tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post1707161899564945615..comments2024-01-09T15:03:54.986-05:00Comments on Wolf Howling: A Historical Perspective On Religion & Obama's HHS MandateGWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-89741075989503897012012-02-24T17:57:15.209-05:002012-02-24T17:57:15.209-05:00good post... thanks for stopping my my blog, too ...good post... thanks for stopping my my blog, too :)<br /><br />cheers from a conservative Illinois girl gone Galt living in NZLisa G in NZhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02726078658954265756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-78386283391408011372012-02-18T19:00:36.305-05:002012-02-18T19:00:36.305-05:00Liberals tell us a lot about how they think by the...Liberals tell us a lot about how they think by the language they use. I was struck by the frequency with which they make references to 'alienation' and was tracking this down when I ran across a stunningly important observation in an essay by the philosopher R. T. Allen. <br /><br />In short, socialism is the secular reinvention of Gnosticism via the type/anti-type of Marx.<br /><br /><br />Gnoticism teaches that human spirit was God, is now trapped in the evil matierial and only through the sufficient knowledge, can we return to be God. The process of being removed from God is called "alienation", a theme that should be familiar to students of Marx, even as he put a secular interpretation on it. Humanity could return to God when it achieved the perfect socialist condition. The foundational ideas of Gnosticism go back to the time of Plato.<br /><br /><br />"To understand [alienation] we have to go back behind Hegel, the immediate<br />source of Marx's ideas, to Hegel's own ultimate source: viz. Gnosticism.<br />For alienation is the central theme of Gnosticism, along with the<br />saving knowledge of how we became alienated, and from what, and of<br />how we can escape from it. That theme is summarized in the Valentinian<br />formula:<br /><br />'What liberates is the knowledge of who we were, what we became;<br />where we were, whereinto we came; what birth is and what rebirth.'<br /><br />All the Gnostic texts, though they differ in details, declare that we are<br />strangers, aliens, sparks of Light or Spirit trapped in evil matter. They<br />recount the cosmic process whereby the circles of the world have been<br />created, by ignorant or evil creators and not by the Light, and whereby<br />we have become entrapped in the midmost or deepest dungeon. Finally<br />they impart the knowledge needed to escape back to the one Light<br />whence we have come and which is our real home.<br /><br />This is the pattern of thought that Hegel took over. But, rejecting all<br />other-worldliness, he sought to reconcile men to this world, of nature<br />and society, from which they had become estranged. We are the vehicles<br />of a self-creating Geist which, in order to become and to know<br />itself, has gone out into what is most alien to itself—the merely physical<br />world of Newtonian science—and is progressively coming thence to its<br />full self-realization and self-knowledge in and through human life and<br />history. With this knowledge, given by Hegel's own philosophy, man's<br />alienation from the world is in principle, overcome although Geist has<br />not yet fully realized itself in the world.<br /><br />Marx took from Hegel two basic themes of Gnosticism, which Hegel<br />had secularized, and re-interpreted them in his own way: viz. the<br />cosmic drama of a fall into alienation from nature and one's fellow men,<br />and the saving knowledge, Marxism, which explains this and the way<br />out of alienation back to an unalienated existence. But in one central<br />respect Marx did not fully learn the lesson that Hegel had to teach him<br />about modifying ancient Gnosticism.<br /><br />The Gnostic texts state that we are sparks of Light or fragments of<br />Spirit (pneuma), and imply that we are distinct from each other and<br />from the Light or Spirit only because of our fall or seduction into the<br />circles of the world. As we fell through each circle, we were clothed<br />with an outer covering. The return to the Light will be a reversal of that<br />process, so that, as we pass back through each circle we shall strip off<br />each coating. Consequently, but this is never stated, as far as I know, at<br />the end of that process each spark or fragment will cease to be distinct<br />and will merge back into the One Light or Spirit. Hence the End will be<br />the same as the Beginning."<br /><br />From Flew, Marx and Gnosticism, by R.T. Allen, <br />Philosophy Vol 68, No 263, (Jan, 1993), <br />pp. 94-98<br /><br />("Flew" is Antony Flew, 1923-2010, a British philosopher. NB: this paper is behind the paywall at jstor.org.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-87755600726474067842012-02-17T11:57:22.859-05:002012-02-17T11:57:22.859-05:00I must admit, it has been so long since I have rea...<i>I must admit, it has been so long since I have read or heard anyone called a "naif" (Ivanhoe?) that I had to look it up. I was prepared to give Willis kudos if it made sense, but "naif" merely means "naive."</i><br /><br />Oh come on now! A man with a tag for "Geoffrey of Monmouth" in his blog sidebar (bet you'll be using that one a lot!) claims not to know what "faux naif" means? Surely not! Dock that man a couple of intellectual brownie points forthwith! ;)billm99ukhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11652530649924159098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-44290416291264153032012-02-16T07:53:02.844-05:002012-02-16T07:53:02.844-05:00Great post , i've took the liberty to linking ...Great post , i've took the liberty to linking your post.<br />I fear that Obama will use this stand once he gets a second term to "reform" read abolish the Constitution, he'll bring forward something in the kind of "I stoud agains the 'old fashioned'Constitution and the people backed me and voted for me."We need a new 'modern' constitution in this day and age.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02987737871351359966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-1117018618636724692012-02-13T14:12:17.816-05:002012-02-13T14:12:17.816-05:00I agree with Floyd: excellent series of articles. ...I agree with Floyd: excellent series of articles. By taking us back to the difference between the American and French revolutions, you've exposed the powerful forces doing battle.J.P. Travishttp://www.jpattitude.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-1819122800394922552012-02-12T18:12:56.146-05:002012-02-12T18:12:56.146-05:00Excellent. The only thing about all of this which...Excellent. The only thing about all of this which is hard to understand is why so many of my Democratic/Liberal friends are convinced that none of this is true. That the Bishops, and many Catholic faithful, are just stupid/hard headed. They say; "it's just about contraception, what's your problem?' At 7:30 mass when our local priest read the letter from our Bishop, we broke out into applause. Not since Vietnam have I heard a gov't lie constantly and consistently, all the while maintaining a perfectly straight face. The killer is that they all have obvious 'tells' any objective viewer should catch. Yet few seem to catch it... Frankly this is a nightmare, where it is leading is obvious. Solzenitsyn was not only a Chronicler of self conscious, carefully planned evil, sadly, he was also a PROPHET!Floyd Alsbachhttp://alsbach-art.comnoreply@blogger.com