We need to talk about inequality

Both Aristotle and Raymond Cattell have said that injustice is the equal treatment of unequals, which means that both ancient philosophy and avante garde thinkers know that we have to stop preventing the recognition of the inequality of men.

Envy seems to be a big obstacle in discussing preferences and differences, and some groups simply want to advance over other groups by hoarding improvements.

In addition to preventing deadly diseases, modern society is increasingly complicated and calls for an increase in intelligence, and we are learning that insanity and crime have roots in the gene pool. Potential parents and some marriage counselors are already applying genetic information in their choices.

Despite diversity of groups and specific individual evolution, all people, all ethnic groups are included in our universal evolution to Godhood. Variety is good in evolution. We have to stop thinking that this automatically means coercive social policies, it does not. Voluntary participation, never force is the rule.

What to encourage in the gene pool is a religious question for us because Godhood is defined as the highest intelligence, beauty and merit, and the divine goal of life is to evolve to Godhood. Religion, not the state, can volunitarily help guide our evolution, working with science.

Patterns of reality in religious philosophy

We see with our brains much more than we process consciously, our brain's have learned to find the patterns that have meaning for the situation at hand and delete the things that have no meaning for the task.

Perhaps the more knowledge we have, the more patterns we have in our brains. Creative people perhaps don't delete as much of the information, or find more new or overlapping patterns. This may create more anxiety in creative people.

Some have looked for beautiful patterns as a guide to new mathematics and new science, but perhaps we are not always conscious of this preference. Religions and philosophies are elaborate patterns which fit together like a great puzzle, or a large symmetrical work.

The big question: what is the real pattern of the reality of the world and the cosmos, is it beautiful, or ugly, and how do we define beautiful and ugly? It is likely that our brains have not evolved enough to see the real full pattern of the world, but we are making progress.

I like it when the religious philosophy of the Theoevolutionary Church finds validity in other fields, even in non-related fields, the more connections, the more affirmations, the truer the idea or pattern seems to be. The Theological Materialism of the Twofold Path is such a synthesis bringing together the ancient world of religion, naturalism, modern science, politics and futurism.

Bringing real life back to religion

The libido (basic biological drives) is brought back to religion when the one-dimensional, exclusively spiritual God is seen as the product of material-supermaterial evolution. This is a recovery of human nature harkening back to archaic times when God was seen as a real object. This brings real art back, real life back, in contrast to the pale aestheticism of modern art and the lifeless asceticism of modern religion.

Real biological drives are more powerful than thoughts, definitions and mathematical equations. It is not progress to move away from biology and separate ourselves from our instinctual natures. Our instincts are divine when the zenith of the instincts is understood as the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood which activates material life to evolve to Godhood, later shaped by evolution.

It can seem almost grotesque to define God by way of killing all the material drives and desires and rejecting all material definitions of God. This is like making a tabula rosa of the mind and the body as a mystical trick, when the inward God should be seen as only a symbolic or virtual way to see real Godhood which we evolve to in the cosmos. In the Twofold Path we can retain the inward view of God but it needs to be seen as only a glimpse of real Godhood reached in the Outward Path of evolution.

Sociobiological Aims of the Theoevolutionary Church

If we are to ever evolve outwardly to the Godhood first glimpsed in the Inward Path of the great religions, which saw God or the Father within, we need to continue to move beyond fear and taboo regarding genetic and cultural evolution.

The following aims were first suggested about forty years ago in Raymond Cattell's "Beyondism." We accept the far-sighted general ethos of these aims, but have made a few important changes.

The TC affirms a genetic and cultural character for each group, each small state, each ethnostate. Variety in evolution is vital.

A central purpose is survival, for all states, and toward this end offering voluntary genetic, cultural and religious advice for the particular conditions of each group, always ready to change with new scientific, cultural or religious knowledge.

Not a complete break with the older systems of religion, the Outward Path of our evolution to Godhood is synthesized with the Inward Path to the Father Within of traditional religions, in the Twofold Path.

The voluntary adaptation of the genetic pool to the religious-cultural goal of evolving to Godhood for all groups.

Always affirming the adventurous creation of new genetic and cultural variations which may advance the cultural-genetic upward direction of evolution.

To monitor and assist the voluntary genetic and religious evolution of all groups with church sociobiological research centers.

To maintain competition between groups, but within cooperative federations, knowing that blocking competition with hedonistic pacts of no competition between people creates stagnation and also blocks creative new changes.

These evolutionary religious aims can apply to any people and to almost any political system, but perhaps work best where a light federalism protects the independence of small states.

This is a religion for the future, while including the past.  This is change brought about with Ordered Evolution, consciously avoiding revolution.  This is the realistic and long term survival path forward out of the relativistic and nihilistic modern world.

Helping nature evolve

Nature appears to be aiming at more than numbers or mere survival, there seems to be a teleological goal of evolution to Godhood. But evolution is shaped by many events and our evolution to Godhood will not be as consistent if human beings are not aware of the goal. Random events can shape evolution. The Spirit-Will which activates life is like a compass with a goal, and it will be more difficult or less consistent to find the goal without the compass, that is, without being conscious of the Spirit-Will and its goal.

Since man can be aware of nature's ultimate goal we should try to create the social conditions that aid in this realization. But what is called for is not necessarily an aristocratic political system to attain individual genius, and not necessarily a racial national system for a particular ethnic group, and not a socialist system with the highest numbers, what is called for is a evolutionary political system to evolve successive species upward all the way to Godhood.

The universal path moves beyond individuals or ethnic groups, although these particular things need to be protected stopping-off places along the way, where positive cultural-genetic advancements can be absorbed before evolving forward. Finally, it is the Church which can retain these evolutionary values for all people, no matter what political system is in place.

Harmonizing the Enlightenment and Theology in Theological Materialism

When God is a name, a symbol, a non-material entity it is easier to deny Enlightenment concerns with the natural material world. But then the Enlightenment creates its own names, symbols and non-material entities as Gods, such as reason and science.

Traditional theology and the Enlightenment can be brought together when it is understood that the material world evolves to outward Godhood first seen inwardly as the Father Within in the great religions, but mainly rejected by the more naturalistic Enlightenment. Idealism and faith both apply in the goal of Godhood, and reason and science can be used in the divine goal of evolving to Godhood in the cosmos. This is the basis of theological materialism, which can end the wars between religion and science.

It is not nearly enough to identify God Within

It is not nearly enough to identify God Within and then say, as many mystics say: this is God. No, the inward God or the Father Within is a virtual glimpse of the God we must evolve to in the material-supermaterial world---yes, that is, the religiously disparaged material world is the vehicle of evolution to Godhood.

It is time to stop smugly and selfishly and even blissfully contemplating the God Within and get on with evolving to Godhood in the cosmos. The mystics have blocked the way for long enough.

By all means, with the Twofold Path we can keep the insights of the God Within in the Involutionary Inward Path, but it is only with the Evolutionary Outward Path that we reach real Godhood.

Evolutionary Realism

I prefer the ancient Greek attitude of not pitying the hero, but affirming the knowledge of the price paid for heroism. That is not to say I don't occasionally wallow in pity, but the point is I call it “wallowing” and not wonderful pity. This seems like a matter of taste, but it also may have to do with my Northern European heritage.

Can an artist combine the classical view of representing reality, mimesis, with the romantic view of self-expression? I think so, and I call it “evolutionary realism.”   This can harmonizes with sociobiological Ordered Evolution and political Revitalized Conservatism.

The mission is very long term, to evolve all the way to Godhood in the cosmos, and progress needs to be balanced with order so that the various positive cultural and genetic gains can be retained before evolving ever forward.

Mythology for the modern world

When I try to define what modern man lost of the instincts and the unconscious, I look to affirming the supreme and divine instinct of the Tirips or the Will-To Godhood, which I see as the zenith of the instincts activating life before life is shaped by evolution.

This is the better way to bring back, or bring forward, lost primordial things of importance. And the instinct of Tirips is not psychologically useful only to individuals, it is best advanced with group survival, group evolution, where the individual within the group is seen as secondary, not primary. “Archetypes” seem to be more the comparison of our personal histories with other people's personal histories, our fathers and mothers and crazy uncles. The collective seems to be more this basic human nature which we share with others than it is underlying Jungian ancient symbols. 

Godhood is returned to the Godless modern world by recovering the divine instinct of Tirips, the will which activates life to evolve to real Godhood in the material-supermaterial world. This seems to be a way to bring the irrational into the rational without losing the irrational. This ties together modern science and ancient primordial religion. This is powerful mythology for the modern world.

Godhood and reality, a transvaluation of Plato's world

Contrary to Plato, nonexistent spiritual definitions have been given far too much attention and power in religion and philosophy, which has led to misdefining and degrading the real world. Ascetics even put up a Great Spiritual Blockade against the material world, which actually blocks the real path to Godhood of evolution. When people like Paul Tillich or Heidegger say such things as, “God is being-itself, not being,” they perpetuate the same belief in nothing but a mode of thinking.

Spiritual definitions need to drop back to their support role or defining role and they need to cease to be Gods themselves. The natural world has to be unblocked if we are to reach real Godhood by way of evolution. The confusing name-games for God will stop when Godhood is seen as existing in the same sense that everything else exists. The exoteric needs to rise again over the esoteric in religious theology, and does so with theological materialism where Godhood is seen as a supermaterial object or objects evolved to in the material world and not merely an occult symbol or word.

The Twofold Path makes room for the traditional, non-object, definitions of the God-Within, or Father-Within of the Inward Path of the great religions, this is included but transformed in the Outward Path of the Evolutionary Church.  This brings the real world into religion and religion into the real world, and most importantly, it unblocks the long blocked natural path to evolving to real Godhood, the real purpose of existence, which is only reflected in the God-Within.  This is a transvaluation of Plato's world, but also of Buddha and Christ's world.

Restoring the fullness of the human psyche within nature

Carl Jung's “Individuation” as rebirth? Bringing the outside world in compliance with the inside world is not enough, we need more. Group consciousness is the rebirth we require, along with a divine goal within nature and within human nature. Individual self-hood shaves off too much of human nature, and nature.

Ethics were mainly created around the needs of the group in survival and reproduction. Individuation takes place within, and below, group consciousness. This is the balance that can restore the fullness of the human psyche. Our best minds should be concentrating on how to develop cooperative competition among natural group differences, and not on quixotically (and sometimes forcefully) trying to make everyone the same.

The cultural Marxism of modern liberalism virtually ignored nature in the promotion of nurture, which has been a disaster for the human psyche and for human society. We need to acknowledge the biological origin of social behavior without blocking out the influences of culture and nurture, the way the cultural Marxists blocked out our biological nature.

And most importantly we need to acknowledge the divine goal of nature and material life in evolving to Godhood.  At its base history is not “psycho-history,” history is biological history. We civilize the beast through material and supermaterial evolution, not by fearfully blocking out the beast.

Several lifetimes of work ahead

Here is the reality. Wilson's sociobiology and Cattell's Beyondism are still hot to handle, but perhaps they are a bit easier now than in the 1980's. What makes the religious philosophy of the Theoevolutionary Church somewhat more palatable is that traditional religion is included in the Twofold Path along with ideas from sociobiology and Beyondism.

But the citizens have had limited education in the sociobiological perspective and they are filled with the controlled media dogma of relativism, hedonism and consumerism, so there remains a problem communicating with them about the TC.

And both religion and science have problems with our religious philosophy, because religion dislikes science and science dislikes religion, and we apply both together. Modern liberalism, being culturally Marxist, does not like our talk of the biological influences on social behavior.

So we have our work to do, several lifetimes of work. And we will of course need help from others, whether we work well with others or not. As Cattell pointed out, we are working with open democracies, we are not closed elites, we believe in voluntary behavior even though we affirm the natural reality of top-down leadership. It would seem that in a democracy we will need more citizenship education in sociobiology, which is slowly happening.

Our political “theology” should be easier to accept since we affirm light federalism and small states, or ethnostates, not unlike the original American Constitution. We love America and we are patriotic but we despise the imperialism that has corrupted us and threatens to destroy us.

It is all worth it if we can begin to turn humanity away from its suicidal behavior and toward evolving to Godhood out into the cosmos, which we believe is the natural and sacred direction of life.

The Dogma

The world of relative individualism, the Nietzschean-Foucauldian dogma-against-all-dogmas offers no moral criteria outside of many selves seeking self hood. This anarchic libertarianism has led to the chaos and hedonism of today's culture.

The antidote?  Here is the "dogma:"

There is a human nature which is defined in general by naturalistic sociobiology.

There is a Spirit-Will activating life before life is shaped by evolution.

There is an outward goal of the evolution of material life to supermaterial Godhood.

This outward Godhood is the same inward God of the great religions transformed by new knowledge.

Variety is best in evolution.

Cooperative competition is possible with human beings in evolution.

Light federalism can protect small independent states, and evolving ethnostates.

The church and science can be voluntary guides in our evolution to Godhood.

Filling the existential gap

Meins Coetsier writes of Rainer Rilke's idea of three generations within religion (Modern Age, Summer 2011), with the first generation finding God, the second building a temple and “imprisoning” God with rules and regulations, and the third generation suffering spiritual impoverishment and breaking down into “little shelters.” After that comes the generation that has to search for God again.

Where are we? Well, we do now see from sociobiology that the “imprisonment” of religious ethics helps bond people for success in survival and reproduction. But I think this sort of three generation religious narrative happens with both individuals and societies. Some never leave their positions, some evolve through all the phases. But the modern world in general seems to be in the phase of building little shelters or islands of security within a chaotic world.

I believe that the material, rational, and spiritual alignment to our evolution to Godhood fills the existential gap. The cause of being is seen as our evolution to Godhood, which creates our authentic relationships. Godhood becomes not only the symbol of our goal but the real natural object, the supreme material-supermaterial object of our evolutionary goal. This also becomes a theme for “political theology.”

The Spirit-Will-To-Godhood which activates life before life is shaped by evolution has been intellectually missing (not physically missing) and separated from religious and nonreligious cultural life. The Spirit-Will with its goal of Godhood gives man back something greater than himself. Without the character, tone and guiding belief of our evolution to Godhood we shrink to virtually nothing in the cosmos.

Faith and Science In First and Last Things

Can we trust mathematical claims regarding things unseen? Can we trust the claims of faith of things unseen? The speculations of mathematics and science, and the faith of religion can lead to defining real things empirically, but they need to be thought of as speculation and faith until they are defined as real things by science. The growth of human knowledge seems to have been a balance between faith and science with faith leading the way and science eventually giving the empirical foundation for faith, or not.

We can define the highest “good” as Godhood. We can also say that Godhood contains the highest beauty, intelligence, and merit, plus every other highest thing. But this leads to the question, is there ever a final highest good or a final highest Godhood? The answer to this is: no. Life evolves endlessly. The purpose of the world is to evolve to Godhood and this purpose would be lost if a final Godhood was reached, then with no reason to create the world, unless the world was created for the purpose of a secondary God reaching Godhood, which is a Gnostic sort of understanding.

The world appears to be created by the Primal Material which seeks Godhood, and the Primal Material is activated by the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, and then basic life is shaped by outside evolution. The Spirit-Will remains an unknown force within this worldview, yet science will one day define this force empirically. Belief comes first, proof comes later, but both proof and faith need to be applied. 

The positive thought is that we will know more about the speculations of faith and science regarding the reality of first and last things the higher we evolve.

The sacred commonality within our differences

We all need to be proud of our identities, our ethnic backgrounds, this pride is grounded in the most basic human nature. We should champion who we are in regions, small states and localities. But what holds us together, our commonality, is our evolution toward Godhood, all of us, which necessarily reaches beyond the human species to future species. This is the universal and particular ethics we must work with if we are to survive.

But our commonalities are not looking so good at this time. I think of Nietzsche's comments about how there is nothing more powerful than when a slave class has learned to consider its existence an injustice and sets about taking revenge, not only on its own behalf but on behalf of past generations. Blacks and Latinos in America are angry and loudly proclaiming their own identities, usually by attacking whites, and the controlled popular media are going along with this, continually and increasingly depicting white males as uncool fools and white females as greedy airheads.

Whites will not continue to take this without objection, especially whites who had nothing to do with the past immoral enslavement of one people over another. Whites will increasingly affirm themselves, especially when they feel even more threatened as they become an electoral minority in their own country... This all can lead to very dangerous politics.

Wise politics sees the future and tries to get in step with it. Our differences will tear us apart, even to the point of civil war, if we don't affirm the commonality of our evolution beyond the present human species, all the way to Godhood---if we are wise enough. Can we do it? Religion can do it, making sacred the evolutionary path, a religion which affirms differences and particulars within sacred universals, as the Theoevolutionary Church does. I know of no better way to balance our rough ride to the future.

Spirit-Will-History

The instincts, or ergs, are not “irrational” but they can be stupid, for example, following more difficult than simple paths to their goals. But the goals of the instincts define the instincts as rational in seeking survival and reproductive success and in ultimately evolving to Godhood.

The Spirit-Will is the “central fire” (Jung's term) that energizes them all. The Spirit-Will-History theory says that the state, society, culture, religion, biology, all seek the rational goal of nature, which is to evolve all the way to the eternal representation of Godhood, whether they are conscious of this goal or not. We are in this sense at the mercy of this activating goal.

It follows from this Spirit-Will-History that the noble civilizations and cultures harmonize as best they are able with this goal, consciously or unconsciously. Sublimations of the ergs take place so that they may better reach more sublime goals. For example, the instincts of sex, aggression and compassion are improved or redefined and ennobled to turn upward in evolution toward Godhood, which is the zenith of such things as truth, beauty and merit.

The great religions essentially wanted to block the ergs rather than sublimate them, in their inward quest to reach the desire-free Father-Within of the Soul. Even Jungian therapy feared the power of these ergs preferring to balance one off the other rather than to affirm the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood of natural evolution. Perhaps this biased fear was do to the tragic errors of World War II. But all the roads of the the Spirit-Will don't lead to political dictatorships, they can lead more productively in the opposite direction, to varieties of small independent states and light federalism, which I affirm.

Religion leads the way in this history as a guide, grounded in the religious philosophy of theological materialism. This religious philosophy believes in progress and is not anti-modern while at the same time identifying with and sublimating the traditional inward God of the great religions in the Twofold Path, so that we may better evolve to real Godhood in the cosmos.

Comparing Beyondism

A main difference between Cattell”s Beyondism and the ECC is the philosophy of conservatism, which pays serious attention to the accumulated knowledge of tradition, whereas Beyondism, which has influenced us, wishes more to launch itself off on an evolutionary adventure and it generally considers conservatism as stagnation.

The ECC is willing to apply faith, idealism and poetry to science, which is of course dangerous to scientific truth. Yet I think intellectual intuition and faith can sometimes be more truthful than science, although a very strict self-criticism in required.

The philosophy of the ECC allows us to retain more of the emotional appeal of traditional religion, with the sacred end goal of Godhood, described in the past as the Inward God and now transformed and seen as the Outward God of evolution. We can have a recognition of sociobiological truths because they can lead to Godhood. We need to expand out into the cosmos, but we need order to do so.

However, the religious theology of the ECC was not developed as strategy to make upward evolution more palatable, theological materialism is a religious metaphysics first, which can then apply science and culture to religious goals.

Faith, idealism and poetry can make religious philosophy easier to voluntarily absorb by the average population, which tends to lag behind science and elite thinkers, and in a republic, which we affirm, this can make the evolutionary ideas in the ECC more understandable and workable. A dictatorship by an elite could dictate ethics, which in the long run causes many other problems. While affirming much of tradition, this religion is still also a new religious consciousness which will take some time to become functional.

Labor Day thoughts on teleology and the state

Early Nietzsche, the Nietzsche I prefer, wrote about the natural “teleological” process of the state developing from violent origins and then emerging into society, law, culture, and ultimately developing the genius who early Nietzsche championed. Nietzsche scorned the idea of the state originating in a “social contract” of voluntary transference of individual sovereignty. And contrary to what is thought, Nietzsche thought of these violent origins of states as “horrible.” (see “The Republic of Genius” by Quentin P. Taylor).

Life itself develops teleological, as do states and cultures, because life itself is activated by the Spirit-Will-to Godhood, followed by the shaping of evolution. Eventually cultures reach the practical point of consciously separating the variety of human groups into small states, or ethnostates, protected by a light federalism. The America I prefer luckily fell into a configuration such as this, with no conscious thought of the dynamic of natural evolution.  But then America declined into a huge bureaucratic state absorbing most of the freedom of the states. We have become a neoconservative, imperialistic, marauding state with no conscious thought of the needs of evolutionary variety upon which evolution depends.

On this Labor Day holiday I support those who seek to return to the original power of the small states of the Founders, which would have protected American manufacturing, and protected the jobs that have been destroyed by big government crony global capitalism. I wish to empower the small states even further, while protecting their independence with a light federalism. This is the cultural configuration from which we can best continue our divine evolution to Godhood in the cosmos. And I have the audacity to suggest this also as the remedy for the problems of Europe, Russia and China...but I do not advocate meddling in their affairs.

Universals and Particulars In Evolution

To adapt a phrase by Jeffrey Folks writing about conservative novelist V.S. Naipaul ( Modern Age, Summer 2011), it is the continuity of our evolution to Godhood that determines the universal values, and the particular rise and fall of one-race imperialism needs to be seen from this perspective.

The ethics of the particular group are vital to successful survival and reproduction, but ultimate universal ethics point beyond the present to the evolution of future species out into the cosmos. 

This does not make particular group and kin selection less important, they are dominant, but we also need to include vital universal values.

This leads to a conservative worldview, although it is a Revitalized Conservatism and an Ordered Evolution taking into account steady evolution.

Competition can then be more cooperative when there is agreement on the universals. If there is no agreement among competing groups then there are usually only raw battles for power, which often hurt both groups more than they help.

Progress With Tradition

I have respected conservative thinkers like Burke and Kirk on the importance of order, as well as the examinations of order from sociobiology.

This encouraged the concepts of Ordered Evolution and Revitalized Conservatism.

I did not buy the relativism of the post-moderns and deconstructionists who find everything relative accept their own ideas.

One-race imperialism, be it Aryan or Chosen, is nevertheless imperialism with all the decadent and degenerate problems imperialism brings. Ethnic groups are important in group bonding and the creation of ethics, but they are seen also as stopping off places in the long evolution to Godhood, which will evolve many future species.

I agree with Sergei Levitzky when he said “the denial of the Absolute leads to the absolutization of the relative.” (Modern Age, Summer 2011). The inward God seen by Christ and eastern mystics before him is also seen now as Absolute outward Godhood evolved to from the material-super-material world.  This is the Twofold Path.

Tradition and progress can be synthesized. Order can be affirmed along with evolution. Theological materialism moves forward from the objective Scholastics as well as from the relativistic deconstructionists.

Godhood is not beyond nature, Godhood is the zenith of nature.  Science can join religion.

First and Last Things

Theologically, it seems not to be the attraction of Godhood that accounts for the evolution of higher beings, as Teilhard de Chardin suggested, it is the activation of the material world by the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood that seeks Godhood, which is then shaped by evolution. It seems to have little or nothing to do with Godhood Itself.

Schopenhauer's will-to-live, Nietzsche's will-to-power, Bergson's vital force seem closer to defining the Spirit-Will than any attraction by Godhood pulling evolution forward.

Unlike the God of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Spirit-Will contains the cause of life but is not also the maximum of life. The Spirit-Will contains the goal of Godhood but is not the goal itself. The maximum of life is the Godhood evolved to

This suggests that Godhood is the goal of life but not the initiator of life. The Primal Material seems to be activated by the Spirit-Will, as all life is, and they seem never to be separated. Then together they define life evolving to Godhood, first activated by the Spirit-Will, and then shaped by evolution.

I see no good reason why this cosmic dynamic cannot go on forever. It seems to be an endless cosmos with endless room and there are probably always Gods arriving. There may never be an end to evolving perfection, if there was an end then that perfection might have no further function and might therefore cease to exist.

I also see no good reason why there ever was a beginning, a first cause, which requires no less proof than the no beginning perspective.

What glorious things can evolve, and have evolved, in the cosmos, over endless time and endless space.  We need to consciously, not merely unconsciously,  join that sacred cosmic stream.

The older God was seen inwardly, which is fine and needs to be included in the Twofold Path, but real Godhood is evolved to in the cosmos, and we need to get on with it.

A harmonious inward and outward life

The inward life does not seem to work so well with the outward life in the great religions and in the great psychologies, the exciting inward life of St. Thomas Aquinas or Carl Jung is often at odds with the less exciting outward life.

This is not necessarily so with the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood in the philosophy of the Theoevolutionary Church. Here the inward activating Spirit-Will requires outward material life to evolve to Godhood.

This suggests not the volcano of repression over the inner sexual self of Freud, but harmony and rhythm with the flow of natural life. It is not merely the sexual libido that seeks to break free into full expression, it is more deeply the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood.

Modernity isn't the main problem, as Traditionalism always suggests, it is disharmony and discord in the basic instincts. The fullness of human nature need not be repressed or suppressed as it often is in sentimental modern liberalism. Real nature, and human nature, prefers truth, beauty and merit, and sublimating human nature toward these virtues can be more harmonious.

With the Spirit-Will affirmed there is less inner/outer conflict, yet there is sublimation of the human forces of sex, aggression and compassion, because the Spirit-Will has a definite goal to which material life needs to be guided or sublimated, which ultimately is Godhood.

This sublimation takes the form of voluntary, non-coercive, culture-genetic selection in reproduction, in Ordered Evolution, directed toward Godhood, which is at the zenith of truth, beauty and merit. This culture-genetic dynamic can lead to real and more natural psychological maturity and fill the spiritual emptiness and rootlessness of modern life.

The evolution of religion

The many vital things offered by the great religions were not replaced by modern skepticism and existentialism, and not replaced by the science of sociobiology alone, and not even by Raymond Cattell's noble attempt to combine science and religion (Beyondism). The great religions developed large and broad values and morals over long history which helped humanity literally survive as they sought God. These values were explained but largely rejected by modern developments in science and philosophy. The problem is that the great religions are so slow to change they can become stagnant before they change. This slowness has helped create order in humanity, but it is always threatened by impatient radical changes.

Modern skepticism, existentialism, science, sociobiology, and Beyondism generally rejected the great religions even if they brilliantly explained them, and this rejection tends to keep these modern fields from becoming a replacement for the large and broad sweep of the great religions, even if the modern motives were to try to save humanity from early destruction---but occasionally to try to advance one group over another.

Rather than rejecting the great religions, the Twofold Path in the religious philosophy of (TC) affirms the great religions in evolutionary sociobiology. The Inward Path to the virtual God Within of the great religions is carried forward in the Outward Path of material-supermaterial evolution to real Godhood. This also helps retain Ordered Evolution as we evolve toward Godhood. Order enhances evolution, positive culturo-genetic changes have time to succeed or fail without destroying the whole sacred adventure to Godhood, first begun by the great religions.  The task or the heroic mission is to develop a broad functioning religion from the religious philosophy of the TC.

Not merely spiritual theology

According to Walter Kaufmann (“Critique of Religion and Philosophy”) God's answer to Moses was, “I am who am (He who is).” I think these words can be interpreted as Godhood being a living object, a supreme object, and not merely a spiritual definition or mathematical form, a being at the highest point of material-supermaterial evolution, not a Being beyond being, not a Gnostic God with no connection to the material world, but a Godhood arrived at in the world by way of material-supermaterial evolution.

This Godhood might also be seen as, “I am the pure act-of-being” (St. Thomas) but only if the act of being is seen as a supermaterial existing object and not something beyond the actual world. I have an impossible fantasy of St. Thomas seeing this material-supermaterial Godhood at the end of his life when he said all his writings seemed like so much straw compared to what he had seen. He supposedly also asked to hear the 'Song of Solomon” on his death bed, not theology, and this could be seen as a work examining material beauty and not merely an analogy of spiritual things---but this is probably not what St. Thomas saw.

This is not the same inward interpretation of God as Moses, Jesus or Buddha, this is an outward revitalized Godhood, hypertrophied into the natural world. This is not Augustine's God of “I am he who never changes.” A Godhood arrived at through material evolution certainly changes. This is the Godhood of theological materialism and not merely the God of spiritual theology. To adapt a saying by St. Anselm, this interpretation both understands in order to believe, and believes in order to understand. Both science and faith need to be applied at this time to this worldview.

The Future Is Permitted

Huxley's “Brave New World” has intimidated people for long enough, the future is okay.  Ethical responsibility is possible, and likely, regarding future scientific developments.

Conservatism can believe in Ordered Evolution, radicalism is not necessarily connected to “progress.” Desacralization need not happen.

It was wrong for Mill, Marx and Darwin to more or less slay theology and metaphysics. It would have been better to adapt man's place in nature to to both religion and science.

Philosophical naturalism is not the premise to work with, theological materialism is, which includes both philosophical naturalism and theology. Theological materialism is the successor to theology, by synthesizing philosophical naturalism and theology.

There are “unintended consequences” in life, but that should not doom us to moldy corners afraid to move out into the air. It takes a little courage but courage is a vital virtue.  Real compassion requires a longer term perspective.

We can define positive pluralism and negative pluralism, with positive pluralism embracing completely natural group selection and small states, within light federations, whereas negative pluralism bemoans the so-called relativism of pluralism apparently preferring a uniform humanity. We are all evolving to Godhood in our own way, and we certainly are capable of assisting one another along the way.

It is time not to be afraid of the idea of progress. Comte and Cattell's idea of progress attached to theological materialism can lead evolution to Godhood. God remains much the same, but the inward God of the great religions is hypertrophied and revitalized into outward Godhood, with life activated by the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, shaped by natural evolution, and reached through material and supermaterial progress into the future.

A Religious Psychology Theory

History and civilization seem to be attempts to adjust to the energies and forces of the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, which first activates life, and then life is shaped by evolution. The Spirit-Will is not merely the drive of the libido of Freud, or the power drive of Nietzsche, or the inner world projecting into the outer world of Jung. The Spirit-Will is a deeper, sacred, instinct, the zenith of the instincts. Sex, power and the psychic life are means to the ends of the Spirit-Will, which has the goal of evolving all the way to Godhood in the cosmos, and does so by activating material life to evolve to Godhood. How these things are balanced becomes the task of a “religious physician.” This is the well we go to for renewal of the modern world.

Why sociobiological adjustments of sex, aggression and compassion is the sacred path

To seriously consider genetic as well as cultural adjustments requires a more austere discipline, made more difficult by not being considered politically correct at this time, as cultural Marxism continues to lead modern culture, in spite of its failures. In addition to advocating positive genetic and cultural improvements in intelligence and health, the three adjustments of emotions which Raymond Cattell centered on in his science-religion of  Beyondism were sex, aggression and compassion. Cattell believed these things could be changed through genes and culture. That is, changing such things as the kind of psychopathic aggression that is simply incapable of learning, or adjusting the short term types of compassion which seemingly help people in the short term but does much damage in the long term. 

Cattell divided the ethical system of any group into two parts: “universal” ethical rules necessary for any group to survive, and the “particular” ethical values of a particular group. Cattell wanted to have international research centers to support sociobiology research in these important areas.

I think the Church also needs to be involved in this research since the sacred goal of long term evolution is Godhood. We believe that the Godhood of evolution is the God first glimpsed only inwardly by the great religions. Godhood is now seen as attained through material and supermaterial evolution. Furthermore, the material world is activated by the Spirit-Will with the goal of attaining Godhood, and then the material world is shaped by evolution.

This is the religious-scientific sacred narrative of the future. In order to attain Godhood in evolution we will need to sociobiologically adjust sex, aggression and compassion through genes and culture, similar to what Cattell suggested, but with the sacred goal of evolving to Godhood. Godhood is the supermaterial absolute of intelligence, beauty and merit, attained through evolution. But this needs to be a voluntary mission, without coercion, applied to all humanity, living in their natural, bonded groups. Real compassion can help adjust downward trending groups before their extinction or cultural death.

Although some people will want to avoid such sociobiological ethical demands, it is the groups with the higher demands who survive in the long run. Sparta is not my ideal state but Cattell reminds us that austere Sparta defeated the more permissive Athens after 20 years.  We have many thousands of years to go, if we can survive.

Bringing back sacredness, myth, romance and heroism

Sacredness, myth, romance and heroism have largely gone out of our modern culture, and they have also gone out of religion, philosophy and science. The religious philosophical mythos of the Theoevolutionary Churchbrings these things back, with the epic narrative of our evolution to Godhood in the cosmos.

The God first glimpsed inwardly by the great religions is affirmed and transformed in the outward evolution of the material-supermaterial world to Godhood. Religion and science can join in this great adventure. Life evolves upwardly, with great heroism, with fallings and risings, all the way to Godhood in the cosmos.

Here is a reason to like the presocratics: Homer was more right than Plato in showing the Gods as anthropomorphic, for which Plato banned him from the Republic---Plato preferred that his highest God to be a nonmaterial mathematical Form. Godhood is not human but the Gods have material and supermaterial life.

And this is the God of the great religions, and this is also the Aristotelian God of Aquinas, but this is a transformed Godhood from the God that the great religions found inwardly---now real Godhood is also seen as attained outwardly in evolution.

It may be easier at this point in our evolution to speak of Godhood as having an absence of flaws regarding truth, beauty and goodness in comparison to humans. Evolution explains the progress of these virtues, with Godhood as having attained the zenith, or absolute, of these things.

Buchanan on the sociobiological forces changing the world

The latest column by Pat Buchanan, “The New World Disorder,” again shows how Buchanan remains the only conservative political commentator with the courage to see and speak the truth about the sociobiological forces that are changing the world, and the necessity of an alternative to the worldview of the neoconservatives, who continue to create disorder in the world.  

No Dualities

Religion and psychology have thought of the inward life as good and valid and outward life has often been thought of as evil or primitive compared to inward life. It is important not to see the Twofold Path of the EC as part of the duality that has plagued religion, philosophy and psychology since ancient times. The Inward Path is connected to the Outward Path as the heart is connected to the body. Mind and body are no more separate than soul and body or spirit and body.

Nietzsche thought the inward priests and intellectuals hobbled the outward life of people to gain control over them, but Nietzsche then went too far and rejected much of the inward life of priests and intellectuals. Nietzsche did not see that his “will-to-power” was really the material Spirit-Will-to-Godhood connecting the inward activating Spirit-Will to the outward life of material and supermaterial evolution to Godhood.

Outward life and object-life need to be revived and given new life over the inward life which only defines or activates life-objects.  Godhood is not a concept or number or material-free form, Godhood is the zenith of material and supermaterial object-life evolution.  The material Spirit-Will is never separate from the material life it activates.

Mixing science, poetry and religion

Raymond Cattell rightly warned against combining science and poetry, using the example of the hatred of Karl Marx for the middle class which strongly influenced his house of cards economics.

But the emotional satisfaction of identifying the Father Within, or God Within of traditional religion with the Godhood attained at the zenith of material evolution is such a combination of science and poetry. If such a dynamic were not real, and it is real, it would be brilliant and practical to invent it.

Such emotional bonding as the Twofold Path can enhance and encourage our successful survival and evolution out into the cosmos, while avoiding the radical revolutionary break from traditional religion.

But the fact is, we do claim idealism and faith at this time as necessary to see and know the zenith of evolution as Godhood, and to see the Spirit-Will or Tirips as activating life, which is then shaped by evolution.

This does not need to contradict science, or future science, which is why it is such a powerful poetic synthesis.

Affirming progress and order in theological materialism

Religious naysayers against “progress” have been right some of the time but not all of the time. Marxism and fascism were brutal negative examples which scared off conservative intellectuals, as well as secular humanists, and biased them against ideas of natural progress.

The naysayers have been wrong on both religious and scientific grounds in attacking the idea of progress. There has been collective progress not only in human culture but in human evolution, which can also bring forward a teleological or utopian worldview, in the goal of evolving outwardly all the way to the Godhood  first glimpsed inwardly in traditional religions.

The religious naysayers have therefore been blocking progress toward the very Godhood they champion by blocking the idea of material and supermaterial evolution to real Godhood. Conservatism requires a Revitalized Conservatism that emphasizes the evolution in Ordered Evolution rather than order without evolution.

Theological materialism is the successor to both religious naysayers against progress, and naturalistic secularized science. Theological materialism is grounded in the the idea of progress within order, while it gives philosophical naturalism and evolution a sacred foundation. This is original, modern, religious philosophy still tied to tradition in the Twofold Path. 

Argument for Godhood

All living things act in a way attempting to attain survival and reproductive success. Taking this dynamic to its highest analogy, living things essentially seek to attain survival and reproductive success in an eternal or near-eternal way, and this highest success is called Godhood. Natural evolution is the path of this seeking eternal success in survival and reproduction, and the Spirit-Will-To Godhood is the activating engine of material life, which evolution shapes.

Does Godhood therefore preexist in the Spirit-Will which activated life to evolve to Godhood? Godhood is the desire of the Spirit-Will, the Spirit-Will seeks Godhood, the Spirit-Will is not Godhood. The Spirit-Will requires material evolution as its vehicle to arrive at its supreme goal of Godhood. Many attempts at evolving to Godhood in the cosmos were not successful, but there are always new chances in the Primal Beginnings of many cosmos.

This suggests that there is only one kind of material reality. The mental and mathematical-Platonic live within the material realities of our minds alone. Even the Soul exists at the Zenith of our minds as the condition of bliss reached when our minds and bodies are emptied of all desires of the flesh.

Even the Spirit-Will which activates material life lives within material life requiring material life to evolve to Godhood. It is not yet clear if the Spirit-Will can reach beyond the material body, but I doubt it can, other than through material and supermaterial reproduction.

The Libido and the Spirit-Will

Civilization was not primarily developed by way of the repressed energy of the sexual libido, which was a central insight of Freud. And the desire for successful sexual survival and reproduction of ones genes is not the sole creator of civilization, as sociobiology suggests. Sex and reproduction are secondary to the central instinct which activates life, the Spirit-Will, or the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood.  Life is then shaped by somewhat random natural evolution.

Sex and aggression are sublimated (a better word than repressed) into building civilizations of evolving groups of people, but not for survival sake alone, and not only for healthy sexual balance. We are activated to sexual reproduction and survival so that we may continue to evolve toward Godhood, out into the cosmos, beyond the human species, all the way to Godhood.

The Voting Dilemma

In the words of Pat Buchanan writing on Romney's choice of Ryan, I also believe “people, private institutions, entrepreneurs and businesses are the creative and energizing forces in society,” unlike Obama, who essentially believes government is “the engine of prosperity.” That is a stark difference.

But I have a very big problem with the globalism and neoconservatism of Romney and Ryan, who are certainly not the equal of paleoconservative-economic nationalist, Buchanan, who was nefariously elbowed out of politics by neocons and Zionists. But is this enough of a problem not to vote for Romney and Ryan?

Perhaps we should try to solve our terrible economic troubles first, as Romney/Ryan suggest we do, however, to solve them also by continuing to gut manufacturing in America, and by going to war with anyone who will not let us take over the resources of their nations, seems like pouring fuel on the fire that is devouring the West. But we may simply be too broke to get involved in foreign entanglements, even if Romney approves of them.  

Beyond the philosopher of the future

We have to go beyond Nietzsche's philosopher of the future, who he defined as being a creative genius and the center of a value theory. Nietzsche did not really see our evolution to Godhood as the goal of mankind's individual and collective efforts, he thought as far as the superman creator of values, which was not high enough. Even the “high and noble cultures,” which at least early Nietzsche affirmed, did not see the goal of Godhood in evolution. The creative genius and superman are only temporary---although important---stopping off places along the evolutionary way to Godhood. In a healthy culture with the long view, all social, religious, government, and educational arrangements ultimately relate to evolving to Godhood.  This is solid ground in defining noble and ignoble cultures.

The wellspring for transformation

The religion, myth and symbols of the the Theoevolutionary Church (TC) are the wellspring for moral, social and biological transformation. It is both a rational and romantic religious worldview, with the base of evolution in science, and the romantic-religious foundation of evolving to Godhood.

This is not a struggle against capitalists, or proletarians, or other religions, this is a struggle against devolution and nihilism. This can be done with an Ordered Evolution, which means a Revitalized Conservatism, and not radical revolution.

The Twofold Path harmonizes with traditional religion---the individual Platonic Inward Path of tradition is attained through the sociobiological Outward Path to Godhood. The blissful dream world of the Inward Path to the Father Within is realized in the realistic Outward Path of evolution to Godhood.

Neither Marx nor Augustine were complete in taking sides on defining “evil”. Evil can come from both the structure of society and from the selfish id. The inward therapeutic of psychology is not enough, the outward  sociobiological is also required.

What matters most in evolution is the separation of powers---the central dictatorships of the state, and imperialism, are anti-evolutionary. Small states and even ethnostates protected by a light federalism, and voluntarily guided by religion and science, are the way to proceed.

The Spirit-Will, Free Will and Evolution

The Spirit-Will activates all life to evolve to Godhood, but outside evolution shapes material life, and in doing so, the healthier, the more fit, the best, whether in brain or brawn, have success in survival and reproduction, and can also move upward in evolution.  This is not cruelty on the part of nature toward the unsuccessful, this is simply real life and real evolution preferring the best to proceed.  The activation of the Spirit-Will does not assure the evolution to Godhood, but it seeks for all material life to attain Godhood. This gives evolution more choice, even more randomness than an absolutely determined Spirit-Will-material-life would supply. “Free will” is not the Spirit-Will but it acts something like the Spirit-Will in man. Free will is connected to determinative things so it is not entirely free. We have choices in what we do but they are not unlimited choices. The goal is determined but the path is freer.

How Christianity and Ordered Evolution are Compatible

Sir Arthur Keith said that “The law of Christ is incompatible with the law of evolution---as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto.” This is like the dilemma St. Thomas Aquinas faced, when the exhuming of Aristotle's Reason seriously threatened to topple the faith of Christianity.

The Twofold Path in the Theoevolutionary Church makes Christianity compatible with evolution by seeing the Inward God, or the Father Within of Christianity, as the first intuitive glimpse of the Outward Godhood attained through material-supermaterial evolution in the cosmos.

But this compatibility is not done simply as strategy, this is knowing that historical and religious reality require a long term Ordered Evolution to Godhood, which combines the importance of Conservatism and Ordered Evolution with progressive evolution.

The Inward God of Christianity is reached by blocking the mammalian instincts, by blocking “all the desires of the flesh,” (not dissimilar to the inward God of eastern religions), whereas the Outward Godhood is reached by affirming and sublimating the drives of biological evolution toward Godhood.

Higher civilizations manage to redirect mammalian instincts in more spiritual directions, and the zenith of the instincts, the Spirit-Will, seeks to activate material life to evolve to Godhood.  The Outward Path is like swimming downstream in the current of life, the Inward Path is like swimming upstream as an ascetic against the currents of life.  These two streams are made compatible when the ascetic Inward God is seen as the  precursor to Outward Godhood attained through evolution.

Regarding the traditional proof of God

It may be an original theological concept that the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood contains both the cause and goal of life, since the Spirit-Will is what activates material life and does so because it seeks the goal of Godhood. The Spirit-Will is never separate from the material which it activates so there is never a single, non-material, spiritual cause.  

I do not see an unmoved, non-material God as the cause of the world, the Primary Material is periodically activated by the Primary Spirit-Will from which there is no separation, and there is always an endless evolution to Godhood, with many “failures” and fewer successes, and always with new chances. It seems just as likely that there never is, or was, a “first cause” or a “one” thing first moving another thing, things may reasonably go on forever, being moved by the Spirit-Will, and then shaped by evolution.

The two remaining “occult” entities in what I consider a naturalistic pattern are the activating Spirit-Will and Godhood at the zenith of evolution, which I believe will one day be acknowledged and defined by science---for now they require “faith” and intellectual intuition.

Thoughts on bioconservatism and artificial intelligence in evolution

I think in terms of voluntary, non-coercive, evolutionary advancement, beginning with screenings for genetic diseases, genetic counseling, birth control, all voluntary yet still encouraged. We want to halt devastating diseases which are passed on, but we also want to encourage healthier and more intelligent people with good  physical and mental health. It seems odd that one has to affirm these obviously positive things.

I can acknowledge Francis Galton's statement from the late 19th century that human civilization with its easy survival has often thwarted the mechanisms of natural selection which applied for millions of years---although good modern nutrition can also raise IQ's. When intelligence declines then civilization as we have known it declines. IQ correlates with many sociobiological factors, and these things have indeed been determined objectively by science.

We can exalt the healthy genius and the talented who have given so much to the average man. We have a long way to go in our evolution to Godhood, and Godhood is defined as the zenith or the absolute of intelligence, beauty and merit.

I affirm a bioconservative position on bioengineering and trans-human evolution. The growth of computers does not automatically mean that biological evolution will be superseded by technological evolution, computers are still autistically intelligent zombies, as David Pearce put it.

I do contrast biological intelligence with artificial machine intelligence, we are not forced to become cyborgs, or a combination of  human and artificial intelligence, and we are not forced to accept nonbiological artificial intelligence ruling over us.

It is true that genetic evolutionary change is slower at this time than exponentially advancing computers, but genetic engineering is speeding this up considerably. Computers can be used to help advance biological humanity, not rule us, and not combine with us.

There will be anarchic bio-hackers seeking to expand their minds, like those today who experiment with designer drugs, and perhaps they may need to be regulated---an intelligent sociopath is still a sociopath. There will probably be future competition between bioconservative evolutionists and those who radically promote artificial machine super-intelligence. But competition is part of evolution.

The creation of human civilization evolved mainly by way of  the bonding ethics of group-selection, and this remains deeply within human nature. Any future evolution will need to work with human nature in developing political philosophy, not against it, if we are to have the long term evolutionary success we need. For example, I see a world of thousands of small states, or ethnostates, protected by a light federalism, and guided in evolution toward Godhood by religion and science.

We certainly will invent and use higher and higher technology, but our future successors will be supermaterial descendants of ourselves and not digital machine monsters run on computers. The Godhood we are evolving to is not a superintelligent robot.
 
It should be made clear at this point that while we can affirm voluntary selective breeding, negative-eugenics (eg. disease curing), genetic engineering, gene therapy, human cloning, germ-line engineering, etc, we cannot affirm the projected man/monster/machine melds of transhuman technologies, and the like. This is where bio-conservative evolutionist's separate from the singularity and transhuman machine philosophies. In any case, human nature, or the nature of life itself, may put up its own obstacles to its own death, or its takeover by machines.
 
Reckless radicals seem to want to do such things as modify human cells with artificial cells until there is no natural biological identity left, which defines the death of natural life. We do not believe evolution can continue in that way. The Spirit-Will which first activates all life to evolve to Godhood, before natural evolution shapes life, will die if natural life dies.  

Although we certainly will be aided by superior machines and technology, we see Godhood as the zenith of natural material-supermaterial evolution, and not a machine-God.

The way out of nihilism: Nietzsche's death of religion was premature

Early Nietzsche saw no way to avoid the collapse of religion and the subsequent nihilism and “barbarizing” of culture. He thought that modern science, naturalism and modern philosophy had been the main culprits in its demise. In later work Nietzsche proposed a new philosophy or “religion” of the superman, the transvaluation of all values, eternal recurrence, the will-to-power.

But Nietzsche's death of religion was premature in light of the development of the synthesis of Christianity and theological materialism in the Twofold Path of the Theoevolutionary Church. The God of Christianity, the Father Within of Jesus Christ and the Inward Path, was a traditional, virtual, glimpse of the real Godhood which can be attained through material and supermaterial evolution in the Outward Path to Godhood.

This religious philosophy can save Christianity, and religion in general, and  it can give sacred meaning to science.  We are all evolving to Godhood, bonded within our various groups and ethnostates. This is the revitalized-conservative way out of the nihilism and hedonism of the modern world. The revolutions of communism and fascism were too radical and too far removed from human nature to work for humanity.

The Great Turn Around

I do not think that evolution is blind, although for most intents and purposes it looks that way because evolution wanders around and bumps its head against brick walls and goes down blind alleys. In this I depart from most scientists, including one of the best, Raymond Cattell.

A sacred instinct, a sacred erg, activates material life which is then shaped by evolution. This sacred instinct is called the Spirit-Will, or more formerly, the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, and this activation helps explain the path of material evolution from the simple to the complex as the Spirit-Will seeks the highest evolution possible, which is Godhood.

Affirming the sacred instinct of Spirit-Will leads to the Great Turn Around of the Twofold Path in the Theoevolutionary Church In the great religions, the Involutionary Inward Path turned the material into the spiritual, whereas the Evolutionary Outward Path turns the spiritual into the material. The virtual God, or Father Within, of the Inward Path of Christianity, and the great religions, is reached by evolving to the actual Godhood of the Evolutionary Outward Path. The spiritual and material can meet here, religion and science can meet here, traditional religion and future religion can meet here.

How far can we extend group morality?

The scientific work of Wilson and Cattell, as well as common observation, shows that morality evolved from group selection. Survival advantages went to the groups who could bond together morally without killing each other, in competition, and even war, with other groups. The groups with the morality which was best bonded within the group were more successful in survival and reproduction. Individual and kin selection took place within the bonded groups. Kin and ethnic selection does not disappear from basic human nature when group selection is acknowledged, politically incorrect as this may be.

To demand equality with no preference for ones own group departs too far from actual human nature,which is why it has never worked. But I think it is possible to extend group selection to cooperative competition, rather than murderous competition between groups. Both culture and genetics are involved in this sublimation of aggressive drives.

Competition in group selection is the natural way to find positive evolutionary mutations, which can ideally then be shared with the world, while maintaining the natural preference for ones own group. It has been shown time after time that cultural and genetic stagnation sets in without competition. Does this sound like too much for humans to handle?  Human beings are capable of this, but it does seem to require the cultural and genetic sublimation of aggressive and sexual drives toward higher evolution. We are all evolving to Godhood but we won't get there without cooperation within the parameters of actual human nature and group selection.

The one basic instinct that needs to be affirmed is the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood which activates material life and is then shaped by evolution. To evolve in the world and in the cosmos to Godhood is the essential purpose and reason for our existence, and it is the present and future mission of religion and science to help in this sacred mission, by guiding the various competing groups in how we may best survive and evolve.  

Why humanity needs religion

Nietzsche made the remark that people would have the void as purpose rather than have no purpose, and he also talked about people becoming nihilistic if they had no religion. Nietzsche considered this a sign of weakness in people.

Philosophy and science did not successfully fill the void of lost religion. The big picture was missing, and emotional holism, moral direction, and harmony was missing. Modern humanity tried to fill the void with consumerism, food, sex, drink, movies, but these did not make them feel satisfied with their lives. Nihilism followed.

The reason people would rather have the void as purpose rather than have no purpose is not because they are weak or slaves, as Nietzsche suggested, it is because sacred purpose is built into the deepest zenith of our instincts, as the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood that drives material life to evolve to Godhood, which is then shaped by natural evolution. This is the base of revitalized religious philosophy for humanity.

Elegance

“Human reason does not exclude the merit of faith, but is a sign of greater merit.” St. Thomas Aquinas

It is the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood that leads “faith,” not human reason, but there is an elegant harmony between reasoned and empirical materialism and the activation of materialism by the Spirit-Will, which pleases both faith and reason.

The elegance in itself is important in finding the truth behind the patterns of existence. Without first seeing an elegant pattern, reason has little structure to examine, inelegance seems more unrealistic or unnatural, although we have to be careful here that we are not biased in our preference for seeing elegant patterns.

The most elegant pattern is seen in the Spirit-Will activating material life to evolve---shaped by natural evolution---to the supermaterial Godhood first glimpsed by the great religions, which harmonizes faith and reason, religion and science, past and future.  

Identity

In “The Politics of Myth,” Robert Ellwood suggests that what we identity as most important tends to define our political philosophy. For example, socioeconomic class, race, religion, the individual, etc. Communists prefer socioeconomic class, fascist race-nation, liberals the individual, and so on.

Group identification (along with individual selection) has just been reaffirmed by one of the greatest living scientists, E. O. Wilson, reversing his prior preference for kin-selection. I think all three, group, individual and kin selection work together, but group selection is the main unit of selection developing the ethics of our various cultures.

Group selection brings us in the direction of older romanticism, as well as conservatism, and turns us somewhat away from the liberal Enlightenment with its affirmation of the autonomous individual. But romanticism and conservatism also affirmed the individual and the hero.

Group selection and romantic conservatism are seen in the religious philosophy of the Theoevolutionary Church where the struggle for survival and evolution to Godhood becomes mythical, almost apocalyptic.  We politically project thousands of small states religiously evolving upward toward Godhood, under the protection of a light federalism---not imperialism--- and guided, voluntarily, by the church.  

But evolution itself is grounded in the science of the Enlightenment, which also fits the character and tone of the TC. This defines a holistic worldview and religion, which we do need in our long evolution to Godhood.

Religion and Psychology

Religion has been looked at by psychology as having spiritual values arrived at from the sublimation's of instinctual (ergic) frustrations, eg. sex and aggression frustrations. This seems largely true, with a vital exception. I believe that the foundational instinct, the Zenith of the Instincts, is the Spirit-Will which activates material life before life is shaped by evolution.

That is, religion and culture arise from the sublimation of instinctual frustrations, which has a sort of negative tone, but religion and culture also arise more deeply from the positive activation of the Spirit-Will, which essentially defines life itself.

Psychology and science in general have not acknowledged this sacred activating base beneath religion and biological life, they acknowledge only random evolution seeking survival success for the sake of survival success, with no long-term religious goal of Godhood.

This makes the ECC more a religion than a psychology, and this separates us from such great influences as Raymond Cattell and E. O. Wilson.