DominicBunnell
New
It's noticeable that Alex doesn't talk so much any more about there being a close connection between atheism and philosophical materialism on the one hand and consumerism, militarism and technology worship on the other. I'm very glad that he's no longer saying these things, but what could possibly have made him take this stuff seriously in the first place?
I think the answer is that he needs to say that all materialists and atheists have some kind of hidden agenda. It can't just be that they find extraordinary the idea of somebody thinking, feeling, seeing and hearing with no brain, eyes or ears, and that they demand a hell of a lot of evidence to convince them that this is true. No, deep down they must have other reasons for rejecting the idea that the mind goes on after the death of the body and brain.
Part of what Alex has tried to do is to say that we're all in the same boat. We all have our world-view and our agenda and we'll all defend it come what may. The idea is that just as believers desperately hope that there is an afterlife, free-will, love and meaning and purpose, so non-believers desperately hope (for some bizarre reason) that there is no afterlife, free-will, love or meaning and purpose. This is very implausible on the face of it, so he has to try to come up with some kind of very complicated conspiracy theory about why they hope for this. For example, they hope we're biological robots with no free-will so we can just go on shopping and blowing each other up or whatever. The whole thing makes no sense, but this is the kind of thing he has to say.
Believers, on the other hand, have a very clear agenda. They believe that if materialism is true, then there's no meaning or purpose in life and we might as well all go and kill ourselves. In this, they are very similar to fundamentalist Christians. Thomas Nagel dealt with these arguments forty years ago in his essay 'The Absurd', so I won't bother going over all that again. The point is, rightly or wrongly, believers have very strong psychological reasons for rejecting materialism, but you can't really say that materialists have similarly strong psychological reasons for rejecting ESP or the continuation of consciousness after death. Sure, they'll look a bit stupid and will have to admit that they were wrong about a few things, but it's not the end of the world. For the believer, however, materialism is the end of the world.
So there is a difference between the agenda of the believer and that of the materialist. Both have world-views and biases, but the believer has a much stronger agenda. In my experience, almost all believers have a very strong agenda against materialism, but I could imagine a believer who didn't. For example, they could say, "Yes, we experience ourselves as living free and meaningful lives, we love our family, friends and community, and questions about the afterlife, God or the metaphysics of free-will make no difference to any of this, but by the way, it just so happens that consciousess goes on after the death of the body and brain, and remote viewing and ESP are real." If somebody talked like that, then I could perhaps trust that person and could perhaps believe that they were just interested in the scientific data. But the fact that believers almost always believe that everything hangs on their worldview being right and materialism wrong makes me very suspicious of them and everything they say.
I think the answer is that he needs to say that all materialists and atheists have some kind of hidden agenda. It can't just be that they find extraordinary the idea of somebody thinking, feeling, seeing and hearing with no brain, eyes or ears, and that they demand a hell of a lot of evidence to convince them that this is true. No, deep down they must have other reasons for rejecting the idea that the mind goes on after the death of the body and brain.
Part of what Alex has tried to do is to say that we're all in the same boat. We all have our world-view and our agenda and we'll all defend it come what may. The idea is that just as believers desperately hope that there is an afterlife, free-will, love and meaning and purpose, so non-believers desperately hope (for some bizarre reason) that there is no afterlife, free-will, love or meaning and purpose. This is very implausible on the face of it, so he has to try to come up with some kind of very complicated conspiracy theory about why they hope for this. For example, they hope we're biological robots with no free-will so we can just go on shopping and blowing each other up or whatever. The whole thing makes no sense, but this is the kind of thing he has to say.
Believers, on the other hand, have a very clear agenda. They believe that if materialism is true, then there's no meaning or purpose in life and we might as well all go and kill ourselves. In this, they are very similar to fundamentalist Christians. Thomas Nagel dealt with these arguments forty years ago in his essay 'The Absurd', so I won't bother going over all that again. The point is, rightly or wrongly, believers have very strong psychological reasons for rejecting materialism, but you can't really say that materialists have similarly strong psychological reasons for rejecting ESP or the continuation of consciousness after death. Sure, they'll look a bit stupid and will have to admit that they were wrong about a few things, but it's not the end of the world. For the believer, however, materialism is the end of the world.
So there is a difference between the agenda of the believer and that of the materialist. Both have world-views and biases, but the believer has a much stronger agenda. In my experience, almost all believers have a very strong agenda against materialism, but I could imagine a believer who didn't. For example, they could say, "Yes, we experience ourselves as living free and meaningful lives, we love our family, friends and community, and questions about the afterlife, God or the metaphysics of free-will make no difference to any of this, but by the way, it just so happens that consciousess goes on after the death of the body and brain, and remote viewing and ESP are real." If somebody talked like that, then I could perhaps trust that person and could perhaps believe that they were just interested in the scientific data. But the fact that believers almost always believe that everything hangs on their worldview being right and materialism wrong makes me very suspicious of them and everything they say.