Beauty as the leading player in our progressive evolution toward the truth and goodness of real material/supermaterial Godhood (from the archive)

The religious worldview of material life evolving to ascending levels of supermaterial Godhood---and not merely involution to the Inward God---gives a different perspective on the old formula of truth, goodness and beauty.

When beauty becomes connected to the traditional Logos, beauty moves away from the material world and this creates the naturalistic problem of beauty entering a transcendental world of a non-material spirit, which then leads to the worship of ideas, definitions, words, and the idol of beauty, and not the real supermaterial object of beauty as Godhood.

In relation to material and supermaterial evolution to Godhood, beauty is not in reality separated from goodness and truth, but a separation tends to happen when the spiritual dimension of goodness and truth blocks out or even excludes real material beauty from the trinity of truth, goodness and beauty, because the non-material is worshiped.

In regard to material-supermaterial evolution, beauty does not separate itself from truth and goodness, which are values and traits that need to be included in upward evolution, because any one of these alone is incomplete.

The Outward Path of evolution rescues truth, goodness and beauty from the Inward Path, which is not rejected but transformed, and restores beauty, the real material object beauty, and even places beauty as the leading player in our progressive evolution toward the truth and goodness of real material/supermaterial Godhood.

The world of beauty is not leading us astray as a siren or temptress (see Dante and others) as long as truth and goodness are included with beauty on the path of our evolution to Godhood, which is the zenith of all these things.

Bringing material beauty back to religion (from the archive)

The highest possible degree of the spirituality in Traditionalism leads to the decline of the material body due to the Great Spiritual Blockade. But the Half-Truth of the Inward Path can join the Half-Truth of the Outward Path to end the spiritual blockade of the Outward Path of material evolution toward Godhood. We can bring Eros, survival, and reproduction back to the sacred, after it has been largely exiled by Traditionalism due to its materialistic content which is considered inferior.

The sacred essence of survival and reproduction is the activating thirst for heavenly beauty which can be reached in the Outward Path of material evolution toward Godhood. When this Sacred Goal of Eros is missing, sex and reproduction can be defined as profane. “Eros with ethics” was the way someone defined advanced Paganism but this was lost in the spiritual abstractions of the Inward Path of the revealed religions. 

 
Sacred Art follows the thirst for heavenly beauty, whereas profane art does not. The activation of material life within, Tirips, helps activate the thirst for the beauty without. Traditionalism tends to see and define only the recalling of the inner path, making an idol of the Soul Within; Traditionalism then puts up a Great Spiritual Blockade against the thirst for material beauty which reaches its zenith in supermaterial Godhood.

Life need not be thought of as “sinking” to scientific rationalism any more than it should sink to spiritualism. Both have been idol-worshiping at one time or another. Traditionalism made an idol of the Soul Within even as it virtually rejected the earth and the material world by calling these things idol worship. Godhood is an evolved sacred material object in the world, not merely an equation outside the world defined as non-material Perfect Truth.

Traditionalism gave us hubristic authority beyond the material world, beyond the stars, and Traditionalism continues to supplant astronomy and biology with the exclusivity of the spiritual Inward Path. But life and beauty can be religiously exhumed from this material neglect.

The Inner God is the Outer God we must evolve to. The Order of the Outward Path of evolution to Godhood brings Eros back, reproduction and evolution to Godhood can be affirmed.

Would this view of art and religion have given aid to Nietzsche?

Speculations on sacred positive art in theological materialism (from the archive)

In the arts theological materialism does not, as in traditionalism with its negative theology, search for or “recall” a lost paradise. The positive theology of theological materialism is not about a lost paradise but about a future paradise reached by material evolution. The activating the material spirit or will (Tirips) within the body does not mourn for a lost paradise but anticipates the paradise to come in evolution, working along with with natural selection and evolution.

Indeed if inward Tirips “remembers” paradise, as Plato suggested, it is not a lost paradise but a future supermaterial paradise, which helps activate material evolution.

Art should be ascending more than descending. The Inner Path descends to Tirips within but then the Outer Path ascends to the supermaterial destination of Tirips, not within, but without, in its material evolution to Godhood. Traditionalism only descends to the inward soul, which is in reality a peak material experience, seeing no ascent through materialism.

In Traditionalism greatness tends to stop at the soul within. In the positive theology of theological materialism the “Dance of Shiva” brings Atma (spiritual) back to Maya (material) not Maya back to Atma, as in negative theology. The inner is brought to the outer, the inner is only secondary to the outer material evolution to Godhood.

As the asceticism of the Inward Path is rolled back

As the asceticism of the Inward Path, which is the foundation of the revealed religions, is rolled back (transformed not rejected) in the theological materialism of the projected Theoevolutionary Church, we will better see the ascetic Inward Path contrast with the Outward Path of material evolution to ascending levels of Godhood.

We will also see how the Outward Path corrects the rejection of some of the values of European paganism, especially in the Inward Path disparagement and spiritual blockade of materialism in favor of non material asceticism.

The material evolution of life toward Godhood brings back the contrast between Outward Path evolution and the Inward Path values seen in its sacrifice, renunciation, asceticism, fasting etc. designed to reject the drives and desires of material life mainly so as to experience the beatific vision, which like nirvana is a peak material experience brought on by severe ascetic restrictions.

The evolutionary Outward Path to Godhood brings back the ideals of life and living, heroism, cultivating wisdom, strength, beauty, health, kinship and ethnic bonds, harmony with life and nature, instincts such as sexuality are again religiously appreciated and vital because we evolve to Godhood only by way of material evolution and successful survival and reproduction, which now can be aided by the genetic sciences.

But we can conservatively retain that old Inward Path to the God within as the first imperfect glimpse of Godhood wrongly defined as spiritual now seen as materially evolving to ascending levels of Godhood in the Outward Path.

Where morality comes from in theological materialism

Theological materialism begins with the evolution of life and the biological origin of social behavior, as studied by the science of sociobiology, and then projects from there the broad assumption that evolution moves inevitably in a pattern, even though it has its random elements, and the pattern has a discernible direction, in spite of instances of stagnation and retreat, toward higher and higher more effective living forms, all the way to ascending levels of Godhood.

Theological materialism affirms Raymond Cattell in his courageous work in developing morality and religion from science, and affirms the courageous historical/political work of Wilmot Robertson in developing ethnostatism.

Theological materialism synthesizes the revealed religions and paganism along with sociobiology. The Inward God or the Father Within is seen as the first glimpse of Godhood, but that beatific vision, like nirvana, was/is a peak material experience brought on by severe ascetic restrictions of the body, and not a spiritual transcendence of the natural material functions; that vision is retained but transformed in the material evolution to real supermaterial Godhood. And from paganism theological materialism synthesizes the cultivating of wisdom, strength, beauty, health, overcoming, and man becoming noble by nature and evolution.

That is where morality comes from in theological materialism, harmonizing with the biological origin of our social behavior and the biologically origin of human nature, which is universally kin-centered, group/ethnic selecting, gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual, marriage-making, religious-making, among other conservative things. That can lead us to affirm an ethnopluralism of ethnostates in politics, evolutionary realism in art, and theological materialism in religion and philosophy, as all groups evolve toward ascending levels of Godhood.

The metaphysical error of calling material life evil

There is no real conflict between God and the material world because, contrary to many religious traditions, religious transcendence does not transcend the material world, Godhood is the highest evolution of the material world, although it is a kind of material of which we must evolve more to fully understand.

Nietzsche rightly developed the animality of the human being in philosophy, but in replacing God, Nietzsche advanced things only as far as the superman.

Theological materialism reintroduces God again, after Nietzsche attempted to kill God. In defining Godhood as the supremely evolved living object, or objects, or supremely evolved animal, we bring Godhood back.

This means the animal, the instincts, and indeed material life, are no longer evil, especially when material life evolves to Godhood; calling material life evil was a metaphysical error which actually blocked our evolution toward ascending levels of Godhood.
 

The ethos of the revealed religions has its source in asceticism, that is, in a lifestyle of abstinence from sensual pleasures, including celibacy, withdrawing from the world, and general renunciation to pursue the spiritual goal of seeing the God within---which is really a peak material experience.

But we can conservatively retain that old Inward Path to the God within as the first imperfect glimpse of Godhood wrongly defined as spiritual now seen as materially evolving to Godhood in the Outward Path.

The Twofold Path is the way out of the Great Spiritual Blockade

The philosophy of theological materialism and the projected theoevolutionary church is whole because it has its roots in ancient religions, the tribal, the classical, the romantic, but also affirms the Enlightenment, which gave rise to the science of sociobiology now seen as a great aid in our material evolution to ascending levels of Godhood, the God first mirrored inwardly in the great religions.

This is not only religion adapting to preserve itself, which is indeed a noble Burkean action, this is a deeper and more accurate understanding of Godhood. Theological materialism at last brings the sacred and profane together since Godhood is not a non-material spiritual being opposite the so-called profane material world, Godhood is the zenith of the material world reached by material and supermaterial evolution.

We can find only the mirror of Godhood inwardly, we cannot find real Godhood by going inward in ascetic contemplation. The inward God is a good start but is not the place to stop, even if, after great ascetic discipline, the experience is blissful. We need to evolve in the material and supermaterial world to reach the Godhood we first saw inwardly.

The Twofold Path is the way out of the Great Spiritual Blockade of religious history. All the fields from science to poetry can come together in the Twofold Path.

Sacred evolution to Godhood and tradition

Having respect for the philosophy of conservatism, I have no wish to harm the great traditions of the great religions. In theological materialism the Outward Path of our evolution to Godhood is added to the Inward Path to the God-Within or Father Within of traditionalism.

All the things that have been said about attaining happiness, and ultimately attaining God, by St. Thomas, St. Augustine, and others, including the great sages of Eastern Religions, can be applied to the sacred material evolution to Godhood. But it is not only the inward vision of the divine essence we seek, it is actually evolving materially-supermaterially to Godhood, with no beginning and no end. 

The sacred evolution to Godhood can be confirmed within the structures of the laws of nature. The Will-To-Godhood, or Tirips, within primal matter activates life, natural law, and evolution, and works along with the ups and downs of natural selection and evolution. The long-term antagonism between religion and science can this way be synchronized.

There is purpose and direction to evolution as evolution moves inevitably in a pattern, even though it has its random elements, and the pattern has a discernible direction, in spite of instances of stagnation and retreat, toward higher and higher more effective living forms, all the way to Godhood.

The Inward Path to the Father Within, celebrated in the  Christian Mass of the Sacrifice of Jesus, can be seen as one of the first bonding symbolic-experiences in the West of the real Godhood now seen as attained through material and supermaterial evolution in the Outward Path. A new superseding Mass of Joy or a Mass of Evolution could be practiced in conjunction with the traditional Mass of Sacrifice of the Inward Path.

Hope to those who think backward religion can be synthesized with forward science

During the period that followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire, from about the fourth to the fourteenth century, Europe accepted the Christian faith. I think the superior literacy, books, Latin language as well as Roman ideas about laws, property, government, architecture and art, which Christianity brought to pagan Europe, won the pagans over more than Christian spirituality did. And that brings hope to those who think backward religion can be synthesized with forward science. 

We have been having another gradual takeover of religion by science since the Enlightenment with a few attempts to synthesize the two by erecting science on the ruins of churches, as the Christian's had built churches on the ruins of pagan temples, but for the most part it was a slow rout by Christianity over the pagans and a slow rout by science over religion. 

As an evolutionary conservative I prefer to build on the past rather than destroy it. I did not erect theological materialism on the ruins of Christianity, as modern thinkers did with science and the humanities, I wanted to renew the building, not tear it down. This rebirth is seen in the Twofold Path, where the God-Within, the Father-Within, is seen as the first glimpse, or the mirror of the real Godhood reached through  ascending levels of material and supermaterial evolution. 

Early Nietzsche could not see his way out of the loss of both religion and science other than through the rebirth of art-myth as a guide to truth, along with creating individual great men as the goal of culture. Nietzsche thought that this loss of myth (religion) was the result of the reasoning of Socrates which supposedly destroyed myth, and also because the “historical sense” and the abstract pursuit of knowledge for knowledge sake in modern times further destroyed myth and religion. Kant helped this destruction along by showing the limits of knowledge, and Schopenhauer by adding the irrational Will as the superior force to all knowledge. 

Politically, affirming the biological origin of social behavior is also an antidote to the abstractions not only of 19^th and 20^th century ideologies but to conflicting claims of moral superiority. This does not lead to radical revolution as the 19^th and 20^th century ideologies did, and as old religions often did, it leads to better understanding the reality of human nature living and competing in the world. 

The biological origin of social behavior, and kin and ethnic centered human nature, lead naturally to regionalism, localism, and an ethnopluralism of ethnostates, protected from marauding imperialists and supremacists by some sort of federalism. All groups can then get on with the natural business of an ethnopluralism of ethnostates and aiding our evolution to real Godhood.

Making peace in the evolutionary outward path

The dark irony of the Christians, the Revealed Religions, and the Kabbalistic and Secret Societies, is that they are not seeking separate goals. They seek the same Soul-Mind within the Involutionary Inward Path, although they have different methods to attain that end.

Even the Kabbalah joins their two paths in the Sephirot to the Unnamed Inward God, which is not nearly enough since it blocks the material evolution to real Godhood. The Masonic and Thelemic wings and the New Age are just “new” religions based on the old traditional Involutionary Inward Path.

Blavatsky claimed to unite the eastern and western occult traditions but she too tried to unite only the Inward Paths, and that was not nearly enough. Dugin's present Russian Eurasianism could be at least tangentially connected to the traditionalist occult of Shambhala, and the West tangentially connected to the Atlantis-Kabbalah occult, but both compete for the same truncated Inward God.

Theological materialism does not join the endless feuds between the Involutionary Religions. Theological materialism asks the Involutionary Religions to see and acknowledge their togetherness regarding the inward path so that ecumenism can prevail between them. Then let the Evolutionary Outward Path affirm and create the separate evolutionary development of all distinct people in the Evolutionary Outward Path of material evolution to real supermaterial Godhood, availing themselves of international evolutionary sociobiological research centers, as suggested by Cattell.

Gods are far more than the bliss of experiencing the nirvana and beatitude of inward man

Joseph Campbell said, “All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you,” and regarding the revealed religions he was right, although they also think of God as outside of man. 

The Inward Paths of the ascetic practices of the revealed religions lead to the inward bliss of experiencing the nirvana and beatitude of an inward godhood, attained by blocking all material desires, and it is entirely within man: but it is not Godhood.  

Ascending levels of Godhood are reached by material bodies evolving in the Outward Path to supermaterial bodies, which means Gods are far more than the bliss of experiencing the nirvana and beatitude of inward man.

Becoming Godhood in evolution

St. Thomas said that “The last end of human life is beatitude” and that the beatitude of man is the perfect act of seeing or feeling the divine being, which to humans is also the highest mode of Being. Buddha did much the same thing in advocating the non-material path to nirvana. That position undervalues both God and man.

According to Buddhism true reality is emptiness, which we can only see when we do not “cling” to self and phenomena, and thus see true reality. This is called “liberation” from bondage. The goal is to feel neither attachment or aversion to the world. That is liberation and beatitude, the description of the bliss felt from freeing the mind and body of all material desires. That also suggests hedonism, the ethical theory that pleasure is the highest good and proper aim of human life. That blissful condition of Christ and Buddha is a high category of hedonism hypertrophied and experienced by freeing the body and mind of all passion, and all material desires---which is no easy task.

Beatitude and Nirvana are are not the goal of the Evolutionary Outward Path to real Godhood, they are the goal of the Involuntary Inward Path to the nirvana of the Inward God or Father-Within, the Heaven-Within which Jesus Christ sought and found.

Godhood is not merely calculation, not meditation, not presence, not intuition, not deduction, and not the human experience of bliss. Godhood is a real supermaterial object, or objects, reached through material and supermaterial evolution. The highest act of life is not merely to have blissful intellectual intuition of God, it is to become Godhood in evolution.

Even so, in the Twofold Path we can conservatively retain or include the intellectual intuition of God, seen in the Involutionary Inward Path to the Soul-Within, but we must not be blocked there in a Great Spiritual Blockade. We must move on to the Evolutionary Outward Path, which is materially activated so that we can, through material and supermaterial evolution, become real Godhood.

Can perfection be reached? No, just as perfection in evolution is never final, at least not until Godhood is attained, and even then evolution continues endlessly with ascending levels of Godhood, with no ending and no beginning.

The Great Ancient Error

(Here is my speculations on the origin of the great spiritual blockade developed by traditional religions and what to do about it, modified a bit from 2008.)

The great error of the ancient Proto?-Indo-Europeans was in defining the activation within as spiritual and as God rather than as the material activation to Godhood. From this error, came the great spiritual blockade, which eventually banished the material world, even to the point of describing all material things as evil.

In the distant past Indo-European warriors of Hyperborea? discovered techniques for helping them to endure distress without mental disturbance, mantras etc. which gave them advantages over their competitors. Specialists in these techniques then developed, teaching initiate warriors etc. Gradually this class of specialists became a priest class.

As long as the techniques for helping warriors to endure distress were used for warrior purposes the great error was undeveloped. This was perhaps the high point in ancient Indo-European civilization, that is, when the inward activation, which I define as Tirips, was reached or applied primarily for the purpose of helping warriors to victory. When attaining the the inward activation or Tirips became an end in itself decline set in. The priest class became ascendant over the warrior class. The Activation Within was declared the Kingdom of God Within, and the primary purpose of existence was now to attain this God or Spirit Within. Material life, including the warrior life, was degraded and the great spiritual blockade of material life and material evolution began in earnest.

All the Revealed Religions followed this Inward Path in what has since been called the Perennial Philosophy. Perhaps some branches sought to return the balance between warriors and priests. Perhaps Zarathushtra, or his ancestors, diverged from the main group for this reason. But all branches continued the great error of defining the Spirit Within as God, and God as spiritual rather than supermaterial, and all branches of the Revealed Religions continued the great spiritual blockade against the material desires of the world.

Theological materialism and the projected Theoevolutionary Church seek to address this ancient error. The God Within is seen as the inward material activation of Tirips, activating evolving material life toward ascending levels of Godhood while working along with outside natural selection and evolution.

Theological materialism does not reject the inward activation as the secularists do, it corrects the misdefined involutionary inward path and defines Godhood as that which we must evolve to in the material and supermaterial world, which is the evolutionary outward path to real Godhood.

Warriors perhaps can affirm the period in ancient Indo-European History when the inward material activation of Tirips was applied primarily to helping the warriors, before the time when attaining the “spirit” within was defined as the primary purpose of existence. But we now apply this ethos to the Twofold Path, the inward and the outward paths, toward evolving in the material world toward ascending levels of Godhood.

The sacred goal of theological materialism

The traditional religious definition or meaning of Godhood and the path to Godhood was discovered and designed by ascetics who misinterpreted God as a “spiritual” God and a spiritual experience when their experience of God was a peak material experience of bliss derived from overcoming or blocking all material desires. 

Desire is directed toward something deeper than itself. The deeper need of survival evolved the pleasure experience from eating, just as the deeper goal of evolving to Godhood activates the desire for reproduction and survival. Ascetics were therefore mistaken in defining material desires as only causing pain, suffering, and sin. It is only through purposeful material desires that we can attain Godhood in material evolution. 

Life desires success in survival and reproduction, and the greatest and highest success in survival and reproduction is also the highest good, which is to evolve to ascending levels of Godhood, while adapting to outside natural selection and evolution.

In theological materialism Godhood and religion remain but the definition or the meaning of Godhood and the path to Godhood changes, and that path to Godhood is through material and supermaterial evolution.  So the central task of religion as well as science is to aid in the sacred material and supermaterial evolution toward Godhood.  

This means that the “first cause” is not God but is the material activation within life (Tirips) to ascending levels of Godhood, or the greatest and highest success in survival and reproduction.

Why did God and truth become thought of as non-material or non-corporeal?

Why did God and truth become thought of as non-material or non-corporeal? Why is nothing better than something? How anti-life such an idea was. Apparently ascetics who managed to overcome or block all material desires experienced a bliss from doing so that they interpreted as non-material Godhood.

The great religions say spiritual substance is greater than corporeal substance, but since there is no real spiritual substance and is only corporeal substance and super-corporeal substance the great religions were wrong about Godhood.

Intellectual truth alone is not spiritual or non-corporeal and is not the end of the universe. The highest intellectual truth exists in the highest evolved corporeal or material bodies.

We can have Godhood and religion but they need to be directly connected to corporeal and supermaterial bodies. Ascending levels of Godhood are evolved to in the material and supermaterial world and real religion can aid in that evolution.

With a bow to the wisdom of conservatism we can in the Twofold Path retain the old ascetic Inward Path as the first unfinished glimpse of the real Godhood evolved to in the material and supermaterial Outward Path.

Evolutionary conservative is the deepest kind of conservatism

The term evolutionary conservative, which I prefer, often looks oxymoronic, incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory. Nonetheless as a few conservative's have pointed out, including Burke, conservatism is reform not stasis, change is a constant of life, conservatism is adaptable. But the deepest and strongest affirmation of conservatism comes from biological evolution itself.

Steady change, not revolution, is typical in biological evolution and is a conservative way to evolve and change; we evolved three brains, one evolved upon the other---the reptilian and the mammalian brains were retained, not thrown away, even as we evolved the higher neocortex. That describes evolutionary conservatism.

For example, in the Twofold Path of theological materialism religious traditions are retained but transformed rather than rejected. The eastern ascetic experience of nirvana, and the beatific experience of heaven or the Father Within of Christ, were just that, a peak experience in the physical mind after much ascetic discipline in blocking or overcoming material desires. We can conservatively retain that preliminary Inward Path experience of the God Within, but it needs to be transformed in the Outward Path of material evolution to real Godhood. We need to conserve the best that evolves, and help that evolution along, as we continue to evolve toward ascending levels supreme intelligence, beauty, goodness, and Godhood.

In politics, trying to rid real human nature and culture of the deep-seated preference for kin and ethnic group is attempted by many ideologies. But the biological origin of social behavior and real human nature lead naturally to regionalism, localism, and an ethnopluralism of ethnostates. An ethnopluralism of ethnostates or regions could be established, legally, in the United States with our constitutional separation of powers and states, protected from marauding imperialists, supremacists, and money grubbers, by a light federalism. That too defines evolutionary conservatism.

Answering Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty Four"

John Rossi writes (Modern Age, Spring 2019) that George Orwell didn't accept the religious answer to the problems satirized in “1984” that this material life is a preparation for the next spiritual life, but that Orwell wanted to restore the religious “attitude” while accepting that death is final.
  

While Big Brother, Fascism, Libertarianism, Communism, or non-material Spiritual Religion, do not restore the religious attitude while accepting that death is final, theological materialism does.

Theological materialism is thoroughly Western and proud of it, following the Western path in centering on science and reason in affirming sociobiology and emphasizing group-selection, in line with kin and ethnic-centered human nature, as more important than the individualism preferred by the very influential 17^th and 18^th century Enlightenment.

Big Brother government in any form is not required. For example, an ethnopluralism of ethnostates or regions could be established, legally, in the United States (and elsewhere) with our constitutional separation of powers and states, protected from marauding imperialists, supremacists, and money grubbers, by a light federalism.

Theological materialism affirms religious traditions transformed rather than rejected. When theological materialism looks beneath thought and feeling it finds the multifarious processes of the instincts which activate life to evolve in the material world toward the supreme survival success of Godhood. Theological materialism accepts that death is final at this time but that the biological origin of social behavior goes on as future generations carry our various genes forward (voluntarily improved) as we evolve in the material and supermaterial world toward continuing levels of real Godhood.

Defining the parameters of free will and its sacred goal

The genes set out a blueprint for our lives, but the environment and nurture can cause a divergence from the blueprint in various ways in an attempt to help us survive and reproduce in the most successful ways. “Free will” works within these restrictions or parameters giving us choices among determined things.

I define the “will,” or the prime activation within life, as Tirips, which essentially defines "life" itself, the activation within life, within every cell of the body, always demanding things like metabolism and reproduction, which work along with outside natural selection and evolution. Tirips essentially activates material life to be "life," which ultimately means to evolve in the material world all the way to Godhood, while working within the ups and downs of nature, natural selection, and evolution.

Why would we want to be free from the activation of the will, which is really saying free from the essential drives of human nature and life itself?

Healthy virtue and morality grow out of the activation of Tirips and finding the best way to channel life---that is material life---toward evolving to what life essentially seeks anyway: supermaterial Godhood. When virtue and morality grow out of blocking the drives and desires of life, as traditional asceticism teaches, even if the blockade is designed to experience the Father-Within, life moves toward the death of life.

We can conservatively retain the Twofold Path for both the ascetic symbolic Inward Path and the actual living Outward Path, but life ultimately means to evolve in the Outward Path of the material world all the way to real supermaterial Godhood.

Why I accept Nietzsche's advice to quit grumbling and accept my fate

I've made big changes in my philosophy through the years, not with 10,000 people watching, more like a few hundred people watching, and the changes looked like being inconsistent in principles, or at variance with stability. It seems better to people if you can remain the same all through your life or make changes right in line with your past work.

But I wasn't lucky enough to be raised with a philosophy I could maintain all my life. And maybe because of that I developed a distrust of intellectual authority, which had both good and bad consequences in my life. The good was the creative independence I had in developing my philosophy, the bad was burning all my bridges so others could not easily follow me, or me them.

I developed at least five new religious philosophies before I arrived at my present philosophy, which is lasting. I began with rejecting Christianity and developing several new versions of paganism. Then over time, influenced by both conservation and sociobiology, I developed Evolutionary Catholicism. And finally after much study and thinking I developed theological materialism and the projected Theoevolutionary Church.

Each time, with each change, I sent my work to people who couldn't follow my changes over the years or who still think I have the same past views---even my family, which bothers me. Those who follow me now are mostly new people.

But I know I wouldn't be who I am today and I wouldn't have developed my present philosophy if my life had gone any other way. So, as best I can I accept Nietzsche's advice, which he got from the Greeks, to quit grumbling (as I have just done) and accept my fate.

Theological materialism is thoroughly Western and proud of it

Theological materialism is thoroughly Western and proud of it, following the Western path in centering on science and reason, but emphasizing group-selection as more important than the individualism preferred by the 17^th and 18^th century Enlightenment. And unlike the Enlightenment, theological materialism affirms religious tradition transformed rather than rejected.

I affirm those few westerners who envisioned a religion from science (like the great Raymond Cattell's "Beyondism"). Theological materialism affirms supermaterial Godhood reached by material and supermaterial evolution but conservatively considers the evolutionary Outward Path as an improvement, not a rejection, of the Inward Path to the God within of Traditional religions.

For example, the eastern experience of nirvana, and the beatific experience of heaven or the Father Within of Christ, were just that, a peak experience in the physical mind after much ascetic discipline in blocking or overcoming material desires. We can conservatively retain that preliminary Inward Path experience of the God Within, but it needs to be transformed in the Outward Path of material evolution to real Godhood.

While I respect some of the conclusions of the Traditionalist School of Guénon and Evola---and now Aleksandr Dugin (eg. ethnostatism), the Traditionalist School does not find science (a jewel of the West) nearly as important as Eastern spiritualism (a jewel of the East) and they reject and want to destroy the Western world for its gross materialism. Among American followers of Dugin patriotism is unfairly lost in seeing only the flaws of the West, which are redeemable. For example, an ethnopluralism of ethnostates or regions could be established, legally, in the United States with our constitutional separation of powers and states, protected from marauding imperialists, supremacists, and money grubbers, by a light federalism.

Theological materialism looks beneath thought and feeling and finds the multifarious processes of the instincts, or Tirips, which activate life to evolve toward the supreme survival success of Godhood. This activation exists within material life and is never separate from it, and works within and adapts to the environments life finds itself living in---there is no spiritual/material duality here. The activation of material life toward evolving to Godhood is the unchanging constant, but values within this basic instinct can conservatively change, as evolution makes new discoveries and presents new challenges as we evolve toward Godhood.