Counter-Currents
1,837 words
Finnish translation here
I was an atheist from as early as I was thinking deep thoughts up until about five years ago. I preferred the label “skeptic” because it distanced myself from the connotations tied to the word “atheism”: secular humanism, radical egalitarianism, militant multiculturalism, voting straight-ticket Democrat, and so on. While I certainly wasn’t born on the New Right, I was always too much of a skeptic to be a proper “Internet Atheist.” Participating in the Internet Atheist subculture and movement requires taking more things on faith than some religions.
There’s no way to prove whether God exists or not. Some Christians insist that this or that documented “miracle” proves that their specific god exists. Some atheists insist that this or that scientific finding proves that he doesn’t exist. There’s a whole cottage industry of books, blogs, and bullshit purporting to firmly decide this timeless question one way or the other. Personally, I see belief in God as ultimately a matter of faith rather than evidence, and I believe His true nature is necessarily a mystery.
Speaking in scientific terms, the question of God’s existence is poorly defined. Who or what are we looking for? How could we devise a test to prove or disprove Him? The assertion is unfalsifiable, outside the realm of the scientific process. It has nothing to do with science. And yet, in the American popular culture and especially on the Internet, ‘atheist’ is the official religious preference of science and ‘Christian’ is the official religious preference of the willfully ignorant.
There’s a historical basis for this pairing of religion with ignorance and atheism with science, as a solid subset of America’s Protestant Christians adhere to a rigid theological doctrine of sola scriptura that requires them to believe literal interpretations which have been proven false . . . facts and science be damned! They’ve constructed a parallel discursive bubble of “Creationism” with its own geology, genetics, anthropology, astronomy, and so forth. It’s a bizarro world of comically incorrect beliefs hermetically sealed from external critique.
Creationism’s discursive bubble has a semi-permeable membrane which only admits ideas that are compatible with a literal interpretation of Genesis. Whether or not it’s factual is entirely beside the point. It’s a worldview within which the facts must fit or the facts aren’t welcome. Creationism thrives within the sheltered little world of quaint neighborhood chapels and in the hearts and minds of tens of millions of little old church ladies. Those are safe spaces for Creationism where nobody is likely to challenge them.
It’s funny when it’s somebody else’s creation myth.
But there are very few little old church ladies on the Internet and even fewer safe spaces.
On the rare occasion that Creationists do start arguing for their worldview on blog comments, forums, Reddit, 4chan, and 4chon, they’re immediately besieged by the tsunami of people who strongly disagree with them, the strong passions of those who disagree with them, and the weight of the peer-reviewed scientific evidence stacked against them. The Internet is a sort of discursive mixed martial arts tournament where different ways of thinking are pitted against one another with virtually none of the rules, restrictions, or taboos that exist in the real world. The Internet is where discursive bubbles go to get popped.
I used the discursive bubble of Creationism as the example because it’s the one the Internet’s atheists are familiar with, the one they enjoy mocking and ridiculing incessantly. They imagine themselves to be intellectually superior to Creationists in every way–logical, reasonable, scientific, and willing to directly confront dogmas and taboos.
But for the most part, atheists in academia exist in their own discursive bubble of liberal groupthink, one with its own semi-permeable membrane that doesn’t admit facts which are incompatible with their politically correct and radically egalitarian, feminist, and anti-White worldview. They’re just as bad, and worse for their hypocrisy.
Unfortunately for them, the facts are not egalitarian, feminist, and anti-White. In a supremely ironic turn of events, the very same people who gleefully besieged and stormed the chapels of Creationism are under a virtually identical siege, retreating into their anti-chapels of Freethought Blogs, SkepChicks, and “Atheism Plus.” Atheism Plus is, by its own definition, a “safe space” where their leftist ideals are not exposed to the same critique and cross-examination they claim to cherish so deeply when haranguing fundamentalists, palm readers, and scam artists.
Atheism Plus is a besieged bunker, a safe space for Liberal Creationism. Liberal Creationism is a creation myth wherein human evolution magically stopped somewhere around 160,000 years ago, leaving all human populations and both genders utterly equal and even interchangeable in all but the most obvious and superficial characteristics. But Atheism Plus goes even further than that, asserting that White males have a special unearned privilege which can be neither proven nor disproven. In an Orwellian twist, White males are less equal than the others, subject to a rigorous assortment of esoteric quotas to keep their numbers as low as possible and unilateral rules of discourse which handicap them in discussions and even wall off certain topics on which their opinions are integrally invalid and unwelcome.
Reality and Atheism Plus are oil and water. In the frightening and forbidden world outside of their discursive bubble . . .
Race is not a social construct
- there are large and intractable genetic differences in intelligence between the races.
- Whites are the only racial group which is subject to widespread systemic racial discrimination in the United States.
- There are more Blacks in prison because Blacks commit more crimes.
- The Jews run Hollywood, Wall Street, and our foreign policy.
- Women are paid less because they work less.
- Patriarchy propels communities while feminism fails communities.
Holding any single one of these perfectly reasonable and sound positions is sufficient grounds for ejection from the increasingly cloistered confines of “mainstream” academia and their lackeys in the blogosphere. In the old days, heroes fought for truth and justice. In more and more cases, the Left finds its warped sense of social justice fighting against empirical truth. They’re losing control of the narrative, losing the sympathy of the audience, and losing the will to defend their positions in the world outside their discursive bubble.
As is the case with old school Creationism, the new Creationists have constructed an elaborate web of pseudo-scientific excuses for being wrong. None of it passes the muster with Carl Sagan’s own Baloney Detection Kit. Not that skepticism is allowed within their ranks. Critique is for thee and not for me. They don’t care about science. They don’t care about the quest for truth. They care about leveraging the scientific process and discursive critique as a weapon against all that is Christian, White, and male. While only a fraction of these Internet atheists are Jewish, their attack is modeled on and an extension of the Jewish culture of critique outlined in Prof. Kevin MacDonald’s landmark trilogy.
Jewish Power is the difference between the powerful and sweeping anti-war protest movement against the Vietnam War and the utterly impotent and irrelevant anti-war protests against the current wars. It’s the difference between a national media outrage about a single Jew being punched in the face by neo-Nazi thugs and the national media’s indifference about truly heinous Black on White rapes and murders that happen every day. It’s the difference between our politicians being outraged that Ahmadinejad will supposedly wipe Israel off the map and their being indifferent about Israel’s project of actually wiping a country off the map.
But the last century was the Jewish one, and Jewish influence and privilege doesn’t have the same effect on the Internet that it has on humanities departments and mainstream media reporters. The liberal narrative is suffering the very same death by critique that killed Southern segregation and numerous other anti-modern counter-currents in previous decades. There’s a large and growing gulf between what’s taken for granted and considered reasonable on the Internet and what’s taken for granted and considered reasonable in elite academia.
The real world is unwilling to honor Atheism Plus’s rigid force field of taboos around their discursive bubble. Nobody can save them from the large and growing firestorm of critique (a.k.a. trolling) from all sides. The repetitive “us vs. them” framing, the vilification of honest disagreement, and the spirit of hopelessness epitomizes the bunker mentality overcoming this failed attempt to establish a beachhead of elite intellectual opinion on the Internet. The slow death by critique is one front in a larger global phenomenon of the Jewish and American liberal narrative being challenged, discarded, and ridiculed outside its well-funded sinecures.
Though, these blogging collectives would be doomed even if the whole world were clapping along to the arrogant feminist bores. There’s an iterative cycle which afflicts successful White male dominated institutions: the Diversity Spiral. At first, the White males decide to systematically and explicitly disadvantage themselves a bit in the name of diversity, favoring and promoting some less qualified and talented tokens. The game theory dynamics ensure that the White males will then turn on one another, posturing as more pro-diversity than their colleagues and driving out the least fanatical. Eventually, the “White Flight” of talented contributors cripples the institution and it unravels. In the final denouement, the diversity lobby of talentless tokens, like the parasites that they are, will flee from the corpses of these blogging networks in search of new hosts.
This metaphorical act of White male autocastration is even actualized by over-eager participants who mutilate their genitals and insist on calling themselves women. These “women” who would otherwise be White males are then welcome to join the organization’s diversity lobby. Voluntarily forfeiting your masculinity, your reproductive capacity, and your identification as a White male by castrating yourself is the ultimate act of redemption in this cult, a cult which future generations will surely look upon with the same morbid anthropological curiosity we now aim at bizarre self-mutilation rituals in other cultures.
It’s time to drive them out again.
The American Left has taken for granted since World War II that secular humanism had the momentum, that capitalism and democracy would continue to overshadow more traditional regimes, that the racial gaps in intelligence, education, income, and criminality would budge. But there’s recently been a global sea change in the world and in our collective assumptions of what the future will be like. Their narrative isn’t working. Their story isn’t coming together like it’s supposed to. Their “gods” of liberty, equality, and neo-colonialist globalism are dying.
According to “our” cultural and intellectual elite, the future is getting darker and darker. Of course, this foreboding is a subjective one. The prior “dark age” was labeled as such by the Jews and money changers who rose up from under the heel of the Ancien Régime to dominate our modern institutions. A new dark age is coming for them, one where tribe, tradition, and transcendence all trump the individualism, selfishness, consumerism, materialism, and globalism of this age. Tomorrow belongs to us.
82 comments
Yes, all true. They’re all for Darwin except when it comes to Human Beings. Man is an animal when Religion is the topic, but he becomes disembodied when Race comes up. Or even if they are willing to admit some physical differences – it’s all below the neck. Racial differnces in the brain are completely taboo.
All in all, a small bunch who consider themselves very daring. The dust up last year at the Atheism Conference was indicative of this. A guy gets into the elevator with a girl and invites her back to his room to continue talking. She blogs about how threatened she felt by the “creep”. Hitchens says the girl was being ridiculous and the whole Feminst Atheist Contingent was up in arms against him.
Some of the Intelligent Design people are serious scholars – not the Adam riding a dinosaur type. It’s true that some Creationists use I.D arguments merely to discredit evolution and think that automatically proves their theology. Bad faith and zero intellectual morality. Please don’t judge all Intelligent Design scholars by these. Many do accept evolution as a fact – but reject the Darwinian mechanism as the only driving force. And random mutations could never have gotten us this far this fast.
Jaego,
As science is integrally limited to a material context, I do see “God did it” as being outside its scope . . . as being unscientific. It’s certainly less of a stretch than Young Earth Creationism, but I don’t think it’s science.
I suppose my own refusal to conclude that my conscious self can be explained entirely and exclusively in mechanical terms is itself an “Intelligent Design” argument. I wouldn’t call my position a scientific one, though.
The point is, “there’s nothing but natural selection” isn’t ‘science’ either, it’s metaphysics.
Daniel Dennett, believe it or not, long before he became America’s Dawkins, knew this and wrote about it, in the context of psychology, in an article called “Why the “Law of Effect” [viz, behaviorism] Won’t Go Away.” No matter how often it’s refuted, “scientists” keep coming back to it, since their prior METAPHYSICAL axiom is materialism, and this is the only way to keep “spooks” out of “scientific psychology”.
Any objective person would find it highly unlikely a tornado could blow through a junkyard and assemble a fully-functional 747; what’s required is the METAPHYSICAL belief that “that’s the only explanation there can be.” Metaphysics determines the list of possible explanations, from which ‘science’ chooses.
Let me point out that America’s greatest living academic philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, not only happens to be a Calvinist, but has just published a book [1] explaining all this and [2]eviscerating Dawkins etc. as, well, fools out of their depth.
Plantinga’s conclusion: there’s nothing “science” requires that prevents me from believing God does everything; call it Calvinism or ID, makes no difference.
Right, Intelligent Design is beyond physics and thus “meta-physics. But unlike most metaphysics it uses the data of science to point beyond science. It can’t go much beyond, it certainly wont lead to a new religion. But it is a valuable contribution and ties in with traditional arguments in favor of God – but again from a new angle. It wont convince atheists but only people ready to be convinced. And for believers, it provides a strengthening of their faith, an interesting meditation, and/or a way to approach non believers.
“The point is, “there’s nothing but natural selection” isn’t ‘science’ either, it’s metaphysics.”
That’s a sly way of calling the theory of natural selection a faith.
“Any objective person would find it highly unlikely a tornado could blow through a junkyard and assemble a fully-functional 747”
Some objective persons find canards like this tiresome and elementary. A fully-functional 747 is not an autocatalytic process; it depends on an autocatalytic process we call ‘life’ at a given level of complexity.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF002_1.html
“Metaphysics determines the list of possible explanations, from which ‘science’ chooses.”
Hm! Used to be the job of physics. I trust you will sending out the mass-memo to all those faith-based scientists very soon to disabuse them of their folly.
Aaaand to the trash I go.
If by “Atheism Plus” you specifically mean the leftist strain of atheism – which is what I see as the point you are making – fine. Of course, there are “rightist” “racist” atheists as well, just as there are both racially liberal Christians and “racist” ones, the former greatly outnumbering the latter.
Ted,
Yes. Atheism+ is a very recent and specific attempt to formally define a “safe space” for the historically large contingent of liberal atheists from a historically small but growing contingent of more realistic atheists who’ve been informed to one degree or another on taboo subjects.
I agree, and I certainly don’t hold the overwhelming majority of Christians who are anti-White above critique…or contempt.
What you describe is mainly true on the internet and I’m sure that will only increase. What we need is activity in the real world. For that purpose conferences should be held, leading to the establishment of societies with chapters in all big cities. These then should take action in the real world that is still controlled by old ideas.
Matt,
You might find this interesting, re “rationality” and “belief”:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/message/5902
Another excellent one, Matt Parrott – keep ’em coming!
If my memory doesn’t fail me, the late Rushton even said (in Race, Evolution, and Behavior) that the leftist dogmatism on race is a form of creationism. And it is – do they even understand as much themselves?
The modern atheist movement is simply left-wing nihilism. They want an excuse to live degenerate lifestyles and they see science (but only science they morally approve of) as a way to justify their lack of belief in anything noble and beautiful.
The reason we need to chose a god that we can all agree on is best given by Thomas Aquinas.
How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God.
The same Thomas Aquinas is know for his proofs of God’s existence but as I already believe I don’t know how they would work on an atheist such as yourself There’s no way to prove whether God exists or not. Maybe you could check his proofs out for yourself and enlighten us, your humble readers, in our search for a common god?
Kudos to you for bringing up Aquinas.
Yes, Aquinas mastered the logical syllogism. He was a great thinker who possessed an extraordinary capacity for abstract thought. But thinking that such syllogisms *prove* what man thinks they prove is a “human, all too human” condition of man’s bias towards reason as we can say with a far greater certainty that it is the tool that sustains HIM rather than something meant to give us ontological “enlightenment” as Christians would likely insist. I think Kant and Schopenhauer each do a good job of explaining the limits of human reason in terms of explaining God (Kant is pretty devastating, really) even though they each thought some level of “objective” thought was possible. So I believe Aquinas ‘s thoughts about the “proof” of God would have to be considered dead on arrival for such post-Kantian thinkers like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche who seem to have much regard among the NAMR readership. But then Aquinas is drawing upon the Greeks or at least one strand of Greek thought (that admittedly came of age during their decline).
heh This is why most people throw their hands in the air at this stage and basically say “as long as it’s pro-white!”
If a person believes in God because he is convinced by Aquinas, that’s fine. It is, as Jonathan Bowden put it with respect to Islam, “one way of being human.” But to insist that Aquinas shut closed the door on the matter (as some Catholics are prone to doing) is ridiculous.
I am not sure I understand the strident hostility that many seem to have toward religion in general, and Christianity in particular. Religion is not about science, it is best seen as a system that is valuable not for reasons of fact, but as a very beneficial set of beliefs that add greatly to followers’ mental health and coping abilities (life is full of tragedy and hardship). In most cases, religion is tremendously healthy for believers. Our militaristic atheist friends unfortunately are blinded by their emotionally-inspired bias, unable to perceive the value that religion confers on humans.
Andrew, What you say is all too true In most cases, religion is tremendously healthy for believers and it is a wonderful thing. Indeed, for a while I was (still am, I guess, although I am no longer licensed) a bona fide ordained priest in a traditional Episcopal Church.
The problem people have with Christianity is that they quite sensibly judge a tree by it’s fruits and the fruits that awake people see today are not worth spit. While I think it is dangerous and possibly lethal for us to change horses in mid stream only the church itself can sort out its mess so between then and now Counter-Currents will be plagued by religious discussion but that can be healthy in its own way. But at the end of the day the church itself has to pull the finger out for the undecided judge Christianity by the collective and not by the occasional holy individual. Hence the hostility people have towards the church – they expect better.
First, the “militaristic” attitudes are usually from Christians who insist that one must be a “believer” in order to be a “true” Westerner. Long ago, Amren had a series on Christianity (both pro and con), and I found extremely grotesque one contributor who asserted that non-believers should make a pretense of belief so as to “fit in.”
No, sorry, I’m not going to do that. If some people require religion for “mental health benefits” I’m not going to deny that to them, but neither do I want beliefs that I consider patently absurd – even self-destructive – forced on those who are not interested in it, or made into some sort of “Western litmus test.”
As far as what is “wrong” with religion, particularly Christianity – one could start with Nietzsche’s objections, proceed to the racial liberalism rampant within modern Christianity, and the fact that although “religion is not about science” that hasn’t stopped religious interference with scientific progress, whether we are talking about Galileo and Bruno in the past, or the fact that, apparently, 46% of Americans today have the religion-based view that “God created humans in their present form 6,000 years ago” and we have religious -oriented Congressmen on science committees ranting that “evolution and embryology” are “evil” (which I read online several days ago). And, finally, some of us find it superfluous. It explains nothing, contributes nothing (to non-believers) – what should I waste my time with this?
I see the religious as the “militaristic” aggressors here. They always are trying to push their belief on society and stand in the way of scientific progress.
Ted,
Not a single person here denigrated or disrespected right-thinking skeptics/atheists.
Nobody imposed a litmus test.
While there are certainly militant religious people in our movement, there’s also a tradition of militant and outspoken anti-religious and specifically anti-Christian sentiment in our movement. Both get in the way of a thoughtful and productive conversation.
I didn’t even advocate for Christianity in the article. I merely admitted being a Christian, followed by a robust defense of the scientific process and the unencumbered pursuit of knowledge. I made a distinction between “Internet atheism” — distinct and well-known Leftist subculture — and those who disbelieve in God while not belonging to that subculture.
Ted,
One has to accept that both religious thinking and technology, both once adaptive inventions of a successful race of hunters, long ago went maladaptive on us and threaten whites and actually everyone in their own ways.
The starting point of religious thought is the fiction of agency behind natural phenomena; it’s ending point is the existential priority of man anent the natural world, most famously abstracted as the godhead. Our very word “world”, by the way, comes to us from Old Saxon wer alt, “the age of man”. So already by using this word, we enter the psychological realm of man’s vanity in positing himself as arbiter of existence. As Nietzsche wrote somewhere, “Once one has understood the psychological grounds for belief in deity, one eliminates the necessity of disproving deity logically.” — Something to bear in mind when those obsessed with fleeing the natural world accuse atheists of low motives.
At the end of the day, people are like Neo, threatened by the thought that they aren’t in control. This makes perfect sense; every organism that has ever lived had the same drive, for every organism seeks to control some extent of space around it to ensure its continuity. Religious faith, be it in godhead or metaphysics, or the insistence that natural selection is bogus or itself faith-based (a tautological argument which ends in perfect nihilism as it basically implies that the brain makes heuristic assumptions to benefit itself), can be viewed very economically as the drive to control space filtered through discourse, which obviously comes easy to an animal sacrificing so many calories to neural function.
It doesn’t seem mysterious to me at all.
God is truth.
That’s it.
Speaking the truth is a revolutionary act! Actually it’s terrorism!
Your conversion from atheism to anything confuses me. I hate all of the same atheists that you do, for approximately the same reasons, but I can’t manufacture in myself a belief in anything supernatural. I have nothing against people who do, but I can’t do it honestly.
Dear Jack, maybe the reason that you do not have this “sense of mystery” is that you have never tried the religious traditions of your ancestors? If you are of Germanic ancestry, why not just play around with the runes a bit? I personally think the runes even more important than the gods, as fate is the true “god” of the Germanic universe.
That’s a great idea. I got past atheism simply by going through the motions and letting myself feel the joy of worshipping God. I figure if I cry when I hear my favorite Christmas carols it doesn’t really matter that much whether on any given day I am totally sure about the truth of the Gospel or not. If it is true, then my sincerity and love of my religious heritage will suffice.
There is nothing supernatural about it. It is as organic as organic can be. RE: James J. O’Meara’ s link about ‘ego death’.
Matt,
I was answering Andrew and discussing an old issue of American Renaissance. I was not accusing your essay of imposing a litmus test or of promoting Christianity.
I’ve never understood the obsession with “Science”. The same people who constantly bemoan the faith of “believers”…have never measured the earths distance to the sun, have never actually seen the shape of the earth, and have never looked into what degree the earth really tilts. Meaning, faith takes many forms, and just accepting what you are told is really easy to do. Especially in an age where science reigns supreme.
Science is simply the myth of the age (and I am not using myth in the pejorative sense..i.e. myth equals lie). In other words, science is that over riding philosophy or dogma that contextualizes and engulfs modern mans existence. It provides meaning, a sense of purpose, and a belief that we can truly understand the nature of the world around us.
Unfortunately, there is a problem. The modern myth of our era is inherantly unknowable to the vast majority of our people, and what is known, has been sanitized and rewrote so as to better control us. The same people who tell us we evolved from monkeys tell us that race is a “social construct”. The same people that offer us the “Big Bang” theory, offer us social and biological egalitarianism. It seems to me that many a materialist White Nationalist picks and chooses when he wants to listen to “science”, and when he wants to speak of scientific distortion and manipulation in order to further an agenda.
Compare this to the myths of our ancestors. With in which all of our people live and breathed for thousands of years. Myths which our people “inherently” related to through ritual and community. Myths which served to bolster a folk, and a relationship to that which is “spiritual”. Unlike modern “science”, ancient myth was genuinely accessible to all in one form or another. Truth was “intuited” if you will. Truth was part of a whole, and if one part of this “whole” contradicted another, it was cast aside as harmful to the people. Now what do we do? We toss aside thousands of years of our history for the sake of scientific abstractions that are more often than not manipulated to bring harm to our people. We now look for scientific studies to justify our beliefs in things our ancestors simply took for granted. We prefer the abstract to the actual, the word of the scientist rather than our ancestor, Dr. Spock opposed to Grandpa. We would rather be told the truth, than know the truth. Hmm, a Mythos of abstractions versus a Mythos of intuition. Indeed, the Semitic Mythos opposed to the Indo-European Mythos.
Our cause will forever be tied to the deconstruction of the Semitic worldview and Mythos which has been hung around our peoples necks. This will not happen if we simply replace their religious worldview with their secular worldview. Atheism versus Monotheistic Theism is much like choosing between McDonalds and Burger King. Its all the same shit. Either way the end result is the same. You get fat, lethargic, and stupid. Perhaps, in order to regain health, we must avoid both “choices” and once again make our own food. Oh yes, I’ve lost myself in my metaphor.
One more time. Perhaps, in order to regain health, we must avoid both “choices” and seek to rediscover our own Mythos. Its time we left the desert, and once again embraced the forest.
Perfect, Bill. Thank you for saying all this.
I have always felt that Nietzsche is one of the top advertisements for Christianity. He, lacking spiritual sustenance, lacked coping skills. Subsequently, he ended up a madman, miserable, lonely and childless, while the Christians about him led typically happy, fulfilled lives with plenty of children to inherit the earth. In my life, and for all my siblings, Christianity was a critical factor in growing up to be a productive adult, avoiding drugs and the degeneracy of popular culture. In almost all the healthy families around me, Christianity is a very important part of their lives. Conversely, in almost all of the dysfunctional families around me, Christianity is lacking. I am sure that agnostics and atheists can do fine without religion, its not for everyone. If that is working for someone, I am not going to argue with success. But for the mass of humanity (particularly for women), religion is very necessary.
As far as the anti-White aspect of Christianity, you can find that easily if you look for it, there are a plethora of a-holes out there pushing Zionism, adopting African babies, or what have you. But, the majority of White Christians are benefitting from their beliefs, and are avoiding much of the steaming defecation that is our popular culture, and having happy, well-adjusted White children.
Nietzsche suffered from an organic brain disorder, almost certainly due to tertiary syphilis. The presence or absence of Jesus in his life would not have altered the outcome in any way.
Is it your position that Christianity has never driven anybody insane?
Greg, I thought that more recent research had established that Nietzsche was NOT infected with syphilis.
Well medical diagnosis on the dead is always iffy, so it seems reasonable to go with the initial diagnosis in 1889 that he had syphilis. Other organic brain disorders have been suggested in recent years as better fitting the symptoms, including slowly growing right-sided retro-orbital meningioma and a hereditary stroke disorder known as CADASIL (cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy). Christians are not immune to those disorders either.
“He, lacking spiritual sustenance, lacked coping skills. Subsequently, he ended up a madman, miserable, lonely and childless, while the Christians about him led typically happy, fulfilled lives with plenty of children to inherit the earth.”
Yea, some people would call what Nietzsche went through seeing reality for what it is.
It’s all rather irrelevant how Nietzsche ended up when discussing his anti-Christian attitudes. We simply don’t know enough about his end so you’re just speculating and playing a game of fill in the blanks so many other Christians play to assure themselves that he was wrong in some way. You can’t refute the man’s ideas by claiming that his end was because of them with so little information about what caused his collapse. Christians pull this cheap trick all the time. If you have an issue with his ideas, talk about his ideas rather than making this lazy implications.
I can cite plenty of instances where Christians ended up far worse but at the same time whether their fate was due to their religious belief or some other incidental was not so easy to determine. I give Christianity the benefit of the doubt, usually.
Simply because a philosopher goes mad doesn’t mean that what he’s had to say about life is wrong. In fact, such a value judgment that madness equates with a type of incorrect view is itself a particular attitude toward life that I myself don’t like. In fact, I’m MORE drawn to that type of person in some cases because that madness can be a heightened sensitivity to matters that “happy” and “content” people can’t be bothered addressing.
I do know this– I respect the Catholic Church for its past achievements with respect to the following: its sense of hierarchy and glory, its aesthetic and artistic sense, its cultural appetites, scholastic emphasis, and historical preservation in some instances such as its revitalization of Rome; and finally I respect it for its role as a glue for European social norms. The Church as an institution has a proud history in many respects and they deserve their due; but I make fundamental distinction between the Church as an administrative apparatus and Christian spirituality the same way I make a distinction between a person’s spirituality who is likely to post here at Counter-Currents and what they do (they likely hold their noses) to put food on the table for their families. Or put another way, I believe there was an Aryan spirituality within the Church that the Christian virus was chewing away at for years. I know this view isn’t original, but the reason it gets repeated so often is because it rightfully has many of us convinced. And ultimately, I know I won’t convince a die hard Christian of this (I’ve read some Kierkegaard) so I usually refrain from bringing up the matter.
The metaphysics of Christianity and secular liberal humanism addressed in this article match up like a hand in a glove. I can’t help but see the parallels between Heaven and the liberal consumer utopia *in the future* where “discrimination” like sin, has been overcome or the parallel between man’s Fall/Original Sin and “white racism” (which like sin, is the metaphysical cause of all social ills). I can’t help but see how Michael King is deified as a Christ-like figure and how he gave his own Sermon On The Mount (“I Have A Dream”) and died for the sins of “white racism” so paradise could be realized through “moral struggle.” I just can’t help but see the modern West (in which blacks (“the last”) are always assumed to be innocent and whites are always assumed to be guilty “racists”) as being the logical endpoint of years of the Christian spiritual dynamic of “free will,” sin, sacrifice, self-prostration, and redemption at work given Christianity’s emphasis on the weak and meek and claiming like no other faith before it that “the last shall be FIRST.” I also can’t help but take stock of the fact that Greco-Roman sensibility instills me with an almost religious-like reverence for life and an energy “to do good” while moralistic desert tales about who has the better argument– the Jews or Jesus the Apostate rebel– makes my eyes glaze over and I see similar parallels in other Western men searching for meaning in this life.
Conservatives try to rationalize a way out of what their own book says, but all of that is far more damning to Christianity than Nietzsche’s collapse is to his own philosophy. But still, I’m willing to let Christians have their space and will even defend them so long as they personally don’t continue to undermine my race (all while their faith continues to do so). Instead of worrying about Nietzsche criticizing Christianity, it would behoove Christians who care about white survival to worry about cleaning up the decadence that plagues most of their religion.
Matt, uplifting article. You pushed all the right buttons for me. For example, speaking of academic types, you wrote about “their politically correct and radically egalitarian, feminist, and anti-White worldview” and how anti-White male it is.
I can feel your pain. More to the point, however, I can feel my own pain — caused by the above. I endured years of it in grad school, only to finally earn a terminal degree. Then, like so many other heretics (E. Michael Jones, Michael O’Meara, Roger Devlin, and our own Greg Johnson), I was all but denied any chance to use that degree to earn a living in modern academia–unless, of course, I had to come close to performing the autocastration you describe.
Biding my time is hard, but come the revolution, I’ll be there.
Liberals are too stupid to know they are so stupid they ought to be embarrassed. Atheism just means absence of theism. It implies nothing about political stances.
My position on God/metaphysics is simple. There is not enough evidence for them. That said, sometimes events come along that must give pause even to hard skeptics like myself.
Personal anecdote: Years ago one of my now ex-wife’s friends had a problem pregnancy. She was told by two different doctors her baby would have very severe and untreatable defects. Both doctors recommended abortion. Instead, she gathered her close family and friends (my ex-wife being one), and they went to her evangelical Christian church. According to my ex-wife, about 20 people kneeled and joined hands in front of the pulpit, and the pastor said my what ex-wife later described to me as a “powerful” prayer. The baby was born with no health problems.
Also, there are stories like this one:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/07/proof-of-heaven-a-doctor-s-experience-with-the-afterlife.print.html
No disrespect intended, but it’s quite peculiar to me to regard metaphysics with skepticism on grounds of “evidence” but then *seem* to imply that prayer overcomes a natural process (or at least you seemed to be implying that as far as I could tell) rather than to assume that the doctors were simply mistaken or even that she was mistaken about what they were saying. Hitchens was a shallow new atheist type to be sure but he did make one great point in his debates.
“I notice that Christians will often refer to the biblical miracles as a source of ‘evidence’ for the existence of god. The philosopher and historian David Hume wrote about “The problem of miracles” in “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding” and I think his logic is irrefutable.
A miracle is defined as not part of the natural order but a suspension of the natural order. If you meet your grandmother in the street who you yesterday saw cremated, you can say either an extraordinary miracle has occurred or you are under a very grave misapprehension or suffering from a delusion.
The likelihood of the second must be weighted against the likelihood of the first. If you only hear a report of the miracle from a second or third party, the odds must be adjusted accordingly before you can decide to credit a witness who claims to have seen something you did not see. And, if you are separated from the “sighting” by many generations, as in the biblical miracles, and have no independent corroboration, the odds must be adjusted more drastically.
So you must ask yourself: is it more more likely that the laws of nature have been suspended in your favor or that you have made a mistake or that you are relying on extremely dubious sources?
Exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.”
— Christopher Hitchens
That’s obviously great that your ex-wife’s friend had a healthy child, but I consider her more lucky than wise based on how I’m interpreting your post. Your general instincts are correct. Stay skeptical; or put another way in honor of Spengler: Optimism is cowardice. The great failing of Christianity is that it has allowed itself the luxury of “optimism” for FAAR too long at the expense of reality. Most modern Christians (and I don’t mean to impugn your relations) don’t have the courage for stoically accepting tragedy when they can play prayer roulette. Sometimes chance lands them on black and they come to all sorts of wild speculations for causes of their good fortune when it was simply “dumb luck.”
If a doctor told my wife and I (for the record, I am not married) the same information, I’d have probably have made it known to my wife that I’d favor the abortion just on the grounds of not letting emotion overtake my duty to be responsible. Being wrong in fact on that sort of matter doesn’t mean that one didn’t have a proper sensibility toward sound judgment anymore than being right in fact in that sort of instance entails that one had some noble sensibility. Unfortunately, people are far too emotional to admit this to themselves honestly. I can go on about instances where “angels” and “prayer” allegedly helped my family in supernatural way (rather than in sort of Eastern, meditative way).
“I can go on about instances where “angels” and “prayer” allegedly helped my family in supernatural way (rather than in sort of Eastern, meditative way).”
What I mean there is that my family has superstitious belief about prayer than I find difficult to stomach. Some of these beliefs, if I told my parents what I really, thought would bring them to tears and coming to terms with that fact doesn’t make me happy. The only value I see in “prayer” is to the extent that it is a process of self-reflection as it more often seems to be the case in Eastern religions (though I am by no means an expert on Hinduism or Buddhism). Too much Abrahamic prayer tends toward asking for a cosmic lotto jackpot.
I meant incidents sometimes come along that give me pause with my skepticism. I didn’t mean I’m convinced a supernatural miracle occurred or that I’m ready to abandon skepticism completely over the prayer.
Faith (for plebeians) or metaphysics (for higher souls) is a matter of spiritual intuition. You either have the inclination to fall into one of the two categories, or you don’t.
I’m convinced that people are subconsciously permanently rooted in either belief or non-belief, while their conscious mind can flit back and forth.
Funny you should make that distinction. I’ve recently started using the phrase that I have “metaphysics, not religion or spirituality” when the topic gets in-depth. Alternatively, I just call myself “godless”. Considering I am influenced by the Traditionalist school, not associating with any religion might be considered a bit out of line, but I find that Bhakti devotion makes me feel too intellectually dishonest, though I don’t see why those who follow the path of putting a face on the mystery shouldn’t do so.
The true right, based on the values that it is, seems like it would need to transcend the clash between “atheism” and “religion” and find a common and true metaphysics that can be expressed in both godless and religious manifestations. In my view, Traditionalism achieves this. Even the Nietzschean might be able to find value in Evola’s criticism that his transvaluation of values must be a transvaluation from ‘Christian’ values to Traditional ones, and that an Overman who doesn’t look to the transcendent is no Overman at all.
But then, most people, even on the true right, aren’t so interested in metaphysics. So those not so inclined can leave that to the Guenons and Schuons and Evolas, and live according to the social values which we find derive from these metaphysical principles to best achieve their realization on a more active than intellectual level. Self-observance and improvement, a living community and people, a transcendent Imperium, and a striving to manifest the states of Being, however unconsciously. They might practice religious devotion, or not. This goes all the way to the most seemingly un-metaphysical dimensions. The economist or scientist or businessman practices self-discipline and orders the mind in his work, tempered by an ethos of service. The manufactured good embraces quality and particularity, not just efficiency of production (see Kurtagic’s essay).
From a healthy and deep root, springs a tree with innumerable fruits and flowers.
Oh, boy. First the old canards about Nietzsche. Second:
The same people who constantly bemoan the faith of “believers”…have never measured the earths distance to the sun, have never actually seen the shape of the earth, and have never looked into what degree the earth really tilts.
No, I haven’t actually “seen the shape of the [entire] Earth” but others have and photographs from space show it very well, thank you. Unless you believe those photos are a “scientific conspiracy” and the Earth is flat. I’m still waiting for equally verifiable evidence of the existence of any gods….
The great thing about science and the technics derived from it (Yockey arguing that the two are not the same, although I don’t completely buy that argument), is that they work.
On one side you can have a bunch of people praying for salvation, and on another, a group armed with ICBMs armed with nuclear weapons. I’ll put my money on the second group.
Adaptive behavior for family production? On the one hand, a bunch of religious fanatics who think modern medicine is evil and we should depend on “prayer,” on the other, folks who use the fruits of science to provide their families with modern medical care.
In the past, a large fraction of children died at a young age, even the children of nobility. Jesus didn’t stop that. Pasteur and Koch did.
I suspect my overall perspective is close to your perspective. But, just to play devil’s advocate for a moment on the literal (not mythic, metaphorical) truth value of religious claims, what do you think about that Newsweek article I linked above? A credentialed neuroscientist went into a coma. He had no brain activity by neuroscientific standards. He claims he visited “heaven” while he was out. The fact that he had no brain activity would seem to rule out the traditional scientific explanations for near death experiences as there was no activity at all going on in his brain.
Compare this to the myths of our ancestors. With in which all of our people live and breathed for thousands of years
And died at age 40, have produced 12 children of which maybe two survived to adulthood.
Sure, leftists twist science to push destructive agendas. But, guess what? As long as your enemy controls the mass media, the schools, etc. they can twist even your beloved “ancient Pagan traditions” as well.
Hmm, a Mythos of abstractions versus a Mythos of intuition. Indeed, the Semitic Mythos opposed to the Indo-European Mythos.
Science and abstraction are “semitic?’ It seems to be they are a manifestation of the Western Faustian culture. Semitic “magian” culture is all about “submission” and “small spaces” and “faith.” Replacing Jesus with Odin or Zeus or Perun or the “mystical trees of the forest” seems like the “same shit” as you so eloquently put it, to me.
Oy Vey. Where to start I don’t even know.
“No, I haven’t actually “seen the shape of the [entire] Earth” but others have and photographs from space show it very well, thank you. Unless you believe those photos are a “scientific conspiracy” and the Earth is flat. I’m still waiting for equally verifiable evidence of the existence of any gods….”
My point is established. You simply accept what you are told. It is not my contention that that is always a bad thing. I just want to point out the coincidence of two supposedly opposed worldviews (Atheistic Scientism/Semitic Theism) that forthrightly require one to simply accept what is told to them, with no truely realistic way of verifying what is being said. This is extremely convenient for those who are in charge of the dissemination of information. What intrigues me is why one such as yourself, recognizes and resists this in the Semitic religions…yet embraces it in your supposed ‘scientific’ world view.
“The great thing about science and the technics derived from it (Yockey arguing that the two are not the same, although I don’t completely buy that argument), is that they work.”
That’s begging the question if I’ve ever heard it begged. Is it your position that since the dismantling of religion as a viable Mythos, and the advent of our industrial/scientific era…that our people have flourished? That we are healthier and more sane? Answering this will simply lead us to another impasse I’m sure. As what you and I view as “working” are sure to be miles apart.
“And died at age 40, have produced 12 children of which maybe two survived to adulthood.”
Yes. The common materialist argument. People died more back in the “bad ole days”…therefore we are better off in every way. I’ve always thought this to be an argument of the modern liberal who has a very distorted value of human life. Very quickly. Quantity is not preferable to quality. Nor is the fact that more people died of natural causes always a bad thing. The distinctly Judeo-Christian notion of each individual having infinite value must be at play in order to use this as a “point” in a discussion of worldviews.
“But, guess what? As long as your enemy controls the mass media, the schools, etc. they can twist even your beloved “ancient Pagan traditions” as well.”
This is a statement that truly proves nothing, as I could say the same to you. Watch…..
But guess what? As long as your enemy controls the mass media, the schools, etc. they can twist even your beloved Scientism.
Nor do I accept your premise. The organic mythos of a people are not subject to the semitic filtering process that I have spoken of. Something that springs forth from a people, is vastly different from something that is told to a people. This is something materialists and Semitic religionists simply cannot grasp given the totalitarian nature of their worldviews.
“Science and abstraction are “semitic?’ It seems to be they are a manifestation of the Western Faustian culture.”
No, not in and of themselves. But in the way you are using them, yes. You are using them as isolated tools to bludgeon religion, tradition custom and convention. That somehow Science trumps them all, and requires a people to completely re-invent themselves so as to accommodate a mere abstraction, at the expense of all else. This is the essence of Semitic religiosity. The same spirit that animated the conversions that required indigenous folkways and customs to be abolished in favor of an abstract god, animates the the scientific/technological establishments desire for a world desirous of nothing but the perfect abstract formula, and a bigger TV…cultures and customs be damned.
“Replacing Jesus with Odin or Zeus or Perun or the “mystical trees of the forest” seems like the “same shit”….”
Thank you for demonstrating the very concept I have been trying to establish. To you, Jesus and Odin are the “same shit”. To the modern “scientific” egalitarian, the black man, the white man, the yellow man…they are all the “same shit” too. Differences and distinctions that are readily apparent to all, mean nothing to the man who embraces an abstraction. Weather it be “science” or “God”…the result is the same. The destruction of the other in favor of the absolute. This explains the Christian mania for conversion, the scientific/technocratic globalism we see today, and the raw Jewish lust for power.
My point is established. You simply accept what you are told. It is not my contention that that is always a bad thing. I just want to point out the coincidence of two supposedly opposed worldviews (Atheistic Scientism/Semitic Theism) that forthrightly require one to simply accept what is told to them, with no truely realistic way of verifying what is being said.
Very well, very good. Unless you have personally experienced something, how do you know it exists? Or has existed?
Have you met George Washington? Adolf Hitler? Napoleon? Semitic myths they are all! You haven’t seen a virus. By golly, don’t get that flu shot, don’t believe what you are told! How do I know “Bill” is real? Maybe the same person is writing all these comments. How do you know the sun is not a lump of burning coal? How do you know anything?
This is the sort of crackpot madness and nitpicking intellectualizing that discredits thoughtful racial nationalism. This is the “argument?” That one can accept as “real” only what one has personally experienced? What if your “personal experiences” are altered? Those nasty Semites are drugging you, you are imagining it all! Nothing is as you see it! Believe nothing! Disbelieve everything!
“Very well, very good. Unless you have personally experienced something, how do you know it exists? Or has existed?”
Yes…..that is indeed the question. Though, it seems you are a bit to “out of sorts” or ill informed to address the question in a serious manner.
“This is the “argument?” That one can accept as “real” only what one has personally experienced?”
Well…no. It does seem though that that is the “argument” you want to have. Why, when there are much more fruitful avenues of though, is strange to me. Perhaps you just wanted to end on a sarcastic insult?
“Those nasty Semites are drugging you, you are imagining it all! Nothing is as you see it! Believe nothing! Disbelieve everything!”
Way to keep the hysteria up Ted. Moving from a decent little conversation to child like exaggerations seems very natural for you. You are apparently much younger than I thought.
“This is the sort of crackpot madness and nitpicking intellectualizing that discredits thoughtful racial nationalism.”
Really? I don’t think any kind of “intellectualizing” has ever defined the WN movement. I’ve always thought brash outbursts of irrational emotion were what discredited your “movement” the most. Though luckily, your rashness and inability to hold up your end of a philosophical conversation is not typical on this website. Control your emotion, sharpen your rhetoric, then try again.
Comparing race deniers and antis to Creationists is a brilliant meme; thanks for stumbling onto it. I hope it spreads far and wide.
I also like the undercurrents of the article – that it is we, who in this inverted world, are the culture of critique. It is we, who with acerbic insight, attack and destroy every cherished idea of the world WE inhabit.
Thank you Matt Parrott.
Ted, You sure do raise some interesting points but I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote Replacing Jesus with Odin or Zeus or Perun or the “mystical trees of the forest” seems like the “same shit” as you so eloquently put it, to me for the whole point of meta-politics is life in the here and now. My attraction to Christianity is the stable social order that it offered. True, Merrie Olde Englande was quickly undermined and replaced with our current money centered culture. My attitude is that The West which is under attack, is or was Christendom, and to change horses now will only further weaken our position. I find the essays on Nietzsche, Heidegger and company very interesting but I can’t imagine them having attained their greatness if they had been born into a Muslim or Judaic country. Certainly, the various churches are today mostly filled with scoundrels and hypocrites but are we going to get rid of the Office of the Presidency because Congress and the Senate are filled with scoundrels and hypocrites? I doubt it.
We may not like the motor that drives our car but to try and change it while we are careening out of control down the highway is sheer folly.
“I find the essays on Nietzsche, Heidegger and company very interesting but I can’t imagine them having attained their greatness if they had been born into a Muslim or Judaic country.”
I think this confuses cause and effect in the same way liberals are always insisting on more and more “education” in the hopes that their “education” will “inspire greatness.” It’s very unlikely that a Heidegger or a Nietzsche would have been born into a such a country because the human topsoil–that is to say nature itself– in the Middle East is not right for a Heidegger or a Nietzsche; you’ll also never find an Arab Jonathan Bowden or a Chinese H.P. Lovecraft ANYWHERE. Not in any authentic sense, in my estimation. Put another way: Whites are not a product of Christianity (or some detached ideology). Our beliefs and sensibilities (which give rise to religion) are a product of US. (Colin Cleary made this point in a very fine article.) In a way, religion is an effect of our type of human vitality that we take note of and feed off of further. It’s not, as Bill explained with respect to the semitic view of faith, something spoken to us whose commands we follow. Or at least if we perceive religion in the latter manner, we know what types of perversity will arise.
It’s not a matter of detached social circumstance that Arabs embrace cavernous script morality in an absolute way that tends to strangle a Western-style Socratic dialogue like this site generates. Societies are an outward thrusting of a people’s respective energies. This is why the West will never become Islamic as long as white people are a majority even if white people become more and more nihilistic. The shoe doesn’t fit. It’s no accident that the West birth a Heidegger or a Nietzsche. Only the West could but the culprit wasn’t an ideology; the culprit was blood.
*sorry not “culprit” but “factor.”
Liberal Creationism vs. WN Creationism: Round 1!
“Intelligent Design” is junk philosphy as well as junk science.
David Hume crushed design arguments on a philosphical level 250 years ago. The wikipedia summary does a good job recapitulating Hume’s critique.
One of the oldest and most popular arguments for the existence of God is the design argument: that order and “purpose” in the world bespeaks a divine origin. Hume gave a criticism of the design argument in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.
Firstly, Hume argued that for the design argument to be feasible, it must be true that order and purpose are observed only when they result from design. But order is often observed to result from presumably mindless processes like the generation of snowflakes and crystals. Design can account for only a tiny part of our experience of order.
Next, even if the design argument is completely successful, it could not in and of itself establish a robust theism; one could easily reach the conclusion that the universe’s configuration is the result of some morally ambiguous, possibly unintelligent agent or agents whose method bears only a remote similarity to human design.
Furthermore, if a well-ordered natural world requires a special designer, then God’s mind (being so well-ordered) also requires a special designer. And then this designer would likewise need a designer, and so on ad infinitum. We could respond by resting content with an inexplicably self-ordered divine mind; but then why not rest content with an inexplicably self-ordered natural world?
Finally, Hume advanced a version of the Anthropic Principle. Often, where it appears that an object has a particular feature in order to secure some goal, is in fact the result of a filtering process. That is, the object wouldn’t be around did it not possess that feature, and the perceived purpose is only interesting to us as a human projection of goals onto nature. This mechanical explanation of teleology anticipated the notion of natural selection.
Big thanks for posting that.
Noting his first argument, the problem with that line of argument from theists is that they end up begging the question. “The world must be designed because it must be designed.”
The foreshadowing of Darwin in his remarks on the anthropic principle is rather stRiki-Eiking as well.
Hume is begging the question by claiming that snowflakes and the like obviously come about without design, therefore other complex forms do so as well.
The problem is that the onus of proof is not on Hume. Hume is saying that we can look at things designed by man, and look at things not designed by man, and say that there is a similarity.
But if we say that the latter is also designed, then the burden for proving that it is designed is on the one suggesting the hypothesis. Hume isn’t begging the question because he isn’t making a positive statement. He is saying that we no of know designer for the world, and yet we see similarities between it and the designed things man creates. So to prove a designer, a separate argument must be made. But unless and until this is done, the theist arguing from design alone is begging the question as described.
So how does Hume say Consciousness developed in this “self ordered universe”? Bet he didn’t believe in it at all, that it was just an epiphenomenon of matter, like the froth from beer. Same thing with Russell, Ayers, and the rest. But they can’t prove that anymore than we can prove Order and That from which the Order springs. But the latter makes more “sense” (spirit) to me.
Another approach: Martin Gardner spent his life studying everything and writing about it. But unlike many polymaths, (like Asimov) these ultimate questions meant alot to him. He found some of the famous arguments like that of Anselm’s particularly ingenous, but he found with Hume that they do not prove. Towards the end of his life he found himself believing anyway, in spite of that. He called his approach “fidelism” taking inspiration from Pascal’s “The Heart has reasons that the mind knows not of.” From a theistic point of view, it could be said that God saw his life long search and granted him the gift of faith. Indeed Gardner himself said, that he felt (and he never ceased to be amazed at this) that God existed, He was good, and that we as part of Him, were immortal. And he joined the Catholic Church. The Church has always taught that a human functioning normally will know these very things which Gardner came to know, but due to original sin this knowing has become obscured for most. This knowledge isn’t enough and it must be supplemented by revelation to live the spiritual life to the fullest. The other great religions have their own versions of this with the East giving spiritual practice and personal verification more emphasis.
Jeago,
Poor understanding or no understanding doesn’t give a license to invent explanations. There are things that are not understood and that may never be fully understood (abiogensis and human conscious). This is not evidence any theistic claims are true.
I am not a Christian, or an atheist, and certainly not a new-ageist pagan.
Nothing can ever be fully explained, or understood. Ask Christopher Nolan!
Engage with Hegel. And Kant. Battle Nietzsche. Talk with Jung! Read it all, by Heidegger, for Christ’s sake.
Be a real Fascist, please.
As we drift into discussing the pros and cons of Christianity I humbly suggest that to keep things simple we refrain from discussing the tax code for according to Agorafinance:
Today, we’ve got a tax code that’s nine times longer than the Bible. And every year, we spend a combined 7.6 billion hours just completing the forms. And it’s getting worse by the day
I have long been of the opinion that “progressive” Christians are Pelagian heretics. Like (the best of) the Jews, they believe that with enough totalitarian social “reform” and repression of human nature man can perfect the world. I wish someone smarter than me would develop this theme.
There seems to be a misunderstanding of the role of science in forming values and a worldview, and what the actual role of science is, or should be. I’ll write up a few paragraphs, and, when done, Greg can either put it up as a new post, or add it here as a comment, whatever is best.
“There’s no way to prove whether God exists or not. Some Christians insist that this or that documented “miracle” proves that their specific god exists.”
Aristotle and Aquinas provided what they thought were irrefutable proofs for the existence of God (the prime mover in Aristotle’s case). Modern philosophy has largely sidestepped, rather than refuted, these proofs and the causal principles on which they are founded- Aristotle’s five causes.
As a newcomer to all this New Right, neo-pagan stuff, I wish I saw more direct engagement with scholastic and neo-scholastic philosophers like Maritain, Gilson, etc. Maybe I just haven’t found my way to it yet- any suggestions?
I find it troubling when people reiterate the “can’t prove God exists” talking point.
There are some Christians who claim to be able to provide a proof for God’s existence. Has a survey of all these attempts been done, and each argument routinely dismissed?
I would agree that most classical arguments (Cosmological, Teleological, Ontological) are doubtful in their conclusions. And even if they succeed in their aims, no one (not even the Christian using the argument) claims they actually “prove” God exists.
But, what of those Christians who argue transcendentally?
Immanuel Kant popularized transcendental arguments (though they had certainly been used before him), and demonstrated how they might possibly be used to answer skepticism. In short: Kant wanted to show that certain non-empirical truths were “presupposed” by human experience. In other words, we look around us at what can be seen, and deduce that our experience necessarily implies something immaterial.
(For an imprecise example: The fact that there is ice in the freezer (A), necessarily presupposes the fact that, at some point, someone put water in the freezer(B). So A necessarily presupposes B).
The strength of various transcendental arguments are disputed, but they continue to fascinate a small sub-set of philosophers even today (see P.F. Strawson, or Robert Stern’s material, for example).
In the Christian community, disciples of Cornelius Van Til have been utilizing a particular transcendental approach to Christian theism which, when combined with Reformed dogmatics, seems to demonstrate the truth of God’s existence.
We Van Tillians, at any rate, don’t believe the common refrain (echoed across the net) that “God cannot be proven”.
Since when is stating you can’t prove God exists a taking point? No one has yet done it. The burden of proof is on people claiming supernatual entities with unlimited power are running the universe. All known arguments fail.
I’d love to hear your deconstruction of a Van Tillian transcendental argument, and explain why it fails.
No. The burden of proof is on you. Let’s hear your explanation of why it succeeds.
Lew has the stronger hand in this discussion. Having read Rushdoony’s “Institutes” lo these many years ago, I am more than casually acquainted with Bahnsen, Van Til, and the Reformed perspective.
That having been said, what Christianity has become at the Institutional level is something worthy of scorn. The cold, hard fact that a new, more realistic, model of Christianity is called for is obvious; it remains, in contemporary practice, the handmaiden of the Feminist State.
A cold-eyed, historical perspective that would allow us to rebuild Christianity calls for several issues, most of which will only be adopted after all else fails. Essentially, Masculinity will have to return, and the Pagan forces that saved Medieval Christianity will have to come to the fore again, fertilizing the barren soil of the Church Feminine.
This means reducing the practices of Christianity to those that support what the LIVING Savior wishes, leaving the whitened sepulchers of Institutional Christianity to fall in on themselves, providing grist for the new mill.
One, it must retain the first ten chapters of Genesis; which are the universal history of Mankind in microcosm.
Two, it must dispense with most of the Old Testament, which serves only to show how one nation, the twelve tribes of Israel, were chosen as a form of eugenics to lead to the birth of the only spiritual body that could contain the Christ, and allow The Messiah to come forth. The Kinist Formulations, seen in this light, are of much greater importance than commonly understood. However, they were only means to an End.
The focus for that End shifted to The Incarnation as a microcosm of Mankind. Thus, we keep the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Three, we keep the Book of Revelation, which as written by Jesus Christ, as a guidepost to future state of human spiritual development.
Seen in this Light, Bahnsen, et. al., are correct up to a point. When the purpose of the Nation of Israel has been met, as it was when Christ was proven to be The Messiah, then the Transformation of them into the Living Body of Christ is the only way forward, and those who obsess upon ritualistic systems – Legalists, to a man – have the Letter of YESTERDAY’S “Law” correct.
Yet, the Deed of Christ, including the Fulfillment of the OT “Law” allows new, stronger, and much more appropriate Forms to come forth. The modern outworking and melding of the spiritual Principles from which this was derived becomes the new focus for the new Christian Nation, the new, Living Body of Christ.
Glad to clear that up.
Lew,
I am not a theologian, and I don’t know anything about van Tillian transcendentalism. I have a legal background, and so I take a forensic approach to the existence of God.
First, I will say that I don’t quite understand your skeptical posture. I don’t necessarily think its wrong. I just don’t see the point. You either have a longing for God or you do not. If you do, then why be skeptical? If you don’t, then why bother with the discussion at all unless you are hostile to belief and committed to undermining it, which does not seem to be the case from your comments so far.
You say the burden of proof is on theists, but really the burden of proof is on the prosecution. If you are charging believers with irrationality, then at most a believer must offer a prima facie case that theism is reasonable, at which point the burden shifts to you to prove atheism. Now I realize that such a prima facie case for theism, while sufficient to warrant theism, does not prove it conclusively. But again, I don’t see why you would demand such proof. If you long for God, then something much less than absolute proof should suffice for you to take a leap of faith without feeling that you are being a hypocrite. On the other hand, if you do not long for God, I again question why you are even interested in the discussion.
As to the question of whether a prima facie case can be made, I believe that Basil Mitchel’s Cumulative Case approach is more than adequate to warrant theist belief. Again, to a lawyer, one-by-one atheist dismissals of traditional arguments for the existence of God seem quite strange. A jury does not weight pieces of evicence one by one and see whether, taken in isolation, they prove the elements of a cause of action or crime. Rather, they look at all the evidence together and see whether it adds up to proof that satisfies whatever standard applies in the case.
Now theists often say there is “no proof” of the existence of God. Well that again depends on the standard of proof to which the theist proponent is being held. There is certainly evidence for the existence of God. Evidence is said to be probative if it “tends to make a fact of consequence more or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” By this definition, DNA information, universal fine-tuning, the Big Bang, the religious longing itself, and even your anecdote about the neorologist are all evidence for the existence of God.
Whether you think the evidence for God is sufficient depends on your standard of proof. As I have said, I believe that prima facie evidence is sufficient to warrant a leap of faith, by which I mean a working assumption that God exists, which opens the door to religious practice and further personal verification.
What standard of proof you apply to the issue is not a question of intellectual integrity, but a question of will. You are free to choose based on your own values and interests. There is no one right answer. Do you wish first and foremost to avoid error? Well in that case a skeptical posture and high burden of proof is appropriate? Do you seek a relationship with God? Well, then an open posture with a lower burden of proof is appropriate. Again, the choice is yours to make.
Well none of these learned men were racially conscious nor is their church. But there is great learning and beauty there. How to not throw the baby out with the bathwater? Perhaps Orthodox Christianity, which at least has National Churches which may offer some defence against globalism.
Believe me, the Roman Catholic Church is going to be worse than useless: Pope Benedict’s last encyclical called for both Global Goverment and a Global Bank. And of course, open borders. The next Pope may be Black and the Church is growing in Africa, the Phillipines, Korea etc. There will no doubt be priests sent from these lands to revangelize the apostate West in the Vatican Two Church. And of course they can minister to the vast throngs of their countrymen who will be streaming in.
Orthodoxy doesn’t accept Scholasticism – a pity. It relies on the great Church Fathers for its theology – also Dionysios the Aeropagate, a disciple of Paul.
Aristotle and Aquinas provided what they thought were irrefutable proofs for the existence of God. which is good enough for me.
As a newcomer to all this New Right, neo-pagan stuff, I wish I saw more direct engagement with scholastic and neo-scholastic philosophers like Maritain, Gilson, etc. Maybe I just haven’t found my way to it yet- any suggestions?
It’s early days yet for the NANR so if you just stick around for a while I’m sure someone will start writing on your favourite philosophers. Mind you I’m still waiting for someone to write on Machiavelli (hint, hint) which I though would be more appropriate for a budding political movement than some of the current favourites.
You will find C-C it to be a great site and I only wish it was here twenty years ago, er, cough cough, thirty years ago, and I can’t believe that all the little buggers at university today with their new fangled computer thingies are not taking advantage of it. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth!
This is a very inspirational article (especially the last paragraph) and makes some excellent points. I always look forward to reading Mr. Parrott’s commentary; this article demonstrates why.
I don’t often post, but I think I should make a note or two about this article:
1. I am a “Kinist” and as such, I represent a growing body of Evangelical (mostly Calvinist) racial nationalists. White nationalists do exist in the Evangelical community, and we despise Zionism and “Judeo Christianity” as much (likely more so) than anyone else.
2. From a uniquely Evangelical perspective, there seems to be a problem in the wider white-nationalist community. Many clamor for “unity” or suggest that we simply choose a religion (as if that were possible), or that we simply brush religious issues under a rug for the time being.
This will be very hard for us (as Kinists) to do, since the entirety of our White Nationalist philosophy rests on a thoroughly Christian theory of knowledge. (Someone mentioned Plantinga earlier, and while we derive much of use from him, he has his problems; and I’d dispute his “Calvinism” as well – but that’s another discussion).
Until the white nationalist movement becomes epistemologically self-conscious, and quits simply presupposing the same theory of knowledge that the “Atheism+” guys are presupposing, they’ll fall pray to the same philosophical weaknesses inherent in non-theistic conceptual schemes.
So, 3: Yes, White Nationalists need a unifying moral theory. Not just a moral theory, but a unifying and comprehensive worldview, with a thoroughly rational theory of knowledge that doesn’t fall prey to the ego-centric predicaments inherent in materialist philosophy. We need a “revelational” epistemology!
This is what we, as Evangelicals can offer the White Nationalist community (all that, and salvation too).
What do you think of Identity? One of my favorite writers has a blog Cambria Will Not Yield – he seems to from the old British Israel Movement which gave birth to American Identity. But he’s right that this idea was around in Western Consciousness for a long time: Blake, the Puritans, old stories of Joseph of Arimethea, etc.
Mr. Jaego,
I suspect that blog has changed my life more than anything I’ve ever read. I can’t say enough good about it and anything I do say will likely not do it justice.
As for the Christian Identity movement at large, I have my criticisms which are generally echoed throughout the Kinist community – but they’re probably best discussed elsewhere.
“The burden of proof is on people claiming supernatual entities with unlimited power are running the universe. All known arguments fail.”
Where’s the refutation of Aristotle/Aquinas’ proofs? As I said above, modern philosophy largely just sidesteps the question by rejecting Aristotlean teleology by fiat, not by refutation. The burden of proof is on all of us to figure out why there is something rather than nothing, and why the universe is comprehensible. As Francis Sheed, Plantinga, and others point out, if you saw a refrigerator out in the woods, you wouldn’t posit that it got there ex nihilo. The same applies for a universe that contains those same refrigerators.
“Have you met George Washington? Adolf Hitler? Napoleon? Semitic myths they are all! You haven’t seen a virus. By golly, don’t get that flu shot, don’t believe what you are told!”
That’s right, Ted and Bill and everyone else here – if you know what’s good for you, you won’t get that flu shot.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/ineffectiveness-and-dangers-of-flu-shots/15536
Matt says:
“There’s no way to prove whether God exists or not.”
Sure there is.
God can come down and reveal himself. In fact, he could reside amongst us continuously in a way such that no one could ever doubt that he was God and that he exists.
He very much seems to care about whether we believe in him, and yet he refuses to do this. Why? Probably because it turns out that he doesn’t really care whether we believe in him or not, or, he doesn’t exist.
There are implicit theists and explicit theists. All explicit whites are implicit theists. Just as the courtly love of a gentleman for his lady honors the Queen of Heaven, so God knows that Kevin McDonald, though an explicit atheist, honors and worships Him by passionately defending White Beauty. It is for God to decide how He reveals Himself. God’s revelations do indeed shed light on His will for our lives and values.
Vick, To ask God to prove who he is before believing in him is the Jewish way as shown by the pharisees mocking him on the cross. Our way is to believe in him first and then the proof comes.
Just to be clear, I’m not asking God to reveal himself in order to convince me that he exists (religion eludes me to be honest) – I was merely answering the question of how God’s existence can be proven.
God could easily do it himself and in fact I think revealing himself is the only sure way to settle the question.
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