Posted on 04/05/2009 8:10:35 PM PDT by betty boop
The Atheist Perversion of Reality
By Jean F. Drew
Atheism we have always had with us it seems. Going back in time, what was formerly a mere trickle of a stream has in the modern era become a raging torrent. Karl Marx’s gnostic revolt, a paradigm and methodology of atheism, has arguably been the main source feeding that stream in post-modern times.
What do we mean by “gnostic revolt?” Following Eric Voëgelin’s suggestions, our definition here will be: a refusal to accept the human condition, manifesting as a revolt against the Great Hierarchy of Being, the most basic description of the spiritual order of universal reality.
The Great Hierarchy is comprised of four partners: God–Man–World–Society, in their mutually dynamic relations. Arguably all the great world religions incorporate the idea of this hierarchy. It is particularly evident in Judaism and Christianity. One might even say that God’s great revelation to us in the Holy Bible takes this hierarchy and the relations of its partners as its main subject matter. It has also been of great interest to philosophers going back to pre-Socratic times — and evidently even to “anti-philosophers” such as Karl Marx.
In effect, Marx’s anti-philosophy abolishes the Great Hierarchy of Being by focusing attention mainly on the God and Man partners. The World and Society partners are subsidiary to that, and strangely fused: World is simply the total field of human social action, which in turn translates into historical societal forms.
Our principal source regarding the Marxist atheist position is Marx’s doctoral dissertation of 1840–1841. From it, we can deduce his thinking about the Man partner as follows:
(1) The movement of the intellect in man’s consciousness is the ultimate source of all knowledge of the universe. A human self-consciousness is the supreme divinity.
(2) “Faith and the life of the spirit are expressly excluded as an independent source of order in the soul.”
(3) There must be a revolt against “religion,” because it recognizes the existence of a realissimum beyond human consciousness. Marx cannot make man’s self-consciousness “ultimate” if this condition exists.
(4) The logos is not a transcendental spirit descending into man, but the true essence of man that can only be developed and expressed by means of social action in the process of world history. That is, the logos is “immanent” in man himself. Indeed, it must be, if God is abolished. And with God, reason itself is abolished as well: To place the logos in man is to make man the measure of all things. To do so ineluctably leads to the relativization of truth, and to a distorted picture of reality.
(5) “The true essence of man, his divine self-consciousness, is present in the world as the ferment that drives history forward in a meaningful manner.” God is not Lord of history, the Alpha and Omega; man is.
As Voëgelin concluded, “The Marxian spiritual disease … consists in the self-divinization and self-salvation of man; the intramundane logos of human consciousness is substituted for the transcendental logos…. [This] must be understood as the revolt of immanent consciousness against the spiritual order of the world.”
How Marx Bumps Off God
So much for Marx’s revolt. As you can see, it requires the death of God. Marx’s point of theocidal departure takes its further impetus from Ludwig von Feuerbach’s theory that God is an imaginary construction of the human mind, to which is attributed man’s highest values, “his highest thoughts and purest feelings.”
In short, Feuerbach inverts the very idea of the imago Dei — that man is created in the image of God. God is, rather, created by man, in man’s own image — God is only the illusory projection of a subjective human consciousness, a mere reflection of that consciousness and nothing more.
From this Feuerbach deduced that God is really only the projected “essence of man”; and from this, Feuerbach concluded that “the great turning point of history will come when ‘man becomes conscious that the only God of man is man himself.’”
For Marx, so far so good. But Marx didn’t stop there: For Feuerbach said that the “isolated” individual is the creator of the religious illusion, while Marx insisted that the individual has no particular “human essence” by which he could be identified as an isolated individual in the first place. For Marx, the individual in reality is only the sum total of his social actions and relationships: Human subjectivity has been “objectified.” Not only God is gone, but man as a spiritual center, as a soul, is gone, too.
Marx believed that God and all gods have existed only in the measure that they are experienced as “a real force” in the life of man. If gods are imagined as real, then they can be effective as such a force — despite the “fact” that they are not really real. For Marx, it is only in terms of this imaginary efficacy that God or gods can be said to “exist” at all.
Here’s the beautiful thing from Marx’s point of view: Deny that God or the gods can be efficacious as real forces in the life of man — on the grounds that they are the fictitious products of human imagination and nothing more — and you have effectively killed God.
This insight goes to the heart of atheism. In effect, Marx’s prescription boils down to the idea that the atheist can rid himself and the world at large of God simply by denying His efficacy, the only possible “real” basis of His existence. Evidently the atheist expects that, by his subjective act of will, he somehow actually makes God objectively unreal. It’s a kind of magic trick: The “Presto-Changeo!” that makes God “disappear.”
Note that, if God can be gotten rid of by a stratagem like this, so can any other aspect of reality that the atheist dislikes. In effect, the cognitive center which — strangely — has no “human essence” has the power of eliminating whatever sectors of objective reality it wants to, evidently in full expectation that reality itself will allow itself to be “reduced” and “edited down” to the “size” of the atheist’s distorted — and may we add relentlessly imaginary? — conception.
To agree with Marx on this — that the movement of the intellect in man’s “divine” consciousness is the ultimate source of all knowledge of the universe — is to agree that human thought determines the actual structure of reality.
Instead of being a part of and participant in reality, the atheist claims the power to create it as if he himself were transcendent to, or standing outside or “beyond” reality. As if he himself were the creator god.
This type of selective operation goes a long way towards explaining the fanatical hostility of many Darwinists today regarding any idea of design or hierarchy in Nature — which, by the way, have always been directly observable by human beings who have their eyes (and minds) open. What it all boils down to seems to be: If we don’t like something, then it simply doesn’t exist.
We call the products of such selective operations second realities. They are called this because they are attempts to displace and finally eliminate the First Reality of which the Great Hierarchy of Being — God–Man–World–Society — is the paradigmatic core.
First Reality has served as the unifying conceptual foundation of Western culture and civilization for the past two millennia at least. What better way to destroy that culture and civilization than an all-out attack on the Great Hierarchy of Being?
Thus we see how the gnosis (“wisdom”) of the atheist — in this particular case, Marx — becomes the new criterion by which all operations in (the severely reduced and deformed) external reality are to be conducted, understood, and judged.
Conclusion
Marx is the self-proclaimed Paraclete of an a-borning utopia in which man will be “saved” by being reduced to essentially nothing. With God “gone,” man, as we denizens of First Reality know him, disappears also.
But whatever is left of him becomes a tool for social action. He becomes putty in the hands of whatever self-selected, self-proclaimed Paraclete seeking to promote his favored Second Reality du jour (usually for his own personal benefit) manages to stride onto the public stage and command an audience.
Such a charmed person blesses himself with the power to change human society and history forever, to bring about man’s self-salvation in a New Eden — an earthly utopia— by purely human means.
Of course, there’s a catch: As that great denizen of First Reality, Sir Thomas More, eminently recognized, the translation into English of the New Latin word “utopia” is: No-place.
In short, human beings can conjure up alternative realities all day long. But that doesn't mean that they can make them “stick.” Reality proceeds according to its own laws, which are divine in origin, and so cannot be displaced by human desire or volition, individually or collectively.
And yet the Marxian expectation argues otherwise.
Out of such fantastic, idiotic, specifically Marxian/atheist foolishness have great revolutions been made. And probably will continue to be made — so long as psychopaths hold the keys to the asylum.
Note:
All quotations from Eric Voëgelin’s article, “Gnostic Socialism: Marx,” in: The Collected Works of Eric Voëgelin, Volume 26 — History of Political Ideas: Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1999.
©2009 Jean F. Drew
April 4, 2009
Truly, my answer to "What is freedom?" would be based on Whose I am, freedom for not just freedom from.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with [him], that we may be also glorified together. - Romans 8:12-17
Well, it has been interesting. I think you have the impression I would undermine your beliefs. Let me tell you something you do not know about me. I admire Christians who know their Bibles and live by the principles it teaches, especially in today’s world where almost no one has any principles.
But many Christians today have swallowed a lot academic nonsense and seem to be attempting to justify their beliefs on the basis of things that are contrary to fact and to their Bibles. I’m not sure why, and I’m sorry to see it.
I do not believe in God, but it’s not for any of the reasons most say that do not, and I’m certainly not opposed to anyone who finds their belief in a God is consistent with their best understanding of reality and the world. I would defend to the death anyone’s right to believe and practice whatever they believe, but I know Christianity is of religions the most rational and benevolent and always a boon to any country where it flourishes—especially the USA.
I also have no interest in convincing anyone else one way or the other about their religious convictions.
However, Christians, as well as others, believe and teach things I cannot agree with, and when I run across such beliefs, when I’m inclined to, I like to address them. Again, I have no interest in changing anyone’s mind, but find the exercise interesting and it frequently helps me clarify ways of expressing my thoughts.
Didn’t mean to ramble. All my best. Thank you for the good conversation and ideas.
Hank
“What does this “attribute” freedom entail? Freedom for or freedom from?”
Neither. Freedom to.
Freedom means freedom to think and act as one chooses without restriction by any other individual or group of individual. Such freedom means that one is totally responsible and must bear the consequences of their wrong choices and action, but is free to enjoy the reward of all their right choices and actions.
Such freedom exclude any interference in the life of others.
“what’s an individual.”
I’ll not do your homework for you, it’s in the dictionary.
“I suspect that the answers that you and A-G would give to the question “What is freedom?” would be different. Thus, that difference would be the very thing that distinguishes the difference of fundamental worldview of each of you respectively, and which seems to put them so mutually at odds.”
She told me I was free to believe what I wanted to. That’s the only freedom I’m talking about. What do you suppose she meant by that?
I have to get dinner.
Hank
And I would stand by your side to defend the right of any American to speak his mind and believe as he chooses.
It has been a pleasure to dialogue with you today, dear Hank Kerchief!
Most astute insight, dearest sister in Christ! But notice: Nowhere does Hank explain why or how such things as "consciousness, volition, autonomy" or even reason itself are themselves "reasonable" in the first place. Yet the question remains: By reason of WHAT?
Somehow what comes to mind by virtue of neglecting such questions is an image from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels re: the "floating island" which he called Laputa....
Oh, I suppose the freedom to destroy yourself, if you can't figure out any better way.
The thought occurs to me that your "freedom to" is an abstract freedom that will always remain perfectly abstract, if it cannot first answer the question of, "Choose one: 'for' or 'from.'" Thus the whole tactic of "freedom to" is an evasion of what the question asks. That is, it has no operational context. And that is why it remains a "floating island," like Swift's "Laputa."
“Most astute insight, dearest sister in Christ! But notice: Nowhere does Hank explain why or how such things as “consciousness, volition, autonomy” or even reason itself are themselves “reasonable” in the first place.”
Since when do the facts of existence have to be explained as “reasonable?” If I say, “there is a sun,” is it necessary to explain how it is “reasonable.” It does no make sense at all. What does it mean to say something is “reasonable.” How could the fact that human beings are conscious be “unreasonable?”
Why do you say such absurd things?
Hank
You would not have been welcome among the first Christians to come to this country. They did not come here for freedom “for” or “from” but freedom TO worship God as they chose without persecution. Thay would have laughed at your foolish ideas about freedom. They knew what it was, and many died to pursue it. That was concrete freedom, not some meaningless abstraction such as you are spouting.
There can only be freedom to do. There is no such thing as freedom to “have” (a socialist idea). You are either free to do as your choose, or are a slave who must do someone else’s bidding, as most people have become in this country. Your assault on the concept of freedom is one of many that is helping to bring this country down.
I know that is not your intention—the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Hank
And so your "blind spot" continues to be that you refuse to recognize that there is a difference between freedom for and freedom from. The final disposition of such matters is perfectly "neutral" in your view.
But such is the very decision that gets reified in human action, thus entailing consequents in the natural and social worlds. Yet you seem to argue that we are to conclude that no human action can be effective or important in any way, either as in any way structuring reality as it can be known to the cognitive mind, or as accounting for the coherence of human societies, let alone providing an explanation for the seemingly rather "ordered" reality that we, as human observers, see and engage every day of our lives in our interactions with the natural and social worlds.
Your "philosophy" (ontology + epistemology) seems a tad "impoverished," in the "Rosenian sense." ... Yet you do recognize, evidently, that at least we can agree that freedom from has already been defeated as a feasible idea....
So, what's next? Where do we take it from here? Logically, rationally, spiritually speaking?
“... you refuse to recognize that there is a difference between freedom for and freedom from. The final disposition of such matters is perfectly “neutral” in your view.”
Absolutely not. The final disposition of this nonsense, in my view, is that it is total academic bunk.
“But such is the very decision that gets reified in human action, thus entailing consequents in the natural and social worlds. Yet you seem to argue that we are to conclude that no human action can be effective or important in any way, either as in any way structuring reality as it can be known to the cognitive mind, or as accounting for the coherence of human societies, let alone providing an explanation for the seemingly rather “ordered” reality that we, as human observers, see and engage every day of our lives in our interactions with the natural and social worlds.”
I’d answer this if I could, but since I’m not smoking the same thing your are, it has no meaning to me at all, nor would it to any sane or sober person. Try reading it in the morning and see if it makes any sense to you.
For example, you know perfectly wall this is totally false:
“Yet you seem to argue that we are to conclude that no human action can be effective or important in any way...”
Terribly disingenous. Are you sure you are a Christian?
By the way you know neither what the word “reified” means, nor, earlier, what the world “beg the question” means. The latter has nothing to do with “questions.”
Read and learn:
http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/permanent/fallacies.php#reif
http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/permanent/fallacies.php#begging
[From one of my very old WEB pages. You may find it useful if you need to understand one of the logical fallacies.]
Hank
Belief that the third human on this planet did NOT come from the first two... as some sort of truth or fact or theory.. requires a flawed logic..
Supported by zero evidence.. and a lot of faith in something..
Your insight long ago that the root word of "rational" is ratio has been very important to me because, as you pointed out back then, a ratio involves a subject and an object - one which is subject to change and one which is not.
Reason does indeed require a standard or foundation, that which is absolute, unchanging.
Lacking sense of the "for" - a people finding themselves liberated from an oppressor may become confused, disconnected and perhaps even more miserable than before.
No matter how many times I mention the third human on this planet and "its" orgination.. I can never get any repartee.. Wonder why?.. At one/some time there must've been 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,and 3.. I have noticed no realistic logic to to countermand that fact/supposition.. Apes can ape humans, and humans can ape apes(RAP artists).. But the difference between apes and humans is large..
Its probably for the best for I would probably bore of the conversation anyway..
But of a truth the numbers/reproduction/probability debate could go in various directions depending on whether you want to discuss theology, science or philosophy.
If you give a nudge one direction or another, you might get a "bite."
[[Namely, that things have causes;]]
Precisely- for a thing to have a ‘cause’ it MUST have a begginning- everythign that is caused MUST have a beginning- if it is eternal, then nothign could have caused it- it ‘just was is and always shall be’ (ie: is supernatural- violates nature/laws- is above nature and laws.
[[We need to recall that causes by nature are hidden from direct observation/sensory experience. This does not necessarily make causes in any way “mystical. Indeed, if they manifest observable phenomena, then that seems to pull them into the phenomenal realm, where putatively they can be studied by “science.”]]
Bingo- we can and must come to beyond reasonable doubt conclusions based on the evidences, as you say, common sense conclusions that are the most reasonable and most plausible and probable- a conclusion that is more plausible and probable than other explanations that defy common sense and the evidence.
[[It is very similar to the concept force. Though scientists do not, most people think of “force” as a something, because they confuse “force” with what they feel. So people also confuse their experience of things, in relationship to clocks and other motions as “time.”]]
Actually it is time- a being has a beginning, and from the very inception of being, of beginning, ‘time’ begins winding down for that being- you may call it whatever you like, but it is indeed time, bound by the second law, subject to the second law
[[Life is an attribute of an organism, it is the attribute that distinguishes between a mere physical entity and living physical entity. When the life of an organism ceases, (it no longer has the attribute living) it reverts to being a mere physical entity. ]]
now, if I’m understanding your concept right- you are claiming that life- it’s components, it’s chemical components, ‘always existed’- and life will revert to it’s base components, the chemicals, when that life is through when ‘time runs out for it’? (it won’t run out for hte chemicals- but rather for hte biological components)
I think htis is where you are heading with your reasoning, correct? That those chemicals just floated aroudn in space until the ‘great inception of the worlds’ as we know them?
Chemicals were never life- life requires a complex- irreducibly complex order of information and biological construction, and this complexity MUST be caused, and as BB and Alamo Girl pointed out, causes have beginnings- must have beginnings- life did not, could not, exist before this beginning. you also claim we don’t know the universe had a beginning (A seperate issue than thwe one about life that we were discussing), but this is contrary to the evidence, and to reason- it is infact unreasonable to assume the universe ‘always was’ in light of the evidences we have available to us- Again, we MUST point to the second law as one of htem ost crucial evidneces pointing to htis ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ conclusion.
[[Life is a self-initiated, self-sustained process, a process that transcends the physical. ]]
Back to life- Life is NOT a self-initiated process- the evidences we DO have available to us do NOT point in that direction at all- informaiton hteory, and Shannon theory, strongly indicate life could not have inititiated itself, nor could nature provide the heirarchy of complex metainformaiton and information necessary to sustain life (even if it could, life still would not have ‘initiated itself- nature would have, but since we know nature is incapable, another more reasonable conclusion about causation MUST be pursued. Chemicals, the base materials in life, simply can not give rise to htis metainformaiton system, and you are endowing chemicals with supernatural abilities that are both unwarrented, and unsupported scientifically, in your assumption, and you are shoving aside hte second law and biological laws in assuming life could ‘initiate itself’ and that it ‘always existed’ (in the form of chemicals which somehow had the supernatural abilities to initiate life by their own accord- thus implying that chemicals somehow had al lthe foreknowledge, and information necessary to begin the process of life by conducting the initiation process- implying that chemicals were endowed with hte ability to anticipate every biological and informational component necessary for life- this implies that chemicals- simple chemicals, had ‘God-like forknowledge and abilities’ and if this is what you beleive, then you beleive, in a sense, that we are all gods who always existed, and always had al lthe infromation necessary in simple chemical form, to construct our own biological selves from scratch.
It seems to me you are giving simple chemicals far too much credit that it simply does not deserve and hwich the evidnece does not suppoort- while interesting, it simply is unreasonable to assume chemicals were able to give rise to, to initiate biological life- the evidence farm ore strongly supports an intelligent agent ‘causing’ biolgoical life- beginning life, subject ot natural, chemical, and biological laws which can not be violated naturally- these laws could only have been violated supernaturally by an eternal God- an intelligent agent.
This is just a long-winded way of saying that our worldview structures the way we think about the world, and thus the way we choose to act in it. Which has implications not only for ourselves, but for society and the natural world.
“now, if I’m understanding your concept right- you are claiming that life- it’s components, it’s chemical components, ‘always existed’ ...”
No, you are not understanding me at all. Life is non-physical. Whatever you think the physical “components” of life are, you could organize, arrange, and set them up in any form you liked, but you would never have life.
Though I describe life as a self-sustained process, this is really only a model, because we cannot study life in the same way we study any physical process. That’s what my example is trying to illustrate.
Life is not a “thing” or a “substance” but it is an attribute or quality that changes the mere physical into a living organism. Every single aspect of an organism can be identical the moment before death and the moment after death. Nothing about the physical aspects of an organism are the organism’s life, nor do they produce life. The life is the continuous process that sustains itself and maintains the organism as an organism.
The physical aspects of an organism cannot sustain life. It is in fact, the other way around. It is the life process that sustains the physical aspects of the organism, and those physical aspect begin to deteriorate the moment the life process ceases.
Quick, without looking it up, what’s a check bit?
Don’t know? Then don’t regale me with nonsense about Shannon theory. I worked for years in IT, and created endless error correction methods, and shannon theory and information theory have absolutely nothing to do with human intelligence or the nature of life.
Now if you do know what a check bit is, how many check bits does it take to detect and correct single bit errors in single byte (8-bit) transmissions, since you know all about shannon codes and such.
I have very clearly stated, about a half dozen times now, that life cannot come from non-life. Shall I say it again? Why do you go on and on about “life could not have inititiated itself.”
Now this: “as BB and Alamo Girl pointed out, causes have beginnings.” Not exactly sure what this means, but it is just a baseless assumption, and one you really do not believe. If “causes have beginnings,” and “God is a cause,” then God has a beginning, else causes do not have beginnings. You need to rethink that one.
Hank
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