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
Yes but the metaphor applies to all of the dualities. The wave/particle duality just happens to be one of the easier ones to illustrate. The observers choices and even the experiment itself determine in large part what type of results we will get.
You seem to be trying to go beyond the results of the experiments. As far as I know, that is unknown territory : ) If you know of a way to test the many worlds theory, or string theory, etc. that would be great. Better yet it would be nice to unify Relativity and QM that would answer a ton of questions.
I tend to agree with the emergent properties theories though and don't think we are going to unify everything. For example ice, water and vapor are the same molecule but they each have distinct characteristics depending on the phase change.
Give me one example of knowledge that you consider certain (other than "death" and "taxes" — LOL!), and then tell me how you know it's certain; i.e., What is the basis or criterion on which your "certainty" rests?
Did you have a chance to find the link re: the uncertainty principle that you offered to share with me?
No, it is a mathematical object. As such, it is not subject to considerations of energy, time, position, or momentum.
“Give me one example of knowledge that you consider certain (other than “death” and “taxes” — LOL!), and then tell me how you know it’s certain; i.e., What is the basis or criterion on which your “certainty” rests?”
I can give you hundreds of examples, but for starters:
Heavier than air human flight is possible is certainly known. Until the Wright brothers proved it, academics and “scientists” were writing “scholarly” papers proving it was impossible.
How about anesthesia. Not possible and “evil” according to a number of religious people. I believe the truth that anesthesia is not only possible, but practiced regularly has been proven by experience.
Another is wireless communication. I think that has been proven beyond doubt. Don’t you? It was certainly doubted before Tesla (and Marconi, though Tesla is now given the well deserved credit for first having demonstrated it).
There are no end of things we know with certainty. As for how I know them, if anyone does not know them it is because they suffer some kind of extreme retardation or are in some other way mentally deficient.
Here are some examples of why the “uncertainty” principle is in doubt:
The Uncertainty Principle Is Untenable
http://theoryandscience.icaap.org/content/vol004.002/13_letter_gong.html
http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08b.htm
The Dark Age of the Uncertainty Principle
http://knol.google.com/k/claes-johnson/the-dark-age-of-the-uncertainty/yvfu3xg7d7wt/69#
Why Schrödinger Hated His Equation
http://knol.google.com/k/claes-johnson/why-schrdinger-hated-his-equation/yvfu3xg7d7wt/38#
It amazes me that some people believe nothing is certain, and base it on their credulity about the “uncertainty” principle. If nothing is certain, how can the uncertainty principle be certain.
By the way, I’m not trying to convince you, just answering your questions. Have a pleasant evening, friend. I know it’s eveing for you, since I live in N.H.
Hank
You give me examples, but not the "how" involved.
That's not an evasion. I'll "guess" at the "how" since you didn't disclose it: Newtonian mechanics predicts heavier-than-air flight is possible, and this has been confirmed by repeated observations.
Yet Newtonian mechanics itself is not universally "exact" in all situations such that its predictions can be expected to be 100% correct all the time. In our 4D world, it's "good enuf for scratch" in applications involving mechanical systems. There is, however, an emerging skepticism regarding its universal applicability, especially to such important questions as consciousness and life itself.
But without universality, it can afford no certainty. The only "certainty" regarding heavier-than-air flight ultimately rests, not on the Newtonian formalism, but on consensus in observation. Which ultimately puts the burden of proof on the reliability and trustworthiness of human perception. How trustworthy is that? It may be "good enuf for scratch," but that is not sufficient to establish certainty.
How certain can we really be that our perceptions of the world actually directly and truthfully "map" to the world external to our own minds? Both Hume and Kant pointed out that this is something human beings simply cannot know. So if observation (perception) is your standand criterion for establishing "certainty," that criterion rests on something which is fundamentally unknowable in principle, simply because there is no way for us to ascertain how close a match there is between the manner in which we perceive and the object that we perceive. We take it on faith that there is a match, and that it is strong enough to constitute useful knowledge of the world. But "strong enough" and "certainty" are clearly not the same things.
IOW, we could say that most of the time, perception gets it right. But that is hardly enough to assert complete certainty.
To the extent that these might affect the apparent motion of the Sun as viewed from the Earth at all, the effect is negligible compared to the apparent motion of the Sun due to the Earth's rotation. For the purposes of our thought experiment, we can consider the Sun to be stationary WRT an inertial frame.
It is always a good day when we are humbled. Humility is something in which I am sorely lacking and for which I need to remember to pray every day.
God bless.
“You give me examples, but not the “how” involved.”
The “how” has nothing to do with Newton. And it has nothing to do with repeated observations. The how has to do only with the fact that it’s been done, and it only needed to be done once.
Do you have any doubts at all that heavier than air human flight is possible?
That’s the certaintly.
Have you ever seen a plane flying. Be honest; do you doubt it was really flying?
I think you are desparate to make knowledge uncertain. I cannot imagine why, but I think it is very dangerous. Why would you object to certainty in knowledge? Certainty in knowledge doesn’t mean you know everything, or even most things, it only means there are some things you can be absolutely certain about. If that were not the case, you would really know nothing.
Hank
Do you seriously disagree with astronomical measurements since the 1960's?
IOW, one may postulate the Sun as a hypothetically stationary object for his thought experiment and the math will work. He may transform coordinates.
But CMB measurements from the 1960's forward confirm that the Sun is not stationary. Nothing in the universe is stationary. Space/time itself is expanding.
But Zero Sum's postulation would not "entail" that the Sun must "agree" to stand still, so to accommodate his/her thought experiment.
So what's the point of the thought experiment?
As it stands, it has no "stationary object," no anchor or criterion according to which its phenomena can be compared and judged. JMHO FWIW
Good grief, man!!! Doesn't one have to "go beyond the results of experiments", if one wants to understand one's world and one's place in it?
I mean, think about it: No experiment ever designs itself. Yet at the same time, the source of the experimental design is itself undetectable by experimental means. Does this prove there is no source?
And you'd stake a future on such flimsy grounds??? Done, but only once???
I may be a dim-witted, knuckle-dragging Christian, but I have to tell you: I require more substantial evidence than "done, but only once." We call that a "datum." It has no meaning whatever in isolation.
I'm trying to decoct your statement. Thought I'm not entirely certain of its meaning, I'll take my best stab at answering.
On the one hand, I am perfectly comfortable with the uncertainty of knowledge. It just reminds me that nothing is complete without God.
On the other hand, I have no objection in principle to the "certainty of knowledge." I just don't think it's possible, given that the human mind is finite.
Thus the assertion of "certain knowledge" is a pure abstraction to me, for it has no basis in actual reality that I can tell. The "empirical approach" demonstrates that the typical human situation involves having to make decisions under conditions of uncertainty. This is seemingly the universal human condition.
And thus on the basis of observation and experience, I have no reason to believe that "the certainty of knowledge" is even possible.
Well, lets take your Many Worlds theory. Do you really believe that an infinite number of universes are coming into existence every moment?
Or do you believe the more plausible theory that wave functions collapse?
The problem is how precisely do we actually know and that is where the uncertainty comes in. If someone gives you a pound of Gold and a pound of rice. I think that I can confidently say that the pound of rice will be accurate to within an ounce and that the pound of Gold will be an accurate measurement within tenths of Grams. The problem is that we don't have a precise measurement of mass, we can only measure it to 10 digits, give or take a few.
It turns out that there is a level of uncertainty to everything, nothing can be known to an arbitrarily precise number. It turns out that things like Plank's constant set an absolute limit on what can be known. It is a very, very small limit I will grant you, but a lot of very small uncertainties do add up : )
Merry go rounds work as well and the point is easily made that the earth is revolving while the merry go round is spinning, that Newtonian physics are local with reference to the universe - non inertial frames invoke so called "fictitious forces."
"In the beginning..." ...a datum? ;-)
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