What Is The Phenomenology of Spirit? New Integrative Concepts, New Synergies: How Politics and Religion Might Be Connected: 'Hegelian Christianity', 'Humanistic-Existential Christianity', 'Christian Daoism', 'Dialectic Divinities', 'The Holy Trinity' and 'The Holy Spirit' Re-Interpreted -- and The Potential Influence of These New Concepts on Ethics, Politics, Business and Economics, Marriages...

This essay is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it for the conservative-minded. It is not for anyone who believes in keeping things the same. It is not for any person who is incapable of a 'paradigm shift' -- who is plastered to the wall of his or her own paradigm philosophy and/or religion right now, and who cannot peel himself off of it to look at the world from a new perspective.

According to Otto Rank (a psychoanalyst from Freud's time who spent much of his time studying 'creativity'), creativity is all about making new integrations, new syntheses, and in the new vernacular -- new 'synergies'.

I am from a Protestant background although I have not been a practicing Protestant/Christian since my childhood. Still, I am not immune to my recent impulse to both 'deconstruct' and 'reconstruct' religious and biblical principles.

Questions like... 'How can I harmonize Christianity and Humanistic-Existential philosophy (and/or more particularly, Nietzschean 'anti-Christian' philosophy in a spirit that both sides might find acceptable?  To ask such a question, and better, to find a possibly workable answer, is from my perspective, The Search for 'The Holy Grail', or in my newly created vernacular -- The Search for a 'Dialectic Divinity'.

In my most recent spurt of creativity, I have found a whole host of new potential dialectic divinities -- arrived at by fusing together in a 'dialectically united way' the special individual properties, and polar characteristics of opposing philosophies and/or energies.

Can religion and humanistic-existentialism by united? In a word -- 'yes'. 

Can politics and religion be united? If they are united by the principles of humanistic-existentialism, then, 'yes, they can be'.

Can Christianity and Daoism be united? In Hegel's Hotel here, yes, indeed....It is just another example of 'negotiating, integrating, synergizing' a new dialectic conceptual product that -- if it works well enough -- can be construed as another 'dialectic divinity'.

Let me start by integrating Hegelian philosophy into Christianity in a way that 're-interprets' the whole concept of 'The Holy Trinity'. 

For me, Jesus Christ emulates the Spirit of Humanism -- which includes 'groundedness', 'stability', peace, tranquility, harmony, earth and water, 'compassion', 'generosity', 'caring', 'empathy', 'altruism', 'loving'... -- and the Eastern Spirit of 'Yin'.

Contradistinctively, God emulates the Spirit of 'Existentialism' -- 'freedom', 'independence', 'boldness', 'assertiveness', 'evolution', 'change', 'passion', 'air', 'wind', 'fire', 'Creativity'... -- and the Eastern Spirit of 'Yang'.

Rather than viewing both God and Jesus Christ as essentially the same deity, I view God and Jesus Christ as 'two polarized deities, emulating opposite energies' that when fused together can be viewed as the essence of 'Humanistic(Jesus Christ)-Existentialism(God)' or a 'dialectical divinity' or 'The Holy Spirit' -- and which, when incorporated into the spirit and the behavior of man -- gives us the final point of the triangle in 'The Holy Trinity'. This is what I call a Christian rendition of Hegel's 'Phenomenology of Spirit'. Thus, the total package of what I am synergizing here  might be viewed as 'Hegelian Christianity', and a type of 'Nietzschean Christianity' where man expresses himself boldly and assertively while at the same time caring about, and for, others...

Let us not forget that allegedly, Nietzsche's last act before he went insane was a most 'Christian' act -- he ran across the street and threw himself in front of a whip that was aimed at a man's horse. 

Existentialism is not compatible with the Christian principle of 'self-denial' and 'self-submission'. Nor is it compatible with the Christian principle of 'Original Sin'.  Both of these ideas, Nietzsche objected to -- and rejected. Dissociated himself from. 

However, in Nietzschean Christianity -- as constructed and proposed by me -- man stands up for himself, asserts himself, expresses himself, evolves himself in fresh and creative ways -- and, in so doing, emulates God as one of his two main polar role models in an 'internalized or introjected dialectic divinity' (the other polarized role model being Jesus Christ). 

Internalizing 'the yin' of Jesus Christ, and 'the yang' of God, in a balanced, harmonious manner, man internalizes 'The Holy Spirit' -- or in Hegelian terms, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' -- and by doing this, man becomes the last part of 'The Holy Trinity'. In this fashion, The Holy Spirit, or The Phenomenology of Spirit, becomes a Western version of The Daoist 'Path'. When we step away from The Holy Spirit or The Phenomenology of Spirit, and start to chase after 'greed' or 'power against people' or 'revenges' or 'violence' or 'war'.....then we are walking away from 'The Hegelian-Nietzschean Christian-Daoist Path'. 

This is the spirit of Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy-Psychology. 

Have a great day!


-- dgb, November 11, 2012, 

-- David Gordon Bain 

Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations and Creations...

Are Still in Process....
 

Post-Election Thoughts on The Failure of The Republican Party and The Tea Party: Part 1 Religious and Political Extremism

If you want to talk about the failure of The Republican Party -- and one of its main derivatives -- i.e., The Tea Party -- a good place to start is this question here: Should politics and religion be connected at all? 

If we were to canvas all the different opinions and beliefs of the American people relative to their religious and/or non-religious viewpoints, we would undoubtedly get a very wide spectrum  of viewpoints indeed.  

So when a politician comes out and espouses one particular religious viewpoint, he or she is probably going to get 'the agreement' a particular 'subset' of 'believers'; and probably, at the same time, get an equally, or much larger, subset of 'non-believers'.  The more radical the politician's religious viewpoint is, the more likely he or she is to alienate a high degree of potential supporters -- and civilian voters. I would not suggest that any politician use the words 'God' and 'rape' in the same sentence. That is likely going to be morally repulsive for most people to listen to -- not to mention political suicide. 

My belief is that, from a pragmatic political perspective, it is probably best keeping the subject of religion out of politics altogether. However, herein lies the Catch-22 for The Republican and The Tea Party: they are built on a strongly religious base that, when taken too far, can alienate The Republican and The Tea Party from a huge chunk of potential American voters who might otherwise like many of The Republican/Tea Party's political ideas. Like bringing down the deficit. And balancing the budget.

The Tea Party could have been a huge success if its philosophical and political principles had been fused together by the right group of modern day political philosophers who were significantly basing their ideas upon the ideas of The American Constitution (which was put together by another group of very smart American and European political philosophers).    

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The Federal Convention convened in the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787, to revise the Articles of Confederation. Because the delegations from only two states were at first present, the members adjourned from day to day until a quorum of seven states was obtained on May 25. Through discussion and debate it became clear by mid-June that, rather than amend the existing Articles, the Convention would draft an entirely new frame of government. All through the summer, in closed sessions, the delegates debated, and redrafted the articles of the new Constitution. Among the chief points at issue were how much power to allow the central government, how many representatives in Congress to allow each state, and how these representatives should be elected--directly by the people or by the state legislators. The work of many minds, the Constitution stands as a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise. constitution The article "A More Perfect Union" is an in-depth look at the Constitutional Convention and the ratification process. "Questions and Answers Pertaining to the Constitution" presents dozens of fascinating facts about the Constitution. constitution Page two of the U.S. Constitution was unveiled in its new encasement on September 15, 2000. Read remarks issued at the ceremony by John W. Carlin, Archivist of the United States, and Dr. Michael Beschloss. Constitution ..............................................................................................................................................................

Unfortunately, as far as I am concerned, The Republican-Tea Party never successfully put a full -- and highly reasonable -- political platform together, branded and marketed it, but instead, eventually became negatively stereotyped and branded as a party of religious extremists and Republican hard-liners. Down goes The Tea Party. And with it -- The Republican Party too. Religious extremism and hard-line Republicanism will never win an American election any time soon. The American people have already experienced the effects of that type of Republicanism at least once in recent memory -- Bush's Regime -- and will probably not be in a hurry to vote into office any brand of Republicanism that smacks or smells of 'Bushism'. 

More flexible, intelligent, moderate, creative, democratic Republican voices need to be more loudly heard. The hard-line Republicans will continue to lead the Republican Party to their collective demise -- like lemmings over a cliff -- until they are basically silenced and no longer seen to reflect or represent the interests and principles of The more 'centralist and moderate' Republican Party as a whole, both in the eyes of the American people, and before that, in the eyes of The Republican Party. Extremism rarely takes you to anywhere other than your own self-destruction. In fact, this is a Hegelian principle. Paraphrasing Hegel....Every idea, theory, principle, characteristic, platform...carries with it the seeds of its own self-destruction. And this self-destruction usually arrives at 'the extremist fringes of the original idea'....

My theory of quasi-mythological-deist-spiritualism includes at its core....the idea of...

'Dialectic Divinities'....

When dialectic opposite parties engage each other in creative, synergetic, respectful, humanistic-existential, debate....the outcome can be a 'dialectical divinity'...

Like 'yin' and 'yang' in harmonious balance with each other....

Apollonianism and Dionysianism in harmonious balance with each other...

Like men and women in harmonious balance with each other...

Like Republicans and Democrats in harmonious balance with each other....

Like The United States of America...

United....and not divided....


-- dgb, Nov. 9th, 2012, 

-- David Gordon Bain, 

Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

Are Still in Process...