Religion in the Raw at the DNC Convention

"The hard problem of consciousness," writes Spitzer, "really begins with the hard problem of living systems."

In other words, the mysteries of life and of consciousness are really two iterations of the same mystery. In neither case can the phenomenon be reduced to its physical constituents without eliminating the higher principle that animates, defines, and illuminates it.

Life is transcendence, because "in living systems, physical processes are oriented toward objectives that lie beyond them..." In short, organisms are oriented toward their own future. In Robert Rosen's expensive terminology, they are anticipatory systems.

And "if a living system cannot be reduced to physical processes, then how much more irreducible will be consciousness in animals and self-consciousness in humans?" (Spitzer). Animals have their ends and we have ours. But ours are infinitely remote from other animals, whose aims, while transcendent, are nevertheless quite "close" to the body and its immediate needs. Animals always orbit closely to their own biology.

Conversely, man's transcendence can -- and should -- go all the way up, and to all points in between. Actually "should" is not quite the correct word. In reality, our consciousness always proceeds to God; or better from God, who is its sufficient reason. As daylight is to the central sun, consciousness is to God, simultaneously distinct and yet "not-two."

So much becomes clear if we simply dis-invert the cosmos and see things from the top down instead of bottom up! Then, instead of the impossible leap from matter to consciousness -- the infinite journey from existence to experience -- we see a kind of smooth transition from Creator to creation: from supra consciousness to consciousness, from mind to life, and from life to matter.

In another book that I almost understood, Rosen argued that it was simply metaphysical prejudice to assume that the simple, linear, and unambiguous physical systems described (and describable!) by physics were the cosmic norm.

What Rosen really accomplishes is to provide a scientific alibi for accepting Whitehead's conceptualization of reality: that everything is process and that all processes have a degree of life and of consciousness, however attenuated. Then you don't have to somehow magically shoehorn them in later. The cosmos is an organism that converges on God; cosmic evolution is simply the mirror image of a prior involution. For this roundtrip back to God, we must unpack what is involved in us (as potential) in order to realize it in time. Woo hoo!

At the remote end of our consciousness is the necessary being we call God or O. Between man and God is a whole hierarchy of transcendental values that are easily discernible as Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity. Without these transcendentals, nothing makes sense down here. Man is always oriented toward his own transcendence, no matter how hard he tries to deny it.

This explains how and why man is necessarily, always and everywhere, homo religiosus. I say, if you don't believe in God and religion, try watching a few minutes of the DNC convention. There you will see religion "in the raw," that is, the religious impulse untethered from and unbound by any divinely authorized channel. This is why it so resembles madness, because both madness and transcendence are "unmoored," so to speak, from physical reality, only in opposite directions.

Looking at the convention the way I have described will help you to avoid throwing up. And if the spectacle does not induce vomiting, then you are ontologically insensate to what is going down.

Our way turns a pagan ceremony, rife with hatred, scapegoating, and magical manipulation of reality, into an interesting cosmo-anthropological study. They are always trying to bait you, to drag you down from your peaceful transcendent perspective. But you must remain detached and alert: wise as the serpents on stage but innocent as doves.

You're really looking at a lower form -- or better, mode -- of humanity, and I mean that literally. Not only do they violate every commandment of God -- each being a signpost to transcendence -- but they incorporate the violation into their platform: idolatry, murder, theft, envy, deceit, etc. Truly, it is a "plunge into darkness." Which is why they project their own darkness into Donald Trump. This remarkable crockstep unity is either an example of DNC-MSM coordination, or of instantaneous nonlocal quantum coherence on the lower vertical plane.