When theology is the study of something rather than nothing

When Godhood is seen as a living supremely evolved material or supermaterial object, or objects, then theology becomes the study of something rather than nothing or 'No-thing” as the Supreme is called in some religions and philosophies.

When the subject of theology is only the God Within or the Father Within it often becomes an idol of denotation or definition only, with no substance. That God of the Inward Path is a human symbolic  experience brought about by the ascetic discipline of blocking or stopping all material desires so as to see the God Within. But we can retain that symbolic experience of God as one of the the first glimpses of Godhood now transformed and reached through evolution.

Consciousness is hypertrophied instinct, which is often forgotten in the dazzle of consciousness. Consciousness with no material or even supermaterial connections has even been taken for God at its highest point. It's time to bring consciousness and Godhood back to material/supermaterial life. Consciousness evolved as an aid in the advance of the evolution of life toward Godhood and not merely as an to aid to goalless survival and reproduction.

History is biology influencing men slightly more than the environment to survive, but life is  activated beyond successful survival and reproduction toward evolving to Godhood. We need to harmonize with that sacred evolution. Religion and philosophy need to project that sacred path of material evolution and that evolutionary consciousness. Then theology can be the study of something rather than nothing.

Religion and philosophy require transformation when reality is defined by sociobiology

Culture is practical life created by human consciousness activated by sociobiological instincts, that is, culture is developed by both nature and nurture but grounded in the biological origin of social behavior.

This means that history is more than the cultural battles of intellectuals and politicians, social power is a multiplied survival and reproductive force for individuals and groups. It is not ideas and not revolution but evolution that drives history, which in general affirms conservative change.

Religion and philosophy require transformation when reality is defined by sociobiology, although a philosophical sociobiology can rise, which then gives rise to the theological materialism written about here.

Theological materialism expands the evolution of life all the way to Godhood, transforming the old inward God to outward Godhood in the Twofold Path of material and supermaterial evolution.

History does not end by becoming “spirit of spirit” as Gnosticism, and then German philosophy, once projected, history never ends. When Godhood is attained in evolution Godhood continues to evolve, or life devolves back and begins again.

Why and how religion is not destroyed by the evolutionary sciences

Anthropologists and sociobiologists think that once the evolutionary origins of religion are understood religion will disappear. I say, not so fast. We evolve in the material and supermaterial world to Godhood, thus religion not only continues after sociobiology, sociobiology can be an aid in our evolution toward Godhood.

The rules of ethics constructed by evolution expand to religion with the teleological goal of Godhood. Modern life and postmodernism, including the media, government, education, business, religion, law and the arts can be defined as decadent now because they have largely rejected any teleological or sacred purpose for life.

But in defining goals and ends we do need to go beyond the bare facts of survival and reproduction expressed by the evolutionary sciences, we seek to survive successfully for the deeper reason, the sacred cause, of evolving to the zenith of survival success, which is Godhood.

Having a “personal relationship with God” has been a symbolic communion with the God or Father within human nature, the soul or mind, and not the real Godhood we can attain through material/supermaterial evolution. In the Twofold Path we can conservatively retain that Inward God of the Involutionary Inward Path but transform it in the Evolutionary Outward Path to real Godhood.

This theological materialism unblocks the Great Spiritual Blockade of evolution to real Godhood, which can even help unify religions, but also unite the long separated sciences and religions.

Why there was no need for Nietzsche to kill Being (God) and affirm only Becoming

If we say as Plato said that it is God and not man who is the measure of all thing, this is true in the sense that Godhood is life evolved beyond man to the zenith of material evolution, and not Godhood separated from life and man by a non-material spiritualism. In not admitting a separation between the material and spiritual this does not distance God from us, it brings Godhood closer to us and to life.

There was no need for Nietzsche to kill Being (God) and affirm only Becoming, because Godhood is both Becoming and Being. That everything evolves defines the world of Becoming, but there is a goal to Becoming: life evolves in the material and supermaterial world to Godhood. But this is a Godhood which never stops evolving, or becoming, or recurring in the cosmos, so we need not affirm a static, non-active or even non-material definition of Godhood.

But like new wine in old bottles, this theological material ontology need not destroy the old traditional symbolic and spiritual God, it conservatively transforms Godhood. There is no need to kill God, or consider Godhood the opiate of the people, or even accept the void as purpose. This is a Godhood which affirms real life, religion, philosophy, and even science.

The material basis of sacred life and religion

Basically, men create or develop politics, laws, morality, religion, philosophy in their attempts at successful survival and reproduction, in relation to their genetic qualities and the conditions of nature and the environments they live in. But deeper even than this is the activation and purpose behind successful survival and reproduction, which is to evolve in the material/supermaterial world toward Godhood. The activation within life of the material Spirit-Will toward Godhood is not “encumbered” with matter (contrary to the Gnostic religions), matter is the means by which life evolves to Godhood. Consciousness is created and determined by this process, consciousness grew out of this existence, existence didn't grow out of consciousness.

This evolutionary process is at the origin of the religious philosophy of theological materialism, a natural religious philosophy. In this sense the truth, the real, is mainly anthropocentric, but since man is evolving toward new species on the path to Godhood, anthropocentrism is not quite the criterion for truth. Religious and psychological error may be more like physiological confusion about what life is. Beneath most observations and competitive ideas there is a struggle for successful survival which often is covered or unrecognized. Life and truth are not ugly, we only define it wrongly because we don't find the truth useful in our wills to power. Life is not purposeless, we just don't see the purpose. Although the evolutionary sciences are gaining ground, so far science does not affirm this sacred purpose, science tends to prefer non-active and static truths it can directly measure.

It is the past and future history of evolution that is sacred in theological materialism

Ideas and abstractions have been favored over living objects in religion and philosophy. Theological materialism removes the veil from this mystical worldview and defines the sacred in material terms: life evolves materially and supermaterially to Godhood.

Godhood is a living superior object, or objects, not merely an abstract idea or spiritual definition. Perhaps we can better envision Godhood when we think of the endless time life has had to evolve in the cosmos, life could have evolved to almost any imaginable form.

We ascend from earth toward Godhood, not descend from Godhood to earth. History is not abstract empirical facts or the ideas of idealists, history is the sociobiological evolution of natural life and material man. Religion and philosophy transform into the realm of sociobiology when reality is defined.

We can retain the old spiritual God or Father Within within the Involutionary Inward Path as the first glimpse of Godhood, which now can be seen as symbolic. Real Godhood is attained in the Evolutionary Outward Path of material/supermaterial evolution.

Ideas are not profane in themselves but they are not sacred, it is the past and future history of evolution that is sacred in theological materialism, especially when projected out to the material/supermaterial evolution to sacred Godhood.

Let the incurable Middle East fight among themselves as they have always done

Hugh Prysor-Jones wrote (Chronicles, November 2014) ... “It is disturbing that, for all its apparent Al Qaeda origins and ferocious pseudo-Islamist rhetoric, IS is in fact carrying out the strategic policy of the Saudi Arabian and Israeli governments, which is to inhibit and block the ability of Shia Islam to acquire power and influence in the region.  The overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 created a dangerous possibility that a merged Iran and Shia-majority Iraq would eventually constitute a Shia superstate.  This Shia state might then extend its influence to Alawite-dominated Syria and Shia-dominated Lebanon...Already in a strategic alliance, Tel Aviv and Riyadh reasoned that breaking up Iraq and trying to install a Sunni extremist regime in Damascus were priorities.  They had always been skeptical of U.S. plans to bring democratic institutions to Iraq, because the country’s ethnic arithmetic would inevitably leave the Shia in control...”

Will even one politician ever rise in America and declare that we need to gradually withdraw from our hopeless involvement with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Irag, Iran? Who cares who dominates that region, or who we buy our oil from? Let the incurable Middle East fight among themselves as they have always done.

How art and creativity validate conservative philosophy

Is high art refined low art/folk art, or is low art simplified high art? High art seems to be a superstructure built over the structure of folk art.

What we appear to do is assimilate the new, the unfamiliar, with the old material of our experience, this seems to be where creativity comes from, new patterns formed between old material and new material.

We don't see something in the outer world and declare that new thing alone as a new thing, it has to first harmonize and adapt with our inner world.

Was there a time when high and low art were one art? When did they become unconnected? Natural hierarchies form and develop their own values. And also the homogenizing and globalization of human cultures had something to do with these changes.

Even the Church did this sort of thing when they built the pagan values of wisdom, courage, temperance and justice on to the Christian virtues of faith, hope, charity and love.

I suppose in ideal cultures both high and low art exist, with low art as a less refined version of high art, which makes for a more harmonizing, assimilating culture of various classes of people who generally affirm the same values.

This natural dynamic of assimilating the new, the unfamiliar, with the old material of our experience, validates the conservative philosophy in creativity.

Why the cultural Marxism of political correctness will fade

Am I being too optimistic in thinking that over time truth and reason rise to the top? For example, in the intellectual battles of religion, philosophy and science there has been steady progress in defining real human nature, with occasional barbarian backsliding. Gradually the evolutionary sciences such as sociobiology and evolutionary psychology are rising to the top in defining what human nature is.

A “racist” in Washington, New York, Hollywood and the Media is now synonymous with not being politically correct, that is, not being culturally Marxist---but will they always get away with this slander?

I think social and political philosophy will gradually change as human nature is more accurately defined as being universally kin-centered, gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection---people bonding best with their own kind---as the primary unit of selection. Then irrational and anti-human ideologies such as cultural Marxism will fade.

We do have a way to go since, as Jerry Salyer pointed out, at this time Republicans insist in such things as hipsters, Muslims, and tattooed lesbians needing a robust economy, and Democrats insist that hipsters, Muslims, and tattooed lesbians need a long-term supply of clean air and water.

But when social and political programs harmonize more accurately with the real human nature listed above then our gross empires will be seen as the monsters that they are, and ethnic cultures and an ethnopluralism of regions and states will be celebrated and protected, and no longer slandered. I think this will eventually happen, if we can survive in the meantime.

Theological materialism condensed

Nominalism says that only concrete things actually exist, abstract entities do not actually exist. Naturalism says only natural forces and entities make up the world. So perhaps a kind of nominalistic naturalism describes theological materialism, although I don't like to use those terms.

In theological materialism Godhood is defined as a concrete object, or objects, not an abstraction, a supermaterial object, not really spiritual---Godhood is a living thing which life can evolve to become in the natural and supermaterial world. There is no phenomenal/noumenal distinction, there is only the material and supermaterial. No duality in metaphysics is necessary, eventually no separation between religion and science is necessary.

Bergson said God is a verb rather than a noun, but I see Godhood as both a verb and noun. Godhood is both a thing and a material action, as life evolves to the super-life of Godhood.

Esoteric concealment is mainly the inability to discern supermateriality, and so the material world is confounded with the spiritual. The supermaterial is there, even if not yet well known.

Form is related to meaning, no meaning no form, no form no meaning. Living objects develop their form from the meaning that activates life, which is to evolve toward Godhood, while interacting with the environment, evolution, survival, and reproduction, sometimes evolving sometimes devolving.

Real Godhood is outside of ourselves, the God or Father Within is a symbolic experience of the real Godhood we evolve to become, not from, which is described in the Twofold Path.

The Media enhances Islamic terrorism

We all want to rid our lands of Islamic terrorism, but Islamic terror is at least twice as effective due to the twenty four/seven media coverage. Why would the media want to enhance Islamic terrorism? Warning the public about possible dangers does not require the twenty four/seven sensationalism. If enhancing Islamic terrorism is done to attract more viewers and thus more advertising money, the public should be outraged at the media making money off exploiting and enhancing Islamic terrorism.

What else could it be? Who benefits from enhancing and exploiting Islamic terrorism? Here are a few: Israel, American neoconservatives, democratic neoliberals, the military industrial complex. Do they have power in the Media? You bet they do.

We should be outraged by this enhancing and exploiting of Islamic terrorism by the Media.

Why we no longer need Gnosticism

We no longer need Gnosticism, that is, the world seen as evil and the prison of the soul. The new "Alchemy," the new "Hermeticism" changes the elements and converts man and society toward Godhood by way of material and supermaterial evolution. This is defined as theological materialism, based in naturalism. If there is a “metaphysics" of naturalism this is it.

Theological materialism advances the transcendence of human beings toward Godhood by way of material/supermaterial evolution. The traditional Inward Path to the God Within, which is symbolic, is retained but transformed into the Outward Path of evolution toward Godhood.

The evolution toward Godhood is a permanent activation of life composed of changing parts. The higher determinism of Tirips which is material or supermaterial inwardly activates life and determines the sacred goal, the outward path of evolution and selection can take various paths toward the goal, or even away from the goal.

In this religious philosophy theological materialism is the significant factor, and the social or political expression or affirmation of theological materialism needs to harmonize with sociobiologically defined human nature and the centrality of group-selection, which needs to be seen in our social and political structures. This advances some form of natural ethnopluralism, with regions and states set aside for ethnic cultures, and their evolution, and protected in their near-independence by some form of federalism. That sort of variety is good for general evolution, survival, and for genetic and cultral  development.

We should remember that it was largely globalism which made enemies of Islam

Islamic terrorists in the West of course must be stopped, but we should remember that it was largely globalism that made enemies of Islam---as it is said, they are over here because we are over there. Also we allow them to invade our lands through foolish open immigration policies, and then we act surprised when they don't assimilate. We exploit their homelands and their resources, and we corrupt their people and their religion, and when they object we call them evil.

The globalist's don't really mind initiating the frustrations of searches, gropings etc. at airports and businesses because they know this will make the people hate the Muslim world even more. A few Muslim extremist groups, whose tactics are usually evil, are now about the only active opposition to the globalist takeover of the world. Putin's Russia too seems to be trying to object to Western hegemony, and China waits and watches.

But this globalist strategy is a wrong calculation and its blow-back will take the form of isolationism and nationalism in the West. Then the problem for the globalists will be to make the isolationists as evil as they made the Muslim extremists. This won't work as well because localism and nationalism harmonize very well with basic human nature, and globalism does not.

We cannot separate spirit from matter

All kinds of problems have come from religiously trying to figure out how matter can come from pure spirit. This is where the “downgoing” and “involutionary” versus “evolutionary” ideas come from, as well as the Gnostic and Traditionalist School dislike and even hatred of matter, and therefore dislike of science.

We cannot separate spirit from matter, they are matter at different levels. Therefore, the cosmic birth is not a “downgoing” from spirit to matter but is the birth of less refined matter which than evolves up to refined matter, and sometimes to Godhood. This religious view stops the Great Spiritual Blockade against matter that religion has carried on for too long, which has actually stopped the evolution to Godhood.

For us the word “involution” is applied to seeing the God-Within, which is not evolution, involution needs to block all the desires of the flesh in order to see the God-Within. But the God-Within, which can be retained as symbolic in the Twofold Path, must not be mistaken for real Godhood which must be evolved to, materially and supermaterially. God is a Super Object, not a “spirit,” although Godhood attained is the most refined and evolved matter there is.

Localism is healthy but not enough

Altruism developed directly out of ethnocentric group-selection because it was successful in survival and reproduction over groups with more selfish members, and this was codified in religion. Group-selection remains part of basic human nature even though it has been hypertrophied to the point of corruption into a universalism not in harmony with human nature. Localism, now being promoted by both conservatives and libertarian liberals is certainly on the right track, but it will be incomplete without the basic altruistic bonding of ethnic preferences in group-selection.

This does not affirm radical tribalism or the imperial dominance of one ethnic group over the others, but ethnocentrism is more in line with real human nature and actually more humane than trying to universalize all differences with an hypertrophied altruism and homogenization that goes against real human nature, in spite of political correctness to the contrary---cultural Marxism doesn't work, as seen in how fast the Soviet Union broke back into ethnostates when the forced universalism was removed.

With group-selection preferences in place for a variety of ethnic groups, localists can more easily affirm love of place, locality, traditions, and then we can pursue a more universal cooperative and creative competition, based on real human nature which prefers a more natural ethnopluralism of regions and states. That is the deepest form of localism.

How theological materialism takes life and culture beyond the realm of “fitness” alone

Nietzsche thought power was related to our love of the beautiful, but I think that is an idea twice removed from reality. The life drive toward success in survival and reproduction, and the sacred activation of life to evolve toward Godhood come before the power drive, which only can enhance these goals. Godhood is defined as the highest beauty, but unlike the Ancient Greeks, and most theology, I don't separate beauty from the material or supermaterial world which evolves toward Godhood---the living object is vastly more important than the idea of a thing.

George Sorel might have applied this sacred narrative or myth whether it was real or not to advance his worldview, but the evolution toward Godhood is not merely a pragmatic social strategy, or an opiate of the people, it defines the reality of life and living, and it leads to the philosophy of theological materialism. Scientific validation for the sacred drive toward Godhood may come in the future.

The higher moral right is the evolution to Godhood, and secondary to that are the drives for successful survival and reproduction and power. This deepens sociobiological formulas and brings science into religion. This gives a goal to scientific naturalism. This revives religion. This takes life and culture beyond the realm of “fitness” alone.

The natural moral path to peace, in harmony with human nature

Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought that human nature was pure, simple, peaceful and happy in its “natural”state, there was no original sin, and it was society that corrupted this peaceful human nature and therefore society needed to be destroyed or changed. This great error in defining human nature led to the French Revolution, Communism, and eventually to modern liberalism and political correctness or cultural Marxism, which is mainly where we stand today in the West.

The traditional religious view of human nature blamed the lower part of human nature for evil things, essentially due to original sin, which the higher part of human nature had not conquered with the Virtues designed to do so. Avarice, conflict , ethnocentrism, aggression, etc. must be universally conquered by the noble virtues. The good, the true and the beautiful need to be instilled in families and societies in order to conquer the lower part of human nature.

In the sociobiological view of human nature, which examines the biological origin of social behavior, which I affirm in a general way, human nature was evolved mainly in hunter-gatherer times and remains largely the same today. Human nature is universally kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection. As you can see, there are traditional and conservative aspects to natural human nature, and it relates very little to Rousseau. But ethnocentrism and natural hierarchies within groups, for example, are not considered evil or the lower part of human nature, as both traditional religion and Rousseauians tend to define it.

This suggest that when we look for a “moral path to peace” as Claes Ryn termed it, (The American Conservative, December 2014), we need to harmonize sociobiologically defined human nature with our social and political structures. This advances some form of natural ethnopluralism, with regions and states set aside for ethnic cultures, and protected in their near-independence by some form of federalism. I prefer the term ethnopluralism to cosmopolitanism because it more directly defines what cosmopolitanism requires if it wants a solid bonding foundation in human nature for international states and regions related to the primacy of group-selection. Altruism, the original creator of group values, was evolved within the particular groups and is far less a universal altruism. If the whole world is threatened then altruism is extended to the world, but the most natural conditions of altruism within human nature is designed for ones own group.

Cooperative competition between regions and states and ethnic cultures can be thought of as universal in its scope along with the longer term evolution of the whole human species with variety toward higher and better forms. In our crowded world, imperialism does not harmonize with the real human nature of group-selection, one ethnic group attempting to dominate all others destroys variety and natural borders, and never lasts for long, and so it is rightly universally condemned.

This is the natural moral path to peace, in harmony with human nature, and so it stands the best chance of being successful.

The synthesizing of theological materialism

Christianity began as an inward religion of ascetic and monastic denial of material desires in pursuit of the experience of the God or Father Within. Then gradually over time the natural activations of life were accommodated by the religion, reaching its epitome perhaps in the use of reason to define God, along with the ascetic experience, which allowed the church to grow among the population. This was in the conservative tradition of bringing the new (really old pagan philosophers like Aristotle) into old Christianity. The monastic ascetic life was only for the few, the virtues now defined in the religion balanced the material desires of living life with the needs of experiencing the God Within, and the Church became more socially influential. But growth was, frankly, based on the loss of the purity of following the Inward Path.

The religious philosophy of theological materialism does not have this contradiction between the inward and outward life, it does not have the antagonism between material and non-material life. The Inward God of Christ (and Buddha) is understood as the dawning religious experience of the real Outward Godhood reached through material and supermaterial evolution. The Inward God is transformed into the Outward Godhood reached at the zenith of evolution. The great historical schism between the material and spiritual, and between the scientific and religious worldviews is closed. In the Twofold Path science is openly embraced along with religion, the evolution of life toward Godhood is enhanced by such things as the science sociobiology and by genetics. A conservative ethos prevails in bringing the new into the old.

In theological materialism the Western world of material progress is supported against the great denials of the traditionalist schools mainly of the East. Their ascetic denials created a great spiritual blockade against the evolution of life to real Godhood. The Twofold Path, the Inward and Outward, are finally synthesized in theological materialism, which gives precedence to the material Outward Path of evolution to Godhood, while retaining the first knowledge of the spiritual Inward Path to the Father Within.

Exhuming biological motives

Humans have of course always been devious in hiding their motives, as the Machiavellian political philosophers have pointed out, but in modern times seeing only the superstructure and not the structure, seeing the tree and not the roots, has been the standard blindness of our cultural and social philosophies. The biological motives activating culture are buried or denied validity, and this causes big problems. Over-complicated political and social philosophies build their superstructures without considering the biological foundations, which is like the well-known story of building ones home upon sand where the slightest storm can topple it.

We should be able by now to face the mainly biological origin of our social behavior. The science of sociobiology desperately needs to be introduced into the Humanities departments. In every human culture ever studied, human nature included kin selection-preference, incest taboos, marriage, hierarchy, division of labor, gender differentiation, localism, ethnocentrism, and group-selection as the primary unit of selection. If our cultures propose to not include these things, the culture does not last long and it will always return to these things. Many of these traits are neglected in our over-complicated political and social philosophies, and in post-modernism.

Human nature and our biological motivations fit best with some form of ethnopluralism, with regions and states set aside for ethnic cultures to flourish. That is the uncomplicated biological truth buried and needing to be exhumed. The Machiavellian games we have been playing have harmed us more than helped us.

Adjusting paleoconservatism

I consider myself a paleoconservative, but I don't think we can return the nation to its former political-cultural ethos, although I think we can still affirm the Constitution and the separation of powers and states. We can retain federalism and representative rule but regions and states will need to be thought of as ethnic regions and ethnostates. That is, we will need to gradually affirm ethnopluralism, which harmonizes with real human nature and group selection as the primary unit of selection.

I see this as the only way to prevent continuing civil disturbances between the distinct ethnic groups and cultures which have enveloped the nation due to open borders, unchecked immigration, and modern liberal social policies. This is the way to deal with the increasing fragmentation and barbarization of our country, and the decline of the West. The way to harmonize with people’s natural preferences for their own kind and cultures is to let it flourish with ethnopluralism.

Otherwise, if we don't have a natural separation of people and powers, in order to prevent social disorder, peace will probably end up being maintained with some sort of military takeover, or autocracy, which is a short-term and unhealthy solution to social problems.

Cooperative competition is humanly possible, which is the civilized way to deal with differences. All ethnic groups, not just one, can be involved in our evolution, in healthy variety, as we all evolve toward higher species and eventually toward Godhood, which describes the basic religious worldview of human life for the future.