Thursday, June 10, 2010

Introduction

I am the conservative agnostic and welcome to my blog.

Most people, when they stop to think about religion and politics, naturally assume that American liberals are the atheists and agnostics while American conservatives are religious believers. Perhaps this is most often the case, but there are numerous exceptions. Just think of religious liberals, such as the Berrigan brothers and the Christians in New York who invited Fidel Castro to give speeches in their churches. Or think of conservatives and classical liberals, such as F.A. Hayek, who espoused no religious beliefs while describing and defending the ways of free societies so well that even the most religious conservatives, such as William F. Buckley considered their writings foundational texts.

And then consider me, your conservative agnostic. I believe in a free, open, uncreated, undesigned, unguided universe. I believe, likewise, in free, open, uncreated, undesigned societies, especially American society. I believe the universe, the Earth, our biosphere, the human mind, and every human society to be emergent phenomena, not artifacts of any creator god.

As I write this blog, I will defend these assertions while delving into the many realms of self-organizing systems as studied by scientists and philosophers, such as chaos and complexity theory, information theory, distributed intelligence, biological evolution, the neurosciences, history, sociology, the wisdom of crowds, economics, and political philosophy.

Perhaps, after awhile, a new sense of what it's like to NOT live in the traditional religious scripted universe will take hold. Perhaps this new sense will allow us to see aspects of reality that have formerly been obscured by the ancient religious sense of a universe with human attributes. And perhaps when we're free of that sense, we will be able to make much more sense of our universe that in of itself possesses no love, no guidance, no planning, no commands, and no justice whatsoever.

At that point, we will understand that if we want to cultivate our human virtues and meliorate our human vices, it will be entirely up to us. The universe won't help us and neither will it hinder us.

If you would like to read some of my earlier thoughts on these and other conservative agnostic notions, check out my essays on Scribd.com. Here are a few that will help you get started: