religion – DVS Press

Materialism and Gnosticism

David V Stewart October 20, 2022 October 20, 2022Ethics, Non-fiction, Philosophy, politics 8

Check out a great thread by author (and attorney) Alexander Palacio: It’s odd that the extremes of materialism (in the philosophical sense, the belief that only the material is real and of consequence) end up in the same place as Gnostic heresy in denying the importance and reality of the body. According to the materialist, you ARE your body, there is metaphysically no separate spiritual “soul” that ascends to heaven or goes anywhere else. Thus one would think that the body is, therefore, the only thing that can be sacred because it is all humans are. However, the disregard for…

American Radical Religion: revolution as revivalism

David V Stewart April 14, 2022 May 15, 2022Non-fiction, Philosophy 1

The last year or two I have been doing research into the many Christian and Pseudo-Christian religions that have arisen in the United States, particularly those that had their birth in the first part of the 19th century—the so-called “Great Awakening.” This includes the ancestors of the modern-day Mormon churches, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, along with the many variants of Charismatic and Pentecostal Protestant Christianity. I’ve noticed a few patterns, though these are not universal, nor has my study been exhaustive. Generally, I see a sequence that goes something like this: A charismatic leader preaches novel heresy as a…

The Modern “Pagan”

David V Stewart January 5, 2022 January 5, 2022History, Non-fiction, Philosophy 3

I put out a little thread the other day (actually 2, since I wanted to elaborate on Paganism). In one go: Mass hypnosis is a fun concept, but I think disordered religious sentiment makes more sense. Remember pagans never called themselves anything; so the followers of the Death Cult, State Cult, and Scientism only have those labels because we have found them useful. 1000+ years of domination in the west by Christianity and Islam has made people forget that religion doesn’t usually resemble these faiths, especially when it comes to self-identification. Milius was right when Conan asks, “What gods do…

Invoking Mammon to Spite Moloch

David V Stewart September 18, 2021 September 19, 2021Art, Non-fiction, Philosophy, politics 5

“Get woke, go broke.” It’s pure cope. But more than that, it’s evoking a vice (greed) as some counter, or some consequence, to the ideological propagation of the greater death cult. You need to take your arguments to a higher level, specifically the spiritual and moral level, because the “woke cult” is ultimately a moral vision, and to defeat a moral vision, you need a superior moral vision. As a practical matter, virtually no individual suffers any kind of consequence, especially financial, for participating in woke ideology. In fact, they receive benefits from it, usually financial, even when their ideological…

ECONOMIC ARGUMENTS

David V Stewart July 29, 2020 July 30, 2020Economics, Non-fiction, Philosophy, politics 1

The obsession with the material… That’s what the vast majority of “conservative” arguments are these days – appeals to the material. I write this article on a state-of-the-art (from five years ago) computer powering two huge monitors whose inner workings might as well be magic, surrounded by walls full of guitars – and not just any guitars, some of the best ever made. I have a magical electronic drum set a few feet from me, just in case I want to play drums without bothering my neighbors. I live in a huge house in one of the most expensive states…

Contemporary Christian Music

David V Stewart June 20, 2020 June 20, 2020Art, Non-fiction 9

I had some recent discussions with some fellow authors, and the subject of “Contemporary Christian Music” (CCM) came up. It’s a kind of music that I am intimately familiar with, having grown up in a protestant church that, like most evangelical churches of middle America in the 1990s, foisted upon both young and old the idea of “modern” worship music as an alternative to “secular” music. This took different forms depending on the target demographic – for the general congregation, it was bland rock music driven by acoustic guitars that featured “Jesus is my Boyfriend” lyrics repeated dozens of times.…

Problems with separation of church and state

David V Stewart January 21, 2020 January 21, 2020Education, History, Non-fiction, Philosophy, politics 0

This is some practical observation. Separation of church and state really means freedom from blasphemy laws. This is why the restrictions on laws respecting religion or prohibiting it are withing the first amendment to the United States constitution, rather separate from it. It’s fundamentally about speech. The problems (or perhaps flaws) arise when the power and scope of the state grows, especially if the religious make-up of the culture has a high degree of diversity. When this happens the state will become atheistic or agnostic over time, as we can see in most western countries today. Why does this happen?…

“Star Wars Fans” and created identities

David V Stewart January 5, 2020 January 5, 2020Non-fiction, Philosophy, politics 0

Just a little follow-up to my post yesterday: Being a “fan” is no to a large part a function of identity. However, it is fundamentally different from other forms of identity, such as race, ethnicity, or religion. For ethnicity, membership is generally obvious and immutable – either you are the descendant of an ethnic group or you are not, with the only grey area being multi-ethnic individuals in some circumstances. For religion, identity is primarily how one views himself and his alignment with tradition and creed that has been passed down, and so is in most cases not up for…

Tag: religion