Tuesday 10 April 2012

"The Divide" Embodies Ideals of Atheistic Capitalism


I have just watched The Divide and it made me think about the new socially created reality the western world is preparing for humanity.  It is a secular world without God where human beings are no more than animals fighting for resources, survival and pleasure.  It is a world where the measure of success is survival and power over others no matter the cost as long as it is not "the successful" who has to pay it.  It is a world ruled by fear where altruism, empathy, sense of justice, mercy and goodness of heart are nothing more than a sign of weakness and an object of ridicule.  It is an ugly world with no room for ethics, no appreciation of aesthetics, a world deteriorating into a primordial goo of barbaric hedonism and savagery.  Fallen creatures (or should I say beasts) inhabiting that world are no longer civilised... they have no manners, no style, no higher needs, no beauty in them.  Do we really want to enter this brave new world?  Do you want your children to live in a world depicted so thoroughly in The Divide?  Do you want them to become such creatures themselves?
The microcosm of The Divide shows what it means for an average human being to attain complete freedom promised by Atheism where there is no God serving as a mirror reflecting our deeds back unto us and showing us what we are and what we can become.  Sure, there may be exceptions - there may be some people who, in spite of being atheists and materialists, would not turn into ruthless savages even when subjected to the most extreme conditions.  But an average member of the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, when persuaded to believe that there is no God, no soul, no further existence after death, will be smart enough to understand that there is only one true value in life and that is his/her well-being.  The only rational goal is to survive for as long as possible and to experience as much pleasure as possible and let others pay the cost.  Watch the film and, irrespective of your current belief system (i.e. whether you are an atheist or a theist), ask yourself a very cynical question: "Is our race ready to live in a world without God, in a world where faith is no longer a safety net for the law and social pressures?".  When viewed from such perspective, the divide between atheist and theist beliefs becomes something else.  It is no longer a question of what is true but a question of what truth do we want everyone to believe in.

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As an aside, for a true atheist and materialist, the truth is what they believe in (metaphysical questions, like the one about the existence of God, are by definition unverifiable using the scientific method - the only verification would be possible post mortem and in their world view there is no post mortem) which means that if such a person chooses to believe in the existence of God then that belief becomes the truth for them.

Richard Dawkins Scared of Evidence


Another example showing dogmatic (not to say fanatical) attitude of an infamous militant atheist Richard Dawkins.  This time Richard was not interested in fighting theists or religion but scientists whose research did not agree with Richard's worldview.  Here are some interesting excerpts (the whole can be read here: http://www.sheldrake.org/D&C/controversies/Dawkins.html):
 

We then agreed that controlled experiments were necessary. I said that this was why I had actually been doing such experiments, including tests to find out if people really could tell who was calling them on the telephone when the caller was selected at random. The results were far above the chance level.
The previous week I had sent Richard copies of some of my papers, published in peer-reviewed journals, so that he could look at the data.

Richard seemed uneasy and said, “I’m don’t want to discuss evidence”. “Why not?” I asked. “There isn’t time. It’s too complicated. And that’s not what this programme is about. The camera stopped.

The Director, Russell Barnes, confirmed that he too was not interested in evidence. The film he was making was another Dawkins polemic.
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Richard Dawkins has long proclaimed his conviction that “The paranormal is bunk. Those who try to sell it to us are fakes and charlatans”. Enemies of Reason was intended to popularize this belief. But does his crusade really promote “the public understanding of science,” of which he is the professor at Oxford? Should science be a vehicle of prejudice, a kind of fundamentalist belief-system? Or should it be a method of enquiry into the unknown?

Like Rupert Sheldrake, I dream about science being a method of enquiry into the unknown - i.e. free from aggressive fundamentalists like Dawkins.  Unfortunately, I fear that the majority of people nowadays calling themselves scientists do not behave like open-minded geniuses and would feel at home in the ranks of Spanish Inquisition.

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If you are interested in Rupert Sheldrake and his research there is an interesting video of his speaking at Google Tech Talks in 2008 entitled The Extended Mind: Recent Experimental Evidence.  The part where he recounts his meeting with Dawkins starts here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JnA8GUtXpXY#t=5193s

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