Positions Overview

I am more than happy to discuss, explore, debate, expand upon, or explain any of the positions presented here.

All of my views are subject to change, revision, or removal, particularly in light of strong, logically coherent arguments or compelling empirical evidence. This is not a disclaimer; it is the position (see Fallibilism).

If any of the following views offend you, that is perfectly fine. We can still be friends. I value diversity of opinion and perspective, and I don't mind that you are wrong ;)

All views should be read in relation to My Presuppositions. For a short account of how these positions fit together, see World View.

Epistemology & Worldview

I am an atheist and a fallibilist, recognising that knowledge is always provisional and open to revision.
I hold that certainty is not available to us about anything, and that knowledge is best understood as a set of models built to minimise surprise, not as access to truth.
I regard solipsism as unfalsifiable and therefore uninteresting, and take the existence of an external reality as a presupposition.
I accept determinism and reject the notion of metaphysical free will. I do not find the compatibilist redefinition of free will useful, though I accept that praise, blame, and punishment remain justified by their effects.
I believe empirical evidence, reason, and the scientific method are the most reliable tools for understanding reality.
I accept evolution by natural selection as an observable, well-supported phenomenon, and Darwin's mechanism as the core of modern biology.
I hold that consciousness is an emergent property of, and wholly reducible to, the physical processes of the brain, and I reject mind-body dualism.
I hold that consciousness is substrate independent: it is a property of what a system computes, not of what it is made of, and a non-biological system doing the same work would be conscious in the same way. There is no magic material. No current machine does that work, as far as I can tell.
I do not believe there is an underlying human need for religion.
I reject the supernatural: ghosts, souls, an afterlife, reincarnation and karma, angels, demons, miracles, and the claims of psychics and mediums. Near-death experiences and religious experiences are real experiences with brain-based explanations.
I keep the experiences that "spirituality" names (awe, wonder, the dissolution of self) and reject the explanations attached to them. Meditation is the part of the religious inheritance most worth keeping; New Age beliefs are religion with the institution removed and the invoice kept.
I regard faith, in the sense of belief without sufficient evidence, as a defect of method rather than a virtue.
I reject pseudoscience and ideas such as the flat Earth, Homeopathy, astrology and creationism. The rest of the alternative-medicine aisle, acupuncture, chiropractic, naturopathy, "detox" and most of the supplement industry, is the same placebo in different packaging; medicine that works is called medicine.

Religion

I do not claim to know that no god exists; I am not a hard atheist. I do hold that the concept of God is, in most of its definitions, either incoherent, unfalsifiable, or unsupported, and I act in the world as if no god exists.
I am an agnostic about knowledge and an atheist about belief; the two answer different questions. Deism and pantheism I set aside as empty rather than false: a god who does nothing, or who is the universe renamed, makes no difference to anything.
I hold that no theodicy answers the problem of evil, that divine hiddenness is itself evidence against a loving god, and that Pascal's Wager is an appeal to consequences rather than an argument.
I regard the concept of Hell as irrational, incompatible with a benevolent god, and better explained as a tool of social control than as a revealed truth. Heaven is its mirror image and no more coherent, and original sin is a fifth-century doctrine that diagnoses a disease in order to sell the cure.
Prayer has no measurable effect on the world and real effects on the person praying, which need no listener.
I have examined the standard arguments of religious apologetics, in the forms Christian apologists use, and find none of them persuasive: the Kalam, first cause, prime mover, and contingency arguments; the argument from design; the moral argument; the ontological argument; the transcendental argument; and the arguments from desire, miracles, experience, the reliability of the New Testament, and the Resurrection. The specifically Islamic arguments, from the inimitability, preservation and scientific foreknowledge of the Qur'an, from the fitrah and from Muhammad's character, fare no better. Nor does the rest of the family: the arguments from sufficient reason, existential dependence, divine simplicity, degrees of perfection, the unity of reality and abstract objects; from fine-tuning, the laws of nature, mathematics and discoverability; from irreducible complexity, specified complexity, biological information and the origin of life; from conscience, consciousness, psychophysical harmony, reason, the evolutionary argument against naturalism, beauty and meaning; from universal belief, properly basic belief and changed lives; and, for Christianity in particular, from prophecy, eyewitnesses, martyrdom, the criterion of embarrassment, undesigned coincidences and Lewis's trilemma. Stacking them does not help (Cumulative Case Argument).
I hold that the Bible is a human library, neither literal nor inerrant; that its morality is judged by the reader rather than the reverse; that Noah's Flood did not happen; and that a historical Jesus probably did exist, which is no evidence for the claims made about him.
I apply the same standard to Islam, Mormonism, Scientology and Buddhism as to Christianity. Each is a human invention; the newer ones merely have better records of the inventing.
The positive name for what is left is humanism. I accept the label as a description and do not lead with it: my positions are held one at a time, for their own reasons, and the humanism is the sum rather than the premise. It is not a religion and should not try to become one.
I hold that religion is a human invention, that religious organisations should receive no privileges from the state, and that "the advancement of religion" should not in itself be a charitable purpose.

Ethics & Morality

I reject objective morality. Moral claims are incomplete assertions shaped by human interests and context.
I support a harm-reduction approach to ethics, grounded in well-being and social cohesion.
I oppose the death penalty as unjust, irreversible, and ineffective (excluding the people on my Death penalty exceptions list, which is not serious).
I hold that any state which retains the death penalty should be required to televise its executions, so that the public is not shielded from what is done in its name.
I support assisted dying for competent adults under safeguards. The sanctity-of-life objection is a religious doctrine and should bind only those who hold it.
I support gay marriage and gay adoption rights.
I find the ethical case for veganism strong and have no good answer to it, while continuing to eat meat. I record this as a contradiction rather than dress it up as a position.

I support the principle of free speech, including the right to offend, as essential to a free and open society. The only legitimate limits are those that prevent direct, specific harm. For that reason I would not criminalise even Holocaust denial, which I regard as false and vile.
I support the legalisation of Cannabis and the decriminalisation of Prostitution, with regulation aimed at protecting users and workers rather than at prohibition, which has failed in both cases.
I am pro-choice on abortion: a person's own decision, under medical guidance, up to 21 weeks, and a matter of professional medical judgement after that. Abortion is a medical matter between patient and doctor, not a question for the state to adjudicate.
I support gun control on the UK model, which permits licensed ownership for sport, hunting, and pest control, and I reject the interpretation of the US Second Amendment as a personal right to arms.
I support hard secularism, with a clear separation between religion and the state.
I oppose religious instruction in state-funded schools, and support greater public investment in science, philosophy, and critical thinking in education.
I oppose blasphemy laws everywhere, religious exemptions from the general law wherever they harm a third party, and the seats held by right by bishops in the House of Lords. Children are not born with a religion, and their upbringing should leave their future open.
I believe the UK Monarchy is outdated and incompatible with modern democratic values, and should not be publicly funded.
I support colourblind social policy: the state should see individuals, not categories.

Political & Economic Beliefs

I believe we are not all equal in fact, but that we are owed equal standing before the law and equal consideration of our interests.
I believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.
I oppose Brexit, viewing EU membership as economically and socially beneficial, and believe the UK should rejoin.
I support evidence-based policy, climate action, and environmental responsibility, and I support nuclear power as a key part of a sustainable energy policy.
I favour regulated capitalism with ethical oversight, social protections, and progressive taxation.
I believe that communism is primarily a critique of capitalism, not a comprehensive programme for social development. As such it is not implementable, and historical implementations have failed to produce just or sustainable societies.
I do not hold to the labour theory of value.
I believe that money protects you from the consequences of bad luck and bad choices, that it compounds, and that a decent society should limit how far that compounding can go.
I want a floor beneath which nobody falls. Whether a universal basic income is the way to build it is an open question that I hold loosely: the pilots are encouraging, the arithmetic is not yet answered, and the version I would try is an unconditional cash floor beneath the public services rather than instead of them.

Global Events

I believe the Russian War in Ukraine is illegal and was undeniably initiated by Russia.
I hold that the 9-11 Terrorist attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda, and that the various conspiracy theories about them are without foundation.

Conspiracy Theories & Pseudoscience

I reject the following, and have set out why in each case:

5G Towers as a cause of illness.
Ancient Aliens as the builders of ancient monuments.
The Anti-Vaccine movement and the claim that vaccines cause autism.
Astrology and tarot.
Chemtrails.
Climate Change denial.
Claims that COVID-19 was engineered, planned, or does not exist. Whether a naturally occurring virus escaped from a laboratory is a separate question, which I leave open.
Creationism and intelligent design.
The flat Earth.
HAARP Weather Control.
Holocaust Denial.
The Moon Landing hoax.
New Age healing, crystals, and the law of attraction.
The Reptilian Elite.
The claim that the 2020 US election was stolen, and the accounts of January 6 as peaceful, staged, or provoked by the FBI.
UFOs and UAP as evidence of alien visitation. Some sightings are unidentified; none has been identified as alien.

Further notes

Personal contradictions acknowledged

I eat meat, while acknowledging the ethical contradiction posed by the suffering and environmental harm of the meat industry (see Veganism).
I strive to align my actions with my values, accepting that ethical consistency is an ongoing challenge.