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
“Evidence perceived via the senses is fallible; for all you know, the Universe is a figment of your imagination, and you are dreaming all of this.
Nothing can be proven in any objective sense; the best we can do is examine the data conveyed to us by our fallible, subjective senses and decide on the basis of faith alone what relationship (if any) these sensory data have to a universe external to and independent of ourselves (if any).
The only things you can know for sure to exist are those things that you directly experience, rather than things you perceive via the senses.”
Of course you cannot possbily know that any of that is true, since you might just be dreaming it all. Sure sounds like pipe-dream.
Why go to the bother saying such things, since there is no such thing as proof, so you cannot possibly know it is true?
And why should anyone else listen to you, since you are so certain you cannot know anything?
Hank
What would this observer outside of space/time observe? Remember it has no 'time.' If it sees all events concurrently would that be meaningful? Wouldn't that be the same as nothing happening at all?
But even the lowly photon in this case would be an entity "in" space.
He cannot remove himself from space/time to perceive "all that there is" all at once, i.e. the universal 'now.'
That does not however make your "reality" Truth.
We are in full agreement.
God's Name is I AM!
I really feel badly for all those people who know nothing can be proved...
... who are still struggling with the question of whether heavier than air human flight is possible, or whether nuclear fission is possbile, or whether or not wireless communication is possible ...
Since none of these things can be proved.
Ha ha ha ha!
Hank
You missed the point: that the only things we can know are true our those we experience without use of the senses (i.e. our own consciousnness and the existence of God). All other “knowledge”, including scientific knowledge, is ultimately based upon faith (e.g. that our senses aren’t lying tous).
The Truth is in God's Name, I AM.
He is the Creator ex nihilo.
That is the key to understanding what we are saying.
Space, time, physical causality, physical laws, logic, information, etc. are part of the Creation, they are not properties of the Creator.
Turned around, the notion of relativity is stated more complex, as temporal 'now' is stretched or contracted based upon the amount of space being traversed in a given temporal frame ... clocks run slower (from an outside positioned observer) the faster they traverse spatial expanse, time passes more slowly for particles in greater gravitational fields, such as in the neighborhood of black holes (or a meson(?) entering earth's gravitational field).
The only point of perspective for which there could be a 'universal now' must be 'outside' of the spacetime bubble that is our perceived universe. But that assertion in our current science takes as axiomatic that linear temporal reality is all the temporal dimensional reality that there is.
You can show for your own satisfaction that such is not the case by merely remembering a very vivid occurrence in which you participated or which you observed in person. The remembering is not the point of the lesson, the ability to contemplate the memory is the essential proof that there is more than linear temporal reality.
Your mind/brain association accomplishes this even when you sleep, if you dream, even though what is contemplated is not an actual occurrence which you witnessed in person!
Does dreaming something make it a reality in some where/when? No, and that is the essential self-evident aspect that you are actually touching a temporal reality which is not linear, not founded in/relying upon a previous moment of reality. It is planar in nature, not linear. That is what imagination is. That is also the fraemwork of faith. As a writer of fiction works, I do this 'imagining' a lot. But as a person of faith, I can differentiate faith from imagination because faith has effects upon living whereas imagination effects life only if someone adjusts their behavior in irrational ways to fit their imagined reality ... faith effects life in the flow of rational reality, whereas mental derangement expressed in magic thinking results in negative effects in the flow of rational reality.
For some construct of non-linear time, your mind/brain connection accomplishes an alternate temporal frame of reference which is not to be taken as a real where/when but which has a framework which is not temporally linear in nature.
I would submit that such a self-evident proof opens the door for God the Creator to BE outside of our spacetime universe as we conceive of it. Ancillary to that realization is the astonishing notion that there is far more to the universe than is perceived based upon our reliance upon linear temporal framework.
“You missed the point ...”
Oh, no, I got the point alright. Proofs only concern concepts, which are all that can be proved, or need to be. It’s by means of concepts that we identify the entities and events of perception that are knowledge, not the perceptions or experiences themselves.
Your mind is all twisted up with Hume’s and Kant’s anti-reason philosophy, and you’ve never been able to get beyond it. So sad.
An where do you get the notion that perception is unreliable? Right from Hume and Kant.
Before and even while the Wright Brother were flying, there were scientists and college professors, with ideas very like yours, arguing that heavier than air flight was impossible. The Wright brother PROVED it is not impossible.
So our knowledge that heavier than air human flight is possible is a matter of faith? You are still not sure planes can fly?
Isn’t that a kind of insanity?
Hank
Yeah, but that’s just your brain chemistry talking.
The point of the theory of relativity is that time is relative to observers. Or more precisely (as Einstein put it), time is "merely" a parameter of measurement. Elsewhere he said that "time is an illusion, albeit a persistent one." In that statement, I doubt he was referring to the "time" of "the Old One," but to the way human beings experience time; i.e., from the perspective of finite existence, which ordinarily "feels" or senses time as an irreversible, serial, linear movement from past to future.
If it is true that time is relative to observers, then both of Alamo-Girl's statements are also true: i.e., that the universe is ~15 billion years old from our present space/time coordinates, and that it is 6,000 years old from the standpoint of a hypothetical observer located at the space/time coordinates of the inception point.
The time of the Eternal Now perhaps might be understood as incorporating (by virtue of its being the ultimate context of) all observations of all observers always. To an observer standing outside the finite world system, these would be perceived as simultaneous events.
But no human observer can ever "physically" do that! Man does not stand outside the system he observes, but is ineluctably part and participant of it. And yet he "shapes" the way the universe is to be seen and, thus, understood. Too often, he uses the measure of his own current (necessarily imperfect) understanding, applies it to the "objective" world, and then concludes "the world is definitively thus and so, given the criteria of judgment acceptable to ME." This is how man stumbles into the delusive position of being "the 'measure' of all things."
On that presupposition — i.e., my preferential criteria are "sufficient" to understand the problem I see, leading to truthful knowledge — man cannot really come to understand anything truthful about the world at all. But he might manage to make a good living out of his assumptions about the nature of reality all the same.
Or so it seems to me. JMHO. FWIW.
Since the observer outside of space/time would be observing all that there is, I would not imagine that it would be the same as nothing at all. I would imagine it as being everything-at-all within space/time.
If a 2 dimensional man cannot see a 3 dimensional man, that does not imply the reverse. And it also suggests that the 3 dimension man sees so much more.
But, we make a terrible mistake if we imagine the one outside space/time as being human-like in abilities and perceptions. Just the discussion itself should have disavowed us of that notion.
Indeed. Clearly, the doctrine of "man is the measure" is the most vicious form of reductionism there is. It not only ruins minds, but it ruins souls....
Thank you so very much, dearest sister in Christ, for your beautiful essay/posts!
It seems this is the very point you would need to demonstrate, LeGrande, in order to "falsify" the idea of the Eternal Now.
Want to take a stab at it?
p.s.: How is it any different to say, "there is no definitive frame of reference" and "there is no definitive criterion of truth?"
Wow! You’re asking me about something I posted many moons ago. OK.
I posted this by Dr. Robert W. Godwin, Ph.D, a clinical psychologist who blogs as “Gagdad Bob”:
“For an atheist to reject religion means only that he has failed to understand it, precisely.” ~ Gagdad Bob
Hank Kerchief: “Perhaps you can explain it then. There are theists who believe everyone is born in sin, already condemned unless they are converted and God has to do the converting. There are other theists who believe sin is chosen and that salvation is chosen. Do both these kinds of theist “understand” their religion? And which kind of theist are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
I’m a Christian theist. Of course you know that there are various levels of spiritual maturity among professing Christian theists, therefore - if truly called - their ongoing sanctification -(after their initial positional sanctification)- is God’s business.
As far as what the clinical psychologist meant by what he said about atheists, you would have to ask him. I think we can get a pretty good idea, however, by reading some more of what he writes on that subject.
For instance, in context, he appears to be referring to Christianity when he used the word “religion” at the link in post #20.
Here is a different link where he talks about the logic/difference between Christian concepts / precepts, and the logic engaged in by pagans, radicals, leftists, et.al.:
“...As I have written before, this is a religious passion in the absence of religion, so it has no traditional means to structure and channel it. Just as religion partakes of symmetrical logic in an adaptive way (i.e., the meek shall inherit the earth, the Golden Rule, humans are made in the image of the Creator, etc.), leftists do so in a terribly unhealthy way. ...”
Excerpted from:
The Patterned Irrationality of the Left
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2007/09/patterned-irrationality-of-left.html
In the unconscious mind, where symmetrical logic rules the night, the stronger the emotion one is feeling, the more “symmetrical deductions” are likely to occur.
For example, as Bomford writes, on a deep unconscious level, “one who hates has to believe that his or her hatred is returned.” Note that this is a logical operation, only based upon a different sort of logic.
This logic is no doubt the source of the psychotic fear of Israel in the Islamic world. Their unconscious hatred is so profound that it simultaneously reverses the relation, so that they can’t help perceiving that Israel hates them. But Israelis just want to shop, raise their families, or read the Torah. They couldn’t care less about Muslims, except to the extent that bloodthirsty Muslim barbarians harbor murderous rage toward them.
It’s fine to hate evil, but in the Islamic world, what is hated is transformed into evil. Something is not hated because it is evil, but evil because it is hated.
One could say the same of the left, which habitually fears what it eternally hates. The left cannot be comprehended unless one appreciates the extent of their unbound hatred. Once this is grasped, what seems illogical is suddenly seen to obey the dictates of symmetrical logic.
For example, the unconscious feeling that I hate America and want us to lose in Iraq is transformed to General Petraeus is a traitor, or I am a racist becomes America is racist, or I am unbearably envious becomes the wealthy are engaged in class warfare against me!
[snip] Continue at above link.
It is always such an inspiring thing to behold a person with so much sheer confidence in his own personal judgment that he takes it as the actual measure of the ("objective") Truth of Reality. That somehow, his understanding (as such) is the "privileged position"; ergo, the rest of us who bother to think about the essential nature of Reality are just jerks if we don't agree with him. And especially if we're Christian jerks. (Oh, but do forgive me: In Hank's lexicon, "Christian" and "jerk" are synonymous terms, making "Christian jerk" a redundancy....)
He's just here to put the superiority of a man who claims not to need God on display, for the edification of us dimwits....
And then along comes MissTickly, who sagaciously notes, "And I believe a lot of good comes from atheism." Or really??? Like what???
LOLOL!
In my earlier post, I mentioned multiple time dimension theories. Some like Vafa's f-theory call for an additional compactified (Kaluza/Klein) dimension of time and some like Wesson's 5D/2T theory call for additional expanded temporal or time-like dimension.
In the expanded theories (though arguably also in the compactified) time is not a line but a plane or volumetric.
In such theories past, present, future actually do exist concurrently and that could be seen as a universal 'now' - though any observer "in" space/time would still not be able to see "all that there is" all at once because he would still be subject to relativity (inertial frames, etc.) He might however be able to time-travel.
So whether one dimension of time or two or three - the total numbers and types (space/time, compactified/expended) knowable only to God - the bottom line is that only God can see "all that there is" all at once.
Would you consider this statement worth pondering?: The Universal Now is something that can be experienced (albeit in a limited and rather fleeting way); but the experience itself cannot be "reduced to" a "measurement."
Thank you ever so much, dear brother in Christ, for your outstanding essay/post!
Socrates once said something to the effect, I know that I know nothing for a certainty, and that makes me the wisest man of all men. I am wisest, for I acknowledge my ignorance.
Are you arguing that it is better that we have no awareness of our own ignorance, or that we could ever become wise without understanding our own limitations?
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