“What is your favorite color?”

Really?  I’m on to them now.  I see the brainwashing inherent in the system, revealed in the question, applied in the assumptions.

Now, don’t get me wrong…I’m not a conspiracy theorist.  I’m not even that interested in conspiracies generally because, to me,  I just sort of assume that those in power use that power to fuck everyone over behind the scenes.  So what’s the novelty?  Where’s the surprise?  To me, lying and abuse of power by those who assume authority covertly will seek to maintain that authority covertly.  If it turns out that the government did have something to do with 911 or Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination…shrug.  It just sort of falls in line with everything I’ve been saying about those who think they have a right to BE everyone else…which is precisely the assumption held by those who presume to have some kind of divine enlightenment which grants them the power of the Primary Consciousness (the “church”, the “party”, the “people”, the “tribe”, the “Bible”…pick your tyrannical flavor of the month) to use force (violence) to compel human behavior.  And as soon as minds become fair game…well, lives are usually the flip side of the coin.  Remember, in every form of government ever established with the exception of certain representative governments such as the pre-Saul Jewish state and the American Constitutional Republic founded by Washington, et. al., which was built upon the legacy of John Locke and the Enlightenment, you don’t EXIST as a human being apart from the “collective” which is defined, continuously and impetuously, by the state.  So when I say conspiracy?  I am not trying to be a sensationalist.  I am trying to say…

Typical.

Still…take this with a grain of salt.  Whatever “conspiracy” may have existed as the purpose of the question, “What is your favorite color?”,  in some form or another in the past has long since been buried under the the many blankets of history…it isn’t so much a conspiracy now as it is a testimony to the fact that the conspiracy to push Platonism on the world actually worked quite well.  And now, there is no conspiracy to push Platonism on everyone, there is just…well, Platonism. In its  many tyrannical forms.  Catholicism, Calvinism, Marxism, Scientific determinism, Biblicism, and so on and so forth.  We are at the point now where most of us just shut up and tithe, to use a metaphor here. We bow our heads and surrender our wills and our property to strangers in front of plexiglass podiums because we think that just because they SAY they have been called by God to rule over you as God in-the-stead (which really just means “God”, period) then that is a good enough argument according to the philosophical assumptions that form the crux of all thought in the world today:  we can’t know truth; the pastors (or whatever leaders) must know it for us.  So we all just shrug and accept the fact that those urinal cakes in the men’s room aren’t going to clean themselves.  And off we go with our brushes and bottles.  Remember, being approved by God is biblically defined by doing a lot of free shit for the owners of the business called the “local church”.

This post will probably be a little more tongue-in-cheek than I want it to be.  What I mean by that is that I think there is something to this…I mean, at some point Platonism had to be foisted upon civilization.  What is “learned” at the academic level, in whatever generation, has a funny and persistent way of becoming “divine inspiration” when the academics are discussing their ideas with the masses.  In other words, what “educated” people discuss and and debate to arrive at their conclusions within the four walls of their ivory towers (with the requisite amount of beheadings and stake-burnings of the requisite number of detractors…Michael Servetus comes to mind) tends to be introduced by means of something like a slow, almost subconscious intravenous drip.  The masses in general never get a chance to debate these ideas because, well,  they just aren’t smart enough we are told.  The “laws of logic and nature which govern” are introduced as the primary consciousness of whatever body of thought happens to be in question, and they are bulwarked by small ideas, notions, rhetorical and self-serving questions, and “truisms” which are intended to be easily digestible, bite-sized morsels with which to fatten up the masses for the slaughter.

Okay, I’m sounding like an old crank.  And I don’t begrudge academics…oh good grief no.  How many times have we heard the mystic overlords rail against evolution or big-bang theory, plowing ahead with their rhetoric despite their utter lack of experience and education, possessing not even a rudimentary knowledge of the science? So it isn’t that, necessarily.  It’s more like…when you realize at a certain point in your life that you have been had by a foundational philosophy which infects essentially every body of thought and every idea in the world and is responsible for so much human destruction that even natural selection couldn’t hold a candle to its eviscerating power, you begin to see all the tidbits pointing to the philosophy which swirl about the culture and the language like tiny snowflakes as, you know, actually being there.  It’s like, you always knew they were there, but you didn’t really see them.  But now they are in your eyes and they sting like hell and you just want them to go away because you realize you can’t ignore them anymore.

Hence, here is me, offering this post for your pleasure.  Yes, here is me, probably reading way too much into this, and yet here is me compelled to pontificate about it in a way that will try to convince you that, no, in fact I’m not reading way too much into it, and that these little trivialities have done more to make you a slave of the philosophical destruction of modern epistemology, up to and including almost all of Christian “orthodoxy”, than you probably realized.

And…okay, maybe you’re right.  Maybe it’s not so much conspiracy theorizing as it as cynicism.  In either case, I don’t think I’m that far off the mark.

*

“What is your favorite color?” was probably the first question about which you were genuinely excited.  And you answered, like we all did and still do: Blue.  Green.  Red. Periwinkle. Okay, maybe not periwinkle, but you get the idea.  ‘Yes, Argo, I know what colors are’, you are saying in your mind.  ‘Thanks for that brilliant tutorial on common knowledge.’

And I respond by telling you that your answer to this question is a glaring indication that you still concede the Platonist foundational assumptions which form the philosophical superstructure of the entire western world today, if not THE world in general.  And as soon as you walk out of your annual meeting of the Discernment Blogger Institute for Free Thinking Thumbers of Noses I approach you as you hail a cab and I ask you “What is your favorite color?” and you say “blue” and I shake my head and put my arm around your shoulder and offer to buy you a drink while we sit down and talk about why it is you haven’t learned a fucking thing.

“But Argo, I know what colors are.  What haven’t I supposedly learned?”  And I tell you that you haven’t learned to come out of your meeting of the Free Thinking of Thumbers of Noses and not immediately concede the opposition’s entire fucking philosophical premise before you even get to the street!

And do you you really know what colors are?  Do you really think that the answer you provide is rational?  By that I mean, logically consistent?  If I were to ask you this question, and you said “blue”, and then I were to say “okay, show me blue”…do you know what you would do?  I bet I do.  I bet I know what you would do.  You would  look at me like I was an idiot and walk away.  And then I would chase you and pester you and follow you to work and throw paper airplanes at your head while you were typing on your computer, and jelly beans in your coffee and eventually out of sheer exasperation you would go, “What do you want from me, you freak?!”  And I would say “Show me blue.”

And you would pick up one of the jelly beans that missed your coffee and it would be a blue jelly bean and you would throw it back at me where it would ricochet off my glasses and land in my coffee and you would say with a smirk: “That!  That’s blue.”

But its not, you see.

It’s NOT blue at all.  It is a jelly bean, which we have qualified as “blue”.  We have made a distinction of a characteristic of an observable object (jelly bean) and have used a conceptual abstraction (“blue”, from the “macro” conceptual category of “color”) to define the object’s existence relative to other objects.  And incidentally, “blue” is just one of the many conceptual abstractions we use to qualify that particular object’s existence as relatively distinct from that of other objects.  The size, shape, smell, speed as it went through the air at my head, even the label “jelly bean”, itself…they are all abstractions used to define relative existence. Products of our conceptualizing brains.

You see, “blue” doesn’t actually exist.  Blue is an entirely theoretical concept.  We have a picture of “blue” in our minds, but even that very picture is a product of the senses.  The eyes at some point when you were just a youngling had seen an OBJECT which was called “blue” by someone you trust, probably mommy, and then confirmed by other people in your world and you noticed pretty quickly that there was a reasonable consensus about the application of that label according to the the language and thus you understood “blue” to mean that characteristic of whatever object you were observing at any given moment.  The image was thus fixed in your mind from that point on; and by now–through a lifetime of experience and persistent and consistent verification by society–your ability to properly qualify objects as “blue” is utterly firm…all of this without ever having actually seen “blue”.

Now, some of you might appeal to “light” as the standard of color.  But, Argo, you will protest.  I understand all that.  Blue isn’t really the Jellybean, it is the frequency of the light waves hitting our eyes making it look blue to us, the same way we see blue when we look a the sky.  Light is a composite of all colors, and how we see specific hues is merely due to the physical properties of objects which dictate how they absorb certain frequencies of light and reflect others.

How true…and how astute.  Obviously, you’re an educated soul.  Nothing wrong with that; and nothing you’ve said is false by any conventional standard.

But what is light, I ask, that it may be a “composite of colors”?

Light is a photon.  And a photon is what?

A thing.  An object.

And what are colors apart from this thing we call a photon?

A  conceptual abstraction.  Yes, even for color to exist at the subatomic level requires, well…an actual subatomic level, right?  A level full of THINGS which we can label as the “carriers of color”.  And further, you’ll notice in physics “forces” don’t actually observably exist.  There are “particles” which are the “force carriers”.  Even in physics there are real forces which somehow exist without needing to present themselves to man’s tools of apprehension (senses) or consistent logic (the logic which demands that everything which we qualify as existing must be a function of what is observable).  This should tell us a lot about the Platonist assumptions under-girding “hard science”.

But notice what this question–what is your favorite color?–does.  It reinforces not the fact that blue is an abstraction, but that it is an actuality.  That it IS something which can exist to be called a “favorite” thing.  Perhaps not in so many words, but that is the clear implication.  And the problem with this implication is obvious, or should be–namely the fact that colors do NOT exist by any reasonable definition.  And with this question we are asking someone to describe a favorite thing amongst a group of things which don’t actually materially exist.  So instead of asking the question, “If we consider this particular object, what color of it is your favorite?”, we choose the more abstract rout, which serves, I submit to reinforce the false notion that abstract concepts are causal.  The more reasonable rendering of the question is more like:  What is your favorite color of car?  Red.  What is your favorite color of dress?  Black.  What is your favorite color of wine?  White.

But no, the question is: What is your favorite color?

I stopped considering this a legitimate question a long time ago.  You see, at some point I realized that the question as it was commonly presented was quite silly.  Now, understand that I had no knowledge of Platonism as a philosophical superstructure back in those days.  I wasn’t really considering the difference between the actual and the conceptual…that didn’t register to me on John Immel’s “so what?” meter.  Back then, I would have said something perfunctory (and scary) like, “Yeah…of course math is real”, and went on my way with nary an inkling of the absurdity.  With nary a blush at such a flip and casual rejection of my own ability to observe reality.  Without even a brief start at how easily I could utterly reject any rational epistemology.  Still the question, “What is your favorite color?” just seemed…hmm, somehow all wrong.

I realized that I had been answering “green” all these years in the full awareness that I did not, in fact, desire everything in my life to be green.  I didn’t want my meatloaf to be green, for example.  Or my hair.  I despised the horribly tacky green bagels and green beer served every year on St. Patrick’s day.  I liked my cars red.  My coffee black.  My glasses frames sliver.  And I thought how silly for me to say I have a favorite color when clearly all reason pointed to the fact that this was simply not so.  I did not really prefer green.  My preference for green was actually quite arrow.  I liked a pair of green Dr. Marten shoes I had once.  And I wouldn’t want Ireland to be a desert brown.  But other than that, there wasn’t much I wanted green.

It was then I started answering this common question with, “Well, it depends”.  And it did.  I wanted an OBJECT on which to hang the concept on.  Without an object, the answer was utterly meaningless.  Because “green” doesn’t exist, green apples exist.  Black doesn’t exist, black cars exist…and so on. I learned that in order to rationally apply a wholly abstract concept required an object in order for the abstraction to have any value; to make any efficacious sense.  And this, incidentally is true not only for “color”, but for any abstraction we use to define objects.

The point is a simple one.  Look around and you will see how our society utterly roots itself in a de facto application of Platonism.  Whether we are talking color or time or direction or numbers or energy or force…notice the perfunctory assumption that somehow the existence of these concepts doesn’t necessarily require an observable, material object by which they can be valued.  Look at how often people cite the “laws of nature”, or the “laws of logic”…as though these things, like the Wizard of Oz, hide behind the curtain of reality and pull their determinist strings in order to give “existence” and “truth” to all that you see.  What is unseen is the source of the seen…which means that you aren’t really ever grasping TRUTH.  For TRUTH is a direct function of what lies behind the curtain of Platonist assumptions, hidden from all mortal eyes…and this is the root of all the oppression and violations of man.  An little innocent question like “what is your favorite color?” has massively destructive implications for human beings.

I heard a fairly well-known, Ph.D. level Christian scientist today refer to “God’s laws of logic”.  So now it seems that God is directly responsible for creating and defining abstract concepts which man can by no means ever observe but which man is somehow utterly beholden to.  Indeed, in a brief sentence, this hangman of reason managed to combine two Primary Consciousnesses into one great juggernaut of epistemological darkness.  And these are the best and brightest Christianity has to offer.  Dude…we are sooo in trouble here.

When the question is merely, “What is your favorite color?”, then the object which is an absolute prerequisite for one to observe “color” is completely removed from the equation.  And through this kind of thinking–this kind of subtle conditioning–we learn to put the cart before the horse.  We learn that what does NOT exist must precede, or as I would say, give value, to that which DOES.  Color gives value to the object by preceding it in the Platonist metaphysical food chain.   Abstractions give value, not the other way around.  In other words, it is not the jelly bean which is green, it is green which is the jelly bean.

And that backwards equation will lead to death.  For if the sum and substance of the TRUTH of what you see is unseen, then the sum and substance of its GOOD is unseen, and its VALUE is unseen.  This makes it impossible for you to really know anything at all because your senses have been eliminated from your epistemology.  Thus, you have no means to  challenge the tyrant, because you have no tools with which to fish for truth, let alone catch it.

Therefore, you have no standard of justice upon which to appeal when you are driven to the gas chambers.  You have no definition of SELF by which to demand that your government or your church “authority” stop robbing you blind.  You have no standard of LOVE to appeal to when they rip your family away from you and sell them into slavery.  You have no inherent “self evident” right to LIFE upon which to anchor yourself when they tie you to the stake and burn you for your apostasy.

So…I will ask you again.

What is your favorite color?

I have been having a debate with Paul Dohse on his blog http://www.paulspassingthoughts.com recently (link- http://paulspassingthoughts.com/2013/11/21/biblical-metaphysics-more-free-writing-notes/#comments).  In this debate I have asked several times for him to tell me what he thinks the standard of TRUTH is.  I know he is a “biblicist” (a proponent of biblical inerrancy), and so I feel like he wants to say “Bible”…but he won’t do it.  I’m not sure why, but I have a pretty good idea.

You see, if he says anything other than “man’s LIFE”, which is my unequivocal standard of TRUTH, this puts TRUTH outside of man, which puts authority outside of man’s life as well, because what is absolute truth must be considered to have a MORAL monopoly on the force that is authority.  And if truth is outside of man and authority is outside of man, then Paul has no actual, objective, nor reasonably defensible grounds for savaging the Calvinists like he does.  Why?  Because he concedes the exact same premise: absolute truth is outside of man, absolutely, and therefore, man can NEVER be in a position to know ANYTHING.  And if man can by his very existential being, never really know anything, then man cannot ever question any idea at all, because…how the hell would he know?  If truth must be bestowed, somehow, upon man, and cannot be learned, then how do we know upon whom it has been bestowed?  Therefore, who the person is who gets to be the “authority” over truth, and thus has the moral right to force others into right thinking eventually just becomes an argument that goes like this:

“God said I’m right!”

“No, He didn’t!  That’s impossible!”

“Oh yeah, how do you figure!”

“Because He told me I’m right!”

In BOTH Paul’s and the neo-Calvinist’s ideology the Bible is the source of all truth and authority.  Which means IT is truth and authority.  Thus, the fight isn’t really over any significant change in how we understand reality, it is merely a fight over who gets to say what the Bible really means.  But, since in BOTH schools of thought (Paul’s and the neo-Calvinist’s) the Bible is the very proof of its own truth, it is impossible for them to actually KNOW what the Bible really says, because the Bible, being absolute truth outside of man, isn’t actually telling them anything at all.  It is its own end.   If the Bible IS TRUTH, and does not require the standard of man’s life as a yardstick for its TRUTH, then the only logical purpose of the Bible is simply to BE the Bible. The Bible is true because and only because it is the Bible.  Any interpretation of it thus insofar as man seeks to apply it to his life (as if that’s even possible) is categorically irrelevant.

Thus, Paul’s fight is simply this:  who has a more “convincing” form of the exact same argument.  Who is better able to persuade people that their opponent is liar?  And if that doesn’t work, well…guns are considered the great equalizer.  If you can’t beat ’em, shoot ’em.  And that’s what it always, always, always boils down to when we concede that ANYTHING outside of individual human life is the standard of truth.

So, this latest exchange has got me thinking.  Is it time to shake the dust…for those of us really and truly interested in a faith that has an end and an identity beyond fear and ignorance…is it time to look for a harvest elsewhere.  Is it time to concede that Christians today are just too far down the rabbit hole of orthodoxy to be led out.  Has the rope gotten too short?

Possibly.  For me…it is discouraging.  I’ll admit, I am pessimistic.  The Christian identity is rank FEAR now, which is why they continue to retreat into their caves on the mountains, like the Israelites.  They huddle together in packs and cling to their insane ideas like “literal six day creationism” or “the Word is the Authority”…ideas that are simply indefensible to anyone else, even a “secular” world which, despite is many flaws, at least concedes in general that the senses are the root of truth, not “revelation”.  I hate the Platonism of science, but at least scientists pay lip service to observable evidence.  The observation by  man is entirely irrelevant and illusory to Christians today…your senses deceive you; what you see washes nothing with “truth”.   And the pack lashes out violently and blindly at anyone who would dare challenge the idols on their mantles.  Look at how man people are run out of town on a rail from sites like Wartburg Watch for daring to offend the sensibilities of the blog hosts, or the e-Pastor, or the readers by proclaiming the irrationality of “orthodoxy”.

Anyhow, here is an e-mail I sent to my friend, John Immel.  I often seek solace in John’s heavy intellect.  In a sea of Christian insanity, he is one of a smattering of faces of reason.  A brilliant person, he reminds me that Christians don’t have to be woefully ignorant and stubborn to the point of utter spiritual death.  It’s just that most of them are.

That sounds mean and arrogant.  Too bad.  That is how much I hate it when you call the “Bible” the “Word”.  I know what you are doing.  You are calling the Bible, God…removing all distinctions between Him in the Heavens and the talisman you worship.  And by doing that, you remove the distinction between you “interpretation” and God.  And by doing that you make YOURSELF God.  And that is not cool. The Bible ceases to lead people to their lives and to God and leads them to YOU instead. That’s…wrong.

Here’s the letter.

That’s a great point.  Just enjoy learning…enjoy the pursuit of truth.  I tend to get wrapped up in the results; where, really, all that really matters is that I can now properly define MY life.  I cannot define anyone else’s for them.  So, yes, we should just enjoy being US, and understanding that this is exactly the point of existence.  Existence, life…are ends of themselves.

Unfortunately, you are right…most people don’t buy that, so sooner or later they are GOING to want to force you to NOT be you, by whatever primary consciousness they declare is truth.

I see this a bit on some blogs…it is not a matter of intellect, it is a matter of ideology.  They merely disagree because my conclusion is not convenient to their argument–that MAN’S life is the prerequisite for ALL truth; which is axiomatic, for how can you concede truth if you don’t exist FIRST, which means that YOU must be YOU first, before even God can be truly God in any way that He can rationally be defined as “God”.  If God is the God of the living, this presumes that LIFE is a prerequisite for Him being man’s God.  But this idea is an anathema to them, because they concede that if there isn’t any authority or truth outside of man dictating the sum and substance of his life for him, then there will be rank moral relativism; an orgy of sin.  Well, look around…has the Platonist assumption led to peace on Earth anywhere?!!!  If the standard of truth is man’s life, then the standard is knowable and observable; it is also utterly metaphysically and epistemologically consistent.  It is also completely compatible with a Creator God because now God can actually be KNOWN as God; thus, He has a purpose for man which is not only knowable, but practically applicable.

I ask, what is the standard of TRUTH.

They will not answer me.  Because it can only be MAN, and they , like so many, are just terrified to admit this.  But their beliefs are FAR more terrifying, because if it is something else, then ultimately man MUST be sacrificed in service to the EXTERNAL truth; because truth is absolute and immovable.  In order for truth to be absolute, everything in existence must be laid down in service to it.  In other words, the death of everything is required.  This is why they I suspect have such a hard time saying that truth is MAN…because if truth is MAN then they believe that this somehow strips God of His power.  This is of course is completely backwards…a product of the evolution of Platonism as the singular philosophical foundation for all of western thought.  The truth is that God’s power can only be truly revealed, loved, worshiped, adored and honored when it can be known.  In a construct where truth is outside of man, it is existentially removed from him, and thus, man is never in any position to know truth.  Without this ability, man can never really know God, or, even worse, be known by Him.

I am done with all “discernment blogs” from now on.  I am over it.  There are perhaps a smattering of Christians here and there that “get it”, but most are just too far down the rabbit hole of orthodoxy to see any light.  And, the constant appeal to the cul-de-sac of Platonist logic disguised under a the altruistic facade of “biblical inerrancy” is wearisome. Once we concede that the Bible is the “Word”, we have set up an idol…we have made God a thing to be handled by special priests “called” to “ministry”.  We have removed the distinction between God and a book…which, even if it were God’s very words to man wouldn’t make those words GOD, Himself.  Even God’s words must affirm man as the standard of GOOD and TRUTH in order to be true; so even if the book were written by God, Himself, it would still need to be held to the standard of LIFE for it to be both reasonable and relevant.  But there I go again, offending the poor abused…the neo-neo-Calvinist (as I am starting to think of the new discernment crowd) virtue in a vacuum.  So anyway…yeah, the “Word”… really, this just means we have removed the distinction between God and those people who would hold it aloft and cry “My Power, My God!”.  This is idolatry and paganism, and the implications are profound.  I am too old to be a hypocrite any longer.

I love Christ…I utterly reject the epistemology of Christianity, as it were.

There are some pretty cool philosophy blogs I’ve been checking out lately.  I think my time is better spent over there.  There is a better harvest for Christ than can be found amongst today’s Christians.

Isn’t it always that way?

“That which is infinite must be absent an observer, and that which is absent an observer must be infinite. That which is infinite cannot exist, because existence is a qualifier/quantifier which cannot be applied except by an observer, who cannot, by definition, be in the presence of the infinite.  If something exists, it is not infinite, but finite, because the presence of the observer mitigates the “self’ of that thing which would otherwise be infinite (and thus without any qualification) absent the presence of the observer.  Therefore, when the observer is removed from the metaphysical AND physical equation, all things are infinite, and are thus utterly valueless.  Why?  Because observation is existence.  Truly then, every human observer creates in the conceptual sense the existence of what they observe…they define TRUTH.  God, of course, creates what ACTUALLY is observed; He creates what IS.  God then creates objects (by observation), and man creates meaning (by observation).  Man’s power to create meaning and TRUTH is man’s word (the language of man); God’s power to create material objects in order that man may observe them and conceptually organize them with respect to himself as THE standard of TRUTH is God’s Word (the language of God).  This is why Jesus is often thought of as the Word of God.  Jesus is the material actualization of God within man’s existential frame of reference.  Jesus is the supreme material revelation which proves the power of God’s Word (His ability to create anything absolutely).  This of course presumes that the Bible is not, in fact, God’s  “Word”; which it is not.  

“Absolute to absolute.  Determinism to determinism.  Free to free.  Infinity to infinity.  Any attempt to couple these notions…to couple what is limitless to its limitless opposite (a free agent, like the Creator, observing His determined Creation) will result in an utter schism of reason; an inexorable contradiction in terms, a contradiction of TRUTH, and an irreconcilable chasm within man’s whole existential philosophy.”

The first quote is a thought from my head.  The second a quote from my notes, via my head.  I believe them to be axiomatic, having thought upon them for quite some time.  And no, to answer the question in your mind right now (perhaps), it doesn’t take much more than that.  Much more than thinking.  I mean…think about it, that’s all.  With respect to the second quote:  How does the free interact with the determined?  We presume this to be TRUTH so quickly and instinctively that we scarcely blink when we are presented with such a notion:  “God has planned out for you every day for the rest of your life.”  But try to reconcile that in your mind.  Your days are determined, and you are determined then, by extension, because the salient component of your day is…you.  But God, they demand, is utterly free, unfettered by determinist forces, doing what he pleases, with no predictable rationale.

How can that be possible?  How can God “freely determine”.  For if we remove any observable object from the equation, be it man or any other material substance in the universe, and strictly put in a “box” the concepts of “free” and “determined” it doesn’t take much to realize that these concepts, denied any object by which they can be valued, must be utterly infinite; that is, defined merely by the value of “itself”.  The only definition remaining is that they are what they are, period, full stop (and even that definition is a qualifier which is antithetical to an “is”…the real point is that a thing which is both infinite and absent an observer cannot exist because it can in no way be qualified or quantified as as existing).   So, the notions must be infinite.  And thus the question becomes:  how can infinite concepts be coupled in a way that does not contradict them?

But here is the thing:  according to our perfunctory Platonism we don’t remove observable objects, including man, from the equation.  We simply reverse the thinking.  Instead of what actually exists as a part of the material universe giving value to the otherwise infinite conceptual abstractions (like determinism and free; up and down; space and time; red and blue), we declare that those infinite, unobservable concepts somehow give value to what is material.  But the problem is that this does not mitigate the infinity of the concepts…they are still infinite and thus cannot be said to exist with respect to us.  Why?  Because the concepts cannot be observed…only material objects are observed.  And if they cannot be observed by man, then man has no way to qualify or quantify them.  They are still limitless, by definition…and determined is still infinitely determined, free is still infinitely free, red is still infinitely red, and so on.  All we’ve done is declared that man’s senses–the tools of his observation–are irrelevant.  Useless for declaring truth.  Truth is a function of the infinite unobservable forces which drive the material objects in the universe…and these forces, again, we concede are beyond man’s capacity to KNOW; perhaps we say that we can know the objects they absolutely control, but that avails man nothing in terms of defining what exactly the objects ARE or what they are DOING; for indeed, the objects are, as Plato declares, merely “shadows”…insufficient representations of the all determining forces, or as I call them, the concepts. And…actually,  I would submit that declaring them “shadows” is not in fact a reasonable description.  Because the concepts themselves which govern them do so absolutely, there can be no quantifiable/quantifiable distinction made between the concepts and the objects.  If the concepts are indeed infinite and absolute, then there can be NO separation between the concepts and what they control…because infinity can have no limit.  Thus, man cannot declare the objects shadows.  Man cannot declare them anything at all.  He has no idea and no capacity to explain just what he is observing.  Man’s entire existence is a lie.

Man’s definitions of these concepts then are always and perpetually false…an illusion, or a lie.  Because if man cannot see that which gives value to everything that exists, then man cannot see anything by definition.  If an object he observes is given a value by an infinite concept he cannot see, and thus cannot declare exists, then how does man exactly define the object he is observing? It is impossible.  All of reality is an illusion.  And if all reality is an illusion brought on a determining force which is utterly infinite because it is beyond the scope of man’s senses, then what exactly is man?  How do we even define the human SELF? To say that man is determined by the forces which drive the existence of all material objects in the universe means that man is a product of determinism, and therefore he cannot observe himself in any real way any more than he can observe other objects.  Because observation implies a free agent who can apprehend the truth/reality of what he/she is observing.  If man is determined, then so must be his ability to observe, which means that he cannot freely observe, which means that he cannot separate himself from what he observes…he, like the objects, is merely a product of the determining force.  He can no more apprehend SELF than he can apprehend the TRUTH of the things he observes.

What is my point?  The point is that NO ONE and nothing, not even God, can freely observe that which is determined.  Because “free” and “determined” are mutually exclusive concepts, which, if taken to be actual (that is, existing beyond the abstract value of them applied to material objects man and God observe), must be infinite and absolute.  And, like I said in my second quote above, the coupling of mutually exclusive infinite concepts within a singular existential framework is a complete contradiction in terms.

This contradictory thinking is, unfortunately, the foundational assumption of the most popular philosophy in the world today, I submit:  Platonism, functioning as determinism via the gnostic acceptance of the Primacy of Consciousness.  And the worst part is that it infects the church like an incurable cancer.  It is a totally impossible lie, and yet, it is this which is precisely taught almost categorically, in one form or another, in every single Christian church in America, and likely the world.

Why is this important to understand?  Because I firmly believe that this is a philosophy which denies salvation to the human race because it specifically denies the human race an identity.  And even worse, it makes God utterly unknowable.  The resistance to reason we see in the church is the resistance to the reality of God.  And any philosophy which denies God, can promise salvation…er, how, exactly?  It cannot.

Narrow is the road.  And that is why this is important.  We have generations upon generations who don’t know God and aren’t known by God because they OBSERVE and BELIEVE–which are the fundamentals of human existential reality–that they do not have an existence which is knowable!  There is no THEM to exist…and this is why a omniscient God can declare without contradiction “Depart from Me, for I never knew you.”

“God isn’t up there scratching His head saying, ‘Why did so and so lose his job; why did such and such get diagnosed with cancer?’ God has every day of your life already planned out.”

So said the popular TV preacher to his sprawling audience this morning as I was channel surfing while girding my lions for our family’s weekly excursion into metaphysical madness and epistemological insanity (church…it’s a long story, don’t ask).

This is nothing new.  I have heard a variation of this bullshit dozens of times over the course of my Christian life.  The idea that you are merely an irrelevant observer to your own existence is completely within the pale of orthodoxy with respect to Protestant Christianity.  And, as I stated above, being an irrelevant observer is not really observing at all.  And if you cannot observe, you cannot know, which means you cannot actually define existence, either God’s or your own.  And this is the insidious lie running like a burning thread through the theology of millions and likely billions of people around the world, propagated by the mystics who stand in the surety, and often the wealth, of their lies before those who have decided that they cannot make any rational decision at all save one:  to accept that some mystic behind a podium is more qualified to judge their lives than they are; that truth is not learned, nor applied, but bestowed and ridden like a wave by submitting one’s very SELF to the unobservable force of divine  determinism.

But let’s bring this down to the chalk board of philosophy, removing the vestiges of mysticism and the trappings of lights, and rock-band worship, and annoying, heavily-affected sermons.

How exactly can God be a free witness to the Creation He has determined?  How can man be a free witness to his life, which exists in an environment which is wholly determined?  How can this scenario–the free interacting with the determined–be possible?  How can two mutually exclusive ideas co-exist?  Well, the simple answer is that they cannot, and so this notion that God has planned all your days for you before you knew them must be false.  It cannot be true, at least, not in the determined sense that the neo-Calvinists always mean…and no, one cannot even appeal to God’s mystery to make them true.  The fact is that ideas are either reconcilable or not.  If we make what cannot be true according to man’s observable reality true, then we declare that man can know nothing and therefore, cannot possibly know truth from farce.

Never mind the simple fact that something cannot happen before it happens; it cannot exist before it exists.  To say that God plans your days BEFORE you go through them is precisely a declaration of this impossible idea.  God cannot plan what does not yet exist.  And, further, it cannot exist to God and NOT exist to you because it is your ability to observe objects and conceptualize their relative existence with one another and yourself which is the root of all TRUTH; thus if something doesn’t exist to YOU then it cannot exist period because only YOU are the absolute, inexorable frame of reference for all you know and accept as TRUTH because there can be no distinction between YOU and your LIFE, and you know anything you know and believe anything you believe and define anything you define inexorably and absolutely by your LIFE, and nothing else.  Moreover, existence and non-existence are mutually exclusive concepts which cannot be reconciled in a single object…meaning, your environment, your LIFE, cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.  If your day is not YET, then it does not exist.  And if it does not exist it cannot be planned…it cannot be anything, because NOTHING by definition cannot be something, no matter how hard we may try to make this idea work logically.  Certainly God can have plans, but they can be no more inexorable and inevitable than yours, because inevitability is merely an abstract concept.  A day of your life is a day when it exists, and not one minute before.  Thus, if you are a free agent and God is a free agent (remembering that like infinite concepts are the only ones which can co-relate) then there is no day which IS absolutely before it is.  You and God co-exist in the days together…they exist only after they are manifest as a function of your LIFE.  And if it is your life then YOU are the single most salient component of your day, just like God is the most salient component of His day.  Remember, when God interacts with man He must interact with him on man’s level, and that is the level of the conceptual abstraction.  God having “plans” does not in any way, nor can it, imply determinism…of existence of something before it exists to man.  God declaring He has plans is thus the exact same thing (conceptual) as you declaring that YOU have plans.  Thus, God freely planning for your life is only efficacious if you freely exist within your life…the plans then are not “determined”, that is, existing because you are nothing more than an extension of a determining force, but the plans God has indicate the relationship of two free, self-aware agents.  God acting, and man recognizing the actions through the objects he observes (which can include God, Himself), valuing those actions by the efficacious use of conceptual abstractions measured by the standard of his LIFE, and then acting in accordance or contrary to those plans as man’s free, self-volition decides.   Thus, the plans are nothing more than an idea of how God sees the “future”…but the actuality of those plans (and the “future”) must involve the free agency of man.  God is not deemed a liar or hypocrite if man freely thwarts those plans in accordance with his own free will…for plans are nothing more than conceptualizations God uses in order to relate to man as a function of man’s existential frame of reference.  The concept of plan does not actually exist for God to violate or affirm based on His own free actions.  And this is then the problem with this notion that God is not a conceptual Being, but a determining One.  If God determines, then the logical consistency of the idea demands that God is just as much as slave to the predetermined “future”, or plans, or reality as man is.  God can no more deny a future which is determined than man can.  Thus, if determinism is the force in play–if the concept of “plan” becomes a real thing in and of itself, apart from being merely a means by with the self-aware agents organize their existence with respect to a mutually efficacious relationship–then BOTH God and man must be determined by whatever is declared to exist inexorably, regardless of whatever God or man thinks or wants, because whatever God wants or thinks must be subservient to that which is determined.  Determinism is absolute, and thus ANYTHING that happens must have been determined to happen, and could not have happened any other way.  All of God’s and man’s thoughts and actions are merely extensions of the determining force.  To say that God determines contradicts His own existence as a free thinking, free acting Agent.

But on an even more pragmatic level…how is it a free agent can observe a determined object?  It contradicts the notions, again.  For in the moment it is observed, the determined object must be declared a freely observed determined object.  But this would have to mean that the determined object was irrevocably determined to be at that place at that time in order to be observed by that particular observer.  And if that particular observer had to observe the determined object at that time and at that place, then the observer could not have been free to observe it.  The observer is just as much a part of the determining equation governing the determined object as the determined object is.  The object had to be observed at that time and place by that observer which means the observer had to be there to observe it.  The observer could not have been free to be there or not; his or her life must have inexorably led them to that particular place and time in order that the determined object could be observed by them.    This is the absolute nature of determinism, and is why if man is determined, then the God who creates and sees man must be determined as well.

The converse is then true.  If the observing agent is truly free, then what he or she observes must be free to be wherever it is to be observed in equal measure.  Follow the logic through the same way.  If the agent is freely observing from a time and place which they have freely chosen, of their own free volition, then the object observed could not have been determined to be where it was observed.  The object must have likewise arrived at the time and place of its observation according to is own free ability to be there, of itself alone.  For if the observer is freely observing, and freedom is absolute, then whatever they are observing must be a function of that freedom.  If there is no external law or equation which demands that they must have inevitably arrived at that time and place to observe this or that thing, then there is no guarantee  that they would have been there at all.  Therefore, that they were there is completely by “chance” so to speak…a random manifestation of their freedom to act…which means that whatever they are observing may or may not have been observed by them at any given time up to the event; therefore, the object observed could not have been determined to be there.  It is observed then and there for no other reason than that is where it just so happened to be.

And finally, consider this argument as well:  How do you qualify or quantify cause and effect if you are a free agent observing the interaction of two (or more) determined objects?  That one acts and one responds (that one causes an effect upon another) is purely an illusion…for there can be no such thing as cause and effect if both objects are equally determined, and determinism is, again, absolute.  If one ball strikes another ball, for example, then the force of one, we would say caused the other to move.  But if the balls are both determined, then both the striking of the first ball and the resultant movement of the second ball were going to happen no matter what, regardless of what either one did.  That is the nature of determinism…it is the declaration that any act observed by man is inevitable.  In effect, existing before it exists, regardless of whether it is observed or not; the action IS, infinitely, and absolute.  Observation is irrelevant in the matter.

The determined action of the first ball is infinite and absolute.  The determined reaction of the second ball is infinite and absolute.  Therefore, there is no actual relationship between the two actions…they ARE determined effects and objects wholly in and of themselves.  Thus, what one might observe as a cause and effect interaction is merely a lie.  There is no actual interaction because both action and reaction are infinite and singular determined events.  What if the first ball had missed the second ball?  Well, if we say that the second ball would not have moved we have conceded that the resultant movement of the second ball was not in fact, determined:  If the ball had missed it, it would not have moved.  And if we accept this as a plausible event–that the first ball could have missed the second ball–then we cannot by definition concede that the second ball was determined; it only moved because it was acted upon by the first ball, and until it was struck by the second ball it may or may not have moved, because it could or could not have been struck in the first place.  And if it could or could not have been struck in the first place, then the the first ball is likewise not determined.  The movement of the second ball is a free response by to being struck by the first one, which was a free action.

What one will argue then is that the first ball could not have missed the second because it was determined to strike it; in which case the second ball must have been determined to move in response.  Thus, the determining force is threaded equally and absolutely through both balls, denying any actual relationship between the two, and rendering man’s qualification of cause and effect purely illusory, as well as dismantling man’s ability to make any actual distinction between the two balls.  They are utterly identical in terms of being  subservient to the determining force.  There is no distinction between first ball and second ball, because you cannot sequentially order what is absolutely and infinitely determined.  If there is no relationship between objects, then man cannot possibly identify an object, because the ability to identify an object means it must be seen as distinct from other objects.  But if there is NO relationship, then then can be NO distinction.  Man cannot actually say what it is he observes.  His very language-that which he uses to label and define–is perfectly useless and categorically insufficient for anything.   Again…to reiterate: there can be no separation in the movement/actions of objects which can be declared valid, and so there can be no valid separation between objects themselves.  Both balls in this example are nothing more than illusions…extensions of the determining force which not only controls, but must BE in ESSENCE the objects in question.

The point is this:  if determinism is a fact, then man cannot possibly conceptualize effectively his environment because man can never make an actual distinction between this object or that.  Both are singularities of the determining force.  What man qualifies as a cause is not actually any different than what he qualifies as an effect.  What man qualifies as up is not actually any different as down.  Left or right, two or seven.  There is no means by which man can organize his environment that isn’t a total lie.  There is no truth because the truth is hidden behind the objects which man observes to move relative to one another, but which man cannot actually qualify or quantify as moving at all.  The movement of each object is the determined force, which is unobservable because it is absolute and infinite.

And if man cannot really know his environment according to his own created conceptual abstractions which are given value by the objects themselves (that is, man can actually declare that the objects he observes ACT according to their own infinite ability to BE what they are, and that this ability is rooted in themselves alone), instead of the other way around, then man cannot define himSELF.

And this means that there is no YOU which you can declare exists.  And if there is no YOU, then how can YOU be saved?

This may seem like complicated semantics; a mere mincing of philosophy; the calculus of metaphysics.  Interesting, or confusing, but irrelevant to real life.  I assure you it is not…the only reason this is difficult for us to understand is because we have evolved from several thousand years of Platonist farce.  Our inability to perceive the difference between what are abstract concepts we create to organize what we observe and the actuality of the things we observe is what clouds our thinking in these matters.

All truth must stem from this idea first:  YOU ARE YOU, and you are no other.  Thus, all truth starts with the existence of yourSELF.  YOU are the object by which all TRUTH must conform…the standard of life is the admission that you actually exist, and are NOT a function of anything except your own physical ability to BE ( (from which extends your self-aware consciousness) .

This is the first axiom you must concede.  If you do not, you will never escape the bonds of false ideas, false religion, and false existence.

“It might the reason there’s a problem with excessive pastoral authority is a lack of interest in praying for one’s pastor.  🙂  Maybe?”

-Wade Burleson

The implicit assumption in this comment is that the pastor, regardless of his moral atrocities, can never be disqualified from his position of ecclesiastical leadership (i.e. his job) because he can always appeal to the “sin nature” of the congregation as an excuse for his evil actions.  “Just look what you made me do” has been the defense of many a psychopathic abuser.  It is the ultimate appeal to a “truth” outside of man, of moral relativism, and of a separation between God and humanity.  That these words should have even crossed the mind of a Christian teacher is disturbing, and should prove to anyone interested that those who would call themselves shepherds of God’s people need to have their doctrine thoroughly vetted in accordance with the plumb line of human lives.  If what they believe demands that humanity be sacrificed upon the alter of their philosophy, then they should be cast out the door.

The plain truth is that human life is the singular, absolute source and context and meaning and TRUTH for all we as Christians hold dear:  the Bible, the Prophets, the Lord, the Spirit, the Messiah, the GOOD.  Without human life, none of these things has any meaning or purpose.  It is axiomatic that all TRUTH (value and morality) can only be a function of the HUMAN frame of reference.  It is categorically impossible to declare any TRUTH beyond the context of human life.  We are all human beings, and thus we all have the exact same frame of reference.  Thus, TRUTH, even Christian TRUTH, and God’s TRUTH, both begins and ends with human life.  Thus, and again, any philosophy/theology/doctrine which demands otherwise…which demands, in any form (e.g. a “biblical role”, a “law”, a “collective…like ‘church body’ or ‘the party'”, a determining force like “sin nature” or “God’s sovereignty”), that man’s life is to be subverted in order that absolute “truth” can reign absolutely…well, this must be declared a lie; for it is impossible to make a rational argument that man can either pursue it, or even know it.  Anything claimed to be truth outside of man’s five senses cannot possibly be known, and therefore, it cannot possibly be truth.

And this is a fact that many Christians refuse to swallow…and this is why I submit that there will be fewer “Christians” in heaven than we might otherwise assume.  And this is a dreadful and terrifying thought.

I do not say this to bludgeon people with fear of fire and brimstone…I do not need to do that, for I have developed rational arguments for the defense of my ideas.  I don’t need to scare you; I’ll leave that for the Calvinist mystics who peddle Platonist Gnosticism for Christ’s love.  I only need to lead you (the Calvinist/Reformed Protestant/Augustinian Catholic) right where your false philosophy is dying to go…literally and figuratively:  to rank contradiction.  Once you have been forced to punt your fundamental assumptions into the great cosmic abyss of God’s mystery, my work is finished.  Thus, I do not cry hell to frighten you.  I do it to reason with you.

Look at my mock conversation between the King and Christian, which I posted a couple of weeks ago.  What is my point?  What does King’s last statement declare?  It declares that God is unable to save that which He cannot know because it has no actual LIFE to it.  In other words, God cannot save that which is NOTHING according to the philosophy which is presented to Him.  Since it is impossible for God to possess man–for it is axiomatic to say that God cannot BE what he is NOT–we must concede that man is man, and God is NOT man.  Thus, there must be a way in which man can truly exist to God so that God can declare him TRUE and thus GOOD by virtue of the saving sacrifice of Messiah.  But if man willingly denies himself in service to a philosophy that demands he cannot possibly EXIST, in service to the absolute-ness of the philosophy, then there is nothing for God to save, by definition.  For we greatly underestimate how what we THINK and what we BELIEVE defines our reality for us.  This is not subjectivity…this is reality.  This is actuality.  For if you observe all life through a prism of non-existence, then by definition you cannot actually exist, since existence is a function of observation and your philosophy explicitly DENIES observation as the means to TRUTH; which means to LIFE, which is YOUR REALITY…and there is no other.

But you might say that God can see you for what you really are, and so it is perfectly within His power to save you.  You might argue that it is what God observes that matters, not what you observe (never mind that you cannot make that argument without the ability to observe your environment and then create conceptualizations in order that you can define what you will accept as truth or false in accordance with those conceptualizations…but Platonism is rife with contradictions).  But this doesn’t lionize God, nor appeal to His absolute power and sovereignty (which are completely misrepresented in Reformed Theology anyway).  This is a lie. This demands that God make Himself a hypocrite and utterly remove Himself from the context of his own Creation and humanity itself. It demands that God become wholly unknowable to His children…and herein lies the crux of Calvinism’s evil:  That God is put away from His children and the power of His salvation and Truth, all of which are thieved by men who are obsessed with being God for Him.  It is the same sin as Satan’s.

To deny your senses and your observable reality in favor of “God’s truth” is nothing more than demanding that God contradict His own existence.  That God be a God of nothing.  Or, more poignantly, that God be a God of DEATH.  For implicit in its Platonist/Gnostic roots, Calvinism declares that man’s DEATH bring life, thus creating the contradiction of all contradictions:  that God Himself is responsible for bringing DEATH to the world; which implicates him in all evil and sin.  They, that is, the modern day Reformers, will argue that doctrine of God’s sovereignty elevates His goodness and power.  In truth, what it does is makes this goodness and power, and God himself, unable to be known at all by man, since man, in the context of an absolutely controlling God, cannot exist.  It demands that God possess man, and thus violate His holy perfect and absolute I AM in the interest of BEING that which He is not.  And when we claim that He is what He is not, we implicate Him in the violation of the human SELF, which thus violates man’s ability to know Him as God, which is a direct violation of God’s SELF.

Now, I ask you, how exactly are we asking God to “save” a people who function unequivocally from such an understanding of the universe? Who is it God shall save?  Who ultimately are we declaring does the saving?  There is no actual answer to this, and thus there can be no actual salvation.

We would do well to consider such a thing before we affirm what our modern mystics would teach us.

And if you don’t, well…yeah…maybe you should be a little frightened.