Religion and science need a deep tune up

In an essay on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Chronicles, Lee Congdon quotes Solzhenitsyn saying that a political system should not be measured by its military power or the size of its economy, but by the sum of the spiritual progress of individuals under its authority. Deeper than politics and economics is religion and the spiritual. Solzhenitsyn made it clear that his concerns were fundamentally religious and moral—the state structure was of secondary significance. I agree in general, but religion and science need a deep tuneup.

It has been said that politics is down stream from culture, and culture is down stream from religion. But religion has been slowly dying since the the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment, and it's demise has been speeding up since then. Science has not filled the gap although for many in the West it has tried to take the place of religion. Both religion and science need a tune up where they can take things from each other.

I would say the Enlightenment was 50 percent right in affirming science, and traditional religion was 50 percent right in affirming religion, but the Enlightenment was 50 percent wrong in smearing religion, and religion was 50 percent wrong in smearing science.

It is true that attempts were made to synthesizes these things. The Enlightenment affirmed Deism with God defined as nature, and religion tried bringing more rationalism into religion, but they really didn't like each other much, and that dislike grew worse as science advanced and religion faded.

Theological materialism retains religion and Godhood but religion and Godhood are reformed by evolutionizing religion, philosophy and politics, which is different from the Teilhard de Chardin project to evolutionize religion while retaining an entirely non-material, spiritual, trinitarian God.

We don't look to experience merely the symbolic God Within the human brain or heart, as traditional religion has done---although this is retained in the Inward Path---the Twofold Path seeks to save religion not destroy religion.

A rebirth of religion is needed. Perhaps the theological materialism of the projected Theoevolutionary Church will help bring science, art, philosophy and religion back together. The material world and mankind will materially evolve on earth and in the cosmos to ascending levels of real Godhood, the Godhood first seen only virtually, as a mirror, in the inward paths of the great religions.

Eventually ethnostates

Betsy Clarke ended a review in Chronicles on the history of secession movements in the U.S. by saying: “What might be desirable is more regional autonomy within the current constitutional system. We see this flexibility currently in sanctuary cities, states’ marijuana legalization—a throwback to nullification, albeit with federal acquiescence—and individual state environmental standards. So things are likely to bump along as they always have. Perhaps the outcome is not really in doubt at all.”

I affirm the legal way to arrive at an ethnopluralism of ethnostates that synchronize or conform to real human nature. I think the instinctive and logical social outcome of discovering and defining real human nature, which is biologically kin-centered and ethnic-centered, would naturally lead to regionalism, localism, general conservative values, eventually ethnostates, and finally, if we're wise, an ethnopluralism of ethnostates for all groups, black, white, brown, yellow, or red.

Regional autonomy within the current constitutional system, with a federalism designed to keep ethnostates safe from marauders, seems like the way to begin to save America, and indeed save the Western world. Ethnostates won't happen soon, culturally affirming the biological origin of social behavior still lags far behind, but I have no doubt that if real human nature is allowed to be what it is it will lead to regionalism, localism, and eventually ethnostates.

The common good-group selection morality of the Founding Fathers connects with real kin and ethnic-centered human nature

"Within groups, selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals." (David Sloan Wilson)

“Charles Darwin himself argued for group selection. He postulated that moral men might not do any better than immoral men but that tribes of moral men would certainly “have an immense advantage” over fractious bands of pirates.” Steve Mirsky

"Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society." E.O Wilson

Uncourageous and dishonest scholars have interpreted the morality of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as mainly promoting equality, but the Founders understood that the main symbol of American life was the common good, individualism was not the main symbol. And the common good relates to group selection.

Historical life is biological life and biological life is the foundation of human nature, and human nature is being 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 successful selection.

Modern liberal and neoconservative intellectuals (and even many real conservatives) do not admit that human nature is at root biased toward kin and ethnic group (although some of them, like Leo Strauss promote their own group, however subtlety, over other groups) even while claiming to speak the “universal” truth in promoting an “American creed” or a “propositional nation” of universal "reason," which is in fact biased against the Germanic or Anglo-Saxon roots of the American order.

Did Strauss have a bias against traditional conservatism because he feared the rise of a future volkish German-type revolution and he therefore emphasized his propositional nation over (volkish) conservatism? If he did have such a bias it is a bias that a great philosopher should not have had. It is a bias that probably led to the marauding neoconservatives trampling over the traditions of other nations.

The common good-group selection morality of the Founding Fathers connects with real kin and ethnic-centered human nature. If human nature was allowed to be what it is, it would naturally lead to regionalism, localism, general conservative values, eventually ethnostates, and finally an ethnopluralism of ethnostates for all groups, black, white, brown, yellow, or red, with each ethnostate protected from marauding imperialists, global businesses, supremacists, Marxists, etc., and defended by a defensive federalism. An ethnopluralism of ethnostates could be established legally in the United States with our constitutional separation of powers and states.

Conservatism and traditionalism will not achieve full maturity until they accept the biological origin of social behavior

Conservatism and traditionalism will not achieve full maturity until they accept the biological origin of social behavior. This can lead to strengthening the separation of powers and states in American conservatism because that fits best with real human nature, which is genetically gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual, marriage-making, hierarchical, and religious-making, with group-selection and ethnic selection as the primary unit of successful selection followed by individual selection. If real kin and ethnic-centered human nature was allowed to be what it is, it would naturally lead to regionalism, localism, general conservative values, eventually ethnostates, and finally an ethnopluralism of ethnostates for all groups, black, white, brown, yellow, or red, with each ethnostate protected from marauding imperialists, global businesses, supremacists, Marxists, etc., and defended by a defensive federalism.

We need to love and protect our own groups, states and nations, as human nature and our human instincts intend us to do, but we also need to think and move beyond the human species toward evolving future and better species, all the way to Godhood. This is a worldview which can overcome the loss of religious direction and the nihilism of modern thinking. Religion can be retained but natural law in evolutionary conservatism brings a conservatism grounded in the transcendent order of material evolution to Godhood, which counters both the stagnation of traditional conservatism and the nihilism of modern thinking. The coming species will evolve far beyond the human species, and far beyond increased human consciousness to God-Consciousness.