The Atheist Perversion of Reality

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:

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.

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.

Thank you so much for all your wonderful essay-posts and insights, dearest sister in Christ, and thank you for your encouragements!

As you said in an earlier post:

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."

And as TXnMA said earlier (emphasis mine):

I submit (or agree) that it is physically impossible for any observer confined to a reference frame within our universal system to experience your "universal now".

Because of the Holy Spirit's indwelling it is possible to become more aware of being alive in Christ (timelessly) than alive in the flesh (time-bound.)

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. - Colossians 3:3

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. - John 15:4-5

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. - Romans 8:9

I testify this has become true for me.

God's Name is I AM.

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.

I think it's quite possible that Kant might agree with you that Hume's position was "anti-reason." (Though I don't agree with Kant about this — I strongly resonate with many of Hume's "radical" insights!) But Kant would have had a fit if you accused him (of all people!!!) of being "anti-reason."

Legend has it that Kant was so exercised by David Hume's magisterial "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" that he was inspired to write Critique of Pure Reason in rebuttal. Evidently what got Kant going was Hume gave priority to experience rather than to reason itself in the acquisition of human knowledge.

Evidently Hume was of the opinion that reason cannot give us any real connection between sense perception and objects sensed. That is, their relation has nothing to do with reason, but with the way human beings experience things (largely governed by the structure of sense perception), which forms the basis of "custom" and habits of mind generally.

IOW, the connection between sense and what is sensed is not a logical connection, it is a experiential connection that tends to become habitual over time. It is that on which we base our reasonings once that "connection" is realized as a "precept." Then — and only then — does reason have "something to do."

Hume is not anti-reason. Kant is not anti-reason — indeed, if it seems that Hume "disparages" reason, Kant would appear to be "elevating" it to virtually divine heights....

You wrote: "It’s by means of concepts that we identify the entities and events of perception that are knowledge, not the perceptions or experiences themselves." Hume would say there are only three primary sources of knowledge: sense, memory, experience. We cannot form percepts, let alone concepts, without these.

Said MrJesse: If LeGrande thinks he can demonstrate his claim, then by all means I wish he would.
Replied LeGrande:I have tried many times : ( mrjesse simply doesn't seem to understand frames of reference, two body problems, or that there is not a universal 'now' in relativistic physics.

And now says MrJesse:
I do understand two body problems, but that is besides the point.

Some questions do not need to involve the discussion of frames of reference because they are implicitly defined.

For example, if two cars are driving along and I take a snapshot photo I can absolutely say that "These two cars were x number of degrees apart at the time and place I took the photo." You see, there is no need to talk about frames of references because the frame of reference is obviously based off of the other car.

Another example: Let's say I had a camera which simultaneously took a snapshot of the apparent optical position of a jet plane at 10,000 feet altitude, and a snapshot of the apparent sound position. (I actually read years ago in a magazine about a camera that imaged sound instead of light. It was designed to be able to show sources of vibrations and noise on a flying helicopter to check for loose screws and cracked panels.)

But back to my thought-experiment. Let's say I take this light+audio snapshot photo of the jet plane that's 10k feet above me. Because the light from the jet plane travels faster then the sound from it, the optical position will appear so many degrees ahead of the audio position.

Thus it is perfectly correct of me to then say "For an observer on the earth, at an instant in time, the plane appeared x number of degrees ahead of where the sound was coming from." The statement is true, and we don't have to go off on any distractions of "what frame of reference."

Now for those who don't know, Pluto is kind of way out there. It orbits the sun extremely slowly, at least compared to the earth. It's orbit takes it closer and further from the sun, but at its furthest it's about 6.8 light hours away. This means that at 6.8 light hours, the earth has turned about 102 degrees by the time Pluto's reflected light reaches us.

LeGrande has kindly mentioned(next to last paragraph) and then later expounded(Para 4) that the sun appears about 2.1 degrees behind where it actually is, due to the fact that the earth rotates 2.1 degrees in the 8.3 minutes it takes the sun's light to reach earth.

He has also explained of the 2.1 degrees that If the Sun was closer the angle would be smaller, and if the sun was further away the angle would be larger.

He has also explained to me that if the earth were turning at the rate of 180 degrees per 8.5 minutes, the sun's optical image would be lagged from its real position by 180 degrees

Now, mind you, if it was the sun orbiting the earth every 24 hours - then I'd agree with him! If the sun were actually moving around the earth at 2.1 degrees per 8.3 minutes, then yes, by the time light arrived at the earth, it would be coming from where the sun was 8.3 minutes ago, which would not be where the sun is anymore. But alas, the sun is not orbiting the earth very much. The 2.1 degrees per 8.3 minutes is majorly due to the earth's own rotation, which means that while the sun's light may be 8.3 minutes old, it's still coming from where the sun is because the sun is in the same place that it was 8.3 minutes ago.

So you can see that if one believes that the sun is apparently 2.1 degrees displaced, and that it would be more apparently displaced if it were farther, then the natural question arises about Pluto, which is at times up to 6.8 hours away.

So, LeGrande, please apply your own claims to this simple question:

For an observer on earth at a point in time when Pluto is 6.8 light hours away and the earth rotates 102 degrees in 6.8 hours, when Pluto appears directly overhead, will it really be 102 degrees off - and not even really in the night sky?

That is a very simple question - just like the flying jet or the two moving cars. No fancy explanations are needed regarding frame of reference or universal "now" or anything else. But you see, most folks are going to raise an eyebrow or two if they are told that Pluto isn't even in the night sky when we look up and see it (with a powerful telescope, of course.) But that is, as best I can tell, exactly what LeGrande's claims seem to indicate. How can I logically come to any other conclusion?

So if I'm the one that's so hopelessly ignorant, that's besides the point. LeGrande can still answer my question, and show us all how wrong I am! But if a fellow doesn't even believe his own view well enough to apply it to a simple question, then may I ever so humbly say that perhaps they shouldn't be trying to convince other people of their views without expecting a little bit of questioning from honest folk.

Said LeGrande:Reality is not always what you may think it is.

True - but just because I might think something is reality when it's not does not mean that I should accept as reality something that doesn't even look like it! Trying to know what is reality among the things that look like reality is challenge enough. But accept things as reality that make no sense and don't even look like reality will move one into the realm of believing unlimited absurdities - of which there are ample vendors!

When you look at a star you are actually seeing photons that left it a long time ago. In effect you are looking back in time, to what things were like in the past and in some cases the very distant past (billions of years).

And that's why I specified so clearly "For an observer on earth, at a point in time..."!

I know that this view [billions of years] of reality doesn't agree with your idea that all creation occured 12,000 years ago and I have no hope or desire to change your mind.

It certainly is true that I believe that God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days about 7k years ago.
Indeed, I have not found that science has demonstrated that the earth is billions of years old. Those who believe they know it's that old are merely having faith in people they've never met about things they've never seen. And that, my dear friends, is not science! The only way that "science" has "proven" that the earth is billions of years old is by accepting the dogma that there's no other possible way that it could have come to exist. But nobody knows for sure that there is no other way, so that's not scientific either!

You see, to me, science is real and solid. For example, I scientifically determined that if you put too much current through or voltage across an LED, it will emit a bad smell, turn black inside, and stop working. I've found that the experiment works repeatably, and if anyone doubts I can show them, or I can send them a dozen yellow LEDs with instructions on how to do the demonstration themselves. See, that is real science. If someone can't demonstrate something to me, and especially if their claim violates the laws of physics (like, for example, the big bang which says something came from nothing) I'm really not going to want to classify it as science.

I love science and have personally performed many many common scientific experiments and to me science is a real thing. It is something you can do and see and try and test. My latest experiment was shining a laser through a chunk of Selenite, and seeing interesting patterns of the light coming out the other side. (Photo-Documented here: Jesse's laser & Calcite/Selenite experiment)

But all that is completely besides my "Pluto" question! I'm just following a logical scientific thought process here, and for the oddest reason ever, those purporting to be with science keep bringing up religion!

So why not just answer my Pluto question, as I asked it?

~~~~~~~~~~~

It is my conclusion indeed that The Atheist Perversion of Reality is why science education today is in such shambles. The Atheist teachers and professors pervert reality and saturate their students in it. I think many of them either know that they are wrong to some degree, or at least refuse to apply their belief to some questions or to reality because in doing so they fear that reality would debunk their belief - which they call science.

Thanks,

-Jesse

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