Somehow the quantum world works with both randomness and purpose

Intuition always says there is more than probabilities, there is method to chance.

To me the most basic why? of quantum behavior, of all behavior, needs to be answered, for example, “life” in all its forms, micro and macro, seems to be seeking something, and this seeking happens before randomness and probability take over. In the same way I see natural life defined as seeking something---Godhood ultimately---before the actual randomness of evolution begins.

This would mean that somehow the quantum world works with both randomness and purpose, not just harmonic “correspondences” alone, but correspondences that seek something, eg. higher evolution, which would mean there is predictability within random seeking.

I am not speaking of God here but of an activating Spirit-Will before Godhood is evolved to in the cosmos. The world of small (quantum) and large (classical) physics does work together, and seems to be always seeking eternal representation, or Godhood. Still undefined by physics is the Spirit-Will-To Godhood, which seems to individually activate this whole structure. I see the Spirit-Will activating within the primal material that gives birth to the world, and the Spirit-Will is then contained within all life in the world, activating random evolution toward Godhood.

Courage for the truth

Courage is interesting, it is scattered across various fields where it can hinder in the short term, and help in the long term---and courage is rare in all fields. One may be born with courage, or it develops out of the circumstances of ones life.  And courage can be found among all classes--although it is not common.

Fear of error hinders many scientists and academics in going for the truth, and courage overcomes fear. You can be killed in your career by a thousand pin pricks. Being pedantic about the larger whole can cover up for lack of courage, picking apart things can be an avoidance of truths. This may be why big world-changing discoveries often happen outside the academic world.

Then there is what I call “dirty thinking,” that is, people who might see that the truth may hurt them so they deny the truth, or they may only vaguely sense that the truth will hurt them, or hurt their cause, so they deny, twist or block the truth. In this case courage looks like an odd sort of masochism, but it is pleasure we receive in the long run from the truth.  In the case of the military, it can even save lives to tell the truth about not knowing something you are supposed to know. 

Science, religion and art can all deny truth for lack of courage. I think it was Nietzsche who said that courage is more important than intelligence in finding the truth. Evidence is good, and necessary, but there exits more than one kind of evidence. It is courage that seems to be the thing required to apprehend the truth at first, with or without evidence. But qualities of courage are not just an adult virtue, children and autistics seem to have something like bold courage due to missing the adult awareness or empathy regarding others which can bring fear to speak the truth.

Capitalism and economic nationalism

The free enterprise system is a great creation, it has lifted humanity out of poverty, but it needs to be improved upon in its exploitative nature. Ayn Rand's idea of evil-altruism is not the enemy, as sociobiology has brilliantly shown, altruism is the glue of successful survival for the group, altruism is the creator of ethics for the group, upon whom the individual certainly depends.

Taking the exploitative global hugeness out of business, and returning to economic nationalism, can improve conditions between owners and workers. Affirming small states and regions, and local business, will bring life back to the communities. Then the whole nation can be protected with a light federalism, as the Founding Fathers wanted.

Who or what gave us the dangerous idea that greed alone is good? Greed has all but destroyed our economic system, and our cultural life. It might sound overly romantic, but owners can care for the welfare of their workers, like caring patriarchs, with the workers treated as creative artisans rather than factory robots or cubicle drones.  

Can America Survive With An Order Of Distinct Variety?

Various factions, classes or ethnic conflicts within America are gradually breaking America apart, between the 1960's baby-boomers, the independents, the new professionals, the growing minorities, Latino's, Blacks and others, and of course the 1% global power masters. Can we survive it?

The new professional class seems to be the only faction doing well financially, because they took the new jobs in the burgeoning service sector requiring college and upper graduate degrees, which replaced the jobs lost in the outsourcing of American manufacturing. To be blunt, the new professionals live well because America sold out its manufacturing base to the global power masters. The top 1% benefited most by far, but the money did trickle down to the new professionals who service the 1%, yet it trickled down not much further than that. This faction will not support a return to American manufacturing and economic nationalism, although some of them do support the Jeffersonian libertarianism of Ron Paul.

The minorities tend to vote for the big government programs from which their lives have largely depended, so a return to small government, small business, and states rights won't get their vote, although natural ethnic pride could eventually lead them to supporting more regional independence.

This leaves the 1960's generation and the new Jeffersonian libertarians to support a return to economic nationalism, independent states, and light federalism. But many of the baby-boomers support big government entitlements, even though these entitlements will be changed for future generations---although with economic nationalism, taxes from tariffs on foreign imports will cover some entitlements, as well as lowering taxes on American business. And the libertarians don't support economic nationalism---they don't have much of a problem letting global capitalism trample over everyone, even though they don't want government to do the same thing.

There also, oddly, continues to be a lack of understanding among conservatives and Republicans regarding the differences between neoconservatism (William Kristol) and paleoconservatism or traditional conservatism (Pat Buchanan).  The liberal media (including neoconservative Fox) doesn't help in this because they are largely on the side of the neos. So most “conservatives” support the global power masters, and most are global capitalists, rather than affirming the economic nationalism of true conservatism.

The only way I see to keep America from going the way of the Roman Empire is to reaffirm and actually go back to our original Republic, which included a light federalism protecting the real independence of small states, as well a base of economic nationalism. We trade with the world, of course, but we take back our country from the global power masters who have all but destroyed it. 

It is either a return to America of the original Constitution or we will have an increasingly Orwellian new world order ruled by plutocrats, or civil war, or fascism, or communism, or an overall despairing chaos.

I think we can have order along with a distinct variety of people and classes living in America, but to have this requires the real independence of our states and regions, as envisioned by our Founding Fathers. And reality says we need to be protected in our variety with a light federalism, with economic nationalism, and  with strong national defense.

Empires always break down into many small states in any case, with some sort of federalism, because it best harmonizes with real human nature.

Ultimately there is more to life than political philosophy, namely religious philosophy, that is, we are evolving to Godhood in the cosmos, and for this sacred mission we require very long term Ordered Evolution and Revitalized Conservatism.

We want to civilize the beast, not kill it

“Instincts” are often thought of as uniformly bad in civilized societies in comparison to the control of the Neo-cortex. Even psychology has tended to paint the instincts, the Id, with one dark brush, not unlike religions often did.

Certainly we want to rid our societies of dangerous psychopaths, with their lack of a conscience and their unchecked instincts. But we don't want to block out the most sacred instinct of the Spirit-Will-To Godhood, which essentially defines the dynamic of life itself. That is what we retain of the beast.

Indeed, we can't eject this out of our beings, we can only block it--with great ascetic discipline--as the Inward Paths of the great religions advocated, in order to get a glimpse of the God-Within, or the Father-Within.

The Twofold Path does not want to reject the God-Within of the Involutionary Inward Path, which leads to the desire-free Soul. The Twofold Path includes the Inward Path as having been the first glimpse humanity had of the Godhood which can be reached in the Evolutionary Outward Path.  The sacred instinct to Godhood of the Spirit-Will activates life, and then life is shaped by evolution.  We want to civilize the beast, not kill it.

Science and religion need to catch up with one another

I like what Schopenhauer called the “direct apprehension” of the nature of things, emotion with science, faith with reason, informed intuition. Some of my beliefs have more scientific certainty, like the affirmation of naturalism, some are probable, some desirable, and some are blunders, but as Walter Kaufmann said, look to what a thinker has seen more than parsing his meanings. Our sacred, ageless mission is to evolve to Godhood, and both religion and science are applied science-art, not merely theoretical. For our mission, science and religion need to catch up with one another.

Why sociobiology cannot be left out of phenomenological investigation: or, the bias in phenomenology and existentialism

Sociobiologically-explained feelings and emotions can be “objective” with a commonality, as well as being “subjective” phenomenon, or existential feelings. But individual subjective feelings are closer to objective common feelings than phenomenology suggests--- subjective feelings may even be more objective than they are subjective. The world of appearance, the world “as it appears” of existentialism has been exaggerated in the modern world perhaps as a reaction to world “as it is” of science which was also exaggerated. 

The reality is, we have seen enough of the real world, even with seeing only the "appearance" of the world through our senses and minds, to allow us to survive successfully, although we do not see all of the world as it is. It seems that what we do not see has been exaggerated in importance over what we do see.

This is not to say that there are no subjective feelings. There are differences between people and perceptions, which have been pointed out clearly by science, as well as by phenomenology. But phenomenology exaggerated the subjective experience over the common “inter-subjective” experience, to use their word for commonality. Religion and nationalism, for example, did not exaggerate the subjective differences, they emphasized (some might say overemphasized) the commonality. For example, one who might not like religion, or nationalism, might prefer to exaggerate the differences between people and underplay the commonality, or the other way around.

It has been affirmed and reaffirmed in human beings (and other social groups) that natural selection has taken place most importantly at the group level, where ethics are developed to help bond individuals to the group for more successful survival and reproduction against competing groups. Commonality and not subjectivity is in this affirmed, which leads to the affirmation of traditions, such as the commonality of religious art, or national art. Subjectivity is then downplayed, unconsciously at first, because commonalty better helped people survive successfully.

This is why survival and reproductive drives cannot be left out of phenomenological investigation because sociobiologically-explained instincts effect ones subjective and objective feelings. These exaggerations can be done unconsciously, perhaps caused primarily by biological impulsion toward the success of ones own worldview. To pay attention virtually to only subjective phenomenal feelings leaving out real biological considerations leads to bias in defining subjective feelings, yet alone bias in objective feelings.

Uniting the natural, human and divine orders

Why was there a revival of Greek and Roman culture in the Renaissance? Perhaps the great ascetic block on basic instincts from the great religions was too unnatural to keep the earthly pagan myths from reviving? It was also due to general, ongoing, human curiosity and love of knowledge. Religion broke from nature and than science broke from religion. This was a major shift for humanity. But science was too one-sided on the other side of unemotional, nonreligious reason.  Kant tried to keep the faith by separating faith from reason. This was followed by the Romantic revival of the 19^th century, which tried to bring back emotion and myth again superseding science and traditional religion. Nietzsche and Jungian psychology followed, and eventually the relativistic ethics of postmodernism. I see this all as reaching for a unity lost when first the pagan world declined and then the great religions declined.

There is a unity between the the natural, human and divine orders and that unity is connected through the sacred material evolution to supermaterial Godhood. The Twofold Path in the Evolutionary  Church is the bridge between the ancient religions and modernism, between the natural and divine worlds. We evolve in the material and supermaterial world to the Godhood first seen and mirrored in the religious involutionary world of the past. This is a re-allocation of faith and knowledge, a new “myth” based in religion and science. Faith and knowledge do not have to be separate. The religious-scientific narrative of our evolution to Godhood unites the natural, human and divine orders. But the divine needs to be seen as not beyond the material world but as the supermaterial zenith of the material world.

The individual, the group, and change

When thinking about group-selection, which needs to be understood as having been the key to the creation and maintenance of ethics in human society (recently underlined by the great E. O. Wilson), it is also vital to understand the equally great Raymond Cattell's concern in Beyondism regarding the individual and the group in change.

While affirming the central importance of group selection in evolutionary progress, Cattell saw danger in exclusive conformity to the group regarding change and progress, rather than standing by ones individual position. Strict group conformity suggest a spasmodic revolutionary change-pattern rather than group-change aided by individuals with new creative traits.

One might compare conformity-group-change to China, and individual-group-change to America (at least in the past), seeing that a balance here needs to be found for the smoothest changes to take place. The key here is being able to see the difference between creative and criminal deviant change in the individual (not always easy to see) and being able to see which deviations help or hinder the social group. One method to aid in this process was Cattell's ingenious and scientific, multivariate psychological tests which he and his associates devised.

The Metaphysics

Human beings do see only an appearance of the real world, as suggested by Idealism, but we see enough of the real world to discern much of reality, which does exist outside us, and is real. We see how other people and other animals perceive the same world as we do to a lesser or a further degree of reality depending on the capacities of the senses---an eagle sees more than we do, a dog smells more etc. This reality should not lead to relativism or perspectivism in philosophy, it simply leads to various life forms seeing various amounts of the same reality.

These perceptions and representations of the world by human individuals are not as separated or individual as suggested by Idealism, there is an archetypal human nature that is mainly biologically derived, which is at the origin of much social behavior. The idealist critiques of Kant and Schopenhauer diverge away from the biological materialism of Darwin and sociobiology, which we affirm.

We are not merely objects of perceptions alone looking at the world, we are activated by a material Spirit-Will which essentially defines “life” itself. Random evolution takes place after the activation of the Spirit-Will. The Spirit-Will is not the sole "thing-in-itself" as it was with Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, the Spirit-Will never separates itself from life or the object it inhabits and activates, life and the object are the only vehicle the Spirit-Will has to evolve.

As in standard materialism, our theological materialism affirms the primacy of the material world, all things are material. But some things are supermaterial, arrived at through material evolution. “Matter in motion” not only works according to natural laws, matter in motion is activated by the Spirit-Will within life and matter, which is also a part of the natural laws. In this way all life seems first in service to the Spirit-Will within matter, and secondarily to evolution which shapes life and matter. Again, random evolution takes place after the activation of the Spirit-Will.

Patterns can be seen in evolution, the evolutionary process has shown a direction toward higher, more complex, more intelligent, more conscious forms, as well as going backward and sideways. This direction toward higher evolution is the result of the activating Spirit-Will always seeking greater and greater success in survival, heading for eternal success, eternal representation---which defines Godhood, the goal of the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, or Life.

This goal of Godhood reached by material and supermaterial evolution is the sacred reason why there was no need to exclusively renounce the world. Renunciation can remain within the Involutionary Inward Path leading to the Father Within (in Christianity) which is attained or experienced by blocking all material desires. But the Inward God is only a mirror of real Godhood which is reached in the Evolutionary Outward Path (the opposite of Plato's view). This is the Twofold Path of the Theoevolutionary Church.

Nietzsche radically extirpated religion from his worldview rather than seeing Godhood reached outwardly through the Will To Godhood. Nietzsche tried to transvalue the negation of the Will of the great religions, and of his mentor Schopenhauer, with his affirmation of the Will To Power. But Nietzsche's Will remained the same spiritual-idealist Will, transvalued into the affirmation of a random, goalless, Dionysian, power drive designed for use by superior individuals, and relative of values.

It is not knowledge alone, or gnosis, that allows the highest goals to be reached, it is the evolution of the material and supermaterial world which allows the highest goals to be reached. The Unconcealed of Heidegger, which defines truth, is an Object. Absolute Unconcealment is attained by the evolution of life to the Supreme Supermaterial Object, which is Godhood.

The individual and the group in art

The centrality of group-selection in developing human ethics, as recently reaffirmed by E. O. Wilson, brings archetypes and myths back into art and culture, and tends to downplay individualism. Heroes are individuals, often with flaws, but they usually defend or affirm the group.

As we return to small states, and even ethnostates, in a world where imperialism and single-state supremacy, imperialism, ect. crumbles, the character, tone and guiding beliefs of group archetypes and myth will become more relevant. 

With ethnostates there will be new myths attached to the old. Sacred art is more than about art only, it is about life and our evolution beyond humans to higher life, and on to Godhood. It is the affirmation of the sacred that defines great art across human history, a theme more constant than the method of affirmation. Folk Art as well as High Art can produce the same affirmation with different levels of skill and sophistication.

Artists have the freedom to produce during creation what they want, which is a freedom that enhances creativity, but later religion and society have the ethical right to accept or reject the work of the individual artists, because life is ultimately more about group effort, survival and evolution than about the  hyper-individualism of one artist.

Closing the in and out gaps of Gnosticism

This is the pattern I see in religious history: ancient religious Gnosticism turned inward to the God within, then according to Robert Ellwood's “The Politics of Myth,” came what Voegelin called political gnosticism (Voltaire, Comte, Marx) with a secular vision of an end time utopia (heaven) in the material world, then came “mythological gnosticism” (Jung, Campbell) which turned back inward again disillusioned with the faceless modern world seeking psychological grounding in myths.

Now the Theoevolutionary Church turns outward again while including the gnostic inward vision in the Twofold Path. Unlike the gnostics the inward God is seen as a mirror of the outward Godhood which is evolved to in the cosmos, gnostic idealism is grounded in theological materialism, the Spirit-Will activates life and life is then shaped by outside evolution. Life, the desire to live, or the Spirit-Will, comes before the randomness of evolution that shapes life. The modern divide between the traditional and modern, the romantic and the Enlightenment, religion and science can be joined.

Look To The Pattern

Walter Kaufmann talked about looking for what a philosopher sees, not so much the details of what he says. I look to the pattern and tend to let the specialists argue about the details. It's like defining human freedom, the pattern is more or less fixed, but various paths in the pattern are more fluid or free. You make blunders this way but you can get the pattern right, but you can be accused of being more a visionary than a philosopher if you don't fully explicate the pattern. Studious dweebs often prefer the details and miss the pattern.

We are free to make our own history but within the strictures of the culture we inherited, and within our inherited genetic traits. Nature and nurture than trade back and forth. The pattern of theological materialism is life evolving to Godhood, but defining Godhood in detail or defining  precisely how we get there is not fully known and won't be until we evolve higher intelligence to see. 

Are we free or unfree? Is the glass half full or half empty? We do have more choices than other animals on earth. Being in harmony with the pattern of life and evolution allows more power and fluidity in our choices within the pattern. This suggests a pattern of human choices but not absolute freedom.

The Basic Dynamic of Evolutionary Therapy

Raymond Cattell was probably right in seeing how psychotherapy came to regard guilt as evil, and tried to cure neurosis by whittling away the superego to “harmless” levels, which incidentally, led to the permissiveness of the last midcentury. Cattell would have the ego control guilt rather than repress it. But Cattell did confirm Freud's ego and superego controlling mans instinctive id, and Cattell extended this with empirical studies in Multivariate Psychology to find two things almost as important: self-sentiment and guilt-proneness.

My proposal of Evolutionary Therapy sees a slightly different dynamic related to religion, while accepting the basic structure of Freud and Cattell. Deep in the instinctive id is the most sacred Spirit-Will-To-Godhood that activates life which is then shaped by evolution. It is this Sacred Instinct that must be synthesized by the ego and superego, and certainly not suppressed, repressed or ignored, although it cannot really be ignored since it essentially defines life itself.

The Soul or the Father Within is that which necessarily suppresses the ego, superego, id and Spirit-Will in order to attain the bliss of desirelessness which is equated with God in the great religions. This is accomplished at the Zenith of the Mind. Whereas the Spirit-Will activates life at the Zenith of the Soul, as the Zenith of the Instincts. The Spirit-Will seeks the desirelessness which comes from attaining the supreme material desire of evolving to Godhood, and not the mirror of this from suppressing all desire in the Soul.  The Twofold Path in the Theoevolutionary Church defines the two paths of the Soul and Spirit-Will.  Individuals and culture then seek to harmonize with this dynamic, which can lead to Revitalized Conservatism and Ordered Evolution.

The European Union is falling apart because it wrongly defined human nature

The European Union is falling apart in direct correlation to how it has wrongly defined human nature. The central concern should have been to protect the independence and variety of states and nations, with some sort of light but protecting federalism.  They should not have attempted quixotic, socialist, world sameness, or global capitalist egoism.

Social and political actions rise and fall or limp along in direct relation to how the society defines human nature. The closer society harmonizes with real human nature the healthier society is, the better it functions, and the longer it lasts.

When George Soros said that the Euro-zone crises is not a financial but a political crisis, he was defining the problem from a global capitalist view of human nature, that is, human nature as being money-centered and ego-centered, as Ayn Rand defined human nature. But the Euro-zone is falling apart because people are not the same, states are different from one another, people bond together in small nations, and with closer group-selection, as many years of study and research in sociobiology has told us, and as human history has taught us time and again.

Human nature suggests that Economic Nationalism is the golden mean. Small states need to be protected in their independence and variety and not forced together into impossible configurations.  China would have been smarter to emulate some version of the original American Constitution than to allow itself to move from the entrapment of communism to the entrapment of global capitalism.The American founders set up a balanced system of independent states, with free enterprise and economic nationalism, protected by a light federalism, but this system has been slowly corrupted. We need to return to the original system.

But it will probably be a painful transition. Global capitalism will try to hold their global business ventures together for the few individuals who mainly benefit from it, or the socialists will again demand that people be all the same, or the extremists will insist on the superiority of one over all others. None of these worldviews are based in a workable way to harmonize with real human nature.

The sooner Europe, Asia and America affirm, or reaffirm, small states with free enterprise and economic nationalism, protected by an overall light federalism, the healthier things will be. And the protection needs to center on the independence and variety of small states and nations. People will always yearn to be as human nature decrees.

Technology yes, but religion guides goalless technology

Evolution has usually required boundaries and separations, which led to the evolution of man. Some anthropologists have suggested that some religions and social philosophies smashed the machinery of evolution when they tried to break down all boundaries of separation.

In religion I think this was not done to destroy evolution, it was done to identify the God Within as the same for all people. In effect this probably led to the humanistic idea that all men are the same and that the individual needs to be sacrificed to ones fellowman, as in the extreme example of Marxism.

Genetic engendering may make changes in the trajectory and speed of evolution, but general human nature living in nature will remain a strong influence.  New technology and artificial evolution can be synthesized into natural patterns of evolution and selection without overwhelming the whole natural project of evolution. That is, the very basic human traits of group selection and kin selection will be strong and evolution will therefore still create boundaries and separations.

Some people may even promote technology to bypass or block "politically incorrect" natural evolution and the natural separations of people. It seems best not to get too far ahead of human nature in trying to replace natural evolution with technology, as trans-humanism and the singularization with machines seem to be suggesting. Evolution is usually not revolution.

The Evolutionary Outward Path to Godhood, for all men, is the antidote to the breakdown of natural evolution caused in part by the Involutionary Inward Path to the God Within, which all men share. One leads to the other. The goal is vital, not merely progress for the sake of progress, or evolution for the sake of evolution: evolution to Godhood is the goal. Technology yes, but religion guides goalless technology.  

Keeping the evolutionary faith while avoiding totalitarianism and gnostic-idealism

Eric Voegelin worried about political Gnosticism, and Russell Kirk was concerned with political idealism, both men were worried about how these led to totalitarianism and revolution. Carl Jung eventually more or less rejected the political for mythological gnosticism (see Robert Ellwood, “The Politics of Myth") and thought that the political should only protect the more important practice of self-examination and self-enlightenment. The Traditionalist School retained both political and mythological Gnosticism. The Conservative response was that mankind is sinful and unperfectable and therefore we should retain modest order and freedom, and avoid gnostic, idealistic, totalitarian saviors. 

All were somewhat right and somewhat wrong. The Theoevolutionary Churchholds to the roots of the great religions while affirming the flowering of the evolutionary religious synthesis.  Ordered Evolution is the key.  Revitalized Conservatism applies to both religion and politics. We are not only seeking a way out of the world by exclusively following the Inward Path, we are also seeking a way into the world in the Outward Path. Salvation can be seen as both inward and outward. The mirror of God is seen in the Involutionary Inward Path, and Real Godhood is reached in the Evolutionary Outward Path.

We do not condemn half the world to make the other half happy, as Marxism and Fascism did, and as crony Capitalism is now doing. We are all evolving to Godhood, and given the group selection of basic human nature, we can do this best and most practically in small states, which tend to become virtual ethnostates, with all protected by light federalism, and guided by religion. The state can do not much better than to protect the freedom of evolution in all its variety. Religion and science can guide evolution, but voluntarily. Ordered Evolution is how we proceed, evolution not revolution is the conservative pattern. This is how we keep the evolutionary faith while avoiding totalitarianism and gnostic-idealism.

Belief in common

I think one of the advantages the Theoevolutionary Churchhas over Cattell's noble Beyondism is having a common belief in the evolution to Godhood as a final goal and not merely endless evolutionary progress as a goal. Different groups and states have this end-goal in common.

Progress and evolution alone with no final attainment is less satisfying and therefore less able to bring people together in this sacred quest. It's easier to love Godhood than progress.

But that said, Godhood is not attached to evolution merely for emotional or pragmatic satisfaction. The essence of life, which is defined as the Spirit-Will to successful survival, has the natural, rational, emotional and sacred goal of final success, which is cosmic, even eternal representation: Godhood, which defines the ultimate success of life.

Perhaps just as important in holding in common is our attachment to the God Within of the great religions, which we see as the first Inward glimpse of Godhood later to be reached Outwardly. This Father within is a common bond we have with religion which science and Beyondism do not have, we connect the roots to the flowering of religion.

The Twofold Path and the Flowering of Religion

“True art is the moment of emergence of the classic from the folk.” ( “The Folk and the Classic” by Frederick Turner )

To adapt Turner's images, religions or philosophies which attempt to liberate modern man from tradition lose the roots of human culture. But when religion denies new ideas it is like having the root only without the flowering. Even so, new ideas without the roots of tradition is like cutting the flower off from its roots.

Modern life has increasingly lost touch with religion (and traditional art) and the question is how to get it back? The Twofold Path in the religious philosophy of the the Theoevolutionary Church brings the spiritual to the material, religion to science, it is the emergence of classic religion out of folk religion, a flowering from the roots.  

We are evolving in the Outward Path of material life to the Godhood first seen and mirrored as the Father within in the Inward Path of traditional religion. Art, philosophy and culture follow after from the same root.

The economic deceiving of American conservatives

The neoconservatives have duped most Republicans and conservatives into supporting the decline and fall of manufacturing and workers in America, when the benefits of globalism have gone to corporate salaries and dividends for shareholders, at the great expense of gutting America manufacturing and abandoning the American middle class and working class.

Not long ago our workers had pay and benefits better than anywhere in the world, because America taxed foreign products coming into this country, and with this money they financed almost 50 percent of the government, while protecting American-made products and American workers.  Also taxes on Americans and on American corporations could this way be lower.

It was not the cost of production that made Corporate America move their factories out of America, it was the great scam promoted where corporate America could risk opening our borders to all foreign products if in return they could move their production out of the U. S. to low wage countries---then they could ship the cheaply made products back to America and pocket the difference, which was a great deal of of money.

The idea was to try to create America on a global scale, with no borders as the open borders of the 50 states, and abolish all trade barriers and tariffs.

All of this came at the great expense of the loss of American manufacturing, the destruction of the American worker, and the loss of the tariffs that helped to run the government and keep taxes low.

Most Republicans and conservatives bought this whole globalist scam.

There are no viable politicians now supporting the economic nationalism which made this whole country great. Will viable politicians rise as the disaster to America increases?

(See Pat Buchanan's essay on this scam here.)

Adjusting Gnosticism

Gnosticism has the model wrong about “uncreated light” being “entrapped” in the physical envelope seeking to “escape” to God.

The Spirit-Will To Godhood is not entrapped in the material world, it is a vital part of the material world, activating the material world to evolve to Godhood. This is a positive view of the world which enlarges the goal of religion from the exclusively Inward Path to the Soul, to the Outward Path of evolution to Godhood.

It is not knowledge alone, or gnosis, that allows the highest goals to be reached, it is evolution of the material and supermaterial world that allows the highest goals to be reached. Materially evolved beings will lead the way. And to respond to Heidegger, “unconcealment” is attained by way of evolution to the Supreme Supermaterial Object Godhood, and not only by enlightened knowledge of God in mind.

Let us keep the ancient view of the Father Within, but the Twofold Path allows us to climb out of the Great Spiritual Blockade against evolving to real Godhood.

Religion, Science, and the Belief In Godhood

Sociobiology has said that the two main functions of religion are satisfying primary instinctive needs, and aiding in the ethical organization of societies. This is a realistic perspective. But unlike Cattell's noble Beyondism, we don't begin with science and work back to spiritual values, we begin with the Sacred Instinct of the Spirit-Will To Godhood within the evolving material world, and we see if science can be a tool to help us in our evolution to Godhood.

Godhood is the goal, not merely endless evolutionary progress. This gives us the instinctive and real emotional appeal of Godhood and not merely the changing yet important values of progress. We do not know the full nature of Godhood, and we will not until we evolve much higher, and there will be many changes and stopping off places along the way, but we do have the pattern and goal of evolution to Godhood.

We change the path and the definition of Godhood in the Outward Path. We affirm the emotional aids such as art, ritual, music etc. We retain the the traditional Sacrificial Mass in the Inward Path to the Father Within. We add the Mass of Joy in the Outward Path of evolution to Godhood.  Most importantly, we retain the belief in Godhood, which keeps us in the Revitalized Conservative camp. 

The Full Use of Nature, Human History, and Tradition

T. S. Elliot's “tradition” was the full knowledge and use of history, “provincial” was not using longer-term history. This needs to be taken further to say that tradition is the full and sacred use of nature. One hears the voice of nature awakening in the religion of the the Theoevolutionary Church (TC). 

Religion has slighted nature, at least since the Revealed Religions arose, religion has even blocked out nature in the higher initiates. Science rushed in to fill the gap. The TC brings nature back to religion after being buried in the Great Spiritual Blockade. The Twofold Path can be called “classical” in the sense that classicism is balance between “opposing” forces, unity in duality.  The Involutionary Inward Path of religion is synthesized with the Evolutionary Outward Path of nature.

This is a healthier remedy for balancing culture (Apollo and Dionysus) than Nietzsche's rebirth of tragedy through the apotheoses of lone supermen, which was a worthy but desperate attempt to avoid the nihilism of relativity with hyperindivualism, and having no religion. The TC brings balance back to religion rather than rejecting religion, which defines Revitalized Conservatism.

The choice is more accurately defined as between evolution (Outward Path) and involution (Inward Path) than between "'good and evil." The material world is no longer seen as evil but as the essential vehicle to evolve to Godhood. The Spirit-Will To Godhood is affirmed which activates life to Godhood, shaped by evolution.

Nature and culture, science and religion, can be balanced, when the Father Within of the Inward Path is seen as the Godhood evolved to in the Outward Path.  This is the full use of nature and history.

We need not be against the modern world

Mythology as well as gnosticism, the great religions, and much of modern psychology believe that the final truths are located in the depths of the Soul. But this is where half the truth resides, the other half exists beyond the Soul at the zenith of evolution, when Godhood is attained.

Rational religion based on science can enter the world, as it has been trying to do since at least the Enlightenment, but it should not replace priestcraft, it should work with and synthesize priestcraft. The Inward Path needs to be folded into the Outward Path.

Nietzsche's “eternal recurrence” does more or less occur, but that is not all that occurs, life also evolves to Godhood, while entropic life does fall back, but life has a recurring chance at evolving to Godhood. One is therefore not a hero only for hero's sake in a hopeless recurring world, as in Nietzsche, one is a hero in the mission of evolution to Godhood, a cause greater than eternal recurrence.

We need not be against the modern world, as is the Traditionalist School, gnostic psychology and existentialist philosophy, the modern scientific world can help us in evolving to Godhood in the cosmos, the Godhood first seen in the Inward Path to the Soul.

This defines the mission of the Twofold Path.

Change In Conservatism

The “pressure” of progress is long-term and therefore austere in evolving all the way to Godhood in the cosmos, and because it is long-term it needs conservative pressure against the ordinary and the decadent, and not revolutionary change.

Revolution can sweep away the stability needed for rational evolution. Conservatism can prevent some of the suffering that comes with change, or the destruction and great suffering that often comes in revolutions.

We are evolving toward extraordinary people and this is a progress that is sacred, but we are not defining the extraordinary people of Plato's Republic which he thought required an authoritarian system to bring about--- Plato's ideal, like the great religions, was an involuntary not evolutionary ideal.  We retain both in the Twofold Path.  Conservatism comes in other packages for other nations and other people.

 American conservatism avoids authoritarianism with the order of a Republic, at least in the original Constitution, which gives great freedom to the states, and that is good for evolution which thrives on separate varieties, yet it retains a light federalism to protect the states, with such things as economic nationalism.

Ordered Evolution is the term I have used, which is not the same as Russell Kirk's noble Ordered Liberty, which is not speaking of the liberty of sociobiological evolution.

Realistic Conservative Change

The thing I like about conservatism is how it can bring steady pressure for change, carrying the past forward, rather than barbarous revolutionary change. It adapts the pleasure principle rather than swimming in it. This is realistic and societies require realists to survive over the hard times.

The intelligent, beautiful and good tend to lead, and both culture and genetics lag behind, with many followers, catching up.  But the catching up has been a totally chance thing in adaptation, and studies show that the brilliant are becoming less frequent, which means that innovation declines. Rather than waiting for random chance, which is fine and natural, we can also rationally, conservatively, and voluntarily, move to circumvent the decline both culturally and genetically.  This is real humaneness and prevention of suffering in action.

The Twofold Path synthesizes Darwin and the Bible, the great book of nature can lead life to evolve to the Godhood first seen inwardly in the great book of the Bible. We are evolving toward supreme intelligence, beauty, and goodness, which is Godhood. Change using steady pressure and not revolution is the conservative way to evolve.