“Talk about a person in your life who has kept you from making a bad decision.” 

(p. 32, Community:  Your pathway to progress; North Point Ministries, 2008)

And of course there must be someone, obviously.  Someone outside of you who can provide real perspective…never mind the fact that it is impossible that anyone can know you better than you, since the entirety of all reality is observed from the singular context of your SELF, and nothing else, and the same is true for all self-aware, sentient agents, including God, making NO ONE a better expert on you than you.  Period.  Don’t ever fall for the lie that someone else, even God, knows what’s best for your from your perspective.  I’m not suggesting you eschew advice and council, and certainly not prayer, obviously, but I am saying that this notion that reality is best observed by a third party OUTSIDE yourself is merely a propaganda tool designed to compel you into surrendering your existential autonomy and your self-ownership.  The notion that anyone can know you better than you know yourself is rationally false, full stop.  Your frame of reference as SELF is utter and infinite.  For anyone to know in equal measure what you know about YOU and your life, never mind possess a superior measure, they would have to actually be you.  Which is impossible nonsense.

But somehow, in this Platonist, Marxist, Protestant vision, he who is NOT you is better suited to dictate how you should live; to pass moral judgement on your decisions, and to provide the guard rails your life so desperately needs, because on your own, your “sin nature” demands that you must inevitably succumb to the absolute evil of your craven desires–a direct function of your metaphysical failure at the most basic of levels.  In short, without someone else who claims a divine right by mystic fiat to interfere in your life–to BE you in your STEAD (this responsibility will eventually fall to the Pastor, who is both YOU before God, and God before YOU)–you cannot possibly live an efficacious existence, and are doomed to eternal destruction by your very birth. You, alone, possess nothing but a purely failed epistemology.  You cannot possibly apprehend anything True or Good because the frame of reference of your SELF is evil incarnate (totally depraved).  Therefore, individually, outside of the “corporate” (Marxist collective) “covering” of your “local church”, under the absolute auspices of the singular authority standing in God’s Stead, the Senior Pastor, you cannot pursue any moral action.

The request I quoted, rationally rendered, should actually read “Talk about a person, if any, who has kept you from making a bad decision.”

But, to be frank, the idea that you, alone, would not make a bad decision and thus do not have an example of a time someone else needed to step in and save your from yourself never, ever crossed the author’s mind.  Trust me on this.  The Marxist philosophy inherent in orthodox Christian doctrine (best seen in America currently within the neo-Calvinist juggernaut) demands that the group MUST inevitably compel you into right action and away from the otherwise inexorable trend of self-destruction you innately pursue by your very existence.  The possibility that there just might not actually be anyone who has ever found it necessary to protect you from your bad decisions (which is about as vague a moral plumb line as you can get…could mean they talked you out of suicide; could mean they talked you out of a second bowl of ice cream) simply isn’t considered by any “real” (read “saved”) card-carrying Protestant in good standing.

Beware these mystic primers.  There is nothing innocuous within, ever.  There is always the underlying motive within every jot and tittle, punctuation mark or bullet point.  And that motive is control.

“There is an objective reality in that the chair I’m sitting on really exists whether I will admit its existence or whether I’ll philosophize that maybe its only a form that exists in a Platonic world of ideas. Is admitting the actual existence of this chair somehow embracing a causal universe?”

This quote is an excerpt from a comment left by David Brainerd (for the record, I don’t think David is a brain nerd at all, even though he admits to working with computers for a living); you can view his entire comment in the comments section of the previous essay.

The specific question “Is admitting the actual existence of this chair somehow embracing a causal universe?” is what I would like to address in this essay…because it’s a good question and I understand that the previous essay was fairly “semantics” heavy, so to speak.  It’s important that I clear this up, otherwise it becomes too easy and convenient to categorize my ideas as Primacy of Consciousness, in the John Immel philosophical universe where Primacy of Consciousness and Primacy of Existence metaphysics are the only two gangs in town.  Like the old Crips versus Bloods wars.  In other words, you either concede the existential power of cause and effect in the form of Nature’s Laws which govern, or you are a mystic who is holding open the door for Armageddon.  However, I unabashedly claim that to concede the power of man’s ability to conceptualize his environment with himself as the only rational standard in order to organize what is a material universe which is entirely relative in its existence and interactions (and I submit that this is an axiom) is merely conceding the obvious.  For I defy anyone to name a singular, constant, material reference by which one can objectively define and quantify object interaction and existence in the Universe OUTSIDE of their own SELF; for YOU are the only constant in the entire Universe, and that cannot be denied, because in order to do so one would HAVE to deny it from the context of SELF, which automatically nullifies their argument and renders it impossible, thus proving my point instantaneously and categorically.

*

Without man’s ability to conceptualize himself and his surroundings, there can be no actual, efficacious, measurable, or valuable reality.  And the only way to argue contrary to this is to identify a singular frame of reference for reality OUTSIDE of man…that is, in the Universe.  Since this cannot be done, I must rest on reason to guide truth; and so–if I may be so bold–should you.  You cannot claim truth if you cannot define a standard by which you can say what is true or not…or rather, better said, why what is true or not.  And advocates of a causal Universe (a Universe wholly determined by the Laws of Physics) can have no such standard; and so I must insist that it is they who declare such a Universe who destroy human cognition, and not those of use who declare man’s ability to know himself and–from that frame of reference–to define his reality so that it serves and confirms his comfort, promotion, and inherent moral worth.  For those who laud a causal Universe are those who write man out of the existential equation with every abstract, mathematical or philosophical proof they scribble.  And their inability to identify an objective material standard by which to proclaim their proofs TRUE, and therefore GOOD, is why they insist that the Laws of Physics, though in and of themselves entirely unobservable to and beyond the reach of man in any capacity, are in fact actual…that is, exist in their absolute and imitable realm; the wizard behind the curtain of Oz, governing all things behind galaxy-sized swathes of dark matter, even unto our very root existence.

And you might argue that, no, that’s not what they believe.  And I would fire back that it matters not what they THINK they think; the imitable logical conclusions of the the very notion of cosmic Laws demands that they are nevertheless on the moral and intellectual hook for their irrational metaphysics.  And I don’t need to understand the equations, nor do I need to have studied in the John Immel School of Enough Time Devoted to the Topic (Which Apparently Neither He nor Anyone Else Possesses) Leads to the Reconciliation of That Which is a Rank Logical Fallacy to rationalize the conclusion. If the conclusion is a rank contradiction, I already know that the equation must be inherently flawed.  I am not obligated to study nor understand nor concede anything beyond this. You cannot rationalize that which defies the very idea by its conclusion.  That is an axiom, period.  To suggest I must spend time learning to arrive at a conclusion upon which can never be arrived is purely obfuscation.

*

“Is admitting the existence of this chair somehow embracing a causal universe?”

The real answer to this question is:  It depends.  Notice how, in my last essay, I did not say that admitting something exists is necessarily believing in a causal Universe.  I didn’t even say that believing in an objective reality means one must necessarily accept the determinism of a causal Universe.  I said that faulty and irrational determinism is a function of an “objective reality outside of man”, which is precisely the causal Universe that people like John Immel and his objectivist comrades demand.  In other words, a reality governed by Laws of Nature…a reality conceded to the forces which act to cause the existence and actions and interactions of all things, including man. Even though man cannot empirically or rationally vouch for the tangible, visceral existence of such forces.  Which…is pretty ironic.  The very people who demand empirical verification of all opposing ideas–ideas from those like me, who do not distinguish between reason and evidence–are the very people who cannot observe the forces which are said to create the objective reality they insist everyone else obey or be deemed a fool (thus resorting to rank pretension and insults as a means to intimidate their detractors).

Anyway…

So the question is not whether we rationally accept an objective reality (or rather, simply “reality”…for “objective reality” seems rather redundant), but how we define that reality.

When we consider how to do that…when we consider reality, there are really only two ways to frame it.  Either things “outside” of man exist “to themselves”, so to speak–meaning they have inherent meaningful, definable, qualifiable and quantifiable value in and of themselves in accordance with some organized, non-relative, non-random, purposeful, causal force which acts upon them absolutely, independent of man’s mind–that is, man’s ability to conceptually organize his environment in order to manipulate it for his own ends and for the sake of himself–or things exist “to man”.  Which means that they have no inherent, non-relative, organized value or meaning or efficacy unless man observes them and bestows upon them such value via his conceptual definitions.  It is by man’s ability to conceptualize his environment (which is, in fact, the whole Universe) that we get “chairs” and “cars” and “curvature of spacetime” and “trees” and “galaxy clusters”.  They are a product of man’s mind, meaning that mans’ ability to conceptualize his environment is what gives any relevant meaning to what are “chairs” and “galaxies” and “orbits”, etc., which means that it is by man that these things can be said to be real…to exist.  Reality has nothing relevant to do with the material substance of these things–which I do NOT deny–which is infinite (to be further discussed in an upcoming essay) and therefore infinitely relative and valueless in and of itself.  But rather it has everything to do with how they are standardized TO man’s life.  It is man’s ability to organize what he observes TO a reference point…TO a constant, himself, which is what creates “reality” in any relevant, valuable, or moral sense.  Without such a Constant/Standard, as I have said, all material existence and object interaction is purely relative, which means it can have no actual, singular, definable, relevant, meaningful reality.  Things simply are what they relatively are, relatively existing with all other objects, having no measurable singularity whatsoever; and thus it becomes impossible to describe them as even “existing”.  Because…existing to what?  To what reference? To what standard? To what end?  To what purpose?  In what context?

Without man and his ability to make SELF the infinite, singular reference point and Standard of reality, these questions can have no answer.  And anything which has no relevant, definable end or purpose because it has no ascertainable context or reference cannot rationally be said to “objectively exist”.  On the contrary, there is nothing objective about it.  By definition a relative existence of a pointless material substance which is infinitely relative and lacking any singular reference and standard is not an objective existence, period.  Full stop.  An utterly relative existence is no existence at all, because what it is that is said to “exist” cannot have a any meaningful definition.  And without such a definition there can be no meaningful reality.  Which means there can be no reality at all because a reality which lacks any definition is not, by definition, reality.

*

The idea of an “objective reality” rooted in a “causal universe” (that is, a universe governed by the interminable cause and effect determinism of Natural Law) defines man in such a way that he becomes existentially and metaphysically OUTSIDE of “reality” (hence the constant reference to an “objective reality outside of man” demanded by objectivism, Marxism, Fascism, scientific determinism and its psuedo-intellectual worker bees, the evangelical Atheists).  Man is a determined product of the causal forces of nature which act utterly beyond his senses (because man’s senses are a product of these causal forces…an effect, and therefore they cannot, by definition, be turned around to observe their own absolute and absolutely determinative  source).

Now, what is never explained by these emissaries of “rational” determinism and scientific “evidence”, is that man, of course, cannot possibly exist in a “reality” such as this.  For since man is a determined and thus absolute effect, he is an absolute function of the reality “outside” of himself…which means–if you can wrap your head around this–there is no “him”…no singular distinct SELF, to speak of.  And therefore, most ironically, this makes the reality smugly demanded by these people a complete oxymoron.  Since man is, again, a direct and absolute function of the laws of physics, man has no essence to call his own.  Therefore, nothing is real to him by definition because he is, in fact, nothing.  Which–one more time, again–makes appeals to “objective reality” even that much more absurd and hilarious.

*

If we say that a “chair”, or “car” or “galaxy” or a “tree” or a “micro brewery” exists as such, regardless of man and OUTSIDE of him, making his existence entirely irrelevant to these things, we are saying that man does not define his own reality, but rather, “reality”–the “external” environment–defines him.  Man isn’t the one who decides that a chair is a chair…he is not the one who gets to say that the relative existence of the material substance he observes to act and move and be in a certain way in order that it can in fact relevantly and efficaciously be a chair (because it serves to promote an objective standard, that is man’s own SELF).  No, somehow, on the contrary something outside of man defines and values his reality for him.  God, or the the cosmic Laws of Nature, or some other all pervasive, unobservable, infinite and inexorable force–which by definition holds man and his ideas in no esteem or regard whatsoever, because it doesn’t recognize him in the first place–gets to declare that the chair is a chair.  It becomes irrational and thus entirely immoral for man to have a say in how his environment is defined and organized.  Because the chair, as a chair, is defined not by man but by the very concept of “chairness”which is somehow a product of the cosmos…the Laws of Nature (because man’s ability to conceptualize is irrelevant according to the metaphysics of a “causal universe”).  And thus, I submit that John Immel’s point, and the point of Aristotelian philosophy (of which some is good and some is not) is that “chairness” exists regardless of what man observes or thinks.  So, quite naturally, we assume that this must mean that reality has some kind of efficacious and valuable and objective definition and purpose utterly in spite of man’s own life and self and mind and context and existence.  And so what is inevitably argued is that the very ideas man uses and creates out of his own mind and his own inherent ability to conceptually define and organize his environment to serve his own existence are somehow manifest in reality without him. That all of man’s thoughts and ideas and beliefs are not OF him, but are bestowed upon him by the “external” reality which categorically caused him.  Which really means that there is no way for man to discern between his own mind and thoughts–which includes the most salient concept of the SELF by which he defines his own body as distinct from his environment–and his environment and the requisite causal forces which determine and govern and create everything from outside of him and thus which, by logical extension, inexorably become him.  Therefore an appeal to the “objective reality outside of man” is really nothing more than a destruction of the distinction entirely.

*

Since man is not that which defines his own environment with himself as the supreme and singular reference point, the only conclusion to be logically arrived upon is this…and it is a conclusion which, in my experience, ultimately, sooner or later, be it John Immel, or the inestimable Paul Dohse (whom I adore), or any venerable libertarian thinker of our day, must and do concede:  man is NOT and CANNOT be the root cause of his own life; and thus he cannot be the reason for his own existence.  Yes, at the end of the day, even Ayn Rand is little more than a rank hypocrite.  Because “reality” is a function of a reality beyond man’s own self, man cannot possibly claim the right to define himself.  Man is wholly and ineluctably defined by what is NOT man.  Man thus becomes a big, fat contradiction in terms.  Man is no longer the source and purpose of himself…his own end (for if man is his own end, he must be his own beginning), rather he is a determined product of something entirely beyond him.

It is easy to see how this must lead to the exploitation and ultimately the destruction of humanity on shockingly large scales…and routinely does.

*

If man is at the mercy of and is the direct function of the forces of the causal universe–the “objective reality outside himself”–then man cannot possibly understand reality, by the very empirical definition of reality given to us. Man is OUTSIDE of reality.  Which can only mean that man is not real.  Again, by definition.  Thus, man is not himself.  Any beliefs or ideas as a function of man’s senses can only be considered illegitimate markers and definitions of reality; including his definitions and “discoveries” of the causal Laws of Nature which govern the Universe and everything in it.  Man is illusory; he is false.  Man cannot actually know anything himself, because he is no autonomous agent.  He does not, by nature, possess the epistemological ability to make a distinction between what he is (himself…his body) and what he is NOT (his environment), which is the epistemological prerequisite to any actual knowledge man may possess.  Because according to the very definition of a causal Universe, there is no distinction.  ALL things are direct and determined functions of the actions of all objects which have come “before”; and the root material essence and existence of these objects is a direct function the unobservable forces of nature–the Laws of Physics.

You see, when someone preaches to you about the governing power of the Laws of Physics, the logical question begged is where does that governance end?  The only rational answer is:  it doesn’t.  The Laws of Physics are the absolute and infinite cause of the causal Universe.  They ARE then, the Universe.  Which means to define the Universe as a function of the forces of the Laws of Nature is to relegate “reality” to an utterly unobservable, unknowable infinite CAUSE, which has NO effect, because everything is merely an absolute and direct function of itself, which eliminates the distinction entirely.  The power of the Laws which govern does not end, and therefore, it can have no beginning.  And to attempt to define reality this way is nothing more than the futile and pointless exercise of trying to parse infinity.  And this is rank madness beyond all the heady language and “intellectual” equivocation and appeals to educational and cognitive pedigree.  Whatever is the absolute function of a governing force IS and MUST BE that governing force, period, full stop.  There is no difference between the Absolute Causal Force and that which it causes.  And further, there simply is no way to make this not so.  There. Is. No. Way.  Not by Aristotle; not by Voltaire; not by Newton: not by Einstein; not by Hawking; not by Hitchens; not by years and years and years of study;  not by anyone or anything.  The Laws of Physics it must be conceded when we argue the notion of a causal Universe do not simply govern the movement of objects, but the existence of objects. And this includes the most salient of all objects, man.

*

It is important to understand that when we speak of “objective reality” we specify how we define it; meaning, how we rationally explain just what makes reality REAL.  Is man a product of “reality”, or is man the standard by which “reality” can be defined as such, and therefore given efficacy and and value and purpose?

How we decide to answer this question is, as history has shown, quite literally the difference between life and death.

Recently, I posted a comment on John Immel’s blog, http://www.spiritualtyranny.com, under the article “Welcome to the Problem of Universals”, which you can access here.  John then responded to my comment, and I responded back this morning.  My last comment is still in moderation limbo.  Not content with this, I have decided to post my comment here, for those of you who care.  I know that some of you who read here also read on John’s site, so I feel compelled, I admit, to finish this conversation, even if it means using my own blog as the platform.  I have been doing this blogging/commenting thing for several years now, and I have learned that the amount of time one lets a comment languish in moderation is inversely proportional to the level of people’s commitment to the discussion.  In this sense then, moderating someone can equate to a form of passive aggression, and a means of manipulating the debate.  Not that we can ever really know that this is actually what’s happening (not that knowing matters…the fact still remains, the longer a comment goes unpublished, to less effective the comment will be, because of the naturally waning interest of other readers).  I mean, for all I know, John may be on a honeymoon.  But since I understand the benefits of being the gatekeeper of a discussion, determining not only what can be said but when, I would like to try to mitigate this as much as possible.  So, here we are.  If a comment of mine is not posted on the original blog for which it was intended by, say, the late evening of the day in which it was originally submitted, I will post it here. Now, in this case, it is particularly important that I do so.  As you will see, John essentially accuses me of sharing philosophical identities with Marxism (he actually specifies Hume and Kant, but I suspect these are names one uses when they want to accuse someone of Marxism without actually referring to Marx).  I reject this entirely for the rank nonsense it is; but the reason for the accusation has everything to do with John not particularly understanding–nor even attempting to understand (because he makes no attempt to point out any inconsistencies in my thinking)–my perspective.  This I submit has to do with his full-on concession that the foundations of philosophical thinking have already been established, and there is nothing else to be said in this regard.  The only thing left to do is pound one’s opponent with ordinance that hasn’t changed significantly in the past thousand years or so.  In other words, you think within the boundaries of institutionally accepted metaphysical and epistemological theories, or you are disqualified automatically.  It is akin to a music theorist telling a musician that he or she cannot put two specific notes together, not because they actually sound bad within the context of the song, but simply because music theory doesn’t have a formula which allows for it.  This argument is ridiculous for obvious reasons, and bears no further commentary. I concede that only the individual human being is the rational Standard of Truth; that is, the yardstick by which any belief, idea, opinion, concept, or faith can be actually and efficaciously known as both true and ethical (or, conversely, by which these things can be known as false and evil).  Period.  How I get there is by proclaiming that man, by his powers of conceptualization, starting with the primary concept of the SELF, gives meaning and value to his environment, and that he thus is not a product of that environment as the empiricists and Objectivists would have you believe.  For if man is a function of his environment, then man cannot actually be a distinct SELF.  He is doomed to the determinist forces which govern all of “objective reality OUTSIDE of himself”.  And further, a reality OUTSIDE of man cannot be known nor defined by man by definition, because it is OUTSIDE of him, and thus cannot include him.  And so what is the point of the fucking conversation anyway?  Why is John so committed to pointing out my inherent Marxism, as though he can even be in an epistemological position to observe it, according to his own ideas?  If man is OUTSIDE reality, which is the explicit assumption behind appeals to a reality which is “real” whether man exists or acknowledges it or not, then the question “does reality exist?” is unanswerable on its face. But as we shall see, John doesn’t come within a million miles of even acknowledging this implicit rational flaw. Anyway…somehow, I’m communist.  And somehow this idea, that the INDIVIDUAL is the only rightful owner and definer of his or her own life–and that it is the ability of one to conceptualize his or her existence which makes all humans equal and thus negates as immoral all violations of other people–will lead to inevitable bloodshed, tyranny, and heartache for everyone on earth.  Amen. Well…look, I’m not a philosopher.  I never said I was.  I have never claimed any formal education and I have been entirely up front about the fact that I know fuck all about most of your major philosophical players.  And if you think I’m sitting through Plato’s Republic, you might as well go dig a hole and fill it in with fairy dust.  Because…no way.   I have not spent many wee hours of the night sitting by candlelight in the Library of Congress and pouring over old manuscripts until my eyes bleed.  I care nothing for dissertations and theses on these subjects.  Could give a shit.  I have simple questions concerning the rank contradictions which blaze forth, not from arcane writings in long forgotten textbooks on long forgotten shelves in long forgotten libraries in institutions of intellectual snobbery, but from everyday ideas, implemented to destructive effect, which is the efficacious and relevant conclusion of all of the esoteric blather when all is said and done.  I don’t need a dissertation or a canon of philosophical dogma.  I only need to turn on the fucking TV or open a newspaper.  Within four minutes I’ll be inundated with the causal effect of time; or the cosmic, determined imperative that I submit to some abstract political, collectivist ideal; or I will be told under some stupid science article that the universe is a a trillion years old and yet in the same article I’ll be told that time was created AFTER the Big Bang, which means the universe could not be a trillion years old because the question “a trillion years from when?” cannot possibly be answered. So to hell with your shelf of books.  Riddle me these things.  All the bullshit need not apply. I don’t want appeals to intellectual or educational pedigree (see John’s response below).  I don’t want the rhetoric of “if you only understood what I understand you would accept that you are all wrong”.  I shouldn’t have to study philosophy in some stuffy formal setting for years on end before the geniuses can answer a simple question like:  If man is a function of the laws of nature which govern, how can he in fact be distinct?  Or:  Of what efficacy and relevance is observation without a definition of WHAT is observing and WHAT is being observed?  That is, without a conceptual paradigm grounded in a Standard of Truth by which “observation” and “reality” and “SELF” and “truth” and “objective”, can have any meaning in the first place.  And: If there is no definition of any of these ideas without first their conceptualization, then just how can we know that observation comes first in the epistemological chain?  How do you define something without conceptualizing it?  How is man actually man without a definition of man?  How do we “observe” that which lacks any definition? I could go on and on, but you get the idea.  And for all of John’s words, I’m still waiting for the superior intellects to answer.  I know they may seem complicated, but these are really not hard questions.  They are only hard when we have already decided that the QUESTIONS are in fact, the answers.  That is, contradiction is the root metaphysical and epistemological primary.  And, don’t doubt me, John fully accepts the contradictions, because they are grounded in “objective reality” as he defines it.  And so once again, the philosopher kings get to define the terms.  Contradictions aren’t contradictions as long as the “right” people with the “right” philosophy (e.g. those philosophies, like Objectivism, which toot their horns as the moral antipode of Marxism) are in charge of them.  Your continued objections are merely proof that you are intellectually insufficient; that you have not been “given the grace to perceive”. And this is why nothing changes.  Because as soon as you dare to question the idea that man gets his truth from his ability to observe, as opposed to his ability to conceptualize or reason, you are a Marxist,  ’nuff said.  And that’s the point of John’s entire comment.  I have denied the senses as THE singular source of truth, so I must be a moral relativist.  I must concede that there is no truth. And he sees absolutely nothing beyond that.  Which is a shame. As soon as one condemns man to his senses for his truth, he condemns man to WHAT those senses sense.  Man becomes fully a product of what is NOT him…that which is outside of himself.  Which destroys the SELF, by definition.  I, however, submit that man himSELF is the source of his truth, and nothing else.  Not his environment; not his senses; not his God…nothing.  Man IS, period.  And it is by knowing that you ARE, because you can define what you are, that you can BE YOU; and you can think, and you can do and you can choose.  And knowledge is conceptual.  Not because it is my opinion, but because it must be.  There is no definition which is not ultimately a conceptual definition.  This is not up for debate.  This is not subjective.  Sorry. And whatever John says Kant or Hume or Marx thinks about that, I just don’t fucking care.  That’s not my problem.  I will not be pigeon-holed into the either/or dichotomy John Immel’s philosophy demands.  That is, you are either essentially an Objectivist or you are a rank Marxist.  That’s just plain weak.  Answer the questions; explain the contradictions.  That’s your only moral and intellectual obligation.  Not to appeal to your vast educational experience, or to draw up new textbooks for us all to ponder until the wee hours of our life’s winter years.  Not to tell us how we need to agree that if we only understood what you understand, we’d put down our raised hands and go back to knitting those shawls or rebuilding those carburetors or head back to the movies.  Explain why your contradictions aren’t actually contradictions…and if that takes a while, by all means, we’ll wait.  In case you didn’t notice, I have over two hundred and fifty essays on this blog.  I’ve got nothing but time.  So, take yours.  By all means. * Here is my first comment wherein I respond to a question John asks in his article.  The question is, “Does reality exist?”.

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.