The Atheist Perversion of Reality

April 5, 2009 | Jean F. Drew

[betty boop]

The Atheist Perversion of Reality
By Jean F. Drew

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:

(1) The movement of the intellect in man’s consciousness is the ultimate source of all knowledge of the universe. A human self-consciousness is the supreme divinity.

(2) “Faith and the life of the spirit are expressly excluded as an independent source of order in the soul.”

(3) There must be a revolt against “religion,” because it recognizes the existence of a realissimum beyond human consciousness. Marx cannot make man’s self-consciousness “ultimate” if this condition exists.

(4) The logos is not a transcendental spirit descending into man, but the true essence of man that can only be developed and expressed by means of social action in the process of world history. That is, the logos is “immanent” in man himself. Indeed, it must be, if God is abolished. And with God, reason itself is abolished as well: To place the logos in man is to make man the measure of all things. To do so ineluctably leads to the relativization of truth, and to a distorted picture of reality.

(5) “The true essence of man, his divine self-consciousness, is present in the world as the ferment that drives history forward in a meaningful manner.” God is not Lord of history, the Alpha and Omega; man is.

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.

And yet the Marxian expectation argues otherwise.

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.

©2009 Jean F. Drew

April 4, 2009

[LeGrande]

The system is always disturbed by an observation having been made.

Yes of course, but the uncertainty doesn't arise because the observation disturbs the system. The uncertainty is inherent to the system.

[Alamo-Girl]

The point you are making is further described on this Wikipedia: Uncertainty Principle article.

The point we are making is further described on this Wikipedia: Wave Function Collapse article.

They are not mutually exclusive.

[LeGrande]

∆x∆p > ħ/2 is not affected by observation.

[TXnMA]

If you don't have time to answer them all at first, please just answer the red one!

-Jesse

The Red question - 12 light hour away planet:

For an observer on earth who is looking at a bright and stationary planet that is 12 light hours away and is above the earth's equator, at the instant that said planet appears in the east will it really be in the west? Will its gravity be pulling in the opposite direction of where the light appears to come from at that instant?
LeGrande's Answer: Refuses to answer so far.

---

All of your questions appear to be variations on the same theme -- and are occasioned by your misperception that there is a difference between rotation and orbiting.

The page linked byLeGrande in #716 answers all your questions.

Bottom line: for viewers within the universe, both cases are the same. Only an observer outside the system (you, the viewer of the page showing both animations at once) can discern which case (or complex combination of the two) represents reality.

Once you grasp the concept of relativity, it should be obvious that six days from God's viewpoint and billions of years from ours are one and the same -- and that the mind-burps of the medieval Bishop Ussher are totally irrelevant...

[Alamo-Girl]

You are concentrating on the wave itself, on quantum field theory. I do not find this surprising since you have claimed to be atheist. And atheists often believe that "reality" is only that which physically exists, i.e. is measurable or observable.

We consider philosophy, structures, mathematics, universals/forms etc. and above all these, Logos which is a Name of God.

Logos is a Greek word which is translated to Word, a Name of Jesus Christ as Creator God. The word logos is also the root word for logic.

That extends, in this case, to looking at the information content of the cosmos, of quantum superposition and the translation from quantum (uncertainty) to classical (sensory perceptible certainty) physics. Is Schrodinger's cat dead or alive or both?

The observer is part of the system he is observing. Indeed, his own uncertainty (Shannon entropy) is reduced by virtue of cognition (information, successful communication.)

Currently, quantum decoherence is the popular explanation for apparent wave function collapse - or to put it another way, the apparent selection of a state that we actually perceive in the macro world around us. Alas, the cat is dead to our sensory perception and we shall bury him.

Even so, Everett believes the cat may yet be alive in his many-world cosmology. The quantum superposition continues, it did not actually collapse. In a parallel universe, you did not read this post and instead went to cash in your Power-ball ticket.

In this as in all disciplines of science (e.g. molecular biology) - theory and observations are both subject to interpretation. An appeal to the properties of wave functions does not settle the debate about the observer, certainty/uncertainty, superposition etc.

[RegulatorCountry]

Too bad I missed this thread last night. I’d have enjoyed participating as it developed.

But, to your observations, I’m not so certain this is as meaningful as it might seem at first blush. Had the universe not been so delicately balanced as to allow life on Earth to have reached the human condition, we wouldn’t be here to observe it. So, it’s a sword that cuts both ways.

I believe in Creation, and believe the perfection of it is one of the many markers of divinity in our physical existence. But, life arising in conditions that encourage it is not, in itself, solely indicative of this.

[bdeaner]

“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.”

Great quote -- an altogether an excellent article. I missed it the first time around, glad I caught it now.

[betty boop]

You’d be willing to look at that, wouldn’t you?

Of course!

[betty boop]

Thanks, bdeaner!

[Alamo-Girl]

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

Bottom line: for viewers within the universe, both cases are the same. Only an observer outside the system (you, the viewer of the page showing both animations at once) can discern which case (or complex combination of the two) represents reality.

Once you grasp the concept of relativity, it should be obvious that six days from God's viewpoint and billions of years from ours are one and the same..

I'd like to add that some have appealed to coordinate transformations as supporting their geocentric cosmology. But, as you have said here, they must grasp relativity.

Which is to say, the ability to transform coordinates mathematically does not constitute a true statement about the cosmos. Space/time exists independent of the observer's choice of a coordinate system. Astronomical observations should confirm the coordinate system, which they do for heliocentricity but not geocentricity.

[RegulatorCountry]

An excellent, lengthy explanation. You've got the patience of Job.

Of late, I just get bemused when trying to do what you've just done, bemused by envisioning God zooming around, robes a-flappin' in the cosmic debris, eternally limited by the speed of light that he created - darn it! - while trying to get the universe up and running. From an atheist, materialist point of view, He must seem like Santa and his reindeer ... physical nuts and bolts, just plain getting above their raising.

It's just all too funny. That, or depressing. I'm not sure which right now. I guess it depends upon my frame of reference, lol.

[mrjesse]

Said LeGrande:I just thought of a simpler example, duck hunting. If you are in the back of a pickup and a duck comes flying by at 60 mph you have to lead it by a few degrees to hit it. Now lets say you are in the pickup driving 60 miles an hour by a pond with a duck sitting in it. Well if you want to hit the duck you are going to have to lead it by a few degrees.

The angle of lead will be precisely the same in both circumstances, it doesn’t matter whether the bird is flying 60 mph and the truck is stopped or the Truck is moving 60 mph and the bird is stopped, the lead angle will be the same. It is the exact same analogy with Pluto orbiting a stopped Earth or a spinning Earth and a stopped Pluto.

That's the wrong analogy. You're talking above about the transverse velocity of the observer. (Transverse means sideways.) The question of Pluto is a angular velocity issue!

So the real question is "If you were on a merry go around, rotating 10 degrees in the time it would take your bullet to reach the stationary duck, how far would you have to lead?"

And the answer is: If the duck is moving, then yes, you have to lead. But if both you and the duck are in place and not moving, except the platform you are standing on is rotating, then you do not need to lead because the instant the bullet leaves your barrel, it'll travel in a straight line to the duck. (Assuming, of course, that the tip of your barrel is over the center of the merry go around.)

-Jesse

[Zero Sum]

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/jw/module1_Inertial.htm

What it is demonstrating is that there is no difference between being orbited or spinning. It is all about inertial frames of reference.

No, in fact it demonstrates just the opposite: A rotating frame of reference is not an inertial frame.

Well it so happens that if Pluto is stationary you will need to lead it by 102 degrees if you are shooting that missile from a rotating Earth. There is no difference between the inertial frames as far as the two observers in them are concerned.

Wrong again. If you play the animation in your link, you will note that the person on the merry-go-round does not lead her target, but throws the ball right at him the moment he appears in front of her. You will notice that at each moment during the animation, the ball's instantaneous velocity has it traveling towards the target, and this is true in both frames. However, the stationary target in the INERTIAL frame sees the ball travelling straight at constant velocity (because of the ball's INERTIA), while the rotating thrower sees the ball curve around and follow the target: She observes an ACCELERATION that cannot be accounted for by any real force. This is why the apparent force that would have to be acting on the object to cause the observed acceleration if the rotating frame were indeed inertial (acceleration which is not observed in an inertial frame) is called FICTITIOUS, and this demonstrates that rotating frames are not inertial.

You are correct that you would need to lead a target that is orbiting around you, but you are incorrect in saying that you would need to lead a stationary target if you are spinning. Rotational motion is not relative, and again, the link you provided shows how this can be demonstrated by experiment: The apparent curvature of the ball's trajectory shows the person on the merry-go-round that she is rotating, and since her target is stationary she does not have to lead it. If, on the other hand, she were not spinning and her target were orbiting around her, then she would have to lead the target, because being in an INERTIAL frame, she would see the ball going straight.

[mrjesse]

Said MrJesse:But there is a vast difference between spinning and being orbited - and that is this: When spinning, the light takes a path from the source to you in a straight line between the source and you. When you are being orbited, the source moves aver emitting the light, and so by the time the light arrives to your eyes, the source has moved and will no longer be where the light's angle causes it to appear to be.

Replied LeGrande:take a look at this illustration - http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/jw/module1_Inertial.htm

What it is demonstrating is that there is no difference between being orbited or spinning. It is all about inertial frames of reference.

Just like Zero Sum said better then I could have - your very own illustration demonstrates exactly the opposite of what you claim! (Thanks Zero Sum! I was going to say the same, but you beat me to it and better as well!)

So LG, Go read it if you haven't already!

-Jesse

[LeGrande]

So the real question is "If you were on a merry go around, rotating 10 degrees in the time it would take your bullet to reach the stationary duck, how far would you have to lead?"

And the answer is: If the duck is moving, then yes, you have to lead. But if both you and the duck are in place and not moving, except the platform you are standing on is rotating, then you do not need to lead because the instant the bullet leaves your barrel, it'll travel in a straight line to the duck. (Assuming, of course, that the tip of your barrel is over the center of the merry go around.)

Why don't you go and do the experiment with your kid, except use a ball instead of shooting him : ) In fact why don't you use a camcorder and demonstrate where the animation is wrong?

[mrjesse]

Said TXnMA:All of your questions appear to be variations on the same theme -- and are occasioned by your misperception that there is a difference between rotation and orbiting.

The page linked byLeGrande in #716 answers all your questions.

Please see Zero Sum's great answer on that.

The animation does not answer any of my questions in the same way that you or LeGrande would answer them if you would answer them.

Please note that the ball thrower in the animation always throws the ball exactly at the catcher, and exactly when the catcher is directly in front of them. They do not lead on it. That is because the catcher is angularly stationary, and it's the thrower that's rotating.

If you still think LG is right, then please go ahead and answer the rest of my color coded questions if you might be so kind!

There IS a difference between spinning and being orbited, and it becomes blatently obvious when there's a third body in motion - such as a ball or light. If the thrower was not rotating but being orbited by the catcher, then the thrower would have to lead on the catcher. Pleaes go step through the animation to see that the thrower never leads on the catcher: The ball always leaves the throwers hand at the exact direction of the catcher, and the ball goes in a straight line between the thrower's hand and the catcher.

And here's a freebie - there sure does seem to be an absolute angular rate zero. A good gyro can detect the earth's rotation. An even better one can detect the not only the earth's rotation, but it's yearly journey around the sun. Somehow a gyro, burried 50 miles deep in the earth, can measure its own angular movement referenced to something outside of the solar system - something which gives all appearance of being absolute angular rate of zero.

Gotta run. Need to video the remainder of a gradation ceremony.

Thanks,

-Jesse

[LeGrande]

And atheists often believe that "reality" is only that which physically exists, i.e. is measurable or observable.

You won't get an argument from me : )

We consider philosophy, structures, mathematics, universals/forms etc. and above all these, Logos which is a Name of God.

Yes, let me pick the assumptions and I can logically prove anything : ) Or better yet, let me pick the parameters and I can predict anything : )

Alas, the cat is dead to our sensory perception and we shall bury him.

Schrodinger and Einstein tried their best to disprove QM, but even Schrodinger's kittens couldn't do it.

Even so, Everett believes the cat may yet be alive in his many-world cosmology. The quantum superposition continues, it did not actually collapse. In a parallel universe, you did not read this post and instead went to cash in your Power-ball ticket.

Even the many worlds theory agrees that the wave function collapses. The other universe just had a different result.

An appeal to the properties of wave functions does not settle the debate about the observer, certainty/uncertainty, superposition etc.

Hmm, you are mixing apples and oranges. Certainly the observer in effect helps determine the outcome, but the observer doesn't change the basic principles by the observation.

[mrjesse]

Said LeGrande:
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/jw/module1_Inertial.htm

What it is demonstrating is that there is no difference between being orbited or spinning. It is all about inertial frames of reference.

Replied Zero Sum:
No, in fact it demonstrates just the opposite: A rotating frame of reference is not an inertial frame.[---snip---]

Great job, Zero Sum. Thanks!

-Jesse

[mrjesse]

Said LeGrande:Why don't you go and do the experiment with your kid, except use a ball instead of shooting him : ) In fact why don't you use a camcorder and demonstrate where the animation is wrong?

The animation is correct! And the animation demonstrates that the thrower does not lead on the catcher as the catcher appears to go flying by.

But if you now tell me that the animation is wrong, then I'll be glad to set up an experiment on a merry go around, video it, and publish the video. But you gotta tell me that the animation you linked to is wrong, first :=)

-Jesse

[NoGrayZone]

"The Bible says “ ... sin is the transgression of the law,” (1Jn. 3:4) and “where no law is, there is no transgression.” (Rom. 4:15). Christians tell me they believe right and wrong are absolute (which is what I believe) but if what is sin, or not sin, can be changed simply by changing the law (e.g. changing the Sabbath laws) doesn't that make right and wrong contingent and arbitrary. [I know all about the ritual laws being fulfilled in Christ, and that is not the explanation.]

Hi Hank! I actually found your post searching for old Atlas Shrugged listings. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1411979/posts

I then went into your posts and found this thread.

The problem with "laws", is now a days, they are MANS laws....which can be interchangeable. God's laws cannot.A lot of so called "Christians" today are blinded by that fact. I use quotes because they aren't really Christians at all. They are fools, being led to slaughter.