The below was written in 2011. I stand by it. I have not contributed to RationalWiki since September 2012, but have lurked continuously and followed the WIGOs. I return in Summer 2017, when what seemed laughable in 2012 appears to be fast becoming a mainstream ideology.
| Views on Religion
|
| I am an passionate atheist. I have never known of a convincing or sound reason for believing in a god, and believe that it is a hypothesis which can be rejected without evidence, as surely as it is proposed without evidence. I believe that there's as much of a reason to believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ as there is to believe in Odin or Vishnu. I am, to a degree, an antitheist. By virtue of being an atheist, I believe that all world religions are incorrect. Some or all of their teachings may be wise and right, but their claim to a divine source is not. I believe that any deferral of one's sense of morality weakens one's integrity. To claim that something is right or wrong, without one's own belief or justification, but because it was written thousands of years ago by somebody you do not know anything about is incredibly dangerous, and that blind faith in religious leaders (such as The Pope) is dangerous and ultimately bad for the world. As a wise man one said, good men will always do good things as evil men will always do evil things, but it takes religion for good men to do evil things.
|
| Views on Politics
|
| I am a liberal, a social democrat, a pacifist and a republican. I describe myself as a social democrat, and not a socialist, because I believe that in a highly globalised world, true socialism will not produce the best outcome for a nation, as jobs will sadly be outsourced to China or other countries. I think that Tony Blair had roughly the right ideas on many things and that we must be as economically left-wing as we can while maintaining a market-based approach where possible. I believe that left-wing ideology for its own sake is not the correct approach, and that we must always be looking to the future. Sadly, this means no more nationalisation. Despite this, I would fight tooth and nail for the National Health Service in its current form. I am a liberal in every social sense. As a heterosexual, gay rights are incredibly important to me. What is my liberty worth if others do not have it? I abhor sexism and racism, I believe that drug legalisation would generally be an important step forward. I'd like to see prisons reformed, too. I genuinely believe that every single step possible should be taken to avoid war. I am against the death penalty. I have reservations about abortion, but strongly believe that when there is a decision to be made, it should be for that individual alone to make, and that women's right to have an abortion should never be limited. And, I guess I'm a bit of soppy, silly liberal, when I say that I want proportional representation and the abolition of the monarchy (of the United Kingdom).
|
| Views on RationalWiki
|
| I love RationalWiki. I think the content that has been built over the years is of an excellent standard, I think the community here is fantastic, and I think the site has many happy years of expansion ahead of it. I fear that there is a spectre lurking beneath the surface, poking it's head every time we go into Headless Chicken Mode. Unresolved questions come up every time, about the role of Conservapedia in the website, the role of rules and the mob, and various other issues. I think that RationalWiki can only become the world-class, excellent wiki that it should be when we truly move past the obsession with Conservapedia. Only when Conservapedia references in articles are gone (unless relevant) and there is no risk of a Conservapedia-related argument spilling into the rest of the wiki can we truly prosper. At the moment, it's like two websites within one: the rationalist site and it's mission related articles, and a set of forums about Conservapedia. Every single time there's a discussion about the role of these two 'sub-sites' or something spills from one to the other, there is trouble. I also think that the site cannot effectively grow past 40 or 50 active members without establishing proper policies and rules, and it is not something that we should fear. These are all challenges we face in the future.
|
Two articles previously existed and were wholly replaced.