Quote Originally Posted by allodial View Post
So begs the question, from a neutral observer-spectator perspective, what might any of this have to do with the actual identity of the harlot in the Book of Revelations and not just the identify of the harlot but of her children or daughters (ala Book of Revelations)? How do events which play out after the 1700s relate to the rise of or permitting of the proliferation of speculative religion?
Gnosticism/Humanism rears it's ugly head again...

from this source

Thomas Harris (1967/1973)

I would like to suggest that a reasonable approximation of this objective moral order, or of ultimate
truth is that persons are important in that they are all bound together in a universal relatedness
which transcends their own personal existence. Is this a reasonable postulate? The most helpful
analytic concept in attempting to answer this question is the concept of comparative difficulties. It
is difficult to believe that persons are important, and it is also difficult to believe they are not…. We
cannot prove they are important. We have only the faith to believe they are, because of the greater
difficulty of believing they are not. (p. 254)


On the surface such a statement on the value of humans suggests a high level of morality. In
reality, it lacks all virtue since there is no longer any external ?measuring stick, no objective law
which determines such absolute definitions. All of history recounts what happens to persons
when subjective feelings are used as the ?final solution? in defining the worth of individuals.
Adoration degenerates to mere respect and finally to contempt with its logical and awful
consequences. Jonas (1958) lays the blame for such anthropological degeneracy at the feet of
Gnostic teaching:

Among the reproaches which Plotinus raises against the Gnostics… is that they lack a theory of
virtue; and he maintains that it is their contempt of the world that prevents them from having one….
Their doctrine… holds in contempt all the laws down here and virtue which has risen among men
from the beginning of time, and puts temperance to ridicule. (p. 266)


At its worst, humanism is seen as human nature possessing a core of evil; at its best, humanism
can only generate a pseudo-value system since the formulation of values is simply a subjective
experience with some sort of governmental entity as the final social arbitrator. But when these
forms of governance arbitrate, it tends to bring out this inherently evil human core rather than the
hoped for idealistic peace so sought after by the humanist. The end result of this is a subjective
subjectivity, a sort of sophisticated solipsism or, more classically, an existential view of reality.
The existential, nihilistic, humanistic world-view then brings us to the door of Fourth Force
Psychology. For the mystical religions of the East claim to hold an answer for the ultimate
humanistic dilemma.


and further...

The religions of the West are not sufficiently esoteric to be included in a ?science of psychology,
a concept which must be maintained for psychology to remain credible in this culture. Thus a
?fourth force in psychology has emerged to provide this ?science of the soul with a tie to the
religions of the East. Note how the various Eastern religions of today try to pass themselves off
as scientific (Yoga, faddish Transcendental Meditation, and Zen Buddhism) in the same way that
the Gnostics who were quasi-scientific for their age tried to be identified as religious. Those who
are encouraging this merging of science and religion describe the trend in this way:

An integration of science and eastern religion is clearly emerging. If science and religion are so
broadly similar, and not arbitrarily limited in their domains, they should at sometime clearly
converge. I believe this confluence is inevitable. For they both represent man's efforts to
understand his universe and must ultimately be dealing with the same substance. As we
understand more in each realm, the two must grow together… But converge they must, and
through this should come new strength for both. (Townes, 1976, pp. 10-19)


The Gnostic influence here is unmistakable. The password used to gain entrance into our
sophisticated scientific age by those wearing the cloak of religion is quantum physics. Emerging
from this is a new psychology, Fourth Force Psychology, which is represented as a ?science of
consciousness (Pelletier, 1978, pp. 32-66). This is exactly what the ancients experienced as
metaphysics (Aristotle) or speculative physics, the same concept that was used in the earlier
discussion of nature philosophy.

Therefore psychology has come full circle from speculative religion (the Eastern mysteries)
through speculative philosophy (the Greeks), speculative science (the Gnostics), speculations
concerning human nature (dualism), speculative philosophy again (Freudian and Jungian
psychoanalysis), speculative human nature again (humanistic psychology), speculative science
again (quantum physics), and finally to speculative religion (the Eastern mysteries).
The underlying problem to this circular dilemma is how humanity has handled the Gospel.
This was the problem of the Gnostics in specific and humankind as a whole both before Christ
and after. When the Resurrection is considered the central theme in Christian doctrine (I
Corinthians 15) the distinction is clear between what Christ taught and experienced and what the
Gnostics, Eastern mystics, and modern metaphysicists speculate. It is the case of the
Resurrection versus a belief in reincarnation.

Reincarnation is implied in Gnosticism and certainly represents the basis of Eastern
religions. Life becomes extremely insignificant to the Gnostic and the Eastern mystic, but to the
Christian life is the basis of resurrection. Life is real and the world is real. We begin at
conception but we die in the end, at death. It is only the Resurrection of Christ that gives life. All
is not an illusion; we are not an emanation; we do not reincarnate or transmigrate. Life is
important and, indeed, it is all that we have.