Journal of June 16, 2005

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 6:35 PM
A draft to the youth of the world.

You must now understand that you will be facing more and more people who think you should join their religion. In order to prepare you for this encounter there are some things that we think you should know.

The intelligent or smart thing to do in this world is to use your head. Using your head can be very helpful and can save your life and even your soul.

We use our heads when we first noticed that the closer a finger got to our nose the more it tends to split. We figured that something could explain this pattern in our visual and undertook certain experiments which made us realize that what we saw was not really the finger at all, but only the vision of the finger in the human eye. That is a powerful lesson. It tells us also that things don’t get smaller at a distance, but merely seem to. A great experience.

When we use our heads about God we are not very successful and don’t really learn anything except God is a something which contains all reality within itself and which is infinite, and for which reason also we really can tell very much,, for unlike the finger when our focus is on God, we can see nothing at all.

And so we realize that using our heads is very fruitful in terms of the experiences that we fashion, but not very fruitful when considering things like God (or freedom or an eternal soul). This has to do with what we know. Let’s now turn attention of what we can do by using our heads.

Here we can help ourselves by inventing rules of skill and prudence and rules, or even, commands of right and wrong.

We can see to use the most efficient construction of objects in general, and to keep our eye on our overall self interest and avoid rash actions. And then finally a rather odd rule of doing what is right no matter what, i.e., succeeding all former rules in any situation of making choices. This rule is a product of pure reason itself, when in a practical mode. It arises by the realization that the only law that would be accepted by all members of a free realm would be this: everyone counts equally and without limit. That law renders to us in our daily lives and experiences what is right and what is wrong. And the funny thing is this: once you understand the meaning of the moral law you immediately have respect for it in a realization that this law is painful for it means the subjugation of self. As a consequence the human is able to have a conscience and he will be ill at ease with himself anything he remembers having committed a wrong, no matter how long ago. He has respect for the moral law, every human has this respect, and he shows it in the internal condemnation he heaps upon himself by every memory of a misdeed.

Now this is a fact of life, and this is a fact of reason. The human being, by using his head with regard to actions, is able to realize that he is free, namely that no matter how much prudence might argue in one way, he is required to act contrary to that (on some occasion, it can be) and knows by virtue of that realization also then that he is free, and he sees his own responsibility with all he does. [an outside looking in, e.g., a psychologist, will see that he has no freedom and only imagines it and acts it out, and which, interestingly enough,, does not contradict the story of this freedom at all.]

But now a problem arises, for while we know that we must do what is right, this is puzzling to us for this reason: to do the right thing often requires us to be less than perfectly prudent and so is painful. Now somehow it really doesn’t seem right for the result of good actions to be pain. And so, since a right act is a right act and so since we are obligated to pursue a right act, it follows that a right act cannot be painful. And since it obviously is painful we, trying to use our heads again, figure that there must be a reward for the good, i.e., the good should not suffer and indeed should be feted (although the good act may not be praised). And this reward we see in an idea that we come up with (like we came up with the idea of nature and the idea of freedom) which is called the Highest God or the complete good.

Now we take the next step. This idea of the Highest Good as what we are about requires right action and as a result of this rightness also then a happiness commensurate to it. The first requires moral perfection and this cannot be attained to in our life time and it is simply necessary that we have a longer life in order to continue our striving toward moral perfection (at least for those who so strive), and finally we need a God to provide the happiness, and so God and eternal life, while could not be made out as anything except ideas earlier, now attain a factuality in the necessary affirmation of belief in eternal life and a moral law.

Without the Highest Good there would be a faltering in moral fervor as people would increasing seek to find ways out of the moral things. And this doesn’t make sense that reason would provide a law and then not justify it, and this is done through the Highest Good, and all the rest ensues from that.

The next step is the final step in this phase of using our heads, and it has to do with coming up with a religion which would be suitable for an expectation of eternal life and of a omnipotent moral judge.

This is now our task, to describe this religion.

Obviously our religion will be a moral religion, namely at its core will be a dedication to the development of an actual for the moral law, and which is common to no man.

Now much stands in the way. In the first place we are dealing with humans and so have to come out of the realm of pure rational beings in order to contend with the fact of evil. Now this evil is of this sort: it is a willingness to even consider a violation of the moral law, for a dedication to the moral law would have made the consideration absurd and an unacceptable waste of time. This is our state. We are constituted for good in our many natures, especially the rational and the moral. But an evil has cropped up in this good creation to produce not a demonic rebellion against the moral law, but a willingness to at least consider a violation in a particular case. “It won’t hurt to talk about it.” But of course it does hurt for then we have already stepped over the first barrier and are talking about a violation of the moral law of right conduct and the dignity of all rational beings.

[12/11/05 4:32 PM I would express this differently now, as a willingness to occasionally violate the moral law. Kant would probably be thinking of even such commonplace violations as lying to make a person feel good for some reason, almost, but not quite, to the point of incivility. That may be too strong.]

Now the good side of this is, in a curious way of speaking, is that we have chosen, albeit quite naturally, this evil principle of considering violations of the moral law as fair conversation, and while this is quite wrong, the point is that it is voluntary and so it means that we can voluntarily act differently. And so we are not evil in our original disposition but become so, even in a natural self defense, in the throes of a world where it is generally understood that people will consider violations of the moral law. And so we do it and see that others do it and see that for self protection we will do it.

The rescue comes in the image of the Son of God, the perfectly righteous man who shakes our thinking and our imagination and enables us to picture ourselves also as being so dedicated to righteousness and right conduct. We know that we can do this, because we are compelled to do this. We are called to become a Son of God, albeit from a state of sin.

The lifting of the sin:

1. we have to be able to think of ourselves as suddenly free of sin, and this comes in the recognition of the new disposition (from which infinite good would ensue if opportunity for such were at hand).

2. we have to be to believe that this has actually happened, and the faith of this is progressively made sight in the good works now arising from the disposition of the Son of God.

3. we have to believe that we will not be punished for the sins we did earlier in the earlier disposition, and where the punishment by like thinking needs to be infinite.

Here is how we proceed. A formerly sinful man takes on the mantle of the Son of God, the disposition of the Son of God. Now as a result of that in a world made evil by the evil disposition (including his earlier disposition), he will suffer even though in his new disposition of the Son of God he should not suffer. He, in his new birth, will be suffering ills which he does not, in that spirit deserve, but which he nevertheless takes on without grumbling (and which are also potentially finite) and in that way the Son of God atones for the the former sinful disposition of that formerly, now righteous, man. When he is personified by this moral religion then he is seen as dying once and for all for all men as he goes to his death to share with his followers what each one must also do on its own, not in order to gain heaven, but merely in the disposition of the Son of God.

Now to the practical aspects of this religion. It is highly unlikely that a man so dedicated to the disposition of the Son of God can expect to sustain his fervor in a world which is so dedicated to the natural evil of self indulgence over the moral law of righteousness. It behooves any man sincerely dedicated to the maintenance and promotion of this attitude of the Son of God to join with others of a like spirit, and to dedicate themselves to this spirit. This can only be expressed by a church and so God must now enter the religion as the one who commands beyond any popular or autocratic rule and certifies that the religion is moral, i.e., by commanding a love of the moral law, i.e., the humans are expected by this God develop a love of the moral law.

Some of the cautionary aspects for this organization of the church. The core and ideal must be a love of the moral law. All else pales compared with this. There can be other commands, but they must be interpreted always in a way which leads to an increase in moral fervor, e.g., some temporary deprivation.

Now that’s pretty much what we can come up with with regard to religion. We have described the form of a religion which could rightly be called the universal religion. For the only requirement is the Lincolnian, namely where God and neighbor are loved and sermons are directed toward the cultivation of that love.

Now here is what we have learned. Right thinking and using one’s head gives us valuable information about ourselves and others and things about us, but nothing about freedom, eternal life or God. Nothing one way or the other.

But then we continue with right thinking in the realm of practical reason, reasoning for the intent and an action, and find that we are compelled by the moral law, are free and, in the subsequent validation of the moral act, are in pursue of a purpose which also requires an eternal life and God. And finally then, thinking on that subject we found what would constituted a moral religion and thus a religion which all people could confess together, one promoting a love of the moral law.

Now as a specimen of the application of this moral religion to an actual existing or formerly existing religion we will turn our attention to Christianity and Islam.

First there is a need to play with the term Christian. I shall be thinking of the gentile Christian or Paulian. [This point, developed at length elsewhere on this site, will be made here. The utterly free believer.]

The Peterians followed Peter and were Jewish and did more or less exactly what Jesus did, e.g., not working on the Sabbath. But even here the law would be broken if necessary in order to do good. And this is precisely what Jesus did on occasion and thus established a clear icon to all Christians with regard to the supremacy of the moral law, which they express as the three loves: God, neighbor and fellow Christian.

The Paulians followed Paul and were gentile and ignore the Jewish law altogether, and indeed they were free of all law and come to allegiance to any people or culture only as a derivation from the moral law. I.e., a Christian citizen would also be a model citizen and would set the standard of measurement. The clearest teaching in the new testament is Paul’s declaration of the Law of Love as sufficient for determining all actions, with good reason finding the means for good deeds, and that nothing else is required and that each Christian will be judged entirely on his sincerity before their Lord Jesus.

It is because of this sincerity and the supremacy of the moral law over all else that prompted Kant to make the rather offhand remark that Christianity had provided the only example of a moral religion in the history of the world, which does not mean at all that the current specter of Christianity is what he had in mind.

Now for more information and the development of the concepts of the Peterian and Paulian we will have to go else where on this site. But I can insert references later.

Now we turn to the Islamic religion and we do not find this sort of icon at all, neither in the Koran nor in the lore about Mohammed.

Let’s develop this notion a bit in order to make it clear.

It is not possible for any human being to recognize the infinite through any sense such a sight, touch, smell, etc., and so it is quite possible that God could appear to us, or a very powerful demon, and we could not tell which is which, except that one is more powerful than the other, but not that it is all power. And so God then would appear as merely as more powerful than any demon, but that gives us no indication of infinite power.

Now since one thing we know from using our heads earlier is that we cannot tell anything about God except that he is moral and omnipotent. One thing we know even before we know of God, and that is that we are never to do wrong, but always only right. Keeping this in mind we can now turn to the Islamic icon of Abraham, the Great Slave.

According to Islamic lore Abraham hears in a dream that he is to slay his son and the majority opinion is that Abraham had Ishmael in mind. He discusses this with his child who expresses a belief in the story and urges Abraham to comply. Abraham is stopped at the last minute and a ram is slain instead.

The notion of the Great Slave is in Abraham’s willingness to believe that God had spoken to him in his dream, and so desirous was he of complying with God’s wishes that he was willing to slay his innocent son without dispute. The key element in Islam is the sincerity. Here we have an example of extreme sincerity. The Muslim understands that he is reward on sincerity and only secondarily upon the act and result itself. Abraham was so sincere that he was willing to believe that God had spoken in a dream and had commanded him to commit an immoral act which Abraham then was willing to undertake.

The condemnation of Kant now arises: Abraham should have refused to heed the voices and should have spoken in this wise: whether you be God or not, this I cannot know, but that it be wrong to slay my innocent is clear to me as the sun on a cloudless day, and so I cannot believe that God is telling me to commit a crime and that it is either not God, or my ears are playing tricks on me.

This is the first point to be made here, that the icon of the Great Slave suggests that a person is right to believe that God has commanded an immoral act, and that it is even wise to act on such a belief, for since it is sincerity alone that counts, even if the person is mistaken, his sincerity is taken as a virtue and he may end up with a grand reward for his sincerity. This leads us now into the second point, namely that even when a moral act is called for, it is merely a “shein” moral act.

The purpose of all actions in Islam is personal gratification. A person is gratified by rewards and punishments, the latter merely a degratification, as it were. Now in Islam bowing down and giving to the poor are both required in order to have a chance of avoiding hell. Hence they not so much obligatory, but sanity itself. Normally giving to the poor would be considered as a moral act, but since it is undertaken merely for the sake of gratification, it is amoral. It would be just as morally meaningful if the Muslim were required to take something of value and burn it up so that no use could be made of it by him ever again. And instead of that the Muslim is ordered to give it to the poor, or else! Kant has characterized this sort of religion as extortionist, a deal that you cannot refuse.*

[* The Christian escapes this charge in this wise. While it may be extortionist to get a person to join the faith the entire thrust of the Paulian conception is to accept the reward of eternal life and communion with God as already at hand, and so where there is no more concern with reward as such, but merely with the implementation of the duties for goodness at any given moment. Reward becomes an extraneous element.]

And so we are then forced to characterize Islam morally in this way: there is no genuine love of the moral law that is being promoted. Furthermore the ideal of Islamic submission, the Great Slave, calls for a willingness to engage in immoral acts if that is sincerely thought to be the command of God.

As a contrast merely to make this point clear. Jesus, according to the Christian lore (and as mentioned earlier), actually breaks a commandment of God and he does so in order to perform a moral act. The message is clear and simple: no command whatsoever can be accepted before the categorical imperative to do good now. The revealed command of God is subjugated to the moral law. But this is entirely lacking in Islam and instead we have a willingness to believe that God could command an immoral act and furthermore that he would reward the sincerity even if it were merely a dream and not God’s work at all.

This now leads us naturally into a consideration of the four hypotheses which are equally applicable to the revelation of the Christian Paul and also of Mohammed.

1. God (or his work) appeared and was faithfully reported,
2. the revelation was made up and reported as though true,
3. God was hallucinated and faithfully reported,
4. a demon appeared and was faithfully reported.

Now we need to contrast the two extremes before we continue. We have already indicated that as far as we are concerned, one can be more powerful than the other, but we have no indication of anything further, i.e., God cannot appear as such to us. But now there is another difference between God and the demon which finds a sort of union in the human as we touched on. The human is willing to consider evil and so is the same as evil and is rightly declared evil, but the human is willing to do evil only reluctantly and would rather comply with the moral law if feasible for him. The demon is of an entirely different stripe, for he not only is willing to do an immoral act but even seeks it out and relishes it. The marks then are simple: God will never command an immoral act and a demon will not permit the moral law to be superior to his own command, and so while he may command a moral act in order to give the appearance of morality (but which serves actually as a moral blindness), the supreme rule is command over morality.

And so in the case of Christianity we can already conclude in this wise. There is reason to think that the Paulian revelation is a work of God and it is certainly not the work of a demon; while with Islam there is reason to think that the Mohammedan revelation is a demonic work, and little reason to think it a work of God.*

[* It is simply unreasonable and unacceptable to expect God to wish to provide a communication with the humans and being unwilling or unable to do so in any way that would be distinct from the communication of a demon.]

Now later I will insert here a consideration of the two revelations as composed and hallucinated.