Atheism, Humanism, Satanism
In the younger generation in the West, a worldview has become widespread that can be described using three “isms”: atheism, humanism, and Satanism. This is an elitist worldview that is prevalent among intellectuals and in academia, particularly in the social sciences.
The first component is atheism. This element grants the worldview scientific respectability and connects it to the thinking style of high IQ individuals. The supernatural, miracles, prayers, and even the very concept of a transcendent God—none of these have a place anymore. All of them are perceived as childish notions of the past, which the powerful in society once used to pacify the masses.
The second component is humanism. Atheism has left a void—a psychological need for another totalizing worldview to replace religion—and humanism fills this need. Humanist believers hold faith in the grandeur of humanity. But not necessarily in a way that emphasizes human superiority over other living creatures. On the contrary, many of them are vegans and highly sensitive to animal rights. However, they reject the idea of any hierarchy among human beings. All people are equally exalted in every way.
Yet, this devotion to humanism renders its supposed scientific-rational claim absurd. After all, according to an atheistic worldview, humans evolved from apes through an evolutionary process, and it is nearly inevitable to assume that different human groups, some of which did not intermix for over 100,000 years, developed distinct traits through this process. Likewise, cultures that emerged from different historical, religious, geographic, and demographic conditions do not necessarily lead to identical outcomes. However, humanist believers are in complete denial of this fact.
The third component, Satanism, arises from the dissonance between humanism and reality. In practice, some human cultures embody everything that humanists are supposed to abhor—religious fanaticism, sexism, homophobia, extreme violence. The humanist solution to this contradiction is to shift the blame for these behaviors onto Western cultures. In doing so, they can maintain the belief that denies any hierarchy among humans and their cultures.
As the great Jewish psychologist Leon Festinger demonstrated, the greater the dissonance, the more frantic and desperate the attempts to resolve it. Events such as October 7th amplify the dissonance many times over. The fact that this massacre did not increase sympathy for Jews but rather the opposite is astonishing at first glance, but it follows an internal logic. The humanist axiom dictates that cultures are equal. If Arabs are driven to acts like those of October 7th, the only possible conclusion is that a profound and cruel oppression has pushed them to it. The humanist statement, therefore, is: “Look what you made them do.”
This is the point where humanism turns into Satanism. It will find justifications for any demonic act committed by cultures perceived as lower in the global hierarchy. Thus, the path from an aspiration for love of humanity leads to the worship of the devil and to a virulent antisemitism that was once characteristic of Nazi circles—or at the very least, to tolerance for such antisemitism when it comes from the Muslim world.
People who sympathize with Judaism (and also with Christianity) may appreciate this description of events. The void left by the absence of God is ultimately filled by the devil. I, who once believed that this void could be filled with scientific and rational content, have already admitted that this was an illusion.
A painful discovery I made is that there appears to be a degree of idolatry in the Christian and Islamic practices of the Third World that far exceeds what one might expect in these religions in their more textual forms. For example, some Latin American groups not only have patron saints forming a strange pantheon but also create idols or physical objects to establish shrines. It’s very pagan. And Islamic practices in sub-Saharan Africa, I would argue, might horrify quite a few Arabs with the superstitions involved. It is perhaps fair to say that avoiding these pitfalls requires a degree of intelligence and self-discipline. Moreover, secular humanism often fails for the same reason many supposed atheists in the West succumb to the idiocies of astrology and crystals. Crystals! Humans are fundamentally weak, and if any movement becomes large enough to include the general populace, it inevitably opens the door to their carried infections.
You mentioned that you once had faith in this prescription but no longer do. Is it possible that you’ve been too hard on yourself? What I mean is that beliefs percolate downward—much like how first names first emerge among the upper crust of society before trickling down as they spread. What you observe today may simply be the result of a nascent ideology, once embraced by intellectual elites, trendsetters, and tastemakers—the connoisseurs of the avant-garde—becoming so common that it is now both plebeian and passé, exposing the frailties of this larger sample. This, I argue, is the fate of effective altruism. No longer a topic quietly discussed in esoteric circles, it must now conform to the demands of the masses, struggling not just to equate shrimp suffering with diseases affecting human lifespans but also to affirm the equal worth of all humans. Syncretism—much like the idolatrous infection I mentioned at the start—is often the inevitable outcome when ideologies spread without the state capacity required to ensure their purity, doubly so when the written word is not the primary medium of transmission.