Renewing and combining the mythological, theological, scientific and artistic views of reality

How are the particular and the universal the same? When they are contained within the living object.

The universal is the activating, material force within material life, the particular is gross matter. They are never separate.

This sacred activation works within the dynamics of natural evolution and selection, which means the sacred goal is determined but the natural path provides choices.

The activating force, the Will-Spirit, or Spirit-Will, is not trying to escape matter, as the Gnostics and even some traditional religions believe, the material Will-Spirit is seeking to activate life to evolve toward Godhood, which is also material, or supermaterial.

The Will-Spirit-To-Godhood is the keeper of the sacred goal, which calls all life to evolve all the way to Godhood, over millions and millions of years.

The evolution to Godhood is a communal activity, which can be affirmed in amphitheaters once again.

But this is not the particularism of an exclusive Greek or Wagnerian nationalism, the more natural separations of ethnopluralism call for the independence of ethnic cultures and regions in accord with real human nature, which remains kin-centered and group-selecting, as we all evolve toward Godhood.

New sacred Masses can include both the traditional Inward Path, and the evolutionary Outward Path. The symbolic God-within is reached through ascetic discipline, and real Godhood-without is reached through material evolution.

The Will-Spirit is nurtured by beauty.

The past, present and future are this way joined together. 

Creativity and originality are important but secondary to the main goal of art and religion, which is the affirmation of our evolution toward Godhood.

There is a nostalgia for the sacred, which has been trampled. Sacred symbols have been transvalued into symbols designed to destroy the sacred. That is not art or religion, that is destruction.

The mythological, theological, scientific and artistic views of reality can be renewed and combined.

Defining justice in politics

The distinction John Rawls makes leaving gender, race, and wealth out of ones decisions regarding justice in politics, is an abstract idea or principle rather than an affirmation of real human nature and the real living object. That is, with Rawls and other philosophers, human nature is not really involved in defining political justice. Marxism did this too, rejecting human nature and making the idea that human beings are infinitely malleable the fictional feature of political philosophy. In other words, to these people there is no human nature. Postmodernism goes in this rootless direction too seeing values as infinitely malleable and relative.

What does politics look like when it includes real human nature? Unlike other political structures, traditional “ethnopluralism” adheres to the variety of people and to real human nature which remains  kin-centered, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, with group-selection---the origin of real altruism---as the primary unit of selection; and it discourages marauding imperialism. Political justice related to human nature calls for some sort of federalism not fascism, but with an economic nationalism that protects the independence of the regions and states, which would largely contain ethnic cultures or ethnostates. This could be conservatively adapted to the U. S. Constitution with its separation of powers and states. That creates whatever peace is possible between humans. That defines political justice.

Real beauty, truth and goodness are attained in outward material evolution

The true, the beautiful and the good have more than an “affinity” for one another, they are enclosed in evolved living objects, with an evolutionary gradation of qualities from frogs to Gods. This trio are not a separated trinity.

Ideas, mystic experiences, definitions, sacred words, are not Gods. Real living objects secondarily contain these definitions. Why are Gods more important if they have no material qualities?

The material world of desires gets in the way of experiencing the Inward God or Father, which first requires the ascetic blocking of all material desires.

Experiencing the bliss of no desires is far secondary to the real living object or objects of Godhood. Materialism is the vehicle by which life attains Godhood.

Gnosticism needs to be transformed from the inward to the outward path, while retaining the inward path. The moonlight of spiritualism needs to be transformed in the sunlight of theological materialism.

Faith is not more important than science, but they can work together---we have a long way to evolve to Godhood.

Inward spiritual religions can be blissfully pleasing, but real beauty, truth and goodness are attained in outward material evolution.

What Godhood is and is not

G-d is the essence of good, the Kabbalist's say. This does what most theologies do, basically define God as a word, an idea, a spiritual non-material concept, a virtue, or an ascetic experience. This is not Godhood. Godhood is a living material/supermaterial object or objects evolved to in the material world. The inner God of tradition can be conservatively retained but needs to be transformed from the inward path of non-material asceticism to the outward path of living evolution...Definitions of God are secondary.

Do all things aspire to the condition of beauty?

Seeking balance and order could be seen as seeking beauty, in the same way that classicism describes a preference for balance, simplicity, and restraint, but also in the way a beautiful woman is described as perfectly balanced beauty. Perhaps this could more deeply explain the ancient worship of the Goddess?

The old saying that all art aspires to the condition of music might be better defined as all art aspiring to the condition of beauty. Beauty could then be expanded to include the aspirations of religion and philosophy. The key word here is “condition.”

“Condition” would be understood as not merely an idea, sound or sight, but the condition of life itself, the virtues of a whole living object. The zenith of evolved living objects would define Godhood, containing all the classical and universal attributes of balance, simplicity, and restraint, but also truth and goodness.

This is how all things could aspire to the condition of perfectly balanced beauty.

Intelligent intuition and proof

It seems to me that beauty, truth and goodness can be revealed best through intelligent intuition. Reason and empirical evidence come along later as proof, after the intuition. But these things are difficult to define. Intuition seems to give its insights by flashing through the brain too fast to follow, picking up and synthesizing what it finds in the brain, using both sides of the brain. Perhaps reason and evidence are also part of that that flashing procedure. (We may now have brain scanners that can follow these flashes). Art critic Gail Leggio used the term “intelligent perception” as the way beauty is revealed. Truth too can be revealed this way.

It seems that being good at perceiving intuitive perceptions without the use of the formal rational process can sometimes lead to being “spiritually” adept, but here things can get hypertrophied into blurring that line between genius and madness which has often been talked about. This kind of spiritual perception needs to keep the stark realty of reason and science in view without blocking intuition. In creativity intuition is king. Intuition needs an entirely open eye, but more than that, intuition needs a courageous eye, because what you see may not be politically correct.

The entertainment world, actors, and the Big Media are thoroughly decayed

In modern times the very negative past perception of actors, for example, in the Middle Ages, was reversed and acting became an honored profession and art. The foul-mouthed Golden Globe Awards last night should at least begin to reverse the high status of actors back to being deeply distrusted and condemned. I'm no prude, but the entertainment world, actors, and the Big Media are thoroughly lost in hedonism and immorality---and some are even traitorous. Will anything at all be done about these depraved people? Or are we to continue to worship them until we collapse in our own rottenness?

Theological materialism and evolutionary polytheism

Let me speculate a bit on what could be called an evolutionary polytheism in theological materialism.

I tend to seek three things: beauty, truth, and goodness, and not necessarily in that order. Traditional art, philosophy, and religion sought these things too. I think these virtues lead to the same place: Godhood. But not a Godhood understood as a trinity God, or a dual good/evil God, and not a Godhood understood as an emanating, pantheistic, single God---these were mainly intellectual attempts to try to retain the idea of one, non-material, inward, spiritual God with different aspects. I am talking about real, living, supermaterial Godhood, evolved to in the material world, defined as the zenith of beauty, truth and goodness, I am talking about a superior living and evolving Godhood.

To go deeper into the weeds on this, the classical world saw the Gods and Goddess as the zenith of beauty, truth and goodness and often symbolized the Gods in superior human form. I can relate to that polytheistic world more than the pantheistic idea of Godhood, that is, not describing Godhood as consisting of the whole world, and not a God whose emanations create the world. I'm talking about a graded or what could now be called evolutionary reality of living objects, which have evolved to the zenith of evolution, defined as Godhood.

This is not even Hegel standing Neoplatonism on its head with “spirit” emerging at the end of what could now be called evolution. This is supermateriality which emerges from the evolution of the material world, this is real supermaterial Gods and Goddesses evolved to in the cosmos.

Polytheism developed from around the Bronze age in Greece, and in Germany and Russia, up until the evolution of the Indian and Abrahamic religions, with their strict, spiritual, monotheism. Hard polytheism believed that Gods were distinct and real divine beings rather than mere symbols or archetypes. I don't have a problem with this as long as the Gods are seen to evolve in the material world to Godhood. The Gods may or may not influence the human world, they might even exist in an evolved world in spaces we do not yet understand.

This evolutionary world of Godhood is described in the evolutionary theology of theological materialism. This defines a Godhood that can be reached with or without us, but it is probably less likely reached without aiding evolution in its upward path. The old inward God, the Father Within can be conservatively retained but transformed in the outward evolution to real Godhood.

The true and beautiful are simple, restrained and proportioned

I have an intuition, more like an instinct, that the true and beautiful are simple, in both philosophy and art. Complexity often means being unclear about truth and beauty. But paradoxically to simplify seems to mean carefully detailing the true and the beautiful, which usually means eliminating superfluous or showy details.

Looking beyond my own instincts about the true and the beautiful, this relates to the “classical” ideal preferring simplicity, restraint and proportion, which has had universal validity over time.

Much of modern philosophy, art, and poetry is full of showy complexity and is often not even concerned with truth, meaning, or beauty. Postmodernism usually claims that this is because the truth is complex, unclear, relative, and not simple, restrained or proportioned. But my instinct tells me that if a thing is unclear or not understood, not simple, it is usually not the truth, and not beautiful.

Evolutionary realism, the term I have been using in art philosophy, follows this instinct or intuition toward simplicity, restraint and proportion. This might also be applied to guiding the future material evolution of life toward supermaterial Godhood. Godhood is seen as the zenith of beauty, truth and goodness, and applying this definition Godhood would contain the zenith of simplicity, restraint and proportion.

The Supermaterial Jewel

I have found that some of the best ideas exist where others fear to tread. This leaves one open to the charge of being presumptuous or arrogant, especially if you are changing or adapting the ideas of Shakespeare, or even presumptuously trying to change or adapt ancient religious sages. Hemingway's advice to a young writer was that in art you are allowed to steal anything if you can make it better. After reading the excellent review by Carl Curtis on Shakespeare's “Macbeth” (Modern Age, Fall 2015) I rush in again to change a few things.

It could be said of Macbeth that he did not fear man or God. This might be said of Nietzsche too, but should they have feared these things? Supposedly men can, and do, whatever they want if they have no fear of the transcendent, or the moral order, or no fear of time and place.

At this point in our evolution nature determines mortality, many traditions, and the laws of nature, so fear or no fear, we can't legitimately escape these things. Why would we want to? The real supermaterial drive within nature is the material, Will-Spirit-To-Godhood, which activates life to continually, endlessly, evolve toward Godhood. This sacred inward activation works along with the selection pressures of natural evolution. The material or supermaterial Will-Spirit is far more than Nietzsche's will-to-amoral-power, and not exactly the same as the non-material, inward, Father/Spirit/Soul, symbolic, ascetic, experience of many religious sages. Power and ascetic meditation are only some of the means to aid in our evolution toward Godhood---religion, philosophy, science, art, politics are other means. In our nihilistic modern world when we blithely think we are doing what we want, the Will-Spirit is an activating force of life that should not be feared, or overlooked---it can help heal the damage done by unbalanced characters like Macbeth.

How religion and science can again mimic one another, and the fallen political world rise again

I continue to be amazed at how sociobiological views of human nature and human culture mimic conservative religious traditions. Group-selection or altruism trumped individual selfishness in religious virtues long before their was an evolutionary science which affirmed these values as having been the most successful means of human survival.

But this mimicry fades when religion projects the world of non-materialism. Here God is seen as beyond the comings and goings of the material world. So religious philosophers and theologians arose to find a way to include real life and real material living in religion. This adjustment was virtually contrary to the ascetic rejection of all material things by the founders of most religions, but apparently these transformations were necessary for living in the real material world. These adjustments also seem to be the way conservatism deals with necessary change, whereas revolutionaries tend to reject the past entirely.

Without these transformations religions would not have moved beyond the ascetic monastic life. But these attempts to make religion workable in the real material world were built on a foundation that the founders would not have approved of, and so from the beginning this created a philosophical and religious dilemma which hurt the viability of religion. This probably had much to do with the gradual fading away of religion in the modern world, as science advanced on firm material grounds.

In order to regain and continue the powerful echoing of religion and science, we need to go back to the beginning of the founders of religion and science and transform the first ascetic  inward symbolic glimpse of God or the Father into the real outward Godhood reached through material and supermaterial evolution. This Twofold Path can revive the powerful connection of religion and science, which is affirmed in the religious philosophy of theological materialism.

With this transformation we can religiously, philosophically, and scientifically affirm cultures and political systems that project our continuing material evolution toward supermaterial Godhood. That is, cultures and political systems built on the foundation of real human nature and the real evolution of life toward Godhood. Ethnopluralism is suggested as a way to harmonize the group-selection of human nature in a crowded world of competing ethnic cultures. To continue to try to force distinct ethnic cultures into one motley state assures social disruptions and even war. Differences need to be protected and applauded in separate smaller ethnostates protected by workable federalism. I think the U.S. Constitution, for example, with its separation of powers and states could legally accommodate this life-saving adjustment.

Religion can be conservatively retained but transformed when evolutionary science is voluntarily in service to the evolution of life toward Godhood. This is how religion and science can again mimic one another, and the fallen political world rise again.

Quote on gender

The following quote from artist Caroline Eleanor Absher on gender is too good not to pass on:

“I do believe men and women are wired differently. Women can’t help but see the world from the perspective of someone who can add a human being into it. Even if a woman doesn’t want children of her own, she is programmed to habitually nurture in a way that men often overlook/ take for granted. Modernity hasn’t quite knocked the mama bear out of us yet. It’s a chronic awareness. I am constantly thinking things like, “what if my babies exist in a world without polar bears?”

Conservative change over revolutionary change

The big difference between conservative change, and revolutionary change including modern liberals (cultural Marxists), is that revolutionaries think past traditions are like a bad nightmare, whereas conservatives define past traditions as slowly gained wisdom. Both sides want change but liberals want to wipe out the past and conservatives want to retain but reform or transform traditions. Real conservative's who want change are not wearing a mask disguising revolution, they really do find traditions wise and want to upgrade and improve them, legally.

Advocates of revolutionary militant change, wiping out the past, can rise on both the far left and far right. I place the ethnopluralism hypothesis in the conservative camp. In the United States this means affirming but transforming the legal separation of powers and states, seen in the original the U. S. Constitution, to include distinct regions and states set aside for ethnic cultures, protected by federalism. This will help establish, or re-establish, a more natural order based in the hard-wired dominant group-selection of real human nature, which can help counter the increasingly discordant non-assimilating population, now greatly increasing with legal and illegal immigration.

How religion, patriotism, and science need not conflict

The self-limitation of altruism tends to conflict with the materialism of individualism, but in the long run group-selection is more successful than individual selection, groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals, as both religion and the science of sociobiology have shown over the years.

Practical problems arise with conflicting forms of patriotism based in natural differences between ethnic cultures, and also between individual and group-selection within groups.

Right-nationalism and left-individualism seems to be a more illuminating way of describing political differences than placing libertarian individualism on the right. Individualism naturally conflicts with group behavior. A way must be found to realistically deal with this real aspect of human nature.

Patriotism and morality are not at odds when material evolution to supermaterial Godhood is grounded in the real life needs of living in real places which are patriotically affirmed. Traditional religion has a bit more of a problem with patriotism because religion is grounded in non-materialism.

We cannot have a decent world without both religion and patriotic life, but this does not mean a new anthropology is needed. It means affirming real human nature along with the sacred evolution of life toward Godhood.

 

Differences between ethnic cultures and ethnic groups can be kept in check with ethnopluralism, regions and states set aside for distinctive ethnic cultures, and protected by some form of federalism.

No conflict with traditional religions is called for in the Twofold Path of theological materialism where the inward God of tradition is retained but transformed in the outward evolution to real Godhood.

This is the future world we require if we are to survive on earth. Self-restraint and altruism work best in protected ethnostates. Ideological contracts are not enough, as we have seen in the short life of new ideology. Religion, patriotism, and science can work in harmony.

The missing link in uniting religion and science

“Selection pressures” do not alone explain our striving for moral and aesthetic goals, although this does have much to do with scientifically explaining much of human behavior. What is missing is the Will-Spirit-To-Godhood which, materially, activates within life, even deeper than selection pressures. This better explains the sacred dimension of our moral and aesthetics strikings.

Life is evolving in the material world toward supermaterial Godhood, which is the zenith of success in survival, but also the zenith of moral and aesthetic success. This is the missing link in uniting religion and science.

The Twofold Path retains but transforms the inward view or experience of heaven, or the God Within---which both Christ and Buddha were mainly concerned with---to the real Godhood which can be reached, realistically, by material and supermaterial evolution.

I think religion will one day fully acknowledge selection pressures involved in moral and aesthetic goals, and science will acknowledge the activating Will-Spirit-To-Godhood within life. This has been done in theological materialism.

What I like best about the political system of the United States

As Daniel Bell said, the essence of modernity is that nothing is sacred. We have to overcome the French Nietzschean-Heideggerian relativism and nihilism which rules postmodern intellectuals---although Nietzsche did have a cause, the superman.

Then there is the so-called “creative destruction” of the neoconservative cabal and its marauding global corporations.

What I like best about the original political system of the United States is the separation of the institutions, separate powers, separate states, and the attempt to balance them.

This system is harmonious with real human nature, which naturally and instinctively separates itself by kin and group preferences, as the science of sociobiology---which the Founders didn't have---recently reiterated.

I see ethnopluralism, the separation of regions and states into distinct ethnic cultures, protected by federalism, as an on-going affirmation of the United States political system.

The United States this way can continue to inspire the world, and we can bring whatever peace is possible to our increasingly unassimilating and discordant country.

My last hope is that theological materialism, with its affirmation of the evolution of material life to supermaterial Godhood—which need not conflict with the symbolic inward God of traditional religion---eventually will offer us the deeper long-term religious foundation going forward, which every great civilization needs.

Can anything be done about the degeneration of the patron?

In a democratic republic how can we patronize the best art and culture when our patrons tend to be the depraved swindlers and vulgar loudmouths of Hollywood and New York? It leads to thinking about the temptation of aristocracies, which supposedly patronize the very best creative people.

We have witnessed the downfall of art and culture promoted by the Big Media (and postmodern academic frauds), patronized by predatory global corporations who control the culture. Can anything be done about the degeneration of the patron if one wants to work within the system we have?

As usual I see the separation of ethnic cultures within ethnopluralism as the best chance of developing patrons with better taste. Then the plebeian-bourgeoisie newly rich will not have national and imperial power over all cultures.

With ethnopluralism distinctive cultures will have a longer-term chance to rise in their own regions, protected by federalism. This could be accommodated by the separation of powers and states in the U. S. Constitution. Some states could promote aristocratic patrons within a democratic republic, and even the loudmouths could have their own culture.

The real Fall of morality is the Fall from nature

It is presumptuous to call nature cruel, are we to judge nature solely by human standards? Nature is not cruel, nor is human nature. Why would we want to judge nature that negatively?

Human traditions should not be thought of as counter-nature, or counter the cruelty of nature, traditions should be harmonious with nature, when they are not, as in Marxism or global imperialism, and even some aspects of religion, then that is cruel.

It is not merely pagan or modernist to collaborate with the forces of nature, although we do not want to follow Nietzsche's amoral Dionysus. When we define nature and human nature more accurately, not as evil, we praise nature. The real Fall of morality is the Fall from nature.

How can it be idolatrous to see nature as sacred when we evolve to Godhood in the materiel world by way of nature, not by the rejection of nature? The early religious sages rejected material nature to concentrate on the God or Father Within, but that was the first symbolic glimpse of real Godhood reached inwardly, which can be retained, but transformed in our material evolution toward real Godhood.

Political philosophy and art follow the shape of nature and human nature as closely as possible if we wish to work harmoniously with nature. Marxism and global imperialism do not, and neither does Nietzschian postmodern philosophy, although they acknowledge the importance of the will-to-power in nature.

What is the contour of human nature? One phrase says it best: Group-selection, but it is a group-selection juxtaposed with individual and kin-selection, which is not always a comfortable mix. But group-selection is the primary unit of successful survival..."Within groups selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals.." (E.O.Wilson)

This is how we arrive at the political philosophy of ethnopluralism and make the claim that it is most harmonious with nature and human nature. We study trained scientists like E.O.Wilson and less known thinkers like Raymond Cattell, and Alain de Beniost, but we also examine the ideas of the paleoconservatives.

As I wrote yesterday, the affirmation of ethnopluralism, which reflects the group-selection of real human nature, will be the coming political awakening. That is, separate regions and states set aside for distinct ethnic cultures, protected by a standard federalism, which could be harmonized legally in the United States, for example, with the separation of powers and states as seen in the original U. S. Constitution.

But then we move out of rigid empiricism, while retaining science, toward the religious philosophy of theological materialism, all the while seeking to collaborate with the forces of nature. Nature is the origin of religion, politics and art.

What is high morality? As the evolutionary scientists say, morality has always been marked by its conscious or unconscious affirmation of what is successful in survival and reproduction, which could be called low morality. High morality affirms the zenith of success as moving toward or attaining Godhood, and older morality defines God mainly as an inward personal experience.

My New Year's hope

“The slowness of the good”

I think the above quote by David Harned applies well to the evolution of life toward Godhood, in developing cultural, political and scientific programs directed toward this great goal. Religion can give foundation to this sacred long-term mission. But great patience is required in the long social movement through the institutions, that is, patience backed by courage. That is my New Year's hope.

Policing ones own people is not a given in the case of Bill Cosby

Even given the injustices done to blacks, the virtue of justice has been largely missing from blacks regulating their own people, which is seen, once again, in the case of Bill Cosby. Black leaders have not spoken out against Cosby's serial sexual abuse. Even if all the drugged women who have come forward (50?!) consented to the abuse, you would think Cosby's hedonistic immorality would at least be condemned.

It seems to me that this lack of social responsibility by blacks toward their own people has had much to do with why they have remained for so long in the lower reaches of society. Ethnocentrism, even blind ethnocentrism---otherwise know as “racism”---is natural to human behavior, but policing ones own people, apparently, is not a given.

Thoughts on the modern definition of beauty and ugliness in art

If I agree that the human voice can express emotion, and that music fundamentally seems to imitate the human voice, music can this way also refine the human voice and make of it sublime music. But “music” can also express the opposite, ugly, painful sounds, as atonal (disordered) music often does.

Modern art in general has refused to label disorder, pain, disharmony or ugliness as low art, and refused to label order, pleasure, harmony, tonality, reality or traditional beauty as high art. Music and art in general might this way be labeled either noble and sublime, or ignoble and absurd.

It is difficult to believe that people actually prefer sounds or sights of pain and disorder to sounds and sights of pleasure and order---just as beautiful people are usually preferred to ugly people. This makes it seem that people who claim to prefer ugliness, pain, disorder and atonality are not telling the truth, or have other motives. What might they be?

Promoting art that patronizes disorder, pain, and disharmony is probably related to the desire to destroy the culture or the people who affirm order, pleasure, and harmony. In other words, modern “art” is not about art, it is about destruction, it is more like political and cultural propaganda. Interesting that postmodern philosophy would agree with this, but for Marxist reasons.

Later followers of the anti-life art perspective might not have the same destructive motives as the original purposeful tone-deaf philosophers of ugliness, and may somehow be taught to like ugliness and disorder, or pretend to like it, especially if their educational success depends on it.

Ethnopluralism, or how altruists beat selfish individuals

Nietzsche said “ morality is essentially the means of making something survive the individual.” Today that is called altruism, interest in the welfare of others, which Nietzsche was not fond of as a policy, to say the least. Nietzsche thought altruism hampered great individuals and creators of values. Ever the rebel, Nietzsche said that all great men have been criminals, in the sense of creating their own values.

I think truly great men transform past errors without destroying traditions. The science of sociobiology has found that within societies selfish individuals beat altruists, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals. And so group-selection became the primary successful unit of human selection, although there is always that uncomfortable dynamic between the individual and the group.

Wise political structures need to include the behavior of real human nature, which is the main reason why I think ethnopluralism has become the best revived political structure. That is, preferably small states for distinctive ethnic cultures, with their natural ethnocentric altruism, and some sort of protecting federalism between the states and other nations, perhaps not unlike the one envisioned in the original U. S. Constitution, with a few amendments.

Compare this political recommendation with the damaging or useless rants of the presidential electioneering going on right now, and you see how far we need to go.

Consciousness

It is easier for me to understand “consciousness” if I define consciousness as having real access to or being aware of inside and outside things, even if our senses are taking in more than we are aware of at any given time---if we aren't aware of things, we wouldn't call it consciousness.

“Unconsciousness” would then resemble ignorance. If we aren't aware of things we are ignorant of them. To call something part consciousness, subconscious, or unconscious, rather than ignorance, seems to confuse the definition.

“Higher consciousness” would mean having conscious access to more things than lower consciousness, inwardly or outwardly. That is, inwardly more knowledge of the self, and outwardly more knowledge of the world. Intelligence would be a subset of consciousness.

Most living things on earth would have less consciousness than humans, and non-living things would appear to have no consciousness. A God, or Godhood reached in evolution might have access to virtually all things in the world, inwardly and outwardly, which could relate to the old idea of “absolute consciousness.”

Bias against the Germanic or Anglo-Saxon roots of the English and American order

Thomas Jefferson mainly wanted to see a renaissance of Anglo-Saxon institutions in America, with such things as the separation of powers, which was the real bases of English freedom---Jefferson was not primarily representing the Enlightenment ideas of Locke and Rousseau. Why is this fact, which can be backed by good scholarship (see "The German Roots of American Order,” by E. Christian Kopff, Modern Age, Fall 2015) not better known?

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

The intellectual abstractions of Plato, the French Revolution, and Leo Strauss deny or block the more important real conservative fact that political institutions grow from customs, conventions and the ethnic history of a people (and I would emphasize the genetic traits) cultivated over many generations. Ideas are of course important, but distinctive people create distinctive cultures.

Is it the lack of courage to admit the truth of natural bias toward ones group in human nature? Is it ignorance? Is it fear of being called a "racist?" Is it deception? It is a serious problem and a big pain in the neck at any rate, and I'm pleased it is being talked about, however underground.

Realist Utopian

I think we we can be realist utopians, a term studied by philosopher Raymond Geuss. The way I see it, we can realistically, without wishful thinking about human nature or politics, seek things we do not yet have, but seek them realistically. The evolutionary sciences of sociobiology, evolutionary psychology and genetics can keep us grounded in rigorous science, while we think about future evolution all the way to Godhood.

It seems to me that conservativism objects to utopian thinking mainly when it does not correspond to their utopian view of heaven. Theological materialism does not reject past religious views of heaven; in the Twofold Path it retains but transforms the inward view or experience of heaven, or the God Within---which both Christ and Buddha were mainly concerned with---to the real Godhood which can be reached, realistically, by material and supermaterial evolution.

Reviving and transforming religion and art

We need not repudiate reason and science, we can expand it out toward future evolution, and we can very much include religion and art in a kind of romanticism within science. This is evolutionary realism based in both science and art, inspired by the philosophy of theological materialism, and not merely romantic grandiosity.

If we study the evolution of man, then the evolution of man allows us to study our evolution toward Godhood in the cosmos. This can revive, transform, and extend religion. Religion has obviously been dying in the West along with the general decline of the Western world.

Man long ago saw God inwardly in the ascetic Inward Path by denying material desires, now we do not block life, we relax life into the dynamics of material evolution. This is not revolution this is evolutionary transformation.

William Blake said “Damn braces. Bless relaxes,” but we do not “damn” the traditional blockade of material evolution in the Inward Path, which was designed to experience God inwardly, we retain but transform the Inward Path with the Outward Path of material evolution to real Godhood.

(This response was inspired by a short review of Romantic Art, by Gail Leggio, in American Arts, Summer 2015)

High and Low Art

High art seems to have grown out of low art. Folk music was refined into classical music, playful dialogues became Shakespeare, novelties and amusements in silent film became art films, and so on. I see nothing wrong with low art becoming high art, and nothing wrong with them being separate, but with the following conditions.

Should high art look down its nose at low art? High and low art can both affirm high morality, in their own ways---in the best civilizations they tended to do that (Ancient Greece, Rome, and India, the High Middle Ages, England from 1688 to 1832). Today both high and low art create works that are decadent and degenerate because they fulminate against high morality.

What is high morality? As the evolutionary scientists say, morality has always been marked by its conscious or unconscious affirmation of what is successful in survival and reproduction. High morality affirms the zenith of success as moving toward or attaining Godhood, with traditional morality defining God mainly as an inward personal experience.

Theological materialism retains but transforms the traditional inward experience of God---which required blocking material drives---toward the outward material evolution of life to real supermaterial Godhood. High and low art affirm this morality, not by excessively moralizing but by creatively illuminating.

Natural or artificial evolution?

Can the dynamics of evolution and natural selection be replicated in voluntarily improving the biological and intellectual standards of the human species (eugenics)? Not exactly, so far, but the dynamics of natural evolution could be followed generally, if we can more accurately define the dynamics.

The artificial intelligence pushed by the trans-humanists seems to be grounded in the belief that natural evolution is entirely random, accidental, for them the evolution of human beings has little or no real direction or purpose other than successful survival and reproduction, if they even admit that. Improving human beings biologically and intellectually is also deeply politically incorrect which blocks such talk and makes the advance of non-human intelligence easier to promote.

The key here for me is that while evolution can be random, it is not entirely random or accidental. Life has been evolving toward increasing consciousness, intelligence, beauty, complexity, and toward the social altruism of group-selection, or goodness, and even evolving toward power. Few people ask the question why are we driven toward success in survival and reproduction? (Francis Heylighen has been one of the few modern scientists to examine purpose in evolution.)

Just as the pleasure or happiness derived from eating food is driven by the deeper requirements of successful survival, the drive to survival and reproductive success is driven by the deeper need of evolving toward Godhood as the zenith of success and purpose in evolution (so contrary to many philosophers happiness is a secondary goal). Naturalism in evolution can therefore include the activation toward higher evolution.

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

The evolution toward Godhood this way includes religion. We need more than science, we need a religious philosophy that sublimates science, as theological materialism does. Raymond Cattell made a brilliant attempt at including religion in science, but he rejected traditional religion, whereas theological materialism retains but transforms traditional religion in the Twofold Path. Teilhard de Chardin also tried to include evolution in religion but evolution for him moved toward a completely non-material God, which is the antithesis of material evolution. It seems to me that even wave/particle quantum change, which some have claimed to be spiritual, is like water changing to ice and then back again to water---it is somehow a material change, and not a non-material dynamic.

Life has been evolving outwardly toward the Godhood first seen inwardly, and our sacred mission is to help it along the way.

Why I prefer evolution to the dialectic

I prefer evolution to the dialectic in understand change. This way you avoid talking or thinking only in terms of ideas.

Ideas need to relate to real objects. The object then becomes more important than the mere idea of the object.

This also avoids the either/or blockade of Kant and Kierkegaard. The either/or dilemma is this way seen as a dilemma of ideas only, whereas the real object cannot be merely a choice of either/or.

This points toward materialism and away from spiritualism and idealism. But it does not reject Godhood, at least not in theological materialism.

Godhood becomes the supermaterial zenith of successful material evolution, and not the non-material spirit of the Vedas, Plato, or Hegel. And the nothingness of modern philosophy becomes a mere idea.

Theological materialism, ethnopluralism, and divine purpose

Marxism, the left, and modern liberalism do not really believe the multiculturalism they espouse, all the world must become exactly what they are.
 

Real respect for variety and diversity comes with ethnopluralism, where there are many ethnic groups, many races and cultures, living in their own territories.
 

One evolutionary religious philosophy and one political philosophy actually affirm this variety and independence: theological materialism and ethnopluralism.
 

Federalism, the modern form of subsidiarity, can offer protection for these differences in ethnic groups and ethnic states.
 

But there is an overall direction and purpose in life and therefore in theological materialism, which is applied in ethnopluralism: the successful evolution of material life to supermaterial Godhood.
 

This divine plan can be guided over great time by international sociobiological research centers, voluntary, open to all, and advised by the religious philosophy of theological materialism.

Evolutionary Realism: Art Rising From The Dead

Evolutionary realism follows or synthesizes evolution, it is art in harmony with nature evolving, or devolving, or staying the same before evolving again.

Nature is not a total mystery and art should not be a total mystery. The rules of evolution in nature have become increasingly clear since Darwin, and so should the rules of art. 

Art should not deconstruct nature, it should follow nature.  Art lies to itself if it thinks it can be free of nature. Art needs to affirm nature, and then art can project nature as nature evolves into the future, without abandoning nature.

The inward activating instinct of life, defined here as the material Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, is not monstrous or Dionysian, it has a rational goal activating life to evolve toward the zenith of success in life and evolution, which is real Godhood.

The artist and the philosopher can project both inward and outward life, both the Involutionary Inward Path to the symbolic God Within, and the Evolutionary Outward Path to real supermaterial Godhood, which is the balance sought.

The phrase “the object is all” suggests that the human imagination should not think itself greater than the object it sees, which has led to distorting or even rejecting the real object. That is pure idealism or non-material spiritualism. Reality is lost this way.

There is a difference in evolutionary realism between imaginatively projecting the future direction of material evolution and abandoning the the object and material evolution entirely.

This abandonment of the material object in favor of a non-material ideal has been going on since the time of the Vedas, or Plato, or since the formation of traditional religions. This pure idealism or spiritualism has caused a Great Spiritual Blockade against evolving to real Godhood in the cosmos---not outside the cosmos.

Theological materialism is a new model for theology, science and art which does not reject traditional religion but conservatively transforms it. The inward experience of God or the Father Within is transformed in the outward evolution of material life to real supermaterial Godhood.

Spiritualism imagined itself more important than materialism, which is an anthropomorphic and even narcissistic position to take. It was the lack of imagination viewing the world the way strict scientific empiricism viewed the world which led to the rebellion against a boring and incomplete materialism.

The rules in nature and evolution allow the rules within evolutionary realism to project future evolution. Abstract expressionism thought nature was without rules, and so did postmodern philosophy, and so they abandoned nature and evolution in favor of anarchy, nihilism, and relativity.

Art becomes increasingly insane the more it abandons nature and real human nature. Artists and intellectuals did not like the biological view of human nature and its role in the origin of cultural behavior, it did not fit their Marxist preferences.

The rejection of the real life instincts has been suicidal, and so art and philosophy have become suicidal, which leads to defining art and culture as death, or death as art and culture.

We need to evolve in harmony with the laws of real nature, activated by the material and then supermaterial Spirit-Will-To-Godhood within life. This can bring art and science legitimately back to religion. 

What has come before in religion can be retained but considered as incomplete glimpses or inward experiences of real Godhood, which all life strives to evolve toward in the cosmos. This is the affirmation of the sacred in art which has always defined the greatest art.

A new vision in art and philosophy, which have been blind in modern times

Purpose, beauty and truth can return in art, along with change, based in the natural material evolution of life toward Godhood. This brings together or synthesizes orderly traditional art and changing modern art. 

Change is related to purpose by way of evolution. Change and purpose need not be separated as Nietzsche and his postmodern followers tried to do.

Godhood is here considered supermaterial rather than spiritual, but the yearning for Godhood can return. The dualities are no longer necessary or valid between matter and spirit or mind and matter.

Artists and philosophers have been too long lost in nihilism, but evolutionary realism backed by theological materialism finds them and brings them back.

This is a new vision in art and philosophy, which have been blind in modern times.

Debating fools: is the present media unstoppable in its destructiveness?

The Founders did not imagine the power and technology of our present big media. Whoever controls the media today controls the present, past and future. That is power. Dictators know the power of the media which is why they control it.

So now we have to watch CNN'S Wolf Israeli-First Blitzer do his standard lets-you-and-him-fight, as he directs the Republican candidates who idiotically compete to see who can promote destabilizing war in the Middle-East, or anywhere, the most. Meanwhile truly unlikable Hillary Clinton and her unctuous husband move closer to the White House, again.

The fact that there is no big, countering, paleoconservative, economic nationalist, states-rights media (Fox News cable is part of the neoconservative cabal therefore not conservative) suggests that the big corporations who own the media are free to destroy Western traditions and national borders, apparently so they can gather more power in the collapse.

Will the West have to fall before it rises again? Will Western militants rise out of desperation and do more harm than good?  Are there really no big money paleoconservatives who can establish a powerful counter media? Is the present media unstoppable in its destructiveness?

How to oppose the destruction of the West

Various cultural and racial groups have been increasingly destroying the West by declaring that anything that opposes their agenda of cultural Marxism on the left, and neo-conservativism on the right, are hateful and evil. On the left their agenda promotes non-Western cultures, non-nuclear families, atheism and religious minorities, women over men, homosexuality, and non-White races. On the right the neo-conservative agenda promotes imperial Western globalism. They have criminalized virtually any opposition to their agenda.

The wise way to oppose this destruction of the West is to refrain from attacking various cultural and racial groups and instead call for life-saving ethnopluralism. This could be done while affirming the conservatism of the original U.S. Constitution, which separates the powers and states and protects their independence with federalism---the Constitution could accommodate the separation of competing or even warring ethnic cultures into ethnic regions and states. If a region wanted the destructive dream of cultural Marxism possibly they might, as long as they stayed within their borders.

 

Ethnopluralism harmonizes with real human nature which remains strongly kin-centered, ethnocentric, and group-selecting.  Supporters of ethnopluralism may still be slandered as haters, racists, and so on, but ethnopluralism clearly saves and respects cultural and ethnic differences, and so it takes the moral high ground. Human history shows that the various forms of imperialism always break back into ethnostates, purposefully or unpurposefully. The line of defense and the way to oppose the destruction of the West is drawn here with ethnopluralism. What are the chances of success? Human nature and history are with us, but whatever the outcome, it is the healthier action to take.

Thoughts on transformed virtue

Transformed virtue: strength and courage in ever seeking to evolve toward higher consciousness, intelligence, and beauty, with the zenith of these things residing at the zenith of material/supermaterial evolution, or Godhood. (Theological materialism).

The old virtue: strength and courage as good. (pre-Christian, post-Christian Nietzschean).

Post-pagan virtue: the suppression or sublimation of strength and courage in seeking the inward experience of God or the Father-Within, or high non-material reason as good. (Vedic, Socratic, Christian).

This historical transforming of virtues has resembled Hegel's dynamic of thesis, antithesis, but the synthesis is material/supermaterial and not “spiritual” (which is supermaterial). Upward material/supermaterial evolution replaces the “dialectic” toward the non-material spirit, and also replaces power for power's sake in the value system.

Virtues seem to reveal the degree of biological, psychological, philosophical, religious and political health of a people or culture.

Are great men Nietzschean radicals or evolutionary conservatives?

Nietzsche wrote that all great men are criminals in the grand style, but they were not petty or pitiful; they felt adrift from all ancestry, conscience, and duty in trying to find the means to their great goals.

But that describes the radically powerful man. Truly great men felt adrift from past tragic errors of ancestry, conscience, and duty, they wanted to boldly fix them, or deeply transform them, not desert or destroy them.

Would Nietzsche have become more conservative had he lived longer? It is difficult to believe that one of the most courageous thinkers in human history could be intellectually biased with resentment against traditional power and authority, or consumed with jealously against a successful artist like Wagner.

The reign of the anti-hero

The truth-telling hero and the lying anti-hero were the standard in Western culture until after the two World Wars when both high and low culture mutated from the hero to the anti-hero.

That was no small change, the lying anti-hero conquered in the popular media and in the academic world. Now heroes who tell the truth are seen as simpletons and liars are seen as geniuses. You have to watch family and G-movies to find any truth-telling heroes, although they are usually presented with gagging syrupy sweetness. And in the academic world post-modernism preaches that it is naive to think in terms of heroes and anti-heroes since there is no real right or wrong.

These preferences seem to relate generally to the northern and southern hemispheres, or it could be the difference between warrior and non-warrior cultures, where warrior cultures are taught to shoot strait and tell the truth, and non-warrior cultures do good business in the bazaars by lying.

Even so, I'm not advocating that one or the other of these conquer, they are both biologically and culturally activated and are best separated with ethnopluralism where human nature can more harmoniously proceed.

Ontology Meets Epistemology: Unblocking the Great Spiritual Blockade

(A response to “A Priori and Ab Initio,” by Cologero, Gornahoor, 2015-12-07)

In theological materialism there is the real world of becoming and the same secondary world which attempts to define a world of non-becoming, or being, with principles, equations and sacred words. This secondary world of definitions is what has been called “being.” It has been wrongly considered (or trans-valued) as the real world, and the real world has been considered unreal. The principles defining life do not come first, actual forms of life come first. Principles, although important, are vastly secondary. We do not need to distinguish a world of being from a world of becoming.

There are not “two natures” of metaphysics, there is one physical order which includes the higher evolved super-physical order. The split between the material and the spiritual, between Samsara and nirvana, Heaven and earth, Yin and Yang, does not exist. The material in reality defines the spiritual. For example, the experience of nirvana of Buddha, and the experience of heaven or the Father Within of Christ, were just that, a peak experience in the physical mind (or the higher Mind-Soul) after much ascetic discipline in blocking or overcoming material desires. We can conservatively retain the preliminary Inward Path experience of the God Within, but it needs to be transformed in the Outward Path of material evolution to real Godhood.

The physical world and the world that defines the physical world are not opposing worlds, they are the same world. It is possible to have, or be, a material object without defining the object, or without finding a principle which defines the object, but defining the object can help to better understand the object, providing the definitions are mainly accurate or real. Godhood is not a principle. Godhood is a material object or objects at the supermaterial zenith of material evolution. And evolution continues endlessly with starts and stops along the way. There is no first beginning and no final ending, but this cannot yet be proved scientifically, religiously or philosophically any more than a final ending or first beginning can be proved. At this point in our evolution intellectual intuition lets us see that there is no ending and no beginning.

Priests, philosophers, intellectuals, and to a lesser degree scientists, have put up a Great Spiritual Blockade against evolving in the material world to supermaterial Godhood, which must be unblocked if we are ever to revive the Western (and Eastern) world, or if we are ever to reach Godhood.

The difference between multiculturalism and ethnopluralism

“Multiculturalism” and “diversity” as defined in the West today insidiously promotes the equality of political correctness. That is, people and cultures are only the result of different environments, not biology, which can be corrected with cultural Marxism. College campuses strongly promoting “diversity as strength” in reality create distinct groups that stick together and fight one another. Social goals depend on the power to make them happen, and since power is never equal, equality never works.

Variety is good in evolution, but “multiculturalism” creates sameness or unsuccessfully attempts to create sameness. Whereas ethnopluralism actually protects and champions variety, and acknowledges distinct differences between groups inherent in real human nature, which require their own space, their own ethnic culture, and their own ethnostate. Various forms of federalism can then protect the whole.

Healthy morality is essentially the cultural or religious means of helping life continue to live and evolve, and ethnopluralism needs to be affirmed if we are to continue to survive and evolve, ultimately to Godhood, without tearing each other and the earth apart.

What conservatism misses in trying to fix higher education

In the West today it is the uneducated that seem educated in protecting the permanent things that are so necessary to the survival of any country. Why don't conservatives promote the science of sociobiology in the humanities departments of our colleges and universities as a way to help save the permanent things? Mainly because conservatism has been religiously based in the anti-materialism of religion, whereas sociobiology is based in the naturalism and materialism of science.

Teaching students the debauched and degraded idea (at $40 thousand a year) that there is no determined human nature, and that authenticity is defined as acting any way they please (as long as it is politically correct), has meant the virtually permanent and conservative qualities of real human nature are missing. The science of sociobiology has once again taught us that human nature remains as it has always been: kin-centered, gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other conservative things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection.

The bridge between religion and science is developed in the philosophy of theological materialism, where conservatives and traditionalists can retain the old ascetic spiritual experience of the Inward Path to the God or Father Within but see it transformed in the Outward Path of material evolution to real supermaterial Godhood. As Russell Kirk said, men cannot improve a society by setting it on fire: they must seek out its old virtues and bring them back into the light.

Singular-ethnicity, ethnopluralism, or ideological denial?

Why does “racism” always appear in human history? A singular or imperial ethnicity, or totalitarian racism is what usually appears, but also a more sneaky singular-ethnicity with the great chutzpah to disguise itself as anti-racism. And then of course there is the modern ideological denial of any kind of ethnicity or biological origin of cultural behavior, such as Marxism or modern liberalism. But even conservatives and traditionalists more or less deny ethnicity, even as their traditions tend to uphold the old ways of a singular-ethnicity.

What are we to make of this mélange of views and denials? As I say here often, over many decades of honest and courageous work, scientific sociobiological studies have found that real human nature remains kin-centered, gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. It has been the singular or imperial forms of racism that have caused most of the devastating wars throughout human history.

How do we deal with this ethnocentrism? The ethnopluralism hypothesis presented here affirms ethnic regions and ethnostates for distinct ethnic cultures, protected internally and externally by some version of federalism. The United States Constitution with its separation of powers and states could even accommodate ethnopluralism.  Ethnopluralism allows evolution to continue with the variety and the time that evolution prefers.

This seems to be the way for us to civilize the beast without perverting or destroying human nature and human history. Human beings are capable of this life-saving behavior---we better be.

How group-selection runs deeper than Nietzsche's individualism or asceticism in religion

To update Nietzsche's pioneering idea that morality is essentially the means of making something survive the individual, which Nietzsche did not approve of, it is the altruism inherent in group-selection that was and is the means of allowing life to survive the individual.

This means that the individualism of Nietzsche (however great the individual) and the individualism of modern libertarianism do not go deep enough in examining human nature. As the great E. O. Wilson said, “Within groups selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals.” And so the social conquest of the earth emerged.

This has meaning in defining human nature and political philosophy, where kin-selection and group-selection more naturally favor ethnopluralism, ethnic cultures, and ethnostates, and not one-world globalism, melting pots, or the hyper-individualism of libertarianism.

Even the deeper ascetic side of most religions favors the individual path to the God or Father Within by ultimately rejecting all material life, which created problems for later philosophers of theology in affirming social and political life while attacking materialism.

This contradiction is resolved in the Twofold Path of theological materialism where the Inward Path to the Father Within is conservatively retained but transformed in the Outward Path of material evolution to supermaterial Godhood, which requires the long-term protection of both individual-selection and group-selection, as life continually evolves toward higher things.

What has really been causing the increasing number of Islamic terrorist attacks?

The endless attempts to make all people get along in harmony, as one equal people, no-matter how distinctly different they are, has never worked, even when great force was applied. Long-lasting traditional religions and powerful political ideologies, such as Marxism, have failed to make people live together in peace and equality. Any relative peace and harmony possible has come with people who share the same genetic and cultural disposition.

In every human culture ever studied, human nature included kin-selection preferences, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, and ethnocentrism, even xenophobia, with group-selection as the main unit of selection. If a culture proposes to not include these things, the culture does not last long and it will always return to these things.

For example, if I take a bold and honest look at what has really been causing the increasing number of Islamic terrorist attacks (therefore a politically incorrect look) I see the struggle for access or control of oil by big global corporations and the constant nefarious schemes of the neoconservatives and the Israelis. And these three powerful sources often agree in their deceitful purposes. Does that not define a conspiracy?

Powerful lobby groups who work for these groups help elect and control politicians and the media, and this generally means the use of slander, libel, and all manner of dirty tricks against anyone who does not agree to their schemes. Islamic terrorism will not be stopped and relative peace and order will not be restored until this deceit and conspiracy is understood and stopped.

But I do not advocate all-out war against these people. I advocate ethnopluralism, which acknowledges the very natural drives of different groups to reach for dominance and success---which is part of real human nature---but separates distinct ethnic groups and cultures into ethnostates, and then protects the states internally and externally with some sort of federalism.

The world has tried to become a melting pot into one stew of people, which refuses to melt. So we are left with all the different ethnic groups and cultures endlessly scheming against one another for dominance. Ethnopluralism finally acknowledges this reality, and in doing so offers the world the best chance for long-term peace and order.

Then perhaps we can get on with the sacred mission of evolving, with variety, each in our own way, toward Godhood, guided by international sociobiological research centers, open to all, and by the religious philosophy of theological materialism. Other philosophies have not worked, and we are steadily moving toward extinction.

What is real decadence?

Nietzsche thinks (“The Will To Power”) that when society rejects war and conquest it is a sign of decadence, leading to democracy, rule by shopkeepers, etc. My response is that when a society accepts and affirms ongoing upward evolution then that prevents real decadence---that is, real decadence is the renunciation of higher evolution.

Peace and some middle class values can this way be seen as preventing decadence since ongoing evolution usually requires long periods of peace and stability so that new and improved genetic mutations can be retained and perpetuated, which the culture and the military then protect and defend.

Morality can this way be recognized as not only enhancing successful survival and reproduction but seen as the means of real evolution surviving the individual and provincial time. To maintain evolution requires many generations dedicating themselves to its cause, each is a link in the long chain of upward evolution. Healthy morality, religion, science, politics, culture, are defined around this perspective or worldview.

Evolutionary ethics, conservatism, happiness, and the secondary nature of power

Growth and evolution are a “right” that life has always demanded, at least from within, as nature and evolution change life from without. But the steady survival and evolution toward higher things has required the order of conservatism over time, otherwise evolutionary advances would be lost, as they often are with social chaos and disorder.

Ethics do not aim arbitrarily at the restraint of power, as Nietzsche's suggested, ethics aim at the teleological goal of life evolving toward Godhood. If there is a damaging blocking taking place it is the Great Spiritual Blockade and renunciation of life evolving to Godhood.

Power is a secondary to the goal of Godhood, contrary to Nietzsche. Power is not freedom, the essential purpose of power is as an aid in the evolution of life toward Godhood. Power, like intoxication, is only the illusion of freedom.

Ethics are born in the evolution of life toward Godhood. What is good is the continual evolution of life toward higher beauty, truth, goodness, intelligence and higher consciousness. This does not necessitate the destruction of things that are not higher evolved. Evolution works conservatively over time, keeping the best of the past, while life is being transformed.

Life, the living organism, growth, and striving after success in survival and reproduction is central, but successful survival and reproduction does not completely define the goals of the material activation of the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood. Evolving life ultimately seeks the zenith of success, which is Godhood.

Life does not always reach Godhood but Godhood is the activating goal of all the striving and growth and evolution, not power, and not happiness, although power and happiness are a secondary part of advancing toward Godhood.