Matter Over Mind

"What is enclosed in the sanctuary of the arcana
Is disclosed in the testimony of phenomena."
- Ibn ‘Ata’illah

Human history seems to be the “triumph” of mind over matter, but it is time to reverse the near-hatred of the material world, which was initiated by the Reveled Religions as an esoteric attempt to see the Soul and Spirit Within by blocking out the sensual-material world, using various religious disciplines. Science began the slow climb out by exhuming the material world, but science made the same mistake of radicalism that religion had done, in reverse, by rejecting religion and the Soul and Spirit.

Now it is time to combine the two, which Evolutionary Christianity does in the Twofold Path. We can see the “God-Within” using the Involutionary Inward Path of the Revealed Religions, but now we go deeper within the Soul to the Spirit, which activates the material world to evolve in the Evolutionary Outward Path to the Supermaterial Godhood first seen in the Inward Path. Materialism and spiritualism, religion and science join here in the Great Synthesis.

The foundation of the political view

People predominantly create cultures, cultures do not create people. Political theorists often miss the base of human nature when they define the meaning of political life.

Before capitalism or socialism arise men have basic survival and reproductive drives that seek success by developing various cultures. The various attributes of a people, such as intelligence, energy, creativity, are not the same among all people, and therefore they create different cultures.

Because all men are not the same, yet all men do have the will to success and power, it seems best to form small states for a variety of men with a variety of attributes. The small states can then be protected by a light federalism, with the central task being the protection of the sovereignty of the small states.

But deeper even then the power drives of reproduction is the Will to Godhood, the Spirit-Will, which activates all life in conjunction with natural evolution. This is the divine base of human nature, and this is why men need ultimately to make upward evolution toward Godhood possible within the states. This is where religion, specifically the religion of Evolutionary Christianity, can be seen as separate from the various states, yet at the right hand of the people.  No real culture has ever developed or sustained without being based in religion.

Toward Evolutionary Realism

Truth is an object

Hegel seems to have thought that truth was “imageless,” but truth is an object, and Godhood is a Supreme Object, therefore “image-thinking” is higher than imageless thinking. In this sense there is no “pure thought” free of materialism or supermaterialism.

It was an error when philosophy and religion claimed that they could dispense with the material and deal only in “pure concepts.” That way you lose reality.

Art strives to become supermaterial rather than immaterial and abstract. Art needs to return to what Hegel disparaged as picture-thinking. Less abstract sculpture might this way rate higher than abstract poetry.

Art can explore present and future material life, which is a form of idealism but grounded in nature and evolution. Art can be shaped to future organic life, future man and future Gods, who are of nature and evolving in time.

Sociobiology And Back To The Sense-Object

Religion, art, philosophy became too deep, too complex, as they moved away from the sense-mediums and into airy idealism.

I think sociobiology, which is the study of the biological aspects of social behavior, in the 1970's began to bring culture back to the sense-object, the material foundation. But sociobiology has just barely penetrated the liberal arts in our colleges and universities.

Sociobiology has given us the most accurate reading of human nature in history and it affirms and helps explain the Revitalized Conservatism of Evolutionary Christianity. We add the activating Spirit-Will to evolution with the goal of Godhood.

How Time Is Secondary

It seems to me that the timeless God of Plato and the esoteric religions was defined because thinkers could not face an always moving, always living and dying, evolving world, they demanded a timeless God, say, like the number three, which exists forever.

Yet even if the number three does not perish, it is not a living entity, it defines a living entity, and so it is secondary to the living entity. Time is less important than life in time, and time should not be valued higher than life. Life moves through time, time doesn't move through life.

The living object is more important than the definition of the object. The always transforming Godhood Object is more important than the definition of Godhood.

The Great Error Of God-Within-Devil-Without

God-Within-Devil-Without has meant the slow decline of the Christian Church. It is a great error, it is a Great Spiritual Blockade against the Real Path to Godhood, which is the “Outward “ world of the Evolution to Godhood.

Does this justify rooting out the Inward Path? No, but it does demand the divine addition of the Outward Path, without which all the Revealed Religions will fall, because they are all based exclusively in the great error of the God-Within-Devil-Without, even though some of them attempt to rationalize the material world, and some actually use materialistic armies to proselytize.

Only the Twofold Path of Evolutionary Christianity carries the God Within forward while it does not and cannot define the Evolutionary Outward Path as evil.

Sham Economics

Only economic nationalism can save us

The global capitalist's have been destroying the manufacturing base of the United States, and putting us deeply in debt to China, but they do not much mind the massive trade deficits, the borrowing, and the outsourcing of our jobs, because they have big interest in the lending banks and in manufacturing in China. We hear only how we as consumers demand cheap goods, and we hear how economic nationalism is “anachronistic,” and that we have an unchangeable symbiotic relationship with the world which cannot be changed. This is all a sham.

Because the global capitalists control the major media, and bankroll the politicians and the government, we continue to hear propaganda against economic nationalism, and therefore it won't be easy to bring back economic nationalism, which originally made us wealthy, and is now making China and their fellow travelers in the West wealthy, at the expense of our nation. They try to scare us with words like “isolationism,” but economic nationalism trades with the world, it only demands fair trading of our manufactured goods.

Let's hope the Tea Party is not totally controlled by the global capitalists because then nothing will change, except perhaps a smaller government that is still controlled by the global capitalists. In any case, only economic nationalism can save us.

Back to the object in art

Back to the object in art means back to the senses, back to matter, the opposite of the call to the idealism of a matter-free Spirit.

Matter, Soul and Spirit are whole in man, and at their Absolute Wholeness when Godhood is evolved to, so we don't merely center on the abstract spirit but on the whole human being, the whole Godhood.

We need to move away from abstract thinking in art, religion and philosophy. Back to the concrete, back to matter and supermatter, back to the object.

Beauty is not the “appearance of the Idea to sense” (Hegel), beauty is the appearance of sense to the idea.

Evolution creates the mind

This much we seem to know: evolution creates the mind. Why does evolution create the mind? Evolution creates the mind because the mind seems to help or enhance evolution.  For me, epistemology comes down this phrase: evolution creates the mind.

German Idealism, for me, can be bypassed this way, like cutting the Gordian knot rather than trying to endlessly unravel it. This way Heidegger is seen as the last great unraveler.

Why does evolution create evolution, or what created evolution? The least we can say is since evolution is what we can see in the world, evolution must have created evolution. Now here is where I take things into theology, into Evolutionary Christianity, positing a Will or Spirit within material life activating evolution, all the way to Godhood. But if one does not wish to take things into theology, eg. as scientists or philosophers, one can at least take it to evolution, that is, evolution creates the mind, and then examine who we are or how we think from that perspective.  Perhaps then theology will come later.

Free trade is not an end in itself

 I believe that the United States Constitution holds out the best possibility for fulfilling the sociobiological imperatives of human nature. Capitalism ended serfdom and slavery. But small states rights, even to the extent of ethnostates, and much smaller federal government, need to be reaffirmed, but the government must protect the nation with fair trade, or economic nationalism.

A nation must have more than material advances and political freedom, as vitally important as they are. The bottom line, the essential fact is that we are sociobiological beings, and business and politics are means to sociobiological ends. Man is really more than merely a consumer.

The free traders must not destroy the manufacturing base of a nation, the sociobiological imperatives of human nature must be protected, such as naturally and instinctively seeking to advance kin and group and locality. I also see this as a religious imperative to affirm the right to evolve all the way to Godhood for all ethnic groups.

Future War, Peace and the Law of Persons and Groups

Civilization and Barbarianism

I would expand the emphasis of the old Roman law of persons, to groups, keeping both. When we do not recognize the right of life for other people and other groups we put ourselves in the position of antagonism or war. It is that simple. War happens when we do not recognize the right to life of others. This is the difference between civilization and barbarianism. War takes away the best of all people, all races. A state is great not by the territory it has taken but by the genius of its people in the arts, sciences and government.

The just political structure, given human nature, is small states, ethnostates, and localism, protected by a light federalism. Imperialism and racial supremacism are automatic positions of antagonism and war because they do not recognize the right to life of others, they are barbarian in this sense.

It follows, however, that war is justified only in defense of the right to life of persons and groups. Until we have a legitimate world order we will have wars. It would be naive to think that peace is possible without the power to defend or enforce the order. But the world order should not be like the United Nations which essentially tries to keep the peace by bringing all people together, it should be a global body that guards the independence and sovereignty of small ethnostates all over the world.

Warning to Tea Party: Don't let the global business elite take you over

If Economic Nationalism is not the platform of the Tea Party then nothing will change in Washington or in the nation, manufacturing and jobs will not come back to America, and imperial foreign wars will continue.  The Globalist's only want to exploit you to help them remove the meddling government. If the Globalist's win, this would then require the development of a Third Party which is unabashedly Economic Nationalist. And that Third Party may depend on changing demographics in America moving away from a Third Party.

Revitalizing the Philosophy of Nature

Upside Down

Unlike Hegel's worship of the Idea, which places nature lower than the Idea of nature, evolution, in my view, brings nature back to religion and philosophy, and places the Idea as secondary to the Natural Living Object. Evolution is the engine of the philosophy of nature.

When the Idea is made God, as in Hegel (and Plato), and as in many religions, at least on the esoteric level, then Nature is wrongly seen as less than the Idea of nature, nature is seen as the “self-degradation of the Idea,” as Hegel sees it.

I see the Idea as the “degradation” of the Natural Living Object, since I see Godhood not as mere Logos or the Idea-In-Itself but as the Supreme Natural Object, or Objects, evolved to  in the cosmos, of which the Idea can only be secondary.

This Great Spiritual Blockade of nature by religion and philosophy needs to be transformed and is in theological materialism.

Reason and love, sexism and epistemology

It has been said that reason and love are the two ways of comprehending the world. If we assign these in male/female categories, then we can go beyond the stereotypes and say the the whole person, man or woman, need to try to balance these. Using these categories, women don't have as much of a problem with paradoxical thinking---something can be both wrong and right---and men can see where emotion can get in the way of survival imperatives. Indeed, men and women need to keep their gendered rational and love bases, which do have a solid sociobiology foundation, but to be more whole, men and women need to add more of the traits of the other.

This is not only the way to deal with “sexism” but the way to deal with epistemology, how we think, how we know what we know. Both reason and love need to be involved in thinking and knowing, the conceptual and the sensory-perceptual. As it stands, more or less, religion has rejected reason and science has rejected emotion, although Aquinas and sociobiology have tried to resolve some of the differences. This has made both science and religion less than whole.

How the subject is the object, humans are only advanced animals

Animals don't separate appearance from reality, and most people do not, only philosophers play these epistemological games.

Phenomenology gives too much attention to man and is too anthropomorphic. This is the general problem with idealism which makes the self and what the self sees as all.

There is no real separation between subject and object, the subject is the object, the subject can be the thinking part of the object and is as material as the object body.  This transvalues the subject and object from idealism and says it is the object that is the subject, not the subject projecting the object.

Animals are “rational,” they can solve problems, choose ends, change from evidence coming in from the senses, humans are just more rational. Humans only think they are freer than animals because they have more choices or can see more choices. We are as determined as the animals in nature.

In humans language is just trickier than language in animals, language especially engages philosophers who like to dwell on it. Logos or reason in humans is just advanced animal thinking.

The “intellectual intuition,” idealism, or even “revelation” that still exists in Evolutionary Christianity leads to affirming the Will to Godhood, or Spirit-Will, in both animals and humans. The Will-Spirit activates life within the natural world of evolution. Humans only add a more advanced mind to the Will that we share with other animals, humans evolved a more advanced brain-mind, even to the point where humans can look back inside to see at least some of the Will-Spirit Itself.

This intellectual idealism will only be defined as “idealism” until the Will-Spirit is validated by future science, and it will be, but science may also have to change some its methods of doing science.

The Constitution emburdens Congress to regulate commerce

..."Washington finances and supports the off-shoring of industry and jobs. Washington and the Wall Street crowd that got us into this mess are not a bit interested in U. S. jobs or the U. S. economy. Corporate America and the financial crowd are interested in opportunities in China, India, Vietnam, or wherever..."

"Trade War" by Ernest Hollings, continue here from "Economy In Crisis"

Church, State And Freedom

Evolution as logic

In Evolutionary Christianity the religion, the church, is the objective embodiment of the Path to Godhood, not the state. This means that the religion and the church deal with ethical and moral life designed to attain Godhood for its practitioners. The state is a secondary embodiment of the Path to Godhood, and the church can or cannot be separate from the state, since there are many paths to evolve to Godhood.

I endorse representative government, small states with much power, in a light federal system, with economic nationalism (see the U.S. Constitution), but again, there can be many paths to evolve to Godhood.

Does history gradually reveal “freedom as logic,” as Hegel believed? History reveals evolution as logic. The goal of Godhood in history and in evolution is determined, but the path is undetermined, which means that in reality there is no perfect freedom, there is only the secondary freedom of humans to deliberately choose a purpose from within determined paths, and then strive toward that purpose or goal.

The Will-Spirit that activates life is not opposed to nature, as in ancient and modern Idealism, the Spirit is not seeking to break free from matter, as in Gnosticism, the Spirit is essentially supermaterial, and a part of matter and nature, activating matter as Its only vehicle, of which it is a vital part, to evolve to Godhood.

Holding Economics Up To Nature

Free traders cherry pick reality, fair traders do not

The free traders say that a free trade economy reflects the natural reality of the law of cause and effect, seen in the law of supply and demand, and seen in the constant growth condition of life. This much may be true, but then the free traders go on to cherry pick reality overlooking or unaware of the natural reality of group selection and genetically activated altruism and kin selection, while affirming strict selfish individualism (see the Randians).

Holding economics up to nature one affirms economic nationalism. I can agree with the libertarians that government needs to be greatly restricted, but based on nature and human nature I do not think that business should be free to trade away the manufacturing base and jobs of a nation, as it has done. Government needs to control this, as it did during the rise of all nations, with fair trade rather than free trade.

The subject-object arguments of German philosophy come down to theology in Evolutionary Christianity

Never is there a separation between body-object and spirit-subject.  For comparison, there is no purpose for the engine (Spirit-Will-Subject) of a vehicle (Object-Body) to exist other then to make the vehicle go, or activate the vehicle. Why would we want to separate the engine from the vehicle, separated they are both dead?

The subject-object arguments of German philosophy come down to theology in Evolutionary Christianity (EC). There is no duality or separation between object and subject, it is one object. Fichte and German philosophy saw the object as the projection of the subject-self. I see the object never separate from the subject-self. The Spirit-Soul-Mind (subject) exists in the object-body and does so from the micro-world of lower life to the macro-world of higher life. Each form has its Spirit-Soul-Mind-Subject at different levels of evolution which can see more and know more the higher it evolves, until Godhood is attained in evolution, which contains more Absolute Knowledge of Godhood. The lowest forms have a mind at least in the form of the Will-Spirit which actives the form to evolve to Godhood, even if it cannot think about it.

Thinking does not have to reach beyond itself, beyond material life, to see transcendental “things-in-themselves.” The activating power of life, the Will To Godhood, or the (Will-Spirit), has supreme knowledge of It's destination, which is Godhood, and we can have knowledge of this with intellectual intuition, although is a partial knowledge of Godhood or the Supreme Thing In Itself. Yes, this Will-Spirit to Godhood is “transcendental” but it is also immanent within us. And most importantly the Will is material, but in a supermaterial category. There is not a separation here between spirit and matter, there is only materiality and supermateriality.

In the Twofold Path the true task of the Involutionary Inward Path is to reach the Soul within---which is the human mind at its best---and then to see the Will-Spirit that lies at the Zenith of the Soul, where the Thing-In-Itself can be glimpsed. This is where the highest intellectual intuition is involved.

Reason and logic are found in the mind where the mind can grasp the deeper reason and logic of evolution, which the intuitive mind can then synthesize or harmonize with the Will-Spirit. Spirit-Soul-Mind is one thing, one mind, with different levels. The Body, Mind and Soul are activated by the Will-Spirit.  In the Evolutionary Outward Path the Will-Spirit knows Its goal but does not determine the paths to the goal in outward natural evolution.

Reason is not the essence of man

Reason is not the only way to perceive Reality, other faculties need to be involved, like emotions, intuitions, and even revelations. To leave these out and allow only reason is to cut man in half.

Ultimately reason and evolution are activated by the Will to Godhood, or the Spirit-Will; reason is not in this sense the essence of man, the Will to Godhood is, although man seems to be unique in using reason.

The Will knows its destination, which is Godhood, and It can and does apply reason and other faculties to find the best paths to the goal of Godhood. Animals can't know this goal, their “minds” are a simple will to live.

Contrary to Nietzsche and Foucault evolution and reality are not dictated by power, and not dictated by the reason of Aristotle, but by the Will To Godhood. Evolution seems to better define how reason works, activated by the Will to Godhood.