Toluu

Planet Atheism

Aggregating blogs by non-believers and freethinkers

Individualist vs Collectivist SystemsJanuary 7

I am writing a series answering some basic questions about the philosophy that serves as the foundation for this blog. So far I have presented the idea that there are moral facts. Moral facts concern relationships between malleable desires and other desires (not some sort of intrinsic moral property). This implies that moral facts can change over time as relationships between real-world objects change over time. However, you cannot change a moral fact merely by changing your mind, any more than you can change your height by merely believing you are taller.

These posts came from a set of questions sent to me by somebody who included the following.

I come from Objectivism (the philosophy of Ayn Rand). I consider myself an individualistic anarchist, (free market anarchist). Does Objective Moral Relativism equate to a collectivist worldview or is it proper for an individualist (take someone who comes from Randian premises)?

I came from an Objectivist camp as well – and stayed there through most of high school and until the early years of college. I gave it up when I realized that my Objectivist friends, even though they claimed to have a great deal of respect for reason and reality, held a system that asserted the existence of things that do not exist, and defended them with twists of logic that rival those of any religion.

When we are talking about value, only one type of value has been shown to exist - has bee

On CryonicsJanuary 7

Last summer I wrote a post, "Why I'm Skeptical of the Singularity", which gave some reasons for doubting that godlike machine intelligences will ever come into being. Today I'll discuss another idea popular among enthusiasts of transhumanism, namely life extension through cryonics. Here, too, I intend to offer a qualified skepticism.

Overcoming Bias presents a strong case for cryonics, in a post which pleads with readers to sign up for the process. I'll use them as my foil. My own viewpoint, meanwhile, hasn't changed significantly since I first touched on the topic in "Life Is Fleeting":

While in the remote future it is a very real possibility that we will unlock the key to personal immortality, for the time being such rosy scenarios are more science fiction than science fact... The most advanced freezing technology in existence today still causes massive cellular damage, irreversible in all except the most fantastic scenarios of what future technology will be capable of. In essence, this is little more than a materialist version of Pascal's Wager.

I realize comparing cryonics to Pascal's Wager is likely to raise some hackles, but the comparison is unavoidable when advocates of cryonics didn't so o

Searching the web the Catholic wayJanuary 7

Google's a bloody good search engine, isn't it? What a shame, then, that I won't be using it any more. Not now that I can switch to Catholic Google, a stunningly unnecessary new resource which conveniently undermines the free flow of information that so defines the internet by "[producing] results from all over the internet with more weighting given to Catholic websites and [eliminating] the vast majority of unsavoury content, such as pornography."

As a review of the site sent to me by Christina Martin points out, the search engine's tailoring/censorship mechanism means, for example, that in a search for "birth control" the first results that come up are Catholic pages warning against its use. Alas, the review also points out that Catholic Google isn't so great at weeding out porn sites, as the reviewer found by searching for "

Jesus – in his full gory – was scaring kids and had to goJanuary 7

A GORY depiction of Christ on the cross – hung in the sixties outside St John’s Church in Horsham, West Sussex – has been removed by the vicar because it was frightening children and scaring off worshippers.

The Jesus sculpture: scary enough to frighten off crows

The Rev Ewen Souter yesterday told the Daily Mail:

The crucifix expressed suffering, torment, pain and anguish. It was a scary image, particularly for children. Parents didn’t want to walk past it with their kids, because they found it so horrifying. It wasn’t a suitable image for the outside of a church wanting to welcome worshippers. In fact, it was a real put-off.

He added:

We’re all about hope, encouragement and the joy of the Christian faith. We want to communicate good news, not bad news, so we need a more uplifting and inspiring symbol than execution on a cross.

The vicar said it would be replaced with a modern, stainless steel cross.

Rev Souter, who has been vicar at St John’s since 2001, believes the modern new cross – designed by artist Angela

FBI Report on Hate Groups in the MilitaryJanuary 7

In July of 2008, the FBI released a report entitled (U) White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11 describing the activities of hate group members in the United States military services. This post is a continuation of this previous post.

Some choice bits from Page 7:

• (U//LES) Two Army privates in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, received six year prison sentences for attempting to sell stolen government property in mid-2007 to an undercover FBI agent they believed was involved with the white supremacist movement. The property included ballistic vests with plates, a combat helmet, and the controlled substances morphine sulfate and Diazepam.

• (U//LES) In May 2003 the US Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) advised the FBI of six active duty soldiers at Fort Riley, Kansas, with possible AN affiliations. One of the six, who has unconfirmed service in Iraq, sought to recruit members from within the Army and served as the AN’s point-of-contact in Kansas.

• (U//LES) In mid-2000 and leading into the early 2001 assessment period, Army CID and FBI sources of unspecified credibility reported on the recruiting of individuals stationed at F