Friday, February 26, 2021

Is the game over for traditional philosophy and religion?

If philosophy is “the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience” (britannica.com) then for the most part sociobiology has superseded philosophy. When E. O. Wilson, the father of neo-Darwinist sociobiology declared the biological origin of social behavior it was virtually game over for traditional philosophy and religion. The postmodernist's became like scholastics arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

As long as we are alive every cell in our body demands survival and reproductive success. This natural activation can be blocked, subverted, or it can be unknown to us, but it can't legitimately be intellectually or instinctively denied. The biological origin of our social behavior as empirically explained by the evolutionary sciences and sociobiology actually ends the intellectual defense of postmodern relativism. Generally speaking any existing values come from the various social and cultural methods we try (including postmodernism) as attempts to biologically and genetically advance ourselves, consciously or unconsciously.

When Wilson said, "The genes hold culture on a leash. The leash is very long, but inevitably values will be constrained in accordance with their effects on the human gene pool. The brain is a product of evolution. Human behavior . .is the circuitous technique by which human genetic material has been and will be kept intact. Morality has no other demonstrable ultimate function," it was game over for traditional philosophy and religion.

But Godhood is not dead, spirituality is dead. With theological materialism I say that the activating purpose in evolution---along with random selection—is to evolve toward higher and higher consciousness and intelligence and finally toward the survival and reproductive supreme success of ascending levels of Godhood; but that's a moral function and an end or purpose in nature that Wilson probably doesn't affirm because he probably believes in the complete randomness of evolution. When we can take a serious look at activating purpose in evolution then the separations between religion, philosophy, and science can harmonize with a real single narrative of history and morality.

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