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 Marxs 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 Voëgelins 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: GodManWorldSociety, 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 Gods 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, Marxs 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 Marxs doctoral dissertation of 18401841. From it, we can deduce his thinking about the Man partner as follows:
(1) The movement of the intellect in mans 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 mans 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 Marxs revolt. As you can see, it requires the death of God. Marxs point of theocidal departure takes its further impetus from Ludwig von Feuerbachs theory that God is an imaginary construction of the human mind, to which is attributed mans 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 mans 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 didnt 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.
Heres the beautiful thing from Marxs 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, Marxs 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. Its 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 atheists distorted and may we add relentlessly imaginary? conception.
To agree with Marx on this that the movement of the intellect in mans 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 dont like something, then it simply doesnt 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 GodManWorldSociety 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 mans self-salvation in a New Eden an earthly utopia by purely human means.
Of course, theres 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 Voëgelins 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
“Again, were not talking about Code....”
ahhh, the method or algorithms use for error correction are called “error correction CODEs, commonly abbreviated ECCs.”
So if you are not talking about that, what are you talking about?
The question is rhetorical.
Hank
You are bringign two very different issues to hte table Hank- it’s hard to even follow your arguments as a result- I spoke about (and explained several times now) that hte discussion was abotu sender/receiver communication method, and not the code itself- you’ve been tryign to steer the conversation toward the code itself to support your argument I guess- if you’ll go back several posts, you will see that we were discussing the need for shannon theory which deals again, with sender receiver- not hte code itself- Code without the ability to be sent and received is useless information, and can not by itself sustain life in a fit condition- the species would fail to thrive without having a pre-existing method of sendign and receiving that code. It is this method of sendign and receiving that is vital to life, and again, this MUST all be present before life can even happen, and it MUSt be intelligently designed, and cooperate with many vital key systems such as Metainformation (code) that is forward looking and which anticipates errors in order to keep the species fit and viable
“its hard to even follow your arguments”
Yes, that’s quite obvious, though I am not trying to make an argument. If this is too hard for you, perhaps you should stop. I don’t want to hurt your head.
Have a nice day, and all my best.
Hank
[[Yes, thats quite obvious, though I am not trying to make an argument. If this is too hard for you, perhaps you should stop.]]
Oh don’t worry Habnk- it aint too hard for me to stick to hte actual subject being discussed- what is hard is following your rabbit trails that have nothign to do with hte subject- Your first question was about life- statign that there was a possibility that it ‘always existed’- We showed that it couldn’t have always existed- then you stated life could ‘self initiate’ itself- we showed the evidence shows that it can’t- then you went on to claim shannon theory was about code- which it’s not- Not sure where you’re headed next- but don’t you fret- it’s not ‘too hard’ - just sidetrails that really have nothign to do with your first claims
This verse implies the soul(spirit) and body are two different things... as I did.. What is "a" soul(mind,emotion and will)?.. Does it need a body to exist?.. Or maybe not a human body but some kind of other conduit is sufficient... or none at all..
No doubt about it, the vanity of humans is great, they love that body.. They serve it, groom it, maintain it, feed and water it, entertain it, teach it tricks, breed it, clean it, identify with it, love it, its almost like it was a treasured pet.., they sacrifice for and to it, some worship it, idolize it.. There is no end to the things they do for the human body.. while neglecting their spirit(soul)...
Not that some have not "merged" in their minds the soul and the body.. some have.. you know; conflated them.. When humans look into a mirror they may not be seeing themselves but merely their body.. Who/What they really are(soul/spirit) may be much more beautiful(precious) than that body..
Some new agers separate them(soul/body) and do all the above mentioned "things" to both the soul(spirit) and body.. They idolize both of them.. As Jesus said 'the path" is narrow it has a ditch on both sides of it.. But theres no doubt about it.. The soul is one thing, the body is another.. Conflating them is a mistake..
[[This verse implies the soul(spirit) and body are two different things... as I did..]]
I beleive the bible teaches htis as well- the spirit of life is the breath of life which God breathed into the nostrils of man at creation- the soul is the eternal ‘being’ to be wrapped in a new incorruptible body in heaven (an an undying body in hell- although people who speak about NDE’s describe beign ripped to shreds, dying, then being revived and happening all over again time and time again- never ending nightmare- I had similar ‘NDE’, although it was a bit different- I didn’t get to see the comfy white lights of heaven that most peopel see- I went hte other way- whether it was a real experience, or soemthign else- I can not state, but I was clinicly dead and had the ‘experience’ whatever it was- could have been synapsesdying, or an experience- just not sure)
[[What is “a” soul(mind,emotion and will)?..]]
Essence of who we are
[[The soul is one thing, the body is another.. Conflating them is a mistake..]]
Eat live and be merry for tomorrow we die
Thank you for sharing your insights!
Could be possible for your body to die but YOU won't die..
Meaning, you will live eternally somewhere.. i.e. Hell?..
If so, death might be an allusion.. responsibility for life as a human could be eternal.. What we do "here(as humans)" could impact the base of our everything.. Thereby "proving" what sort of "spirit" we are.. Not proving to God, but proving to ourselves.. Eliminating any future confusion on the issue.. Humans self sorting themselves into groups.. spiritual groups.. Even atheists/agnostics being a spiritual group.. (John ch 10).. Sheep pens and maybe Goat pens..
[[Could be possible for your body to die but YOU won’t die..
Meaning, you will live eternally somewhere.. i.e. Hell?..]]
Me? Hell? No- I took God at His word and found Him to be true- goign to heaven.
[[If so, death might be an allusion..]]
It’s a real experience that we go htrough- while our soul does not die, our experiences in the flesh are real- fear nad pain are real experiences- Bunyan described the passing over pretty well
Hi BB, I recently happened upon another online book that bears directly on atheism’s suicidal thought tendencies I couldn’t find where it came up, so I decided to reply with it here:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition1.htm
All the best—GGG
bookmark
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