When Religion, Philosophy and Psychology Meet in Reality

"My body and will are one." Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer tells us to renounce the will, not unlike traditional religion. Nietzsche tells us to celebrate the will but then goes on to say that the will has no goal other than an amoral power drive. Freud combined these views and changed the will to the sex drive, but found no real Godhood goal to the sex drive.

Freud was on the right track in attempting to figure out a way for humans to adjust to his sex drive (will), but he missed as did Schopenhauer and Nietzsche the deepest adjustment to the human life-drive, or the Spirit-Will or Will-Spirit, which is the adjustment to the ongoing future evolution of life toward Godhood, which is the ultimate religious, philosophical and psychological path seen in theological materialism.

As I wrote in this blog several years ago (Toward Evolutionary Therapy): "Take the temperament theorists or the personality psychology of Cattell and Eysenck, and combine them with sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, and you have a good theory of personality.  But then moving beyond that I hypothesize a new kind of religious evolutionary therapy in the following way:

"Alfred Adler (who positively acknowledged Nietzsche) postulated a single drive: “striving for perfection,” which is transposed in the theological materialism of the Theoevolutionary Church (TC) as the Spirit-Will, or the Spirit-Will-to-Godhood, the activating force within life, which is also shaped by outside evolution.

Rather than the “will to meaning” of Dr Viktor Frankl, or the “will to pleasure” (pleasure principle) of Freud, or the “will to power” of Nietzsche, or “striving for perfection” in Adlerian psychology, or the renunciation of Schopenhauer, theological materialism and TC psychology say that the primary motivational force in man is the material Spirit-Will-to-Godhood.

The interesting psychology comes in relating this primary drive socially as well as individually. All people, all groups have this drive to “perfection,” but how do we socially integrate them? Our answer, unlike Adler's socialism, is seen in the Ordered Evolution, Revitalized Conservatism, or ethnopluralism suggested in the theological materialism of the TC.

Toward Evolutionary Therapy

The leadership role in theological materialism and the Evolutionary Church would be to understand the intentionality of the Spirit-Will, which the person is often unable to clearly comprehend, whereas, say, in Jungian psychology, the therapist's role is to represent the intentions of the psyche and to help see or understand the “Self”. The philosopher or Priest needs to take the side of the Spirit-Will, whereas the psychoanalyst takes the side of the Unconscious.

In “Evolutionary Therapy,” the philosopher and Priest would need to mediate a deal or balance between the Spirit-Will and the Soul-mind-body which the person can live with. “Befriending” the Spirit-Will could be a task which might involve uncomfortable insights. Egotistical human life and modern values may seem limited in the face of the long evolution of the Spirit-Will-to-Godhood which activates life, beyond man, beyond superman, beyond angels all the way to Godhood.

When the Spirit-Will is blocked, It turns away from its central path. The leadership “art” in theological materialism and the EC is to help “release” the natural Spirit-Will into the energy of the person and society, making the energy of the Spirit-Will available for the individual and for society---we can learn to use or turn the powerful force of the material Spirit-Will away from profanely hurting ourselves into helping ourselves, and helping our societies evolve, not devolve toward the profane, but evolve toward the sacred.

Meanwhile the Soul, which is the Zenith of the Mind and the ego, having seen or experienced the symbolic Father Within in the Inward Path, must maintain its task to intelligently help guide or “ride the tiger” of the Spirit-Will toward evolving to real Godhood in the Outward Path, the God first seen in the Inward Path---the Soul of the Inward Path needs to stop blocking the Spirit-Will. This is the desired balance. 

We need to befriend, not only the unconscious, but the Spirit-Will which activates the unconscious, and we need to correctly define the Spirit-Will and its direction.  The Spirit-Will is like a "Super-Id," which is a good thing, not a primitive thing.

We are not merely looking for the opposite of the ego, the contrary elements of our psyche, because Jungian androgynous balance is not the goal. The great goal of the Spirit-Will, the Super-Id, is the goal that lies beyond us, beyond the human unconscious, at the Zenith of Evolution to Godhood. Whatever parts of our psyche that seem opposed to the direction of the Spirit-Will need to be understood and synthesized and balanced..."

Do Donald Trump and Guillaume Faye share a tragic kind of New Realism?

It appears that Trump and Faye will support the causes of Israel and globalism so that they may have Jewish support in promoting economic nationalism (Trump) and stopping the Islamic invasion of France (Faye). Pat Buchanan and others attempted to do both without Jewish support and were destroyed. Would the causes of Trump and Faye be sacrificed by not supporting the Israeli refusal to stop the settlements in Palestine, or by not supporting Jewish globalism, or is this a tragic kind of New Realism? In tragedies the hero and his cause are often sacrificed due to a tragic flaw.

How to Escape the La La Land of Philosophy

Harmonizing epistemology and ontology

There is no duality between Materialism and Godhood

The world rarely if ever represents exactly what our consciousness sees of the world, but the world nevertheless exists outside of our consciousness of the world. The differences regarding how we perceive the world are determined by the level of evolution of the consciousness of the perceiver of the world---there is no real duality. A human sees the world different from a frog but a God sees the world different from a human, depending on the level of the material evolution of the consciousness of frogs, humans, and Gods. Separating the "subject" from the "object" only confuses things, the difference is, again, only in the level of evolution of the subject perceiving the object. I prefer to use the tern "object" for both, since they are essentially the same.

The most truthful and realistic view of the world relating to what thinkers have called the "Absolute" or God are determined by the highest levels of the material evolution of consciousness. This helps define how we can harmonize epistemology and ontology, how we know what we know, and what the nature of existence might be. There is no need to separate the material from the spiritual.

spelling errors

As my readers no doubt know, I often make spelling errors, especially when, as today, spell checker doesn't catch the word "marital" when I meant "material." Sorry. I can't seem to do better...but I'll keep trying.

Beyond Schopenhauer's Buddhism, Nietzsche's immoralism, and Postmodern relativism

Schopenhauer was a Buddhist or Hindu in trying to rid philosophy and himself of the material world so as to experience the timeless world of what he called the Will, which was similar to Plato's timeless non-material ideas.

Nietzsche defined his will-to-power as goalless, Dionysian, and amoral, and he affirmed Fate something like the Greeks did. Nietzsche was close to seeing the will as material or supermaterial but he didn't go there. The post-moderns followed Nietzsche and made a God of relativism.

Theological Materialism sees the Will-Spirit as the material activation within material life toward supermaterial Godhood by way of material evolution, and fully affirms the religious nature of materialism when it affirms the goal of evolving to Godhood.. Theological materialism brings religion and science together, and I believe could be the future direction of both.

correction...

Absentmindedly I confounded Shia Islam with ISIS in assessing future Middle Eastern behavior for Russia and the U.S. and I have corrected that in this little essay. "Do Trump and his advisers have the following bold policy in mind?"

The sacred sufficient reason and purpose of life

Everything represents perceptive things in time and space and can be empirically understood, but for some things to be understood, sense experience and intelligence need to further evolve. Causal explanation can explain the world but there appears to be no beginning and end to the world and so further knowledge of this will also have to await further material evolution. Material things can exist without the human mind perceiving them, which is just common sense, but this is also related to the level of evolution of the perceiving mind.

Prior to the operation of the the intellect is the operation of the senses, but prior to the senses is the general activation of life itself which takes place within material life and is never separate from life. This is the first cause of life, which I call the Will-Spirit or Spirit Will---I include the word "spirit" simply to show the connection to traditional religion, which is included but transformed---the spiritual is really supermaterial.

Concepts and definitions are secondary to the the objects defined, the living object comes before its definition. Truth is a reference to material or supermaterial objects and does not stand alone without materiality. Truth is grounded in objects outside of itself. The sacred sufficient reason and purpose of material life is to evolve toward supermaterial Godhood. Again, this knowledge, this ontology and epistemology of theological materialism---which has been argued about for 2000 years usually in obscure ways---does not destroy traditional religion or philosophy, it includes and transforms them.

Godhood is what we ultimately seek, internally and materially (reblog from June 2014)

Are we merely a self-designed species due to sexual selection? Why do we choose beauty, good health, intelligence in sexual selection? Yes, healthier children provide more successful survival and reproduction, but why do we seek successful survival and reproduction? If we answer, “that's just the way it is” it is not a good enough answer.

We, our biological bodies, instinctively desire the best or highest success in survival, which ultimately seems to mean being permanently represented in the world. The word “permanent” can easily be seen as “eternal” or infinite, and when we speak of being eternally represented we are speaking about Godhood. That is, with material/supermaterial evolution which includes sexual selection and every other kind of selection, we seek Godhood when we seek the highest beauty, good health and intelligence, it is Godhood we ultimately seek as the zenith of these things. Did the Ancient Presocratic Greeks sense this?

But we do have a little help in this selection process from the inward, yes vitalistic, activation of the material Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, which seeks Godhood through the vehicle of the evolution of material life, shaped by outside evolution.

Teleological explanations of life invoking ends and purposes for evolution remain valid for me. Passing from the phenomenal to the noumenal does not happen, there seems to be only the phenomenal passing into the superphenomenal, so arguments against the reality of teleology can rest easier, we are not teleologically seeking a ghost in the sky. Intentionality persists even in the face of postmodernism which sees no essence, no direction, other than relative, goalless, Nietzschean power, or random evolution.

Transforming the principle of sufficient reason regarding a cosmos with no beginning and no end

If there is no beginning or end to the cosmos, the old principle of sufficient reason that nothing is without a cause needs to be upgraded, that is, if God is not thought to be the beginner/ender of the cosmos.

Humans live and die and so they almost naturally see all life live and die with a beginning and end, and for many centuries they have said God is the great cause of it all.

Does no beginning and no end to life and the cosmos therefore destroy God? No, but a transformation needs to take place from the spiritual to the material and supermaterial understanding of God or Godhood.

Material life endlessly evolves toward different levels of supermaterial Godhood with no beginning and no end, with starts and stops along the endless way.

The old principle of sufficient reason this way takes on the dynamic of theological materialism in explaining life and cosmos. The old conception of God is not thrown out, it is retained but transformed in the Twofold Path.

In the present world as "things fall apart" and "the centre cannot hold," it is time for this new yet old foundation.

With this worldview science can join religion, and real life can join religious life made real.

Beyond the Cloud of Obscurity: Theological Materialism, Appearance, and the Thing-in-itself

Religion and philosophy have been "a cloud of obscurity," to use Schopenhauer's description of Hegel's philosophy.

Regarding appearance and the thing-in-itself, the differences reside only in gradations of material evolution, there is not a dual reality. A tree or a frog sees less of the real world than a human does due to gradations of the evolution of sense experience. A God, or Godhood, sees far more of the real world than a human does due to the same gradations of evolution.

This means that Godhood is not a non-material, spiritual, or mathematical Thing-in-itself beyond the the material world, Godhood is a living object, or objects, like a tree or frog or human which has evolved to be more or less the Thing-in-itself and Appearance at the same time. Appearance is in the same category as the Thing-in-itself and the Thing-in-itself is the same as Appearance, determined by the same gradations and levels of material and supermaterial evolution. Truth is also this way a living object (not merely an idea) with or having gradations of truth depending on the level of evolution.

The Will or Spirit, which I call the Spirit-Will or Will-Spirit, is not the Thing-in-itself either, it is the material activation within life which seeks to activate life toward Godhood and the highest truth by way of material and supermaterial evolution, working within outside evolution and natural selection, or later working with conscious selection by man in harmony with as much as can be known of the real natural world. The Spirit or Will is not the last refuge of those who seek or define a non-material source for the sacred, as Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche more or less did.

Ethics, right and wrong, and sacredness need to derive from the real world of material and supermaterial evolution and do so in theological materialism.

A few personal thoughts on the reception of theological materialism

Theological materialism is a coherent unified meta-material world view, without descending, as Hegel and Heidegger did, and Plato long before them, into defining a non-material spiritual idea of God, or Being (Plato and neoplatonism claimed to turn reality down-side up while actually turning reality upside-down). I have been accused of being Lucifer, a Nazi, etc., and ignored by the left, the right, the Alt Right, by conservatives, and of course by religionists. But my work has mainly been ignored.

Some of this has to do with my blunt and simplified style of writing, some has to do with my somewhat defensive personality---I am also Swedish and German and blunt honesty combined with altruism is sort of an ethnic trait---and some has to do with having no institutional or commercial backing.  But these traits also seem to be what helps sustain me as a complete outsider. I thank fate for the Internet and for PDF technology.

I think I will continue to work energetically because the work is not only in my mind but in the heart and bones of my personality. And I do see slow-moving positive signs.

There is no split in human nature or in the human psyche

The standard religious, philosophical and psychological view is that human nature and the human psyche are split between raw goalless survival drives and a pure intellect or higher reality that can even experience a non-material God or truth, which is thought to be far superior to goalless material drives.

The problem with this view is that it is wrong. The "will' or "drive" or "spirit" (I call it the Spirit-Will or Will-Spirit) is material and is within life and seeks survival and reproductive success working along with outside evolution, and it is both a sacred goal as well as the zenith of survival and reproductive success---it seeks the deeper goal of real Godhood.

This means that human nature and the human psyche are not split. Material life has been badly defamed by these "isms" and by this mistaken duality. Human nature and material drives need to be unblocked and retrieved if we are ever to evolve to real Godhood. The dualities within religion, philosophy and psychology have been slowly destroying material life on earth.

The exploitation of history by the enemies of future healthy evolution

Two of the most damaging exploitations of history by the politically correct cultural Marxism of modern liberals are the federalism of states rights, and the positive genetic improvements for mankind which can come from eugenics and genetic engineering.

The Civil War between the slave owning South and the objecting North has been exploited and sensationalized suggesting that the constitutional federalism of states rights means slavery. And eugenics is simply labeled as Nazism. This has destroyed both of these common sense social goods.

I especially object to these two lies and exploitations of history because I advocate the eventual legal and constitutional transformation of states rights into an ethnopluralism of regions and ethnostates, to save us from another civil war between unassimilating, distinctly different ethnic groups, and as the future way to hold the nation together, given that basic human nature remains ethnocentric and group selecting.

And I take exception to the manufactured objection against eugenics and genetic engineering because these things can gradually rid us of the suffering caused by genetically inherited diseases, as well as provide the vital research needed for continuing our evolution toward Godhood, which is the sacred purpose behind steady genetic and cultural improvements. (see theological materialism)

We need to expose those who exploit history against these positive things, those who think that they benefit from this great blockade. They are the enemies of future healthy evolution for all mankind. If these vital improvements remain buried by political correctness we will probably lose the legal, constitutional, and conservative means to bring them foreword, and they may one day be brought forward by the very means the modern liberals fear most, by a fascism which gives no choice in the matter...

Theological materialism is a conservative philosophy and is not radical utopian ideology

For those conservatives who have called for more humility and less hubris among conservatives, here is a little arrogance and hubris, or even megalomania, which seems to be the unavoidable accusation in presenting an improved religious philosophy---at least if you don't mince words. Theological materialism is a conservative philosophy and is not radical utopian ideology.

There are two ecumenical things which all religions can celebrate if they affirm the philosophy of theological materialism: all religions share the same inward God, which in reality was/is a peak experience in the material mind, and all people, all groups, all biology, share the same inward material activation to evolve in the material world toward supermaterial Godhood working along with outside natural evolution, which seeks the zenith of success in survival and reproduction.

This philosophy can harmonize naturally competing human groups in the world but it can also synthesize religion and science, without trying to jam everyone together into the impossible ecumenical dream of one, equal, non-competing world. This is also the way to both conserve past religions which were mainly the symbolic experience of God in the Inward Path, while including the Outward Path of material evolution to real Godhood.

International research centers can be set up with both religion and science working together to aid in healthy evolution on earth, and to aid in the evolution toward Godhood of distinct groups living in their own regions and ethnostates in harmony with real human nature, which remains ethnocentric. This worldview gives life on earth and mankind a divine material goal which has been missing from religion, science and modern philosophy.

Who Is Destroying the West, And Why?

It is stunning to see Europe destroying itself and America following the same course. Who is allowing millions of Africans and Islamic immigrants into Europe?!  The immigrants are doing such things as raping hundreds of white girls in the north of England and forcing them into prostitution! Haven't we had enough of that kind of thing in the ghettos of our cities for years?

This suicide does not seem to bother the Big Media or the Wall Street degenerates who actually push  suicide for the purpose of advancing the power of a small number of people and groups. What a razor's edge immoral power game they play! The neoconservatives define this suicide as "creative destruction!."

If President elect Trump cannot stop these criminals from destroying the West, then the survival instincts of Americans (and Europeans) will sooner or later be spray-painting slogans on walls such as, "Stalin was Right," or even "Hitler was Right," and they will then bury democracy, Christianity, and morality in a desperate attempt to save America and the West.

So get to it Donald Trump! Build the wall. End immigration. Lower taxes. Put up tariffs. Create jobs. Back the police. Withdraw from NATO. And most importantly, devolve the power of the Big Media and Wall Street. I know we are asking for alot, but we are counting on you and your new Cabinet to do what you said you were going to do.  We want to live, not die.

Trump isn't scary, the Silicone Valley kings are scary

Did you see the conceited condescending look on the faces of the Silicone Valley kings when they met with Trump? They have been so brainwashed and indoctrinated in the political correctness of modern liberalism and libertarianism by our best universities and by the controlled media that they think an economic nationalist like Trump is only a clown. These super-rich nerds are the real political clowns and that is scary given the power they have.

Transforming the Long-Lasting Great Spiritual Blockade

The independent rebel thinker Schopenhauer nevertheless was not so independent in believing that we need to be liberated from ordinary material life and material suffering by a higher reality beyond the material world, which he called the Will, even though he was an atheist. Later Nietzsche's Will to Power  took on the same non-material goalless tone.

This follows the same line of thinking as most religious founders and most of the philosophers from Plato to Heidegger, which has been a long-lasting Great Spiritual Blockade against human culture and against real material evolution to supermaterial Godhood. This has greatly downgraded life and existence including human existence and it is overdo time to unblock this great spiritual blockade.

There is a "will'' in the philosophy of theological materialism which is presented in this blog, but it is a material will, and it activates life to evolve within the material world toward real supermaterial Godhood, which is the highest evolved object, or objects, in the real world, or supermaterial world. I call it the Spirit-Will or Will-Spirit simply to tie the real material will in with the unreal non-material spiritual will of religion and philosophy so that the transformation can be a conservative transformation. The Twofold Path defines this transformation from the inward to the outward path, retaining both.

Why multiculturalism paved the way toward ethnopluralism

It's a very odd thought to realize that the liberal religion of multiculturalism could pave the way toward ethnopluralism.

One of several big problems with multiculturalism, which centered on group identity, was that it left whites out of the mix and made whites the enemy of multiculturalism. The other big problem was that multiculturalism demanded that distinctively different ethnic cultures and groups get along well together living in the same space, which is contrary to real ethnocentric human nature.

As we have said here many times, group altruism evolved to advance ethnic groups and was not designed to work in a borderless multicultural world which causes antagonisms and competition to increase between ethnic groups and cultures.

Liberals were actually on the right track in underling group identity but they took a left turn off the tracks against real human nature into the la la Utopia of Marxism.

It seems to me that now ethnopluralism could be affirmed by, yes, the multiculturalists as the best way to improve the lot of the various ethnic groups which they claim to champion, this time including the whites. Even fringe groups on the far right and far left could find this workable.

Conservatives who still hope for a common, non-ethnic, John Wayne America need to see that world was lost in the immigration policies and ethnic breeding styles of modern America. The federalism of the constitutional separation of powers and states, perhaps with a few amendments, is the common America we can all still retain, as both liberals and conservatives affirm an ethnopluralism of ethnostates. I believe this is what is either radically or conservatively coming, and I prefer conservative change.

Immanentizing the Spiritual (reblog from Dec 2013)

The primacy of culture over politics in a world that now places politics over almost everything? How about the primacy of biology over culture and politics? This takes it deeper, although culture and biology are co-evolutionary. Turning around the old conservative cleverness, we in fact want to biologize the eschaton, contrary to Voegelin, since it is biology and evolution that take us to the end-goal of Godhood, rather than burying biology in wordy asceticism, which is where the great religions in reality are most comfortable. We can have both the Inward God within as well as the Outward Path of evolution to real Godhood. Religion needs to stop looking down its thin nose at the very evolution which brings us to Godhood---the Inward Path to the Father Within has only partially seen or symbolically experienced the real supermaterial Godhood reached through evolution in the Outward Path.

Who or what is to blame for misunderstanding equality and altruism?

Can religion be blamed? Religions say we are all universally equal under God. But Marxism was not religious and it too promoted universal equality and altruism. It is not just stupidity, smart people and smart groups (at least smart in the short term) also push universal equality and altruism as their cunning method to unequal power and unequally applied altruism. It is here where we seem to find a reason why something as foolish as universal equality and universal altruism are still with us today.

Altruism evolved and still exists in human nature and in human instincts to enhance the survival and reproductive success of separate and different groups who were genetically and culturally related to one another, it was not a universal altruism. The fear of inequality and separateness seems to derive from the fear people have of coming in last in the struggles of life, which leads to the cunning lies regarding equality and altruism. The attempt to extend these exclusive traits universally out to all men is hucksterism run wild.

There is also the fear that inequality will lead to fierce competition or war, but here too it is the lie of trying to jam distinctly different people together in the same place demanding equality and altruism that causes more problems than simply parting the combatants, as we might do on the school playground.

This is why the misunderstandings and lies regarding universal equality and altruism suggest the solution of an ethnopluralism of many ethnostates within a protecting federalism. Real life, real human nature can this way work as harmoniously and truthfully as is possible for humans to act. I hope for all of us, all groups, that this will soon become our future.