Chapter 1 IntroductionPolitical theory often is linked nowadays to
pragmatic views in Economics, Sociology or Political Science, often not Philosophy or Psychology. Many people try to argue that a system is perfect following parameters that are connected to the material world, to the empirical. If it pertains to any philosophy or system of belief, it is often dogmas, ideas badly put to justify such system, rushed and with neglect, while the focus often falls into proving the practicality of a system. I want to offer a different approach, one offered by the Lodamese Idealist School. This is not meant to prove the righteousness of a system above other, but to offer not only a
critical perspective on Capitalism, but also
expose the relations between epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and political theory, which at first their not as visible, but their still vital for our understanding as well as offer us a proper reason for our political convictions.
First to understand what will be undergone in this book, it's critique and path, foremost I will explain the items we will work with here. Capitalism it is an economic system revolved around the ownership of private property, pursuit of profit, existence of markets that are less or more free and entrepreneurship. Anluanism is a religion found around Kundrati and Endralon mainly, based on an ancient paganic belief in several gods, with the central thesis around the idea that humans are created with the mission of achieving the most of everything, in hedonist terms, achieving happiness through pleasures is highest honor and the mission of human existence, not fulfilling that would be considered wasteful and unwise. Hedonism thus is interconnected with Anluanism, the pursuit of pleasure is a mission in itself. Now that we understand the basic terminology used, I will go into detail, although not before explaining the choices made for this study. I chose Endralon as a case of study because of it's unique capitalist culture, being closest to the nature of capitalism, a nation fond of big corporations and highly capitalist values, as with Anluanism, it is connected not only to Endralon by being in vogue there, but also with Hedonism and Materialism, leading to it be included, as how we will see, Capitalism needs
economic consumption, which only motivated thoroughly by the selfish and naive belief that material goods and bodily pleasures lead to more happiness. This fact will aid us throughout our endeavor on connecting capitalism and materialism, and the result of
enslavement of humankind to their material world.
To understand this basis of Capitalism in materialism and hedonism, I called it
Capitalist spirit, which encompasses all behaviors and beliefs of a general capitalist or person that is influenced by the doctrine of capitalism. Unlike in the past when progress was slow, production of poor quality and reserved for the elites in stringent hierarchies, nowadays, Capitalism has not only offered us a more efficient economic system with better economic output and constant progress, but also changed our mindsets. From now on, people won't be only looking to survive for another day and thank themselves with the hierarchical position they were born in, but aspire for more. Capitalism has bred a new toxic culture that gives the illusion that everyone can be at the top and when the harsh reality - of whatever reason or factor - hits us showing us that we cannot achieve everything, often we are disappointment, betrayed, unfulfilled. The Capitalist spirit is axed on making people in need of constant gratification through usage of material goods, make us demand constant upgrades for our lives, be at the mercy of our impulses, be sexual, vices, shopaholism (buying too much) or wishing to enrich further and further, as well think that happiness is about consuming and enjoying through our senses, all which makes Capitalism as a system actually run. For capitalists, consumption is everything, not only productivity; productivity needs to be utilized, and to be utilized you need consumers, but these also need a philosophical tenet on justifying their reckless consumption and behavior - hedonism and materialism. A point which I will explain better is materialism enslaves us by linking happiness and wellbeing to outside factors that are often outside of our reach.
As you guessed already, this will be describing
the antithesis between asceticism and hedonism through the lenses of metaphysics and epistemology, with a bit of psychology. As result of this debate, we will also conclude on
exposing the flaws of Capitalism and have a better understanding of humans and relations between various concepts such as Knowledge, Truth or Rationality. Through this, we will begin to navigate through four more chapters and a conclusion to our trip in the world of ideas.
Chapter 2 Theory of KnowledgeIn order to properly begin the endeavor we must first address the glaring issue at hand: explaining
human rationality. In order to understand the difference between asceticism and hedonism, it is necessary to explore the metaphysical and epistemological sides, see the nature of things, a short summary on how humans work, how they relate to
Truth, understand the functions and the nature of our ideas. First of all,
Rationality it is not a way of knowing the world, that would imply many other ways of doing it and put it at equality with the rest of human faculties, offering a view from many, being part alongside intuition, instincts, etc, but rather it is a
process, process to something, to a better understanding. A simple analogy between senses will explain Rationality better. As humans, we dispose of
senses, that extract
stimuli from around ourselves and even from our inners, this stimuli thus needing processing, as it is currently standing, their of no use to us, but only after it goes through our brain it is then
adapted to a form that we can comprehend and utilize as experience for further actions. If a cactus stings us by touching it, we will feel the pain and the brain will process the sting as something not welcoming. Exactly as this experiment shows us the path from stimuli to comprehensive information, Knowledge is processed in our brain under the form of ideas, notions, convictions as a product of receiving a logical form, one that can we understand.
Logical form can be understood as anything that is comprehensive for humans, as a direct result of the intermediate process called
"Rationalization". Rationalization helps us convert crude stimuli into valuable information to be stored and utilized for future endeavors. For this reason I came to the conclusion that
Rationality stands as superior above all else, as it is the only faculty that transforms the incomprehensible into comprehensible, the latter options "of knowing the world" thus turn out to be mere senses that gather the crude essential information for our brains to process it and give it a shape, using language, although that is a story for another book, one around the hermeneutics.
What implications does this have? If
Rationality is the upmost important faculty of humankind in understanding the world, then it makes
the sole judger of our actions, no explanation would live outside our Rational, no way of knowing of things outside what our Rationality provides us, making it the only viable and trustworthy companion in our journey called Life. With Rationality as the most important faculty that we use everyday and is essential to human life, then we can conclude that it is also the
wisest to follow for best results possible. Of course, then comes problems like how we differentiate Rationality of others, how we know what we do is purely the result of
logical thought? This is a difficult question to answer to this date, but I am gonna provide a temporary answer for this: what separates Rationality from other faculties is the character of processing and coming up with ideas, which allows us to think and to organize our mind efficiently as well come up with best result possible when pursuing Knowledge. Though Rationality depends on the flow of information it receives, which can be flawed by nature or thanks to our senses, as well the fact that Rationality is perfect explains the various types of people and their unique
individuality, result of imperfect design, differences in flow of experiences, factors influencing our minds without realizing. This shows us that people are not always rational and often act
irrationally more often than we think, though this does not stop us from pursuing Knowledge and Truth.
Now with that out of the way, how does this process of Rationalization even work? For this, I came with the
"Theory of Classification". Simply put, our most basic way of understanding is
differentiation. In order to even be able to work with notions or ideas, or anything for that matter we need be aware of the notions themselves. The borders are often drawn through a process of
classifying items we enter in contact with through defining them. Defining
items, helps us differentiate and allow for further work with the items. This is not to say all human knowledge is just differences, though a large portion of understanding the World comes through acknowledging the
individuality of each object or notion we interact with. Through "Classification" humans get to clarify the borders between all items and allow for proper usage of them in our minds. "Classification" is split into two, the
"Classes" that are the result of this process of differentiating with the help of
Criteria, and the Items that partook into this. The Classes are arbitrarily set, as the Elements, or better said the crude information, the Item received is shaped through Classification to the point that it's nature is fully revealed, leaving a well defined concept that from a simple Item becomes an Element, that it is True in itself and does not need anymore questioning. Thus we realize that the process of differentiating is arbitrary, but the results are not, the
Elements that we work with and shape via more and more sophisticated differentiation
are valuable on their own, true to their nature and clear in their forms, that no matter language possessed by humans, we arrive at the same Elements, thus the question is not if the Classifications are correct, but if the process of Classifying revealed properly the nature of the Items in order to become Elements. An example over this is the following: consider 100 balls and 5 boxes. However you place these balls, the balls will stay true to their nature, no matter of classifying.
The
Elements are not only true by their Nature, but by the conclusions of the People pursuing them. Often people throughout different periods reached
same or similar conclusions. If this is just our limited Logic or the
Truth itself we cannot know yet, but one thing is sure: Elements get to be very well defined and "stationary". This pertains to one of my new thesis on Truth and the existence of
two types of it: Mobile and Stationary.
Mobile means that the Truth we know is moving, it's changing with our development and it does not need to be shamed as "imperfect" or "unnecessary", as this Truth despite being limited unlike the Stationary Truth, it is correct in itself, applying with validity to humans and having a possibility of helping humans reach the Stationary Truth.
Stationary I refer to the Truth that is the boundary of knowledge, the ultimate, the frontier of all possible experiences of all kinds,
the barrier that separates the Existence from the Nothing. The
Mobile Truth while looks failible, it is not, as it grows inside the Stationary Truth, thus everything we know it
is valid, not to be disposed off. This results in a major win for Rationality, as it proves the validity of Ideas, made up of Elements that all together make up the Mobile Truth, part of the Stationary Truth. The Mobile Truth is destined to keep growing till it reaches all corners of possible Knowledge to be acquired.
An addendum to all of above. Questions will be raised over this, so it is for the better I clarify some ideas used above. The borders between idealism and materialism, or better said between the Noumenal and Phenomenal is set by the fact that the Noumenal is Stationary, while the Phenomenal is Mobile. The world of Ideas is set, stable, formed of Elements that compose the Stationary Truth, while the outside, the Phenomenal is of the Senses, composed of all things we come in contact with. Thus, Truth can be derived in form of Elements with origin in Items, garnered by our Senses as stimuli. Even if the Phenomenal world is ever changing, the Items it offer for us to analyze permit us to discover Elements, that make up Ideas about the rest. Even if the Elements are part of Mobile Truth, their still true. Truth and Knowledge are synonymous, in term that Knowledge is Truth, it is Stationary, even if the Truth is Mobile, as both Knowledge and Truth are formed of Elements true to their nature, thus Truth is also as easily said, Knowledge. What constitutes as True, constitutes as well as Knowledge, and what constitutes as Knowledge is also constituted as True. With this, I finish the chapter 2 on Rationality and it's importance.
Chapter 3 Pleasure in relation to RationalityPleasure, ah, the most delightful thing for humans. The epitome of human Progress, the thing we all aspire too, in one form or another. But what is this Pleasure more exactly? What is seeking? Currently, the most popular view is coming from
Hedonism and is linking Happiness to Pleasure, as
Pleasure is sought to
maximize Happiness. In our current Capitalist society, we seek it constantly as a gratification dose, like a drug, and when we fail to receive our dose or be disappointed by it we degenerate into depression and all sort of affiliated symptoms, we become sad, unfulfilled, alienated, desperate, disorientated. The society made of
Pleasure as a Cult of Happiness, often linked with freedom and belief that pursuing a life of bodily pleasures as well consuming material goods will bring us the happiness we aspire to.
Sadness means a social failure, means desperation, as happiness turned out as a drug worse than the drugs and vices themselves, as the problem with
drugs and excesses is not themselves, but the fact that these are the
symptom of a larger issue: Happiness as a Cult. With this issues were we did go wrong? One may say that
defining Pleasure
correctly allows us to improve human conditions, and they would be absolutely right. In order to fix this chaos, we must
redefine the Element
Pleasure properly and ensure that we act upon it not with ignorance but with Wisdom. The path to Pleasure is not constant Happiness, as we thought before, but
Inner Peace, characterized by Stability in front of the affects. Simply put, Pleasure is constituted not of Happiness, but of sentiment of Peace, meaning that people in order to have Pleasure they must learn to detach themselves from the Chaos posed by the material world and it's rash temper. If it is for us to become happy, we
must learn to be balanced, to achieve peace by being less worried, stressed, learn to avoid failing into despair, teach proper mental discipline, by incorporating a virtuous behavior and a strong temper that can withstand emotional affects and the challenges of the World. This is not to say that the only way to live is by ignoring the problems, faking happiness or being some angel, but means trying to disconnect the link between happiness and the "material conditions", which is unstable, and connect our happiness to something else, to values, to ideas, that are more stable and offer us comfort in a crazy world like today. Basically change what we can to improve our mental health without resorting to suicide, drugs, isolation or wasteful behavior.
But if it is for us to have
constant Pleasure, then how do we
achieve it? Is there a path to consistent happiness, or at least a largely safe and prosperous source of human Joy? In order to answer this, we must reread last section and see the answer for ourselves:
the world of Ideas gives us a stable source of inspiration, as the nature of Ideas made up of Elements
is stable, even if we know a Mobile Truth, the Elements of the Mobile Truth are also part of the greater Stationary Truth, meaning that what we know is a sure thing we can always lean on. When the
Outside is collapsing, the only things preventing us from accessing Ideas are rare circumstances such as death, illness or inhibitions, but for the most part, everyone, even the most common people can rely on their
mind as a deriver of happiness. This is partly true with religions too, as they too appeal to Ideals, of course less preferred in our endeavor but still a solution nonetheless. Acknowledging this rather safe source to be utilized in our search for
True Happiness is a great step that for our society to heal from the destruction perpetuated by the lofty vision of Pleasure as constant Happiness, and worst of all, seeing material world as supreme measure and tool of our wellbeing. Furthermore, it is to be considered the world of Ideas and the linkage of happiness to Values as superior to the existing attempts of linking laughably and naively the human Wellbeing to
Material world. The "Material conditions" do not offer a stable environment for Happiness to develop, as these are rather illusory and often changing, thus offering insecurities and a dependence on effects that are hard to find or are accessible to parts of the population only. Given the
superior nature of Rationality as a human faculty that gives sense to the world and is basis of Knowledge,
to ignore it in favor of Pleasure achieved through Senses, which are clearly lowly compared to Rationality,
it is an offense to it. What world is to live in where Rationality, the best human faculty is not utilized in finding happiness, but rather our Senses, that despite their importance in providing crude Items to be utilized, is no match for our minds, crafter of all Elements.
As a result, the most
noble path for humankind is the path of Knowledge, the endeavor of discovering the deepest Truths of our Universe, of revealing the True Nature of everything, of improving our understanding of inner ourselves and accessing new realms of Mystery and Awe. Humans always awed for the
Unknown, for everything beyond our eyes, behind appearances, always in pursuit of Knowledge and Wisdom as we found ourselves with a
Natural desire and aspiration toward venturing into the Unknown, like an ancestral call to be one with the Universe. Knowledge is that way we can achieve everything through it, even improve our Wellbeing and fulfill our Existence. But what if in search of it we lose our Moderation? As we said before, Pleasure and Happiness are not synonymous. Then when we lose our Moderation in pursuit of Knowledge?
Losing Moderation means that the person in quest is greatly affected. Losing Moderation means
losing Stability that is inherent to have Inner Peace, which in terms is true Pleasure. If that happens, then it is clear that the pursuit is no more beneficial to the one in quest for. Although the boundaries between that and Sadness are hardly to clarify fully,
Moderation is inherent to Pleasure, and when we observe a lack of Pleasure we can say that Moderation is missing. Despite this, people can opt out to continue behaving reckless, although their Peace is affected and often they will face problems more than they should. Before moving to the next section, I want to say that Pleasure is important for all of us not only thanks to Hedonism or another doctrine, but thanks to Pleasure being linked to Peace and Stability, products of Moderation and Spiritual Pleasure. We need it, that we need it constantly is debatable, but nobody can argue that we do not need Pleasure, Pleasure is inherent in us and can take many forms, the best being of course entrenched in Ideas and Moderation.
In Chapter 2 I talked a bit of Materialism and Elements, but very few. Materialists argue that the
world is all of the one thing,
Matter. In order to combat this affirmation, we must make use of the "Theory of Classification" that will again, explain the fact that there is a
difference between Elements and Items through their nature, and that in this context,
Matter equals with "Everything", meaning that it's value is cancelled out, as we too we could say "
Everything is x" (be that "x" is Nature, God, Universe, Object, anything really). Thus we need to realize that this Classification of everything under the label of "Matter"
is arbitrary, entrenched in
preference of calling Everything with that word. That also means that just because we can reduce everything to itself, does not invalidate the rest of arbitrary Classifications. Just as I can classify Humans as Humanity or after their Gender, both Classifications are arbitrary and correct in their way, without excluding each other. So, the World/Everything is both all Matter and at the same time split into Elements and Items, into the Phenomenal and Noumenal.
There is no more righteous classification, thus Materialism as a philosophical doctrine failed miserably. A second objection will be brought against Hedonism, invaluable to Anluanism and Capitalism. Hedonism will be critiqued not because of it's Moral implications, but because it heavily relies on
Material Pleasure, instead of Spiritual Pleasure. Till our ignorance is worn and we will be able to see that for Hedonism to work we must find source of Pleasure from Ideas and their stability thanks to the Stationary character, we will find ourselves in trouble, depending on the mercy of the Material World of providing us the Pleasure, as the Phenomenal is ever changing, tumultuous, chaotic and insecure, if our Happiness has become slave of ever changing, unpredictable and often disappointing Items found in the Phenomenal world around us, then we can understand where Sadness derives from.
Spiritual Pleasure though, offers us Stability, by connecting Ideas with Pleasure, stable Elements with constant craving for Peace.
Here we can find then the flaw in Hedonism, and consequently
Capitalism as not only an economic system but a
cultural system, promoting in the name of Growth the link between Pleasure and Material Goods, described as
Consumer Products destined to be utilized in our endeavor of gaining Happiness. As we can see,
two distortions happened, one on what is Pleasure, as we talked earlier, and one new found as a link between Phenomenal world and it's capacity of giving us Pleasure. As I already detailed, this link is
flawed and can make us dependent on unpredictable and often illusory Items, making us susceptible to Sadness, Alienation or Desperation. Furthermore, if our Wellbeing has became so linked with Material Conditions, then are we not becoming addicts?
Nobody praises drug addiction or alcoholism, as we talked earlier,
then why we would celebrate or think it is great for us to become slaves of the material world? What difference is between a drug addict and an addict of bodily pleasures? None, as both rely on an insecure supply of said stuff, would do anything to get hand on a new dose, often overdose as their not contented always with what they receive and often when deprived of the drug they go violent and emotionally unstable. Thus, why we should celebrate the
subjugation of Humans by Material? Being at the mercy of our World and it's unpredictable nature, as well utilizing Senses to find Pleasure when Rationality was proven the superior faculty? It is only Rational, literally, if we became aware of this and started to act properly after our
True Nature, not what we have been learning through the
toxic Capitalist Culture. Searching Wellbeing should not be linked to Happiness through consumption of Material Goods, but rather finding Peace and Stability through Ideas that offer us Values, Knowledge and Enlightenment. If we cannot realize the beauty and power of Ideas, we are doomed to act without Knowledge, as well suffer at the mercy of our Phenomenal world.
Rationality thus, it is not only a tool for understanding the World, composed of Knowledge, but as imperfect it may be, it is our
Beacon of Hope that offers us guidance in a chaotic world, without clear paths, ever changing nature of the Items and illusions. Rationality proves itself
capable of offering the most Stable Pleasure of all, utilizing the Elements formed from Items and forming Ideas worth thinking of or guiding our lives after, it is the sole source for
Peace and Stability, for Pleasure. Senses can offer us Happiness, but not inherently Pleasure, because
Happiness often is a mere illusion of Stability and not Stability itself. Thus to answer to the title of this Chapter, the link between Rationality and Pleasure is direct, as Rationality is the process through which we can utilize the Ideas to enhance our Pleasure and Moderate our actions.
In order to give a more "Practical", closer to empirical example to all of our talking in Chapter 3, I propose we discuss
Sexuality. Human sexuality is often seen today as
Material product, composed only of
Attraction and Physical Interaction, overlooking the second Nature of Sex. It is often seen only as a bodily pleasure, that everyone seeks to do it, for it offers the Illusion of pleasure, but it is often unfulfilling and often we crave for more and more, and
never feel Full, never feel we had enough, and become addicted. To explain this, we must see if we properly understood Sexuality. First of,
Sexuality is not only about the two parts,
Attraction and Physical Interaction, but has a third element, in opposition with the first two elements linked to Material, as
third element comes as a Spiritual, element of the Noumenal, that
being Love, Love for the other partner or partners with whom you pursue Physical Interaction, aka sexual intercourse. For us to have True Pleasure and feel satisfied with the Act, we must make use of all Elements composing Sexuality though today we often overlook the third element, Love. Most of our promiscuity is Sex with random people in hope we feel what we cannot without the presence of Love, the third Noumenal Element. This can be applied to all of our actions,
everything has behind it's Material appearance a Noumenal nature, part of the world of Ideas. This also explains how we can extract Elements from Items found in the Phenomenal world. In order to enable ourselves True Pleasure, we must connect the Act happening in the Material world, with the Element found in the Noumenal, basically Acting in the Phenomenal with the help of the Noumenal.
But then a new problem in all this arises:
What if we are not all fond of using Rationality? Not everyone is an intellectual or capable of achieving highest achievements, nor be able to always use Ideas to justify his actions or give him comfort. Though is to be noted
two things: To have Pleasure, you do not need to be an intellectual, look like a philosopher or try discover the new Relativity Theory, but to
use the Rational in your endeavors,
to find Moderation, as well find Resignation and adapt better to the World by enhancing your responses in Acts instead of trying to control the Material world, which as we saw is unpredictable, chaotic and often hard to be subjugated, more often than not, the Material subjugates us, and not vice versa.
Secondly, we do not have to constantly use Ideas or appeal to the Noumenal to live Peacefully, but
it is highly preferable that at least in this context
we strive to limit our dependency on Material Goods, as well switch focus from Happiness, which is illusory and rare, to Stability and Inner Peace of the soul. We can do more than just trying be philosophers or abuse the Noumenal, we can
practice something useful instead of drugs, find new meaning, do sport or read, as well we could exercise living with less and less, renouncing to useless products or goods one by one that are useless, find new ways of enjoying Acts and meditating over. A frugal life it is not for everyone, but offers us less to worry about and less to depend on. With this, Chapter 3 has concluded, I dropped a small note before ending it.
Before leaving this Chapter for the 4th one, I want to talk about what is the
Soul, and how does this leads to
"Secular Spirituality". First of, since there are at least two different worlds, in antithesis to each other, the Noumenal made of Ideas, and the Phenomenal made of Items, then it is easy to use this dichotomy to characterize Humans and get ourselves an answer: Humans have two Natural counterparts, each linked to each other, the Material side, formed of the Body we observe and can touch and feel, it is the one that is basing it's existence on Senses and Happiness through bodily pleasures, and the Spiritual side, formed of Ideas and Rationality (via Rationalization), that it has no real position in the Material world, though stems from the Material, in a superior and more stable form, the Spiritual side being intangible, without shape or form in the Concrete, basing it's existence in Elements and Peace, Stability. Now that we know the differences, what is "Secular Spirituality"? It is a concept related to the idea that there is no need of higher deities for a superior, Noumenal world to exist, that the Soul, as we saw above, has no religious background, but rather a universal, stemming from Rationality, and it's processes, and not a Divine omnipresent being that offers Humans the capacity to Rationalize or have a Soul.
Chapter 4 Anluanism and PleasureAnalyzing the dogmas of Anluanism, we can find out that
the religion is deeply flawed, if we put it in comparing with our results above. Lodamese Idealists like me find Anluanism deeply flawed as this religion bases it's entire
existence on promising people Pleasure, unlike the other Selucian pagan cults or Hosianism. Anluanism often tries to appeal as a Religion that satisfies our desires, especially Material desires, bodily pleasures. They put Anluanism
in opposition to Hosianism, saw as constraining and using dogmas to justify their redundant and unavailing belief in a simple life. Both use dogmas, which Idealism and Rationalism objects to, giving instead a better, more analytical approach to all of this. In the following analyze, we will use the
dogma, the axioms promoted as True by Anluanists. For this I cite the International Society for the Study of Terran Civilisations:
"Similarly to Hosianism, the gods' figures are less anthropomorphic, and they showed definitely as good, who wants the best for the society of the creatures, the humans. Amater creates humans to have a people that she can give prosperity and with it she can fulfill his desire to help people; Poseitunus gives water to the mortals, because he has really much redundant water in the oceans, rivers and lakes, and he wants everything to be perfect, and everything to be used; Lukrezia gives the enjoyment of having sex (and other pleasures, could be eating a good, achieving results, etc.) to the mortal humans because she thinks these pleasures are giving the essence of mortal living, and she want to fulfill it with all of her power. This 'wanting the best for humans' is the largest difference between the Religio Seluciana, where gods and goddesses are anthropomorphic and fight each other and somethimes terrorize humans, and the Anluanism, where they're the source of Hedonism. However it is still classified as a Selucianistic religion referred to Enetric origin, polytheism, similar methods and similarities of deities."This excerpt explains well Anluanist belief system. It has three gods that all combined offer Humans the World for it to be used by them to
maximize Pleasure. However, as I previously stated, trying to maximize Pleasure, by
using distorted notions of them,
using Senses instead of Rationality and trying to force people to constant pursuit of Pleasure, when
we already see that such goal is not only debatable but maybe impossible given our natural limitations. First of all, Anluanism is making the same mistake as the Capitalist Culture,
confusing Happiness with Peace, Happiness is not only of the domain of the Senses, but also cannot confer us true Stability and Pleasure, just the illusion of satisfaction, which is not lasting long and often we feel unfulfilled by it. As well
connecting in a grave manner Pleasure to Material, in such way that it overlooks and ignores the chaotic and unsafe nature of Material world, which often subjugates us and limits our capacities and endeavors, ultimately
giving us Sadness and Desperation, as we find ourselves lost and alienated, unable to think outside this dangerous scheme, all thanks to distorted notions and wrong usage of our faculties, as well submit ourselves to a religion that not only promises us Pleasure, but forces us to seek it constantly almost like a drug dose. The consequences? Immeasurable! This religion not only lies people into buying this, but also
hinders as any dogmas, severely our
potential and endeavors at Knowledge, giving us answers that although stemmed from Rationality as product of it, it is subtracting from a fair critical analysis, and instead claiming to be an absolute Truth, hinder thus our Understanding of it. Even if the source for these convictions is Divine, the process of Rationalization and inspection of said Elements is still NECESSARY, we cannot lie to ourselves and cheat the rules of Rationality to believe in unfounded axioms, without prior analysis and thought over them. This coupled with the
defective belief in constant Pleasure, especially highly linked to Material World leads to disastrous outcomes. The dogmas of Anluanism, which analyzed theologically and metaphysically start to fail apart, as we saw in our little analysis of this religion. It does not offer any proper thesis or of substance, as well having internal contradictions, as it promises Pleasure, but as well not only confuses definitions, but also offers a source of tension in the minds of the followers, who come to realize that Pleasure cannot be constant, and that the religion supposedly offered Stability and Peace, instead made people look in the wrong direction and make them susceptible to the
Enslavement of humankind to the Material world.
Now that we compared the dogma of Anluanism with the Lodamese Idealism, we will compare Anluanism to a Lodamese paganic cult,
"Cult of the Ezic Star" (OOC reference to
Papers, Please), followers of it often called Ezicists after the Ezic Star. Of course, dogmas are dogmas, and as we discovered what is "Secular Spirituality", we would think religion is completely biased, a distortion of itself, though this is 1. for our analysis in a constrained context where we compare it to Anluanism, and 2., the
Divine may be very well existing, although it is easily confused with
the world of Ideas and Human Spirituality, thus the job on f
inding the plausibility of God or Gods falls to differentiating the Elements, through which we often arrive at a
Creative Force in Nature, often ascribed either to Physical Laws or set of Deities, thus entering a
dilemma, it can be very well a Deity or more, but as well likely can be the Natural Laws, which is which? Only sure thing is that there is a superior Energy or Force above our observeable Universe.
Onto the matters now. Comparing Ezicists to Anluanists, the Ezicists have a
different dogmatic approach, one that axes on valuing Peace and Stability of our Souls, having belief in a Spiritual Power that governs the World we live in, and which gave us part of their Power as Soul and Rationality, our job being to find the way back, to be again with it, through use of Rationality, the Soul. The
name of the religion comes from a star on the sky saw as the gate to the Spiritual, giving it the name of Ezic, thus the idea of "Followers of Ezic Star", or the "Cult of Ezic Star", as people see this the
Gate through which the Spiritual interacts with the Phenomenal.
The belief in Rationality comes from the dogma of this paganic cult, that Spirituality manifests itself through Rationality, a thing human possess and by
using it, they may make good usage of their Soul and
reconnect with the Spiritual higher Power. Why do all of this you may ask? Because the Spiritual Power or Force is seen as superior, as the true Nature of things, as ultimate, the Stationary Truth we may say. Then what happens if we do not oblige by this? People wont have anything bad happen, in like being punished in Hell or any kind of tarnation, what will happen is that the Soul will remain entrapped in the Material body, that will die and be unable to see a better world, that after the Ezicists,
the better world is objectively better, waiting for us to discover it, but if we reject it, it is done, you die and have a soul entrapped in a worse off Material world, without real chance anymore of accessing the Gate toward
Spiritual World. No reconnection is done. Why is this important to our research? Because
analyzing this Paganic cult from Kregonian mountains, we observe it's philosophy found in the dogmas
do not contradict or form tensions of any kind, nor are wrong through the Idealist lenses,
respecting the True Nature of things, without distortions or inhumane demands. As well, this religion although not a major Paganic cult in Lodamun, it is far more "modern" than the rest, being known for connecting better communities, avoiding silly lofty ideas of feudalism, of oppressing minorities or being hostile to anything from the Outside, generally showing more open minded than most Cults or religions for that matter. Ezicism/Cult of Ezic Star
unlike Anluanism, offers people the belief that not the bodily pleasures are the most important pursuit, but of a life in accordance with nature and with the rest,
use of Rationality to emphasize on qualities such as equilibrium, spirituality, friendship, love, brotherhood, compassion, care, will, thus valuing the internal, the Noumenal, not the external, the Phenomenal; the internal that is in our limit to change and act upon, offering us stable happiness in return, meanwhile, Anluanism binds us to material world, that offers us only sorrow and quick fake happy moments that often are torn apart.