A note on the title of the blog...

I feel a little explanation for the title of this blog would be beneficial to readers, since I actually have them now :).  I orginally envisioned this blog as being a sounding board for a critique of modern culture and it's disassociation with any kind of moral truth.  I, following the writing of Nietzsche, envisioned writing in his biting style, but with Thomistic truth. I named the blog with rhetorical terms like "soldier" and "warrior" because I felt we needed a more masculine Catholicity to confront modern paganism, so I originally used the rhetoric of power. That may still seep in as it is fun to write that way, but in recent readings I realized to reach more people, I needed to be clearer and less metaphorical.  Once my readers are up to speed on how I am using terminology, I will probably delve back into that rhetorical stance. Ultimately, writing is an art, and even philosophy is more fun for readers if it is presented in a mysterious and beautiful way. I say that with some caution, as philosophy is meant to present ideas and terminology as precisely as possible. When we let poetic rhetoric creep in, we can sometimes lose precision and ultimately the truth we are pursuing. So, long story short, I want this to be artistic, but philosophical too. In the beginning, then, I will be as clear as possible, I will teach, and as a grasp of the terminology grows amongst readers, the rhetoric of Catholic power will reappear.  Of course, I reserve the right to allow the muse to inspire me, so there may be poetic/rhetorical posts along the way.

Given this new perspective on how to present this blog, I have change the name of it to "Lights through Diamonds."  This is a metaphor for how we approach truth.  The question of Pontius Pilate to Christ, "Quid est veritas?" (what is truth) echos more strongly today than in any other epoch.  Nietzsche perceptively caught that there was an element of perspective in all the philosophies presented by philosophers, but he wrongly assumed that there was no truth and that the deliberations of philosophers were merely prejudices of people who sought to dominate others.  MacIntyre, who in my mind is the most important moral philosopher since Nietzsche, has given greater credence to the idea that we approach moral truth through a perspective.  All activity requires a context to be intelligible, and virtues are only realized in an infinite number of contingent circumstances.  Thus, moral truth is not relative, but the right thing to do in all situations requires prudence and deliberation. There is not one mathematical or categorical answer to ethical dilemmas, and our cultural history will influence how we react to moral situations. 

So, following Plato who spoke of the good as light, and Christ who spoke of it as such, I have chosen the language of "Light" as the symbol of the transcendentals that are found in God, i.e. Being, the True, the Good, the Beautiful, and so on.  Diamonds, then, represent the prism through which we see the light.  We all have perspective, a material, efficient, final, and formal cause. Our cultural, familial, religious and cultural heritages inform how we percieve the world.  It's time to move away from the Enlightenment lie that we can be completely above and beyond perspective in inquiry. On the surface, this is a seemingly innocuous fancy, but it is a dangerous chimera that has careened us into the dictatorship of relativism we live in today.  For example, atheist physicists often present themselves as having no agenda, but to just let the science do the talking.  They claim to be following science, but then ignore all indicators that there is intelligence behind the very rational structure of reality.  This "scientism" then lends itself to a doubt about all things moral as it puts reason to war with religion, even though it is a false dichotomy.  There is no real antagonism between science and religion so long as neither side over steps its realm of understanding; indeed, science is unified by the existence of God, by Being.

In this blog, then, I do not pretend to not have perspective in looking for truth.  The perspective is meant to be open ended and dialectical, following my heroes of Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, I plan to circle around questions posed for debate.  I plan to spin the diamond in my hand, to locate all perspectives and look for the most direct route to the source of the light.  Through my intellectual and moral meanderings, I have encountered many perspectives, but the one that spoke most powerfully to my nature, and I believe will speak to all human being's nature, is the truth I found in Catholicism.  Indeed through reason I have come to believe the Catholic faith is the most consistent and rationally grounded way of approaching existence; through faith I have come to accept all that she teaches.  What I have discovered is that her faith and morals, while handed down from above, always have rational justification for themselves, we just need to be open to studying what she teaches.  I have found that the Church is like a laser that cuts through the diamond and opens us to the light without having to spin the diamond in our hands.  The prism has been shattered and the light given to us.  Nonetheless, we were created as seekers of knowledge, as door knockers for truth, so even though it was given to us, we must continually search to strengthen our faith.  Reason upholds the faith, the second wing on the great bird taking us to heaven.

So the perspective presented here is one of a Catholic convinced of the truth of the Church through rational inquiry.  When I earned my first Masters Degree in Catholic Studies, it was the first time I was given perspectives. I was shown for the first time dialectic, by being taught what those opposed to the Church's teaching held. Of course, I had been given these same perspectives as an undergraduate, but the opposing views were not presented. I was spoonfed a existentialist relativism without dialectic. It was one relativist viewpoint, and by reason of it's lack of giving perpectives, extremely unphilosophical. Catholic Studies wasn't presented as "Here are the enemies of the Church," it was presented dialectically, "Is this true what this person argues? If this is true, then the Church is wrong."  This affirmed my faith because the Church basks in the stronghold of truth.  She didn't fear criticism or silence opposition; she listened, and rebuked with reason.  Her rebukes spoke most profoundly to my inner nature.  Was what she taught uncomfortable? At times, yes. But truth is often uncomfortable, so even the hard teachings beckoned my nature.

Following Socrates and the classical tradition, then, this blog will be dialectical.  It will question the Church, it will question post-modern Enlightenment dogma, it will question all. There is no fear of the truth here.  So, the truth comes to us in perspectives, but there is Truth.  We will look at the light through diamonds, in open ended inquiry.  My hero Aquinas left his great theological works open ended, they weren't meant to be the final say on truth, but were truly dialectical.  We will do the same here.

Seeing so well we are all blind....

In the age of scientific discovery we have become blind.  We do not have a religious problem, we have a thinking problem.

Chesterton, in critiquing the religious - or rather, skeptical view of religion - of Dickens, once said that Dickens accepted the religious ethos of his day, which was one of anti-dogmatism.  Chesterton said, what anti-dogmatism actually is is unexamined dogma, which brings me to the topic for today - the thinking problem the West has found itself in.  Sure, we are pragmatic. Sure, we have technology that is so profound it often frightens us (think of the myriad of movies designated to the topic of technology ultimately exceeding our control - Wall-e or the Matrix Trilogy come immediately to mind); even with such marvelous acheivements, we are seeing so well we are blind. 

Pragmatic without prudence, the summation of our culture. I once heard a biology professor, in speaking about the status of a human embryo, state that he didn't put value into whether the thing he was experimenting with was human or not. He said he was not a philosopher or priest and didn't operate in the realm of pure speculation, but in the realm of pure data.  He said he didn't represent an ethic, but rather "allowed the science to lead the way without speculating about the status of the embryo. I do not introduce morality into my subject, but rather let the science do the talking."  I paraphrase here as the exact words escape me.  The point was, he was a scientist and not a philosopher, and therefore in his eyes he was eschewing morality and dealing purely with science.  No wonder we fear our technology!  If science dictates the ends, science dominates us like the worst of tyrants.  At any rate, this is the 20/20 scientific vision that has blinded us all.  Morality is about theories of actions, it is a speculative endeavor that seeks to understand how we ought to behave.  This unphilosophical scientist, because he had little or no philosophy training, actually put forward a morality while denying morality. This is the Western thinking problem in a nutshell.

His theory of action was to let science lead the way.  Seeing so well with instrumentation he forgot to look without it. It's akin to using a telescope to walk down the street, sure you can learn a lot about the stars with it, but it's not a good guide to walking down the street. If you don't get run over, you'll certainly run into things along the way.

This is the moral landscape we find ourselves in today.  We hear talk of science vs. religion, and how they are incompatible.  We hear of certain religious nuts, following their own wills to carnal or destructive ends, and we decide it is better to not examine dogma than actually see what motivates such people.  Of course, the shepherds of the slave morality want us to think religion is for the unsophisticated or the crazy.  Our groupthinking professors, all with existentialist Nietzschean ends (more on this later), have convinced us that religion is the problem.  They tend to gloss or not even cover the institutionalized versions of their very own ethic.  We shant look at the scars of atheism because alas, it is "scientific" and "sophisticated."  Let's just prima facie take a glimpse at institutionalized atheism.  Communist Russia -- how many millions was Stalin alone responsible for taking, 10?  Nazi Germany -- 6 million Jews, and the propagation of World War II.   How about modern China, where women are forcibly taken from their homes, their children murdered, all for a false understanding of overpopulation?  Atheism is nihilism in a very real sense; not an imagined or hated weakness of a Christian nihilism as Nietzche envisioned, but a real nihilism, spattered in blood; carved out in blood of the innocents.  Of course, our existentialist groupthinkers in academia do not shed light on this. Instead, they point to Galileo, or the executions for heresy in the Middle Ages, which amount to maybe tens of thousands of deaths.  This is no justification for the murders over dogma in the Middle Ages, but to show you that the hands of our groupthinking shepherds (academics, media, secular politicians) are not as clean as they pretend. Indeed, their laundry is much dirtier.

American politics has long been an arena of competing wills; of will to power politics.  Unfortunately, lately it has taken a turn for the worse, because it has instantiated the dictatorship of relativism.  Our president and his ilk all portray a love of freedom, brotherhood, and equality, but they define them on their own terms.  Freedom is accepting their view.  Freedom of speech is now hindered because we are threatened with "bigotry" if we even question their morality.  Governments, without a barometer of truth, detach themselves very quickly from recognition of human dignity and the natural law, and quickly descend into tyranny. We are witnessing this in American politics today.  According to our leaders, the truth is there is no moral truth, but our politicians have a truth. Their moral neutrality is the key that unlocks the gate and lets the wolves and leopards in.  It goes like this, "We are open minded, but do not contradict our openmindedness.  You think gay marriage is problematic, you are a bigot. Do not bother to speculate about it or question our truth. If you do you are a bigot.  Do not ask if homosexuals are happy, if you do so you are a bigot.  Bigot, bigot, bigot!" 

Or, "Do not ask about the status of an embryo. Embryonic stem cell research is for the good of humanity.  If you think it's a human being, it is religious standpoint and therefore unreasonable.  Do not question us and our sophisticated moral neutrality. If you do, you are opposed to science and freedom.  You are opposed to discovery. You are an ignoramus or bigot. Yes, bigot!"

Or, "You are opposed to abortion. That is based on your religion and therefore not reasonable. We believe in a woman's freedom. Do not ask if the tissue inside her womb is human. Do not question us or you are opposed to women's rights. You are a freedom hater if you question us. You are a bigot!"

See how moral neutrality works?  Christian morality cannot take a dogmatic approach - in the shadow of Kant - to issues because our culture says that no one knows what is truly moral.  Our shepherds tell us that Christian morality is archaic, outdated, and unreasonable.  They tell us it is based on blind fideism, (we will deal with the philosophical arguments stemming from the Christian perspective later - we do not need to allow them this debate silencer any longer). It is very open minded, of course, to silence opposition by not even hearing the reasons they have for their ethics.

So Christian morality makes you a bigot. Secular morality makes me open minded.  No need to inquire.  The wolves are shepherding us with relativism, and they will soon feast on us.  With Obama holding the keys, it is only a matter of time before their "truth" silences any and all inquiry in the name of moral and scientific sophistication - all the while silencing true inquiry and destroying sophisticiation!  The spiritually minded are all clued into this. We can no longer ask questions because the morally neutral are dictating to us our morality by means of intimidation!

It would do us all good to examine more closely, to ruminate about the dogma's we are so adament to hate. We do not examine dogma and fear dogma because if there is Truth, there may be demands on our wills.  Do we fear Truth?  Do you fear Truth?  If you must examine your own behavior, will there be skeletons?  In the dictum of Aristotle, we ought to love truth more than our friends.  To see that we naturally fear truth, because ultimately we by nature realize how dirty we are, one needs to just look at even our whitest of lies.  Someone asks you if you saw them walking down the street, when indeed you did, but avoided them because you didn't want to stop to talk.  You tell them you did not see them to avoid the discomfort of explaining that you didn't want to stop to talk.  A fear of the truth.

In this blog I plan to unmask the dogmatism of our agnostic society.  Agnosticism is practical atheism, and it realizes itself in this way.  All it takes for evil to triumph is for the good to do nothing; the good will do nothing if they recognize nothing as good. This is precisely where agnosticism and religious skepticism have placed us.  Because we as a culture have accepted that there is no truth, we find nothing good worth fighting for, but then the wolves spoon feed us the slave morality of childesh pleasure, which individually enslaves us, and ultimately corporately enslaves us. 

In this blog I plan to inspire thought. I will question the unchallenged dogma of existentialist liberalism. It's genius stroke was to play itself off as neutral and antidogmatic. But it is dogma.

It is right to question everything, so let's together inquire and disallow the "morally neutral" to dominate and intimidate us into non thinking.  Forget tolerance. We should question all!  (I can use the imperative "should" because our foundation is the natrual law, but we will argue for it in the coming posts.  We won't simply assert it and then intimidate all those who question it by calling them bigots.)

So let us question Catholicism. Let us question Islam. Let us question Atheism.  Let us question Judaism, Buddhism, pantheism, polytheism, etc. Let us question existence!  In other words, let us wonder....let us inquire.

We are dogmatic creatures. If we must be dogmatic, then what dogma?

It's time to remove the masks.

The loss of God....

Let me tell you about the loss of God
Let me tell you about the heartache
Of realizing that this life is endless pain
Let me tell you about the tragedy
Of thinking that existence has no deity

The recent massacre in Connecticut highlights the essence of godlessness.  Tragic, death obsessed, lusting, power, control. The blond beast prowls seeking its next victim.  It's easy when senseless murders happen like this to look to heaven and wonder, what God is this who allows such tragedy? Why moral evil?  Why natural evil? Why evil at all?

Seeing as we are the most pragmatically wise, but most philosophically ignorant culture that ever was, it's no wonder no one even asks these ultimate questions.  In the coming days our politicians will tell us enough is enough, but you can bet the policies that come of the most recent worship at the alter of moloch and the other spirits of death will only throw newspaper over the dung, meanwhile the real cesspool, godlessness and anti-Christianity will quantititatively increase.  The 2nd amendment is sure to be attacked and limited; we will stupidly cover the dung while increasing its stench.  Stopping guns will not stop massacres, giving back to the people a metaphysic that recognizes the inherent dignity of the individual; giving back to the people their God, will cleanse and purify.  Even if, like the atheist and agnostic modern anti-dogmatic dogmatists we cannot accept the so called ignorance of religion, a healthy fear of hell would spare our nation the heartache of an atheist existence; of a tragic existence.

We will continue to see massacres because we devalue humanity in its weakest form.  The murder committed by a young man who is now rotting in hell - be sure, he did not escape justice by taking his own life - is only an echo of an entire existentialist ethos.  It is the dark reflection of a consumerist, spoiled, vampire culture; the offspring of a death culture. 

Obama will most assuredly let the blood out of the Constitution to build his false panacea as a result of this tragedy.  He will, with his Hegelian relativism in hand, speak to us on our terms, but drain us of life in his policy.  He will take away guns, but feed moloch and the other beasts with our children.  He will fund Planned Parenthood, cow to the masculinist "feminists", dehumanize sexuality with homosexual "marriage"; he will, like all other atheistic regimes that were the spawn of Hegel, slowly, innocuously, methodically deaden everything.  Religion will be silenced and with it reason. He will claim to be objective, outside of the intellectual fray, with no perspective, all the while dogmatically, tyranically, eliminating all color from being. His is a will to power atheism, his is existentialism. Our comedy as Christians is that those are blessed who hunger and thirst for righteousness' sake, God satisfies all justice. He is the ultimate knight in shining armor, He makes all things right.

Until we recognize the inherent dignity of the human being from conception to natural death, the murders will continue. Until we look back to God, we will not see an end to the death culture.

Ours is a society spirited by death; a society dominated by moloch; an agnostic culture realizing it's practical atheism.  Tears streamed down my face as I saw the images.  It could have been mine; it could have been yours; ultimately, it was someone's child.

So what can be said of the evil that sunk its teeth into all of us this past week?  First, we point at God, but we should point at the enemy. God allows, the devil perpetrates.  This reflection of the death culture is the devil's handiwork, a fortaste of hell.  This is love for the devil - children murdered. The weak and defenseless murdered in cold blood.  What of God though? If He is all powerful, then why allow this?  These are good people this happened to, it could have been any of us.  That's the nub of Christianity, the narrow path on the way.  We are none of us guiltless, none, not one.  So it's true, the children murdered could've been mine or yours, no one "deserves" it, but some good will come out of the evil. As Christians, the outcome is determined.  Atheists don't have that comfort.

It's time we put aside our practical atheism and instead of pretending to be anti-dogmatic, actually examine dogma.  As humans we must have perspective because we are social beings. Culture forms us; the prime target of this Catholic is the didactic atheistic Enlightenment liberalism that claims no dogma, but is tyrannically dogmatic. It's time to question them on their perspective.  No more of the silent hegemony.

In the coming posts we will examine evil, as that is the biggest obstacle to acceptence of the existence of God.  To restore a culture of life, we need to let God back into our lives. We need to restore our families. We need to love truth more than our friends. We need no longer be afraid of the "something in the air," of the speech silencing truth haters, and speak truth. So in the coming posts we will examine evil, especially in the face of such tragedy.  Can a good God allow evil and if so why?

Let me tell you about our Comedy
Let me tell you about the greenery
Found in essences beyond what is seen