The Immortal Soul
January 16, 2013
G.D.O'Bradovich III
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has more threat than comfort.
Mason Cooley
Mason Cooley
1
Certain critics of our Modern Age often bemoan the fact that Christianity is inferior to wonderful paganism. I have never read where one of these learned critics attempt to date the beginning of Modernity. On my own initiative, I place the advent of Modernity to 1512. It was in this year the Papal Religious Order stated dogmatically that everyone possesses an immortal soul. Rome wrestled with this issue for the preceding fifteen centuries.
The mystery religions and pagan religions may have taught the idea of an immortal soul, but who can state this for certain? With everyone possessing an immortal soul, from Goethe to the Bushmen, equality has been achieved. Before Modernity, in glorious paganism there were stupid, deformed, crippled, and poor people, in other words, inequality was ever present. The idea of equality that comes from the idea of a soul, that once was the domain of the few in the mystery school, is now common knowledge. Since Vatican Two, the Roman Church, previously known for condemning everyone not in their organization, succumbed to the logical outcome of the concept of the soul. Now Rome states other Religions have merit, but Rome possess the fullness of the truth. In the mysteries, higher ideals were exalted. In the 20th century, the common man was praised and today it is not the ideal or the common man that is glorified, but the decadent, the lowest on the scale of true values. Could we expect another outcome from the idea of equality?
Since the standard is equality, the decadent, common and the ideal man are jumbled together. The elevation of the decadent, I believe, is the reason why certain writers lament our current predicament. If, as the proponents of Modernity contend, society will continue to improve through the enforcement of this idea or experiment, then all will be well. However, should the Modernists be wrong, the decline of civilization accelerates as the effort to propagate and support this unnatural equality must take resources from other projects, goals and agendas.
The effects of Second Vatican Counsel, as a prophetic microcosm of the world, are evident in declining weekly mass attendance (now that all people are equal, it follows that are all places equal-so why go to church?) and the laity's opinions (birth control and gay marriage) and behaviors (birth control and abortion). When the Vatican states that the life of a mother has the same worth as a newly joined sperm and ovum, the laity by their actions deny the Papal Religious Order teaching that the immortal soul is infused at conception. Only 121 men believe this and none of them are laity.
Rome can not, or will not, admit they have made a mistake. Western Civilization, if it desires to thrive, must confess it has made an error concerning equality. As certain writers have concluded, Western Civilization does not have the courage and the resolve to admit this gross error, but individuals, who do not rely on a consensus of the electorate, do have a choice to go against the conventional morality that the decadent is no worse, and possibly better in some regards, than the ideal man. Yet again, gentle reader, we return to the concept of “value” that is answered by the question “By what standard?”. When one hears people state that something is “good” or “bad”, I mentally ask “By what standard?” and this is, in almost all cases, answered by “No hierarchy of values”. Someday I aspire to ask the question aloud and engage the misguided soul who has experienced a lifetime of having true values inverted and attempting to exist with a perverse worldview that can not be beneficial.
Disclosure- By combining Plato’s Socratic Method and Nietzsche's ideas, the resultant question is “By what standard?” This question can be repeated five times before it leads to either a perverse morality or frustration or both.
In conclusion, we can confidently state the problems of Modernity come not from Christianity per se (as the Orthodox Church knows nothing about an immortal soul) as some commentators have speculated, but from the Platonic sham argument for an immortal soul that the Papal Religious Order has made dogma and the Protestants have inherited. This lie, that souls are immortal, leads to the erroneous idea that all men are equal (and, therefore, have equal abilities) and this leads to the crisis facing Western Civilization.
The mystery religions and pagan religions may have taught the idea of an immortal soul, but who can state this for certain? With everyone possessing an immortal soul, from Goethe to the Bushmen, equality has been achieved. Before Modernity, in glorious paganism there were stupid, deformed, crippled, and poor people, in other words, inequality was ever present. The idea of equality that comes from the idea of a soul, that once was the domain of the few in the mystery school, is now common knowledge. Since Vatican Two, the Roman Church, previously known for condemning everyone not in their organization, succumbed to the logical outcome of the concept of the soul. Now Rome states other Religions have merit, but Rome possess the fullness of the truth. In the mysteries, higher ideals were exalted. In the 20th century, the common man was praised and today it is not the ideal or the common man that is glorified, but the decadent, the lowest on the scale of true values. Could we expect another outcome from the idea of equality?
Since the standard is equality, the decadent, common and the ideal man are jumbled together. The elevation of the decadent, I believe, is the reason why certain writers lament our current predicament. If, as the proponents of Modernity contend, society will continue to improve through the enforcement of this idea or experiment, then all will be well. However, should the Modernists be wrong, the decline of civilization accelerates as the effort to propagate and support this unnatural equality must take resources from other projects, goals and agendas.
The effects of Second Vatican Counsel, as a prophetic microcosm of the world, are evident in declining weekly mass attendance (now that all people are equal, it follows that are all places equal-so why go to church?) and the laity's opinions (birth control and gay marriage) and behaviors (birth control and abortion). When the Vatican states that the life of a mother has the same worth as a newly joined sperm and ovum, the laity by their actions deny the Papal Religious Order teaching that the immortal soul is infused at conception. Only 121 men believe this and none of them are laity.
Rome can not, or will not, admit they have made a mistake. Western Civilization, if it desires to thrive, must confess it has made an error concerning equality. As certain writers have concluded, Western Civilization does not have the courage and the resolve to admit this gross error, but individuals, who do not rely on a consensus of the electorate, do have a choice to go against the conventional morality that the decadent is no worse, and possibly better in some regards, than the ideal man. Yet again, gentle reader, we return to the concept of “value” that is answered by the question “By what standard?”. When one hears people state that something is “good” or “bad”, I mentally ask “By what standard?” and this is, in almost all cases, answered by “No hierarchy of values”. Someday I aspire to ask the question aloud and engage the misguided soul who has experienced a lifetime of having true values inverted and attempting to exist with a perverse worldview that can not be beneficial.
Disclosure- By combining Plato’s Socratic Method and Nietzsche's ideas, the resultant question is “By what standard?” This question can be repeated five times before it leads to either a perverse morality or frustration or both.
In conclusion, we can confidently state the problems of Modernity come not from Christianity per se (as the Orthodox Church knows nothing about an immortal soul) as some commentators have speculated, but from the Platonic sham argument for an immortal soul that the Papal Religious Order has made dogma and the Protestants have inherited. This lie, that souls are immortal, leads to the erroneous idea that all men are equal (and, therefore, have equal abilities) and this leads to the crisis facing Western Civilization.