Monday, September 16, 2019

Everyone has a Religion, and Some are Even True

So, is common sense rooted in principles, or do principles flow from common sense? And is common sense universal, or does it change from epoch to epoch, culture to culture, cable network to cable network?

First, we had better define the term. Before looking it up, I would say that it must have to do with knowledge accessible to every normal man by virtue of being one. It is what my pal Bion would call "pre-conceptual," meaning that it is not quite knowledge, but ready to become so: pre-knowledge, so to speak:

Bion introduced the idea of a pre-conception, a psychological entity waiting for for a realization that will "mate" with it. The "unexperienced" pre-conception mated with a realization produces a conception, and from this thoughts and thinking can develop.

Note the role of experience (or lack thereof): if the innate pre-conception doesn't meet with an experience in the outside world, it is still there, only unrealized. This then contributes to psychic pain, except the person will have no idea from where the pain is coming. Unexperienced pre-conceptions that fail to become concepts nevertheless result in experienced distress.

Example? Like "original sin," evidence is everywhere. Psychic pain is quite fungible, such that it is readily exchanged, converted, transformed, and falsely attributed to other psychic levels, persons, or environmental factors.

One of the specialties of the left is the transformation of existential pain into political grievance. Some pain is indeed unavoidable by virtue of being human. But if you cannot tolerate this realization, the left is always ready to help you to attribute it to something else, and more to the point, promise an end to the pain. But this is no more effective than curing physical disease by electing your preferred candidate.

Since the election of President Trump, we have seen how millions of people persist in attributing their mental illness to him. Is there anything comparable on the right? I've never claimed to be normal, but I don't remember blaming Obama for it.

Back to pre-conceptions for a moment. A large part of mental illness revolves around a kind of psychic miscegenation, or a union of pre-conception with toxic experience, resulting in an inverted or perverted conception. Thus, for example, a child who is abused by his parents may grow up to be an abusive parent.

It seems that for every absolute there is a false absolute -- which is still an absolute, only in denial of itself. I would say that our awareness of the Absolute per se is a consequence of our pre-conceptual knowledge of God: a proper mating of this divine pre-conception with spiritual experience results in a normally religious person. A mismating -- or no mating at all -- results in its many alternatives, from polytheism to materialism and everything in between. Or, just say idolatry: an idol is a false absolute. Put another way, everyone has an absolute, and some are even true.

In the excellent Book of Absolutes, Gairdner devotes various chapters to the universals of human life and culture, the constants of nature, the universals of human sex and biology, the universals of language, and the universals of law. I am tempted to just say Read the Book, because that's an awful lot to cover in the spacetime of a post, especially because it's been a decade or so since I read it.

Since then, Gairdner has published another called The Great Divide: Why Liberals and Conservatives Will Never, Ever Agree. This second book is no doubt a logical extension of the first, for what is leftism but the political implications of relativism and (pretended) rejection of absolutes, i.e., a deeply principled political stupidity at war with the nature of things?

Another book we haven't discussed but which I can heartily endorse is Frithjof Schuon and the Perennial Philosophy, which is an introductory guide to his thinking -- which, for me, comes close to a description of what thinking ought to be at its highest and deepest levels. Yes, there is a proper way to think, and philosophy should be all about providing prescriptions for it. What's the alternative? Providing bad ways to think? Or ways to avoid thinking? Isn't that what college is for?

Chapter five condenses his system to the very essence of what we might call Metacosmic Common Sense -- although he would hasten to add that this is no more "his system" than the sun can be private property. Rather, it shines equally upon the good and evil, the intelligent and stupid, the gifted and the tenured. People of below average intelligence can have perfectly adequate common sense, while so-called intellectuals can be entirely lacking in it. In the words of the Aphorist,

--Until we come across instructed fools, instruction seems important.

--Great stupidities do not come from the people. They have seduced intelligent men first.

--The learned fool has a wider field to practice his folly.

I could be wrong, but I like to think that truth is anterior to revelation. i.e., that Truth is like the ultimate pre-conception that is filled by the experience of revelation. This would explain why a simple person of faith can be so much wiser than a brilliant scientist when it pertains to essential human truths beyond the scope of science -- and why we would prefer to be governed by the first 500 people in the Boston phonebook than the Harvard faculty.

Here is an example of a first principle that seems to me unassailable, that "God is ineffable," such that "nothing can describe Him or enclose Him in words." What mischief results from believing otherwise!

For it is not as if we are faced with a binary choice between a conceptual absolute posited by the mind and a paltry relativism that implicitly elevates man to God. Rather, we simultaneously posit the existence of the Absolute and our inability to contain it/him; or, if you can contain it, it isn't God.

Before starting this post, the thought popped into my head: any valid knowledge of God is obviously already God and must come from God. However, the converse is not true: God cannot be reduced to knowledge of him, no matter how valid.

A map is not the territory, but nor is it other than the territory, in the sense that it provides points of reference on a human scale. Just so, metaphysics and revelation provide us with humanly realizable points of reference that permit us to orient ourselves to eternity via time, or heaven via earth, or the celestial via the terrestrial, etc.

Indeed you could say that earth is heaven, but that of course heaven is not earth. We couldn't even know of paradise if we didn't sometimes catch glimpses of it herebelow. Or so we have heard from the wise.

For Schuon, "metaphysical doctrine is nothing other than the science of Reality and illusion." The postmodern secular leftist type will usually say that we can only know appearances and not reality, but we respond that we can know appearances precisely because they are appearances of a reality anterior to them; optical illusions only exist because of optical realities.

Now, the same doctrine "might be articulated in a number of ways, from a variety of viewpoints," for the same reason a truth can be expressed in different languages. You could say that a valid religion is a richly symbolic "metaphysical vocabulary" -- or that, conversely, a religion that fails to embody and communicate these truths is no religion at all.

I suppose where I differ from Schuon is that his preferred vocabulary is ultimately Advaita Vedanta, whereas I believe this fails to adequately convey certain principles that are better expressed in the language of Christianity, e.g., the Trinity.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Dr. Godwin, panel. Looks like I'm first out of the gate here on this one.

I enjoyed the post greatly. The title of the post implies some religions are true, and some are not. The contents of the post allude to idolatory in the citizen population. Who might we identify as the idolaters?

I'm wondering if there were any particular religions which are considered untrue?

Christianity has many different sects, and I'm wondering if some are true and some false, and if so which ones, if any, are false?

What is your take on Catholicism?

julie said...

People of below average intelligence can have perfectly adequate common sense, while so-called intellectuals can be entirely lacking in it.

As my husband is fond of saying, there's no IQ test to get into Heaven.

Gagdad Bob said...

Conversely, "There is an illiteracy of the soul which no diploma cures."

Anonymous said...

The Bad Popes by E. R. Chamberlin describes eight unusually rotten wearers of St. Peters shoes (think Francis is bad? check them out. For the more time constrained, there are YouTube videos).

These are the popes for which the bulletproof popemobile was made. Sadly, back in their day there weren’t nearly enough Swiss Guard to keep away all the rotten fruit and stones, so these popes really didn’t get out much. Still heaven awaited those of them who truly believed, a lesson for us all.

Should the real question be, does heaven await William D. Gairdner? What does Jesus really care if one is liberal or conservative, catholic or protestant, hindu or jew? Theoretically (as Jesus would define it) secular human beliefs are grotesquely silly and incredibly inconsequential in comparison to the heavenly infinite. So why even go there?

I say we go there for sport. God was a conservative of the authoritarian flavor. Jesus was a liberal except for the part where he rebuked the Pharisees (gays) and the scribes (liberal media). Almost a prodigal son, methinks.

So... anyone care to guess which is the Holy Spirit?

Carmel said...

I suppose where I differ from Schuon is that his preferred vocabulary is ultimately Advaita Vedanta, whereas I believe this fails to adequately convey certain principles that are better expressed in the language of Christianity, e.g., the Trinity.
BINGO. How I’d love you to elaborate on that essential point! Have you read Jean Borella?

Christina M said...

I am grateful there is no IQ test for heaven.

Quote: "Note the role of experience (or lack thereof): if the innate pre-conception doesn't meet with an experience in the outside world, it is still there, only unrealized. This then contributes to psychic pain, except the person will have no idea from where the pain is coming. Unexperienced pre-conceptions that fail to become concepts nevertheless result in experienced distress. "

I sure do know this pain, on the level of feeling it, when I cannot articulate what I am feeling/thinking/experiencing. I witnessed an even worse situation of it in a boy scout I was taking home from a camping trip. He was trying to express to me how wonderful an experience the camping trip had been for him and he didn't have the words to express it, and he was choking in frustration at not being able to speak it out.

My husband and I were talking this morning about the latest serial killer/abortionist and the collection of corpses he had on his property in a building of some sort. I was also thinking about two other serial killer/abortionists: Gosnell, who surrounded himself with corpses and body parts in his filthy house; and Dr. Joseph Booker, Jr., who had a rental storage unit that contained bags of corpses, and I was wondering why abortionist doctors have a tendency to collect and store the bodies of their victims. I was thinking, they MUST know, deep down, and despite the laws in their favor and the current culture, that what they are doing is wrong.

I also remembered talking with my upstairs neighbor, back in our military life, who was the wife of a new physician and she was telling me about how doctors are trained to have emotional distance from their patients, because of the things they must do to those patients. My husband says it's the same kind of emotional distance that is trained into soldiers, police officers, and first responders. If those people are not tethered to a religious tradition, specifically Christianity, it is easy for them to go very wrong. I'm thinking, that for an abortionist doctor it must be much more treacherous. He doesn't even try to save people. It's all about the number of corpses.

Anonymous said...

The percentage of Americans believing abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances, or legal in all circumstances, has remained consistent for decades. The same can pretty much also be said for Americans faith in our representatives to determine military actions.

Who gets to kill who, for what and when doesn’t seem very scientifically or morally consistent. Opinions are all over the place.

Yet our universe seems to maintain certain universal laws as far as telescopes and microscopes can see.

Ideally there’d be theistic conferences to determine universal laws which everybody could agree on. As it is now it’s just most people yelling at each other and a few corrupt leaders profiting from all the yelling. Nobody knows how to end this thing once and for all.

Anonymous said...

Hello Anonymous 6:42

I liked your comment, in part:
"I say we go there for sport. God was a conservative of the authoritarian flavor. Jesus was a liberal except for the part where he rebuked the Pharisees (gays) and the scribes (liberal media). Almost a prodigal son, methinks.

So... anyone care to guess which is the Holy Spirit?"

Logically, the Holy Spirit would be a middle-of-the-road spirit, very balanced and serene.

So, between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we get a broad personality band range and wide political spectrum.

That leaves each believer to choose their philosophy freely and no matter the choice, it will have a backing in Heaven.

That being said, let's have a shout out for Joe Biden, a Holy Spirit kind of guy. Switch party affiliation if you have to and vote for this guy.

Thank, Tapuwasi in Ecuador.

Anonymous said...

Hi All.

Anonymous 12:52, your comment in part read:

"Ideally there’d be theistic conferences to determine universal laws which everybody could agree on. As it is now it’s just most people yelling at each other and a few corrupt leaders profiting from all the yelling. Nobody knows how to end this thing once and for all."

A standardized religion which all gladly accept, to the exclusion of any other, would be a wondrous thing. The world would be a more harmonious place.

Some nations have tried to bring this about by force and it has historically never worked. It has to be a free choice gladly made.

I am hard at work on a universal religion which I will unveil in 2026. It relies on demonstrable miracles (suspension/flouting of the laws of physics) to convince believers. I believe I can get up to 97% conversion.
This religion is called "OnanO" and as I alluded to it will be the first religion easily verifiable by all and instantly acceptable.

I can hardly wait, the suspense is unbearable.

Tapuwasi

Anonymous said...

Anon at 9/17/2019 01:04:00 PM, with all due respect, Biden sucks. He's a "third way democrat" (establishment neoliberal/neocon) who currently plays for the D team.

He's a political sports mercenary sorta like Lebron James who played for home team Cleveland (Yay!), then Miami (Boo!), then back home to Cleveland again (Yay!). Then to LA (WTF?). What fans are he even loyal to anymore?

Biden makes bank off credit card companies just like McConnell rakes it in from the NRA. Maybe next year they'll switch "sides"? Worked for Tucker Carlson and Bill Kristol. Biden is also clearly going senile, faster than Trump, and he hates millennials. Cant trust him. Cranky old Bernie may want you to get off his lawn half the time but at least he's being honest. Trusting honesty seems a good first step.

As you've probably guessed by now, I see MSNBC/Fox as nothing more than a Punch-n-Judy puppet show with fake attacks against each others heroes. Rachel Maddow said as much when swooning about her love affair with Roger Ailes. It's all about the dough for these establishment types.

Anonymous said...

Anon at 9/17/2019 01:20:00 PM,

So anyhow, on to more serious stuff. What I was trying to say at 9/17/2019 12:32:00 PM was that all this barking and howling from both sides, and maybe the middle side, doesn't seem to do much of anything. Nothing ever changes. We need that new universal science-backed religion ASAP. It is science-backed is it not?

I have a sister from the high school cheerleader / college MRS. degree class. Like the others she married well and never had to work outside the home. She's also a conservative evangelical because that's what her breadwinner is. She recently told me they don't associate with "leftists". Her opinions are very firm, until things change, and she moves onto another very firm opinion forgetting about the last one.

For example when Obama turned out to not be a Muslim climatey socialist, and moved into his multimillion dollar Wall Street funded Martha's Vineyard waterfront estate, she forgot all about it. She used to give out subscriptions to Weekly Standard as Christmas gifts, up until Kristol became uncool/defunct. She forgot all about that one too.

My point is that she latches onto beliefs very firmly, then after they're proven wrong she just forgets all about it and moves onto the next one. I tried to warn her that impartial observers may conclude that she's a bimbo, plus a poor representative of conservative evangelism . Now she's thinking of shunning me along with the leftists. I sure hope your foolproof religion happens quick-like, so she can latch onto that one and then I won't have to worry about her anymore.

Christina M said...

I was thinking just yesterday that you must be a lot o' fun at family gatherings, sockpuppet, and now I have my answer. Just because you and your family are moral relativists doesn't mean the people you are mouthing off at are.

Olden Ears said...

There is a tone or spirit in this comments thread that I can't put my finger on, but I'm not used to seeing it here.

julie said...

Anons. I still can't decide whether it's paid shills or bots, or possibly both. Unfortunate, since every now and then a real person would anonymously comment and say something interesting, but these days if there's no name I just skim on past.

Anonymous said...

Christina M: And to think I used to be the mirthful one. My ailing grandpa used to say: Never get old. To that I would add the ultimate wisdom: Never lose. Everybody will hate you for it.

Shorter Julie: "Everybody sucks when they can't be exactly like me. Or they're just a bot."

Olden Ears: One of the unusual things about this place is that it's just like in church. Nobody at church ever openly challenges the minister. I agree that allowing the choir to heckle the minister doesn't make for a good church. But this place isn't a church.

This seems to be more of a metaphysical philosophers watering hole, where I'd think that peer review (or brawls) would refine arguments. If this was a place solely for hope, no worries. But our host frequently disparages an entire segment of Christianity. He appears to claim that one cannot be a good Christian without purging everything "leftist" from the thinking. I don't agree with everything "leftist". But I come from a time when both governments behaved more like loyal adversaries, to solve national problems, than mindless authoritarian supporters. I don't think claiming ownership of Jesus makes ones solutions better.

What tone should this place have?

Christina M said...

I don't think the shills need to be paid to shill. It's called "sh**posting = "the activity of posting deliberately provocative or off-topic comments, typically in order to upset others or distract from the main conversation." It probably sits around in some dark apartment with nothing better to do. I find it extremely distracting, even when I try to ignore it. I wish Dr. Bob would ask it to leave. I get a lot from Dr. Bob's posts and comments from some of the people I recognize here. Massive revelations and aha moments. But I seriously dislike the thing that sits in the comment section.

sh**posting bot said...

RE abortion.

Since yelling, shaming, protesting... isn’t changing things much, why not try a more Christian strategy?

Have one less genetic child and adopt instead. Christians are always telling me what a difference raising kids within a church makes. Show the world what an awesome adult that adopted kid became when it would’ve otherwise been disposed of.

Who doesn't think that strategy would change minds?

The good comments said...

Free speech works when the attitude of "we're all in this together" is prevalent in the common culture.

But we have a divided culture, IMHO, probably created/enhanced by establishment elites, Russians, Wahabbis, and other enemies of the American republic.

Maybe a time out is the best strategy.

Anonymous said...

Hello Anon 9:21

I appreciate your interest in OnanO, the universal new religion. The pilot study indicates OnanO initiates exhibited 100% continued usage after 38 months. Basically more than 3 years after going ON (the term for initiation), not a single initiate has stopped using the new religion. That is simply amazing.

The bad news is the pilot group is closed (no new members may be on-boarded). This group must be monitored for a full 10 years before roll-out for the public can occur. The group went ON January 16th, 2016, so that date in 2026 is the soonest possible availability.

There will be a waiting list compiled starting in 2021. Those on the list would be among the first eligible to go ON in '26.

Pricing is not set at this point, but it will not be cheap. Development and testing are very costly for the Institute and we have to recover these expenses for our stakeholders. I hope you will understand, we are not trying gouge the public. Profits are projected to be modest. Financing will available as well to those in need who cannot afford to pay the full price up front.

We think OnanO will be worth every penny and then some.

Regards, Tapuwasi of Ecuador.

Anonymous said...

Would it be possible to enroll my sister at that time? She likely won't go willingly, so I'd advise sending a little white van with a few "nice men". She's rich and impressionable, and has only ever made excellent life's choices such as being born attractive and ignorant enough to land an unethical mate with possible latency issues, providing excellent cover for him. What I'm saying is that she'd be worth the effort.

Myself, I may be too far gone. Once mirthful and ambitious, now just a pathetic party pooper incapable of aha moments outside of the cynical realm.

Have you ever watched Remini's Scientology series?

River Cocytus said...

I like Biden myself, but he's a little worse for wear in the winter of his days. Nearly all of those people are mercenaries of some kind (this is the historical fact of democracy;) it's more of a question of 'for whom', and 'how loyal' and then further 'can they be bought for us', and then 'for how much'. I suspect most of them simply blow with the wind, as Trump's endorsement of LGBT issues shows, whether sincere or insincere, and make their bread by being purchasable by our present course of elite donors who mostly have destructive and foolish whims and will nowise make truck with someone who shows common sense.

---

re: abortion

no, the 'Christian' solution isn't taking in unwanted kids. No "show" will make a difference here (this misunderstands the nature of power and why abortion is legal.) Yet, if there were a solution here, it would be supporting fathers so that fewer children have no fathers or are thus otherwise unwanted. This would be a political solution and one that could be made very popular simply by dint of the fact that it appears as something addressing immediate needs of the mass, although perhaps not in the way they would have asked themselves.

If you're going to adopt unwanted kids, that's fine, but don't adopt some kind of diversity circus for show, that is pornographic. In any case, people who can have kids shouldn't be the first adopters, but those who want them and cannot.

---

Universal science backed religion? That's Christianity buddy. scientia - knowledge - is what our religion is based on my man! As Athanasius himself notes, God reveals himself to us through Jesus (as he is the Lord of the 'old testament') and so we have concrete, sensible and empirical knowledge of God through him. If that's not 'physical science', I don't know what is. If anyone thinks that Christianity is a matter of faith whereas science is a matter of knowledge, one ought to read the Fathers of the 1st 1000 years - they don't talk about 'my faith', but rather, the truth; they believe it not because of their faith, but because it is true. You can have faith in it, because it is true.

The same logic a lot of people use to believe in 'science' is simply misplaced religious sentiment, displaced mainly by political and cultural power setting themselves against a divided and confused set of American 'Christianities'.

---

Bob, Bion's pre-conception idea reminds me a lot of Plato, with recollection: recollections are like that, the things you 'know from BEFORE' (in whatever fashion that may be conceived, it needn't mean pre-existence or reincarnation, it could just be the imprint of your logoi--) which experience makes you 'remember' (literally, re-attach!) though you never 'knew' them at all.

Anonymous said...

@ River Cocytus,

IMHO, the primary problem with our intellectuals isn’t their understanding of the nature of power, but their lack of understanding of the rest of us, of “the mob”. They don't seem able to relate to our often silly and counterproductive sinful nature.

Everybody knows about Marx’s folly. But witness Russell Kirk's 9th Conservative Principle:

Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions.

Easily grasped by intellectuals and a fair number of educated humanists of any stripe. But amongst the mob rank and file, with all the successful psychopathy, authoritarian supporters, easily tribalized and conned highly defense mechanized masses, not to mention all the Dunning-Krugers out there... we're talking about herding cats.

River Cocytus said...

This ain't true: the average person is very governable, so long as you aren't fixing to put them on Procrustes Bed. One might say their penchant for mob rule is an indicator for your common sense: people want to be ruled.

Some just require more direction than others. If you've run a business, you know that there's a rough hierarchy. It's not really the mob you need to worry about, but the intellectuals, as they're the ones that always suggest some mad, unnatural kind of misrule to the mob.

Sometimes that misrule comes in the form of "Authoritarianism". Other times, "Libertarianism". The spirit of the times--! Intellectuals are, if nothing else, the fashionable class.

Anonymous said...

Dunno. Bob seems to frequently say that most people want to be free, that it’s their natural state. I rarely see anybody driving at the posted speed which is the official rule. There wouldn’t be any financial panics if everybody just listened to the ruling voice of reason. Wall Street sure doesn’t always play by the rules, and most large corporations bend them for sure. Golden rule, much? I try to, but so many don’t, especially when rulers aren’t looking. And don’t get me started on psychopaths, malignant narcissists, and others from the dark triad, masters of trying to rule while themselves rule breaking.

Marx anticipated that people would just naturally want to be ruled by what he viewed was natural law, communism, with disastrous results. So did Hitler with his master visions. Neoliberalism seemed a swell deal, selling that it’s better to have free trade than wars, but enforced regulations may actually be the most beneficial for most workers.

Somebody I didn’t like but I had to listen to told me that most humans are domesticated primates, that most humans want to be controlled but only in ways acceptable to them. To me it seems that the degree to which one wants to be ruled can be significantly influenced by the culture and economic conditions.

Not trying to contradict, but I think there’s more to the story than just fashionable intellectuals and gullible supplicants.

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