetoric which is intended to either shame outsiders into joining the movement or shaming insiders from leaving.

In the Darwinian game of chicken, anyone who refuses to down the Hemlock is a scaredy cat.

Like cult members generally, Darwinians feel like the righteous minority. They wear the social stigma of atheism (as they imagine it) as a badge of honor.

They may be despised by the majority (as they imagine it), but they are despised for their virtues, not their vices. They live for a back pat, and die for an epitaph.