Real history and religion are not emancipation from the material world

Modern thinkers only seem to be opposite Hegel in thinking that we are moving in a pessimistic direction. Hegel is not optimistic or realistic when in the end his philosophy turns back to Plato's world of rejecting materialism as a negation, and seeing his highest God as pure non-material “spirit.”  That describes devolution not evolution in theological materialism.

Reality seems to be the opposite of those who think that consciousness eventually loses it physical or material properties, which the old and new Gnostic's believe. Plato and the Eastern mystics were largely responsible for turning reality upside down, which influenced the Judaic-Christian world and Islam. Aristotle, the first Western scientist, seemed as if he would affirm materialism against his great world teacher, but in the end he too rejects materialism in defining his God, which influenced the philosophy of Aquinas.
 

Being “self-aware” does not have to divide us from ourselves, as the old and new Gnostic's believe. There is no “fall” from grace based on the idea that knowledge of our “true self” is non-material. We have to move beyond the Great Spiritual Blockade to real Godhood, which as conservatives we can retain but see as the first incomplete, inward, view of outward Godhood in the Twofold Path.

Some say that science is only a method of inquiry and not a worldview, but science does end up with a worldview consisting of the reality that science finds, or believes it finds, in the world. Human reason and science alone may not be able to grasp the complete nature of things, but they can be an important tool in affirming what intuition usually finds first.

History is material evolution moving toward not a spiritual but a supermaterial Godhood. This is optimistic, not pessimistic news. History can be seen as a process of emancipation, but not emancipation from the material world which is devolution toward spiritual nothingness. Materialism evolves to supermaterial Godhood, which is the zenith of materialism, with starts, stops, and backward-going along the way, and our sacred mission is to help life and nature evolve toward Godhood.