Theological materialism (TM) shares
that old reverence for nature, seen more in the old Mongoloid-Taoist
worldview (shared by native American Indians), even though they too
end up dividing the world into the material and the spiritual, as did
the Vedas and the Bible. TM does not. Western science also stays in
nature. Godhood is in nature, evolved to in nature, and seen
as the zenith of nature in the sense of Godhood as the zenith of
material/supermaterial evolution.
The “Forms” of Plato are better
defined as natural laws. The religious “detachment” defined as
being in accord with the forms, as in the revealed religions, or as
in the Bhagavad Gita, is detachment into a non-material spiritual
world. TM defines detachment as acceptance of the natural
laws---accepting ones fate means accepting natural material laws.
“Spiritual” forms are or should be secondary definitions of
natural laws.
But natural laws existing within human
nature allow for some freedom within the determinism, due mainly to
the brain power of humans. Here one needs to be aware of the bias or
outright lies that can enter into all definitions due to those very
natural laws which demand survival and reproductive success, which
can lead to lies.
Human nature has been difficult to
define over human history, but science and cultural tradition have
gradually defined human nature. And it is from this general
definition of human nature that the real “forms” or natural laws
for human beings can be seen, with which we should try to follow, in
a detached way or not in a detached way. The evolutionary sciences
have actually strengthened many of the old traditional definitions of
human nature.
In every human culture ever studied,
human nature included kin-selection preferences, incest taboos,
marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation,
localism, ethnocentrism, and group-selection as the main unit of
selection. If culture proposes to not include these things, the
culture does not last long and it will always return to these things.
These things also happen to be at the core of conservatism and
tradition, whereas many of these traits are missing in, say,
communism and post-modernism.
“Life” is better described with the
term will-spirit-to-Godhood. This will within nature, which is
material, but still not well understood, must work with nature,
with evolution and natural selection. This defines the sacred goal
for human beings, and for all life, which does not reject the world by
defining God outside of nature. How tragic (evil?) to have rejected
the very vehicle of material/supermaterial evolution to attain real
Godhood.
Finally, it is not the the spiritual
blockade of evolution to Godhood alone that is wrong, this Inward
Path to the symbolic experience of God or Father Within can be
included but is transformed in the Outward Path of evolution to real
Godhood, as described in the Twofold Path.
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