In the physical realm, when it comes to size, it is rare, unless the man really is a giant. And it would take a bigger giant than Goliath to consider normal men as small as ants.
But in the mental realm, some do have this Megalomaniac Attitude. I am not saying that John G. Messerly is necessarily a megalomaniac in the ordinary sense of a man who thinks he is Napoleon (when he isn't). I am however saying he has a philosophy which tends that way. If he means what he says, continues to do so and is not yet a Megalomaniac, he risks becoming one.
Here are two excerpts of his writings. One is from Salon.Com, where he is just contributing. One is from his own blog, linked to from there.
- Salon : Religion’s smart-people problem: The shaky intellectual foundations of absolute faith
http://www.salon.com/2014/12/21/religions_smart_people_problem_the_shaky_intellectual_foundations_of_absolute_faith/ - Why is all this important? Because human beings need their childhood to end; they need to face life with all its bleakness and beauty, its lust and its love, its war and its peace. They need to make the world better. No one else will.
[Sunday, Dec 21, 2014 05:30 PM +0100]
- The Meaning of Life : Cosmic Evolution, Transhumanism, and the Meaning of Life
http://reasonandmeaning.com/2015/09/16/cosmic-evolution-transhumanism-and-the-meaning-of-life/ - The possibility of infinitely long, good, and meaningful lives brings the purpose of our lives into focus. The purpose of life is to diminish and, if possible, abolish all constraints on our being—intellectual, psychological, physical, and moral—and remake the external world in ways conducive to the emergence of meaning. This implies embracing our role as protagonists of the cosmic evolutionary epic, working to increase the quantity and quality of knowledge, love, joy, pleasure, beauty, goodness and meaning in the world, while diminishing their opposites. This is the purpose of our lives.
...
Meaning then, like the consciousness and freedom from which it derives, is an emergent property of cosmic evolution—and we find our purpose by playing our small part in aiding its emergence. If we are successful our efforts will culminate in the overcoming of human limitations, and our (post-human) descendents will live fully meaningful lives. If we do achieve our purpose in the far distant future, if a fully meaningful reality comes to fruition, and if somehow we are a part of that meaningful reality, then we could say that our life and all life was, and is, deeply meaningful. In the interim we can find inspiration in the hope that we can succeed.
[September 16, 2015]
In other words, the childhood of mankind he thinks needs to end, is in fact remaining human.
The making "the world a better place" is in fact creating a new, post-human, immortal race.
Otherwise, the day to day atheist reading the article in Salon is just concluding John G. Messerly is agreeing with and endorsing his idea that Christians are people who have not really grown up.
But when you read John G. Messerly's own blog, you find out that according to him mankind itself is an animal that hasn't grown up. He wants us to outgrow mortality. He wants us to outgrow other limitations too.
The only limitation he would like to remain or perhaps even rather augment is limited opportunities for Christians - necessarily opposed to his Transhumanist Project - in remaining Christians and remaining free members, considered as legal and mental adults in society. He wants a state of affairs in which Christianity is compared to "believing in the toothfairy".
In fact, if he hates the present condition of mankind, as a mortal species, he hates its maker, he hates God, for having punished us with mortality for the sin of Adam. And he is promoting the sin of Nimrod. Or one presumed version of what it was, since the Bible is not perfectly clear about exact nature. But it involved overstepping limits.
He is not an Atheist in the Classical sense, one who believes there is no God and never will be. He is a Mellontolater, an idolater of Future Gods, yet to emerge from us. He only denies God has existed from eternity so he can hope his grandchild or sth like that becomes the first God there ever was.
Now, that attitude is kind of Megalomaniac.
I never believed the Super Humans of D. C. Comics or Marvel Comics were strictly Gods as in Immortals. But I have outgrown believing in the possibility of men achieving such powers in their own being (though demons might, if God permit it, similate these about them), simply by genetic change. The man who considers Christians as not having grown out of believing the tooth fairy is a man who is still a devout believer in D. C. Comics and Marvel Comics. If you feel this touch of childishness is "touching", go for it.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
St Michael's Mass
29-IX-2015
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