Mark Recommends a Thing (#1)

The Adventure Begins...

Winston Smith over at “Escaping Mass Psychosis” is embarking on a journey into the unknown. From my perspective, his adventure will be one riddled with pitfalls and traps, and he will find himself besieged by all manner of villains and monsters along the way. Good thing he packed a bag, and knows how to handle himself.

A Strong Delusion 1.0

I for one can’t wait to pack a duffel of my own, and join him on this quest. It’s the best kind of quest, because the prize is no less then the Human Truth. That, of course, is different than God’s Truth. But I believe that is the best we can hope for — in this limited, embodied format, at least.

As for those “villains and monsters”, I had a bit to say about them in the comments of his second post (“A Strong Delusion 1.1”):

I have always found "religious" Darwinians (i.e. those who view blind mechanism as some form of God-proxy) to be quite shallow and simple-minded, once you scratch the shiny surface. This is not to say they are stupid; many of them are quite brilliant, in the generic sense of that word. But their brilliance is reminiscent of athletes who've exercised one particular muscle-group to such an absurd degree that their bodies have become unsuitable for any other task (My wife once proposed the image of a skateboarder with one GIANT leg, lmao).

The notion of "complexity-through-error" is itself revealing, in a "million monkeys typing Shakespeare" sort of way. It is almost as if they are working very, very hard to divorce meaning from life, the way men like Dawkins and Sam Harris do. It never surprises me when their mask of sanity slips, revealing the howling darkness within. Oddly enough, the reveal often has to do with the harming of children. In Dawkins' case, it was the suggestion that it would be "unethical" to bring children with Down's Syndrome to term. In Harris', more recently, it was the statement that he didn't care if they "found a basement full of dead kids on Hunter Biden's laptop."

I know that a sample size of two does not constitute a pattern, but I have witnessed the same overlap between atheism and child-harm in discussions of gender identity and abortion often enough to suggest that the correlation is extremely widespread, and I find that fascinating.

Is that unfair? Perhaps. But only in the sense that it is impossible to know the actual content of other minds. I cannot know, for instance, if Sam Harris’ dark and savage analogy was some sort of hyperbolic joke that fell flat; not everyone has gifts for comedy, after all. On the other hand, I think I can confirm that Dawkins was being deadly serious, from his utilitarian perspective. I’m as radical a free speech advocate as you ever will meet, so I would never infringe on their right to say such things. In fact, I think it’s even of practical use to hear them say it, in much the same way that the “Inglorious Basterds“ character, Lt. Aldo Raine, liked his Nazis in uniform.

Okay, okay, let me soften that blade a bit: I don’t think that disbelief in God is evil per se. And my default position is that the word “delusion” is too strong, when describing strict material-rationalists of the Darwinist faith. Moreover, I think that’s their word, which they have deployed against people like me with alacrity in the recent past. I try to keep the black speech of Mordor out of my mouth as much as possible. However, I will let Winston paint that picture for me; perhaps he will change my mind.

Regardless, Winston’s essay series will tackle the most difficult (or perhaps the simplest?) question of all: how does a little puddle of proteins grow up to write an essay series about itself? “Random chance and mutation errors” is the preferred answer of the Darwinian purists — including (but not limited to) those who advocate for the death of children, or make unfunny “jokes” about them in order to score cheap political points. I suspect Winston has discovered a much different answer; one not only sculpted from evidence and reason, but pursued with the purest of motives: to learn the truth.

Speculative journeys, like all journeys, are simultaneously stories. It’s almost as though life — and in particular, human life — cannot help but shape itself into stories, as if there’s an elemental tale that is not simply embedded in us, but functions as an expression of what life is and means. And I for one can’t wait to find out how this particular version of that story ends.

I highly recommend you pack a bag and come along. Just keep a sharp eye out for dragons, robots, ninjas and other critters on the prowl. I guarantee they will pounce, sooner or later.

P.S. If you found any of this valuable (and can spare any change), consider dropping a tip in the cup for ya boy. Suggested donation is $1 USD. I’ll try to figure out something I can give you back. Thanks in advance.