In Obscuris Lux

Or- In Darkness, Light
A preface: this is my second foray into full philosophy, the first being Why Capitalism? This article was inspired not by any particular topical event, but only my recent studies of pre-Socratic philosophy. Therefore, I await its reaction with a strange unease, as I have written it with an almost vicious streak. With this I hoped to give a lightning tour of the argument- as Nietzsche would put it, to philosophise with a hammer. Therefore, I present In Obscuris Lux.

This essay is primarily primed for those who are called “fundamentalists”; I have little quarrel with those who believe in a god, yet have a doubt in that opinion- for that shows that it is by their independent reason and logic they have come to their present state of mind. What I rally against here is those who give up their reason, and place their mind and in-fact their entire nature and existence, in the grasp of some other. This is something I decry, as it is not often that this is the result of voluntary action- that is, someone could ethically sell themselves if it was by their full and independent consent.

Therefore, I see this fundamentalism as a form of slavery, and it is often in the times of the greatest weakness that it strikes. Observe the most common cases of when persons start associating themselves with religion. It is often during childhood; but to take a more adult case, there are those who are the so-called ‘born-again Christians’. And I posit that those of this denomination often turn to this devotion during weakness- after alcoholism, after sadness or rejection, or even after near-death. For it is forever the case that something when strong moves little, and is thus indestructible; and it is when one degrades or is shocked, as in the cases outlined before, that one truly and fundamentally is able to change. I emphasise those qualifications because a change of opinion is different to a change of devotion- for often when one changes an opinion, it is when a new case arises which voids the prior logic and reason- and thus to criticise this kind of change would be utterly hypocritical, I being no different from others that I once held opinions and feelings which I do not hold now.

It is in this that this philosophy- which is, to quote Islamic literalist Ayman Zawahiri: “[we] believe in our religion, both as an ideology and practise!”- so vile, so despicable and slavish. It prays on those who are weak or sick, or even those who have a will-in-the-making: our children. Children are like those who first followed these Prophets- dependent on these men to reveal to them the truth, rather discover it themselves.

To attack the core of fundamentalism, and I speak of it in the more Christian context, we must look at the origins of it as a movement; which are, that it was one rooted in anti-clericalism, and two in the birth of the Anglican, Rome-independent church, which during the upheaval of the Commonwealth of England and the Protectorate sparked a radicalism which manifested in many forms. One positive form was Quakerism, that Religious Society of Friends- a school which I share many thoughts with, which would make me a Non-Theist Friend. It is in this openness, which is almost Eastern rather than tyrannical and Abrahamic, that I find a joy. The ultimate root of what is called Evangelicalism is that the Church was considered corrupt, and that therefore faith should be placed in a literal interpretation of the Bible and Gospel. Therefore, the real idea of a Theocracy reared its head, which had not taken place for many centuries, not since the founding of the Church of Rome, with its political and pragmatic uses at the heart of its power and direction, especially under the corrupt Borgia family. Not only is this idea dangerous, but it is also logically false, as I shall outline. We must look historically, as any theology or school which deliberately interprets literally must answer the same questions and look at the same arguments as those who composed the texts themselves.

The origin lies in the teaching schools of the Hellenic world, especially those pre-Socratic so-called Atomist and Epicurean schools. Although confusing now, due to the nomenclature being used concurrently in scientific physics- such as motion, atoms, et cetera- the debate uniformly centred on the nature of the universe. The materialist, Atomist, view was that the universe and all matter was constructed of indivisible units called atoms, and that all things were made up of either atoms or void. The very fact that this idea made existence all important, and the idea that things have always existed, always will and cannot be ‘created’ or ‘destroyed’, void being a state of nothingness, meant that the idea of a creator became logically absurd. It was the rival, metaphysical, Aristotelian and Platonic view, that the universe was created. Indeed by admitting that the universe was created, meant that there must instinctively and intuitively be a creator. This, however, appealed to Socrates and his students, who have since become the face of ancient Greek philosophy. Thus, when it came to the formation of Christianity, no doubt this had a great influence, such was the power of the Socratic and metaphysical thinkers, who too influenced Rome.

However, now that the entire physics behind the anti-Atomists has been proven wrong, that there are no basic elements, that energy cannot be created nor can it be destroyed, and that the universe did not have a ‘beginning’ (in that the universe did not suddenly come into being as it is, that it expanded and was summoned from a singular point in the Big Bang, and thus whatever expanded exponentially must too have existed before in its previous form), and that ultimately everything is made up of singular units called Atoms, then surely the entire logic behind a creator falls down, and surely what was prophecy is now revealed as madness? Surely then, it is the materialists who have been proven right, and it is their arguments who we should re-examine. In-fact, the similarity behind the current ‘atheist’ philosophy and that of the ancient Atomists isn’t all too different.

Nietzsche believed that the world had taken a wrong course when it had caught the winds of Socrates’ thoughts, and that all this led to the creation of Christianity- for it is true that Christianity is a mesh of thoughts and ideas, and that it is not coherent, and that it is certainly not unique, as is proven with the similarities with the Roman cult of Mithras. Therefore, let us look at the current and contemporary trends with an Epicurean bent. To take an example, let us examine the rejection of geology, carbon dating, palaeontology and indeed cosmology in their Young Earth Theory. They posit, just as with almost every other conflict, that the lack of evidence to support them is in itself not a barrier to their theory. However, how is the lack of something a something? How is void in itself an atom?

It is a truth that the Universe runs on a single law- one thing having something, and another not having such a thing. I say that it is a single law, that it is a single thing, because the secondary is a nothing, and is therefore the opposite of a thing, of a something. Indeed, only in thought, which is in itself a non-physical thing, does a nothing exist. A true nothing would be unperceivable, as our senses would not be able to detect it. Indeed, how is anything super-natural even able to be sensed? For the senses are the faculties- the conduits of data to the brain and consciousness. Therefore, how can anything ultra-natural or beyond-nature even be perceivable? The answer is- that it cannot be, as it would violate the principles of the human physiology and chemistry. Indeed, the only place it can exist is in the mind itself, and often this is a souring of the senses by a chemical, by a something, by a hormone, by a fear. Therefore, anything supernatural cannot be truly sensed, and anything thought to be sensed is but an invention of the mind, then how could we even perceive the Christian God? Isn’t he beyond our very faculties to comprehend? Thus we must come to the conclusion that everything is material, and that metaphysics is but a branch of the psyche. I elaborate on this because the fundamentalists break all these laws, and they step on them and think of their inventions as things beyond us, when they are in-fact products of themselves. Imagine if someone said suddenly that in darkness they could find light. One would laugh at such a madman, as darkness is the absence of light. But similarly imagine a man saying that the lack of evidence disproving something was in itself a qualification to ignore every piece of evidence against him, once again one would not think this person stable or reasonable to any degree. But then imagine that a man said “There is no proof God doesn’t exist, therefore I see no reason why I shouldn’t believe in him”- and this would be acceptable. But, how is this acceptable? And once more, how is this acceptable when the very roots of the arguments they accept literally have been proven to be wrong? Surely this leads this man to actually be saying “I interpret my holy book literally for no other reason than to comfort myself, and to stop any re-interpretation which would distort my comfort”. But surely, wouldn’t placing a literal interpretation in the hands of ones’ leaders result in not a soft, malleable, pragmatic sceptre, but a rule of law and doctrine which is iron and in-fact intrinsically cruel? Surely then they do not escape the perversion of pragmatic rulers, and in-fact hand such men- who have always and will always exist so long as power tempts man in any degree- a power which would corrupt them absolutely, even though it is to escape the corruption of the present, it would simply be an older and blinder corruption. How then, can there be darkness in this light? How can from nothing be something? How could there be creation from nothing, how can there be void and then atoms? How can there be from the immaterial material?

It seems to me that it lives in a small world, this philosophy, where the internal and external contradictions are ignored and repressed. ‘Fundamentalism’, to me, seems in practice to be a synonym of Isolationism, of Regression and of Fear. It is the reaction of a religious intellectual group which saw its systems failing and being exploited, and even seeing their hold on society slipping and ripping. Thus why they must ruin the tradition of the past few centuries since Newton, wherein Theologians have deliberately reconciled with Science. Now, they reject it, and in the process embitter the world. All arguments of this nature are, by virtue of their proof, argumentum ad ignorantiam, as they ignore or even translate all data to their own means. Let us demonstrate an example- one position of the Young Earth Theory is that the Christian God placed the fossils on Earth which contradict the very basis of the theory. This is an equivalent to a conclusively proven form of madness suddenly being taken as a form of sanity, however strange.


The very fact that the central ideology makes such demands of logic, of reason, of imagination, of ignorance, and of regression in order to support its central tenants shows its utterly flawed nature; as it is the case, that any ideology is flawed when it cannot operate on the most basic level within Occam’s Razor. Let us take an example, that of Free Market Economics for example. The central and simplest tenant can be summed as ‘Competition is beneficial’. This can be used in almost every challenge against the ideology- for example, if the government made it law that everyone owns the same car, or set-up and maintained a subsidised and cartel-esque car firm which fulfilled this function. In any analysis of the idea, from the proposition, to the implementation, to the results and denouement, the central and simplest tenant can be applied to argue against it and answer any situation. It does not demand leaps of logic intrinsically, nor does it appeal to ignorance. If it so happened that the idea was successful, even still proponents could point to the even more successful companies abroad. The burden of proof always rests with the expounder of the opinion, never with the opponents.

It is my opinion that this shifting of burdens, and of this appeal to ignorance, shows that it is a sick ideology- that is, that it is ill and dying. Just as those who flee to her in their weakness, this old rabble-rouser has seen the last of its green days- and all they can do is protest, isolate themselves from contact, and deny, simply to preserve their way of life; because, just as the old statists and tyrants knew, that as soon as a challenge against them succeeded, or people started not turning their ears to them at the first resort and more to individuals, then that was the weakening of their rule. And what results from the enforcing that usually follows, of the iron attack? Revolution- and this time, those religious men do not have the power they desire over law, and only over individuals. Yet, this revolution is coming, or is even happening- and we will revolve once more, we shall go back to the Pre-Socratic, Pagan, individual way, where it is just Schools of Thought, and the whether one believes in the Gods or Creators will be a much more pragmatic manner. Perhaps we shall even head back into the depths of Theology afterwards, and begin the cycle of history once more…but not after a true materialist individualist culture has its day. And then, perhaps the men will rise, like I, who see man’s selfishness and ego more as motivations and encouraging of acts which before seemed difficult; godlike; selfless- when in-fact they are nothing of the sort. Men shall arise who see every problem as conquerable, as selfish, as winnable, as human, and they will perhaps in-fact be supermen, just as Nietzsche envisioned- but because they will be beyond that man who came before, who was beaten and restricted by his ignorance of his own nature. They will be comprehensible to us, they will not be supermen- they will simply be Men. The barrier between us and them is that we still look at things through the same squint and restriction of perspective- we act much as we used to, although we may think different. And that realm of thought is that place where progress takes place, and where soon it shall invade into action. It is only in the mind- or from things resulting from the mind- that contradictions can happen; they do not extend to the physical world as such. It is when we believe they do, and when they can, that we start inventing our own reality, and start looking through the world through our own self-fashioned imperfect lens. There will be no fundamentalism of any form- no faith, only freedom to act how one thinks, and in that universe there will be room for all- those who are godfearing, those who are not, and those who are possibly something else.

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You’re currently reading “In Obscuris Lux,” an entry on …Some Thoughts, by R.J. Croton

Published:
November 1, 2008 / 6:30 pm
Category:
Analysis, Atheism, Atomism, Comment, Creationism, Future, Materialism, Philosophy, Politics, Pre-Socratic, Radicalism, Religion, Uncategorized
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