Why I am not a subjectivist

Objects exist in reality and we see only various levels and degrees of what the object really is. What we see requires a mind and eye evolved and sensual input to see what is seen and known.

We can see and know what our bodies and minds can see and know, and there are various levels of development of bodies and minds in seeing and knowing.

But there is always the objective object, seen from the viewpoint of different evolved levels of consciousness.

This is why Godhood requires a God's mind to see and know, which is why Godhood must be evolved to before we can know Godhood or define the absolute name and form of Godhood, and not before that. Esoteric religions which claim a name for God are therefore getting considerably ahead of themselves. 

What most Traditions define as God or the Father is the desire-free state or experience that mystics can enter in the Soul-Mind of man, which is not Godhood.

Jazz and Conservatism

Jazz music, at least classic jazz, contains a kind of conservatism that is very creative. Traditional tunes are improvised on. The new is synthesized into the old, often in exciting ways. Avant-garde jazz (and art) usually rejects the old and creates only what is new.

Most ideologies have no realistic way to move from the past and present to the future. Revitalized Conservatism and Ordered Evolution address this dilemma in both religion and politics.

Convergence is overemphasized by Teilhard

Most scientists do not believe in a directed evolution. I don't think science has adequately accounted for the constant rise of evolution from the simple to the complex, toward higher consciousness, intelligence etc. Teilhard De Chardin addressed this question with the illustration of a river finding its course by adjusting to the terrain it flows over. Evolution is directed from within like the river flow and shaped from without by the terrain of evolution.

But Teilhard saw a future for mankind that I cannot affirm. Teilhard saw a great collective coming together of mankind, a convergence into one superhuman mankind, containing the whole of man, with no parallel evolution, no separateness. Convergence is emphasized by Teilhard whereas divergence is emphasized by Evolutionary Christianity (EC).

Evolution both converges and diverges but it is the divergence which drives the central flow or activates the river of evolution. Convergence holds the pattern before the next level of evolution diverges. Both are necessary, but the future belongs to divergence.

Affirming divergence takes EC away from the collectivism and even totalitarianism of Teilhard. Divergence leads to parallel evolution, independent states, and some form of federalism which supplies the overall convergent order.

Human nature as carefully defined by sociobiology affirms divergence, humans naturally prefer their own in a fundamental biological way, and this is largely overlooked by Teilhard. Social programs must be harmonized with  human nature or the programs will be short lived, which is why most new ideologies don't last long.

Do we worship definitions or objects?

The language of philosophy and theology seems to create both Being that does not exits as an object in reality, and Being that does exist as an object in reality. Theology and philosophy seem to define Being, or God as, (1) an idea and not an object of substance, or (2) an object that does exist in some kind of substance. I combine these two in theological materialism, with a Being-Object that usually does not exist until it is evolved to in the future.

I say objects are vastly more important than definitions of objects. Even the definition of Godhood, which supposedly is only in God's Mind, is less important than the Supreme Object Godhood.

Theology has more often said truth is an actual existing object (although “spiritual”), and philosophy has more often said truth is an idea (spiritual?), which in an odd way makes theology more like science in seeking the real existing object. But science too gets lost in mathematics, as philosophy and theology get lost in definitions. It is the task of philosophy, theology, and science to know the difference between these.

There is not materiality in every form of speech, some speech is idealistic, or a creation of what does not exist, but this does not mean that reality exists only in language.  Materiality evolves to supermateriality, and this closes the gap between the so-called spiritual and the material, as there is no duality here. The formerly spiritual exists as a supermaterial object, which can have a name and a definition, but the name or definition is not what we acknowledge or worship, it is the existing object, or the Supreme Object, which we acknowledge, or worship, and seek to evolve to become.

The Substance of the Soul and Spirit-Will

“Christ” dwells in the Soul of human beings, but the Spirit-Will dwells at the Zenith of the Soul. They are not the same, they do not have the same goal.

The Inward Path leads, with much effort, to the ego-less, blissful state of the Soul, or Christ, which Jesus and other great mystics reached, and is a virtual mirror of Godhood, but not Godhood. The Outward Path of life, which requires even more effort, is activated within by the Spirit-Will to evolve to Godhood, which is then shaped from without by evolution.

Christ is the goal of the Inward Path to the Soul, the Spirit-Will defines and activates the Outward Path of evolution leading to Godhood. This is the Twofold Path of the Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC).

Both the Spirit-Will and Godhood contain Real Substance, but this is a far more subtle supermaterial body than, say, a granite rock, or even sun light. This is a central point in ECC.

It is because of this supermateriality that material science will one day define these subtle bodies, with perhaps new knowledge or new technology, and affirm at least some of what religion has been trying to say for thousands of years.

Convergence, Divergence and Governance in Evolution

Contrary to the implications of Teilhard De Chardin, convergence and simplicity are not opposites, divergence is not merely the lack of complexity, divergence is not a Roussean return to the primitive, convergence is not the only good movement in evolution.

Divergence is vital in evolution, but so is convergence, the results of divergence in selection are made to last with convergence. This is the Ordered Evolution I speak of, with “order” more or less defining convergence, and “evolution” defining divergence.  This then defines Revitalized Conservatism.

Divergence does not mean anarchy, anarchy is a less civilized simplicity. Efficient institutions are a sign of the civilizing of the beast, not a sign of decadence.

Representative government seems to be the middle ground between various kinds of dictatorship and elitist aristocracy---we need real elected representative leaders, not the totalitarian masses to lead. The Church offers voluntary guidance, separate from the state, even if in its own institution the Church is a form of monarchy.

Small states need to evolve at their own pace, some faster, some slower, but all guided to Godhood, voluntarily, in this theological materialism. Monism is not the totalitarian "sociological monism" of Teilhard (and Marx), the path to the Supreme Monism of Godhood, for all, is through divergence, protected in its convergence with a light federalism, or subsidiarity as the Church calls it, as we evolve to Godhood.

We will need to diverge from the human species if we are to evolve to Godhood, we cannot stop at humans no matter how wonderful we are.  Contrary to Teilhard, Godhood does not transcend matter to the spiritual, Godhood is the evolution of the material to the supermaterial.

Young actresses inevitably degrade and sacrifice themselves on the alter of Hollywood

Young actresses usually begin their careers in Hollywood playing good girls, perhaps because they are good girls, but inevitably they degrade and sacrifice themselves on the alter of Hollywood, playing foul-mouthed sexual degenerates. Then another good girl arrives and the same debasement happens again. The young women are shamed in their good girl image by Hollywood agents, producers and the media, who actually seem to hate wholesome girls, while abusing them. The problem is that Hollywood has helped shape popular culture into refusing to define any behavior as foul or debased, and young people live within this debased culture, even if they originally came from families who tried to teach them traditional morality.

Hollywood is dominated by people who either refuse or are unable to conform to the dominate culture, which is still at least a watered-down Christian culture. They proceed to tear down the traditional culture every chance they get, and since they dominate the media, they get many chances to do so.

No wonder puritanical men arise feeling like gallant knights saving the damsels in distress. The problem now is that the damsels have been so thoroughly indoctrinated by Hollywood that they don't even know they are in distress, at least not until they find that they have to enter some substance abuse treatment program---but even then Hollywood profits from what should be bad publicity.

Changing Hollywood now seems impossible, they have obtained the power to tell you to go to hell. Back in the early days they had to submit to traditional movie codes, and so on, but not anymore. So what do you do when there is no compromise between warring parties?

Imperial dictatorship is not the answer, although this has often been tried during similar circumstances in human history. I do not believe that one people is chosen or has supremacy over all others. I believe in divergence and variety. This means that you need to separate the warring parties, give them their space, if need be even give them their own small state or ethnostate. Then you protect all the small states with light federalism.

And build your own media.

Hip Hop, Rappers, and the Gentleman

Modern day Rousseauns (modern liberals) seem to welcome Hip Hop and rap culture because they seem to prefer the obscene nursery rhymes of the “innocent primitive” "uncorrupted" by Western civilization and its evils. If Hip hop and rap culture had its own independent ethnostate I wouldn't have much of a problem with it, but I prefer more the culture of the Gentleman. 

I am not talking here about simpering, over-civilized fops when I speak of the Gentleman, I am talking about the fundamental idea of "gentry" symbolized in his grant of coat-armor, and his superiority as a fighting man, and I'm taking about unsurpassed Western civilization.

Since evolution is a central root of my worldview I am obviously not against change or new things, but my kind of evolutionary conservatism synthesizes the new into the old. Ordered evolution is the term I use for change and stability, not anarchy.

During the Dark Ages in Europe anarchic barbarians overcame what was then civilization, and it took well over a thousand years to turn the barbarians into European and English gentleman. Assuming you prefer the gentleman, we might have to wait awhile before Hip Hoppers and rappers to become Gentleman.

There is not necessarily a racial component to being a Gentleman, white barbarians who preceded the Dark Age seem to have been at least as barbarian as Hip Hoppers and rappers but they eventually became Gentleman through the evolution of nurture and nature and the development of ethnostates.

Philosophers make a false idol of language

Heidegger seems to think that language not merely expresses the world, including Being, language gives the world shape, the shape of Being is always and only linguistic. ( see “Heidegger and Aquinas,” Caputo).

This is considered a problem in modern philosophy, but it is not a problem in reality.  Language should not and does not create the actual world, or create Being, when it does it is giving itself far too much importance.

I think language remains what it was for Aristotle and St. Thomas, an exterior sign of interior mind. Language does not give birth to Being, when it does it is in error.

The error of relativistic Structuralism seems to be in this Heideggerian reading of language, to them Being always depends on the language used to define Being, so there are different Beings for different languages, since Being only exists in languages.

We invent being with language when we don't know what Being is, but this invention does not mean that Being is only an invention of language, it illustrates that we are inventing Being with language and not that Being is only language.

Being is an Object, or Objects, a Thing, and man can try to put a word to Being, but the word does not create Being. The exact, Absolute, Real Word or Words for Godhood can only be known by Godhood, or perhaps by a penultimate Gods.

As we become higher evolved we will better define Being, but language will never be Being Itself, not even with Godhood. Even with Godhood, language will still be the exterior expression of interior mind, based on both sensual input and memory even in Godhood's case, it will be Absolute Exterior Expression of Absolute Interior Mind.

Opening the three thousand year old blockade

The great reluctance to affirm material life is seen in the path of taking action in life only as long as it is not materialistic, as a sacrifice to God, which is seen in both the Christian and Eastern religions---since we are alive whether we like it or not, the question becomes not whether to act but how to act.

But this is meant only for the Involutionary Inward Path to the Soul Within where the Father dwells. Jesus sacrificed his life introducing the truths of this Inward Path to the Western world—the path was already known in the East.

The ethics of the materially sacrificial Inward Path are not meant for the Evolutionary Outward Path, which affirms material evolution as the vehicle by which we evolve to Godhood.

Traditionalist Rama Coomaraswamy said, “Forgotten is the way to Heaven,” Forgotten? The Outward Path to Godhood has not even been properly known.

With the Outward Path, Evolutionary Christianity opens the Great Spiritual Blockade against evolving from the material to the supermaterial and to Godhood. The Outward Path is added to the traditional Inward Path. The tree thousand year old blockade to Godhood is now opening.

Particularism and Internationalism

The difference between the social philosophy of Evolutionary Christianity (EC) and Teilhard De Chardin is that EC affirms particularism and Teilhard affirms internationalism. I think the road to internationalism is through particularism. Teilhard opposes pluralism and wants humans to converge into one, world-wide, socialized synthesis. This is related to Teilhard's view of a convergent, spiritual, Omega Point, which is a subject for another reflection.

Divergence is not much mentioned by Teilhard who prefers convergence. The problem with centering on convergence is that it does not relate well to human nature. Any totalization of man is always pulled into divergence and particularism because man always prefers his own, and this needs to be affirmed and not denied. Evolution has taken place through variety and divergence as well as convergence, but positive mutations are protected with particularism.

What we need, and what we are capable of, is cooperative competition, as we rise in evolution toward Godhood. Small states protected by light federalism best affirm human nature, and best allow evolution to take place. Research centers in every nation, with a central intercommunication regarding upward evolution, perhaps as envisioned in the brilliant and volatile ideas of Raymond Cattell, is an example of how cooperative competition can be guided. Many of these questions are ethical and moral questions and Evolutionary Christianity would want to help lead this effort. 

Godhood is the goal of religion, the material world evolves to the supermaterial world and not to an immaterial, abstract, Omega Point, therefore, this great goal also vitally involves social philosophy informed by sociobiology.

On Language

It seems to me that Heidegger does not make his case for changing the old idea of language as primarily communication, words as an exterior sign of the interior mind, or language communicating meanings already constituted in the mind.

Heidegger wants to reject this “dualist” language theory (see “Heidegger and Aquinas,” by Caputo), but in the process I see only complicated obfuscation---to say that “language is not representative but manifestative” is to me obfuscation.

It is true that we can develop names for things that do not exist outside of our minds, but this is still language representing our interior mind, our interior minds simply can be ignorant of the exterior world as in a dream and not describe reality. The hope is that intelligence and consciousness will evolve to find the correct or real knowledge of the exterior world, and then use the interior mind to describe that exterior reality as accuratley as possible.

When both beings and Being are known and seen as material and supermaterial existing real objects, and not as immaterial word creations or definitions, then the language describing these objects may eliminate Idealism and most metaphysics. Language will continue to be an exterior sign of interior mind, but with high enough evolution, perhaps only with the Supreme Godhood attained, Godhood's Mind existing in Godhood's Body will describe Absolute Reality with Absolute Language.

Defining The Humanities

I believe the Humanities in colleges and universities should be directed toward two central themes: discovering and defining human nature, and then discovering and finding how culture can deal with and balance itself with human nature. Basic syllabus courses in literary studies, philosophy and other humane disciplines, and even sociobiology can be examined with this in mind.

Traditionally in the West, for eight hundred years or so, the Church defined human nature in higher education, and people were educated with skills that taught them to be of service to Church and state.

Over time this changed to where the humanities were expected to be an actual indoctrination regarding the evils of class, race and gender. (see R. V. Young, “The Liberal Arts and the Loss of Cultural Memory”)

With the financial collapse now comes the virtual abandonment of the humanities---which had already abandoned the traditional humanities---in favor of humanities directed toward research that will have a direct economic impact on society, that is, making higher education more like glorified vocational schools.

Heidegger's Being and the Spirit-Will

(The following post from May 12 was lost in Blogger's technical problems of yesterday, although it did go out to some followers.  I am posting it again so it will be included in my categories.)

Thursday, May 12, 2011

“The difference between beings and Being is the area within which metaphysics, Western thinking in the totality of its essence, can be what it is.” (Heidegger, “Identitat and Differenz”)

Heidegger's Being seems to be what I define as the Spirit-Will, which is not Being and not Godhood. Heidegger's Being is not the cause of beings, his Being comes to pass by passing into beings (see “Heidegger and Aquinas” by Caputo). Again this to me is the Spirit-Will.

Being, or Godhood, is the cause of beings, which are always activated by the Spirit-Will within them. The Spirit-Will activates the material world which is shaped by outward evolution to evolve to Godhood, and then, with Godhood attained the Spirit-Will is enclosed within the next Kosmos.

Being as Godhood is as concrete in the world and not abstract as beings in the world, however, Godhood is the highest evolved concrete object, the zenith of concrete evolution. There is no difference between Being and beings that cannot be explained by the level of evolution of the beings.

Godhood is Eternally Represented in the kosmos through “offspring” beings in the kosmos, but Godhood Itself has “finitude” in the sense that Godhood transmutes into offspring in the next kosmos. It is the kosmos of objects related to Godhood that are eternally represented---as we all instinctively seek to be activated by the Spirit-Will to eternal representation.

Back To Human Nature For Culture

Throughout history, human nature has been, among other things, kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, xenophobic, religious-making, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. In addition to this definition from sociobiology, which I largely affirm, I believe that human nature is also fundamentally activated by the Spirit-Will within life, which is then shaped by evolution from without.

This view of human nature, which takes a little courage to affirm in the political correctness of the times, should be at the foundation of culture. When culture goes against this view of human nature, history shows that it is always pulled back, sometimes violently, sometimes more slowly.

What would culture look like if it was in harmony with the real human nature just defined? It would contain many elements of classical conservatism. But in addition to conservatism it would take into account the evolutionary nature of the activating Spirit-Will within, which seeks to activate all life to evolve to Godhood in the Kosmos. This would balance out the order of conservatism with evolution, with what I call Ordered Evolution.

Applying this worldview to all people suggests a world of small states, or ethnostates, protected by a light federalism, and, voluntarily, guided in upward evolution by the Church.

Divine Attachment To Nature

Buddha's disciple, pushed by Buddha, at first sees a flag in motion, then he sees the wind in motion, then finally he sees the mind in motion, which I think also defines Western Idealism. Both dwell on the mind and not on the world of nature which they consider unreal, more or less. In the Bhagavad Gita (3: 4-9) Krishna gives advice to Arjuna regarding how to perform work yet not remain in the karmic grip of nature and sense objects. This is also like St. Paul telling his followers that if they must marry then they must, but it is far better not to marry and seek God Within.

They all lead to rejecting the real world (which they call unreal) in favor of a definition or principle or blissful condition not of the real world.  Nature is always the enemy in the Inward Path of Traditional Religion and one must rid the body of all attachment to nature. If some connection to real life is allowed they say we must deal with it without any attachment to it. One attains this goal by completely emptying oneself of ones ego so that one can be “One” with the Father, containing nothing of oneself.   Jesus, Buddha and others attained this condition.

This is all part of the Great Spiritual Blockade against nature evolving to Godhood, Real Godhood, which is a Godhood not the same as the immaterial, virtual God or Father Within of the Soul. This inward condition is a blissful glimpse of Real Godhood which can be attained by fulfilling, not getting rid of, divine evolutionary desires of nature which seek to evolve to Godhood---but not profane devolutionary desires. True Godhood is attained in this Outward Path.

That being said, both Paths are included in the Twofold Path of Evolutionary Christianity. Ordered Evolution and Revitalized Conservatism define the social philosophy of the Evolutionary Christian Church where the importance of synthesizing the new into the old is understood. But the Traditional definitions of the Higher Self and Lower Self are reversed, with the Lower Self defined as the Soul at Zenith of the Mind, where virtual God is seen, and the Higher Self at the Zenith of the Soul, where the Spirit-Will can help guide us to evolve to  Kosmic Godhood. We must move beyond the centripetal Inward Soul to the centrifugal Outward Spirit-Will.

The Divine Goal of Heredity

Teilhard De Chardin defined “orthogenesis,” the principle of purpose, as the only complete form of heredity. I see the Spirit-Will as a supermaterial form of heredity which is received through reproduction and survival and is the activating instinct of matter. The Spirit-Will is teleological, Its purpose is to attain Godhood by way of evolution, activating matter as its vehicle to Godhood. This means that Godhood is the divine and ultimate goal of our heredity.

The Spirit-Will is an implicit supermaterial force (not merely “psychic or immaterial), yet to be defined explicitly by science, but it will be. The Spirit-Will works with natural selection at any level, evolution then shapes matter. Life has evolved in stages moving upward in complication, consciousness and intelligence, as well as sideways and backward, and it will continue to do so, as long as life survives, all the way to Godhood, and then in the next Kosmos.

Beyond Quantum Mechanics?

“ Neither Einstein's relativity nor quantum mechanics are physics so we cannot use them as a foundation for our new model (although we should find that the mathematics that works in the real world still applies). We have to discard "modern" physics and return to the classical physics of a century ago. This, perhaps, is the greatest hurdle – to discard our training and prejudices and to approach the problem with a beginner's mind.

The "something absolutely fundamental" that is missing in our explanation of gravity and quantum behavior is the electrical structure of matter. Here we are not talking about negative electrons and positive atomic nuclei. We must "go down" one more level and propose that all subatomic particles, including the electron, are resonant structures of electric charges of opposite sign that sum to the charge on that particle.

The electron is not a fundamental, point-like particle.⁴ It must have structure to provide its dipole magnetic field. There must be orbital motion of charges within the electron to generate the magnetic dipole. The transfer of electrical energy between the charges in their orbits must be resonant and near-instantaneous for the electron to be a stable particle. The same model applies to the proton and the neutron. This model satisfies Einstein's view that there must be some lower level of structure in matter to cause resonant quantum effects...” (Italics mine)

(From “The Electric Universe” )

How I resolve Kantian subjectivism and Hegelian evolutionism

How do I resolve Kantian subjectivism and Hegelian evolutionism with the concept of objective and unchanging truth, “without which the concept of unchangeable Catholic dogma can make no sense.” ? (Bishop Richard Williamson )

Unchanging truth is not God, it is the definition of God. Godhood itself is an actual Supreme Object or Objects evolved to in the cosmos, which then evolves higher.

Subjectivism leaves out the teleological goal of Godhood, activated by the Spirit-Will within all life, which evolves not subjective truths but different evolutionary levels of seeing the same truths of the world, with only the highest evolved Godhood able to see more Absolute Truths.  Intellectualism has been too much with us in religion.

Dramatic Simplicity

I think I would define the best writing style as I would the best music style: a piece of music is great if it stops you short and makes you listen to it, and a writing piece is great if it stops you short and makes you read it.

It seems to contain a simplicity in beauty, but more a dramatic simplicity in beauty.

Barber's Adagio for Strings does this. Bach is sacred and beautiful, yet if you straighten out his complicated Baroque beauty you seem to find a simple, dramatic, Romantic line. The best Romantics show this kind of simplification of Bach.

Writers who do this sort of thing do their work for the reader, simplifying, clearing up, illuminating, yet with beauty, and with strong, beautiful, dramatic simplicity which stops you short and makes you read it.

Perhaps all great art and culture does this, including philosophy and religion.

St. Thomas and Sociobiology

Thomas didn't study the modern subject of sociobiology, but his ideas on love and bonding harmonize with sociobiology.

The different categories of friendship discussed by Thomas put God first, kinsmen second, then fellow citizens, and then fellow human beings (see J. Polet's “Christianityand Global Citizens,” Modern Age, Summer, 2010) This harmonizes with human nature as defined by sociobiology, minus the view on God.

The Second Commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves does not say first love the global community as ourselves, which is the only politically correct love now allowed. Since we cannot really do good to all, we ought to consider those who are closer to us. To Thomas, the nature of charity is necessarily preferential and bound by local circumstances. In times of extreme necessity then everything tends to become common property.

We are to provide for our own first and give alms out of our surplus. As in sociobiology, Thomas believes moral demands decrease the farther we get from the center.

In describing human nature, Evolutionary religion includes the love of God, defined as the love of the Spirit-Will to evolve to Godhood. All men, all races, are activated by the Spirit-Will within a human nature that must harmonize with social philosophy. Human nature is basically kin-centered, local, tribal or ethnic, and even xenophobic; to deny it does not make it go away.

Our view of human nature and Godhood leads to the rejection of supremacy or imperialism and to the affirmation of small states, or ethnostates, protected by a light federalism, and guided by the Church in helping all men evolve to Godhood. Thomas might not approve of our evolutionary divine goals, but would find accord with  our view of human nature.

Symbolic and Real God

The Inward Path needs to allow the Outward Path

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna taught much the same things as Jesus Christ did in the New Testament, but with different cultural phases, and images. These men taught in symbols, yet they have been often understood literally. Religious Tradition West and East can be understood as being similar when they are seen symbolically rather than literally. Ecumenism can this way apply.

The God-Within, the Father, whom Jesus and Krishna intimately knew and felt, does not literally make these men God, they were speaking of the God within all men, within all nature, whom they have become completely identified with in their lives. This understanding was very difficult to come by, requiring much discipline, forsaking all the desires of the flesh. This is the God-Within of the Involutionary Inward Path in the Theoevolutionary Church. This is the God of Tradition, the ecumenical God.

Evolutionary Christianity presents the Twofold Path in affirming the Evolutionary Outward Path, which is the Path of Evolution, this is not the Path to the God Within but the Path to the Godhood Without, who is attained at the Zenith of Evolution, from the material to the supermaterial and Godhood. This is not a symbolic or virtual God, this is Real Godhood, the Supreme Object.

There has been a Great Spiritual Blockade against the Real God, total identity has gone to the bliss of experiencing the God Within, which has blocked our evolution to Real Godhood. The Paths need to be reoriented, the Inward Path needs to allow the Outward Path. Religion can join the real world and use all knowledge to help all people evolve to Kosmic Godhood, while holding on to the God Within of Tradition to give us a divine glimpse of Real Godhood.

New Monism and Tradition

Ones monism seems to lean toward either spiritualism or materialism. I synthesize these into supermaterialism, but a supermaterialism that occupies the same space as spiritualism. The Traditional spiritualism is the Inward Path, supermaterialism is the Outward Path, in the Twofold Path.

This follows the general Revitalized Conservatism of Evolutionary Christianity and theological materialism, and Ordered Evolution, which rejects revolutionary methods while affirming ordered evolution to Godhood. The Traditional Inward Path leads to the God Within or the Godmind, the Outward Path leads to the evolution of life to Real Godhood.  This is the Twofold Path.

Over time in a persistent but non-systematic way I am fitting Evolutionary Christianity into an historical philosophical and theological system. I have been comparing Primordial Tradition, Aristotle, Aquinas, Nietzsche, Bergson, Teilhard, Heidegger, Cattell, and New Age thinkers. And yet it is a new system with its own terminology. It is big enough to mainly satisfy my mind.

On Participating In Being

Every being (small b) is being-in-itself, the slight but important connection with Godhood, or Being (capital B), is by way of the activating Spirit-Will-To-Godhood Within.  In any case, Godhood transforms or transmutes, that is, evolves, into cosmic Godhood. Aquinas said we can't say “running itself runs,” but yes we can, when the runner and running are seen as ongoing and endless evolution, and when we don't give overdo emphasis to abstract things.

The distinction between Being and being is between levels of evolution, with the highest evolved as Being-Godhood, and beings which are still evolving to Godhood. This shows that life is in the old “image of God,” as well as illuminating the old alchemical saying “as above so below.”

Saying such things as “the concrete participates in the abstract” gives far too much attention to the abstract, as metaphysicians tend to do. Even if a metaphysical model may need its abstract “pure form,” definitions and denotations of the concrete are inferior, nonliving, elements of the concrete, or should be considered so.

The concrete in any case is always evolving and changing, as is the river of Heraclitus, and this includes transforming Godhood, therefore “perfection” is not an unchanging thing, even if metaphysics desires an unchanging thing and therefore defines an abstract principle as unchanging. Godhood is as real and alive as you and I, only far higher evolved, and this is the perfection of the cosmos, which  transforms into cosmic Godhood.  Old cosmos continue seeking to evolve to cosmic Godhood, activated by the Spirit-Will within the the life within them.

Symbolic Gender, Spirit and Duality

Tradition seems to see the Spirit as the Heavenly Mother (eg. Shekinah of the Hebrews) but if one must attach gender to these things I see the Spirit-Will as more the Heavenly Father, since the Spirit-Will is the activator of material and supermaterial life. Would matter than be more female? But I don't attach gender to these things because it encourages a false duality. Matter and Spirit are always together, as the material and supermaterial, in their evolution together to Godhood.

This nonduality also means one does not “sacrifice” the “temple” of the body to Spirit, because in doing so we lose the means, the vehicle, required to evolve to Godhood. This sacrifice is done in the Inward Path where in doing so one can see and experience the God or Godmind Within, but this is not Godhood. Godhood is reached through the Outward Path with the evolution of material life to supermaterial life and Godhood. Nevertheless, both Paths are included in Evolutionary Christianity.

Purpose In Evolution

Purpose is seen in the rise of the various spheres in and around the earth, from the electrical gases to the geosphere to the biosphere, etc. which also seem to have risen in the same general sequence in our galaxy and in the kosmos. This does not mean that evolution has not taken place in forming these various spheres, there was purpose from within which was shaped by evolution from without.

Science doesn't yet approve of this analysis but the same purposeful evolution in the kosmos will take place from electrical gases, to the biosphere, to man, to superman, to Angels, to Penultimate Gods, to Godhood. This is a teleology vital to our worldview and religion, this is purpose activated by the Spirit Within the evolving material and supermaterial world.

Can Classical Tradition Be Salvaged?

It seems to me that the classical educational goal of “eudaemonia,” happiness-through-restraint, will be required in the very long evolution to Godhood. (see Koons on Babbit, Modern Age) This also means that the teleological kosmos of the classical world can remain, although changed to relate to the goal of evolving to Godhood. Self-control and prudence are classical virtues required in the survival and evolution of all groups all the way to Godhood.

Human nature can be a central subject of study, as it was in classical times, but the vital field of sociobiology needs to be included if culture is to reflect what we are. Otherwise culture will always be snapped back to human nature, one way or another.

“Ordered Evolution” rather than the more classical “ordered liberty” better describes Revitalized Conservatism. This affirmation of political restraint can remain.

It seems to me that the synthesized mix of democracy and aristocracy, defined as the ideal order, can remain, seen in the original Republican Constitution of the United States, but it too needs revitalization. Raymond Cattell's cooperative competition between evolving groups is within human capability, with small states, protected with light federalism.

Godhood also remains the goal, but a Godhood reached through evolution. The Involutionary Path to the God within of traditional religion remains, along with the Evolutionary Path to Godhood, in the Twofold Path of Evolutionary Christianity.

The Senses and the Spirit

St. Thomas said, “Nothing is in the intellect before it is in the senses,” and this is largely true, but the Spirit-Will is in the mind/body before it is in the senses. Knowledge comes in the mind from the outside world via the senses but then it is synthesized, knowingly or unknowingly, with knowledge from the indwelling Spirit.

The Spirit Within has wisdom from the past going back through our descendants all the way to Godhood from whence it came. This knowledge exits at the Zenith of the Soul, and the Soul exists at the Zenith of the Mind, and the mind takes in knowledge from the body and the senses.

We think in terms of following or getting in harmony with the wisdom of the Universal Spirit-Will more than the Individual Spirit-Will. The Universal seeks Godhood through evolution more directly, but the individual may not be aware of this, or seeks Godhood in a far more round about way.

Angels, Godhood, and Being

I don't see Angels as form without matter, Angels may be understood as supermaterial, as is Godhood, only Godhood is on the highest evolved level of supermateriality.

Both Godhood and Angels are activated by the Spirit-Will, as all life is, but in Godhood the Spirit-Will has reached the Zenith of Evolution.

Godhood's “destination” at the Zenith of Evolution is like all of life to create a cosmos
where life can be uniquely and eternally represented. The dream or ideal of all life and endless evolution.

Life in the old cosmos, which often falls back into collapse or begins again in Big Bangs, is also activated by the Spirit-Will, or the Will To Godhood seeking Godhood through the evolution of the material to the supermaterial and then Godhood. This defines "life."

Supermateriality will allow us to comprehend Being-Itself or Godhood yet not understand the qualities and substance of Godhood. But this too may be better understood as we and our intellects evolve.

It seems that St. Thomas shifted from Aristotle to Plato in describing abstract God (Caputo, “Heidegger and Aquinas”) which I don't go along with. This Platonic God becomes a God of definition, rather than describing God and Angels as different levels of substance and supermateriality by way of evolution.

The abstract idea of “pure perfection” always blockades the real material world, as if the world is evil. But when the material is seen to evolve to the supermaterial then this Great Spiritual Blockade of the evolution to Godhood will be opened, and true Godhood can be reached. But even Godhood never stops evolving, there is no ending or beginning.

Life differs greatly from abstract life, Being is supermaterial life, abstracts only define Being. Also the “act” of Being is not Being, acting is part of Being, but acting alone is not Being any more than the definition of Being is Being.

We cannot split Being into pieces and define one part of Being as Being. Metaphysics needs to be brought back/forward to the material and supermaterial minus the spiritual-only definitions.

Soul and Spirit

The way to Godhood is through the Soul to the Spirit-Will at the Zenith of the Soul. The Inward Path is Soul-centered, the Outward Path is Spirit-centered. The Soul in the the Evolutionary Christian Church ECC resembles the Spirit of Traditional religions. The Soul is the part of the human psyche which can see and allow the Spirit-Will.

The Father, or Atman, is the deepest part of the Soul, not the deepest part of the Spirit-Will. Atman and the Father are not Godhood. “Christ” is the desire-free, blissful, virtual condition of Godhood, the Father, the Godmind within the Soul. Jesus was both God and man in the sense that he saw and knew this Bliss of the Soul, which is the virtual God within. This means that “Christ” is also an ecumenical state, sharing the Father-Within with other religions which have seen or experienced the same Soul, at the Zenith of the Mind, but naming the experience somewhat different.

In the ECC the Spirit seeks Godhood by activating the material body to evolve from the material to the supermaterial, shaped by evolution from without.

In the Twofold Path of the ECC the Traditional Inward Path leads to the Soul and the Outward Path leads to the Spirit, which then activates life to evolve to Godhood, shaped by evolution from without. Seeing the Outward Path is seeing the “dharma,” the order, getting in harmony with the activating Spirit. This is the Will To Godhood and the Will Of Godhood. The Inward Path gives us a blissful hint of this real Godhood.

New beginnings need to be attached to Tradition

I disagree with Alain DeBenoist that the West, and the East, as designations, should be forgotten. 

What we need is a Revitalized Conservatism, as the Evolutionary Christian Church advocates, not a “new” form, not a new culture that makes the same revolutionary projections as all idealism makes.

New beginnings need to be attached to Tradition, and this is difficult enough. We need a world of thousands of ethnostates, with all people, all races empowered to evolve to Godhood at their own pace. But this is not the same Godhood as the old involutionary Godmind, that is really a state of bliss within the mind-Soul of man, which is fine as far as it goes. The Twofold Path adds the actual supreme object, Godhood, evolved to in the Kosmos, from the material to the supermaterial.

With this revitalized Twofold Path, Christianity and other Traditional religions can remain viable.

Science can join religion in this, and politics can be made sacred once again, but without imperialism or supremacy.

For example, the United States, which Benoist rarely has a good thing to say about (with some justification) need not have a revolution, it's original Constitution gives great power to small states, which can be seen as ethnostates. And Europe too can devolve to its original small states, as it seems to be doing anyway. And a light federalism can protect this new/old configuration.

Kosmogenesis and the Supermaterial

Ultimate reality should be called supermaterial rather than spiritual. Spiritual is the older term before the micro-world we are discovering. Even so, the supermaterial has many of the qualities formerly defined as spiritual. Even Godhood is supermaterial.

The Spirit-Within, which is also supermaterial, is the principal activator of life, the purpose of which is to activate life to evolve to Godhood, shaped by evolution from without. Although Teilhard De Chardin sees spirit as the withinness of matter, there is not the synthesis of matter and spirit he suggests at the end of evolution because spirit and matter are never separate, they are only different levels of material and supermaterial evolution, with the material evolving to the supermaterial, and the Spirit-Will always activating within. The Spirit Will is never separate from the material body, so it needs not a synthesis with matter. The Zenith of Evolution, rather than the so-called “synthesis,” is the Great Union when Godhood is attained, and from this Union new Kosmic Godhood is born.

Evolutionary Christianity declares a kind of living animism where every living object contains the Spirit-Will, as well as a kind of monism, with one reality on a continuum from the material to the supermaterial. This spans the history of this philosophy skipping over dualism, mentalism and idealism, although there is a kind of idealistic materialism in projecting the Zenith of Evolution, or Godhood, which remains mysterious.

It also remains for science to find the properties of supermateriality, which for the time being science does not admit. Religion has been examining this field for centuries.

The Basic Ontology: Being, beings, essence, existence and evolution

The distinction between Being and beings is the evolutionary level of being. Being or Godhood is the Zenith of Evolution, and beings have not yet evolved to the zenith of evolution. This is the central distinction. Also Being or Godhood has powers which beings do not have, which we do not fully understand and will not until we evolve to Godhood.

Otherwise Being and beings have the same Spirit-Will activating them as we do, and the same substance defined on an evolutionary scale from the material to the supermaterial, with no duality between spirit and matter.

Essence is the Spirit-Within, and existence is the material and supermaterial body, and they are never separate, essence activates existence at every level.

Principles, or definitions, are always subordinate to the object that is defined. The definition or principle does not qualify as either Being or beings, existence or essence. Spirit is defined as supermaterial rather than spiritual. Being is not pure thought or pure idea or pure spirit.

When this evolutionary ontology is compared to St. Thomas and Heidegger (a worthy if quixotic PhD thesis) I think this religious view of evolution is the central change necessary. Being or Godhood is also a being and is an existing object, or objects, Godhood is not a Being beyond being in this sense. Godhood is the Zenith of Being and is attained at the Zenith of Evolution. The evolutionary level is the main difference between Being and beings.

On Causes

The cause of the cause, the Spirit-Will, or the Will to Godhood, is not the same as Godhood. The cause of the cause is to attain Godhood. The Spirit-Will requires Godhood. The fact that the Spirit Will needs something, desires something, means it is not complete until It attains Godhood.

Godhood, not the Spirit-Will, gives birth to the next Kosmic Godhood, in this sense the cause of Godhood is the the Spirit-Will.  Godhood offers Eternal Representation as the Great Reward for life attaining Kosmic Godhood at the zenith of evolution, just as we we seek survival and reproductive success in our own realm.

Life and evolution must overcome the entropy of the cosmos, which nevertheless offers many chances for life to evolve again. The Spirit-Will never expires, it only contracts within the devolution of the material world. There is always life evolving.

There seems to be an infinity of causes, and not a first cause, although metaphysics and science do not like this. There seems to be numerous cosmos old and new. Even Godhood has the cause of creating a new Kosmic Godhood.

“I Am,” Not

The documentary film “I Am,” by Tom Shadyac was entertaining and interesting but ultimately biased in cherry-picking science and philosophy to fit its narrow definition of human nature and the social order.

We all need to learn to cooperate, and we are all connected to one another organically, as the film pointed out, we are even interconnected through some sort of as yet unknown radial energy, but cooperation is only one part of human nature.

Human nature is altruistic and cooperative mainly toward kin and local community, and there is nothing wrong with that. Human nature is also fundamentally territorial, even ethnocentric, and these parts of human nature don't go away even if we try to throw them under the bus of egalitarianism.

Certainly we need to emphasize cooperation on earth, and yes, we are all the same in basic human nature, but we are also different, with great variety, and this needs to be included in our social and political philosophy.

The experts interviewed by Shadyac for the film were all of the growth and power of the central state variety, who continue to try to legislate one-size-fits-all politics and cultre, which so far has only managed to virtually destroy local communities, churches and schools, where true cooperation really works.

Liberalism, Bio-liberalism and Revitalized Conservatism?

Christianity seems to have helped initiate classical liberalism so that Christianity could pursue its “equality of man” and the “rights of man.” (Pierre Manent, Modern Age, Summer 2010) Christianity needed government to protect this equality for the individual and so liberalism developed in philosophy in the 17^th century.

Aside from the equality of the Spirit Within all life, what if men or individuals are not equal? What if equality is not natural? Does this call into question the Christian and Liberal view of human nature?

I suggest that we can retain the liberal idea of government protecting freedoms but we need to shift the emphasis to protecting groups, small states, or ethnostates rather than merely protecting individual freedom. This does not enslave individuals or take us back to feudalism, it places individuals within groups, as true human nature has always done. Small states affirm the new “rights of man.” Government retains the liberal task of protecting this group freedom and discourages imperialism and supremacy.

This bio-liberal view, if I can call it that, takes into account the sociobiological view of human nature, which sees men as naturally kin-centered, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and bio-liberalism protects this as the natural freedom, which best fits human nature.

A revolution is not necessary to supplant liberalism, but liberalism needs to be supplemented with sociobiology. Even the original Constitution of the United States saw the wisdom of protecting small independent states.  With this bio-liberal view, Liberalism and Conservatism may be synthesized into a Revitalized Conservatism. 

The Soul and Spirit-Will

“The body is the sheath of the soul,” tradition has said, but we say the mind is the zenith of the body, and the Soul is the Zenith of the Mind, and it is the Zenith of the Soul that is the sheath of the Spirit-Will. We believe that the Soul has been the destination and definitionof the virtual Godmind, not Godhood, but the Spirit-Will activates the body to evolve beyond the Godmind to Godhood in the Kosmos. This is the Twofold Path.

Is divergence or convergence dominant in evolution?

The glass is half empty with centrism, implosion and convergence, the glass is half full with divergence, which is dominant in evolution. Divergence is activated by the Spirit-Will within every particle in the Kosmos, and convergence is the entropy which divergence contends against. This is a different perspective from convergence-affirming Teilhard De Chardin's evolutionary spirituality. Collectivism and centralization tend to stem from convergence, whereas variety and independence stem from divergence, although there are elements of both in both.

Comparing Ontologies

Comparing the ontology of St. Thomas, the Spirit-Will of Evolutionary Christianity would be the "agent cause" of the world, the Spirit-Will would be God in the world of St. Thomas. The Spirit-Will is also close to Aristotle's idea of a changing Being, or “pure act” as the cause, and not Being as such. Both St. Thomas and Aristotle seem to have seen a Being or cause who is free of material or supermaterial substance, I do not.

I don't see the Spirit-Will as the cause of the world, the Spirit-Will reaches It's goal of Godhood, the cause of the world is Godhood, not the Spirit-Will. The Spirit-Will always activates life to Godhood, which is the goal of evolving life.

Heidegger sees Being as rising up out of concealment (Caputo), but this looks to me like the old metaphysics, making Being pure Spirit separated from the rest of the world. I would interpret this “rising out of concealment” as a description of the creation of the world, but I see no real concealment, I see only different levels of evolution where only a God could be evolved high enough to understand (unconcealed) a God, who is necessarily concealed from the lower evolved through levels of intelligence and complexity. I doubt that Heidegger meant “unconcealed” in this way.

I like the Duns Scotus idea of shifting “modes” of actuality, only I like the term “transformation.” Following the attainment of Godhood in evolution, Godhood transforms into the next world ---this is Godhood's Great Reward of Eternal Representation---and another “mode” is really the offspring of Godhood which must then evolve up to Godhood.

The beginning of it all remains a mystery which can't be solved without inventing fictional Beings of definition only, beyond the real world. It appears to have no beginning and no end, which suggests some other kind of Kosmic “logic” that does not need a nonmaterial Being to define eternity, but is always an evolving material to supermaterial Being.

The Word is not Godhood

It is making a God of definition to say that the Word is God. This is animating concepts. Religion and philosophy are fond of doing this.

Godhood is a Supreme Object which only secondarily contains the Word, Godhood is not the Word alone. Godhood does not speak our language, although It could.

The language of Godhood is not independent from time, time defines the duration taking place of the actions of objects, including the actions of Godhood.

The Word means logos in Greek, intelligence, wisdom, but this alone does not define Godhood, it defines attributes of Godhood.

A virtual or symbolic “Word” exists within the Soul of man, this is the Christ, the Atman, but this is not Godhood, it  allows a few to virtually see or experience Godhood.

Godhood can only be reached through the evolution of the material world to the supermaterial world of Godhood, activated by the Spirit-Will.

This is the Twofold Path, to supplement not supplant tradition.

A revitalized “rights of man”

We cannot create cultures that outlaw the deepest tribal elements

Protecting the rights of small states, even thousands of ethnostates, becomes the revitalized “rights of man,” the revitalized “human rights,” which preserves the “natural rights” and the natural conditions of human nature in the state of nature.

“Cooperative competition” becomes the high virtue of this natural movement in evolution. The movement which moves men and nature is evolution, activated by the Spirit-Will within and shaped by evolution from without.

The problem has never been tribalism, or ethnocentrism, the problem has been supremacy, racial supremacy, one group demanding supremacy over another. We cannot create cultures that try to outlaw the deepest tribal elements of human nature. But we can encourage variety and outlaw the attempt of one tribe to demand supremacy over another.

A nation of small states, as the original United States, or a world of thousands of ethnostates, protected by light federalism, is the only way I have ever seen to harmonize true human nature with culture. The states can then be free to seek their own interests, their own evolution.

But give all people voluntary access to the Church in its mission to guide men to Godhood in evolution. Let the state guarantee justice in this freedom.

This is a process that unites the temporal and the spiritual, which helps answer the question of how the Church can harmonize with the political world.

Toward a simpler, more elegant metaphysics

Angel's may be Penultimate Gods

Heidegger thought that Scholastic metaphysics constitute an oblivion of Being (“Heidegger and Aquinas,” Caputo), but I think religion and philosophy in general have created an oblivion of Being.

How much simpler, elegant, to suggest that all is materiality and supermateriality, which may even explain Angels and Godhood, as well as human life. The lower material evolves to the higher supermaterial. Hairsplitting arguments about “form” and “substance,” “Potentiality,” “purity” and “spiritual versus material” no longer apply.

Angels may be Penultimate Gods, made of nearly the same supermaterial substance as Godhood, which are not nonmaterial pure spirit or pure act. Angels and Godhood are the highest evolved Beings in the cosmos, yet made of the same material and supermateriality as the rest of the cosmos.

But then, perhaps the term Angel has too much past tradition with it to apply to evolution of higher beings in theological materialism.

The Godmind and Godhood

Being “rightly ordered” in traditional religion means attaining the Inward Path to the Godmind, and does not mean attaining Godhood of the Outward Path. It is condescending and incorrect of those who speak of the Kingdom of the God (Godmind) within and say they are not opposed to action, they are beyond action. Acton is the only way to attain Godhood, the action of material and supermaterial evolution.

We need not kill the Outward Path when we affirm the Inward Path. The great mystics did not come to destroy traditions but to fulfill the traditions. “Christ” is the Godmind, not Godhood. Jesus is the Christian path to the Godmind. Someone called the Gospel, the Christain Veda, or you could call parts of the Vedas the Hindu Gospel. Other traditional religions have slightly different paths to the Godmind, eg. Lao Tze, Krishna, Buddha, etc.

Becoming “one with the Father” (Atman) is attaining the Godmind which resides in the Soul-Within. Becoming Godhood is the goal of the Spirit-Will which resides at the Zenith of the Soul. The Evolutionary Church affirms both paths in the Twofold Path, the Inward Path to the Godmind and the Outward Path to Godhood. One could call the Soul and the Godmind the Lower Mind, and the Spirit-Will and Godhood the Higher Mind. We can be both Godmind-centered and Godhood-centered. The mission is to move from the Lower Mind to the Higher Mind.

The Primordial Instinct and Teilhard De Chardin

Teilhard De Chardin said that Jesus was not only a historical person but also the inner energy and goal to which the universe is moving. Teilhard should have said Jesus was the historical person and Christ is the goal to which the Inward Path is moving to the Godmind. The Inward Path moves to the Godmind in the Soul, not to Godhood in the Kosmos.

It is the Spirit-Will that is the “inner energy” not the Godmind of the Soul. The Spirit-Will is the Primordial Instinct both immanent and transcendent in supermaterial life, whereas the Godmind is the desire-free state that the mystics have sought within the Soul of man. This is not Godhood, it is the virtual experience of the desire-free mind of God. The goal of all desire is Godhood, not merely the virtual mind of God who has attained all desire and is therefore desire-free..

Teilhard synthesizes the material and spiritual by saying that the material is really spiritual. I synthesize the material and spiritual by saying that the spiritual is really material and supermaterial. Defining the material as spiritual can lead to defining material life as evil, or at least far less important than spiritual life. This can lead to defining God as “Nothing” or God as definition or word only, which is an error.

Central to the whole view of Evolutionary Christianity is material and supermaterial evolution to Godhood. Everything has some degree of consciousness, no matter how low the measurement, and life becomes ever more conscious, more intelligent, ever more beautiful as we evolve all the way to Godhood.

“Humanism” believes in human progress, but scientific humanism denies the Spirit-Will and Godhood. I think science will find the proof it needs for The Spirit-Will and Godhood, but the data needs to be deepened to supermateriality. I have faith in the material and supermaterial world, which has wrongly been defined as non-material. Material and supermaterial evolution is the path to Godhood.

Being Without Existence

“...If metaphysics is the summit of philosophy, it is necessary to look for the root outside of metaphysics.” (Gilson)

Generally, both religion and philosophy have been a philosophy of being without existence, or being is considered beyond at least material existence. This has been a great error. This has defined God as a non-object, or even as “Nothing” in relation to material life. Philosophers and theologians have seemed to “animate concepts,” as John Caputo put it, with “absolute idealism.”

Godhood is a supreme object with essence, existence and being, and not Being without existence as we know it. Godhood is not beyond the material, Godhood is supermaterial, which is not the same as nonmaterial spirit. Godhood is in the world as we are in the world, but Godhood is at the zenith of evolution in the world. The Being of Godhood has existence in the cosmos, or will have when evolved to as all other objects have existence.

If metaphysics kills the material world then science should be the science of being, seeking to discover the substance of the supermaterial. Until then, until science knows it has to be thus, by deepening its search to religious subjects, I can agree to an idealistic materialism, or theological materialism which seems contradictory but is not.

Existence does not have supremacy over essence, as St Thomas suggests, even if St Thomas does not expel essence from his considerations. Essence always exists within existence as the material Spirit-Will, activating existence from the inside, and shaped by evolution from outside to evolve. Kierkegaard seems to have expelled essence from existence, which was equally wrong. They did not define essence as supermaterial within material existence.

Heidegger said Being “rises up into unconcealment,” but being is never concealed, although at this stage in our evolution it may be concealed from us.  Being is always the existence of the material or supermaterial object which has essence or Spirit-Will within itself. In all life, all the way to Godhood, being is not merely the definition of the object, being is the existing object, from the material to the supermaterial.

Approving of Vatican Two, and then some

It should be obvious from this blog that I approve of Vatican Two. But I know how hurtful these changes were. The Church seemed to have lost its identity. Latin was beautiful (and it is returning), the choir was sacred, fasting was vital, the Rosary to Mary was wonderful, all the saints were heroes, the dress code was the correct respect given.

I love the Tradition of the Inward Path, but I also like the Vatican Two emphasis on aligning with the world of science, politics, and I like ecumenism extended to other religions---as long as this is truly reciprocal and not exploited by one or the other side.

We can reach the Godmind of the Soul with the Traditional Inward Path, but we cannot reach Godhood without following the Outward Path of evolution. Lord have mercy, this Twofold Path of Evolutionary Christianity will be considered heretical.

Pure logic is first a real object

"Man is God in the making." (Manu)

Definition or denotation is first an object and secondarily a definition. Numerical or linguistic identity is always less than an object.

Pure logic or pure thought do not really exist outside our perceptions and experience of these things, it's an epistemological game to say otherwise. Pure logic may exist without us, but someone in the future has to think the pure logic. What I am thinking may be interesting, or even beautiful mathematics, but so what? What is important is the real object. Do the mathematics relate to real objects or is it only mind games?

Pure logic, definition and denotation become idols that can lead to a rejection or downgrading of material life, which has happened in both religion and philosophy where definitions are often physically irrelevant. Objects are not pure logic even if pure logic can define them.

I understand Godhood as a Real Object, that is, a Real Supreme Object, or Objects, a supermaterial object, and not something reduced to a number or definition in my mind, however beautiful.  Some have even made a God of "nothing" as the dialectical opposite of "something," which is the ultimate put-down of real objects.

Men of the mind have always tried to usurp men of the body. The epistemological domain and ontological definitions do not effect real objects, and this is true all the way to Godhood.  Perhaps we need a new philosophy. 

Christ and the Outward Path

Ravi Ravindra said “Christ is the way but Jesus is a way.” I agree that Christ, Lao tze, Krishna, Buddha, and others, taught essentially the same Inward Tradition, which was attaining the Godmind Within the Soul, by ridding the body of all desire so that we might experience the bliss of the Father, or Atman, within. The great mystics taught us how to transform ourselves so that we can find the Godmind Within. All the references to miracles were ways of speaking about this transformation of being, which were symbolized as being raised from the dead, or turning water into wine.

However, I do not believe that the Godmind we reach through the Involutionary Inward Path within is the “supreme identity.” I do not believe the Inward Goal is the sole end of religion. The Godmind is the goal of only one of the Twofold Path. The goal of the Inward Path is not the goal of the Outward Path. The Evolutionary Christian Church brings the addition of the Outward Path to the Inward Path.

The Outward Path redeems the material world after it has necessarily been sacrificed in order to see the Godmind of the Inward Path. The Inward Path leads to experiencing the bliss of the virtual and symbolic Godmind but does not lead to true Godhood. To attain real Godhood requires the Evolutionary Outward Path of material evolution to supermaterial Godhood in the cosmos.

This is Revitalized Conservatism and not revolution. The Inward Path is retained and the Outward Path is added.

Cooperative Competition Among Ethnostates

Cooperative competition (the term Raymond Cattell used) certainly does not move outside of biology or human nature. Humans have been both violently aggressive and altruistically cooperative (see Frans de Waal). Only a few psychopaths do not feel empathy, the rest of us do. There seems to be a balance between selfishness and altruism in human nature.

I believe the way to affirm variety, competition and cooperation among humans across the world is to have thousands of ethnostates, protected with a light federalism. This is certainly possible and in harmony with true human nature. The real evil is not ethnocentrism, which is deeply embedded in human nature, but selfish supremacism, the demand of only one noble or chosen group to exist above all others, or its opposite, trying to root out all ethnocentrism with a broad, bland, egalitarian sameness.

The violent supremacist actions of Hitler, supposedly in response to the supremacist chosenness of the Jews, set back the discussion of ethnostatism for many decades, and still block these ideas, but slowly, slowly the reasonableness of ethnostatism is coming forward, beginning with outsiders and slowly slowly moving toward the mainstream. (see "The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism," in Foreign Affairs, and Buchanan's various articles. )  

I believe the long term mission is to evolve humans upward to Godhood, and to do this, our ability to cooperate needs to emphasized even as we hold on to our competitive natures. This is not a utopian dream, this is harmonizing with human nature and the natural world.

Ethnonational wars

"...A few years back, professor Jerry Z. Muller wrote in Foreign Affairs that World Wars I and II were at root ethnonational wars of Europeans fighting to create nations where their own tribe ruled and their own culture was predominant...."

Here is a very powerful essay by Buchanan, "Is Tribalism the Future?"

The Mind-Games Of Being

Mystics say that all is a continuum of spirit, that matter is really nonmaterial spirit. Always it is matter that is sacrificed, which has allowed religion and philosophy to demean and devalue the material world and life itself.

Teilhard De Chardin's attempt to bring spirit and matter together also demands a non-material Spirit, even if it is Spirit Within matter. Teilhard therefore does not end the duality between Spirit and Matter, he tries to stuff the piano of matter down the clothes chute of Spirit by saying that matter is really spirit, not unlike other religions and philosophies.

Spirit is really supermaterial matter. Life is a continuum from the material to the supermaterial and not from the material to the non-material spirit. “Being” has to be brought back to existing, living and reproducing, and then seen as evolving to its highest Being, Godhood. Being and life are far more important than any definition of being.

Someone said that rationalism is a philosophy of being without existence, but religion does the same sort of thing making spirit nonmaterial. The mind-games of intellectuals need to join the concrete world of the non-intellectuals.

Is it only a mind-game to say that Being is a thing-in-itself, where the “thing” is the Spirit-Will within, and the “in-itself” is the body that the thing lives within, and these together are called Being, with existence and essence never separate? Evolution develops different levels of being of unseparated essence and existence all the way to the Supreme Being or Godhood. No duality is necessary.

Did Political Correctness Kill David Foster Wallace?

Glancing over Lev Grossman's review of Wallace's heavily edited new book, “The Pale King,” I was struck with the idea that if Wallace had been allowed to understand and write about real human nature, for example, as defined by sociobiology, such things as the importance of the biological origin of much of social behavior, human differences, hierarchy, evolution, even future eugenics, rather than following the hollow path of postmodernism, it might have offered a real foundation for Wallace's troubled mind.

Postmodernism is what is left when political correctness decides the subjects. It seems to go back to the phenomenologists and existentialists who decided that man is trapped in his own ego, where only subjective truth is possible, unless you go through philosophical contortions to try to prove parallel egos working, subjectively, together. Heidegger wrote brilliant and deep philosophy, but he must have known that he would be crucified if he wrote about true human nature---attempts have been made to try to destroy him anyway, motivated, it seems, by the fact that Heidegger held a job during the Hitler madness.

With this postmodern foundation, of lack of foundation, it is no wonder that writers like Wallace wrote plot-less, but poetically brilliant books. Postmodernism and existentialism instigated a phony, politically correct death to art and culture. I think it was this that helped to drive an already unstable Wallace to kill himself.