Awakening the Balancing Spirit-Will

The Spirit-Will is not like the Deutsche Geist in that it activates all people, all life, and is not applied to just one people. The Spirit-Will does not slay science as Kant, Schopenhauer and early Nietzsche (and Luther before them) attempted to do with the German Spirit. The Spirit-Will balances science and religion.

The Spirit-Will has been dormant for a very long time, but never entirely dormant since it activates life itself, which is then shaped by natural evolution. The Spirit-Will has been unconscious, or blocked in the “inaccessible abyss,” to adapt Nietzsche's term, which can be seen more clearly using the full term: the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood. The Spirit has been sought internally by the great religions, or is defined in a culturally nonreligious and nonscientific way by modern philosophy.

Religion blocked the material, and science blocked religion, but we need a balance of both. Modern philosophy went too far in attacking science and religion as the source of truth, and science went too far in attacking religion as the source of truth. The supermaterial Spirit-Will within life activates life toward Godhood, which is then shaped by evolution, and both religion and science can be applied to this sacred mission.  This Life Spirit pertains to all people, living in variety, in their home regions, and not just one people.

Godhood is a goal set by nature itself

Ending the duality between the spirituality and material, between God and man, is accomplished by seeing the spiritual as supermaterial, and not by calling the spiritual an illusion as science does, or by calling the material an illusion as religion does.

Nietzsche and others, perhaps influenced by science, believed that illusion and deception were mans proper element.  Nietzsche thought we have a psychological need for an “horizon” just as we have a sensual need for art.

The religious goals for the most part which have been thought of as illusion and deception are not, and are part of our actual material nature, brought on by the activating Spirit-Will-To- Godhood operating within material life, bringing a teleological direction to life and evolution. The Spirit-Will-To-Godhood defines the real “Hellenic Will” behind Greek culture, as “Geist” defines the activation of Germanic culture, each with its own evolutionary shape.

We have had a difficultly defining or understanding these so-called illusions, but it is nature itself that employs telos in material evolution to achieve its own ends. Ideas on heaven and God mainly derived from the supermaterial activating Spirit-Will within material life, which natural evolution later shapes. The Godhood which can be reached at the zenith of evolution is a goal set by nature and is not an illusion.

These different directions will present themselves to solve our coming problems

America will become either increasingly more Marxist with state and regional differences forcibly blocked as the national government gets more invasive, or America will allow and affirm the basic separation of regions and states, as the Constitution originally intended. These political directions will present themselves due to the fact that different subgroups (cultural and racial) trying to live together in the same place often have problems, riots, even massacres. Many examples from history can be given. Nietzsche said the best of different groups have a blocking effect on one another. We have been taught not to like or believe these realities.

Marxism did not work, and neither did fascism. I hope most of us have a mutual interest in affirming the differences and varieties of the regions and states, and the different cultures of the states, while having a free exchange of ideas and goods. Also I hope we will know that in the meritocracies within the states, class differences do arise, and there will be differences in ability needed for various occupations.

Hopeless dreaming?  These different directions will present themselves to solve our coming problems.  And the same things will happen in Europe, Russia and China.  We are fortunate to have a Constitution that can accommodate these changes without revolution, if we have the knowledge or will to affirm it.

Then when we add evolutionary religion as the universal bond, which prefers variety, we can all evolve with cooperation out into the cosmos toward Godhood.

Two thoughts regarding Michael Oakeshott's philosophy

I have to disagree with Michael Oakeshott in that sociobiology affirms Alexander Hamilton's claim that the sacred rights of mankind are written in the whole volume of human nature and cannot be erased or obscured. That is, politics can be reduced to a few rational principles in that there is a strong biological base to cultural behavior which cannot be blocked out, and in this, conservative behavior and ideas most closely resemble the actions of real human nature. This means that ideology can be valid in politics.

I agree with Oakeshott that the “admitted goods” of a political community can change the community whether there is an amendment to the written ideological constitution or not. This happens when the admitted goods are seen as people, that is, as the people change the culture changes.

These two thoughts suggest that we can have both ideology and practical non-ideological action in politics. The founding Constitution of America makes room for the changing population by calling for the separation and independence of regions and states, while protecting that independence. Calling for a return to this ideology and this changing, non-ideological, practicality is valid.

(This was my response to an excellent review of Oakeshott in the January 2013 issue of the “American Conservative”)

The Federalist Papers Today

Seeking relief from talk of revolution, or the secession of various states to solve the present problems of the United States, I was looking over essays written fifty years ago on the the Federalist Papers by Holmes Alexander, and I saw once again that the thoughts and writings of the Founders of the Constitution still have much value in helping us solve our modern problems.

The book “The Federalist,” taken from the writings mainly of Hamilton and Madison, was a masterpiece during the time of the American Enlightenment. These men deeply studied Aristotle and Machiavelli and they were not inferior to Gibbon, Hume or Montesquieu. Most of the problems today in our nation come from straying from the precepts and philosophy of government laid down by these men.

Hamilton wanted a federal government no larger than could be supported by taxes on imports, states had the power to impose taxes, such as real estate taxes. Hamilton believed that abolishing tariffs on imports had the same weight as abolishing military defense, which would let the rest of the world have its way with us. Free trade was thought of as internal, between the states. The powers of the federal government were best when they were few, limited and defined, the powers of the states were many and purposefully vague. This philosophy had more to do with morality than economics.

Democracy was for the people in their local gatherings, the only place it worked well, but for the larger nation the Founders wanted it run by representatives, preferable the wisest of the men in the community---this is what they meant by the republican form of government. The two party system, unlike the one-party system of Marxism and fascism, kept checks and balances on tyranny. The Constitution protected both the poor and the rich, and protected law and order. The main job of government was to keep the lanes of opportunity open by land and sea. All men had equal rights to succeed, but to succeed in unequal degrees. Nationalism was affirmed over internationalism, while still trading with the world.

The United States as the Founders knew it and wanted it has all but disappeared. We now pursue unlicensed individual gratification, which has not brought us happiness. Our future seems to be clashes and civil war between different cultures and races, or constitutionally sanctioned independence, separation and protection of the states. The Constitution certainly gives the states independence and freedom, especially with the Tenth Amendment, which means that radical solutions such as revolution or secession are not necessary---secession would eliminate the basic protection of the independence of the states provided by light federalism, leading to more clashes.

Conservatism has taught us that perfection is not possible, but the government preferred by the Founders is probably as close as we can get for a healthy and evolving people.

All the fields come together in the Twofold Path

The revealed religions tell us that no object is divine, and therein lies the problem. Godhood is a living supreme object, or objects, Godhood is supermaterial being at the zenith of natural evolution, not an abstract symbol or word, not a non-material being.

We cannot find Godhood by going inward in ascetic contemplation, we can find only the mirror of Godhood inwardly. The inward God is a good start but is not the place to stop, even if the experience is blissful. We need to evolve in the material and supermaterial world to reach the Godhood we first saw inwardly.

This defines the Twofold Path of the Evolutionary Christian Church, which is the way out of the Great Spiritual Blockade of religious history. The Twofold Path is different from what the world believes, but we go forward anyway. We need to progress from the conformist mumblings of present religion and be nourished by new inspiration. All the fields from science to poetry can come together in the Twofold Path.

Why and how nature and human nature sanctions religion

To revise or alter an idea of Nietzsche's, the philosopher should recognize what is needed, art should affirm it, and religion should create it.  Early Nietzsche's hope for philosophy and art cannot really create religion, although they have tried.

People often feel existentially alone, individuated, which makes people sad, or can be even tragic. Such lonesomeness can cause suffering which puts people in need of family, group and religion, for the comfort and redemption they can or should bring. Group selection is not merely cultural, it is in our bones, genetic, without it we are uncomfortable, unfulfilled, instinctively we feel that our safety and survival may be at stake, even if we are not completely conscious of this.

People don't always share the same knowledge, we have different abilities which divide us, there are various distinction of class and culture even within the same group which can make us feel alone. Individuation is in this sense unnatural, we have a natural need for the group. This is why the group is justified by nature, as natural to helping human nature better survive, and this is explained scientifically by sociobiology, which brings biology into the origins of cultural behavior.

This helps explain why religion can unite us, at least regionally, and even universally in the broader sense of the human species evolving to Godhood. It is religion more than early Nietzsche's hope for art and philosophy that can best give life meaning. Religion helps direct our actions, preserve our horizons, unify our experiences, provide the link to the sacred with a transfiguring goal, and persuade society to embrace these goals. This is all justified on natural grounds, nature gives us the warrant for these standards, religion begins or should begin with organic life.

To take nature out of religion ruins religion. Life in nature is activated by the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood within material life which creates a “telos” from man to Godhood, then life is shaped by natural evolution. This is why and how nature and human nature sanction religion.

On becoming the role one plays in religion

One can become the role one plays in the actions, rituals and ethics of ones religion, so the religion one chooses can become a vital choice. Psychoanalytical individuation moved us inward, away from group-religion. Individual psychology seems to have been at least in part an overreaction to the overbearing, outward-going, political/myths of the early 20^th century, and in the case of the comparative mythology of  Jung and Eliade almost new religion.

The revealed religions are essentially inward religions. When they do make bows to outward material life it is usually condescendingly, believing that the people they help with charity, etc, really don't understand how unimportant materiel life is, as seen in St. Paul's attitude toward marriage. If the Hindu's affirm different stages of life and different castes, there is little doubt that the life of the monastic mystic is the most sacred life to live.

The Evolutionary Outward Path moves out front of the Involutionary Inward Path in the theological materialism of the Evolutionary Christian Church, where our evolution to Godhood becomes the foundation of the religion and the myth, while still retaining insights from the Inward Path. The new synthesis of sociobiology, with its affirmation of group-selection as the source of altruism within the group, leading to success in survival---for all groups not just one group---has been important in bringing real science back to religion, not to bury religion but to praise it.

Speculating on some big questions

Do we have both freedom and determinism and is that not a paradox? It seems that we are determined in the larger actions and we have freedom in the smaller actions of life, that is, freedom of life works within the parameters of a larger determinism.

Is there a beginning or end of time? It seems that time has always gone on and will always continue, connected to evolving life.

Does the cosmos imply a creator? There seems to be no beginning to time and no beginning to the cosmos, so there seems to be no creator of beginnings. But there is the activation of material life by the supermaterial Spirit-Will, and then the shaping of life by evolution.

Can consciousness come out of basic chemistry? The drive to live and reproduce successfully and to evolve, activated by the Spirit-Will within life, eventually evolves consciousness in living matter as a better means to survival success, and ultimately to evolve life to Godhood.

---Exactly proving these things with positivist science is not yet possible, but may be, especially if we increase our intelligence in the future.

What Nietzsche should have done

Before abstract definition and non-material symbol became God, prehistory saw God more as an object, or objects, which was good for the masses to understand. Theological materialism takes back from the revealed religions their non-objectification of God and makes Godhood an object once again, a supreme object, or supreme supermaterial objects.

The possibility of myth once again presents itself with the evolution to Godhood in the cosmos. Even the story of creation in Genesis is fading from religion. The ironic thing is, theological materialism leading to Godhood in the cosmos is grounded in the material and supermaterial world yet it brings myth back, which largely came to be lost in the spiritual abstract world of both religion and science.

This is the “trans-valuation” that Nietzsche should have done, rather than declaring that God was dead and reaching for art and philosophy to fill the gap.  Godhood never died, God was rejected as a material or supermaterial object by religion of all things.

Confounding God with the Soul and Blocking the Spirit-Will

The Hindu Advaita Vedanta perspective, which the other revealed religions tend to reflect, misidentifies real Godhood, and this is the cause of many problems. Ascetics first stop all material desires to experience the wonder of the Soul within, the Father Within, defining it as God. To see and experience this blissful feeling they must block or dissipate the central drives and desires of life, and also block the Spirit-Will, so that their minds and bodies can center on the stillness of the unencumbered Soul. But this experience does not define the Spirit-Will or God.

The Spirit-Will is the activator of material and supermaterial life, the force that activates life toward real Godhood, and life is then shaped by outside evolution. The Spirit-Will can only reach its goal of Godhood by activating and riding material evolution to Godhood.  This helps explain the purpose of life in the cosmos.  A place can be reserved in the Twofold Path for experiencing the bliss of the Soul, found in the Involutionary Inward Path, but this must not be the single goal of religion, this is not God, it is only a hint, a mirror, of the real wisdom and power attained with the evolution of life to Godhood, by way of the Evolutionary Outward Path. 

With this theological materialism, no duality of spiritual/material purposes is needed, what is needed is wisdom and knowledge in how to evolve to Godhood---and here religion and science can work together.

Saving Real America

I'm not a libertarian, sociobiology has shown us that group-selection trumps individual selection, and I like using “experts” in making decisions, but I am certainly a regionalist, and I can agree with Bill Kauffman that before we fully develop the decentralist political movement we need to rediscover the places where we live. The glory of America is not with its wars, or the vulgar entertainment industry, our greatness resides in our regions, which are missed by our “placeless rulers” in government and in business.

I want to see the regionalist movement grow, affirming our wide differences, with the separation of regions and states, while still cooperating---and the decentralization of the arts also. If we had remained basically a nation founded by Northern European Christians there probably would have been more harmony in the nation, but our immigration policies went in a different direction, and therefore now more than ever the decentralization of regions and states is necessary, to keep order between different ethnic cultures in America.

Let the federal government do its main job of protecting the independence and freedom of real American regions and states, internally and externally. As James Scott says, radical revolution, such as secession etc, almost always ends up with a state more powerful than the one it overthrew---the wisdom of conservatism is in knowing that reality does not always allow us to fulfill all our perfect dreams.  We are lucky to have a Constitution that affirms this kind of light federalism..

A Very Tall Order

According to Quentin Taylor, around the time of  "The Birth of Tragedy” early Nietzsche wanted art and philosophy (thinking of Schopenhauer and Wagner) to take the place of failed myth and religion, but Nietzsche knew that art and philosophy would have to fulfill the same needs previously satisfied by myth and religion. That is, it would need to bestow life with meaning again, unify experience, preserve horizons, direct these activities, provide a link to the sacred, and finally to persuade society to embrace these things. This was a very tall order indeed and even early Nietzsche was never quite sure that this could fully take place.

The religion of the Evolutionary Christian Church and the philosophy of theological materialism has not given up on religion. It has the same hope of fulfilling the needs of failed religion. Western culture is a decaying mess mainly due to having rejected religion, or having had religion destroyed by the forces against it. This time science can be added to religion as an aid in our nature-sanctioned evolution toward Godhood in the cosmos. A very tall order indeed. Our survival may depend on it.

Being-as-evolving-life

It is said that to live well is to live in a way proper to our "being," so defining being becomes critically important. I have no problem combining the Enlightenment with traditional religious metaphysics because I define being-as-evolving-life.

Faith is then seen as mainly affirming the end-goal of evolution, and this need not get in the way of reason because reason is grounded in evolving life. Faith enlarges reason by seeing and helping life evolve to Godhood.

Godhood is not separate from evolving life, Godhood is the zenith of evolving life. Life is then not individualistic but is “relational,” we evolve together with others, indeed, as sociobiology has brilliantly brought out, group-altruism is at the very origin of our ethics bringing success in survival and reproduction.

Much of the over-complicated religious metaphysics has been involved in trying to reconcile a spiritual world separate from the material world. Unity is found in the spiritual and material because the Spirit-Will itself is material, or supermaterial. The material needs the Spirit-Will, and the Spirit-Will needs the material, because the Spirit-Will activates material life to evolve to Godhood which is the very goal of the material Spirit-Will.

Science does not have to “prescind” itself from the “metaphysical” when theology is based in theological materialism, which fits almost comfortably within the philosophical naturalism of science. Religion and science can enter the public order together by seeing government and culture as aids in our evolution toward Godhood.

Being-as-evolving-life helps us resolve such questions as: free and limited government versus big state coercion, by asking the question, what is the best way for us to evolve over time? The reasonable answer calls for variety, separation, small states and limited government to best coordinate evolution over the long term.   Evolution is the central dynamic of transformation for all people and not just one people.  Ordered Evolution is better than radical revolution in that we have a very long way to evolve to Godhood and good changes, good mutations need time and order to prove themselves. Freedom is seen as grounded in the natural instinct to evolve, and a light federalism can protect the right of others, states and individuals, to evolve.

Being-as-evolving-life is a constant throughout history, influencing all forms of culture---compared to this other forms of metaphysics seem false to reality. Life is first the instrument of the activating Spirit-Will and is later shaped by natural evolution. Ontology is grounded in evolution. Godhood is the zenith of evolution, ever evolving.

Traditional religion found God by gazing inward and by blocking the desires of material life in order to do so, in silence and stillness. This is the Involutionary Inward Path. But the God seen inwardly was only a mirror, a symbolic experience of the Godhood which is evolved to in the Evolutionary Outward Path. Both paths are included in the Twofold Path, but being-as-evolving-life defines the Outward Path as most proper to our real being.

(These comments were my response to the essay, “Philosopher of Love,” by Jeremy Beer, The American Conservative, January 2013)

Cattell's suggestions for improving democracy

Cattell rightly called it “nonsense” the idea that democracy, or even communism, are not controlled by “elites.” Here are some ideas he had for improving democracy, even though we now seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

To deal with the problems that come from the present situation, where a gardener with a slight criminal record can cancel out the vote of a brilliant and moral citizen:  have tests for voter sanity, crime, and general knowledge, and perhaps even owning property. Voters could be trimmed to 60% of voters.

Raise the voting age back to at least 21 years of age.

Have more scientists in congress and far fewer lawyers who now make up the vast majority. In our increasingly complex world, democracy should consult with experts.

Teach sociobiology in our schools which will give us better informed citizens, and more journalists with better backgrounds for influencing the public.

We could afford vital sociobiological or social psychology research centers by trimming the fat, eg. drinks, yachts etc.

And of course, there is Cattell's long-term hope of improving the intelligence of the people by encouraging their genetic selection, which unfree China is now doing with full speed. The problems that we desperately need to solve will require greater intelligence and ethical character than we now have.

Unity In the Sacred Goal

Religion can be defined as the Will-To-Godhood, or Tirips, become conscious, philosophical, artistic, political, scientific.

Traditional religion tends to be anti-naturalistic, but the projected Theoevolutionary Church (TC), with its theological materialism, is naturalistic. Walter Kaufmann pointed out in his insightful book on religion and philosophy that traditional religion says you will be holy because your God is holy, or it says you will not be holy so therefore you must worship what is holy. The TC and theological materialism says you will be holy and attain Godhood because Tirips activates all life to evolve to Godhood, working along with natural selection and evolution.

This evolution is not a disenchantment with the material world or a seeking to escape beyond it, the material world is the means by which we evolve to Godhood. There is hope in this world. Godhood is not something other than the world, Godhood is the zenith of evolution in the world. 

The ancient Inward Path of the great religions saw God inwardly by the method of blocking out this world, by blocking out all the desires of the flesh so as to see the Father-Within.  The Twofold Path of the TC includes the Inward Path but only as the first ancient glimpse of what Godhood will be like when attained in the Evolutionary Outward Path.

I would like to see all the fields come together in religion, that is, philosophy, art, politics, and certainly including science. In ancient times, before Homer, religion did this and it offered man lasting satisfaction, a work of art was a work of religion, the best kind of art.

Unity of the Will-To-Godhood, or Tirips, not necessarily intellectual agreement, can unite the world of separate people and separate states. Each people, each state, has its own way, its own anthropology, yet mankind can be united in evolving on earth and in the cosmos toward Godhood. Tirips is shaped differently in different environments by evolution. Humans are capable of  cooperating through knowledge shared in this great mission.

Is Decline Inevitable?

Civilized cultures often complain about decadence, but it is typical for advanced cultures to be taken over by barbarians. This happened all through history. But advanced cultures usually downplay their own weakness and emphasize the vulgarity of barbarians. Is this cycle inevitable, like a force of nature? If we remain ignorant or lazy about the causes of decline it will continue.

Natural selection of people and cultures has taken place most strongly at the group level where altruism bonds the group together, aided by religion, art, and laws that affirm the survival and reproductive success of the group. Traditional conservative values tend to be closer to real human nature than progressive values that move away from such things as protective territoriality (including warrior defense), kin-centeredness, biologically-grounded gender differences, group-over-individual values, and so on.

Knowledge coming in from evolutionary studies shows us that immigration can change the culture---as the people change, the culture changes. But more importantly, human nature is on a genetic-cultural leash, as E.O. Wilson and others pointed out, and when people and cultures move too far away from real human nature their cultures are snapped back, often by barbarians who have not moved as far away from basic human nature as the more advanced cultures they conquer.

Advanced cultures who feel they are declining would do better to do less complaining about barbarian vulgarity and return to cultures that reflect more basic human nature.

If a strong culture affirming human nature can also attach ongoing evolutionary values, with Ordered Evolution, not revolution, then it has an even better chance of not stagnating and advancing.

The Rebirth of Religion

Early Nietzsche wondered how art could create a religion out of the spiritual vacuum of the day. But what Nietzsche said of art better applies to religion.

Nietzsche thought a rebirth of art, tragic art, was needed. Later he lost his enthusiasm, which I think might have been related to competitive problems with Wagner and it was not all due to philosophical problems. If this is true then it could have led to weakness in his later philosophy.

Nietzsche was not keen on modern religions, he especially disliked Christianity. But art alone, even great art, is not enough. Art does not fill the need of our lost religion, although great art comes close when it affirms the sacred. Philosophy and science also tried to take the place of religion. The noble Raymond Cattell sought a rebirth of religion from science.

It is religion which can best synthesize all the fields. But religion needs to include modern science, art and philosophy. Religion can best create that “sublime simplification of the world” which Nietzsche looked for in tragic art.

As Quentin Taylor said of Nietzsche's work, it is the individual consecrated to something higher than himself which is the highest function of art, philosophy, and science, but I think this is best synthesized in a great religion. We are separated, individuated, alienated, which puts man in need of coming together in religion for comfort and redemption. Science and philosophy can't communicate well a tragic art for the people, but religion and art can---religion has its sublime rituals, and art has it's tragic dramas.

A rebirth of religion is needed. Perhaps the theological materialism of the Theoevolutionary Church will help bring science, art, philosophy and religion back together. The material world and mankind will evolve on earth and in the cosmos to real Godhood, the Godhood first seen virtually as a mirror in the inward paths of the great religions.

Seeing the “camouflage of the sacred” as material

Contemplation appears to come before action, but contemplation is materially-rooted. Before we experience an idea we have the materially-rooted desire to experience the idea, before pleasure is experienced there is the materially-rooted desire for pleasure, before food gives pleasure there is the materially-rooted desire for food.  Hedonistic philosophy take note, "happiness" and pleasure seem to be only a reaction to deeper materially-rooted needs.

Eliade's term the “camouflage of the sacred” is in reality material, or at least supermaterial. There appears to be no real timeless, material-free, spiritual world of universal ideas, ideas seem based in the material or supermaterial world, even if they seem timeless and nonmaterial.

These perspectives have serious religious and philosophical consequences, but also can effect political philosophy. For example, one difference between conservative Edmund Burke and neoconservative Leo Strauss can be seen in Burke giving precedence to traditions over the idea or definition of traditions, whereas Strauss put the Platonic idea above the object of tradition, which can lead to more easily discounting the protection of various traditions in the world.

We can have roots in the archetypal, the universal, the mythical, and the religious, while affirming the philosophical materialism of sociobiology, which grew out of the Enlightenment. To synthesize as sacred both the living object and the idea of the object can seem paradoxical, but faith, magic, myth, mathematics, science and religion fit together, it is a matter of synthesizing and establishing the real hierarchy of values and morals, by seeing the camouflage of the sacred as material.  This cancels the old structure of duality, or turns it upright.

Evolution and Burke's Conservatism

Using Russell Kirk's interpretation of Edmund Burke, where do I stand with Burke's conservatism?

I do stand among the opposition to much of the modern world, but certainly not all of the modern world. The history Burke wrote about, the revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, and so on, is best explained now by modern science, specifically the science of sociobiology.

As to “change” Burke might be very skeptical of the philosophical naturalism of evolution, and would probably define me among the “sophisters and calculators.” I'm afraid Raymond Cattell, one of my mentors, who was from England originally, would be thought of as a magician with wild incantations trying to regenerate society.

I share Burke's dismay at our nation dissolving into a mere aggregation of hedonistic individuals, and his skepticism about big business and bourgeois supremacy, contrary to what is thought about Burke and the business world. Burke thought we should conserve more than covet. Burke wanted to preserve tradition, classes, the “orders.” He believed that property is related to freedom, and economic leveling is not economic progress. We are morally equal but real inequality is natural and can never be removed, not by communism, not even by love. Men have equal rights, but not to equal things.

I also affirm Burke's belief in a divine intent ruling society, but I define divinity quite different from Burke. The “eternal chain” linking us to the past and future is evolution, along with the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood that activates life, which is then shaped by evolution. Each state is a clause, a contract in the eternal evolution of life connecting the past to future Godhood, which we can evolve to as our divine destiny. I agree that history is an unfolding design, with cycles only coming within the unfolding design, which defines evolution (Burke called it Providence).

Stereotypes are generally correct, based in indwelling bio-social traits, and useful in making quick decisions, which Burke called “prejudice, as long as we know that important people and things can fall through the cracks; genius can turn up literally anywhere.

I agree with Burke that reform and change are not identical and that innovation can be damaging. It was Burke and Kirk who impressed on me the importance of Ordered Evolution, not sudden radical change. This is the touchstone of conservatism for me.

But I also know that blocking evolution can be more damaging than evolution. This rises to the level of religion in defining the Great Spiritual Blockade which has blocked or slowed our evolution toward Godhood. The theological materialism I affirm would be considered theological radicalism by Burke--- philosophical or religious innovations were not Burke's favorite things.

So I can subscribe to most of Burke's declarations, but not all, which is why am a revitalized-conservative.

Religion-and-science as truth

Generally I believe in the concept of “science as truth,” but I feel more comfortable with “religion-and-science as truth.”  This sounds oxymoronic but is not for me. Science is like a creative mechanic and religion like an artistic engineer.

The science-based field of sociobiology, which examines the connections between biology and culture, needs to be included far more in all our cultural decisions. The opposition to this great field by religion, education and government need to be overcome. Not applying solid knowledge on human nature and society from sociobiology is almost like flying blind.

I believe that enlightened intellectual intuition can bring truths as valid as science, science only affirms truths they can empirically prove.  Religious truths have been too extraordinarily holistic to be accurately classified. But much depends---perhaps too much---on the person making the judgments. Even so, I still rely on the synthesis of religion and science, difficult as that is.

Evolution In Tradition

“Man is an ape that wants to be a god.” (Walter Kaufmann)

The Inward Path worships the God Within, or the Father Within, even to the point of idolatry, because it is not real Godhood. The Outward Path strives to become Godhood by perfecting life through evolution. The Twofold Path affirms both this idol worship and this perfection of evolution. One can aid the other.

We build on the religion we inherited to make the Inward Path comfortable with the Outward Path. We are part of the living tradition of Christianity, and the great religions, while remolding this grand house of religion which we inherited to make it more comfortable with science and evolution.

This is where the concepts and actions of Revitalized Conservatism come from, religion and politics are revitalized, the Father Within is the virtual mirror of the Godhood evolved to in the cosmos, and Ordered Evolution affirms conservative political change as we evolve on earth and out into the cosmos.

Surviving the new dark ages

Given the realities of our decadent culture, it seems that the best we can do politically in America is affirm the legal and political structure of the separate states and regions in the framework of the Constitution, and then let the people do as they naturally can do. We legally protect their independence, internally and externally, with the light federalism the Founders intended. This is realistic, not pessimistic or optimistic.

We can build our revitalized religious philosophy for the future, to help sustain us through the new dark ages. Although we are devoted to the active Outward Path to Godhood of evolution, and not only the contemplative Inward Path to the Father Within, perhaps we can at least survive the way St. Benedict's followers survived through the fall of the Roman Empire, and come out strong.

What best expresses the immediate language of the Will?

When life is seen as activated in the first place by the material Will-To-Godhood, or Tirips, and then shaped by natural evolution, it is religion more than art (Schopenhauer and early Nietzsche) or sex (Freud) that expresses what Nietzsche called the “immediate language of the Will.” This view of religion is the “suprahistorical” view which Nietzsche related to tragic art.

Religion is the profound simplification of the world more than art, bringing unity in the diversity of all the fields. In the holy mission of evolving to Godhood, as well as in the tragic view of art, the individual is consecrated to something higher than himself, which can help to free us from the anxieties of death and time. Religion corresponds to this extraordinary need, while sex and art can aid in this profound mission.

The religious-art creation of a Mass of Joy is needed, relating to the Outward Path of material evolution to Godhood, while we can retain the Mass of Sacrifice of the Inward Path, in which we reach the Father Within or God Within of traditional Christianity, which is seen as a mirror or virtual experience of attaining ascending levels of outward Godhood in material-super-material evolution.