Different parrot breeds have different personalities.
Different dog breeds have different personalities - all are the same species.
Where did Western Enlightenment values come from? Freedom of speech, doubt, skepticism, reason, logic, Greek philosophers, Christianity, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, men on the moon, modern science & medicine, your iphone.
Did the above come about because of good memes, or good genes?
People like Steven Pinker and Jordan Peterson would probably push for the "good memes" route.
People like Ricardo Duchesne (search youtube for recent vids) and Stefan Molyneux (ditto) aren't afraid to give credence to the "good genes" route.
What can we blame whitey for?
1. An end to Universal Slavery, thanks to the UK Parliament, and to the good Englishmen who founded America. Also thanks to 365,000 pink skins (AKA "whites") who died to the American Civil War.
2. The rule of law.
3. Regulating the power of a monarch by an elected representatives.
4. A separation of church and state.
5. Innovation and creativity unmatched by other groups on this planet.
So, was it good memes, or good genes to blame for the above? A complication was that there's a synergy between genes and memes.
Every human flavor has their strong traits. Their advantages, which are frankly probably evolved, and evolved for darn good reasons.
As for whites, it's incredibly racist and utterly unfair to hoist the problems of the world onto white children who are born innocent.
If all races get to be proud of their contributions except for whites, well that really is retrograde and racist.
I married an East Asian and so I have no problem with so-called "race mixing" per se of course. But I also have no problem with people having some degree of in group preference. Freedom of association means the freedom to not associate. That's fine.
Don't treat pink skins like we're vending machines who cough up money when other races try & guilt trip us for past sins.
Amerindians, had slaves, and did pretty much all human groups from the beginning of time.
Aboriginal Australians, had slaves,
Islamic people, promoted slavery.
Yes in the past whitey did things all other human groups did. But is the greatest contribution to the human family, from pink skins, the key concept that we need to doubt what our leaders tell us? Doubt is the foundation of reason, and of science, and of true progress. To separate facts from fiction, we must doubt.
The poodle which are the pink skinned whites of the human family. Good genes which allowed for doubt, or just good memes? Perhaps a combination. And if Steven Pinker & other public intellectuals are made uncomfortable by the truth of origins of the Western Enlightenment, so be it.
In my view Dalia Mogahed is an abusive Puritan and cult member. Advocates for the hijab / niqab / burqa are basically Puritans. Liberals just hate Christian-originated Puritanism, but they love Puritanism which emanates from any flavor of Islam (eg: the widespread worldwide Saudi-funded & CAIR supported version), or when it comes via any idea that counters or casts doubt on any aspect of the dominant leftie paradigm.
Video interview of Dalia Mogahed on the Daily Show:
Response to the following point made by Dalia Mogahed:
---quote begins
What a Hijab does is it basically privatizes a woman's sexuality.
So what are we saying when we say that by taking away or privatizing a woman's sexuality, we're oppressing her? What is that saying about the source of a woman's power [in the media]?
---end of quote
My response:
13.8 billion years of evolution by natural selection has not "selected for" a privatization of female human sexuality.
Maryam Namazie's response to the hijab, a most excellent response!:
World hijab day - as celebrated by Maryam Namazie, the way the day should be celebrated (ie: without a hijab):
Why is Puritanism ok when it's expressed by a Muslim woman who's in a hijab, but not ok when it's expressed by a conservative Christian?
Puritianism is abusive in it's own right, whether that Puritanism is expressed by someone like Dalia Mogahed, or whether it's expressed by past Mormon prophet Spencer Kimball or by John Harvey Kellogg.
Maajid Nawaz, a near lone truly-liberal Muslim voice, on the hijab:
Quote: "...Even when adopted through individual choice, it is the religious-conservative assumption, this modesty theology, that women who do not wear headscarves are somehow sinful, less modest and not pious, that we liberals must critique. For at the root, it is this same attitude that is invoked in honor killings, and heinous acid attacks..."
The hijab is abusive, abusive for exactly the same reasons why Puritanism in general is abusive: It/they attempts to warp human sexuality into something it is not by default and by (evolutionary) design: hidden.
Because their are Islam-run countries which force women to hijab, and because mosques worldwide force women to wear it, it's abusive. It's also abusive because it separates men & women into an inherently abusive and unnatural state & relationship status.
Women should be showing their hair & necks, in public, to men & to other women. Period. And if you see value in "privatizing" the normal natural healthy human sexuality expressed via women's hair, necks, and faces, you are an abuser. And if you're a cult member who believes there's value in such covering, you are an abuser.
Tawfik Hamid talking about how Puritanical Islam fucks up the brains of young Muslim men: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxfo11A7XuA Why do desert tribes hate sexual system activation? Clothes on humans may well be natural. Otherwise abusive body mutilations humans engage in within various "aboriginal" "native" tribes (eg: male & female genital cutting aka circumcision) may also be "natural." Religions are natural. But not everything that's natural is good nor do all natural things make humans happy generally nor cause them to thrive.
In any case puritanism is abusive regardless of it's source, whether that source is Islam, Islamophiles, lefties who love Islam & the hijab, your local Saudi-funded mosque which forces women to be segregated and to hijab, or Mormonism, or Catholicism, or etc.
Somewhere between letting it all hang out and hanging people for doing so is where humans are happiest and thrive the most. But the hijab is more on the hanging-people side of things than any other.
Here is some general advise for the religious & social right & middle:
1. Put more of your energy into searching for secular arguments to back up the otherwise good & valuable human morality that exists with your cultures.
3. Admit that on the "god" front (including on evolution), the intellectual argument has mostly gone to the side of the left.
4. Many of the moral arguments you make do have value - when made a bit less harsh.
Daniel Dennett's dangerous idea: Religion is a natural phenomenon. This fact cuts both ways. Fully natural, normal, valuable, and useful human morality can and does exist within religious frameworks. A damn hard thing for a liberal to admit! In fact many liberals are in active denial.
It's no wonder that Steven Pinker has commented about the modern denial of human nature, in his book The Blank Slate.
The left IS in denial, just as the right has been about god & evolution.
Yes we ARE animals, with BUILT IN morals, AND some damn good reasons for ascribing shame (yes shame!) to certain otherwise descructive human behaviors.
I remember when Christopher Hitchens made not of how the left was in denial about Islam and both the right & left about Mother Theressa.
I remember when Daniel Dennett stated "Dennett's Dangerous Idea" (thanks go to me for coining this if no one else has to date!), that: Religion is a natural phoenomenon. Again, this apparent fact cuts both ways. Very inconventient for the social agenda of assholes like P.Z. Myers and the like. The fundie left.
Why all the gay stuff? Because the left worships homosexuality as the pinnacle of liberal sex. No kids. "Cha-ching" they say - "we're helping the environment!" Automatic birth control. Perfect liberal sex. Also perfect liberal marriage.
People trying to "recover" from conservative religion can be and are easily sucked into the abusive fundamentalism of the left.
For example: Atheists of Utah - in my view a fundamentalist religion of the left. Doctrines. Dogmas. Unquestionable paradigms. An ultra-leftist social agenda. Voted by Q Salt Lake as the best religion, and a runner up to being the best social group.
But where's the regular straight families? Where's the children? Where's the people who value good old fashioned healthy happy useful family values? They're actively excluded. They MUST be, because politically correct leftist dogmatism is their core religion.
Boozer parties where high alchohol content liquor is raffled off.
Not only does the conservative emperor have no clothes (eg: Joseph Smith), the liberal emperer has none also (eg: "gay culture"). The latter group are happy about that though, with their constant posting of near-naked photos of themselves on facebook.
Hey, I've seen it all first hand. I've seen the ultra-right AND the ultra-left. Unlike your average muff mouthed muff brained liberal, I've done in depth research into BOTH "ultra" sides. And here's what I've found: BOTH SIDES are nearly equally abusive!
It's sad that scientists claim they're being objective when they're not - on social issues.
They're ok with being mostly-objective when it comes to far off things like planets, or far distant in history things like dinosaurs. BUT, question their ultra-leftist social agenda on things like marriage & family, and by fuck they will revert to the new-ultra-dogmatic-religion-of-the-left as quick as a bat out of hell. Two seconds. Maybe one
"Yes, here on the high pillars of academia, we poo poo and laugh at the poor middle & right leaning religionists, with their views on the existence of god & evolution. BUT, question our social views and we'll quickly show you just how religious WE ARE as scientists - so-called scientists who refuse to be scientists when it comes to social issues."
So, yes, Mr. & Mrs. Conservative, you ARE right to conclude that groups of scientists, AND atheist groups, AND secular groups, most such groups are religions - dogmatic religions of the left.
----------
Both sides, right & left, poison of the well of reasonable discussion regarding natural normal good valuable useful human morality.
Jumping from one extreme to the other is no solution.
Honesty is the answer! Both to dogmatism on the right & the left.
Mr. White is a government employee working at Illinois State University. What department does Mr. White work for? The science department? The history department? No! The English Department! AND IT SHOWS.
I read Mr. White's lame excerpt from his amateurish book at Salon.com.
White seems to be a big advocate for the blank slate view of human nature, a view largely debunked by modern science. Also I'm sure White would be irritated by Sam Harris's book on morality but I doubt he's even checked out the book.
White seems to believe that the Exodus may have happened. Ok, what's the first f-ing thing you should do nowadays when writing a book? Check wikipedia!
The consensus among biblical scholars today is that there was never any exodus of the proportions described in the Bible,[14] and that the story is best seen as theology, a story illustrating how the God of Israel acted to save and strengthen his chosen people, and not as history.
The KEY thing about White's book is this: IT'S F-ING LATE. The guy couldn't manage to publish this hanger-on parasite of a book while Hitchens was still alive, and while he could respond in person and in the flesh. But, there's plenty of us who very much appreciated and valued Hitchens' work, who remember his words and his style.
Curtis White is in my view a coward and a liar, and he's unworthy of his role as an "educator" at a public university.
Dinesh D'Souza claims that we shouldn't let biologists out of the lab. However, it's rather more accurate to say that we should keep idiot English professors OUT OF IT.
Liberals are still upset at Hitchens over Iraq, and it shows. They dig up every piece of poo they can and heave it onto the grave of an otherwise noble dead man, for profit and attention. Was it right to go into Iraq? Hitchens made the ONLY case I listened to, and it was, at the very least, an intellectually honest and honorable case. Examine Hitchens' work on Mother Teresa & Bill Clinton - two wonderpeople of the idiot-hippie ultra-liberal-left. Now today people like Reza Aslan has the left by the balls, as he pulls them around teaching them that Mohamed was a man of peace.
Science & history, as shared with us by people like Steven Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens, isn't metaphysics. When idiot White uses the term, it just shows he hasn't done his homework. But that's not surprising. When you're a creative writer you don't need to do much else other than pull crap out of your ass.
For those of us who were members of real religions, like Mormonism, and conservative Christianity or Islam, we remember what's it's like to be brain washed & lied to. People in light & fluffy religions have no idea what it's like, no idea whatsoever. Pompous intellectuals like White would just assume let people continue in their ignorance, because liberal religion does so many good things in their view. But one thing liberal religion does which is particularly bad is that it gives people permission to continue to believe in bullshit, and it maintains a taboo against being critical of bullshit beliefs.
Check wikipedia before you write a book Mr. White. And, next time you're going to shoot out a huge poop from your bum, at least have the decency to aim at a person who's still alive, and who can respond to your tripe.
As an atheist I whole heatedly disagree with Peter Singer’s positions on abortion, infanticide, and human rights.
Notes from video commentary, with additional thoughts:
Religion is a natural phenomenon. So the good that comes from religion is natural. There are atheists who are concerned about abortion, and who absolutely do not agree with Singer.
Without god everything is permitted? No. There is no god, and not everything is permitted. So the answer is no to that proposition.
In Averick's article on Singer he doesn't need to paint all atheists as immoral. We aren’t - we’re human just like him, and humans have human morals.
And as for Singer, I recommend you read this post and an earlier post, which includes notes on Sam Harris & Christopher Hitchens, on the problems with moral & cultural relativism, and an advocacy for discouraging abortion.
Can a middle road be taken on abortion? How about: First & second trimester: legal but highly discouraged. Third trimester: illegal. After birth abortion: equivalent to murder. How's that?
Morality comes from a combination of socialization and genetics. Check out Steven Pinker, Sam Harris, & Daniel Dennet on the subject of morality, religion, and the thankfully evolving & improving moral zeitgeist.
I admit that I have built in morals, as do most people except for sociopaths, and except (in part) for people currently tied down by meme sets that are infecting their brains & making them less moral than they would otherwise be.
Religion can make people less moral than they would otherwise be (eg: suicide bombers as one example). The ivory tower of academics can do the same, for example where students learn the "value" of moral & cultural relativism, and the lie of the blank slate.
Did your god have sex with Mary the mother of Jesus? Does your god live on Kolob? Is Mohamed god's messenger? If you don't believe any one, two, or three of these three points, then maybe it's notillusory to be a so-called atheist.
We aren't required to choose between the ass hole tea baggers of Fox News & the current Republican Party, and the similarly anally retentive feminazi zero population growth ultra lefties who love PETA and similar groups, and who believe that women who're homemakers are selling themselves short. A pox on both of their houses. We're moving forward, as natural humans who're interested in truth and what science reveals about everything. And when your preconceived or inculcated notions are debunked, then drop them. I'll try to do the same.
