Theme: Religion

ON FAITH(RELIGION) VS TRUTH(LAW)

An Open Letter To Traditionalists

(from elsewhere)(important)

1) I was raised a catholic, and identify with the pre-vatican ii church. I consider vatican ii a disaster. I consider the chair of st peter empty. I consider the current pope a false pope.

2) I write for an audience in the language that they can understand. It does not mean I cannot write for different audiences, in their languages – languages that they will understand. The problem in talking to traditionalists is one that is common, and we just saw in the debate between Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris: the difference between conflationary, and coherent truth that combines the good, spirit, literature, and meaning, with the true regardless of existential limits, – and deflationary, descriptive truth within existential limits and free of judgements spirit, literature, and goodness. However, I must explain the importance of that difference.

2) My understanding is that the spiritual experience is necessary and that the church provided it. That this experience can be provided to many by Ritual(Repetition), by Action-Discipline (Stoicism), by Disconnected Mental Discipline(Mindfulness) and by Prayer and Contemplation (language). That the church and temple experience is necessary for the experience and training in sacredness (emotional security). That the literary experience is necessary for our envisioning of possibilities(Intellectual security). That the scientific experience is necessary for the cooperation of men in transforming the universe for our use (practical security). And that the juridical experience is necessary for the resolution of our disputes – (security of life, property, family and society). And that the military experience is necessary for all security – particularly for men. And that in the west, we developed all of these languages and traditions to provide for all those needs.

3) I specialize in Action: the practical (scientific), Juridical (Life and Property), and Military (civilization itself). I do not specialize Experience: in the spiritual, the sacred, or the literary. There are reasons for this division of specialization. They are good reasons: competition keeps us free of corruption of spirit, sacred, and literary that we have seen in some civilizations, and the corruption of science, justice, and violence in other civilizations …. and that we have seen in christian civilization since the lies of Boaz, Freud, Marx, and Frankfurt, and the lies of the French and the Postmodernists who tried to recreate a pseudo-scientific religion, were industrialized by mainstream media for the profit of business, finance, academy, politician and bureaucracy at the expense of soul, individual, family, civilization, law, and religion so carefully constructed by the church over millennia. So I work at deconflating the experiential and the actionable because the conflation of the experiential and the actionable, the good and the true, the ideal and the possible, were the means by which our church and our civilization was undermined – by intent, and continues to this day.

This is a more technical way of saying that faith teaches the golden rule, and law the silver rule.

4) There are many degrees of decidability. Between one feeling and another. Between a preference and another. Between one parable and another. Between that which is reasonable (Understandable) and another. Between that which is rational (non contradictory) and another. Between that which is more correspondent with reality and that which is less so. Between that which is existentially possible (operational) and that which is not. Between that which is economically possible (tolerable) and that which is not. Between that which is voluntary and that which is not. Between that which produces beneficial unintended consequences, and that which does not.

But principally, we divide these methods into Spiritual, Mythical, literary, traditional, moral, reasonable, rational, logical, empirical, and scientific. When we have a great deal of information we may use the scientific. When we are highly uncertain, we rely on the moral, traditional literary, mythical, and spiritual. The more information we possess the more reason (calculation), the less we possess the more intuition (spirit).

We can identify an attempt at deception when a question may be answered by use of a method of decidability of greater precision because we have the information necessary to use that method of greater precision. Or when one attempts to use a method of more precise decidability, yet we lack the information to apply that method of decidability. We can create frauds either way.

But we are mere mortals, we vary in ability, in education, in experience, and in mastery.

This is a more technical way of saying that the world of the spirit belongs to God (Faith and Religion), and the world of action belongs to Caesar (Science and Law).

5) So I teach ‘convergence’ -and that is, that we must – as humans – practice the spiritual, literary, conflationary, and meaningful to cooperate, and we must practice the actionable, descriptive, deflationary, and ‘true’ to resolve conflicts.

And so I leave the ‘good’ for those who conflate, and I practice the ‘true’ for those of us, who, unfortunately, must resolve conflicts between people – provide restitution if possible, punishment if not, and death if necessary. And it is this convergence and competition that keeps the faith and the law uncorrupted. And it is the conflation of faith and law that corrupts both.

This is a more technical way of saying that some of you wish to sit in safety at the right and hand of god, to do what might be done to create good: inform and advice. Some of us sit at the left and of god, to do what must be done: judge and punish, to end and prevent bad. Between possible goods and certain bads, we prevent each other’s corruption and do what Christendom has done best: build a world that the rest is in envy of.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute