Reflections on tyranny, progress, and modern alienation — If individuals face existential crises, can’t the same be said about institutions? You arrive at such a crisis when you learn to see through distractions and delusions, to understand the essence of something and the problems it faces as the absurd thing it really is. And you must decide what…

Is the co-optation always degrading, politically compromised, and dishonourable? — Why do countercultures like the Hippie movement or alt-right populism develop in large societies? Because the capacity for elite control over culture is typically limited, although this should be qualified by saying that social media, artificial intelligence, and other technological advances could perfect the police state.

Secret truths, noble lies, and the politics of organized religion — Why is Christianity the only religion that’s based on literal reports of what’s supposed to have happened in a key historical period, rather than on myths? That’s the question Christians want you to ask. Most Christians take their scriptural messages to be literal, not just metaphorical, poetic, or mythical. Other…

Organized religion, Jesus’s counterculture, and the battle between God and demonic matter — Instead of rehearsing the tired debate about whether it’s rational to believe the Christian creed, or whether the foundational events of Christianity are likely ahistorical, let’s consider this religion’s basic problem in the twenty-first century. In other words, what’s the essence of Christianity, what role does this religion currently play…

Involuntary celibacy and the black pill — Incels, or involuntarily celibate men, are doubly disturbing. First, the media associates them with the mass shooters who aim to take revenge on mainstream society and on feminist women who reject them. Second, and less obviously, there might be a kernel of truth buried in incels’ misogynistic scapegoating of women…

Jewish culture as a strategy for coping with theism’s absurdity — Are religious beliefs true or false? For the moment, who cares! Let’s ponder instead their existential status. After all, truth is bound up with utility. Scientific models, for example, are deemed true when they work for humanity. What would it mean, then, for a religion to work? …

The different repertoires of scientific and philosophical secularists — There are two kinds of Western atheists, those who are preoccupied with proving that religious beliefs are irrational and false, and those who are more disgusted with religions for being immoral and grotesque. Scientific and philosophical atheists This is roughly the difference between scientific and philosophical atheists. Scientific atheists think of religion as failed…

How religions have always reflected all-too-human concerns — Originally, “God” meant that which is called upon or invoked (as in prayer) or that to which a sacrifice is made. Both early senses entail a power relationship, although God’s dominance wasn’t so straightforward. Like a jinni trapped in a lamp, if God is subject to being invoked with certain…

Double standards and the trouble with secular humanism — In progressive circles, unearned privilege is forbidden. Think of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden,” according to which white men are obliged to colonize so-called backward societies, to tame their “Sloth and heathen Folly.” …