Miscellany - Conservative Values

CONSERVATISM: The Conservative position is consistent with appreciation that there is no heaven in materialism or on earth, but only a right and opportunity to pursue meaningful fulfillment and communication by exchanging signs in the empirical language of materialism. Collectivists are impatient with such a position, and believe there is no heaven hereafter, but that a worthwhile substitute could be fashioned of material on earth if only Conservatives did not stand in the way and were more accepting of elitist interpretations of “science.” Collectivists believe that what we communicate in signs of matter is far less important than that material goods be distributed “equally.”



All Collectivists’ sciences of political, social, and economic character are balanced on a single improvable axiom, which they take on faith as true: that all that is meaningful and worthwhile is and should be reducible to purely materialist interpretation. Most Conservatives of practical experience know: that axiom has oft led to bitter depravities against human beings on massive scales.


Even when Collectivists disavow Christianity, their views tend to be based on Christian tenets as seen through only a materialist lens. The difference is this: Conservative Christians do not view Jesus’ words through only a materialist lens.


So Conservatives tend to be adults who have considerable but imperfect experience being responsible, while Collectivists tend to be their overly protected and poorly raised children -- always and forever knowing so much that simply is not so. Of course, anyone who knows so much based on so little experience tends to become only a habituated and incorrigible whelp – even into old age.


Unfortunately, we have lovingly raised whelps to irresponsible heights. Now they have coalesced, to a height for breaking all dams of caution and responsibility. Unless Conservatives reassert adult supervision, the deluge cometh … soon.


In short, Conservatives wish NOT to impose “Dominionism” or theocracy (or faux-elitist science-ocracy). We wish not to impose anything, except only to inspire, check, and defend this: that better aspects of our character should teach and motivate us to protect our society from unwise, meddlesome, governmental intrusions – whether in good faith or not. We do not wish unwarranted dominion over others, but only warranted dominion over ourselves.


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SOCIALIST CONSPIRACY: From A.T. -- Re: "In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk."


Astonishing! How easy it is to be a tyrant and yet dream oneself as "good." It's the difference between being satisfied to serve God versus wanting to be God; it's the difference between day and night. It's the allying between deceivers and the easily deceived in order to reduce decent, ordinary people to the whims of despots. No wonder this information never sees the light of day in most of the propaganda put out by modern institutions of "education."


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SOCIALIST WAR: At a level above most participants’ heads, there is a three-sided, meta WAR. Within its three sides, troops consist of: SIDE ONE: Americans (in their hearts) -- people dedicated to preserving individual freedom of conscience, expression, and enterprise; SIDE TWO: Anti-Americans -- people dedicated to statist oversight and collectivist solutions in all things; and SIDE THREE: Faith Enforcers -- people dedicated to subjugating us in all things to the control of a hierarchy of earthly stand-ins for God. Obviously, Sides Two and Three align for reducing individual dignity and initiative, and they appeal to persons who do not value or want individual freedom or the responsibility that goes with it. That is, their base of appeal is to voters who consist of: hyphenated minorities; mal-educated youth; border jumpers; character-challenged law breakers; easily-bribed entitlement mongers; and those who sense opportunity in molding such a base of disloyal, otherwise unassimilated derelicts.


So how does one become inclined or molded to any one of these three sides? I suspect people above the norm -- in talent, empathy, intuition, insight, inventiveness, creativity, initiative, or energy -- incline to Side One, at least for themselves. However, they may falsely profess admiration for Sides Two or Three, if they calculate that will leverage their own positions. In other words, gliding within the three-sided mix are creatures of little loyalty to any belief system or set of moral principles, apart from their own aggrandizement, who take on whatever ideological shape (shape shifters, such as Stupak) they perceive to be most advantageous under any given circumstances.


Perhaps the only way a society can protect against such amoral opportunists is to try to inculcate them with a spiritual or religious sense of empathy for fellows of their country, tribe, creed, or cult. One can try to do that by appealing to reason or by deploying brute behavioral conditioning. Unfortunately, trying to apply material-based reasoning to spiritual-based morality is a dicey proposition. Simply put, our philosophers, scientists, artists, and theologians are not yet that enlightened. So the default strategy, throughout history, has been to deploy force of conditioning – to bend us to say “Uncle” to despots. This is done with carrots and sticks, wielded by powers that be. Such carrots and sticks are applied to all things: economic favoritism, physical policing, and mind melding, aka, “education.”


I suspect there IS a higher way to apply reason to morality. But finding that way is tough slogging. Especially in the face of “education” that is driven to serve Sides Two and Three. But if we fail to find that way, or AT LEAST to preserve respect for the possibility, then I do not think Side One has much chance to be long for this world.


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Every carrot and stick Obamanots deploy is calculated to push us towards Collectivism. And a lot of the carrots are in the vein of: don't cross me and I'll loosen my choke cutting off blood to your veins (or water to your California fields). These people will, when they see the opportunity, move to put the choke on lifelines. Leave it to Chicago thugs to remind us why control is so valuable. Worldwide, we are seeing territories syndicated out to local ruling thugs: Russia; Iran; now the U.S. ...

These people will do neither good nor evil, except that they will readily do either or both in order to enhance the control and survival of their international crime syndicated corporations.


Regarding (1) private Capitalism with charity versus (2) governmental Collectivism with enforced wealth spreading: Were we more united in good faith and good will, could either work as well as the other?

No! If force were used, it would be because force was required. By definition, force is not required for charity. By historical experience with the human element, both organized collectivism and organized crime spread poverty and misery, not wealth and health. Ordinary people of good will have wrongly projected, believing sociopaths who have flourished in depravities of Chicago, San Francisco, and Las Vegas are also people of good will. Big mistake.

Were we a nation not filled with zombies, I would not fear a health bill so much. With this regime of zombies (Olbermann!), however, I fear anything they do. Everything they do is to serve unseen masters. It has to be, because they don't give a Twinkie about what the ordinary Americans who have fought to defend freedom think.

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NATIONAL DEBT: The Legislative tsunami of debt that we are seeing is not intended to improve the lives of ordinary people, but to reduce the influence of the middle and professional class to nil. Obama is happy because misery loves company, and his constituency of derelicts love to be miserable. The Oligarchs are using classic pincer tactics: appeal to the ignorant with cheap entitlement promises, and appeal to conservatives with false notions of free trade for bleeding American infrastructure and industrial capability. Classic propaganda against the ignorant and the wannabes.

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OBAMACARE: Three things: Make health insurance (1) portable and (2) competitive across state lines and (3) protect it from trumped up malpractice claims. Then simply continue to require E.R.'s to provide emergency kinds of care. End of any legitimate Fed interest. Why was this not done? Because power mongers and their front men want to "change" America. That is, they want to cannibalize America and sell it off for change. Ca-ching. They're allowing petty looters to run wild so they can engage in big time looting behind the curtain. They see your pain the same way malpractice attorneys do: as opportunity for big bucks. In their minds, America is evil. So why not make some big bucks while pushing her face in the mud?

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Congress: The Hollow Men -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KvkJdcmqek

More like a Declaration of Volunteering for Slavery. There is neither “free enterprise” nor “social justice” when an economic and social system allows an international wolfpack of alpha billionaires to come to employ faux-men to finagle the laws of each State in order to fashion harnesses (for those who are to be lured to vote for their own enslavement to perpetual shearing) by overtaking all available institutions for propagating false premises and cynical promises.

Rather, there is treasonous and tyrannical reduction of the dignity of the mass of humanity. So, now we are left to fuss over our places in the shearing line. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! So Sorosed the Nance and the Obey.

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FAUX SCIENCE OF SOCIALISTS: In communicating and assimilating about that which we "should" be doing, I don't think we get very far by restricting ourselves to only that which can be empirically or logically demonstrated. Do not our fundamental notions about economic, law-abiding, and moral behavior turn largely on notions of "free will?" How much of economics and law are based on what “should” be expected of an (imagined) ordinary consumer or reasonable man, as guided by an Invisible Hand, Categorical Imperative, or higher Author of moral sentiments? Does not free will turn largely on intuition, insight, empathy, and acculturated taste? After all, how many significant, day to day decisions does anyone really make based to any considerable extent on "the scientific method?" Don't we instead tinker, to see what tends to get rewarded, and then rationalize backwards, after the fact? So, what guides our tinkering?


We often deem it advisable to reduce our receptivity to guidance about moral choices availed within Beingness through various lenses -- sometimes rather narrow lenses or “schools,” such as schools for Marxism, empiricism, or such formulas as may generally be exposited by elites. It often becomes practical for one to favor one school over others. But for government to force a single school on an entire populace is despotic.


The West may not yet have become despotic, but free interchange of ideas among various schools of thought has been largely eroded and monopolized. The upshot is that minds of coming generations are not filled with force-fed ideas that are wrong-headed, but with monopoly-fed ideas that are wrong-headed. The very Marxists who hate private manufacturing monopolies have fashioned for us a Marxist, government-run monopoly on the interchange of information, moral opinions, and ideologies in nearly all our educational institutions – all the way from pre-school through post doc. If this is not despotic, it is a virtual twin.


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RECIPE FOR REDUCING WORLD TO FAUX SOCIALISM:


FROM A.T. --- Well, Hoven's predictions follow a recipe -- Recipe For Reducing World To Mushroom Smurfs:


1) Join with those who forsake all ethics, to trade for power to intimidate and control all others.


2) Recruit, and establish a network of, criminal minded abettors.


3) Among elite abettors who otherwise may be uncomfortable with the morality of your efforts, promote faux-philosophies of ethics, science, and economics that make it easier to rationalize the imposition of worldwide serfdom.


4) Falsely promise the poor with redistribution of wealth from the rich, while intending all along simply to reduce the middle class.


5) Misdirect the middle class to believe they are being prepped for fairness, not serfdom.


6) Stir up internal discontent, division, and dis-assimilation among all except one’s morally compromised cohort.


7) Propagate distrust of traditional authorities and values, and back such distrust up with “progressive science.”


8) Become a better actor than actors: adopt a cynical, sincere, flattering, deceitful, ambiguous demeanor, which can be all things to all people and never pinned down until after each step necessary to establish control has been achieved.


9) Aggrandize control over fellow actors, media, and academia, and use such control to establish a formidable political base, by hoodwinking the youthful, needy, gullible, cheaply corrupted, and ignorant.


10) Consolidate power by acquiring means to control and distribute fiat money, to use to bribe serfs with treasury promises, which are to be paid for by mortgaging serfs’ futures. IOW, help the little people by giving them shovels to dig their own graves.


11) Use such mortgages to dole out bonuses to criminal-minded abettors.


12) Join internationalist corporatists bent on undermining the boundaries of every nation that promotes individual liberty.


13) Continue thereafter to nurture populations like mushrooms: in the dark, and fed with b.s.


14) Serve with a cold, no drama heart.


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LIKELIHOOD OF REELECTING OBAMA: I would like to think that Obama's foreign adventures will bring him down. But I doubt they will. There is a perverse, wilful ignorance that controls many liberals' brains, to such a point that they believe it ony fair that other nations should be entitled to have nukes. Since, after all, America has nukes. So Obama's base will necessarily be quick to forsake Israel. They won't admit to a lack of principle or courage. They will instead rationalize that it is Israel's fault. Indeed, if Whackjob demanded, they would find reason to surrender their mothers. So they won't care that Iran acquires or spreads nukes. And Iran will be smart enough to wait until Obama is reelected before Whackjob engages in gross adventurism. The cold factions that control the Dem base do not have the moral fiber to stop America's decline, even if they had the desire (which they do not). So we are not going to get free of Obamanism by his base suddenly finding its senses. We are going to have to depose the Obamaknots notwithstanding their base. To get the will to do that, we are going to have to see more clearly what is at stake. And I don't think enough of us yet see. Regardless, we need to stay cool, alert, rational, committed ... and ready.

THE OBAMA ZONE: Speaking of The Obama Zone, we sure do love that Obama! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfGWvexg90w


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Obama appeals to the worst in people, i.e., the willingness to steal from others. Once this base is assimilated into a monolith, what will appeal to it will be corruption, not reason or virtue. Some think it an exaggeration to believe Obama will not take whatever steps he perceives to be necessary or feasible to enlarge his base. They are about as wrong as they could be!


Obama's base consists of: hyphenated people who do not want to be considered simply as Americans, not until America is turned upside down; felons; border jumpers; misled youth; and sell outs. Now, consider the kind of person or party that makes it a point to appeal to that kind of base: Would such people hesitate to use any means to achieve their ends, if they calculated they could get away with it? Not on your life! To any clear headed thinker, the stakes we face are just about as high as they can get.


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RETURN TO CONSERVATIVE VALUES:


FROM A.T.-- Re: "What is needed is not a return to Christianity but a return to capitalism."


Well, how will we convince the DCPD, i.e., Derelict Coalition of Parasitic Dems (entitlement mongers, border jumpers, and law-obedience challenged), that they "should" do any such a thing? If you're happy surrendering responsibility to the collective, and you have not undertaken to support any dependents of your own, then why "should" you change -- even if those adults who nourish you do become poorer? Until working adults are as poor as you and have no more wool to be shorn, then you can always just agitate for more. After all, what parasite leaves its host until it is dead?


So how is a mere appeal to capitalism going to prevent or cure those grown accustomed to the parasitic life? I don't think a return to fundamentalism is especially needed. But more respect for those who strive to be decent agents of the "body of God" would help. I doubt we will be able to preserve or defend decent society if we persist much longer in disrespecting those who advocate that there is a Source that encourages us to be decent. In disrespecting the good will of good faith believers, we are burying ourselves. No doubt, Marxists are happy to help bury every decent faith. Why do you suppose that it?


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RETURN TO TRADITIONAL CONSERVATIVE VALUES:


FROM A.T. -- Gleend1 noted, " This does not mean a 'return' to Christianity is the answer. One of the prime reasons that the cause of liberty has been able to be defeated by these charlatans is because of conservative's positioning Judeo-Christianity as core to being free, which simply isn't true. Classical liberalism arose in opposition to the authoritarian political structures of religion and the aristocracy. It's principles are independent of Christianity. If those who defend liberty would set aside their imposition of religious values into this debate, and simply rely on Natural Rights and liberty, the argument would be much more compelling. Whether conservatives like it or not, many Americans aren't in agreement about the evangelical/fundamentalist view of Christianity (a 20% minority of the population). This risks the cause of liberty, which has much broader political support."


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Well, how much of the struggle against Christianity is really necessary to protect against "Christian abuses?" Why presume, if Christianity as it is taught seems antithetical to reason or science, that Christianity cannot grow in its moral interpretations, just as science has grown in its empirical interpretations? If you do not want Christians going to churches to reinforce non-government imposed community good-will, where "should" they go? To the Church of Scientific Morality?


For every biblical overstep in the empirical sciences, I suspect there has been a militant, human-secularist overstep in philosophy and the humanities. How often do scientists purport to know better than everyone else, and then end up being shown to have known things that just weren't so? Did not the French revolution center on the cause of liberty independent of Christianity? I'm not sure that worked out so well.


At a time when American values are dis-assimilating and multi culti is running rampant, it seems to me that atheists' fixations on reducing and cornering Christianity are a bit misdirecting and counterproductive.


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LIVING WORD: From A.T. – Thunderthudd noted, "And Jesus answered, "Seek not the law in your scriptures, for the law is life, whereas the scripture is dead. I tell you truly, Moses received not his laws from God in writing, but through the living Word. The law is living Word of living God to living prophets for living men. In everything that is life is the law written. You find it in the grass, in the tree, in the river, in the mountain, in the birds of heaven, in the fishes of the sea; but seek it chiefly in yourselves."


Re: the living Word (or living information) -- My working hypothesis or notion is that matter, ultimately, is "nothing but" stored Information, i.e., byproduct of shared feedback and intercommunications among our perspectives of consciousness, between ourselves and a holistic Reconciler. Seems to make as much sense about Reality as the "nothing buttery" notion of materialists (that everything is reducible to nothing but stored Energy).


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EDUCATIONAL DISADVANTAGES OF HISPANIC MINORITIES: Has anyone considered whether the problem is related to cultural disinclination to excel above family or to assimilate as un-hyphenated Americans?


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ISLAMOFASCISM: Although there have been ruthless Christian inquisitors in bygone eras, I don't see many of the modern world being abused because of Christian chauvinism. (I don't view proclivities of priests for finding cover for abuses of pedophilia to be part of Christian doctrine; those people would be abusive regardless of chosen trade.) But I do see a frightful amount of abuse that is actively and explicitly encouraged under Islamic doctrine and practice: beheadings, terror, women treated as second class citizens, primitive sex disfigurings, utter contempt for freedom of thought. On the other hand, I do see a lot of people being helped because of Christian charity and assistance. Certainly, a lot more than are helped by Marxist run charities or by governments run aground under socialism or "scientific management by elites." Lol.


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CHRISTIAN VALUES: FROM A.T. -- Re: "I'll start believing that Judeo-Christian values are better than my own once the Church lets my Mom receive communion for divorcing, when priests stop feeling the need to sodomize and destroy children, when the church stops trying to get me to pay 'tithings' (taxes) based on her income, and those that choose to believe act like people like me 'owe them a debt' simply because they go to church, as this article seems to imply."


Well, it is likely that most of your better values ARE little different from Judeo-Christian values. Insofar as your values are largely the same, it's no good to think yours are better. You are confusing or neglecting two aspects. First, an organization is not a particular person, and values speak to persons. Second, without instruction in values, why expect people would be better? Religion is not a substitute for values. But when approached in good faith and good will, it can enhance values.


Obviously, when religion is approached in bad faith and twisted to facilitate corrupt pleasures, organized religion, like any other niche, can attract predators. Predators come to where the prey are. But so long as the goal is pursuit of empathetic fulfillment, in that pursuit, God is not defective; rather, it is we who often fall short, both individually and in the shallow purposes for which we organize.


Organized religion may be like a parent. Some are usually good; some are often bad. For children, this is cause for angst. As children grow and somehow remain receptive to a higher good, they have a better chance to find ways to avoid or defeat predators ... and to try not to become corrupt predators themselves.


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VALUES OF MILITANT ATHEISTS:


FROM A.T. -- antihumanist said, "Over the past 50 or so years, simple secularism has transformed into a full-fledged humanistic rejection of all things religious."


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Yes! Militant atheists seem to have taken over the atheistic agenda, much as welfare statists have taken over the Democrat party. (I was listening to M. Medved on the way home tonight. In gist, he thought it moronic to consider those who are trying to change America into a welfare state like Canada as being evil. That has a superficial appeal. What he failed to note is that Dems, contrary to a large opposing majority and their own constituencies, are FORCING such a welfare state upon us. That, IMHO, is evil, and I see no likely end to that evil forcing anytime soon. IMO, militant atheists may as well be working hand in glove with Dem radicals.)

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EMPATHETIC GOD:

FROM A.T. -- Sg noted, "Have you heard CS Lewis' trilemma? And if the truth has an intrinsic value, we should ask are Christians following a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. This should come before we accept its benefits on society."

Well, there may be good arguments for Christianity, and C.S. Lewis was brilliant, but I have never apprehended how the trilemma is much help for a reasoning soul. I suggest this without needing to commit to whether Jesus was an historical personage or an amalgamation of ideas. Even were the historical explanation an amalgamation of ideas, the ideas were inspired. So go directly to the trilemma in itself and ask: Is it better considered a quad-(di)lemma? Isn't there a fourth possibility?

Set aside for a moment the issue of whether the person or group of persons who propagated the Christian message were fair minded or competent enough to know the full power of their words, and ask: Don't we every day see a person tell a white lie? If you sensed there is a higher power, and you were dissatisfied with depravities being acted out all around you, and you intuited that many among those depraved persons could be inspired to lead a more decently civilized life by propagating a figurative truth as if it were literal, then would you assist in the propagation? If leader(s) from a time past had already done so, then would you continue the propagation, regardless of whether or not you could know the literal truth?

If the trilemma were a sufficient guide for reasoning, one could use the same technique to ask: Was Mohammed a liar, a lunatic, or a messenger for the Lord. (Well, we each have our notions about that.)


I don't know the answer. But I am safe that “In the beginning was the Word [meaningful symbolism], and the Word was with God [Consciousness], and the Word was God.” John 1:1.

I also think so-called atheists tend to deceive themselves about just how atheistic they really are. Even if they suppose the material physics of our universe is closed to any higher influence from the conscious exercise of free will, they have no way to pierce either the logic of Godel or the material beginning of our universe. Succinctly, if something beyond our notion of matter could account for our beginning, then we have no power to know that such Something is no longer with us. Insofar as IT seeks to guide us, and even atheists try to be guided in their morality by Something, I think they strain too much at a gnat, a gnat they believe supports scientific posturing for hoping to answer all issues with material empiricism, and thereby they pass a camel.

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JCS noted,


"The great flaw in your argument, as well as the flaw in the goals of the elites, is that once they have eliminated Christianity both as a faith and a tradition, they will be left with a society unable to sustain itself. Secularism, as well as atheism are self defeating. The wealth of the world is based on the success of the United States. It is fundamental to understand that Christianity is a Faith, not a social structure. That social structure is merely a by-product of Faith. Look to Europe to see this same transition further down the path."

Yes.
I agree that the way of promoting the Self or the State over the Source of Consciousness is the way to madness and un-sustainability. IMHO.

BTW, when I offered "white lie" as a fourth choice to the trilemma, I should probably have clarified the reason for the "white lie," to explain why it may qualify as a fourth choice. The reason is because such a white lie is less a lie than an aspect of our situation -- that we have no choice but to make judgments about choices and tastes, even in the many areas in which we cannot have knowledge.


That is, it can be hard to "lie" about that which you cannot know. But you can believe, and you can illuminate your belief system with figurative language.

As to being a liar, lunatic, or Son of God, the fourth alternative would be that Jesus (and perhaps many others who have died on a cross or something like a cross for their beliefs or for the purpose of trying to help improve the lot of the rest of us) in fact believed Himself to be a powerful instrument of God (more fully so than others). It is this kind of good faith belief that I would consider a fourth choice, which I would not put under the category of either liar or lunatic.


Bottom line: Regardless, I find it not unreasonable to believe in a God who has illuminated or presented His guidance through vehicles and personages such as Jesus.

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CHRISTIAN CERTAINTY:


Speaking of lumps: Many believers disdain fundamentalist certainty, especially the sawing off heads kind. We don't see God as wanting to micromanage every peccadillo. We prefer the idea of "come, let us reason together;" we appreciate the wonder in that each of us is different, and should be free to be so; we think Something does guide each of us, but that each of us should be encouraged, in good faith, to interpret that Guide for him or her self.

The problem of faith is to avoid being blinded by the light. I think that is better done without asserting that there is no Source of moral light. I don't see the solution as trying to lead people away from faith in a Source of morality. Well, actually, I don't see any "solution." What I see is a decent strategy for coping.


All the best.

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“TIRESOME”: No American should any more be expected or required to decline to assert moral rights and responsibilities (against partial birth abortion, for goodness sakes!) under God than should any American renounce rights and responsibilities under our Declaration of Independence.

However much that may be “tiresome,” such claims should not be renounced under boot of persuasion of any despot – whether the source of despotism be the boot of a priest asserting divine authority over the laity or the boot of a “scientific” elite asserting superior moral knowledge over the general polity.

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CONSCIOUSNESS:


FROM A.T. -- Joeblough said: “I don't wish to take the "human" out of it. My interest is in the consciousness of people ….”

Fair enough. My thought was that consciousness evolves in how and with what forms it communicates. I don’t try to find “soul” restricted to the human form. As I recall, there is an article online (called “the ghost in the machine”?) that fairly dispenses with any argument that tries to attribute some universal constancy to the human form. What it does not dispense with is the problem of consciousness.

“We've barely got a working definition of what conscious is, much less how it works or comes to be.”


“The Atheist and the God Particle” could facilitate movement towards common terminology by which to discuss aspects of consciousness, awareness, and free will.


“For you to say God in this context is, as I indicate above, the natural next thing for a believer to say.”


Indeed. If Consciousness may exist as a cohering field, and is shown potent to function in ways not entirely explicable or reducible to material cause and effect, then why suppose there is potentially a better name that “morally should” be recommended for such a “conscious functionality” than “God?” Why tiptoe?

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Joeblough said: “I won't argue, past pointing out that one can say that with equal justice about anything that happens outside the realm of human choice.”

Well, I agree this much:


For one’s initial (and thus improvable, as well as statistically incalculable) axioms, one may model Reality and Meta Reality in various ways, with no necessary changes or effects on what is measureable, determinable, or replicable under such axioms. For examples: One person may model as if all of apparent Reality is derivative of nothing but relations among physically inanimate potentials for energy; a second person may model as if all of apparent Reality is derivative of artifices for storing information for communication among compatible perspectives operating within a field of pure consciousness.

The initial model need make no difference in the derivative consistency of one’s mathematical measurements of all apparent relations. But there would be one major difference: The first model does not avail an inspiring or consistent notion of free will and moral empathy, but the second model does. If human decency and morality are considered important and real (not mere zombie-fied epiphenomena), then the first model does not facilitate respect for that, but the second does.

In the second model, different varieties of presentations of Matter may (?) even be considered as nothing more than forms of Information that are stored for the potential unlocking by, and accessibility to, those perspectives of consciousness that happen to resonate to share a frequency for being receptive to such information. In this model, the main feedback for consciousness could be considered to exist between each particular perspective of consciousness and the whole field of consciousness, so that each particular perspective is always synchronized with the general field. “Nature” becomes pure mathematics, with only one added ingredient: Consciousness.

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Joeblough indicated:
… I can't tell whether you mean "why" in:

Well, take the “human” out of it. What I mean to ask is: Why is the need for morality implicit in the nature of consciousness? You may say (“just so”): “Well, that is just the way consciousness works.” To which I would ask: How do you get a situation where “that is just the way consciousness works” from dumb particles? Well, as to “self evidence” about that, you’ll get no quarrel from me.

I would add: The aspect of consciousness that allows it to function in that way is what I would term, or believe, to be a (self evident) function of “God.” That function is, as at least so far, not explicable from any cause-effect analysis based on inanimate matter.


Now, you may believe or take it on faith that further study of cause-effect relations will eventually “reduce” the issue. I don’t happen to share that belief, nor do I find any logical reason to share that belief. Further, I think that belief is more corrosive to civilizing values than mine. That I cannot prove. It’s simply my take on history.

Of course, you may say, “Well, history shows great, unreasonable and horrific suffering has been imposed on account of organized religions.” To which I would say: Show me a better civilizing alternative. IOW, but for going through stages of evolving, organized religion, where would we be now, in respect of decent, civilizing values?

Aside from that, there’s a personal, contextual, feedback situation. In a way, our wider context “speaks” to us. Of course, it does not use a voicebox or human language. But your conscious empathy to it leads you to enjoy, suffer through, appreciate, and make moral choices all along the path of your beingness. You won’t get a machine that will be able to enjoy that feedback relationship with beingness. But if you act as if you expect to, and as if there is nothing special or wonderful about consciousness, then it more easily becomes “scientific” to be willing to conduct vast experiments on human beings, does it not? Of course, that is MHO.

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Re: The ubiquity of moral codes such as the Ten Commandments. Well, of course! Insofar as God is implicit in the consciousness of which each of us is but a perspective, why should anyone expect a contrary result? Now, that may discredit any one religion’s claim to the sole path to a relationship with God. But it has no logical way to discredit God him-her-self.

Re: Tired of “God stuff.” Well, some folks happen to think it is a good, decent, civilizing thing to have forums in which to communicate feedback about attitudes of mutual appreciation for our shared beingness within a realm of Consciousness. They don’t find that to be unreasonable or unenlightening. And maybe they resent just a wee bit some of the rampant, chauvinistic, know-it-all-ness of “scientists” now intruding into, reducing, or “walling off” issues of morality, as if “scientific expertise” should make them the better or exclusive stewards of that. Sure, I don’t relish priests being overly intrusive into private affairs. For all the more reason, I don’t relish priests being replaced in that function by elites.

Re: “It just doesn’t help you to build on your knowledge much.” See, that’s the thing. Are you implying science is going to “build on our knowledge” to reduce out to us rubes what is morally best for us?

Re: “Lumping us together”: Amen. Let’s make that motion mutual.


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Joeblough said: “Re: "reducing" things - we may find testable physics/chemistry explanations, we may not.”

Well, I am quite sure we will. I just don’t think what we find will close physics to exclude free will.

“Re: “Lumping us together” – I think you’re agreeing with me. At least I hope so.”


Yes, I agree that give and take between good faith thinkers should be respected, not ad hom lumped together.


COMMENT: Your default position appears to be one of scientific skepticism. That is a vital and admirable trait -- in its proper place. The problem is to appreciate limits of skepticism. In most moral choices, we have no choice but to make choices. There is not time, data, or skill to know to make the “correct” moral choice. There is, however, the matter of acquired taste (or, in your analogy, appreciation of music). Wittgenstein said,


“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Wrong. Whereof one cannot speak, one may endeavor either to make music or noise. Then the question is not who is right, but who shall seek meaning. Wherein lies your muse, there is your meaning. I just happen to spell muse with a capital “M.”

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CHOICE OF AXIOMS: If Consciousness may exist as a cohering field, and is shown potent to function in ways not entirely explicable or reducible to material cause and effect, then why suppose there is potentially a better name that “morally should” be recommended for such a “conscious functionality” (or “functionality of consciousness,” or “feedback author of otherwise undetermined choices”) than “God?”

For one’s initial (and thus improvable, as well as statistically incalculable) axioms, one may model Reality and Meta Reality in various ways, with no necessary changes or effects on what is measureable, determinable, or replicable under such axioms. For examples: One person may model as if all of apparent Reality is derivative of nothing but relations among physically inanimate potentials for energy; a second person may model as if all of apparent Reality is derivative of artifices for storing information for communication among compatible perspectives operating within a field of pure consciousness.

The initial model need make no difference in the derivative consistency of one’s mathematical measurements of all apparent relations. But there would be one major difference: The first model does not avail an inspiring or consistent notion of free will and moral empathy, but the second model does. If human decency and morality are considered important and real (not mere zombie-fied epiphenomena), then the first model does not facilitate respect for that, but the second does.

In the second model, different varieties of presentations of Matter could be considered as nothing more than forms of Information that are stored for the potential unlocking by, and accessibility to, those perspectives of consciousness that happen to resonate to share a frequency for being receptive to such information. In this model, the main feedback for consciousness could be considered to exist between each particular perspective of consciousness and the whole field of consciousness, so that each particular perspective is always synchronized with the general field.

Consider some possible concerns of a skeptic, concerning the potential power of a cluster or number of particular perspectives within an entire field of consciousness: Must not some kinds of laws of Nature limit its power? (Can God create a rock too heavy for him to lift, etc.) Well, suppose a particular perspective were conferred a power of mind suggestion, or telepathy. Would even documented instances of telepathy ever convince a practiced skeptic of any higher power of synchronizing consciousness? No! For at least two reasons:

Firstly, if any such instances of telepathy became observably recurrent on a replicable, statistically predictable basis, it would be attributed not to access to miraculous or higher power, but to a newly evolved sensory faculty. Secondly, a skeptic can always adjust the frame of contextual reference, either by widening or focusing the space-time under consideration, in order to cherry pick to show that, “really,” there is nothing going on but indifferently determined and relatively random coincidence – even if it becomes necessary to imagine many other unseen worlds or un-seeable big bangs.


Thus, no particular perspective could ever, or always, exhibit a superior skill or potential that a skeptic could not interpret, by cherry picking, as if it were either determined or random. Indeed, a skeptic so practiced, habituated, and “enlightened” as to think science can reduce all questions to measurable answers can hardly be expected to do otherwise.