Consciousness And The Noble Direction

I like the simplicity of how Tomotom Siftung (ProEvo) defines consciousness as “reflective thinking,” the “mirroring of thoughts” produces consciousness. What we are conscious of we grasp with reflective thinking and we are unconscious of everything else.

Man's early predecessors probably lived without conscious thought, not aware that they were thinking, as perhaps dolphins. We are still not conscious of very much. As we increase and expand consciousness our power will grow.

Evolution has proceeded from the simplest consciousness to more complexity, and eventually we can reach full consciousness with Godhood, which is also the highest intelligence, reason and mind.

We can make more and more choices between pro-evolutionary and anti-evolutionary directions as we become more conscious. Every thought and act effects ones own body, life, and the environment. Those who can think and act in a pro-evolutionary way are the noble ones , the valuable ones.

Scientific research should be conducted according to pro-evolutionary principles. And we all rise together, all individuals, groups, races and states. It is parasitic and imperial to try to rise without considering others. The idea is to further others without jeopardizing ones own evolutionary development. Small states with a light federalism would fit this well.

Pro evolutionary ways cannot be forced on others, they need to be clearly explained, and differences can indeed be solved through pro-evolutionary synthesis.

Unlike Hegel

Unlike Hegel, our essence lies in serving evolution, not in serving the “state.” The goal of history is to evolve to Godhood, the Supreme Living Object, or Objects, not the “world spirit.”

The “state” is only the protector of the freedom to evolve, and the church along with science can guide evolution.

All goals not compatible with upward evolution are irrational, but I think I would rather call reason a tool of the evolution to Godhood.

The goal of the Involutionary Inward Path is a voluntary blocking of evolution to see or experience the Kingdom of God Within the Soul. And the goal of the Evolutionary Outward Path is to evolve to the Godhood activated by the Spirit-Will, which is mirrored in the Soul of the Inward Path.

Resolving Either/Or

Kierkegaard's insight-dilemma of either/or, the choice between sensual gratification or purity and virtue (which he defines as altruistic) can be resolved in the Twofold Path. We can do both.

What we see or experience in the Involutionary Inward Path requires a purity that is not necessarily altruistic, it is another form of self-gratification even though it requires blocking sensual gratifications to see the Kingdom of God within, which is blissful.

The so-called path of sensual gratification, the Evolutionary Outward Path, also requires purity and virtue, the climb toward Godhood in evolution is very much concerned with the means to this end, that is, higher consciousness, intelligence, goodness and refined complexity.

“Existence” is involved only in the sense of being alive to make the choices. The path in evolution is undetermined but the goal is determined, activated by the Spirit-Will To Godhood within life.

Truth Is A Real Object

Are both philosophy and poetry “misrepresentations”? The utilitarian, Bentham, suggested that at least poetry was a misrepresentation of the truth.

The “object” of both philosophy and poetry could be truth, but truth too can be wrongly only a denotation, a definition of the Real Object. Heidegger thought poets and philosophers have the same role of describing the world while in the world. Poetry can be prettier but no less evasive.

The truth is in the Real Object, not in the philosophy or poetry describing it, important as they may be culturally. The problem can be compounded when thinkers and writers produce what Engels called a kind of intellectual onanism, with little connection to real objects.

The Supreme Object is Godhood, which is also a Real Material-Supermaterial Object, described by the “Word” of God, which is not a real object.

Schopenhauer: So Close, So Far

I think Arthur Schopenhauer came close to getting it right. He got the End-Goal wrong but the dynamics just about right. And writing in a non-academic style was also right, since philosophers do tend to be sophistical.

Here is how I would change Schopenhauer: The Will is the basic force, only it is defined as the Holy Spirit-Will, or the Spirit-Will To Godhood. Life is not meaningless, there is a strategy behind life, a reason behind it, a purpose. The Spirit-Will ultimately determines our concepts, dictates our actions and drives evolution, working in conjunction with evolution, not the other way around.

Nature does tend to care more for the species than individuals but this is part of the larger life cycle of life evolving to Godhood. Therefore, the Spirit-Will is "rational," not irrational, as Schopenhauer had it. The Will to live, to procreate, to power, is rational because the End-Goal of the Will is Godhood, which is Absolute Truth, Beauty and Goodness. But we do need to discover more of the logic and rules of the Spirit-Will to Godhood.

“Nothingness” or nirvana is not the best we can obtain, although this is the goal of the Involutionary Inward Path of the Revealed Religions (eg. the Kingdom of God, etc. ) The best we can obtain comes from the Evolutionary Outward Path of material evolution to supermaterial evolution and on to Godhood. Both Paths are affirmed in the Twofold Path of the Evolutionary Christian Church, in our Revitalized Conservatism.

All things are “becoming” as well as “being” with the End-Goal, the Zenith, of Godhood, which is the highest attainment of both becoming and being. However, Godhood then continues evolving endlessly with no beginning and no end. The Spirit-Will, is the “thing-in-itself” but the Spirit-Will needs to evolve within life to Godhood. Everything does not become “nothingness,” everything becomes Godhood, over time, with many starts and stops along the way

The Spirit-Will to Godhood, cares more about the Goal of Godhood than the paths or the means or individuals or ideas taken, but the means to this end do indeed matter. The means and ends matter little or nothing to Schopenhauer because he saw things leading to nothingness, which is the goal of the Inward Path, in its esoteric essence, of the Revealed Religions.

The means are derived from the elements of upward evolution: toward higher consciousness, higher intelligence, refined complexity, and eventually to the Absolutes of Godhood, Truth, Beauty and Goodness.

Defining Culture

Culture means for us conscious evolutionary behavior according to the morals and ethics of the Theoevolutionary Church. Think of the paleoconservative saying, without the cult (religion) there is no culture.

The most valuable people are those who most intensely and persistently act in cultural accord with upward evolution and therefore further the goals of evolution to Godhood. These are defined as noble.

Vital Trans-valuations

It is vital to understand the following edict from Religious Traditionalism as relating only to the Involutionary Inward Path: “Learn how to be entirely unreceptive to sensations arising from external forms, thereby purging your bodies of receptivity to externals.”- Huang Po

This, which is defined as the Great Spiritual Blockade, needs to be completely trans-valued in the Evolutionary Outward Path, where we evolve to the Godhood first glimpsed in the Inward Path, through the vehicle of material and supermaterial evolution. Both the Inward and Outward Paths are encompassed in the Twofold Path of the Evolutionary Christian Church.

Connections and disconnections with Romanticism

Romanticism praised the feelings, the senses, over calculation, which apparently was a relief after living only in the head. There seems to be an affinity between the back to basics of Romanticism and the call to get back to the object, as expressed here in the Evolutionary Christian Church.

And the Romantic attempt to get back to natural laws coming more directly from human nature was also a relief from laws gone far away from human nature. Today this is seen in the field of sociobiology, which I affirm here, thirty years since E.O. Wilson introduced this deepening of Darwinism.

Unlike much of Romanticism I do not see equality of condition as a natural goal, but I do affirm equality of opportunity, which more closely follows human nature in nature. I see all of nature evolving to Godhood, and not moving toward a communist or fascist utopia.

In the Twofold Path we take the past with us into the future, this is Revitalized Conservatism. The Romantics were too willing to apply radical means to establish unrealistic utopias.

Mind is not better than matter

Contrary to Kant, mind is not better than matter, which takes on the form it does from looking at it with our minds. Matter is there whether we see it or not, even if we see it with our “limited” senses. In any case, mind is also matter. Is this believed by faith alone?

When I say, I am therefore I think, this implies that matter exists or I would not be thinking about it, or with it. If anything matter is therefore “better” than mind..

Life is the existential experience of matter, categories like mind come later.

Theological Materialism rests on this base, Matter/Mind evolves to Supermatter/Supermind, or Godhood.

Alchemy

Secret occult associations may carry important knowledge of Primordial Tradition but they can also be a “well of poison” and must be approached cautiously. Modern philosophy, including political philosophy, have their own poison wells not unlike alchemy, also to approach cautiously.

In the Theoevolutionary Church as scientific evolution is reconciled with traditional religion it trumps medieval alchemy. Alchemy essentially sought to create the union between spirit and matter as the initiate sought union with the Soul-Within.

The Evolutionary Outward Path mediates or reconciles with the Involutionary Inward Path of Traditional Religion. The energies of evolution are synthesized to advance to higher forms. Some have seen a Hegelian-Kabbalistic similarity in building bridges between conflicting movements, but in religion and in alchemy they are working only within the Inward Path. The Theoevolutionary Church has revitalized this in synthesizing spirit and matter in the Twofold Path. We could also compare this to the far more ancient "Rainbow Bridge" of men to Gods in Odinism.

In this adventure, courage may be the most important trait in seeking the truth, intelligence is often biased by cowardice. We seek to courageously speak the truth and then trust in the Spirit to take care of the Kosmos.

Dealing With Nihilism

The nihilism of today's twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings is a concern. It is a philosophical error. Nihilism seems to now be the result of abandoning religion in favor of science, or at least a "politically correct" science. Political correctness is the new religion, it is what the high schools and colleges have taught them.

What to do about it? I think you apply the relatively new field of sociobiology ( really a deepening of older Darwinian evolution), and teach it in colleges, high schools, grade schools, which would help in getting our feet back on the ground. Even the humanities need to fully absorb sociobiology, as E. O. Wilson advocated years ago.

After solid ground has been established with sociobiology, perhaps then nihilism will be gradually replaced with the evolutionary perspective. Eventually even a religion such as the Evolutionary Christian Church may take hold. Then the real culture can unfold.

Meanwhile the West is dying.

Priorities In Ethics

Ones own self, kin, ethnic group have first priority, but one also wants all life to evolve to Godhood, the goal of all nature.

A hierarchy of ethics as considered by Raymond Cattell can apply, where ethics toward group members, group government, other group governments, members of other groups, individuals in the Church, and the Evolutionary Goal of Godhood, follow in a hierarchy of values. I define the Prime Force, or the Holy Spirit, the Spirit-Will as the first priority, driving all things toward Godhood.

The greatest wisdom is related to further development of evolution. Morality and ethics in the Evolutionary Outward Path in the Evolutionary Christian Church regarding behavior toward one self and ones fellow man is mainly in relation to upward evolution to Godhood.

Completing the worldview, showing the reality

If you say Jesus Christ cannot be a philosophical or scientific problem, but Christ is the mystery of faith, you are speaking mainly of the Involutionary Inward Path, which is not complete without the Evolutionary Outward Path.

The Outward Path contains both philosophical and scientific problems, and so, along with the faith and symbolism of the Inward Path, the Twofold Path can complete the worldview. Both science and philosophy in the Evolutionary Christian Church need to more fully complete this task.

For example, the Traditional Inward Path of the Revealed Religions tends to believe that the reality of God cannot be proven as philosophy or science, but this is mainly because they see God as certainly not material, as Definition, Logos, Equation, Ideal, Spiritual. When Godhood is seen as supermaterial and attained through material evolution then philosophy and science may show their reality.

On Education

Let the individual states, or ethnostates, decide how they wish to educate. Private enterprise can run it, or not, improved through competition. It would be prudent within the states to let the children know about the light federalism they live under.

Education regarding the fed could be minimal, with education regarding the individual state major. Each state could have a different character, tone and guiding belief. Religious education could be central or not, but it would be prudent to remember that "without the cult there is no culture." With the Theoevolutionary Church, religion becomes important in the guidance toward evolving to Godhood (Outward Path), as well as seeing the God Within (Inward Path).

I Am Therefore I Think

Descartes said "I think therefore I am," but I think it would be more to my liking to say, I am therefore I think. This apotheosis of the mind, of mathematics, of symbols, of the spirit, is a mathematicians will to power, a disappearing game of intellect. I say, back to the object, back to the material world, back to the supermaterial world of Godhood, the Supreme Object, and if this be idealism, than so be it, it is an idealism with its feet on the ground. Intellectual intuition is not opposed to reason it is an addition to  reason.

When Plato and his followers (and others in the East) began to speak of the "perishable world" of substance and appearance and the "unchanging world" of "pure knowledge" they began this charade. Back to the object, I say, which is only secondarily explained by pure knowledge, whether pure knowledge exists unchanging or not. A tree dies but this death does not make it less than the description of the tree, even if the description does not die. The object, the life, is far more important than the definition of life.

Theory and understanding are greater when they exist in reality than if they exist in theory only. The Object Godhood in the Theoevolutionary Church is greater than the theory or definition or understanding of God.

The Twofold Path, Action and Comtemplation

The Twofold Path is the two paths of the Evolutionary Christian Church, the Evolutionary Outward Path, the path of action, and the Involutionary Inward Path, the path of contemplation. The Inward Path leads to contemplation of the God-Within, the Outward Path leads to evolving to the God Without.

Without the the Outward Path the Inward Path is a paradox, denying life while affirming life. This paradox is solved in the Twofold Path. The Outward Path affirms material evolution to the Godhood first seen or contemplated in the Inward Path, which was accomplished first by denying the material world in The Great Spiritual Blockade, necessary to see the God Within.

On Augustine

Like the Eastern thinkers Augustine thought of lust as a big obstacle to enlightenment, calling it sin, which was the original sin in the Garden Of Eden. “From this concupiscence whatever comes into being by natural birth is bound by original sin.” If you must have sex learn to have it without lust (compare the Tantra way). In the Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC) this is the path of the Involutionary Inward Path to the God or Soul Within. In this path the material world, the senses, are blocked in a Great Spiritual Blockade which can give rise to the experience of the God Within.

Augustine thought men have limited freedom, they are free to choose in the sense of being “free to sin.” In EC freedom is limited, but to the paths we choose in the natural world, some lead to devolution others to evolution. We can find aid in our evolution with increased consciousness and through awareness of the activating power of the Spirit Within.

“Being saved” in ECC relates to evolution to Godhood through the Evolutionary Outward Path. If we do not evolve we may devolve to the Kosmic Center from which we can be “resurrected” with other chances to evolve. In this sense Augustine's “eternal torment” is not necessarily eternal.

“Revelation” as well as reason can be the source of truth, but the idealism of revelations tend to lead our knowledge. We would agree with Augustine in this.

There is perpetual struggle in the world but not between the spiritual and the material, as Augustine (and the East, and Plato) believed but between evolution and devolution. The flesh is not evil, it is the vehicle by which we evolve to Godhood.

In ECC the Soul, Spirit and body are all of the material and supermaterial world, and none are “evil,” they are either evolving or devolving. Augustine saw evil even in the Soul, yet alone the body.

Satan in ECC is not the maker of the flesh and the material world, as Augustine seems to suggest, Satan is both symbolically and literally the pull of entropy and devolution to the Kosmic Center.

Evolutionary Ethics

There can be no real “exclusiveness” in the Involutionary Inward Path of the various religions, this has been affirmed by many separate people, in many separate religions. It is the same God-Within of the Soul.

However, people and religions are also driven by the same Spirit, which is the Will To Godhood of the Evolutionary Outward Path in the Evolutionary Christian Church. They share the same Inward God, but the Will to Godhood, or the Spirit Within, separates them so that evolution to Godhood can take place at the pace of individual religions and individual ethnic groups within small states. The priests and researchers of the Twofold Path can aid in this adventure.

Evolve and let evolve becomes the motto.

Philosophical paths to oblivion

Over-complication is not good philosophy. If I was an adviser to the philosophers I would say to them: “Sorry, this is completely not understandable. Go back, do it over, take each chapter and give me one sentence clearly explaining each chapter. A non-philosopher should be able to understand you.” My thought is that if it is not clear and simple it is not understood by the philosopher (and it is also not beautiful). Like good poetry, it is the desire to be understood that calls forth images and not the desire to impress with wild images which should go for philosophers too. How far philosophers have gone away from that.

I suppose Plato wrote clearly, but then he got himself into Pythagorean complications, making sacred his symbols over the thing symbolized, and future philosophers, and theologians, followed him down that path to oblivion.

Perhaps Socrates would have been less complicating since he wrote nothing down and therefore wasn't seeking to impress? with written puzzles. He seems to have let his actions and manner speak, which would perhaps place him on the side of objects rather than definitions of objects. Then again, being Plato's teacher, perhaps Socrates was the father of Western complication?

The East had their own complicaters as they moved forward from the Vedas. How far back would we have to go to see clear, simplifying philosophy, assuming there was such a thing?

It seems that graduate students get pulled into this world of over-complication where they cannot dismiss it and must play the game if they want to stay in the field. Too bad for them. Too bad for philosophy. To bad for us.

Evolve And Let Evolve

“Live and let live” can be pro-evolutionary, however, both “live” and “let live” need to be applied, not just one of them.

It seems common for people to want to apply the “live” side but not really the “let live” side. But there are many variations of this important dynamic, and much of this is unconscious.

Live and let live can be sublimated to “Evolve and let evolve.” Living is most essentially evolving and we are all evolving, and so we look for a way to let us all evolve.

Revitalized Conservatism addresses this dynamic, affirming small, independent, evolving states in a light federal union.

Universal Evolution

How can we speak of the evolution of an evolving people in a small state when the world will be full of small evolving states? The phrase "Universal Evolution" suggests that improving and evolving ones own is the sacred path, but this must be done without undue harm to other people in other small states. This could make the evolving process seem slower in the short term, but in the long term it is the civilized and moral way to proceed.

Evolution moves even unconsciously toward Godhood, therefore "conscious" evolution has much to do with finding harmony with Kosmic evolution as it is discerned and understood. Continued research needs to seek, find and identify pro evolutionary behavior. Then churches and research centers can stand not as reproaches against any particular people or state but against evolutionary negative behavior. Any reproach would be accompanied by positive ideas on behavior that would be promoting behavior that furthers evolution. (see Tomoton Stiftung's "ProEvo")

Kosmic evolution is not much affected by our little lives, evolution goes on and corrects itself even millions of years after life might have been stopped. But we can have contact with the Holy Spirit within which activates life to Godhood. We, ourselves, our people, our little state, do work toward our evolutionary ethics and behavior, to be in harmony with Kosmic evolution, and to further our prime task of evolution to Godhood.

Idealism and Materialism And Paths To Reach Godhood

Both Paths, the Inward and Outward are in essence idealism because we have not as yet had solid, sensual, realistic, scientific evidence of the goal of Godhood, but we define these things as materialism, or theological materialism, because we believe they are supermaterial and epiphenomenal and not “spiritual” in this sense.

We reach real Godhood not through understanding texts, as in the Bible, not through hearing or reciting words, as in Hinduism, but by becoming the Object Godhood, through material and supermaterial evolution.

The first, using text and hearing, relates more to the God or Spirit of the Inward Path, the second, with evolution, relates to the supermaterial Godhood of the Outward Path.

It's Not Either Or

The Involutionary Inward Path tends to make divine the definition or denotation, while it demonizes material powers. The Evolutionary Outward Path tends to make divine the material evolution to Godhood and demonize mere definition or denotation.

The authority of the Inward Path need not be rejected in the affirmation of the Outward Path, and the authority of the Outward Path need not be rejected in the affirmation of the Inward Path. The Twofold Path retains both in the Evolutionary Christian Church.

The Soul, Spirit-Will and God-Within of the Inward Path is the image of the supermaterial Godhood evolved to in the Outward Path.  This trans-values the Platonic view.

Affirming natural selection and vitalism

Science continues to turn itself inside out to reject vitalism and teleology. I think they protest a little too much to be seen as comfortable with their rejection. We will have to wait for science to discover the supermaterial and epiphenomenal forces behind vitalism and teleology.

I accept natural selection as the unit of change and as the universal method to discover which forms will be “fit.” But I also affirm an activation process behind this pattern of natural selection. We do not change and achieve fit forms only through natural selection, we are activated by the Spirit Within, or the Will to Godhood.