Friday, May 31, 2013
The Religious Sociobiology of the Twofold Path
It might appear oxymoronic but it seems
to me that a religious sociobiology fits the balancing requirements
of unifying the individual and the collective in modern times.
20th century psychologists
and philosophers centered on the individual, understandably being
scared away from collective myths by the selfish and deadly
collective myths of World War Two. But this abandoning of the
collective has led to the disruptive divisions and alienations of
modern times.
There has always been a tension between
the individual and the group and the same tension seems to exist
between science and religion. The evolutionary science of
sociobiology has affirmed, or reaffirmed, the primary unit of
selection as the group (see E. O. Wilson) and it seems to me that
this can revive or affirm unifying collective myth-religion to help
heal the divisions and alienation of hypertrophied modern
individualism.
I affirm the evolutionary religion of
the Twofold Path of theTheoevolutionary Church where the
unifying myth-religion is the evolution of life to Godhood in the
cosmos, and where individuals are not ignored and can be
meritocratically selected to help lead us in our collective
evolution to Godhood. A realistic path can be found toward the
cooperative competition of groups, with a unifying myth-religion to
affirm it.
The God seen inwardly and individually is included and
transformed in the universal outward evolution of all groups toward Godhood in their own particular ways. The unifying evolutionary myth-religion
of the Twofold Path can work within regions and small states which
affirm cooperative competition, protected by a light federalism.
Sociobiology supplies universal scientific knowledge by which
particular cultures can be interpreted universally, and the
evolutionary religion of the Twofold Path is added to complete a
more organic unification.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
The Spirit-Will to Godhood and Human Culture
The Will to Godhood, or the Spirit-Will
to Godhood, is the most basic activation of life, it is physiologically
and psychologically active throughout the living cells, but it
remains to be more fully explained by scientific philosophical naturalism. In
human beings the Spirit-Will activates the other elements, such as the Ego or Superego, and even reason, resembling more a Super-Id, but with the
highest evolutionary purpose of inwardly activating life to evolve all the way
to Godhood, as life is being shaped outwardly by evolution.
The Spirit-Will is neither the master
morality or slave morality of Nietzsche, and it is not the purely
creative version of Nietzsche's will to power that is politically
correct. The Spirit-Will is not dominant for the sake of being
dominant or creative for the sake of being creative, it seeks Godhood
in evolution by way of activating life to evolve to Godhood.
Authentically developing the Will to
Godhood means self-consciously always moving upward in evolution
selecting a balance of intelligence, beauty and noble character,
until attaining the zenith of these things in evolution, which defines Godhood, the goal of religion, culture and evolution.
The Spirit-Will is the zenith of the
Soul just as the Soul is the zenith of the mind. The Soul is the
experience or mirror of God or the Father Within seen in the mind
after applying the traditional ascetic disciplines of the great
religions in blocking material desires. This is the Inward Path. On the other hand the Spirit-Will seeks real Godhood through
material-supermaterial evolution in the Outward Path, that is, the
Godhood first seen as the God Within. This defines the Twofold Path.
Group life has been the natural method
evolved and applied in human beings to help them survive and
reproduce successfully. The Spirit-Will to Godhood has worked in
harmony with group life in a variety of evolving groups, regions and
states. Humans are capable of cooperative competition but civilized
advances have realistically needed to be martially protected against less civilized
values. It is important to see that we can suppress war without
suppressing evolution.
We would best have religious and
sociobiological research institutes, nationally and internationally, to objectively, and voluntarily,
help guide our evolution to Godhood in the cosmos.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Future myth, religion and politics
If we think the future will be one
where individuals seek the Spirit-Within, the bliss within, which
seems to be the future most thinkers affirm, then a libertarian frame
fits, one more concerned with individuals than the group, with social
values oriented toward the individual. But if we think the future
will be one where the organic society, the group, the religious
based evolves materially and supermaterial to Godhood in the outside
cosmos, then this fits a Burkean ordered evolution more than an
ordered individualism.
I obviously lean toward the second, a
group-oriented evolution based in human nature as it developed at least since
paleolithic times. But with the Twofold Path there is room for
seeking the God Within individually. This perspective, this new
religious philosophy, sees the Inward Path as a symbol, a mirror of
the Outward Path of evolution to Godhood. This brings the individual
back to the group yet values the advanced individual as helping to move the group forward.
As to anarchism, postmodernism, or neoconservatism, they lean toward the libertarian, or they are selfishly tribal, or they have imperial agendas, or they have little myth or deep religion, which doesn't seem to be bring them into the future.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Can we have competitive evolution without primitive war?
On this Memorial Day I was thinking of
how Raymond Cattell, with his fearless eye, called war a degenerate
form of competition, yet he questioned mankind trying to rule out all
competition in a hedonistic pact.
Whether we like to admit it or not war has been
a test of the power of group survival, but it would be far better to
see a higher level of testing between groups through cooperative
competition. Yet realism says that cooperative competition in the world
would still need to be backed by force, since we are an imperfectly evolved
species. Power vacuums won't control invading power.
If we care about advancing in evolution
we need to somehow rationally allow for expansion and
contraction, that is, the evolution of groups. We can't block
evolution, we will have explosions if we do. It will greatly help
when we all can see the full importance of distinct groups having
their own regions, virtually their own ethnostates, no matter how
small. Competition within the same species is always greater
than competition between different species, each species tends to
find its own niche. Separation is vital for peace. Each group can
then get on with the challenges of evolution within nature itself.
The United States of America, my country, made a start in its original Constitution, with its
separation of powers and states.
The idea is to have all groups, all
nations, jointly exploring and advancing in evolution without
primitive wars, and, yes, we can suppress war without suppressing
evolution.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
The deeper sacredness of nature
James Cooper quotes 19th
century landscape painter Asher Durand as saying, “Nature in its
purity was fraught with high and holy meaning, only surpassed by the
light of Revelation.”
But revelation is part of nature, which
makes nature even holier than Durand suggests. Nature has evolved
life and human beings, and nature continues material evolution all
the way to supermaterial Godhood. This is the deeper sacredness of
nature.
Religion should not block this
sacredness of nature by downgrading evolving material life. Religion
should affirm and champion evolving material life as the sacred path
to real supermaterial Godhood in the cosmos.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Revitalized conservatism, ordered evolution, and the evolutionary realist
When faced with two opposing positions,
say, the new or the old, or just opposing positions, you avoid both
by finding a compromise, but a compromise that always leans or moves
in the direction of evolution, human evolution. That is, you don't
compromise just to compromise with no directional preference.
This way we can gradually evolve with
revitalized conservatism and ordered evolution toward Godhood in the
cosmos, trying to avoid radical revolution as we evolve. This is
more the position of a conservative evolutionary realist with
evolutionary religious ideals, than a political pragmatic realist.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Backward and forward culture
Martha Graham once said, according to
Jesse Dorris, that no artist is ahead of his time, the others are
behind the times. This has also been true of the science of
sociobiology which is now at least 40 years old. Sociobiology
dismantled the legitimate frame work for much of modern intellectual
culture but the world has not caught up, not even our colleges and
universities.
Sociobiology dismantled the ground of
postmodernism which saw truth, gender and so on as only a social
construct, as well as cultural Marxism (political correctness), and even
religion as something beyond biology, but few people seem to have
realized this.
People tend to deny difficult truths, and also even merely uncomfortable truths. But I don't want to be
flippant about illusions, which have activated much of human cultural
history, as sociobiology pointed out (and Nietzsche earlier), illusions were important to
successful survival and reproduction. But can we now move beyond
even a few of these sloppy intellectual constructions? People like
to hold on to the personal power they created out of these shaky
constructions.
Yet we also should keep in mind that even
specialists in sociobiology can be limited with what Nietzsche called
only a “patina” of culture. The supreme goal of culture, all ethnic cultures, is the
ongoing evolution of genius, with a noble character (that is, not just brilliant monsters), and with the continual goal
of evolving all the way to Godhood in the cosmos. We all need
to reach beyond ourselves in developing that sacred goal.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Deeper modern myth-religion is required
Old and new myths grew out of human
nature and the needs of survival and reproduction in often harsh
environments. If we connect mythology to sociobiology we can have a
basis for comparison.
For example, Joseph Campbell complained
about how the patriarchal myths of the Hebrews and Aryans subjugated
the old Goddess myths, but it seems to me that human nature as
defined by sociobiology was represented in both mythologies. In the
Goddess myths differences in gender remained, men tended to be
hunters and warriors, women were gatherers and nurturers, men were men,
women were women, and so on, with few exceptions, not unlike the
patriarchal mythologies. Particular environments and ethnic
peculiarities determined the emphasis, balance, and differences in
myth.
It is modern myths that conflict
with both ancient mythology and sociobiology. In modern mythology who
rules? The politically correct or culturally Marxist media rules.
Who are the rebel heroes? Those who object to cultural Marxism.
What represents the divine? The Big Bang? Technology? Who are the
great goddesses and patriarchs? Billionaires and movie stars.
Hedonism rules. Technology rules. Individualism rules. This will
not do. Deeper modern myth-religion is required.
I say what will rise is evolutionary
religion, which is philosophically and scientifically based in
theological materialism. We are all evolving to Godhood in the
cosmos, the God first seen inwardly by the great religions. This will do, and it need not have much conflict with the old
mythologies, old religions or sociobiology.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Religions are united in the Inward Path and transformed through the Outward Path
I have to agree with Rene
Guenon---although I don't affirm the religious philosophy of the
Traditionalist School---that the way to reconcile the conflicting
demands of the various religious forms is to see the shared esoteric
core between them. A single tradition is concealed under the outer
forms which degenerated over time.
Where Guenon splits the esoteric and
exoteric, while seeing them as two faces of the same doctrine, I
separate the Inward from the Outward Paths in the Twofold Path, seeing the Inward Path as
that ecumenical core of all the great religions, and seeing the
Outward Path and theological materialism as the next
religious-philosophical development. This at last brings the
material world and evolution to religion, including past excluded
science as a tool.
The Inward Path, or more formally the
Involutionary Inward Path, led to seeing the God or Father Within for
all the great religions, which is their ecumenical unity. The
Evolutionary Outward Path includes the Inward Path but sees it as an
early mirror of real Godhood reached outwardly through material and
supermaterial evolution.
The great religions can join together
as one, which they are at their core, and they can retain but transform the Inward Path into the Evolutionary Outward Path to real Godhood. Since I live in the
West I apply Christianity to this sacred evolution through the
Evolutionary Christian Church.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
When the counter-media rises conscious evolution can advance
Nietzsche suggested in “On the Future
of Our Educational Institutions” that the “deciding factor” for
those selected is not merely the “degree of talent” but the
degree of moral sublimity, the instinct towards heroism, toward
sacrifice, with a positive need for culture, and a personal obedience
to the discipline of genius. Talent alone without this need can even
hinder not promote the procreation of genius.
How long will it take for these
improvements to no longer be considered politically incorrect? Those
who advocate these things continue to be shunned in their careers and in their
lives. The cultural Marxism that is political correctness, which has
largely taken over our colleges, universities and the media in
general, will have to be countered. This is a big mission but there
is no better mission for the future. New media, new institutions may
have to be created to replace the schools and media if they can't be
adapted. It may
require the work of several generations.
The evolutionary religion of theological materialism can lead the way
followed by the tools of sociobiology. This can be accomplished in
democratic republics if a counter-media rises. Revolutions are
to be avoided. Classical conservatives were right about constant change within an ordered evolution, and this can be advanced all the way to Godhood.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Fear of the Machine
Individualism is important, even vital,
I certainly have benefited from it creatively, but it seems to me
that too often individualism is hypertrophied by selfish and fearful
men, who are afraid of the machine, afraid of the logic of evolution,
afraid of monumental religion and science, afraid of divine cosmic
order, afraid that this larger order may rearrange their selfish and
even nefarious schemes. We do not always have a principled defense
of the individual.
This seems to at least partially come
from seeking the truth from only one way of thinking; why can't a
thinker use reason, empiricism, irrationalism and intuition, all of
them, in seeking the truth? I never agreed to the philosophical
battles between these systems with one cutting off the other. We
should not be one-eyed, we should be four-eyed in seeking the truth.
We don't need to have empires to
believe in the machine, evolution, monumental religion and science,
or the cosmic order, we don't need to give up individualism, we don't
need to end up with Hitler or Stalin or imperial global corporations,
we don't even need to give up the inner individual voice, when we
believe in these things. Fearful men scare us away from cosmic order,
clinging to their selfish and sometimes nefarious schemes for power,
fearful of losing themselves in something bigger than themselves.
We are evolving to Godhood in the
cosmos, this is the logic of evolution, this is cosmic order, this is the monumental view, and we don't need imperial dictatorships to
direct us. Many groups, many small states, protected by a light
federalism, guided by evolutionary religion and science---this is
the way to fearlessly face the future, grounded in the sacred.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
The way to channel Eros into conservative morality
Christianity has been based in the
conservative values of human nature, which were later defined and
affirmed by the science of sociobiology. Religion could apply this
knowledge if it did not mainly reject science as a way to help
justify its values and morals. Since at least hunter-gatherer times
basic human nature has been conservative in rejecting
radical individualism and unrestrained sexuality, and human nature
has approved of such things as group-bonding altruism, marriage
between a man and a woman, and other conservative values. Why?
Because conservative values over the long run helped us survive and
reproduce more successfully than non-conservative values. Human nature
is still the same, which means that society and culture may snap back
to reflecting real human nature, because going against human nature
gradually corrupts and destroys culture, as history has shown time
and again.
Which came first, the media-promoted
sexual revolution, culminating in gay marriage, or the fall of
Christian morals? Christian morals have been declining since at
least the Enlightenment when science asked questions that were not
satisfactory answered by religion. And as the West lost Christianity it
lost its moral foundation, replaced by radical individualism and
unrestrained sexuality, largely promoted by a non-Christian media.
Alas, sciences such as sociobiology,
when pure, can tell us how things work but not how to behave. This
is where the religion of the Theoevolutionary Church and
theological materialism come in, which define Godhood as reached
through material and supermaterial evolution, while using
sociobiology as a tool of evolution and not as a religion. The Inward God of tradition is retained but transformed into the Outward Godhood of evolution. This is
the sacred way to channel Eros and conservative morality toward evolving to
Godhood and away from radical individualism and unrestrained
sexuality, which have all but destroyed Christianity and the West.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Blocking the particular in the universal
Universal values calling for the
sameness of all people tend to be weaker than the particular values
of group and individual survival. Religions have usually
identified universal values and devalued the particular, even though they make little offerings to the particular, at least for laymen.
The difficulty comes from placing too
much value on the Inward Path to the God Within (or the Father
Within) which is universal, and not enough value, or even blocking
entirely, the Outward Path of evolution to Godhood. The Outward Path
affirms material evolution, group selection and cooperative natural
competition, the Inward Path blocks them.
Cattell and other psychologists have
suggested that frustrated genetic urges which were unsatisfied led to
beliefs to fit the frustrations. To me this suggests that the
frustrations of natural life and selection led to religiously trying
to block these drives and dwelling in the desire-free state
of the God Within.
The healthier path would be to successfully fulfill
the natural genetic urges, or at least develop cooperative competition to
allow more than one group to fulfill their genetic imperatives.
The Twofold Path remedies this
historical and imperialist religious mistake of trying to make the particular universal. The Inward Path to the God Within is transformed, not blocked, because we are evolving to the
God first seen inwardly as a mirror of outward Godhood. This is the
next religious philosophy attached to the old, this is the new, psychologically healthier, stage in
religious development.
A side point to this is that political
philosophy has often made this same mistake trying to block the
particular with the universal. There are no large “perfect” societies
full of universal saints or world altruists mainly because natural evolving life will not be blocked.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
The ultimate cultivation
Early Nietzsche was concerned with
education for high culture, which was more socially oriented than
later Nietzsche who thought more in terms of individuals, not groups,
surpassing present humans. Nietzsche wanted aristocratic cultivation
to be free of the mundane sciences and free of more practical
money-concerns which he thought had nothing to do with aristocratic
cultivation (a long way from the libertarianism some have claimed for Nietzsche). Present knowledge from sociobiology suggest that in the
future the cultivation of great men we will need more than aristocratic education,
biology will need to be included, the genes are necessarily involved.
Sociobiologists have called for future
humanities institutions to be attached to sociobiology institutions,
although they don't have evolution to Godhood in mind. We need to
find people who can create great works to replace our lost or
declined works, which can provide the basis for our evolution to
Godhood, but a true high culture is not founded on cultivating minds
alone but also on concern for biology. The evolutionary goal is not “merely”
culturally developed
people who create works of genius, important as that is, the people
themselves need to be bio-culturally considered, and even these steps will be steps to even greater people in the future.
To
adapt another phrase from Nietzsche, it seems that this future evolutionary
religion was born posthumously. It will require more than
a few generations. But some generation has to begin the mission. The goal is to evolve beyond the human
species to Godhood, this is the ultimate cultivation.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Thoughts on classic functions of new myth/religion/philosophy
The “universal” is supplied by
theological materialism and the life-activating material Spirit-Will, or Tirips. The
“specific” is elaborated by the cultural-ethnic-environment in
which the universal proceeds.
Cultures take on specific shapes
related to their environments and the ethnic/racial traits of the citizens which forms a “style” of consciousness as well as the forms of art,
architecture etc. But all cultures are activated by the universal,
that is, theological materialism and Tirips, with the same
goal of evolving to Godhood in the cosmos.
The political or practical
ramifications of this myth-religion/philosophy
suggests small states or ethnostates to accommodate kin and ethnic centered human nature and nature itself,
protected internally by the citizens and externally by a defensive federalism, and guided
by science, religion and the universal goals of theological
materialism in the evolution of life to Godhood in the cosmos. The
artistic ramifications lead to the affirmation of the sacred myth-religion/philosophy through popular and high art.
This supplies the classic functions of
myth/religion/philosophy as defined by the mythologists (eg. Jung,
Eliade, Campbell), that is, a sacred religion of evolution to Godhood
in the cosmos, sacred new/old images in relation to our time and
place, the creation and bonding of values and morals, and helping us to live our daily lives.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
How I interpret Raymond Cattell's eugenics (yes the dreaded word)
Human evolution proceeds ultimately by
natural selection among groups, which determines the natural
selection among the individuals, genetically and culturally. The
ethics of the group are fixed by aiming to survive in reaction to the
environment. We have loyalties in a hierarchy of values from fellow
group members to mankind in general.
New cultural creations tend to be the
work of genetically/culturally superior intelligences and are
developed in two main ways: cultural creations as outlets for
frustrations, such as poetry, music, drama (p-culture), and cultural
creations that are more adaptive to fit us to the environment,
engineering, medicine, science (r-culture), not “merely” an
“outlet.”
These cultural inventions from superior
intelligences tend to require more complex adjustments for the
general population than the general population tend to be genetically suited
for---Cattell calls this “genetic lag.” It's like the old
instinctual brain having to adjust to the newer cortex.
Cattell suggests that we deal with
these frustrating discrepancies due to adjusting to the new cultural
inventions (mutations), and the subsequent genetic lags, with eugenic
measures ( improving the genetic composition of a population) to help reduce the frustrations, which can spill over into
many social problems, including revolutions. It's like having
foresight for groups akin to a medical watch on individuals, which can
lesson the morbidity rate of the group.
Adventurous societies will always be
looking for new helpful (not antisocial) inventions from superior people, which then need adjustment to the general population. The goal is to always be
evolving, which Cattell believes is the prime process of the
universe. He calls this scientific religious philosophy “Beyondism."
Sounds more humane to me than constant violent revolutions.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Speculating on future educational philosophy
Considering educational philosophy from
the Ancient Greeks with their education of an elite, to Christian education
in the middle ages, to the economic utilitarian education of the
present bourgeoisie, what is next, what is best?
I think of bringing philosophical sociobiology into the humanities along with
theological materialism. This could deflate present culturally Marxist elitism, but it could also counter the pervasive utilitarian
education-for-economic-profit, while keeping the practical technical
schools for the great majority. The idea is to continue the classical
idea of creating higher men and women, but open to all, this time
centering on sociobiology, culture fair intelligence tests, and
psychometric techniques available to help us better understand human
abilities and evolution. Genes do relate to culture and it is outrageous that this fact is largely blocked in modern culture.
Cultural leadership can synthesize
philosophical sociobiology and religion. The sacred goal is the
evolution of life to the highest intelligence, beauty and character,
which defines evolving to Godhood in the cosmos...perhaps this will be the next religion, which includes the traditional Inward God of Christianity and other religions transformed to the Outward Godhood of evolution.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Change as the most powerful law of nature, and the means of its conservatism
I have taken the conservatism of Burke and Kirk seriously, I understand what Hilaire Belloc meant when he
said Europe is the faith and when the faith dies the culture dies.
But I also think we need to go even deeper than this in understanding
the rise and fall of cultures.
The Twofold Path of the Evolutionary
Christian Church, which I write about in this blog, seeks to retain
the Inward Path faith of the God Within of Christianity, but it also
includes the Outward Path of evolution to Godhood in the cosmos,
which is grounded in a sociobiological understanding of the rise and
fall of cultures.
The cultures of Europe, China, Russia,
Africa were created by the people, with the ethnic
traits of these lands, who then adapted Christianity or any other
religion to their particular people, their worlds. When the ethnic
group dies or changes the culture changes, often including the
religion.
We can affirm a variety of regions and
states with different people, different ethnic cultures, knowing that it is the
people and the traits of the people who create the cultures, before
the faith. This is absolutely natural and harmonious with human
nature. We can hold the different cultures and regions and small states together protected internally
and externally by a light federalism, but also bonded by a universal
faith, a religion which understands the importance of our differences
as we all evolve in our own fashion and in our own states toward the outward Godhood first seen as the inward
God by the traditional faiths.
Burke wrote, change is the most
powerful law of nature, and the means of its conservatism.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
How my worldview deals with the complications of human nature and modern culture
It seems to me that most of the complexities in political and cultural discourse today come from not being able to accept the stark reality that we
are higher animals driven by biological needs that help create the
cultures we create, adapting our selves and our cultures to our
various environments. There is too much cultural baggage devoted to
such things as universal sameness and equality. To see past these things, or to
see biological man, for many modern intellectuals is too much for them. The
propaganda for the modern liberal view has been powerful throughout
our educational systems and the whole media.
So its seems to be realism versus
idealism, with idealism always fading as the world and human nature
always do what they really do, that is, separate according to
differences, different states, different ethnic groups, different
cultures based on the needs of different environments, and then they
tend not to cooperate. So what can be done about this when
intellectuals don't even accept the biological part of this worldview and they
continue to think we have to find a way to all get along equally within
the same democracy? This is mainly where the complications come from,
because it really can't be done successfully.
My work tries to deal with real human
nature and real human behavior, to find a way for order to be
achieved rather than chaotic disorder over time. Sociobiology has to
be strongly included in this search because it has dealt with the
reality of real human behavior. Nietzsche's conflicts regarding the
individual and society it seems to me split into before the break
with Wagner and an after the break. Before the break he thought of
heroes working within the cultural order, and after
the break from Wagner it was individualism, individual heroes all the
way. The latter libertarian side of Nietzsche is becoming more and more popular among intellectuals on the left and the right.
What does sociobiology say about this (Wilson's version) ?
It says that the group is vital, that the group actually created our
values and ethics, with such things as altruism, which is the basis
of most religions. So libertarianism takes a back seat in this view
of human nature and the creation and maintenance of culture.
Sociobiolgy for me suggests small states, even ethnostates, and a
light federalism to protect them from internal and external threats.
But then something is needed to help then cooperate beyond
federalism.
My work moves on to worry about society
without religion, which we virtually have now, accept for surging Islam. My religion takes sociobiology into account, but unlike
Cattell's courageous Beyondism (which I admire), I keep God in
the equation, or Godhood, with my philosophy of the Twofold Path, theological materialism, etc. Conservatism influenced me more than it did Cattell, which made him too radical in relating to human nature in my opinion. But this
is thinking beyond where modern intellectuals want to go. I
think who we really are as humans will eventually take us to
evolutionary religion, if we manage to survive until then.
So that is how my worldview deals with the complications of human nature and modern culture.
Friday, May 10, 2013
The super-materialization of the sacred
The Outward Path evolution of material
and supermaterial life to Godhood in the cosmos is made more real,
more concrete, as a theology of love, than the traditional religious Inward Path
transformations, seen as human to divine, eros to agape, kama to
prema, which are also affirmed in the Twofold Path of the the Theoevolutionary Church (TC). Theological materialism is not so
much a “secularization of the sacred” (Joseph Campbell's term) as
it is a super-materialization of the sacred.
With evolution, love for the particular
in real survival and reproduction, for example, love for a beautiful
woman, literally becomes love for the supermaterial divine, both are
living objects, not abstractions, not inner Godhood, not merely
symbols, but the real thing which we can evolve to.
This is bringing new mythology, new-old
religion to a myth-starved, God-starved modern world.
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
Music and cultural transformation
Nietzsche gave great attention to music
as the basis for cultural transformation. He saw Wagner's
music-dramas as creating such a cultural transformation, which they
did. We can see the power of rock music in the 1960's which had much
to do with transforming a conservative culture into a modern liberal
culture. And rap music now has again transformed popular culture
toward a more African-American ethos. Did the money behind this music know this would happen?
The impulse to culture, as Nietzsche
called it, can be more deeply seen in the creation and maintenance of
religion, which sociobiology has confirmed as the impulse to bonding for success
in survival and reproduction---groups bonded in religious altruism have done
far better than non-altruistic groups.
Music will be needed to help bring
theological materialism and the Theoevolutionary Church
foreword. But great art is not merely for our education, great art
also affirms the sacred in intuitive and emotional ways, more like
music than words.
Monday, May 06, 2013
Finding the Sacred
Eliade said we need to find where the
sacred is hiding in tradition, the sacred is always
under various camouflages. He thought that various future religious
experiences will be quite different from those we are familiar with.
The sacred always takes new shapes, and it may not be the scholar or
strict man of science who unearths it.
This is what the Twofold Path and
theological materialism offer, a pattern which includes the God of
the Involutionary Inward Path of past tradition, but requiring the
Evolutionary Outward Path of material-supermaterial evolution to make
it present, to reach Godhood. What the mythology-revivalists dreamed
of may be accomplished by protecting the various groups and small
states as they evolve toward Godhood in their various ways. This may
not be accomplished by one-myth or one-race imperialism which the
world turns against, but there needs to be an overall goal of evolution.
Independence and separation of
distinctly different groups who, contrary to political correctness or cultural Marxism, simply cannot get along well together, protected with a light federalism, and affirming cooperative competition, is not
only natural and practical, it creates the only real peace we can
achieve. But most importantly, it is also the best way to evolve in
variety toward Godhood.
Saturday, May 04, 2013
Why Theological Materialism?
It seems to me that phenomenologists,
like Husserl and Heidegger, are a modern extension of Aquinas, but
they bring in far more doubt about a priori reasoning and new doubt
about empiricism as being unable to find the whole truth. They also
tend toward individualism in thinking that the real, at least what we
can see of the real, is reduced to the what the individual-self can
see, which seems too reduced from the sociobiological perspective which I
try to apply in seeing what is real.
I don't think that historicism is the
answer either, that is, the study of history as the prime tool for defining
humanity, I think sociobiology is a better tool. But I would
agree with those who think that our questions still exceed the powers
of the human mind. Yet I do think these questions may be answered
with the further evolution of our intelligence.
I believe in the Enlightenment, the
miracle of science, and as I have indicated I especially treasure
the new/old science of sociobiology, and such exponents of it as
Raymond Cattell and E. O. Wilson. Even so, empiricism and reason do
not do it all for me as they tend to do for Cattell and Wilson who do not seem to value intellectual
intuition and faith enough to fit my experience of the world.
Specialization in various fields has presented the single empirical
tree in all its detail but not much of the phenomenal forest.
But I have faith in science and
reason that they will one day explain the still mysterious
activations of life, such as the inward activation of material life
by the material Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, with the divine goal of evolving to Godhood, while being shaped by
outside evolution.
What philosophy could this define?
I call it theological materialism, a religious philosophy, a philosophical sociobiology, which
includes old religion in new science as in the Twofold Path.
Friday, May 03, 2013
What to do about the media?
The selection of what is news, the
editing has fallen to politically correct or culturally Marxist
editors and publishers, and this has biased the news considerably.
Our “culture” in the West is largely now created by the Media.
The march to control the media from within has been wildly successful
at corrupting the West, more than an overt military conquest.
Can this corrupt media culture be
changed by changing the values of our colleges and universities, who
mainly educated the editors? Or is it more practical to build our own
media alongside the corrupt ones? Both ways are very difficult but
building our own media may be the slightly better plan.
Primarily our media and our schools
need to spread sociobiological education as the basis for our political
and religious culture. This was Cattell and Wilson's hope and it is
mine too. What De Toqueville said of material progress needs to be
applied to biological progress, “What the few have today, the many
will want tomorrow.” Our shared overall value is the goal of
evolution out into the cosmos to Godhood.
Thursday, May 02, 2013
Connecting Religion, Politics and Science
Political philosophers and social
scientists have overlooked (or banned) the work of Raymond Cattell and to a lesser extent E.O. Wilson, which means the trend of the
social sciences toward the positivist hard sciences is incomplete and
even biased. We need sociobiology and psychometric testing in the
social sciences and in the humanities and in normal life. The claim
that these fields overlook normal human life and are too narrowly
trimmed down so that they may fit into empirical analysis or
quantification is just plain incorrect.
I have included sociobiology in the
religious philosophy of theological materialism and the Evolutionary
Christian Church, while using anything else that seems relevant,
intellectual intuition, science, ideology, political philosophy, art,
etc. This philosophy looks to future evolution and science in seeking
the material-supermaterial evolution of life all the way to Godhood,
the God first seen and mirrored in the Inward Paths of the great
religions.
I have passed over much of progressive
liberalism, which often seems to reject both religion and the
Enlightenment in pursuit of an anarchic or libertarian hedonism that
does not relate to actual human nature or the group-selection which
mainly created human civilization. I have affirmed much of
paleoconservatism and classical liberalism, which includes limited
government and free enterprise, but I have opposed the essentially
Vedic Traditionalist School with its dream of a reactionary Arcadia
or golden age before science and evolution came into the picture.
Wednesday, May 01, 2013
What is the internal coherence and necessity of a great culture?
The form of culture is shaped by the
content of culture, but both form and content are instinctively shaped by the traits of the people or ethnic group who live in the culture. What great cultures have is what Nietzsche
called an “exalted and overall transfiguring goal,” a “mastery
of the drives.” At this time the Media has taken the place of real
culture, leaving us with virtually no culture, a degenerating
motley circus.
What is the internal coherence and
necessity of culture? Successful survival and reproduction, but more
than that, a continuing evolution toward the zenith of beauty, truth
and goodness in the people and in the culture, seeking the ultimate
goal of materially evolving to Godhood in the cosmos.
This is not myth-religion as illusion
and deception, contrary to the interpretations of Nietzsche and
Freud, this is real material life and evolution with a sacred goal.
We need more than the mere explanations of science and history, we
need actual philosophically religious direction as a sound basis for
the turn to evolutionary religion.
Early Nietzsche thought the Ancient
Greeks (Hellenes) saved their culture not by cutting the Gordian Knot
but by tying it back together again into a stylistic unity in their
diversity. We need to do that with an ethnopluralism of ethnostates.
Light federalism can unify and protect
divergent states with divergent ethnic groups, then we can---all of us, or only some of us, the choice is free---consciously pursue our evolution toward ascending levels Godhood, toward beauty, truth and
goodness, with the help of religion and science.
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