Jay Dyer, What’s the Endgame for Atheists? |352|

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Jay Dyer, What’s the Endgame for Atheists? |352|
by Alex Tsakiris | Jun 6 | Skepticism, Spirituality

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Jay Dyer looks at what lies behind scientism and atheism.

photo by: Skeptiko
On this episode of Skeptiko…

Alex Tsakiris: If you go to the website [Edinburgh Secret Society] there’s this big picture, prominently displayed, of this guy completely outfitted in this satanic kind of thing, right? So it’s like, “Hey man, it’s cool, we’re all atheists, you know, you want to sign this little pact with Satan, it doesn’t mean anything, right, go ahead, sign it. You want to perform these rituals… hey, we’re all atheists, it doesn’t mean anything, right?” I mean there’s a real mismatch here that, I don’t think has drawn enough attention.

Jay Dyer: From the technocrat controller perspective, I mean, they’re very aware of the fact that atheism and materialism and reductionism, they don’t have the power to hold human belief for very long because they’re not fulfilling, they’re empty and so humans are always going to be moving towards the transcendent.

Now, from their vantage point, whether they acknowledge the belief in the transcendent, you know, whether they’re just still rank atheists or materialists or agnostic or actual Luciferians or some form of occultists, regardless I think, from their vantage point pragmatically speaking, they view human psychology that way, that humans are just going to be worshiping something.

Stay with us for Skeptiko…

Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris, and on this episode an interesting exploration of film and culture and geopolitics and even religion from the very interesting Jay Dyer of Jay’s Analysis.

So, as this interview unfolds you’ll see that we go to a lot of new and interesting places that I haven’t heard a lot of people talk about, including what might lie behind the atheistic, materialistic science meme, and also a little bit of a revisit to Christian apologetics since Jay happens to be an Orthodox Christian. And I say ‘happens to be’ because you wouldn’t really know that; he doesn’t lead with that. I mean, he’s just a person with some really cool, smart ideas, it’s really not about his religion, but I guess I kind of made it about his religion at times too because that seems to be important in this discussion.

Now, I will let you know that at the end of this exchange that Jay and I had, which I thought was very positive and great, even though we really kind of got into it. I left feeling glad that we had this exchange… and we did talk about doing a follow-up and I do plan to do that.

Here’s my interview with Jay Dyer.
 
The part from the transcript....well I'm really skeptical. Atheists are secretly devil worshipers? Seriously?

Surely one can see the distinction between Dawkins' mentioning panspermia and what Skeptic Magazine was trying to debunk? I say this as someone who has been very critical of "skeptics" and the materialist evangelicals.

Maybe there's something redeeming in the show, but so far I'm very unconvinced.

It must be comforting to blame conspiracy theories for people not finding your own personal views about reality/morality/etc. convincing but extraordinary claims & all that...
 
Alex's question at the end of the podcast:

Are some atheists secretly peddling an occulted, watered-down satanic/luciferian theology -- is that their end game?
 
The part from the transcript....well I'm really skeptical. Atheists are secretly devil worshipers? Seriously?

Surely one can see the distinction between Dawkins' mentioning panspermia and what Skeptic Magazine was trying to debunk? I say this as someone who has been very critical of "skeptics" and the materialist evangelicals.

Maybe there's something redeeming in the show, but so far I'm very unconvinced.

It must be comforting to blame conspiracy theories for people not finding your own personal views about reality/morality/etc. convincing but extraordinary claims & all that...
connecting the dots:
- the deep state is not atheistic... e.g. (without getting Occult-ish) MK Ultra, Mk Often, Stargate were not orchestrated by people who believe we are biological robots in an meaningless universe
- over and over again the deep state has been shown to be very active in culture shaping (the Gloria Steinem thing is a good recent example... many others discussed here)
- skeptics like James Randi show telltale signs of this kind of deep state manipulation (see my interview with Al on Forum Borealis)
- so why would we carve out New Atheism as a manipulation free zone? It's a perfect fit. We should assume unless shown otherwise.
 
connecting the dots:
- the deep state is not atheistic... e.g. (without getting Occult-ish) MK Ultra, Mk Often, Stargate were not orchestrated by people who believe we are biological robots in an meaningless universe
- over and over again the deep state has been shown to be very active in culture shaping (the Gloria Steinem thing is a good recent example... many others discussed here)
- skeptics like James Randi show telltale signs of this kind of deep state manipulation (see my interview with Al on Forum Borealis)

On the Steinem thing - The CIA, IIRC, also funded religious missionary operations in other countries? It seems to me they were happy to fund a variety of programs that would work as cover?

The rest of this supposed "deep state" meddling just seems like ways to connect the dots for how people want to see it. Where's the smoking gun evidence?

A quick glance at Jay's site has articles about the Satanic Roots of Feminism....sparse on actual arguments/science but long on conspiracy fantasies...why should I take this seriously? I get "liberals" sending me conspiracy theory fantasies as well btw...

- so why would we carve out New Atheism as a manipulation free zone? It's a perfect fit. We should assume unless shown otherwise.

We should assume guilt before innocence? I thought we were following data "wherever it leads", not plot points we think fit a pre-defined narrative?
 
On the Steinem thing - The CIA, IIRC, also funded religious missionary operations in other countries? It seems to me they were happy to fund a variety of programs that would work as cover?
I think you have to look deeper into the Steinem thing. You've fallen for the MSM head fake, "gee, she had to do it for the cause." Evidence suggests that she's been deeply involved with Deep State shenanigans... for a long time. Her recent position/action re Syria is a great example:
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/04/faux-feminists-ridiculous-women-under.html

this is unexplainable without factoring in deep state influence. unless you think she's a total moron... she isn't.

but the focus is off here... most are burying the lead. it's not about Steinem. why is the CIA actively (not just placing bets and waiting to see what happens) trying to shape culture in this way?
 
Ah, the quandary of all quandaries. I mean how could you call something a "deep state" if a smoking gun actually existed?

Plus with actual evidence you can't pin whatever political fantasy you want on the "Deep State".

I wonder if we could find an academically respected conservative historian to take a look at these conspiracy theories. Heck even a few Christian apologists in academia like Feser or Swineburne....not as flashy as some guy with a Youtube Channel talking about Satanic Pacts in Hollywood but perhaps more worthwhile...

I think you have to look deeper into the Steinem thing. You've fallen for the MSM head fake, "gee, she had to do it for the cause." Evidence suggests that she's been deeply involved with Deep State shenanigans... for a long time. Her recent position/action re Syria is a great example:
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2012/04/faux-feminists-ridiculous-women-under.html

this is unexplainable without factoring in deep state influence. unless you think she's a total moron... she isn't.

but the focus is off here... most are burying the lead. it's not about Steinem. why is the CIA actively (not just placing bets and waiting to see what happens) trying to shape culture in this way?

Maybe you should interview her.

I'm curious when I don't get counted as one of the fool sheeple? How many confusing websites and hours long Youtube channels do I have to watch and be unconvinced by before this "you've been fooled by the MSM" accusation falls short?

I mean I get the same spiel from materialists linking me to the next presentation by Daniel Dennet, the one that will convince me...
 
Seconded. No, they are not secret Satan-worshippers.

Don't get me wrong - the sheer narcissism of materialist "skeptics", pushing a faith-based social engineering project that eliminates free-will and objective morality all because of their desire to eliminate anyone believing in God...that is disgusting though I do sympathize given the tremendous damage religion has done to the emerging psyche especially w.r.t. sexual development...

But Satan worship isn't the end goal of atheists, and it makes the movement against materialism look idiotic when it intertwines with this silliness.
 
There was far too much inside baseball for me in this interview. I have no real clue what it was about or what we were meant to draw from it. It seemed all over the place, I'm afraid. Maybe Alex and Jay got it, but I certainly didn't.
 
This is a bit unfair on Alex. This is, and has always been, his journey. Remember, he askes for nothing.

I'd like to say that my previous comment was not a general verdict on Alex. It was just about this one interview. I nearly always enjoy his podcasts and both fully support his efforts and am grateful for them -- I've learnt a lot from them and from the discussions here.
 
A couple of responses from the transcript:

1. If Jay identifies as a Christian, he is likely coming from the US Conservative Evangelical Christian subcommunity of that faith.

I say that because in the 1980s, I read a lot of material coming from that community that made the same arguments he's making: that atheism and materialism were part of a deliberate and secret attempt to move Western civilisation toward a 'Luciferian' outlook. So I'm familiar with that viewpoint.

I think there's a couple of things correct in that viewpoint and a whole lot which isn't.

I still consider myself a Christian - and in the extended consciousness realm I believe there *are* entities out there (call them hungry ghosts, maybe - I think they're probably discarnate humans who died without resolving their anger issues) which have dark intentions. I don't believe they have that much *power*, actually, in the great scheme of things. But they have *influence* with people who allow themselves to be influenced.

I believe the 'Luciferian', 'social Darwinist', 'brute survival of the fittest' philosophy IS very real, IS held at high levels of commerce and politics, and IS a very real danger to human life on this planet. It's linked to Nietzsche's hatred of what he considered Jewish and Christian 'slave morality', it infected Nazi Germany, and after WW2 it carried into America through the works of Ayn Rand and her ideology of 'heroic selfishness' - and the Austrian economists. From there, it took over America through Ronald Reagan and the Republican party, the United Kingdom through Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives, and now is very near the peak of its power in the philosophy of Paul Ryan, Donald Trump and Theresa May.

Anton LeVey, I believe, once described Satanism as literally just 'Ayn Rand in fancy dress'. The Reagans were rumoured to attend the Satanic Temple in California. This would actually make sense, given Ronald Reagan's deep commitment to individualism - something he would have shared ideologically with that group.

There is also, I believe, quite a crossover between 'Satanist' groups and 'Nazi' groups. The connection is in their love of Nietzsche and Rand and the social-Darwinist ideal. And their shared hatred of Communism - which, like liberal social-justice Christianity, they saw as empowering the weak at the expense of the strong, which they saw as 'anti-life'.

And there has been a concerted movement since the 1980s, in the conservative world, especially in America, to remake Christianity in a mould that makes it more Nietzschean: 'masculine', 'muscular', 'self-reliant' are the words used. They fight against taxes and healthcare and 'thuggish urban gangs' (code for black people) and focus on a 'clash of cultures' with Islam that literally reinvokes the spirit of the Knights Templar and the Crusades (see, eg, Erik Prince, who has a strong affinity for Templar iconography).

Unfortunately, this idea of Christianity is very far away from Jesus' idea and from the early Church, which practiced a form of communal socialism and was welcoming to women and foreigners.

It's funny, in the ironic sense, that conservative Christians, the ones most terrified of Satanism, would be the ones most actively spreading that movement's values of radical individualism and contempt for 'society' and empathy, but it's a funny old world and that's exactly how it turned out.


2. As a conservative Christian in the 1980s I was terrified of Masons, Jesuits, higher education, politics, you name it. It was all supposed to be part of a great conspiracy to de-Christianise the world (and somehow we in the pews of the evangelical churches had to fight back against it, though we were also told we would lose and be forced into prison or hiding).

These days I... don't quite think this is the case. Like the psi and UFO 'coverups', I think it's more a case of the highly educated feeling embarrassed and frightened by religion and not quite knowing how to categorise it. Also a deep fear of religious experience as something that 'doesn't comply with science'.

I don't think it's a top-down conspiracy. I think it's just human nature to fear what we can't control. And if God is real, we can't control Him/Her/It.


2. The atheists I knew in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields generally *aren't* practicing Satanists (except the ones who are) but many quite often *are* very much attracted to a kind of performative Gothic darkness. A classic example is how many STEM folks seem simultaneously fans of both atheism and the despairing, crypto-racist, cosmic horror of H P Lovecraft.

Lovecraft practically is required reading among computer scientists, and this has always bothered me. In recent years people are starting to call out HPL for his racism (raging even by the standards of the 1920s) and how much it informs his despair.

And frankly, existential despair doesn't do it for me. I *don't* believe the universe is empty of meaning and filled with mind-shattering horrors by its very nature. I believe there's warm loving Intelligence behind it all.

And yet... many good-hearted, smart atheists I know *are* very much attracted to this idea that 'comprehending the terrible, bleak truth of an impersonal universe will drive us mad'.

That's a problem, I think. It means even scientists (or those for whom science, the knowability of things, is esssentially their religion) have a deep distrust *of science as science* and feel that, deep down, their task cannot be achieved and perhaps should not be attempted.

Evangelical 'scientism-ists' (like Dawkins and Sagan) often promote the notion that the great masses of people are to be feared because of their irrationality, while only rationalism provides salvation. But deep down, this same tribe also fears that rationality itself fails.


3. I believe in the late 1970s through 1980s, as a deliberate response to the 1970s 'occult revival' and growing military interest in the weaponisation of psi, that there was an organised, military-government-science pushback against psi experiences, through groups such as CSICOP/CSI and strong advocacy from individuals such as Carl Sagan, Martin Gardner, and James Randi.

Interestingly, Gardner was Christian, and opposed psi research from that direction.

I think there were two big reasons for this organised pushback, both stemming from rather ordinary establishment fears, but both at odds with each other:

* A fear that psi was real, weaponisable, and that the Soviets were ahead. Remote Viewing was achieving startling results: if this 'technology' could be rolled out and scaled up, it would have a disruptive effect much like atomic weaponry. Entire classes of intelligence handling would be voided if viewers could simply peek into spies' minds. SF writers in and out of the US military had speculated about psi weapons since the 1950s but in the 1970s this started to appear a terrifying possibility. Naturally the establishment wanted public interest in this potential massive security hole killed, and fast, until they could get a handle on it and 'get it under control'.

* Meanwhile: other factions, or even parts of the same military-industrial faction, had deep reservations (coming both from mainstream Christian prohibitions against 'invoking spirits', and from a materialist-rationalist fear of 'mass hallucination' or 'contagious insanity') that this rising popular interest in the supernatural would have very bad effects. That it would undermine faith in science and in the foundations of society; that it might literally drive people insane, or to crime; that it might have the same society-weakening effects as drugs; that new religious movements might be cover (as they had been in the past, and as American Christian missionaries were for the USA) for foreign agents (Soviets, in the 1980s). That in fact the entire 'occult revival' and even the upheavals of the 1960s had all been an elaborate Communist ruse to destablise society.

Those fears were deliberately stoked, I believe, and weaponised in the Conservative Evangelical sector - and continue to this day. The uniting belief among the various conspiracy theorists is a Cold War fear, because this is a Cold War meme: that somehow, the Russians would turn 'new spirituality' against America and use it to subvert. When the Cold War ended, the label 'Russia' was filed off but the meme stayed in play. 'Aliens', 'Europe', 'Liberals' and 'Islam' were bolted on as nametags instead. But none of these quite make sense. Deep down, it's still a fear of good old 1930s Bolshevik Communism - and FDR's New Deal - that drives a lot of 21st Century American politics and religion, on the right.

(The irony is that Stalin absolutely hated psi and it wasn't until Stalin died that psi research came back to the USSR. After which the American military got scared by it.)

It's a little weird that the US right, post-Trump, has flipped to embracing Russia. But it's not entirely weird - they still hate *Communism*, and FDR's socialism, and anything associated with high taxes and 'redistribution of wealth' from the rich to the poor. (The things that early Christian writers like Paul and James endorse.) And Russia now is actually, ideologically Fascist - in a way that incorporates the Russian Orthodox Church, which is very sad. Conservative Evangelicals look at this with a lust for power and think: WE TOO could have a political system which gives us this much control! We could Do God's Work! We could protect everyone from the Evil Socialist Atheist Satanists! And they might even tell themselves they mean it.

So Russia to the US Right now is a little like Germany was to the America Firsters in the 1930s. An inspiration - a deeply bad example, but scared and power-hungry people look to places they really, really shouldn't.

tldr: There are things to legitimately be scared of in the psi and religion world, or at least to avoid. But we shouldn't be terrified and we shouldn't despair and we shouldn't think there's a deep overarching evil conspiracy. There's a lot of sillly humans doing silly and often very bad human things for what they think at the time are good (or at least passable) reasons. Humans often sacrifice goodness and kindness out of a misplaced sense of 'need' and 'duty' when they really shouldn't. Our shadow side is strong. But none of this matters in the long run because our shadow side won't WIN. We're finite; our worst deeds aren't big enough to hide the light forever, because it's *infinite*.

Humanity will stop doing evil eventually, if only out of exhaustion. The light can just wait us out. But we can speed the process up, if we want.

Regards, Nate
 
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I'd like to say that my previous comment was not a general verdict on Alex. It was just about this one interview. I nearly always enjoy his podcasts and both fully support his efforts and am grateful for them -- I've learnt a lot from them and from the discussions here.
I'm all for taking Alex on regarding specific points made, but dismissing a whole bunch of free content is poor form.
 
A couple of responses from the transcript:

Humanity will stop doing evil eventually, if only out of exhaustion. The light can just wait us out. But we can speed the process up, if we want.

Regards, Nate

Great post! Have you read David Ray Griffin? He gets into the alliance between the domineering Church of the Enlightenment Era and the way it allied with mechanistic-materialists against the esoteric/occultists.

It's amusing as history is presented as these two forces - Religious Fundamentalism & Scientism - being opposed but they spring from the same root of denying the magic(k), elan vital, whatever you call it of the world. The Church wanted this to be a dead, directionless world overseen by God from whom all spiritual power springs, but Scientism just ejected the "overseen by God" part.

It's interesting to think if the Gnostic Gospels had been popularized and dominated the Christian scene right as the Esotericists were in vogue...
 
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