The Atheist Perversion of Reality

Atheism we have always had with us it seems. Going back in time, what was formerly a mere trickle of a stream has in the modern era become a raging torrent. Karl Marx’s gnostic revolt, a paradigm and methodology of atheism, has arguably been the main source feeding that stream in post-modern times.

What do we mean by “gnostic revolt?” Following Eric Voëgelin’s suggestions, our definition here will be: a refusal to accept the human condition, manifesting as a revolt against the Great Hierarchy of Being, the most basic description of the spiritual order of universal reality.

The Great Hierarchy is comprised of four partners: God–Man–World–Society, in their mutually dynamic relations. Arguably all the great world religions incorporate the idea of this hierarchy. It is particularly evident in Judaism and Christianity. One might even say that God’s great revelation to us in the Holy Bible takes this hierarchy and the relations of its partners as its main subject matter. It has also been of great interest to philosophers going back to pre-Socratic times — and evidently even to “anti-philosophers” such as Karl Marx.

In effect, Marx’s anti-philosophy abolishes the Great Hierarchy of Being by focusing attention mainly on the God and Man partners. The World and Society partners are subsidiary to that, and strangely fused: World is simply the total field of human social action, which in turn translates into historical societal forms.

Our principal source regarding the Marxist atheist position is Marx’s doctoral dissertation of 1840–1841. From it, we can deduce his thinking about the Man partner as follows:

As Voëgelin concluded, “The Marxian spiritual disease … consists in the self-divinization and self-salvation of man; the intramundane logos of human consciousness is substituted for the transcendental logos…. [This] must be understood as the revolt of immanent consciousness against the spiritual order of the world.”

How Marx Bumps Off God
So much for Marx’s revolt. As you can see, it requires the death of God. Marx’s point of theocidal departure takes its further impetus from Ludwig von Feuerbach’s theory that God is an imaginary construction of the human mind, to which is attributed man’s highest values, “his highest thoughts and purest feelings.”

In short, Feuerbach inverts the very idea of the imago Dei — that man is created in the image of God. God is, rather, created by man, in man’s own image — God is only the illusory projection of a subjective human consciousness, a mere reflection of that consciousness and nothing more.

From this Feuerbach deduced that God is really only the projected “essence of man”; and from this, Feuerbach concluded that “the great turning point of history will come when ‘man becomes conscious that the only God of man is man himself.’”

For Marx, so far so good. But Marx didn’t stop there: For Feuerbach said that the “isolated” individual is the creator of the religious illusion, while Marx insisted that the individual has no particular “human essence” by which he could be identified as an isolated individual in the first place. For Marx, the individual in reality is only the sum total of his social actions and relationships: Human subjectivity has been “objectified.” Not only God is gone, but man as a spiritual center, as a soul, is gone, too.

Marx believed that God and all gods have existed only in the measure that they are experienced as “a real force” in the life of man. If gods are imagined as real, then they can be effective as such a force — despite the “fact” that they are not really real. For Marx, it is only in terms of this imaginary efficacy that God or gods can be said to “exist” at all.

Here’s the beautiful thing from Marx’s point of view: Deny that God or the gods can be efficacious as real forces in the life of man — on the grounds that they are the fictitious products of human imagination and nothing more — and you have effectively killed God.

This insight goes to the heart of atheism. In effect, Marx’s prescription boils down to the idea that the atheist can rid himself and the world at large of God simply by denying His efficacy, the only possible “real” basis of His existence. Evidently the atheist expects that, by his subjective act of will, he somehow actually makes God objectively unreal. It’s a kind of magic trick: The “Presto-Changeo!” that makes God “disappear.”

Note that, if God can be gotten rid of by a stratagem like this, so can any other aspect of reality that the atheist dislikes. In effect, the cognitive center which — strangely — has no “human essence” has the power of eliminating whatever sectors of objective reality it wants to, evidently in full expectation that reality itself will allow itself to be “reduced” and “edited down” to the “size” of the atheist’s distorted — and may we add relentlessly imaginary? — conception.

To agree with Marx on this — that the movement of the intellect in man’s “divine” consciousness is the ultimate source of all knowledge of the universe — is to agree that human thought determines the actual structure of reality.

Instead of being a part of and participant in reality, the atheist claims the power to create it as if he himself were transcendent to, or standing outside or “beyond” reality. As if he himself were the creator god.

This type of selective operation goes a long way towards explaining the fanatical hostility of many Darwinists today regarding any idea of design or hierarchy in Nature — which, by the way, have always been directly observable by human beings who have their eyes (and minds) open. What it all boils down to seems to be: If we don’t like something, then it simply doesn’t exist.

We call the products of such selective operations second realities. They are called this because they are attempts to displace and finally eliminate the First Reality of which the Great Hierarchy of Being — God–Man–World–Society — is the paradigmatic core.

First Reality has served as the unifying conceptual foundation of Western culture and civilization for the past two millennia at least. What better way to destroy that culture and civilization than an all-out attack on the Great Hierarchy of Being?

Thus we see how the gnosis (“wisdom”) of the atheist — in this particular case, Marx — becomes the new criterion by which all operations in (the severely reduced and deformed) external reality are to be conducted, understood, and judged.

Conclusion
Marx is the self-proclaimed Paraclete of an a-borning utopia in which man will be “saved” by being reduced to essentially nothing. With God “gone,” man, as we denizens of First Reality know him, disappears also.

But whatever is left of him becomes a tool for social action. He becomes putty in the hands of whatever self-selected, self-proclaimed Paraclete seeking to promote his favored Second Reality du jour (usually for his own personal benefit) manages to stride onto the public stage and command an audience.

Such a charmed person blesses himself with the power to change human society and history forever, to bring about man’s self-salvation in a New Eden — an earthly utopia— by purely human means.

Of course, there’s a catch: As that great denizen of First Reality, Sir Thomas More, eminently recognized, the translation into English of the New Latin word “utopia” is: No-place.

In short, human beings can conjure up alternative realities all day long. But that doesn't mean that they can make them “stick.” Reality proceeds according to its own laws, which are divine in origin, and so cannot be displaced by human desire or volition, individually or collectively.

Out of such fantastic, idiotic, specifically Marxian/atheist foolishness have great revolutions been made. And probably will continue to be made — so long as psychopaths hold the keys to the asylum.

Note:
All quotations from Eric Voëgelin’s article, “Gnostic Socialism: Marx,” in: The Collected Works of Eric Voëgelin, Volume 26 — History of Political Ideas: Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1999.

And it seems to me not everything that we can imagine becomes "possible" simply because we can imagine it. Do unicorns really exist? If they do, it seems they exist in a sense that is not physically realizable. Just like most "second realities." They can be "imagined": But if they don't "map to Reality," they cannot exist as real entities.

Substitute God for Unicorns and we are in complete agreement : )

As that statement stands, it is merely a totally unsupported (pre)supposition. What "we" ever "invented" God? Let's see your data!

Ahh you caught me out. I didn't invent God, some schmuck did thousands of years ago. He learned that if he appealed to a higher authority he could get more power and control. And the rest as 'we' say is history : )

For an observer on earth at a point in time when Pluto is 6.8 light hours away and the earth rotates 102 degrees in 6.8 hours, when Pluto appears directly overhead, will it really be 102 degrees off - and not even really in the night sky?

You cavalierly say "at a point in time", well, which point in time? When the light reflected off of Pluto or when the reflected light hit your eyeball?

Let us say that you see the reflected light from Pluto on the horizon (0 degrees) and at that precise moment (from your perspective) there is a nuclear explosion that obliterates Pluto. When and how many degrees from the horizon do you need to be looking in order to see the explosion?

It certainly is true that I believe that God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days about 7k years ago.

I have two questions? Where did all the water go when God created the earth and do you dispute Einsteins Theory of Relativity?

Is it safe to say that no one is questioning the Theory of Relativity, QM or basic observational physics in our space/time?

No, I wouldn't say it's necessarily "safe" to say any of those things. The fact is, we really don't know; but these theories seem to be the most promising ways we have right now to engage issues of perennial puzzlement to human kind — unless or until something "better" comes along.

The point being that Truth is by its nature a quest, never a final possession. And that we stand on the shoulders of giants.

If our own existence and nature invalidate the certainty of any observation, all the observations on which the uncertainty principle are based have to be thrown out—thus, no uncertainty principle.

How on earth did you ever get from "they-yah to he-ah?" (I.e., "from there to here" in New England parlance.)

It is my understanding (such as it is) that the uncertainty principle itself confirms that there is an inherent disconnect of some important magnitude between the "certainty" of observation (i.e., a discrete measurement) and the "certainty" that the observation really maps to "objective" reality in its fullest sense.

It ought to be obvious that, just because we have quantifiable "experience" of a phenomenon once under some arbitrarily selected criterion, this does not (cannot) make it a universal law of Nature. Yet once we make the discrete experience a "rule," all subsequent experience of a like kind runs the risk of being filtered through that very rule forever more, without due regard for its applicablility to the case at hand. (E.g., a rule that helps us locate the space/time coordinates of a particle will not help us understand its wave behavior.)

At the end of the day, such a maneuver tells you more about man than it does about the reality external to man.

Fortunately, the heart of the uncertainty principle is reconciled by the principle of complementarity. The most basic example of complementarity is particle/wave duality. As Heisenberg showed, one cannot know both the position (space/time coordinates) and the velocity (wave function) of a particle simultaneously. The observer must choose which aspect of what is ultimately a single integrated phenomenon he wants to investigate. This casts the problem into the frame of choosing which of two seemingly mutually-exclusive properties of the given object is most relevant to the type of knowledge one seeks in a given observer-defined experimental situation. But the complementarity principle tells us that, at the end of the day, the two aspects are not only not mutually exclusive, but both are necessary to the complete description of the system of which they are "modes."

In short, the insights of quantum theory tend to show that Aristotle's Law of the Excluded Middle — although it may operate perfectly well as far as we can tell in the Newtonian Paradigm — seemingly falls to pieces at the quantum level.

This is a huge challenge to our "ordinary" ways of thinking about the world, which for many centuries by now has been heavily invested in "true/false," "yes/no," "0/1" (binary) "styles" of thinking....

But if you are determined to be grumpy and cantankerous with a nice old man—fire away.

I'm sorry if I seem grumpy and cantankerous. Fact is, I don't regard you as an "old man" at all; and I recognize you really do make the effort to "do your own thinking." That right there sets you apart from almost everybody else nowadays.... And that of itself makes you worthy of commendation in my book — whether or not I agree with you on particular points.

And oftentimes, I don't. :^)

That doesn't mean I think you're a jerk.

“You’re such a litte man.”

Well, actually I am, at least physcially. But I’m not small enough in character to be bothered by the mental pigmies that cannot bear rational argument.

I haven’t change at all in the last 30 years (which is way less than half my life) and in one respect, have not changed at all in over 60 years, because the one thing I learned as a boy is that other’s opinions of me have zero value.

Think what you like and write what you like, you’ll find no complaint from me. Just wish people did not suffer so from the fact I do not agree with them. What’s wrong with them, do they have so little character that my opinion threatens them? Poor babies.

Hank

mrjesse: "For an observer on earth at a point in time when Pluto is 6.8 light hours away and the earth rotates 102 degrees in 6.8 hours, when Pluto appears directly overhead, will it really be 102 degrees off - and not even really in the night sky? "

Yes.

Why do you even bother asking? Are you deliberately acting dense?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At the time the observer is facing away from the sun, (blessed with dark skies and good visibility) he observes photons from Pluto that were emitted from it 6.8 hours (102 degrees) earlier -- while the observer's telescope position was still in full sunlight. Pluto is 6.8 light-hours distant; the observer's location on this rotating ball of mud simply dictates whether he is in position to observe its emitted light -- or not...

That was the entire point of my discussion of the photo in # 639 -- except that, in that case, the distances are in huge multiples of light-years, instead of a few light-hours.

“{If our own existence and nature invalidate the certainty of any observation, all the observations on which the uncertainty principle are based have to be thrown out—thus, no uncertainty principle.

How on earth did you ever get from “they-yah to he-ah?” (I.e., “from there to here” in New England parlance.) “

If you try really hard, I think you can understand this. (By the way, I was born in Ipswich, Mass, and have lived in NE most of my life, so the explanation of the coloquialism was unnecessary for me.)

It’s called reason.

Premise: It is not possible to derive certain knowledge about anything by observation and reasoning from that observation.

Hypothesis: It is impossible to know anything with certainty because the physical (observable) world is governed by laws that make it impossible to know anything with certainty.

Argument: Since “it is not possible to derive certain knowledge about anything by reason, it is not possible to know anything with certainty. The claim that the uncertainty principle is known, must be false, since no certain knowledge is possible.

Here is the primary problem with using the so-called uncertainty principle as the basis of logical argument—it makes every argument self-contradictory and therefore invalid.

In the end, the “’ordinary’ ways of thinking about the world, which for many centuries by now has been heavily invested in “true/false,” “yes/no,” “0/1” (binary) “styles” of thinking,” is absolutely correct. A thing is either true or it isn’t, a thing is either alive or it is dead, you are either correct or mistaken, reality is what it is, no matter what post-modernist irrationality you want to thrust against it. Either you can jump off 30 story buildings on to the pavement below and live or you cannot. Care to make the test?

Hank

But I’m not small enough in character to be bothered by the mental pigmies that cannot bear rational argument.

But you're small enough in character to label anyone who doesn't agree with you as *mental pigmies [sic] that cannot bear rational argument* or *ignorance worshipers*.

What’s wrong with them, do they have so little character that my opinion threatens them?

You're overrating yourself if you think that your opinion threatens anyone.

It's clear that you have no small opinion of yourself but you're just one person on the planet out of several billion and while you're entitled to your opinion, you have no basis on which to judge it as better than another's.

In the relativistic framework that non-believers of necessity operate, one opinion is just as good as another.

No, the reality is that the wavepacket has the uncertainty built in so to speak. That is why an electron doesn't immediately collapse into the nucleus. Both its position and momentum would then be known.

But the complementarity principle tells us that, at the end of the day, the two aspects are not only not mutually exclusive, but both are necessary to the complete description of the system of which they are "modes."

The complementarity principle doesn't apply. Think superposition principle.

“In the relativistic framework that non-believers of necessity operate, one opinion is just as good as another.”

Perhaps in your world, but in mine all truth and all values are absolute, and immutable.

It is only in the world of those who believe reality is undiscoverable and nothing can be truly known that “relativism” reigns.

Thanks for the comments,

Hank

BB: Would you consider this statement worth pondering?: The Universal Now is something that can be experienced (albeit in a limited and rather fleeting way); but the experience itself cannot be "reduced to" a "measurement."

Yes'm... '-) I have pondered it, and conclude that something that is experienced "in a limited and rather fleeting way" does not fit my concept of "Universal"...

I realize that we have shared (both in-forum and privately) testimony re experiences we have had -- that are special to us as believers. However, I don't feel justified in putting my own experiences in the same category as those of The One Who is not at all bound or confined by space and time...

~~~~~~~~~

P.S. Thank you for your kudos and support!

I don't feel justified in putting my own experiences in the same category as those of The One Who is not at all bound or confined by space and time...

Certainly, neither do I. And that's a fact.

Still, there is the nagging problem of how human observers typically understand their "place" in the universe. Especially those who don't have a clue what the "universe" IS.

The method to my madness is to suggest a universe of such astounding complexity, and yet of such astounding order — and purpose — such that it could have had only a divine origin.

Whether you've noticed it or not, that is my basic motive for writing, here or anyplace else these days.

Here is the primary problem with using the so-called uncertainty principle as the basis of logical argument—it makes every argument self-contradictory and therefore invalid.

But only if you're a slave to Aristotle's Law of the Excluded Middle. :^)

What the complementarity principle does is to put two seemingly contradictory entities into a relation such that, taken together, a complete description of the system that they together mutually constitute can be given. Crudely put, "either/or" situations do not exist for entities in complementary relation; complementarity is a condition that exists when "both" are true, but neither in itself is "complete."

Thank you for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!

‘Now’, any sort of ‘Now’, including an Eternal ‘Now’ is a temporal concept and God is not confined by any dimension, much less Time.

The Jewish mystics use the Name "Ayn Sof" for God the Creator ex nihilo. It literally means "no thing."

The concept is that mortal language tends to attach properties which it should not - no such terms (time, space, etc.) apply to God.

I often remark that eternity is merely time without end. The counting continues. The term "timeless" is more appropriate in our meditations on His Name, I AM.

Here is the primary problem with using the so-called uncertainty principle as the basis of logical argument—it makes every argument self-contradictory and therefore invalid.

No it doesn't Hank. It just makes arguments indeterminate, incomplete. This doesn't necessarily make arguments invalid — unless determinism is the result you wanted corroborated from the get-go, and you won't take "no!" for an answer. But that's "a horse of a different color."

In which case one could understand the dim view of folks who believe that knowledge isn't knowledge unless it's "certain" knowledge; who tend to hold a hostile opinion towards people who don't agree with them, especially those who have the temerity to produce non-conforming evidence....

Here is the primary problem with using the so-called uncertainty principle as the basis of logical argument—it makes every argument self-contradictory and therefore invalid.

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