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
Rejection of natural selection, methodological naturalism, and acceptance of occult pantheism is not what is happening in the scientific community.
Nature is rational and predictable, this in no way suggests that I do not have faith in Jesus the Christ or am dependent upon magical thinking.
It is those that suggest that nature needs some sort of helping hand to keep things moving that are engaging in magical thinking.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
snip: I think your problem is with the definition of predictable.
If I state that the sun will come up tomorrow is that a prediction or an observation? I would call it an observation that the earth is spinning. If I state that you will die at some time in the future, again, is that on observation or prediction? I would call that an observation that everyone dies.
Spirited: You are cutting hairs. To predict is to foretell events. We can only foretell events-—however imperfectly— because past (historic) observations have fallen into certain patterns, thus allowing us to predict. If Darwinism is paradoxically true and all things happen by chance, then it stands to reason that the sun for instance, ought to behave erratically rather than predicatably.
snip: With that definition in place, is Darwinism (and Science in General) based on prediction or observation
Spirited: Darwinism needs to be separated from true science, for Darwinism is in fact an ‘anti-creation mythos’ based on a miraculous event-—life spontaneously created itself from nothing— that occurred long before time began. All who believe in Darwinism-—as you do-— do so by faith-—blind faith.
Of course, but we are talking about two different definitions of predictions. The hallmark of science is that observations are replicable. That is if it is observed that the earth is spinning, then sunrise times are predictable. F=MA means that the trajectory of a bullet is predictable. These are all predictions based on observations of what is.
Religion on the other hand uses the term prediction and prophecy synonymously. These 'predictions' are not replicable and may not even be observable.
We are using terms that don't mean the same thing between the scientific and religious uses of the words.
Prophecy is MUCH more vague, something along the lines of “Sometime in the future, after event A, event B will happen” with both A and B being rather vague.
Science is predictive not just on things that have already been observed, but also allows one to hypothesize the existence of factors that have NOT been observed.
Observation tells me that the Sun will come up where I am sometime around 6 am local time. That observation is not dependent upon me having any understanding of gravity.
An understanding of gravity however will allow me to predict the orbital velocity of a hypothetical object placed in a known orbital distance from a known mass.
That isn't the religious definition of prediction. Religious predictions are from faith.
If Darwinism is paradoxically true and all things happen by chance, then it stands to reason that the sun for instance, ought to behave erratically rather than predicatably.
The observation is that the Earth is spinning and that it will continue to spin unless acted upon by an outside force. That observation allows predictions to be made from general observations to specifics. The same applies to the theory of evolution, it allows specific predictions following general observations.
Darwinism needs to be separated from true science, for Darwinism is in fact an ‘anti-creation mythos’ based on a miraculous event-—life spontaneously created itself from nothing— that occurred long before time began. All who believe in Darwinism-—as you do-— do so by faith-—blind faith.
That is simply a straw man argument.
The theory of evolution doesn't say anything about the origin of life and it doesn't attempt to explain it. Similarly the theory of relativity doesn't say anything the origin of the Universe or attempt to explain it.
Such relations are not "material" in any way; they are not "physical." What they are, is: Phenomenal (i.e., are capable of being modeled and evaluated on the basis of evidence). And as such, seem like proper subject matter for science to me. Provided there is a willingness to slip out of the straightjacket of the "mechanistic model" for a time, if only hypothetically....
Until/unless biologists are willing to do this, a prediction: The creation of a living organism from non-living matter will remain the pious yet ever elusive pipedream of doctrinaire Newtonians.
Historically, some biologists sought to make biology an island of scientific investigation - as if to isolate themselves because they did not accept the relevance of physics and especially, mathematics. To paraphrase Pattee, "we have the facts, we don't need the theory."
Information Theory, btw, is a branch of Mathematics - and Mathematics is not a Science.
Even so, Physics and Mathematics image each other, e.g. Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics (Wigner)
As the "biology is an island" mentality gives way to the big picture (and I believe it must) - then I do expect the biologists' Newtonian paradigm to give space to Quantum Field Theory and Relativity - and the biologists' physicality to give space to mathematics especially information theory (Shannon), geometry (form, mirror imaging et al) and theories of complexity.
We already see this in the successful application of Shannon's theory in pharmaceutical and cancer research.
I don't believe it will be long before the biologists become as interested in the rise of autonomy, form (geometry), semiosis and complexity as the mathematicians and physicists.
Again, that is from the general to the specific. Einstein predicted, based on his observation that space-time was curved that light would follow that curvature. Then scientists went out and verified that 'prediction/observation'. In science the two terms go together, they don't in religious usage.
But yes, I agree. Prediction in science is not prophecy.
Prediction is based upon factors that anyone can know and understand. Prophecy is based upon someone receiving a legitimate revelation from God.
All of the foregoing not only shows the glaring contraditions inherent in Darwinism, but its’ need for magic-thinking and self-delusion.
Excellent post! The entire premise of Darwinism is predicated upon the absurd assumption that all sorts of random particles began to interact with each other one day and everything seemed to turn out okay because we are here today.
The irony is that the people who believe this worship science and everything we know about science tells us that the likelihood of everything going wrong is almost infinitely higher than everything turning out alright.
But ultimately, Darwinism has NOTHING to do with science or evolution or how the universe came about or anything else that they purport to care about. Darwinism is nothing more than an atheistic attempt to prove that nothing is more powerful than mankind's intellect and that those with the most "advanced" intellects somehow "deserve" to rule over the "lesser" intellects.
Man is not the measure of God.
The irony is that the people who believe this worship science and everything we know about science tells us that the likelihood of everything going wrong is almost infinitely higher than everything turning out alright.
snip... Religious predictions are from faith.
Spirited: I see we are agreed. Just as my predictions are from faith, so too are yours. I however, have no problem admitting this truth. You on the other hand, believe that what you believe is somehow ‘empirical’-—within the sensory realm-—when in fact, beliefs, presuppositions, assumptions, ideas, primary numbers, theories, reason-—all exist in the unseen (metaphysical) realm. Yet you persist in believing that what you believe magically exists in the sensory realm. There’s a term that describes this condition: cognitive dissonance.
snip: The theory of evolution doesn’t say anything about the origin of life and it doesn’t attempt to explain it. Similarly the theory of relativity doesn’t say anything the origin of the Universe or attempt to explain it.
Spirited: Indeed it does not. In this it is in accord with all ancient pagan mythos, as it would be, for Naturalism is but neo-paganism revised, revamped, and made palateable to certain Westerners-—those who are offended by mans’ transcendant Creator and His universal moral law.
Americas’ founding Christian worldview, which bequeathed to man the most enlightened definintion of man this long-suffering world has ever known, has been pushed aside and replaced by the anti-creation mythos of scientistic Darwinism and its dehumanized, debauched view of ‘unman’, the soulless meat machine. And we wonder why our political class ignores us and does whatever it wants to do.
snip: The entire premise of Darwinism is predicated upon the absurd assumption that all sorts of random particles began to interact with each other one day and everything seemed to turn out okay because we are here today.
Spirited: Yes, and where did these particles come from? For that matter, ‘what was it’ in which they suddenly materialized? Not only are we to believe that nonlifebearing, noncognitive matter spontaneously-—but accidentally, of course— generated itself, but that life, time, cognition, laws, and all else eventually emerged out of it. Begin this improbable tale with “Once upon a time” and suddenly it comes into focus as what it really is: a fairytale for angry, rebellious adults.
Very true.
Can you provide a single, accurate, verifiable prophecy that has occurred?
I have issued this challenge a number of times and no one has ever succeeded in providing that prophecy.
LOL Yes through my senses I can observe reality. You on the other hand are insisting that you are aware of another reality not accessible by our senses. Can you say projection?
SOMETHING GOOD, THAT IS... '-)
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