The natural moral path to peace, in harmony with human nature

Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought that human nature was pure, simple, peaceful and happy in its “natural”state, there was no original sin, and it was society that corrupted this peaceful human nature and therefore society needed to be destroyed or changed. This great error in defining human nature led to the French Revolution, Communism, and eventually to modern liberalism and political correctness or cultural Marxism, which is mainly where we stand today in the West.

The traditional religious view of human nature blamed the lower part of human nature for evil things, essentially due to original sin, which the higher part of human nature had not conquered with the Virtues designed to do so. Avarice, conflict , ethnocentrism, aggression, etc. must be universally conquered by the noble virtues. The good, the true and the beautiful need to be instilled in families and societies in order to conquer the lower part of human nature.

In the sociobiological view of human nature, which examines the biological origin of social behavior, which I affirm in a general way, human nature was evolved mainly in hunter-gatherer times and remains largely the same today. Human nature is universally kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. As you can see, there are traditional and conservative aspects to natural human nature, and it relates very little to Rousseau. But ethnocentrism and natural hierarchies within groups, for example, are not considered evil or the lower part of human nature, as both traditional religion and Rousseauians tend to define it.

This suggest that when we look for a “moral path to peace” as Claes Ryn termed it, (The American Conservative, December 2014), we need to harmonize sociobiologically defined human nature with our social and political structures. This advances some form of natural ethnopluralism, with regions and states set aside for ethnic cultures, and protected in their near-independence by some form of federalism. I prefer the term ethnopluralism to cosmopolitanism because it more directly defines what cosmopolitanism requires if it wants a solid bonding foundation in human nature for international states and regions related to the primacy of group-selection. Altruism, the original creator of group values, was evolved within the particular groups and is far less a universal altruism. If the whole world is threatened then altruism is extended to the world, but the most natural conditions of altruism within human nature is designed for ones own group.

Cooperative competition between regions and states and ethnic cultures can be thought of as universal in its scope along with the longer term evolution of the whole human species with variety toward higher and better forms. In our crowded world, imperialism does not harmonize with the real human nature of group-selection, one ethnic group attempting to dominate all others destroys variety and natural borders, and never lasts for long, and so it is rightly universally condemned.

This is the natural moral path to peace, in harmony with human nature, and so it stands the best chance of being successful.

The synthesizing of theological materialism

Christianity began as an inward religion of ascetic and monastic denial of material desires in pursuit of the experience of the God or Father Within. Then gradually over time the natural activations of life were accommodated by the religion, reaching its epitome perhaps in the use of reason to define God, along with the ascetic experience, which allowed the church to grow among the population. This was in the conservative tradition of bringing the new (really old pagan philosophers like Aristotle) into old Christianity. The monastic ascetic life was only for the few, the virtues now defined in the religion balanced the material desires of living life with the needs of experiencing the God Within, and the Church became more socially influential. But growth was, frankly, based on the loss of the purity of following the Inward Path.

The religious philosophy of theological materialism does not have this contradiction between the inward and outward life, it does not have the antagonism between material and non-material life. The Inward God of Christ (and Buddha) is understood as the dawning religious experience of the real Outward Godhood reached through material and supermaterial evolution. The Inward God is transformed into the Outward Godhood reached at the zenith of evolution. The great historical schism between the material and spiritual, and between the scientific and religious worldviews is closed. In the Twofold Path science is openly embraced along with religion, the evolution of life toward Godhood is enhanced by such things as the science sociobiology and by genetics. A conservative ethos prevails in bringing the new into the old.

In theological materialism the Western world of material progress is supported against the great denials of the traditionalist schools mainly of the East. Their ascetic denials created a great spiritual blockade against the evolution of life to real Godhood. The Twofold Path, the Inward and Outward, are finally synthesized in theological materialism, which gives precedence to the material Outward Path of evolution to Godhood, while retaining the first knowledge of the spiritual Inward Path to the Father Within.

Exhuming biological motives

Humans have of course always been devious in hiding their motives, as the Machiavellian political philosophers have pointed out, but in modern times seeing only the superstructure and not the structure, seeing the tree and not the roots, has been the standard blindness of our cultural and social philosophies. The biological motives activating culture are buried or denied validity, and this causes big problems. Over-complicated political and social philosophies build their superstructures without considering the biological foundations, which is like the well-known story of building ones home upon sand where the slightest storm can topple it.

We should be able by now to face the mainly biological origin of our social behavior. The science of sociobiology desperately needs to be introduced into the Humanities departments. In every human culture ever studied, human nature included kin selection-preference, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, ethnocentrism, and group-selection as the primary unit of selection. If our cultures propose to not include these things, the culture does not last long and it will always return to these things. Many of these traits are neglected in our over-complicated political and social philosophies, and in post-modernism.

Human nature and our biological motivations fit best with some form of ethnopluralism, with regions and states set aside for ethnic cultures to flourish. That is the uncomplicated biological truth buried and needing to be exhumed. The Machiavellian games we have been playing have harmed us more than helped us.

Adjusting paleoconservatism

I consider myself a paleoconservative, but I don't think we can return the nation to its former political-cultural ethos, although I think we can still affirm the Constitution and the separation of powers and states. We can retain federalism and representative rule but regions and states will need to be thought of as ethnic regions and ethnostates. That is, we will need to gradually affirm ethnopluralism, which harmonizes with real human nature and group selection as the primary unit of selection.

I see this as the only way to prevent continuing civil disturbances between the distinct ethnic groups and cultures which have enveloped the nation due to open borders, unchecked immigration, and modern liberal social policies. This is the way to deal with the increasing fragmentation and barbarization of our country, and the decline of the West. The way to harmonize with people’s natural preferences for their own kind and cultures is to let it flourish with ethnopluralism.

Otherwise, if we don't have a natural separation of people and powers, in order to prevent social disorder, peace will probably end up being maintained with some sort of military takeover, or autocracy, which is a short-term and unhealthy solution to social problems.

Cooperative competition is humanly possible, which is the civilized way to deal with differences. All ethnic groups, not just one, can be involved in our evolution, in healthy variety, as we all evolve toward higher species and eventually toward Godhood, which describes the basic religious worldview of human life for the future.

What is the disguised worldview behind the political satire of our popular comedians?

Watching an interview with Seth Rogan and Liz Winstead, at Harvard University of all places, I asked myself what is the disguised worldview behind the political satire of our popular comedians? It is not merely funny directionless negativity.

There are several layers. Political correctness has of course been loosely absorbed as their general education, that is, being careful never to offend any group of people in society who are believed to have a disadvantage. But beneath that superficial level of political correctness they promote pure hedonism, individual hedonism, group morality is attacked, traditional Western and Christian morality is mainly attacked. Black or Jewish culture is never or rarely satirized, it is championed---indeed, this is their will to power, all other cultures are attacked. Non-black and non-Jewish comedians, like Winstead, always follow this lead, even though they are attacking their own cultures.

This pro-Hedonism, pro-Jewish, pro-Black perspective is behind the political satire of the Daily Show and the Seth Rogan slob movies, if you can call attacks designed to fragment traditional Western culture a “worldview”---which is, as Andrei Navrozov called it, the barbarization of Western culture.

I don't find that very funny.

Techno-imperialism

The obsequious altruism of the techno-colonialists, like Zuckerberg and his Facebook cabal, trying to put every human on line, by telling us that the internet improves the economy, enhances education, leads to better health outcomes, etc., is no doubt true, but Facebook mainly wants to grow its revenue and make all people in the world into consumers and marketing targets, meanwhile promoting their libertarian versions of modern political correctness. It's almost enough to turn one into a Luddite.

The border-less world of techno-imperialism moves humanity away from real and basic human nature, which remains kin-centered, gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection.

We need to contrast biological intelligence with artificial machine-intelligence, we are not forced to become cyborgs, or some combination of human/artificial intelligence, and we are not forced to accept non-biological artificial intelligence ruling over us, as the nerds tell us we must. Behind the attempted replacement of the traditional kind of heroes with techno-nerds, now being sold to us across the Media, is the disguised will to power of the nerds, and they are not heroic.

The growth of computers does not automatically mean that biological evolution will be superseded by technological evolution, computers are still autistically intelligent zombies, as someone defined them. It is healthier to affirm a bio-conservative position on bio-engineering and trans-human evolution as we evolve toward Godhood, while being only aided by machines and nerds, and not ruled by them.

How theological materialism harmonizes the fields

Theological materialism can sit at the center of the main disciplines of religion, science, philosophy, psychology, art, politics, and it can harmonize these fields.

In religion, Godhood is retained but the God or Father Within experienced in the Inward Path of traditional religions is transformed in the Outward Path of material/supermaterial evolution to real Godhood. This in turn can bring theological materialism in line with science and philosophy, and with the science of evolution as studied in sociobiology and genetics, as we move toward higher stages of evolution toward Godhood.

Added to philosophical naturalism in science and philosophy, and its materialism, is the religious inward activating drive of the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, or Tirips, which is also material or supermaterial activation, and is then shaped by outside selection and evolution. In psychology this activating force is seen almost as a Super-Id directing and defining essential life and its drive, which needs to be balanced with the rest of the mind, the body and the culture.

Art and political philosophy follow as an affirmation of the sacred evolution of life toward real material/supermaterial Godhood. Real culture is given conservative sociobiological validity. This means that human nature, affirmed throughout human history as being kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection, can most naturally harmonize with some form of ethnopluralism. That is, regions and states set aside for distinct ethnic cultures to flourish, protected with a federalism thereby helping to prevent the increasing civil disturbances between different ethnic groups unsuccessfully trying to live together in the same place. In the U.S., the Constitution could affirm this with its separation of powers and states.

This is how theological materialism can sit at the center of the main disciplines, harmonizing the continued cooperative evolution of all life toward Godhood.

I've been having eye problems. I'll be out for while, and back as soon as possible.

Both the subjective and the objective wrongly distance the object

(Worth repeating, from September 23, 2014)

 

I think subjectivism, the idea that all knowledge is subjective, or is individual feeling, and that there is no objective reality, helped lead to the distancing of the real living object from religion, philosophy, science and life itself. Concepts, definitions, forms became more important than the object defined, which was considered only relative to the viewer. Even God became merely a concept, a word, a form and not a real object.

But objectivism, the idea that objects do exist outside of the mind, and that subjective feelings are distortions, also distanced the real object from religion, philosophy, science and life itself. The formulas became more important than the object itself.

I see it differently, not as object versus subject, but as object versus the abstraction of the object, whether that abstraction is subjective or objective. This means that Godhood and Being in religion and philosophy can center on the real living object, the supreme object, or objects, of Godhood and Being and not merely on the abstractions and definitions of God. God became distant from the object even to the point of becoming non-material! Both subjectivism and objectivism led to this.

Perhaps in some ways primitive man had a better conception, or rather non-conception, of God than modern man. But when Godhood is understood as the goal of material and supermaterial evolution, than the object can take its proper place ahead of the definition of the object.

Posted by Kenneth Lloyd Anderson at 8:23 AM No comments: Links to this post

Police, the justice system, and minorities

Responsible Black leaders are not seen in the Media telling Blacks that the reason police are in their communities is because Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery. The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic. Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks, forty five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black, Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa. Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.

(From “The Color of Crime,” 2005, New Century Foundation)

The revival of science and religion together in our evolution

The exclusively spiritual and material-denying values of the Inward Path to the experience of the God or Father Within is the main reason for the long decline of Christian civilization since the height of the Middle Ages, in spite of valiant intellectual attempts to try to justify some value in non-monastic living.

The way of revival calls for the symbolic experience of the Inward Path God to be transformed into the Outward Path evolution of material and supermaterial life to real Godhood. In the Twofold Path the Involuntary Inward Path to the experience of the God Within is transformed into the Evolutionary Outward Path of material/supermaterial evolution of life to real Godhood.

This also affirms the conservative evolutionary rather than revolutionary dynamic of bringing the new into the old, seen in both long lasting religion and science, and not destroying the old for an untried new, which rarely works or lasts long.

This can bring a revival of science and religion together, applying sociobiological knowledge and new genetic knowledge toward our evolution to higher consciousness, intelligence and noble behavior, on the heroic path toward Godhood in the cosmos. This is the vital upsurge of meaningful life needed and shared by all of us in a world of growing hedonism and nihilism, even if we are eventually and naturally separated into ethnostates.

In the process of our evolution, machine intelligence has the potential to evolve considerably faster than biological life can evolve, but this does not mean that we should abandon the sacred goal of biological life evolving to Godhood. This will bring a contention between advocates of machine enhancement and advocates of biological enhancement. Intelligent machines can serve slower evolving biological intelligence, but it would simply be suicide to be centered only on superintelligent machines. Some of our brightest minds have been intimidated by a devious political correctness into replacing biological evolution with machine evolution---courage here is needed---the sacred purpose of life depends on it.

Political correctness as insanity

Look through any college alumni quarterly, or attend any of their public ceremonies and you will be overwhelmed by gushing political correctness. It really is a new religion. They have no other religion.

Adherence to the politically correct form of cultural Marxism, continual reform toward absolute equality in all things, social, ethnic, economic, etc., with intolerance of not being tolerant of political correctness as the only intolerance allowed. This new religion is then broadcast throughout the popular media, dumbed down a bit.

Political correctness exceeds any ordinary, usual, or expected human behavior, which is one definition of insanity. Mental disorders are characterized by symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations that indicate impaired contact with reality.

This will change, because it has no resemblance to real human nature, which in every human culture ever studied included, among other things, kin selection-preferences, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, loyalism, ethnocentrism, and group selection as the main unit of selection. If the culture proposes to not include these basic elements of real human nature, the culture does not last long, and it will always return to these things.

The evolutionary process of defining the truth

I think we should include emotion and intuition in cognition to find the truth, and not merely logical mind-only dominance, which has usually ruled the sources of truth in religion, philosophy and science. William James suggested something like this.

Truth facilitates successful survival, but truth is not merely successful survival, nor is it merely Nietzsche's relativistic will to power, especially if ultimate success in survival and reproduction lead to the evolution of life to Godhood in the material/supermaterial world.

Then Godhood becomes the goal of truth as well as the highest success in survival. The goal of truth becomes the truth of Godhood, the living object, or objects, and not merely an idea or definition or logical formula, and not merely survival or power.

Revitalized religion and psychological therapy

Nietzsche pointed out that physiological confusion can lead to psychological error. This can apply to religious, philosophical and cultural error in general. How so?

Considering the material world evil and greatly inferior to the spiritual world---including the begrudging religious okays of material life under certain conditions, due to the fact that only non-attachment from material desires leads to the experience of the God or Father Within---this is a basic and very old physiological/psychological error, other than when applied in the Inward Path.

Considering ideas more important than living objects is a philosophical error. Considering all people as equal is a cultural error. These stem from the physiological/psychological error of demeaning the material world. It is not enough for psychological therapy to try to release the individual passions and instincts with no direction other than hedonistic freedom, or with demands of equality.

Evolutionary and teleological physiological/psychological/genetic goals exist, life is activated from within by the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood and shaped from without by selection and evolution, and it is this that we need to harmonize with. We are instinctively evolving, almost as a Super-Id might activate us, toward higher species on the path to Godhood.

This is the physiological/psychological/religious/cultural way we can correct the errors. Revitalized religion and new psychological therapy can affirm this harmony, and this sacred dynamic, for all people.

Who has a problem with stereotypes?

I remember one of the Buckley's writing about preferring to socialize with anyone but the Germans. Other than playing to the anti-German media in the West, this suggests that we prefer to socialize with our own kind. I find this to be in harmony with real human nature, and there is nothing wrong with it.

Stereotyping says such things as: the Irish like both fun and sadness, the Scandinavians like stoicism, neither fun nor sadness, Germans are straight forward, Southern Europeans seek more indirect communication. Jews are thought of as money-grubbers. In warrior societies little lies can get the whole group killed, which might relate to the old truth-talking warrior mentality of Germanics.

I feel comfortable with the straight forward Scandinavians and Germans, but it can be fun to be entertained by the Irish. When I go further south into Africa I find that more direct instincts seem to rule, mannerisms mean as much or more than speech, which can be refreshing.

Variety is good, evolution counts on variety, and stereotypes are often generally accurate. Who has a problem with stereotypes? Perhaps we should look to who benefits from trying to rid the world of stereotypes?

Internationalists, globalists, and their fellow travelers benefit, at least in the short term, from a border-less world of sameness, which is why the internationalists block the idea of ethnic variety so strongly. When no differences and no stereotypes are allowed they can maintain more control, and they use the media to sell this sameness to the people, who are buying it.

But sameness never works for long, group-selection, ethnic preferences, always comes forward---as now seen in Ferguson Missouri---and we need to find ways, such as affirming the separations of ethnopluralism within regions and states, to accommodate it.

On the ethnic violence last night in Ferguson Missouri

It has taken many centuries to arrive at a sane and rational definition of real human nature, but alas, this long sought wisdom conflicts in many ways with long established religious, philosophical and modern social codes, which are widely promoted by the popular media and the academic world.

Real human nature, among other universal traits, is not only ethnocentric it is xenophobic, having become that way in hunter-gatherer times because it was vital to survival success, and this aspect of human nature remains very much with us today. 

Some time in the future people may see the folly and madness of trying to force distinctly different ethnic groups and ethnic cultures to live together in harmony and peace. But human beings may not be wise enough to rationally and consciously separate themselves into ethnic regions and states, with each region protected by some version of federalism, so the separations may come about as they have always come about in human history, through violence and secession.

It is a tragedy if we cannot, for example, conservatively apply the original U.S. Constitutional separation of powers and states to validate this ethnic return to real human nature and the best chance we have for realistic peace and harmony. 

Defending an always evolving aristocracy

It is usually not said that aristocracy does not depend on wealth or civilized taste alone but also on genetic qualities. Good genetic qualities lead to intelligence which in turn can lead to a financial aristocracy, but then education and civilization are required to make a real aristocracy.

Although I am more or less a populist on the right believing in localism, and the separation of powers, states, and people, I can't be against the inequality of wealth, the level of civilization, or genetic qualities, I am not a socialist or Marxist. But the genetic lag between people and cultures, which is one of the main causes of problems between people and cultures, can in fact be addressed with humane genetic and eugenic actions for all who desire it.

But the goal is not merely to develop a wealthy and civilized human evolving aristocracy, but to continue evolving on earth and out into the cosmos toward Godhood, which is defined as the highest material and supermaterial aristocracy, the highest beauty, truth, goodness, consciousness and intelligence. This evolution toward Godhood defines the sacred goal of life.

As to “heroes of the mind,” they need to be linked to the evolution of life, human life, and to the evolution of higher species on the path to Godhood. That is the first supposition of human history and the most worthy goal of religion, philosophy, art and politics. It all starts from this natural basis. Compare this goal to the consciousness, thoughts, and conceptions of modern intellectuals.

As I have suggested here before regarding high art, we drifted away from didactic and moral art as we became more literate, but as evolutionary psychologists have pointed out, story-telling had survival benefits in the Pleistocene, and it still does, when we relate beauty to real biological life, evolution, and religion. There is no need to use a hammer to didactically or morally inspire in art, past aristocracies have shown us that art is usually best when it is subtle. The idea of Godhood attained in future evolution has sacred artistic and religious value, but it also has survival and reproductive value. And great art has always affirmed the sacred.

A Deeper Realism

Raymond Cattell's best argument against war, at least for evolutionary ends, is that it is the quality rather than the size of the group that should be the basis for natural selection, whereas in war, size has counted. In another sense of this idea, special forces now prove this point about quality over quantity in the fourth generation warfare we will now be engaged in.

This for me underlines the realist position on war and the strategic position of the U.S., which was reiterated by Barry Posen: the U.S. is enormously powerful, geography favors the U.S. due to ocean barriers and relativity weak neighbors, and we will best procure our security with a slow transition back to Realism, and away from the liberal and neoconservative idea of hegemony in the world, trying to maintain unipolar world dominance, which does not take into account identity politics, ethnic, national, and religious, which are most powerfully against a unipolar world.

The neoconservatives have taken the Hellenized position of a universal elite who think ideas can transcend tribes, cultures and epics, but this never worked well with America. Like Rome, we were, or used to be, too pragmatic for the idealism of Greek philosophy, we wanted to build roads more than philosophy.

Nevertheless, we need to build more than roads, philosophy needs to get back to philosophical naturalism. I believe Western religion also needs to affirm theological materialism. We are realistically evolving to Godhood in the material and supermaterial world, and we need long term realistic strategies to do so, in which war is to be avoided---as mentioned above, it destroys quality and favors quantity. And we need to take into account identity politics, ethnic, national, religious, which are most powerfully against a unipolar world. Ethnic or racial imperialism will eventually give way to ethnopluralism, with regions and states set aside for ethnic cultures and protected by some sort of federalism. Then we can all best get along. That is a deeper realism.

Being in Becoming

“Why has the image of the other world always been a criticism of this world?” Nietzsche

Nietzsche wrote about the annihilation of being and the courage and strength it takes to overcome the resulting nihilism, and then developing a world of becoming, and deifying that world. This is part of what theological materialism has affirmed, but we have not created a world of becoming without God or religion, as Nietzsche and his postmodern followers tried to do, and we have taken seriously the conservative thinkers who retain the old but also make the old new. We have admired the synthesizing brilliance of St. Thomas Aquinas who brought the new (really older) pagan philosophers (Aristotle) into the old Christian world. In theological materialism the Twofold Path does this for the post-Nietzschean world.

The God, Father Within, or Being of traditional religion, which is experienced through the ascetic discipline of ridding the body of material desires, is transformed in the Becoming of material and supermaterial evolution toward real Godhood. This is a divine, fateful and real world we can believe in, and it does not invent a religious world outside this world which is deeply critical of this world. Its virtues, values and morals derive from both religion and science, closing another great gap.

Now that America as we have known it no longer exists, a new conserving perspective will be needed

Immigration in the United States was deviously changed years ago from being in favor of Europeans to being in favor of the Third World, and also mass illegal immigration by the millions continues to this day.

The Left apparently loves this, being ignorant of the fact that as ethnic groups change the culture changes, and it will not be the peaceful cant-we-all-get-along culture that modern liberals dream of.

So...a new conserving perspective will be needed to keep the nation from civil war, or from an order-imposing dictatorship of communists or fascists. I prefer to see ethnopluralism develop within regions and states adapted to the various ethnic cultures that inhabit them, virtual ethnostates, which can then harmonize the best with real human nature and group-selection being the primary unit of selection.

Ethnopluralism could also synchronize with the separation of powers and states of our Constitution, so it can be done legally, and with our protecting federalism to keep ethnic or tribal warfare in check.

The existence of a variety of ethnic groups in ethnic regions, taking many paths, is actually good for evolution, good for business, and increases the chances that higher evolution will take place.

If we are wise and courageous, and moral, then the knowledge we learn separately can be shared across states and ethnic groups. This is no longer a world where only one-ethnic-imperialism can rule successfully.

That is how we will all best get along. And most importantly, I believe we all have a sacred mission to evolve toward Godhood.

Some thoughts on natural law

Natural law runs through all of the stars, planets, plants, animals and people, and has been gradually understood by humans. Human nature directly relates to natural law, and human nature has included in every human culture ever studied, kin selection-preference, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, and ethnocentrism, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. If culture, natural right, and common law propose to not include these things, which are grounded in natural law, the culture does not last long and it always returns to these things. Justice itself resides in this foundation of natural law. These things also happen to be at the core of conservatism and tradition, whereas many of these traits are missing in communism, modern liberalism and post-modernism. Conservatism has been defined as natural law informed by tradition.

We have to try to understand and arrange things as they really exist and not as they ought to be. Modern liberals are revolutionaries in the sense of insisting on another world, supposedly a better world, refusing to affirm reality. But even ancient philosophers like Plato also were revolutionaries in seeing a better more logical and true world other than our own. And religion has always sought a world other than the material world.

Theological materialism and the Twofold Path apply to this world, the real world, that is, the world of biological evolution and survival are applied to religion and philosophy. Godhood is no longer thought of as out of this world but is understood as the supermaterial zenith of material evolution in this world. This brings religion, philosophy, and culture back to reality, back to human nature and natural law. In the Twofold Path the old Inward God as the goal of ascetic tradition is retained but transformed in the Outward Path of evolution to real Godhood. This helps make new the old and avoids stagnation, as real conservatism requires. Politically the ethnopluralism hypothesis also brings human nature and natural law, as defined above, back to cultural reality.

The transformation of theological materialism

In the Outward Path asceticism fades into evolution, in the Inward Path evolution fades into asceticism. The Inward Path reaches the God or Father Within with asceticism, the Outward Path reaches real Godhood with material evolution, activated from within by the Spirit-Will, and shaped by outside selection and evolution. That is the Twofold Path. It is the Godhood reached in material and supermaterial evolution that takes first place, which the Inward God is only a symbol-experience of. This is the transformation of theological materialism.

Comparing Hegel's Geist with the Spirit-Will of Theological Materialism

Hegel's spirit (Geist) does not, as he says, lose itself in nature and become “alienated” in the march of history, it never leaves nature, it is never separated from nature, it activates nature from the very beginning Primal Material of the cosmos to the present world, therefore it never has to "incarnate" itself back in nature to explain Christ. The Spirit-Will activates the material world to evolve, to progress with evolution, which is a better word than Hegel's dialectical thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis.

Nature and the Spirit-Will-Geist within nature are not alienated in the beginning, they are simply less evolved, yet seeking to evolve all the way to Godhood at the zenith of evolution if they can, shaped by outside evolutionary selection.

This defines life itself, and the purpose of life in theological materialism. It is the task (actually a divine mission) of human culture to bring itself into harmony with the evolution of nature evolving toward Godhood. Religion and science have a chance here to get together.

Hegel's elaborate attempt to include the Christian Incarnation in his Geist of history (as elaborate as Aquinas) to therefore find some Christian connection to his Geist (which is the Inward God to Hegel, as it is to Jesus) is not really necessary when the Soul is understood as being experienced only in the Inward Path as the God or Father Within, whereas Godhood is reached through the Outward Path of material and supermaterial evolution activated by the Spirit-Will within. Jesus Christ, Gautama Buddha, and other great mystics (a source for ecumenism here) are then understood as mystics of the Inward Path ridding the body of material desires to see or experience the Father Within, which is retained but transformed in the Outward Path of evolution to real Godhood. This is the Twofold Path.

Let me comment without political correctness about granting amnesty for 5 million illegals

Our president, who consciously tried to bypass racial politics as best he could, now seems to show the underlying animosity he has felt toward traditional white culture regarding the intolerance it has shown toward black people. In one act, amnesty for some 5 million illegals, he will permanently destroy the eminence of traditional white culture.

President Obama will do more damage to the prevailing white American culture than all the black pride radicals and affirmative action politicians put together. Will that secure a good reputation for Obama among blacks? He could not hurt white culture more, unless we suffered another real civil war.

This might balance the Black and Hispanic score against white culture, since this act will eventually destroy the influence of white culture due to demographics. The illegals, joining the millions of Hispanics already here, will have far more children than whites---and it is the attributes and traits of the ethnic group that create the attributes of the culture, not the other way around.

But this may hasten the day when ethnic conclaves and eventually ethnostates become even more of a a political reality in America than they are now, which was most likely going to happen anyway, and with much civil strife. It is human nature for people to prefer their own kind, group selection remains the primary unit of selection as it has throughout human history. It is this reality which has been missing, or blocked, tragically, in modern political philosophy---but history and human nature eventually have their way.

Staying out of the eschatological Middle Eastern conflicts

Israel and Iran need to leave each other alone, and the United States needs to leave both of them alone. And we need to stay out of the eschatological Middle Eastern conflicts fomented by Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. and promoted by craven politicians in the United States.

Will a live and let live philosophy ever take hold in the world? This seems to only happen with necessity, after much devastation. History shows that arrogant and hubristic people and nations decline fast, but even so, human vanity has ruled even religions, which supposedly are against such things.

We wait for wise but also courageous leaders willing to speak truth to power, while still surviving. Defense, yes, second to none, expansionism, no, it has to stop---then wars will be less incited, which is really simple common sense.

The popular hedonistic media has done more damage to the country than politicians or academics

The popular hedonistic media has done more damage to the country than politicians or academics, because the popular media has trashed the morals and values of Americans, and then Americans vote for politicians and evaluate academics based on those trashed values---although fewer and fewer people are voting because they don't feel they can change things, so they just veg out on more rubbish media.

Conservatism is supposed to be able to change with the new without destroying the old. Think of China now which says openly that it is battling the Western values of democracy, media independence, market liberalism and even universal values, yet it is trying to get as rich as the West with state capitalism, which is really some form of fascism or national socialism. Will they succeed? Now that is a test of Conservatism, of bringing the new capitalism into the old communism. Is our challenge easier or more difficult than what China is trying to do? China can use force of course, but if they give their modern liberal press hedonistic freedom they will decline as fast as we have declined---they know this, and we do not seem to know it, or don't do anything about it.

I know we have to build up a healthy media along side the virulent media, but I also think we have to find a way to prune their influence, even as we uphold freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Our defense seems to reside in group morality, which is virtually buried, versus individual morality which rules. The foundation of human nature and human social life remains group selection over individual selection, which is at the origin of all morals and values and altruism, as it has been for hundreds of thousands of years. Could not sharp Constitutional lawyers find a way to bypass those who say all we individuals have to do is turn off the station, and thereby not give a care about group morality? Otherwise it seems that we will descend even further into the wasteland, or dictators will rise to change things, autocratically. It's best to work with what we have if we can---radical change, if it even works, usually causes more pain and trouble than conservative change.

Religion and philosophy have tended to prefer ideas to things

It sometimes seems like religion and philosophy find our human senses biased because they don't like the reality the senses see, or they want to try to change reality to benefit themselves.

An imaginary world of religion was followed by the imaginary world of philosophy. There is the real world, and there is the imaginary world of disputes over “reality,” which often become games and puzzles for philosophical nerds who seem to prefer puzzles to real life.

Life is practical, even life evolving to higher life and Godhood is practical and natural. Dreamy abstractions often confuse reality. We see enough of reality for our purposes, and we will see more of reality when we evolve higher consciousness, intelligence and beauty. That is the position of theological materialism.

When religion and philosophy attach themselves to the evolution of material life to supermaterial Godhood then they will be more in harmony with nature and reality. Sociobiologists and geneticists will be considered as socially valuable as theologians and philosophers.

A non-relative reality that does not cruelly take God or stability away from the people

Nietzsche thought the will to truth was a false longing for a stable world in a “real” world that was not stable, a world which perishes, changes, evolves. Nietzsche then went in the opposite direction and said reality and truth are only relative to who perceives them and that there is no stable world, and God is dead... Was there a neurotic desire in Nietzsche to affirm an unstable, changing, Godless world? In any case, these old sacred values do need to be transformed, conservatively, toward the reality of our sacred material evolution toward Godhood.

The will to truth is a material instinct---a Super-Id as I have called it---and directly related to the will to live, the will to survival, and more deeply and sacredly defined as the Spirit Will To Godhood. This is the dynamic of a stable yet always evolving world, which does not affirm relative values but affirms evolutionary material and supermaterial values.

The world does not seem to be brought about by an unchanging, permanent, absolute, non-material, spiritual Being, the world is brought about by a Primal Material, activated from within by that great will to live and evolve, that is the Spirit Will To Godhood, which is then shaped by outside evolution and selection. The world is a continual, never ending evolution toward higher beings.

This is enough stability, how much do you need? This can bring Godhood. This defines a non-relative reality which does not cruelly take God away, and does not take at least an evolving stability away from the people. But it does require a transformation of old theology and philosophy toward theological materialism.

Surviving an appalling future

To expand a bit on what Taki Theodoracopulos recently wrote on the fall of the Ottoman Empire, regions and states need to eventually be divided along ethnic lines or we will have wars like the ongoing wars in the Middle East, which were originated 100 years ago by those who foolishly carved up the Ottoman Empire, leading to the present wars in Iraq. Eventually the Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish will emerge with their own ethnic territories, the way things should have been in the first place.

This is a future lesson to be learned in the United States, Europe, China, etc., who are, like Sykes and Picot, largely covering up the reality of group selection and human nature with devious ideology. Ideology will continue to trump reality until a natural ethnopluralism carves out regions and states, but only after social and ethnic disruptions. If we play it smart and conservatively the separation of powers and states inherent in the U.S. Constitution can accommodate a natural ethnopluralism of states and regions.

This perspective is still seen as appalling to present ideologues, which shows how far we have to go before we affirm a realistic way of surviving an appalling future.

Healthy political movement

The Tea Party in the U.S., the French National Front, the UK Independence Party, and others, show healthy political movement toward returning power from the bloated central state to the regions, states and cities, and they demand more law and order, border protection, and a stop to wild immigration, and some of them embrace economic nationalism to establish control over rampaging economic globalism, which has gutted manufacturing and labor and allowed the virtually criminal financialization of everything.

As Martin Sieff and others have recently written, the neoconservatives and neoliberals have weakened the West and destabilized the globe with their promotion of unlimited immigration, unlimited free trade, and the vain attempt to apply democracy universally, and spread as fast as possible. They need to be blocked. Can they be blocked since all the political money and power is with them now? We have no choice but to block them.

Libertarians usually don't embrace economic nationalism, and that's a problem with them, their philosophy of hypertrophied individualism has not adsorbed the importance of the primary unit of group selection in successful survival, which is deeply ingrained in human nature. This means that libertarian decentralization will not be enough, if open border, free trade globalism remains. We require tariffs on foreign products to save manufacturing and save jobs and save lives and save cultures destroyed by globalism. This is not isolationism, or anti-technology, or anti-trade, or anti-free enterprise, the mantra is not merely “think globally, act locally,” but think locally and act locally.

In the future, with national recovery, with power returned to the regions, states and cities, the political mission will be ethnopluralism, that is, the natural configuration of regions and states dedicated to ethnic cultures, which will finally be in harmony with real human nature. This will help to counter future serious social disruptions due to ethnic diversity and the natural non-assimilation of our populations. This could even be accommodated by the original separation of powers and states in the U.S. Constitution. That may be the healthiest political movement of them all.

What is politically hip?

Modern liberals tend to think they are politically hip, aware of the newest developments, but they are mainly sheep being herded down the path of hedonistic decline and degeneration---and hip people are not sheep. Meanwhile the so-called politically hip control governments through financial complexes. They know about and take part in the deceptions of modern democracy, but they are unhip to the forces of their own destruction. The greatest influence dealers in Washington are the Wall Street lobby, the fossil fuel lobby, and the Israeli and Saudi lobbyists, who pay off and threaten corrupt government officials and representatives to get them to take actions that are completely against the interests of the nation. In attempting to destroy all borders and all differences between people to gain immense wealth for themselves, they ignore realism and activate powerful social forces which bring down their financial empires and them with it---and that's not hip.

So what is politically hip? Those who affirm real human nature working in harmony with real cultural forces. The sociobiological sciences have shown us for many years now that in every human culture ever studied, human nature includes, among other things, kin selection-preferences, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, even ethnocentrism, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection for successful survival. If cultural schemes propose to not include these elements of human nature, those cultural schemes do not last long and return to the values of real human nature. Most of these traits are missing in communism/socialism, post-modernism, cultural Marxism, neoconservatism, and even in the hypertrophied individualism of libertarianism.

Real human nature and human cultural history strongly tell us that having an ethnopluralism of ethnic regions and states, protected by some sort of federalism, is the structure that best allows real human nature and human culture to flourish. (For example, this could be accommodated by the U.S. Constitution which separates power and states.) These values and qualities of human nature also happen to be at the core of real conservatism---which means that changes are best brought about while bringing the new into the old in an evolutionary and not radical revolutionary way...  That is politically hip.

Truth and Biology

When we try to think beyond the grounds of our own biological organs of knowledge then falsification and wish-fulfillment can take place. The task is to try to be in harmony with nature and biology and not to create fantasies that move outside of nature and biology. That is not “limiting” ourselves to biology, we have no choice.

We use organs created by their own survival needs, but this does not mean we cannot know what we are. We don't need to be “free” from what we are to largely know what we are, in any case we cannot be free from what we are.

What's wrong with the criterion for truth being related to the biological of the survival of the species? Is that not enough? How can that be a falsification of the true and the real?

Why was religion and Godhood not firmly connected to our biological utility? It needs to be connected. Our evolution toward Godhood in nature reconnects the criterion for truth to biology.

It is not thinking beyond what we are to use the organs of survival to reason our own hypertrophied biological survival in our evolution to the zenith of survival, which is Godhood. This is “faith” and reason connected to nature and biology, where it is, and where it belongs.

However, biological evolution does not mean that “man is the measure of all things,” it means that man is on a continuum of survival and evolution from man to Godhood.

Dualism is usually not dualism

False dualism was set up between the material and spiritual, mind and body, which grew into dualism between ideas and objects. Ideas are secondary to real objects, the spiritual is an abstraction of the material. Even Godhood is at the zenith of material/supermaterial evolution and is not beyond this world.

There is no dualism between being and becoming and they are not merely categories of logic and abstraction, being and becoming are based in material objects of evolving nature. God, Being and Truth are not merely the world of the mind and ideas, they represent real objects.

If we lift the veil of mystical abstract thought, and absolute nonmaterial ideas, we see nothing, or we see a mirror image of real nature, which is the opposite of Plato's method. It is real life and real nature that evolves to Godhood, ideas and formulas only define this process.

Profane history is not material history, and sacred history is not spiritual history, history is material and supermaterial history evolving from the profane to the sacred---there is no dualism here either. This suggests that Satan is not the "material world" and God the spiritual world, it's an evolutionary process of civilizing the beast all the way to Godhood.

We need to lose the abstract occult symbolism which literally defines no living object as God. Mathematics defines or delineates an object, a future object, or no object, and religion and philosophy do this too, but they tend to center on defining no real object and then making it a God... Dualism is usually not dualism.

Eugenics applied to the development of all ethnic groups

It must be nearing the time when we can accept that eugenics is not “racist” or evil when it is applied to the development of all ethnic groups. Normal people, couples, are already availing themselves of molecular biology, neuroscience, and genetics in reproduction. This is a voluntary not a dictatorial adventure.

Harmless or positive genetic mutations can be promoted toward more intelligence, character, health and beauty, as defined by the general consensus of the population, just as cultural innovations are defined and promoted. And many inherited cruel diseases can be avoided.

The big problem of genes and culture lagging behind innovators can now be humanely addressed, rationally as well as religiously, and decline may this way be circumvented, rather than waiting for chance to decide, which can be cruel to those who lag behind, and with shorter-term life for the innovators when revolutions rage.

The hedonism and nihilism of the present age can be changed, as science and religion finally combine. Society can then gradually move upward in evolution. We must not take the timid way of promoting only artificial intelligence to avoid being labelled politically incorrect in this devious and fickle time.

The religious element of theological materialism, reflected upon here, can help define and bond the ultimate goal of our evolution to Godhood, the God first experienced as the Father Within in the Inward Path of tradition, now retained but transformed in the Outward Path.

What keeps morality from being “mere survival”?

Moral values are directly related to survival values. And what is wrong with that? That is not morality “constrained” by survival, that is survival constraining morality. Otherworldly religious values can be biased against survival values, but so can secular cultural values be biased against survival. The will to power, the will to truth, the will to survival, all are driven by survival and evolutionary needs. What other foundation would you have?

Those who claim truth as being absolute in its other-worldliness are also constrained by survival values, and their truths are too. It is their truths that are relative, surviving is the real truth. Priests can even promote a form of death as religious enlightenment, ridding the body of all desires and all life to do so, but in doing so they also place themselves and their institutions in mediation positions of power.

What keeps morality from being “mere survival” is the activation of life to not merely survive but to evolve toward Godhood, activated by the Spirit-Will To Godhood within evolving life, which is shaped by the outside forces of selection and evolution. Truth is not devalued by being founded in survival and the evolution toward Godhood, what else is there in reality? Real life and evolution is good enough. Real life and evolution can be difficult, but it can also be moral, courageous, noble, sacred, and even divine.

The dangerous mistake libertarians make regarding individualism and altruism and accepting the old in the new

I had been thinking about how conservatism itself needs to be added to poetry, art and music when we speak of “making things new” over time, the old included with the new, when I watched an interview with Glenn Greenwald, the reporter and promoter of the NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden. It occurred to me that there is a connection here with the philosophical (and now scientific) mistake libertarians make regarding individualism and altruism.

E. O. Wilson, the great innovator in sociobiology, has recently affirmed group-selection as the primary unit of selection. This does not mean that kin-selection and individual selection are not important, but our basic survival affirms group-selection first.

What is missing or deemphasized by individualism is the biological foundation of altruism at the base of social behavior and at the foundation of morality itself. Some libertarians even admit the natural pull of group morality but then choose to see this as something innovative people need to fight against. They are in good company, even Nietzsche made this mistake.

That way of thinking is too easily applied to anti-social hedonism, which easily walks through the open door of individualism, where anti-social deviations and even criminal behavior justify themselves by alluding to the sacredness of individualism.

As mentioned above, conservatism also needs to find better ways of making things new. I am not talking about progressivism, I'm talking about having a way within the system for innovators and whistle-blowers to make the old new. Otherwise we lose creativity and we stagnate, and stagnation is not conservative. But innovators and whistle-blowers need to acknowledge the vital importance of altruism and group morality, even above individual morality.

Personally, I empathize with the problems of innovators, I have been developing a new religious philosophy, which includes the old in the new, and I am an outsider. But I am a patriotic and conservative outsider refusing anti-social or radical revolution. I think it is vital to be able to tell the difference between social and antisocial innovations, which is of course not always easy. Social psychology, psychometrics, has been developing ways, tests, etc. to help us do this.

Raising the lower level to the higher level

The Right seeks (usually) to raise the lower level to the higher level, but the Left usually wants to bring the upper level down to the lower level seeking “equality.” The Left and Right can agree if they both proclaim that they want to raise the lower level to the higher level. Equality is never the goal, nothing is equal on earth. The goal should be to continue to evolve toward higher levels of truth, intelligence, higher consciousness, beauty and goodness.

Basically, we need both genetic and cultural innovation. What usually happens is the brilliant lead and create culture, and the less brilliant follow. There exists not just a cultural lag but a genetic lag between the leaders and followers. As the brilliant become genetically less frequent culture declines. On the other hand, when the genetic endowment can do more than it is doing, the culture can also lag---Cro Magnon's had the genetic equipment to do modern physics---revolutions seem more likely under those circumstances as well.

What Raymond Cattell speculated about was consciously helping to modify the genetic lag through the promotion of the higher reproduction and gene selection of people with socially desired traits, and reduced reproduction of people with less-desired traits---voluntarily. That is, modifying the genetic lag toward the more brilliant cultural demands rather than to have this happen always by chance, which seems to be causing more of a lag between the higher and the lower, with the less brilliant having more children, and culture slowly declining. This would cause less suffering in general, and so it could be a humane undertaking.

This makes sense to me, and it would to the population too if the Media and the academic world would stop falsely calling it evil. Especially since the sacred mission is to evolve toward Godhood.

We can see enough of reality, and we will see more when we evolve

Philosophers and scientists tend to underestimate what we can see of reality as “merely” appearance, and religionists overestimate what we can see of reality. When Kant and others discovered that we don't see all of reality they went a bit overboard in limiting what we see as only the inaccurate appearance of reality. The subjective world was exaggerated and real objects were minimized.

But why is it prejudiced if we tend to regard what is real and true in relation to what favors the preservation of life or the species? That is mainly what the truth and reality is! Reality finds a correlation between degrees of value and degrees of reality. What reality would they have, one that does not involve life and survival? Life does not seem to be enough for them.

We see enough to know of real objects and we will see more when we evolve. We see more than a frog sees of reality, and with higher evolution beyond the human species we will see more, and if we evolve to Godhood we may see most of reality. Appearance contains enough reality. We can know what we are, and where we are going, we can see the evolution of life, if we have courage, and intelligence.

Scientific or positive knowledge tends to be indifferent to religious knowledge and religion is indifferent to scientific knowledge, and they need to come together. Theological materialism can bring them together: we evolve in the material world to supermaterial Godhood, the God first symbolically experienced in the Inward Paths of religion. Understanding this does not require the same old puzzles of epistemology and ontology which philosophers seem to enjoy more than finding reality.

We need both conservatism and evolution

It is not a contradiction to affirm conservatism as well as ongoing evolution. The realty of what we are at present is a time-centered variation of what we are becoming, but we can chew gum and walk at the same time.

Evolutionists and conservative's tend to want to rule the other side out. But conservatism is needed to retain the best that has evolved while evolving toward new variations and mutations that harmonize with the best of the past. Change, as Burke and others have said, is required if we wish to conserve what we have, stagnation rots the whole structure.

Even the brilliant Nietzsche chose to discard Being in favor of Becoming, and his postmodern followers hypertrophied this to the point of finding everything relative to changing power needs, with no permanent anything (other than their own pronouncements).

The urgency of becoming more intelligent to solve our complicated survival problems does not mean that we should move so fast that we lose tens of thousands of years of evolutionary improvements. I think it was Cattell who said regarding evolution that we are remolding a house while living in it and if we lose the foundation the whole structure falls. In biological and political evolution we don't tear down long-evolved existing structures to build something completely new.

In this sense the transhumanists and singularity crowd also seem to be abandoning long-evolved human biology in favor of artificial intelligence, which should only be a secondary tool of our ongoing biological evolution. Being is Becoming, but Becoming is also Being.

We seem to have cycles of human nature reflected in human cultures

We seem to have cycles of human nature reflected in human cultures, with long-lasting cultures better affirming basic human nature than shorter-term cultures which move away from human nature. Long-lasting human cultures are kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. Conservative traditions and institutions tend to reflect real human nature more than cultures which try to force human nature to fit cultures that don't much reflect basic real human nature, such as Marxism, or the modern cultural Marxism of political correctness.

Ethnopluralism can best affirm basic human nature, where regions and states are devoted to distinctly ethnic cultures, usually held together and protected by some kind of federalism. Human history seems to return to ethnopluralism following various forms of imperialism which move away from basic human nature. Diverse ethnic groups artificially jammed in one territory simply do not assimilate well with one another, leading to civil disorder, and the return to ethnopluralism. This is common practical knowledge often overlooked in various intellectual schemes of equality, etc. which usually disguise one groups will-to-power. We are all in these cycles of human nature, human cultures, and ethnopluralism together.

The hope is that the basic separation of powers and states in the United States can reaffirm this direction toward more independent states and regions---this can even harmonize with the original Constitution. Evolution not revolution is the better way to proceed toward a return to human nature reflected in our cultures. The one inclusion not emphasized enough in conservatism which needs to be emphasized is the natural changes of biological evolution, which retains basic human nature and its traditions, or the best of the past, but includes slow biological improvements brought about through natural positive mutations, and our conscious involvement in own evolution.

We should not have immigrants from Ebola-stricken West Africa

I had to add this early note after suffering the media this morning.

We should not even have healthy immigrants coming from anywhere yet alone from Ebola-stricken West Africa, we have not absorbed the millions of new immigrants we now have. Lurking behind, and exploiting the cultural Marxism and do-gooderism of hypertrophied universal altruism is the will-to-power of those who dominate politics and the media, and the global corporations who own them. How vile are those who benefit from our open borders and open immigration at the cost of the destruction of our culture and our nation!

A Future Culture Where Aristotle and Aquinas Include Darwin

When St. Thomas Aquinas encountered Aristotle he approached it the way a traditional conservative approaches new things---although Aristotle was older than Christianity. Aquinas was tasked with trying to fit Aristotle, who he greatly respected, into Christianity, the “new” into the old. This meant taking an ascetic internal philosophy and adding to it a largely external social philosophy.

The Christian cross is a symbol of dying to oneself so that one can follow the Inward Path to the Father Within. The old self is crucified. The way of Christ, in some ways like the way of Hindus and Buddhists, is the path to the God Within. As Ravi Ravindra put it, Christ is the way, but Jesus is a way---many religious mystics have sought and found the God Within. All the desires of the flesh and body need to be unattached from, or blocked, to truly experience the God Within. The values and morals of Christianity were mainly concerned with attaining the God Within.

Aquinas had to develop the intellectual machinery to fit Christianity in with Aristotle or Aristotle with Christianity. Aristotle was concerned with the best life for humans to live in communities and small cities, which would provide an environment where people could live virtuously while pursing the commercial, recreational and religious things that fit well with human nature. Aristotle assumed that people would live together with kin and ethnic group, where the best bonding would be possible. Ridding the body of all desires to experience the God Within was not a top priority for Aristotle, some desires were more noble than other desires.

Aristotle and Aquinas did not have Darwinism to consider when they considered human nature and natural law. But we do. It turns out that the conservative tradition follows, more or less, Darwinian descriptions of human nature, especially with the discoveries of sociobiology. Human nature has been affirmed throughout human history as being kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection.

Theological materialism, reflected upon here, can fit Darwin and sociobiology in with traditional conservatism and Christianity, but to do so we need to get back to defining the original Christianity of the Involutionary Inward Path. The intellectual machinery which tried to fit Aristotle with Christianity took Christianity too far away from Jesus and his central concern of the Inward Path to the Father Within.

The Inward Path was the first symbolic glimpse of the Godhood which can be reached in the Outward Path of evolution. Theological materialism adds to Christianity and the Involutionary Inward Path the Evolutionary Outward Path of material and supermaterial evolution to real Godhood. This is the Twofold Path of theTheoevolutionary Church which can bring the evolving knowledge of real human nature, natural law, and conservative tradition within Christianity without the twisting metamorphosis of Thomistic theology.

Future culture, future cities, can follow the order of tradition but include also the sacred evolution of life to Godhood. Monasteries can remain for those who follow the Inward Path, and sociobiological and genetic research centers can exists for those who follow the Outward Path, which transforms the Inward Path to the Outward Path of evolution to real Godhood. Churches can bond these sacred things, there can be Masses for both the Inward and Outward Paths, or one new Mass containing both. Culture and communities can live in harmony with real human nature, with kin and ethnic group, with an ethnopluralism of small states protected by a light federalism. Aristotle and Aquinas can include Darwin in this way, as we all get on with the sacred mission of evolving toward Godhood.

Why the big resentment of reality by the religious mystics?

Why do the religious mystics and philosophers require a world other than the real world? Is it because there is suffering in the world? There is also satisfaction in the world, should all people judge the world as suffering because some suffer? Why this preoccupation with pain?

Healthy people don't make pleasure and pain the ultimate question, these are secondary conditions in the evolution of life. We can even be skeptical of the connection between truth and happiness, which continues to confound philosophers.

Plato didn't start this transvaluing of reality, this making concepts causes, this making the conditioned out of the unconditioned, this was going on in the East, and probably before Plato. Buddha said life equals pain! But the dangerous thing about this resentment of reality is that morality is created out of it, as Nietzsche brilliantly pointed out.

It is well overdue time for this “vaporization of God,” (Goethe) to end. The material world is not only good it is the vehicle by which we evolve to real supermaterial Godhood, the Godhood only hinted at, or feared, or hidden inwardly as a desireless state.

The new within the old religion

Theological materialism and the Theoevolutionary Church do not advocate the death of the Involutionary Inward Path of the revealed religions but advocate the Evolutionary Outward Path to Godhood working in conjunction with the Inward Path to the God Within.

Science has more or less tried to kill religion, and religion tried to kill science, but the ECC applies both, bringing the new into the old. Changing the structure of traditional religion while still living with traditional religion needs to be done carefully.

It's like living in a house while remodeling the house. Or it's like the biological brain not abolishing the older brain systems but building a new cortical system above to help control the older system. New structures need to coordinate with old structures.

That is Conservatism, the wisdom of conservatism, rather than starting all over again with something radically new, we evolve rather than have revolution, which is generally the way nature changes.

If we want to avoid the the dying of traditional religion, including Christianity, the structure needs to change. The God Within can be understood as one of the first symbolic experiences by various ascetics, East and West, of what real Godhood may be like when and if we reach Godhood through material/supermaterial evolution.

But it is not practicality alone that is the reason for the changes, reaching Godhood actually requires our material/supermaterial evolution to the Godhood which was formerly seen as the God or Father Within.

Why religion at all, modernity asks? No civilization has risen or lasted long without being grounded in religion. And the very long-term goal of evolving to Godhood in the cosmos requires the very long-term values and morals, and sacred bonding, of religion.