Juan Antonio Torrero

Regarding recent press coverage

Christianity didn't defeat "new atheism". It failed to win the war. It failed to win a single battle. "New atheism" was defeated by the most powerful force in politics, which has dominated human history since before we learned to bang the rocks together, and which will dominate human history while we explore the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. New atheism was defeated by horny. The sex drive of the young human male is the supreme force of civilization. It invented the technologies, it fought every war, it founded every nation, it built every empire. It drove new atheism to great heights, up until the moment new atheism declared war on it. Then it smashed the new atheism without mercy. Young men declared allegiance to atheism because they chafed at the restrictions of religious law which made it harder for them to get sex. And they would continue that allegiance so long as they believed that a world with Christianity overthrown would be a world where they could get laid. Rebecca Watson singlehandedly triggered the cascade that ended all that. When she summoned an internet lynch mob to punish a generic standard young male atheist for daring to make a pass at her in an elevator, this was an attack on two fronts. First of all, it aligned atheism, publicly, with the idea that a man pursuing sex is committing an offense, that even a verbal advance is, or at least often can be, a predatory, "problematic" act. Secondly, everyone knew that Generic Standard Young Male Atheist would not have been subjected to this treatment had she found him attractive. The first prong of this attack informed all the Generic Standard Young Male Atheists that their efforts to get laid would be scrutinized, not just for gross offenses against a woman's personal autonomy, but for anything and everything that accidentally gave her the ick. If he failed to read her accurately, the fault would be entirely his, and the punishment unlimited. The second prong of the attack created the widespread stereotype of the Generic Standard Young Male Atheist as an unattractive, stinky, socially awkward neckbeard. Now, the Christians had been trying to do this for some time, but without any real success. Young men did not care if boomer preachers with suspiciously expensive homes, or married church Karens, called them neckbeards. They were not trying to be attractive to either of these groups. They were trying to be attractive to young atheist women. The moment the young atheist women began to publicly feed the stereotype, it might as well have been carved on the cornerstone of the universe in flaming letters eleven light years tall. Now, most Generic Standard Young Male Atheists were not stinky neckbeards. They were just ordinary tribeless young men who didn't quite fit in. So long as they had the dream that a world dominated by secular atheist liberty of conscience would provide them with girls who were sometimes willing to have sex with them, they would support the movement. But now, in one stroke, Rebecca Watson revealed that atheist women did not desire them, and were perfectly willing to throw them under the bus for social status or google ad clickthroughs. Suddenly, saying "I am an atheist" at parties went from meaning "I am an independent sort of person who's not very religious" to meaning "I am socially awkward, unattractive, and cannot even groom myself properly". It didn't matter if all of these things were visibly untrue. Women are very susceptible to group suggestion in what they find attractive. So all the young men left the movement. They didn't suddenly start believing in god, or want to join a church, but they stopped pulling the chariot, drifted away, and began describing themselves as "not really religious" at those same parties. Which meant the same thing in terms of their personal beliefs, but meant something very different about who they would show up and fight for. You cannot go to war with horny. You can go to war with degenerate. You can go to war with promiscuous. You can go to war with perverted. You can even go to war with hedonistic. But you cannot go to war with horny. You will lose. Your movement, whatever it is, will fail if you do not offer young men a clear, understandable, viable path to women they actually want. The details don't matter. You can offer them inexpensive prostitutes, a hedonistic society full of sluts, or one adoring virgin bride. But you have to offer them something other than shame, celibacy, and the longhouse. Or they will spurn you as you would spurn a rabid dog. This post is not about the atheist movement.

Reconozco que lo de hoy me ha dejado tocado por lo que significa. Y pensando sobre esto he recordado algunas lecturas de Girard que me ayudan a entender. Hoy ha sido, en esencia, un sacrificio con detalle pornográfico y social. Lo de Noelia es, por una parte, el ritual sacrificial donde enterramos nuestros pecados colectivos en una víctima inocente y la convencemos de que su inmolación es un acto de libertad. España entera participa en el rito sin mancharse las manos. A través de la televisión donde nadie es responsable pero todos somos participes. La víctima expiatoria absorbe la culpa estructural de los abusos sexuales que nadie previno, de la tutela fallida, el fracaso de la salud mental... y el sacrificio limpia la conciencia del grupo. "No la pudimos dar paz en vida, démosle paz en la muerte", dicen los sádicos. Ahora podemos seguir con nuestras vidas. El cordero ha sido degollado y los pecados purgados. Y como dije en otro tuit, hay algo peor que el sacrificio en sí, y es la dimensión mimética del espectáculo. Utilizar a Noelia no solo como víctima del deseo propio equilibrando la muerte con la liberación vital sino como fuente mimética para otros. Noelia se convirtió en modelo. Y Girard decía de que el deseo no nace del individuo, sino del otro. Que elegimos lo que vemos elegir. Que el deseo de morir se contagia por la misma lógica que la anorexia o una moda. Lo que preocupa es que cientos de personas en circunstancias similares de familia disfuncional, enfermedad crónica o depresión hayan visto esa entrevista y pensado que eso es lo que necesitamos. En suma, que se elija la vía inmolatoria de la víctima como escape del deterioro social. No como decisión autónoma, sino como contagio mimético disfrazado semánticamente de derecho fundamental. "El derecho a morir ha ganado", que algunos celebran cínicamente. Hemos construido una civilización que ya no sabe ofrecer razones para vivir y sin embargo legisla razones para morir.

Instagram ha hecho creer que las relaciones de hoy en día necesitan constantemente viajar, restaurantes caros y experiencias inolvidables… pero se nos olvida que también una relación se cimienta en el cansancio, en lo cotidiano o en el aburrimiento.

Taxpayers watching the US spend billions of dollars only to replace Khamenei with Khamenei