Some Contemporary Heresies

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On Merveilles

When old friends ask what I’ve been up to lately, I usually start by saying “Well, I joined a cult.” Which is a satisfying thing to utter in the moment because, objectively, it’s a more interesting answer than an asker of this mundane question has a right to expect. There is an additional layer of surprise involved for those who know me well, since I’m an inveterate non-joiner. But as a secret admirer of actual weird cults, it is on some level what I have longed to be able to say since I was audited with an actual e-meter in a Scientology tent.

Disclosure Day

Across the films of Steven Spielberg, aliens have frequently been a vehicle to explore religiosity from a secular perspective. Institutions and dogma are elided in favor of dramatizing the ecstatic feeling of believing in something far beyond one�s station, and having that faith rewarded.

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or…

AI as Christian Heresy

A pocket history of the rise of artificial intelligence, and some strategies for resistance.

The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship: An Examination of Epistemic Autocracy, from the 19th to the 21st Century

A. In the past, the elite manipulated the population through a more mystical belief system. In particular, there was the institution of Sun worship (typified by deities such as Osiris and Set). However, as antiquity gave way to modern history, this system of control began to lose its effectiveness. During the sixteenth century, the ruling class managed to co-opt a relatively new methodology of truth discernment...science. Over the years, they would contaminate this institution with their own virulent strains of thought...metaphysical naturalism, radical empiricism, Malthusianism, Darwinism, behaviorism, radical environmentalism, etc. Many of these paradigms were derivative of their own occult doctrines, thinly veiled to appear as objective science. All of these concepts correlate in some way and, at some point, coalesce. Together, they are gradually paving the way for the re-introduction of the hidden god of the Ancient Mysteries.

Why it’s as hard to escape an echo chamber as it is to flee a cult | Aeon Essays

First you don’t hear other views. Then you can’t trust them. Your personal information network entraps you just like a cult

The changing nature of America’s irreligious explained

Americans are increasingly choosing not to identify with any religious tradition. But this group of irreligious people is a complex one – with different relationships to religion.

Believing what we do not believe: Acquiescence to superstitious beliefs and other powerful intuitions.

Fear of Knowledge: Against Relativism and Constructivism

In recent times, relativist and constructivist conceptions of truth and knowledge have become orthodoxy in vast stretches of the academic world. In this unique volume, Paul Boghossian critically examines such views and exposes their fundamental flaws. This short, lucid, witty book shows that philosophy provides rock-solid support for common sense against the relativists; it is provocative reading throughout the discipline and beyond.

Paradox of tolerance

The paradox of tolerance is a philosophical concept suggesting that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance. This paradox was articulated by philosopher Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), where he argued that a truly tolerant society must retain the right to deny tolerance to those who promote intolerance. Popper posited that if intolerant ideologies are allowed unchecked expression, they could exploit open society values to erode or destroy tolerance itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices.

Religious intolerance is 'bigger cause of prejudice than race', says report

Attitudes to faith said to drive negative perceptions more than nationality or ethnicity