On Religion

IMO, the #1 insight I've absorbed from our general sphere is a far better grasp of the holistic significance of religion and theology within human society. In this regard, I found Wolf's article on Abraham especially insightful. I especially owe him for his reappropriation of Natural Law. Also for his ability to concretely link the latter within the paradigm of divine punishment\providence.

A few months ago, a close family member became very interested in Christianity. It made me dig much deeper than I had done previously into these questions. It even made me come up with a personal definition of sorts for what Religion should be.

Good Religion in theory should be something like: "An integrated sovereign life force which incorporates all aspects of higher meaning". By failing to account for all relevant forces at play, a religious system automatically opens itself up to subversion and therefore invalidates the intrinsically binding nature required of it.

Normative Protestantism therein ends up coming across almost by definition as bad religion. I'm very surprised Catholic apologists haven't latched more onto the absurdity of having such an inconsistent jumble of denominations and doctrines. Protestants are forced to claim the "Universal Church" as a mere abstraction. The Catholic Church comes across to me as superior almost by default.

When I think of "sovereign life force" the practical derivative through natural law would be something along the lines of the ability to act as a prime-mover that shapes society. But what if that ability steadily diminishes over time? That kind of frame certainly makes us ask some very grave questions on the part of the Catholic Church as well.

The default among apologists appears to view Church decadence primarily through the prism of a test to be endured. Fair enough, but this is certainly insufficient. Without reincorporating a clear active principle, we arrive at a succinctly telluric and passive worldview (a la Dr Evola). The temptation is clearly to retreat towards the comforts of moralism and the hereafter; a caricature of slave morality.

One personal conclusion is that I am unable to accept the "Christian impulse" as intrinsically valid in all cases. To reject Christianity altogether also appears to me as equally absurd. At the the very least it is one of the most consequential forms of magic to ever be released on Earth. The rightful place of the "Christian impulse" might be as an alchemical ingredient of sorts that must be (deliberately?) counter-balanced by other forces. This previously occurred by default through natural law (Malthusian limits, the physical inferiority of women etc). One esoteric reading of fascism is surely to view it as an attempt at a rectification along these lines.

If sovereignty at the group and personal level is our primary concern, then I end up with a sort of horseshoe. Both extreme fundamentalism and active nihilism are praiseworthy. I'm curious about what anyone else thinks. Any criticisms?

Let's start by posting the article and some quotes:
https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/07/13/dont-learn-your-values-from-society/
>We now translate the thing that called Abraham forward as “the LORD” or “God almighty,” but thousands of years of built-up ontological baggage do not necessarily help us understand what the authors of Genesis were getting at. The original word is closely related to a verb meaning simply “to exist” or “to cause.” It later identified itself to Moses as “I am.” In a more familiar cosmology, we might understand it as the living will of existence as such, the fundamental power behind all nature and contingent life.
Not sure what else you would quote, especially the point about divine vengeance.

As for the rest, I don't what what your main point is.

>>1667

Good post. The decay of Western religion is key part of the broader Western breakdown.

> One esoteric reading of fascism is surely to view it as an attempt at a rectification along these lines.

As a minor footnote, I would nominate the Spanish Falange (cut short by the execution of José Antonio Primo de Rivera) as coming closest to making this perspective explicit. The Falangists remained Catholic, while strongly rejecting the traditionalism of the Carlists.

>>1671
>As for the rest, I don't what what your main point is.
Guilty as charged.

>Not sure what else you would quote, especially the point about divine vengeance.
For me it wasn't necessarily any specific quotes. It left me with some interesting (to me) and concrete ideas as to how the divine will might be tied on a very broad basis to worldly cause and effect (ie natural law). Also as to how this might help to allow us to reconnect God with master morality.

There's the barebones here of a dialectic where we might theoretically tie the results of almost any meaningful event back into the practical consequences of the cycle of sin\virtue (both individually and collectively). Say one nation conquers or defeats another. Don't like it? "Well, this must mean looks like the victor was collectively more virtuous." A totalizing dialectic like this also implies (correctly) that collective punishment is therefore also an intrinsic part of the effects of vice and virtue. That's exciting to me because that offers the direct possibility of deconstructing certain fraudulent virtues which are nowadays widely attributed to individualism.

Does this make any sense to you?

>>1676
The identity of natural law cause and effect with the will of God is a major theme in my (wolf's) thought, so I'm not surprised it came through in my writing. This idea has a whole system of implications for us that has not been taken seriously for some reason. One of my big ambitions is to launch a whole philosophical movement out of this idea (and some others). I am glad some of it is already coming across, but lost more work to do to articulate it and all it's consequences. And yes, it results in a constructive master-morality re-reading of Christianity (as opposed to the critical reading Nietzsche performed).

>>1682
> The identity of natural law cause and effect with the will of God ...

This identity is explicit and well-articulated in Thomas Aquinas' account of natural law. I say this not to suggest that "we should RETVRN to thomism" but just to note that there are resources in philosophical sources that can be helpful, especially if we aim at

> a constructive master-morality re-reading of Christianity.

Aquinas has already done bits of this work via his integration of Aristotle and Hellenic philosophy more broadly. Again, not for us to RETVRN, but to avoid re-inventing the wheel where not needed.

>>1688

>Aquinas has already done bits of this work via his integration of Aristotle and Hellenic philosophy more broadly. Again, not for us to RETVRN, but to avoid re-inventing the wheel where not needed.

I've noticed that perhaps due to increasing unfamiliarity with Christian history and thought, lot of people don't appreciate that in ~2000 years, a lot of relevant intellectual and philosophical ground has already been trodden by thinkers in the Church. That said, this is news to me and I would love to see specific pointers to where in his corpus this could be found. My own relationship to Christianity is on the rocks (see discussions in other threads regarding whether Christianity is to blame for wokeness) and I could use reasons to not to abandon all hope for it.

>>1690

The primary source is the so-called "Treatise on Law" in the Summa Theologiae (ST, I-II, q. 90-108). The core bit on natural law is q. 94. If you haven't read Thomas before, this can take some getting used to. He uses a formal scholastic format of question, objections, answer, and responses to objections. I would recommend starting here at q. 90 and reading forward to q. 94:

https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2090.htm

There is a vast secondary literature on this topic. A recent book I would recommend is:

https://www.amazon.com/Light-That-Binds-Aquinass-Metaphysics/dp/1532647298

For those of you who prefer podcast-style discussions, perhaps as an intro, my friend Athenian recently did a Twitter space on this:

https://twitter.com/Athens_Stranger/status/1768732185178370346

>>1690
>people don't appreciate that in ~2000 years, a lot of relevant intellectual and philosophical ground has already been trodden by thinkers in the Church.
this is precisely why I'm a fatalist on christianity: it's not going anywhere because it has the philosophical network effects and it's actually a very expressive framework with a lot of built up value that you can take or leave. But in turn this means it's not all that constraining either aside from gently pushing us towards virtue and prosociality and away from various stupidity. The real action on the contentious points is in the competition between more constraining particular movements within christian philosophy. (I count Nietzsche and Land for example as being within Christian philosophy, though the dogma ninnies don't like hearing this). Even if modern Christianity is way too far into slave morality and pathological charity towards evil, Christianity as a system is perfectly capable of integrating movements that correct that if they do it well. And if they don't do it well they won't go anywhere anyways.

This is why I'm basically a Christian, despite coming from a radicalized natural law philosophy background. Jesus said his Church would last, and the form I see it lasting in is this Christian philosophical and spiritual tradition around interpretation of the incarnated God-man. I am rather offended by dogma like the Nicene creed and assertions of the divine nature of human institutions like the roman church, but I'm under no obligation to listen to their whining.

>>1690
>My own relationship to Christianity is on the rocks (see discussions in other threads regarding whether Christianity is to blame for wokeness) and I could use reasons to not to abandon all hope for it.
Remember anon, we philosophers are not trapped in here with them, they're trapped in here with us.

>>1682
>This idea has a whole system of implications for us that has not been taken seriously for some reason

I took This Idea seriously by quietly contemplating it for a few months as it related to muh personal interests. YMMV anons, but testing the hypotheses I got out of that slingshotted me into the most productive and joyous period of self-becoming I've ever had.

To me, the success is a striking endorsement. At the level of the individual, real philosophical truth bins out in legit virtue alignment and transcendental becoming. So judge whatever pet theory or system you have by what it gives you when you actually apply it to yourself. If it works, share it with others (thanks for doing just that, admin) and the success will start to weave between people in a combinatorially explosive way.

> One of my big ambitions is to launch a whole philosophical movement out of this idea (and some others)
I'd happily contribute serious work if you did a call for submissions, and I'd guess many others would too. But a Paul Erdős style sequence of travel collaborations in a van might even be more effective.

>>1738
>Paul Erdős style sequence of travel collaborations in a van might even be more effective.
Well as it happens my erdos-style grand philosophy collaboration tour launches in a few weeks. If I'm not already scheduled to visit you and you're in the continental US, hit me up and i'll see whether a visit is in order.

> related to muh personal interests. YMMV anons, but testing the hypotheses I got out of that slingshotted me into the most productive and joyous period of self-becoming I've ever had.
I am curious then to hear more of your interpretation of the idea and how it cashed out into action and orientation for you.

>>1741
>I am curious then to hear more of your interpretation of the idea and how it cashed out into action and orientation for you.

“...those who take for their standard anyone but nature—the mistress of all masters—weary themselves in vain.” - Leonardo da Vinci

I'll be as concise as I can. Begin with the observation that things made in accordance with natural law are beautiful, and those that aren't are ugly. Standing by this statement requires a leap of faith because the current conception of beauty is heavily co-opted. The pursuit of creation of beauty is then pursuit of creation in accordance with natural law. To the extent you succeed, you and yours will see Abrahamic rewards*. For example, one reason beauty has Abrahamic utility is because it draws people in. Even if they're corrupted by Reddit-tier aesthetic standards, they can't help it. I always think of tourism industries centered on religious monuments such as cathedrals, 'I fucking love science but damn, just look at this thing'.

My general strategy amounts to using This Idea plus the unity of God with the transcendentals (h/t CCC) to OODA. In other words, pursuit of Beauty, Truth, or Goodness will result in Abrahamic rewards. If you try for a while and you're not getting any, you're either (a) misunderstanding whatever transcendental you're focused on or (b) caught up in some small turbulence in the order of things and 'this too shall pass'. I haven't given much explicit thought to the other two transcendentals (beauty is muh aforementioned personal interest), but I guarantee there's fruit to be found with respect to ascertaining different flavors of right action there as well.

On a sort of meta strategic level, I think a good program is to extend the applicability of This Idea using related conclusions from diverse traditions of knowledge. Any tradition of knowledge worth its salt has a few real gems and a lot to say on the topic.

*There will always be spatiotemporally local fluctuations where e.g. people like Pollock make much slavecoin and are widely acclaimed by professional art critics, but it's fugazi and Abrahamic rewards are usually doled out on the scale of centuries not decades.

>>1748
Glorious. Right on. With respect to the other transcendentals, I've recently been thinking the way we should launch this philosophical movement is radicalizing around the natural law ("The Idea") operationalization of Truth. Beauty is very charismatic, but it doesn't have the same *authority* that Truth has these days. Truth is something where if you go extreme on it, can demonstrate your claims, and can survive the inevitable persecution, you win. And Truth these days is left out in the cold by our regime of lies. It is missing only a solid post-modern philosophical foundation to make its Odyssean homecoming. Beauty pulls you in and knows what's right, but is powerless against the suitors. It is Truth that is armed with absolute conviction and an invincible fortress of righteous authority. It's the perfect home base and banner. "The Good" is corrupted beyond all recognition these days, so we will have to reconstruct it from the other two once the dust settles.