CULTURAL FORM AND NATURALISTICALLY-CONTEXTUALIZED-THOUGHT

It seems that all intellectual freedom must begin with consciousness, more specifically, the comprehension of automated forms. Humans assume the value of the forms they practice (almost none of them are conscious of value outside the emphasis of the cultural forms they practice). For a thinker this amounts to incompetence. A thinker should be concerned with more than cultural replication, he should be concerned with the objectivity of value. This simply means content that has something to offer the concrete movement of life or that contextualizes and revolutionizes the activity of life (the expansion or contextual clarification of consciousness, of concepts, is also a form of the concrete).

Objections that tend to criticize form, as opposed to content, are unconscious of their critical form. Simplified, this often comes out to mean: "you are not observing or conforming to our rituals." The charge is often an unconscious complaint to a lack of conformity. The hardest thing to obtain is freedom of form; the emphasis of history stands against it, but an intelligent being cannot simply replicate tradition because it's socially familiar, he or she must apply intelligence to discern whether or not tradition is itself intelligent! Often, by thinking, the Thinker finds a better way. What matters then, is not the tradition of form, but the quality of content contained within it. Just because something displeases our aesthetic taste doesn't mean it lacks value in content. A good Thinker is concerned, above all else, with the quality of thought's content.

Because we have observed so many varied forms, because we have been mastered by many cultural forms, we demand conformity to the forms by which we have been mastered; we demand conformity to the forms that society celebrates. I contend that this way of thinking is (a flaw) lacking in critical consciousness, what's not a flaw, is thinking of the quality of content as opposed to its form.

It's a strange and useless objection to complain that something is "lacking in value" because it lacks a replication of form. In truth this is merely proof that the critic is not actually thinking about the content that's before him, he's merely noting the fact that it's unfamiliar to him -- this is not enough to refute it, and those who dismiss content on the basis of form, have already proven themselves deficient in thought. (It is perhaps the shallowest form of criticism that rejects content on the basis of its unfamiliarity to one's given culture). This kind of thinking is not thought, it's the opposite of thought.

Let the truth be known: no human is obligated to replicate the intellectual styles of their culture. A thinking mind will strive to apply intelligence to form and this will usually mean departing from familiar cultural forms; it will mean the articulation of value in the most practical and concise way that it can be achieved; concise, because life is limited, it doesn't have eternity to orient itself to existence. Of course, there is also the question of power in form, and this question matters to the implementation of value in culture. What good is quality content if it can only be assimilated by a minority, that in the long run, guarantees its extinction? The greatest clarity ever achieved by man is useless if it simply falls by the wayside without integration into culture. The question of power in form is much more complicated than the question of quality in content. In a good thinker the questions of power and quality are dialectically bound together. 

What is it that gives a form its authority? Is the answer merely, "its content?" Is the thinker "out of line" in demanding that his audience discern the value in his content, and therefore, look past his form?

We know this: life is exceedingly short and the actions we perform in it are very unlikely to have the value we attribute to them. We are, more often than not, unconsciously deceived by the value-assumptions contained in cultural forms. Is it possible to labour in and toward a content and form that contains a value that goes beyond the fleeting emphasis of culture? The answer is, "yes"! Because reality is not merely a product of human thought, man finds himself in the midst of a universe he did not create, a universe that contains objective conditions to which he must conform/learn to work with (revolutionize!) in order to bring about the betterment of his own existence.

The most relevant question: what is this content that contains value beyond the emphasis of culture? The answer is a Naturalistically-Contextualized-Thought* that strives toward the realization of existential quality. And here content is always more important than form. This consciousness presupposes several things operating at the axiomatic basis of thought: a species-consciousness and awareness; awareness of the importance and value of the Social in the context of human development and flourishing; a dialectical logic that comprehends and deduces reality from the interconnection of its totality.

Form is often something imposed on us, it can come to operate like a kind of cultural tyranny limiting the intelligence of creative-freedom to emancipate itself from the mindlessness of tradition. We must search for the courage to defy the stupidity of form in the name of intelligence; our chief concern should be for the development of an advanced quality -- content that has the capacity to emancipate the species from unintelligent forms, to transcend material conditions that restrict our ability to flourish in quality and expand our realization of freedom.

Nothing is harder than mastering a freedom of form, not what culture demands of us, but that which intelligently corresponds to our conditions in the universe. 

 

*Naturalistically-Contextualized-Thought: this refers to a consciousness that transcends culture and comprehends the species within the limited and fragile context of its material conditions. The universe is objectively indifferent to the existence of man, just like it has been indifferent toward the extinction of billions of species. Man must learn to cultivate and harness the power of the Social (to move by intelligence!) if he wishes to advance qualitatively into the future. 

 

 

 

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TOWARD A REVOLUTIONARY FORMATION OF DIALECTIC

 

[1] It's not just a matter of focusing in on what's important, it's also a matter of figuring out the implementation of a practical power that can be achieved within a lifetime, even if such a power (a species-power!) has its future in the quality of a multi-generational work. You will ask me, "what is the ground for this claim?" The answer is the brevity of life itself! Added to this one can also take note of life's impoverished, subconscious conditions, these amount to unintelligent social formations. 

[2] Dialectic identifies and deconstructs the lie posited by the linguistic form (and content) against the movement and totality of being.

[3] The revolutionary form in dialectics is not a theoretical-praxis, but praxis itself -- against the dead theory of a formal dialectics.

[4] The highest point achieved in dialectics is the discovery of the self-deception of theoretical forms -- leading toward a revolutionary-praxis of freedom that is consciously concerned with achieving existential quality, which always means, social quality: the intelligent ordering of the production of economic and political life.

[5] Dialectics, done properly, will always negate their own formalism, which is to say, they transcend themselves as mere, abstract theory.

[6] Through dialectics life can return toward itself in consciousness (act toward itself with intelligence) as opposed to the formation of a society based on psychological reactionism: a subconscious-narrative-formation that seeks to define existence from a disposition of impulse, emotion, fear.    

[7] A logic that cannot qualitatively impact the world is a form of empty idealism; it is a logic that still occupies the superstitious and abstract form of religion; such was the logic of Aristotle. The freedom of identity-logic is a lie, an abstraction, not a life-form of concretion. What man needs, to achieve an advanced existence, is a concrete-logic, such is the logic of dialectics! 

[8] While it's true that dialectic leads to the consciousness and pursuit of a revolutionary praxis, the class-agent of this praxis (though properly identified as "the proletariat") is itself in need of a dialectical transvaluation. The highest form of dialectics is not "work," but emancipation from the necessity of labour through technology unto the renaissance and explosion, proliferation of thought, leading to the creation of a society of advanced technology, regulated and conditioned by a mature psychology. This means that, in such a society, "species-consciousness" would be politically dominant so that worlds could be established as humans qualitatively develop without being sabotaged by social-pathology or material-deprivation.

[9] The logic of dialectics proves, above all else, that the species is in desperate need of education predicated on the basis of material security.

[10] Belief, conviction, credulity, are not what's important, the thing that's important is the grounding and justification of belief on the basis of evidence. In this domain many abstract games have been played in order to circumvent the authority of evidence, precisely because many narrative-believers cannot substantiate their fantastic claims on the basis of evidence. Thus their method has been to attack the credence of evidence, but the problem with this is that they already presuppose its authority at every existential level of their existence!

[11] Dialectic is not a game, not a mere abstract, idealistic-logic, but a revolutionary-logic, however, this fact doesn't remove the human psychological element, which has historically lost sight of the world through abstraction. Even in dialectic (because of man's psychology) the temptation is to wander in the abstraction of theory, but a disciplined dialectic should swiftly return us toward a revolutionary-praxis, which is achieved through a concrete-criticism based on life and its conditions.

[12] The climax of dialectic must be the negation of formal dialectic. Where this negation fails dialectic itself has failed. The revolutionary formation of dialectic is simply the negation of its own formalism carried into the intelligence of a revolutionary praxis. 

 

 

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PHILOSOPHICAL LAMENT NO.5

 

Is one speaking accurately when they are speaking from the heights of despair? This depends on the foundations which lead to the conclusion of despair. From this vantage some can see reality more clearly, while others are simply more deluded (such as those who have a contrived despair which has its origin in superstition and idealism).

When man posits an impossible ideal world (born and sustained in the imagination) that runs contrary to reality, and then uses this ideal to condemn reality, he is a danger to the species. Ideal worlds are childish, man must learn to create quality by using intelligence, those who reject this premise are a danger to the species.

How does one avoid sorrow? Tragically, the answer is by hoarding and stealing wealth, but this is only necessary because man has constructed his world on a hierarchical stupidity; something he postulates as "given intelligence."

How can a conscious idiot continue to live among idiots? The real answer is that he cannot unless he has some kind of advantage -- or at least something to sustain his quality. In truth, this is all life is about, quality!

We have been told by philosophers that we should consider life as a prison, but this is unacceptable! If self-negation was brought to the forefront, divorced from emotive considerations, made lawful by every society, perhaps then the world would begin to understand quality. What if every life lacking this vital attribute negated itself? The world would have no choice but to alter its value-structure, but we cannot get here because superstition and false values stand in the way.

It's a tragedy that none understand the place and value of polemics because none have isolated the concept, but it's an even greater tragedy (when the discovery of polemics leads to the conclusion) that it's too late for the implementation of polemics. Polemics must be deployed at the right time if they would serve to prevent the proliferation and supremacy of barbarism. The most tragic consciousness of polemics is that they are time-contingent.

Where does this leave the conscious polemicist? He must watch culture fall off a cliff because of the failure of intellectuals; because in their arrogance and self-righteousness, they refused the responsibility to engage culture when they still had the chance, now the intellectuals must watch culture fall prey to the impulse and anger of barbarians.

Where does this leave the conscious man? (We can't even answer this question without falling into danger!) Oh Benjamin, how we identify with the finality of your sorrows!* 

The prejudice of philosophers has to do with, at first, the lie of their forms and after that the error of the content they deduce from these forms. The supremacy and value of these forms comprise the identity of their presuppositions, errors that lead the world astray generation after generation. Woe to those who expose them -- the wrath of those who celebrate them, who rely on them for cultural-credibility and psychological comfort, will fall on them like an axe against the pulp of a frail tree. 

 

*A reference to the suicide of Walter Benjamin

 

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PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS ON THE ATHEISM OF DIALECTIC

 

[1] That dialectic is atheistic is not a mere assertion but a concrete and verifiable fact rooted in the genesis of dialectic itself; this premise takes its substance from the ontology of dialectic, which has its foundation in materialism, evolutionary development, specifically, socio-historical-development in terms of logic and the concrete facts of physical existence: that all things are in motion; that all things proceed forward into a process of self-negation; that contradiction is vital to comprehending a reality in motion.

[2] The ontology of dialectic is not something that is contrived or fabricated, but something that was historically discovered at the right time of conceptual development, which amounts to an advance in consciousness. This consciousness was a social development of progressive-transference. 'Not fabricated,' simply means that dialectic derives from the evolutionary/progressive order of nature. The consciousness of dialectic always presupposes a historical development. 

[3] Because dialectic is a "critical logic," in the most explosive sense; contrary to Nietzsche, to do dialectic is not merely "to philosophize with a hammer," but to scorch the earth with an atom bomb. Dialectic, in its mature form, doesn't actively go after lower forms of "representation" because it already presupposes their negation (because it has already contextualized them; negated them as inferior forms); it goes after the higher, more advanced, manipulative, ideological, mono-logical structures that were (historically) erected after the mytho-logical structures. The mytho-logical is inferior to the mono-logic, but it is the mono-logical that a mature dialectic actively deconstructs and destroys. Why should it lower itself, going back to the superstition and inferiority of the mytho-logical form?

[4] The concern of dialectic is comprehensive, self-conscious freedom; all that it does it does for the purpose of freedom. Because of this vital motivation, dialectic is concerned with exposing and abolishing all forms of social, psychological and political domination. Insofar as religion is an ideology of control, specifically a form of abstract idealism, dialectic is set against it, and as we have already said, it presupposes its negation. Religion is one of the first forms that dialectic contextualizes and transcends. 

[5] When dialectic takes conscious aim at religion, at the mytho-logical form, as opposed to the mono-logical form, it achieves a greater negation than all the negations that came before it, precisely because a dialectical-critique is the most comprehensive, historically conscious critique, ever achieved by man. For religion to survive the atomic-critique of dialectic it would be necessary for it to change its ontology, but this is not something religion can do, its place in history is as a subconscious projection of man negating against the concrete facts of historical existence. Through dialectic we come to understand that the construction of the religious world is nothing more than a subconscious negation of the real world, motivated by fear and desire for power; it's the fragile, and socially oppressed human, trying to comfort itself through the construction of an escapist ontology and soteriology.

[6] Dialectic discerns that religion negates itself through unspoken, presuppositional commitments that contradict the assertions of its theology. It also discerns how theology negates itself through the consistency of its own logical development (an inescapable contradiction that comes from within). Beyond this it "recognizes" the contrived essence of its form, which is to say, recognizes theology to be nothing more than the invention of the subconscious human psyche, egotistically projected as a concrete transcendence. But, via dialectic, this is really just humankind deceiving itself with its own imagination.

[7] Dialectic is not an ideology constructed by the thinker, but a logic discovered and disclosed by thought as thought informs itself from the concretion of what stands before it (from what it experiences). The thinker doesn't get to choose the content that proceeds from dialectic, but allows dialectic to inform content. This is another reason religion doesn't survive dialectic; another reason that dialectic is hostile to religion, because religion is an attempt to create and superimpose theoretically desired content. Dialectical-logic is an evolutionary-logic: there's no way to escape this premise -- if it is indeed a fact that dialectic is not an idealistic construct!

[8] Because dialectic is concerned with mastering and overcoming the alienation of existence in every form, dialectic from the outset, is directly pit against the claims and existence of religion (against religion's domination as it preys on ignorance!). In historical religion domination is (astoundingly!) asserted as an existential virtue; obedience is superior to freedom. It would be impossible for a dialectical logic to reconcile itself with such an oppressive and ignorant view of the world. 

[9] In religion mastery of alienation takes on the form of projection, which is to say, where religion encounters alienation, in the first instance, not only does it fail to comprehend it, sometimes defining it as "freedom," but in the second instance, it fabricates imaginary concepts against it. These ontological facts, once again, pit dialectic directly against religion. Religion is reified alienation! 

[10] The birth of a dialectical theology as the negation of religion: Dialectic is not hostile to the word, "God," until it takes on a specific ideological character; God as speculation is not contrary to dialectic, but dialectic severely qualifies the romanticism that humans attach to the concept, what is left is a real, negative theology, that eviscerates and contextualizes all forms of human religion and notions of spirituality. It's only through dialectic that a concrete and self-conscious theology could ever be truly grounded. This has never happened in the history of mankind, all theistic notions have been tainted by romanticism and human desire.

[11] As Marcuse has said regarding dialectic: "Dialectical thought thus becomes negative in itself. Its function is to break down the self-assurance and self-contentment of common sense, to undermine the sinister confidence in the power and language of facts, to demonstrate that unfreedom is so much at the core of things that the development of their internal contradictions leads necessarily to qualitative change: the explosion and catastrophe of the established state of affairs."*

This doesn't mean that facts are supplanted by extra-logical or supernatural claims, or that these claims are superior to facts, it means that dialectic sets itself against the oppression of the positive in every form it appears, probing beyond the lie of its appearance, searching for the concretion of reality's interconnection and movement.

[12] In dialectic negation is (counterintuitively) the path to the positive, which is to say, the path to comprehensive freedom, which is the chief concern of dialectic. In religion, the assertion (imaginary projection) of the positive, against the undesirability of the concrete-negative, is the path to freedom. In other words, when religion is confronted with the uncomfortable facts of reality, it tries to create an imaginary world to pit against the real world, to escape into idealism as a way of coping with reality. Conscious-negation, in dialectic, means that it is ontologically hostile to religion.

[13] Marcuse, "to express and define that-which-is on its own terms is to distort and falsify reality." This means that dialectic cannot take (and would never take) religious claims at face value, but would, from the outset, press against them in the most nuclear sense of the term -- dialectical criticism is nuclear criticism! Dialectic is naturally suspicious and aggressive toward the positive.

[14] Dialectic logic drives the internal logic of any form toward its own negation, to reveal its explanatory incompleteness, to demonstrate that it is still the "blind victim of unmastered forces." In the case of religion this means that the human subject is deceived by the symbolic and phonetic form, instead of seeing through the human machinations that make use of these forms, creating fantastic concepts, the naive, religious consciousness, validates them on the basis of authority. Dialectic shines a light on this darkness so one can see the actual forms that are casting the shadows. That is, religion is a product of man imposed on himself, it's a form of self-deception, claims without substance, but to assimilate them without dialectic is to fail to recognize the lie of their content and form.

[15] Is dialectic atheistic? It's skeptical, but in a way that goes beyond mere abstraction. In what sense then is dialectic atheistic? In the sense that its critical application leads to the demise of cultural Gods and cultural forms of religion, it's only agnostic in the most negative and limited sense of the term, which is to say, dialectical agnosticism is, first of all, not neutral, and secondly, undesirable to any culturally conditioned religious person. At best it ends by claiming that humans can know nothing about God or Gods, and more importantly, that the concept has been historically destructive and has no concrete value to the species.

[16] It could be asserted that mythology has a value for the structure and order of society because of the values it contains, but this is called into question by noting that these values are the result of subconscious forms (existential reactions), as opposed to a dialectic-logic, which would formulate them on the basis of a conceptual and social consciousness. Neither would these formulations be based on mono-logical axioms but would proceed from a historical and intersubjective consciousness with an eye toward comprehensive freedom leading toward the qualitative progression of the species.

[17] It is the ontology of dialectic that makes it such a threat and terror to religion, precisely because it is a hyper-critical logic, precisely because it is suspicious of the positive. The reason dialectic is antithetical to religion is because the specific claims of religion cannot survive the skeptical critique of dialectic, further, dialectic is derived from material conditions, from the motions of reality, which would seem to presuppose the negation of the religious form from the outset.

[18] No philosopher is a greater deceiver than him who tries to replace negation with the sophistical lie of a positive sublation, thereby calling it dialectic: for not all things can be or should be sublated! Some things must be transcended so that the species can advance into higher forms of intelligence and freedom; dialectic discerns that religion is a primitive form that needs to be transcended.

 

*Herbert Marcuse, "A Note on Dialectic," (1960), supplement preface to, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory 

 

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SPASMS AND CONTORTS AGAINST THE SELF

 

Will in Nietzsche was delusion precisely because it was divorced from the individual's process and injection into the world from a social dimension that preceded and determined the individual's existence. The will to power is a lie, the power of the social, developmental-intersubjective, to shape or diminish the quality of the individual, is not.

It's useless to speak and think of knowledge in terms of universal objectivity, this is not the point, this is an abstract game -- the point is to obtain knowledge for the purpose of increasing and expanding existential quality (this is something no nihilism can refute).

What a thinker doesn't want to tell himself, and what he doesn't want to believe, are the most important things about his philosophy. But even this has a limit, a sophist will use this logic to propagate the value of his sophistry, asserting that, because his idiosyncratic philosophy is antithetical to one's desire, "therefore it must contain a high value." This is false. A good thinker must be concerned with the rejection of the concrete-negative, not the rejection of a false-positive. 

Perhaps the greatest danger that tempts thinkers is vanity, or intellectual hedonism. Life has no obligation to submit to every claim of authority, precisely because life is not infinite, our time is limited, therefore we have a right to discriminate. Nevertheless, hordes of young thinkers flock to vain professors and authors who write abstract books full of abstract concepts that have no concrete relevance to life; this is the living praxis of intellectual hedonism.

It's a strange thing to assert one's self in the context of the public sphere because, before such an act begins, one is prejudged by a series of silent, cultural presuppositions. Before a thinker can talk with authority or be taken seriously, culture demands that specific identities be attached to his or her name. This is not entirely negative or without value. Nevertheless, we are all drifting in the darkness, but only few are conscious of this. Is it credentials that give a speaker value or is it the fact that her words contain substance, even power? What does it mean to have power in words and what makes certain formations of words more powerful than others?        

"High Politics.—Whatever may be the influence in high politics of utilitarianism and the vanity of individuals and nations, the sharpest spur which urges them onwards is their need for the feeling of power—a need which rises not only in the souls of princes and rulers, but also gushes forth from time to time from inexhaustible sources in the people. The time comes again and again when the masses are ready to stake their lives and their fortunes, their consciences and their virtue, in order that they may secure that highest of all enjoyments and rule as a victorious, tyrannical, and arbitrary nation over other nations (or at all events think that they do).

"On occasions such as these, feelings of prodigality, sacrifice, hope, confidence, extraordinary audacity, and enthusiasm will burst forth so abundantly that a sovereign who is ambitious or far-sighted will be able to seize the opportunity for making war, counting upon the good conscience of his people to hide his injustice. Great conquerors have always given utterance to the pathetic language of virtue; they have always been surrounded by crowds of people who felt themselves, as it were, in a state of exaltation and would listen to none but the most elevated oratory. The strange madness of moral judgments! When man experiences the sensation of power he feels and calls himself good; and at exactly the same time the others who have to endure his power call him evil!" Nietzsche, The Dawn of Day, paragraph 189, translated by, John McFarland Kennedy, The MacMillian Company 1911, posted on Project Gutenberg

The pathological error to power, we can call it, because it subverts intelligence, intelligence that would be directed toward the cultivation of existential quality (that's why it's intelligent!). There is almost no statement more true than that humans desire feelings of power, but this desire is itself the backward result of social stupidity and subconscious social formations. This desire hinges on the kind of world into which one is born. Humankind is exceedingly primitive, man's social organization of the world, being almost entirely impulsive, turns humans into insecure automatons. It's the stupidity of man's social organization that is to blame for primitive desires: competition divides the power of the species against itself. Segregation of the earth pits man against man, and yet, this stupid little primate is hurling through a black void that, without advanced technological mediation, guarantees its extinction. No foresight, no consciousness, this is humankind! 

It doesn't matter if we like it, or it kicks against primitive dogma, in order to make more intelligent humans it's necessary to make more qualitative, socially conscious, scientifically and psychologically informed, developmental environments. (This is not a reference to the old school of behaviorism, but to the new school of empathic care, kindness, the conscious cultivation of healthy attachment environments.) Only intelligence can save mankind from its impulsive self.    

 

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How Reason Can Lead to God: Joshua Rasmussen Runs from Philosopher Jersey Flight

 

[Joshua Rasmussen is the author of the Christian book, "How Reason Can Lead to God." IVP Academic 2019]

 

“We can now summarize the entire argument of this book. The whole argument boils down to the following simple form:
Premise 1. Reality in total is self-sufficient (with no outside cause
or explanation). Premise 2. Nothing can be self-sufficient without a perfect foundation. Conclusion. Therefore, reality has a perfect foundation. Reason fills in supports for the premises. To support premise 1, reason reveals that nothing exists beyond the totality of all things. This means the totality of reality is self-sufficient.” How Reason Can Lead to God, Chapter 11 Perfect Foundation, Joshua Rasmussen

 

When Rasmussen says, the whole argument boils down to a "simple form," what he actually means is: the whole argument boils down to loaded premises!  

A loaded premise is a statement or sentence that tries to smuggle in unsupported claims in order to justify its conclusion. Once these premises are identified and challenged the position usually self-destructs under the weight of its own insufficiency.    

The fact that Rasmussen's argument is an exercise in abstraction (pure idealism) is enough to dismiss it. Even if the logic itself was flawless it wouldn’t prove the existence of a Divine Being, let alone the Ultimate Divine Being or Beings, it would merely prove that its form was true to itself, i.e., to its idealism:

“Idealism can... be understood as the practice of understanding abstractions through other abstractions; where an abstraction is something that does not necessarily have basis nor relation to reality, but only exists in relation to other abstractions.”*

[Human reason is not proof for the existence of God. Reason, by its very nature, precludes God. For reason to work, not only must a human brain function at a high cognitive capacity, but one must be born at the right time, at a time when this social tool has been able to develop to a level of conceptual value. If reason had something to do with a God or Gods one would expect it to be present from the dawn of the species, as opposed to a slow progression achieved over time. (The latter is what we would expect to find in a world conditioned by evolution.)]

 

Premise 1: “Reality in total,” is not something Rasmussen actually knows, it’s just a groundless, abstraction he asserts to make his argument seem like its substantive. “Self-sufficient” has the same evidential and rational status as that of the term God, which is to say; it’s a loaded concept, a piece of rhetoric deployed to try to prove something else, in this case, a vague notion of God.** Challenged, it cannot stand because it shatters to pieces under the weight of specific cross-examination – the precise thing Rasmussen ran from when I confronted him [see exchange below].  

Premise 2: Here, as in all places, the burden of proof is too great for Rasmussen to bear; “perfection,” is another one of Rasmussen's imaginary ideals, a loaded premise. Of course, Rasmussen is free to prove that this is not the case, but the truth is that his vague generalizations (for which he can provide no example without begging the question) only work if they’re exempted from rational and evidential examination (the very thing Rasmussen claims to be basing his argument on)!

Conclusion: “therefore reality [just so long as Rasmussen gets to use all his loaded premises!] has a perfect foundation.” The amount of rational and evidential twisting one would have to do to call this reality “perfect,” is rather astounding; perfect for who or what? Was this reality "perfect" for all the species that went extinct? 

 "Reason reveals that nothing exists beyond the totality of all things."??? Oh my, then what do we say about an abstract notion of God that violates this use of the term "existence?" The premise of Rasmussen's argument negates his desire to posit a transcendent God. The honest conclusion of Rasmussen's reason (but he is not an honest thinker!)  is that it locks him in the material universe, it's only by trying to deploy an undetected, non-sequitur fallacy that Rasmussen claims the existence of a transcendent God that exists outside "existence," i.e., the material universe. Rasmussen doesn't even comprehend his own reason, how, therefore, can he be a guide when it comes to the valid conclusions of reason?    

Rasmussen's book is an intellectual joke, it’s certainly not the work of a serious thinker, but of a man who is content to prey on ignorance and intoxicate himself with his own sophistical supply. It’s not just my opinion that Rasmussen’s argument hinges on its ability to evade cross-examination, the following exchange between us proves that he couldn’t actually engage in rational discourse and that he fears his own burden of proof:  

 

JERSEY FLIGHT LETTER TO RASMUSSEN

Aug 10, 2020:

 

"How Reason Can Lead to God."

I must confess, I find this a strange way to speak. One might say, "How Shovels Can Lead to Magic Fairies." After all, one is talking about a kind of tool leading to the discovery of a very specific kind of being. So why not shovels leading to fairies? One is tempted to simply say that "we all know that fairies do not exist." (I would add that we should all know this about God as well). However, the eccentric nature of the phrase is not my contention: when you say the tool of reason leads to God what exactly do you mean? Allow me to clarify, does this conceptual tool lead to a God or many Gods, are you sure the thing it leads to even qualifies to be called a God? How do you know? What is this thing, I mean, what kind of being (or beings) can you really deduce from (Aristotle's) man's reason?

But of course, this question provokes another: if you deduce a God from man's reason, then what do you deduce from his stupidity? (Although it should be noted that stupidity is not really the opposite of reason, the opposite of reason is really emotive automation.) Nevertheless the point stands, if you are in the habit of deducing entities from shovels, then it seems to me you don't have the right to pick and choose. Is your idea of God (or Gods) consistent with all that is negative in reality, or do you simply evade these portions of reality in order to achieve the deduction you desire? If it's the latter, which I suspect it must be, then your reasoning is actually leading you away from the God you fear in order to sustain the delusion of the God you desire.

C. S. Lewis put it this way:

“Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not 'So there's no God after all,' but 'So this is what God's really like. Deceive yourself no longer.” from A Grief Observed 

   

Confidently yours,

Jersey Flight

 

 

JOSHUA RASMUSSEN: I appreciate your note, Jersey. I actually address all those questions in the book. But I appreciate your interest in being duly skeptical, and I do see how belief in gods and fairies could be associated. It's the reverse of those who associate mindless materialism with the production of an airplane out of a tornado. There's more to see for everyone, which certainly includes me.

Best wishes,

Josh 

 

JERSEY FLIGHT: My friend, it's not that belief in fairies could be associated with your position, this is not the issue, the issue is in what you claim to know about a non-material-entity or entities from the basis of reason? I am highly skeptical that you have actually succeeded at deducing the existence of a God, most specifically a Christian Trinity, as it is obvious you're a Christian. Do tell me, how did you do this? How could you possibly deduce a Christian Trinity from man's concept of reason? Such a claim seems exceedingly dishonest. I think the reality is that you begin with the presumption of your Christian deity, and not, that you deduced it from reason.

For one split second in his life, thanks to grief providing objectivity, C. S. Lewis had a glimpse of reality, is it any surprise that he never followed this line of reason? Certainly not, because he was not after truth, he was after comfort. (C. S. Lewis was afraid of the truth!) Are you after comfort or do you have the courage to face the truth?

The bottom line is that the concrete nature of your conceptual methodology will not allow you to exceed its concretion, in order to do that you must become an acrobat capable of great leaps, specifically the continual use of the non-sequitur fallacy. It's not humility that drives powerful thought, but the psychological capacity to endure pain! The ability to suffer is what most thinkers are lacking.

 

JOSHUA RASMUSSEN: Yes, that makes sense, and honestly, is a legitimate concern. To be able to face reality, and its pains, takes courage. 

Peace,

Josh

 

JERSEY FLIGHT: Friend, you have evaded every single question I have asked, why? Are my questions invalid; are you afraid, like C. S. Lewis, of what you might find if you go down this road?

What also "makes sense" is that your evasion is not the demeanor of an honest, rational thinker.  

 

------------NOTES-----------

 

*Encyclopedia of Marxism, entry, "Idealism."  

** Shockingly, Rasmussen actually does attempt to define the attributes of God, which is astounding because these premises do not follow from his argument: 

“This God is perfect. This God is before all things that have been made. Without this God, there is nothing: no math, no logic, and no reason to produce other minds. The God of reason frees your mind so that you may discover the true greatness of the foundation of everything. God is as natural and untamed as reason itself. God has the following attributes (as we have deduced): 1. God is self sufficient. 2. God is independent. 3. God is necessarily existent. 4. God is ultimate. 5. God is eternally powerful. 6. God is purely actual (without gaps, holes, spots, blips, boundaries, wrinkles, or arbitrary limits). 7. God is unlimited. 8. God is the foundation of mind. 9. God is the foundation of matter. 10. God is the foundation of morals. 11. God is the foundation of math. 12. God is the foundation of reason. 13. God is purely positive. 14. God is maximally powerful. 15. God is maximally knowledgeable. 16. God is maximally good. 17. God is perfect.” Ibid.

If we're being honest, like everything else we observe in the universe, it's more probable that any creator or creators are temporal and material, contingent, dependent, limited in power, knowledge, ability; immoral as opposed to moral.

     

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