Wednesday, September 9, 2015

in the name of the no-God

I've been over the following several times but someone on twitter called me a "religtard" so I feel especially confident, like I've leveled up, in addressing a common refrain he used to the effect that no atheist ever killed in the name of God. Apologies if you've heard this before.

If a 100% atheist country invades a 100% Muslim country, slaughters millions and takes their diamonds, stating "Islam is evil and scary" as their rationale, were any atheists responsible for mass-killing? Not according to New Atheist math. As long as you don't say "in the name of the no-God," not only is atheism not responsible, atheists aren't either. By the law (fallacy) of no True Scotsman, they weren't acting AS atheists. This transparent tribalism is exactly the kind regularly used by god religions. Atheists are the good guys by definition, a classic ingroup scam. Of course in this example, the atheists are imperialists using a bullshit rationalization, using language to turn murder into heroism.

Maybe Stalin killed "in the name of communism." Maybe Hitler killed "in the name of nationalism." What did Charles Manson kill in the name of? What did Teddy Roosevelt kill in the name of? Why would you take what people say about their own motives at face value? People killed before god religion, they'll kill after god religion. God is one tool in the human "rationalization of killing and thieving" kit. The difference between cause and rationalization eludes people whose tribalist interests require they not understand this difference and that they not understand the actual causes pushing humans actions and world events.

Monday, September 7, 2015

demilitarization

The liberal call for demilitarizing the police means things like:

1. don't treat the domestic population with the same level of violence you use on state enemies abroad
2. take the militarization of police down to 19xx levels 
3. smarter or more cost-effective militarization
4. militarization I can get behind, this is embarrassing 
5. militarization that doesn't scare the shit out of me

But in fact police are militants through and through. If you lose the militancy, you lose the police. Demilitarization means "no more police."