Teetering on the Brink of the Nihilist Abyss.

 

Implausible monsters emerged from Lovecraft's id; the worst of them was racism. 

As I've said before; the move from atheism to postmodern nihilism is one short step for man but one giant cultural leap for humankind. Take this post by my favourite atheist PZ Myers where he remarks on generalised Copernicanism and contemporary authors who are bringing us a postmodern cosmic dread such as we see in an HBO production called Lovercraft Country....

Science has been spending a few centuries working to move the center of the universe away from us, so it fits with an ongoing trend. Now we just have to dislodge that center from white people, which is proving to be the hardest step of them all. Lovecraft Country, though, does its part in the decentering. Don’t read Lovecraft, read the more recent authors that have been bringing us cosmic dread without the petty racism. (Another author I’d recommend: the work of Ruthanna Emrys, who takes on the perspective of the fish men of Innsmouth.)

Hey, can we pretend Skepticon is taking place in Lovecraft country?

There is no need to pretend if you are as good as in Lovecraft country already.  Myers calls Lovecraft a horrible racist (which no doubt he was!) but the monster of racism feels very Lovecraftian to me and of a piece with Lovecraft's id inspired cosmic dread. Like the monster from the id racism inhabits our subconscious and we inadvertently reify it into our social surroundings. In any case Lovecraft had such a jaundiced view of what he believed to be an utterly indifferent cosmos that race supremacism wouldn't be out of place in it and in fact in his mind would likely be a natural outcome of inter-species competition. Lovecraft's vision of the cosmos was so misanthropic that who knows what horrible things it could throw up.

I have a little knowledge of Lovecraft because one of my sons studied Lovecraft for his MA: I think he wanted a grindstone to sharpen up his faith!  The LA Times, as quoted by Myers, tells us a bit more about H P Lovecraft:

Lovecraft helped create a genre now known as “cosmic horror,” stories filled with dread and terror at the knowledge that humans are not the most important things in the universe.

He was beginning to write at a time when science was making vast and profound discoveries,” says Klinger. “What he came to believe, I think deeply and honestly, was that human beings were insignificant little dust motes in this enormous universe and that eventually we would discover that we were not particularly significant.

No question that science in stages, starting with Copernicus through particulate theory, deep time, evolution, and deep space etc has left the old Christian order with a mighty lot to ponder; not that that's a bad thing, although as counter-reactions Christian young earthism and flat earthism are the rearguard actions of an incompetent, run-down and bankrupt religious culture. But let's not give up hope and faith yet, else, as the irony of  satirical  Christian artist Steve Taylor would put it: 

Life unwinds like a cheap sweater

But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better

And the truth gets blurred like a wet letter

But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better

And let's not forget that even on evolutionary logic we find that science is telling us that we never left the centre. Or a better way of putting it: The die was heavily loaded in favour of life from the outset and therefore by implication loaded in our favour as well. 

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2019/09/evolution-naked-chance.html

Relevant links:

http://viewsnewsandpews.blogspot.com/2019/05/teetering-on-brink-of-nihilist-abyss.html

http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2019/09/many-worlds-theory-theory-devoid-of.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2017/05/whats-gone-wrong.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2015/08/deep-internal-contradiction.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2011/06/2001-spaced-out-odyssey.html

https://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-know-you-know-you-know-it.html

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzLwnl6qE_yed05ld0xhcGJwaDQ/view

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzLwnl6qE_yeVXVQRVRPVFRaM1E/edit?pli=1