Those who dwell...among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. . . Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. The more clearly we can focus our attention on
the wonders and realities of the universe about us,
the less taste we shall have for destruction.
Rachel Carson
In dealing with the religion one has been taught, one has a number of choices -- and this goes, not only for religion, but for everything that one has every been taught. The formula that follows incidentally, is predominantly a Gestalt formula, which is a modification of some earlier Freudian (Psychoanalytic) ideas. One can/could also easily turn or construe this in Hegelian terms as a 'Hegelian evolutionary-learning formula' as well: 1. 'Introjection' (thesis): Simply 'swallow whole' everything one has been taught and don't challenge anything that one has been taught; 2. Rebellion and Rejection (anti-thesis): Rebel against and reject everything that one has been taught -- and in essence, 'throw it all back up again, out one's mouth', because one has come to the conclusion that it is all toxic and pathological, and has not one iota of 'nutritional value'; 3. Assimilation (integration, synthesis): One 'chews' and 'absorbs' the beliefs that one concludes are 'nutritional' while 'spitting back up and out' the beliefs that one concludes are 'toxic and pathological'.
Everything that I have written, and will continue to write, in this philosophical process and system (structure) follows this basic formula -- that is why this philosophical venue is partly called 'Hegel's Hotel'. I follow classic Hegelian dialectical theory in my thinking -- with some 'humanistic-existential and non-deterministic' modifications -- which makes me a 'post-Hegelian philosopher'.
So here is the number one problem: How do I fit 'non-secular' ideas and beliefs into a 'secular philosophical process and system' -- or is attempting to do this in itself a 'pathological process' because it defies 'secular, empirical sensory validation and reasoning'? For you 'hard line secular-empirical philosophers' out there who choose to completely reject any form or type of religion that defies standard secular-empirical -epistemological principle -- and from this, choose to become either 'atheist' (don't believe in God) or 'agnostic' (have no way of proving or not proving the existence or non-existence of God), I have no problem with either of your philosophical positions. Because from a strictly 'secular, empirical, epistemological' point of view -- the point of view that has been the foundation of both our democratic system of science and medicine, and our system of law, going back at least to the 'Enlightenment' period of Western philosophy. (See both the internet 'Wikipedia' articles on the Enlightenment, and a very good synopsis of the history of the Enlightenment by Paul Brians -- underneath the Wikipedia articles (Google) Created by Paul Brians March 11, 1998. Last revised May 18, 2000. This gives a very good background on much of the 'humanistic-existential' philosophical historical tradition that is central to my own evolution of philosophical thought development -- and as such, is creating the impetus here and now to 'reconcile and integrate' these ideas with my orthodox but very liberal rendition of the Protestant beliefs that come from my family background.
View these ideas to come as being very formative, in their infancy, if you will, as I struggle to find a 'spiritual and/or religious' position that is consistent with my post-Spinozian, post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean multi-dialectical, humanistic-existential, philosophical position. For those of you who are strongly religious in an orthodox, traditional way, you do not have to read what is to follow. You can spit my ideas out if you don't like them. Or -- if you are struggling with your own sense of 'spiritual-religous self' and are looking for some form of integrationism between 'secular-empirical, Enlightenment-Romantic philosophy' and more traditional spiritual-religous beliefs and values -- much like what Spinoza was doing in his time, and perhaps even before that, Heraclitus in his time -- then maybe you will find something below that is provocative, inspiring, innovative, and/or just some kind of quasi 'spiritual-philosophical foundation' that you can rest your head on and/or build from. Welcome to a new area of evolution in my post-Hegelian philosophical thought. This is not for the Conservative-minded.
Firstly, the main problem I have with most contemporary, hardline, orthodox religions is this:
Their appeal to the unchallenged authoritarianism -- and often the 'sado-maschocistic delivery and moral enforcement' -- of the Church, its rulers, its customs, its supposed 'revealers of the words of God' (i.e, the Pope, priests, ministers, evangelists, and the like) at the expense of what i would call more 'humanistic-existential and Enlightenment-Romantic' beliefs and values.
Now let me be very clear on this next point: sometimes, indeed oftentimes, traditional orthodox religous values and humanistic-existential, Enlightement-Romantic values are very compatible and interchangeable with each other -- especially in such areas as: 'loving, caring, altruism, generosity, helping others, particularly helping those who are struggling in whatever way, family values, and so on...'
Where traditional, orthodox religions and proponents of humanistic-existential, Enlightenment-Romantic values tend to split company -- not totally but to a significant degree -- is in such inter-related areas as: hedonism, narcissism, sex and sexuality, sensuality, egotism, individualism, rebelliousness, 'living in the here-and-now -- and enjoying it' -- and the like.
For most proponents of humanistic-existential and Enlightenment-Romantic values, I would say that there is generally much more of a 'liberal-mindedness, an acceptance and/or a tolerance' of a significant degree of the types of 'narcissistic-hedonistic' activities mentioned above that is not generally nearly as accepted and/or tolerated as by most orthodox religions.
The reason is simple: the orthodox religions know as well as anyone -- or better -- that human narcissim and hedonism can, when it is taken too far, be the root of much human evil, destructiveness, and self-destructiveness.
However, paradoxically, hedonism and narcissism can also be the core of much human pleasure and enjoyment in living. To eliminate all forms of human hedonism and narcissism from living -- which I would say is next to impossible because they are 'hard-wired' into us -- arguably by 'God', perhaps partly for reasons of continuing Creation and Evolution (would anyone -- or nearly as many people, as often -- have sexual intercourse if the experience was generally 'painful'?).
Thus, proponents of orthodox religious beliefs and values have, can, and do, come into conflict with proponents of Humanistic-Existential-Romantic-Enlightenment beliefs and values (let's short form this and call the latter types 'HERE' types) over the extent of how much 'hedonism' and 'narcissism' should play a part in people's 'normal, moral, day-to-day behavior and living'.
How do we resolve this conflict? Or do we?
The argument goes a long way back -- back to the 14th and 15th century. I cite the Paul Brians article from the internet mentioned above:
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The Renaissance Humanists
In the 14th and 15th century there emerged in Italy and France a group of thinkers known as the "humanists." The term did not then have the anti-religious associations it has in contemporary political debate. Almost all of them were practicing Catholics. They argued that the proper worship of God involved admiration of his creation, and in particular of that crown of creation: humanity. By celebrating the human race and its capacities they argued they were worshiping God more appropriately than gloomy priests and monks who harped on original sin and continuously called upon people to confess and humble themselves before the Almighty. Indeed, some of them claimed that humans were like God, created not only in his image, but with a share of his creative power. The painter, the architect, the musician, and the scholar, by exercising their intellectual powers, were fulfilling divine purposes.
This celebration of human capacity, though it was mixed in the Renaissance with elements of gloom and superstition (witchcraft trials flourished in this period as they never had during the Middle Ages), was to bestow a powerful legacy on Europeans. The goal of Renaissance humanists was to recapture some of the pride, breadth of spirit, and creativity of the ancient Greeks and Romans, to replicate their successes and go beyond them. Europeans developed the belief that tradition could and should be used to promote change. By cleaning and sharpening the tools of antiquity, they could reshape their own time.
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This shows that humanism (or humanistic-existentialism) and religion do not need to be divorced from each other but often are divorced from each other on matters of what it means -- and/or should mean -- to be human.
The philosophical problem for me becomes: how do I philosophically, morally, and spiritually reconcile and/or integrate -- if this is possible -- Nietzsche, religion, humanism, and existentialism? And how do I reconcile and/or integrate -- again if this is possible -- Nietzsche's most infamous and provocative philosophical assertion, 'God is dead!', with religion, spirituality, humanism, and humanistic-existentialism?
Let me get a number of Gap-DGBN definitions onto paper and working as a backdrop here as quickly as possible:
1. 'Gap' refers to the 'void(s)', the 'abyss(es)' in human existence, in human philosophy, in truth, in ethics, in all of human life and culture...The term 'gap' was first taken from a Gestalt book by Fritz Perls where he said -- and I am paraphrasing here because it could take me a while to find the exact quote (it was about 20 years ago that I read it) -- that his form of psychotherapy (Gestalt Therapy) basically dealt with diagnosing and dialectically working with the 'gaps in peoples lives and personalities'.
2. 'DGBN' is an acronym partly for: 1. my name; 2. 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations' (which is what I am doing here in this essay as well in most of my other essays); and 3. 'Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism' which is my main lament and criticism against Western culture.
3. 'Humanism' in Gap-DGBN Philosophy refers to 'compassion', 'empathy', 'sensitivity', 'altruism', 'love', 'generosity', 'caring' in human philosophy and human behavior;
4. 'Existentialism' in Gap-DGBN Philosophy refers to the 'accountability' of each and everyone of us to our own 'selfhood', and a 'willingness to take responsibility for own own thoughts, feelings, actions, and lack of actions, capabilities, potentialities, limitations, failures, successes...and 'bridging the gap between being and becoming' both in our personal lives and ideally in the betterment of mankind...
5. Humanistic-existentialism integrates the best of both capitalist and socialist ideology and idealism -- human self-assertiveness and individuality with human compassion, sensitivity, and caring about others.
Now where does Nietzsche fit in the scheme of these definitions? I would call Nietzsche a full blown existentialist (individualist) but not a humanist in the sense that Nietzsche did not philosophically, or in his own life, show much, if any, support for human empathy, compassion, altruism, caring about others, etc. His was a very 'un-compassionate' philosophy -- Capitalist-narcissistic-conservative ideology and idealism both at its best in terms of its existential-individualistic values and its worst in terms of its hard line narcissistic-ultra-Darwinian idea of 'who cares if you walk over your neighbor and what he or she wants as long as you get what you want'. Nietzsche -- even if he was totally against Nazism, German Nationalism, and Antisemitism -- still did/does not sound like he was a very compassionate, caring, humanistic person. It was all about Nietzsche and his own personal and philosophical brand of narcissism. From what From what I have read, he fell significantly in love at least twice, maybe three times -- and does not seem to have much success in love -- spurned twice in two different marriage proposals with two different women (1. a young Dutch woman, Mathilde Trampedach, in 1876; and 2. a young Russian girl, Lou Andreas-Salome, in 1882, who later became an intimate of Freud); and -- perhaps he even fell in love with Richard Wagner's wife Cosima -- see Alan Ryan's short essay on the internet, 'The Will To Madness', January 24th, 1999...
The Will to Madness
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The story of Friedrich Nietzsche's fateful relationship with Richard and Cosima Wagner.
By ALAN RYAN
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Nietzsche was not without friends but for the most part he was a usually physically sick and, from most accounts, was a psychologically lonely man who perhaps -- and this is my interpretation -- compensated for some of the core of his deficiencies in health and love -- with a very compelling, charismatic, articulate intellect 'that blew most, if not all, of his academic and non-academic competitors and adversaries away'. He did indeed create a philosophical earthquake of the highest proportions in both in Western philosophy, psychology, and Western culture as a whole, starting in the late 19th century -- and with us ever since -- the repercussions and fallout of which we are still very much feeling today. Did Nietzsche 'free' us from 'oppressive, anti-humanistic, anti-self-oriented religion, only to condemn us to a polar opposite and equally oppressive and bad life of -- 'self-infatuated, anti-compassionate, narcissism'?
Once again, Anaxamander's Fragment (and Law) comes to mind -- the 'Case of the Swinging Pendulum' -- black and white, male and female, religious and anti-religious, bourgeois and the proletariat forces will never be or become totally divorced from each other, as hard as they might try, as much as they each might vie and fight for their own particular and 'unique form of philosophical and narcissistic lifestyle supremacy' (or 'will to power'), first one taking the spotlight while the other is in the shadows, then a 'reversal of fortunes' while the tide turns or the pendulum swings in the opposite direction, and what was bright is now dim, what was dim is now bright, what was up is now down, what was down is now up....always consciously or unconsciously, purposely or non-purposely, freely or deterministically, looking for that perfect, mystical, mythical dialectical union...that oasis of life, or is it a mirage...like the perfect sexual, emotional, and spiritual intercourse...before the perfect union is over...every good thing has to come to an end sooner or later...and if you hang onto what was once a 'perfect union' for too long because you are afraid to lose it...which you inevitably will...you develop what Fritz Perls called a 'hanging on bite' which is no longer 'good contact' but rather 'pathological, symbiotic confluence' because everything and everyone must go through the natural life process of 'contact' and 'withdrawl' (the Gestalt therapists call this process 'organismic self-regulation') and 'too much of anything for too long is a bad thing...it's eventually going to turn stale, stagnant, and/or toxic'...everything and everyone is 'in flux' (Heraclitus)...and eventually everything and everyone in contact with something or someone else is going to have to go through a temporary or permanent state of withdrawl and individuation again...either in health and/or in pathology...only to hopefully and ideally come back together again stronger and more united than ever...this is my own Gap-DGBN integrative (post-Anaxamanderian, post-Heraclitean, post-Spinozian, post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean, post-Christian brand of philosophical, psychological, political and religious-spiritual ideology and idealism. Nietzsche and Christianity (narcissism and altruism) need to meet in the middle. Divorced from each other they are both intolerable. Same too with Plato and Aristotle. Same too with the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Same too with Apollo and Dionysus. Same too with Adam Smith and Marx (Capitalism and Socialism), Conservativism and Liberalism. Same too with 'superego' and 'id', 'personna' and 'shadow', 'topdog' and 'underdog'...humanism and existentialism. For each belief, value, goal, and action, there is a counter-belief, counter-value, counter-goal, and counter-action. For each philosophy there is a counter-philosophy. The 'truth' and the 'ethics' of it all usually somewhere between the 'swinging pendulums of human extremism and righteousness'. Gap-DGBN Philosophy, through the reincarnation and embellishment of Anaxamander's Fragment and Law, and through Hegel's Hotel, is -- if you permit my boldness and partial egotism (I have played the 'underdog' a lot more in life than I have played the 'topdog') -- here to show you the way.
dgbn, Feb. 18th, 2007.
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