The more I study and the more I think the more I conclude that there are only ostensible differences in the most common ideas, be them political, religious, or even broadly philosophical. It’s all the same authoritarian determinism with different vocabulary. Or the same vocabulary (Catholic vs. Protestant, for example; Democrat vs. Republican, for another example) redefined.

I have been listening to a lot of Christopher Hitchens on YouTube lately, because I am always on the look out for ways in which atheism (or antitheism, as he prefers to think of his ideas) differs fundamentally from other authoritarian determinist collectivist ideologies, like, for example, religious despotism (Hi there, neo-Calvinist movement!). And Hitchens is this month’s flavor….Noam Chomsky, then followed by Stephan Moleneux and a slew of like-minded (to Stephan, not Noam) anarcho-capitalists was last month’s variety. On a side note, I’m sure this is not an original thought, but shouldn’t we refer to Noam as Gnome?  I mean, he doesn’t look entirely unlike one of those adorable pointy-headed little elves which garnish so many suburban yards; and he’s about as useful when you examine what he actually says.

Anyway.

Here’s my conclusion: There is no fundamental difference. All the presumptions which form the core of these ideologies–atheist, theist, agnostic, what have you–utterly concede the idea that man is a function of some outside force; which of course destroys man’s identity and obligates him to the “philosopher kings”–the purveyors of the Primary Consciousness in question (God, laws of nature, “human existence”–that is, the existential irreducible primary a-la Ayn Rand, the Party, the Race, the Tribe, the Gender, the Nation, the Kingdom, the Mathematics, the Moral Law, the “Right Way” of Doing Things, etc.).

It is equal parts frustrating and highly telling. Truly the philosopher kings have no clothes. No one seems able nor even willing to answer the question “What is man?”. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the very first thing for which your mind–which must always enter into the arena of ideas with a generous portion of skepticism and a side of knee-jerk denial–should be on the lookout.  If no definition of man is forthcoming, then the idea(s) should be summarily rejected as an illegitimate answer for the questions “What is TRUTH?” and “What should man do?”.  For unless man is rationally defined as a SELF which is completely autonomous and distinct, infinite in its ability to BE what it is, and to KNOW what it is and what it is not, and to appeal to itself as the only rational standard by which truth may be defined as true, and moral (good) actions may be defined as actually moral (good), and coupled with an explanation of just how this is materially possible (which can only be done by injecting God into the equation, atheists)…yes, unless this is forthcoming then you may safely assume that the ideas you are consuming are not fit for existential application.  That is, they are not TRUTH, and thus while they may serve some ancillary subjective purpose in some specific context, they are inadequate for describing and/or explaining reality on the whole.

So, no atheist that I have observed yet answers the question, “What is man?”.   It is just assumed that man IS. But IS is not fundamentally different from IS NOT unless it can be explained beyond its “axiom”–the axiom which says that that IS simply IS, and there is no consideration given to just how the  IS became an IS and how it therefore may be rationally juxtaposed to what it IS NOT.  For what is merely considered to BE can only be observed as distinct (that is, where its being is not utterly infinite) from other things if one can explain just how this distinction can be made.  That is, how what IS, and infinitely so, can co-exist with other things which it is NOT.   And no one–NO atheist which I have observed–does this beyond appeals to science (or ignorance…”We just don’t know”), just like the the “orthodox” religious big-mouths appeal to God’s creative powers whereby He makes something out of nothing (which is nonsense defined).  And of course it should be observed that these are ideas which can only be conceded AFTER one already exists, FROM that place of existence. In other words, the things that always and only are observed to follow  from man’s awareness of himSELF (like the “laws of nature”, for instance) are said to be the cause of that SELF…which is a madness to rival even the most insane sidewalk babbler.

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The atheist or antitheist dismisses God out of hand as tyrannical nonsense simply because the men who have preached Him since even before the days of Christ have succumbed to the pervasive lie of gnosticism (codified by Plato, and further disseminated by St. Augustine under the guise of Christian enlightenment). They never bother to ask themselves whether or not the self-described proxies and herald’s of God and His moral mandates actually rightly apprehend His person and place and purpose, or rationally interpret the religious canonical texts. They simply concede that the ecclesiastical proselytes do. Or, better said, the atheist first assumes that God cannot exist, and then they use the obviously irrational doctrines, and the obviously untenable interpretations of scriptures of the religious “orthodoxy” to “prove” their point.

What I mean is that instead of simply pointing out the logical flaws in the doctrines and platitudes perpetuated by those who claim to know and preach God, the atheist assumes that these doctrines are the only way God can be acknowledged to exist and to act efficaciously. Not only is this intellectually dishonest, it is a massively shallow and obtuse assumption, and undermines their entire argument. They approach religion with the same flawed assumption their mystic counterparts do: that religion rationally passes as a full-on philosophy. Which, as I elaborated upon in my last post, it does not. Religion is NOT a philosophy–at least not in the true holistic sense–because before one can believe in the doctrines of faith one must have conceded metaphysical and epistemological absolutes ALREADY in order to proclaim that it is THEY who are BELIEVING in something. Any atheist who is worth anything beyond his or her polemic-ism would understand this, and therefore not assume that God must necessarily be defined by religion, which, again, does not internally or intrinsically possess any metaphysical or epistemological axioms.

The atheist, to be taken any more seriously than the mystic, must understand that there is a massive difference between a disbelief in religion and a disbelief in God. But they don’t seem to make this distinction, nor give any evidence that they are even aware of it at all. Which leads me to conclude that prominent atheists like Christopher Hitchens are in essence no different than the very people they pretend to criticize: People who love to argue for truth only from hindsight, where the “logic” extends no further than the initial assumption.  And of course the problem with this is that the presumption can thus be literally anything at all, which means, conveniently, that they can never lose an argument, much like the mystic who appeals to his or her divinely bestowed enlightenment, which cannot be learned but must be somehow magically dispensed. For the atheist, by presuming an infinite existential axiom with zero explanation as to just how such an axiom can be arrived at (and yet it still must be conceded), simply appeals to the same argument of “divine” enlightenment, except they remove God as the granter of such gnosis, and replace Him with a salad bar of empiricism, like science and nature and mathematics and statistics and ad-hominem and moralizing and “righteous” indignation, and even shoulder-shrugging ignorance (well, we know the Big Bang is the cause, but we CANNOT know (an appeal to man’s fundamental and thus infinite intellectual insufficiency) what caused the Big Bang), making those who posses an innate aptitude for such things the new divine proxies.  A rational metaphysical absolute (a comprehensive answer to the question “What is man?” via the tool of pure reason, not empiricism) is wholly disregarded. Which makes the quest for TRUTH pointless because TRUTH then becomes entirely relative. And thus the debate dissolves into merely a tit-for-tat parlance where the root point is simply “I’m right, because I believe I am right; and you’re wrong because YOU believe I’m wrong.”. A point of view which incidentally cannot have a fucking thing to do with TRUTH.

And the rest of us, whether praying or scoffing at those who do, haven’t moved one inch closer to true enlightenment OR salvation.

Before we examine another parcel of madness bathed in a wash of syrupy platitudes and cliches, and wrapped in a paper-thin shroud of compassionate spiritual counsel, I am compelled to point out the lack of bibliography, citations, or references of any sort in the primer which has been the subject of my latest series “Collectivist Philosophy Masquerading as the Christian Orthodox Ideal”.  The booklet is, again, entitled, “Community: Your Pathway to Progress”, and it was published by North Point Ministries in 2008.

We are all just supposed to assume that they are speaking from some place of higher authority and that whatever they have scribbled down is somehow “God-breathed”; which is merely another nod to their presumption of representing God as proxy to the laity.  The laity…which is not in the position, either metaphysically or epistemologically, to really know the difference.  Oh, sure, they will poof-text the Bible in a lazy attempt to add credence and legitimacy to their ideas, but this is merely another stage prop in the facade.  Remember, the Bible is NOT a philosophy, no matter how many of us wish it were or function as though it was.  It does not spell out a clear, stark metaphysical construct for man; it does not lay out a fundamental epistemology rooted in this construct; it does not declare axiomatic ethics (beyond the Ten Commandments, which are unfortunately obliterated in a raging sea of equivocation once the Jews are seen to interact with tribes outside themselves, not to mention how the Commandments are handled, often circumspectly, in the New Testament); it does not posit a stark political strategy (and given that most of the Old Testament is within the context of a monarchy that God advised AGAINST, and the New Testament functions within the confines of Roman imperialism and Rabbinic hyper-authoritarianism I’d say this point is pretty well made for me…my further elaboration unnecessary); nor does it offer examples of a derivative aesthetic based upon the rest of the philosophic axioms…because they aren’t there.  My point is that in order to interpret the Bible rationally one must have a rational philosophy already established.  For I submit that the single greatest weakness of the Bible (and this is not really the Bible’s fault, but rather the fault of those who pretend to be its authorities and experts) is that because of its decided lack of metaphysical and epistemological absolutes it is prone to massive subjectivity with respect to the doctrines derived from it.  Meaning that anyone can get it to say just about whatever the fuck they want it to say.  And again, this is precisely because it is NOT a philosophy.  Thus, in order to understand the Bible–if we concede that the Bible is our primary source for what we think, spiritually–we must possess a rational mind, with rational consistency, and have developed our existential assumptions (philosophy) via reason before the Bible can possibly make any sense or have any efficacious relevancy.

My opinion with respect to God’s view of man from all of the aforementioned is this: The fact a reasonable philosophy is a prerequisite for a rational rendering of the Biblical messages is, to me, an illustration of God’s faith in man’s ability to observe his own reality and concede the existence of his own distinct, autonomous, volitional SELF, and to live by it, before He even deigns to dialogue.  Indeed, the efficacious and rational existence of man’s SELF is so obvious that God doesn’t even bother with presenting some kind of singular philosophy; he just jumps right in to LIFE, and counsel for the most valuable and profitable and satisfying way of living it.  Alas, God has a much higher opinion of man’s intellect and ability to apprehend reality rationally than does man.  But try arguing this with the evil, Marxist shills in charge of running the institutional church these days.  You’ll find yourself run out of town on a rail; next stop, Heretic Land. My point is that you must remember that when you read things like “Community: Your Pathway to Progress”–with “community” being a euphemism for Marxist-style totalitarian collectivism–understand that it is not rooted in any particular, salient, deep, or rational understanding of…well, anything at all.  It is a bunch of ill-educated, intellectually stunted, under-productive man-hens clucking around the coop in the hopes that at some point truth in Shakespearean prose might burst forth from their lips.  Why?  Simply because they’ve assumed God’s omnipotence and authority by fiat.  In other words, by just deciding that they are somehow “called”.

So my recommendation?  Take this stuff–advice books from the institutional church–for what it is:  very little.  And then proceed to find the humor in it by its sheer audacity; then mock it, disprove it with reason, know that God does not consider madness to be wisdom, and go on with your life, living it for you, your pleasure, your comfort, your peace, because its God’s gift to you, because he’s a Father, and normal, sane fathers actually want their children free and happy…not enslaved, confused, tortured, and murdered for the sake of some asshole who stands at a podium and says “obey me”, with absolutely no more depth to his “authority” than that simple directive.