All Wealth is Theft

Open letter to Ludwig Feuerbach

Secular Humanism, claim people are capable of personal fulfillment, while living a meaningful and an ethical life without a higher power, or a supernatural God. Philosophical Materialism states everything in the universe can be understood in terms of mater in motion. The universe, Nature and human communities are natural, thus a part of a tangible process continually unfolding in a never-ending course of natural transformation. The external world is the source of our reflection, understanding and thinking. We often confuse our interpretations of reality for reality. What we know is ultimately through our sensual experiences of material Nature. In the last explication of what we know we are both biological and interpretive creatures. Through our interpretations of Nature, Nature becomes God. People create God out of their imaginations. In our psychological reflection God now is the creator of Nature, and with it people. Thus, we turn the world upside down. (Preface).

Humanism and its twin materialism replace God with Nature as the center of our awe. Because Nature creates humans, humans are animals within a natural environment; human behavior has natural consequences humanism is naturalism. The essence of God is the essence of our cultural definition of our own humanity in a form more perfect than any human can attain. The trinity is a human creation. The rational and analytic side of human reason is God the father. The son is the passionate side capable of love and empathy for others. Reason and passion interact to give us the will to live. Material Nature is dispassionate and real, the father; our shared common humanity is founded on compassion, emotional identification and deep sense of other, the son. Human communities are an interactive part of material Nature. People create the trinity, which in our imaginations become independent of their creators, existing out side of time. We worship our creations as if they created us. Our imaginary creations now have power over us in our fantasy. The clergy gain control over these collective artistic creations and become the political oppressors of the rest of us (1 - 12).

God is our own construction, and has only such power as we assume God to have. We then create a God that is believed to be eternal, all-powerful and flawless. God is fully human, yet everything a human is not, God is a perfect human. Humans are mortal, weak, and we are always making mistakes. Through our imagination we create a God that transcends our flaws. Fear makes God necessary. Fear of death, pain, and stupidity haunts us throughout our lives. We escape fear through faith in God. Fear limits us, and our imagination frees us from these limitations. We can confront and overcome these fears by accepting death, life and uncertainty, or we create an imaginary supernatural being who can do it for us. By accepting life without God, then Nature and our shared humanity becomes the core that welcomes a decisive embrace of life. Through God we transcend the limits of life, and even life itself. We must choose life or God (13 - 15).

The Humanist embraces human life in Nature, without God. The believer in God gains meaning in life through the love of a supreme being that is a perfect realization of their truth and love. This God lifts the disciple out of the everyday life of pain and disappointment. In Christianity wisdom, love and goodness are poised in opposition to pain and death. The perfect virtues of God are logical extensions of our cultural human values. These shared values are part of the cultural views of society and thus help us as a species to survive. The individual can endure only through the consolidated attempt of the public. Even here the uncertain still must be dealt with.

In mistrust God becomes the source of morals. Because any effort, individual or collective, failure is always possible, God is created to guarantee what cannot be guaranteed. We create a God to become not only the creator of our imaginary universe, but the power behind the universe. God is defined as knowing our every need even before we do, and change natural events if we only ask. Our God can correct our mistakes to make sure we continue. Extinction now becomes impossible as long as God wills it. God the creator of a vast universe has no other concern than our individual and collective salvation. To the Humanist, then God becomes the supreme form of Narcissism (16 -32).

People are able to abstract from real experience to develop generalized concepts use to explain experiences. From what was learned from these experiences futures are predicted. Reason and logic learned in the past helps us cope with the future. This is the rational frame of reference we all life with. In our imagination, our God becomes the sources of what we already know from observation and reason. This fantasy becomes the objective frame of reference to replace Nature. The world of mater in motion, stimulus response and learning becomes illusion, and creative illusions become real. Through a belief in God we become separated from ourselves. Our creation creates us, our illusions become real, and the real universe becomes an illusion in our worldview. The life of each individual will someday come to and end, the life of the human species will end, the world will come to an end and even the universe someday will end. The God of our dreams will never end. What is real becomes unreal, and the unreal become real, and eternally perfect. With God we lose sight of the flow of life, and miss the joy of our life as it passes by us (33 – 43).

Everything we love in God, we love in ourselves. Even when I die Nature continues. My passing makes little difference, living on a smaller planet in a remote unspectacular solar system in a minor galaxy in the broad cosmos. God only exists in a personal obsession with my personal existence. God’s one purpose is being consumed with loving thoughts about me as a human. Through God the universe was created only for we humans, me as an individual. My imperfection becomes perfect, I live forever, and I am the center of the universe. “To the Humanist, God becomes the supreme form of Narcissism” (46 – 49).

God is the law, and the law is too rigorous to live by. Thus, we are all lost in sin. Through Grace we are saved. The issue is without God there are no law (sin), and no need for Redemption or Salvation. Without God there is no Law, and thus no need for Redemption or Salvation. To the Humanist ethics is our collective attempt to adapt to our environment. We can learn from our mistakes and try to do better, sin is unnecessary.

Objectivity, reason, logic and science are intellectual tools to understand the external world. Imagination is the creative force of the intellect. Imagination is as important in reason and science as it is in art. Reason stands between stimulus and response. Reason is the fuel of imagination. Reason is the source of understanding. Reason is the raw material for both science and religion. Reason is the origin of our creation of God. God becomes in our imagination reason in its most perfect form. This perfect God is imperfect; we cannot love a God who does not love us. Love and compassion are emotions and not rational thought. We need a second manifestation of God, one of irrational love, mercy, and compassion. We cannot have empathy unless we also know pain. Love requires God to become human to suffer and to die to fully cherish our pain and our fear. God now suffers, and must be unable to escape the fate of humanity, death. The God who is perfect reason abandons the God love. God dies making God imperfect for the sake of imperfect humans. Suffering for others becomes the ultimate in self-denial. God dies for me, which is the ultimate self-manifestation of my self-importance. Yet God does not die and cannot die because in imperfection is perfect. God lives that I may live. What was gained was eternal life the ultimate in the denial of death.

This is where the Humanist takes issue with the Christian, the Christian denial of Nature. Death is natural. I have to come to terms with my own mortality and no longer fear my final death. Death is the final celebration of life, and the Humanist does not need life after death.

What of the Savior being able to forgive us from our sins? However, if the law is no longer an unattainable ideal but a modest codes to live by. If the Law is designed to be a way to be the best person I know how, to better than I would be without it, to be a little better tomorrow than I was yesterday. There are errors in judgment, behavior unworthy of me, but there is no sin to be forgiven of. I can learn from my mistakes. That which God is suppose to for all of humanity, now we the people can learn to do for ourselves. God’s reason is my reason, and God’s love is my love both created by me out of my imagination (50 – 64).

God becomes a reality as a mirror to our own imagination. The mind, reason, emotion are all part of our every day lives. Yet this material of our intellect is what is the true origin of God. We think rational thoughts even when we are alone. We take our experience of the external world and think about them. In thinking we turn inward. The world we create in our minds appears as real as the world the remains independent of our lives. The Jew has a special personal relationship with Yahweh the God of the chosen. Yahweh talks to the Jews on a personal horizon. The Christian has only the God of everyone. God the father is a hard God to love. He is cold and distant. He is rational and uncaring. He can offer me nothing I already except what I already have. Reason is born from my intellect and life is born from Nature. What I need is love. Christ becomes necessary to express love in its perfect form. Love is irrational passion. Emotion focused on another. Christ because he loves is alive in human affairs. Christ cares deeply about people. The relation between Father and Son is understood through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost remains the abstract, and the three Gods are reduced to one God the Trinity.

Love is coming to terms with our isolation in the Universe. Nature exists before I was born, outside of me and thus seems too remote and uncaring. Nature like the Father is not accessible to personal appeals. Humanity is too abstract. Love can watch over me personally, protect me personally, and give me as an individual strength to deal with my problems. This love is Christ. Christ is born of woman, and thus is born of Nature. Christ is connecting to us through his Human Mother. Our Humanity is our nurturing Mother, the Mother of God. The Mother Son relationship becomes the model for our higher values of compassion. Mary the Mother was at Christ’s birth, his death and his Resurrection. Christ love, he is also nurturing and forgiving. He is more “Woman” than he is Man. “The Father Created Christ through Mary”. The Father can relate to humanity only through the Mother. The Father creates through Magic; the Mother creates through Nature. Humans are Nature and not magic. Magic is imagination, the creative side of reason. Love is a Natural instinct; love is biological part of our lives. Love is part of Nature. Humans are a part of Nature, with reason and imagination. We are Christ and Mary. Like the Father the Mother and the Son are our creations (60-69).

The Humanist position is we create God in our own image. God is the perfection of humanity, what no one human can ever hope to be. God has two Natures. The remote God of perfection of is the soul of reason, logic, math and science. The Law of perfection is beyond the reach of any human. The Law gives us certainty in the uncertainty of Nature, but leaves failing to obey a Law beyond our reach. The Human God can share our weakness, and our failure in the face of uncertainty. This contradiction is the Godhead, united through the obscure Holy Ghost.

Nature has no consciousness, Nature is and beyond that does not care if I live or die. Nature is Humility. The Godhead exists only for humans, created out of our imagination. In the vast universe in which our galaxy, solar system, and planet are buried in remoteness, exists without our gods. God is obsessed with me alone. Of all the species that have become extinct God only is concerns with humans on the isolated corner of nothingness. My prayers are more important than the explosion of suns. God is the ultimate expression of the narcissistic ego. Through God all things are possible, we need not take responsibility for our survival as a species. The individual does not need the community of shared humanity, nor Nature. Collectively humans through science gains are deeper understanding of Nature. As long as we fear death, we need God. When we lose our fear of death we can embrace Nature and truly celebrate life (85).

The intelligent design says the entire universe was created to meet the needs of humans. Animism and the Pantheist say the Gods were created out of Nature, the Humanist all there is Nature. The Christian says God created the Universe and all of Nature. Humanist says Humans are special to Humans as a part if a Human community. We are the social creation of our society, just as we are the physical creation of Nature (87-90).

In Nature we drawn if we cannot swim, with God through faith we walk on the water. Nature will not rescue us from the ravages of Nature we must take precautions. In Nature we must work to provide ourselves with food, clothing and shelter. With God who creates Nature can amend Nature by the whim of faith. God creates the laws of Nature and as a matter of course breaks them to answer prayers. To the Humanist humans are but one animal among many. This means humans live in Nature as a part of Nature. Nature becomes to the Humanist the focal point of their reverence (104).

Like the pantheist and the animist, the Humanist finds life, as part of Nature is all that is required to have happiness in life. Unlike the pantheist or animist the Humanist has no personal need to transcend material Nature for the spiritual. God adds nothing to the life of the Humanist. Her life is complete without religion. Because the Humanist embraces her social humanity, she is capable of living an ethical life of empathy and compassion. Her social humanity is inseparable from material Nature (105).

If God has created all of Nature for humanity, then God must need humanity more than humans need God. If God died for the benefit of humans, than this need is deep. If the only for me to attain salvation is by believing in this God who died for me, than Gods need of humans is complete. God became man to save humans. God did not become a dog to save dogs. God is a personal companion of humans; God loves humans with a deep passion. The Humanist neither needs nor wants God or his love. The Humanist is the ultimate subversive. God offers nothing the Humanist recognizes. She faces mortality as a natural part of life. Her humanity is special because she is human. Wild animals far isolated from human settlement find things other than people important. The Humanist does not need the Universe to be created for her special need to feel important. She finds happiness in the far off corner of a modest insignificant galaxy, in an irrelevant solar system on one the smaller planets as member of a species that one may find the choice to evolve or become extinct (110 –111).

Materialism and the Affective Life

Materialism is an ethical and logical system that offers the richest life possible. To concentrate on this life is the moral center of materialism. The focus is on actual existence, with an absorbing awareness of social commitment. This is to devise a way of shaping our lives to make each day filled with a meaning that transcends our individual lives. There is no need for the spiritual realm, higher power or divine guidance. The ethical life of materialism is one based upon love for this world, which we are a part. Anything beyond the material realm is only a distraction. Once this path is chosen it becomes the best life possible. Materialism is more than a logical and scientific understanding of existence, it is being part of something outside the self, which is greater than the self. We are too much a part of this life and this world to gain anything from a higher power or a soul.

Central to Christianity is the sect of death (eternal life) of the individual. This obsession with death both reflects a natural fear and also an unnatural increase in the dread of death to absurd proportions. Once that fear becomes unmanageable the Christian clergy, scared texts, and holy rituals are presented to offer hope. Control over the people by an unproductive elite becomes more complete. Except through faith in Christian dogma and the clergy who teach this creed there is no salvation. Death is everywhere in the teachings, and this life becomes secondary (Cameron, 1995). Christianity early adopted a language of symbolic innuendo that both reflected and heightened the human dread of death, a language that blended with the solemnity of black robes, gloomy cathedrals, stained glass windows, somber music and crucifixes, created an atmospheres conducive to control by fear (Cameron, 1995: 191).

The materialist sees death as a natural extension of life not to be feared. Life not death is the focal point, all life being the collective rhythms of nature. Death is the continuation of life, not through immortality of the individual soul, but the releasing of necessary nutrients for the collective continuation of life. New life and the continuation of existing life are sustained by the material elements of old life after death. The old dies to make room for the young and the vital. Idealism as expressed by Plato, Christianity, Buddhism, and Hinduism or is centered upon the dread of death and the natural decay of the material body. Each idealist belief system has a different strategy for salvation, but each ends with a ridiculous ego centered obsession with the self. Whether escaping the cycle of death and rebirth, the escape of the physical decay of the material body, eternal annihilation, and heaven or even damnation breeds an obsession with personal death.

To the materialist this preoccupation with death and the attempted escape seems bizarre for death is necessary for life to continue. We eat other living things both plant and animal. If any species over populates it threatens the whole ecosystem. Humans are living things like all other living things and a part of nature. Like all of nature the same principles apply. For the young and vital to survive the old who have already lived must make room for them through their death; but life continues. The materialist ask if it is possible for us to enjoy life with out the certainty of our individual eternal pre-existence, and it is, why is the continuation of the soul after death necessary for a good life? Why would anyone care what happens to their soul after they are dead? The materialist places their concern not only on life, but a meaningful life that can only be gained through the collective struggle to end social injustice, inequality, and human suffering. Each individual derives meaning through being part of a larger social entity. This meaning comes from being part of something outside the self that is greater than the self is. Through life itself the materialist gains a reason to live.

Because with death all sensation ceases, the one who is dead feels no pain. Sleep is not to be feared, neither is death. As all materialist have said at one time or another death is not a painful misfortune for the one who died, but for all those who survived the death of a loved one. Survivors deal with their pain of this terrible loss by continuing to live for the community. For the materialist the individual dies but the group survives. This means that the self is not what is important, but the social group. The death of a loved one is profoundly devastating. Because death is necessary for the continuation of life, the materialist never wavers in the love of the life of the community. It is this intense love of the life and of the living is what is important for the materialist. The survivors deal with their pain through their hard work for the welfare of the group; this is yet another reasons materialist say there is purpose in being part of something outside the self that is greater than the self. With a commitment to life one’s own death seems a petty concern (Cameron, 1995).

All exploitive societies are divided into classes. The exploiting classes will benefit from the fear installed in the hearts of the exploited classes. To separate death from life will increase that horror of death, and that unnatural fear is easily controlled. Those who control access to salvation will gain a great deal of power. The above statement is a short history of Christianity. What the materialist sees so clearly is that we continue to live in the life of the group. We live in the struggle to end social injustice, to end inequality, and to free the victims of their throwaway lives, which includes of the world’s destitute majority. Society is not only a reflection of the forces and relations of production, but within society there are real material potentials for continuing movement towards liberation. If we understand the historical structure of a society, we can take deliberate action toward that change. Freedom from religion and liberty from the spiritual can become the most spiritual life of all. The torment of hell is gone forever. We, all of us, are flawed and the fragile human beings become that are important and worth of the greatest of love. We ordinary humans will change the world not the ‘Great Men’, holy masters, or spiritual leaders. The common folk will become the ones we look to for our concern and leadership. Free from a belief in God, soul, and all that frees us to a great struggle, forever increasing freedoms.

This struggle is defined in a way that will advance the interests of the working class, and move toward democracy in a real and meaningful way, i.e. socialism. Socialism becomes the goal of our collective struggle. The fight for socialism will always be met by the stiffest of opposition by the ruling class. The capitalist class is highly organized and as group very aware of their own class interests. The class-conscious worker knows for the ‘Revolution’ to succeed hard work and sacrifice is always necessary. Every individual lives in and through the moving patterns of the structure of history. The social setting in which they live directly molds all individuals. In turn the passing through life of each individual has an affect on the social whole. This means even if we are a product of our society, and we all make a real difference just by being alive. The revolutionary makes that difference by choice. Each generation of socialist revolutionaries makes real and valuable contributions to all succeeding generations of socialist revolutionaries. This passing of the torch of struggle means the willingness to sacrifice life itself for the betterment of the community. The living for the larger whole is a common sentiment and a great source of personal and moral satisfaction. Each individual life is part of the world community, we revolutionaries know through our conscious efforts we each make a real differences, even in reactionary times (Cameron, 1995).

Revolt is as old as class society. Insurrection well never ends as long as inequality remains intact. The collective effort of this struggle is the history of which we are a part, and is intimate part of our lives. This is our purpose and the deep spiritual meaning in our lives. Without this continual struggle most of the rights we currently enjoy would have never have been established. Without the continual struggle not only will there be no further expansion upon these rights, the ones we already have will be lost to those with wealth and power. This collective purpose comes from sharing in the international effort to build socialism and democracy. Humans and not God is the cornerstone of a deeply meaningful life. The survival of the planet and all living things rests with humanity, and the decisions we make today and everyday. There will be no divine intervention to save us from our folly. This awesome responsibility is the bond of humanity, that greater something that stands out side the self, and this ends up by being the most profoundly spiritual life possible. The materialist who does not believe in a spirit, soul, or any kind of higher power ends up by being the most spiritual people of all. Morality is not a gift from a non-existing God. Morality is born out of lived everyday experiences of real living human beings, and the natural instinct for the survival of the group. Those who act for the betterment of the group are looked upon as being good people. Those who pursue their own interests seem petty by comparison. We all have both potentials in us at all times. A philosophy that can help us to be better than we are is very desirable. Materialism offers the most hope to achieve this kind of living philosophy.

When we see the universe as a self-contained and self-perpetuating entity, that is material and non-conscious there is no need for a creator. When we see that everything in the universe, including life, develops out of already existing natural forces in the material sense, life becomes the beauty we live for. Life originates from a complex natural interaction of physical, chemical, and biological materials and evolves from one form into another. The unique phenomenon called life, becomes our responsibility and we accept it. There is very little likelihood that complex life exists anywhere else. We are most likely alone in the universe, and if life ceases we all stand responsible for abandoning the struggle for social justice. There was no divine miracle in creation, and there will be no divine intervention to save life on this planet. We cannot avoid our moral responsibility through faith in a higher power. If there is no God, creator, or higher power it is up to us each generation to preserve all life. This makes us, each human being more magnificent than if God did exist, because we have the collective power to avert disaster. The likelihood of complex life arising on this planet, or anyone of us ever being born was extremely improbable. Even without a creator each human ever born becomes far more precious. This collective responsibility to life of the group makes all life valuable, and the willing sacrifice of our own life for the group far easier. The divine clouds the true beauty of life. The wonderful beauty of the birth of a child would only be cheapened by the existence of a higher power. We are all linked to the chemical-physical processes that happened at just the right time to make life possible. Those same natural processes are always happening within our bodies, this is life. Through the process of evolution simple elements became more complex elements. These complex elements formed molecules, and the molecules became the bases for life. Life also evolved from simple to complex and eventually humans living in a complex organization called society. This whole process of evolution is a natural one and a creator adds nothing and therefore is unnecessary. This means we see beauty without any need for the supernatural. The materialist is integrated into society and through society to all things living. We use science to make real changes, following natural patterns and to make a better world. The non-material supernatural is not needed to help us either as a species or as individuals in our everyday lives. This is because we are not created in the image of God, but always remaining rooted in our animal past. The supernatural image is like a drug that hides us from our moral responsibility, and the animal image of humanity makes each of us a real and living organism and an existing relative to all living things. The spiritual view is an empty vision that leads to seeing all matter as corrupt, but the materialist is a passionate love of life, nature, and existence.

Religion is the utterance of the estrangement of humankind from their humanity. The essential root of this alienation is the unjust authority used throughout the class divided economic systems upon which we all are dependent. Religious institutions are grounded in this exploitive domination and aid in the preservation of that class which maintains social power, and popular religion makes an appeal to the dispossessed mass through magical intervention into natural events in away that favors the needs of the community. In addition some popular religions promise salvation to the dispossessed, while official religion justify the cruelty of class rule.

References:

The Essence of Christianity by Ludwig Feuerbach

Dialectical Materialism and Modern Science by Kenneth Neill Cameron

Papasconi

Thursday, July 1, 2021

All Wealth is Theft

Materialism and the Affective Life

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