I wonder what Dawkins is thinking. Meth?

[Secular Sanity]

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/8wBtFNj_o5k

[C C]

I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Alternatively, I'd need a transcript to quickly scan over, that's less of a jumble than the kind YouTube generates. I take it that Peterson's archetypes are brought up in there, though, which would relate back to a video cllip I posted in SF some months ago...

"It's sheer bullsh*t” - Richard Dawkins on Jordan Peterson's theology
https://youtu.be/_eWDiaDOX0E

VIDEO EXCERPTS: [...] AC: Jordan Peterson comes at it from a completely different perspective than most of your previous Christian opponents. Not that Jordan Peterson is strictly a Christian. I wonder what you make of him and his approach.

RD: I enormously respect his courage in standing up to the Canadian laws about free speech. So I want to get that out of the way first. I hugely value him for that reason.

But when he talks about religion, I think that he doesn't make any sense at all. He's impressing people by using language they don't understand, rather like Deepak Chopra. Where people think it must be terribly profound because they can't understand it. Which is not something I can respect.

Michael Shermer told me that he tried to pin him down, and said, do you actually believe that Jesus was born of a virgin? And Jordan Peterson said it would take him at least 2 days to answer that. So Michael said, more or less, how about one sentence or one word? No.

That's how I feel about all the stuff about Jungian archetypes. Not that I want to be skeptical about that, but constantly dragging them in...

I mean, I think the most egregious example of that is where he looks at primitive tribal art. Where he shows things like two snakes coiling around each other. And says, well they must have had some primeval knowledge of DNA, the double helix.

It's about Jungian archetypes, and that is sheer BS, and I told him so.

[...] But I want to once again say how much I respect his courage in standing up to the Woke nonsense...

[Secular Sanity]

He couldn’t pin him down on the virgin birth, resurrection, or DNA (thingy). He just listened to his logorrhea, watched his finger puppetry, and the veins bulging from his head. In the end they came to some sort of agreement about sexual selection and archetypes, which could have been summed up in one sentence.

[Secular Sanity]

I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Alternatively, I'd need a transcript to quickly scan over, that's less of a jumble than the kind YouTube generates. I take it that Peterson's archetypes are brought up in there, though, which would relate back to a video cllip I posted in SF some months ago...

"It's sheer bullsh*t” - Richard Dawkins on Jordan Peterson's theology
https://youtu.be/_eWDiaDOX0E

Just finished your video.

There’s a debate about that quote, "There is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night." Some say that Yuval Noah Harari misattributed it to Voltaire in "Sapiens".

But I’m pretty sure that Voltaire did say, "He who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." I have both books but I’m too lazy to walk upstairs, but if push comes to shove.

[C C]

[...] Just finished your video.

There’s a debate about that quote, "There is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night." Some say that Yuval Noah Harari misattributed it to Voltaire in "Sapiens".

But I’m pretty sure that Voltaire did say, "He who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." I have both books but I’m too lazy to walk upstairs, but if push comes to shove.

At least it might actually be derived from something of his, whereas the classic platitude below (often attributed to him) was the result of an author in the future summarizing his disposition:

Evelyn Beatrice Hall: What the book could never have done for itself, or for its author, persecution did for them both. 'On the Mind' became not the success of a season, but one of the most famous books of the century. The men who had hated it, and had not particularly loved Helvétius, flocked round him now.

Voltaire forgave him all injuries, intentional or unintentional. 'What a fuss about an omelette!' he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that! 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,' was his attitude now. --The Friends of Voltaire (1906), using the pseudonym of S. G. Tallentyre

With regard to what Dawkins was talking about in that respect: "The idea of what Dan calls 'belief in belief', where the idea that whether you believe it or not, it's a good idea that some people do... I think that's patronizing, I think that's condescending."

And yet there's no escaping such in the West (after the Enlightenment). Various "patronizing" social and contractual dealings are necessarily ubiquitous, where one must either outwardly respect or at least grant existence and rights to affairs and practices that one might not personally share or accept.

It has to be privately balanced out by the realization that "I likewise follow or hold fast to other genres of invented concepts for the sake of either convenience or alleged greater good." That's what mitigates the supposed "condescension".

As Max Stirner seemed to be gesticulating towards at times in his key work, even religiously liberated people still adhere to principles and ideas that have simply been made up. Not just to hold civilization together or pretend that being alive has a purpose beyond the basics that genes and instincts impose... But we also use those immaterial boundaries and chains (language-mediated "spirits") for keeping our own egos and desires in check (making us less than what we could be).

Which the ideal, unbridled psychopath or narcissist of a ruthless bent would supposedly not do. Yet actually does to some extent, since they have to outwardly pretend they are normal (morally fettered) in order to navigate certain areas of society successfully.

At first glance, Dennett seemed to have grasped the universality of "belief in belief" in the first sentence of this brief article, where he says: "As I explain in the chapter by that title in Breaking the Spell, "belief in belief" is a common phenomenon not restricted to religions."

But after the third paragraph, it becomes apparent that "common" only biasedly pertained to his various pet peeves.

[C C]

Here are some shorter clips from the overall interview (maybe more to be released).

"That's Your Problem!" (segment from Alex O'Connor's channel)
https://youtu.be/gJ6MnesueOs

An unexpected discussion on the Virgin Birth
https://youtu.be/s1cXGYAGeso

Does facing the serpent lead to redemption?
https://youtu.be/gFp2AZBx8hE

Richard Dawkins and Jordan Peterson debate "Cultural Christianity"
https://youtu.be/Z22G11lTSbQ

VIDEO EXCERPTS: Your proclamation that you were a Cultural Christian was a statement that [maybe] you had found something in the culture that had been derived from Christianity that you had an affinity with ... What did you mean by that...

Virtually nothing. I meant by no more than that I was brought up in a Christian culture. I went to Christian schools, I therefore know my way around the Bible. I know my way around the book of common prayer. I know the hymns. That's all. I don't value Christianity as a truth system.

[...] Do you think that there are any marked differences between cultural traditions that would enable you to rank them in terms of their ethical validity? So, for example, we could contrast mainstream UK Christianity with Islamic fundamentalism.

Yes.

Okay, so there's a hierarchy.

There is a hierarchy.

A hierarchy that points to what?

Well, in the case of Islam I dislike any religion which punishes apostasy with death, that throws gay people off of high buildings, that practices clitoridectomy. That seems to me to place Islam on a lower level than Christianity, but that's not to say anything very positive about Christianity.

[...] If you look at the barbarism that characterizes the human past, you might think that any progression whatsoever towards something approximating mercy and tolerance is nothing short of a bloody miracle...

[...] Okay, let's grant the faint praise. But that has nothing to do with the truth value. And what I care about is the truth value. I see no truth value in the claims of Christianity: the virgin birth, the resurrection, the miracles. Do you believe in any of those?

[Secular Sanity]

Some religions prohibited intermarriage between members of different faiths or social classes, which affected the gene pool and the distribution of traits in a population.

I think that genetic diversity is considered beneficial for humans, but I can’t say for sure because I don’t have microvision like Dr. Woolittle.

He’s an "appeal to ancient wisdom" kind of guy, that’s for sure. I wonder if he’s given up on the DNA thingy by now.

I screwed up the title, didn’t I? I should have said shrooms. Dang it!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbGoUwmqIEQ&t=2386s

[Syne]

Everyone here knows all about your long hatred of Peterson.
Nothing new to see here.

[Secular Sanity]

Everyone here knows all about your long hatred of Peterson.
Nothing new to see here.

He's just comical, that's all. You've done shrooms, did you see your all your mutations?

[C C]

Some religions prohibited intermarriage between members of different faiths or social classes, which affected the gene pool and the distribution of traits in a population.

I think that genetic diversity is considered beneficial for humans, but I can’t say for sure because I don’t have microvision like Dr. Woolittle.

He’s an "appeal to ancient wisdom" kind of guy, that’s for sure. I wonder if he’s given up on the DNA thingy by now.

I screwed up the title, didn’t I? I should have said shrooms. Dang it!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbGoUwmqIEQ&t=2386s

I recall an old hippie LSD user recounting how (decades before) he took a Fantastic Voyage or Innerspace like trip through the inside of his body. Maybe "shrinkage" is of one of the common psychonaut themes.

Common Visual Components Of A Psychedelic Experience
https://www.mushmagic.com/blog-common-vi...rience-n78

Magnification is one such visual effect that falls under enhancement of sight. As the name suggests, magnification can make things appear closer and larger than they actually are. During a psychedelic experience, it is not uncommon for the psychonaut to see far away objects, people, or animals in much greater detail than normal. [...] Most psychonauts say that closing the eyes will usually make hallucinations more intense and real-seeming.

I know someone who could relate to "closing the eyes", but in a different way. After heart surgery, he told us he was seeing insects flying and crawling around everywhere in his hospital room. But when he closed his eyes, he was in a completely different environment, where there were alligators thrashing around in the water below the rocky rise he seemed to be sitting on. He could flip back forth between both worlds (hallucinations).

---

VIDEO EXCERPTS: How far down the levels of analysis can consciousness go under extreme conditions? And I said this was speculation -- but I've seen these dual entwined serpents. They're very common. In fact, I have one made by a Canadian native carver ... I asked him what this image meant to his people ... he said they had a myth that something alien landed on the Earth. ... When it was rolling down the mountain it landed on, it took the form of all the things that it encountered. ... Like I said, this is in the realm of wild speculation. But I know what [Francis] Crick thought about the origin of DNA ... he thought it was too complex to have evolved...

What do you mean, you mean the idea of it coming from elsewhere? [Panspermia?]

[...] I think that under some conditions, people's vision can expand to the point where they can see down into the micro level. They can apprehend the micro level consciously.

You think that our consciousness can extend down to the micro level -- to the micro, micro, micro level of DNA?

Yes.

Okay.

Since we're on this topic, I have taken extremely high doses of psilocybin -- like four doses is enough basically to knock you out of your body. I wouldn't recommend it casually. I took seven grams three times, and I had this shamanic experience. It was unbelievable, and I have no idea how to make sense of it.

Well, I believe that. I could quite understand you had a most extraordinary experience. I've never taken such a drug, but I could imagine it would be a remarkable experience. But you've just said that your consciousness can see into your cells, and saw the structure of DNA. That has got to be utter nonsense. I'm sorry.

Well, like I said, I'm willing to admit forthrightly that this a highly speculative idea.

Well, it is speculative, but it's also got to be false.

Why?

[sigh]

Look, in all probability you're right. I mean, we're both wise enough to use Occam's razor.

Right.

So I said that it's funny that that particular statement got picked up. Because I think that was the most [...] speculative idea that I'd ever uttered to my students.

Well fair enough, I mean I understand that...

So it's strange to be in a position to defend it. I'm telling you why I made that. But there was more to it [...] because in this visionary experience, I could feel my consciousness go down these levels of analysis, and I could see things ... that they appeared to me in my field of imagination...