Saturday, August 02, 2008

The Ten Commandments of Koslings, Liztards, and Geeks

Saturday is higher gnostalgia day, in which we look forward to the arkive from two years ago and try to pluck out the blest of the bunch.

In rifling through August 2006, I see that much of it was taken up by a series entitled The Ten Commandments of Satan. Actually, satan never "commands," but only suggests, advises, and encourages. At any rate, this little exercise shows just how much celestial wisdom (not to mention esoteric and ontonoetic be-who) is packed into the Ten Commandments, and by extrapolation, how much evil and stupidity is propagated by the Koslings and Queeglings who would have us bow down to their little manmode idols. Each of the commandments of the secular left represents an inversion of the actual commandment, so that the world is turned upside-down and/or inside-out.

Rather than repost each of them, I think I'll condense them down and do two or three at a time. As always, there is new material added as the whim strikes.

*****

Satan’s first commandment is really just a reversal of the actual first commandment. Instead of “I am your God and you shall have no other gods before me,” the parallel looniverse of the secular left begins with “there is no Absolute and you shall be absolutely subject to the sacred relativities we have inserted in His place.”

Many implications follow from this initial inversion. In fact, reader Gumshoe touched on a number of them yesterday, quoting the author Eric Raymond. For example, “There is no truth, only competing agendas,” “All Western claims to moral superiority are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism,” and “There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.” Ironically, each of these is a false and repressive absolute disguised as a relativity. Their real purpose is to undermine and subvert the Absolute.

Reader Will also touched on this first commandment, noting that an intrinsic part of the secular left's agenda is to reduce Intellect (which is the means by which human beings may know Truth) to mind and mind to brain, making it a wholly material epiphenomenon. However, “Like any physical attribute, if the human intellect is not yoked to and governed by the Higher Intelligence, it runs amok and eventually goes crazy. It's taken some time to get there, but currently, the spiritually bereft intellect is basically in charge of most of the world's influential institutions, which of course means the world is in deep stew. As far as definitions of the Antichrist go, I think this would do OK.”

Precisely. Again, the secular left turns the cosmos upside down and inside out. As a result, instead of being conditioned in a hierarchical manner from the top down, it is conditioned from the bottom up. This results not in true liberation, only in rebellion and arbitrary pseudo-liberation, for there can be no meaningful freedom outside objective Truth.

The left rejects top-town hierarchies as intrinsically repressive, but the opposite is true -- only in being conditioned by the higher can we actually elevate and liberate ourselves from contingency and relativity. Are there repressive hierarchies? Of course. But almost all of them come from the left, in the form of various socialist schemes, or from Muslim fanatics, in the form of totalitarian Sharia law. America is an experiment in ordered liberty oriented toward an explicitly spiritual telos, not a satanic workshop to explore and celebrate the numberless cul-de-slacks of mere horizontal license.

The list of liberal icons and sacred cows is endless (indeed, they want to make one president), for the very reason that it partakes of time and not eternity -- of the many and not the One. I don’t know if anyone has really noticed, but the reason I entitled my book One Cosmos Under God is to emphasize the hierarchical nature of the cosmos, and the fact that the cosmos only makes sense because it is conditioned from the top down.

Although it is a banality to point out that we live in the relative, there is no such thing as the “absolutely relative” on pain of immediate self-refutation. The Absolute is anterior to the relative, whether conceived of as ground (at the base) or source (at the apex) of creation; it is actually both, resulting from the fact that the Absolute is necessarily both immanent and transcendent. For the same reason, the relative necessarily and inevitably contains degrees of being as it radiates from the center to the periphery, with the first and last degree known as “God.”

Now, the first five commandments govern man’s relationship to God, i.e., the vertical, while the second five govern man-to-man relations. However, these second five do not so much represent the horizontal as they do the vertical emanating downward and then radiating outward into all of creation, but especially toward other human beings. Thus, if, and only if, the commandments were actually followed by everyone, "thy will would be done," and it would be "on earth as it is in heaven."

Yesterday we discussed the secular leftist project of undermining the first commandment and replacing it with its counter-commandment (“there is no God, and we are his angry clowns”). This has the practical effect of turning the cosmos upside down and absolutizing the relative, thus shackling us in the Egypt of ontological Flatland. Sounds like a good deal, but in the end, you're going to be spiritually e-gypped. Big time.

The first commandment is actually a fractal that contains all of the others, so once you eliminate it, a host of disastrous implications follows in its wake: the reign of quantity, the tyranny of the horizontal, the subversion of truth, the devaluation of beauty, the perversion of real rationalism, and the loss of the quintessential categories of the holy and the sacred through which celestial energies radiate into our world. In short, hell on earth.

The reason why it is necessary to acknowledge the Absolute prior to the relative is that, in the absence of the Absolute, all transcendent values are bleached out and ultimately wiped away. Values can only exist in a hierarchy (i.e., some things are more precious and valuable than others), and any hierarchy is conditioned from top to bottom. There can be no higher or lower in an infinite horizontal wasteland. Rather, in such a case, the world is simply a brute fact, with nothing to spiritualize it. Matter is elevated to the “ultimate,” so that the world shrinks down to our most primitive way of knowing it. In fact, it is precisely because there are degrees within the relative that we may prove the Absolute, in that these degrees of relativity reflect the Absolute either more or less adequately.

Although Liztards and other narrow-souled secularists like to think that their's represents a sophisticated view of the world, in reality, no philosophy could be more provincial and monkey-bound. As Richard Weaver has noted, it substitutes facts for truth and logic for wisdom, elevating the world of the senses above the antecedent reality that can only be known by the intellect. Man becomes the center of authority, which makes him no authority at all, for God is the measure of man, just as man is the measure of the world.

The secular materialist attempts through endless induction to assemble the cosmos from the bottom up, but you can never get there from here. No one has ever even seen this thing called “cosmos,” and no one ever will. Rather, it is accepted on faith, as it is an inevitable shadow of its unitary creator. In other words, we all intuit that there is a strict totality of interacting objects and events because we were built to do so (unlike any other animal). To say “cosmos” is to say “God,” for God is the cosmos, even though the cosmos is not God. It is a "reflection" or "prolongation" of God, and therefore cannot help but to be One.

Haven’t you ever wondered why the cosmos is so beautiful? Why should it be? Why in the world should there be a category called “the beautiful?” Where is that beauty? Is it actually in the cosmos? Or is it only in us? If so, how did it get there, and what is its purpose?

In reality, beauty is another inevitable “residue” of its transcendent source, an exteriorization of the Universal Mind. To the extent that ugliness exists -- and it surely does -- it does not represent a fundamental reality but a deprivation of such. It is a measure of distance from the divine archetype, the full brunt of which reality could not bear. Thus we have degrees of beauty just as we have degrees of goodness and truth. And no one could plausibly argue that this beauty is perceived by the senses, but only by the uncreated intellect that mirrors it.

Two things that the uncorrupted mind cannot not know: that the world is intelligible and man is free. Take away either, and the world is simply an absurdity, a monstrosity, a mistake. For to say that we may know is equally to say that we are free, otherwise it is not knowledge at all. Knowledge proves freedom, freedom proves knowledge, and both prove the Creator, for the hierarchy of being disclosed by the free intellect leads back to its nonlocal source above.

Therefore, the second commandment follows logically from the first: you shall not turn the cosmos upside down and inside out and worship created things. There are, of course, many parallel injunctions in the Upanishads: “He alone is the reality. Wherefore, renouncing vain appearances, rejoice in him.” Because of our uncreated intellect, humans, and only humans, are able to discern between the Real and the apparent, maya and Brahman, the Absolute and the relative, the evolving and the immutable, the transient and the eternal, Raccoons and Liztards.

Behind the idolatrous secular impulse is a persistent, vulgar materialism that collapses the hierarchy of being and reduces the Absolute to some tangibly manifest idea or object that can be “contained” by the lower mind. But these are truly “mind games” for the childlike secularist, for no fragmented detail at the periphery of existence can explain the mysterious whole, much less the infinite interior center that represents its beating heart.

Life, for example, is not a function of DNA. Rather, the reverse is true. Likewise, consciousness is not a product of brains, but vice versa. For at the tip-toppermost of the poppermost, reality is sat-chit-ananda, or being-consciousness-bliss. Or so we have heard from the wise, from Petey, the merciful, the compassionate, the tendentious, the obnoxious!

“The universe is a tree eternally existing, its root aloft, its branches spread below.” So says the Katha Upanishad. We know that tree, for it is the same tree that appears in Genesis. It is a Tree of Life for those whose wood beleaf. For the grazing herdhearted woodenheads who wouldn't, they are the sap.

43 comments:

Van Harvey said...

"The secular materialist attempts through endless induction to assemble the cosmos from the bottom up, but you can never get there from here."

Sadly, that'll never stop the negative Tenured wackedemics from trying their worst to build their Ivewhorey tower of babbleon.

walt said...

I was reading a passage from the book on your sidebar by Mark Perry last night, and it concluded as follows:

By thinking on the Real, through discernment between the permanent and the illusory, the mental substance of consciousness -- though unstable and forever shifting -- can be converted into a profound and undisturbed awareness of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. And as the consciousness of these grows in the soul, then their reality absorbs the substance of consciousness, transforming it, and redeeming it.

Now today's post was from 2 years ago, which was the month I bumped into this blog. I recognized at that time much of what you were saying, although I had no exposure to the sources you cite, and had much of it quite differently organized. But over the past two years I've run quite a few of your references past my mind -- such as it is -- as well as (happily) submitting to the "drip . . . drip . . ." of the daily blog.

And you know, what Perry said in that quote has really happened: the vertical, top-down, Traditionalist perspective has "absorbed my consciousness," until today, two years on, it all looks/sounds like un-common sense: the world finally turned right!

This becomes especially visible framed against a two-year-old post, which lets me see the internal changes that have occurred.

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, that's one reason I do it. The posts are dashed off in real time, and with little reflection or editing. Reading them two years later is a way to see the extent to which Truth has been more deeply assimilated and interiorized in the interim. It also also allows me to be more precise in editing them, since one's vision is always getting "sharper."

Van Harvey said...

Walt quoted "By thinking on the Real, through discernment between the permanent and the illusory, the mental substance of consciousness -- though unstable and forever shifting -- can be converted into a profound and undisturbed awareness of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. And as the consciousness of these grows in the soul, then their reality absorbs the substance of consciousness, transforming it, and redeeming it."

That is so... well... TRUE!

The disjointed and random are realigned, reoriented, and integrated into One, via Contemplating upon, Reasoning towards, Reverencing, The Good, The Beautiful and The True.

It IS and I AM flow into and from it.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"As far as definitions of the Antichrist go, I think this would do OK.”

Aye! As I understand it, the system of Antichrist must be firmly rooted before THE Antichrist assumes power.

That's not to say there isn't "lesser" antichrists runnin' around, or subhumans with the spirit of the Antichrist. of which, IMO, snObama is one, as well as Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, Murtha, etc..

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"This has the practical effect of turning the cosmos upside down and absolutizing the relative, thus shackling us in the Egypt of ontological Flatland. Sounds like a good deal, but in the end, you're going to be spiritually e-gypped. Big time."

Ha ha! That's good, Bob! I sure don't wanna be e-gypped by the egyppsies.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"Although Liztards and other narrow-souled secularists like to think that their's represents a sophisticated view of the world, in reality, no philosophy could be more provincial and monkey-bound."

Indeed. You can practically hear the sneering snobbery when you read their words.
The utter disgust when they elevate their vile form of "logic" above what they consider "blind" faith in some spagetti monster or fairies.

However, our faith is a faith that see's, with wide open ayes.
Faith based in Truth IS evidence of the Absolute.
There's an entire cosmos of evidence within and without, but that's never enough for the Darweenian suckularists.
G-d.

Susannah said...

I saw this at The Point:

http://thepoint.breakpoint.org/2008/08/darwinianity.html

"Do not be conformed to this world..."

julie said...

Apropos of nothing, save that it's been bugging me the last couple of days, I want to apologize for something I said last weekend to the anonymous who presumed to tell Raccoons how to behave.

While I stand by most of what I said that night, I ended with a rather flippant and poorly considered remark (I can't find the exact comment, since the search button seems to have disappeared from the sidebar) to the effect that I hoped his heart would be broken and put back together the right way.

In hindsight, it was an incredibly callous and arrogant thing to say, and a sentiment unworthy of a raccoon. Every life, except perhaps those that end swiftly and unexpectedly, experiences heartbreak in a multitude of shapes and forms, and the best anyone can hope is that, when it does happen, the pieces get put back together in a good way, a way that brings us closer to O. But to actually wish it (and however I stated it, it's the thought that counts) on anyone is really, truly cold. I'm sorry I ever harbored such a sentiment, and sorrier still that I expressed it.

walt said...

Julie -

What's that old saying?
Hmmm . . . yes, here it is:

You work today to repair the past and prepare the future.

walt said...

Bob,

Just for fun during the wee hours, I reread the post. It reads "in interesting fashion" in the middle of the night!

However, I got hung up on one idea, that seemed to be obvious to you, but is not yet to me:

"...to say that we may know is equally to say that we are free, otherwise it is not knowledge at all. Knowledge proves freedom, freedom proves knowledge..."

I found myself struggling to make that "click", as had the rest of the post. I'm likely missing your point. Care to explicate one of these days?

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Julie-
A heart must first be broken before it can be mended.

Big virtual hug. :^)

Anonymous said...

Grog's on me, Lady Julie.

And lot's of virtual hugs.

julie said...

Thanks, guys - though I try not to be a jerk, like most people I do have my moments. I just hope it can never be said that I don't (or won't) admit when I'm wrong.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

walt said...
Bob,

Just for fun during the wee hours, I reread the post. It reads "in interesting fashion" in the middle of the night!


I cooncur, Walt. I often read Bob's posts during the night first and then during the day (and sometimes vice versa).

And I get different things I wouldn't see based on just one reading during one of those states of being.

Like night n' day, but connected by an OMmon thread. :^)

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Walt said-
"...to say that we may know is equally to say that we are free, otherwise it is not knowledge at all. Knowledge proves freedom, freedom proves knowledge..."

I found myself struggling to make that "click", as had the rest of the post. I'm likely missing your point. Care to explicate one of these days?"

Good idea, Walt.
I have some ideas but I bet Bob could say it better than I, flesh it out, and add just the right spices, leavin' me beggin' for seconds. :^)

Besides, I tend to shoot off my mouth thinkin' I gno what I'm talkin' about and discovering I didn't really gno much of nuttin'.

It's like who would you rather hear? Coltrane or Mangione?

Gagdad Bob said...

Let's see if I can explain it first thing in the morning, before the melon has even come on line.

A machine cannot discover truth, only what it is programmed to arrive at. Therefore, freedom is a necessary component of truth. In some sense truth and freedom must be a declension from the same higher dimensional object, so to speak, or reflections of one another.

To know absolute truth would be to possess absolute freedom. Which is why "realization" is considered the pinnacle of both: the truth sets you free, but freedom sets you on to the truth. We must realize in time what God eternally "is," therefore the necessity of freedom.

Truth "causes" our freedom by forcing us to seek it. Otherwise, we'd sit around doing nothing except eat and reproduce, like other animals.

I may not be alert enough to make total sense. I'll let Schuon bail me out:

"The purpose of freedom is to enable us to choose what we are in the depths of our heart. We are intrinsically free to the extent that we have a center which frees us: a center which, far from confining us, dilates us by offering us an inward space without limits and without shadows; and this Center is in the last analysis the only one there is."

Gagdad Bob said...

BTW, for the same reasons, beauty and virtue are causes of freedom.

walt said...

As is often the case, I was hung up on the language. The original phrase -- "Knowledge proves freedom, freedom proves knowledge..." -- just didn't quite equate in my mind. But when you expressed it as "truth ---> freedom" I understood right away.

Thanks for the clarification!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

So basically, we are perpetually learning more truth, thus becoming more free to seek out and realize more truth to become even more free.

The liberty cycle of freedom!

Rick said...

RE freedom…and maybe related to what you are talking about, this type of freedom cannot be taken away. Which is the core type Victor Frankl proved can’t be taken away. This type is unaffected. Just as truth persists no matter what you think of it. And yet it doesn’t exist without someone to think it.

Gagdad Bob said...

Ben:

Agreed -- It is also why any form of reductionism such as Darwinism condemns man to lies and slavery, or a horizontal pseudo-freedom to know only contingency.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Good point, Rick!
Even if one were thrown in prison, such as Paul, you would still be free.
No doubt, one of the reasons Paul rejoiced, as did John and Peter.
The other being counted worthy to suffer in His name.

I hope I could be as cheery after all those guys went through. :^)

Gagdad Bob said...

Rick:

Yes, truth must be anterior to the minds that think it. As Bion said, strictly speaking, the human thinker is only necessary for the Lie.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I can sure tell the difference when I read one of the LGF evolution threads, which does absolutely nothing to feed me, as oppsed to here at One Cosmos or one of the other Raccoon blogs, where I am edified, and where truth and liberty reigns. :^)

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, anyone who claims that their intellect is nourished by Darwinism is simply confessing an absence of intellect. By definition it cannot be true. This is why I say that it is a profoundly anti-intellectual metaphysic, irrespective of how "intelligent" its adherents.

Anonymous said...

Again, this is why a blind Coon is infinitely closer to the Truth than a Liztard with perfect vision.

Van Harvey said...

Walt said "However, I got hung up on one idea, that seemed to be obvious to you, but is not yet to me:

"...to say that we may know is equally to say that we are free, otherwise it is not knowledge at all. Knowledge proves freedom, freedom proves knowledge..."

I found myself struggling to make that "click", as had the rest of the post. I'm likely missing your point. Care to explicate one of these days?"

Knowledge involves choice, is inseperable from it. The interior of us, that which separates us from the machine, the living soul that enables recognition of Truth, MUST be non-automatic, non-mechanical, non-deterministic.

Free Will is the basis of all our knowledge, and the hinderance of which stops our learning and our ability to fully live - there is a reason why socialism results in a stagnant, grey, lifeless society.

One of the unintended consequences of Humes skepticism, the idea that we cannot really know anything, is that it shuts down a portion of your involvement in your life, if you can't know... you also can't choose... choose what? You don't what you do or don't know... know?.... What followed from that (with ROusseau, Godwin, Kant and so on), was a denial of Free Will all together.

Knowledge is not only the result of your freedom to re-cognize the Truth about reality, but it is an ever dynamic process, expression and affirmation of your involvement in life - no freedom, no knowledge, no life.

You cannot deny our ability to Know, without also denying our ability to Choose, and the existence of Truth, Beauty and the Good. It's a package deal, and the notion that any part of it can be denied without disrupting your ability to recognize an realize the rest, is folly. See the conceptions of 'knowledge, beauty, art, ethics, religion' in the modernity built from Hume, Rousseau, Kant, for reference.

Van Harvey said...

Ah... I see all have been here before me.

(catching up on all comments now, before jumping in)

Anonymous said...

say no more... A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat!

Van Harvey said...

Gagdad said "Yes, anyone who claims that their intellect is nourished by Darwinism is simply confessing an absence of intellect. By definition it cannot be true. This is why I say that it is a profoundly anti-intellectual metaphysic, irrespective of how "intelligent" its adherents."

Bigtime Cooncur! What Ray and the rest don't get, is it isn't the facts, whatever they may be and may yet be discovered to be, that we've any disagreement with, but the profoundly anti-Intellectual, anti-Reason, anti-Truth metaphysical assumptions behind the darwieinie's theorizing.

walt said...

Bob,

In the spirit of housecleaning, I also noticed while re-reading the post that you had stated the exact same idea as contained in the quote I left yesterday:
"...only in being conditioned by the higher can we actually elevate and liberate ourselves from contingency and relativity...."

And, in fewer words!

Van Harvey said...

Walt said "...And, in fewer words!"

Yeah. He does that. All the time.

Sheesh.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Van said...
Walt said "...And, in fewer words!"

Yeah. He does that. All the time.

Sheesh."

Why do you think I didn't reply to walt earlier? I'm saving virtual memory by waiting for Bob to do it.
Or somethin'. I dunno.

It's a blessing...and a curse.
Probably more of a blessing though. :^)

julie said...

Underwater jungle
depth and height intermingle
symmetric logic

Anonymous said...

One of the reasons for secular materialism is that this age is a time of the Vaishnavas, the mercantile and material class.

The raccoon chief seems to be calling for a return to a Brahmic age, where the sacerdotal type dominates and Sattwic sensibility wins over.

But, heed this: The Brahmans exemplify the best, but they are relatively powerless over material manifestation. For that you need the mind of the materialist. And always, enough syncophants and sudras to carry out the support work.

Such is the make-up of our world today. But ponder this: what is the movement leading to?

Brahmins will win out, but not after some sort of stupendous victory on the material plane is brought in solidly. The liztard/vaishyas struggle mightily to manifest it.

The internet points the way. What do you see when you scry further? Rite about that.

Gagdad Bob said...

"What do you see when you scry further?"

I can't tell you but I know it's mine.

Gagdad Bob said...

I notice that Queeg put up a tribute to Alexander Solzhenitsyn. That has to be the pinnacle of unintended irony.

Gagdad Bob said...

"That which is called humanism, but what would be more correctly called irreligious anthropocentrism, cannot yield answers to the most essential questions of our life."

"The calamity of an autonomous, irreligious humanistic consciousness... has made man the measure of all things on earth -- imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects.... On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility." --Solzhenitsyn, Supreme anti-Liztard

Rick said...

Bob,
Speaking of Divine comedy, freedom and other stuffin kicked out around here lately…
Me, Job and the boys were chewin the fat just last night and who do you think walks in? That’s right. God Himself to set the record straight, again.

Turn to Job 38.4 and keep going.

Punch line if there ever was one, Job 39.5:

“Who has let the wild ass go free?”

Hmmm?

Susannah said...

The world has lost a great truth-teller.

I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich a few years ago--a truly horrifying account of secular materialism brought to its ultimate conclusions.

Ray Ingles said...

Van - "it isn't the facts, whatever they may be and may yet be discovered to be, that we've any disagreement with"

Tell that to Susannah, with her link saying "Darwinian evolution has not contributed to a single technological or medical advance since it was conjectured 150 years ago." :-/

(Still, it's sad to hear about Solzhenitsyn.)

Princess said...

Very informative article and i would appreciate.
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