Adrian Mardell is the CEO of JLR and has received woke awards before.
He is looking for a new award it seems.
Jaguar -sh(e)/it
BE NOTHING!
Seems rather insecure.
Is he so worried that he may be taken for a she/her or an it?
Morse would not be amused.
This post is as an addendum to an earlier post:
Atheism (old or new) lacks “oomph”
Ultimately science and gods operate in separate domains. Science operates in the constrained world of what can be observed empirically and where foundational assumptions apply. The invention of gods is always in response to some question or mystery that science cannot address. Of course, imbuing gods – who are merely labels for the unanswerable – with human or superhuman characteristics is nothing but literary (fictional) license. The problem often arises in that such fictions are taken literally. Others interpret scientific findings as weapons to challenge or deny certain religious beliefs. But strictly they live on different planes in different worlds. The bottom line is that science cannot tread in the places where its unanswerable questions led to the invention of the gods. And the gods cannot exist in the domains where science is constrained to hold sway.
The 2020 Presidential election had some 20 million more voters than the total for 2024. All the mainstream media claim that the shortfall is due to votes still being counted. 20 million is almost 13% of the total electorate. At this stage of counting, that 13% are yet to be counted and all the states have been called, strains credulity. It is just nonsense. 15 million of the missing 20 million are Democratic votes and 5 million are Republican. Of course turnout does not have to be the same from one election to the next. But not to this extent.
In 2020 I estimated that the Democrats had generated about 3 million ineligible voters without ID who voted, and that tipped the election. It now seems to me that the number of fake Democratic votes probably exceeded 5 million in 2020. (I find the opposition to voters having to prove their eligibility to vote by showing identification incontrovertible proof of skullduggery being planned).
This bar-chart is from the New York Times which, these days, is trying very hard to be a woke, left-wing rag. (I am beginning to question paying their subscription).
The winning margin declared for Trump in 2024 was around 2.6%. If there were that many votes (13%) left to be counted the results could not have been called.
I think the case of the 2020 election having been stolen is pretty well proven.
QED.
I am sitting in Europe and watched the US elections with interest and fascination. I am considerably right of centre in my opinions but not, I think, closed to reasonable opinions from any quarter. I do though have great contempt for the modern “freaky woke” movements who complicate simple matters for the sake of complicating them, merely to create nonsense jobs for pretend sociologists.
I have little respect for BLM when black lives don’t matter much to other blacks in the US. (Blacks kill more blacks than any other group. Black women terminate more of their own potential children than any other ethnic group in the US. Black mothers, more than any other group, are single parents). In the spectrum of all people there are a few people who are born with some physical or mental aberrations. Among these there are a very few whose gender is physically ambiguous (intersex). Modern medicine, in some cases, can mitigate some of the problems. There are also a few who though being physically, unambiguously, either male or female do develop a belief over their growth years of being of the opposite gender. They are termed transgender and clearly suffer from some mental aberration. They do not form some new gender. There are just two genders with aberrations. It is no more complicated than that. Identity is not complicated either. It is determined at conception when an individual’s DNA is pretty well set in stone. It needs no more than that. A man pretending to be a woman or vice versa remains pretense and does not cause any change to identity. You are what you are and not what you might have liked to be.
I am not directly affected by the outcome of US elections though the world, whether it likes it or not, is indirectly impacted by who is President there. The Presidential debate in June settled the matter for me. It was a disaster for Biden.
But then he stayed in the race and only stepped down in favour of Kamala Harris at the end of July. Though this gave her a rather short time to campaign the fundamental problem was that she provided no real choice and was the wrong candidate for the Democrats. The perceptions of a sick and infectious Democratic party were much more widespread than liberal bigots like to acknowledge. She came from California – where all the sickness and wokeness came from. Where men were allowed into girls changing rooms and pedophiles into boys changing rooms. Where it was a badge of honour to be a freak. Where having the right to kill your own was considered an achievement. Where it was a point of pride to have terminated a fetus of your own as a matter of convenience.
She didn’t stand much of a chance. A flawed candidate and a doomed campaign. She was not sure of her own identity. Black first, Indian second. She was stuck between the devil and a hard place. She could not, in conscience, distance herself from Biden’s failures. And if she had she would have been a traitor.
The Harris campaign had hoped to reassemble the voting base that powered Biden’s 2020 victory, winning over the core Democratic constituencies of black, Latino and young voters as well as making further gains with college-educated suburban voters. But she underperformed with these key voting blocs. She lost 13 points with Latino voters, two points with black voters, and six points with voters under 30, according to exit polls, which may change as votes are counted, but are considered representative of trends. …
While women largely threw their support behind Harris over Trump, the vice-president’s lead did not exceed the margins that her campaign had hoped her historic candidacy would turn out. And she was unable to deliver on her ambitions of winning over suburban Republican women, losing 53% of white women. ….. In the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, Democrats had hoped her focus on the fight for reproductive rights would deliver a decisive victory. While some 54% of female voters cast their ballots for Harris, it fell short of the 57% who backed Biden in 2020, according to exit poll data. …….
In the final stretch, however, Harris made a tactical decision to again highlight the dangers of a second Trump presidency, calling the president a “fascist” and campaigning with disaffected Republicans fed up with his rhetoric. After Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, told the New York Times that Trump spoke approvingly about Adolf Hitler, Harris delivered remarks outside her official residence describing the president as “unhinged and unstable”. “Kamala Harris lost this election when she pivoted to focus almost exclusively on attacking Donald Trump,” veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz said ……
The perception here is that most of the legal cases against Trump were brought by Democratic prosecutors on a witch hunt. I suspect they actually helped the resolve of his die-hard supporters and even engendered the “Trump as victim” meme. Trump’s undoubted vulgarity has been largely discounted by the US electorate. Trump as misogynist does not quite wash. He certainly has no time or patience with feminism without femininity. His view of women is that of a playboy – not that of a misogynist.
I was not surprised at the result. Certainly, in my opinion, the direction for the US and for the world is better off with Trump than with Kamala Harris. I think the Democrats need to ask themselves how it can be that the Presidency, the Senate and maybe even the House will all be Red in spite of Trump. They are so blinkered by the freaky woke that they are missing the real issues.
With Trump I am expecting some more protectionism and a little less globalism. That is a good thing. A little more bilateralism and a little less multinationalism. That is not a bad thing either. I expect small businesses to fuel growth much more than large global companies. This will trickle down to other countries as well. I hope that the parasitic part of academia in the US shrinks by purging itself of all the nonsense sociology departments and students. I look forward to the US reverting to common sense and walking back some of the freaky wokery that has been indulged in. I am expecting that the Russian/Ukraine war will come to an end in 2025 – somehow. The terms may not be to the EU’s liking but it will end. The fighting will come to a stop in Gaza as well and Netanyahu will step down.
I am now looking for a bunch of Hollywood stars to relocate to houses on the Mediterranean coast. Not that they matter.
Philosophy has two meanings. The word describes either
The second is the one that interests me the most. But atheism is neither the one nor the other. It has no “ism”. It does not classify as a philosophy. Somebody who tells you he is an atheist is not telling you who he is or what he stands for. He is only telling you who he hates.
Gods, deities, religions (gdr) and the Great Mysteries
I know that gods were invented by man but I find atheism lacking in substance and very unsatisfactory. It is a-theism but effectively has no ism of its own. Atheism, at its core, is no more than a reaction to theism. It defines itself in opposition to the belief in gods or a higher power. Without the concept of a god or gods, atheism could not exist. Gods and deities and religions (gdr) were invented by man when they found mysteries which could not be explained. Gods and deities were labels for the unknown answers to unanswerable questions. Religions came about because it was realised that the labels could be hijacked to coerce people to follow a desired way of life. The second part – the religion part – was nearly always created by the unscrupulous and always as a way of coercing the behaviour of the gullible. Religions always have a political goal and a political objective – the coercion of a particular kind of behaviour. Nevertheless, it seems entirely logical that the gods of the winds and the seas and the mountains and the sun and the moon would be invented when the natural world defied explanation and generated awe and wonder among humans. Gods of creation and destruction and even their anti-gods were inevitable given that humans kept asking but found that there were no answers. (Deities and pantheons of gods probably came about to make for more interesting story-telling and also probably to avoid divine labour disputes and to acknowledge the different skills they possessed)! Man invented gods and then fantasized about men being in the image of the invented gods. Gods and deities were arbitrarily invested with human or supernatural characteristics. Elaborate stories were concocted and theologies built around the concoctions but the Great Questions remained unanswered.
In any event, the Great Mysteries which have been Great Mysteries since the dawn of man and which remain Great Mysteries today are (such as but not restricted to) existence, time, causality, space, matter, energy, life and consciousness. Neither science nor philosophy nor religion or metaphysics or theology are any closer now to providing explanations for these today than homo erectus had available a million years ago. No atheist is closer to answers to the Great Mysteries today than any beatified saint of the Middle Ages. Modern physics and cosmology have no possibility of addressing their own fundamental assumptions. Modern science can not contemplate its own navel. Existence and time and causality and matter and space are merely assumed. They can neither be addressed or penetrated. The spark of life and what makes for consciousness are as mysterious today as in Buddha’s time. The Big Bang is just another creation myth which requires something to come from nothing. Sounds Divine! Quantum mechanics depends upon the God of Random (since random means without cause) and the claim that any form of existence is probabilistic is merely proof of ignorance. (Statistics and probability only come into play in the field of ignorance. If you know something, probability of outcome is meaningless). Physics does not know what the stuff of the fundamental particles is/are. Quantum mechanics does not know what makes waves particles or particles to be waves. (and waves of what, one may ask).
What atheism is
The “new atheism” is really just a virulently aggressive form of old atheism and just as unsatisfactory.
New Atheism is a movement characterized by a group of prominent atheists who argue that religion is not only false but harmful to society. This movement emerged in the early 21st century, primarily popularized by authors like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.
Key characteristics of New Atheism include:
- Assertion of atheism: New Atheists openly and assertively declare their atheism, often contrasting it with the more passive or private atheism of the past.
- Criticism of religion: They argue that religion is not only false but also harmful, leading to irrationality, violence, and oppression.
- Emphasis on reason and science: New Atheists advocate for a reliance on reason and scientific evidence as the primary means of understanding the world, rejecting religious claims based on faith or revelation.
- Promotion of secularism: They support the separation of church and state and advocate for a secular society where religious beliefs do not influence public policy or institutions.
- Public engagement: New Atheists have been highly vocal in their public criticisms of religion, often engaging in debates, writing books, and giving lectures.
While New Atheism has been influential and sparked significant debate, it has also faced criticism for its aggressive tone, ….
Atheism has no “oomph”
A denial of gods, deities and religion (gdr) is existential for atheism. If others did not believe in gdr, no atheism could exist. But neither the old nor the new atheism has any “philosophy”, any “ism”, of any significance that it can call its own. It has no philosophical “oomph”.
Attacking gods and their imagined human attributes is not difficult. When an atheist does so it requires no great intellectual exertion. Taking god-labels literally and attacking them is no great feat. But explaining the reasons why gods were invented in the first place is beyond any atheist. What I find particularly irritating with atheists being smug is that when they attack gdr they are effectively saying “I don’t know what existence is either but I know it isn’t gdr”. It is the worst kind of logical self-contradiction there can be. “I don’t know, but I know it isn’t what you say”. They claim to use reason but fall at the first hurdle. Atheists claim a higher level of ignorance. It reminds me of children arguing. “I don’t know but you don’t either. Yah, boo sucks to you”.
I have observed that the high priests of the atheists sometimes claim – almost as a desperate justification that atheism is more than just a criticism of gdr – that it also has its own distinct philosophical base. They invoke the principles of Empiricism, Naturalism, Skepticism, Humanism, and Secularism as being somehow a part of atheism. But atheists did not invent any of these and none of them need atheism for their existence. Furthermore they forget that the regime of logic and reason they espouse is itself a belief like any other, and is a belief which cannot be proved. Naturalism – and obviously also atheism – are silent on the great mysteries of existence, time, causality, life, space, matter, energy and consciousness. Atheists say they are skeptical of claims that are not supported by evidence or logical reasoning, and are particularly critical of religious claims that are based on faith or revelation. And yet all of science and knowledge are based on impenetrable fundamental assumptions. The Big Bang is just another Creation story and we still have no clue as to how gravity is mediated. The curvature of space-time is a mathematical construct and now String Theory has been discredited and Dark Matter probably does not exist. Atheists often claim to be humanists setting great store on the value of human life and on the importance of reason, compassion, and cooperation. These are just assertions, with no connection as to how things actually are. An atheist’s humanism is simply wishful thinking and lacks any logic as to how the lofty principles of humanism can be compelled to prevail. It is little more than sentimental claptrap. Instead of being the champions of a secular society, they have merely created a new intolerant religion.
The “philosophical elements” supposedly underpinning atheism only succeed in showing up atheism as being a religion on its own. Orthodoxy is defended by the new self-appointed high priests. Heretics are subject to inquisition and torture by YouTube or social media. The worst of the blasphemers are sacrificed by cancellation. Unthinking acolytes serve as the foot soldiers, torturers and executioners representing the high priests of the new religion. Admit it or not there is a virtual High Church of the New Atheism. Their ideas and beliefs are effectively “orthodoxies” assumed or asserted to be true or correct. Certain individuals, such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, are treated as “high priests” in the sense that their ideas and arguments are blindly accepted without criticism. There is a high level of intolerance and criticism directed towards those who disagree with the views of new atheists. There are undoubtedly modern “inquisitions” with the public shaming or cancellation or condemnation of those considered heretics. The foot soldiers who deify the high priests then become overly zealous and dogmatic as they blindly imitate and reproduce the ridicule of heretics without any exercise of mind. Just as all unthinking acolytes.
I don’t have much time for gdr. They do not offer me the answers I am looking for. But atheism – new or old – has no substance of any kind to offer either. It only offers petty arguments for attacking gdr. It makes no attempt to address the Great Mysteries of existence, time, causality, matter and energy, life and consciousness. Atheism, in fact, is cowardly in that it attacks labels instead of trying to address the mysteries which led to the invention of the labels.
Somebody who tells you he is an atheist is not telling you who he is or what he stands for. He is only telling you who he hates.
Atheism – old or new – has no good purpose at all. It has no “ism” and it certainly has no “oomph”!
Some are not very impressed.
I was.
There is always circularity involved when considering logic, reason and rationality. One set of definitions gives:
What is logical is not always considered reasonable. Yet we derive the rules of our logic from our reason. If we try and define what reason is we come back to logic and what is rational. But we also differentiate between logic and reason and rationality. It seems to me that all claims of objectivity whether for logic or reason or rationality are trying to square the circle.
Thinking through the nature of logic and its relationship to human reason, I am struck by the idea that logic, as we know it, may be much more of a human construct than being anything objective or universal. Logic, with its clear-cut rules of deduction, can only be a mirror of the world we claim to observe. It is a reflection of how humans perceive the world—through patterns, cause and effect, and binary distinctions between truth and falsehood. The concept of truth and falsehood as binary and mutually exclusive is a foundational assumption in classical logic, and propositions are either true or false without any middle ground. (The Law of the Excluded Middle). The rules of logic derived by reason are assertions and are fundamental assumptions. The binary distinction between true and false and that the one excludes the other is also just an assumption. It does not reflect all that we observe. It seems logical to us to say that if A is true, then B must follow, and if not-A, then not-B. But is this framework truly a reflection of the world as it is, or just a convenient tool we’ve developed to make sense of our observations?
I conclude that logic is inherently tied to the human mind – and particularly to individual human minds. It is a product of how we, as humans, experience the world through our senses, our language, and our understanding of cause and effect. Our observations, no matter how often repeated, and no matter how many times duplicated, are all perceptions. A delusion shared by multitudes does not make it true. A perception shared by billions does not make it any more objective than a single individual’s perception. The idea of something being “true” or “false” may not be a feature of the universe itself but a structure imposed by human cognition. A spider, for instance, will perceive the world in ways that are entirely alien to us, and it may have an entirely different logic that makes sense within its own experience. What we call “logic” could thus be nothing more than a human artefact, and there might be other forms of reasoning—unknown to us—practiced by other species or even extraterrestrial beings.
I must reject the idea of an absolute, objective logic. If logic is shaped by the mind that perceives the world, it cannot be universal. It must always involve the observer, making it inherently subjective. What we consider logical may not be logical to other beings whose cognitive processes are different from ours. I am quite certain that our pets do not consider our actions always to be logical. Logic, as a formal system, can only tell us what conclusions follow from given premises according to certain rules, but it does not tell us why those rules reflect the reality we observe—or whether they would hold in different contexts or for different minds. The rules of logic only give us an assumed correct process of thought, given a starting true condition, to reach other true conclusions. But logic does not attempt to define what truth is. It takes as a foundational assumption that what is not true is false and vice versa.
Hence, logic clearly is connected to but is not the same as reason. Further, I find it interesting to explore the distinction between what is reasonable and what is logical. There is no law of nature which requires us to act logically (or reasonably for that matter). Human actions may overrule what is logical to instead be reasonable or even unreasonable. While logic is about formal consistency, reasonableness is about sound judgment within the real-world context. A conclusion can be reasonable—based on experience, intuition, or practical considerations—without being strictly logical. Conversely, something can be logically valid but still seem unreasonable when we take into account broader factors like emotion, ethics, or practicality.
Thus, human reason is much wider than logic alone. I like to think of it as logic being the correctness part of that part of the thought process which needs to be bound by rules. Reason needs much more than just thinking correctly. Reasoning often involves flexibility, considering context, emotion, and pragmatic outcomes, whereas logic is strict and rule-bound. It is this broader sense of reason that helps us navigate the complexities of human life, and where strict logic fails to account for the richness of our experiences.
I conclude that logic is a guideline for structured thinking, but it is not synonymous with being reasonable. It is a product of human thought, applied to our thinking. It is tied to our perception and cognition, and its validity can only extend to be within the boundaries of what we can observe or understand. Reason, on the other hand, embraces a much wider scope. Reason brings judgement into play. To make judgements needs a set of values to compare with. The use of reason is what brings a judgement of what is “best” to do into play. Logic only allows us to follow the rules but reason allows us to act wisely and sensibly in a world that is often too complex for formal logic to capture.
But it also means that logic applies only to thinking and is no constraint on human actions. Reason is what we often use to overrule logic and as the justification of our actions. In this way, reason functions as the adaptive, real-world application of human thinking, whereas logic remains an internal tool for organizing thoughts, not necessarily dictating how we behave.
Even truth is an artefact of the mind. The world around us exists – it is. That part we perceive as observations (direct or indirect or implied) we take as being existential truth. This is the closest we get to any absolute truth and even that is tainted as being a perception of a human mind with all the limitations and foibles of that mind. A brute fact it seems, but still subjective. And everything else we take as truth is just a perception in a human mind.
Logic, reason and rationality are all artefacts of human minds. They are all subjective. There is no such thing as objective logic – except as a subjective perception.
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