Serious atheism reveals its ultimate meaning and destiny

In an exchange with VFR commenter Hannon at the vast Secular Right thread, Daniel Dare, one of the most active commenters at that site, turns freaky:

In my ideal world, the rationals would leave the Earth to the believers, and head off into Space. You would never find us again. There we could explore the cosmos in peace never to be bothered by religions again.

I believe in the long run, the only way we can fully pursue our path is in Space. Above all since the path includes transhumanism. Which I think many religious people will find very troubling.

In the end I suspect, the people committed to pure reason will have to go their way, and leave the religious to go theirs. It is a big universe, there is room for all kinds. Diversity is part of the strength of Mankind. That is why I do not wish to undermine it.

Thanks for Hannon for eliciting from Daniel Dare his ideal world. Assuming that Dare means it and is not pulling our leg, it is remarkable and revealing. It is an expression of the total alienation from the normal that occurs with aggressive, consistent atheism. Since most people on earth believe in a deity, and since the Secular Right types believe that any people who believe in a deity are “pre-rationals,” i.e., virtually another species from the “rationals,” the SR types are alienated from most of humanity, and specifically from our own country and civilization. While they find the secular Euro-bots, God-haters like themselves, more to their liking metaphysically, unfortunately the Europeans are socialist, and so cannot be allies to the secular right. So where on earth is there a place for atheist, God-hating conservatives? There is none. And what is there for the secular rightists to do? Leave earth for outer space. Further, their alienation from humanity is expressed in their interest in transhumanism, the development of new species that are crosses between human and machine.

Which shows how, once you embrace “pure reason,” and thus reject anything beyond the human, you’re left with no basis for the human. There’s no necessary reason for the human to exist as the human. As I’ve said before, the nature or inner structure of a thing, such as man, is “transcendent” to that thing. Man has a nature, a wholeness that transcends any individual man and provides the order of each individual man. This wholeness cannot be seen by secular reason. Therefore secular reason rejects it. I repeat: secular reason rejects not just God, but human nature itself. Pure reason thus feels free, indeed, it feels compelled, to develop transhuman species.

Thus the consistent rejection of God and of anything that transcends secular reason leads to an alienation from humanity, from the earth, from the creation itself. The devotees of pure reason must leave the earth, leave humanity, and become their own gods, creating their own species.

Well I dreamed I saw the silver spaceship
In the yellow haze of the sun
There were children cryin’ and colors flyin’,
all around the Chosen One
All in a dream
All in a dream
The loading had begun
Flying mother nature’s silver seed
To a new home in the sun
Flying mother nature’s silver seed
To a new home in the sun.

(Neil Young)

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 20, 2009 01:44 AM | Send