Thursday, July 31, 2014

Encircling the Adversary in Metavangelism

To remind the reader where our head has been lately, it has been exploring the question of reimagineering tradition in general and Christianity in particular for the present age, without in any way fundamentally altering or diminishing the message. And before I was carried down some interesting byway, I was consulting with Elder Colacho, raiding his fridge for any tasty morsels on the role of imagination.

Of course, as soon as I do this, I am distracted by aphorisms covering other subjects, such as: "The world is explicable from man; but man is not explicable from the world."

This is precisely what I mean when I say, for example, that man explains Darwinism, and that therefore Darwinism cannot (fully) explain man. This is a simple truism that most anyone who hasn't attended graduate school should be able to grasp, and yet, profound in its consequences. Borrowing a geometrical analogy, either we contain Darwinism, or vice versa; either we can wrap our minds around it, or it encloses (literally) our minds.

The mind-altering conclusion, according to Elder Don, is that "Man is a given reality; the world is a hypothesis we invent."

No, this is not permission to go stark raving Deepak! But it does go to our reimagineering project, because the world we hypothesize today is quite different from the world hypothesized by our predecessors. The science is never settled, even if the principles animating science are.

Thus, beautiful though it may have been, none of us are able to enter the grand synthesis of the medieval mind and actually live there. Yes, we can visit it, like a museum or cathedral, but it simply isn't the world we inhabit.

As such, we need religion to address this here world, the world of big bangs and cosmic evolution and psychobiology and history and other religions and all the rest. It can be done. It must be done. It IS being done. Thy will be done.

Here is another Critical Idea, expressed with maximum concision -- meaning that the pounds-per-square inch it places on your head is quite high, like a diamond stylus in a record groove: "Homogeneity drives out God. Secondary characteristics are Jacob's ladder."

This is a hierarchical cosmos, with many vertical degrees. It is not just God and man, as, say, Muslims and certain modern Christian fundamentalists believe; nor is it matter and motion, as materialists believe; nor, for that matter, is it state and subject, as the left believes.

Another aphorism reads, "Although a hierarchical society does not necessarily educate, the egalitarian society can never educate."

Example? Here in California -- a failed state misruled by one party government -- it is the Law of the Bland that all textbooks must give equal time and treatment to blacks, homosexuals, women, Muslims, people who cut off their dicks, and any other self-styled victim group.

Thus, knowledge is not a function of truth situated in a vertical hierarchy. Rather, it is horizontalized and made the function of a perverse egalitarianism. Therefore, we end up with my truth and your truth, black truth and gay truth, penile truth and vaginal truth. Oh, except penile truth is an oppressive lie of the patriarchy. Castrate it from the textbook!

If there is a hierarchy -- which there is -- then it is conditioned from the top. In other words, exclude the top and you destroy the hierarchy, as you have descended into relativism. The Absolute is the only thing that saves us from the tyranny of relativism. Which is why it is so hated by the left. Our success is predicated on their freedom, whereas their success is predicated on denying ours. Not exactly a symmetrical war!

Remember: the egalitarian society cannot educate. Which is why the most educated (or indoctrinated) people in our society are the most foolish. Just ask yourself: what can Obama the Egalitarian teach us? That is correct: nothing. Or nothing but pompous and self-refuting lies -- lies like "Muslims helped build the very fabric (sic) of our country." Really? When was this? I know that Jefferson read the Koran, but only because he wanted to understand the mindset of our enemies. I myself purchased one on 9-12-2001 for similar Jeffersonian reasons.

Another aphoristic corollary: that the most important ontological category is person. At one end of reality is person; at the other is nothing. In the book, we symbolize this O and Ø. However, there is hierarchy in between, i.e., degrees of being trailing off into nothingness as they increase in distance from the source.

But orthoparadoxically, no matter how far from the source, the source still surrounds and interpenetrates us. The nothing-world of the existential left is just a hypothesized world taken to its absurd extreme. For God is not the "compensation for lost reality," but rather, "the horizon surrounding the summits of conquered reality."

God is ALWAYS the God of the gaps, because God is the immanent reality who unifies them -- or in whom they are unified. The One and many are complementary, although the One is ontologically prior -- just as the Father is "prior" to the Son, even though the Son has never not existed. I would say the same of world and God. It's what a creator does, i.e., create. With God there is always a world, a creation, a hierarchy. Just not necessarily this one.

"Hell is a place identifiable only from Paradise." Which is why leftists cannot see the hell they are creating, precisely. It is also why they see and are even persecuted by paradise. The leftist lives in hell, therefore his life is organized around the attempt to transform this to heaven, which he believes he can do because of his prior flattening of the cosmos (due to the rejection of hierarchy). Remember the wise words of our Dear Leader: the white man's greed runs a world in need. Thus, get rid of these white European pests and voila, heaven!

Yes, like the pageant of heaven at our southern border, or in the Arab world, or in Africa, or in Detroit. See my egalitarian parade passing!

"Faith is what allows us to wander into any idea without losing our way back." And not only! Rather, it is what allows us to both see and situate a truth in the cosmic hierarchy. Without faith there is no truth at all, just opinions. Nor is any opinion higher than another, as in a California textbook.

Yuck: revolution isn't what it used to be. Alert humans will have noticed that it has been reduced to "an intoxication of the soul invaded by one's feces." Strong language, to be sure, but have you ever smelled the fragrant comments of our anonymous troll? Proof that in a farting contest there are only losers.

To paraphrase another aphorism, dying societies accumulate laws like a dying man does remedies. When even the Washington Post notices the lawlessness of our law-loving Washington pest... I'll let you complete that sentence.

But that's what leftism does: it is the never-ending attempt to "institutionalize what is uninstitutionalizable." This goes to the aphorism above about trying to contain the uncontainable, who is ultimately the Metacosmic Person and his reflections herebelow.

Which reminds me of a tossed off thoughtlet by the Happy Acres guy, to the effect that, in the face of liberal arguments, his mind instantly goes "meta" and starts running circles around them.

You know the feeling, right? It occurs for a number of reasons, first, because liberals have assimilated so may false first principles; second, because these principles are unexamined; third, because they fervently argue the implications of these crazy principles; fourth, because they have ready-to-hand revisionist bullshit to support the principles; fifth, because we rejected those things so long ago that we have forgotten how to be so stupid; sixth, because they have systematically closed their eyes to that reality which transcends, infuses, orients, and grounds us.

What I want to say is that a Raccoon should be a metavangelist of the divine imagination.

36 comments:

julie said...

It can be done. It must be done. It IS being done. Thy will be done.

Amen.

julie said...

Incidentally, this is why I could never be part of any faith that rejects modernity out of hand.

Gagdad Bob said...

Hating modernity resembles liberals who hate humans, progress, freedom, technology, etc. Anyone can reject the world. The idea is to redeem the world.

Rick said...

Great post. Powerful. Powerpost. GreatAndPowerfulPost!

You're heard the standard John Q lib, unsolicited argument against the anti-gay-marriage person when you were just standing there minding your own business. It goes something like this: "I mean, how does gay marriage affect your marriage? I mean, come on!"

I'm telling you, I've never brought up the subject with friends or strangers ever. Yet, I hear it, over hear it...

I should respond, though it won't help:
"If I shouldn't worry about my marriage, why should you worry about theirs?

mushroom said...

Man is a given reality; the world is a hypothesis we invent.

I like that one. I think I would have said "an interface we invent", but, for God's sake, Jim, I'm a developer not a philosopher.

mushroom said...

The leftist lives in hell ...

That would explain why they believe so fervently in global warming. And, in that case, it is anthropogenic.

Rick said...

And Bob said:
"As such, we need religion to address this here world, the world of big bangs and cosmic evolution and psychobiology and history and other religions and all the rest. It can be done. It must be done. It IS being done. Thy will be done."

Before Bob was Arnot:

"Engineers surveying for a railway lay down the line level, or as nearly level as the configuration of the surface will permit; but an engineer’s level is not a straight line; it is the segment of a circle,—that circle being the circumference of the globe. The line which practically constitutes a level bends downwards continually as it goes forward, following the form of the earth, and at every point being at right angles to the radius. If it were produced in an absolutely straight line, it would, in the course of a few miles, be high and dry above the surface of the earth, and entirely useless for the practical purposes of life. Such would sacred literature become if in blind admiration of the fathers, the children should simply use the old, and not produce the new. As we advance along the course of time, we are, as it were, tracing a circle; and he who would be of use in his generation, must bend his speculations to the time, and let them touch society on the level at every point in the progress of the race. To throw a new contribution into the goodly store does not, therefore, imply a judgment on the part of the writer that the modern theology is better than the ancient. We must make our own: it concerns us and our children that what we make be in substance drawn from the word of God; and in form, suited to the circumstances of the age.

Still further, the accumulations of the past should be used by those who inherit them, as a basis on which to build. It is the business of each generation to lay another course on the wall, and so leave the structure loftier than they found it. The Bible, like the world, is inexhaustible; in either department hosts of successive investigators have plied their tasks from the beginning, and yet there is room."

julie said...

Rick, thanks for that. I do think it's important to note that one must work in the right order - from the Absolute, to the world as it is here and now. For instance, there is no law more foundational than the Decalog; it cannot be reduced any further than the first two commandments, and it doesn't change to fit the times.

Too often, religious organizations get it upside down: they would make God conform to the world instead of trying to form their own part of the world in God's image. There was a good essay about that a few weeks back, which I found (as one does) via Vanderleun, but I don't know now where it might be.

Anonymous said...

I know I can be a bit of a zombie and incoherent at times, but bear with me, I'm only revisiting now the gaps open again. Can't get the hang of this comment window, hence no paragraphs. Outside of the internet I've been called a homophobic. Well I did have an unwanted close encounter with a homosexual as an early teen and that might have caused it. I thought all homosexuality ended when the homosexuals became gays. My gripe is this; why cant I be called a gayphobic. Why should an abbreviation of homosexuality be attached to my phobia when homosexuals are too ashamed to attach it to themselves. And by the way could someone please tell the gays, as I'm too phobic to tell them myself that they are already married. Like the rest of us they are the marriage of their mother and father. Their mother and father and God married them. So please may they not dishonour their father and their mother by going through the circus of a marriage CERMONY together when there is no possibility of them performing the same feat.

mushroom said...

I had forgotten that Arnot illustration. Perfect application. Thank you, Rick.

mushroom said...

Anon, perhaps you are connecting via a mobile device like your phone. That could adversely impact your paragraphing ability.

It's too bad we can no longer use "gay" for it's original meaning and connotation of lighthearted happiness. It was such a good word.

A phobia is an irrational fear which interferes with the normal functioning of life. If a person gets a bit of vertigo peering over the edge of the Grand Canyon, that's not acrophobia. That's just the natural response of a creature too close to the edge of a precipice. An acrophobic may freak out standing on a chair in their kitchen.

Homophobia -- if there is such a thing, is poorly named, in my opinion. Second, it would only apply to people who were so terrified of seeing, talking to, or being in the presence of a homosexual that they would avoid places and situations where they might encounter one. Even the Westboro Baptists are not, as best I can tell, homophobic. They are just ungodly stupid.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"If there is a hierarchy -- which there is -- then it is conditioned from the top. In other words, exclude the top and you destroy the hierarchy, as you have descended into relativism. The Absolute is the only thing that saves us from the tyranny of relativism. Which is why it is so hated by the left. Our success is predicated on their freedom, whereas their success is predicated on denying ours. Not exactly a symmetrical war!"

Precisely! Those on the left pride themselves on their alleged ability to tolerate, but they are vehemently intolerate to anyone who loves freedom, liberty, and life. Or anyone who is successful because of freedom and hard work.

Of course, the wealthy leftists get a pass because they use their money to destroy freedom.
Of course, if the left manage to steal the property of the successful they will turn on their own wealthy high priests because they'll be in an even worse hell than before.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"Remember the wise words of our Dear Leader: the white man's greed runs a world in need."

Whenever I hear a leftist make a remark like that, which isn't very often around here, thank God, I always say:

"Well, I think envy is wrong."

At first their eyes get wide, then they turn red out of rage or shame ( or both) then it's either crickets, inaudible mumbling or more leftist splatitudes, but they are always thrown for a loop.

What can I say? I simply won't allow such nonsense to go unchallenged anymore.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"Hating modernity resembles liberals who hate humans, progress, freedom, technology, etc. Anyone can reject the world. The idea is to redeem the world."

Aye! If Christians forget that then they are no longer Christians.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hi Rick!
Excellent reason to engage in the now, on a spiritual and cultural level.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

mushroom said...
The leftist lives in hell ...

That would explain why they believe so fervently in global warming. And, in that case, it is anthropogenic."

Heh!

Rick said...

You know what they say, if it ain't eternally useful, it ain't the truth!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Metavangelist.

I like that word. Van is lucky, it fits him to a tee.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Rick, indeed!
It's insane to throw away all foundational eternal truths just as it's stupid to not build on them.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Wow. This is mighty inconvenient...for Bill Clinton:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/07/on-september-10-2001-clinton-explained-why-he-didnt-kill-bin-laden.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+powerlineblog%2Flivefeed+%28Power+Line%29

That's odd. I never would assume anyone near Bin Laden to be innocent. But I guess it makes Clinton feel morally superior to say that.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"If you want to minimize civilian casualties, then minimize the dangers of war, by no longer coming to the rescue of those who start wars."

"There is something grotesque about people living thousands of miles away, in safety and comfort, loftily second-guessing and trying to micro-manage what the Israelis are doing in a matter of life and death."
Thomas Sowell

Anonymous said...

man explains Darwinism, and that therefore Darwinism cannot (fully) explain man. This is a simple truism that most anyone who hasn't attended graduate school should be able to grasp, and yet, profound in its consequences

Guess I should go to grad school, because your truism sounds profoundly stupid to me. It sets up a completely false contest for explanatory priority (or something) as if "man" and "Darwinism" are rivals, an absurd notion. Rivals for what? What an astonishingly impoverished view of humanity you must have, that it can be threatened by scientific realities.

Van Harvey said...

Now that was funny aninny!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

LOL! What a maroon!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Yes Anon, we know you are profoundly stupid. Thanks for demonstrating that in such an amusing manner. :)

Skully said...

Witless churl.

julie said...

Now, now, gentlemen - the first step on the path to wisdom is admitting one's ignorance. Apparently, there's hope for anony, yet! And clearly, he hasn't spent much time in the process of mining a concise gem of information and extracting the meaning, given that he can't seem to stick to any one point for more than the time it takes to fill one comment box.

To the point, the point is precisely that "man" and "Darwinism" are not rivals, and could not possibly be, given that "man" is an expression of being and "Darwinism" is simply a concept used to try to explain how we got here. Or more bluntly, it is a tool that man uses to try to explore certain questions. Questions which, I might add, have extremely dubious utility in a purely Darwinian universe. As a tool, is it very good at what it purports to do? Clearly, a great many people, upon examining the evidence, find that it comes up dreadfully short in explaining how a band of smart monkeys has managed to have conversations in light and electrons across continents instantaneously, far less what any of that has to do with reproducing. And that's just a for instance.

More simply, man - any individual man - is far greater than the sum of his chemical parts, and even greater than the structure of his DNA. Chemicals are the what; they do not explain the how, much less the why of it all. For that, we have to look in the ether direction.

I could go on, and on, and on, but you really must start pulling your own weight on pain of remaining an ignoramus the rest of your life.

Gagdad Bob said...

Give that man a Ph.D.!

Barack said...

Stop hatin' on truth!

Gagdad Bob said...

One of the intrinsic problems with liberals is that Darwinism is more or less adequate to explain them (since they reject their own humanness), so in that sense I agree with anonymous. His comments are autobiographical -- not arguments but confessions of a frustrated primate.

julie said...

True. But still sad, because it's so backwards. As though, having invented a hammer, a man reimagines the world such that all things exist to serve the purpose of hammering.

Gagdad Bob said...

Looking downward only, I suppose it is an adequate theory. But it fails the moment one turns around and looks up. It arbitrarily accepts material and efficient causation, but ignores or rejects formal and final. Then the tenured apes catechize the LoFos, spreading their memes into the next generation. So their infrahuman memes "win," but at the expense of Man.

Petey said...

But they do win every argument, for the same reason the rooster causes every sunrise.

Rick said...

Yeah, but there's another universe where rosters do that.
Has to be.

Rick said...

I'm a theist because I don't believe in magic.

julie said...

I don't know if I even agree that it's an adequate theory. In only the broadest strokes does science manage to explain anything about the development of life, but as soon as questions about the details spring up, it is suddenly time to pivot.

Anyway, if it's true that 97% of the stuff of the universe is undetectable by science, why should we think that we know all about what life is made of just because we can examine the chemistry? What about the stuff we don't even know we're missing?

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