Our reform versus revolution

I relate to the Burkean ideas on radical innovation versus reform, but I define revolutionary innovation as those social changes that try to go contrary to human nature, and I define social changes that harmonize with human nature as reform. This was defined in the old way as “God's providence” involved in history, and not  humanity trying to make its own history outside of nature and real human nature, which has natural limits, or divine limits as to what man can do. Also the sacred is seen here in the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood which activates life from within to evolve toward Godhood, as life is shaped by evolutionary selection from outside.

Human nature has been gradually defined more accurately over human history and is now most accurately defined (by sociobiology) as kin-centered and group-selecting, along with being gender-defined, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, among other mostly traditional or conservative things. This is nature, this is human nature, and this is the human nature which our social and cultural forms should try to harmonize with---when they do not it often causes more human suffering than it tries to remedy. For example, Marxism (and cultural Marxism), and more recently global neoconservatism, move outside of real human nature and cause much suffering as a consequence, in the long term.  However, some versions of traditionalism also block real human nature in turning their backs on materialism in general.

In our religious philosophy, reform not revolution is seen in both theological materialism and in the Twofold Path, which retain both Godhood and the traditional Inward Path to the symbolic experience of the Father Within, but these are reformed or transformed in the Outward Path of material/supermaterial evolution to real Godhood. And the political ethnopluralism hypothesis discussed here is a reform, it is a return to the separation of powers and states of the original U.S. Constitution, and follows closely the needs of real human nature in being kin-centered and group-selecting. Revolution is not advocated for these reforms.  Antiquity and  the past of our forefathers is respected, but the past is not put up as a great blockade to our future sacred evolution.

A new theological unifying and integrative cultural force

Religion used to be a unifying and integrative cultural force, but since Nietzsche it has been increasingly overcome by various attempts to make other fields the new cultural force: art, poetry, continental philosophy, ideological politics, and most recently “social constructivism,” which is warmed-over Nietzsche in seeing all morals and values as relative to the people defining them. (see “The Crisis of the Modern University,” Modern Age, Summer 2014) None of these attempts were integrative or unifying enough to replace religion, although they usually thought they were, and they have become virtually useless as a true cultural force, other than in the secular sanctuaries of the universities, where feminist, queer, environmentalist and Marxist-babble now rules the humanities and influences those students who are not busy on their cell phones. Social constructivist's believe that they have no competition from empirical science because they actually consider the truths of empirical science merely as relative social constructions. The Media meanwhile seems to be the strongest cultural force going, and it is not unifying, it speaks the revolutionary language of cultural Marxism, dumbed down. This will never do.

Theological materialism is a unifying and integrative religious cultural force. It can unite religion, philosophy, science, art and politics in the sacred knowledge that we materially evolve on earth, and eventually out into the cosmos, toward supermaterial Godhood, while conservatively, with the Twofold Path, retaining the symbolic Inward God or Father Within experienced in traditional religion, but with the Inward God transformed by real Outward Godhood reached through ongoing evolution. All the fields and disciplines can aid in our sacred evolution. Ethnopluralism can be a political expression of our evolution, with a wide variety of evolving ethnic states, in harmony with real human nature, which remains kin-centered and group-selecting. But we need beyond-the-earth direction for man and society, otherwise we remain earth-centered and parochial. However, we need to keep our feet on the ground of material evolution to supermaterial Godhood, and avoid the big inherent weakness of traditional religion which, if we are honest, turned its back on material or supermaterial life (greatly exploited by its enemies), when it is material life that is the only path of our evolution to real Godhood, no matter how brilliantly traditional theologian's sought to somehow and reluctantly include material life with the non-material inward God.

The loss of natural altruism to unnatural universal altruism, and how to get it back

It is clear, although still not widely accepted, or understood only intuitively, that altruism (“action or behavior that benefits another or others at some cost to the performer”) as the central base of ethics arose out of group-selection, where individuals within groups who were more altruistic were more successful than groups that were internally less altruistic, and this became an inherited genetic trait in the successful groups.

Universalist religions and political creeds demanded both individualism and unnatural universal altruism toward all, as well as attempting to jam a diversity of ethnic groups within the same living space, and this led to much confusion and guilt over preferring ones own kin and ones own group. Think of the great trouble recently (and in the past as well) between races and religions in the world in spite of very heavy and ubiquitous propaganda demanding universal altruism. It also did not help when one group sought dominance over other groups by preaching universal altruism for all but their own group---how devious humans can be. Also, ease in survival for individuals with modern technology, and social welfare programs, perhaps made it easier to overlook the importance of ingrained group-selection---and the individual was still being protected by the local police and a national military. But people tend to live in neighborhoods with people of there own kind in any case.

Ethnopluralism is the way to bring real natural altruism back, with distinct regions and states for distinct ethnic cultures, where real altruism can better take root, protected by a light federalism, as in the U.S. Constitution. And a deeper base for this natural altruism is seen in the religious philosophy of theological materialism, where it is understood that a variety of groups evolve in their own ways in the material world toward Godhood, perhaps helped along by international sociobiology research centers, for all. If there is to ever be peace or cooperation in the world, this is the long-term, and natural, way to bring it about.

Truth is in the object

Our senses were not designed to find the truth, they were designed to select perceptions that help us survive and prosper, which is how the senses became what they are. We became conscious because it was useful to our success in survival, and super-consciousness will develop for the same purpose.

Nietzsche pointed out that we perceive images first, then words applied to the images, and then concepts. But I add that what came first was the object of the images. Why should concepts be put first as they often are in metaphysics, religion, philosophy and even science? We need to put the object first, that is where the truth exists in this dynamic.

The activating Super-Id or Spirit-Will within life seems to see everything as adapting to its desire to activate life to evolve to Godhood, while being shaped by outside evolution and selection. This creates/evolves both a course and refined view of things. Where is the truth in this process? The truth is in the object which the activating Spirit-Will and evolution have evolved.

Ideas, definitions even reason are effects of the object, not the cause. Even Godhood is a supremely evolved object, and ideas and conceptions of God are the effects of the object God, not the cause, as so much of metaphysics tells us leaving out the whole material world and real life in the process.

We aren't “biased” because we are designed to define truth as what is useful to the survival of the object, the object of survival is the truth. Godhood becomes the highest truth because Godhood is the highest evolved material/supermaterial object, or objects, and not because Godhood fits with a abstract version of metaphysics which is merely definition.

Ethnopluralism, a unity we can believe in

Most modern people seem to think that science can supply the unity which religion used to supply but without the disunity that competing religions and states created. Marxism also believed science could replace religion and create unity, although their science was not very scientific regarding human nature. Science also split into many fields of expertise which made unity very difficult.

E.O. Wilson is the sort of modern Renaissance man of science who with sociobiology did unite science in many ways with the humanities, but ironically, sociobiology supported differences and explained natural separations of mankind as basic to real human nature. Real human nature is not an artificial “bias,” as cultural Marxism (political correctness) has tried to establish. Human nature remains very much kin-centered and group-selecting, but nevertheless this is a science that can unite modern man. Globalism in all its guises is not uniting us.

The sociobiological view, if we are honest about it, leads to the logical and intuitive separation of ethnopluralism, with distinct regions and states for distinct ethnic cultures. This is the opposite of the so-called uniting solutions of modern liberalism and Marxism which try to jam distinctively different people together in the same space with disruptive results, to say the least.  A Europe of ethnostates as suggested by the European New Right (hoping they are not too fond of Empires), and ethnopluralism in the United States, can be legally affirmed by the separation of powers and states in the Constitution, and protected by a light federalism. We need to now be concentrating on how to make ethnopluralism a realistic uniting force for mankind.

Nature has a different take on metaphysics than humans (reblog from Aug. 2014)

Nietzsche tried to show how metaphysics and logic were in service to survival, and that “truth” was not the first need in this. Logic equalized things that were not equal for its own requirements. Consciousness itself grew in relation to what was needed for security. Powerful people, lawmakers, made these things into law, and philosophers and artists created the various abstract categories---what they created was needed for their own survival even though they claimed it was for other things, usually without knowing the real source. The science of sociobiology couldn’t have said it better.

But then Nietzsche replaced the old metaphysics with a will-to-power which had no goal and no morality and no truth other than power, even immorality was accepted as a power source. But this was not a natural metaphysics, as Nietzsche thought it was, because nature has a goal, and that is to evolve life to the zenith of success in survival and reproduction, which is another clearer version of religious Godhood. This is where natural morality, or natural metaphysics needs to come from. Real “truth” this way can be harmonized with survival in a real way, which includes morality and religion. Abstractions and categories are put in their place as related or unrelated to real life, evolution, and the goals of real material evolution.

There is a kind of “faith” in the truth and in end-goals involved here, but it is a faith backed by truth more as applied in Michael Polanyi's terms, that is, something is true if it reveals deeper meaning, if it has potential for future discoveries or manifestations---and I would add if it has real long-term survival and reproductive value---and not merely because something could be true because it could be proven exactly with scientific methodology, or a logic redesigned by the biases of man, which are too limiting to be fully true. Truth has to get back to real objects and not mere definitions and abstractions. Godhood is more than the metaphysical, non-material, abstract definition of God, Godhood is a real supermaterial object, or objects, which we can evolve to become in the material world, if we follow nature's evolutionary course.

Virtues and values are not lifeless or boring in the Outward Path

At its essence the traditional virtues and values developed around seeking the God or Father Within, or truth, which required blocking or non-attachment to material desires, something that sages and monks could sometimes manage, but which was nearly impossible and also boring to most people. However, this inward symbolism of the Father Within can be retained in the Twofold Path but transformed in the Outward Path of evolution to real Godhood, which requires more than the involutionary values, it requires evolutionary values. This means that virtues and values don’t have to be boring or lifeless, although there will still be difficult elements in our long evolution to Godhood, activated inwardly by the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, and shaped by outside nature and evolution.  Godhood remains a guide, no longer primarily as the non-material inward symbol of God, but as the outward zenith of material/supermaterial evolution. Beauty, truth and goodness remain but are transformed into living concrete ideals for living evolving life headed toward the evolution of the zenith of these things.

How we can be, religiously, in the world and of the world

Christianity in the West has been increasingly replaced by secular culture, consumerism, pornography, etc., but technology has been steadily improving across many fields, with vital new knowledge for humanity. Even political philosophy is sketching out the ethnopluralism hypothesis, considering regions and states for ethnic cultures so as to relate better to real human nature, which is more accurately being defined by the sciences of sociobiology and genetics.

We cannot go directly back to the past. Dropping out of the world so as to salvage traditionalists values is a mainly a dead end. Merely criticizing the world without solutions only disrupts the world. And criticizing the world for the purpose of  weakening the world, so that we may then dominate the world, as some groups do, only ravages the world and causes civil disorder. Assimilation is often not possible due to distinct differences between ethnic groups and religions. And radical revolutions are doomed---not only are they often immoral, the secular world remains too strong to overthrow.

Theological materialism and the Theoevolutionary Church is in the world and of the world because it is based in the religious foundation of material evolution to supermaterial Godhood, which requires the world. Technology and new knowledge in the material world is welcomed as an aid in our evolution. We reach Godhood by evolving in the world to the zenith of material evolution, which is Godhood. We transform and revitalize religion in general and Christianity in particular by transvaluing the Inward Path to God or the Father Within, into the Outward Path of evolution to real Godhood in the material and supermaterial world. We retain the insights of the Inward Path in the Twofold Path, as the first symbolic experience of real Godhood reached through evolution. This is how we can be, religiously, in the world and of the world.

Creativity and the noble task

How we assimilate older familiar material with new unfamiliar material is where creativity is, new patterns somehow form from the mingling of old and new material. We don't see something in the outer world and declare that as the new thing, it has to somehow harmonize and adapt with the inner world. Conservatism seems to come from this ethos. But before we leave the ground too far in this, it seems that essentially all knowledge originally was necessary for our preservation and for the difficulties in surviving and reproducing successfully. We and our minds are what we needed to be in this, which means that our minds tend to be “biased” toward survival needs. Can our minds therefore find “truth?” It seems to be mostly a creative thing, both intuitive and rational, this mingling of old and new patterns to find the truth, while instinctively activated to survive in the world.

I think theological materialism, the Twofold Path, and the EC were fundamentally---both consciously and unconsciously---developed because of this need of our preservation. My work in this was a means not only for helping in the preservation of man, but more essentially a means of aiding the evolution of man in the material/supermaterial world toward Godhood. If this is accurate than it seems like a noble task, both personally and for the sake of others.

Deeper truths about reality depend on higher evolution

“The history of philosophy is the story of a secret and mad hatred of the prerequisites of life.” (Nietzsche)

Who or what is blocking our evolution?

Nietzsche thought that our needs interpret the world, our instincts and impulses are for or against. We often error in interpreting our needs and therefore error in for-and-against judgments. Our species has a grasp of reality at a level related to our minds/brains/senses ability to grasp reality. As we evolve higher intelligence and higher consciousness it seems likely that we will grasp more of reality than we do now, just as we grasp more of reality than, say, Chimpanzees, who are only about one percent different than we are. Deeper truths about reality therefore seem to depend on continued evolution.

We are material, biological, and the data received from our senses cannot legitimately claim that we are seeing or thinking beyond the senses. Why have we preferred to define an abstract, spiritual world unconnected to living objects? Why have we hated real life? We have defined our God as opposite the animal rather than at the zenith of biological/material/supermaterial evolution, which is where real Godhood can be attained. Getting back to knowledge of who we really are, back to real life, is the best way to begin to evolve beyond what we are. Our survival may depend on higher knowledge that comes from our future evolution. We have to first survive before we can continue our central purpose of evolving toward Godhood.

The Political Synthesis

Life is inherently optimistic, think of how life has prevailed over endless obstacles since the beginning of the present cosmos, and so I don't think it's overly optimistic to think of a political synthesis of left and right, as Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader have proposed.

America's corporate elite, the megabanks, and global corporations, along with their army of lobbyists, created the nationally destructive NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and massive immigration, among other destructive things, which enriched the elite but hurt everyone else---it is stunning to realize that America did not vote on these things, corporate America paid off our Congress to do their bidding.

But this time the political synthesis needs to include the Ethnopluralist's who have seen the impossibility of merging distinct people all together in one place, and who also see the selfishness and impossibility of imperialist mono-racialism, and who therefore advocate the gradual acceptance of regions and states, or ethnostates, for each distinct ethic group living in those areas, which can be accommodated by the original U.S. Constitution, and even including a state for those who disagree.

This political synthesis can harmonize with real human nature, which is, across the world, 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. This definition of real human nature has been blocked by those who selfishly benefit from its blocking, at least in the short term.

All lasting civilizations have been grounded in religion, and the theological materialism written about here is a synthesis of traditional and evolutionary religion, and a religious philosophy which can accommodate this future political synthesis. Perhaps we can then get on with the sacred evolution of life toward Godhood.

The problem with the existentialist perspective

“...The characteristic that most unifies existentialists is their belief that human beings must look squarely into the mysterious emptiness that lies at the core of reality. In the face of this overwhelming uncertainty we must not cower or turn our heads toward the past. We must decide what is true and act on it. Truth to an existentialist is something you stand for— a stake that we plant in the face of doubt. The future is not waiting to be discovered; it is what we will build through the stands that we take...”
http://philosophyisnotaluxury.com/2014/08/15/martin-heidegger-and-the-lego-movie-an-existentialist-interpretation/

My comment. The problem with this existentialist perspective: a “mysterious emptiness” does not lie at the core of reality, various levels of evolutionary objects do, with the zenith of these objects defined as Godhood. Life is evolving toward Godhood, activated from within by the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, and shaped by outside evolution and selection. The “unconcealed” is not “truth,” it is an object which is merely defined as truth.

Motive Beyond Preservation

Nietzsche said, “there can be no other kind of intellect (for ourselves) than the kind which serves the purpose of our preservation” ("The Will To Power").  But I say just as the pleasure we get from food is a reaction to the more basic need of life for sustenance, and not the motive (contrary to the "happiness" primary motive of many philosophers), so is our preservation a reaction to the activation of the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood which is the cause or motive that requires our preservation. This is how religion legitimately can enter the phenomenon of the physical/material world. We are not alive only to survive and reproduce successfully, although these are important, we are alive fundamentally to evolve toward Godhood at the zenith of material/supermaterial evolution. Although religion has affirmed a supposedly "non-material," non-evolutionary “spirit” which can be experienced within by us---with the right ascetic discipline---religion, science and philosophy have not yet recognized the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood as an activating physiological/materialist motive, nor have they recognized Godhood as supermaterial. It will be good for life in general when they do.

What if principles move far away from real human nature?

Principle over party is perhaps the longer term, more humane way to operate, suggesting reform rather than revolution, but perhaps when principles move too far away from real human nature that is when revolution tends to happen. A unity of real human nature and principles seems to create the longest lasting cultures. But differences come in defining human nature, which has been no easy task.

Nature, evolution and human nature do not depend on theories, they go on with or without them, but cultures that move too far away from human nature can get in the way of nature, evolution and human nature, rather than harmonizing with them. Darwin and the Neo-Darwinism of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology have generally defined human nature more accurately, as being kin-centered, and most importantly group-selecting, and even xenophobic. Defining human nature in this more realistic way gives us a better chance of harmonizing human nature with our cultural principles.

A good culture is defined here as a favorable environment for evolving higher men and women. Religion and political theory can assist life if they have a unity with human nature, and hurt life if they do not. Heroic cultures seek to surpass what has evolved, but the better more humane movement is reformist rather than revolutionary---religion and politics are built upon traditional religion and politics, which are transformed and transcended. Peaceful change is possible, especially in America, where change is easier within the political system.

The sacred religious foundation of material/supermaterial evolution toward Godhood is the structure over which the superstructure of Ethnopluralism is built, bringing principle and practice closer together, which harmonizes with real human nature. Ethnic groups need to be allowed their own regions and states, where a light federalism can protect them internally and externally, accommodated by the original Constitution, where separation of powers and states is sacred.

Free enterprise and wealth creation have lifted America to the highest standard of living in human history, which has been greatly undervalued by New Right intellectuals, although it has become corrupted by big government and big business. Economic nationalism can protect manufacturing and jobs, but a light federalism needs to curb crony capitalism and big business as well. Small business over large business is always preferred, and small government and localism over big government and globalism is the healthiest way to live over the long term.

No need for Nietzsche's radical revolution

Nietzsche said that the belief in the body is more fundamental than the belief in the soul. But what if, as I believe, the soul is of the body, as a condition, a state, where one can enter and experience the God or Father Within, that is, if  like a monk one manages to block or unattach oneself from material desires? The point is that these spiritual things are material or supermaterial, including the soul and the spirit-will, and most importantly including Godhood, which is evolved to in the material/supermaterial world. Was it therefore necessary to murder a definition of God that did not exist, or kill a Father Within which only exists in the Inward Path to the experience of the material/supermaterial soul?

Related to this is the vital point that we can retain much of the old religion, the old God Within, as the first symbolic glimpse and symbol of real Godhood reached by material evolution. There was no need for Nietzsche's  revolution against religion, other than that it probably helped 100 years later to define real supermaterial Godhood. Conservatism is wise and realistic to include the past in the future.

Speculating on continually advancing physical consciousness, without first cause

Our mental states do seem reducible to the purely physical. Consciousness appears physical. It also seems that our brain-mind rises in levels of consciousness as we physically advance. This suggests that Godhood reached through material/supermaterial evolution would contain the highest consciousness, and would also be the most advanced physically.

The God or Father Within, which is the central goal of the Revealed Religions, is also a physical consciousness experienced when the desires of the body are blocked or unattached from, applying involution rather than evolution, and this has been confounded with an Outward God. The Father Within needs to be seen as a symbolic experience of the joy and power of real Godhood attained through evolution.

Bergson defined unconsciousness as having no choice in evolutionary action, but defined higher consciousness as having multiple choices. Taking this idea further, could there be “absolute consciousness” and infinite choice of action coming with “full consciousness” as life evolves to Godhood? Hegel and others dreamed of this.

The Spirit-Will within life also activates within Godhood or within the Gods, as it does in all life, while being shaped by outside evolution and selection, which is how life attains Godhood in the first place. So Godhood might have virtually infinite choice of actions but still be moved further by what might seem like moving toward a final activation, or a final escape from the unconscious.

This brings in thoughts of “first causes” which philosophers and theologians have demanded. I see no good reason why there has to be a first or final cause, it seems more likely that life evolves endlessly, toward higher and higher consciousness and higher forms of physicality and more and more choices of action, with ups and downs along the way.

How did it happen that the death of a culture could mean so little?

The dynamic forces in the suicide of the West have been the Media and the Academic world. There was a successful “march through the institutions” with modern liberalism conquering, which is cultural Marxism, otherwise known as political correctness.

We were fed daily the propaganda of multiculturalism, consumerism, and a global policy of racial uniformity. It worked well. This morning I heard a local T.V. talking head announce that minorities were now a majority in our public schools as if he were announcing the weather. People almost welcome the change, as someone said awhile back at a dinner party: “How could the minorities do worse than the whites have done?” It is simply not understood that when the people change, the culture changes.

Even the Paleoconservatives, who are the grownups in the conservative movement, have no real answers, although they write eloquently and emotionally about the fall of WASP culture and the decline of Christianity. Some have even had the courage to mention that Jews in America largely supplanted the WASP elites, being just as intelligent but more ethnically-oriented. The metaphysical weakness of Christianity was in confounding local group-altruism with universal-altruism.

This seems to leave the field of a declining people open to the mono-racialists, the neofascists, who want only one race to live and rule in America, and given our great demographic changes, this seems to mean genocide, which is not only morally wrong but impractical in reality.

The solution we talk about here comes in affirming ethnopluralism, regions and states eventually becoming virtual ethnic states, which can be legally accommodated by the separation of powers and states in the original Constitution, without revolution, protected internally and externally by a light federalism. This will not be easy of course because, for example, modern liberalism has diabolically placed many thousands of African and Hmong immigrants in places like Nordic Minnesota.

But ethnopluralism happens naturally, as human nature continues to prefer kin and group-selection. Assimilation only happens with genetically-culturally similar immigrants, otherwise the melting pot does not melt and causes only civil and racial disruptions.

As to the metaphysical weakness, we advocate the revitalization of Christianity with theological materialism and the Twofold Path of the Theoevolutionary Church, affirming the great adventure of evolving materially and supermaterially toward Godhood, with variety, living in our own distinct ways in our own regions and states---there can even be states for those who don't agree---with the cooperative competition that humans are capable of, when we see that it is necessary and sacred.

Why I am not a revolutionary

It is understandable when the Twofold Path and theological materialism are accused of corrupting traditional religion, even though this is a transformation or transcendence of the traditional Inward Path of the symbolic God Within to the Outward Path of material/supermaterial evolution to real Godhood, while retaining the Inward Path as the first glimpse of Godhood reached through evolution.

Why not just pull up the tree by its roots and declare the old Inward Path as mistaken and even damaging to material life and sacred evolution? The philosophy of Conservatism stops me from this radical action. One of our Founding Fathers, John Dickinson thought, according to William Murchison (Chronicles, July 2014) that “the present (is) understood as a patch on the past. Modern needs to be consulted, yes, but always with an eye on the preceding by which men had come to their present estate---and on the delicacy necessary to a successful project of reform...” Edmund Burke couldn’t have said it better.

Thomas Aquinas didn't so much create a new religious perspective as bring older Greek philosophy into Christianity. Whereas Jesus did bring the new into the old, keeping elements of the old---although ancient Eastern religions had similar beliefs about the God Within---and Jesus was murdered in the process. These reforms were at first labeled corruptions of traditional religion, to say the least.

I am not Aquinas of course, and I may not be delicate enough in my reforms. However, it is a very big change from the ancient mistaken or incomplete notion of a separation between the spiritual and material, the mind and body, to Godhood seen as the supermaterial result of sacred material evolution. It is very difficult to be delicate about this transformation. My belief in the conservative wisdom and reality of including the new in the old is why I am not a revolutionary.

Incidentally, I honor the same conservative perspective in less sacred political philosophy, seeing in ethnopluralism the eventual separation of our states and regions into virtual ethnostates, as a legal Constitutionally accommodated separation of powers and states in the United States, to save an increasingly diverse and unassimilating people, and not radical revolution.

Rejecting the balance of nature and human nature

Time magazine had an article awhile back about the big problems caused from the invasion of alien plant and animal life into the country, but I couldn't help applying it to the mass invasion of human immigrants into the country, even though it is a politically incorrect comparison.

For thousands of years the separation of life by oceans, mountains, etc., allowed life to evolve into millions of separate species. Every species seemed to have its place in the balance of nature, and things really do seem to go best when species stay at home, which they are adapted to.

Our planet is attempting to homogenize everything, economically, culturally, biologically, but it's not working very well. Global trade has crushed local business just as new invasive species are displacing local species. Unchecked invasion and immigration is leading to disruptions on a planetary scale.

The problem is: the melting pot didn't really melt, it only upset the differences between people and caused civil disorder. Only the immigrants most similar culturally and genetically to the host people managed to virtually assimilate. Every ethnic culture wants its own place and wants its own culture, which is completely natural behavior based on real human nature which remains kin-centered and group-selecting, in spite of political correctness.

Setting things right means respecting ethnic and cultural borders, respecting differences, having a viable ethnopluralism with different regions and states set aside for different ethnic cultures. This perspective will bring balance back to human nature, and nature itself, by slowing the disrupting invasions.

The problem of course is that different selfish individuals and groups benefit greatly from trying to homogenize the world, not much carrying about the disruption it causes. Even religion has too often confounded group altruism with universal altruism, which has not created peace in the world.

These thing will have to be put right if we are to survive on earth. It might not be as difficult as it looks when we consider that in the United States at least the legal separation of powers and states lends itself to accommodate the increasing divergence of its people and cultures.

And when religion is transformed with the knowledge of our material/supermaterial evolution to real Godhood, the God at first seen only inwardly, then biological variety in evolution can be respected.

If we have to know what Being is before we can decide what is real...

If we have to know what Being is before we can decide what is real (a question Nietzsche pondered), and then when I say that Being is an object, a material or supermaterial object, we can from there decide the difference between definitions and abstractions of Being, and Being itself. This is the way I have approached Being and ontology.

It is a “leap” (intellectual intuition?) one takes to see Being this way, but following that leap many things can fall into place. I think of Michael Polanyi's definition of truth: something is true if it reveals deeper meaning, if it has potential for future discoveries or manifestations, and not merely because something could be true because it could be proven exactly with scientific methodology.

A new theology forms from this way of seeing Being, which I have called theological materialism, the evolution of material/supermaterial life to Godhood. It is tied to the old theology but the Inward Path to the God Within is transformed and retained in the Godhood reached by the Outward Path of  material- supermaterial evolution.

Science, evolution and future evolution can reenter the religious worldview, conservatism can remain valid—we learn something new in terms of something old and familiar, which seems to be the way we learn.

Political and religious systems need to relate to real human nature

Marxism, and its modern version of cultural Marxism (political correctness), but also the Orthodox religions, and the modern Eurasian revival of the Traditionalist School, miss much of human nature in their worldviews. And the neoconservatives in America, who are not real conservatives, also miss much in relating to real human nature. Marxism assumes equality in all things, religion essentially rejects the material world and future biological evolution, the neoconservatives assume the rightness of imperialistic global capitalism (led by a small cabal)---and none of these relate well to real human nature.

Human nature developed many thousands of years ago, and we certainly do retain it to this day. Even the smallest change in human nature and our DNA structure, for example, in our immune system, took many thousands of years; basically we remain 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.

The sociopolitical structure most in harmony with real human nature has always been ethnic cultures living within largely ethnic states, or “ethnopluralism” in the larger world, and against centralizing imperialism and the vain attempt at the homogenization of all the world into one people. Imperialism always breaks back down into ethnostates. Ethnopluralism can be protected with a light federalism, and it can be gradually allowed to develop, for example, with the separation of powers and states in the United States (which the original Constitution can accommodate), as well as in Europe, Russia, China etc., while avoiding radical revolution. States can slowly, conservatively, take on more of the character of the ethnic cultures living within the various regions and states. There is a place for the central government in helping to regulate international trade, and establish an army to protect the states against foreign incursions.

We seem headed toward social, ethnic and religious confrontations, which are even now naturally developing, especially in Europe, as we hopelessly try to homogenize and even force different groups together in the same living space, trying to conform to various unworkable political and religious systems which are contrary to basic human nature. If we can achieve a natural relative order by harmonizing closer with real human nature, then we can all get on with the sacred mission of evolving toward Godhood on earth and out into the cosmos, the Godhood that was only glimpsed as the Father Within in the Inward Paths of traditional religion, which can be retained but transformed in the material/supermaterial evolution of life toward real Godhood. Humans are capable of this natural behavior and evolution.

Projecting a real sacred but material cause in phenomena

“Causality evades us,” Nietzsche said. Biological phenomenalism goes before thoughts but we are not aware of it. Even pleasure and pain at bottom are effects in the process of our bodies getting us to do what our bodies require to survive, and they are not the motives that many philosophers thought they were. Instincts and passions intervene before and between our thoughts, we can deny them because we do not recognize them.

In this fashion, that which interrupts our consciousness, and adjusts it, are the elements of the feedback loop I wrote about earlier, that is, nature, nurture, plus the material life-activation of a Super-Id-like Spirit-Will-To-Godhood. Both Nietzsche and science missed or denied this sacred goal, which gives life moral structure, rather than the goalless immorality of Nietzsche's will-to-power, or the amorality of science which sees no inner activation toward Godhood but sees only nature/nurture and random evolution, and missed by spiritualism which rejected a material or supermaterial goal.

With theological materialism, the Father Within of the great religions is transformed and seen as symbolic of the real Godhood reached in outward material/supermaterial evolution, shaped by outside evolution and selection. Nietzsche did not identify this end goal of Godhood in evolution, which led to his stance of immorality. This might have given Nietzsche a moral and conservative view rather than his immoral or amoral and revolutionary view, and it could have done the same for amoral science.

This is a way to express or understand something new in terms of something old and familiar. Projecting a real sacred but material cause in all phenomena, a moral cause, which can be related to traditional religion, and social philosophy, is what is missing in modern philosophy and science. And the material/supermaterial vehicle of evolution to Godhood has been missing in religion.

Chivalry?

According to Yuval Levin, Edmund Burke defined chivalry, which was passing in his time, as pacifying and beautifying two dangerous relationships: between men and women and between ruler and ruled.

It sounds sort of ridiculous to think of chivalry in our time when young men think of how to game the bitches, and politicians are unctuous demagogues. Even so, it seems like chivalry would make a better world.

I'm not talking about effete gentlemen mincing around the parlor, I'm talking about the gentleman who can kick ass if need be while still retaining the the Marquess of Queensberry rules. And I'm not taking about women being snobby idiots, women can be ladies with character and wisdom, people you want to respect.

Does chivalry necessitate a great distance between people or classes? Is there a genetic component to chivalrous behavior exclusive to aristocrats ? I don't think it needs to be seen that way. It's also a learned cultural behavior.

Well, perhaps a future state would reaffirm it.

Continued evolution as a feedback loop

We can think of human evolution as a feedback loop between nature and nurture, each developing the other, genes and environment, and back and forth. I would like to add to this feedback loop the inner activation of life, the Super-Id, or the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, which is always struggling for the continuous emergence of higher truth, beauty and goodness in survival and reproduction, as life evolves in the material/supermaterial world, shaped by outside evolution and selection, toward Godhood. Living things develop their forms from this process, this great feedback loop. This is the feedback loop I think and  feel is more accurate.  And this is where religion and science could meet.  The God first seen/experienced only inwardly is the real Godhood evolved to outwardly in the material world.

The case for eugenics

For those of you who haven't read it, I urge everyone to read the essay, "The case for Eugenics in a Nutshell" by Marian Van Court, from Counter Currents publishing. I would begin here and expand this humane eugenics outward toward our sacred evolution to the zenith of truth, beauty and goodness, which defines Godhood.

Truth as a real object not unconcealed

For me, Heidegger's interpretation of the Greek word for Truth (Aletheia) as Unconcealment is still concealment, since I think truth is found in real objects and not in any definition or abstraction of objects.

Godhood is unconcealed in the supreme object(s) evolved to in the material/supermaterial world, Godhood is not non-material, not non-object Spirit, not definitions of Being, not sacred word, not timelessness, which are all definitions or abstractions and not the Object.

This seems to define truth as an object rather than as unconcealment. We may want to go on and define the object but that definition is not greater than the object.

When we try to make a hidden order of nature open to the eye, it is not enough to make an abstraction defining the order, we should be making an object. We should not worship the definition of God but the supreme object(s) of Godhood, which are evolved to in the material/supermaterial world.

The definition of nature never equals nature, the definition is less than the natural object and should not become its rival or its superior.

This suggests the basic ontology of theological materialism.

The way out of dualism (reblog from August 2014

Dualities seem to have begun with ancient religions, dualities between spirit and matter, mind and body---then came the later distinctions between the theoretical and the practical. This caused more problems than it solved.

Religionists tried to solve the dualities by saying that all is really spiritual. But it is the other way around: all is material or supermaterial. Even Godhood is supermaterial at the zenith of material evolution.

Many theologians and philosophers have said in effect that the world is no good, even evil, and that the world is not the real and good world of the non-material spirit. They prefer abstractions over the physiological messiness of real life.

Nietzsche tried to replace these theories of knowledge with the values of the passions, but they were the passions of an individualistic, goalless, will to power.

Modern science tells us how things work but removes values and morals and sacred goals from its equations.

Theological materialism includes the inward activation of life by the zenith of the instincts, by a Super-Id seen as the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, which is shaped by the ups and downs of outside evolution and selection.

Unlike modern science and philosophy, theological materialism retains religion but transforms it, which is the  conservative way out of dualities, and the deeper and healthier answer to modern nihilism.

We need sociobiologists more than biology-shunning sociologists, we need a philosophical sociobiology, we need a religiously-aware evolutionary psychology, and all of these can be attached to the goals of theological materialism, otherwise they seem limited and short-sighted.