(Part 2) Best products from r/Freethought

Summary: This article is by the author of "Atheists: The Origin of the Species" a book whose stated conclusion is that "we should expect to hear more about atheism in the future for the simple reason that God is back." Because the scientists he chooses to write about have been Christians like himself, he believes there's no need to become an atheist simply to be "scientific" (whatever that means to him), and he further explains that the people who call themselves atheists are doing so not because they happen to lack a belief in any deities, but instead for political reasons.

Go google the history of our leaders regarding "Cult of Personality" vs "Cult of Character".

Also, go read (or get at your library/audible) Quiet: The Power Of Introverts.

https://www.amazon.com/Caesars-Messiah-Conspiracy-Flavian-Signature/dp/1461096405

http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Church-Built-Western-Civilization/dp/1596983280

I've seen hedge funds described in much the same way

https://www.amazon.com/Ponzi-Factor-Simple-Investment-Profits/dp/1976949955

I wonder if historically something like Dewey the Cat will have sold more copies than something like The Iliad. Well, maybe not that, but maybe something like Suicide by Durkheim or Sula by Morrison. Also makes me wonder if I've missed out on an especially stellar book due to poor sales/bad publisher/poor promotion/general non-awareness.

She has a contact form here where she asks you to ask permission to use the phrase Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.

Some new readers have started to review her book here

Okay, let's do an example in rational thought. My imaginary daughter comes up to me one night and says "daddy, there's a troll under my bed". We go and look under the bed, and the troll isn't there. She says he's invisible when the light is turned on. So we turn off the light. No troll. So we grab a broomstick and try to hit the troll with it. But we hit nothing. Then she replies, "adults can't see or touch them".

This should set off alarm bells. And I say, but sweety, trolls don't exist. Now go to bed and let me sleep! Now the little girl says "trolls DO exist!". This is a statement of fact, which is a testable statement. But how can we test it? We can't see the troll, we can't touch the troll, ultimately no evidence of the troll's existence can be found. So far all tests of the troll's existence have failed. If we didn't know that trolls are mythical made up creatures, the rational default view on trolls is that they don't exist, just a concept. If evidence can be found that trolls exist, within the definition of 'troll', then that would become a valid statement of fact. And we all of a sudden have a rational reasons for believing trolls exist.

Similar situation with God. The default position on God existing is: "what is this God, and what is the evidence for his existence?". People believing in God isn't evidence of anything, other than false beliefs at best or lying to themselves at worst. What is the evidence that God exists? I'm still waiting for an argument or evidence to convince me otherwise. I don't believe the entity 'God' exists or not. I don't believe anything related to God because for me it's a concept and nothing else. An imaginary friend for trillions of people around the world. I hold no position on God, because there is no evidence to change my position away from the 'default'. And the default position is that X doesn't exist until evidence to suggest otherwise is found.

> Now it seems very unlikely to me that everyone would simply be lying.

Everybody lies, especially to themselves. This includes myself as well. Which is why you shouldn't take anything I say as a statement of fact. But should treat this with critical thought.

> However if literally the majority of the worlds population can be deluded to the point where they believe in something as crazy and monumental as a god and not realize it then you must also be aware that your yourself could be equally delusional.

How many other religions and gods existed before God? Look into the history of religion and you'll see how billions of people have deluded themselves for thousands of years. All thanks to some rather gullible parts of our brain.

All of the above, and more can be found in here.

Heh. 18th and 19th century races make 2016 look tame. Go back and look at the history. It was ugly. Read this for an eye-opener.

If you would like an interesting book about early sleaze and corruption, read this book about the Dismal Swamp Company. Even George Washington was involved and you bet both the Clinton Foundation and Trump, Inc. would have been involved with the Dismal Swamp had they existed back then.

Get real, folks. American politics always has and always will be a rotting cesspool.

"As opposed to some other theory that suggests existence is absurd?"

Well, I could see how that could be seen as a straw man. I think it is more that some people like Albert Camus (or who use similar lines of thinking) might conclude that reductionistic thinking about life makes human aims absurd. I am not sure what anything we currently know or think scientifically about life means that human existence is absurd. So, I could see how maybe that was a bad thing to put in the book description or in the book. I think it is a response to someone like Alex Rosenberg who wrote The Atheist's Guide to Reality: https://www.amazon.com/Atheists-Guide-Reality-Enjoying-Illusions/dp/0393344118 Rosenberg argues that the everything is ultimately just about the interactions of fermions and bosons. People have argued in response to him that he wrote a book to convey this, so apparently that's not all you need in order to understand everything. Anyway, Rosenberg isn't a scientist though and there isn't a scientific theory that argues human existence is absurd... just saying though.

>The claim isn't that if you don't eschew arguments for the supernatural, you aren't exercising freethought, it is that you are doing it poorly.

Those are the same things! You are making a categorical statement about the quality and quantity of all the possible, hitherto proposed evidence out there in favor of the supernatural without even having investigated it, and ask that all other "freethinkers" should reason the same way! That's dogmatic per definition. Not only are you prematurely claiming that there isn't evidence for it, you are saying that everyone else who exercises "freethought" must come to the exact same conclusions.

It's like saying that "all freethinkers think that the evidence supports the official story of 9/11 being true" or "all freethinkers think that the evidence indicates that 9/11 was an inside job". You're arguing about conclusions, when you should really be focusing on the tools of reasons that are utilized in order to reach those conclusions. Do you see the crucial difference?

>The same can be said for religious claims. For example, a proper application of skepticism necessarily leads to a rejection of the Bible as a historically accurate document. These things are not considered false a priori-they are rejected because of a lack of evidence or, in some cases, evidence to the contrary.

So every "freethinker" has to come to that specific conclusion in order to merit being called a "freethinker"? Again, I don't see the freedom to exercise your own reason within that framework.

That's not to say that I think the Bible is a good historical document, but that you are telling everyone else what to believe. You are assigning a specific set of conclusions that you want every "freethinker" to adhere to. What's that all about?

>We can treat Grossman's claims about NDEs similarly.

First of all, thank you. You actually engaged with the material. Now, his specific essay isn't the point of me creating this thread, but I am very glad you chose to engage in it anyway :) Let's go!

>The evidence just isn't there for NDEs-it is a poorly researched field and much work needs to be done to make any solid claim one way or another as to their causes.

And... You've researched all of the hitherto gathered evidence? Because if you haven't, I don't see why you make that claim. See for instance this. If you made this statement in the 1970s, I would agree, but the NDE has actually been studied quite a bit since then.

>Some prevailing hypothesis are naturalistic, and by Occam's razor we should consider these explanations first

The thing is, though, that we already have. Extensively. Whether you're entertaining the birth-canal memory hypothesis proposed by Carl Sagan, REM-intrusion, apoxia, hypoxia, excess amounts of CO2, wishful thinking, cultural expectations or drugs (such as DMT or Ketamine) as your materialistic explanation of NDEs, the evidence is demonstrably incompatible with them. There is no materialistic theory available that is compatible with the NDE for a plethora of reasons.

>they don't require the postulation of an entirely new, un-demonstrated (un-demonstrable?) realm of existence

No, they only require that non-active brains are creating the most vivid experiences (by FAR) that the person has ever experienced, and that people with shut down brains can see and hear what's going on everywhere in accurate detail.

Additionally, NDEs are nowhere near the only line of evidence which demonstrate the existence of these other realms of existence. Which leads us to:

>Citing such poor evidence as anecdotes from children of memories from past lives, he cites Robert Almeder to express his view that "it is unreasonable to reject belief in reincarnation". Anecdotes, shoddy data, and ill-supported explanations are rampant in the article.

So, you are familiar with the quality of this data? Or do you have a prejudice and bias against it?

Furthermore, we don't just have NDEs, Death Bed Visions, Children who remember previous lives, Mediumship communication and apparitions. There's also Terminal Lucidity, Death Bed Coincidences, Shared Death Experiences, After Death Communications, etc. All of these phenomena are compatible with and support the transmission theory of consciousness, and falsify the production theory of consciousness (the theory that the brain creates the mind).

>This hypocrisy and willingness to side with flimsy evidence

What hypocrisy? What flimsy evidence? Isn't if funny that you depict so eagerly the quality a set of evidence that you aren't even aware of as so poor, just to protect your already established worldview?

Grossman had researched this evidence for more than 20 years when he wrote that article (2002). You didn't have to even research the evidence in order to make a categorical dismissal of his entire argument.

Who's hypocritical?

>Positing a supernatural explanation with poor evidence indicates a poor application of skepticism and freethought.

>As we learn more about NDEs, we will have the ability to say more about them with the credibility that comes from solid evidence.

I agree with what you're saying here, but you are again erroneously operating from the assumption that we don't have any good data on NDEs, when we do. And that's just a piece of the puzzle.

We could have a lot more data. I want a lot more data, but the research is being neglected for the very reasons that Grossman outlines in his article. But just because we could have more and better data, doesn't imply that we have no data to go on now. We have enough data already from more than 30 years of research into this phenomenon to infer that materialistic explanations will never be able to account for the NDE.

>Jumping into a poorly-researched field and injecting supernatural claims because the natural ones are insufficiently supported by evidence is the same as the 'God of the gaps' argument.

It's not that they're just insufficiently supported by the evidence, it's that materialism itself as an empirical hypothesis is falsified by the evidence.

>As an afterthought, you (and Grossman) seem to have a misconception of the definition of atheism. Atheism is the rejection of theistic claims, not the claim of their antithesis. For example, an atheist says, "The existence of a god/gods has not been demonstrated, therefore I reject claims of god." He does not say, "The existence of a god/gods has not been demonstrated, therefore no gods exist." Grossman's claim of atheist fundamentalism seems to be largely a misunderstanding.

Dude, I grew up a weak atheist. I know the distinction very well. What have I or Grossman written that makes you think that we are being uncharitable or mistaken toward the definition of atheism?