Human genetic variation

From top to bottom: East Eurasians, West Eurasians, Australo-Melanesians, and Sub-Saharan Africans.

A fascinating article at Dieneke's anthropology blog on human genetic variation.

Artificial Life And Real Life

We can assume Relativity is true if we assume we can travel near the speed of light, which may or may not be possible. These are mathematical assumptions, equations, denotations. My problem is not with the math, my problem is making a God out of artificial definitions over the real living object.

Is this anti-intellectual? No, it is anti making a God of artificial numbers. Since I have not seen the Godhood I affirm why is not my definition as imaginary as the thought experiments proving Relativity? The difference may seem small but it is vital. I insist on the real living, material-supermaterial object Godhood and not the artificial mathematics or metaphysics of God, I even admit the term “idealistic realism” or theological materialism, to indicate the involvement of faith in the unknown..

This is not a rejection of mathematics or of artificial life, it is a rejection of the worship of artificial life over real life. These values have consequences regarding technology and machines used to advance ourselves, and the idea of “singularity, when men and machines are equal in intelligence. We do not want to become machines. The living object, the body is sacred, it is the material vehicle by which we evolve to Godhood.

Theological Materialism: History Beyond Hegel And Marx

Marx thought he had set Hegel on his feet in saying that human history and society is driven by material and not spiritual forces.

Digging deeper than the material feet of Marx into the biological body, here I find the Spirit of Hegel as the activating force of material evolution, but I don't see it as "spiritual."

History and evolution are moving toward Godhood, beyond the ideal state defined by Marx, and not toward the non-material Spirit of Hegel, but toward supermaterial Godhood at the Zenith of Evolution.

In the Twofold Path, the Spirit Within of religion reflects and adds the Godhood Without of evolution. This rescues Tradition from radicalism as the inward path is transformed but retained, adding the Spirit of religion to materialism and evolution.

No Duality Between Catholic Intellect and Protestant Will

I resolve the differences between the Catholic way of the intellect and the Protestant way of the will by declaring that the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood is higher than both.  In this sense instinct is will, intellect, and intuition. I see the Spirit-Will like a Super-Id directing evolution from the inside while being shaped by evolution from the outside.

The question: how can intellectual intuition define itself, the Soul, and the Spirit-Will in a scientific or materialist way? I think science will one day find the supermaterial substance of these things.

No duality here.

Reason, instinct and intuition

As Bergson more or less said, all is instinct. When we think we have multiple choice we think we have freedom, and when we have only one choice we think we are not free. But neither one is complete freedom. Bergson also brilliantly described instinct as intuition.

Can reason discover instinct-intuition? I describe the Spirit-Will as at the base of instinct, which is may also be the highest human reason, so in this sense there is no duality between reason, instinct and intuition.

Intellectual intuition exists at the highest level of the brain-mind, or the Will-Spirit, that is, the  Will-Spirit is at the zenith of the brain and cerebral process, where intellectual intuition dwells.The "Soul" is the seeing or experiencing of what is seen inwardly.

But if we take intellectual intuition deeper than the Soul, at the Zenith of the Soul is the Will-Spirit, or the Will To Godhood.

It is the Spirit or Will to Godhood which activates us to evolve toward the complete freedom and highest consciousness of Godhood.

The Lower and Higher Holy Grail

It does seem that the “Holy Grail” might be defined as the goal of searching for your higher consciousness, or seeking the the God Within. But this can be and has been a Great Spiritual Blockade when it is considered the end-goal of all religion.

The Lower Holy Grail is the God Within of the Involutionary Inward Path, but it is the Evolutionary Outward Path which seeks to evolve in the material world to the Higher Holy Grail of Actual Godhood in the supermaterial world. The Lower Grail is the Soul-Within, but it is the the Spirit-Will which activates evolution to the Higher Grail of Godhood.

Both Grails are retained in the Twofold Path of Evolutionary Christianity.

The Most Virtuous Acts

The most virtuous act is to recognize the Spirit-Within all created things as the Will To Godhood activating natural and supermaterial evolution to Godhood. The second most virtuous act is to recognize the Soul- Within as an inward mirror of Godhood. The first is the revelation of the Evolutionary Christian Church, the second  is the revelation of  Traditional Religion. Both Paths are affirmed in the Twofold Path of Evolutionary Christianity.

Idealistic Realism

The common sense approach I will take to the debate on Realism in philosophy is that what we see with our senses is real but incomplete. Science can sometimes help us see more of reality with it's increasingly sophisticated technology.

I enter into Idealism by applying intellectual intuition in seeing evolution gradually advancing our abilities to see what is real, and then I project this same evolution, which moves from the simple to the complex, and from unconscious to conscious, into higher and higher beings who can perceive more and more of reality. Finally, perhaps all or most of Reality can be seen and known when life evolves in the cosmos all the way to Godhood, where at this Zenith of Evolution all of Reality is seen and known, but not until then.

Modern philosophy has been blocked in paying too much attention to the methods and phenomenon of seeing reality, and this has overcomplicated the problem.  This is not unlike the Great Spiritual Blockade of evolving theological materialism.

The Evolutionary Christian Church combines the Realism of Catholicism with an idealistic and scientific evolutionary perspective.

Transformations and intuition

Definitions of God tend to be fixed concepts taken from moving, evolving reality, and this is a problem. Religions have tended to make God a fixed concept rather than a live Godhood.

Even Godhood transforms, transforming Godhood to higher and higher Godhoods, with some gods sinking back in the next cosmos.

As Bergson said, it is intuition that can better see moving things than rational immobile analysis.

All Is Causal

Science has said an event causes another event because there is a law connecting them. Theological Materialism says the primordial law causing other laws is the activating Will To Godhood, or the Holy Spirit-Will within all life, which works within the laws of natural evolution. The Will to Godhood activates life from within, evolution shapes life from without. This does not mean that the Spirit-Will is "Being," as Nietzsche seems to have thought with his Will To Power, because the desire of the Spirit-Will requires the material vehicle to evolve to Godhood.

Neither theology nor philosophy lifts human action out of the causal, as it has often claimed, even if science has not yet defined Godhood and the Spirit-Will. All is causal and it has been a great illusion to think that Godhood exists outside of the world. Godhood is not “less” because It shares causes and substances with us. Godhood is the Zenith of Evolution and the final destination of the activating Spirit-Will within life. Nothing is outside of nature, but Godhood is the Zenith of Nature.

Nothing stands outside it's causes

The following, for me, answers Heidegger's concerns (see Caputo's “Heidegger and Aquinas,” 1982) with who is defining or who is “sending” the Being, in relation to the thing sent, or what was defined.

Nothing stands outside it's causes, not even Godhood, which contains the Spirit that activates life to evolve to Godhood, including the life that became Godhood through evolution.

This is why essence, often defined as idea, does not stand outside of existence, or outside the thing or idea converted into reality. Essence for me is defined as the material Inward Dynamics or Spirit-Will, and existence is the material and supermaterial Body activated by that Inward Dynamics or Spirit-Will, with no real separation between them. Even Spirit is a supermaterial substance not yet identified by science.

Contrary to what Heidegger said, possibility is not more important than actuality, possibility is encased in actuality, in the way I have just mentioned, that is, the possibilities of the activating Spirit-Will within lies within actual life.

On Courage

It has always seemed to me that courage is the key to great philosophy perhaps more than anything else.  Seeing the truth has been difficult through the ages because truth requires courage to see in the history of ideas, and also amid the knowledge of ones time, which can often be not truthful.  With courage comes clearness, less complication, whereas lack of courage brings obfuscation.

Unfortunately it is often timid men who become intellectuals and their writings often reflect their timidity. There are exceptions but not many. This seems to be why folk culture often seems more truthful, courageous men don't seem to become intellectuals. This also explains why high culture needs to be the superstructure built over the structure of folk culture.

Aung Kyi said it's not power that corrupts but fear. One can be born with natural courage or one can cultivate courage by refusing to let fear dictate ones actions. The philosophers and writers I like all seem to be, at least, courageous.

Freedom and Determinism

It is not a matter of losing freedom when subject “surrenders” to object (Roger Scruton), because there never was such freedom in the first place to surrender. We are surrendering only the illusion of freedom.

I see the problem of “freedom” as compared to the brain-mind relationship to the body, with the brain being the subject and the body the object.

The brain (subject) is not free of the body (object), it is that simple, and this to me means the object controls the subject, even though the subject (brain) also controls the object (body), as the brain is the control center of the body.

The desperate attempt in philosophy to demand “freedom” probably stems from the fear of lack of control over ones life and existence. But the subject is encased in the object, and we have little freedom.

This dilemma was taken all the way to definitions of God, where it was hoped that at least God could be free. But I believe that even Godhood, in our likeness, has a Supreme Mind and Supreme Body, as subject and object, and God's Mind is not “free” from God's Body.

I think that we must accept that we are naturally and supernaturally evolving to Godhood as a determined goal in the cosmos, although we have some freedom in the paths taken to this determined goal. It is healthiest for us in general when we get in harmony with and accept this kind of determinism.

Concealing Being

According to John Caputo (“Heidegger and Aquinas,” 1982) Heidegger said that the difference between Being and being has been concealed by philosophy. It seems to me that this was not concealment because I see little difference between Being and being. However, later Heidegger became more interested in who was defining Being (the sender) than in Being.

I think that in standard ontology, Being (big B) is the definition or denotation only of being (small b) as when the brain defines the body. Even in Godhood Being is the mind of God (being). Being depends on being and being depends on Being.

This suggest to me that the being of ontology deserves the large B of Being because the overall total being is superior in its totality to the Mind or Being. Being is never separate from being. Being never “emerges” away from being on its own. Being or Godhood simply exists as a supermaterial object who knows itself fully as it exists.

This relates to what I see as the false separation between “essence” and “existence.” The essence, or idea, is never separate from the existence of the object in the same way that Being is not separate from being.

Aquinas, the central philosopher of Catholicism, sees Being as act, to be is to act, and this I can agree with. But Being also exists as a living being that has evolved to Godhood, which is the potential of all other objects in the Kosmos. Being then transforms, as other lesser objects transform, into the next Kosmos.

There is no It, or Being, left behind when being emerges from being, or Godhood. Only the Holy Spirit remains as the offspring of Godhood activating the next Kosmos.

It should be understood (it may be obvious) that my thinking on Being and being, like Aquinas, is ultimately mystical, “ratio” knows its place. I conceptualize a mystical view of Godhood (intellectual intuition) and consider conceptualization a lesser instrument than knowing or being the total Object Itself.

This leads to the ground of the Evolutionary Christian Church, which I call Theological Materialism.

Ending the war between the physical and the moral

The war between the physical and moral needs to end. This war seems to have been initiated by religions and philosophies which confounded God with form only, with the moral only, and not as a physical-superphysical Object. This war can cease when we realize that the physical seeks to evolve to the superphysical Godhood. The moral can then join and harmonize with the physical, and the physical with the moral.

Even so, the Traditional God of form and morality can be retained in seeking the Spirit-Will-Within through the Involutionary Inward Path. But this Spirit Within must not be confounded with God. Physical and supermaterial Godhood needs to be added so that we may evolve to true and real Godhood by way of the Evolutionary Outward Path.

Saving Religion and Science

Without the addition of the Greek pagan philosophers (eg. by Aquinas and others) Christianity would have led to the relaxed nonmaterial life of India (precapitalism), because Christ's message, like all the traditional sages, was definitively against the material world and against the natural desires of the flesh. Such pagan virtues as courage, group justice, and loyalty made social morality possible, whereas Christian values led to ascetic monks and monasteries, as in the East, even if there were slight agreements that it is better to marry than burn of the flesh.

After the steady advance of scientific knowledge of the material world, for example, the brilliant insights into evolution, both religion and science unconsciously at least demoralized the world. There were complications from not being able to connect material and spiritual things, leaving people---both in science and religion---adrift with no solid base for morality.

Evolutionary Christianity (EC) brings material evolution into religion by defining Godhood as the Zenith of material and supermaterial evolution. The God of traditional religion is identified as the God-Within or the Spirit-Will, attained through the Involutionary Inward Path, and the God-Without is seen as the Zenith of natural and supermaterial evolution, attained through the Evolutionary Outward Path. Both Paths are retained in the Twofold Path. EC brings material evolution into religion and religion into future science---science, for example, still needs to define the supermaterial Spirit-Will that activates life. This brings the Spiritual and Material together allowing the world to be re-moralized and revitalized.

Nietzsche's death of God was greatly exaggerated

Nietzsche was on to something important when he saw Being as Will, but there was no need to kill Godhood. He could have seen the Will as the activating Spirit of traditional religion driving material evolution to supermaterial evolution and Godhood. Being becomes being becomes Being becomes being evermore in evolution. It was therefore an error to announce the death of God.

It was also not necessary to murder religion. Nietzsche could have synthesized the Will into the Holy Spirit, as the God-Within of traditional religion, and retained the natural world as that which evolves to the God seen as the Inward God or Will to Godhood.

This is what the Twofold Path does in Evolutionary Christianity.

Revitalizing The “Good”

Professor Kozinski (Modern Age, Spring 2010) and others say that education means developing the ability to reason, but then reason needs to know and achieve the “good.” What is the good? Aristotle says the good is happiness. Traditional Christians, and other religions, say this is not enough, we need God-revealed knowledge to complete ourselves so that we may see man's ultimate good.

I see “happiness” as a shorter-term goal and not the longer-term end-goal, since happiness is a process within another deeper process explained in natural science; we feel happiness when we fulfill drives which lead to our survival and reproductive success, that is the natural incentive behind happiness. So survival and reproductive success become a deeper good than happiness, yet still not the deepest goal.

Survival and reproductive success alone do not fully define the good. Tradition has said that we need religion-derived knowledge of man's ultimate goal, which “material reason” alone cannot verify. I think that the “supermaterial reason” of the Spirit can verify the ultimate goals, with intellectual intuition and faith.

In the Theoevolutionary Church the Soul is at the zenith of the material mind and contains the zenith of material reasoning. It is through the Soul that one can glimpse the supermaterial "reasoning" of the Spirit, which exists at the Zenith of the Soul. Here in the Spirit is the Will to Godhood within evolution. Here the Theoevolutionary Church revitalizes Tradition with the Twofold Path.

The Two Goods in Theoevolutionary Church derive from the Involutionary and Evolutionary Paths. The Involutionary Inward Path is the Path to the Soul and Spirit within of Traditional religion, and the Evolutionary Outward Path is the Path to God-Without, which is the Godhood we evolve to in the natural and supermaterial world.

The ultimate “good” therefore means attaining Godhood through the Evolutionary Outward Path, and this good can be seen or mirrored in the Involutionary Inward Path. This is the Twofold Path to happiness and to the Absolute Good. Education can be defined in how we learn these things.

Utopian yet not totalitarian

Evolutionary Christianity (EC) could be said to have a “utopian” goal, namely, the evolution of life to Godhood, but EC does not affirm totalitarian state power to attain its goal. This makes EC a unique synthesis of traditionalism and progression, which I call Revitalized Conservatism.

This relates to the hope in EC of the synthesis of science and religion, where we are not confined by the standard empirical model of life but see Godhood and the Spirit-Will as a supermaterial phenomenon, as objects of nature and evolution, yet to be fully defined by science.

That is, the task of government is not libertarian and not socialist, government and religion need to protect the right and freedom of all people to evolve to Godhood, while at the same time protecting evolutionary differences, as we all rise, at our own speed, to Godhood, within small states and localities, protected by a light federalism.

All have a Happy Thanksgiving