1. All aboard the atheist bus campaign

Comment #268905 by Daemonion on October 22, 2008 at 11:59 am

Fundraising target: £5,500.00
Donations so far: £ 74,214.83

...pretty impressive...

2. Beyond Belief 3: Candles in the Dark

Comment #268900 by Daemonion on October 22, 2008 at 11:54 am

Watched all the files in the .torrent.

Any clue where to get the rest of it ?

P.S.
Still seeding... =)

3. Beyond Belief 3: Candles in the Dark

Comment #268224 by Daemonion on October 21, 2008 at 2:39 pm

Thanks Cluebot, for the .torrent. =)

4. The Boundaries of Belief

Comment #205057 by Daemonion on July 6, 2008 at 12:51 pm

Two parts to what I want to say on the subject:

### 1 ###

Bah, I must say. I am a strong atheist, yet I kind of still believe in… whatever I'm inclined to believe at that moment. I sometimes believe in some kinds of deities when I'm drunk. I also tend to pray to Greek/Roman/Norse/Pagan gods when I'm in a situation when that is all I am capable of doing about it.

Yet I am sure there are no gods. I call upon the gods in a purely pragmatical sense - and it helps a little bit.

This of course can work, because people are inherently pseudo-rational, which means that we're still strongly influenced by our emotions and evolutionary baggage.

To find use for gods and to believe in them at one's convenience is completely possible for a strong atheist. I repeat - I am certain that there are no gods - that is the only rational reasoning from the data that we have.

So there. :)

### 2 ###

To be a bit more verbose about it:

In some situations it's the best possible solution to the problem at hand to go sociopathic about it. This indeed is the case, when one has to defend herself in a situation, where risk of serious injury or loss of life is a real possibilty. One needs to be able to switch from cool and collected just before the altercation to extreme ape-shit aggression during the altercation and back to cool and collected right after. Several authors in self-defense, police and military know these things.

What one does in the above situation is to do a major role change, not to become someone else, but to become something else. Something that still lurks in the depths of all of us. We can tap into the animal within us, the primates we are. This is how we can, w/proper training, become something that is not accessible to most of us all the time. It's a major gear-shift.

And this is what it is like w/Strong Atheism and spiritual belief-systems. Most of the time one can be as rational as the next Richard Dawkins, yet when the occasion is called for, one can tap into the animal within. This animal in us - at least in some of us - actually holds a child-like dualistic world view, which can be here described as having belief in the super-natural.

This is also how it works for me. And I believe that it is a good thing. The real problem w/it is that it's also an exercise in such holistic approaches that it's unlikely to get much support from either religious nor atheistic people. You cannot have your cake, and eat it too - they say. But in this case you somewhat actually can - if you are a complex, layered primate that is interested in the how-to of life.

My prime example for tapping into the spiritual is when I'm in an airplane. I have a quite recommendable fear of heights, and especially of airplanes. When I'm in a plane going through some heavy turbulence, I'm going into that space. I find some comfort in gods that have been long removed from their posts, like Athena, Mars/Ares as well as Thor and Earth-goddess. It's in the situations where I revert back to primate-mode, when this happens. And I'm happy that it does. I embrace it. It's probably what brought my ancestors far enough to have me talking about it here, in the first place. :-)

This, of course, is a variation of the theme that there are no atheists in foxholes. There surely are, some of the like me, and some of them a bit less pseudo-rational, perhaps not tapping to belief-systems in the way that I do. And that, too, is all and well. Whatever works for you.

As an added note, I also have a bit of that fatalistic take to things that can be seen at least in the way things are thought about in the philippino martial arts (FMA) - that all things have been decided upon before-hand. This is a belief-system that frees warriors to fight w/less fear, knowing that they cannot change the outcome - they can and should only play their part. This is, of course, a very effective mental model leaving the warriors free to concentrate on the action rather than their fears. I actually partly, emotionally relate to this stand, as well.

The bottom line to see that these are all mental models, systems - tools to be used at one's convenience. There's no point in not believing in god, if it gets you through a dreaded situation. Likewise, there's no reason to keep on believing on one, one the situation has passed. Switching gears is a skill that can be learned. Maybe the people who are experts on this do not come from the professions which consists of safely typing away. I would rather that you'd look for the answers to these questions where they are still relevant - in professions where serious injury or loss of life is a real possibility today.

The texts are from my blog, http://sk3ptik.net/blog/