Metaphysical Naturalism Part 3: The Mechanical and Moral Arguments

What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part 3

Challenging the Mechanical and Moral Arguments

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A-Mechanical

The first part of the Academy's Strong Definition of Naturalism reads:

"Naturalism, challenging the cogency of the cosmological,i mechanical,ii and moral argumentsiii..."

Yesterday I discussed the cosmological aspect. see What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part Two

Mechanical Naturalism believes that this universe is a lifeless huge machine which gets its form through matter and motion. This is not so difficult to argue in the negative because "Nothing exists outside the natural order" is the position of naturalism.

But as Rastaban writes in "Atheology," http://atheology.com/2007/08/06/naturalisms-touchstone-proposition/ "In his book, Faith & Reason, Ronald Nash declared that Naturalism’s touchstone proposition is that 'Nothing exists outside the material, mechanical (that is, nonpurposeful), natural order.'" [italics added]

There is an important distinction between the simple statement that "nothing exists outside the natural order," and the strawmen of "material," "mechanical," and "nonpurposeful." The theistic thinker will argue that the universe has the "purpose" of supporting life, when in fact that only became its purpose after the natural creation of life made it so. We can as easily argue that a woman's womb has the purpose of supporting the life that is within it; but if the woman is not pregnant, then her womb does not have the same purpose, and in fact no life ever need be within it.

Before the first forms of life appeared in the universe, the universe was entirely purposeless. Because the universe has no purposeful volition of its own by which to make the decision to be of purpose to life, it remains "purposeless" in its inherent nature.

The Academy's Position states: "iiWhere mechanical is taken to mean the explanation of the present and the future in terms of the past. The opposite of mechanical is teleology, i.e., the explanation of the past and the present in terms of the future."

In effect, this means to the Christian that the present and future are the result of the universe having been given its purpose by God; whereas for the naturalist it means the past and the present are states of "Being" and "Becoming."

For example, as Rastaban points out, "We had no evidence for the existence of neutrinos two centuries ago, yet neutrinos existed 200 years ago as certainly as they exist today. [ ]

"Evidence logically requires an observer, and there were no observers of neutrinos then. However, in 1807 neutrinos were nonetheless doing things that in theory were observable. Existence = Possibility of Evidence."

I.e., "Existence is Being = Possibility of Becoming."

There is more to this, however, on another level: "The ‘mechanical philosophers’ of the early seventeenth century held that any material body maintains a constant velocity unless acted on, and moreover held that all action is due to impact between one material particle and another. So stated, the mechanical philosophy immediately precludes anything except impacting material particles from producing physical effects. Leibniz saw this clearly, and concluded that it discredited Descartes' interactive dualism, which had a non-material mind influencing the physical world (Woodhouse, 1985). (Of course, Leibniz did not therewith reject dualism, but instead opted for ‘pre-established harmony’. Views which avoid ontological naturalistic views of the mind by denying its causal efficacy will be discussed further in section 1.6 below.)" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/

So on the one hand, the "present and future in terms of the past" refers the the Creation idea that in the past the universe was created by God to have a place to put his creature which he called Man. The naturalist position is that existence exists, has always existed, cannot ever have not existed without contradicting the definition of the word "existence," and so therefor the universe as we know it today may have been created naturally from cause-and-effect upon the material within existence; but that existence itself cannot have been created, bears no realtionship to time insofar as existence has no beginning and no end; and that the Big Bang did not create existence, it only (maybe) created the known universe.

On the other hand, since "the mechanical philosophy immediately precludes anything except impacting material particles from producing physical effects," it completely leaves out the theory of free will within the being of Man.

B-Moral

iiiWhere the moral argument is taken to mean an argument for God based on man's moral nature, an objective nature that gives him cause to make moral assertions about existence but has no basis for conclusions of the supernatural. The only moral argument acceptable is teleological, meaning it must be the answer to the question of whether, not why, Man needs ethics; and what those ethics must be in terms of the objective nature of Man himself as "all there is" in terms of deducing the natural, not the super-natural, existence of existence.

Telology is "The theory of purpose, ends, goals, final causes, values, the Good (s.). The opposite of Mechanism. As opposed to mechanism, which explains the present and the future in terms of the past, teleology explains the past and the present in terms of the future. Teleology as such does not imply personal consciousness, volition, or intended purpose (q.v.)." "Dictionary of Philosophy"; Runes; http://www.ditext.com/runes/t.html

Not implying personal consciousness merely means that the world would still exist even were no life extant as its witness. This is called the Primacy of Existence. see If A Tree Falls In the Forest--the Primacy of Existence

The Primacy of Consciousness dictates that the world does not and cannot exist without the consciousness of extant life as its witness. This results in such non-sensical philosophical questions as this: "If I die, does everyone else die too?"

I actually answered that question in another forum, so I know it is on peoples' minds. The same sort of question, metaphysically speaking is this: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there..."

I have never once read the correct answer to that question as it addresses the Primacy of Existence. That is why I wrote the column behind the link directly above.

Parts Four and Five, tomorrow and Friday (and perhaps into Part Six on Saturday if necessary, I will deal with the rest of the Academy's Strong Definition of Naturalism.

Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC

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What is Metaphysical Naturalism Part 2 continued

What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part Two

Clark wrote this to me in an email, after I explained to him my own positions on several aspects of strong, weak, altruism, and egoism:

"Ok, many thanks for these clarifications, most interesting. It would be nice if [everyone examined his] philosophy as assiduously as do you, ending up with more nuanced conclusions about the legitimacy of compassion and limits of egoism."

For more about Clark, see Determinism Vs. the Individualistic Naturalism of the Soul

"Nuances" are extremely important in understanding naturalism, if only because there are so many nuances that anyone trying to understand is going to be confused as he/she begins investigating this science.

As stated in yesterday's Academy's posting, [see link in first paragraph above,] compassion, humanism, and altrusim are major aspects of some forms of naturalism. This necessarily involves bringing in the subject of egoism, since, "Altruism is the opposite of egoism." "The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy"; http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/egoism.htm

But we will get to that, later in this series. For now, lets begin with the first part of the Academy's position. http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/08/academys-strong-definition-of_03.html It begins with this:

"Naturalism, challenging the cogency of the
cosmological,i mechanical,ii and moral argumentsiii..."

That alone is daunting. Three words in that short clause had to have footnotes. But as I stated above, definitions must be precise if they are to be called definitions, and as you will note, I began the basis of my definition from another authoratative philosopher, in an encyclopedia I trust, and then amended it. As it stood in that enclyclopedia, it did not precisely fit my own understanding nor my epistemic base. And as it was authored in the early part of the 20th Century, it did not address issues that have arisen since it was written.

I am certain that as the subject is discussed more in public and in the blogosphere and in academia, that I may have to amend it more in the future.

1) "...challenging the cogency of the cosmological,i arguments..."
"Cosmology" in its simplest definition is understood as a world view. Cosmology is explained as an awareness of the universe, an awareness one has when one holds the world before his mind as if it were a single intelligible object.* To which it must be added: while holding the universe in one's mind, one decides what his place is or is to be, in that universe as he comes to understand it "heart and mind."
i * Phrasing taken from the "Syntopicon of the Great Ideas of the Western World"; the "Syntopicon" is Vols. II and III of the "Great Books of the Western World"; Encyclopedia Britannica; Mortimer J. Adler, Editor.

Marcus Aurelius wrote about having a world view, i.e., a personal cosmology, when he wrote, “He who does not know what the world is does not know where he is, and he who does not know for what purpose the world exists, does not know who he is, nor what the world is.”

"Cosmology" describes man's need to explain the world in which we live, his need to explain it as he feels it in his being. But aside from the cosmology of physics, which has arisen only in the era of science that came after Galileo and Francis Bacon specifically, cosmology was made the sole property of the Church. This was done when St. Aquinas incorporated the philosophy of Aristotle into Christianity. It was this cosmology of the Roman Church that was overturned when its leaders had to admit that Galileo and Copernicus were correct in their science.

And it was this necessary capitulation by the Church that proved to every man of reason whether of the physical sciences or of medicine or of mathmatics, art, politics or theology, that science had found its place in the affairs of man. Yet the Church continued to cling to every fiber of its cosmology that was not directly affected by the "Copernican Revolution." And so the naturalism within the calculations of Copernicus did nothing (or little) to "challenge the cogency of the cosmological argument."

Yet the argument is still being challenged because the cosmology of Western religion has still not opened its door to allowing science to tell it what God hath wrought. Dogma is created when it ignores science. Science destroys dogma. And religion ought to be built on what science is able to tell the Church is the truth about our world, as Copernicus and Galileo did. Yet it resists.

The Single Intelligible Object

"Single intelligible object" does not mean an object as described as a single word. Doing so in one word would leave out so much of the essence of existence and our emotional reaction to it; but it means defining it in the fewest number of words (because that is what definitions do,) which describe that essential characteristic, as an object which is intelligible in its singularity.

Every dictionary definition turns the concept(s) described by a word into a single intelligible object. http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/search?q=single+intelligible+object and On Free Will, the Soul, and the Single Intelligible Object That is the specific nature of definitions.

The footnote to this first piece of the Academy's definition of naturalism states that it is "challenging the cogency" of the arguments. Mirriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines "cogent" as "appealing forcibly to the mind or reason : convincing b: pertinent , relevant synonyms see valid." http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cogent

So naturalism is challenging the validity, the pertinence, and the convincing relevance of not only the cosmological position, but also the "mechanical" and the "moral" arguments that are contrary to naturalism. According to Dr. Quentin Smith, naturalism was the conventional wisdom for nearly 1000 years, with theism playing the role of skeptic to it. Smith says that all changed with Augustine, who managed to make theism the conventional wisdom, and turned naturalism into the skeptical position. He says naturalism must take back its ancient tradition. See The Loss of Secularism in Naturalism, Part 1

Ayn Rand, in "Philosophy: Who Needs It", never used the word "cosmology," so far as I know. Instead, she called it "a sense of life" and said that it "represents an individual's unidentified philosophy (which can be identified—and corrected, if necessary;" and said "it affects his choice of values and his emotional responses, influences his actions, and frequently clashes with his conscious convictions."

Religions have their own philosophies--identified sometimes in minute detail--and the word cosmology is most usually associated with either religion, or with physics. As an identifiable philosophy, physics has it own philosophers, called cosmologists, and physics is loath to accept any cosmology that strays into the real of metaphysics.

Metaphysics is not a strict science; it is actually more of an art, the art of non-contradictory identification of the values men place on the things which they know. But such identification of values is not the same as scientific identification of the laws of nature. Metaphysics is, instead, opinion about those laws. The opinions of the cosmologists of physics may still be opinions, but they are based not on value to the human psychology, but to value of the knowledge in the structure of the scienc of understanding the laws of nature as mathematical elements.

Description of Cosmology according to the Academy's Position on Metaphysical Naturalism

iWhere cosmology is taken to mean that which treats of the origin and structure of the universe. Cosmology also refers to the structural view where it is the world view of physics. However, as to cosmological origin, let me be clear: There is no origin. If existence itself had an origin, then the pre-existing condition of existence would be non-existence, which by definition can have no existence and therefore cannot have been a state of being prior to existence.

In Part Three: The Mechanical and Moral Arguments

Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC


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The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part One

What is Metaphysical Naturalism?

Part One

I'm going to begin by using the opening paragraph from Wikipedia:

"Metaphysical or ontological naturalism is any worldview
in which the world is amenable to a unified study that includes the natural
sciences and in this sense the world is a unity. According to such a view, nature is all there is, and all things supernatural (which
stipulatively includes spirits and souls and non-natural values) do not exist,
or they are reducible to natural things. It is often simply referred to as naturalism, and occasionally as philosophical naturalism or ontological naturalism, though
all those terms have other meanings as well, with naturalism often referring to methodological naturalism." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_naturalism

That explains it!--if you know what all those terms mean and if you understand the subtle differences between many of them. From all that I've read and heard, not even the naturalists themselves all agree, using different terminology for exactly similar philosophical positions; or using precisely similar terminology for differences that may be subtle, or may be extremely and fundamentally different.

Reductive naturalism is one such "world-view" that denies the metaphysical importance given to the "soul" by religions. It "reduces" things like "soul" to what Wikipedia calls "natural things." I don't deny that in this sense, I too am a "reductivist." There is nothing in existence which can be of, or been created by, the supernatural. The first part of any definition of metaphysical naturalism is the denial that things can exist which are "super"natural.

However, as an atheist, I give the soul the same metaphsyical importance as theists insofar as admitting its existence, and its role, in the affairs of humans while they have empirical life (as opposed to "after-life," which would not be empirical but supernatural.)

Tom Clark, director of the Center for Naturalism http://www.centerfornaturalism.org/index.htm , claims that naturalism "affords superior prediction and control of our environment and ourselves, since in dropping the soul and free will we get rid of the fictional supernatural agency that blocks true explanations of phenomena." [italics added] [from the Academy Blogger post Determinism Vs. the Individualistic Naturalism of the Soul]

Clark, in neither of his websites (the other is http://www.naturalism.org/) defines his brand of naturalism as metaphysical, so far as I have discovered. He does declare that it is scientific naturalism. J.P. Moreland of "Boundless Webzine," describes scientific naturalism as having a "central creation myth — evolution." Obviously, Moreland is not a naturalist.

"Just what is scientific naturalism (hereafter, naturalism)?" Not even Moreland, a critic, makes a distinction between the forms of naturalism, ignorning that there are others. "Succinctly put," he writes, "it is the view that the spatio-temporal universe established by scientific forms of investigation is all there is, was, or ever will be. Brains and buffaloes exist (for instance), but minds and moral values must not, because they are invisible to the five senses and therefore invisible to scientific enquiry. [ ] Naturalism is a theory about reality in which physical entities are all there is." http://www.boundless.org/features/a0000872.html

Well, not exactly. Clark and his many famous associates, who take part in Clark's work, have various means of describing "mind," "soul," and "moral values," among other things that are "invisible." They are not "invisible" to MRIs, to mention one method of "seeing" them. MRIs record in real time the various parts of the brain that operating when stimulated by such things as scents, sights, sounds, memories, etc. While the MRIs are being recorded, so are other evidences of physiology, such as heart rate, blood pressure, respiration and skin conductivity. So in this sense the naturalism of scientists and philosophers such as Clark are able to discover the things that are "invisible" to reason alone. And in doing so, it takes such things as "soul" and "free" wil," and reduces them to their physiological descriptions, thereby taking the metaphysical content out of them.

What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part One continued

Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC


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http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

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What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part One continued

What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part One continued

back What is Metaphysical Naturalism?
Part One

Why do I bother to compare the views of a naturalist, no matter the kind he is, and the views of someone who is obviously a creationist? Because it is the reductiveness of ideas like Clark's that creationists resist and denounce, and which makes of them fierce critics when naturalists attempt to codify their scientific findings, or use them to criticize the "fictional supernatural agency" traditionally called "soul" and "free will".

I said that in the sense that scientific naturalism reduces everything to quantifiable natural and identifiable physiological traits, at least in living species as opposed to explaining "existence" itself, I am also a reductionist.

But the epistemic theme of the reductivist is to "drop the soul and free will [in order to be] rid of the fictional supernatural agency that blocks true explanations of phenomena."

Metaphysical naturalism is much simpler, and accepts that soul and free will exist and have causes and effects and therefore also have metaphysical value, just as a stomach ache is not merely a buildup of acid from a fictional medical agency, but that the buildup has metaphysical importance for the health of the individual, if only of an extremely transitory nature. On the other hand, it may be something like a peptic ulcer, which is obviously not a fictional medial agency.

Richard C. Carrier, writing for the "Internet Infidels", another group of naturalist writers, in the website Secular Web Library http://www.infidels.org/library/ , says "there is no need to appeal to gods or higher powers or supernatural realms or forces, and we don't believe there are any such things. That's what makes us Metaphysical Naturalists. Though we often disagree about the particulars, we all believe the evidence points to that and nothing else." Unlike Clark, Carrier offers nothing else in the specific nature of MN beyond that.

But he does say this: "In order to fulfill our mission we have become the world's leading nexus for the secular community, a neutral clearinghouse of information supporting our cause, centered above all on a wide-ranging library of secular literature online. The reason for this is simple: secularists and secular philosophy provide inherent and widespread support for Metaphysical Naturalism. So we support them in turn."

But not all secularism is metaphysical naturalism, denying the existence of the supernatural. America's Founders were Deists. Deists are some of the most devout believers in God Himself, but they denounce organized religions. They wrote and signed the Declarations of Independence and the Constitution, and with the inclusion of Jefferson's "wall of separation between church and state" incorporated into it as Original Intent reading, it is an extremely secular document, not allowing for any form of intrusion by any instrument of religion. It protects all religions; it gives sway to none.

And yet, those Deists were naturalists. It is the reason they singned on to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," rather than to God Himself, as the enabler of man's secular rights. So secularism is not a good description of the nature of naturalism. Secularity means the separation of what is by nature reason, from what is by nature faith or religion. [see the comments Jefferson made concerning the intrusion of the name "Jesus" into the The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom, the document he was most proud of having authored.]

But the Internet Infidels do seem to think secularity has much to do with the promotion of metaphysical naturalism, saying: "Besides Metaphysical Naturalism, however, our mission statement includes two other goals: one social, and one ethical.

"Socially, we seek an atmosophere of intellectual freedom and tolerance, for the promotion of knowledge and understanding through the avid pursuit of philosophy and the scientific enterprise. [ ] Therefore, we believe governments must be entirely neutral, favoring none in this quest. [ ] It is our dream that even people of different faiths, including nontheists, befriend each other and work together toward a better society of universal happiness, pursuing reason, science, and truth."

[There is something about the modern version of "humanism" found in most of the variations of naturalism, that makes me want to puke. They all sound like robotic beauty queens promising to work for "world peace." Is there any reason to think that people would think naturalists do not want a better society? Why state the obvious? They are not stating anything about naturalism by doing so; they are advocating altruistic, which they call "human compassion," which is altogether another issue, and much too big to be covered here. But Tom Clark's websites sound eerily similar, and he does specifically use the word "altruism".]

Carrier states the third goal of the mission of the Infidels: "Ethically, we want to uphold the dignity of humanity by embodying honesty and compassion in our pursuit of the truth. The good of mankind is our greatest goal."

As Ayn Rand pointed out, anyone using the phrase "the good of mankind" or any variation thereof, simply means to pursue an agenda of socialism of one form or another upon mankind. The Founders "conceived in liberty and justice" the promotion of the "general Welfare"; and it is not parsing phrases to say that they mean very different things.

Metaphysical naturalism as I see it, and as I apply it for my Academy, (which, by the way, is moving right along with work on a distance-learning academic program,) does not dismiss mind and soul as real entities of consciousness that are more than simply biological fuctions, like the growling of your stomach. The naturalists like those described above, who believe the physiology of how the brain creates consciousness, and thus what we traditionally call "soul," is tantamount to claiming the growling of the stomach is the soul, rather than that which we perceive in the seat of our emotions.

In other words, early ancestors of modern man who first identified what we call soul, could instead have interpreted the growling of the stomach to be God's connection to us, rather than deciding it was what we do actually call the soul. After all, "More and more, biology and neuroscience show that the brain and body do everything that the soul was supposed to do," writes Clark.

So, therefor, the soul with which we are intimately familiar on an emotional level, was misidentified as being something more than the mechanics of our physiology. So, therefor, our growling stomach could have been identified as our soul, in which case Clark would be claiming that our intestines "do everything that the soul was supposed to do."

A few months back, I was having a conversation with Tibor Machan http://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities/tibor-machan.html by email. Near the end of the conversation, after I sent him the original version of the Academy's "Strong" Position on Naturalism, below, he wrote back:

"Thanks for this. I agree. I have identified myself as a naturalist but for the bit of concern with this: "but purposeless, deterministic (except for possible tychistic [?] events)..." As far as I understand things, human conduct is not well understood in deterministic--other than self-deterministic--terms."

I agree with Machan's assessment of human conduct. It is not deterministic. But Clark and others make it out to be so, by claiming this: "[S]eeing just how we are caused (by our genetic endowment, upbringing, and social environments), [ ] we see that we aren’t the ultimate originators of ourselves or our behavior, [and] we can’t take ultimate credit or blame for what we do. [ ] People don't create themselves, so responsibility for their character and behavior isn't ultimately theirs, but is distributed over the many factors that created them."

It is quite deterministic to say we are caused by what is out of our control and so therefor we are not responsible for our actions. The definition of determinism is "The doctrine that every fact in the universe is guided entirely by law." [Dict. of Phil; Runes; http://www.ditext.com/runes/d.html]

Human conduct is not what many naturalists make it out to be. Man does have free will, and is, ultimately, responsible for his own actions and can, in spite of everything in the world, remake himself in his own image. That is why the description below says the "world-process is deterministic." The "process" of man's actions are "guided entirely" by the laws of nature regarding man; but man is sui generis and intellectually does not have to follow any rules but the ones he makes for himself.

The Academy's Strong Definition of Naturalism , Fully Explained with Caveats.

Given the divided nature of the many categories of "Naturalism," which include "strong" to "weak" definitions, it is necessary to state the position of this Academy as "strong;" and just as necessary to add the caveats at the end in order to distinguish this Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism from other metaphysical schools and schools of naturalism. But I would add that the terms "strong" and "weak" are unnecessarily vague, and that the categorical names are better, names such as metaphysical; teleonatural; ontological; Christian; humanist; deterministic; non-deterministic; reductive; non-reductive; etc.

Amended 9.12.08

"Naturalism, challenging the cogency of the cosmological,

i mechanical,ii and moral argumentsiii, holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government, but is self-existent, self-explanatory, self-operating, and self-directing, that the world-process is neither mechanistic nor anthropocentric, but purposeless, deterministic (except for possible tychistic* events), and only accidentally productive of man; that human life as physical, mental, moral and spiritual phenomena, are ordinary natural events attributable in all respects to the ordinary operations of the laws of nature; and that man's ethical values, compulsions, activities, and restraints can be justified by non-reductive monism, [ http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/09/non-reductive-monism.html ] without recourse to supernatural sanctions, and his highest good pursued and attained under natural conditions, without expectation of a supernatural destiny"--

(amended from B.A.G.Fuller http://www.ditext.com/runes/n.html see Naturalism)

(*Tychism: any theory which regards chance as an objective reality, operative in the cosmos; [ibid])

[caveats]

--AND that

this description neither explicitly nor implicitly exlcudes the existence of the human soul, nor of free will, when:"'soul' is a "veridical perception"** of consciousness;" and "'free will' is the mind’s freedom "to think or not;" (Ayn Rand)

AND that
"consciousness" is "the faculty of awareness—the faculty of [veridically] perceiving that which exists;" (AR)

AND that

"that which exists" is "an 'existent' be it a thing, an attribute or an action;" (AR)

AND FURTHER

that"an existent" is "veridical perception and memory, or abstract and ideal e.g. in conception and valuation;" (Runes)

**Where

"veridical perception" is a direct relation of awareness between a conscious subject and an object of empirical or abstract content. (CEC) (Dict. of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism; unpublished)

i

Where cosmology is taken to mean that which treats of the origin and structure of the universe. Cosmology also refers to the structural view where it is the world view of physics. However, as to cosmological origin, let me be clear: There is no origin. If existence itself had an origin, then the pre-existing condition of existence would be non-existence, which by definition can have no existence and therefore cannot have been a state of being prior to existence.

ii

Where mechanical is taken to mean the explanation of the present and the future in terms of the past. The opposite of mechanical is teleology, i.e., the explanation of the past and the present in terms of the future. [see above for comparison]

iii

Where the moral argument is taken to mean an argument for God based on man's moral nature, an objective nature that gives him cause to make moral assertions about existence but has no basis for conclusions of the supernatural. The only moral argument acceptable is teleological, meaning it must be the answer to the question of whether, not why, Man needs ethics; and what those ethics must be in terms of the objective nature of Man himself as "all there is" in terms of deducing the natural, not the super-natural, existence of existence.

Note:

I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC


mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

Testicular Stem Cells Thwart Religion to Determine Law

Stem Cells from Testicles Thwart Religious Intervention in Secular Lawmaking

The Christian right-wing-ness in President Bush caused him to put Judeo/Christian religion ahead of science and the cures for many diseases and biological defects, by banning the use of the reproduction of stem cells.

There may be no science that proves the human soul begins when life begins at conception, and there are epistemic arguments for saying the soul begins at birth. But the religious limitations placed on stem cell reproduction is being thwarted by men's testicles. That is something Mr. Bush can do nothing about, unless Christians wish to being arguing that the soul exists in each half of the human connection, i.e., in the sperm and in the egg.

Studies showed scientific potential using "spermatogonial cells" from the testicles of mice. "The new study used cells taken from biopsied tissue from 22 different men undergoing various medical treatments. The men ranged in age from 17 to 81. Researchers found that after a few weeks of growth, the cells could differentiate into various types of cells just like those taken from embryos," said the Associated Press.

However, some scientists, saying the idea is promising, also said testicle cells are not a reason to give up on research on embryonic stem cells.

"It's exciting. We could do it for males; that leaves women without as easy a method," said stem cell scientist George Daley of Children's Hospital in Boston and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He was not part of the new research, said the AP.

This is great news for disease and genetic researchers all over the globe. But I have a problem when religion outweighs the secularity of our laws. Our Founders may have been superb theologians and great believers in the Deist God; but they knew the danger of allowing religion to dictate the terms of our laws.

The Deists were Naturalists, which is why Thomas Jefferson got away with writing that "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" were the basis for human equality; they allow us to assume among the powers of the earth our separateness from each other and our equal stations in life. He did not write "God" alone, and indeed there is anecdotal evidence that Benjamin Franklin might have had a hand in encouraging that turn of words.

The use of the words "Nature's God" allows each man and woman his/her own understanding of the nature of existence, including the total non-belief in the supernatural, if that is the decision one comes to; but invoking the "Laws of Nature" gets right to the heart of the naturalism of the Deists, indeed, right to the heart of any naturalist.

Christians and all religions of supernaturalism deny that only the the laws of nature exist devoid of a supreme being. Deists as supernaturalists believe, in the same moment as they believe there is a God, that that same God endowed Man with Reason and endowed the world with immutable laws, and that together those laws and Man's reason are all that can be counted on. God may have created the world, but after that he was strictly a hands-off kind of Creator. All the answers to the questions of the world are to be found in Reason, including the questions and answers on the meditations of faith. Faith itself, however, is a matter for the soul.

It is not of that reason, in other word it is not reasonable, to assume that a soul can exist before the tabula rasa has any empirically-generated material of mind by which such a thing as the soul can exist. The soul is not supernatural; it is part of the nature of Man's being, as much as his toenails or his liver--or his mind.

But mind is the product of sensory impressions retained by the brain; and soul is the emotional content, the structure of the metaphysical meaning of those retained impressions. "Nature's God" is to the description of the contents of each human's individualistic beliefs regarding the questions and the rational answers of existence, what "soul" is to the emotional content regarding the nature of existence.

"Every time we walk along a beach," wrote the naturalist Loren Eiseley, "some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.”

"Ancient urge" is not what I would call the emotional content of man's soul, but the soul is as old as man himself, so it is indeed ancient. But this emotional content is ostensive in its nature; in other words, it is the description in emotional terms that only that which we call a soul can point at using our volition of the faculty of consciousness.

How many times have you heard it said, "What I felt can't be described in words?" What was felt and indescribably in words was ostensive. My Webster's defines "ostensive" as "directly pointing out," as one can only point to the sky or the ocean to "point out" what is the color blue. Without pointing, the color comes down to the scientific description of the wavelength of the color. Without feeling the soul, its nature comes down, like the description of a wavelength, to the reductive, deterministic science that declares all things in consciousness to be merely the firing of neurons, and chemical and electrical operations of the physiology of the body.

The soul is much more than reductive descriptions of the scientific evidence of how the body works. In order for the "ancient urge" to awaken, it must be struck by empirical impressions. A human born without sensory awareness can never gain consciousness, because without things about which to be conscious, it cannot exist. To exist without things to be conscious of is contradictory of the definition of the word. That much does not not contradict reductionism.

The soul is the emotional content of consciousness, and as such it cannot exist until the mind has gained enough sensory impressions to create one. This can only begin at birth, and it may be almost immediate. It would not contain much at that point, but the volition of the soul cannot begin begin before birth, before the trauma of birth awakens the brain to the content of sensory knowledge. It is the volition of the soul that upsets the apple cart of reductionism.

Right-wing fundamental Judeo/Christians are fighting
the wrong enemy when they fight science as a whole. It is only this idea of
reductionism, of the idea that man is nothing but the contents of his physiology
producing a "belief" in the existence of the soul, that the fundamentalists must
fight. Many scientists who believe the soul begins at birth, not at conception,
believe in God and the soul, not in reductionism. These scientists are not the
enemy of Christians; many of them are Christians.

To believe that such an object as the soul, created by sensory impressions and emotionally judged by the nature of each man's metaphysics, is immutable while believing the physical body that created it is not, (Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,) to believe that the soul is transcendental and that it is placed or created or somehow infused into the fertilized egg at the very moment the sperm enters it, is the stuff of religion. And that stuff of religion contradicts the non-deterministic, non-reductionistic laws of nature that define the means of the creation of the soul.

If there be a God, He caused its creation in birth, not in conception.

Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

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The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of the
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM, The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

If A Tree Falls, Does It Make a Sound?--the Primacy of Existence

If A Tree Falls In the Forest, Does it Make a Sound--or a Noise?

The Primacy of Existence

We have all heard the question "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound or a noise?" We have heard it ten, hundreds, or thousands or more times.

What does that question have to do with the description of Metaphysical Naturalism (MN) as "A belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the practices and institutions associated with such belief"? [See this blog dated 09.05.2008] MN, concerned with defining such things, and with the denial of what is non-existent, and with replacing belief in the supernatural or the lack thereof with a certainty about the natural cosmology of the universe and existence itself, has an interest in addressing "The Tree in the Forest."

Every answer I have ever read misses the essential point, which is not about "sound or sound waves being heard or not heard," nor about whether sound is different from noise. Those are the excuses of metaphysicians who will not, or cannot, face the real question, or who have no idea that another question more real exists.

The question is: Does existence exist independently of consciousness? When seen in this context, it does not matter if "sound" or "noise" is used as the definition of what happens when the tree falls; it matters whether you think things happen whether or not a consciousness is there to perceive that it happens.

The belief that reality requires a consciousness is gaining in prevalence. It has been a staple of some eastern philosophies for thousands of years. Some western philosophers have advanced the idea. Many young students facing philosophy for the first time have serious existential questions about their own existence. That makes a shameful indictment of how far our "intellectual" standards have plunged since Renaissance scholars brought Jefferson and America's other Founders to an understanding of men's unalienable individual sovereignty.

Those modern men and women who doubt their own existence have fallen backward in time 500 years, and can have no conception about their unalienable sovereignty, except what they are lucky enough to glean from between the lines of their teachers words, teachers who tell them their "rights" include all those things which must be provided by other men when they themselves fail to provide it--like health care.

(Deregulation of the health-care industry and extended patent lengths on pharmacuticals would considerably alter the high cost of care and drugs. But that is better left for another blog or two or three.)

To believe that consciousness gives reality to reality, e.g., that "perception is reality," is fallacious logic called the Primacy of Consciousness. (The Primacy of Perception is also a fallacy. ["...perception [as] the causal product of atomic sensations," again e.g., "perception is reality." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty ]

The Primacy of Existence states that existence exists. http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/primacyofexistence.html
http://www.geocities.com/katholon/poe.htm et al.

Existence exists. Period. There can be no requirement for the conscious perception of a "thing" to make that "thing" real. In this case the thing is whether or not a noise or a sound is generated.

If we grant that it is generated, because we agree the tree exists and that it fell, and that in the falling certain effects are the result of the falling--one of those effects being the generation of noise or sound--then it does not matter which definition you choose. Some choose "sound," some choose "noise." We can agree that in the context of the Primacy of Existence, which word we use does not matter.

But those who believe the fallacy that a consciousness must be conscious of the cause-and-effect agree it does not require consciousness to make the sound or noise waves reality when the tree falls--unless they are hard core in their belief that the tree would not even fall if no one was there to see it fall. That would require the explanation that the tree does not exist to fall unless consciousness perceives the tree and the forest to give them their reality.

If one chooses to call it "noise," then "sound" is what requires perception. If one chooses "sound" as the effect of a falling tree, then "noise" requires perception. If one chooses to comprehend that noises and sounds and falling trees are going to happen even after Man is dead and gone, then he also comprehends that existence, not consciousness, is primary.

That is where the end result of the Primacy of Consciousness demonstrates its illogic. I have seen questions that ask such things as, "When I die, will existence cease to exist?" If the answer was yes, then logic would require consciousness to give empirical reality to all that exists, and that it would exist only within one's own consciousness, within ones own moment of perception, except where more than one consciousness is also conscious of the same tree and the same forest at the same time--and from precisely the same perspective.

A "positive belief concerning the supernatural" would be required for such a demonstration of solidarity on the part of more than one consciousness. The evidentialist argument http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/evidenti.htm is that if four people are standing on the corners of an intersection and an accident happens, each of the four people will have differing details on the accident, since each perception took place from a different perspective. This argument holds that if each of the accounts is factual, then four different sets of facts exist.

This might be compared to the four accounts of the angels at the tomb of Jesus when the angels told "the two Marys" about his "resurection."

"Matthew says that the angel that was sitting upon the stone on the
outside of the sepulchre told the two Marys that Christ was risen, and
that the women went away quickly. Mark says that the women, upon
seeing the stone rolled away, and wondering at it, went into the
sepulchre, and that it was the angel that was sitting within on the
right side, that told them so. Luke says it was the two angels that
were standing up; and John says it was Jesus Christ himself that
told it to Mary Magdalene, and that she did not go into the sepulchre,
but only stooped down and looked in.

"Now, if the writer of those four books had gone into a court of
justice to prove an alibi (for it is of the nature of an alibi that is
here attempted to be proved, namely, the absence of a dead body by
supernatural means), and had they given their evidence in the same
contradictory manner as it is here given, they would have been in
danger of having their ears cropped for perjury, and would have justly
deserved it. Yet this is the evidence..." [Thomas Paine; "The Age of Reason"]

"Yet this is the evidence" for the account of whether or not a tree makes a sound or a noise in the forest, that different people can have different perspectives of the same event, and if they did not themselves have any perception of the event, the sound or noise could not have happened because a sound or a noise is a perception.

The fallacy can be described this way:

If sound is perception of an event, and
If a falling tree makes a sound,
Then the sound of the falling tree is in the perception of the event, and only in the perception of the event.

This is a belief in the supernatural, when naturalism is defined as existents including actions for which there is "no supernatural cause and government, but [which are] self-existent, self-explanatory, self-operating, and self-directing..." http://www.ditext.com/runes/index.html .

In other words, Metaphysical Naturalism is the certainty that existence is self-sufficient and requires no help from man (or god) to make it work. That such "certainty" is contextual with Man's knowledge of the logic of his physics makes it a belief. Certainty does not require infallibility and infallibility cannot be had in logic; infallibility makes beliefs even out of certainties where certainties are substantiated by logic. Nor does fallibility make certainty any less certain.

Beliefs are defined as religions by many authorities, and this Assemblage will not take umbrage by that definition, when it advances the wall of separation between church and state. As it is the committed purpose of this Assemblage and its Academy to help maintain this wall of separation, and as it is not contradictory to claim any belief as part of one religion or another, nor to claim that religion is a system of beliefs, it is the belief of this Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists that the production of noise or of sound by an empirical existent, under normal and natural conditions, is self-evidentiary, a certainty, and a primary axiom of existence.

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm (service mark) of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism tm, which is the educational arm of the Assemblage.
This publication © 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

Irreconciled Naturalism, Faith, and Populist Education

The Irreconcilability of Naturalism with Faith

by Curtis Edward Clark

Not one person on Earth needs formal training to make a judgment about the world he/she lives in, in the sense with which this article deals. We all make those kinds of "world-view" judgments everyday of our lives.

Theology, alike with physics, requires more formalized education with which to conclude such "world-views." As a matter of fact, physics accepts almost no "world-view" that is not its own, naturalistic and unassuming of a supernatural presence in the structure and origin of existence. Theology accepts almost no "world-view" that does not assume a creator’s existence; and theology also assumes the intelligibility of the universe solely on the basis of that creator’s existence.

Without the influence of religion, science seeks the intelligibility, the cosmos-from-chaos, through individual thinking and peer review; yet one man may uniquely stand against all his fellows in science and be correct yet shunned, until one day the world discovers he was correct, in which case the “Copernican effect” http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/observations/jupiter_satellites.html alters forever the cosmology of the civilization which accepts the logic, i.e., the line of reasoning; or the scientist stands alone until the world beginning with his peers disproves his theories convincingly.

Theology (proper) seeks to make cosmos-from chaos only from theories of the "faith-based" humanities, as opposed to physically or mathematically provable scientific concepts. Where no explanation of the cosmos results from such faith-based theorizing, religion joins reason to faith, "insofar as is possible" to do so, [Boethius] to create a dogma, a papal bull, or some other form of edict which is taken as policy and as gospel truth, until a proper theological explanation can be rendered. All theological explanations presume the existence of a creator.

The Copernican effect shook the foundations of the Roman Church. Dogma and papal edicts had to be radically changed because of the effect this naturalistic scientific idea had on doctrine. Scientific naturalism is epistemic and the logical metaphysical concomitant for most or many scientists is metaphysical naturalism, which is defined as denial of the existence of the supernatural, and thus of a creator.

Naturalism "holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government, but is self-existent, self-explanatory, self-operating, and self-directing" through the cause-and-effect nature of the elements on the Periodic Table interracting with each other. No such effect as "gravity", for example, can exist without being "caused" by such elements interacting as they will by their own scientifically defined nature upon the same defined nature of other elements.

But epistemic naturalistic science does not presume or deny the existence of God. The epistemology of it naturally leads to the search for demonstrable proof, either empirical or mathematical. In the scientist's personal life, God may be a fact, and in fact for some scientists it is fact. But for purposes of peer review using proper standards of math or of physics, any theory or other demonstrable proof of science must be naturalistic in its epistemic foundations.

"The moons of Jupiter [also] had a major impact on cosmology. In 1610 the traditional Aristotelian cosmology had come under attacks from Copernican astronomers. Aristotelians had a number of arguments against the Copernican System, one of which was now made obsolete," http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/observations/jupiter_satellites.html by Galileo's observations and conclusions about the heliocentricity of the moons of Jupiter. If it was true there, could Copernicus be correct about our entire solar system? [italics added]

Could science be correct about much more than what the any church is willing to consider? Only two or three hundred years ago, the modern marvelous discoveries and conclusions of science would have been branded "heretical" by the Church, as "vacuum" once was, and the proponents of our modern science would have been hounded and harrassed by clergy and the fanatical faithful.

(I do not imply that all "faithful" are "fanatical." Those who are not "fanatical" are capable of taking such "heresy", even by any other name, in stride, and sometimes even come to its defence.) Five hundred years ago our "heretical" scientists would have been murdered, perhaps as witches.

Cosmological science was originally contrasted with ontology, metaphysics, and natural science, but according to the "Dictionary of Philosophy," “treatises which profess to deal with one of them usually contains considerable material on the others; yet in this science" it continues, quoting Hegel, the topics of cosmology are generally “contingency, necessity, eternity, limitations and formal laws of the world…” and includes “…the nature and interrelationship of space and time,” and related matters, as a totality of all phenomena.
Dagobert D. Runes, Editor; Littlefield, Adams; 1968

Overall, science undertakes the study of "related matters as a totality of all phenomena," because one phenomenon is Man’s sentience of his own sentience. It is said that by observing an action of life, we change the action, e.g., a dog may perform differently if it knows his master is watching. What is the change in effect upon our scientific or theological theories when included in those theories must be the recognition that we are cognizant of our own cognizance, i.e., sapient of our own sapience? We watch ourselves theorizing, and we can watch ourselves watching ourselves, and this has led some philosophers to discount Man's mind as unreliable even in the sciences.

This skepticism has led to disastrous results in the humanities, foregoing the ancient "liberal arts" for politically charged theories of Man's inhumanity to Men; of Man's "meddling" in the universe; of Man being a festering disease upon the face of the planet; of America as a nation attempting to take over the world, as we so rightly accused the Soviets.

This substitution of science and reason for "populist humanities," not to mention the debacle over whether men are responsible for global warming or whether we are simply in a historical, natural warming period led Senator Joe Biden to declare in the Vice Presidential debate (9.03.08) that climate change was entirely "man-made." Biden attacked Palin, asking, "If you don't know what the cause is, how can you solve the problem?"

You can't solve it, necessarily, even if you know the cause. You can only do what seems reasonable and hope it helps. Man may indeed be adding to the problem of climate change, but he is not responsible for any part of it that nature itself creates, as with the very late arrival of the solar eruptions in the last cycle. That late arrival caused a drop in the mean temperature of the earth's atmosphere. Did that cause the Arctic ice to disinitegrate? I might have said man could have been one of the causes but for one other climate anomaly: man could not have caused the new 17 inches of ice that now exists at the south pole.

Can Biden, and Al Gore, and the other left-wing populists account for the extra ice there, or for the severity of China's winter last year, or for the fact that on the mountain peaks of Washington and Colorado America still had snow in June? This indicates weather patterns that are changing; it does not "prove" global warming, but it might prove global weather pattern changes.

In short, skepticism has led us to the irrationalization of our civilization's knowledge base. We are all skeptics of something cosmological; some of us are skeptic of most things cosmological, or at least metaphysical. Physicists are hardly interested anymore, as they were in Galileo's time, of being metaphysicists. Right-wing populists are a little more rational than those on the left, but only because their conserv-atism puts them a decade or so behind their progress-ive compatriots, for whom "progress" means going in the direction of humanism, demonstrable logic be damned.

The original "liberal arts" of the ancient world right up to nearly the beginning of the twentieth century, were: grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic [the trivium], arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy [the quadrivium.] The nature of these subjects causes the mind to use its natural and acquired logic more stringently, deeply, and scientifically--even when that science is often "joined insofar as is possible" with faith. Faith as the abnegation of reason is always wrong; but theology as rational thought is not always wrong, and has at times been correct, but for the wrong reason: its faith-oriented epistemology.

It would not be to the detriment of students in the twenty-first century to learn those ancient subjects. In fact, it would be to the advantage of our entire society, getting us back to education that was not "dumbed down" for the less-comprehending of our students.

Under the current educational system, no one is allowed to rise to the level of his/her incompetence unless they buck the system--or they are genius; everyone else is held back to the level of the incompetence of the slow, less-comprehending students.

Critical-thinking is all the rage these days, but it comes with the territory when we study the old Liberal Arts and the attendant subjects. Studying them gives students a deeper intellectual insight into the world by causing the use of formalized logical principles. I occasionally learn bits and pieces of those subjects, myself. And I try to lose any skepticism that is not to the advantage of my rationality to have.

Next Monday: The unnatural attempt to reconcile metaphysical naturalism with "intelligent design."

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Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC


mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of the
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM, The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

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A Short Treatise on Natural Rights and Economic Capital

"Naturalism in economics requires capitalism," I wrote, back in September. Natural Capitalism; Determinism, Compatibalism, Free Will; Wm.Penn

Naturalism in ethics requires the non-initiation of force in order to make individual sovereignty work, and individual sovereignty is the natural state of every distinct human. It is what he/she would have if he/she existed as the only human on the face of the earth.

In order to "secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," the American Founders relied on the concept of common sovereignty. " Popular [or common] sovereignty is the notion that no law or rule is legitimate unless it rests directly or indirectly on the consent of the individuals concerned. [John] Locke in his...'Second Treatise of Government,' published 1690, claimed as Hobbes before him, that the social contract was permanent and irrevocable, but the legis­lative was only empowered to legislate for the public good." http://www.basiclaw.net/Principles/Popular%20sovereignty.htm

The public good was described in the Constitution as the "general Welfare." But in "securing the Blessings of Liberty upon ourselves and our Posterity," we are forced to recognize that "ourselves" are selves which belong to individuals.

There is no general, public self except as defined as being those democratic decisions of the people and/or their representatives when such decisions do not violate the individual sovereignty left to each individual after he/she has given up a tiny portion of it to the "popular" sovereignty, from which it must be derived.

The idea of a federal and limited government is the idea that it is proper to ask of each individual the he/she give up only a tiny portion of his/her individual, natural sovereignty, i.e., only as much as is required for the empowerment of the government to protect the remaining sovereignty. Any powers not necessary to the government to protect individual sovereignty remains with the individual.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." So reads The Constitution.

Better phrasing would have been "or remain with the people." It was the explicit position of the Founders that sovereignty rested in the individual, because each of them felt themselves free for the first time in their lives--as individuals--and knew that the precedent they were trying to set for the world was that individual sovereignty would historically free all men for the first time.

"Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." Joseph J. Ellis; "American Sphinx,The Character of Thomas Jefferson"

The only purpose a government can have when constricted by the reservation of sovereignty as residing with the individual is the function of protecting that reservation of sovereignty that resides with the individual.

The right to use one's own capital as one sees fit resides with the individual, so long as such use does not violate the sovereignty that resides with any other individual.

It is in this way that the natural state of every man born into the world gives him/her the sovereignty to do with his/her possessions, whether of material or immaterial nature, as he/she would so freely do with such possessions when confronted with choices such as life offers.

It is the immaterial possession of religious beliefs that is protected by what Thomas Jefferson described as the "wall of separation between church and state." The government regulations upon choices of how one uses ones immaterial possessions ought to be no different than those which regulate the choices of how one uses one's material possessions. For example, it is the initiation of force to use a blunt object on the back of someone else's head, except in cases of self defence. The initiation of force is therefore a criminal act.

In what way is it the initiation of force to use one's capital as one sees fit just as long as one is not initiating the use of force against another person? It is no more the use of such force as is having the belief in a Babtist God, or a Catholic God. That such believers subject themselves to the dogma of their denominations is a choice freely made.

But for the same reason the immaterial placement of one's beliefs is protected by law, the placement of immaterial capital also ought to be protected by law. Instead, the American people are not protected by a "wall of separation" between their immaterial possession of capital, and state. They are subjected to the fascism of the Internal Revenue Service; to laws which stretch far and wide in Federal, State, and local goverment to control the use of immaterial capital; and must suffer unto those governments the control of what a government instead is Constitutionally designed to protect.

Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether or not coins, paper money, gold, silver, and other demonstrations of wealth are material or immaterial. The metaphysical reality behind any such demonstration of wealth rests solely with what value the market places on it. In some markets paper money has no value at all. In that market Warren Buffet would be a pauper--unless he could convert his money into the standard used by the market. In one known market that standard is strictly gold; in another it is strictly diamonds. The largest home in California would not, as collateral or as barter, purchase a speck of dust in those markets.

When the President has done some good work and gains the confidence of the people, he is said to have "political capital." Political capital is metaphysically no different in any way, shape or form from capital wealth we normally define in terms of money. The President cannot "spend" his political capital if the public isn't willing to take it as a form of political currency.

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© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®