“It’s the way we move, sway and raise our palms to that sexy beat.”
By: The Gay Nazi Wizard and His Noxious Nest of Nobodies
Calvinism is dust on a Spurgeon devotional on a hearth with a kettle boiling goat’s milk for a mediocre-looking wife’s offspring, sprung from her privy parts.
Calvinism is an “elect” man in a van down by the river with a huge triple cassette tape deck running nonstop, multiple copies off of a generator about the legal status of living by the river on state property.
Calvinism is a week-long lecture on the Song of Solomon, only to retire every evening with your wife giving you zero nookie.
Calvinism is a debate on the legality of saying “missionary position.”
Calvinism is Wednesday night haircut/bible study in the farm home of the “elders.”
Calvinism is congregational ruling elders delivering your offspring through midwifery on the kitchen island.
Calvinism is debating an unknown person a thousand miles away, furiously slapping at the keyboard for hours on the Sabbath, only to immediately click over to bigblondebutts.com
Calvinism is whizzing in your boxers when you first see Gary North’s luminous crown of white hair emerging over the horizon, walking towards you.
Calvinism is running theonomy.com AND bigblondebutts.com
Calvinism is that *rush* you get at hearing “Rushdoony.”
Calvinism is rejecting lace head coverings for being too similar to lascivious lingerie. Read more of this post
I once watched a show on a young girl named January who was a schizophrenic. Childhood schizophrenia is not a common mental disorder, but what fascinated me in this particular case was the fascination January had with numbers. In fact, she even “felt” numbers and had a certain emotional relationship to them. What immediately struck me was the insight in the midst of this dark situation that January gave: what if, aside from her real mental problems, January was actually on to something—something that her parents and counselors had never considered. What if January was right, and that numbers do have a “feel”?
I once interviewed a recognized mathematical genius who explained that when he was younger, math was difficult because he was more interested in the look of the numbers (as symbolic representations), than in the actual conceptual manipulations of the integers. In both of these examples we have a different perspective on something very common: the look and feel of a number. Similar statements are also made by those who experience altered states of consciousness on drugs, particularly hallucinogens. In those cases, the senses are often mixed up, and so numbers might be mistakenly thought to have a “taste.” While these three cases are not “proofs” per se, they do point in the direction of something I’ve intuited for a few years now.
In the modern Western world nothing is more divorced from one another than the supposed domain of numbers, reason, and logic, set over against the supposed independent domain of feeling, intuition and aesthetic creativity. In another sense, we have right brain versus left brain. The degeneration and collapse of the West is, as I have argued many times, intimately tied to the division of the sciences into specialized, discreet unrelated “fields,” resulting in a compartmentalization of knowledge.
This compartmentalization actually has a tremendous effect of stunting any real progress, leading to a bunch of incompetent drones who (in their minds) master “biology” or “physics” with a ridiculously myopic, stunted, and philosophically nonsensical, contradictory worldview. The average “science” major walks away with his government certificate certifying sound and fury signifying nothing: this “graduate” could no more think his way out of a paper bag than he could give a coherent explanation of the supposed subjects he has “mastered” by repeating socially engineered textbooks by rote. Those who study other exceedingly worthless fields like “sociology” are even more foolish. Read more of this post
As we continue to survey the modern world, recognizing the bombardment of lies and propaganda formerly mentioned, we look also at the confusion and warfare in the realm of gender. This is of crucial import due to the fact that it’s so often missed by those in the anti-revolutionary, anti-modern circles and niches. These crusaders and “trads” are generally the worst off, inasmuch as they assume that any adjustment made to modernity constitutes compromise, apostasy, or some other such heretical term marshaled out and slapped on keyboards with the authority of a medieval cleric in a Latin High Mass. Most often these dreamers exist in a world of theory and fantasia — I know because I was one for over a decade. In fact, it is often these types who are the only interesting people left in society, as the nihilistic, self-abnegating spirit of modernity sucks in the masses to their own doom.
The problem with these circles and niches is not ideology as ideology. Many who leave the ranks of whatever religious fringe circle or traditionalist niche do so as a result of more of an existential angst-dilemma relating to the inability to keep the strictures of the sect or religion’s guidelines. Whether Haredi Jew or Society of Saint Pius X, stories of the patterns of religious anxiety demonstrate commonalities. This is not to say that all of these religions and groups are all true or all false. This is also not to say that it doesn’t matter what religion you choose. Rather, this is more of a psychological analysis of the patterns of praxis resulting from certain worldviews, and what said groups mean in the present state of the world historical.
For these groups, the modus operandi is that of the “old world,” where reality is still structured on the pattern of some form of ancient/medieval hierarchicalism, metaphysically. Whether a gradation of being, or a celestial hierarchy, this worldview will most starkly contrast precisely in the question of metaphysics and ethics. The track of Western Enlightenment rationalism gained the upper hand by tossing out objectivity, essentialism, and telos. In its place, pragmatic psychologism and empiricism came to dominate, and then collapsed into nihilism. Modernity therefore became the inheritor of the worst of the failed philosophies of this era, leading to science basically operating and working, yet denying all the things it sought to prove. Read more of this post
*Note: I misspoke and meant to state that Austrian school investors are bullish* on Asian markets.
In this installment, I deal with an overview of other systems, including Marxism/socialism and its variants, mixed economies, Catholic distributism, and Austrian Economics, as well as analyzing the arguments of collectivist positions in general, laying the groundwork for the biblical basis for capitalism, private property, human action and prosperity. I also look at theology in the history of the West and its relationship to religious systems, focusing primarily on the philosophic basis for market capitalism. I chiefly answer the criticisms of a distributist friend.
Recommended reading:
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal By: Ayn Rand
How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes By: Peter Schiff
Meltdown By: Tom Woods
http://www.mises.org
There’s nothing more 80s than Steven Spielberg, and there’s nothing better 80s than Raiders of the Lost Ark. Based on the oft-referenced classic film serials, Indiana Jones is a household name. What is far from common knowledge are the profound religious and esoteric themes in the Indiana Jones films, particularly in Raiders. Written by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan, and directed by Spielberg, Raiders demonstrates a carefully ordered, intriguing religious progression, evident to those well-read in esoterism and in this case, so-called “traditionalism” or the “perennial philosophy.” In short, it’s much more layered than the basic-level adventure story presented, and I will demonstrate that below.
The film begins with the mountain image, prominent in Spielberg films, particularly Close Encounters of the Third Kind. There, “Devil’s Tower” in Wyoming becomes the meeting point of the aliens/gods and mankind. Biblically, the Law and prophets frequently mention the “high places” where the pagans and apostate Israelites would offer sacrifices to the “gods” or “demons.” Textual examples. This trend is consistent in many alien motifs, where the aliens are simply no different from the traditional religious ideas of the “gods.” Spielberg especially has utilized this trend, as well as Lucas. Indeed, Mt. Sinai itself is the meeting place of man and the God of the Bible, which will be of particular relevance for Raiders. As a side note, Wired magazine reports that “Devil’s Mountain” also has relevance to the NSA as an old Cold War listening and surveillance post in Germany.
The Hovito Temple where Indy and Belloq haggle over the golden idol situates the viewer in the primitive superstitious world of polytheistic paganism. The Hotivos are savages, and are used by Belloq to obtain the idol from Indy, who risked his life in the well-known trap sequence. At view in the background is a golden sun with a skull. From South America we fly to Indy’s classroom at the fictional Marshall College. Army Intelligence arrives because Dr. Jones is an “occult expert,” and wants information on Hitler’s own fascination with the occult, and his search for the Ark of the Covenant. Indy, we note, is a rationalist and pragmatist, and doesn’t believe in “hocus pocus” and mumbo jumbo, much like Han Solo dismissed the Force. The Ark demonstrates the power of God, and Hitler believes that by controlling it, his army will be invincible. There is some truth to this in terms of Hitler’s circles being into bizarre forms of occultism, as shown in the video.
From the university we fly to Nepal. Nepal is relevant because of the Nazi quest for the Great White Brotherhood of Madame Blavatsky and Himmler. Indy is after Marion From Nepal, Indy and Marion fly to Cairo, where we will begin to be initiated into the mysteries of Egypt. The progression has been from primitive animism to the ascended masters to Egypt, where the “Well of Souls” supposedly houses the Ark in Tanis. The scenes in Cairo are of particular importance, particularly for the scene with the Sufi. Sufism is Islamic mysticism, and so we have the mysteries of each religion leading Indy to the culmination of the perennial tradition in Judaism as its source. This is a unique twist, since generally, traditionalist writers ascribe to Judaism a place of derivation—that Judaism’s mystical side is purely based on Platonism or Egyptian hermeticism or some other supposedly older tradition. Here, Judaism is the true source.
The All-Seeing Eye emerges in the midst of the Star of David.
Indy meets with Belloq in Cairo, and Belloq tells Indy he is his “shadow” – the Jungian archetype of the inner dark side of the psyche that must be faced. Indy could very easily be made to turn to the dark side, Belloq says. However, Belloq, like Hitler, believes that the Ark is a magical device—that one can “talk to God” with it. Indy sees it in a more rational, yet humble perspective, and seeks out the actual meaning of the Ark. Sallah, Indy’s Muslim friend, takes him to visit the Sufi where we see a Star of David with an All-Seeing Indy Eye, and then a square and compass on the lamp. When the Name of God is mentioned, a wind blows, like when Moses approaches Sinai. Is Indy a kind of Moses/deliverer? In the next film he does deliver slave children from the Thuggee cult. Read more of this post
Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian is considered by many critics to be one of the best novels of the last century, ranked by many with Moby Dick and Absalom! Absalom!, while some have called McCarthy the heir apparent to William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. Blood Meridian is certainly not your average book, and as such, many find it difficult and inaccessible. As Harold Bloom notes, it is a modern great, and in may respects resembles Homer or Dante. However, Blood Meridian is also more than a novel: it is a statement about many things, the most crucial of which is McCarthy’s gnostic tirade against life as it is.
Critic Leo Daugherty’s thesis is thus only partially correct: that the novel is a “gnostic tragedy,” and this is precisely what endows the novel with its elevated style and inaccessibility. Daugherty’s thesis is too weak: to those steeped in the theological discourse of the early patristic period, including the polemical tracts of the early fathers such as Irenaeus of Lyon, it is quite clear that Blood Meridian is brimming with gnostic themes and ideas on virtually every page, and is fact is a gnostic polemical tirade. Daugherty is correct about it being gnostic. However, there are many elements he misses and misinterprets. My purpose is to respond to his statements, as well to Bloom’s claim that it is incorrect to see the Judge as a gnostic figure or archon, but rather that he should be cast as more of an enigma. Bloom claims:
The citations and references to the work of Jacob Böhme, who is, after all, a very specific type of Kabbalistic Gnostic… I think you would have to say that they’re something of an evasion of the themes in Blood Meridian. McCarthy knows exactly what Gnosticism is, and he could have made Judge Holden into an explicitly Gnostic figure if he’d wanted to. He wants to keep Judge Holden completely inexplicable. Saying that he is a sort of Gnostic demiurge is too facile for McCarthy’s portrayal of him.[1]Read more of this post
Aristotle, Plato, Egypt and the Structure of Reality
Immanuel Kant wrote at the close of his Critique of Pure Reason as follows:
In respect of the origin of the modes of ‘knowledge through pure reason’, the question is as to whether they are derived from experience, or whether in independence of ex-experience they have their origin in reason. Aristotle may be regarded as the chief of the empiricists, and Plato as the chief of the noologists. Locke, who in modern times followed Aristotle, and Leibniz, who followed Plato (although in con-considerable disagreement with his mystical system), have not been able to bring this conflict to any definitive conclusion. However we may regard Epicurus, he was at least much more consistent in this sensual system than Aristotle and Locke, inasmuch as he never sought to pass by inference beyond the limits of experience.1
In that paragraph Kant summed up the history of the division of philosophy into two camps with rival focii: the empirical tradition, descending loosely from Aristotle, emphasizing the immediate present, and the Platonic “noology,” stressing the permanence and eternality of the transcendent beyond, mirrored in the mind itself, which reflects the world’s own inherent, ideal structure.
However, which of these two thinkers, if either, is more correct? Is it possible to posit an external, essential structure to the world that supersedes the immediate, empirical experience? How would such a realm be demonstrated? The nature of these questions certainly extends beyond the scope of this paper, yet what I will claim is that Plato was more correct that Aristotle. In fact, though Aristotle’s pioneering work in ethics, logic, politics and aesthetics cannot be overlooked, some of Aristotle’s own insights actually work to make the case for the claims of Plato, as I will argue. This becomes particularly apparent when one considers the question of the infinity of God and numbers, which Plato and the Pythagoreans appear to have inherited from Egyptian Memphite and Hermetic traditions. Interestingly, modern mathematical theorists and quantum physicists are coming to the very same conclusions the ancient Egyptians posited: that reality is, at base, much more than is visibly present, including higher and lower dimensions, as well as possibly a base, inherent mathematical essentialism behind the world we experience. In effect, this means Aristotle’s empirical left turn from the Platonic Academy was in error.
Aristotle’s empiricism becomes most problematic when dealing with mathematical entities. Aristotle argues against mathematical objects having a separate existence as Plato claimed, as follows: Read more of this post
The ontological argument of Anselm of Canterbury has long since captivated the minds of many philosophers and apologists. Not long after Anselm published his Proslogion, his devotional apologetic was criticized by Gaunilo, yet Anselm’s argument was taken up by many of the West’s most prominent thinkers, such as Descartes and Leibniz, both giving their own versions. One of the strongest arguments against Anselm would be Immanuel Kant’s, who centered his objection around the notion that “being” is not a predicate.1 The purpose of this paper will be to analyze other problems, particularly theological, metaphysical and epistemological problems in the classical Anselmian formulation.
Anselm’s argument simply stated is as follows:
And certainly this being so truly exists that it cannot even be thought not to exist. For something can be thought to exist that cannot be thought not to exist, and this is greater than that which cannot be thought not to exist. Hence, if that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought can be thought not to exist, then that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought is not the same as that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought, which is absurd. Something-than-which-a-greater-cannot-be-thought exists so truly then, that it cannot be even thought not to exist. And you, Lord our God, are this being.2
Plantinga gives the form of the argument as follows, arguing it is best formulated as a reductio ad absurdum argument:
God exists in the understanding, but not in reality. (assumption for reductio)
Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone. (premise)
A being having all of God’s properties plus existence in reality can be conceived. (premise)
A being having all of God’s properties plus existence in reality is greater than God. (from 1 and 2)
A being greater than God cannot be conceived. (3,4)
It is false that a being greater than God can be conceived. (by definition of ‘God.’)
Hence it is false that God exists in the understanding but not in reality. (1-6 reductio ad absurdum).3Read more of this post
