How to hold the nation together in the future

The always excellent William Lind has been telling us for awhile that the power dynamic now is less state versus state as it is whether the state or nation system can survive the growing power of the non-state forces rising. Although Lind is speaking mainly of Islamic terrorist groups within states, I think this may also apply to future American clashes between different cultural and ethnic groups.

The persistence of group-selection or tribalism, even racialism, continues because it is written in the ancient code of human nature. As has been said before, human history and the sociobiological sciences have affirmed that the main creator of human ethics has been group-selection, where altruism within the group helped the group survive and reproduce more successfully than the groups with less altruism within the group. Unsuccessful attempts to wipe out group-selection have often led to loss of freedom and even to coercive force being used.

A light American federalism protecting separate and independent regions and states---which could even be thought of as ethnostates---is possible in America, while still legally affirming the original Constitution and the Republic. This is the structure that can hold the nation together at a time when non-state, tribal, or ethnic forces rise, that is, when whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians, even Islamic forces increasingly clash in America. Democracy is difficult under these forces. If states and regions within the United States are allowed their freedom, and then protected by federalism, they will naturally develop their own cultures depending on the groups living within them, which should be championed.

This conservative solution may become more apparent when orthodox theories and models cannot explain or solve the future problems that develop.

How the Constitution can help us secure a realistic Future

If the choice is clashes and civil war between different cultures and races in America, or the constitutionally sanctioned independence and separation of the states, the sane choice is more independence of the states and regions, where differences can be celebrated, while being protected by a light federalism.

Human history and the sociobiological sciences have rightly said that the main creator of human ethics has been group-selection, where altruism within the group helped the group survive and reproduce more successfully than the groups with less altruism within the group. This became written in the code of basic human nature, and it is this that can and will help determine the future course off human history. To deny basic human nature with the wishful hope of all groups getting along living in the same spot, no matter how different they are, or even attempting to force harmony as has been done with cultural Marxism, will never stop the clashes between different cultures with different behaviors.

Americans should feel fortunate that that we do not even need to apply the choice, written in our a Constitution, giving the people the right to secure a form of government calculated to promote safety and happiness, even if it means altering the form of government, if necessary. This is the famous right of revolution. But the Constitution gives the states independence and freedom, especially with the Tenth Amendment, which means that revolution, secession, etc., are not necessary---secession would eliminate the basic protection of the independence of the states that is provided by the light federalism, leading to more clashes.

The Synthesis

As an exercise in clarity I often try to compress my religious philosophy into a few powerful sentences---here is the latest:

Religion declares that the kingdom of God cannot come from a political platform. But Godhood can evolve from a combination of religion and politics, among other things. The difference comes from defining the Kingdom of God (the Father Within) as within only, and Godhood as evolved to outwardly only. The inward God is the mirror of outward Godhood and not the other way around, as formerly believed. This is the simple good news of the Twofold Path in the the Theoevolutionary Church (TC), which combines the spiritual and the material, where theological materialism defines the spiritual as supermaterial. This brings science and religion together.  This brings the new into the old. This grounds philosophy in the evolving object and not merely in definitions and nonmaterial symbols. This brings religion to culture and politics, which all great civilizations have required if they are to last long. Human beings are capable of this voluntary movement, coercion need not be used. Future evolution of the species will make us even more capable of understanding our evolution to Godhood.

Human nature and future politics

President Obama won 71% of Latinos, 93% Blacks, 73% Asians, 60% of people under 30, and 39% of white votes. What does this really mean for America's future?

It all depends on the view of human nature. Americans were largely taught the universal political creed of “openness to the other,” which now rules all other creeds as political correctness. Cultural and ethnic identities are supposedly relegated down to the private sphere. The problem is, human nature does not work that way.

The various groups do not, in their actual behavior, seek real openness to the other, they seek dominance by their own group and their own culture, even if they disguise it, even to themselves, as openness to the other. This is where the problems in the future develop, which leads to cultural and ethnic clashes, and not openness to the other.

On the other hand, if we affirm the view of human nature seen throughout human history, and validated by the neo-Darwinist science of sociobiology, then the central dynamic of human behavior has been group-selection, where people prefer their own kind, their own cultures, their own regions and localities. This preference evolved over time because it was successful in survival and reproduction. This was the main foundation in the creation of human ethics.

If we want to have realistic openness to the other we must allow groups, states, and regions, a strong measure of independence, separation and variety, and then protect that independence with a light federalism. If we pay attention to real human nature we will not force different people and different cultures to be all the same, or to live together in the same spot---coercion is the only way that this kind of egalitarianism can happen, if at all.

Western liberals never seem to see that they are forcing others, through warfare or economics, to be “open to the other.” This has much to do with the modern disconnect between real human nature and politics. If we care about the other we will allow them to be different in their own way, in their own nations, regions and states.

It so happens that the Constitution of the United States thinks in terms of largely independent states, especially in its affirmation of the Tenth Amendment, which says that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This is the conservative and legal way to allow human nature to be what it is. Neither forced egalitarianism, nor secession of the states, are necessary.

Perfection is never possible, but longer term harmony along with evolution is possible if we pay attention to real human nature. The future depends on how we realize and accommodate real human nature.

Theological materialism and the rebirth of religion

Science has been lethal to religion, as Nietzsche and others have pointed out. Religion has been thought of as incompatible with science. According to Quentin Taylor, early Nietzsche thought that there could be a rebirth of religion or myth once science had been pursued to its limits, when reason and science were seen as inadequate. Nietzsche thought the collapse of science as a guide to truth could be the guide to truth. He thought a new “tragic insight” could be the new guide, with art-myth as the only remedy or solace to the tragedy of man in the cosmos.

Even science has metaphysical faith and illusions, denying God but often believing it can find and know Being with thought, using causality. Religion has tried to answer much larger questions than science, such as the meaning of existence, beauty, love, suffering, and using faith largely to answer these questions. The science of sociobiology has said that the answer to why we are here needs to be much reduced: we are here for survival and reproductive success. 

Which “illusion,” as Nietzsche calls them, is closer to the truth: science believing it can find reality and Being in empirical causality, or the metaphysical God of religion? Both require faith.

The Godhood attained in material and supermaterial evolution is closer to the truth, and this Godhood includes elements of both religion and science, applying both empirical causality and faith. The theological materialism of the Evolutionary Christian Church revives religion and myth as well as science. We are certainly here for survival and reproductive success, but theological materialism also sees the sacred goal of evolving to supermaterial Godhood in the cosmos, the Godhood first mirrored in the Father-Within of traditional religion.

This is an inherently optimistic worldview and religion, with elements of tragedy, since the goal is distant and mythical and will require many heroes to reach.

Merry Christmas

Inner and Outer Myth

It seems to me that Carl Jung was frightened, or at least put off after WWII, in applying myth to outer politics, and he used myth mainly as a way to understand inner psychology. This was probably due, understandably, to the Nazis, but it was an overreaction. This seems to have happened to Mircea Eliade as well. But politics needs myth, politics needs sacred goals, politics needs religion.

That being said, the romantic and religious vision of evolving to Godhood needs more classically cautious politics and a basic revitalized conservative perspective, even if the evolutionary goal is not explained traditionally. Over the long term, ordered evolution works better than revolution. 

The inner activated religious goal of eventually evolving to Godhood in the cosmos involves politics as well as individual psychology. It is primarily a religious movement which involves bio-cultural evolution, politics, and social values.

Although I use the term religion rather than myth, and science is also needed in attaining the material-supermaterial goal, the Inward Path in the Twofold Path affirms the inner myth of the Father Within and the Outward Path affirms the outer myth of the evolution to Godhood.

Unity in the inner and outer life

I have listened seriously to Burke and Kirk, our covenant with the past cannot be lightly broken without too much destruction taking place. The Involutionary Inward Path to the Father Within is our covenant with the past, this is the conservative affirmation in the Evolutionary Christian Church.

But if we wish to reach real Godhood we cannot live unchanging in the past. Here the sacred Evolutionary Outward Path to Godhood is required. Otherwise we die contemplating the bliss of the Father Within without at least evolving closer to Godhood, yet alone attaining Godhood.

There is a disparity now between the inner and outer life which creates a divided individual, and also a divided society. The Twofold Path can be the unifying function. Cultural and individual authenticity comes from this religious unity of the inner and outer life.

The real transvaluation now required

Godhood is not the opposite of the material world of the senses, Godhood is the zenith of the evolution of the material world of the senses---this is scorned by both Plato's high reason and by the spiritual soul defined in the great religions. Even human high reason and the spiritual soul are deficient in things concerning real Godhood.

The real transvaluation takes place when the Inward Path of high reason and the spiritual soul are seen as only a mirror of the supermaterial Godhood which can be reached in the Outward Path of material evolution.

This transvaluation can unblock the Great Spiritual Blockade against material life evolving to Godhood. Godhood is a supreme, supermaterial object and not merely a religious, non-material, inward mirror, and also not a non-sensory, Platonic, mathematical definition.

However, both high reason and the spiritual soul can be employed in complimentary service to the evolution of material life to supermaterial Godhood. With this transvaluation affirmed, the insights of traditional religion and classical philosophy can then support our evolution to Godhood in the Twofold Path, not object to it. This confirms a conservative transvaluation taking place rather than revolution.

Restrict which Amendment ?

"...Are the folks who think America would be a better place with a more restrictive Second Amendment willing to restrict the First Amendment to stop all distribution of movies and cable shows that depict famous actors blasting enemies with assault weapons?..." (More of Pat Buchanan's column Here)

The art impulse and the sacred totality of religion

We don't need duality in the art world any more than we do in theology or philosophy. With evolution the incomprehensible infinite of the Romantic becomes the clarity of the Classical. Beauty becomes truth and truth beauty. This is the goal affirmed in the art philosophy of  Evolutionary Realism.

It is more than admiration for the infinite which causes our art passions to be exited, as Burke said (which Jung called the numinous mystery), it is more essentially the material Will-To Godhood, or Tirips, the zenith of the instincts, that excites our passions, which can be fulfilled only in our material-supermaterial evolution to Godhood. Here the infinite becomes clarity, beauty becomes truth. This is also how we counter Kant and say that reality can be known.

Certainly we are imperfect, as the Christians demand, but our evolution to Godhood can bring perfection, which means we should not permanently dwell on our imperfections seen only in the Involutionary Inward Path, it is in the Evolutionary Outward Path where we can reach perfection in ascending levels of Godhood.

There is a sacred totality here: we arrive at health by fusing self, society and Godhood with the Will or Tirips which activates life to evolve to Godhood. Evolutionary therapy, art, political philosophy, the sciences, etc., can fuse in this mission. In this holistic view religion is the way out of the problems seen in these now separated areas. It is perhaps this religious perspective that is the “total art work” that we have been searching for in the West since the Ancient Greeks, which art can only affirm.

Lose your neurosis of duality

Non-dual reality and Godhood

There is no nonphysical and non-quantifiable phenomena, there is only us not being able to understand and define it as “supermaterial.” Even Godhood is a supermaterial object, but it may take awhile and much future evolution to accurately define, or become, Godhood.

Don't fear, you spiritualists, God will not disappear, Godhood remains as supermaterial goal which we evolve to. However, you may have to adjust some of your religious hatred of the material world. Seeing Godhood as a supreme object evolved to does not make you “purposeless” as you fear, it gives real purpose to life, rather than rejecting material life.

All is nondual, so don't fear the denial of a dual reality, the material evolves to the supermaterial, nonmaterial spirituality does not exist other than in your deepest material minds, which you call the Soul.

There is even room for your Soul-bliss, the Father-Within of the Inward Path is reached by denying material desires, but this is only a mirror of the Godhood we evolve to in the cosmos with the Twofold Path.

Lose your neurosis of duality, religion and science can be assimilated in theological materialism. Your beloved “mystery” still remains but not to be solved until we further evolve.

Traditionalism exploited by occult counter-forces?

Present-time Guenonian-Evolian Traditionalists often talk of occult forces at work, but they don't seem to admit the possibility of traditionalism itself being initiated as a counter-force to harm or slow the process of evolution to real Godhood in the cosmos, or at least exploited by the enemies of traditionalism. The proof or success might be seen in how the traditionalist movement has all but left the world of evolution and the evolving human subspecies, and in the process is actually blocking evolution and scientific progress. Who benefits from this? The enemies of traditionalism, but also those who see the value in applying science and evolution.

On Moral Law

Moral law is related to the imperatives of the laws of nature, which ultimately applies to the evolution of material and supermaterial life to attain Godhood.

Material life is activated by the Spirit-Will within material life and is then shaped by evolution. Due weight is not given to the activating Spirit-Will by evolutionary science which usually rejects its existence. This leads to shorter-term moral laws, or to nature without a divine goal, and this blunts survival and reproductive success as the only goal.

Human consciousness includes the Spirit-Will within the immediate total of sense experience, residing in and influencing the material body, but although material, it is usually unconscious.  Thought is not as important as the living object. Psychology and social philosophy involve harmonizing the lower drives and instincts with the higher drive and instinct of life evolving to Godhood.

Godhood is a supreme, living, supermaterial object or objects which material life can evolve to, Godhood is not merely a symbol, mathematical form, or nonmaterial sacred word.

Natural law, as articulated by sociobiology, governs human actions in creating ethics, primarily through group-selection, but the activating divine goal of Godhood in evolution also governs human actions and needs to be added to sociobiology.

Kin, group, region, national, and world success in survival and reproduction have a hierarchy of values and morals, while maintaining the divine goal of Godhood for all. This pragmatically suggests cooperative competition to reach the goal, with independent small states protected by light federalism, guided by religion and science.

Dysfunctional politics and marriage

The well-known metaphor of calling the Democrats the "mommy party" and the Republicans the "daddy party" doesn't go far enough into the deeper image of marriage between the two. In this age of single parents and feminist philosophy marriage often doesn't even enter the picture. 

 The differences between men and women and the importance of marriage has been undermined---one without the other creates dysfunctional marriages and dysfunctional children and dysfunctional governments. This does not suggest that women can't do what men do, or vice versa, but it does suggest that our schools should have basic sociobiological courses in the bio-cultural differences between men and women and how this to relates to political policy and life in general.

Republicans tend to discount or downplay the feminine traits of nurturing and unconditional love, in relation to social and domesticate policy, and the Democrats down play the masculine traits of protection and acquisition, in relation to economics and foreign policy. The present “fiscal cliff” disagreements are one example of the dysfunction.

Unity in future evolution

What kind of unity do we need for the future? A light federation of small states and nations united in the goal of evolution, not through coercion, but voluntarily, reasonably and naturally federated and united. We want bio-cultural diversity with the common goal of evolution to Godhood. One single group can be wiped out without bio-cultural diversity. As Raymond Cattell suggested, research and religion can help guide our evolution, and it can be internationally supported.

Transhumanists and Singularitarians are willing to employ genetic engineering and cyborgian implants in future evolution as anarchic individuals, but this plan seems based in the mistake libertarians make of overlooking group-selection as having been the central creator of ethics in human social evolution, as E.O.Wilson has reiterated.

Perhaps due to political correctness transhumanists tend to leave out two important ideas on future evolution, as listed by Cattell: 1, paying attention to the birth/death ratio rates of populations no longer working with natural selection, due to modern medicine etc , and 2, affirming a separation of states and groups as happened naturally in human evolution, along with well chosen breeding---a healthy society will seek to increase its supply of high IQ's by favoring assortative (similarity in pairs) mating, which tends to happen naturally anyway.

Even with all the counter forces against small free states and evolution, it is possible to have mutually agreed upon autonomy of small states and nations with each following their own paths of evolution, guided by research and religion, and protected by a light federalism. This is the only configuration that makes long term sense given human nature and nature itself. The complexity of it can be handled, for example, America was even originally set up with many independent small states and light federalism, humans are capable of this, indeed our survival might depend on it.  And it is a divine mission, since the goal is evolving to Godhood.

How I don't see a big conflict between reason and faith

Reason, observation and sense experience point the way toward faith, trust and idealism, more so than the practice of faith pointing the way toward reason in traditional (mostly Roman Catholic) Christianity.

For example, we can scientifically see the direction of evolution from the simple to the complex in the evolution of the fish to human beings, and this can point the way toward faith, idealism or a hypothesis of higher evolved more complex beings, all the way to the highest evolved Godhood.

We have extended the reach of reason, observation and sense experience with technology, and I believe with higher human and post-human evolution we can scientifically prove the existence of the highest evolved beings, all the way to Godhood, but we may have to become Gods to accurately and super-reasonably define super-material Godhood.

I also think the God Within or the Father Within of traditional religion does exist, but as a blissful state of mind and knowledge, which will be known or seen scientifically with the right observation and technology, although in the Twofold Path of the Evolutionary Church the Father Within is known as a mirror or virtual experience of real Godhood reached through material and super-material evolution.

Bringing culture back to human nature

“...a living thing can be healthy, strong and fruitful only when bound by a horizon.” (Nietzsche)

A great disparity between culture and human nature causes weakness in the culture. That is not to say that natural law necessarily trumps human traditions, as Leo Strauss seems to say, because traditions are developed from human nature and natural laws. If we claim in our culture that we are all the same, demand equal results, seek only profit or absolute individual freedom, then we have moved culture beyond human nature and eventually weakened culture. Going back to human nature means going back to kin, group, localism, regions, and back to small states or ethnostates,  protected by a light federalism.

Nietzsche thought mankind requires “illusions” to function, and I suppose myth, religious faith and scientific hypothesis can be defined as that, but we cannot have too many illusions or disparities from actual human nature without weakening culture. In any case, I don't think of faith in the material Will or Tirips,  as illusion because I believe that activation is an instinct of nature itself, the zenith of the instincts, activating material life to evolve to Godhood.

There is a deep link between religion and culture, religion has been a unifying function bringing it all together with an image of the cosmos and the world, without this there is social fragmentation and even anarchy.  According to Nietzsche, Socrates caused this fragmentation in ancient Greek culture, which continues with the relativism of modern culture.

Bringing culture back to human nature is what revitalized conservatism is all about, back to kin, group, localism, regions, and back to small states protected by a light federalism. The Twofold Path is the rebirth of religion which at least early Nietzsche hoped for (he called it myth) while retaining both science and traditional religion, which later Nietzsche would probably not have done. That is, the Inward Path contemplates the Father Within, and the Outward Path is evolution to real Godhood in the cosmos.

Joining the Fields

Reality is knowable in evolving to the supreme intelligence and truth of Godhood, in this sense Kant was wrong about reality being unknowable. True reality can be known if we evolve materially and super-materially to Godhood. This brings the faith and trust of religion into the worldview. Theological materialism allows religion and science to join, instead of fighting one another. Sciences such as sociobiology can help guide our evolution and religion can tell us where we are going and how to behave along the way.

We can project forward with a cultural complex of intellectual and artistic activity, music, philosophy, drama, but also science and technology. Culture can poetize the religious and mythical images with evolutionary realism, religion can bond with a Mass of Joy for the Outward Path, in which we celebrate our evolution to Godhood, while we retain the Mass of Sacrifice of the Inward Path, in which we reach the Father Within or God Within of traditional Christianity and other religions, which is a mirror of the Godhood we evolve to, and not the other way around.

Our tradition is separation and independence of the states and not secession

We have an historical and social basis for the separation of states and powers and for light federalism, so we can pursue or re-pursue this as the answer to our increasingly multicultural and multiethnic nation. We have seen in the middle-east and elsewhere that without a past history or social basis for a given system it is almost impossible to create a democratic republic. Light federalism with solidly independent states also harmonizes with what we have learned in modern times of human nature, with its preference for kin and group-bonding in special regions.

We need to have real independence and separation of the states and regions so that they can pursue their natural development, with the present big national government devolving back to being much smaller, with far less power. This was our history and we have moved away from it, which is now causing us many problems. To split the nation apart now with secession is not the answer for us historically or socially.

Social perfection is not yet possible given human nature, whether you believe this derives from original sin or from our lack of higher evolution. When America declared its independence from England it was more an evolutionary Burkian change than what happened with the radical French Revolution. The state had become totalitarian and we wanted our independence, we did not develop a whole new social system, we built on the Anglo-American tradition.

We need to settle our political squabbles in a practical way that works for the needs of the variety of people in our nation, and on earth. We have a larger religious mission of evolution to Godhood which needs a stable ordered evolution.

Reconstructing the psychological and religious perspective in a new theology

The Spirit-Will is not like Carl Jung's extinct volcano ready to explode if it is ever awakened---that suggests the old mystic fear of the instincts. The Spirit-Will is the zenith of the instincts and it seeks divine Godhood by activating material life, which is then shaped by evolution. I have called the Spirit-Will the Super-Id.

Even though the usually unconscious Spirit-Will knows its goal it can use the help of the rational conscious mind, which means not so much controlling the Spirit-Will as harmonizing with it. Can the Spirit-Will reach its goal without the help of the conscious mind? This is doubtful. Evolving life activated by the Spirit-Will would take a far less direct and perhaps painful path without the aid of the conscious rational mind. But the conscious mind can also negatively create cultural and religious barriers, as it does today, to the evolution of life.

Does this suggest that we have to choose between feeling and thinking? The Spirit-Will is the zenith of the instincts perhaps relating to feelings, which seems to precede thinking, but the brain and thinking itself, the conscious mind, were evolved as part of the Spirit-Will activation of material life to evolve to Godhood. This can be thought of as bringing the lower and higher nervous systems in harmony, which creates sociobiological health. The Outward Path of evolution to Godhood can be defined as divine success in survival and reproduction in the cosmos, and this Godhood is symbolized or mirrored in the Inward Path to the Father-Within of traditional Christianity, and other religions.

The mode of thought for the ECC is theological materialism, or life activated by the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood and then shaped by evolution, which is the intellectual structure for culture in general.  Truth defines the evolving object, truth is not enough as being only a definition or proposition. Faith, trust, revelation and hypothesis relate to the Spirit-Will and to attaining Godhood, which makes this movement different from Cattell's noble "Beyondism," but other than that vital difference, the base of theological materialism is more or less philosophical naturalism.

Sociobiology and religious philosophy as the foundation of the Twofold Path

Walter Kaufmann suggested that Jesus Christ was betrayed by his followers who were not supposed to reveal that he was the Messiah, and Ravi Ravindra thought the teachings of Jesus were not unlike the mystics of Hinduism and Buddhism. I think the teachings of Jesus, like the founders of the great religions (which gives hope to ecumenism), were the teaching of the Involutionary Inward Path to the God Within or the Father Within, which is only half of the Twofold Path in the Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC).

The Inward Path is “only” a mirror of the Godhood reached in the Evolutionary Outward Path of material and super-material evolution to real Godhood. This is the opposite of Plato and the Gnostic teachings. But the Inward Path is certainly included in the Twofold Path of the ECC. Ordered Evolution works best with revitalized conservatism. The priests of the ECC need to be educated in the Foundation of the Twofold Path, which includes both sociobiology and religious philosophy.  I know this all sounds like an inflated mission of neurotics, but great missions often do.           

A creative federation of independent small states would not require secession

The good thing about small states, or ethnostates, is that they can have the stylistic and organic unity of a real, original culture---if they don't look elsewhere or to a big government for their models. Quentin Taylor writes about early Nietzsche's idea that culture is a unity of the expressions of a people, and how even much knowledge and learning is neither an essential means to culture nor a sign of it. A modern American would find the typical ancient Greek unknowledgeable.

When we have a wide variety of small states protected by a light federalism we can have the foundation for real evolution, with creativity coming from a variety of different sources. Cooperative competition would be important. Positive advances by one state could be borrowed in small doses so that the stylistic unity of the small state is not overwhelmed, as a preventive flu shot is absorbed without creating the flu. The United States would be such a federation if it would affirm small states, or reaffirm them, because it was this sort of federation originally conceived.

It's not federalism that is the “culture,” the federation protects the various real cultures of the states. This also confirms the traditional conservative dislike of big governments. Nietzsche thought that “Barbarism” is the juxtaposition of a confusion of different styles, which is what happens when big government overwhelms small states.

It is this sort of creative and stylistic independence of states that I think we should be concentrating on, rather than secession of states from the union.

Evolutionary Conservatism

I approach philosophy and politics as both evolutionary and religious, hoping that it can lead to the recovery of both.

We require a proper balance between order and evolution. If we are closed to evolution we can become stagnant, if we are closed to order we can become chaotic. We need a balance of order and evolution, and this is the basis for evolutionary conservatism.

We can affirm the Enlightenment, unlike old conservatism, as helping to balance the tension between evolution and order, by making evolution more practical and order more theoretical.

The destruction of reason and the denial of objective standards of right and wrong by the moderns suggests far more freedom than human nature and natural law allow. We cannot legitimately be morally relative as long as we are alive. As long as we are alive we are alive with a human nature that affirms natural law derived from our bio-social human nature, and from nature itself.

I think the revival of human nature and natural law by sociobiology is superior to the classical natural rights promoted by Leo Strauss, and it supersedes or reforms Christian natural law. In the theological materialism of the Theoevolutionary Church natural law includes our evolution to Godhood, so it can affirm the rational science inherent in classical natural law as aiding in our evolution to Godhood. Natural law in evolutionary conservatism brings a conservatism grounded in the transcendent order of evolution to Godhood, which counters both the stagnation of traditional conservatism and the nihilism of modern thinking.

Natural rights suggest that all men are born with the desire to survive and reproduce successfully but natural rights do not guarantee results, since evolution cannot always guarantee results. This suggest that it is best, or most just, for us to live in a variety of small states, or ethnostates, protected with a light federalism, where we can evolve according to our own needs, which are not identical. Ideally, light federalism can provide a guarantee of cooperative competition.  Imperialism, or one-race supremacy, never lasts long and always breaks down into small states. Small states and light federalism suggest the prudence and moderation of conservatism.

Did Strauss have a bias against traditional conservatism (Burke) because he feared the rise of a future volkish German-type revolution and he therefore emphasized natural rights over (volkish) conservatism? If he did have such a bias it is a bias that a great philosopher should not have had, even if we sympathize with him. It is a bias that probably led to the marauding neoconservatives trampling over the traditions of other nations.

The tension that Strauss and Eric Voegelin worried about between the community and the philosopher, between the divine and the city, happens more when the philosopher thinks he is beyond the community or freer than he actually is. We can search for truth as much as Socrates wanted us to, but we remain attached to life, instincts, and human nature, and nature itself, and even great philosophers should not overlook this natural foundation.

I agree with Voegelin that philosophers and theologians engage in much the same enterprise, revelation is not unlike hypothesis. Both Godhood and the Spirit-Will which activates material life, before life is shaped by evolution, could be seen as revelation-hypothesis, which science may one day affirm.  I see life as a religious drama where the goal is our evolution to Godhood, which involves human consciousness in ways that effect philosophy and politics. The two realms can be reconnected because politics does have an eschatological dimension when we are evolving to Godhood. But this does not lead to a utopian heaven on earth.

The need for order is based on the needs of evolution, since we have a very long way to evolve. This suggests evolution within the forces of conservatism. Anglo-American conservatism had a balance between evolution and revolution perhaps because it was developed mainly by classically educated men who knew  old civilizations. Revolutionaries often deny the natural law inherent in human nature and traditions.

We are “in-between” the beast and Godhood so we cannot claim to be divine. This should give us a more humble balance between moral certitude and moral uncertainty as we evolve. This puts conservative limits on the divine path of evolutionary politics and religion.

(A response to “Strauss, Voegelin, and Burke: A Tale of Three Conservatives” by Robert Kraynak in "Modern Age", Fall 2011)

Synthesizing the Gnosticism of religion with materialism

I define established Christianity as the Gnosticism of Jesus Christ theologically adapted to the world, because it could not work well in the world in that Gnosticism required blocking all material life and desires to reach God, which was the God Within, or the Father Within. Jesus was much like the mystics of all the great religions in his Gnosticism, although it might not always have been called Gnosticism. All the founders of all the religions sought to escape inwardly from the gross material world to the Soul Within.

Endless reams of theology and philosophy have attempted to parse and adapt the non-material strictures of Gnosticism, often unconsciously, but it does not change the foundation. Changing the “Bad World” of the Gnostics to the “Good World” has been the theological narrative of established religions.

The Gnostic “trickster” God is not God but is material life. The Gnostics did not “murder God” as the established religions claim, the Gnostics sought God inwardly, as the founders of all the religions did. Gnosticism erodes life on purpose! This has been the great dilemma of the theologians in defining God, man, religion and nature.

Some seek to blame our modern moral relativism and self-exaltation on the Gnostic rejection of classical morality (see William Gairdner, Modern Age, Fall 2011), but it is just the opposite. Modern moral relativism has been a flight from the impossible non-material ideals of Gnosticism inherent in religion, with little moral structure to replace them with.

Why is non-material religion so denied? Because life demands life! This clash has caused many people to become atheists.

The answer to the battle between Gnosticism and materialism is the Twofold Path in the philosophy of the Evolutionary Christian Church, where the Inward Path to the God Within is a mirror, a first glimpse of Godhood included in the Outward Path of material and super-material evolution, which leads to real Godhood.