Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Absolute Lies and Infinite Nonsense (12.02.11)

Of the generation of demons, UF writes that they are a result of the cooperation of the male and female principles, or perverse will and imagination: "a desire that is perverse or contrary to nature, followed by the corresponding imagination, together constitute the act of generation of a demon."

If you look at the card, you can see that the demon is much larger than its parents, "who have become enslaved by their own creation. They represent perverse will and imagination contrary to nature, which have given birth to an androgynous demon, i.e., to a being endowed with desire and imagination, which dominates the forces that engendered it."

Several observations are in order. From 2 Corinthians we know that the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. In other words, the Creator specifically creates man with a spirit of freedom, which you might say is the means to the end of our being, which is theosis, perfection, or God-realization.

Being that we are in the image of the Creator, human beings have no choice but to create. But what shall we create? More importantly, in what spirit shall we do so? Genuine creation should be liberating, expansive, elevating, radiating. But demonic creation will be the opposite: enslaving, constricting, enclosing, debasing. It always makes us smaller, not larger.

I remember awhile back, Pope Benedict made a comment to the effect that rock music was narcissistic and "enclosing." I can't find the exact quote, but I knew exactly what he was referring to, as it is something I became aware of when rock & roll morphed into rock music at some point after 1968. You cannot compare the joyous and uplifting feelings that accompanied Beatlemania with the real darkness that was unleashed later.

I did find this comment by the Pope: "Rock [music] is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe." True as far as it goes, but there is nevertheless rock music that is liberating in an upward way, but much more that only liberates downward, and therefore enslaves.

I am also reminded of Schuon's metaphysics, in which male is a reflection of the Absolute, female a reflection of the Infinite. Perhaps the most destructive force on earth is the absolute will detached from the divine plane. This leads to the will to power and the absolute dictator, and to a cult that is always excessively male (one thinks of the homoeroticism of the Nazis).

On the other hand, the perverse imagination is well reflected in contemporary art and academia. For example, deconstruction is nothing more than a sick and mercurial female whose reality depends upon the mood she is in. There is no fixed, i.e., Absolute, meaning, since the Infinite has become divorced from him: as the cliche goes, "the Infinite needs the Absolute like a fish needs a bicycle." But once you detach language from the Logos, or Law of the Father, it becomes a kind of infinite nonsense generator -- the "infinite blather" of the tenured.

On the other end, once you detach the Absolute from the Infinite, it becomes a kind of soul-crushing ideology to which one must assent, as in 1984. It reminds us of Queeg and his jihad against conservatism, which is specifically a harmonious marriage of Absolute (or transcendence) and Infinite (or immanence).

Here is the irony: Queeg wishes to elevate Darwinian fundamentalism to the status of Absolute, which has the specific effect of denying the infinitude of Man's spirit. The result -- if you are intelligent enough to draw out the implications -- is that both science and Man become strictly impossible, in that they are detached from their very ground.

Which reminds us: please let your voice be heard and vote for Queeg for Biggest Pro-Censorship Ass-Hat (again, his flagrant ass-hattery results from his demonic worship of a false absolute, which he must brittlely defend by excommunicating anyone who recognizes the actual Absolute). And while you're at it, feel free to vote for Bob for Best Religious Blog, but only if you believe that he most adequately reflects the Absolute and Infinite, or divine will and creative imagination, in his scribblings.

Because that is what he is always attempting to do. Again, he looks upon religious truth as an extremely fruitful set of metamusical chords with which we are called upon to creatively improvise over, or riff upon, a la jazz. Think, for example, of the "fixed canon" of popular music, the "Great American Songbook" -- composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Rogers & Hart, Johnny Mercer, et al. While I Got Rhythm is, on the one hand, an "absolute standard," the jazz musician employs his "infinite musical imagination" to play with it, so that it never comes out the same way twice, despite being absolute. Do you understand what I am saying? For this is also how you make religion truly "come alive."

This is why I believe that the Way of the Raccoon could really be the savior of religion, so to speak, but how many people appreciate jazz anymore? Besides, it is a difficult practice to combine the elements of extreme discipline and radical freedom. But only the disciplined are really free anyway. Might as well take it to the limit, which is the gateway to the limitless.

Back to MOTT. UF next discusses the origins of the left in the false absolute of Marxism: "Engendered by the will of the masses through the generations, armed with a dummy intellectuality which is Hegel's dialectic misconstrued -- this spectre has grown and continues to make the rounds in Europe and in other continents..."

Here is where Marxism and Queegism converge, for with the former "there is no God or gods -- there are only 'demons' in the sense of creations of the human will and imagination." In other words, "Marxism" is simply an ideological superstructure produced by the will of the masses, which is in turn rooted in material economics and nothing more. Likewise, for the Darwnian fundamentalist, everything ultimately boils down to the selfish gene, or an absurdly absolute denial of the Infinite.

This creation of a false absolute is idol worship, pure and simple. But again, although we have created the idol, it has power over us, and we can't seem to get rid of it. Look at the way government grows, no matter who is in power. But that's how demons work -- again, refer to the picture above. The two little people are slaves of the government they created.

I see that al Qaeda just referred to Obama as a "house slave." That's the thing liberals don't understand about genocide. Let it go on long enough, and it eventually leads to hate speech. But the statement is true in a way unintended by al Qaeda, since we're all slaves in the house of this leviathan master we've created.

[W]hat terrible power resides in our will and imagination, and what responsibility it entails for those who unleash it into the world!... We people of the twentieth century know that the "great pests" of our time are the [artificially engendered demons], which have cost humanity more life and suffering than the great epidemics of the Middle Ages. --MOTT

41 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Rock [music] is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe."

Are you sure the Pope wasn't attending an Obama rally?

NoMo said...

Fallen man's natural inclination is towards slavery. Driving that inclination is the Lie that real freedom is just too difficult.

Freedom is discipline is freedom is discipline. There is no greater Joy than aligning our will with His. And yeah, it can be difficult.

After all, Real Hope doesn't come from just pulling a lever. Ahh, what a disappointment.

Niggardly Phil said...

Tom Daschle appointed HHS secretary - abortionville here we come!

julie said...

"That's the thing liberals don't understand about genocide. Let it go on long enough, and it eventually leads to hate speech."

Oh, so funny it hurts.

Speaking of demons and slavery, I've spent a good portion of yesterday and today reading about Jonestown (mostly via Vanderleun; if I don't finish my project in time, it'll be largely due to the fact that he posts way too many good links). As I was three when it happened, there was a lot of backstory I never heard; all I knew was that a bunch of people in a cult drank cyanide-laced Kool-aid. Anyway, I know a lot more now, and it is deeply disturbing. Jones willfully sliced away the Infinite and placed himself over his followers as the Absolute; they, in their turn, willingly (and in many cases, unwillingly, but by the time they realized the danger they faced it was far too late) chained themselves to him and started feeding his growth. We all know how well that worked out. But what's truly astonishing is how much support he had from the leftist leadership - people who weren't his followers, but encouraged and supported him because he brought them money and votes.

Ray Ingles said...

which has the specific effect of denying the infinitude of Man's spirit

But it's not really infinite, as you say - not an 'actual infinity' in the sense of Aquinas. (Otherwise we'd be God, right?) It's just... 'unlimited', prospectively infinite.

But evolution can produce 'prospective infinities', too, capable of further development.

Anonymous said...

People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe."


reminds me of the orgy scene from Logan's run.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Or from the second Matrix. That's not really Zion...

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Orthodox against Gay Marriage, for Proposition 8.

One of the few times you will see four Bishops signatures on something recommending a vote.

robinstarfish said...

Color Me Read
what a surprise to
detect devilment inside
this pandora's box

Niggardly Phil said...

Why Ray, you sound positively medieval.

Ray Ingles said...

Phil - Just trying to speak your language.

David R. Graham said...

Ray,

What is the objection to remarking the infinitude of man's spirit? Implies claim to human Godhood? OK, making such an implication would give any decent person pause.

However, let's follow the logic, literally.

What is the ontological difference between Logos and logos, between Universal Reason and the structure of being, to include the human personality in toto?

Again, what is the ontological difference between Spiritus and spiritus, Heilige Geist and geist?

Is there more than one Being in the sense of Being Itself (esse ipsum)?

Has God a second?

Did not the ineluctable negative answer to just this question inspire Aquinas to dismiss the Summa as "so much straw?"

The ultimate incapacity of Thomas' sense-based epistemology of the Summa (basically, nominalism, which has triumphed in the Latin Church, aka Western Civilization) to cope reasonably with the powers of being (Bob's mind parasites) is driven by its insistence on making distinctions where none essentially are.

David

Anonymous said...

"Rock [music] is the expression of elemental passions, etc."

I was talking to a friend this weekend who was recounting his experience of the Beatles at Shae in '64 or '65.

There was such pandemonium that the they were airlifted out after 20 minutes. No one really picked up on it right away, though, and he said that it didn't really seem to interfere with anyone's mood (ecstasy).

Anonymous said...

"evolution can produce 'prospective infinities'"

Evolution produces nothing, Ray. You're anthropomorphizing.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

David: I think that Aquinas mistook the use of and requirement for material analogy for such analogies reaching all the way to God. They, like the imagination, are the means by which we may reach up to what is reaching down: The imagination reaches only as far as the the unknowable and unexpressible. Beyond that we must 'go beyond' (not to sound too much like John Madden) the boundaries of knowing.

Ray Ingles said...

Maineman - It doesn't produce things the way humans do - so I'm not anthropomorphizing - but it surely does produce things. As I've noted before.

Niggardly Phil said...

David,

Would you mind saying a bit more about these distinctions? It seems you're saying there is no distinction between, say, an individual person and ipsum esse - is that your meaning?

julie said...

Okay, this is 100% off-topic, but is this a sign of the apocalypse?

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

There is only one Being, which is why there may be beings. Read John Damascene instead of Aquinas?

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

About angels and demons, recent Hopko podcast. Same ideas? Dunno. The topic of egregores is interesting, which I guess makes your posts a good compliment to his stuff.

Niggardly Phil said...

Read what puts love in your heart and wonder in your mind.

Surely Aquinas can do that. Perhaps Damascene can do that better, but the Spirit blows where it will.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

T'were a question as well. Aquinas is very good. But I think Damascene might be better for some things (like what was discussed by David)

David R. Graham said...

Phil,

There is a deep, technically sophisticated language that has long been employed to discuss questions such as distinctions, Being vice beings, vertical vice horizontal, essence vice existence, etc.

I suspect you are not unaware of this body of terms of art.

The basic purpose of this body is to express experience on this side and the far side of the subject-object split.

The language is not theoretical, it is phenomenological, driven by direct experience.

In August of '07 Bob discussed criticisms by a chap named Karlsson who accused Bob of plagiarizing Tillich. Bob answered that he had not read Tillich and had come to a system of expression perhaps parallel to Tillich's but independently of Tillich's work.

Tillich, of course, employed the very ancient body of terms of art that any refined person will discover and adopt following honest and thorough rumination upon soul-shaking experience.

This body of terms of art is cross-religious, as you probably are aware.

Central to both the existential and the methodological processes of this particular body of language and its terms of art is the desire as little as possible to falsify, by the acts of desiring and of communication, both of which are intrinsically dualistic, the non-dualistic truth one wishes to express.

This is a common enough and well-known issue that sits as caveat to any expression whatsoever, whether of truth or of falsehood.

Bob today is wrestling with the relationship of essential being ("Absolute") and existential reality ("Infinite"), trying vigorously to not falsify what he wishes to express in the act of expressing it.

Ray has pointed up a classical area of confusion, especially among nominalists ("horizontalists" is Bob's term) but also generally among people who have not thought through the matter to its back end, when one is trying to cognize the language of non-dualistic expression.

Classically, the answer comes out something like this: distinctions are numberless ("infinite") in existential reality ("the world") and inexpressible ("absurd") in essential being ('Being Itself"). (This statement, of course, does not express the relationship between essence and existence per se and is not intended to.)

This is very ancient articulation and cross-religious. It is also implied or explicit in nominally non-religious endeavor, e.g., Nietzsche and Heidegger. It demonstrates why there are no atheists: every atheist is non-dualistic with respect to themselves and thus has an ultimate concern (Tillich's phrase), their self, and thus a God.

Niggardly Phil said...

Thanks for the reply.

And so, Thomas' sense-based epistemology causes him to draw distinctions in essential being, a bad habit he picked up from investigating existential reality? do I understand?

If so, what are these distinctions he drew?

NoMo said...

I don't believe in atheists.

Anonymous said...

Bob wrote:

"Besides, it is a difficult practice to combine the elements of extreme discipline and radical freedom. But only the disciplined are really free anyway. Might as well take it to the limit, which is the gateway to the limitless."

makes me consider the dichotomy reflecting the way to Absolute power is thru complete surrender...now that takes discipline.

Absolutely love this blog and the regulars! Thanks and keep up the Good work.
Sean

David R. Graham said...

Phil,

Roger that.

The basic distinction drawn by every nominalism (scientific positivism in more modern phrase) is between God and man and God and world and man and world and man and man, generically speaking with respect to man and man.

This makes for separation between these supposed entities and leads to absurd language such as "Highest Being" (for God) and discourse implying God is "over there" or "up there" or "radically other" or "in Heaven," etc.

From this follow distinctions affecting soteriology and therefore piety, significant ones.

Thomas abjured all of that and devoted his being to devotional hymnody arising from ecstatic reunion in prayer and contemplation. His protagonists, principally Jesuit and Tridentine but starting earlier, have not.

Best pietistical posture in re the Summa is ignore it. It has technical value for the history of thought and theology in the Latin Church ("Western Civilization"). Pietistical/Christ-forming value, however, is zero, "straw."

David/zoltan

Niggardly Phil said...

Is there a written work whose Pietistical/Christ-forming value is not zero? Even the Devil quotes scripture.

Anonymous said...

Julie:
If they had bacon flavored water it would be a sign that the apocalypse is over, the angels have truly won, and Paradise has arrived.

If.

Alas :(

but they did have beef jerky...

JWM

Van Harvey said...

"Absolute Lies and Infinite Nonsense"

What a Title.

julie said...

No bacon?!? They have sushi and escargot, cheeseburger and pizza prosciutto (for breakfast!), but they neglected bacon! Truly, it is just the beginning. It won't be over until we may take a swig of caramel-colored fluid and think:

"Hmm. People don't know it's not liquid bacon."

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hi Hoarhey! Good to see ya! :^)

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Wow Bob, you didn't hold back on this post! But that's how Truth rolls.

"Several observations are in order. From 2 Corinthians we know that the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. In other words, the Creator specifically creates man with a spirit of freedom, which you might say is the means to the end of our being, which is theosis, perfection, or God-realization."

Ho! It is God who grants us the right of liberty. And it's up to us to keep it.

Secularists like Queeg are happy to sacrifice their liberty to win, or reach the ends. They can do that because their principles are relative, if you can call them principles.

Just like the Left who have no problem giving their liberty away for the ends which is power, or rather the promise of power. That is the most important thing to them.
But it's not the power they expect.
It's an illusion. They are slaves to their perverse desires.

For in reality they trade their liberty for a false power wielded by the demons they generate.
And maybe that attracts real fallen angels, such as principalities and powers.

I don't pretend to understand how this works, but evil attracts evil, and it all begins with a spark: "a desire that is perverse or contrary to nature, followed by the corresponding imagination, together constitute the act of generation of a demon."

It leads to collective demons, as history and our last election shows.
That's not to say history will repeat itself in America. That depends on far more factors than I think anyone can see, but it's certainly possible.

As the Remnant, we must do everything we can to prevent the destruction of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Youdopeia is what the Left and idiots like Queeg will strive for, and I don't plan on livin' there.
To Quote Bob quoting Clint:
"Dyin' ain't much of a livin' boy."

Anonymous said...

I'm kinda partial to this quote:
"Now remember, things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is."

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

While I Got Rhythm is, on the one hand, an "absolute standard," the jazz musician employs his "infinite musical imagination" to play with it, so that it never comes out the same way twice, despite being absolute. Do you understand what I am saying? For this is also how you make religion truly "come alive."

That's what makes you so appealing, Bob. You are capable of putting into words what I'm unconciously thinkin', and more n' more of it is bubblin' to the surface, so to speak.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"This is why I believe that the Way of the Raccoon could really be the savior of religion, so to speak, but how many people appreciate jazz anymore?"

Attention spans of a fruit fly?
It baffles me too. I love resonatin' jazz. It's Beautiful man.

"Besides, it is a difficult practice to combine the elements of extreme discipline and radical freedom. But only the disciplined are really free anyway. Might as well take it to the limit, which is the gateway to the limitless."

That's where it's happenin'.
You sure are resonatin' Bob. These kinda riffs get my attention and draw me in. Yeah, I hear ya, and it's awesome to gno this is happennin' through a keyboard and a 'puter screen (to be placed in a place of prominence someday in the Raccoon museeum).

I can feel it too. That Spirit of creation. Hard to see how creation can become such a bad word for folks like Queeg.
I reckon he just don't get the Beauty n' goodness of those heavenly riff's. His perverted desire is blinding him.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I could feel sorry for those on the Left. Well, maybe the blind one's.
Then again, I get angry when I realize these people seek dominion over all Patriots who love their God given liberty!

Now, maybe most don't see that, but they're happy to just blindly follow without regard to anyone who don't march lockstep with them. Just like the Borg.

The ends justifies the means and they have no qualms doin' anything...anything to have that dominion not realizing they are the one's bein' dominated by their own demons.
They're the slaves tryin' to dominate us, who are free.

So no, when I look at my wife and daughters, and talk to my fellow raccoons, my friends, and see my fellow patriots fightin' to protect our live's and liberty, any pity I might have had for the idiot Left disappears.
Particularly their leaders, the master slaves.

I can only hope they will wake up someday, but until then, they are my enemies.
I used to think of spiritual warfare in terms of spirits, Good Angels versus demons powered by prayer and Grace.
But now i realize I can't seperate that from millions of fellow humans...Americans.

Of course it isn't just idiot americans, this is innernational in terms of spiritual warfare.
Not a pleasant thought, but that's reality.
I guess I'm bein' a bit cynical here, but damn!

But I'm not a fatalist, and I gno we'll win if we follow the Lord.
It just ain't gonna be easy.
Never is, but it's worth it, eh?
Liberty is that precious.

Anonymous said...

It's quiet.




Too quiet...

David R. Graham said...

Phil,

Ramakatha Rasavahini.

Zoltan

Niggardly Phil said...

Thanks. I won't read it since I wouldn't begin to understand it, but I appreciate you responding to questions. And by that I mean no offence.

Anonymous said...

.
"Anti-Jihad make-believe”, that’s where CJ’s head is at. He’s in total denial. CONGRATULATIONS to ALL the nominees, good luck! Great choices there, please keep up the great work!

absurd thought -
God of the Universe hates
infidel bloggers

getting truth out makes Him MAD
keep the people in the dark

.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe wants
many Taliban planets

stonings and beheadings
billions served daily

.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
allow Islamic conquest

enjoy the dhimmi life
of second class citizens

.
All real freedom starts with freedom of speech. If there is no freedom of speech there can be no real freedom.
.
Philosophy of Liberty Cartoon
.
Help Halt Terrorism Today!
.
USpace
.

:)
.

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