Funny, yet not funny.....
Views, News and Pews
Friday, March 28, 2025
Oops, we've just made a dictator
Monday, February 24, 2025
Theology According to PZ Myers
Avenging Angel: "I'll never be nice to (recanting) MAGAts" says PZ Myers. But what if the repentance is, full, deep and genuine? |
In this post fundamentalist atheist PZ Myers (*1) criticizes a New York Times article written by Ross Douthat. In his article Douthat grapples with the timeless challenge presented to theism by the problem of suffering and evil. Douthat's article on the subject can be found here: The Best Argument against Having Faith in God. Douthat is a theist and writes this...
One interesting point about this argument is that while it’s often folded into the briefs for atheism that claim to rely primarily on hard evidence and science, it isn’t properly speaking an argument that some creating power does not exist. Rather it’s an argument about the nature of that power, a claim that the particular kind of God envisioned by many believers and philosophers — all powerful and all good — would not have made the world in which we find ourselves, and therefore that this kind of God does not exist.
PZ Myers response is...
That is correct. No one uses the problem of evil to disprove a god, but only the idea of a benevolent god, or more specifically, the perfectly good being most Christians promote. When I see it deployed in an argument, it’s usually to make the narrower point that I don’t believe in your god.....
.....But OK, sure, (if) the problem of evil says you should be anything but a traditional Christian, I’ll take it.
What I think PZ is saying here is this: "OK if there is a God, it's anything but a Christian God, given the level of evil and suffering we observe"; that's PZ's theology. It follows from this theology that if there really is such a thing as a Christian God there would be no suffering and evil in his creation. However, for me this kind of theology prompts a huge personal dilemma.....
***
An implication of PZ's concept of a Christian God is that, by definition, morally and epistemically flawed persons such as myself would not exist in the world free of suffering & evil which PZ envisages. Let me expand on that theme a little.....
A morally flawed person such as myself (flawed enough to be the person who readily passes by on the other side like the priest and Levite in Luke 10:25ff), is part and parcel of the tainted world I'm in. My character is so intimately bound up with my context that this context is also inevitably going to contain your Hitlers, Putins, Stalins, Maos, Polpots, Assyrians, Trumps, Kim Jong Uns, Musks, Mugabes, Assads and an endless list of other sinners whose aim in life is to get a hormonal high by securing for themselves the glories and status symbols of self-assertion (e.g. power, legacy, reputation, wealth, conquest, top-dog rule, high status, plutocracy, influence etc.) and whose ambitions have priority over the well-being and lives of others; they may jail or even kill those in their way. J R R Tolkien's great literary metaphor has warned us of the potential evil that lurks behind our social standing and status motivations; namely, the all but irresistible temptations of the One Ring to Rule them all and in the darkness bind them should the opportunity of absolute power fall into our hands. If any of us corruptible sinners should take and wield the One Ring of absolute power there is the potential for corruption on a wide scale. I have trouble enough with those lesser, mean and squalid sins like walking by on the other-side, let alone the irresistible temptations of social ambition.
So, given that I'm sinner enough to be potential One-Ring-to-Rule-them-All material (just like the characters in that rogues gallery which so often cites Hitler as a prime exemplar) I wonder, as does PZ, that our kind of world would have been reified at all by a Christian God; if it is a Christian God who is responsible for its reification, it must cause untold agony in the Godhead. But given that I now enjoy a highly conscious existence in a cosmos with many beauties, glories, pleasures and consolations should I now wish that my world in spite of all the suffering was never created (along with myself) in the first place? That's the big dilemma.
***
PZ's theology tells him that given the evidences of evil and suffering he's fairly sure there can be no Christian God (sometimes I feel the same way when reality bites). But let me try turning that on its head... does the evidence which for PZ excludes the existence of a Christian God actually point in the very opposite direction? That is, to the existence of the God of John 3:16....
"Before" the big bang(*3) the history of our highly organized and seemingly arbitrarily contingent cosmos existed in the un-reified platonic realm as a logical possibility; just as does, in fact, any other story that some human author pulls out of the platonic realm, reifies it in book form and who presides over that book as an absolute sovereign. So, in spite of all it's pain and evil, did God so love this world that he decided to reify it and save it? We've heard it said that God has an inordinate fondness for beetles; does he also have an inordinate fondness for human beings in spite of our very human self-orientation which has such a potential as a source of suffering and evil? This is the unmerited unconditional love of God, "Grace" I think it's called.
***
Douthat leaves the question dangling of just what kind of God has reified our cosmos out of the platonic world of logically possibility. Hence PZ sums up Douthat's argument for God thus...
The straw he (Douthat) grasps at is that any god exists, and you can’t explain that, therefore God.
Yes, arguments for God which have form Evidence X therefore God are subject to all the weaknesses of inductive reasoning. But when it comes to the question of meaning and purpose (if the cosmos has any) I prefer the ultimate abductive explanation: That is, the Christian God is the concept I begin with and then I see if that concept can be used to make the best anthropic sense of the cosmos; In this capacity "God" is the primary epistemic driver which both provides the confidence motivating rational investigation into a knowable ordered cosmos and best of all obviates cosmic absurdity in favour of meaning and purpose. (Gen 1:1, Hebrews 11:1-3, 6).
However, at this noetic juncture there looks to be no logical obligation, at least one we able to grasp, which obliges either God or no God. If there is no God then this may mean that we have to simply swallow as is a cosmos absent of meaning and purpose. In this connection consider the reaction of people like physicist Prof Brian Cox who proposes a story of a cosmos that will ultimately end in the black void of thermodynamic death, an absurd story clearly absent of all anthropic meaning & purpose, apart from that which we invent ourselves. That's not to say that I don't respect Cox's position; it's the position Westerners are left with once they discard the abductive explanation of Hebrews 11:1-3,6.
***
Finally PZ says this regarding the creation:
Except that we don't need and all powerful supernatural being to explain how the world works.
That sounds like the "Science explains everything, therefore no God", a line of argument with which I'm very familiar. See for example atheist theologian Don Cupitt who also easily caved in to this line of thought. But this thinking only works if one believes that science's descriptive completeness is capable of satiating our appetite for full explanation. The fly in the ointment of descriptive completeness is that it is only possible in a cosmos which has an a priori unexplained brute-fact high organisation. (The antithesis of randomness). Any attempt to upgrade science's descriptive answers (which in the final analysis only provide answers to the question "How?") to answers addressing the question "Why?" inevitably leads to an absurd algorithms-all-the-way down regress. Any deeper sense than providing a descriptive grasp on the cosmos leaves untouched those intuitively compelling questions which revolve around the question of meaning, purpose and the question "Why?"(*2). We have instinct that the cosmos has an a priori organization which means it yields to rational scientific inquiry. Some of us also have an instinct that the cosmos has ultimate meaning and purpose and just as we can search out cosmic organisation we can also seek meaning and purpose (Acts 17:26ff).
Footnotes
* I would actually rate PZ Myers, by strictly human standards, as a worthy human being. He's a faithful family man and shows no sign of conceit or dishonesty. He gives every appearance of being genuine in his atheism and his case for it is strengthened by the clowning we get from Christian Trumpites and fundamentalists; but he's an insufferable grouch when it comes to criticising Christians of all brands. However, if I get to the Pearly gates before he pops his clogs I'll put a good word in for him.
*2 One atheist who floats his attempt to address the ultimate "why" is Richard Carrier. He tries to arrive at a generalised logical full-stop beyond which no further endeavor about origins need proceed (apart from filling in details). But this attempt runs aground as a consequence of his misunderstandings surrounding the nature of probability and randomness. For him randomness is the ultimate "god-dynamic".
*3 There are attempts (unsurprisingly) to imbue the cosmos with an eternal quality using theories such as infinitely recurring inflation. The impersonal, dispassionate, eternal cosmos then stands in the place of God as a kind of Gaia incubator of life, a disinterested creator without love or compassion. It is an attempt to put creation on the testable level of spring-extending and test tube precipitating science, but this line of thought still leaves us with the algorithms-all-the-way-down regress.
Fred Hoyle is well known for his much earlier attempt the propose an eternal universe with his continuous creation model. The irony is that in his later years his ideas started to get a mystical religious flavour in what to me looked like a pantheistic philosophy of intelligent design. That God shaped hole was trying to fill itself!
Tuesday, January 07, 2025
MAGA Infighting
This is Godfather country where you have to watch your back for rivals who are also seeking the power & the glory, forever and ever, Amen. |
See below for some notes and links I've been capturing about recent far-right and MAGA internal tensions. The MAGA movement thinks of Government mostly in terms power, personalities and demagogic Godfathers rather than a deep constitution which helps contain ambitious human power & glory seeking. Therefore, I expect the divisions within MAGA and the far-right to become more noticeable as blaming "leftists" and "wokeists" is eclipsed by inter-MAGA rivalry. In particular notice Steve Bannon's comments about Musk and the Musk vs. Farage contention. But I do like Steve Bannon on Musk....
“Someone please notify ‘Child Protective Services’— need to do a ‘wellness check’ on this toddler.”
We can put that together with the web commentators who refer to Musk as a "man-child".
1. Muddle headed Musk
Interesting article on the gut-reacting E. Musk as he has shifted to the libertarian far-right and amplified and contributed to far-right propaganda and untruths on X. He's a typical case of a would-be plutocrat's "one rule for me..." version of free speech. And also typically, anything other than his "unwoke" views automatically classifies as "woke". Musk feeds into the classic Marxist myths. What a windfall for Marxist & Socialist Worker theory!
Elon Musk's curious fixation with Britain - BBC News
See also: Views, News and Pews: Woke vs. Unwoke
2. A rift in MAGA?
‘Contemptible fools’: Elon Musk escalates MAGA rift
I am quite enjoying the chaos on the right
Cracks appear in Maga world over foreign worker visas - BBC News
Trump sides with Elon Musk in MAGA immigration feud over H-1B visas
‘We’re going to rip your face off’ in visa fight, Steve Bannon warns Elon Musk
‘Trump is a little guy, Musk is a big guy’: historian predicts trouble for president-elect
When will these far-right libertarians learn that the whole point of democratic government is to manage natural human disagreement, conflicts of interest and above all ambitious power seeking & glory. Authoritarianism isn't the solution, it's the problem. What we are seeing here is a classic jockeying for power among would-be-autocrats as they attempt to insinuate themselves upon the current big man. Here's Bannon on Musk.....
Donald Trump’s one-time White House strategist Steve Bannon warned Elon Musk Tuesday that he and other MAGA diehards are going to “rip your face off” unless Musk smartens up and stops pushing visas for skilled foreign workers to take good-paying tech industry jobs away from Americans.
He instructed Musk to “sit back and study” to understand MAGA’s - and what supporters believed was Trump’s - America First stance to keep U.S. jobs for Americans.
“They’re recent converts,” Bannon said Tuesday on his War Room podcast, referring to Musk and other tech-world Trump supporters.
“We love converts,” Bannon noted. “But the converts sit in the back and study for years and years and years to make sure you understand the faith and you understand the nuances of the faith and understand how you can internalize the faith.”
Don’t “come up and go to the pulpit in your first week here and start lecturing people about the way things are going to be,” Bannon added. “If you’re going to do that, we’re going to rip your face off.”
Also from Steve Bannon on Musk....
Steve Bannon joined the MAGA immigration civil war with gusto on Friday, calling Elon Musk a “toddler,” and telling the owner of X to “bring it.”
As Musk doubled down on his support for H-1B work visas and criticism of American workers, Bannon posted on the social media platform Gettr: “Someone please notify ‘Child Protective Services’— need to do a ‘wellness check’ on this toddler.”
The former Trump adviser and War Room podcast host made the post in reaction to Musk telling a critic of his stance on immigration to “f*** yourself in the face.”
In Bannon isn't factoring in ambitious human power & status seeking (Unless regulated by a deep democratic system of accountability)
3. Interesting...
'He won't be joining': Nigel Farage rejects Tommy Robinson after support from Elon Musk
Mr Musk endorsed the far-right activist and claimed Robinson was "telling the truth" about grooming gangs, writing on X: "Free Tommy Robinson".
Speaking to broadcasters ahead of the start of Reform UK's East Midlands Conference tonight, party leader Mr Farage did not directly address Mr Musk's comments, but said: "He has a whole range of opinions, some of which I agree with very strongly, and others of which I'm more reticent about."
He went on to say that having Mr Musk's support is "very helpful to our cause", describing him as "an absolute hero figure, particularly to young people in this country".
He continued: "Everyone says, well, what about his comments on Tommy Robinson? Look, my position is perfectly clear on that. I never wanted Tommy Robinson to join UKIP, I don't want him to join Reform UK, and he won't be."
As usual Farage is very shrewd! See also here...
Nigel Farage distances himself from Elon Musk on Tommy Robinson - BBC News
When egos collide: Trump could be next after angry Musk turns on Farage
4. If Steve Bannon is also thinking along similar lines, no wonder he's complaining about Musk!
Elon Musk seeks to install himself as global dictator – and 'so far it's working': expert
I wonder if Donald Trump is going to twig? The American system voted for Trump, not Musk (or Zuckerberg for that matter).
'At each other's throats': Trump insiders said to be 'bickering' over international allies
‘I’m going to have him run out of here by inauguration day’: Steve Bannon escalates his war with Elon Musk Trump’s first term White House chief strategist, who was fired after seven months in August 2017, branded Musk as a “truly” evil person and declared decreasing his influence on the incoming commander-in chief has become “personal”.
“I will get Elon Musk kicked out by the time he’s inaugurated. He won’t have a blue pass with full access to the White House. He’ll be like everyone else,” Bannon told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, with his remarks translated to English.
“He’s a truly evil person. Stopping him has become a personal issue for me. Before, since he’s put in so much money, I was prepared to tolerate it. Not anymore.
'You are dead wrong': Even Steve Bannon warns GOP it's close to making major mistake
5. J D Vance's turn now!
'Hardline MAGA supporters' rip JD Vance for Jan. 6 comments — and compare him to Mike Pence
.....the vice-president-elect is drawing angry criticism from some MAGA Republicans for saying he favors pardons for some but not all of the January 6, 2021 rioters.
Vance told Fox News' Shannon Bream, "If you protested peacefully on January 6.… you should be pardoned. If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned. And there's a little bit of a grey area there."
Nice one JD, but MAGAts don't think in shades of grey......
"Social media posts have circulated comparing Vance to Mike Pence, Trump's vice-president during his first term in office," Tomlinson explains. "Pence is loathed by hardline MAGA supporters for refusing to block certification of the 2020 election result on the day of the riot. Some who marched on the Capitol chanted 'Hang Mike Pence.'"
INTERESTING LINKS:
1. Premier Christianity
2. Billy Liar
Elon Musk slammed for sharing lies about the response to Sweden school shooting
How Not to Be an Idiot: Lessons from Elon Musk • Richard Carrier Blogs: Musk rides on the backs of others
3. More distorted Information
This time from JD Vance
Note: I do NOT support abortion
Hundreds charged with online ‘speech crimes’ under ‘Orwellian’ crackdown
Sunday, December 01, 2024
Once More Unto the Breach: A Clueless Rev. Michael Brown.
Evangelical Michael Brown of the Line of Fire Ministry continues to heart search about his overt Trump support as he wonders where Trump policy will take the country. But for the arguably narcissistic sociopathic Trump, government policy is primarily and ultimately about himself. Trump power comes first and an appearance of adopting conservative values is a means to that end. In this article Michael starts by asking this question:
MICHAEL: What are the cultural implications of Donald Trump’s decisive presidential victory? On the one hand, he incurred the ire of the pro-life movement by distancing himself from historic pro-life stances, gutting the GOP platform in the process. (He gutted the platform in terms of pro-life issues as well as marriage and family issues.) How should followers of Jesus assess all this? On a certain level, things just got a lot more simple. That’s because it will become increasingly difficult for the Church to look to Trump to lead the way on key moral and cultural issues.
MY COMMENT: For the umpteenth time: Trump isn't about policy, whether pro-life or pro-choice: Policy is a shop front tool with which Trump manipulates voters. If evangelicals have ever looked to Trump to lead on moral and cultural values, clearly the grossly immoral Trump has pulled the wool over their eyes about his true intentions. It's no surprise that Trump has equivocated on the pro-life question as he's sought to maximize his vote.
***
MICHAEL: To be sure, he has chosen his battles carefully, highlighting the destructive extremes of radical transgender activism while distancing himself from Project 2025. It seems evident that this reflects pragmatism more than (or, at least as much as) conviction. More and more Americans are saying “No way!” to boys sharing locker rooms with girls and to the genital mutilation of minors. At the same time, the vast majority of Americans have no idea what is in Project 2025, other than the Democrats said it was really, really draconian and evil. Trump campaigned against trans-activism while vigorously declaiming any connection to Project 2025. Again, he’s a pragmatist, and it worked.
MY COMMENT: Chosen his battles carefully? More pragmatism than conviction? Any worthy convictions (and we aren't talking about Trump's criminal convictions here) are liable to be trumped by Trump's Trump-first policy. And yes, if that's what Michael euphemistically calls pragmaticism (= curating your vote) it's worked. As for Project 2025; this is a brainchild of a group for whom Trump himself is but a shop front and a useful idiot.
***
MICHAEL: But when it came to pro-life issues, his insistence that he would not a sign a federal abortion ban into law, along with his adopting a moderate pro-choice position, caused some pro-life activists like Lila Rose to call for a boycott against Trump in 2024 before finally voting for him in the end.
Indeed, from the very strong pro-life language in GOP platforms dating back to 1980, the new Trump-mandated version primarily voices opposition to late-term abortion, which is largely rejected by most Americans. And while Trump emphasized that by overturning Roe, the states could decide what policies to enact, there can be no doubt that his language and emphasis changed from 2016 to 2024.
Again, this is most likely attributed to political pragmatism, as opposition to abortion has been invigorated since the overturning of Roe.
MY COMMENT: "Political Pragmatism" is a euphemism for a pathological liar cynically using the passions behind the pro-life/choice contention to manipulate voters. I doubt Trump has any strong convictions on the subject and will simply bend in the direction he feels the wind of opinion is blowing.
***
MICHAEL: As for issues pertaining to marriage and family, while Trump had said already in 2016 that same-sex “marriage” was the law of the land, he didn’t tamper with the language of the GOP platform in 2016 or 2020. Yet this year, the changes were so dramatic that a Newsweek editorial by Brad Polumbo opined, “Trump's New GOP Platform Is a Massive Win for LGBT Americans.” The older platform stated,
“Traditional marriage
and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation
for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children
and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United
States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define
marriage policy in federal law.”
That language totally disappeared from the 2024 platform. The shift was seismic.
MY COMMENT: More so-called "pragmatism" no doubt!: Ibid my previous comment.
***
MICHAEL: So, I ask once again, “How should followers of Jesus assess all this?” It’s really quite simple. Trump never was and never will be the moral savior of America. As for the GOP, it is not God’s party, championing righteousness and purity in the land. Hardly.
MY COMMENT: True, no party is God's party, but political parties can at least be inhabited by honest principled people, even Godly people. Instead, naive evangelicals like Michael have help feed this gurning cuckoo in the nest of the GOP as it has grown and grown. Trump's son once said that the GOP is now rightly called "The Trump Party"; he's probably right. Thanks very much Michael for helping to create the Trump Party.
***
MICHAEL: But this is not necessarily bad news, since, as I have stated endlessly over the years, politics cannot do what only the gospel can do. And while there are highly moral politicians, and while I still prefer GOP policies to Democratic policies, we make a terrible, sometimes even fatal mistake when we look to a worldly system to carry out heavenly work.
MY COMMENT: On the contrary it's very bad news. Instead of promoting salt of the earth politicians (Like a Mike Pence or a Jimmy Carter) evangelicals in America have been manipulated by a lying power-seeking pied piper into putting him onto the seat of power. But yes, I agree these evangelicals have made a fatal mistake in falling for the trap that is the 1 Samual 8:7-18 syndrome. A simple style over content mistake!
***
MICHAEL: As for other aspects of Trump’s moral example, he is hardly even attempting to present himself as a moral icon. That’s why I say that things have simplified for us as followers of Jesus, in particular, for those of us who voted for Trump. We no longer have to present him as Saint Donald (as some almost did in 2016), the champion of the pro-life movement, a fine upstanding Christian.
MY COMMENT: Well Michael if you don't acknowledge that Trump is the greatest president of all time, the greatest Godfather ever, and worthy of being called Saint Donald you might find yourself being accused of a disturbing lack of loyalty, a traitor to the project 2025 cause.
You must believe this......
MICHAEL: We can recognize his many weaknesses and appreciate all the good he can do without looking to him to do our job. After all, Jesus didn’t say to the President of the United States, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world” (see Matthew 5:13-16). He said that to His disciples. That’s our task and calling. Let’s give ourselves to it, by His help and grace, while praying for God’s best for the president.
And while we can seize the cultural movement in which so many radical leftist policies and ideas are being exposed, we cannot let secular culture lead the way. That’s our job.
MY COMMENT: Well Michael, in focusing on those so-called radical leftist policies you've fallen for some political sleight of hand which has defocused you from your job; that job is acting as salt in society and doing your best to promote honest and principled politicians rather than a narcissistic power seeker who promotes the lies of conspiracy theorism. You idiot Michael, you've allowed you self to be blindsided by appeals to your own vanity by the vainest president elect ever.
INTERESTING LINKS
1. Anne Coulter doesn't Trust Trump-world
'Never trust them': Ann Coulter rages after MAGA star's apology for conspiracy theory film
2. Ominous!
Donald Trump’s disturbing war on the press has now escalated
“It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press.” “Our press is very corrupt,” Trump continued. “Almost as corrupt as our elections.”
3. The logic of coercive "gangster" authoritarianism
Dmitry Medvedev says editors of the Times are ‘legitimate military targets’
Saturday, November 09, 2024
Trump Election Win.
In response to the Trump election win in the US I posted the following entry on my FB page:
With the accession to the US throne of D J Trump it seems we are passing into the era of Godfather rule and the rule of the "unwoke". Given Trump's large evangelical following I'm reminded of 1 Samuel 8:7-18 with its clear warnings about this kind of government. Let's hope & pray that it turns out to be lot less autocratic than it looks
Somebody commented that Trump at least had some policies whereas Kamala Harris didn't have much on offer. My reply was that comparative policies wasn't the issue....
I can't comment on policies, good or bad, Democratic or Republican myself; their evaluation is notoriously difficult. I was swayed by the anti-democracy argument: Trump, the arguably narcistic sociopath isn't in it for policy but for power. Policy for him is just a shop front, or a road to power. The only policy he knows is "Trump"! We've seen this sort of thing in history before where a semblance of democratic constitution gets dismantled by a demagogue...Julius Caesar, Hitler, Putin etc. Even worse who is the would-be dictator who is going to follow showman Trump? Buckle up, we could be in for quite a ride when project 2025 gets into gear! Kamala may (or may not) have been a bad policy maker, but that doesn't figure in my broader thinking. Trump is a cuckoo in the nest of Republicanism, a pied piper of US evangelicals.
The Democrats were quick to accept Trump's resounding win and congratulated him on his victory. It is worth comparing that with Trump's denial of election defeat in 2020. Whatever we think of their policies and goals the Democrats have not (yet) attacked the electoral system unlike Trump and many of his followers. There's something very sinister at the heart of Trumpkinism. Those who make comparison between Trumpkinism and those who oppose Trumpkinism on the basis of a policy comparison should wake-up to the herd of T-Rex's that now crowd the room.
INTERESTING & RELEVANT LINKS
1. John Bolton: Trump seeks fealty, not merely loyalty!
John Bolton sums up Trump’s ideal cabinet picks in one damning word
I also used "fealty" in this post: Views, News and Pews: Well done Mike Pence! But Michael Brown gets a fail.
2. I hope this is just a scare story
'Blueprint of destruction': Experts outline 'chillingly clear' view of Trump's next term
Donald Trump's political career has closely tracked the trajectories of autocratic leaders Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin, whose rise to power offer a "chillingly clear" picture of where his second term could lead, according to historians.
The former president and his supporters are tremendously hostile to civic institutions like the judiciary, the media, universities, many nonprofits and even some religious groups, and Trump will likely follow the lead of those autocratic leaders in Hungary and Russia by sidelining experts, regulators and other civil servants, wrote New York Times columnist M. Gessen.
3. The Cuckoo in the Republican nest is growing
United by loyalty but Trump's new team have competing agendas - BBC News
Trump warned his second term would mean ‘retribution’. His alarming cabinet picks show he means it
4. This goes together with Musk's "UK civil war" comment
Elon Musk brands UK a 'police state' after care worker jailed for livestreaming riots
It's worth noting that the article linked to above (see quotes below) is from "GB News" a UK right-wing news organization that, I think, takes a favourable view of Trump's UK mate, Nigel Farage. It's not clear to me whether or not GB News is critical of Musk's gross misrepresentation of the UK situation. Until they deny it, I'm putting my money on GB News wanting to cozy up to the hyper-far-right that Musk represents.
Elon Musk has branded Britain "a police state" after a care worker was jailed for livestreaming riots in Tamworth.
The tech billionaire made the comment to his 207 million followers on social media after a nine-month prison sentence was handed to 23-year-old Cameron Bell.
Bell was imprisoned after admitting to violent disorder charges for livestreaming a group of masked men making racist comments online during the summer riots.
The woman had joined a gang of hooded men following riots related to events in Southport, capturing the scenes on social media whilst wearing her work uniform.
This latest criticism has added to Musk's growing string of confrontational comments about Britain.
Previously, the billionaire sparked controversy by claiming civil war in the UK was "inevitable" in a post about the August riots.
These comments have followed Musk strengthening his relationship with President-elect Donald Trump, who has announced the tech billionaire will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency.
The department's goal will be to "dismantle" the $6.5trillion US bureaucracy, marking Musk's official entry into Trump's next administration.
5. CRees-SMogg's opinion aired on GB News
I might not agree with all Democratic policies (e.g., abortion) but they are not Godless. Joe Biden was a catholic of course. Kamala made an appearance at a church during campaigning. But much rather the current "woke" crowd than the brutalities of the unshamedly authoritarian "unwoke" tribe who are out to rule us all and in the darkness bind us. Current unwokness is as much a danger if not more a danger than wokeness. Games theory talks about pragmatic alliances.
See also: Quantum Non-Linearity: Marx vs. Smith
6. If you want an example of unwoke verbal intimidation, see this.
Ken Ham, Trump supporting representative of the evangelical far-right let's out all the stops in his attempt at verbal intimidation of Christians he doesn't agree with.
Views, News and Pews: Calling down Hell and Hamnation on Heretics!
7. Very Interesting: Straight out of games theory!
RFK Jr caught on audio comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler and calling supporters 'bootlickers'
8. Something else for Trump to lie about and call "Fake News"
Just how big was Donald Trump’s election victory? - BBC News
Landslide? My foot!
9. Is this a fascist writing for GB News?
Is MacKenize a fascist?....
Were I Starmer, or any other Labour politician, I would stop the lip curling about the petition calling for a new General Election which has now hit an astonishing 2.6million.
It reflects an anger on the streets that this government
lied its way to power. Lied to the pensioners over energy, lied to ‘’working
people’’ over their taxes and lied to business that Labour was pro-growth when
in fact it was pro-deceit.
A lot of famous people signed this petition and
turbo-charged to where it is today. The most famous of these, by a long way is Elon Musk. He simply said: "The people
of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state."
Who could argue with that. The Allison Pearson scandal involving Essex police is enough to confirm that. Let’s be honest if she hadn’t
had much of the media behind her she could well have ended up in the same
prison as those two ladies with their Facebook posts.
Musk’s increasing hostility to what Starmer is doing to the
UK is a worry. Although I almost agree with every sentiment I can see Trump is
using him as a mouthpiece and that he intends to be tough on us both
politically and economically when he moves into the White House in January.
That must be a worry, especially for those who lean to the
Right in the UK. We would be in favour of Trump’s policies but against the pain
they are causing us personally. It would also give Starmer a platform.
Plutocrat Musk was responding to the thuggish/fascist riots in August whose damage was repaired by a communal effort of peaceful citizens. That, of course is ignored.
Friday, November 01, 2024
Religious Popularism vs Academia
The academic establishment has become increasingly disconnected from the religious and mystical yearnings of a large section of the human race and their need for noetic security. There was a time when academia and religious authorities were intertwined and together they provided guidance (and security) on the meaning, purpose and shape of life. There was a price though; this security was bought at the cost of authoritarianism and the persecution of dissenters. ....we only need think of both Catholic and Protestant executions of "heretics". For example, even in the 18th century a Norwich man was executed for publicly claiming the stories of the Bible to be fables.
In contrast what we are getting from the academic community today is at best non-committal noises about the questions of meaning and at worst contempt, cancellation and even persecution of those who presume to offer challenges to a purely secular world view. Given the great changes in the cosmic perspective that have occurred since the enlightenment it is really no surprise that most academics either don't have the confidence or don't regard it as their duty to help fill in the "God shaped hole" in the heart of humankind. Western societies have lost their convictions and are inclined to believe that exosecular world views cannot be anything more than mythical.
The withdrawal of the academic community from thinking itself as a supplier of spiritual guidance and even in some cases treating with contempt popularist & folk expressions of exosecular beliefs has led to a self-reinforcing polarization. As folk religion seeks some kind of firm anchorage for its beliefs by resorting to the vehement certainties and group pressures of fundamentalism, its increasing extremism seems to be a kind of reactionary punk contrarianism, a protest movement against modernity. These reactionary communities have reciprocated the contempt they have received from academia. They will even ferociously attack Christians who they classify as outsiders because they regard them as being on the slippery slope (or the slippery staircase) of unbelief. But who started this vicious circle of mutual antagonism, contempt & increasing extremism? That's sounds like a chicken-and-egg question to me!
It's true that many fundamentalist communities now glory in the anti-establishment mire of cranky anti-science flat-earth-like beliefs, conspiracy theorism, authoritarian leadership regimes, and quasi-racist Christian nationalism, thus inviting ridicule and contempt. Worst of all in the US they have formed a pact with quasi-criminal Trumpism and even in some cases Putinism. Sections of the US evangelical culture have fallen into such outrageous belief and practice that it provides the perfect extenuating circumstances for unbelief. But we can't just blame polarization on fundamentalists. Evangelical atheists like PZ Myers and Richard Carrier are part of the regenerative coupled system of tit-for--tat animosity that borders on mutual hatred. In this connection I was amused to see that Ken Ham's organization wasn't slow in taking PZ Myers to task for publishing false accusations about Ken's AiG organization. I don't think for one moment that PZ knowingly published false information, it's just that given his probable view that AiG are an organization of lying grifters he joined the data dots with the worst possible interpretation, hinting at a story of nefarious goings on behind the scenes. In his original blog post the implication was that AiG are using a private jet to occasionally visit the Cayman Island tax haven to stash away cash, tax free. AiG picked up on this innuendo as false and defamatory: Read the story from Myers side here: I’m in trouble with AiG and its lawyers
And here's the first part of AiG's letter to Myers:
RE: False and Defamatory Statements
Dear Dr. Myers:
We represent Answers in Genesis, Inc. (“AiG”). We are writing to demand you and your blog, FreeThoughtBlogs, cease and desist further publication of your article Why are creationists so pasty pale at Answers in Genesis? posted at https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ 2024/10/17/why-are-creationists-so-pasty-pale-at-answers-in-genesis/ with a October 17, 2024 publication date (the “Article”). The Article contains several false statements and distortions of fact intended to defame our client.
The Article begins with the following statement: “AiG owns a private jet,” which is false. AiG has a lease for the fractional use of a private jet. In other words, AiG does not own a jet. It owns a percentage of an aircraft’s flight hours each year, approximately 25% of the allocated usage. The ministry has no oversight or involvement regarding the other 75% of use. The reasoning for the fractional use of a private plane is not about luxury but practicality, allowing the ministry to reach more people over a shorter period of time.
With that being said, it could very well be true that this jet “frequently darts down to the Cayman Islands for one-day visits.” However, that does not mean that those trips are taken by AiG. In fact, they are not. No AiG personnel have used the jet (or any other aircraft) for trips to the Cayman Islands.
The letter goes on to consolidate the case against Myers.
Obviously, there is no love lost here: PZ Myers genuinely believes that AiG are a gang of lying grifters and on their part AiG are likely to see Myers as a slave to the wickedness of unrighteousness as described by Romans 1:29-32. After all, if Ken Ham can be so spiritually vicious in his attacks on those Christians whose views undermine the rationale for his AiG business interests, he's clearly going to also pull out all the stops with atheists like Myers.
This highly polarized context is the milieu in which we see US evangelicals (Ken Ham, Michael Brown, Franklin Graham etc) siding with secular leaders who are arguably of a fascist persuasion and prepared to gain and hold onto power by resorting to Machiavellian means. These quasi-criminal Godfathers have made a pact with US evangelicals by promising to defend their values at the price of taking the West back to simpler more cognitively anchored, more authoritarian and but more violent times. If they gain ascendancy in the West, what do you think might happen at the next anti-government protest given the presence of those AR15 armed Trumpite militias? And what do you think might happen to dissenters in view of D J Trump's firing-squad comments about Liz Cheney? Was he just joking or was it just an insensitive metaphor? I hope the US doesn't take the risk in order to find out.
RELEVANT LINKS
1. My Links
Quantum Non-Linearity: Anti-Science or Anti Academic Establishment?
Quantum Non-Linearity: Christian Fundamentalists Embrace Flat Earth.
Quantum Non-Linearity: New Agers and Fundamentalists
Quantum Non-Linearity: The Trump Victory Part 2: Anti-Establishmentarianism
Quantum Non-Linearity: The Trump Victory. Part 1: Folksy Levellers.
Quantum Non-Linearity: Cloistered Academics vs. Christian Punks
Quantum Non-Linearity: The Anti Gravity Road Show.
2. Harrison Ford's Warning
Harrison Ford issues revenge warning as Hollywood legend reveals presidential endorsement
Ford continued: “The truth is this, Kamala Harris will protect your right to disagree with her about policies or ideas.
“The other guy, he demands unquestioning loyalty, says he wants revenge.”
3. George W Bush
Bill Clinton defends George W Bush over his endorsement decision
3. US Democracy's demise?