Aboutism

The Philosopher Daniel Dennett died on April 19, 2024. When he was alive he taught that consciousness was overrated but made a lot of money with his 1991 bestseller Consciousness Explained while expounding upon his opinion that consciousness is nothing more than an “illusion”. This could become a popular ideology among a people who want to believe in moral relativism and remain justified, at least, in their own minds when facts contradict their opinions.
Dennett accuses people who mention religion of doubting science because they don’t want their “beloved mysteries” explained. But Dennett is just as afraid to accept that anyone might have a legitimate, rational reasons for resisting his reductionist vision of the religion of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus or other more competent philosophers and social reformers than Dennett himself. He sees the need for goodwill and trust in providing order and freedom but the means and methods of the prophets remain a "mystery" to him thanks in part to the mass formation of modern religion. Dennett has the opinion that natural selection produces “competence without comprehension.”
In the philosophy of mind, qualia are defined as instances of subjective, conscious experience. Daniel holds that qualia are fictional “artifact of bad theorizing”. False facts are the seed bed of a fictional view of history and often make a mockery of the thanksgiving and heroic gratefulness we should have for the past.
I reviewed this Jordan Peterson/ Daniel Dennette interview #438 in a podcast because Dennette and many others are so ignorant of what promotes the very "trust and goodwill" in society. The see as essential. Because they think they know what the Bible is about they settle for the aboutism of their imagination.
What are sacred scriptures about?
If people read them, translate them and interpret them but do not understand the metaphors and meaning of the myths they will not understand what the affordism and intent of the text is about.
They will not understand the aboutism of the author.
Knowing that the Prologue to the John Wycliffe Bible translation of 1384 states: "This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People." We see this was quoted in Lincoln at Gettysburg Address. Religion is mention 5 times in the Bible and only once in a good sense, while governments is mentioned in one form or another more than seven hundred to thousand times.
The followers of Jesus who repent like the Early Christians are about Pure Religion. They are willing to attend to the "weightier matters", listed by Jesus as "law, judgement, mercy, and faith" because that is what seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness is about.
Aboutism
Download Recording Aboutism Jordan Peterson interview with Dennette
or press play

https://www.hisholychurch.org/audio/20240413aboutism.mp3

Aboutism

In the EP 438. entitled Aboutness secular vs religious Jordan Pederson interviews Daniel Clement Dennett III who is an American philosopher, writer, and scientist within those fields related to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

Bennett along with other influential atheists believe all forms of religion to be false and that advocated an atheist movement. worldview.

The discussion would have been of more value to the individual had either of these two men had an accuratea true understanding of the pragmatic "meaning" and "intention" of Moses as he attempted to explain of the the "religion" contained in the ancient scriptures. Because the have faith in their own opinion as to what the text is "about" they replace the wisdom and revelation concerning a Republic of liberty as described by Moses with a false dichotomy.

Their faith in their own vision and opinion of what they think the religion of Moses and Christ is "about"" leads them into the public religion of the State. Their faith in their opinion concerning the aboutness of pure Religion becomes their personal religion of Aboutism

Their "eyes be darkened, that they see not". Instead of living of, by, and for the people through love of neighbor they emerse their society in a social safety net of legal charity rooted in fear.

The very "goodwill", "trust", "law", and "liberty" Dennette sees as essential is strangled, smothered, and commits suicide because of his blind faith in the "aboutism of the secular public religion of his "world]".

The real Moses

We covered what Moses really was "about" and taught in our own series on "Exodus".

Unfortunately Bennett is ignorant of Moses' meaning and morality because he, like most of modern moralists, he has unmoored the meaning of the metaphors that point to the "affordances" of the government of the people, for the people, and by the people that were captive and now were free.

Basically, the "trust" and "good will" Daniel Dennette supposes to be so important for "freedom" and "good government" can never result from systems of legal charity.

This a stronger delusion which comes from ignorance of the "aboutism" and the "affordances" of the "ideology" and "religion" and "government" referenced in the Bible.

In general, the term Aboutness refers to the concept that a text, utterance, image, or action is on or of something, considered synonymous with a document's subject involving the 'summarization' of the texts most important concepts to be included in your translation or interpretation.

The moral authority

Daniel Bennett, the author of Breaking the Spell, sees the Evolution of ethics for the last ten thousand years has been the secularization of ethics which he thinks has nothing to do with religion.

Bennett has been an influential atheist along with Sam Harris and Dawkins and Hitchins.

Sin is an archery term about missing the target or not preserving or observing what IS...what is true.

God, like Truth, is ineffable, too great or extreme to be expressed, observed, or described in words, even the words of our mind.

Daniel Bennett believes man has evolved systems of morality which he does not think animals can.(16 min. Ep. 438)

Daniel Bennett believes we have evolved away from the Old Testament mortality standards and done away with cannibalism and with slavery.

He thanks "goodness" that we have.

But have we?

He says science is "what is" and politics is "what we think should be". He thinks we no longer need religion because we have secular logic and human reason. He believes that the freedom he sees as important can be provided by a civilized structure.

Is he vain in his wisdom?

If you asked him about the "civilized structure" of the cities of blood would be understand what they were?

Does he understand the definition of religion just 200 years ago and how it has evolved?.

He complained about the New Testament ethics but does he understand why we are told to "love our neighbor as ourself"; be careful we do not bite one another less we be devoured; or the difference between public religion filled with the leaven of secular politics where care is murdered verses pure Religion' where the "trust and good will" Dennette seeks thrives? Pop

He seems to have thrown out the gift of the ancients in the form of the sacred text without ever unpacking it.

Aboutness of religious Scriptures

“The aboutness of religious Scriptures like the Bible includes the philosophy, psychology and physics of the mind, means, and manner of man and the cause and effects of a relationship with nature, the Law of Nature, and nature's God, which is the creative patterned force and power of the universe.

The patterned force and power offered by the metaphor of the tree of life allows for the power to change that brings eternal life. The tree of knowledge allows us to be changed by something other than the tree of life and therefore may not bring the same eternal life.

Yet, the gods of religions are as numerous as the gods of governments. Most atheists today believe in public Religion and the gods of the modern secular public Religion.

There is a religion that is merely about what people think about a god, i.e. belief in an ideology. People who think they do not believe in a Spiritual God are still religious, in the since of what religion use to mean two hundred years ago.

Their religion is that public Religion and your duty is determined by the gods of that public Religion. Those gods are parliaments, Prime ministers and presidents elect, directly or indirectly, by the choices of the people.

The difference may be simply whether they believe in the religion of charity or the religion of forced offerings. The latter is the secular religion of the modern atheist. These type of people feel the need to name God or the gods which includes the desire to define God or gods which is an attempt to place God into the bottle of our secular imagination.

Once, we think we have done that religion becomes an ideology instead of a "Pius duty" of the people. This naming or intellectually defining God will degenerate the people because they descend into the darkness of our imagination rather than the light of Truth.

Mapping the aboutness

Jordan with his maps of meaning and Exodus series has been trying to connect the dots laid out in myth and metaphor with little help from modern religionists and philosophers who are far more worldly than merely secular'.

They can not even see their own confusion nor the wisdom of the ancients because like the Pharaohs and Pharisees and the people who followed their pernicious ways they have been blinded.

It should be the hope of those who live by faith which is trust that those who live by force and sit in darkness may yet learn to love the light.

Affordance of liberty

JJ Gibson He defined an affordance as what the environment provides or furnishes the animal. Notably, Gibson compares an affordance with an ecological niche emphasizing the way niches characterize how an animal lives in its environment. JJ Gibson did not track affordance in the brain.??

Entropy is a lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder. There is order in the universe that came from somewhere and not from the mind of man. There is also room for chaos because their is some possibility of choice. That choice is no merely a product of the pushing and pulling of emotion. Emotion does not create all the order.

Daniel Bennett as an atheist sees emotions as doing all the pushing and pulling in the mind. There is no unifying Spirit of morality.

Daniel Bennett does not believe there is a supernatural agent whose approval must be bargained for. Bennett wants to deny the affordance of the mind because he thinks it is just a computer. The DNA within the body generate light and also responds to light. It is design to both send and receive. The body and mind are the corporeal hereditaments of our individuality and emotion is not the only affordance of the mind through the secretion of hormones. The spiritual DNA of everyone influences their destiny.

Practices of men alter and their societies and the natural the proclivity of the people and self denial is not the product of emotions. What naturally calls for sacrifice?

Sacrifice is said, in one form, draws us near the source of life which is why there is a metaphor of the tree of life.

Sacrifice in another form draws into a pattern of degeneration which is why there is a metaphor of the tree of knowledge which includes the practice of denying the affordance of the inspiration of spiritual DNA.

The sacrifice that is generated by the secular gods of the world and their public religion is the sacrifice of fools which is legal charity.

Bennette says we need good will and trust but the secular system of public religion and its sacrifice of fools of legal charity will degenerate the people and give rise to tyrants.

But is that what God is?

If we put the image of God in the bottle of our own imagination we will become idolatry. The desire for comfort is a production of the pushing and pulling of our emotions and the words of our mind we may eventually divide God into many gods.

If we are in denial about the trauma of our confusion we will compartmentalize our emotions and divide our mind until our gods begin to war with one another.

Even if we could evolve the singular "unmoved mover" back into a monotheist God who merely exists, the existing one, we would soon endow him with our own schizophrenia.

Jordan suggest that God is a voice that is calling mentioning the burning bush. 31 min

What Moses saw and spoke to was not named, even by Moses. It is identified as the I AM, or the EXISTING ONE.

God is not a "supernatural agent whose approval must be bargained for." The Torah is defining the cause and effect, the psychology and physics, the purpose and practicality, of the practices of mankind in their rituals and ceremonies but through metaphors and allegories.

Summum bonum

Summum bonum is a Latin expression meaning the highest or ultimate good, which was introduced by the Roman philosopher Cicero to denote the fundamental principle on which some system of ethics is based — that is, the aim of actions, which, if consistently pursued, will lead to the best possible life.

Pederson imagines that Thought is secularized prayer and that were thinking religiously longer than we have been thinking rationally. 41:

Daniel Bennett sees trust is what allow science and society. 39

Goodwill and trust

Is trust and faith the same ???

Bennet sees there needs to be goodwill and trust. How do you cultivate that "goodwill and trust" in society and how do you undermine that "goodwill and trust".

He also sees a need for freedom and government and it's law making ability to create order and "No one is above the law."

Breakdown of trust in "government and science". To these atheists like Sam Harris their trust is in their intellect and in themselves.

Sam trusted in his version of science and wanted to force his will on his neighbor. We can trust Sam to be a tyrant.

To the atheist there is no humbling power, no tree of life nor God to walk with and obey but the governments they create for themselves.

Never trust the good will of a atheist who loves his opinion more than his neighbor. He will become a tyrant who is untrustworthy.

Science is not the solution but a quest.

Can science save

Science in China produced a Skynet that watches the people.

Peterson mocks the idea of the Chinese that they are making the good Skynet just as he mocks the communists who think they are the saviors of the good social justice.

100 min

Daniel Bennett states that is why we need law and government.

Daniel Bennett thinks all the advances In ethics has been fought by religion but has come about by the secular advances.

I have seen secular corruption in Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, and many city-states and finally Rome.

It appears we are undergoing a degeneration of the moral ethics in societies from the early 1900's.

Dual magisterium

Daniel Bennett does not see the dual magisterium is government and religion.

There was a dual system in the government of Moses and neither Peterson nor Daniel Bennett understand how it worked.

Daniel Bennett complains that Stephen J. Gould should not have assumed that religion is the moral authority of society.

Stephen J. Gould's definition of magisteria means the teaching domain of each subject, referring to what both science and religion teach humanity about the empirical and metaphysical world. Science's magisterium is more focused on the empirical world whereas religious magisterium is concerned with human morals.

But is the real flaw in the dual magisterium theory a failure of mis- gendering.

The magisterium swells

Even "real communism" degenerates the people including the trust between the people. communism denies God and overthrows the family.

Rome over through the Tarquinian kings and formed a Republic and promoted the family as sacred.

Much of the power of government was in the hands of the fathers of those families.

When families gathered in small groups they respected the elders as the counsel of the Senate which had little power at first.

Over centuries they looked more and more to government to provide for more and more benefits until the protests and imperium of the natural family was in the hands of men who desired to rule.

Power shifted from the fathers of families to the Fathers of the State.

Power corrupts. Institution that endow divisions of society to obtain power will be corrupted by that power.

What tools of society builds trust?

What tools of society cultivates and nurtures good will?

Society must have fundamental and foundational guidelines that Mark a departure from a healthy society.

The magisterium gendered

Society consists of men and women who form family that produce the next generation.

Biblically the traditional family is one man and one woman who produce and raise of spring.

When Families come together they form clans and tribes, tribes form nations. As groups become larger governments are instituted. That process may consolidate power where families rule over families giving rise to abuse and oppression, kings and tyrants.

"Every tool will become a weapon in your enemies hands."

And everyone who loves them self or heir family mor than their neighbor becomes an instrument of oppression and a tool of tyranny.

The unique gendered divisions placed in the structure of the government as explained by an inspired Moses was tampered with, distorted and degraded in succeeding generations by greed and sloth, pride and avarice, of the church and state respectively.

The church in the wilderness and the people of the nation of Israel, before the kings, represented distinct and well defined responsibilities within society for properly attending to the weightier matters of law, judgement, mercy and faith.

The pattern and purpose created by the dual exercise by the laity and the clergy or the church in the wilderness, the Levites, (representative of the feminine gender of society)</Ref> of the natural and divine responsibilities and rights which form the DNA of free society with both secular and spiritual entanglement.

This same pattern of a corrupt blending of the clergy and laity has lead to the error of Balaam and the deeds of the Nicolaitans time and time again.

That corruption, like a cancer, eroded the reproduction of the next generation. The bondage produced by the covetous practices that flourished under the counterfeit interpretation, apostasy, brings a pain that calls for repentance.

The church as an institution becomes a harlot of tyrants instead of the Bride of Christ.

The need for a divine intervention of the spiritual DNA of man becomes paramount but only comes with a renewal of humility through the sincere prayer of, "Thy will be done."