Journal of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism: 6/1/09

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Exorcism and Homosexuality

NEW YORK - Truth Wins Out [TWO] condemned Manifested Glory Ministries in Bridgeport, Conn., for practicing child abuse in the name of religion, after a video surfaced where the church tried to exorcize demons from a gay teenager....Patricia McKinney, pastor of the nondenominational church who describes herself as a prophet, told CNN that she believes homosexuality, like crack addiction can be influenced by demons. "It's not just the homosexuality spirit. It could be the alcohol spirit, the crack cocaine spirit, the adultery spirit. Everything carries a spirit," McKinney told CNN. http://www.truthwinsout.org/pressreleases/church%E2%80%99s-exorcism-of-gay-teenager-is-child-abuse-and-fanaticism-disguised-as-faith/

"Everything carries a spirit." We would expect Christianity to employ supernaturalism; it wouldn't be Christianity if it didn't.

But, "Things of this sort [spirits] are the Platonic Forms, abstract entities that exist independently of the sensible world," says Britannica. (Platonism was inextricably welded to Christianity, most notably by St. Augustine, as well as by many others.)

This means that that which are objectively considered abstractions by the the bulk of western civilization are considered to be real objects, or "reifications" of the abstractions, in the tradition of Platonic metaphysics.

This means that the "spirits" are considered to be universals inherent in things. About universals: "The metaphysical issue is whether or not these features exist independently of the particular things that have them: [Platonic] realists hold that they do..." Britannica

Universals in the Platonic thinking are "special existents unrelated to man’s consciousness—[not] to be perceived by man directly, like any other kind of concrete existents [tables; apples; children], but perceived by some non-sensory or extra-sensory means," wrote Ayn Rand.

"Unfortunately, this terrifying incident is not unique" continues TWO. "It is a standard part of groups such as Exodus International, which promise to help people "pray away the gay." "When talking to the public or media, such organizations try to appear mainstream and uncontroversial," said Wayne Besen, TWO's director. "But, when they get behind closed doors, they engage in practices that are barbaric and backwards. While demons do not cause homosexuality, the efforts of churches to 'cure' gay people can accurately be describes as quite evil."

The attempt to view such intangible universals as non-material entities in a supernatural world, to be perceived only by supernatural means, provides an evil view of existence, where the burning of witches by the Catholic and Protestant churches comes to mind. But even in modern Catholicism, "[exorcism is] but rarely used, and never without the express permission of the bishop," says the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia.

Why is it rarely used? Because "there is room for no end of deception and hallucination when it is question of dealing with the unseen powers." New Advent

When humans attempt to perceive "deception" and avoid "hallucination" while dealing with supposed supernatural inhabitation of humans, there is not only room for error, but the error is inherent in the nature of the beastly act itself.

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Saturday, June 20, 2009

Is Death Noumenal?

Sometimes, metaphysics isn't so complicated as many of the blogs I have written about here, such as the "tree falling in the forest" question that answer to which lies in the "primacy of existence." Sometimes metaphysics is just simply simple. Kant is not considered to be "simple" philosophy, but when you break it down, it can be shown to be simpler than Kant would wish you to think his ideas were.

In this blog, someone asked the simple question of whether or not "death" was an example of Kant's "Noumenon" theory.

Death is phenomenon. "Noumena", according to Kant, is anything our animal senses cannot detect about what is empirical, and which our logic cannot reach.

Death is empirical, observable, and logically explainable. What lies on the other side of physical death, if it exists, would not be a Noumenon either, because a Noumenon regards only that which is undetecable about a phenomenon.

In other words, we see a baseball, but that is the empirical phenomenon. What we cannot detect about the baseball is Kant's "real reality" precisely because our animalism (which he abhored and which therefore prevented him from being objective about it,) prevents us from seeing it.

But the baseball and the state of physical death are still empirical. There is nothing about the afterlife that is empirical--it is supernatural; therefore it cannot be noumenal.

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Thursday, June 18, 2009

Altruism and Mother Theresa

It has been asked repeatedly whether altruism can actually exist. Even Mother Theresa has been doubed as an altruist, since, if the claim that no one can be one is true, then she was not.

The reason the Vatican published her letters of fear that for 12 years her God had forsaken her was to prove that indeed, she was an altruist.

Auguste Comte coined the word to mean: "the discipline and eradication of self-centered desire, and a life devoted to the good of others; more particularly, selfless love and devotion to Society. In brief, it involved the self-abnegating love of Catholic Christianity redirected towards Humanity conceived as an ideal unity." http://www.ditext.com/runes/a.html

In Comte's use of the word he invented, Mother Theresa was indeed an altruist. All she wanted was to have her God speak to her, and he did not. Why do you think she looked so sad all the time?

It's amazing how people have twisted the word "altruist" to mean that no one can be one "because we all do things for our own benefit." If she wanted to work for 12 years without a word from God, she had a reason, which was "the self-abnegating love of Catholic Christianity.

"But "self-abnegation" is not to one's benefit if one thinks that that action has caused God to forsake you. If you hear from God on a regular basis while abnegating your sense of self in the service of other people, then you are benefitting, and cannot be considered altruistic.

Bill Gates and his wife have done more for the third world than 1000 Mother Theresas could do in terms of providing material needs. They are not in the Third World 100% of the time as the Mother was, so they cannot provide for the spiritual needs of people when they are not there. But do you think that when they do visit the places to which they send their philanthopy that the happy faces and filled stomachs and dancing and music provided by the villagers are not better for the spiritual needs of those villagers than a self-abnegating altruist with a sad and spiritless-looking face?

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Sunday, June 14, 2009

Abstraction, Intelligence, and How We Use Them

It has been asked often why man considers himself, over other animals, to be "the rational" animal, when he often doesn't act rational, and even commits acts of irrationality.

What we do with our intelligence is not the question. The answer is: Brutes abstract not. (Locke)

Because they cannot abstract, at least with any degree of mnemonics, the naturalist Loren Eiseley said that animals live in an "eternal present" from which they can never escape.

Ayn Rand described it as "range-of-the-moment consciousness", which explains the lack of mnemonic cognition. They can't teach their young what they've learned in a manner which gives the young something to build on. Whatever they learn, it stops rights there, even it is passed on to the entire tribe, like those macaques who learned to wash their food. This action was caught on camera by scientists who had been studying these particular groups of monkees and had never seen them do it until one accidentally dropped his food in the water-------and liked the result. So he continued to do it, and the other monkees mimmicked him and discovered they liked it too.

But that didn't lead to an abstraction. Nothing more was learned than that washing food tasted good. Perhaps in an act of evolution, only the monkees who wash their food will survive someday during a storm of biological pestilence upon their food. But it wasn't because they learned to make anti-biotics.

Man can learn to understand that because he washed his hands and his food, he prevented himself and others from getting sick. That knowledge was an abstraction, and it can be taught to others.

THAT is what makes man intelligent. That he foolishly or criminally uses his intelligence is a different question.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009

God, Creation, and Evolution

The official New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia has no problem with evolution or science.

"God does not interfere directly with the natural order, where secondary causes suffice to produce the intended effect" (De opere sex dierum, II, c. x, n. 13). In the light of this principle of the Christian interpretation of nature, the history of the animal and vegetable kingdoms on our planet is, as it were, a versicle in a volume of a million pages in which the natural development of the cosmos is described, and upon whose title-page is written: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth."

"To what extent is the theory of evolution applicable to man? That God should have made use of natural, evolutionary, original causes in the production of man's body, is per se not improbable, and was propounded by St. Augustine (see AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, SAINT, under V. Augustinism in History). The actual proofs of the descent of man's body from animals is, however, inadequate, especially in respect to paleontology. And the human soul could not have been derived through natural evolution from that of the brute, since it is of a spiritual nature; for which reason we must refer its origin to a creative act on the part of God."

"The scientific theory of evolution, therefore, does not concern itself with the origin of life. It merely inquires into the genetic relations of systematic species, genera, and families, and endeavours to arrange them according to natural series of descent (genetic trees)."

"The formation of new species is directly observed in but a few cases, and only with reference to such forms as are closely related to each other; for instance, the systematic species of the plant-genus Œnothera, and of the beetle-genus Dimarda. It is, however, not difficult to furnish an indirect proof of great probability for the genetic relation of many systematic species to each other and to fossil forms, as in the genetic development of the horse (Equidæ), of ammonites, and of many insects, especially of those that dwell as "guests" with ants and termites, and have adapted themselves in many ways to their hosts."

"At present, however, it is impossible to decide how many independent genetic series must be assumed in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. This is the gist of the theory of evolution as a scientific hypothesis. It is in perfect agreement with the Christian conception of the universe; for Scripture does not tell us in what form the present species of plants and of animals were originally created by God. As early as 1877 Knabenbauer stated "that there is no objection, so far as faith is concerned, to assuming the descent of all plant and animal species from a few types" (Stimmen aus Maria Laach, XIII, p. 72)."http://www.newadvent.org/ [italics added]

Evolution therefore is not inconsistent in the theology of Christianity with the statement, "In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth," because "Scripture does not tell us in what form the present species of plants and animals were originally created."

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Thursday, June 4, 2009

What is "Time Travel"?

Husserl wrote "The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness." One thing it demonstrates clearly is that "time" is a phenomenon of consciousness, not of of physics.

The physics in it is the consciousness of movement, and then of difference in the lengths of those phenomenons, such as a star moving across the sky versus a caterpillar walking up a tree.

Since "time" is a phenomenon of consciousness, it cannot be manipulated outside of consciousness, in the empirical world.

However, we know that the pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope are of events that happened millions or billions of year ago. So if we were able to invent a means of transportation that would get us to one of those events in a second, would that be considered time travel? Nothing would have changed in the universe except your placement in it; yet you would instantly be at an even which in your original placement had already passed a long time ago.

But transportation to a place in the universe where something happened in a different "time" when compared to the relationship of Earth to "place X" is not the same as travelling back to yesterday.

If travelling back to yesterday becomes possible, then once again it is merely moving your own physical and mental existence from one place to another. What makes yesterday on earth different from what is photographed by the Hubble? Nothing at all, except the Hubble cannot see that close up.

So if you can go in the blink of an eye to what the Hubble sees, yet you have merely moved materially through a long distance of space, then why is that different from moving materially back to yesterday?And if that becomes possible, is it possible to move materially to an unknown place when that "place" (tomorrow) has not yet happened?

We could conceivably create a transportation device that would move us materially across the universe faster than the speed of light. To return to yesterday, we would have to invent a "Hubble" that can see yesterday on Earth by the same means. It would simply be a "closeup" shot.

But how are we to see tomorrow?Such a form of travel, to what Hubble sees, is not time travel, because time is a phenomenon of consciousness, not of physics.

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Same-Sex Marriages

Marriage requires neither church nor state, because in nature, on an island for example where only two people exist, it comes down to a simple verbal contract between two people.

The church originally stepped in when it decided that "God" must sanctify this contract before it could be acceptable, but we all know that such dogma is merely for the purpose of having power over other people.

The state stepped in when it became obvious that certain legal matters, such as inheritances and child support, needed a basis in law if they were to be agreed upon in all similar situations across the board and over a long time. But this began with precedent, when an arbitrator of one sort or another had to determine what was to be.

The church may have every right to determine how marriage is to be handled in its denomination or in its individual congregations. But the state must by its nature remain neutral.

This neutrality means that a contract made by two people which denies no other people the same right cannot be denied. It is not a "special right" to let two women enter into such a contract, as opposed to a man and a woman. This contract is, after all, found first in the nature of humans who must be free to make them if they are to be allowed to live in justice.

Laws that deny such freely made contracts are laws that deny the right to freely make contracts where such action does not deny others the same right. A "contract" between heterosexuals to deny the same right to homosexuals is an unlawful "contract."

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What is "Human"?

To be human was defined by Aristotle as being "the rational animal." For that, we can't ignore intelligence.

But because we see intelligence in other animals---chimps, dogs, whales, elephants, dolphins---we have to wonder about their reasoning abilities, especially when a dog, for example, has been seen to "think" in stressful situations and run for help, continuing to bark until someone pays attention to it, then leading people to the problem, such as a child who is hurt.

But the great naturalist Loren Eiseley described this kind of intelligence as the animals' "eternal present" because they learn nothing from it that is learned by others of its kind. It does not pat itself on the back and later think about the good deed it did, and it does not tell other dogs of its exploits. Once the event is over, it may remain as a part of the animal's overall empathy toward the child it saved, or it may even bolster its own self-esteem if such a thing exists in an animal; but these would be sub-conscious since we see no evidence of its own conscious recognition of what it has accomplished.

Ayn Rand had another description for this kind of "thinking" on the part of animals; "range-of-the-moment consciousness." That is easier to understand than Eiseley's phrase, when used without an explanation.

So "being human" is a matter of retention of consciousness, which it expands all the time by integrating other moments of consciousness into it. First Responders, for example, make a career out of what the dog does only in emergencies.

Retention and integration of moments of consciousness removes man from that "eternal present" and presents him with a dilemma: what to do with his memory?

He "feels" his memory as conscience when it deals with morality; and when it deals with morality it becomes part of his (natural, not super-natural) soul.For this reason, "being human" must at least implicitly involve being "good" or "bad", and certainly involves intelligence.

The fact that much of our literature and entertainment have let society down by not standing up to moral scrutiny in its explanation of "human-ness" means only that modern philosophy, the philosophy of context-dropping and of creating moral greyness where black-and-white ought to be visible, is present in our forms of art.

That does not make the authors, painters, actors and other artists correct in their evaluation of what it means to be human. It means they are obfuscating and refusing to face up to the fact that man has moral choices to make if he wishes to remain "the rational animal."

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Journal of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Exorcism and Homosexuality

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Is Death Noumenal?

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Altruism and Mother Theresa

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Abstraction, Intelligence, and How We Use Them

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

God, Creation, and Evolution

Thursday, June 4, 2009

What is "Time Travel"?

Same-Sex Marriages

What is "Human"?

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