Apparently, this atheist chic takes magical mushrooms. She proceeds proposing a natural explanation to the weird patterns appearing in psychedelic visions. Interesting, to be sure. But note that her explanation is perfectly compatible with pantheism. Here we go again: "spiritual atheism" is either shame-faced spirituality or a quasi-religous LARP. Or perhaps both.
Or as a sixties hippie would no doubt have put it: Dude!
Ultra-super-duper ateista Matt Dillahunty calls out "spiritual atheism", arguing that it´s an oxymoron since spirituality is simply nonsense. But note that even my man Matt de facto believes in...psychotherapy.
The second video is c/o Britt Hartley and clearly shows her peculiar eclecticism. On the one hand, the universe is meaningless, free will doesn´t exist, there is no soul or "self", und so weiter. She even calls herself a nihilist! On the other hand, this is apparently untolerable, so Hartley says atheists should "steal from religion" and become "spiritual" anyway. Which includes both meditation, ritual, community-building, et cetera. Note also the references to psychedelic drugs.
There is also a discussion on patriarchy and gender differences in relation to spirituality. Here we go again...
In other words: atheism (as in consistent atheist materialism) doesn´t work even for atheists. Conclusion has been drawn.
I heard rumors about this before, but usually rolled my eyes at it. Until now. Ever heard of the Progressive Western Republicans, some of whom were Mormons?
Yes — very much so.
In fact, for several decades after World War II, parts of the American West (especially Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Montana) produced a distinctive kind of “Western Republican” who was economically progressive, pro-labor, and pro-government investment, even while being culturally conservative.
This now-forgotten tradition is one of the great buried chapters of U.S. political history.
Here are the clearest examples.
From the 1930s through the 1970s, many Republicans in the interior West believed:
The federal government should build dams, roads, and power plants
Labor unions were legitimate
Social Security and Medicare were good
Antitrust law should restrain corporations
Public land should serve the people, not just private industry
This was not seen as “left-wing” — it was seen as practical Western development policy.
Western states were poor, rural, and underdeveloped, so Republicans there wanted federal investment.
A conservative Mormon, but:
supported Social Security
backed Medicare
supported federal water projects
voted for civil rights laws
He opposed big business monopolies and supported labor protections.
Church was actually a Democrat, but Idaho’s Republicans were often not much different from him on economics.
The most important Idaho Republican was:
Pro-welfare
Pro-public works
Pro-federal land protection
Backed Social Security and labor law
Idaho Republicans routinely supported:
unions
environmental protection
anti-corporate regulation
The most famous was:
A Republican who:
opposed the Vietnam War
supported civil rights
supported food stamps
supported public housing
backed environmental protection
Today he would look like a Bernie Sanders–style Democrat on economics — but he was a lifelong Republican.
Republican Governor and Senator who:
expanded higher education
created environmental protections
supported abortion rights
supported welfare programs
Washington Republicans were often to the left of Southern Democrats.
The Western GOP came from:
small farmers
miners
loggers
Mormons
rural communities
They feared:
Wall Street
Eastern corporations
railroad monopolies
oil and mining trusts
So they wanted:
A strong federal government to protect the people from corporate power.
That was Republicanism in the West.
This tradition died after:
the Civil Rights Act
the Southern realignment
the rise of evangelical politics
Reagan’s transformation of the GOP
The Republican Party became:
Southern
evangelical
anti-government
anti-union
The Western progressive Republicans were pushed out or retired.
Yes — for much of the 20th century, Republicans in Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Montana were often economically progressive, pro-labor, pro-environment, and pro-welfare.
They were not Democrats in disguise.
They were a now-extinct species:
The Western Progressive Republican.
If you’d like, I can show how this tradition connects to Mormon political culture, conservationism, and even Teddy Roosevelt’s legacy — it’s a fascinating lineage.
The connection is deep, old, and very specifically Mormon — and it explains why Utah-Idaho Republicans once looked so “left-wing” on economics.
Let’s go step by step.
Early Latter-day Saint society under Joseph Smith and Brigham Young was built on ideas that would today be called:
communitarian
cooperative
anti-corporate
anti-speculation
They practiced:
the United Order (shared property)
church-run industries
cooperative stores
price controls
collective land settlement
The goal was:
prevent rich outsiders from exploiting Mormon farmers.
Wall Street capitalism was seen as spiritually dangerous.
Mormons had been:
expelled from Missouri
driven from Illinois
murdered and dispossessed
So Western Mormons developed a paradoxical view:
They hated federal interference in religion
But they loved federal money and infrastructure
Because:
Federal dams, railways, irrigation, and land law protected them from Eastern corporate power.
This produced a political instinct:
Government should defend the community against monopoly.
In Mormon theology:
The church must care for the poor
No one should be left without food, land, or work
Utah built:
church welfare farms
church-run job systems
mutual aid societies
So when Republicans like Wallace F. Bennett supported:
Social Security
Medicare
federal housing
labor protections
they were not betraying Mormon values — they were translating them into federal policy.
Mormon settlers believed:
mining companies
railroads
oil firms
were tools of Gentile exploitation.
They wanted:
public land
cheap power
irrigation
antitrust law
That’s why Western Republicans backed:
the TVA model
dam building
public power
conservation
All of which look “left-wing” today.
After WWII:
Mormons became middle-class
Utah became suburban
the Cold War made “collective” sound dangerous
evangelicals took over the GOP
Mormon Republicans shifted from:
communitarian populism
to:
suburban capitalism.
The old Mormon Republicanism quietly died.
The reason Utah and Idaho Republicans once sounded like New Deal Democrats is simple:
They were practicing Mormon communitarianism through Republican politics.
It was not secular socialism —
It was theocracy-flavored welfare capitalism.
And for about 40 years, it quietly shaped the American West.
These videos are somewhat...annoying. Ex-Mormon atheist Britt Hartley discusses the so-called Vallow-Daybell doomsday murders in Idaho and Arizona. She reaches the conclusion that religion can´t stop religious psychosis since the difference between them is merely quantitative. There is no particular difference between the Mormon faith at large and the psychotic delusions of crazed cultist Lori Vallow. Except perhaps that Vallow takes her religion seriously (too seriously, perhaps). Religious "moderates" therefore enable the extremists. Et cetera.
But what about, ahem, atheism? What if somebody would take the "hot takes" of atheist materialism absolutely seriously: there is no free will, the cosmos is meaningless, humanity is an accident or even a mistake...wouldn´t *that* lead to psychosis? What makes Hartley´s anti-religious agitation (including moderate religion) so weird is that she herself knows that atheism can lead straight to nihilism - the topic of the third video linked above. So why isn´t the difference between moderate atheism and radical nihilism ("a lived experience of existential depression") also merely quantitative? Maybe the reason why most YouTube atheists never get depressed is that they are "Jack atheists" (to coin a phrase), who don´t really take their bullshit seriously.
I actually wonder what the difference might be between a person who spins into depression when realizing that the universe is meaningless, and a person who doesn´t. I also wonder if the two groups are gendered, women being more common in the first group. A person who interprets both religion and atheism "existentially" might spiral off into nihilism if rejecting religion, while a person who looks upon worldviews "intellectually" might feel less threatened. And come up with intellectually satisfying "solutions" to, say, the free will problem ("compatibilism"). And in our culture, the first group is usually female, and the second is male.
With those reflections, I end this little introduction.
 |
| "If I stand like this for several days, maybe Fauci won´t see me" |
In case you didn´t understand the joke:
Fauci´s NIH division partially funded insects eating beagles alive
I have no particular opinion on who is "right" or "wrong" here, but the story is interesting in its own right. Of course, the Biden nominee might as well be seen as a former snitch, not just a "former eco-terrorist"!
Biden nominates "former eco-terrorist" to head Bureau of Land Management
"The Archeology of Global Change: The Impact of Humans on Their Environment" is a book published in 2004 by the Smithsonian Institution. Yes, folks, it´s time for the Ashtar Command to bash the myth of the noble savage again! So far, I´ve "only" read the first part of the volume, which contains a somewhat eclectic blend of articles about Polynesia, the US Southwest and the Pacific Northwest.
Humans have never lived in fundamental "harmony" with Nature, nor have they been "natural conservationists". The first evidence for overexploitation of natural resources comes from "archaic Homo sapiens". The size of tortoise shells and shellfish gradually decrease with time at Neanderthal sites around the Mediterranean, suggesting that our evolutionary siblings gathered (and consumed) the larger species or varieties first, making them go extinct! This also confirms the "optimum foraging" model, according to which humans should always harvest the most nutritious and easily accesible specimens first, and only then proceed to smaller, less nutritious and/or less accesible individuals. This pattern shows up again and again in the archeological record. In plain English, if forced to chose between eating and cultural ideology, most humans most of the time chose to eat.
The contributors to this volume believe that humans were also responsible for the Pleistocene extinctions of "charismatic megafauna" in Eurasia, Australia and the Americas. I admit that I have no idea whodunnit, and the issue is only mentioned in passing, but some suggestive facts could be cited. For instance, that only a few species of megafauna went extinct in Africa, where humans and other animals presumably co-evolved for millions of years. By contrast, most megafaunal species went extinct in Australia and the Americas, where humans arrived comparatively late, and the animals hadn´t evolved any defenses against human predation. However, this assumes that received paleontological wisdom about human migrations is correct. What if humans arrived much earlier? An alternative hypothesis is that the megafauna went extinct due to climate change at the end of the Pleistocene. Of course, none of this has any impact on the conclusions of this book, which deals mostly with the Holocene (the present time period).
Patrick V Kirch´s article "Oceanic Islands: Microcosms of `Global Change´" deals with human impact on two Polynesian islands (Easter Island and Mangaia) and one ditto archipelago (Hawaii). The humans in question are the "Natives", the Polynesians, who colonized the islands long before the arrival of White Europeans or Americans. If pre-modern "Natives" are natural conservationists, islands should still be teeming with endemics (including flightless birds) and in general have the same biotopes as before colonization (except in cases of severe climate change). Unless, of course, evil Whites upset the balance! In reality, the Polynesians radically altered the island environments they encountered during their migrations in the Pacific. Nor is this surprising: the Polynesians practiced slash-and-burn agriculture and irrigation, introduced new food crops, and carried with them dogs, pigs and chicken. They were also followed by invasive species such as the Pacific rat or garden snails. And yes, they did hunt the animals already living on the islands...
Easter Island (Rapanui) was originally covered by parklandlike forests, with a canopy of palm trees. About 25 different species of seabird nested on the island. Rapanui was in effect a gigantic seabird rookery. There were also seven species of endemic landbirds. After 1,500 years of human habitation, Easter Island had changed completely: the forests had been cut down and replaced by grassland, the endemics were extinct, and most seabird species left the island, only a few remaining at small islets that are virtually unaccesible to humans. The Natives were fighting constant wars, which may have included cannibalism.
The story of Mangaia (one of the Cook Islands) is similar. Probably colonized by Polynesians about 2000 years ago, the island´s environment had completely changed about 400 years ago. The interior of the island is covered by pyrophytic ferns and other fire-resistant plants, presumably in response to slash-and-burn agriculture. Of 17 documented landbird taxa in the archeological record, only four remained 600 years later. Some seabird species also left the island. Fish and gastropods found at archeological sites became progressively smaller over time, suggesting heavy exploitation of these particular resources. Mangaian society developed in a way similar to Rapanui, with constant tribal wars, widespread cannibalism, human sacrifice, and so on. (I won´t bother you with Hawaii.)
The most fascinating contribution in the first section is titled "Revising the `Wild´ West: Big Game Meets the Ultimate Keystone Species" by Paul S Martin and Christine R Szuter. It meticulously analyzes the journals of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803-1806) to Montana and the Pacific Northwest. In Montana, the expedition encountered enormous flocks of bison and other game animals, one bison flock estimated to be 10,000 animals strong! The bison, elk, wolves and grizzly bears were also extremely tame. Clark managed to kill a wolf with his spontoon, suggesting that he managed to get very close to it (a spontoon is apparently a weapon about 2 meters long). The wolf was eating a drowned bison and seems not to have cared much about the human hunter, before it was too late! Lewis, Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" had no problem finding and killing animals for food east of the Rocky Mountains. West of the Rockies was a different story. There, game was virtually non-existent. At first, the expedition was forced to live on dried fish and roots provided by the Natives, something that made them sick. Later, they bought horses and dogs from various Native groups, with the intention of killing and eating them. Nor were the animals in the Pacific Northwest particularly docile. Killing a grizzly was considered an extremely heroic and manly act by the Natives, since these animals were so extremely aggressive.
What could account for the peculiar difference between the two areas explored by the Lewis and Clark expedition? The two explorers themselves had no explanation, and many historians don´t give one either. However, the answer is right there, in the journals.
It´s the Natives, stupid.
The Native population was abundant *west* of the Rockies, where the game was most scarce. This would indeed suggest some kind of connection. The situation in Montana was more complex. An aggressive Native group known as the Blackfoot had virtually cleansed large areas of competing tribes by systematic attacks. Thus, the overall population density of Montana was probably lower than the areas further west. Of course, Blackfoot raiding had led other tribes to take defensive measures. Vast stretches of "no mans land" separated the various tribal territories from each other. In these areas, hunting was deemed difficult, due to the risk of being spotted and killed by scouts from the enemy tribe. Martin and Szuter believe that the abundant wildlife described by Lewis and Clark lived in these "DMZs". There is some later evidence for the same phenomenon, for instance Colorado circa 1820-1840, when the bison disappeared from the territory *when the Indian tribes made peace with one another*. A more recent example would be the border between North and South Korea, where wildlife is thriving.
These facts (plus the later disappearence of many Native groups) make it problematic to argue that current conservation efforts are about "restoring" an original, pristine wilderness. There simply isn´t such a thing. There hasn´t been a pristine wilderness sensu stricto since humans first arrived in North America 12,000 years ago. Animal numbers have been controlled by humans ever since. Humans are "the ultimate keystone species". The "balance" (if that´s the right word for it) between Native hunters and prey animals was disturbed when Natives aquired horses, but also when European diseases severly decimated the Native population. This led to all kinds of anomalous situations, often misreported as some kind of "Eden" where animals are super-abundant and tame. Something that is really the result of an atypical absence of human hunters, something seldom seen since the Pleistocene...
I will certainly continue reading this book with considerable interest.
.jpg)