Theophobia, Dehumanization, and Depersonalization: A Critique of Prominent Secular-Atheist Thinkers
Samuel A. Nigro
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Theophobia, Dehumanization, Prominent Secular, Atheist Thinkers,Psychiatry
This was originally written Feb 2007….
The secularist/atheist (SA) junta has grown with increasing numbers of self-promoting books and articles championed by iconoclasts attacking everything except the contemporary Joseph Goebbels’ orchestrated press and media (See “media influences” in Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science and Social Policy, pages 691-693). This presentation will critically address many popular believers/ perpetrators of "secularism and atheism" (SA). My comments on each will hopefully spare all the bother of reading the rest of these atheistic tomes. The basic theophobia, dehumanization and depersonalization intrinsic to SA and SA's will be described. Additionally, I will provide full reviews and critiques of all selected quietuses as Addendum I (Please read them!). Finally, a second Addendum II will be offered containing Counter-Secularization comments and articles.
1. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (2006). This book is chosen first because it is a paradigm of the dishonesty and superciliousness of SA's. To total and permanent discrediting, Dawkins refuses the technical meaning of the most important word in his entire book:
"Delusion -- a fixed false belief out of keeping with the patient’s cultural background...a false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality. It is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof of evidence to the contrary. The belief is not ordinarily accepted by the members of the person's culture or subculture -- Concise textbook of Clinical Psychiatry, Saddock and Saddock, 2006.
Dawkins blatantly disregards the technical definition of "delusion" and insults his readers with a meaningless definition of "delusion" as anything that has not been proven to his satisfaction. Dawkins admits, in the preface, page 5, to ignoring severe objections and criticisms from not one but three psychiatrists about his use of the word "delusion.” How are we to believe anything that follows from this man after reading this fraudulent title? How true will he be when he describes the precision of St. Thomas Aquinas? Obviously, Dawkins has his own false beliefs that are not accepted by his culture. Actually, by any definition, “God” cannot be a delusion.
2. The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins, (1976). We are survival machines -- robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes (Opening paragraph to the Preface of the 1976 1st Edition).
Suggestibly overwhelmed by evolutionary theories, Dawkins totally buys into natural selection as neo-Darwinism (Darwin with genes), and he believes in "speciesism" meaning that no species has any priority over another. Dawkins describes genes as having "conscious aims" but then he waffles so he can deny he means it. He anthropomorphizes the universe and all complicated "creatures" in it. He originates the "meme" concept and admits the propaganda of creating a monosyllable that sounds like "gene" in order to enhance the suggestibility of his own metaphor of "memes" as cultural behavioral phenomena impacting on evolution. Do not call his fabrication "meme" but "me-me" -- that is what he is foolishly talking and writing about.
3. The extended phenotype by Richard Dawkins, (1982). With his, no doubt, genetically based humility, Dawkins professes this book to be the best thing he has ever written or ever read.
He announces this book as “unabashed advocacy” in the first line on page 1, and consistent with that, the book barely approaches carafe wine academic scholarship; for example, he uses the female pronoun "her" instead of the correct gender neutral "him" throughout the book, which reveals his iconoclasms include the Oxford English Dictionary. The metaphor madness and obsessive/compulsiveness in this book could be called "witchcraft." He perseverates with everything, special pleads on every page and provides good demonstrations of non-being research. He reminds me of Freud's psychobabble and intense fabrication without proof. The analogy holds that Dawkins is to biology what Freud erroneously claimed he was to mental functioning. Dawkins’ central thesis is:
"An animal's behavior tends to maximize the survival of the gene, "for" that behavior, whether or not those genes happen to be in the body of the particular animal forming it" (Pg. 233)".
He thinks he proves this by a study of beavers and lakes. Another book, Darwin’s Fairytales (reviewed in Addendum II), raises further doubt about Richard Dawkins, his selfish genes, memes, and most everything else he writes.
4. The End of Faith, Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris, (2004). This book won the 2004 PEN Award for Non-Fiction...as if non-belief is not fiction. Amazing! Reacting to September 11, 2001, Harris looked closely at Islam and said "Eee gads" and decided to condemn all religion. His analysis of Islam in Chapter 4 is a very accurate and succinct description of Islam, but he offers nothing to help. Generalizer Harris refuses distinction of Islam's violence promoting Quran from the traditions and Holy Scriptures of Christianity and other religions. But yet he defends the need for political, non-religious violence in the United States and Israel. Well, except for the chapter on Islam, the book is filled with anti-religious themes not necessarily fairly presented. All religious texts are dismissed because he asserts believers have not made as much progress as he thinks he has, and if Harris cannot "conceive" it, it cannot be believed. He denies the sacredness of anything, maintains the silliness of all beliefs and has a nihilistic anti- evolutionary bias that man is the best evolution can do. Unwittingly Harris replaces religious arrogance by scientific arrogance with solipsisms.
"Faith is what credulity becomes when it finally achieves escape velocity from constraints of terrestrial discourse -- constraints like reasonableness, internal coherence, civility and candor (Pg. 65).
About beautiful and salutary actions provided by religious people, he states:
"But there are far better reasons for self-sacrifice than those that religion provides. The fact that faith has motivated many people to do good things does not suggest that faith is itself a necessary (or even a good) motivation for goodness (Pg. 78)".
Repeatedly, Harris is incomprehensible (like the last sentence just quoted), ahistorical, unreasonable, without evidence, and fanciful if not delusional. His concept of goodness does not include justice such that there should be reparations to the Roman Catholic Church for all it has done in every country, everywhere, by her schools, social agencies, hospitals and humanity efforts over the centuries. He closes his book with the command that "faith belongs with ignorance, hatred and greed" (Pg. 226), a comment appropriate for himself as he offers pessimism, hopelessness and joyless paralysis. This is a poor man's book of Job with a loser's ending.
5. Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, (2006). If Richard Dawkins is the Elmer Gantry of secular/atheism then Sam Harris is the Adolph Hitler for the same.
"I engage Christianity at its most divisive, injurious, and retrograde. In this liberals, moderates and non-believers can recognize a common cause (Pg. IX)".
The common cause is to attack Christianity and all organized religion at straw man worst. Arrogance, prejudice, superficiality, and feigned intelligence are evident. For two examples, Harris has a superficial understanding of slavery and is totally oblivious to Natural Law as a basis for morality without Scripture.
"Atheism is not a philosophy; is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. Atheism is nothing more than noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs (Pg. 51)".
Harris sets himself up as the intolerant closed-minded determiner of whatever is to be "justified" as worthy of belief! Then he admits to "noisemaking" about it, which is probably the most accurate statement in the whole book because noise is what the book is. Harris also revels in the "limbo controversy" concerning the eternal fate of unbaptized children:
"When one considers the fact that this is the very institution that has produced and sheltered an elite army of child molesters, the whole enterprise begins to exude a truly diabolical aura of misspent human energy (Pg. 66)".
What is diabolical is the follow up of the preceding statement by proclaiming "intellectual honesty" is the core of science (pg. 64). Well, Harris needs to know, in intellectual honesty, that there is no "elite army of child molesters" unless it is in the public school system with a rate of sex abuse of children at least 3 times that of the homosexual teenage boy problem in less than 2% of Catholic priests. And, if public school systems voluntarily paid its sex victimized students comparable to the Roman Catholic Church's voluntary reparations for its far fewer sex victims, there would not be an open public high school in the country, and, by the way, Protestant and Jewish organizations would be a lot fewer if they did the same.
"It is time we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail (Pg. 67)".
The book offers no evidence that Harris understands much about religion except its "worst" as unfairly, unhistorically and unscientifically engaged and imagined dogmatically. Harris’ remarks are the bigoted promoting of ethnic cleansing of the worst kind: i.e., clever and sinister—like Adolph Hitler creating Jewish and Christian strawmen to hate.
6. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon Daniel C. Dennett (2006).
Dennett is an example of defeat of self. The book is filled with constricting atheistic anti-social selfish aimless "me me me" -- faithless, hopeless, grudge-filled and smugly "charitable," to all but religious people. Dennett attempts to "break the spell" of religion for all. He is enthused about Dawkin's "meme" concept and it is fair to identify Dennett's God as "memeMeme" (pronounced "me" or "Dennett" 4 times). Like Dawkins, truth is insulted by pervasive distortions and fantasies. Anti-transcendental suggestibility is promoted by one unproven suggestion after another. Dennett has a token understanding of transcendent values (Pg. 376- 78) limiting them to "truth" and "justice" and maybe "good" but he does not understand religion at its best as a pro-planet, pro-nature, pro-human, pro-social belief in being and God. The book is well written but superficial, interesting yet unconvincing -- basically feigned erudition. The most disturbing part is Dennett's emphasizing many times over that religion provides little good and little culture (which is why I combine my review of this book in Addendum I with that of a rebutting book, Who Really Cares. Dennett breaks no spells but spins his own by a spiritless hyper-rationality to a level of meta-science which leads to an ersatz me x 4 faith analyzing to nothing. Dennett negates human beingness and offers a counterfeit Christianity of "making nice." Finally, if religion is "a natural phenomenon" as in the title of this book, "What is atheism?"
7. The Designer Universe by Steven Weinberg, (2007).
SAs are often bogus scientists or, worse, real ones. This is the 1979 Physics Nobel Prize Winner:
"Any possible universe could be explained as the work of some sort of designer. Even a universe that is completely chaotic, without any laws or regularities at all, could be supposed to have been designed by an idiot".
In keeping with that philosophical outsight, Weinberg offers his own design but does not address the question as to whether an idiot could ever understand a brilliant designer. Weinberg asserts that all designs, spirit, order, harmony, ascendancy and whatever of a spiritual nature can be dismissed because:
"Today we understand most of these things in terms of physical forces acting under impersonal laws... I see nothing about the human mind any more than about the weather that stands out as beyond the hope of understanding as a consequence of impersonal laws acting over billions of years".
One hopes his far reaching understanding of the weather can teach him something or maybe he is just depressed. Weinberg admits that certain constants of nature have values that seem to have been mysteriously fine-tuned to adjust the values that allow for the possibility of life, but then he gives concrete examples of elementary physics maintaining that all this is just one fragment of a much larger universe in which big bangs go off all the time, each one with different values for the fundamental constants.
In scientific words: How many universes can be on the head of a pin? His just quoted words are a scientific leap at best and scientific trash at worst—there is no evidence for any such polyverse or multiverse, and I emphasize that the word is “universe” with accent on the “uni.” Consistent with the verbal nihilism of irrelevant “”unverses”” conceived by mathematical idiots, "person" and all other immortal words can have no real meaning for SAs, because there is no meaning to anything in SA nihilism. Furthermore, Weinberg’s logic relies heavily on a lottery analogy overlooking the fact that a lottery itself must have a designer. Consistent with his peers, religious historical negatives are exaggerated and, as all SAs, he overlooks that almost all religion negatives invariably, at least from a Christian view point, are misdeeds against real Christianity rather than deriving from it.
8. Atheist Manifesto: The Case against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam by Michel Onfray (2007).
Popular in Europe which he helped kill, this book is his first English translation and, therefore, likely to be his best. It is a word salad about atheism. The megalomaniac author claims to be the only one who really understands atheism. Onfray presents himself as the first real atheist, all prior atheists not being atheistic enough, such that the Masons were nothing really but "christian atheists." He offers "atheology" as the name of his personal sect for the SA religion, calling all other religions to be metaphysical, ontological diseases (Outside SA there is no salvation). Revealing his intelligence, Onfray maintains his Marxism in spite of its obvious historical failure. He has no problem with pedophilia and almost anything else:
"The hedonist contract -- nothing could be more immanent -- legitimatizes all inter-subjectivity, conditions, all thought and action, dispenses utterly with God, religion, and priests...It is an ethic without transcendent obligation or sanction (Pg. 58)".
Onfray offers no rational, reasonable bases to prohibit any sort of sexual activity and just about anything else. So, after declaring "anything goes" he proceeds to condemn people who pray. A few glimpses of this madman's homilies on religion: "Monotheism's somber vision" (Pg. 65); "Down with intelligence" (Pg. 67); "The book bias against books" (Pg. 78); "Hatred of science" (Pg. 81); "The detesting of women" (Pg. 102); "Ravings of a hysteric" (St. Paul)(Pg. 131); "In praise of slavery" (Pg. 137); "Hitler, St. John's disciple" (Pg. 166); "The Vatican admired Adolf Hitler" (Pg. 184); and "Jesus at Hiroshima" (Pg. 191). As a psychiatrist, I believe it is more charitable to see Onfray as a mentally ill man exploiting the system as best he can (as Picasso did). Some of his verbose sections are almost incomprehensible, filled with disorganized and loose associations. His "In praise of slavery" (Pg.137) is pure psychobabble and not about slavery. It is frightening that this sort of stuff makes it into print and will be praised, no doubt, by like memes and genes. These are semi-delusional manic-like ramblings no doubt made passable by a pseudo-sophisticated over-worked team of editors who, exhausted, still missed a lot. This book does nothing but prove how suggestible people are, and that the best definition of Original Sin is "the suggestibility to become anti-transcendental."
9. God is not great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens (2007).
As Jimmy Durante said, "Everybody wants to get into da act!" Hitchens reminds me of a story which made rounds when I was in nuclear submarines in the early 1960's. Admiral Rickover was addressing a large group of Navy officers who were applying to be part of his rapidly expanding new nuclear Navy. Rickover mentions “backgrounds” and an officer abruptly stood up and began to list his broad range of degrees,
diverse experiences, and myriad accomplishments. After several minutes, the admiral interrupted him saying, "You have done and learned a lot of different things, mastering nothing, and I want nothing to do with you. You are a real rolling stone. Get out!" Well, that rolling stone is back and it is Christopher Hitchens, master of nothing and gadfly of all.
In the very recent past, we have seen the Church of Rome befouled by its complicity with the unpardonable sin of child rape, or, as it might be phrased in Latin form, “no child’s behind left” (page 4).
This quote begins to give the thinking pattern for Hitchens on every page of his book: overstated half-truths thrown twice as far (child rape-page 4); impudent unreliability (Richard Dawkins-page 5); irritable pervasive slanderous negativism (Blaise Pascal-page 6); hyperanalysis to the point of destruction (a standard scientific procedure) (C.S.Lewis-page 7); bigoted prejudging and metastatic stereotyping (Moses-page 8); massive unfair generalizations (the abolition of religion-page 9); trenchant hyperbole (himself-page 10); and a cornucopia of ipsedixitisms and logical fallacies (book cover and page 1 through page 286). In summary, the book presents a smartass jackass enlightenment about all in the index: saints, religious traditions, all scriptures, all religious organizations, the New Testament, the Old Testament, The Talmud, The Quran, religious leaders, Eastern religions, big religions, little ones, and any religious prayer or thought. And after all this drivel, he asks religious people to “leave me alone” (page 13). After my full review in the Addendum I, we should do so because rebuttal is unnecessary.
10. Humanist Manifestos (HM) I (1933) and II (1973).
Claiming that "nothing human is alien," both HMs intolerantly deny and alienate the human phenomenon of theology and many other religious themes including life after death. Basically, the HM definition of "humanness" is empty. HMs, like all SAs, neither know what a human being is nor what constitutes "human beingness." Containing contradictions in simplistic pseudo-piety, HM I offers 15 commandments while HM II adds two more. The HMs' commandments are dogmatic pontifications by Moses wannabes. For a few examples, Commandment #5, "The preciousness and dignity of the individual person as a central humanist value" contrasts with Commandment #6, which includes the right to birth control, abortion and divorce. HMs diminish the idea that life has a value making it secondary to "civil
liberty." The 11th Commandment states "practicing humanists should make it their vocation to humanize personal relations," but I would argue that real human beingness, peace and togetherness would be offered more fully if one would "personalize human relations," because to "personalize" is super human and go beyond one's biological abilities -- SAs just do not understand supernature and therefore always remain at a primitive level just below pagan. What is obviously true is that the HMs have not delivered. They neither affirm life nor elicit the possibilities of life for anyone much less all. HM I gave us the Nazis and the Soviet empire. HM II gave us unnatural anti-animal kingdom (and therefore anti-planetary) sex, abortion, death promotion, genome control, never born-free, and a one world anthill filled with pretensions of freedom well described in the book 1984. The outcome of human history for the SAs of both Humanist Manifestos is sterile, vapid, servile, prevaricating, denatured nihilism. And, SAs always tendentiously censor and suppress, if not deny, the fact that Humanist Manifestos pronounce that they are establishing their own "religion." Obviously, therefore, all SA pronouncements contained in these Manifestos are "religion," and, thus, all SA promotions must be precluded from government and public school promotion because of separation of church and state.
11. Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins (1996).
This book is reviewed to give a glimpse of the way many evolutionists think. But I was starting to tell the story of how lenses might have evolved in the first place, from a vitreous mass that filled the whole eye. The principle of how it might have happened, and the speed with which it might have been accomplished, has been beautifully demonstrated in at computer model by a pair of Swedish biologists called Dan Nilsson and Susanne Pelger. I shall lead up to explaining their elegant computer model in a slightly oblique way (pages 160-161).
Knowing of Dawkins untrustworthiness, I looked up the article. It presents “theoretical considerations” of schematic changes from a “light sensitive patch” to a focused lens eye” by 8 stages of 1,829 steps of 1% change estimating small design improvement in optical geometry, thereby changing the model from a “flat patch” to a deepened “vitreous body filled cavity” (a “camera eye”). The mathematical calculations of the changes in this cartoon estimated “only a few hundred thousand years” for it to occur. The article itself states that the model does not introduce structures for a functional eye such as adjustable iris; structures for distance accommodation; a vascularized layer; the choroids; retinal cells for photoreception, polarization sensitivity and colour vision; a supporting capsule; the sclera; the blood supply; structural support; or external protective structures. The model is a speculative series of sketches mathematically considered by an imposed assumed rate of change. There is no “elegant computer model” and the word “computer” was not even in the article. Dawkins again: “The central message of this chapter is that eyes evolve easily and fast, at the drop of a hat” (page 190). Right. The rest of the book is the same junk science. So is most of Dawkins, Darwin and all SA in being repeatedly self-discredited by enthusiastic untruthful and irrational disciples.
Closing Remarks