Thursday, August 22, 2013

There is No God, and He is Obama

First, we bring your attention to a nice rant by Ace of Spades, which relates to all the Voegeling we've been doing around here lately:

"I have long contended that man is a fundamentally religious animal -- and I don't necessarily mean that in a good way -- and that many people who consider themselves above religion are actually quite beneath it...."

"[A]nd, rather than subscribe to a conventional religion in which their desire for transcendence can be more conventionally satisfied, instead channel their religious impulses into areas which are not by nature religious and which by nature must not be religious" (emphases mine, for these passages go to the left's ubiquitous violation of the second commandment, demonstrating that behind ideology is idolatry).

"Our politics now is simply about a god, and I mean the god Obama," AKA "the Unaccomplished One." (To which I might add that he must remain unaccomplished, on pain of becoming particularized in time and stripped of his godhead. You might say that he is our first apophatic president, in that any statement about him cannot possibly reach his transcendence, so we can only say what Obama is not -- and for many on the left, it is sufficient to say that he is not George Bush.)

"Religious hysteria does not require a god. Religious hysteria only requires Dogma & a Devil."

Quite true, and conservatives are in a position to clearly see this, since we are the Devil of the left.

In another sense, you could say that the left has no gods, only demons. The left is not even reactionary, since it never reacts to our actual beliefs, only our suspected -- actually, projected -- motives. And "Reducing another’s thought to its supposed motives prevents us from understanding it" (Don Colacho), thus sealing the left's ignorance. Project and attack, project and attack, in a closed circle. Conservatives simply serve as placemarkers in this absurcular psychodrama.

In another post, Ace says that "Conspiracy theories are the religion of the bitter. It's fundamentally a religious response to confusion, disorder, and disappointment." And since politics is about order, intrapsychic disorder engenders deformed and aberrant politics. (And then the external disorder engenders more psychic disorder, which is how the left keeps its base -- in both senses of the word -- growing.)

About the project-and-attack cycle of the left, PowerLine has a revealing piece called The Dems Rally their Legions of Haters for 2014. I know the credulous LoFos believe this stuff, but is it possible that liberal elites really believe it? I'd like to at least give them credit for being sociopathic manipulators of the LoFos, but who knows? I think Obama might be dumb enough to swallow most of it, but I find it doubtful that Bill Clinton believed his own BS.

In any event, the email demonstrates how our honest wish for clean elections is turned on its head. And no mention at all of the state's real world harassment and suppression of dissent and loyal opposition through the IRS, and the tainted electoral victory the latter helped give to President Asterisk.

Which, by the way, doesn't matter. It's like they say in the Muslim world: if it's true, it's already in the Koran, so why bother with science? Likewise, since god is already in the White House, why bother with honest elections? Either you ratify the divinity, or you're a demon whose vote shouldn't count anyway. Simple as.

Note in the example from PowerLine how the grotesque abuse of language results in the deformation of reality. It's not that words escape them. Rather, words are tortured and summarily executed.

Here is a subtle point by Voegelin, an irony worthy of Eckhart. I don't want to say it's an infallible dogma handed down from the Chair of Petey, but I think most Raccoons will relate.

That is to say, just as leftists are fundamentally religious -- or at least idolatrous -- "Every mystic is in a way 'atheist,' inasmuch as he knows there is a time when symbols" reach a kind of breaking point. For clearly, no container is remotely adequate to contain God, who is by definition uncontainable. The finite cannot circumscribe the infinite, so God is just a name for the nameless, religion a (providential) form for the formless.

I mean, right? This is why, both individually and collectively (i.e., in history), the symbols must be periodically "renewed and recast through recourse to the experiences from which they emerge." To put it in meta-symbolic terms, (n) eventually hardens into (k), at which point one must undergo -- or sopher -- new O --> (n) experiences in order to renew and refresh the exhausted or saturated religious symbology.

As it so happens, I was thinking about this on the way to work yesterday. Clearly there was a time in history when Christian symbolism wasn't remotely problematic for even -- or especially, rather -- the greatest intellects. But one has to be honest, and acknowledge that it clearly doesn't speak in the same direct way to many in the modern world.

Lileks mentioned a typical case the other day, a cranky guy who runs a tech blog but who is a wannabe metaphysician. He inflicted his Deep Thoughts about people who speak in tongues upon his unsuspecting audience of nerds, dweebs, geeks, and schmendricks:

"'We' don’t speak in tongues; religious nutjobs do, and they do it because they believe in superstitious nonsense. I’ll bet my bottom dollar that there is a high correlation between tongue-speakers and climate change deniers and creationist 'science' school curriculum pushers -- people who are doing real and genuine harm to our society and the planet."

Another fine example of the project-and-attack cycle.

I don't think I would be committing the inverse error if I attributed to this genius a radically naive and narrow understanding of science, as it necessarily parallels his n. & n. understanding of religion. As Voegelin writes, "there is nothing wrong with calling physics science, as long as one does not pretend that nothing else is science." The moment one does this, "an ideology has arisen which is called 'scientism.'" And this ideological faux religion requires demons.

Furthermore, the very symbolism of this always-intuited but never empirically provable construct called "universe" is "no more than a demythologized version of the myth of the cosmos." The experience of a cosmos is always something we subjectively participate in, and the experience is not actually containable by any symbol. In other words, you might say that the soul contain the cosmos, not vice versa.

29 comments:

Unknown said...

Bob said " I know the credulous LoFos believe this stuff, but is it possible that liberal elites really believe it?"

I ask myself that every day... which to you think is worse, that they are so out of touch with reality they actually believe it, or that they are liars and manipulators who know exactly what they are doing?

Rick said...

You forgot one James:
They know not what they do.

Rick said...

Incidentally, I Was a Teenage Cranky Guy Who Runs a Tech Blog.

I swearsies, I sealed my fate when I said that sort o thing out-loud once.
Once.

Gagdad Bob said...

I don't speak in tongues, but I suppose I do blog in fingers.

julie said...

I've not read the post yet, so don't know if this is on topic or not, but I just had to share:

Are atheists mentally ill?

If William is any indication, the answer is obvious...

julie said...

Heh - judging by the first paragraph, I guess I'm on topic after all...

Gagdad Bob said...

Good article. Makes sense: if your life isn't ordered to the Order things, to what is it ordered? Explains why these people are so disordered in so many ways.

julie said...

Clearly there was a time in history when Christian symbolism wasn't remotely problematic for even -- or especially, rather -- the greatest intellects. But one has to be honest, and acknowledge that it clearly doesn't speak in the same direct way to many in the modern world.

Along those lines, I was reading some link yesterday (I forget from where but probably Ace's) talking about how the higher a woman's IQ (or rather, and perhaps this is a very important point, the more college degrees she has), the less likely she is to bear children. Whatever I was reading made the excellent point that until the past century, this was untrue - throughout most of history, intelligent women did not consider the raising of families to be unworthy of their intellectual talents.

Rick said...

I didn't really have a tech blog.
But I was a teenage know-it all.
Well into my late 30s, I might add.

Rick said...

"Are atheists mentally ill?"

I'm just delighted someone is considering it.

Gagdad Bob said...

In any event, they are by their own acknowledgment spiritually ill, i.e., mired in pneumopathology.

Rick said...

Julie,
Paradoxically crummy/awesome about the value of the Stay At Home Mom, is that you can't point to anything materialistic about it. It is (properly understood) perfectly and completely self-less. I think maybe this is why it is incorrectly viewed (or at least projected/accepted by many) as less-valuable than the bread-winner.

So too is Fathering self-less, but there are shiny objects veiling this at times; such as other valuable prizes like bread, bacon, frying pans, rolling pins.

mushroom said...

"Reducing another’s thought to its supposed motives prevents us from understanding it" (Don Colacho)

I am on the frequency today. The first thing I happened to pick up this morning was Miracles, chapter 5 where Lewis explains: We always assume in discussions about morality, as it all other discussions, that the other man's views are worthless if they can be fully accounted for by some non-moral and non-rational cause.

I was reading that in Lileks. The original article that Mr. Cranky faulted was a lot more rational than the reaction. Being a skeptical Pentecostal myself, I connect glossolalia to a meditative state of mind.

mushroom said...

Julie, let your sister-in-law know they are offering classes for “Living with Coyotes in an Urban Landscape”:

... a free one-hour class to provide residents with tips and techniques on how to deter coyotes from entering populated areas, and how to protect pets.

julie said...

Thanks, Mushroom - I'll forward her that link. It's a little out of her area, but probably not by too much, and maybe she can find something similar closer to home.

Tony said...

mushroom

Why do some Pentecostals insist that the glossolalia stuff is "intelligible language somewhere in the universe"? Why not just legitimate it as a form of singing?

I know I'd rather hear it than hear yet another ignorant and cranky atheist at the Daily Telegraph!

mushroom said...

The intelligible language idea is a traditional view of it because the languages of Acts 2 are legitimate human languages.

There's no indication of a known language in Acts 12. I would say that it is only marginal in Paul's rules from 1 Corinthians 14. Really, when you read that it sounds more like the term a lot of modern Pentecostals and Charismatics use, i.e., a "heavenly language", something understood only by God -- unless interpreted.

When early Pentecostals were being challenged by other Protestant denominations, having a language understood somewhere -- even on a planet circling Alderberan, gave them some cover.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I'm fairly (as opposed to unfairly) certain that blogging in fingers counts.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I mean, it's not as if Bob is some kind of finger nut.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

James, IMO the manipulators and liars are worse, in a sense, since they DO know what they do.

However, I reckon that doesn't matter much to those who are hurt or killedby the collective drones or borg.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"Note in the example from PowerLine how the grotesque abuse of language results in the deformation of reality. It's not that words escape them. Rather, words are tortured and summarily executed. Here is a subtle point by Voegelin, an irony worthy of Eckhart."

As opposed to simply torturing sentences. Not one word is safe from the homicidal glee of the word ghouls.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

This is good and raccoonish, to boot, from Thomas Sowells recent column:

"However widespread the desire to be free, that is wholly different from a desire to live in a society where others are free. Nowhere is such tolerance harder to find than in the Middle East."

julie said...

That's a great point. In order to desire that other people may be free just as we wish to be free, one must first grant that they are people with an intrinsic value and dignity.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I cooncur with Sowell's conclusion:
"After contributing to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power, and the disastrous aftermath of that, the Obama administration is now publicly lecturing Egyptian leaders, and trying to micro-manage them from thousands of miles away. And some conservatives are joining the Quixotic chorus, playing with fire."

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hi Julie:

Aye. That's the difference between democracy and liberty.
Liberty is enlightening (or at least reverence of liberty is).

ge said...

Phrenology in the 21st Century-- Ever note this guy seems missing about 3" of cranium [hairline should begin up where his skull stops]

'Compassion' area of brain gone missing?

"We see by your forehead that you're a brilliant man" -Paul Siebel

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

IRT the Sowell article, I can't help but think of the left in our country sharing the same goal as the Islamists.
Freedom for me but not for thee sort of thinking, which is to say, tyranny.

Which Bob has mentioned many times, of course. Still, that level of delusion or just plain evil for those who are aware of the ramifications, is unsettling, to put it mildly.
Horrific is perhaps a better word.

Tony said...

Here's some insight into the Clinton Club: Bill and Hillary's Hamptons Holiday. Nice piece, has the old-fashioned sting of the whip.

julie said...

After seeing Vanderleun's list of choice Hillary quotes, I can't imagine having to live in close quarters with that harpy queen, even for a "vacation," except they are probably each just as awful in their own special ways. I'd bet hell could rent that space out as an extra ring for a couple of weeks' extra torment...

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