Floor 46: On Religion, Mythology, Spirituality, Pantheism, Humanism: Hegel's Hotel

If There is One Thing Good To Be Said About Global Capitalism...

2011-04-25T09:17:00.001-07:00

If there is one thing good to say about Global Capitalism...it is perhaps this:

I am suffering such that millions of people in some of the poorest countries in the world --- who are much more impovertized and desparate than me -- can work -- and at least take something home to feed their families...

-- dgb, April 25th, 2011

-- David Gordon Bain

Who Were Some of The Greatest 'Healers' -- in The Spirit of Jesus Christ -- In The 19th and 20th Centuries?

2011-04-24T18:15:00.001-07:00

I would like to take this essay to honour some of the greatest female healers in the history of civilization...Included in my list today are: Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, Edith Cavell...and Princess Diana...

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I think Mother Teresa had a deeper insight -- and a more intense empathy -- into the 'reality', not the 'fantasy', of 'human neurosis' than Freud did...And with all due respect to Freud, I think she was by far the greater healer...

Not surprisingly in my opinion, Mother Teresa's insight into human suffering and 'neurosis' -- a name that she probably would never even use -- came mainly from a similar place -- traumacy theory -- where Freud had started his investigations into psychoanalysis and psychotherapeutic healing in the early 1890s, not after he abandoned this position/perspective/theory after 1896. Mother Teresa, to my knowledge, was never interested in 'human fantasy theory' -- perhaps more of a product of the middle and upper class where people have more time, money, and energy to fantasize...-- no, she was too busy trying to encourage, support, and give people hope and love in the deepest depths of their suffering...

You saw some of this in Freud's work up to 1896 -- his 'empathy' for traumatized and/or victimized 'hysterical' women...But after 1896, something changed -- I think it was a combination of the Emma Ekstein nasal surgery fiasco and near tragedy, as well as the scientific meeting of April, 1896, where Freud learned directly and indirectly in no uncertain terms that 'patriarchal power ruled', that he was 'overpowered and outmatched', and if 'you can't beat them, you join them'.

Women like Mother Teresa -- and Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell, even Princess Diana -- were too busy 'working the trenches' trying to help and heal people in their highest states of misery, to think about 'political correctness'...and/or their own 'self-preservation'..

Mother Teresa burned a type, an intensity, a depth and a breadth of love that none of us are likely to come close to duplicating... If there is a connection here to the 'altruistic idealism' of Christianity -- or any other religion -- then I have the deepest of respect for any man or woman who can burn the fire and spiritual-religious idealism of their particular religion to the applied depth and breadth of these women...

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Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

Mother Teresa

Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.

Mother Teresa

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?

Mother Teresa

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

Mother Teresa

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

Mother Teresa

(If you can't help a hundred people, then help just one. -- dgb)

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

Mother Teresa

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Florence Nightingale Quotes

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/florence_nightingale.html

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

Florence Nightingale

I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.

Florence Nightingale

I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.

Florence Nightingale

It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm.

Florence Nightingale

So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.

Florence Nightingale

The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.

Florence Nightingale

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

Florence Nightingale

Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.

Florence Nightingale

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Florence Nightingale, OM, RRC (pronounced /ˈflɒrəns ˈnaɪtɨŋɡeɪl/, historically [ˈflɒɾəns]; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. A Christian universalist, Nightingale believed that God had called her to be a nurse. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale

Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment, in 1860, of her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London, the first secular nursing school in the world, now part of King's College London. The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday.

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I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”

Edith Cavell

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Cavell

Edith Louisa Cavell ( /ˈkævəl/; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse and humanitarian. She is celebrated for saving the lives of casualties from all sides without distinction and in helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I, for which she was arrested. She was court-martialled and found guilty of treason. She was sentenced to death and shot by firing squad. She received worldwide sympathetic press coverage.

She is well-known for her statement that "patriotism is not enough." Her strong Anglican beliefs propelled her to help all those who needed it, both German and Allied soldiers. She was quoted as saying, "I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved".[1] Cavell was also an influential pioneer of modern nursing in Belgium.

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Mother Teresa From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa

Mother Teresa in Calcutta

Religion Catholic

Order Missionaries of Charity

Personal

Nationality Albanian, Indian

Born Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu

August 26, 1910(1910-08-26)

Üsküb, Vilayet of Kosovo, Ottoman Empire (today's Skopje)

Died September 5, 1997(1997-09-05) (aged 87)

Calcutta, India

Signature of Mother Teresa

Senior posting

Title Superior General

Period in office 1950–1997

Successor Nirmala Joshi

Mother Teresa (26 August 1910 – 5 September 1997), born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu[1] (pronounced [aɡˈnɛs ˈɡɔndʒa bɔjaˈdʒiu]), was a Catholic nun of Albanian[2][3] ethnicity and Indian citizenship,[4] who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India in 1950. For over 45 years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.[5][6]

By the 1970s, she was internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary and book Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India's highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counselling programs, orphanages, and schools.

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http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/princess_diana.html

Quotes from Princess Diana...

Anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can.

Princess Diana

Being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Princess Diana

Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.

Princess Diana

Everyone of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves.

Princess Diana

Family is the most important thing in the world.

Princess Diana

HIV does not make people dangerous to know, so you can shake their hands and give them a hug: Heaven knows they need it.

Princess Diana

Hugs can do great amounts of good - especially for children.

Princess Diana

I don't even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box.

Princess Diana

I don't go by the rule book... I lead from the heart, not the head.

Princess Diana

I don't want expensive gifts; I don't want to be bought. I have everything I want. I just want someone to be there for me, to make me feel safe and secure.

Princess Diana

I knew what my job was; it was to go out and meet the people and love them.

Princess Diana

I like to be a free spirit. Some don't like that, but that's the way I am.

Princess Diana

I live for my sons. I would be lost without them.

Princess Diana

I think like any marriage, especially when you've had divorced parents like myself; you want to try even harder to make it work.

Princess Diana

I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved. I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I am very happy to do that, I want to do that.

Princess Diana

I want my boys to have an understanding of people's emotions, their insecurities, people's distress, and their hopes and dreams.

Princess Diana

I want to walk into a room, be it a hospital for the dying or a hospital for the sick children, and feel that I am needed. I want to do, not just to be.

Princess Diana

I wear my heart on my sleeve.

Princess Diana

I will fight for my children on any level so they can reach their potential as human beings and in their public duties.

Princess Diana

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-- dgb, Easter Sunday, April 24th, 2011,

-- David Gordon Bain

The Greatest Cure in The World for 'Capitalism'...

2011-04-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

Dialectic-(Democratic)-Homeostatic Balance (DHB) will always be disturbed, disrupted, bent out of shape and balance, by individual and group narcissistic bias, manipulation, money and power.

Restoring the DHB group (i.e., self, relationship, family, community, corporate, government, institutional) balance will always demand that 'fair-minded, ethical, DHB thinking and feeling' people will in the end defeat 'narcissistically blinded and/or bent out of shape' people in a rhetorical war of words -- or something unfortunately worse -- a political, economic and/or physical war of 'will to power'. Obviously, sometimes the 'good guys' don't always win -- or win in the first attempt. Some narcissistic dictators and/or manipulators may take years to finally 'defeat'. But in the end, generally, 'what goes around comes around'... The second oldest known philosopher in Greek history -- Anaximander gave us that last 'priceless and timeless gem' of ancient wisdom.

In this regard, we can all choose to be a part of the 'narcissistic individual and/or group problem' or we can step above this -- see other people beyond what we see in the closest mirror -- and be a part of an 'ethical, humanistic-existential conflict-negotiating and resolving team'.

Where do you draw the line between being an ethical, humanistic-existential negotiator vs. being a 'one-sided, narcissitic negotiator' who doesn't care a flying flip about the person you are negotiating with?

Ideally, you are supposed to be able to stand up for your own self, your own rights and wishes, while the other person looks after his or her own self, rights and wishes...And the 'finalized deal' is where each person in the deal meets somewhere in the 'middle' and agrees on this 'middle'.

But what do you do about fraudulent sellers and negotiators, people on the other side of the bargaining negotiation table who have told you something that isn't true, or know something about what he or she is selling that you don't -- and ethically should. Perhaps the salesman/woman knows that the car he/she is about to sell you has an engine that is about to blow up, and by rights, this is where you need to due your 'due dilligence' and have your own mechanic check the car, and/or get a warrenty, take it out for a good test drive, and/or work with a sales person who you feel comfortable that you can trust that he or she actually cares about you as well as, or on top of, or instead of, how much he or she wants to get rid of a 'bad car for the maximum possible price'.

The difference between 'narcissistic capitalism' and 'ethical-dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential capitalism' basically comes down to the following two questions:

1, Should I, or should I not be -- ethical?

2. How can I make this deal a 'win-win' deal where both of us walk out of the deal happier than when we walked into it, and, thus, both of us wanting to do business with each other again?

Ethics and integrity are never perfect, and narcissistic impulses are often strong -- indeed, a legitimate part of our everyday self-wants, self-needs, and self-expression as long as they don't cross social-ethical boundaries...into the realm of the unethical, the corrupt, the greedy, and/or the criminal...

Greed is almost an inherent vice -- or at least a potential inherent vice -- in human nature. Certainly, it has been around since as far back as recorded human history goes -- back to 'pillaging-plundering' tribes..

The simplest definition of both 'narcissitic capitalism' and 'pathological narcissism' is not caring a 'rat's ....' about the person and/or people around you who you are affecting...

Unfortunately, narcissistic capitalism breeds more and more narcissitic capitalists...in government, on Wall Street and Bay Street, in private corporations, in sellers and buyers, in lawyers who encourage their clients to be fraudulent in order to get a bigger insurance claim of which they get a percentage of, in family lawyers who are paid to get as much as they possibly can for their clients, at the expense of lives that are destroyed on the opposite side of the bargaining table...'Sorry, I had the better lawyer...you should have spent more on a better lawyer...I get the four bedroom house with the children, and you, if you are lucky, can maybe afford to rent a room in a house...and hopefully still have enough money left for at least food'...Or in other case scenarios, both sides are destroyed in a fight where only the lawyers go home with the 'spoils'...

Who doesn't want to be rich? Not too many of us...Being with money is, all else being equal, a much better life than being without money...I've experienced life on 'both sides of the track' -- or at least what I call 'middle class poverty' where you may live in a nice or at least decent place...but you can't afford to do anything else, and even keeping up with your bills becomes a struggle that sometimes -- or every day -- you fear losing... The war of diminishing 'take home income'...and increasing expenses...a combination of inflation and a floundering economy where the people at the top still manage to find a way to pull strings and get a bigger and bigger piece of the pie...Call it a mixture of global capitalism and corporate collusion, even government-corporate collusion...

Beware the biggest political party donators...and lobbyists...they are not 'donating out of the goodness of their hearts'...they are thinking about colluding and cashing in on another deal...

Narcissistic capitalists and narcissistic people in general worship the same Greek God -- 'Narcissus'... even if they don't know it...because the signature characteristic of the narcissistic personality is not to be able to see beyond the closest mirror....and we are all narcissistic to some extent...

I'm sure even Mother Teresa looked in the mirror...but that brings us back to The Spirit of Jesus Christ...and in this case, the woman who so completely lived in the Spirit of Jesus Christ -- Mother Teresa...

We idealize -- and idolize -- Gods, either because we are like them...or we want to be more like them...Often, they respresent our 'missing half'...We live too much of a 'narcissistic life'...and then we go to Church to 'learn' how to be more 'all loving' like Jesus Christ...or Mother Teresa...

I am going to write an essay one day on Mother Teresa... I read some of her quotes a few minutes ago that started to make me cry... Being Easter, I think it is entirely fitting that I share these with you...

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Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa

Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Mother Teresa

I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn't touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.
Mother Teresa

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor? Mother Teresa

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Teresa

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one. Mother Teresa

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. Mother Teresa

Intense love does not measure, it just gives. Mother Teresa

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. Mother Teresa

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. Mother Teresa

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God - the rest will be given. Mother Teresa

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go. Mother Teresa

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work. Mother Teresa

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. Mother Teresa

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do... but how much love we put in that action. Mother Teresa

Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. Mother Teresa

Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Mother Teresa

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mother_teresa.html

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The next time you go into a business deal -- or any other encounter and/or relationship at all, for that matter...

Imagine that you have Narcissus looking over your one shoulder...

And both Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa looking over your other shoulder...

Then go ahead and make your 'deal'...

I fathom a guess...

That that would be the greatest cure in the world...

For 'Capitalism'...

Or for any other ideology in the world...

For that matter...

In Hegel's Hotel...

'God' symbolizes 'self-strength' and 'self-assertion'...

Whereas 'Jesus Christ' more fully symbolizes 'empathy, social sensitivity, and loving/caring about others...'

In Hegel's Hotel, both God and Jesus Christ -- like Narcissus (The Greeek God of Self-Interest) and 'Altruissus' (The DGB God of Social Interest)-- flow together and dialectically unite into a 'Holy Trinity' -- 'The Holy Spirit' being the 'creative, dialectic union between self-and-social interest and love' in a way that helps to build a better world for both ourselves and the people we share this world with...because we all need each other in good times -- and especially in bad times...

Idealistic? Of course...

Realistic?

As Mother Teresa would say,

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Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Mother Teresa

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
Mother Teresa

Each one of them/us is Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa

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-- dgb, April 23rd-24th, 2011.

-- Where Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- And Amazing, Creative Integrations...

-- Can happen...

Ten Different Commandments

2011-01-06T11:10:00.001-08:00

Someone has written these beautiful words. One must read and try to understand the deep meanings in them. They are like the Ten Commandments to follow in life all the time.

1] Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble; it is a "steering wheel" that directs us in the right path throughout life.

2] Do you know why a car's windshield is so large & the rear view mirror is so small? Because our PAST is not as important as our FUTURE. So, look ahead and move on.

3] Friendship is like a book. It takes a few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write.

4] All things in life are temporary. If going well, enjoy it; they will not last forever. If going wrong, don?t worry; they can't last long either.

5] Old friends are like Gold! New friends are Diamonds! If you get a Diamond, don't forget the Gold! Because to hold a Diamond, you always need a base of Gold!

6] Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, God smiles from above and says, "Relax, sweetheart, it's just a bend, not the end!"

7] When God solves your problems, you have faith in HIS abilities; when God doesn't solve your problems HE has faith in your abilities.

8] A blind person asked St. Anthony: "Can there be anything worse than losing you eyesight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision."

9] When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them; and sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you.

10] WORRYING does not take away tomorrow's TROUBLES; it takes away todays PEACE.

On The Good and Bad Side of Religion

2009-04-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

You don't need the bible to learn morality or ethics. Having said that, my mom remains a very religious person, and she is one of the kindest, most community-oriented persons I have ever known. I still wouldn't want to get into a religious argument with her -- she believes what she believes -- but she is not a religious hypocrite. She lives her Protestant religion -- and reaches out to practically everyone to make them feel welcome and to make them feel better. The ultimate community person. The closest person I have met to Mother Teresa.

My dad has the same religious spirit as my mother but he needs more personal, individual space than my mom. He was -- and still is a visionary, idealistic person, expressed politically, economically, and business-wise through his political, economic, and business ideals as well as romantically through his much more recent 21st Century Romantic Poetry.

Me, I need my boundaries, need my freedom, need my individual space...I can be sociable enough with people I like and feel comfortable with but, at the same time, can be practically non-existant towards people who I basically don't want to talk with. I have my dad's visionary idealism expressed in my own way through my philosophy-psychology, I have some of my mother's caring, loyalty, and community spirit, but I am much more introverted, self-oriented, and narcissistic than my mother. I play the 'alienated, underground, stranger' role much easier than the 'community or political activist' role.

Religion has its good side. Caring about other people. Helping other people in a world where there is not really enough of this around anymore as people basically isolate themselves behind closed doors, or worse, in desolate mountain caves, planning who they can blow up next. (Or is that because of religion gone bad because of the nature of the perceiver and interpreter?)

To be sure, you don't need religion to care about people...but still...will there ever be another Mother Teresa? One without a driving internal religion to motivate him or her to do the type of work that Mother Teresa did, even if not to that extreme? There are not many people who can live this type of lifestyle -- with seemingly almost unlimited 'giving'. Still, I have the highest regard and respect for those who can. They are our unsung heroes. I work alone on my computer doing my thing. I hope that my work is good for people, has meaning for people. But there is nothing to beat the type of work these community workers do in the 'trenches of humanity'.

But the bad side of religion can be horrific. Righteous intolerance, refusing to see another point of view...Torturing, killing, and/or alienating non-believers or alternative believers...authoritarianism, restrictive lifestyles that are just way too restrictive...

-- dgb, April 2nd, 2009.

The Main Characteristic of Religion -- and All Good Organizations -- Caring About People

2009-02-03T10:50:00.000-08:00

The main characteristic of religion should not be how 'righteous' you are but rather how much you care about people -- of every colour, nationality, culture, both sexes, and age. In this regard, religion as I have defined it here is completely compatible with 'humanism' regardless of how you choose to believe in 'God' or even whether you choose to believe in 'God'. Personally, I like my own view of 'DGB Democratic-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existential Pantheism' -- the idea that 'God, Creation, and Nature is in everything, and that all living things -- and people should be treated with equality, dignity, integrity, and mutual respect. That does not preclude the fact that we still generally need to 'grow and pick our food' -- and/or 'kill it' in order to eat and continue to survive. For better for worse, life and death, living and dying, will always contain a mixture of 'co-operation and trust' in the one hand vs. 'competition and rivalry' in the other -- thrown into the same 'bag of life'.

This we have to deal with because that is how the world was made and how it continues to evolve, regress, and decay.

However, that does not justify us in terms of living our life like we are in 'Lord of The Flies'. Conquer or be conquered. Kill or be killed. Victimize or be victimized. Only the strong shall survive -- a crass ('neo-Nazi') interpretation of Charles Darwin.

Character matters. Integrity matters. Dignity matters. Equality matters. Helping others matters. Respect matters. Caring matters. Passion matters. Romance matters. Reason matters. Truth matters. Empathy matters. Accountability matters. Responsibility matters. Dialogue -- dialectic exchange between free and equal people -- matters. Freedom of speech matter. Freedom of religion matters. Freedom of the press matters. Family matters. Community matters. Friends matter. Love matters.
And how can I not say that sex matters.

Unfortunately, every day I go to work, I feel like I am walking into a 'Lord of The Flies' existence.

When I go to work, Schopenhauer rules.

And it makes me sick to my stomach.

Two people get fired right beside me.

And I am supposed to carry on like everything is okay.

When computers and corporate profits become more important than people,

More important than people caring about people,

It is time to start looking for a new job.

If I don't get pushed out first.

Obviously, corporations cannot survive without money.

But I find that it is often the corporations who,

Do not treat people with respect,

And caring,

And good dialectic-democratic dialogue,

Who end up crashing and self-destructing,

From the top down,

And the bottom up,

Once people start to lose their caring for their job,

And their caring about other people in their organization,

Who they have to work with,

As a 'team' -- a 'real team'; not a 'fake team',

In order to properly perform all necessary functions,

Of the organization,

It is probably 'lights out' anyway,

The only thing left is the funeral.

Death of the people in the organization,

Death of the organization.

Profits over people.

But without any people,

Motivated people with good skill, good will, and character,

Without any employees, customers, suppliers...

There can be no organization,

No corporation,

No profits,

Death of a corporation,

That doesn't believe in,

People.

-- DGBN, Feb. 3rd, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,

-- People Before Profits,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...are still in process

What are Gods?

2009-01-02T12:32:00.000-08:00

Gods are metaphysical, mythological ideals, probably projected, or mainly projected, possibly not entirely, that are capable of being used for happy, healthy purposes, and/or abused for extremist, righteous, pathological purposes. Indeed, 'Gods' can be used for as many different abstract and/or concrete purposes as there are people out there who believe in them because every person is different, every person's abstract and concrete interpetation of 'God' is different, and every person's motivation, intent, and purpose is different, and can be woven around his or her ideal of God -- and/or visa versa -- to be used narcissistically and/or altruistically, constructively and/or destructively, healthily and/or pathologically, just as anything and everything else within man's field of awareness, epistemology, and ethics.

-- DGBN, Jan. 2nd, 2008.

-- David Gordon Bain

Metaphysical Categories, DGBN (Post-Hegelian) Philosophy, and The Dialectical Force of Man-Nature-God (Updated Dec. 18/19th, 2008)

2008-11-30T17:45:00.001-08:00

Sometimes it can be rather amusing to look at the supposed 'differences' between philosophy and psychology.

Philosophy -- at least 'Deconstructive, Post-Modern' Philosophy' -- often seeks to 'deconstruct' what psychology has 'constructed'. I am thinking mainly of the type of Deconstructive Philosophy that David Hume 'created for himself' and other radical philosophical skeptics to follow in his footsteps -- where, for example, he denied the 'existence' of what is usually taken for granted in the realm of psychology -- 'The Self'.

What's with this?

Well, Hume's 'deconstructive logic' -- as much as you or I might feel like strangling him at times -- does carry some epistemological weight.

However, if you follow it where Hume took it, then you will be left with very little 'so-called knowledge' left to carry around in your mind because in Hume's philosophy practically every generalization becomes 'un-generalized'.

Indeed, in Humean philosophy, not even the 'mind' or at least the 'self' is construed to exist.

In effect, all generalizations are to be distrusted and disbanded because 'if you can't see them, then they don't exist'. Essentially, Humean Philosophy -- as well as being the logical extension and application of 'empiricism taken to the limit and beyond...('radical empiricism') -- was basically also the philosophical bridge between Heraclites' brand of pre-Socratic ancient Greek Philosophy ('You can't step into the same river twice') and the radical empirical philosophy-psychology of 'Behaviorism' that was to follow Hume into the 20th century as developed mainly by B.F. Skinner.

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From the internet...(Google: Greek Philosophy, Heraclitus...)

Heraclitus, along with Parmenides, is probably the most significant philosopher of ancient Greece until Socrates and Plato; in fact, Heraclitus's philosophy is perhaps even more fundamental in the formation of the European mind than any other thinker in European history, including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Why? Heraclitus, like Parmenides, postulated a model of nature and the universe which created the foundation for all other speculation on physics and metaphysics. The ideas that the universe is in constant change and that there is an underlying order or reason to this change—the Logos—form the essential foundation of the European world view. Everytime you walk into a science, economics, or political science course, to some extent everything you do in that class originates with Heraclitus's speculations on change and the Logos.

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From Wikipedia (Google: B.F.Skinner)

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an influential American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform [1][2]and poet.[3] He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.[4] He invented the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism,[5] and founded his own school of experimental research psychology – the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, which has recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings.[6] He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement.[7] [8] In a recent survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.[9] He was a prolific author, publishing 21 books and 180 articles.[10] [11]

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Following 'Humean-Skinnerian logic' -- You may be able to see your 'physical, empirical self' if you look at a mirror but if you look at the same mirror you are not going to see your 'Psychological Self' -- therefore -- empirically speaking at least -- your psychological self does not exist.

The same goes for such Freudian concepts as 'Ego' and 'Id' and 'Superego'. If you can't see them, then they don't exist.

Of course back in Hume's day, they couldn't see 'bacteria' and 'viruses' but that was not to say that they didn't exist. Things and living entities that you don't see can still kill you -- indeed, they are probably more dangerous in the fact that they are not seen such as 'the car you don't see'. Or the mugger you don't see...

In philosophy, you learn about 'epistemology' (the study of knowledge) whereas in Freudian -- or Post-Freudian -- Psychology, you learn about 'Central Ego Function' --and then you would probably proceed to start studying 'epistemology' as one of the main 'ego functions or processes' within the confines of 'The Central Ego'.

In other words, in psychology, it is almost like we 'need' to 'invent internal structural systems' -- kind of like 'organs in the mind' -- except that there is no, physical empirical basis on which to believe that these 'ego structures' actually exist except as 'mythological entities' much like 'Gods' -- with the same intended purpose: to explain things which are otherwise difficult if not downright impossible to explain.

It would be easy to argue -- and I will take up this argument again on behalf of David Hume -- that this is one of man's central 'mental features or characteristics': making up 'things' or 'structures' that don't exist -- or worded another way -- 'turning physical or psychological processes (Would Hume even accept the existence of 'psychological and/or epistemological processes? -- you can't see them!) into non-existent, and totally man-made 'conceptual structures or constructions' -- and calling them 'real'!

In fact, this is one of the main problems with 'classification systems' in general: they 'conceptually funnel' knowledge into particular categories that may or may not exist -- 'phenomenomologically', 'biologically', 'physically', 'chemically', and so on...

'Categories' can be mentally dangerous generalizations and ideas because we think they are real -- and give them supposedly real characteristics -- 'conceptual characteristics' which may or may not structurally fit the reality of the 'thing-in-itself'. If we have done a good job conceptually characterizing the 'thing-in-itself', then we can likely make pretty accurate generalizations and predictions about how the thing-in-itself can be expected to behave, what it is likely to do and/or not do, and so on. The tree that I see on my front yard tonight will likely still be there in the morning. Unless something very catastrophic happens, the sun that rose from the horizon this morning -- even if I cannot see it during most winter days -- we can reasonably expect will rise again from the same horizon tomorrow. It's been doing that for thousands of years. Presumably. I'm not quite that old but I'm pretty sure it has risen every day of my life. Even that is a lot of days.

So the point here is that some categories, generalizations, interpretations, and predictions have more 'star power' than others. Others don't have quite that much star power. Weather generalizations and predictions can be right or wrong. Their reliability isn't nearly as high as the 'sun coming up every morning' generalization. Sun rises have much more 'generalizations star power' than 'weather reports'. However, I still trust that we are probably going to get hit with some kind of a snow storm at some point tomorrow. (Hopefully, it is after the rush hour, and even better, after I have finished dispatching for the day.)

'Black and white man-made categories or classification systems' don't allow for the existence of 'hybrids' -- or anything that exists outside of the 'mental box' of the classifyer's 'classification system'.

That is, until someone pipes up and says: 'I don't like this particular classification system; I'm going to make a new one up that is better...(We can read on the internet this morning about the first man to 'have a baby'! (That was back on June 8th, 2008. Now I am updating on Dec. 18th, 2008.)Life doesn't believe in always following nice, neat, clean, man-made classification systems or categories...)

Thus, for anyone who has set about the task of learning a particular branch of knowledge, it is important to know that you are basically at the mercy -- and the power -- of the particular person or organization 'who has structured and classified the knowledge in a particular way' so that you only get to learn about the type of knowledge that is 'inside the classification box'; not outside. This is why you often here the cry -- 'Think outside the box'.

That is, think outside the classification box -- or you might miss some important types of knowledge that otherwise will not be taught to you.

There is value in constantly changing up any 'Classificaiton Box' -- or 'flexibly being able to smoothly move from one Classification Box to another -- such as from Psychoanalysis, to Jungian Psychology, to Adlerian Psychology, to Behavorial Psychology, to Gestalt Therapy, to Transactional Analysis, and so on -- just as there is value in being able to speak and understand different languages -- each language making up another different type of 'Classification Box'.

This is why 'DGB Philosophy' uses a lot of 'hyphenated words' -- like 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology'. 'DGBN' not only narcissistically stands for my name -- David Gordon Bain -- it also, stands for what I philosophically do -- which is 'dialectical gap-bridging negotiations (DGBN)' between different phiilosophical systems, different psychological systems, bringing philosophical and psychological systems together...and every other type of system dialectically together in an effort to create a different type of 'hybrid-classification system' that has its own unique form of 'funtionality and value' like dialectically integrating a 'normal gas car with a propane or natural gas car, or with a hydrogen or electrical car' so that you improve energy efficiency, reduce your dependency on normal gas but still have normal gas if you can't find a propane or natural gas station or can't run your car on hydrogen or electricity until you take it home and 're-charge' it for a night...

'Integrative solutions' to problems are often superior to 'either/or solutions'. 'Either/or' solutions to problems can have strong negative side-effects -- pertaining to the polar-side you are ignoring as opposed to championing. Integrative solutions ideally champion the 'best of both polar worlds' while aiming to minimize the potential conflict and disharmony that comes from 'idolizing' one side of the conflict while neglecting, ignoring, suppressing, and/or 'demonizing' the other side. Integrative solutions search for that 'happy medium' -- Aristotle's 'middle path' -- where both sides get at least part of what they want while allowing the other side to get the most important part of what they want as well. Call it 'compromise' if you wish or even better a 'win-win' integrative solution where 'harmony and homeostatic balance' is achieved -- at least until something or someone comes along to upset the balance and set conflict in motion again...or someone comes along and creates something even better...evolution at its best...

In the case of old fashioned, new fashioned, and hybrid cars, we can say that our classification system is 'physically or empirically grounded' because we can see the 'gas tank' or the 'propane tank' or the 'natural gas tank' or the 'electical outlet' where we might have to plug our car into an electrical cord that goes into an outlet in the wall.

Same with the taxi business where we can actually see the difference between 'voice' and 'computer' dispatching and an 'integrative computer-voice dispatching system'.

However, once we enter the world of 'internal psychology' -- or even 'religion' for that matter, we can't say the same thing about 'The Central Mediating Ego' or 'The Righteous-Ethical Topdog' or 'The Narcissistic Topdog (or Underdog)' or 'The Nurturing-Supportive Topdog' -- or 'The Soul' -- or 'God'.

These last types of 'classification systems' are 'metaphysical systems' and may even deserve to be called 'Mythological Systems' -- meaning not that they may or may not have functional value -- but rather, that their 'physical-empirical' basis cannot be proven or verified without a doubt; and on this basis, is subject to 'legitmate epistemological dispute and controversy' -- if not downright 'skepticism'. Remember: 'Metaphysics' means basically -- 'above and beyond physics' as first categorized by Aristotle.

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From the internet...(Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Aristotle's Metaphysics

First published Sun Oct 8, 2000; substantive revision Mon Jun 9, 2008
The first major work in the history of philosophy to bear the title “Metaphysics” was the treatise by Aristotle that we have come to know by that name. But Aristotle himself did not use that title or even describe his field of study as ‘metaphysics’; the name was evidently coined by the first century C.E. editor who assembled the treatise we know as Aristotle's Metaphysics out of various smaller selections of Aristotle's works. The title ‘metaphysics’ — literally, ‘after the Physics’ — very likely indicated the place the topics discussed therein were intended to occupy in the philosophical curriculum. They were to be studied after the treatises dealing with nature (ta phusika). In this entry, we discuss the ideas that are developed in Aristotle's treatise.

1. The Subject Matter of Aristotle's Metaphysics
2. The Categories
3. The Role of Substance in the Study of Being Qua Being
4. The Fundamental Principles: Axioms
5. What is Substance?
6. Substance, Matter, and Subject
7. Substance and Essence
8. Substances as Hylomorphic Compounds
9. Substance and Definition
10. Substances and Universals
11. Substance as Cause of Being
12. Actuality and Potentiality
13. Unity Reconsidered
14. Glossary of Aristotelian Terminology

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It must be made absolutely clear that unlike Hume and Skinner, I am not saything that metaphysical and mythological systems have no value -- because oftentimes I believe they do -- rather, what I am saying is that there value may not be in their 'epistemological reality' but rather in their 'Projected-Self-Idealism' and their 'Projected Philosophical Idealism'.

As long as we are willing to call a spade a spade -- and not say that it is something else, as long as we are willing to admit and own up to the fact that our 'Metaphysical/Mythological Structure or Construction' is exactly that and not necessarily an 'epistmeological reality', that it is our own form of 'projected self-idealism' -- then we cannot be accused of being 'epistemologically fraudulent', of trying to propogate some sort of Mythologcial Entity onto the world in the name of 'Epistemological Truth'.

Thus, when I use the term 'God' -- I do so 'mythologically' as a 'projected form of self-idealism and philosopohical idealism; nothing more, nothing less. I do not use the term 'God' as an 'epistemological reality' -- although admittedly, often it is tempting to go here. Mainly, I use the term 'God', philosophically, metaphysically, mythologically, and spiritually, as a 'projected form of self and philosophical idealism' -- although, epistemolgicallly, I will jump one step further...

'Nature' is a physical reality; so too, are 'natural processes' which can be either 'physically (empirically) watched and/or 'reasonably/logically inferred' by 'scientific, and/or rationally-empirical minds'...

It does not take too much rational-empirical logic/reason to jump to the theory of 'intelligent design' -- that nature is intelligently designed. Furthermore, it does not take too much more 'rational-empirical logic/reason' to jump to the assumption that if 'nature is intelligently designed', then that possibly/probably? means that somewhere out there, there is -- or at least was at one time --an 'intelligent designer'. Dare we call this inferred 'intelligent designer' -- 'God' -- and if so, does the name 'God' stand on the basis of 'reasonable empirical (natural, physical) evidence -- even if there are at least one or more 'metaphysical jumps in logic' that take us from 'Nature' to 'God'?

Well, there is a problem here. Actually, there is more than one of them.

Firstly, what if 'Nature' -- from 'The Earth' to 'Life on Earth' to possibly even 'Life in the rest of the Universe' was simply created by a 'Very Superior Being' who is now dead -- like all other forms of life eventually die over time -- or a 'Superior Race of Beings' that are/were vastly more intelligent than man, and much further along the 'evolution route'...Are we going to believe in perhaps a different way than Nietzsche meant it, that 'God is dead!', and/or that 'God is/was a Superior Race of Beings'? Secondly, the idea of 'God' is so emotionally laden for most people who believe in 'God' that it is rather obvious that there is much more psychologicallly and philosophically at stake than believing that 'God' is/was simply a 'More Intelligent Being than Man' and/or a 'More Intelligent Race of Beings than God' and/or that if 'God' ever existed at one point in time, it is also quite possible/probable that God is now dead -- having died like all of the rest of us will one day...

No...this is not why 'God' -- and religion -- exists for most people who believe in God. Epistemologically, most people believe in God firstly, out of 'purely assumptive Faith' -- this is the rather shaky assumptive foundation for their belief in 'God'. But more than this, 'God' exists for most people because they cannot see their own 'projected Idol(s), their own projected 'Self-Energy', and their own 'projected form of Self and Philosophical Idealism' hidden, even buried, beneath their religious beliefs...

To properly understand God and Religion, man has to have the courage to look at his own Self-Projected Energy and Philosophical Idealism as a 'compensatory measure' either taken to alleviate underlying psychological-philosophical anxiety such as 'the fear of death and/or the fear of freedom and/or the fear of being essentially alone in a warm or cold universe of his or her own personal, phenomenonological-existential making... Or religion and God is simply what they were taught to believe in, and they really haven't decided to take either the time and/or the energy to challenge all of, or any of, the associated beliefs.

In essence, the belief in God as an 'epistemological reality' -- for the most part (and I can hear millions of angry people wanting to get a piece of me here...) is a 'smoke and mirrors, dog and pony show' for underlying 'existential anxiety'. Still, metaphysically and mythologically, the belief in God can still serve a valuable, functional purpose (like helping us to feel less alone in the world, and helping us to help others in need of help...).

Personally, as a philosophical, metaphysical, mythological, and spiritual entity, I view God as The Master Dialectical Integrating, Unifying -- and Separating --Force behind all of Nature, Evolution, and Creation...

Life for me, and for DGB Philosophy, is primarily the accidental and/or purposeful, pleasant and/or unpleasant, 'collision' of similar and/or opposing forces to 'create new chemical and psychological bonds -- and to destroy (deconstruct) old ones that are no longer functional...

This is starting to sound like 'Star Wars' here (let the 'Force' be with you! -- and we are definitely not talking about Schopenhauer's (or 'Hobbes') philosophical type of 'narcissistic, nasty, brutish killing Life and Death Force here' -- although both the world and man can encompass all of this; nor are we talking about Nietzsche's 'Will to Power' or the more humanistic (feminist?) Nietzschean rendition of the 'The Will to Self-Empowerment' although man can show both of these features as well -- both in their positive and negative aspects; nor are we totally talking about the types of forces entailed in Freud's metaphysical concepts of 'Life and Death Instinct' playing off against each other although I like parts of this classification system as well but again, this is not completely what I am talking about.

Rather, the metaphysical-mythological-spiritual classification system that I use is more of a combination of: Anaxamander, Heraclitus, the Han Philosophers, Spinoza, Hegel, and Perls...with backup support from Schopenhauer (The world can be, and often is. 'brutish and nasty'!), Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy, and the potential for dramatic tragedy in the collision of Apollo and Dionysus), Freud (Ego, Superego, and Id, life and death instinct, traumacy, seduction, assault, and narcissism), Jung (the Persona, The Shadow, and the Archetypes, and Berne (Nurturing Parent, Righteous Parent, Adult, Adaptive Child, Rebellious Child, Natural Child...), and Perls (Topdog and Underdog), hotseat and empty chair work...)

What I am talking about in terms of the number one 'philosophical and spiritual force' in DGB Philosophy-Psychology supersedes everything that we have talked about in the last paragraph. I am talking about a force that unites Western and Eastern Philosophy -- at its best; a force that integrates and unites many of the similar but different philosophical systems that make up the history of Western philosophy -- from Thales, Anixamander, Heraclitus, and the Han Philosophers to present day philosophical processes and/or systems such as DGB Philosophy-Psychology.

I am talking about what I consider to be the 'master key stroke of God' -- and here I am talking about my own projective ideal system -- but also moving beyond this because I am integrating much of Western philosophical and psychological history -- not to mention Chinese 'yin' and 'yang' theory. Perhaps I am moving into 'Intelligent Design' Theory -- into the realm of theology, the realm of metaphysics and mythology, and who knows -- maybe even into the realm of epistemology and 'epistemological truth' on a 'natural basis' at least -- because the 'force' I am talking about is so prevalent, so dominating, so all-encompassing, so potentially tied into evolution and creation theory, that it is hard not to believe that there wasn't at least at some point in time an 'Incredibly Intelligent and Sophisticated Designer or Creator' -- to which I give the name 'God' behind this Creation. The force that I call the 'master key stroke of God' -- is 'The Force of The Dialectic'... This Force is neither good nor bad -- it is 'Beyond Good and Evil' (but not in the Nietzschean sense), indeed, often it brings good and evil into the same physical and psychological space...It is 'beyond life and death' and indeed, often encompasses elements of life and death in the same physical and psychological space.

The Force of the Dialectic is largely unpredictable -- at work in the 'hot seat and empty chair technique' in Gestalt Therapy; at work in a different way between the Analyst and the client on the 'Psychoanalytic Couch', at work in any human encounter, any encounter where two or more objects, two or more processes, two or more living entitities, come together, collide together, make love together, make hate together, randomly or on purpose, chaoticallly or with intended purpose, integratively or with no resulting integration...Postives and negatives coming together, positives and positives coming together, negatives and negatives coming together -- and either 'finding a chemical fit' -- or not. I'm talking about the coming together and breaking apart of 'chemical molecules' on every microscopic and macroscopic level of existence...a dog and a cat coming together and...well...fighting like cats and dogs...or a cat and a dog coming together...and somebody snaps a picture of them 'cuddling together on the same couch'...

This is 'The Dialectical Force' that I am trying to describe here in DGB Philosophy-Psychology...Others have been here before me...many, many others...but I am just trying to put it altogether in one 'muliti-dialectical-integrative package'. Hegel, was the ultimate dialectical mastermind but he basically only touched on epistemology -- he spoke of 'The Absolute' in terms of 'Absolute Knowledge'. Others -- Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, have extrapolated in some 'post-Hegelian' way on what Hegel wrote -- improving on some of his largest weaknesses.

When I speak of The Dialectical Force, I speak not only of the evolution of knowledge but also of the evolution of existence and life -- of being and becoming, of life and death. This to me, is the full extent of The Mystical, Metaphysical, and partly Mythological Dialectical Force.

For me, The Dialectical Force is the key Creative-Destructive-Evolutionary-Working Force of Nature and/or God. We start in the earth and return to the earth, and in between, we differentiate into opposites, unify into 'dialectical wholisms' and then differentiate again into opposites, in effect, a 'splitting apart' and 'uniting' of molecules -- splitting, combining, splitting, combining... (almost sounds like the North American marriage and divorce scene) -- on the macroscopic as well as the microscopic level -- not too much different than what the combination of Anaxamander and Heraclitus (pre-Socratic) Greece and the Han Philosophers (ancient China) were saying back around the 500 BCs...that would be over 2500 years ago...

Add in some 17th century Spinozian pantheistic ideas and some 19th century Schelling and Hegelian ideas to boot...and you are starting to come pretty close to the essence of this 'spiritual-pantheist-deist smorgasboard' that I am writing about here...With some Nietzschean, Freudian, Jungian, and Gestalt 'spices' added for flavor...(You will get their stronger flavors in other essays...)

And that is where I will leave things today on this fine Sunday morning...and a month later on this fine Sunday evening...and now most recently, on this cold Friday, December evening, with a big expected snowstorm coming in tomorrow.

Our weather people could be right, or they could be wrong. Generalizations and predictions are never sure things although some have more 'star power' than others.

I trust that the snowstorm will indeed arrive sometime tomorrow.

And I trust even more that, unless something catastrophic happens tonight -- touch wood that it doesn't -- I will be at work tomorrow for my scheduled afternoon shift.

Goodnight.

-- dgb, June 8th, 2008, modified and updated, July 5th, and July 12th, 2008, December 18th-19th, 2008.

Why Religions Exist: What Kind of God Do You Want To Worship? What Kind of God Do You Want To Be?

2008-11-23T06:50:00.000-08:00

Religions exist for a number of reasons. Such as:

1. To help counter-act man's propensity for unbridled narcissism -- meaning, selfishness, greed, egotism, self-infatuation, etc.

2. To help explain the unexplainable -- such as Creation.

3. To compensate for a fear of death and dying -- and anxiously contemplating the great 'abyss of non-existence'.

4. To help compensate for, and alleviate, man's alienation -- from himself, from his family, from his friends, from his community, from his government, from his fellow man, from his work, from nature and his environment...

Unfortunately, religions often come with 'significant side-effects' -- like bad drugs -- and as such, they should also come with a great big 'Caveat Emptor' sign -- 'Buyer Beware!.

Here are some of the potential negative side-effects of religion, particularly 'pathological religions' -- religions that are bad for individuals and bad for the evolution, wholism, and harmony of mankind.

1. More and more religious, ethical, and moral righteousness at the expense of less and less tolerance and respect for the rights of others to hold different opinions, beliefs, faiths...

2. Loss of reason and rationality, observation and empiricism, common sense...

3. A propensity for not only extreme righteousness and intolerance but also even worse -- divisionism, hatred, and violence -- the very things that most religions say that they are trying to preach against...

4. A tendency towards 'religious dependence', giving up one's own uniqueness and indepedence, one's own critical, reasonable and rational faculties relative to what is right and wrong, good and bad, a tendency towards 'submission to religious authority, and to authority in general, a tendency towards 'dominance and submission' attitudes, and even 'sado-masochistic' attitudes...

5. A tendency towards 'self-denial', and towards an unhealthy attitude regarding 'Gods' and 'Idols'. This unhealthy -- non-humanistic-existential, non -democratic-dialectic -- attitude can be expressed something like this: I am nothing and you are everything. (See my various essays on 'Gods, Myths, Archetypes, and Idols'). The relevant passages in The Bible (The Ten Commandments) are these:

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Do not have any other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,

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These three passages are full of hypocrisy and pathology -- they exasperate religious and human intolerance, they demonize competing religions and Gods, and more than that, they in effect 'existentially castrate' and dehumanize man. They seek to turn grown men and women into helpless children, grown men and women facing the wrath of a Domineering, Sado-Masochist God -- throught the mediating over-righteous force of a priest or minister gone too far -- like a child confronting an authoritarian, anal-retentive, overbearing, righteous-angry, jealous, possessive parent.

This is no way to raise a child.

And it is no way to preach to a Congregation.

If we want to believe in God and religion, then we have the choice as individual and collective humans -- providing we don't believe in a God who wants to take away this freedom of choice -- to believe in the type of God and religion we want to.

I have a Protestant background.

My parents are good, religious people.

There are no better role models for the 'potential good in humanely practised orthodox religion' than my parents.

However, 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy' -- the name of my evolving, life-long philosophical treatise -- is aiming to do something different here.

My main 'spiritual-religious' role models are: Spinoza, Hegel, and Nietzsche.

From Spinoza, I take his very unorthodox Jewish brand of 'Spiritual-Romantic Pantheism and/or Deism'.

From Hegel, I take his theory of 'dialectic-evolution': thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis -- and start all over again, hopefully at a 'higher level of human evolution'.

From Nietzsche, I take his love of man and life, of helping to make men (and women) into 'Supermen' and 'Superwomen'. of looking inside us to 'find the God within each and everyone of us'.

Is the God within us a God of assertiveness, reason and rationality, passion and compassion, love of life, love for man and nature, for embracing love, life, and nature?

Or is the God within us full of rage and hate, divisionism and violence, jealousy and possessiveness, destroying people, destroying mankind?

Most religions and preachers have it completely wrong.

Man is not helpless and dependent in the face of God.

Unless we wish to equate God with Nature, and Nature with God.

Which is not a bad idea at all. Indeed, it is an unorthodox Spinozian Pantheist spiritual-religious position.

God is in Nature and Nature is in God. God is in man, and man is in God. God is everywhere and everything. Spinoza said that. (And he was 'ex-communicated' -- it could have been worse -- by the Holland Jewish religious orthodoxy for saying that. Even though the Holland Jews were fleeing the onslaught of the Spanish Inquisition where I believe it was the Spanish Roman Catholics who were torturing and killing Jews who only wanted the 'freedom to think and practise their own brand of religion'. Hypocrisy -- thy name is 'Narcissistic-Righteous Man'.

Certainly, to some extent, man can be helpless in the face of Nature.

But not entirely. If we kill Nature, then Nature will kill us. Because there will be no 'God-Nature' left to support us.

God is man. And man is God.

The two are inter-connected.

Dialectically and democratically connected.

Nietzsche said that 'God is dead'.

I say that 'God is very much alive -- and living inside of man.'

It is only a question of 'What kind of God we choose to be'.

And 'what kind of God we choose to worship'.

A God of love.

Or a God of war.

A God of 'Narcissisitic, Unethical Capitalism'.

Or a God of 'Ethical, Dialectic-Democratic, Humanistic-Existential Capitalism'.

A God of Authoritarianism, Jealousy, Possessiveness, Hypocrisy, Rage, and Righteousness...

Or a God of Reason and Rationality, Passion and Compassion, Self-Assertiveness and Social Sensitivity, Embracing Enlightenment Principles, Embracing Romantic Principles, Embracing Humanistic-Existential Principles, Embracing Ethical and Moral Principles that are good for us as well as being good for others...

It is your God.

And your Religion. Or non-religion.

It is your life.

You choose.

-- DGBN, Nov. 23rd, 2008.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations...

Are still in process...

Pantheism (From the internet)

2008-09-27T05:54:00.000-07:00

PANTHEISM

is the belief that the universe is divine and nature is sacred.
It fuses religion and science, and concern for humans with concern for nature.
It provides the most solid basis for environmental ethics.
It is a religion that requires no faith other than common sense,
no revelation other than open eyes and a mind open to evidence,
no guru other than your own self.

For an outline, see Basic principles of scientific pantheism. Top.

From The Humanist Association of Canada: What is Humanism? (See also: Hegel and Tragedy)

2008-08-21T03:41:00.000-07:00

WHAT IS HUMANISM?

Humanism is a dynamic and religion-free way of life that affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical and meaningful lives, aspiring to the greater good of humanity. Humanism is guided by reason and scientific inquiry, inspired by music and art, and motivated by ethics, compassion and fairness.

The earliest written record of Humanist philosophy originated in ancient Greece thousands of years ago. This philosophy turned to human beings rather than gods to solve human problems. Democritus (460-351 BCE), a progressive thinker, atomic theorist, and Greek philosopher, asserted that human beings can set higher standards of personal integrity and social responsibility by guiding their lives by rational, moral, fair and compassionate means, rather than invoking imaginary or mystical sanctions.

Humanists support secular and scientific approaches to addressing the wide range of issues important to us all. This is why Humanists advocate keeping government and religion separate. Secular laws are the fairest and most realistic way that people of all faiths and philosophies can be considered as truly equal under the law.

TWELVE PRINCIPLES OF HUMANISM

1. Humanism aims at the full development of every human being.

2. Humanists uphold the broadest application of democratic principles in all human relationships.

3. Humanists advocate the use of the scientific method, both as a guide to distinguish fact from fiction and to help develop beneficial and creative uses of science and technology.

4. Humanists affirm the dignity of every person and the right of the individual to maximum possible freedom compatible with the rights of others.

5. Humanists acknowledge human interdependence, the need for mutual respect and the kinship of all humanity.

6. Humanists call for the continued improvement of society so that no one may be deprived of the basic necessities of life, and for institutions and conditions to provide every person with opportunities for developing their full potential.

7. Humanists support the development and extension of fundamental human freedoms, as expressed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and supplemented by UN International Covenants comprising the United Nations Bill of Human Rights.

8. Humanists advocate peaceful resolution of conflicts between individuals, groups, and nations.

9. The humanist ethic encourages development of the positive potentialities in human nature, and approves conduct based on a sense of responsibility to oneself and to all other persons.

10. Humanists reject beliefs held in absence of verifiable evidence, such as beliefs based solely on dogma, revelation, mysticism or appeals to the supernatural.

11. Humanists affirm that individual and social problems can only be resolved by means of human reason, intelligent effort, critical thinking joined with compassion and a spirit of empathy for all living beings.

12. Humanists affirm that human beings are completely a part of nature, and that our survival is dependent upon a healthy planet that provides us and all other forms of life with a life-supporting environment.

HUMANIST ASSOCIATION OF CANADA

Box 8752 , Station T, Ottawa, ON K1G 3J1
Toll-free: 1.877.HUMANS.1 (1.877.486-2671)
Fax: 613.739.4801
Email: humanist.canada@gmail.com

On God, Nature, Man -- and The Path of The Homeostatically Balanced, Multi-Integrative Dialectic

2008-07-25T08:24:00.001-07:00

If you think -- or try to argue the existence -- of God in terms of epistemology, rationality, and/or empiricism, then you are probably on shaky grounds. Because God, for the most part, or the most common-sense part, defies rational-empirical epistemology.

Better instead, to argue the existence of God in terms of 'religious and/or spiritual idealism'.

In this scenario, it is better also to take personal responsibility for the contents and direction of your self-projected spiritual idealism.

My form of self-projected, spiritual idealism comes mainly from the influence of such philosophers as Heraclitus, Spinoza, Hegel, and Schelling -- a romantic form of integrative (homeostatically balanced) dialectical negotiation, integration, unity, and wholism (the different spiritual parts of Man, Nature, and God all coming together into one 'multi-dialectic-humanistic-existential-unified whole'.

By this 'Heraclitean-Spinozian-Hegelian-Schellian' interpretation of the romantic integrative spirituality ofo Man, Nature, and God -- there are parts of God, Nature, and Man in all of us -- and we all need to 'triangulate the respective energies of these three life forces -- 1. God (Transcendence, Creativity, Becoming, The Wish to Soar High in the Universe...); 2. Nature (Being, Here and Now, Groundedness, Beauty, Homeostatic Balance, Multi-Dialectic Unity, Harmony and Wholism, Evolution...); and 3. Man (The Bridge between Man, Nature and God seeking elements of everything above -- a romantic-spiritual unity between these three sets of life forces).

In a nutshell then, according to my DGB vision of romantic-spiritual idealism...

Man must homeostatically balance elements of God, Nature, and his/her own creative needs of freedom, being and becoming within a social-political-natural environment of multi-dialectic-negotiation and integration.

-- dgb, July 25th, 2008.

Gods, Myths, Philosophers -- and Projected 'Self-Energy Centres'

2008-04-12T07:24:00.000-07:00

Gods, Myths, Religion, Philosophers - and Projected 'Self-Energy Centers'

People think that yesterday's God's and myths are dead - a product of 'primitive' man who simply didn't 'know' any better. We all know myths are - well, false. Or are they? Epistemologically they may or may not be false. They probably are. But the same can be said about today's Gods and religions as well. Are we so arrogantly bold as to believe that our own God(s) and religion(s) has any more epistemological claim to 'truth' than ancient Greek mythology? If we think we do - we shouldn't. They are both the product of the same creative psyche - projecting a combination of symbolism and need into the outside world...and into 'heaven'.

We need to be accountable for our own projections - they are products of our own psyche, our own active, creative imaginations, usually built from some percentage, some proportion, of experiential truth and fictional fantasy. A projection is usually either a 'stereotype' and/or an 'archetype'. Stereotypes we lay on our friends, families, lovers, and enemies. Again, they usually contain a combination of truth and fiction.

Archetypes we lay on our 'Gods' - and in DGB Philosophy, also our 'great philosophers from the past'. They too, usually contain a combination of truth and fiction. Epistemologically, they usually contain mainly or totally - fictions. However, psychically, they contain 'truths' and these truths may be viewed as a combination of projected 'energy centers' and 'ego functions'. If we re-introject (swallow whole) the projective imagery that we originally spat out at the world in the form of Gods, myths, and religious symbolism - then we give ourselves the opportunity of 'taking back' our 'energy centers' and 'ego-functions' that we may have lost in our projections, suppressions, repressions, and/or denials. In effect, our Gods are us. We simply have to take re-ownership of them.

We can do this if we look at our Gods differently - specifically, as energy centers, ego-functions, and areas of self-empowerment that we gave up to the world in the form of our projections - our Gods, myths, religion - combined with a willingness to go back to an earlier state of being, both in childhood and in more primitive states of being in a relationship and in society - an authoritarian society where we 'hang onto' a portion of our ego - or an 'ego-state' - that is still willing to play the role of the 'submissive servant or slave': 'You're right, I'm wrong'; you're good, I'm bad; you're perfect, I'm imperfect; you're the master, I'm the slave. This is the 'dialectic dance' of the 'master/slave' relationship. It is still played out in business every day we go to work. It is still played out in many marriages and relationships, in most schools, in many doctor-patient relationships, in most expert-layperson relationships, professional-nonprofessional relationships, academic-nonacademic relationship, rock star or professional athlete/groupie relationship...and in most Churches, Synagogues, and Mosques...

More than anything perhaps, we have a tendency to project the 'master/slave' relationship into our relationship with God...or vicariously into our relationship with our priest, pastor, minister, favorite evangelist...God knows everything; I know nothing; God is good; I am bad...God is right; I am wrong...God is pure; I am a sinner...

This is authoritarian religion with the 'poison masked as candy' being the 'submissive ecstasy' perhaps of being in the company of someone or something much, much greater than ourselves. Bow down to the Pedestalized Idol...Gain your ecstasy by feeling secure and safe in the hands of Someone who protects all of us lesser beings...Bow down to the False Idol...This is the message of Authoritarian Religion....

We need a new type of religion - one that combines good will and compassion, safety and security, rootedness and community - with an unwillingness to bow down to all False Idols - either in heaven or in earth.

I think I can find that directive in The Ten Commandments...Here is it is from the internet...

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You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

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This is the Nietzschean Commandment - the commandment that separates all 'humanistic-existential' religions from 'authoritarian' ones although Nietzsche would have made no such distinction. This is my modification of Nietzsche.

In humanistic-existential religions there will be no 'false idols' - indeed, there will be no idols period. We will re-introject all of our 'projected false idols' and turn them into a new and integrative, multi-dialectical, humanistic-existential form of 'self-empowerment'. As our false idols crumble into the dust our 'suppressed' and 'repressed', 'denied' and 'avoided' energy-centres and ego-functions will slowly start to come alive again. We will start to regain our full humanness...our 'all too humanness'... In DGB Humanistic-Existential Religion (Deism-Pantheism), we will not deny man's sensuality, sexuality, and romanticism (Dionysus, Aphrodite...)but rather aim to integrate it with reason, ethics, integrity (Apollo). One can say that DGB Humanistic-Existential Religion is a religion born partly from Nietzsche's first masterpiece - 'The Birth of Tragedy'.

And that is where I will leave the creative birth of DGB MDHE (Multi-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existential) Mythology and Religion today...

I can feel the spirit of Spinoza, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, and Perls all running through my blood as I write...Dead men, dead spirits - still alive and scorching through my fingers...Are these my own 'false idols'? Or are they my bridge to some form of new 'integrative self-empowerment'? For myself, I believe the latter.

Of course, your are entirely free to decide for yourself...and what you believe is good for you...Many orthodox religious institutions - whether they be Christian, Muslim, or Jewish - do much good for the community around it. They serve a pressing need for compassion, safety, and rootedness...particularly in today's more and more alienated and stressful urban environment that is creating more and more estranged, unrooted or uprooted, anxious people. But overly righteous, anal-retentive, authoritarian religions can and do come with some significant 'side effects' - or even 'main effects' - that can be - indeed are - disturbing in their own right. This is where orthodox religion lost many, many thousands of old or potentially new 'customers' that simply were not 'buying' what orthodox religion was selling anymore...DGB MDHE Pantheism-Deism offers no religious rituals...just a different way of looking at 'God', religion, and spirituality that is not authoritarian and which aims to integrate with science, nature, evolution, romanticism - and humanistic-existentialism.

This approach to a 'new, integrative' religion and spirituality is probably best captured in my much re-worked poem - 'God Is The Bridge'...

dgb, April 11th-12th, 2008.

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God Is The Bridge

God Is The Bridge

Between reason and passion.

Between thought and action.

Between impulse and restraint.

God is the bridge

Between spirituality and sensuality.

Between love and lust.

Between alienation and communion.

God is the bridge

Between being creative and being created.

Between being and becoming.

Between being human and being God-like.

God is the bridge

Between narcissism and altruism.

Between self-assertiveness and social sensitivity.

Between giving and getting.

God is the bridge

Between positive and negative.

Between yin' and yang'.

Between wife and husband.

God is the bridge

Between religion and science.

Between religion and atheism.

Between science and art.

God is the bridge

Between wholism and reductionism

Between abstractionism and concrete particularity.

Between dialectical opposition and dialectical unity.

God is the bridge

Between Israel and Palestine.

Between Christians and Muslims

Between Protestants and Catholics.

Between black and white.

God is the bridge

Between parent and child.

Between righteousness and rebelliousness.

Between parental restraint and teenage impulse.

God is the bridge

Between technology and humanism.

Between industrialism and ecological balance.

Between working to feed your family and working to create your soul.

God is the bridge

Between Conservatism and Liberalism.

Between Capitalism and Socialism.

Between Masculinism and Feminism.

God is the bridge

Between nature and man.

Between God and man.

Between man and man.

God can be found

In the gap, the abyss, the chasm,

That separates you from me.

God is the bridge,

The tightrope,

That we both need the courage to climb onto,

To put aside our fear

And righteousness

And mutual blaming,

To rediscover our humanity...

To rediscover...

The creative, democratic,

Contactful, assertive,

Respectful, empathic,

Dialogue or dialectic,

That brings people back together in differential unity,

The 'I and Thou, here and now',

That we both need to engage in,

To bridge the gap,

Between us,

To rediscover...

The 'God' between us.

God is the bridge between you and me.

DGB, originally written Sept. 29th, 2004; modified June 17th, June 25th, Nov. 23rd, Nov. 27th, 2006, Jan. 25th, 2007, Feb. 19th, 2007, Sept 5th, 2007.

On God, Multi-Dialectic-Polarityism, Humanistic-Existentialism, and Religion

2008-04-06T05:14:00.000-07:00

In this article, I will aim to give new meaning and purpose to the idea of 'God', 'religion' -- and the purpose of religion. I call this type of religion which I view as a creative integration of 'pantheism and deism' as opposed to religion in any type of 'institutionalized and ritualized manner -- 'Multi-Dialectical-Humanistic-Existential' spiritualism and religion. It is a philosophical and logical extension of 'DGB Philosophy' and the rest of the contents of 'Hegel's Hotel'. (See my profile for a brief discussion of DGB Philosophy and Hegel's Hotel...) What follows is a brief synopsis of how I arrived at where I arrived philosophically, spiritually, and religiously:

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If God created man in his/her own image, then God is definitely 'multi-bi-polar' Because man -- and life in general -- is definitely 'multi-bi-polar' from protons and electrons, to acids and bases, males and females, deficiencies and excesses, right and wrong, good and bad, narcissistic and altruistic, dominant and submissive, authoritarian and democratic...and on and on we could go.

If man wants to teach and preach a religion that fully acknowledges and accepts the multi-bi-polarity of both man and God, then religion has to move away from 'righteous, either/or, narcissistic and/or anti-narcissistic -- extremist and divisive -- religion'.

Rather it has to move towards a full 'humanistic-existential' religion that teaches and preaches 'dialectic and democratic integrationism'; not authoritarian righteousness, submission and divisionism.

It has to urge man to be accountable to himself, and to other people, plants, animals, and resources that he has to share the earth with; and at the same time, it has to urge man to be 'humanistic and compassionate' -- within the realm of accountablity -- again, to himself, and to other people, plants, and animals that he has to share the earth with.

Furthermore, a 'bi-polar, humanistic-existential' religion -- as opposed to either a 'narcissistic or anti-narcissistic righteous' religion has to teach people that 'utopia' is not in 'heaven'; neither is 'purgatory' in hell'; rather that the earth -- and man's life -- is the 'dialectical meeting place between heaven and hell', and that 'utopia' can be achieved right here on earth if we all aim for the right 'homeostatic, dialectic balance' between the 'spirituality' of Heaven and the 'sensuality' of Hell; between the reason, logic, ethics, morals, restraint and integrity of 'Heaven' vs. the pleasure and biological impulses of 'Hell'.

Stated differently, what I just said above -- before everyone gets 'their shorts in a knot' and starts 'throwing eggs at my work' -- is simply a reformulation of Nietzsche's classic first book -- 'The Birth of Tragedy' -- where Nietzsche trumpeted the value of ancient Greek tragedy and pre-Socratic philosophy as being basically the ideal 'humanistic-existential dialectical/homeostatic balance' between 'Apollonianism' (Heaven -- and man's ethical-restraining and spiritual side) and 'Dionysianism' (Hell and man's pleasure-seeking, biological impulse side).

'The Birth of Tragedy' is a greatly undervalued masterpiece of philosophical work as it 'dialectically bridged the gap' between Hegel -- and the birth of much of modern psychology: specifically, Freud and Psychoanalysis, Jung and Jungian Psychology, and Perls and Gestalt Therapy, among many other similar but different schools of psychology and psychotherapy.

Which brings me to my second last point: 'Heaven' from a psychological, analytic perspective can be viewed as an external projection of man's 'spiritual and ethical' side (his externalized 'Superego' or 'Topdog') while 'Hell' can paradoxically and bi-polarly be viewed as an external projection of man's 'sensual and pleasure-seeking' side (his externalized 'Id', 'Shadow', or 'Underdog'). It is no coincidence in my mind that 'heaven', 'superego', and 'topdog' are all located 'above' while 'hell', 'id', 'shadow', and 'underdog' are all located 'below'. This is the internal workings of the human mind and psyche -- externalized in mythology and religion as well as in every other aspect of his life and culture.

What I think a 'dialectical-humanistic-existential' religion should be teaching then is 'utopia-here-on-earth-by-way-of-dialectical-integration-and-homeostatic-balance-between-heaven-and-hell-God-and-The-Devil-Apollo-and-Dionysus-spirituality-and-sensuality-superego-and-id-persona-and-shadow-topdog-and-underdog-male-and-female-black-and-white-Christian-and-Muslim-parent-and-child-man-and-animal-man-and-earth...' I call this 'Multi-Dialectic-Evolutionism-Differential-Unity-and-Wholism'.

One last thing: If man's 'ethical restraint system' functions alone, man self-destructs (religiously speaking this type of person is 'obsessed with heaven'); if man's pleasure-seeking system functions alone, man self-destructs (religiously speaking, this type of person is 'obsessed with hell'). If man's 'humanism' functions alone (politically, these type of people are often referred to as 'bleeding heart liberals'), then man self-destructs (not enough accountability); if man's 'existentialism' functions alone (politically, these type of people are often called 'cold-hearted, redneck, conservatives'), man again self-destructs. The type of utopia that we all should be looking for is 'dialectical-integrative-balance-between-heaven-and-hell-here-on-earth-here-and-now'.

Perhaps it is also no coincidence that the half way and meeting point between the 'brain' and the 'loins' is the 'heart'. If we want to get closer to utopia-on-earth, then we all have to have more heart...integrating our brain with our loins...our ethical restraints and our compassion with our biological-pleasure-seeking impulses. Neither side can fulfill man's individual and collective self-actualized destiny nor man's peace and differential unity within himself, his fellow man, and his natural environment -- alone.* -- dgb, April 4th, 2008.

................................................................................

*The 'triadic-dialectic' between 'mind', 'heart' and 'loins' with the heart being the meeting place between these 'three different energy zones in the body' is an idea that I picked up and slightly embellished (the heart as the meeting place) from Plato. I'm not a big Plato fan but this idea has stayed with me over many years. The idea of a 'triadic-dialectic' in man can also be found in Freud's work with his division of 'superego' (social conscience), 'ego' (conflict-mediating part of the mind), and 'id' (biological impluses). The difference between this triadic division of the 'mind-brain-psyche' and Plato's is that Freud's model is 'all within the divisional functions of the mind if you will' whereas Plato's model seems to include the body -- the 'heart' and the 'loins'.

I look at this article as a 'gateway' article. There should be more articles to come in the development of these 'freshly developed' thoughts... -- dgb, April 5th, 2008.

God, Religion, Bi-polarities, Idols, and False Expectations

2008-04-06T05:12:00.001-07:00

One of my friends wrote that she believed in God but not in religion. Or at least she didn't believe in institutionalized religion. I at least partly support this line of thinking. Institutionalized religion can create many different types of problems -- some of them worse than the types of problems it attempts to solve.

Most institutionalized forms of religion (notice I said 'most', not 'all') are full of 'righteousness' and 'narcissism' -- and that to me indicates the hand of man, not the hand of God. Even those religion that work extra hard to preach such things as: 'altruism', 'love', 'generosity', 'caring', 'community', 'family', 'not being greedy or selfish', 'tolerance', 'acceptance', etc., etc., -- these characteristics too reflect the hand -- and the mind -- of man, not the hand of God...Man is 'multi-bi-polar' in my mind, and this latter set of characteristics simply reflect a second line of 'bi-polar thinking' in man...

So here is one 'dialectical bi-polarity' that we find in many religions and churches (mosques, synagogues, temples...): the bi-polarity between righteousness on the one hand and tolerance/acceptance on the other hand. A second bi-polarity is between narcissism and altruism; and a third bi-polarity is between dominance and submission or even sadism and masochism. Some bi-polarities in religion are either suppressed and/or hidden. When they are hidden, we call them 'hypocrisies' such as when the Roman Catholic Church was preaching a life of 'self-denial' and 'giving everything possible to the Church' while the leaders of the Church were indulging in every luxury, fantasy, and narcissitic pleasure imaginable based on everything that was given to them by the people of their Church in the name of 'piety'. Or when a preacher/evangelist on television is preaching a 'very stringent sexual morality' to thousands and thousands of people but then is found to be visiting prostitutes in his spare time and/or engaging in very 'liberal sexual practises' inside his own Church. Hypocrisy -- thy name is 'man' (based on unintegrated 'bi-polarities' in the personalities of many, many individual people including even those leaders who we at least start out by idealizing and/or idolizing the most, that is, until they fall off the bandwagon of the 'most esteemed pedestal' that we unrealistically put them on to begin with.) We expect our leaders to be 'super-human' -- until we find over the course of time that they are just as human as each and everyone of us is who have falsely idealized and idolized them. We love to hold our leaders to unrealistic expectations -- and then 'trash' them when they 'fall from glory' because they can't or don't live up to these unrealistic expectatins that we placed on them in the first place. Call it the 'honeymoon' and 'after the honeymoon' effect...

There are at least three more bi-polarities that are worth investigating relative to the workings of many religions: specifically, dominance/submission, sadism/masochism, and authoritarianism vs. democracy. We will only look briefly at the last one in the context of this essay.

Most religions are flat out 'authoriarian'. They tell you what to do -- in the name of God -- and they expect you to do it. Which begs the question: 'Why not teach, preach, and practice democracy in Church?' Indeed, this is part of a larger question that needs investigating: 'Why do we teach, preach -- and indeed almost worship -- democracy (or purported democracy) in our political speeches and yet generally fail to practise it in our homes and families, in our place of work and business, and in our various religions and the institutions where these religions are practised? Where is the consistency and logic in this type of reasoning and behaving?

The answer as I see it is this: Man in general is conflicted and 'bi-polar' within his psyche between 'authoriarianism' and 'democracy'. And these two 'dialectical opposites' continue to 'dialectically dance' with each other every living day of our life -- at work, at home, in government, and even in our various religions.

Both authoritarianism and democracy have their strengths and weaknesses (for example, more unilateralism and speed of decision-making in an authoritarian context vs. generally more respect for the group and the various individuals in the group in the context of a democracy). Man is constantly sliding back and forth between authoritarianism and democracy as he reaches for the advantages and strengths of each while getting into trouble with the disadvantages and weaknesses of each.

Again, as in many instances of the thousands of possible 'dialectical dances' we can do, the answer will often for many lie somewhere in the middle such as in the integrative realm of an 'authoritarian democracy' or a 'democratic authoritarianism (or autocracy)'.

Regardless, 'democracy' rarely reaches into religion which is why we might ask ourselves: 'Why are we so ready and willing to submit and adapt ourselves to a basically authoritarian and dominant-submissive environment. What would it take to get from a basically 'righteous, narcissistic and/or anti-narcissistic, dominant-submissive' process of practising religion to a more 'democratic-dialectic-humanistic-existential' process of practising religion?'

Those are the two questions that I will leave you with today...

dgb, April 4th, 2008.

God, Jesus Christ, Religion, Preachers, and Politicians

2008-04-06T05:09:00.001-07:00

Let's try to get to the bottom of the Reverend Wright controversy which is probably close to impossible because there are numerous different ways I could take this essay but regardless, let's at least open up some of these different avenues and see where they take us...

First, by way of an introduction, let me say this: We are all philosophers and we are all preachers -- stated more specifically, we all 'philosophize' about what we think is 'true' (epistemology) and 'right' (ethics); and we all 'preach' our epistemological and ethical philosophy relative to what we believe is 'true' and 'right'. Obviously some people are more righteous than other people (or stated differrently, some more tolerant and accepting than others), and also, some people are more openly straightforward with their righteousness, whereas others hide it more...

Relative to righteousness, we all have our private and/or public 'soapboxes' -- some more public than others -- upon which we preach our unique, individual philosophy. Some of these individual philosophies are healthier than others; some are more pathological than others. There is an intimate tie between philosophical and psychological health; indeed, 'mental-emotional' health can just as easily and rightly be referred to as 'philosophical-psychological' health.

President Bush has his soapbox. Reverand Wright has -- or had -- his soapbox. Senator Obama, both the Clintons, and McCain all have their own separate, individual 'soapboxes' on which they preach their own individual -- and/or party -- politics and/or religion.

I have my soapbox. This essay is my soapbox. 'Hegel's Hotel' is my soapbox. With whatever credibility and respect that I have here as a private philosopher and writer, I am here to say what I think is right and wrong about different elements of both Canadian and American poltics as well as in some cases such as this one -- religion, preachers, and the Church. There are those who believe that politics and relgion should not be mixed -- such as many of America's foundational philosopher-politicans, most notably, I believe, Thomas Jefferson -- but increasingly these days it is obvious that there are more and more people who believe that politics and religion can and should be mixed.

From a religious standpoint, the Reverand Wright is obviously one of them.

There is a time to be righteous and there is a time to be tolerant and the best philosopher-preachers have the best sense of timing about when to be which.

I preach a mixture of righteousnes and tolerance and try to get the timing right on both.

Let me begin by giving you this as a backdrop: We are all a mixture of 'epistemologically right' and 'epistemologically wrong' perceptions and beliefs, of 'ethically good' and 'ethically bad' values... We can talk about President Bush the 'right' and President Bush the 'wrong', of President Bush the 'good' and President Bush the 'bad'...and each and everyone of us will have a combination of similar and/or different judgments in this regard...Bush started out strong with America's trust and respect; it is obvious now that he lost most of this trust and respect to most Americans somewhere along the way in his length of time as President. Too many false assertions and assumptions...too many bad value judgments in the minds of most Americans today -- I would say.

We could go throught this same editorial process with Reverend Wright, Obama, both Bill and Hillary Clinton, McCain, myself, you, America, Canada...and so on..

We are all a mixture of right and wrong epistemology, of good and bad ethics, of good and bad tricks...There are no perfect idols or ideals amongst us -- some of us may make better leaders than others -- but we are all walking imperfections of right and wrong, good and bad. There are no Gods amongst us...nor should anyone -- in politics or in religion -- have the audacity and the arrogance to try to quote God... This is blatant man-made projection...man manipulating the use of God to serve his or her own political, religious, economic, philosophical and/or any other form of narcissistic purpose.

I am not a big religious person -- my religious, spritual, and/or anti-religous perspectives are far from fully developed at this point in time. They are still evolving...but at the same time, my religious-spiritual blogsite-section now contains over ten essays I believe...

Regardless, I found myself reaching for a recital of 'The Ten Commandments' on the internet this morning. (Isn't the internet wonderful in this respect as I didn't need to go digging around my townhouse for a bible or inside The Bible to find what I was looking for...just by googling 'The Ten Commandments', I could quickly find what I wanted. Some might equate this with 'fast food' -- lacking in full nutritional value -- but for a writer/philosopher like myself who wants to find something quickly and then get back to my essay, it truly is amazing what an 'enormous liberary resource' I have at my immediate fingertips. I often shake my head at the 'technological and resource advantages' I have today over someone like say Kant, Hegel, and/or Marx who must have ploughed through thousands of pages of books to get the information they needed.)

Here is my favorite commandment incidently (I believe it is the fourth commandment):

...................................................................................

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
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This to me is a very 'humanistic-existential' commandment -- trust and respect your own resources, your own perceptions and beliefs, your own value judgments, your own integrtiy, and your own actions. Let no man, woman -- or God -- stand above you on a pedestal.

Unfortunately, there is a problem here -- a big problem. The Ten Commandments are not consistent -- or at least if they are consistent when taken as a whole -- are not 'humanistic-existential'; indeed, taken as a whole they lean much closer to 'authoritarianism', 'dominance-submission', and 'sado-masochism'. Look at the first four commandments when taken together:

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1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
2. Do not have any other gods before me.

3. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

4. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,

5. But showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

..................................................................................

Taken alone, Commandment 3 seems 'humanistic-existential'. However, in the context of the first five commandments, it seems that God is saying in effect: 'Don't trust, respect, love, idolize, or idealize any other God -- but me -- for I am a jealous God. You can submit to me all you want because that is the way I like it.'

Gee, that sounds more like man talking rather than any God that I am willing to respect, love, idealize, and/or worship. A God that is into 'egotism, narcissism, authoritarianism, jealousy, dominance, and the type of sadism that can be seen in the 'God, Abraham, and Isaac' parable. In effect, the anti-thesis of 'Jesus Christ'. How do you explain that one? Look at the Ten Commandments, and the God, Abraham, and Isaac parable -- and it certainly does not seem that Jesus Christ was created in God's image. Rather, it seems much more plausable that God was created in man's image. Furthermore, it seems much more plausable that 'God' and 'Jesus Christ' can be viewed as 'projective-identifications' of one of the deepest polarities and conflict-issues in man's psyche, psychology, and philosophy: the polarity between narcissism, selfishness, jealousy, possessiveness and conditional love on the one hand vs. altruism, empathy, social sensitivity, generosity and love on the other hand. Projected: the jealousy, narcissism, dominance, and conditional love of God vs. the generosity and unconditional love of Jesus Christ. One might even say a projection of the 'masculine vs. feminine' side of man or in Eastern tradition the 'yin' vs. 'yang' in man -- and the need for harmonious unity and balance between the two.

I realize that I may be offending some of you who may hold a much more traditional viewpoint towards God and Jesus Christ but I cannot be anyone other than who I am. And right now -- as of this minute, arrived at by argumentative deduction during the course of this essay -- that is exactly how I view God and Jesus Christ. It is totally consistent with all of my other viewpoints in Hegel's Hotel. It is a post-Hegelian-Freudian-Jungian-Gestalt analysis: that God and Jesus Christ reflect opposing projective identifications and arhetypes in man's personality. When man is worshipinng God and Jesus Christ, he is in effect worshipping the 'twin polariities of masculinism and feminism, or 'yin and yang' in man's psyche.

................................................................................

I said that at the beginning that this essay had the potential of taking me in many different directions some of which I might not expect, and, believe me, I am as shocked as you probably are at the direction it just took me...Now let us move on and get back to the Reverend Wright...

.................................................................................

I respect that the Reverend Wright is a fiery speaker, that he says what he believes, and I don't even mind that he mixed 'politics' with 'religion' in his sermons. To hear someone say that 'governments fail' is a refreshing change for me compared to the usual sermon of individual people 'failing through their sins of being human'. Preaching politics in a religious forum in my mind is better than preaching religion in a political forum -- especially when 'God' is being used in a political forum to justify appropriate or inappropriate political actions.

However, it is rather obvious in my mind that the Reverend Wright committed some rather glaring professional and 'humanistic' errors. In this regard, I was thinking of some of the 'ethical transgressions' that the Reverend Wright committed and here was the first one I came up with again as I looked at the Ten Commandments:

....................................................................................

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God.

...................................................................................

Well, for a week or two I was oblivious to what had transpired in this 'Reverend Wright scandal' and then one morning I finally heard a 'fuller version' (courtesy of CNN) of the original much smaller soundbite that had created the substance of this political-religous controversy.

...................................................................................

'God damn America.' -- Reverend Wright

....................................................................................

This was the smallest soundbite-essence of what Reverend Wright said within the fuller context of his more complete sermon. The fuller context of the sermon talked about 'political failings' all through history -- and directly or indirectly about political oppression and killings resulting from political failings.

Well, the fuller context of the sermon does give the American people a better perspective on where the Reverend was coming from in his sermon -- but his first ethical-religous-political violation can be found right in The Ten Commandments...a part of the second commandment if the interpretation I am reading off the internet can be assumed to be an accurate interpretation...

.....................................................................................

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God.

.....................................................................................

I think I have heard it stated in other ways such as; 'Thou shalt not speak the Lord's name in vain.' But either version will do...

Now most of us have heard the Lord's name used in profanity or in a thousand and one different ways but for a preacher to use God's name in profanity and/or as a manipulative tool to further his own political-religous agenda -- is basically inexcusable. Reverend Wright was essentially projecting his own condemnation of America -- inexcusably -- onto God. That was ethical transgression number 1.

...................................................................................

Secondly,

This is my own epistemological and ethical commandment:

'Beware of loose associations and tight, stereotypical distinctions. They are epistemologically prone to error -- and worse -- tend to be ethically divisive, destructive, and self-destructive.'

...................................................................................

This was Reverend Wright's second epistemological error and ethical transgression -- and it was arguably worse than the first.

Which America was the Reverend talking about? Good America or Bad America. Was he referring to White America? And worse, was he loosely associating White America with Bad America?

..................................................................................

Again, there was no excuse for Reverend Wright's 'loose associations' and 'tight, stereotypical distinctions' relative to the history of politics in general -- and particularly, American politics and oppression.

How racial, how anti-white, how anti-America were Reverend Wrights sermons? Was there significant humanism underlying his speeches -- or were they all about anger, rage, and hate...in stereotypical, racial fashion? Loose associations and tight stereotypical distinctions can take you to angy, violent places where it is not humanistically good for you to go.

..................................................................................

America seems to be interested in two things but more so the second than the first:

1. Just how radical, racial, and/or anti-American were Reverend Wright's sermons?; and

2. To what extent are Obama's real personal philosophical views closely or not at all closely associated with what the Reverend Wright was preaching?

I saw Obama interviewed by Larry King a couple of weeks after this controversy broke loose and I thought that Obama handled himself -- and the Wright issue -- quite well. He's getting a reputation as the 'Tefelon Man' -- as he uses his gliding rhetoric to 'smooth' over problems. But once again, the American people are sick and tired of smooth rhetoric -- without substance, character, and integrity giving a strong, solid foundation to this smooth rhetoric. The American people want both an elegant speaker and a man of character, integrity, and substnace that has the willpower, the intellect, and the power to change the way politics is conducted in Washington.

Two issues in particular have left some seeds of doubt in the minds of people listenting to Obama: 1. his Michigan free trade speech in contrast to the contradicting contents of the leaked political letter by someone associated with his campaign; and 2. the Reverennd Wright controversy.

Should these controversies be viewed as possible precursors of more of the same to come?

Or should they be viewed as issues and controversies blown out of context by a Clinton campaign and/or a news media starving to rub something bad onto Obama's character and campaign?

We wait to see.

dgb, March 30th, 2008, revised and updated April 1-2, 2008.

Reverend Wright and Barack -- by Gerald Posner, Posted on the internet, March 15th, 2008

2008-04-06T04:51:00.001-07:00

Opening Comments by dgb: 'I like to post the occasional well-written article in 'Hegel's Hotel' that I think deserves further recognition and exposure and which I want to use as a starting point by which to bring a particular issue into focus and express my own viewpoints on the same, or a similar, issue. The article below fits into this category. It is called 'Reverend Wright and Barrack' -- by Gerald Posner, posted on the internet on March 15th, 2008. If the author has any problem with its inclusion here, I will quickly remove it. Until then, I will assume that it is okay to re-post here as it can freely and easily be found on the internet simply by googling 'Reverend Wright'.' -- dgb, March 30th, 2008/

...................................................................................

Reverend Wright and Barack -- by Gerald Posner, March 15th, 2008.

I am a Barack Obama supporter. I liked Senator John Edwards, think Hilary Clinton would make a super president, but have been persuaded ever since the start of the campaign that Barack offers the greatest chance for substantive, and greatly over needed, change.

I'm still in the Barack camp. But, as a vocal supporter, I'd like just a couple of answers about the flap over Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr, the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, the Chicago megachurch where the Obamas have been members for 20 years.

The key issue for me, as both a supporter and as a reporter, revolves around what I view as Wright's most incendiary comments, those implying that America -- because of its own actions -- deserved the 9/11 terror attacks.

Wright made his comments on September 16, only 5 days after the deadly strikes in New York and Washington. He said, in part, "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye....We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Barack was then serving in the Illinois senate. He had unsuccessfully run for Congress the previous year. Although the Trinity United Church is large (6,000 members), the Obamas were then, and have been since his 1997 election to the State Senate, some of the best known parishioners.

A church, synagogue, mosque, and other places of worship, are like extensions of the local communities they serve. Afro-centric churches like Trinity serve not only as houses of worship but as a backdrop for a wide range of social, personal, and often business, relationships. When a parishioner is away from their house of worship, if the preacher/priest/rabbi/imam says something particularly out of character -- or wildly controversial -- it is almost impossible that members aren't going to talk about it endlessly as gossip.

There was no more traumatic event in our recent history than 9/11. Reverend Wright's comments would have raised a ruckus at most places in America, coming so soon after the the attack itself. Political commentator Bill Maher lost his TV show when he seconded a guest's observation that the hijackers had courage to carry out their attack. The country was emotionally raw.

If the parishioners of Trinity United Church were not buzzing about Reverend Wright's post 9/11 comments, then it could only seem to be because those comments were not out of character with what he preached from the pulpit many times before. In that case, I have to wonder if it is really possible for the Obamas to have been parishioners there -- by 9/11 they were there more than a decade -- and not to have known very clearly how radical Wright's views were. If, on the other hand, parishioners were shocked by Wright's vitriol only days after more than 3,000 Americans had been killed by terrorists, they would have talked about it incessantly. Barack -- a sitting Illinois State Senator -- would have been one of the first to hear about it.

Can't you imagine the call or conversation? "Barack, you aren't going to believe what Revered Wright said yesterday at the church. You should be ready with a comment if someone from the press calls you up."

But Barack now claims he never heard about any of this until after he began his run for the presidency, in February, 20007.

And even if Barack is correct -- and I desperately want to believe him -- then it still does not explain why, when he learned in 2007 of Wright's fringe comments about 9/11 and other subjects, the campaign did not then disassociate itself from the Reverend. Wright was not removed from the campaign's Spiritual Advisory Committee until two days ago, and it appears likely that nothing would have been done had this story not broken nationally.

Come on, Barack. I'm backing you because you are not 'one of them.' You have inspired me and millions of others because you are not a typical politician. You tell it like it is, don't fudge the facts, and don't dodge and weave with clever words to avoid uncomfortable truths.

Tell it straight. Was Reverend Wright so radical that his post 9/11 comments did not cause a stir at the Church, and you never learned about them until 2007, nearly 6 years later? Why, when you did learn about them, did you not ask Revered Wright to step down from his role in your campaign?

Give us the plain truth. You won't lose us by being brutally honest. You only risk shaking our faith in you if you seem like so many other politicians that crowd the field.

.....................................................................................

Gerald Posner is the author of 10 books of investigative non-fiction, seven NYT bestsellers, and a finalist for the Pulitzer in History. His last book was Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi US Connection

John Martin of ABC News says "Gerald Posner is one of the most resourceful investigators I have encountered in thirty years of journalism." Garry Wills calls Posner "a superb investigative reporter," while the Los Angeles Times dubs him "a classic-style investigative journalist." "His work is painstakingly honest journalism" concluded The Washington Post. The New York Times lauded his "exhaustive research techniques" and The Boston Globe determined Posner is "an investigative journalist whose work is marked by his thorough and meticulous research." "A resourceful investigator and skillful writer," says The Dallas Morning News.

Posner was one of the youngest attorneys (23) ever hired by the Wall Street law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. A Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (1975), he was an Honors Graduate of Hastings Law School (1978), where he served as the Associate Executive Editor for the Law Review. Of counsel to the law firm he founded, Posner and Ferrara, he is now a full time journalist and author.

He is a freelance writer on investigative issues for several news magazines, and a regular contributor to NBC's TODAY Show as well as other national shows on the History Channel, CNN, FOX News, and CBS. A member of the National Advisory Board of the National Writers Union, Posner is also a member of the Authors Guild, PEN, The Committee to Protect Journalists, and Phi Beta Kappa. He lives in Miami and Manhattan with his wife, author, Trisha Posner, who works on all his projects and writes with him the monthly OceanDrive "Cultural Chatter" column. Read a profile about Gerald's work in Publisher's Weekly.

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Email Feedback From My Dad Regarding My Poem, 'God is the Bridge'

2008-02-18T08:35:00.000-08:00

Gordon Bain" Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To: dgbainsky@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: God is the Bridge
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:50:31 -0400

I am having some trying days of late, but today is bright and while it
is
cold, it is fun to think.

I go back a little and come to your God is a Bridge thinking, or is Man
the
Bridge?

It occurs to me that without question, God is the Bridge.

There are countless times in life when the load gets heavy, and you
must try
to understand the unthinkable...the questions for which there are no
logical
answers. It is then we can look to the stars and imagine beyond, as
your
mother does most every clear night. She is not crazy with man contrived
theological passions. She simply finds solace and calmness in the
belief of
a greater power ... God...and allows her uncertainties and unanswerable
questions ..indeed all of her hurts and despair .. and we all have
them.. to
ride the stars (read that crossing the bridge) through the vastness of
incalculable space to a place of perfection, serenity and
understanding. It
is a bright and happy place where a person can set their load down, and
find
solace. It allows her to have inner strength that is enviable. In other
words that which she cannot understand she gives to God.

It is said you rarely see an athiest in the heat of battle. In truth,
most
all of the world with its billions of people believe in a greater
power. We
are in a state of self love and me..ness right now. If those less
endowed
could not reach out to their God, how could they bridge the death and
destruction of world savagery, or explain their children dying of
hunger and
disease?

I think your Mom is right. I have thought about it a lot in my time,
tried
to be smart, said clever things to suggest I had an angle on the
religion
thing. I come back to the simple belief in a greater power. As Einstein
remarked in his later life, no matter how many answers are found, there
are
ten thousand times more that are unexplainable except to view and
explain it
as the work of a greater power. Paraphrased and pulled from my memory
of
what he said, but that is the gist of it.

So David, I was quite fascinated with your God is the Bridge poem, for
all
of the reasons given. I hold that the title is suggestive, soothing,
and
meaningful. It is worthy of a scholar's rendering. However, it would be
easy
to crash under the weight of needing to have this God-like state proven
beyond a shadow of doubt. Then it would be a bridge to nothingness,
literally.

Dad

DGB Multi-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existental, Pantheistic-Deism

2007-11-18T10:34:00.000-08:00

The purpose of religion -- at least from this vantage point -- is multi-dialectic, humanistic-existential integration.

This view of religion is totally post-Hegelian. That I would trumpet such a view of religion should not be at all surprising if you look into my academic background and the background-context of my other essays that are showing a continuing evolution in this direction. The ideas that I will begin to put forward are not for the faint of heart. They demand an open mind and an open heart. They may not be for those of you who carry a very 'anal-retentive, orthodox, conservative' view towards religion and God. My views could - indeed, definitely will - take us into some very unorthodox places as I move to integrate history, philosophy, mythology, science, and religion into one rather strange integrative package.

It all starts with an integration of three very Hegelian idealistic ideas: the 'dialectic', 'The Absolute', and 'God - but in a much more radical way than Hegel ever presented these ideas. I use Hegel's concept of The Absolute in a different way than Hegel. Hegel's philosophy was geared more toward Epistemological Idealism although he laid down the groundwork for what was soon to become Humanistic-Existentialism. Hegel wrote about The Absolute in the sense of seeking Absolute or Perfect Knowledge Through The Dialectic Process.

In doing this according to Hegel, we become closer to God. Not so for me because knowledge by itself is an empty shell. It has to have the emotional, ethical, and behavioral substance of Applied Action tied into Knowledge in order to impact both the individual and society. Thus, DGB Philosophy talks about Existence, Being, and Becoming on a higher and more important plain of existence than Epistemological Truth in and by itself. Knowledge means nothing if you are alienated from yourself, your friends, your family and loved ones, society, and your environment...Without the six being congruently and closely tied together -- knowledge, impulse-spirit, ethics, action, being, and becoming -- knowledge is empty, empty, empty, empty...

Thus, it is not only knowledge that needs to be learned dialectically but existence, being, and becoming as well. This does not contradict Hegel; it merely expands on some of Hegel's ideas that were less fully extrapolated on than his idea of Absolute Knowledge. Hegel opened the door for others like Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Freud, Jung, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida to come. Last of all -- is little old me.

Let me say this again but in an expanded way: The purpose of life, the evolution of life, the history of life, the process of life and evolution - are all dialectically integrative through either 'friendly, peaceful negotiations' and/or 'hostile power plays and takeovers'. I endorse friendly, peaceful negotiations over hostile power plays and takeovers. And so too should politics and religion.

Dialectical integration equals 'thesis' vs. 'anti-thesis' coming together into a 'synthesis'. Again, this is classic Hegelian philosophy.

Here is where it starts to get spiritual and religious. You can even add a little Plato and Spinoza here both of who influenced Hegel. We are all 'pieces of a Divine Whole'. We all carry 'pieces of God within us' (Spinoza's Pantheism). But in order to reach for more of God - to incorporate more of God within us - we must not only look inward to find our own 'God-like parts' but we also have to look outwards too; we have to look outside of ourselves and 'walk in someone else's shoes' to find the 'God-like parts' of others and other plants and animals as well. And then we need to integrate this within side of us in order to reach for, to strive for, more and more of God's 'Divine Pantheistic Wholism'. The spiritual-dialectic process is one of: 1. Inside of Ourselves (Thesis); 2. Outside of Ourselves (Anti-Thesis); and 3. Inside-Outside of Ourselves (Integration or Synthesis).

In this way, the purpose of religion from this DGB Post-Spinozian, Post-Hegelian perspective is one of integrating our God-like qualities within ourselves with the 'Pantheistic Divinity of Others and Other Things into The Multi-Dialectic Integration of the Spiritual Whole'.

In this way, we can all become more God-like - we all can reach closer to The Absolute, closer to God's Spiritual Wholism.

Ask me how I got here and I shake my head. I was not here an hour ago but now I am here. Up until very recently, I would not have even called myself a spiritual, religious person. But somehow, 35 years of psychological and philosophical study have drawn me to religion and an hour of creative writing. And now I am here. What to do about it?

I contemplate my alienation from my sister, my brother, my daughter, and now most recently, my girlfriend of 10 years over a heart-breaking argument concerning my son - and I start to cry.

Philosophy does not always blossom out of strength, or completely out of strength. Partly, there is a strength of creativity and intellectual/emotional/spiritual vision out of good philosophy. However, often if not always too, philosophy -- like psychology -- is a projection of the author's own personality in both strength and weakness. On the weakness side of things, often a man's (or a woman's) idealistic philosophy is aimed at compensating for his/her own personal weakness(es). Look at Schopenhauer's philosophy -- from all accounts a very nasty, selfish, arrogant man --and you can see that. His philosophy is about Blind Irrationality, Selfishness, and Nastiness Ruling The World From A Unitary, Driving, Unconscious Source. This is what Schopenhauer called 'Blind Will' and it isn't too much of a stretch to say that Schopenhauer 'universalized' his own human 'narcissism' -- his greed, selfishness, irrationality, and nastiness -- so that it became the 'underlying, unconscious, driving will or force of the universe'. His own idealistic 'compensatory remedy' to this rather sad state of universal, and particularly human, affairs -- was a combination of Idealistic Eastern Philosophy, mainly Buddhism, and 'emotional catharsis' (emotional release) of pent up human emotions through creativity in the various arts. (This proposed 'idealistic solution' to man's sad state of affairs didn't stop Schopenhauer from being nasty and selfish in the rest of his life when he wasn't busy writing about the virtues of Eastern philosophy and the creative arts.)

Schopenhauer's philosophy went on to have a huge impact on Freud's creation of Psychoanalysis -- specifically, his theory of the 'irrational, unconscious foundation of man's psyche' (which Freud called 'the id'. You might call this Schopenhauer's philosophical influence in the building of Psychoanalysis, although others have speculated that Freud's close friend, Fliess, at the time also had a significant influence in this area. Nevertheless, Freud verbally recognized Schopenhauer's influence on the building of Psychoanalysis -- along with others he may or may not have officially recognized such as: Hegel, Nietzsche, the scientific materialists, the Enlightenment Philosophers, the hypnotists -- Mesmir, Charcot, Janet, and others that are not coming to my mind at this exact moment.

But here, we are talking about religion. What I have written here is a quickly evolving theory of religion. Does it have any substance to it? Can I live the religion I just formulated? Can I turn this theory of religion that I just created seemingly out of nowhere - but with the fully recognized help of Heraclitus, Plato, Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel, Jung, Perls and more - into an applied 'Multi-Dialectic-Humanistic-Existential Pantheistic Religion'?

Religion -- or spirituality -- for me, is a three step Hegelian, dialectical process: 1. looking inside yourself to become more aware of both your strengths and your weaknesses; looking outwards and contacting others in a process of learning more about your 'not self' -- and the particular strengths and weaknesses of your 'not self' -- whether this be in relation to a friend, a lover, a family member, a co-worker, an enemy, your environment, nature...

This second part can be particularly hard for many as we all tend to seem to have an inherent 'human bias towards self-centredness, selfishness, and/or narcissism' (this is the Hobbes and Schopenhauer influence among others, although others may argue that this bias is not 'inherent' but perhaps a symptom of materialistic, Capitalistic society. I say that human narcissism arrived long before materialism and Capitalism -- in fact, can be argued as being the conscious and/or unconscious philosophical foundation of materialism and Capitalism).

The third part of this dialectical, spiritual process is an integration or synthesis of our 'self' with our 'not self'. In an extrapolation of Classic Hegelian Dialectial Theory (Hegel's Classic Dialectic Theory was directed more towards the human evolution and 'perfecting' of knowledge through the dialectic process whereas I am extending this idea more into the domain of existence, being, becoming, spirtuality, and religion. Thus, in this latter DGB, post-Hegelian sense, we all can become more 'God-like', or 'closer to God', by existentially and spiritually evolving through a continual, life-long process of expanding our self-boundaries -- of incorporating more and more of our 'not self' -- integratively -- into our own personal self. We do this by showing a continual interest, compassion, empathy, and/or social sensitivity, towards other people, animals, plants, and life in general as we aim to move more and more closely towards a Divine Dialectical Wholism -- which in a Hegelian sense, and/or in this post-Hegelian DGB sense, is either God (in a pantheistic, Spinozian sense), or alternatively, God's Creation in a more 'Deist' sense).

God is the bridge between you and I. By accepting, respecting, and ideally, integrating our philosophical, religious, political, personal, cultural differences...we both become more God-like; we both become closer to God. By alienating ourselves from others through personal narcissism and/or righteous pride at its worst, we also alienate ourselves from ourselves -- or at least our potential expanded and more spiritual selves. In the process, we also alienate ourselves from God. To be sure, we need to establish and assert self-identity. However, we also need to establish and assert a creative, always changing, self-social identity and a working self-social balance. This is not easy as people generally through personal weakness and/or overcompensatory measures, end up with a philosophy and a lifestyle that is either too narcissistic and/or righteous on the one side, or too suppressive, pliable, selfless, and submissive on the other side.

God can be found in the creative negotiation, balance, and integration between 'too much' and 'not enough'. (See Heraclitus, the Han Philosophers -- integrating 'yin' and 'yang' or 'male and female energy', and W.F. Cannon -- 'The Wisdom of The Body')
Human pathology resides in too much self influence and not enough social influence. Or too much social influence and not enough self influence.

God is the bridge between you and I, between self and others, between self and society, and between man and nature. I call this a number of different but related things such as: 'Dialectial Wholism', 'Divine Wholism', 'Dialectical Evolution', 'Dialectical Negotiation and Integration', 'Dialectical Politics, Spirituality, Religion, Pantheism, and Deism'...

DGBN (David Gordon Bain, Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations)

Nov. 18-20th, 2007.

A Caveat Emptor For Those Reading This Relgion Section

2007-11-16T03:35:00.000-08:00

It needs to be clearly stated here before we start that a 'philosophy of religion' section is not at all the same as section on 'religion'. What do I mean?

What I mean is that a 'philosophy' section has one clear mission in mind: to get to the bottom of the subject it is studying -- in this case 'religion' -- in order to examine the nature and rationality of the underlying assumptions that are at work and play in the study of the subject under investigation. This is true of any subject area -- not just religion. It is true of the philosophy of science, the philosophy of economics, the philosophy of business, the philosophy of law, the philosophy of politics, the philosophy of sports, the philosophy of art, epistemology, ethics, and so on...Philosophers tread -- or at least they should tread if they have sufficient courage -- where other people may fear to go, feel uncomfortable going, feel threatened to go, etc.

For example, one often hears an expression today that goes something like this; 'Don't go there. Its politically incorrect.' Well, that is exactly where a philosopher has to go to find out why it is politically incorrect -- and who's 'gaining' by this political correctness as well as who's 'losing'. In other words, what are the 'narcissistic', 'power', and 'manipulative' dynamics that are work. Who's being 'played'? What's being 'suppressed' and who's being 'oppressed'?

Well, religion works sometimes the same as politics, and sometimes a little differently. But one things is common. Strong emotional biases are often at work -- and some of these biases are beyond reason. In the case of politics, there may be 'money' matters at work. This may be the same with religion. Or with religion, there may be other strong types of emotional biases at work -- issues of 'faith', strong beliefs that have been taught in childhood, or from childhood on, beliefs that often defy 'reason', 'rationality', and 'empiricism'. These are the only legitimate tools that a philosopher has to work with. Without these tools, a philosopher has nothing. He is going into a potential dialogue -- a debate, a dialectic -- with no rhetorical weapons. He or she is like an unarmed soldier going into war.

Now, one might argue that a philosopher should stay out of religion altogether. However, I would counter-argue that when there are hundreds, thousands, millions of people over the course of human history that are being adversely affected by religion -- suppressed, oppressed, ex-communicated, tortured, killed -- somebody has to go into the philosophy of religion, into the potential 'pathology' of religion, to fully analyse the nature, causes, and symptoms of this type of pathology.

This is not to say that there are not many potential 'healthy' components and benefits of religion. Certainly, there are -- or at least they can be. Altruism, love, caring, empathy, generosity, community help, a sense of belonging, a sense of self-security and self-groundedness, help against poverty, alienation, loneliness, addiction, selfishness, self-destruction, serious illness, fear of death...to name a number of potential benefits. I'm sure there are more that I have missed.

A distintion can be made between the 'epistemology' (knowledge) of religion vs. the 'ethics' (values and anti-values) of religion. This is an important distinction because each breeds a different type of potential argument.

The question: 'Does God exist or not exist?' is an epistemological question. It is a question about our state of knowledge in this regard which from a 'rational-empirical' point of view -- is 'insufficient'. (This is the 'agnostic's' position -- that we do not, and cannot, know whether God exists or not because such speculation is beyond the realm of the 'physical evidence' of our 'senses'.) However, if you are a philosopher and start to get into an argument with a 'religious person' on this question, you are probably best to back off and abstain from this type of argument. It could take you into a heated argument with little to no potential gain. Strong emotional bias based on elements of 'faith' usually supersede any type of appeal to reason, logic, and empiricism (knowledge based on our senses).

This is not to say that an argument in favor of the existence of God can't be based on decent to strong reason, logic, and empiricism. The theory of 'intelligent design' is very popular today and with good reason. (I may or may not be right in suggesting that the 'intelligent design' theory arose out of 'deism' -- the belief in God for reasons of logic and rational-empiricism; not for reasons of 'authority' and 'blind faith'.)

The argument for 'intelligent design' theory is very simple; the world is obviously very intelligently designed -- amazingly complicated and sophisticated in its design -- many 'part-functions' coming together in 'differential unity' to serve the goals of the whole organism, the species, and the balance of nature, the world, and the universe. An 'intelligent design' theory implies an 'intelligent designer' the 'Prime Mover', 'the cause behind all causes'. To this some people, many people, are willing to apply the name 'God'.

However, this is more than a bit of an 'epistemolgical, if not mythological leap'. I feed my Beta fish each day. I am much bigger than my Beta fish. Whose to say that if my Beta fish had enough intelligence to 'think like a person' (and whose to say that they don't), then they might be viewing me as 'The Prime Mover', 'the cause behind all causes' -- in short, their 'God'. A Greek God. A Roman God. A Canadian God. Any kind of God. (It sounds pretty good, actually. I like it.) The point here is that perhaps it was simply a 'superior race or species' that created Man; this doesn't necessarily have to entail all of the 'idealistic features' that many people bestow on the (mythological?) figure or figures of 'God' (like 'all knowing' and 'all powerful' and 'never dying'. Maybe my fish think that I am all knowing, all powerfull, and will never die. As Einstein said, 'Everything is relative'.).

Who's to say that some superior race of people are not having a highly sophisticated 'chess game' or 'video game' on their particular planet -- and that game is 'Earth'?

I said I wouldn't get into an epistemological debate about God -- and I still did. This may not have been a well-received argument for the 'strong-willed, religously inclined'.

Religiously inclined politicians should not bring their religous epistemology into their political work, plain and simple. Locke knew that. Jefferson knew that. Any Enlightenment philosopher and/or politician knew that. It's too 'faith-based', 'authority-based', and epistemologically weak, unstable and contentious in this regard. Something is generally (but not always) epistemologically strong if many people can and did see it with their 'eyes'. That is what we call an 'eye-witness'. There is no 'eyewitness to God'. Nor is there any 'ear-witness' to anything God may or may not have said. Preachers keep saying, 'God said this', and 'God says this'. Balderdash. The preacher said or says that -- no more, no less.
Let's get our facts straight and our head on straight.

People love to project -- and in particular, to project all of their self-fantasized ideals onto God. Oftentimes, we do this to new girlfriends or new boyfriends, to new politicians, new sports heros, new music or movie heros...We turn them all into 'fantasy heros' -- until they disappoint us and/or betray us. Then we turn on them like Lady Macbeth turned on her husband. Reality meets idealism. Sometimes but rarely do we confront God with realism -- our family member dying in a tragic accident -- usually we label 'all bad' on the deeds of men; 'all good' on the deeds of God. But not always. Extreme politicians and religous leaders often justify and ratioalize their bad acts, indeed their evil acts, 'in the name of God'...Here 'bad acts' are whitewashed into 'good acts'...

What is important here relative to the health and/or pathology of religion, is 'human rights and values'. As long as these rights and values are not violated, not trangressed, then, hey, believe what you want to believe. Tolerance and flexibility of religion are good things -- not righteously trying to 'kill' your next door neighbor -- or next door religion, or next door ethnic race, or next door country -- because he or she or they does/do not share the same religious beliefs as you.

The rest is perhaps just philosophy being philosophy -- trying to bring reason and empiricism to a ballpark where there often is none.

But finding the 'pathology' in religion and distinguishing this from the 'ethical, humanistic values' in religion -- this analysis and summary report is important. That is the main goal of this section...along with some of the other less important philosophical stuff...philosophy being philosophy for the sake of philosophy.

dgb, Oct. 25th, 2007.

Introduction: Religion, Atheism, and Humanistic-Existentialism

2007-11-10T03:39:00.000-08:00

There is nothing in religion per se that can be directly and indiscrimately linked with either human health or human pathology. No swooping generalization can be made in this capacity.

What is fair to say however, is that both the best and the worst in human behavior can be linked in many cases to the influence, directly or indirectly, of religion.

When I think of the best leaders of religion -- and I confess that my knowledge of religous history is very short here -- I think of Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and His Holiness, The 14th Daai Lama. Many more could easily be added to this list.

What this means is a number of things such as:

1. A religion is only as good as its ethical contents, which in turn must be:

2. Ethically interpreted and practised by the leaders of the religion, and;

3. Ethically interpreted and practised by the individual followers of the religion.

In general, it can probably be assumed, that if the leaders of a particular religion are preaching suppression, oppression, unabated either/or rigtheousness, anger, hatred, exclusionism, and violence, then they are preaching human pathology.

In contrast, in general again, if the leaders of a particular religion are teaching/preaching tolerance, acceptance, love, peace, caring, generosity, altruism, alleviating human misery, helping those who are struggling, etc. then we are more likely talking about a healthy religion. This is assuming that there are not other pathological characteristics that may be 'poisoning the religous brew' such as sexual abuse.

Similarily, there is nothing that can be directly and indiscriminatively linked between atheism and human health or pathology. Here too, no sweeping generalizations can be made.

The issue of atheism relative to human health and/or pathology may not even be a factor. Or it may be. Here again, we need to dig underneath the surface of a man or a woman's atheism and get to the roots of his or her applied ethical system. Again, there may be no connection that can be easily and/or rightly made linking a person's atheism with his or her ethical system -- or lack of it. There are plenty of religous people who lack ethics and morality -- in fact, 'hypocrites' is a good word to describe many of these people. And similarily, there are plenty -- perhaps even more (although this is pure speculation) -- unethical, immoral, greedy, selfish people out there who do not believe in God -- regardless of whether they choose to go by the name of 'atheist' or not. But alternatively, I imagine (and again I am purely speculating) that there are plenty of 'humanistic atheists' out there as well.

This brings me to the essence of my argument here.

Firstly, there needs to be a level of tolerance, acceptance, and respect between both religious and atheist opinions and values. Because the epistemological truth is that none of us know individually or collectively, whether God exists or not. That is an 'agnosic' philosophical opinion on my behalf, and I believe that it is the most epistemologically truthful one. Anything else is either 'specualtion' or 'faith' based on reasonable or unreasonable, rational or irrational, argumentation.

Now having said this, not all values should be treated equally. If someone believes in 'killing people' as a value -- regardless or whether he or she is religous or atheist -- this is not a value that should be condoned, accepted, respected, and/or tolerated. This can be viewed as a 'socio-pathological' value whether you want to quote the Bible -- 'Thou shalt not kill.' -- or not. The same goes with 'stealing' which again you can quote the Bible -- or not.

Thus, in order to get to the roots of the health or pathology of a particular religous/atheist system, you need to get to the underlying ethical values that the religion teaches/preahes -- and how this system is both interpreted and applied.

The common bond between all healthy religous and/or non-religous (atheis) systems is their underlying 'humanistic-existential' values. Similarily, all pathological systems -- whether relgious or atheist -- can be connected to a lack of underlying humanistic-existential values.

This brings us to the question of: What exactly are 'humanistic-existential' values?; Can we all agree on what exactly humanistic-values are? (Almost undoubtedly not likely -- where there is human opinion, there is always going to be at least a certain level of disagreement -- which can be one of the most frustrating elements of democracy.)

For me, the qualities of 'humanism' and 'existentialism' partly overlap with each other -- and partly complement each other. With 'humanism', I associate such values as: caring, loving, altruism, helping others, generosity, compassion, empathy, social sensitivity...With 'existentialism', I associate such values as freedom, democracy, identity, individuality, aloneness, reason, passion, impulse, spontaneity, romance, spirituality, responsibility, accountability...Together, I see the combination of humanistic and existential values leading us to a balanced life of 'self-assertiveness' and 'social-sensitivity. This balance can also be called 'fairness' and/or 'civil justice' between the will of the individual and the social harmony of people living in contact with each other.

Whether you -- or I -- choose to be 'religious', 'spiritual', 'agnostic', 'deist', 'pantheist', 'Buddhist', 'mythological, 'mystic', or 'non-religous' (atheist) is secondary in my opinion to the humaistic-existential values that you hold and practice -- or not.

This is the mission statement of this secion on religion and spirituality.

For me the purpose of religion is, and/or should be: To add a level of substance, depth, spirituality, humanism, existentialism -- and wonderous appreciation -- to living life on earth in harmony with ourselves, and with a compassion, tolerance, and respect for other people, animals, and our enriornment.

db, Nov. 10th, 2007.

A Short Tribute To His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama

2007-11-10T03:36:00.000-08:00

'It is not possible to find peace in the soul without security and harmony between peoples.' -- His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama.

"I always believe that it is much better to have a variety of religions, a variety of philosophies, rather than one single religion or philosophy. This is necessary because of the different mental dispositions of each human being. Each religion has certain unique ideas or techniques, and learning about them can only enrich one's own faith."
His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama

"His Holiness the Dalai Lama's courageous struggle has distinguished him as a leading proponent of human rights and world peace. His ongoing efforts to end the suffering of the Tibetan people through peaceful negotiations and reconciliation have required enormous courage and sacrifice." Tom Lantos, U.S. Congressman, 1989

"The Committee wants to emphasize the fact that the Dalai Lama in his struggle for the liberation of Tibet consistently has opposed the use of violence. He has instead advocated peaceful solutions based upon tolerance and mutual respect in order to preserve the historical and cultural heritage of his people." -- The Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee, 1989

"The prize reaffirms our conviction that with truth, courage and determination as our weapons, Tibet will be liberated. Our struggle must remain nonviolent and free of hatred." -- His Holiness, The 14th Dalai Lama, Dec. 10th, 1989, in accepting The Nobel Peace Prize on the behalf of oppressed everywhere and all those who struggle for freedom and work for world peace and the people of Tibet.

"In China the popular movement for democracy was crushed by brutal force in June this year. But I do not believe the demonstrations were in vain, because the spirit of freedom was rekindled among the Chinese people and China cannot escape the impact of this spirit of freedom sweeping in many parts of the world. The brave students and their supporters showed the Chinese leadership and the world the human face of that great nations."

For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I too abide
To dispel the misery of the world.
-- The eighth century Buddhist saint, Shantideva

These quotes on The Dalai Lama are courtesy of the internet. See: The Government of Tibet in Exile.

This site is maintained and updated by The Office of Tibet, the official agency of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in London. This Web page may be linked to any other Web sites. Contents may not be altered.
Last updated: 9-Sept-97

And God Tested Abraham: What Was The Test? A DGB Editorial

2007-10-28T04:48:00.000-07:00

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God says, "No." Abe says, "What?"
God says, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."

-- Bob Dylan, Highway 61, Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music

....................................................................................

Introduction

I wanted to write two essays on 'The God Testing Abraham Story' from the Bible. One was going to be an 'epistemological' analysis of the story (it's likely truth value), the second, an 'ethical' analysis (Abraham's ethical crisis and how he should have behaved). However, when bringing up the story on the internet, I found the essay below, written by Dan Clendenin, that addressed many of the issues that I was going to write about, including both the epistemological and the ethical issues inherent in the story, and including also a discussion of Kierkgaard's book, 'Fear and Trembling', which was dedicated to a discussion and an analysis of the same subject matter. This, I also wanted to discuss.

I liked much of the Clendenin essay but was not satisfied with his ending -- was not even satisfied with Kierkegaard's analysis and playout of 4 possible scenarios in The God Testing Abraham Story.

So what I have decided to do instead is to add both my own pre-script and post-script editorials to Dan Clendenan's very comprehensive -- but in my eyes, partly incomplete -- essay on the God and Abraham Story. Let's start with the pre-script.

A DGB Pre-Script Editorial to Dan Clendenin's Essay On 'The God Testing Abraham Story'

Today, if a criminal act is comitted, we lock up people (either in jail or in a psychciatric institution) who say, 'God made me do it.'

And yet in 'The God Testing Abraham Story', some people -- many, many religous people look upon Abraham's apparent willingness to commit the most loathful, unethical and illegal of crimes as a supreme act of relgious faith to God. The ultimate sacrifice to God -- or at least a willingness to carry it out.

It is this type of unconditional, authoritative religous faith -- the type that defies logic, reason, and most of all, humanistic ethics -- that is the challenge of this essay. Perhaps even God can be wrong. Or perhaps there is another possible analytic interpretation to this story that is not mentioned in either Kierkegaard's famous book, 'Fear and Trembling', or Dan Clendenin's essay as included below.

My thesis is simply this: humanistic ethics should always over-rule authoritative religion, or worded differently, humanistic ethics and religion should always walk hand in hand with each other; co-operating with each other, not colliding with each other. This is the primary difference between what I call 'humanistic-existential' religion and 'authoritative, faith-and-fear-based' religion. Humanistic-existential religion does not defy common-sense epistemology, logic, reason, science, and ethics whereas authoritative, unconditional faith-based religion often does.

This is why I view all humanistic based religions -- and there can be many different types or denominations of them -- as bridging the gap, the chasm, between science and religion, between politics and religion, and between law and religion whereas authoritative, faith-and-fear-based religions often don't. Authoritative, faith-and-fear-based religions often expect us to believe the unbelievable, and to do the unethical, even commit horrific, unethical and illegal acts (suicide bombers being the perfect example, and worse, their pathological leaders).

We need to draw a line in the sand where athoritative-and-fear-base religion should never negatively trespass and transgress into the area of humanistic rights, laws, and politics. This distinction is critically important in a time of religion-turning-politics-into-war. I am talking about armed 'Jihad' missions -- and/or any other form of religious statement that instigates war and/or violence regardless of the particular religious denomination that seeks to justify it. Religion should never be about war nor should any statements about war ever be connected to the name of God. War is a man-made commodity -- the product of human righteousness, greed, selfishness, and narcissism -- it is not about God or religion, at least any 'humanistic' type that I subscribe to. Religion is about minimimizing if not eliminating war and violence; not exasperating it. War is about politics and economics -- and religion should at all times be aimed at reducing the human tragedy of war and violence; again not adding more fuel to the fire. Religions that seek to justify and/or instigate war in my opinion are pathological religions; not humanistic ones.

Humanistic religions are healthy forms of religion in that they subsribe to humanisti ethics -- regardless of their particular denomination or whether they are institutionalized or not, whereas authoritarian, faith-and-fear-based religions can at their worst -- be very sociologically, psychologically, ethically, and legally pathological. They often will exasperate war, violence, either/or righteousness, narcissism, and or the reverse -- self-suppression and self-denial to a point that is not humanistically healthy.

Now, these statements obviously beg the debate: 'What is humanistic ethics, and what are the particular ingredients of it?' On this, there wiil never be any clear agreement, any clear definition. It is beyond the scope of this paper to get into any discussion of this type...see my section on ethics when I write it if you will...However, a good place to start might be any democratic bill of rights such as laid down by the United Nations, the American Constituion, and Canada's Constitution although Trudeau's patriation (1982) of it which is official Canadian law now has some serious interpretive problems with it relative to promoting reverse-preferentialism and reverse-discrimination. These need to be confronted and addressed at a future date.

In a sentence, nobody has the right to speak for God -- no priest, no minister, not even the Pope -- everyone speaks for himself or herself, everyone is responsible for his or her own actions, his or her own ethics, and his or her own religious or non-religious sentiment including his or her own interpretation of God (or the absence of God).

In the words, of The York Regional Police around here: 'Deeds Speak' (Louder Than God) -- my brackets -- and saying that 'God told you to do it' just does not cut it in the name of the law and in the name of humanistic ethics.

Again, everyone has the right to interpret his or her own particular meaning of God and religion -- but this is quite different than proclaiming that you are speaking in the name of God -- which unless it is done with humor and non-seriousness -- can be epistemologically and ethically pathological. Speak for yourself, don't speak for God!

Words of philosophicla wisdom over top of a bathroom urinal:

'God is dead!' -- Nietzsche

'Nietzsche is dead! -- God

That is what I mean by using God's name with humor.

Everything stated religously must be analyzed and judged based on its ethical content. Religious statements that involve epistemological assertions, in my opinion should usually be not taken seriously unless they affect ethics. In my opinion, the Bible should be treated mythologically -- no different than if it was 'The Iliad' written by Homer. We look at the ancient Greek and Roman gods as representing 'myths' -- Zeus, Apollo, Dionysius, Aphrodite, and the like. Well, why should we view today's 'God' or 'Gods' as being any different?

Enough of the pre-script. Let us move on to Dan Clendenin's essay about The Testing of Abraham by God.

DGB, Nov. 16-20th, 2007.
.....................................................................................

The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself
Reflections By Dan Clendenin

Essay posted 20 June 2005

When God Tested Abraham
For Sunday June 26, 2005
Lectionary Readings (Revised Common Lectionary, Year A)
Genesis 22:1–14 or Jeremiah 28:5–9
Psalm 13 or Psalm 89:1–4, 15–18
Romans 6:12–23
Matthew 10:40–42

Abraham sacrifices Isaac,
marble statue by
Donatello (1418).

The lectionary for this week takes us to one of the most important, most famous, and most famously disturbing passages in the entire Bible, the gist of which resides in just two verses. "Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, 'Abraham!' 'Here I am,' he replied. Then God said, 'Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about'" (Genesis 22:1–2). Few Scriptures, Jewish or Christian, have provoked more art and anguish, more controversy and commentary, than Abraham's radical obedience to God's command to sacrifice his son Isaac.

Abraham lied when he told the Egyptians that Sarah was his sister (Genesis 12:10ff). He fathered a proxy progeny (Ishmael) with his slave girl Hagar (Genesis 16). He laughed with Sarah in disbelief when God promised them a son in their old age (Genesis 17:17; 18:12ff). This nomadic believer who had left the known of Haran for the unknown of Canaan because he believed that God had commanded him to do so that He might bless all people on earth through him—this same Abraham now faced a preposterous, twofold test of faith. First, he had to believe that God really had commanded him to slit the throat of his son, his only son and the son of promise (Genesis 21:12), and then burn him in an act of child sacrifice. Further, he had to act upon that conviction and perform the hideous act.

Abraham sacrifices Isaac,
Catholic German Bible (1534).
In Fear and Trembling (1843), one of the most provocative treatments of this passage, the Danish writer Soren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) devoted an entire book to this story. He recalls how he heard this Bible story as a child, and how the older he got the more his admiration and enthusiasm for the story grew, while the less and less he understood it. He puts himself in Abraham's shoes, as it were, and shudders as he contemplates what Abraham might have thought and felt. He imagines four different scenarios.

In version 1.0 Isaac lunges at Abraham's legs and begs for his life. When he looks at his father face, his "gaze was wild, his whole being was sheer terror." Abraham rebukes Isaac and screams, "Do you think it is God's command? No it is my desire." Abraham then prays softly, "Lord God in heaven, I thank you; it is better that he believes me a monster than that he should lose faith in you." Here Abraham tries to "protect" God by blaming himself for the atrocious command. At least this way Isaac will not construe God as a monster.

Abraham and Isaac by
Marc Chagall (1931).
In version 2.0 Abraham and Isaac journey in total silence. At Moriah Abraham builds the altar and wields the knife, then at the last minute God provides a ram in Isaac's place. In fact, this is how the Genesis narrative unfolds, but then Kierkegaard ads a twist by imagining the consequences. Abraham obeyed and Isaac was preserved, but the father is deeply traumatized and psychologically scarred for the remainder of his life. "He could not forget that God had ordered him to do this...His eyes were darkened and he saw joy no more." In this scenario we wonder about the lifelong consequences to Abraham's faith, not to mention his very humanity. In his act of faith did he lose his faith?

If in version 2.0 human memory haunts Abraham, in version 3.0 Kierkegaard highlights his tragic regret, agony and incomprehension at having committed an unthinkable murder. What could he have been thinking to kill his own son?! Abraham "threw himself down on his face, he prayed to God to forgive him his sin, that he had been willing to sacrifice Isaac, that the father had forgotten his duty to his son." Surely it is the universal, ethical duty for parents to love their children and not to murder them?! Here Kierkegaard imagines that Abraham concludes that he wrongly believed that God told him to murder Isaac.

Icon of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac,
Monastery of Stavroniketa
(Greek Orthodox, 16th century).
Version 4.0 concocts an entirely different scenario, in which Abraham suffers a failure of nerve, an explicit act of disobedience, or conversely a return to his senses and sensibility. At any rate, in this rendition, Abraham fails to act. He cannot bring himself to slay Isaac, and as a consequence Isaac loses his faith. "Not a word of this is ever said in the world, and Isaac never talked to anyone about what he had seen, and Abraham did not suspect that anyone had seen." I love how Kierkegaard then concludes his four imaginary scenarios: "Thus and in many similar ways did the man of whom we speak ponder this event." That must stand as the Bible's greatest understatement.

In sum, Abraham faced at least four inter-related challenges to believing the command of God and then acting upon that belief. First, he would have been entirely reasonable to conclude that he was being deceived by malign influences—sickness, demons, hallucinations, infirmities of his old age, etc., and that the visions and voices that he heard originated not with a loving God but from a temptation of the worst, evil sort. If that was the case, he would have "obeyed" by dismissing the voices as delusions. Similarly, we can imagine praising Abraham if he concluded that he somehow deceived himself through religious zealotry couched in pious platitudes. Today we invoke this rationale to condemn in the harshest terms suicide bombers in Israel and Iraq, or Christians who bomb abortion clinics, all who claim that God told them to commit some atrocity. Third, at a simple, rational level, the command of God challenged Abraham to embrace the absurd, the irrational, or the unintelligible. What sense does it make to murder the son of promise through whom God had promised to bless all the earth? Fourth, Abraham had to transcend normal ethical expectations. Good parents love and nourish their children, they do not murder them in religiously-inspired violence and claim that "God told me to do it."

Abraham sacrifices Isaac,
by Rembrandt (1635).
Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac is one of those passages in Scripture that will always remain opaque; I doubt that any interpretation will fully satisfy us. It provokes so many questions. What are we to make of a God who commands child sacrifice? Might God ask me to do something similar today? How would we respond to a believer who invoked this passage to abort her baby as an act of obedience to what she heard as God's command? Does the Bible sanction religious violence? Should we listen to our community when they advise us that we are deceived and deceiving, or trump them by invoking the argument that "God told me so?" What about the divine bait-and-switch in this passage, where God asks Abraham to do the incomprehensible, and then at the last minute provides an alternative? This is Kierkegaard's version 2.0 that smacks of psychic torture (recall Dostoyevsky's last minute reprieve from the firing squad). How could Abraham possibly have known whether Isaac would be spared (as it so happened), whether he might kill Isaac only to have God raise him from the dead (the interpretation of Hebrews 11:17–19), or whether God might have him murder Isaac only to provide him with yet a third son of promise after Ishmael and Isaac?

He could not have known the answers to these questions in advance, and I take that simple observation as an important theme of the story. Abraham had to act as a solitary individual, with no guarantees or clarity, knowing that he might be horribly wrong and deeply deceived by himself or others, knowing that his actions would merit the opprobrium of his family and community, knowing that his act would be irreversible, and contrary to everyday standards of ethics and rationality. In his radical obedience, Abraham "worked out his salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12–13), with palpable dread and humility, before a God who asks everything, absolutely everything, of us.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A DGB Post-Script

The God testing Abraham story is a 'pathological' story. This is the type of story that one might expect to read in 'The Iliad' or 'The Odyssey'. In these two 'mythological' books the Greek gods acted more like people -- running the whole gamut of emotions and behavior that we have come to expect from people both at their best and at their worst.

In contrast, religions today -- and I would view these as no less 'mythologically oriented' than the religions of two and three thousand years ago --- tend to idealize one God -- and associate Him (it is usually viewed as a 'Him') with Absolute Perfection and Goodness -- as opposed to 'Something Else' such as 'Satan' representing 'all bad Godly or anti-Godly behavior'. Thus, God and Satan taken together, represent the twin polarities -- or bi-polarities -- of 'Good' and 'Evil', and give us back some of the 'Godly drama' that the ancient Greeks 'projected' into their religion and which can be read in such mythological books as 'The Iliad' and 'The Odyssey'.

So what are we to make of 'The God Testing Abraham' story? To repeat, it is a 'pathological' story that requires 'accountability' because many, many religious people take this story very seriously. Who are we to make accountable for the pathology in this story? The person who wrote the story? God? Satan? Abraham?

I put my money on the person who wrote the story. Personally, I don't think it reflected a true conversation between God and Abraham. Who on earth would have privy to such a conversation -- including Abraham?

In my opinion, it can be -- indeed is -- very dangerous to treat the stories in The Bible as being 'epsistemologically true and accurate stories' because this allows people to take 'pathological stories' -- like 'The God Testing Abraham' story -- and make 'pathological interpretations and judgments' from them that can then be applied pathologically by present-day people in present-day real, live situations. And we don't need this kind of 'extra pathology' in an already very pathological, present-day world.

Now, if we treated The Bible like we do The Illiad -- i.e. 'mythologically' and/or like an 'interesting fictional story' -- then we would have none of the nonsense of people making pathological interpretations and judgments from The Bible based on pathological stories such as The God and Abraham story which then might -- and do -- result in pathological present-day behaviors.

If The Bible is treated like a historical work of fiction or a mythological-symbolical piece of work, like The Illiad, and like The Odyssey -- and not interpreted literally -- particularly relative to some of the Bible's more pathological stories, then we would not need to worry so much about 'crazy Biblical interpreatations' leading to 'crazy present day behaviors'. People would not take The Bible so literally and so seriously -- and therefore would not behave 'crazily' based on 'crazy stories' leading to 'crazy interpretations, judgments, and actions'.
At worst, people would view the stories of The Bible as having mythological, metaphorical, and/or symbolic signifance -- but not the type of significance that would 'direct a person to go out in the world and kill somebody'. Pathological behaviors based on 'crazy biblical interpretations' would be reduced if not eliminated altogether. And the author of 'The God Testing Abraham Story' could not be held accountable -- either directly or indirectly -- for any crazy present-day 'Isaac tragedies' where some crazy, misled person sacrifices/slaughters a live child/person -- or even an animal -- in the name of God.

Which brings us to the next point. Let us say, for argument sake, that 'The God Testing Abraham Story' reflected a real state of events -- a real encounter between Abraham and God. What would that make God? Satan in disguise? It certainly would not make God an all-loving, all 'good' God. Because what God was demanding from Abraham was nothing short of murdering his own son. This is the type of behavior that we would be more likely to associate with Satan, not with God.

However, let us assume for a brief and fleeting moment that God did actually demand of Abraham what the story said God demanded of him -- the killing of his own son. Why are we so quick to assume that this was designed by God as the ultimate test of Abraham's 'faith in God' -- and it might be added -- Abraham's ultimate 'submission' to God? Why are we -- or at least many, many relgious people -- to automatically assume that Abraham's willingness to 'sacrifice/slaughter his son' was somehow a 'good quality' in him. That it showed his absolute faith in, and submission to -- God. This was not a 'good quality' at all. It was a deplorable quality. A combination of gullibility, submission, and sado-masochism. It was psycho- and socio-pathology at its worst. It was not an attitude nor a behavior that should be admired at all.

Perhaps -- and I do not really buy into this interpretation but it is a better one than the classic religious one based on a 'test of faith in God' -- God's real test of man was a test of his 'accountability' and 'independence from God'. Perhaps God was testing man to see if he had any 'onions'. To see if God's arguably greatest creation had any independence of thought, ethics, conscience, love, and courage to stand up for himself and what was most important and closest to his heart -- not in heaven -- but on earth. To see if man had any humanity in him -- any humanistic-existentialism in him -- that would stop him from obeying authoritative orders that had no moral conscience or compassion attached to them.

Perhaps this was man's final test of 'authoritative and ethical independence and accountability'. If it was, then man failed miserably. And he is still failing miserably...The issue at stake here between God and man might not be a test of his 'unconditonal faith' at all -- because this can lead man down a blindly destructive and self-destructive path -- but rather the bi-polar pathological human characteristics of: 1. narcissistic abuse of power; and 2. 'unconditional submission to pathological, abusive authority'. Perhaps God's real test in the Abraham and Isaac Story was a test at overcoming this double-sided human weakness which still plagues us today...Man still hasn't passed his final test of 'humanism'.

.....................................................................................

Recital of A Bob Dylan Classic: With God On Our Side

2007-10-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

Authoritarian Religion vs. Humanistic-Existential Religion

2007-10-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

Religion can be the life-blood for many; the death-blood for many others. It all depends on individual and group context. When I think of the 'lifeblood' of religion, I think of Mother Teresa and the incredible humanistic work she did under the umbrella of 'God and religion' in the poorest regions of India. I think of anyone and everyone who has taken a similar path -- even in a much lesser role because who else can live up to Mother Teresa's 'one of a kind' standards of human love and compassion. In this sense, I think of all the wonderful things that religion has accomplished, and can accomplish, through particular individuals and groups of people, in the name of humanity, peace, compassion, caring, altruism, and love.

However, at the same time, one also has to look at both sides of the equation. Religion has also been responsible for some of the greatest atrocities and numbers of tortures and deaths in the history of mankind. Almost all groups of religions have been affected at some point in human history: the Christians (being thrown to the lions, the Armenian Holocaust); the Jews (victims of the Spanish Inquisition and the Nazi Holocaust to name only two of the worst).

Religion is literally a life and death matter when it comes to talking about all of human history and evolution, including the present and the future. How do we sort out this crazy mixture of human religion, altruism, love, ethics, narcissism, righteous extremism, violence, torture, and religously/racially motivated murder, even genocide?

When trying to sort out the relative 'health' or 'pathology' of a religion, many questions need to be asked such as: What religion? What are the ethics of the particular religion? Who's teaching it? Who's learning it? How is it being interpreted? How is it being practised? How balanced is it? Is the leader compassionate towards people? Is he or she congruent in his or her teachings? Or ideologically hypocritical? Is the leader's lifestlye congruent with his or her teachings? Or is it all a fascade? A sham? A smoke and mirrors, dog and pony show?

Religion can help to make us happy, healthy, and balanced in our approach to life -- relative to both our philosophy and our lifestyle. Or it can have the opposite effect. Everything depends on individual and group context -- and in particular, the ethics of the religion, how this ethics is being taught, how it is being interpreted, and how it is being practised.

Just because you are a very religious person does not mean that you are necessarily happy and healthy. And similarly, neither does being an atheist (a person who doesn't believe in God) necessarily guarantee good health either. Nor being a pantheist (believes in the equivalence of God and Nature). Nor being a deist (believes in God but for more secular and empirical reasons than 'scripture', 'revelation', 'miracles' and 'authoritarianism'). Nor being an agnostic (proclaims -- with sound logic in my opinion -- not to have enough verifiable knowledge to believe in either the existence or non-existence of God).

The key to understanding a person's relative health or pathology, which includes integrity vs. non-integrity -- all else being equal (economics, freedom, and other external factors not withstanding) -- is his or her ethical system and the degree to which he or she is actually practising it as opposed to making a mockery out of it.

A case also can be made for the content of a person's 'epistemology' (knowledge). Good epistemology is also imperative to a person's good health.

Thus, we can isolate three factors that are all imperative to a person's good health: 1. good epistemology; 2. good ethics; and 3. good executive and congruent action based on good epistemology and good ethics.

If these three factors are present in a person's life -- good epistemology, good ethics, and good action -- then it fundamentally is irrelevant whether the person is religious or non-religious, or what type of God or Gods they worship or don't worship -- whether they be a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Judist, or a Hinduist, or a Budhist, or a pantheist, or a deist, or an agnostic, or an atheist...

Let's summarize what we've learned so far.

1. Context (both group and individual) is imperative for understanding the relative health and/or pathology of any religion -- regardless of what it calls itself and how much credibility and/or non-credibility it may have. There can be no proper understanding of meaning without a proper understanding of context. (I learned that from General Semantics -- Alfred Korzybski and S.I. Hayakawa).

2. All else being equal, good mental health equals good epistemology, good ethics, and good (congruent) action, regardless of a person's religious or non-religous status.

Unfortunately, this does not allow for environmental-social-economic-political factors and what Erich Fromm called a 'pathology of normalcy'. The issue here becomes 'How much does a person perceive that he or she needs to bend and/or break his or her good epistemology, good ethics, and/or good action in order to 'fit into' the context of a pathological society and/or subset of society (for example, a righteously extremist religion, a narcissisticaly corrupt government and/or business corporation, and/or any narcissistically unethical sub-group of society such as a 'street gang')?

Thus, the same three factors that can be used to judge whether an individual person is healthy or not can and should be used to determine the relative health of any social/cultural institution: religious, political, legal, economic, business, etc.

Now I have put together a list of 6 factors that are totally relevant to 'ethical health'. Epistemological factors will have to be discussed at a later date.

These six factors make up the core essence of DGB Philosophy -- particularly, its ethical component. They are:

1, Congruence: What you say is what you mean, and what you mean is what you say.

2. Dialectical Negotiation and Integration: You work with people in areas of conflict to either accept each other's differences and/or to work to resolve the conflict in a way that is democratically fair to both.

3. Democracy: Based on principles of ethical and legal fairness, reciprocal relations, equal rights, congruence, homeostatic balance, a mixture of narcissism and altruism, self-assertiveness and social sensitivity, freedom of speech and belief, and humanistic-existential values.

4. Homeostatic Balance: This is the key to understanding all health and all ethics in Nature -- whether it be philosophical, biological, psychological, cultural, social, legal, economic, political...The fleeting homeostatic goal is to find a healthy, happy 'medium' or 'middle ground' between 'not enough' and 'too much'...

5. Humanistic: Compassionate, socially sensitive, caring, loving, generous, kind...

6. Existential: Pertaining to freedom, self-assertiveness, 'freedom of philosophy and lifestyle within a parameter of social senstivity, responsibility, and accountability...

These are the core ethical factors that make up DGB Philosophy -- with or without religion.

Now, as pertains to religion, and the application and priority of these ethical values -- some critical choices and decisions need to be made that separate the healthy religion from the unhealthy religion, and the healthy religious person from the unhealthy one.

Spefically, the choice needs to be made: Which is of higher priority -- 'scripture', 'revelation' and 'miracles'? Or the ethical values listed above?

I say the ethical values listed above. That is what makes me a humanistic-existentialist first and foremost. Religion has the choice of either making its values consistent and congruent with humanistic-existential values. Or not.

Thus, an important distinction needs to be made here. We need to judge the qualtiy of a religion by the qualtiy of the ethical values it subscribes too; not the other way around. In other words, an ethical value should be judged by its relevance to 'harmonious human relations' or 'homeostatic humanistic-existentialism'; not by its etiology in the religion it comes from, including any type of 'scripture' and/or alleged 'revelation' that it is purported to come from without any type of skepticism pertaining to the legitimacy of this so called 'revelation'. Revelation and humanistic-existentialism epistemologically do not get along. Humanistic-existentialism is highly suspect of any type of so-called 'revelation'.

Let us say that again. The strength of a religion is the ethical system it teaches -- and practices; not the reverse -- that the strength of an ethical system should be based on the religion, the scripture, and the alleged revelation that it comes from.

This then, is where religion and humanistic-existentialism can part company. They don't have to but they can and often do part company on the double issue of: 1. authoritarian epistemology vs. rational-empirical epistemology; and 2. authoritarian ethics vs. rational-empirical ethics. Thus, at this point, a critical distinction needs to be made 'authoriatarian' religion and 'humanistic-existential' religion.

The first can take us into serious human pathology -- issues of 'dominance/submission' and 'sado-masochism'; whereas the second can lead us to, and/or keep us in, good health. The first demands that we give up our mind in order to practise our faith; the second demands that we keep our mind, our independence, our freedom, our skepticism, our rational empiricism -- in short, our humanistic-existentialism -- and that this is our faith, nothing more, nothing less. The first can be the death-blood of both religion and man; the second is the life-blood of both religion and man.

In the remainder of this section, we will examine: 1. the 'epistemology' of religion; 2. the 'ethics' of religion; 3. the 'mythology' of religion; 4. the 'pragmatism' of religion; 5. the 'humanistic-existentialism' and particularly the 'altruism' in religion; and 6. the potential for pathology in religion.

An example is needed right now for some of the ideas I have written about.

In the next two essays, I will 'deconstruct' and 'reconstruct' the 'God, Abraham, and The Binding of Isaac' parable in the Bible in order to illustrate the difference between an authoritarian perspective in religion and my DGB humanistic-existential perspective.

Please join me there.

dgb, October 21st-22nd, 2007.

Email Exchange Between David Neil Bain (California, no relation) and David Gordon Bain (Newmarket, Ontario): On Various Religious Perspectives

2007-09-05T16:07:00.001-07:00

Hi. My name is David Bain too. I just submitted an article on the
subject: Do we have a soul? under religion & spirituality>spritual theories
(not sure of the linkage.) I come from the USA, originally Nashville,
now California. I've read some of your articles and your ideas seem
similar to mine (though much deeper). To minimize confusion I think I'll
use my full name here: David Neil Bain.

I wonder if we are related? I am a descendant of William Bean who was
in this country about 1600.

.....................................................................................

First Email Response from David Gordon Bain (Newmarket, Ontario) to David Neil Bain (California, USA)

Hi David,

I do not think we are related. It sound like your
ancestors arrived in America much before mine arrived
in Canada from Aberdeen, Scotland. I have no knowledge
of a William Bean in our lineage. Interesting, though.

I have no problem with both of us using our middle
names and/or initials. I will use either David Gordon
Bain or dgb. That should provide enough
differentation.

I haven't written an essay on the topic of 'Do We Have
A Soul?' yet. It is within the reach of my subject
matter to one day try it -- maybe sooner rather than
later. I am doing a lot of papers on religion these
days so it wouldn't be much of a reach. Next time I go
into Helium I will see if I can find some of your
essays including this one.

Cheers, dave

.....................................................................................

Second Email From David Neil Bain to David Gordon Bain,

I really wanted to comment on your article about
Rational Thought and Proofs of God (or words to that effect). You seemed to
hold that the idea that we were created by intelligent design, in the
person of space aliens, was tenable, though the speculation that that
creator was God was not.

I got the idea that you were not seriously speculating, as some have
done, that we were created by space aliens because that would lead to an
infinite regression (who created the space aliens?). I think you are
too smart not to admit that at some point life would have to have evolved
without help and if on the aliens' planet, why not our own?

Of course using God as the creative designer leads to the same infinite
regression plus additional baggage. It can only be exited by drawing
the precise conclusion religious people do not want to make.

I openly refer to myself as an atheist, knowing that in some
intellectual circles it is fashionable to dismiss atheism as naive; agnosticims
being the favored alternative. I'll probably take up my atheism, along
with my seemingly contradictory agosticism, in another article.

Of course I am on this blog not only to satisfy my own vast vanity but
to try to make a little money. My article reaching first place in its
category has only netted me one cent so far. What do I have to do to get
to $25 so I can get an actual check? Or am I just going to have to
think of this as another excercise in vanity publishing?

...................................................................................

Second Email Response From David Gordon Bain to David Neil Bain,

Hi David,

I have thrown around a lot of different ideas about religion over the last couple of months. Some -- if not all -- of these ideas are very unorthodox. I was raised Protestant but that does not have too much to say about where I stand now religiously except that I respect my parents values in this regard and it has given me a partial underlying religious background that can be viewed as a starting-point for these other ideas. At this point in time, it is philosophers like Heraclitus, Spinoza, Hegel, Jung, Einstein, and Fromm that are having a lot stronger influence on where I stand religiously. Let me not forget the influence of empiricists like John Locke and David Hume.

As far as epistemology goes, I would have to say -- at least technically -- I am an agnostic. Information that I cannot verify with my senses is exactly that -- unverifiable. Unknown. So it is with God. One very big unknown.

In some respects, I could say I am an atheist in that basically I believe that God is a 'projective myth' -- created at least partly by man to ease his anxiety, loneliness, fear of death, etc. Which is not to say that religion cannot and has not had some very benefical (as well as toxic) influences on the evolution of man. One cannot look at the wonders of the world without speculating how it was created and who created it.

But that does not suffice with me. In my opinion, a person can believe that God is a projective myth -- and still say that that is 'not a bad thing', that it can be a good thing.

If you hold this position, then you are not going to be duped by people who try to tell you crazy epistemological things that defy good, sound reason and common sense. But you can still pursue God as a mythological, spiritual entity that may help to bring a greater sense of depth, wonder, appreciation, and urgency to your life. This is the direction I am going.

I find myself linked to the pantheists and deists in Western history and philosophy -- from Heraclitus to Spinoza to many of the Enlightenment philosophers to Albert Einstein...This is the spiritual place where I find myself most comfortable with the addition of a 'dialectical' presence -- Hegel, Schelling, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, and the like. I even like working with ancient Greek and Roman mythology in the spirit of psychologists like Carl Jung and Erich Fromm... This is a path that I still need to develop more fully.

The essay that best exemplifies my present position on things is the one that follows this email. I just finished it. It is called: DGB Multi-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existential Deism and Pantheism. A wordy, technical name but one that I am happy with at this point in time as respresenting where I stand religiously.

Cheers,

Talk to you soon, I hope, and thank your for your feedback and comments.

david gordon bain

dgb, Nov. 19th, 2007.

...............................................................................

Third Email From David Neil Bain to David Gordon Bain,

Reading your multiple references to great philosophers leaves we with the same feeling I used to have playing chess against players who knew the classic moves. I am intelligent but ignorant. Nevertheless my fundamental ideas about religion come from great philosophers. Bertrand Russell's Why I am Not a Christian gave me permission to embrace atheism. Descartes's proof of the existence of God made an agnostic of me without dislodging my atheism. I am an atheist with regard to belief. I believe that God does not exist just as I believe I exist. But Descartes's introduced the question "What if a demon is making me believe that I am here writing this essay?" That I don't believe in demons is irrelevant since if demons existed they could deceive me into believing that they did not. Also I could be immersed in a virtual reality; I could be a sophisticated artificial intelligence in a false world, or I could simply be insane. I can't prove any of those things is not true. I believe that Descartes was very intelligent but there were fallacies in his "proof" of the existence of God. I could be mistaken even if I am not insane because of unrecognized fallacies in my own thinking.

Now to the deeper question. Is there really any money to be made on helium? I'm up to one cent and counting.

.............................................................................

Third Email Response From David Gordon Bain to David Neil Bain

Hi again David,

Firstly, you are one up on me relative to the Bertrand
Russell book. I've heard about it but not read it. I
expect that it is a good read and that there would be
lots of ideas in there that I would embrace.

Regarding all the philosophers that I cite, 5 to 10
years ago I didn't know most of them either. I am
almost 100 per cent self-taught in philosophy.
Academically, my background is in psychology which is
what led me eventually to philosophy. I worked
backwards from Freud, Jung, and Perls (Gestalt
Therapy) to Hegel because I eventually realized that
Hegel was the main root philosophical influence of all
of them. Hegel and Nietzsche.

So when i cite off all those philosophers, my intent
is not to 'name drop' or to go over anyone's head but
rather to simply point out my line of influence. I
would wish nothing better than to introduce all of my
'lay' readers to all of the philosophers that I cite.
But I can't do it in every essay. So yes, I tend to
forget that not all of my readers are academic and/or
heavily taught/learned philosophical readers. Sometime
I have problems connecting the 'gaps' between 'lay' or
introductory philosophical reader and heavily educated
philosophical reader.

Secondly, interestingly enough, Descartes has always
been a philosopher who I have mainly avoided. I seem
to avoid most of the 'heavy rationalists' including
for most of Plato and Kant. The lone
exception would be Spinoza who's wholism and pantheism
I have embraced in my work -- integrated with Hegel's 'dialectic' influence -- which turns Spinoza's ideas into my own (DGB) ideas of 'multi-dialectic wholism', 'multi-dialectic evolution', and 'multi-dialectic pantheism'. Please don't get intimidated by these ideas because they have not been properly introduced yet. I will introduce them -- hopefully with simplicity and clarity -- shortly. I can't even take full credit for these ideas because Heraclitus, probably many ancient Chinese philosophers -- most specifically the 'Han Philosophers', also the German Romantic Idealist -- Schelling, and indeed, Hegel himself all have developed the idea of 'dialectic wholism' even if they didn't use the same term that I have to label it. In Chinese philosophy the idea of 'dialectic wholism' is expressed by the idea of 'integrating and balancing yin and yang'.

For me, there has to be a 'multi-dialectical'
connection in philosophy between thought, emotion, and action, and
any philosopher who tends to go too heavy into the
'thought' or 'rationalism' -- devoid of emotion and
action -- I tend to turn away from. I am not the type
of philosopher who likes to engage in what might be
called 'mind games' -- like, as you cited, Descartes
'demon specualtion'. To me, if one goes too deeply
into 'massive abstractions' and the 'heaviest of
rationalist philosophizing' -- in effect, to leave
earth and travel into philosophical 'outer space' --
one might never come back. And what will one have
gained from all this philosophical 'space travel'
except perhaps a massive headache? I have neither the
motivation nor likely the necessary intellect to
follow Kant, Hegel, Spinoza, Wittgenstein, Descartes
or others along this outer space path.

I prefer to stay grounded on earth, even as I
sometimes fly fairly high myself in some of my
abstractions, and get told this by some of my readers
who can't be expected to have read the same books that
i have, and/or be expected to understand all of my
terminology until they get properly introduced to it.
The issues of 'groundedness', 'application',
'pragmatism', 'passion', 'impulse', 'conflict',
'opposition', 'synthesis' or 'integration' and 'action' are why I favor Hegel and
Nietzsche over any two other philosophers. These are my main philosophical mentors (aside from the 'psychological' ones who introduced me to Hegel and Nietzsche: specifically, Freud, Adler, Jung, and Perls).

Even Bertrand Russell -- as much as I enjoy his 'common
sense' approach to philosophy, to the extent that I
have read small snippets of his work -- at times
becomes too much of a rationalist for me, and I start
to turn away. Wittgenstein is ten times worse and if
you read the 'Introducing Bertrand Russell' book, you
might become amused like I did, that Wittgenstein
almost literally drove Russell into insanity trying to
follow Wittgenstein's wicked logic and abstractions. I
would prefer not to become insane going the 'mind
games' route. Applied practicality is important to me.

Which brings me to your last point. Money. If you have
made 1 cent at Helium, then that is 1 cent more than I
have made.

First and foremost, you have to write because it is in
your blood -- because that is what you need to do in
order to creatively express yourself.

There may be many 'money pragmatists' out there -- and
certainly, I would love to be one of them -- who are
making a decent or even a good amount of money on the
internet. Maybe even at Helium. But I am not one of
them.

So the long and the short of the answer to your
question is -- 'I don't know.' If there is, then you
need to follow someone who can show you that route.
And that person, at this point in time, is not me.

For me right now, the motivation for writing is in the
writing itself. I would like to lay out the full range
and depth of my philosophy before I die. That might
take one year. It might take five years. Hopefully, it
won't take more than five years, assuming I live that
long. The older you get, the shorter life gets. I am
52 right now and the husband of a friend of mine very
abruptly died of a heart attack last January at 49. The sister of another friend of mine died of drug complications around the age of 30. So
-- life is fleeting; you never know when your time is
going to expire. You can never say that 'I have all
the time in the world' because anything and everything
can change at a moment's notice. I was lucky I didn't
get killed in a car crash last winter. And I had some
liver problems this summer. So -- you never know.

I've become rather long-winded and 'preachy'. Follow
your heart. Or follow the money. As Kierkegaard would
say in the title of one of his books -- 'Either/Or'.

Or you can take a 'Hegelian' or a 'Post-Hegelian'
(DGB) approach and 'work the dialectic'. Passion vs.
money. How can I integrate them into the same package?

This, of course, would be the ideal Hegelian
synthesis. If you can put together that integrative
package to your ideal satisfaction, then you are much
more than one cent ahead of me.

Right now, I'm just in it for the passion and the
creativity. Maybe tomorrow there will be money. But I
am not counting on it.

Cheers again,

dave (david gordon bain)

From David Gordon Bain (Newmarket, Ontario) to David Neil Bain (California, USA)

Hi David,

I have thrown around a lot of different ideas about religion over the last couple of months. Some -- if not all -- of these ideas are very unorthodox. I was raised Protestant but that does not have too much to say about where I stand now religiously except that I respect my parents values in this regard and it has given me a partial underlying religious background that can be viewed as a starting-point for these other ideas. At this point in time, it is philosophers like Heraclitus, Spinoza, Hegel, Jung, Einstein, and Fromm that are having a lot stronger influence on where I stand religiously. Let me not forget the indluence of empiricists like John Locke and David Hume.

As far as epistemology goes, I would have to say -- at least technically -- I am an agnostic. Information that I cannot verify with my senses is exactly that -- unverifiable. Unknown. So it is with God. One very big unknown.

In some respects, I could say I am an atheist in that basically I believe that God is a 'projective myth' -- created at least partly by man to ease his anxiety, loneliness, fear of death, etc. Which is not to say that religion cannot and has not had some very benefical (as well as toxic) influences on the evolution of man. One cannot look at the wonders of the world without speculating how it was created and who created it.

But that does not suffice with me. In my opinion, a person can believe that God is a projective myth -- and still say that that is 'not a bad thing', that it can be a good thing.

If you hold this position, then you are not going to be duped by people who try to tell you crazy epistemological things that defy good, sound reason and common sense. But you can still pursue God as a mythological, spiritual entity that may help to bring a greater sense of depth, wonder, appreciation, and urgency to your life. This is the direction I am going.

I find myself linked to the pantheists and deists in Western history and philosophy -- from Heraclitus to Spinoza to many of the Enlightenment philosophers to Albert Einstein...This is the spiritual place where I find myself most comfortable with the addition of a 'dialectical' presence -- Hegel, Schelling, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, and the like. I even like working with ancient Greek and Roman mythology in the spirit of psychologists like Carl Jung and Erich Fromm... This is a path that I still need to develop more fully.

The essay that best exemplifies my present position on things is the one that follows this email. I just finished it. It is called: DGB Multi-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existential Deism and Pantheism. A wordy, technical name but one that I am happy with at this point in time as respresenting where I stand religiously.

Cheers,

Talk to you soon, I hope, and thank your for your feedback and comments.

david gordon bain

dgb, Nov. 19th, 2007.

God, Religion, Faith, Epistemology, and Ethics

2007-09-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

God, religion, faith, and epistemology -- which one does not fit? The answer is epistemology -- the study and analysis of 'knowledge', and particularly 'good knowledge'.

Since the beginning of science, and then the Enlightenment period of philosophy, epistemology -- and the quest for good, solid, credible, reliable knowledge -- has generally been equated with what we will call here 'rational-empiricism', or alternatively, 'empirical-rationalism'.

What is rational-empiricism? Rational-empiricism, or alternatively, empirical-rationalism is not a term that you are likely to find in the philosophical literature. At least I have not bumped into it and I have been studying philosophy for a while now. ...

I just made a major rational-empiricist blunder and at the risk of looking foolish hee, I am willing to confess up to it in the name of teaching, and what I am attempting to accomplish here. I didn't check and verify my assumption regarding the non-existence of the term rational empricism -- or rather I did -- but after I had already started to write this essay and committed myself to a particular line of thought. (Always check and verify before you declare something to be true or not true and then look silly for not have checked.) Now my previous line of thought will have to be modified to take into account already existing philosophy -- which is no big deal. Modification is a critically important part of evolution. We do not need to re-invent the wheel here; just perhaps build a better one through modification. This is '(multi-)dialectical evolution' in process.

The term 'rational empiricism' (without the hyphen) does indeed exist in the philosophy literature, and furthermore, it has exactly the meaning -- at least on the internet where I found it -- that I wanted it to have. So rather than create the definition and description myself, I will defer to an already existing definition and description that I found very easily on the internet and will repeat right here:

.....................................................................................

Rational Empiricism
and the Scientific Method

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Rational Empiricism
Even though historically it appears to have other meanings, I (Paul Antonik Wakfer) will use the term rational empiricism for the name of the epistemological method which is the foundation of all current knowledge and continuing knowledge advances in science, technology and philosophy. The methods of rational empiricism have been honed over millenia to their current state of refinement, yet these methods are not a finished product; they continue to evolve, and to be further refined in order to achieve greater efficacy as an aid to human understanding of reality and to the security that such understanding is really valid. However in spite of millenia of refinement, the methods of rational empiricism are still not too complex for most humans to understand, for they are, in fact, nothing more than the rational processing by the human brain of the data of experience (the sensory input to the body) for the purpose of understanding the organization, order and predictability of reality. Both the sensory input and the rational processing have been aided increasingly by the machines which have been created for that purpose. Formally, rational empiricism is a subset of rational thought (the logical integration of the evidence of one's senses into the mind's model of reality and the resulting evaluations, conclusions and decisions) of which the ultimate purpose is to maximize one's lifetime happiness.
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Thus, the three main ideas connected with rational empiricism here are: 1. reason supported by; 2. our senses with the purpose of; 3. maximizing our personal lifetime happiness. Point 3. technically does not, or should not, belong to the definition of rational empiricism because it brings in an assumption that arguably lies outside of the strict realm of rational empiricism -- and that is the realm of ethics and the 'is-ought' gap. However, I have no problem connecting rational empiricism to humanism - 'the pursuit of happiness' -- and our founding Enlightenment fathers (Jefferson, Tom Paine, et al...) because I have found no better ethical alternative.

You will see a lot of hyphenated words in the type of philosophy that I am trumpeting here -- 'rational-empiricism', 'humanistic-existentialism', 'humanistic-capitalism', 'liberal-conservatism' or 'conservative-liberalism' -- becaue these are all outcomes of 'dialectical integration process'.

Two polar concepts, perspectives, philosophies, lifestyles...facing off against each other, assertively and competively, then empathetically and compatibly, resulting in mutual harmony rather than mutual rejection, a place reached integratively through creative imagination and negotiation, a place of better 'homeostatic balance' than either of the two polar concepts, perspectives, philosophies and/or lifestyles could achieve in and by themselves. This is dialectical negotiation, integration, evolution, and harmony or homeostatic balance. The more hyphenated words that you have, the more you are delving into 'multi-dialectics.

Who integrated God and Nature? Spinoza. However, Spinoza's religion, which we now call 'pantheism', is no more 'rationally empirical' than any form of orthodox religion. Why? Because an epistemological belief in God and religion require 'faith' and faith -- at least in any extended degree -- is not compatible with rational-empiricism.

Science is built on rational-empiricism. Our police enforcement and courts are built on rational empiricism -- at least when they are working well. Same with politics when it is working well. There is no room for extended amounts of faith in rational empiricism (except perhaps for faith in rational empiricism). Religion requires extended amounts of faith -- 'epistemological faith' relative to things that most people would not normally believe, or believe strongly without questioning. Thus, religion and rational empirical epistemology, are for the most part, incompatible, and at odds with each other. This is why I view all relgions and all views of God -- as 'myths'. Not necessarily bad because some myths can have good consequences on people's lives. But epistemologically bad because too much (religious) epistemological faith generally results in bad -- or wrong -- epistemology. Thus, all religions and all views of God should be viewed as myths and not as 'epistemological truths'. Treating religions as epistemological truths, and then worse, bringing these alleged religious epistemological truths into politics or a court of law is downright dangerous.

Politics and law should be run by 'good rational-empirical epistemology' and 'humanistic(compassionate)-existential(accountable) ethics'. A religion should be judged by its ethics; not the reverse. To bring unscrutinized religious epistemology and/or ethics into a court of law or into politics is a disaster waiting to happen. This is why our founding Enlightenment fathers clearly separated these totally different realms of human activity. American politics -- particularly among Republican factions -- seems intent of re-uniting what shouldn't be re-united. Religious epistemology (and for that matter, ethics too) -- based on a high degree of faith, trust, authority, and 'suspension of disbelief' -- is prone to pathology because it is not sufficiently scrutinzed on rational-empirical and humanistic-existential grounds. Keep religion out of politics and see all religions for what they are -- different breands of 'better' and 'worse' myths.

db, Sept. 2nd, 2007.

God, Man, and Fraud

2007-08-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

Any man or woman who professes to speak on God's behalf -- is a fraud. It is an act of rhetorical manipulation -- somebody trying to get you to do do something, or not do something, based on 'Divine Heresay'. God doesn't make ethics. Men and women make ethics -- and then sometimes, oftentimes, attach God's name to the result -- fraudulantly -- in order to give the ethics more 'rhetorical power'. The power of 'Divine Authority'. The power of fraudulant Divine Authority.

A religion needs to be judged by its system of ethics; not the reverse. Not by the professed Authority of God. That is an act of righteous fraud. If you want to judge a religion as being 'healthy' and/or 'pathological', then you have to judge it by ist system of ethics. This system of ethics is made by men in positions of religious power; not by the power and the word of God.

God is a myth -- sometimes a good myth, sometimes a bad myth, depending on whether people are helping each other, caring for each other, in God's name -- or killing each other.

God's name has been used just as often to promote violence as it has been to stop it. God's name has been used endlessly to support and give rhetorical power and manipulation to man's narcissitic and righteous -- ethical or unethical -- intentions. That is why a religion needs to be judged by its system of ethics -- just as a political party does, just as a business does, and just as the men and women operating behind the scenes -- making and breaking the 'professed' ethics -- do. That is why 'idealism' in the philosophy of Marx becomes turned on its head and called 'ideology' which in Marx's system is not a good thing. Ideology in Marx's system of philosophy essentially means 'fake idealism and realism'. Ideology to Marx means 'a smoke and mirrors' cover up for man's real behavior -- his 'narcissistic materialism'. That rule of thumb generally applies for 21st century politics: idealism equals fake ideology equals hypocrisy. The same equation has been just as rampant in religion over man's history as it has in politics. rigtheous idealistic and ideological intentions disguise and cover up man's real intentions: narcissism and materialism. Schopenhauer and Marx are smiling at me in their respective graves.

Religion -- without humanistic-existential ethics and values, meaning a balance of compassion and accountability, self-assertiveness and social sensitivity - generally degenerates into righteous intolerance based on 'either/or' ethics. Good and bad, heaven and hell, God and the Devil...Excommunicate those who are bad, associated with Hell and the Devil...Curse them...This is the religion of promoting hatred and violence. It is not the religion of tolerance, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion.

They -- meaning the Amsterdam Jews, those who had understandably fled the righteous intolerance, the hate, the persecution and the torture of the Spanish and Portugese Inquisition -- turned around and betrayed the finest and most ethical among them -- Baroch Spinoza. The man who dared to integrate Science and Religion -- God and Nature in Spinoza's eyes were One. Not God ruling over Nature. But God in Nature. God and Nature being synonymous. God being the Spirit of Nature. This is a myth too -- just like God the Creator and Ruler over Man and Nature -- without the negative side effects. Without the righteous intolerance based on 'Either/Or' Ethics. God and Nature as being one and the same -- is a good myth. Because now when I look at Nature, I look at Nature with new meaning and substance. I look at Nature and feel a part of Nature -- with a sense of awe and splendor. Enjoying the most of it because it may not last. (Or I may not last.) Not something to be tossed away like a rag doll. Polluted until you are afraid of the dangers of its toxicity. I saw Daytona Beech in the 1960s. I would probably cry if I saw it now. I once jumped into Lake Ontario at Ontario Place when I was drunk (in the 1980s). I had to throw out my clothes when I got home. I smelled like a sewer rat. You were once able to swim at Woodbine Beech in Toronto. I wouldn't want to swime there now. People have to go further and furhter north to find safe swimming. 'You pay paradise and you put up a parking lot.' -- Joni Mitchell.

When I use the word 'God', I do not use it righteously unless it is to protect Nature and Reglious Tolerance in the name of Spinoza, and after him, in the name of Albert Einstein. I don't say that my ethics comes from God. It comes from pre-Enlightenment philosophers like Spinoza, Enlightenment philosophers like Locke and Adam Smith and Diderot and Voltaire and Paine and Jefferson. It comes from Romantic philosophers like Rousseau and Schelling. It comes from Dialectic philosophers like Hegel and early humanistic Marx. It comes from Humanistic-Existentialists like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre. It comes from political humanists like Erich Fromm. And it comes from General Semantics empiricists like Alfred Korzybski and S.I. Hayakawa. To repeat, it doesn't come from God. It comes from me. I will take full responsibility and accountability for my philosophical ethics. And I will use God's name symbolically, metaphorically and mythologically -- not epistemolotically.

Epistemologically (or ontologically), if you ask me if God exists, I will say, 'I don't know. I think that makes me an 'Epistemological Agnostic'. Spiritually, I will call myself a pantheist -- or some derrivative of a Spinozian-Einsteinian Pantheist.

That is where I stand today.

dgb, Aug. 30th, 2007.

Spinoza's Room

2007-08-26T06:39:00.000-07:00

I view this essay as a first draft. I expect that I will write a variety of updated modifications of this essay at a later date. You see, this is my first real attempt to grapple with the fascinating ideas of a perplexing philosopher -- Baruch (Hebrew for 'blessed') or Benedictus (Latin for 'blessed) Spinoza (1632-1677). The name 'Spinoza' derives from the word 'thorn' in Portugese (Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza, 2006, Random House of Canada Ltd., Toronto.) Together, Baruch Spinoza's name seems fitting appropriate -- 'blessed thorn'. In my opinion, and the opinion of many, all of mankind is 'blessed' for having been exposed to Spinoza's extraordinary ideas -- he holds the 'dual and paradoxical distinction' that he can be viewed as both a precursor of 'Enlightenment Philosophy' and 'Romantic Philosophy' at the same time. There is perhaps, to my knowledge, only one other Western philosopher before the 1700s who can arguably hold such a dual distinction --and that is the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus (535BC-475BC). There are other 14th to 17th century precursors to Enlightenment (Scientific-Humanistic) Philosophy -- William of Occam (1290-1349), Montaigne (1533-1592), Galileo (1564-1642), Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Isaac Newton (1643-1728), and John Locke (1632-1704) to name some of the more important ones. Rousseau can be viewed as the 'father' of Romantic Philosophy -- the point at which Romantic Philosophy grew out as a rebellion against 'unadulterated' Enlightenment Philosophy (reason, reason, and more reason -- did we forget 'passion' and even 'unreasonable passion'?), rather than being on the integrative 'Pantheistic' (scientific-spiritual) path of both Heraclitus and Spinoza.

There is at least one more very famous member of this 'triadic' scientific-spiritual-pantheistic' movment that Heraclitus started and Spinoza embellished -- and that is one of the most famous intellects in the history of mankind -- Albert Einstein (1879-1955).

Einstein's conception of God can be found at the end of this essay and is very important because it is very 'Spinozian based' and a flagship of a very well developed pantheistic position. At the end of the paper, we will also look at a quick definition of pantheism along with some of its derivatives and distinctions vs. other forms of spiritualism and/or religion.

Spinoza has been labelled the 'renegade Jew' and a 'sneaky atheist' (Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza) and a 'Bu-Jew' (not sure what Goldstein meant by that but I will do my own interpretation here). I see Spinoza as being a 'Budhist-like renegade Jew' who both stimulated the Romantic Movement of the late 1700s and yet at the same time, except for his pantheistic vision of God, was very 'unromantic' in personality. He didn't marry or father a child. He didn't like or support 'high emotion, passion, appetite, and drama' either in his philosophy or in his life (even though he spent his whole life provoking it in the responses of others to his rebellion against orthodox Judaism, and for that matter, any type of orthodox religion. When you start saying that 'God' and 'Nature' are the same thing -- synonyms for each other, no more, no less -- especially back in the 1600s, you are asking for trouble.)

The only type of person that this pantheistic vision, at least at first blush, might be attractive to is a philosopher or a scientist who would like to add some 'spiritual depth' to his work and thus, in some form or another, integrate religion and science, creation and evolution. This, at least partly if not mainly, seems to be the type of persons who were most attracted to his work, or at least, his pantheistic work. Schelling integrated Hegel and Spinoza to create a more 'dualistic and dialectic romanticism and spiritualism. I follow Schelling in this dialectical spiritualistic direction due also in main part to my post-Spinozian in combination with post-Hegelian vision. In this respect, a distinction can be made between a 'unilateral or unconditional wholist' (Spinoza, Alfed Adler) vs. a 'dialectical integrationist and wholist' (Schelling, early Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, Freud, Jung, Perls, me...) Anyway, I would call Einstein the most honorary member to Spinoza's vision, which in my opinion, his much more 'spiritual depth' than any flat out atheistic position. Spinoza was not a sneaky atheist but rather a profoundly religious, ethical, and deep spiritual person in a way that most people during his time could not, and would not accept. Even today, this is significantly still the case. Spinoza was thinking 'outside the normal religious box'. There are many more sides to Spinoza's thinking that I have not described here -- his rationalism (which I will challenge in my epistemology section), his trumpeting of the pre-Enlightenment ideas of 'freedom of speech' and 'religious tolerance' which would become central to the Scottish Enlightenment, The British Enlightenment, the French Enlightenment, and the American Enlightenment in the middle 1700s. (I will visit Spinoza here again in my Enlightenment section.)

The Spinozian vision that I have focused on here in this section is his pantheistic vision which I will spend numerous essays to follow exploring different possible avenues relative to the potential further evolution of this pantheistic vision.

dgb, Aug. 27th, 2007.
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Einstein's Position On God

The question of scientific determinism gave rise to questions about Einstein's position on theological determinism, and even whether or not he believed in God. In 1929, Einstein told Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind." (Brian 1996, p. 127) In 1950, in a letter to M. Berkowitz, Einstein stated that "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment."[37]

Einstein defined his religious views in a letter he wrote in response to those who claimed that he worshipped a Judeo-Christian god: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."[38][39]

By his own definition, Einstein was a deeply religious person (Pais 1982, p. 319).[40] He published a paper in Nature in 1940 entitled Science and Religion which gave his views on the subject.[41] In this he says that: "a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation ... In this sense religion is the age-old endeavour of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals, and constantly to strengthen their effects." He argues that conflicts between science and religion "have all sprung from fatal errors." However "even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies" ... "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind ... a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist." However he makes it clear that he does not believe in a personal God, and suggests that "neither the rule of human nor Divine Will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted ... by science, for [it] can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot." (Einstein 1940, pp. 605–607)

Einstein championed the work of psychologist Paul Diel,[42] which posited a biological and psychological, rather than theological or sociological, basis for morality.[43]

The most thorough exploration of Einstein's views on religion was made by his friend Max Jammer in the 1999 book Einstein and Religion (Jammer 1999).

Einstein was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association beginning in 1934, and was an admirer of Ethical Culture (Ericson 2006). He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York (See Stringer-Hye 1999 and Wilson 1995). Reference: Wikipedia

.....................................................................................Pantheism (Greek: πάν ( 'pan' ) = all and θεός ( 'theos' ) = God) literally means "God is All" and "All is God". It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God; or that the Universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. More detailed definitions tend to emphasize the idea that natural law, existence, and the Universe (the sum total of all that is, was, and shall be) is represented or personified in the theological principle of an abstract 'god'. However, it is important to understand that Pantheists do not believe in a personal, creative deity or deities of any kind, the key feature which distinguishes them from panentheists and pandeists. As such, although many religions may claim to hold pantheistic elements, they are more commonly panentheistic or pandeistic in nature.
Reference: Wikipedia

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Panentheism
Pantheism has features in common with panentheism, such as the idea that the Universe is part of God. Technically, the two are separate. Whereas pantheism finds God to be synonymous with nature, panentheism finds God to be greater than nature alone. Some find this distinction unhelpful, while others see it as a significant point of division. Many of the major faiths described as pantheistic could also be described as panentheistic, whereas naturalistic pantheism cannot (not seeing God as more than nature alone). For example, elements of both panentheism and pantheism are found in Hinduism. Certain interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita and Shri Rudram support this view. Reference: Wikipedia

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Pandeism
Pandeism is a kind of Pantheism which incorporates a form of Deism, holding that the Universe is identical to God, but also that God was previously a conscious and sentient force or entity that designed and created the Universe. God only became an unconscious and nonsentient God by becoming the Universe. Other than this distinction (and the possibility that the Universe will one day return to the state of being God), Pandeistic beliefs are identical to Pantheism.
Reference: Wikipedia

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Pantheistic concepts in religion

Hinduism
It is generally asserted that Hindu religious texts are the oldest known literature that contains the ideas of Pantheistic doctrine[1]. In Hindu theology, Brahman is the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all things in this Universe, and is also the sum total of all that ever is, was, or ever shall be. This pantheistic doctrine is traceable from some of the more ancient Upanishads to later Advaita philosophy. All Mahāvākyas(Great Sayings) of the Upanishads, in one way or another, seem to indicate the unity of the world with the Brahman. Chāndogya Upanishad says "All this Universe indeed is Brahma; from him does it proceed; into him it is dissolved; in him it breathes, so let every one adore him calmly". Reference: Wikipedia
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Judaism
The radically immanent sense of the divine in Jewish mystical Kabbalah is said to have inspired Spinoza's formulation of pantheism. However, Spinoza's views have not been accepted in Orthodox Judaism.

Additionally, the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, had a mystical sense of the divine that could be described as panentheism.

Biblical Judaism asserts the origin of the Universe was brought forth by the Torah [law] of nature. Thus the original Torah is found not within the writing of Moshe, but within nature itself. "Reading" the Torah of nature is seen as equivalent to "reading" the Torah of revelation and theoretically will agree with one another in the end [as illustrated for example in the discovery of the Big Bang in 1965]. Rabbinical Orthodoxy viewing this as a discrepancy, in order to maintain the written Torah above that given first in nature, has argued that written Torah preceded creation, and it was from the written Torah that God "spoke" creation. A view rejected by Biblical pantheists.

Maimonides, though Orthodox, reflected the sentiment that the Torah of nature and the Torah of scripture were equivalent and found its logic inescapable, in his comments on the reconciliation of science with scripture. These instructions no doubt served as background for the development of Baruch Spinoza's later views.

Reference: Wikipedia
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Einstein's Position On God

The question of scientific determinism gave rise to questions about Einstein's position on theological determinism, and even whether or not he believed in God. In 1929, Einstein told Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God Who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind." (Brian 1996, p. 127) In 1950, in a letter to M. Berkowitz, Einstein stated that "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoblement of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment."[37]

Einstein defined his religious views in a letter he wrote in response to those who claimed that he worshipped a Judeo-Christian god: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."[38][39]

By his own definition, Einstein was a deeply religious person (Pais 1982, p. 319).[40] He published a paper in Nature in 1940 entitled Science and Religion which gave his views on the subject.[41] In this he says that: "a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value ... regardless of whether any attempt is made to unite this content with a Divine Being, for otherwise it would not be possible to count Buddha and Spinoza as religious personalities. Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation ... In this sense religion is the age-old endeavour of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals, and constantly to strengthen their effects." He argues that conflicts between science and religion "have all sprung from fatal errors." However "even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies" ... "science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind ... a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist." However he makes it clear that he does not believe in a personal God, and suggests that "neither the rule of human nor Divine Will exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted ... by science, for [it] can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot." (Einstein 1940, pp. 605–607)

Einstein championed the work of psychologist Paul Diel,[42] which posited a biological and psychological, rather than theological or sociological, basis for morality.[43]

The most thorough exploration of Einstein's views on religion was made by his friend Max Jammer in the 1999 book Einstein and Religion (Jammer 1999).

Einstein was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association beginning in 1934, and was an admirer of Ethical Culture (Ericson 2006). He served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York (See Stringer-Hye 1999 and Wilson 1995). Reference: Wikipedia

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The Epistemology, Mythology, and Ethics of 'God' and Religion

2007-08-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

This essay may not be something that the 'religiously devout' person wants to hear. It is an 'rational-empirical' philosopher's perspective on the 'epistemology' vs. the 'mythology' of 'God' and 'religion'. My thesis is basically that the 'epistemology' of 'God' -- meaning the 'realness of His or Her existence' is highly suspect and questionable based on 21st century rational-empirical knowledge or epistemology. There are too many 'leaps of faith' and 'suspensions of disbelief' of normal, every-day, common-sense knowledge necessary to turn the possibility of 'God's existence' into a probability, let alone a 'fact'. Does God have a 'physical presence' and 'physical boundaries'? What does 'He or She or It look like? Are we really to believe that 'God has an ever-lasting life-span, unlike anything else on earth that we have ever seen or heard of? Are we really to believe that 'God is all-powerful'? And that 'God is inherently good when there is so much destructive and selfish evil in this world?'

From an 'epistemological' point of view, the existence of 'God' is highly improbable. 'God' is more rationally seen as a 'mythological construct' -- a projection of many of man's wishful and/or fearful needs -- that has been used for thousands of years by man to 'ward off a fear of death' and to 'help him ethically behave better on earth' (and some might cynically say allow people in power to better control the behavior of the masses and to get them to do things that they would not normally do because these behaviors would violate the 'pleasure and happiness' principle.) The ethical and moral virtue of God and religion can be better supported 'mythologically' than 'epistemologically' but even this comes with a serious 'caveat emptor'. Mythologically-speaking, religion is neither 'good' or 'bad' but the type of man-made ethics, attitude, and behavior that support the religion all make it so -- or not so. You have to 'dig into the contents' of the religion in order to determine whether it is 'good' or 'bad' for man. And you have to 'dig into the particulars' of how each and every person is using his or her religion for the good or bad of him or herself -- and others around him or her -- to determine its relative 'personal health content' or 'personal pathology content'.

Returning to an epistemological point of view, the closest I can come to connecting 'rationality' or 'reason' with 'God' is through 'Intelligent Design Theory'. In other words, it is easy to argue that the world -- and everything in it -- is so amazingly well-designed, so 'intelligently' well-designed, that it is very hard not to, indeed, almost impossible not to, believe that there must have been some intelligent designER behind the incredible complexity of this design. It is very hard to believe the opposite point of view -- that the world, and everything in it, with all of its individual and collective complexities of functional design, was created simply by 'accident'. Even evolution theory -- is a little stale and 'parameter restricted' if by evolution theory we want to restrict ourselves only to the Darwinian perspective of 'genetic evolution over numerous generations'. This cannot account for much faster forms of evolution such as human evolution through individual and/or social learning. Hegelian social evolution or dialectic (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) theory is a much stronger way of accounting for faster forms of evolution than classic Darwinian Theory, particularly if it too is broadened to account for 'individual and social, biological intelligence' -- i.e., the power to compensate, modify, mutate, adjust, change -- in even the smallest of animals and plants like 'ants' and 'viruses' and 'bacteria' that are not generally regarded as having 'intelligence'. Even plants can be said to have 'intelligence' in that, for example, they will bend towards the sun, and certain plants -- like say the 'pau d arco' plant -- have 'learned' to fight off and become 'immune' to, its arch enemy -- fungi -- in ways that can only be described as 'learned over time' and 'immune function based on plant intelligence'.

All of this brings us back to the question of, 'Where did this intelligence come from?', and was/is there something 'more all-encompassing, and/or more all-overseeing' that put this type of 'evolutionary intelligence' into every animal, mineral, and plant on earth.

Now it is a major leap of 'faith', 'trust', 'assumption', 'presumption', or a 'suspension of disbelief' as they say in the entertainment business, to jump from 'intellignet design' theory and even the idea of an 'intelligent designer' -- which could be a more intelligent race of people from a different world who may be playing with this world as their 'hobby' or 'university course' -- to the idea of 'God' which include many, many more assumptions -- and probably man-made 'idealistic projections' -- than an 'intelligent designer' theory.

Thus, as an empirically and rationally based philosopher (or at least that is what I would like to think that I am), I can state with conviction that the idea of an 'intelligent designer' theory can be rationally and empirically supported; however, the 'leap of faith' if you will, or 'leap into metaphysics', or 'suspension of disbelief' that takes us from intelligent designer theory to 'God' -- cannot be rationally, empirically, and/or epistemologically supported in the same way.

We look back now at the many 'Gods' of the ancient Greeks -- a 'God of War', a 'God of Love', etc. -- and we partly smile and call them 'myths'.

What would cause us to believe that the 'one God' that many people believe in today, and that most religions righteously trumpet, would be any less of a 'myth' than the 20 Gods that are now being called a myth, some 2700 years ago.

There is only one possible reason: many people NEED to believe in God (for example, fear of death) -- even if this means 'suspending their epistemological sense of disbelief' in order to sustain their belief in God's existence -- and an 'afterlife'.

This is not to say that all myths are bad; there are plenty of myths, fairy tales -- and Gods -- that may, indeed do, play a useful and functional role in man's life (eg. Santa Clause, Peter Pan, the tooth fairy, and so on...)

However, from an empirical philosopher's point of view, the existence of God cannot be rationally supported -- are we really to believe that 'God' has no 'lifespan' and no 'physical presence or boundaries'. (If we believe that God has no boundaries, then we are, in effect, getting close to Spinoza's idea of spiritual pantheism -- 'God is Nature' or 'God is everywhere and in everything'.

Any orthodox or unorhodox form of religion or belief in God is simply a different form of myth. If you want to -- or need to -- choose a 'God' myth; just make sure that it is beneficial to both you and the people around you, and be tolerant of other people's 'myths' as long as they do not violate any human rights laws as put forth by the United Nations, and/or any and every humanistic country that does not tolerate religious suppression and violence.

Whether you are a Muslim, a Catholic, a Protestant, an Anglican, a Mormon, a Jew, or a Spinozian Pantheist, the question of importance is not whether your God 'exists' or not; but rather, whether you are a 'better' or 'worse' person for your belief in the 'myth' of 'God'.

Mythologically and functionally, 'God' -- in any form -- can be supported, if it makes you a better person to yourself and others. Epistemologically, the existence of God can't -- at least not based on any kind of rational philosophical empiricism that I can come up with.

I do not have any problem with the president of The United States being a mormon -- or any other 'humanistic' religion.

However, I have a big problem with politics, the State, and religion being epistemologically and ethically connected.

You do not bring a myth to epistemology, law, science, or politics any more than you would a fairy tale; and you do not lead a country based on either a myth or a fairy tale in situations where good, sound, credible, reliable, empirical epistemology is what is needed.

Thus, when and where I use the term and concept 'God', I am using it symbolically, mythologically, and spiritually -- but not epistemoligically. This is a very, very important distinction, not only for me, but for anyone who is seriously interested in digging into the ethical merit of their religion, and the relative health or pathology of the particular religious ideas that they are being asked or told to 'buy into'.

Ask not first what you can do for your religion, but rather what your religion can do for you, the people who are practising the religion, and the people outside of the religion. Is it helping people to live happier lives? Or is it making people miserable? Is it making the people within the religion more tolerant, caring, and peaceful towards other people? Or is it making people righteously intolerant, unaccepting, even aggressive and violent towards other people of differing religious or unreligous ideas? Is it making people submissive and masochistic? Or is it making people assertive and independent in balance with compassionate, caring, and socially sensitive and giving? I am looking for a new evolution and breed of religions -- of any name or faith be it Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other form of religion -- that is based on 'humanistic-existential values and ethics'; not squashing the same.

db

Who's Projecting What? Did God Create Man In His/Her Own Image? Or Did Man Create God In His Own Image?

2007-05-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

Who is projecting what? Is God dead or alive? Male or
female? Black, white, or brown? Finite or infinite?
Abstract or concrete? Good or evil? Against the devil?
Or associated with the devil? Is God the whole? Or did
God create the whole? Is God nature? Or did God create
mature? Can religion be mixed with philosophy?
Science? Politics? Law? Or must religion be totally
separated from all of these more 'epistemological' as opposed to 'mystical', 'spiritual', and 'faith-oriented' domains?

This is perhaps the craziest, most convoluted essay I
will ever write. If you can follow this, you can
perhaps follow me to the most convoluted corners of my
mind. Or maybe it is not so crazy. I just finished
writing it and maybe I 'uncrazied' it. One way or the
other, this is what over 30 years of studying
psychology and philosophy can do to you. When
Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Confucious, the Han
Philosophers, Plato, Aristotle, St. Augistine,
Spinoza, Hegel, Darwin, Kierkegaarde, Schopenhauer,
Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, Beckett, Freud, Jung, Adler,
Korzybski, Foucault, Derrida, Perls...are your
bedfellows, your mind goes to rather strange places.

Nietzsche wrote, 'God is Dead!' I write: 'God is very
much alive and working partly through all my strange
bedfellows.

Am I a religious person? Or an atheist? An agnostic? A
pantheist? A deist? All of the above? Or none of the
above? I'm still scratching my head. You read what is
to follow and you try to figure it out. For the moment
-- everything subject to change -- I think I feel most
comfortable calling myself an 'An
Anaxamanerian-Heraclitean-Platonic-Aristotlean-Spinozian-Hegelian-Darwinian
Pantheist'. You can quote me on that. I think I like
it. But if I was writing in Spinoza's time, I would
probably have to be a lot more careful about what I
was writing. Indeed, I probably wouldn't write it. I
don't have Spinoza's courage.

If you are a 'conservative, either/or person', then
you will probably not like what I have to write. If
you are a more liberal, flexible, integrative person,
then you may or may not like what I have to write. But
my odds are much better with you.

You cannot separate man from his/her egotism,
narcissism, and hedonism. And sometimes these three
factors make strange bedfellows as man tries to
wrestle between wanting to be an animal and wanting to
be God, wanting to be Apollo and wanting to be
Dionysius, wanting to be his/her 'Id' and wanting to
be his/her 'Superego'. Wanting to be his/her
'Personna' and wanting to be his/her 'Shadow', wanting
to be 'little' and wanting to be 'big', wanting to be
'inferior' and wanting to be 'superior', wanting to be
a 'topdog' and wanting to be an 'underdog', wanting to
be real and wanting to be manipulative, wanting to
'act in Good Faith and wanting to act in Bad Faith,
wanting to be associated with God and wanting to be
associated with the Devil...Need I go on?

The full embodiment of man's paradoxes are endless,
countless -- no philosopher could or can ever get to
them all. Man wants to be an animal. And man wants to
be God. Man wants to be powerful. And man wants to be
powerless. Man wants to pray to God. And man wants to
BE God.

I wrote a semi-poem a few years ago called, 'God is
the Bridge'. You can read it not far below. It was
very much a culmination -- and a spiritual embodiment
-- of my work, my philosophy up to the point that I
wrote it. It still is. And yet I look at my work, I
look at my philosophy, and I see that my philosophy --
and indirectly me through my philosophy -- is also
trying very much to be 'The Grandest of all Grand
Narratives', the 'Biggest of All Bridges'. I am trying
to take my philosophy closer to 'The Absolute' than
Hegel ever did, or ever was. Does that mean that Hegel
was 'right' in his 'dialectical theory' and in his
theory of 'The Absolute'. Or does it mean that I am a
bigger egotist than Hegel? Kierkegaard? Schopenhauer?
Marx? Nietzshe? Freud? Jung? Adler? Perls? Do you have
to write a great philosophy to be a great egotist? Or
do you have to be a great egotist to be a great
philosopher? Is philosophy any different than anything
else that man does -- or attempts to do. There are
priests and ministers who stand up at the pulpit every
Sunday morning -- indeed, I can find them on my tv in
the darkest hours of every night and the earliest
hours of every morning. They would like you and I to
think that they are the 'bridge to God'.

Look at my work and tell me that I am not trying to do
the same thing -- perhaps in a more 'secular' or
'semi-secular', 'spiritual pantheist' way. 'God is the
Bridge' is the spiritual embodiment of everything that
I have to say in my philosophy. I am writing that 'God
is the Bridge' but at the same time I am trying to
write a philosophy that 'creates a
multi-dialectic-wholistic bridge to and between man
and and man and woman and nature and God'. God is man
-- and man is partly God because man is an embodiment
of God's work. (Or is it the other way around? To be a
philosopher -- a good one anyway -- is always to be a
skeptic. Is God above Nature? Or are God and Nature
and Man all 'dialectically and wholistically
interconnected'? I opt for the latter approach. That
is what makes me a 'Hegelian-Spinozian pantheist' (to
shorten my spiritual title down a bit). I see man,
God, and Nature all spiritually, dialectically, and
wholistically connected. I see Creation and Evolution
both interconnected in an
Anaxamanerian-Heraclitean-Platonic-Aristitolean-Confucian-Spinozian-Hegelian
-Nietzshean
way.

When I get to Nietzsche, you will read my
interpretation of Nietzsche as I write about the
'Abyss', the 'Tightrope', and Nietzshe's
'Superman-will to power-will-to-excel' philosophy.
Nietzsche can divorce himself as much as he wants from
Hegel -- but I bring Nietzsche back to Hegel. For me,
his first book, The Birth of Tragedy -- Nietzsche's
first book and totally Hegelian in its construction, a
foreshadowing, a precursor, to Psychoanalysis before
Freud built Psychoanalysis -- is as important to me
and to the overall evolution of Western philosophy as
Nietzsche's supposedly more 'mature anti-Hegelian
work' later on. Freud re-connected Hegel and
Nietzsche. Jung re-connected Hegel and Nietzsche.
Perls re-connected Hegel and Nietzsche. Gap-DGB
Philosophy re-connects Hegel and Nietzsche in a way
that has perhaps never been clearly articulated
before. What is Nietzsche's Superman Philosophy and
his 'Will to Power -- or Will to Self-Empowerment',
his 'abyss' and 'tightrope' philosophy other than a
'chemical union' between Hegel and Nietzsche --
arguably the greatest philosophical chemical union in
the history of Western Philosophy. A union of reason
and passion, structure and anti-structure, structure
and process, being and becoming -- through the
evolutionary process of the dialectic. If God created
this world, then He or She created it through the
principle of the dialectic and the priniciple of
'optimal and/or homeostatic and/or dialectical
balance' -- man and woman coming together in a
chemical union both sexually and spiritually, Hegel
and Nietzsche coming together in a philosophical union
between dialectical reason and dialectical passion.
God is the Bridge but He/She is the Bridge through the
embodiment of Man and Woman and Nature and their Union
all together, as well as the embodiment of every man
and woman in all of their individual and collective
creative achievements and potentialities, in the work
of every philosopher and psychologist, every
politician and economist out there that you or I could
ever read about. And meanwhile, while God is the
Bridge that links everything and everyone together,
both dialectically and wholistically, in war and
diplomacy, life and death, love and hate, Apollo and
Dionysius, Good and Evil -- but more harmoniously in
dialectical-democratic creative negotiation rather
than trying to kill, destroy, blow each other up...and
war-mongering people seemingly trying to find a faster
way to meet God. Meanwhile, I am trying to do it a
slower, more democratic, harmonious way.
Multi-Dialectical Unity and Wholism where the
dialectic is addressed peacefully and diplomatically
through debate -- not war. But it takes two people to
debate and negotiate, and to WANT to do this rather
than to want to kill and/or overpower each other -- in
contrast, it takes only one person, or one set of
people, to create a war...God is the Bridge -- and I
am trying to meet God, man, and Nature on the Bridge
of Life, through my philosophical work...

db, Feb. 12th, 2007

Email Feedback From My Dad

2007-05-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

Email Feedback From One of My Readers -- Paul Baioni -- on Essay 18.2.

2007-02-19T23:05:00.003-08:00

Introduction,

Paul and I have had -- and still have -- our differences of opinion mainly on the issue of 'freewill vs. determinism' but I enjoy his counter-arguments and differences of opinion just the same. Here is a sample of his style and content of philosophical argument. Also, I thank Paul for keeping up with his emails not only for the content of his feedback, and the development of his own ideas, but also -- and yes this is a 'narcissistic reason' -- partly because as in this case, I have accidently lost or deleted one of my essays, or an old version of one of my essays and then been able to recover it again through our emails. db

.....................................................................................

Hello Dave,

Whoa, I think you need a break!!!! Just kidding. You asked more
questions
than I believe you answered for sure. I have read it once, and will
read it
again. I can follow this, mostly at least, because I am not as
intimately
familiar with the works and teachings of these philosophers and such as
you
are. Even though I have only a partial understanding, I can grasp the
concepts rather easily and can understand the dilemma that you are
questioning. And in that light I would like to respond in my own rather
simplified way of reasoning and understanding of man and our existence.
Of
course you know my position, and I know yours, contrasting styles in
many
ways, not only in presentation but also conceptually.

You reference God in such a variety of ways that you definitely are
struggling with the concept of his existence. You even to some extent
question his existence. God is alive, God is everything, God is dead,
and
God is nothing. Does that clear it up for you????? Let me explain if I
can
in a more detailed way.

God is alive in the sense that he plays a very important role in our
society. God(s) has/have been the explanation for everything that man
in his
limited wisdom has been unable to explain. If I don't know, it must be
God
sent, or created by God, or at the hands of God, or the work of God.
God has
also been associated with everything that man considers good, just as
the
Devil is associated with evil. Blind faith in God is a very strong
influence
for man. A belief, especially a strong one, no matter what the source
is, or
its verifiability, its origin, SP, IP, religion or whatever, is real to
man
and drives man's actions. Based on the fact that he exerts such a
strong
indirect influence in society, he is very much alive.

God is everything. God is responsible for everything that we know,
everything we see, feel, dream, every experience, and every event in
our
lives. God is responsible for the evolution of everything in man's
existence, good, evil, finite, infinite, pleasure and pain, physical
and
mental, therefore being the creator, his is everything that evolution
has
produced. He is all positive and negative energies. Polar concepts just
like
so many other things in our lives. God is also the energy that drives
it
all, the light, electromagnetic, sound, and every other influence that
the
scientists have been able to discover, conceptualize and those they
have yet
to imagine. It all ties together to form our existence. God truly is
everything. God is Nature, not just earthly nature, but the natural
order of
things, physics laws, etc.

God is dead. In man's limited understanding of our existence, God is
totally
an indirect influence, he is a creator, but not a controller. By not
having
direct influence, he could easily be considered dead. We can not
imagine his
being, we can not understand his power or influence. We truly do not
know
God for what he really is. Failing to understand, failing to define,
failing
to find any verifiable evidence of his existence, in human terms God is
dead. Do we have any physical evidence to support anything that has
been
conceived to be God?

God is nothing. There is no God except as having been defined by
scripture.
His influence is only imaginary, that is, being only an influence
because
man has defined him as an influence in many ways through the
scriptures. He
has basically only been defined in man's mind. God neither controls nor
manipulates anything. He is purely creation, that is all. By
definition,
things without influence of any kind are deemed non-existent, for every
other known thing in our existence exerts influence of some kind. A
vacuum,
void of any element of any kind is considered sterile, nothingness,
much
like the vast majority of space found in our universe.

Religion is philosophy, both are based on pure beliefs, faith,
conceptualizations of the unproveable. Politics and law are man created
philosophies, but based on the individual IP's of those that created
them,
similar to religion except that religion is based on perceptions of an
unknown, while politics and law are based more upon a democratic
process of
creation. Science is also based on perceptions, but grounded in
empirical
evidence, thereby differentiating it from religion which is based upon
conjecture. Lacking in many ways a democratic process of creation, it
also
differs from politics and law. They are similar in the respect to the
influence they carry on our beliefs, our IP, and SP in general. All are
intricate to the creation of all other philosophies, individual and
social.

Man's is an emotional and mental mess, driven by so many humanly
natural
desires which are all based on what we consider polar concepts. The
internal
struggle is very real for it is based on our beliefs, real or
imaginary, and
they are what drive our IP and our resulting actions and our paths in
life.
This is the basis of all human existence. To say that any one is better
or
worse than another is purely subjective, for they are all natural and
all
purely human desires and emotions. To grade them as good or bad is to
measure them in light of SP. SP exists in all forms with extremely
varying
concepts. To Americans, SP is grounded in totally different
fundamentals
than anywhere else in the world. All SPs are developed from collective
IP of
their creators, so each is based on equal ground. So how can we stand
in
judgment of SP's that are different from our own? Were they not created
from
the same source, from the same creator, God, since he is ultimately
responsible for our entire existence? Does he judge one over another?
Does
he not influence the creation of all, dare I say through the natural
evolution of everything? So how can we judge what he does not? Man is
the
embodiment of all desires, yes I agree with you on that, and that is
such a
natural thing that we dare not argue with that, but is that bad or
wrong? I
say not!!!!!!

Does that mean I have to accept everything that is against what I
believe?
No again. My IP is my personal guide, just as with everyone else. If I
perceive injustice, it is my choice to react or to let live. If the
injustice is such that I feel the need to react, to counteract the pain
created for others, then that is my prerogative, just as everyone has
the
choice to act according to their own IP.

Humans are perfect. Humans are terribly flawed. Humans are everything
that
we are, nothing more or less than we were created to be. We live as we
must,
and die when we will. We have little control over our birth and almost
as
little control over our death. We live, we breathe, we learn, we
develop, we
are inhabited by an IP that is created and formulated from genetics and
environment, and it guides our actions until one day we live no more.
This
totally natural process occurs mostly with minimal control. We suffer,
we
rejoice, we feel for others while ignoring most of what happens around
us,
we exist in a world that could end through no fault of our own. Our
time is
limited, highly controlled by nature, and in that respect we are
terribly
flawed.

I have read your poem, "God is the Bridge." You basically admit to the
fact
that everything is connected. You talked about an absolute, a meaning
to it
all, the essence of our existence, which is basically the concept that
I
have tried to impress upon you from the beginning. Everything is
connected
through nature. Man, earth, God and the entire universe. There is a
bridge
and it is a very simple concept, the absolute meaning of it all.
Everything
you wrote is true, you just can't seem to take the final leap and give
up
the notion of control. To be totally connected, to be totally equal, to
be
totally bridged, we must come to a single thread of truth about our
existence. All men were created equal, in fact, everything in our
existence
was created equally, all emotions and desires are equal, all are
evolved,
all are uncontrollable (in a very basic sense), and all interact in a
way
that drives our existence, our evolution, our creation and our demise.
If
you take away any single part of our existence, things will change, the
evolution will be altered and forever cast in a new light. It doesn't
matter
what that thing is, it impacts. Our thoughts will change, our beliefs
will
be altered, our actions will shift, and all this shifts the evolution
for
everyone. Every single action is accounted for, every single thought is
accounted for, every single physical/natural event is accounted for and
it
all occurs in the same natural environment known as the evolution of
our
existence.

But you are wrong about one statement you made. It takes two to start a
war,
not just one. If I have something you want, and I am not willing to
give it
to you voluntarily, then I am contributing to the war. If I have
beliefs
that make it impossible for me to cede control or to give up, then I am
also
creating the war. For if you hit me, and I do not hit back, there would
be
no war. So to say that one person can create war is wrong. Many people
tried
to create war on Jesus, and his apostles, but without retaliatory
efforts,
there was no war. This sometimes leads to an extermination effort, such
as
the Jews in Germany, or the Crusades, or many other similar actions by
insane humans, but that is not war. Just like they say it takes two to
tango, it takes two to start a war. I could go much deeper into this,
but
time does not permit that here.

You fear that you may be considered an evangelist (maybe an
exaggeration),
but when you consider that you are attempting to influence people
concerning
concepts that are highly personal in nature, the way we feel, what we
believe, then yes you could be considered in that light. When you try
to
tell others that what they are doing or what they believe or feel is
wrong,
then you are seen in a very similar light. If you hold yourself to a
strictly objective level and present facts without judgment (for that
is a
very personal and subjective thing) then you will be okay. You can
influence
without criticism, for people get defensive when you tell them that
what
they believe is wrong, or bad. Do not insult someone's intelligence by
telling them that their personal beliefs are wrong, let them figure it
out
for themselves. If I read what you write and am influenced by it, then
that
is okay, but don't ever tell me what to believe or that what I believe
is
wrong, at least not directly. Stay objective, present facts and let
people
do with that information what they want, or what they will.

God and nature are one in the same, man is a byproduct of those forces
that
were created billions of years ago, by whom, or what I do not know. But
I do
believe that everything has all evolved and is continually evolving,
being
and becoming. We never will be, we are always becoming.

Personally, I rather enjoyed reading through your personal dilemma. Is
that
morbid for me to enjoy your personal struggle? I think it is wonderful
that
you are curious enough to push the envelope of our limited
comprehension,
seeking enlightenment. You crave knowledge and understanding and that
is a
great personal attribute to have. The struggle of comprehension is the
pain
which makes the gains all that more enjoyable, for without
understanding
suffering, we know not joy. I, like you, understand the connection
between
conflict, the challenging dialectic that builds bridges of
understanding.
The greater the bridge, the closer we get to the "absolute". Keep up
the
construction, one day you may find what gives you peace, the inner
peace
that comes from an ultimate understanding of our existence. In that
search
somewhere, you will realize the importance that acceptance of the
uncontrollable plays in that. I may hold different beliefs, but my
level of
inner peace is very high, and that is what all humans seek, for with
that
comes the ability to be happy, to grow, expand and reach our true
potential.
The negatives surrounding the unknown fade and all energies are focused
on
positive growth and greater peace.

Did I grasp your concepts well enough, I could have addressed each
statement
individually, but I felt that I understood enough to cover my response
in a
broader sense. Was I right or did I miss the whole point?

Good luck and back to you,
Paul

.....................................................................................

The main purpose of any humanistic religion -- as I see it -- is to counter-balance man's propensity for selfishness, greed, excess, egotism and narcissism with the opposite characteristics such as altruism, caring, love, generosity, helping people who are struggling, moderation, ethics and morality. Much of this is supposed to be taught in families and at school as well being demonstrated by good role models in society such as politicians. But as religion loses power and narcissism gains power - espcially when kids see narcissism rampant at home with parents who are not getting along and/or not spending enough time at home, all of the characteristics designed to counteract human narcissism start to lose their power as well. Humanism dies the more narcissism prevails. There are two types of 'anti-humanism'. One is the anti-humanism of 'self-denial'. The second is the anti-humanism of 'narcissistic excess'. Both need to be balanced in the middle by a combination of 'self-assertiveness' and 'social sensitivity'.

Religion is still feeling the fallout of Nietzsche. Nietzsche bombarded Christiianity and Judaism with his criticisms of a 'religious herd morality' and 'the preaching of self-denial' in this life in order to atone for 'original sin' and to be accepted by God into a much better 'afterlife'. Nietzsche in particular and humanists in general protested that this was all 'balderdash' - and a waste of human life. Individualism and enjoying this life should be the ideal; not the condemned. Gradually, people took more and more heed, and orthodox religion lost more and more power.

However, as Hegel has written, and I am partly paraphrasing, 'Any theory, any philosophy, any lifestyle, any religion carries with it the seeds of its own destruction'. The limitations, weaknesses, hypocrisies, and anti-humanism of religion was exposed by Nietzsche but so too is the philosophy of Nietzsche and current Western culture and society showing all the limitations, weaknesses, hypocrisies, and anti-humanism of too much Nietzsche and too much narcissism. Ethical narcissism is leading us to to the brink of ethical nihilism.

The solution to the problem is simpler in theory than it is in practice: balance. I will try to capture the spirit of this balance and the spirit of 'humanistic religion, spirituality, deism, and/or pantheism' in the following poem that I wrote a few years ago and have been updating ever since. It is called: 'God Is The Bridge'. It idealizes balance as the 'bridge and the zone of health between pathological extremes'.

Second Paper on Gap Humanistic-Existential Pantheism

2007-02-14T19:35:00.000-08:00

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:

.......................................................................................

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.

.....................................................................................

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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.

First Paper on Gap Humanistic-Existential Pantheism

2006-09-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

This is new territory for me -- an idea that has been perculating in the back of mind for a while and slowly gathering steam in a particular direction. An integration of sorts between Hegel's dialectical theory, Spinoza's wholism, romanticism, spiritualism, and pantheism, and my humanistic-existential values and beliefs. Thus, I am going to call this evolving idea -- 'Dialectical Humanistic-Existential Pantheism.

This is not the first time that I have integrated Spinoza and Hegel. The idea of dialectical wholism comes partly from Anaxamander and Heraclitus, it comes partly and very romantically from Plato in The Symposium (the only part of Plato that I really like), but mainly it come from an integration of Spinoza and Hegel -- two opposite perspectives, polarities, lifestyles, impulses, people... coming together to integrate into a more 'complete whole'. This is what I am calling dialectical wholism. You see the development of the idea of dialectical wholism (without it being called that) in Freud and Psychoanalysis (our 'id' and our 'superego' needing to integrate together into a more 'harmonious dialectical whole'), in Jung and Jungian Therapy (our 'personna' and our 'shadow' needing to get it together into a more harmonious dialectical whole), in Perls and Gestalt Therapy (our 'topdog' and 'underdog' needing to integrate into a more harmonious dialectical whole) -- in each case here, the goal of psychotherapy is basically to 'heal alienated dialectical splits in the personality by bringing them together into a more harmonious, integrative dialectical whole'. I would argue that all forms of social or cultural psychotherapy should be aiming to do the same -- political psychotherapy, business psychotherapy, medical psychotherapy, legal psychotherapy, philosophical psychotherapy -- in every case, the social goal should be to harmoniously integrate opposing social perspectives. Every area of human culture should be continually looking to evolve into a better dialectical whole within the particular domain of its existence and functioning. Partly, for example, you see this happening in the field of medicine as Western and Eastern medicine, orthodox Western medicine and natural health medicine more and more start to blend into one -- ideally a better dialectical whole than what we had before when orthodox Western pharmaceutial medicine (and all its 'unmentioned' side effects) ruled the roost without any impediment from rebellious, outside paradigms of medicine (i.e., Eastern, nutritional, natural health medicine, and other alternative therapies...). Thus, in very much the way that Hegel theorized, the dialectic has been very active between orthodox and alternative medicine over the last 10 years or so, acting as 'self-correcting' mechanism that is helping in the ongoing evolution of medicine -- helping it to evolve into something better than it was ten years ago due to the outside critiques of an opposing medical paradigm that is now in the process of becoming integrated with the medical paradigm that it was critiquing. This is what I am calling 'dialectical evolution' and opposing paradigms coming together -- integrating -- into a better 'dialectical whole'. It is only one step -- or maybe one leap -- further from dialectical psychotherapy, dialectical social therapy, and dialectical humanistic-existentialism -- to dialectical humanistic-existential pantheism.

Here we introduce the concept of God in a Spinozian, pantheistic fashion. You can also see where I am going with this idea if you read my poem, God Is The Bridge. I had an email friend of mine say that I have a 'pretty expansive' view of God. Yes, I do. I believe that Spinoza was a more religious, spiritual, humanistic person, than the orthodox religious people who 'ex-communicated' him (beheadings were not uncommon back in his time and he was tredding close to this territory as well).

Pantheism is sometimes viewed as being a 'sneaky form of atheism' -- there is still talk of 'God' but God is no longer our Creator -- rather He (or She) is all of Creation. God is in you, God is in me, God is in Nature, God is in everything in the Universe...So how do we get from Pantheism to Dialectical Humanistic-Existential Pantheism? Allow me to introduce my own brand of metaphysics -- 'epistemologically unprovable' but still potentially meaningful and valuable. It is, my opinion, way better than Hegel's metaphysics. I don't buy into his metaphysics built around his concept of 'The Absolute'. Better knowledge -- and especially anything that might come anywhere close to being construed as 'Absolute Knowledge' or 'Absolute Consciousness' (how would we know when this is? -- the answer is, we wouldn't) is only as good and only as valuable as the extent to which it leads us to better living, better contact, better communion with ourselves, who we are, and who we are capable of becoming -- and more importantly getting there; better communion with other people, especially with the one's who are, or who are supposed to be, closest to us, most important to us, better communion with Nature, and in all of these similar but different ways -- better communion with God.

This is where dialectical humanistic-existentialism meets dialectical pantheism. We can all think back to our 'greatest moments in life', our 'greatest moments of contact' -- it could have been a most intimate moment with another person or even a group of people, with nature, or with our self, relative to one of our greatest achievements. Think back to maybe a special speech at a wedding (or a funeral) that made you cry. I call these greatest moments of contact -- these extra special moments in our life -- not only communions with the special person or people we are having the special contact with -- but also communions with God.

I am calling dialectical, humanistic-existential pantheism. God is the bridge between you and me -- in that special moment of contact, when the dialectic is working to bring people together and unite them harmoniously -- black and white, Muslim and Christian, Lebanese and Israeli, U.S. and Iraq -- not working narcissistically, righteously, in 'either/or' fashion to alienate, enrage, and tear people apart. This is my humanistic-existiential ideal -- democratic-dialectical evolution, democratic-dialectical wholism, democratic-dialectical humanistic-existentialism, and democratic-dialectical pantheism. The essays I will write in this philosophical journal will be aimed at striving for and meeting these dialectical ideals.

I guess maybe I have destroyed the mystery of the story here, because I have given you the end of the story -- at the beginning. Everything else is, and/or will be -- meat and fat filling up these bones.

dgb

The Influence and Potential Inrfluences of Philosophy and Psychology on Religion

2006-09-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

There is a point where philosophy, psychology, politics, law, economics, art, and religion all meet -- or at least they should -- and that is around humanistic-existential values and principles. (There is also a point where some realms of human culture -- such as politics and religion -- should never meet which is a major part of the subject of the essay that appears below this one.)

For our purposes here, we will look at the ethical connecting point of philosphy, psychology, and religion aruond humanistic-exsitetntial values and princioples within and outside of the human psyche. This builds on numerous DGB principles established in earlier essays and emails (see links).

A person's IP (individual philosophy) is only one thing, albeit an important one
thing, going on in a person's personality or psyche.
There are other important factors, important parts of
the personality that influence its structural and
dynamic makeup and process.

There are a host of different psychological models out
there that you can choose to buy into, modify, or
reject, and I will use ('choose') a combination of
about five different models to lay out the combined
philosophical-psychological scenario that I present to
you below.

Firstly, there is the Self -- a modified Jungian
concept (filled with humanistic-existential principles
that I have added along the way) that I use to
describe that part of our personality that used to be
called our Soul. The Self-Soul is our Internal God, a
critical part of our entire psyche or personality that
we need to deeply heed. It contains a mixture of
physio-genetic and psycho-genetic traits and
blueprints that are capable of giving our life deep
meaning -- if we heed them, and live our life in
congruence with them. Congruence is an important word
here and the polar or dialectical opposite concept and
phenomenon to congruence is alienation. When we live
our life in 'good faith' (Sartre), we live our life in
congruence with the genetic blueprints in our
Self-Soul, in a way that also ideally fosters external
social harmony, respect, and integrity. Here we run
into a problem because we are talking about both a
self and social ideal that is based on
humanistic-existential values that many if not most
individuals and societies do not come close to
achieving. I will list 15 such humanistic-existential
values; 1. freedom to allow self-determination; 2.
narcissistic-hedonism (in balance with the other
values trumpeted here, and not to the point of
trodding on the other values listed here); 3.
acceptance (as long as the values being accepted are
in 'good faith'); 4. assertiveness; 5. respect; 6.
responsibility/accountabliity; 7. honesty; 8.
sensititivity, caring, empathy and compassion; 9.
fairness; 10. initiative/pro-activeness; 11. courage;
12. integrity; 13. persistence/perseverence; 14.
optimism; 15. romance; 16. spirituality and/or
religion based on humanistic-existential principles;
16. generositiy and altruism (giving and giving back
to family, friends, loved ones, community,
strangers...); 17. Multi-dialectical,
humanistic-existential evolutionary wholism; 18.
Multi-dialectical, humanistic-existential,
evolutionary democracy; 19. Multi-dialectical,
humanistic-existential business and economics (a
dialectical integration of guiding Capitalist and
Socialist principles)law, politics, medicine, art,
entertainment...
20. lest we forget -- fun, leisure, humor, play...

So Paul, for me, it is important that our guiding IP
be congruent with humanistic-existential principles
that stem from our unpoisoned Self-Soul, which in
turn, if you wish to take it this far, stem from our
Creator, our Intelligent Designer, and/or God.

When we act in congruence with the type of
humanistic-existential principles that I have listed
above, and am attributing to my mythological,
humanistic-existential God, then we can say that our
actions are based on a God-influenced, and God-like
self and social integrity (which we don't see a lot of
in our overly narcissistic-hedonistic driven world).

There are other factors that enter into this picture
such as 'introjected' and 'fake' ideologies (IPs) that
are meant to hide and/or distort what is really going
on underneath the glossy, proclaimed ideology. These
introgected and fake ideologies or IPs are obviously
carried on in 'bad faith'.

I will leave my ideas here for the time being.

DGB, Sept. 5th, 2006

God Should Be Viewed as an Idealistic-Mythological Concept; not as an Epistemologically Real Ruler of Man

2006-09-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

This may be hard for many, many people to accept but taking the relgious viewpoint that God is an epistemoligical reality, our Creator, that rules over man is a generally patholigical viewpoint. It is pathological for two main reasons: 1. it hides or obscures the fact that all religions are man-made projections and ethical systems based on a combination of healthy and pathological real, professed, and/or hidden human values; and 2. allowing people to think that religious messages are messages 'delivered by God' allows the men and/or women who created these messages the opportunity and 'allleged God-given right' to avoid all responsibility and accountablity as far as the relative 'health' and/or 'pathology' of the 'ethical or unethical' message that is delivered. Millions of people have died from the swords and bullets behind 'professsed messages from God' while both the leaders and the followers behind these messages, swords, and bullets attempt to escape -- often successfully -- all responsibility, accountablity, and culpibility for their actions.

I have no problems with any of the great religions of the world -- other than the fact that they all need to represent themselves as man-made, idealistic-spiritual-religious mythologies answering to humanistic-existential values and principles (see my next essay); not as 'systems of indesputable, God-given messages, truths, and values'. This latter belief in itself is pathological, and as stated above, accountable for countless human wars, deaths, and misery.

If or when the leaders of the Taliban, Iraq 'insurgents', Iran, North Korea...etc. come out and epistemologically and ethically state that they are fighting a war against 'American Imperialism and domination', then they have a leg to stand upon and the American people need to take a long, hard, objective look at what they are doing over there in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how they are, in large part, alientating the rest of the world with their currently very debatable 'democratic' vs. 'imperialist' foreign policy. However, as long as the Taliban and other political and war leaders over there continue to mix in their professed 'God-given rights to holy missions, holy wars, and armed combat (jihad) to eliminate all Jews and/or whoever else is not living up to their Islamic extremes, then they will continue to be painted -- rightfully so -- as 'terrorists' and as 'evil'. Religion needs sto be taken out of politics and 'God-given messages' need to be taken out of religion. The U.S. needs to learn that it does not have the 'unadulterated and unilateral right' to determine world ethics and policy -- particularily when it is becoming more and more clear to the rest of the world that American ethics and policy has become more and more poisoned and corrupted by American Narcissistic Capitalism (particularly what Eisenhour called the 'Military-Industrial-Complex', with the isse of oil probably not far behind) that is making a mockery of the so-called American ideal of the term 'democracy'. This is not a strictly American phenomenon as Narcisssitic Capitalism as well as Narcissistic Religion (especially of the jihad type) is poisoning, corrrupting, and destroying the world. All human establishments, organizations, structures, nations, and policies including the United Nations need to be re-built on the basis of humanistic-existential values -- that means a healthy balance of 'human compassion' and 'human accountability'; not people passing off, avoiding, and/or justifying their crimes against humanity on the basis of either 'messages from God' and 'holy wars' or alternatively imperialist wars that are justified in the name of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. Religions need to be based on humanistic-existential values and principles; Capitalism needs to be based on humaistic-existential principles; politics needs to be based on humanistic-existential principles. Philosophy needs to be based on humanistic-existential values and principles. Medicine needs to be based on humanistic-existential values and principles. And all of these different areas and systems of human culture need to evolve dialectically and democractically as well as humanistically and existentially. Indeed, I would list multi-integrative-evolutionary-dialectical-democracy as a core set of humanistic-existential values and principles. This is not 'fake-narcissitic-dialectical-democracy' that we are talking about here but rather 'real-gut-wrenching-dielactical-democractic'. One of the leaders of Iran came out not too long ago and 'challenged' the U.S. to a debate. It blew my mind. An offer like that -- regardless of the credibility of the person or persons that it came from, particularly if it came from a leader of highly volatile nation, a nation that could be involved in the next World War -- should not be quickly or lightly dismissed. The U.S. should have quickly supported, approved, and encouraged that line of action -- even if only to find out how serious Iran was about such a possibility.

Alas, I have moved too far out of the realm of religion and intio the realm of policitics, even if they are intimately entwined.

Enough said for today.

dgb, September 5th, 2006.

Referencer: The movie 'Why We Fight'

* DGBN
* David Gordon Bain
* (Humanistic-Existetnial)Dialectical-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations
* Democracy Goes Beyond Narcisism