I have one question. How to find a mentor if you don’t have one?

Response to a religious evangelical who insulted the great atheist upon his death:

—

Hitchens was certainly correct about much of what he saw as silly and flawed in religion.

But, he was hardly able to escape his biases and the cultural limits
of his paradigm. Not that he tried to make any such escape. His genius
involved using the limited tools in his belief system to peel away [the
veneer covering] horrible and ugly human flaws that religious and
political people prefer to leave unexamined. And he should be celebrated
for the deep humanity of that genius, not insulted for small minded
reasons.

Hitchens lived up to his ideals, which were both deeply noble and
deeply flawed, to a much greater extent than 99% of most religious
people do theirs.

Hitchens was not afraid to embrace a complicated, messy human nature.

Hitchens was not afraid to examine the various missionary projects
of western culture in the most unvarnished manner possible, and to
conclude that no such imperial project can ever lead to anything but
debasement, oppression and social injustice. For over 1,000 years, such
missionary projects have attempted to replace the divine feminine and
the “snakepits of culture”  with “sterile wards of professional service”
(Ivan Illich). Hitchens saw the deception and hypocrisy, the bartering
of spirit and meaning for debased reasons, that is a major part of
western religion (mythic religion = ethnocentrism+imperialism).

…

The decent thing to do is to respect all mourning, suffering and
loss, not use it as an opportunity to engage in small minded and flawed,
narrow polemics.

…

Religion has been one of the main tools used to oppress humanity for
at least 8,000 years. Any person that attempts to rescue humanity from
such oppression has made a far greater contribution to the world than
most religion ever has.

[original blog author] have not even attempted to stand outside your
ideology and try to at least describe what others see of value in
Hitchens’ work against injustice, corruption and abuse of authority
(Jesus certainly spoke to those issues of the common good).

… straw man arguments about atheists and the great boogey-man of
scientific materialism are irrelevant to my points. It is however rather
absurd to posit that evolution and brain chemistry are not at the root
of consciousness (including “spirituality”, “mysticism”,
“transcendence”, etc.)

Any form of absolutism is bad. religious absolutism is bad, scientific absolutism is bad.

The dual-inheritance theory that I’ve studied (gene-culture
coevolution) is far beyond the unsophisticated model of evolution that
you think “atheists” believe in. Gene-culture coevolutionary theory
scientifically examines the ACTUAL ARTIFACTS that form the basis of
culture and meaning (including religion). No science (which is based on
external/systems persective) can ever address the actual inner
“emotional” experience of transcendence that is “beyond” rational
awareness (divine unity, ultimate emptiness, etc.).

I believe in neither scientific nor religious absolutisms, but
rather in a third way: holistic/integral values (transrationalism), and
the common good.

I see no reason that the poetry of religion (spiritual liberation) can’t be complementary to scientific rationalism.

The problem with modernism is that it creates a form of culture that
lacks authenticity, and eventually erodes local wisdom, shared value
commitments, etc. This is what Habermas refers to as the “colonization
of lifeworld by systems” (systems being “externals” such as money and
power, lifeworld being shared meanings and the inner sense of beauty or
the sublime).

Religious people need to take things up several notches to be able
to coherently address the problems inherent to modernism and
postmodernism.

Spirituality needs to be restructured and placed in a different
context because human history has changed, and the old conceptual models
are experiencing a “crisis of legitimization”. Partial truths can no
longer claimed to be full truths.

Hitchens actually did religious people a far bigger favor than most
of them probably know: he pointed out what is silly about the aspects of
prerational culture in religion so that they could then contemplate how
to elevate their spirituality to a higher plane of meaning that can
satisfy the “coherence needs” of a changed human condition.

If religious people fail to elevate how they think about how they
think, they miss the most important form of service to humanity possible
in this age of relativism: adding spiritual authenticity to the
discussion of a paradigm shift toward a more socially just world. 

– yup, i studied QM for years: always put me into a trance as well!        

best cure for insomnia – read a physical chemistry text.

You get some bonuses on the way to the 10,000 hours.  You just got to get started.

The most poisoness substance in the human mind?  An excuse.