The Holy Sixth Century

The Holy Sixth Century
by Kyrel Zantonavitch

Rationality and philosophy were discovered and invented around the early 500s BC in eastern Ionia. The almost instantaneous result of these wondrous creations was much more happiness, pleasure, ambition, and overall hope in life for all the new Greek men of reason. It was nothing less than a spiritual revolution.

Once full, consistent, systematic rational thought became possible -- once reason was successfully separated and isolated from emotion, desire, will, fantasy, hormonal drives, instincts, etc. -- a whole new world and psychology opened up to these now stunningly civilized people. It was the magnificent beginning of a wide variety of individual rational life-styles and collective rational societies for the now-rather-impressive human family.

Along with this new existence based on and guided by reason, traditional Greek belief-systems and mythologies became highly incredible and unserious. All the old polytheistic gods like Zeus, Athena, and Apollo immediately died out in the hearts and minds of the educated elite and ruling aristocracy. And so too in a different way for the low, vulgar, ignorant, sentimental, superstitious, seemingly irrelevant masses. This Greek invention of reason was, in general, an awesome and stupendous step up in the heroic ascent of man. But it was also an intellectual massacre -- and one with grave consequences.

Something of the mindset and heart of the Age of Reason Greeks can be seen in Sophocles. He describes this "new man" in his play 'Antigone' thus: "clever fellow...thoughts and words like the wind...Always can he help himself. Never does he face the future helpless. Only death can he not find an escape from." [lines 345-369] He later adds: "Reason is god's crowning gift to man." [line 684]

Once reason came into existence, virtually everyone high and low reacted and adapted to this radical new situation in a variety of interesting and dramatic ways. Some immediately began to live far better and richer lives. But others reacted in standard Hegelian Dialectic fashion with the creation of rationality's and philosophy's opposite and antithesis: the eastern mystery cults. The 'Concise Columbia Encyclopedia' describes these currently little-known phenomena as "important secret cults [whose] elaborate, mystic ritual appealed to individuals who had tired of the formalistic, state-centered rites of traditional [mythology], and who sought a promise of personal salvation and immortality."

Although few people today realize it -- even few intellectuals or Objectivists -- all of today's religions are just old, tired, lame, post-reason mystery cults, which have been lightly adapted and updated. Even the intensely pro-Christian historian Edward Gibbon admits this. The change and step up from sixth century BC classical Greek "mystery religions" to contemporary normal (sic) religions is actually very small.

The key to understanding human spirituality -- now and then -- is to recognize that the essence, heart, and soul of eastern mystery cultism and religion is immortality. It is not "God." God is just the mechanism or ad hoc vehicle towards the great desideratum of infinite life or "life after death." No one really wants or needs God per se. We just need him to perform his function, "do his job," and then, so to speak, fuck off.

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The reason for the otherwise rather mysterious invention and persistence of religion is: absolutely no-one wants to die. And the various mystery cults or proto-religions of the first Age of Reason prevented this. Orpheus of Thrace, Isis of Egypt, Kybele of Lydia, Mithra of Persia, and the "new and improved" Dionysus and Demeter of Greece all forbade death to their acolytes and/or the righteous.

It's also important to bear in mind here that mythology hasn't been around forever, as virtually everyone nowadays supposes. Pre-city mankind didn't really have such a thing as mythology. All kinds of random superstitions and early, odds-and-ends, rather-poorly-thought-out, unconnected, small myths were only combined into elaborate, systematic, semi-coherent, semi-reasonable, true mythologies for the first time about 5300 years ago in Mesopotamia. This was when humans first became "civilized" (form the Latin "civis" or city) and began to live together in society and in large permanent cities.

It was in this dynamic social situation that the various "citizens" compared and contrasted their various pre-rational and fictitious -- but not usually vicious -- beliefs. They then combined them to form something improved and noticeably more intelligent, plausible, and "rational." This is the relatively benign phenomenon of mythology that Joseph Campbell made so popular and "philosophical" on American television in the 1980s.

This phenomenon could also be referred to as proto-philosophy or proto-science or proto-reason. The highly organized, closely observed, well-educated superstitionism of Hesiod in the 600s BC was mythology at it's very best. And it rather quickly led to reason and philosophy.

It's also important to bear in mind here that the mythology of Dionysus and Demeter, and the various Olympic gods (not God), has almost nothing in common with the subsequent mystery cults of Dionysus and Demeter. So too the gods of the pre-600 BC polytheisms of Orpheus, Isis, Kybele, and Mithra belief. In the mystery cultist or proto-religious version of these last, a true (sic) deity has finally emerged which is not a mere Mt. Olympus-style superhuman or legendary hero but very much a (properly religious) alien with few or no human qualities. The Dionysus, Demeter, Orpheus, Isis, Kybele, Mithra, etc. of 300 BC are fundamentally different from the ones of five hundred years previous.

Finally, it's important to remember that "the holy bible" isn't nearly as old as virtually all religious leaders claim and the people (their gulls and gudgeons) commonly suppose. The "Torah" or "Pentateuch" or first five chapters of the bible -- i.e. "the books of Moses" -- weren't even started until at least 500 years after Moses's death (assuming he lived at all -- which Bertrand Russell didn't). And a semi-decent, semi-complete version of these first five holy "books" didn't appear till the mid-400s BC or so. As for that very preliminary version of the whole Old or Jewish Testament -- "the Septuagint" -- it wasn't prepared till 250 BC.

The great scam of religion, then and now, is that it predates reason and philosophy. Greater longevity thus tends to lend it greater authority. It can then be argued -- however wildly or hilariously -- that philosophy is but a pale and watered down version of religion. (The truth is the opposite.)

But a relative handful of heterogeneous, inchoate, pre-600 BC biblical genealogies, poems, chants, prayers, and drinking songs do not constitute religion or a religious holy book. Any serious inquiry or research into the chronology of human thought shows that the world of imitative, plagiaristic, devolved, badly derivative religion came after philosophy. Indeed, without philosophy, serious religion could not and would not have been invented.

* * *

As has already been indicated, all of today's new-style, post-mythology, post-philosophy "Gods" -- all of the absurd and non-existent cynosures of the Jews, Christians, Moslems, Mormons, Moonies, etc. -- are a kind of convenient and invented slave which obediently grants infinite life upon human demand. They see to it that our natural, normal, healthy terror about, and hatred of, death is successfully eliminated. Religion triumphs over the Grim Reaper with pseudo-philosophy or anti-philosophy.

This ultra-famous creation of "the one true god" -- made in our own image -- is, historically and psychologically, completely natural, normal, healthy, and inevitable. It's also profoundly wrong.

And yet: something had to be done about the decidedly dark aspect of this newly created rational intellectual endeavor, with all its revolutionary progress and changes thereof. Something had to be done about the down side of this godlike creation of reason. The Miliseans and Ephesians of the 500s BC may indeed have been true heroes and intellectual giants who uncovered and invented the beautiful institution of wholly legitimate and highly efficacious logic and problem solving.

But they also left us with one hell of a gap in our daily existence. This psychological and spiritual void can only be filled by rather full and profound philosophy. And by true and rational psychology and spirituality. But initial philosophers and intellectuals failed to do their job on this. So have current ones.

After reason was invented, there was this great anomie and chasm in classical Greek life and culture. Their traditional and less-powerful gods -- but much more friendly and humanlike ones -- were famously and permanently replaced by just this one, new, super powerful, impressive thing. But it was bizarre, gelid, inhuman, and alien.

On many issues, "God Almighty" is the devil himself and evil incarnate. "He" simply didn't help much on day-to-day problems, nor with important cultural and spiritual issues. And His/its coldness, aloofness, and unworldliness often hurt people a great deal.

And yet: this fundamentally preposterous and malicious belief actually constitutes progress. It is a step up. "The Lord God," as the religionists put it, is much more intellectually plausible and reasonable than "Zeus Almighty," as the Greeks put it. Hence the goodness (sic) of today's inscrutable, ineffable, unknowable, impossible "omnigod" or "unigod."

The genesis of this super powerful generic deity or omnigod -- concocted from the various highly similar mystery cults -- was genuinely good in that he allowed us to keep experiencing our new and unprecedented sweetness and enjoyableness of life forever. This supernatural entity or unigod was genuinely bad, however, in that he absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it didn't exist. "God" was and is made up whole cloth from the clear blue sky.

* * *

So the great problem with this freshly-created and universal ultra-deity is that all evidence whatsoever -- in the 500s BC and today -- practically screams that this being is pure fantasy and a product of rank self-delusion. "God" in his real form is seemingly a result of a variegated mixture of unhealthy human hallucination, dementia, and pathological delusion. God is self-deception on the grand scale. So too is hope of an incorporeal immortal "soul," and a physical or mental "heaven."

Ultimately all people -- then and now -- who advocate and promote such cultist/theistic lies and pretensions are basically quintessentially ignorant lowlifes of deliberate stupidity and calculated malevolence. These "Jesus-freaks" and other religiosos are champions of evil who are guilty of spending immense quantities of their time lying to themselves. After which they lie to others. After which they force the others to lie back to them. The circle and conspiracy is then complete.

How ironic that the very creation of rationality and philosophy by the noble Ionians made all this pernicious insidious nonsense possible! Pure versions of evil, irrationality, dishonesty, and self-deception came into the world for the first time under them. All these horrors became an available option to humankind some two-and-a-half millennia ago. And, as a result, so did a kind of previously unknown super-unhappiness.

The practitioners and victims of unreason were punished mightily.

Obviously, at some quick point, the desires of the vermicular god-fearing are legitimate and understandable -- maybe even virtuous and heroic. After all, all they want is an infinite quantity and quality of life. All they want is to live forever in ecstasy. Who doesn't?

But at some other quick point -- swimming in a vast and fathomless sea of pure lies, irrationality, and evil -- these cultists and sectarians are properly to be condemned, hated, feared, and perhaps destroyed. Their godly motivations, methodologies, and results -- for themselves and all others -- are intensely destructive and depraved. Practically all of history shows this. So does practically all of today.

Ultimately, now that reason is here and possible, we humans need to learn to live with the perhaps exquisite pain of knowing about our eventual death. We need to openly deal with our own mortality -- preferably "like a man." We need to bravely, honestly, fully turn to reason and philosophy -- and then figure out a way to deal with Thanatos. We need to confront reality and face the truth boldly about all this -- and still live a life of high success and great happiness.

In the intellectual and cultural history of man, glorious sacrosanct Reason began around 600 BC. But by 500 BC or before, there was already a battle royal for the "soul" of man being waged in Athens, Attica, Ionia, Greece, and the world. This battle still rages. This incredibly important war basically consists of good and scientifically-minded men from sixth century Greece like Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Heraklitus fighting ferociously with their evil and maniacal contemporaries like Xenophanes, Pythagoras, and the flagitious, superstitious, faceless, mindless, soulless drones of the Eleusinian and Orphic mystery cults.

So far, God and immortality are winning. Man is losing. The fundamental result of the current worldwide triumph of mystery cultism is -- as everyone knows -- a strong, broad, deep misery for all.

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