Jesús Pineda (@jesuspi) — Bluesky Profile

3 weeks ago

“Spiritual but Not Religious”? Are You Sure? ##### FREETHOUGHT TODAY ##### January-February 2026 * * * # “Spiritual but Not Religious”? Are You Sure? #### By Alfie Kohn Have you ever come across someone who qualifies her opinions about gender-related issues by assuring her listener that she’s “not a feminist or anything”? That comment wouldn’t be surprising coming from denizens of the Bible Belt or the MAGAverse who are all in for women’s subservience to men, but it’s disconcerting to hear such a disclaimer from educated, thoughtful, reasonably progressive women with professional jobs. One has to assume that what they’re distancing themselves from is a strawwoman — a tendentious caricature of feminism as humorless man-hating. I recently found myself wondering whether something similar might be going on when people who are uninterested in, or even actively put off by, the faith in which they were raised, disclaim labels like _atheist_ or _agnostic_ and insist that, though they’re not religious, they consider themselves _spiritual_. What exactly does that last word mean? Could its appeal rest partly on dubious assumptions about the first two words? If you’ve ever watched _Miracle on 34th Street_ , you’ll remember its lesson that people who don’t believe in Santa Claus lack imagination. “It’s not just Kris [Kringle] that’s on trial,” one character says. “It’s everything he stands for. It’s kindness and joy and love and all the other intangibles.” All of which, apparently, are unfamiliar to dour, literal-minded skeptics. That this is a ridiculously false dichotomy is a lesson I learned from my daughter when she was four years old. Abigail had a mad crush on Clifford the Big Red Dog at the time, so she was practically jumping out of her skin when she spotted a six-foot Clifford one afternoon greeting children at a fair. She dashed over and wrapped her arms around his fur, excitedly informing him that she had seen him on TV. After a few minutes, she trotted over to me and said in a confidential whisper, “Daddy, you know that isn’t _really_ Clifford. It’s just someone dressed up like him” — at which point she scooted back over and resumed her hugging. The fact that my daughter understood it was all pretend didn’t dilute her joy one bit. So, too, for the endless imaginative games that all kids play: It’s enormous fun even though they know it’s make-believe. So why do so many adults assume children can’t enjoy the Santa myth unless it’s presented as literal truth? Given that it’s possible for kids to have fun without our having to deceive them, why not have the best of both worlds: gaiety and honesty? The same binary thinking may apply when we talk about belief in God rather than in Santa Claus. To be sure, many nonreligious people hesitate to call themselves atheists just because of the stigma and discrimination faced by anyone who does identify as such — a reluctance that, in turn, just feeds the prejudice. But I suspect that some people who don’t believe in a supernatural being (and recoil from rituals premised on such a belief) think of atheists as prosaic, joyless people who are determined to reduce life’s wonder to scientific equations. By contrast, they, themselves, are moved by natural beauty! They don’t think the experience of rapturous joy can be explained entirely by neurotransmitters! They embrace cosmic mysteries, such as why there is something rather than nothing! Thus, they figure they ought to check the “spiritual but not religious” box. The thing is, those descriptions apply to me, too, and to other atheists who wince at the term _spiritual_. A spectacular sunrise evokes wonder, even awe, in us. (It doesn’t exactly evoke “gratitude,” though, because one isn’t just grateful _for_ but grateful _to_. And we don’t believe that sunrises were deliberately created for their beauty.) Similarly, our minds sputter when we try to make sense of how the universe came to be. (Imagining an invisible Creator doesn’t solve the mystery, though — it just sets it back a step. As the 18th-century scholar Laplace said of God, “I have no need of that hypothesis.”) To acknowledge the limits of science or to feel a deep connection to nature is entirely consistent with atheism. And it doesn’t suggest that one is spiritual. That term is better suited to those who smuggle religion in through the back door by anthropomorphizing the universe — treating it as a sentient entity that has a plan for us. Spiritual people aren’t any more intuitive or empathic or attuned to beauty than atheists are. What does set them apart is that they’ve convinced themselves that everything “happens for a reason” and was “meant to be.” Exactly like churchgoers, they are people of faith, a word that denotes belief in the absence of evidence. They don’t just take time to meditate, a practice common among thoroughly secular people; they think they’re actually communicating with a force Out There (even if they don’t call it God). So if you’re willing to acknowledge that things actually happen for no reason at all and easily could have turned out otherwise, that no grand plan or transcendent Meaning exists, that nothing is “meant to be,” maybe you can join those of us who don’t shy away from the _atheist_ label. Particularly once you realize that accepting it doesn’t imply a lack of capacity for joy and wonder. On the other hand, if you’re an adult who believes in literal magic, well, maybe you are spiritual after all… * * * _To be notified whenever a new article, blog post, or podcast episode appears on this site, please enter your e-mail address atwww.alfiekohn.org/sign-up ._

New friendly provocation from me: "'Spiritual but Not Religious'? Are You Sure?"
https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/spiritual/

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1 month ago

Hater Season: Openclaw with David Gerard Podcast Episode · Better Offline · 02/04/2026 · 38m

Here’s this week’s Better Offline, I’m joined by @davidgerard.co.uk for Hater Season to talk about the stupidity of Openclaw, how seemingly smart people keep being “one-shotted” by AI, and why we’ve been headed toward a calamity in the markets since 2008.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...

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2 months ago

Here’s part 2 of this week’s three-part Better Offline NVIDIA special. I walk you through the history of Enron, how it differs from NVIDIA, and how growth-desperation led big tech to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on GPUs.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...
Linktr.ee/betteroffline

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3 months ago

You're not a dumbass.

You're not a dumbass fucking dork who wastes money on insane bullshit.

MAKE ED ZITRON GO AWAY I DON'T LIKE WHERE MY MIND IS GOING

Currently playing @aftermath.site's "Uh Oh, You Have Billions Invested In Generative AI"
woe-industries.itch.io/you-have-bil...

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3 months ago

Premium: The Hater's Guide To The AI Bubble Vol. 2 We’re approaching the most ridiculous part of the AI bubble, with each day bringing us a new, disgraceful and weird headline. As I reported earlier in the week, OpenAI spent $12.4 billion on inference...

Premium: This is Vol 2 of the Hater's Guide To The AI Bubble, an 18k word guide to the major public/private players in AI, with bits on why ads won't save OpenAI, why vibe coding is a scam, and how we must hold every booster accountable once the bubble bursts.

www.wheresyoured.at/premium-the-...

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4 months ago

WTF Is Going On? YouTube video by GNCA - GamersNexus Consumer Advocacy

Talking about whatever the fuck this is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3Jf...

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5 months ago

a chef in a kitchen with the words borg written on the bottom ALT: a chef in a kitchen with the words borg written on the bottom

Physics Nobel announcement tomorrow.

If you know and dislike a famous physicist, this is the day of the year to call them up in the middle of the night, wait 10 seconds, and then do you best Swedish Chef impression...

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5 months ago

The Case Against Generative AI (Part 1) Podcast Episode · Better Offline · 09/30/2025 · 25m

Here’s part 1 of our four-part Better Offline case against generative AI. I walk you through how generative AI is sold through a complete misunderstanding of the concept of labor - and myth-building by companies like NVIDIA and OpenAI.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...
Linktr.ee/betteroffline

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5 months ago

the rats nest that is the flow of money in AI compute is so unbelievably complicated and circular that i had to make a diagram

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5 months ago

I still can’t believe this guy said this. What more proof do people need that this is a bubble? What exactly do you think “overbuild” means other than “the demand isn’t there”? When will everybody stop running the stupid asshole Olympics?

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6 months ago

The Black Market for AI GPUs with Steve Burke Podcast Episode · Better Offline · 09/03/2025 · 37m

Here's the latest episode of Better Offline. I'm joined by Steve Burke of @gamersnexus.bsky.social to talk about the black market for AI GPUs in China - and how Bloomberg suspiciously forced YouTube to take his video about it down.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...
Linktr.ee/betteroffline

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6 months ago

Monologue: What If I'm Right? Podcast Episode · Better Offline · 08/29/2025 · Bonus · 21m

Here's this week's Better Offline monologue, where I consider what would happen if I'm right about the AI bubble bursting - and the consequences of both three years of myth-peddling journalism and markets addicted to growth at all costs.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...
Linktr.ee/betteroffline

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6 months ago

How To Argue With An AI Booster Editor's Note: For those of you reading via email, I recommend opening this in a browser so you can use the Table of Contents. This is my longest newsletter - a 16,000-word-long opus - and if you like...

Newsletter: My 16,000 word opus - How To Argue With An AI Booster, a comprehensive guide to arguing with AI boosters, addressing both their bad faith debate style and their specific (and flimsy) arguments as to why generative AI is the future.

www.wheresyoured.at/how-to-argue...

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7 months ago

Biomedical Scientist Answers More Pseudoscience Questions | Tech Support | WIRED YouTube video by WIRED

My latest: Pseudoscience Support @wired.com

I cover it ALL.

RFK Jr & MAHA misinformation, Calley Means’ cancer lies, glucose monitors, hormones in milk, food dyes, Dirty Dozen, fluoride, mRNA vaccine, chemicals, diabetes, hep B, beef tallow, seed oils, and more.

Watch ⬇️⬇️

youtu.be/hfBJTpewWos?si

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7 months ago

Can We Fix Social Media? Testing Prosocial Interventions using Generative Social Simulation Social media platforms have been widely linked to societal harms, including rising polarization and the erosion of constructive debate. Can these problems be mitigated through prosocial interventions?...

We built the simplest possible social media platform. No algorithms. No ads. Just LLM agents posting and following.

It still became a polarization machine.

Then we tried six interventions to fix social media.

The results were… not what we expected.

arxiv.org/abs/2508.03385

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7 months ago

Retailers, I am begging you: DO NOT USE AI generated videos of pretend people to try and give me ‘more info’ on my purchase. Because I guarantee I will never shop with you again. Ever.

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9 months ago

Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

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9 months ago

Arrrrrgh

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9 months ago

Convert Audible (.aax) files to mp3 with ffmpeg YouTube video by notjoemartinez

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H4o...

The instructions in this video are basically my SOP whenever I buy in audible: buy -> download -> convert

All using FOSS tools. Granted, not the friendliest approach but it has worked wonders for me after Audible removed audiobooks from my library

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10 months ago

Good morning to @ashleyesqueda.com for no specific reason

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10 months ago

WTFIWWY Live - The Four Horsemen of the Walmart - 4/15/25 YouTube video by Radio Dead Air

And I looked, and behold a blue horse:
And his name that sat on him was Rollbacks
And Low Prices followed with him

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11 months ago

Tarifs on 185 countries but NOT Russia or North Korea: what does that tell you?

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1 year ago

Episode 56 of the pod is out now, featuring BJJ legend @stephankesting.bsky.social talking about survival in both the wilderness, and modernity. Find The Art of Fighting BS podcast on Spotify, iTunes, and your mom's burner phone.

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1 year ago

Scott Adams V @ScottAdamsSays
Complexity is always a cover for fraud.
In every domain.

When you don’t understand how anything works, everything is a conspiracy.

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1 year ago

WTFIWWY Live - The Incredible Human Cheez Whiz - 1/27/24 YouTube video by Radio Dead Air

You will believe a man can cheez.

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1 year ago

"This is how authoritarianism works": https://www.readtpa.com/p/the-price-of-speaking-up-in-trumps?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

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1 year ago

Is THORIUM the Future of Nuclear Power? YouTube video by Kyle Hill

[NEW VIDEO] What are molten salt nuclear reactors? Because this company thinks they will power the entire planet youtu.be/FjHH8Qf3aO4?...

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1 year ago

The Invisible War Criminals Podcast Episode · Better Offline · 01/03/2025 · 36m

Here's part 2 of the Better Offline year-end finale, where I tell you how we fight back against the growth-at-all-costs Rot Economy - better, user-focused coverage, naming those responsible, and remembering what we truly love about tech.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...
Linktr.ee/betteroffline

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1 year ago

This episode cuts being as angry as I've been with a minute long list of people I love. Better Offline contains multitudes

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1 year ago

Up-front this is totally a subskeet.

When people say STEM they seem to really only mean T and a subset of E that supports T.

They almost never mean knot theory or evolutionary biology or topology or paleontology or sociology.

They just mean fad CS and EE and for some reason MBAs.

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