Don't recall how I got pointed to this Substack, except via a pointer to your post on Examining the Decline of Christianity. Then I selected this post to examine. Fully on board with you on the idea we need to extract from Christianity those cultural features leading to our desired (prior, if now currently corrupted) political rationale and justification. Commenting to you and Jonathan E of May 19.
Besides Holland's Dominion, you may find Inventing the Individual by Larry Siedentop to be in a similar vein, exploring Christian cultural impacts on Western civilization. And I just finished rereading this article exploring that idea (if you ignore the "we are headed to Heaven" aspect): https://lawliberty.org/five-insights-christianity-brings-to-politics/
Five Insights Christianity Brings to Politics [5/29/19].
On Christianity and marriage, another impact not generally appreciated is the Church's rules on consanguinity and how that destroyed the role and rule of kin (clan, tribe) in European society, further increasing our foci on the individual and related social and political features: http://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/whatever-happened-to-european-tribes/
Whatever happened to European tribes? 04/04/2011
The cultural effect of this is a major disconnect compared to Muslim and some Asian societies. We need to recognize and understand this, and act accordingly.
The Church's ban on cousin marriage was absolutely massive, agreed. We take that so much for granted that we don't even realize it came out of the Church in the first place.
and as far as I know, there was no theological driver for this policy, simply the greed of the church leadership to be the beneficiaries of a wealthy widow's will, inheriting the property that her husband's family may have had for generations.
When you’ve had to explain why the plants prefer to drink toilet water, you’ll see the beautiful simplicity in saying that it’s bad to kill people because magic sky daddy says so.
With a world IQ of 84 or so, and IQ 97 people still barely able to tie their shoelaces, it’s highly doubtful how much philosophy you’ll succeed in drumming into people’s heads. That’s why as soon as one god is killed, another one supplants it. At the moment the children are being literally sacrificed on the alter of gender equality under the gaze of magic state daddy…
The average IQ of a philosophy major is like 130 or so, right? Maybe you can convert Mensa to your way of thinking.
IQ 97 is not "barely able to tie their shoelaces". 97 is just barely below average. I am not necessarily arguing for drumming philosophy into the average joe, but that we need a position where the leaders can go and the others can follow. Being followers of Christianity is not any longer that position; we have to find a position that preserves the west rather than the insanity of tearing it down.
I agree with you in principle and think that yours is a noble endeavor. I just think you will get further, faster, by setting up a new "god" than by trying to replace it with nothing. People are already aching to be told that it's okay to disobey the people abusing them, they just want someone else to take responsibility for their actions.
Those "scientists" did set out to "disprove" Christianity. There are things more important than elections. Truth for example. Defeating Luciferianism and NWO bullshit for further examples. Be worthy of winning or it doesn't even really matter if you do win.
>>This is the only way to solve the paradox that strikes at the heart of the Right: the votes of Christians are necessary to win elections, but reality has to be faced. Christianity is not literally true, and it is an electoral loser. Only by attacking that paradox can we ever defend Westernesse.
I seem to have missed a step here. How do you expect to get the votes of Christians? Do you think saying, "Oh, we have preserved your core philosophical tenents" will do the trick? Even tho it is patently false?
> Pardon me for saying so, but buildings and hymns aren’t going to stem the tide of radical Islam. Buildings and hymns aren’t going to stop transgender activists from mutilating children.
Didn't you just inform us that all religions are now dead? If that is so, how could Islam possibly still be a threat?
And about transgenderism, why is it that your vaulted "logical atheism" can't even stand up to people asserting patent nonsense about men becoming women?
Because radical Islam comes from societies where "Default Islam" still exists. As for transgenderism, my answer to THAT is in my previous article, but the short version is the decline of Christianity isn't actually to do with atheism at all, and the statistics show it. The end of "Default Christianity" is to blame, and the sexual mores are the driving factor behind that. https://theflammifer.substack.com/p/examining-the-decline-of-christianity
> As for transgenderism, my answer to THAT is in my previous article, but the short version is the decline of Christianity isn't actually to do with atheism at all, and the statistics show it.
And yet you insist that atheistic materialism implies God is dead.
If society doesn't believe in god, "god is dead" is a true statement. It doesn't matter if that's because they actually reasoned it out from scientific evidence or because they want to have sex before they get married and threw the Bible out because it was in the way.
The fossils (and other scientific evidence) are why you're not going to be able to bring Christianity back as a religious belief system in the West. I admit I didn't lay that out very directly. I was trying to avoid completely rehashing the evidence against the "truth" of Christianity and other religions, because that wasn't really the point I was trying to make in this article.
"I now propose we keep all the stuff I like, and destroy the foundation." - I would argue the woke left didn't even try to "keep all the stuff they like". They decreed the entire thing to be racisthomophobiccolonialistbigoted and threw it all out at once.
Sorta. They kept (or tired to keep) the liberty/freedom, benefits of moral law (they hate laws, but still cry when they get robbed or raped), etc.
But yeah, they are trying to nuke it all and it’s sad to watch. Fortunately they also hate kids so we should only have to wait a generation or so before we rebuild since when you reject God you get death.
There is a fascinating lack of logic in the beginning of this post. The logic seems to go like this:
1- If Christianity is true, I would expect the fossil record to look like X
2- The fossil record looks like Y
Ergo
Christianity is not true.
But surely there is another possibility. Surely the problem could come, not with Christianity, but with your expectations.
And we see this clearly when the subject is evolution:
1- Evolutionists make predictions about the fossil record (and other issues)
2- Their predictions are proven false
Ergo (they say) we were wrong to predict that.
In order to say, "If Christianity were true, the fossil record would look like X", one would have to do a good deal of theology, and do it correctly. You would have to get into the mind of the Almighty God, and predict exactly what kind of world He would have created, and all of the various aspects of that world right down until you dug up that fossil. And have predicted it correctly.
Bluntly, the point of this is not to completely rehash the argument against religion (in general) or Christianity (in particular). I'm taking it as an established fact at this point that the claims religions make about the history of the universe are false - as I say, there's not really much point in repeatedly flogging the dead horse. The question is "where do we go from here?"
Which was the point of my other comment. What do you see that you get if you extract from Christianity the parts that you think are false? What do you see as being left in the end? And do you see that Christian would have any attraction to it at all?
I don't see active Christians having attraction to it in the "you're right I'm going to stop going to Church" sense, but rather in the sense that there's a mutual respect and an understanding, because it would mean an atheist right that isn't spending its time trying to actively tear down Christianity. That's also the reason I merely made reference to the evidence against religion existing rather than trying to bang the drum about it. I'm not interested in trying to persuade you to ditch your religion. I'm trying to persuade atheists to stop being the type of atheists who beat Christians over the head with the Skeptic's Annotated Bible. Instead, they should be atheists who recognize the place of Christianity in the West.
Well, but what would be the political program that you’re putting together that you think Christian would be willing to sign on to if it begins with even a implied rejection of the truth of the Christian faith?
Westernesse! "We can cut immigration, deport illegals, reduce taxes, preserve the right to bear arms, defend free speech, and fight woke nonsense - all without dragging religion into the picture." Preserving Western civilization is the priority. We need a coalition that can do that. You aren't going to get that coalition by trying to make Christianity the dominant force in America again the way the Christian traditionalists seem to think you can. The numbers aren't there (and they're getting worse every year). You need a separate program. My argument is a focus, not on Christianity in-and-of-itself, but on Western civilization as a whole, can make it happen. The program is not to "begin" by rejecting Christianity. The program is to "begin" by declaring that saving our civilization is more important than that argument is!
The country of Israel has solid control over the entirety of the US government despite their incredibly small numbers. That is, in light of recent events, unquestionable. There are more Christians in the US than there are ethnic Jews, religious Jews and Israeli citizens. The function of control over a nation thus is not completely explainable by numbers.
If your model cannot explain the capture of the modern US government even in retrospect then it cannot be applied in the present or potential future.
The series of essays by Academic Agent describe why secular humanism and the religious approach to political problems is going to be a non-starter. I am not in full agreement but it's a far sight closer to how things are than declaring Christendom is dead and so atheism needs to set up shop in the stinking corpse it helped create.
A relevant quote he posts from Arthur de Gobineau: "[Christianity] leaves all men as it finds them — the Chinese in his robes, the Eskimo in his furs, the first eating rice, and the second eating whale-blubber. It does not require them to change their way of life. If their state can be improved as a direct consequence of their conversion, then Christianity will certainly do its best to bring such an improvement about; but it will not try to alter a single custom, and certainly will not force any advance from one civilization to another, for it has not yet adopted one itself.
[...]
Of what importance is the shape of a Christian’s house, the cut and material of his clothes, his system of government, the measure of tyranny or liberty of his public institutions? He may be a fisherman, a hunter, a ploughman, a sailor, a soldier — whatever you like. In all these different employments is there anything to prevent a man — to whatever nation he belong, English, Turkish, Siberian, American, Hottentot — from receiving the light of the Christian faith? Absolutely nothing; and when this result is attained, the rest counts for very little. The savage Galla can remain a Galla, and yet become as staunch a believer, as pure a ‘vessel of election,’ as the holiest prelate in Europe. …"
And from Academic Agent himself: "The third most populous Christian nation in the world is the dreaded Mexico, filled with people that many would-be supporters of Christian nationalism would presumably wish to keep out of the USA. Why has Christianity failed to produce the 1950s USA, so nostalgically remembered by Buchanan and co, in Mexico or the Philippines?
[...]
Christianity cannot be reduced to mere utility — it is more than whatever worldly ends we may have today and must finally resolve always in affirming salvation in the name of Jesus Christ — but insomuch as it has a narrow purpose for our struggle, it may provide many men and women with the ‘steel’ required in the spiritual battle against modernity. However, as I have argued, for the political struggle, it is and will always be neutral. The famous phrase from the Bible is ‘Render unto Caesar’: thus, when in Rome, the Christians lived as Romans – in fact that phrase ‘when in Rome’ was Christian in origin: St Ambrose’s advice to St Augustine
[...]
When the new based order comes, so too will the church become ‘based’ as it was under Mussolini or Franco. As de Gobineau argues, this adaptability is Christianity’s ‘greatest innovation’. But what survives the process is Christianity itself while civilizations can come and go like so many seasons"
Well… but Christians aren’t into ‘Westerneesse’ per se. I mean, we begun in the east, eh? We are into ‘Christoness’, as it were. We would only think that we should cut immigration if it went against Christian values, ditto taxes, arms, speech.
And as for ‘woke nonsense’, many of us believe that it has atheism at its root… or at least a denial of God’s sovereignty. So you might believe in combatting transgenderism, and ‘gay marriage’, and Sodomy, and support marriage and children… but from what grounds? When we both argue for it, will we use completely different arguments?
It will be fascinating to see what you see as the philosophy of Christianity extracted from Christianity; because the core of Christianity is the very part you deny.
I am also fascinated to see what parts of Roman and Greek culture you wish to extract and/or continue. Their absolute patriarchy? Their extreme class distinctions? You might well get a much stronger culture out of those things. But they, too, come with religious underpinnings. Can you have the Roman paterfamilias without Zeus? Can you reproduce their fertility without Herra?
It seems to me that the woke project is precisely trying to extract Christ from Christianity, to replace the God of creation with the God of the omnipotent self.
In all honesty, If you want Christianity that simply the philosophy extracted from it. Then look no further than leftism/liberalism. All the various secular leftists ideological forms, since the “enlightenment” is just Christianity striped of it’s cosmology, and metaphysics (or just stripped down to the bare ontological assumptions), and maintains the core ethical presuppositions. I definitely agree that a secular right is required. Christianity is just culturally Norwood, and they will have to accept that they are no longer the big dog of this rotting civilization.
No, I disagree. Leftism or modern liberalism is operating from the principle of actively trying to tear down Christianity and Westernesse. That's their starting point. I'm arguing for the opposite. The religion is not "true", but we don't have to tear it down.
Darn it!! now there is another Substack I will probably have to explore: context and history of the Bible, and re-valuation of values that both Tom Holland and Nietzsche said that Christianity brought.
Don't recall how I got pointed to this Substack, except via a pointer to your post on Examining the Decline of Christianity. Then I selected this post to examine. Fully on board with you on the idea we need to extract from Christianity those cultural features leading to our desired (prior, if now currently corrupted) political rationale and justification. Commenting to you and Jonathan E of May 19.
Besides Holland's Dominion, you may find Inventing the Individual by Larry Siedentop to be in a similar vein, exploring Christian cultural impacts on Western civilization. And I just finished rereading this article exploring that idea (if you ignore the "we are headed to Heaven" aspect): https://lawliberty.org/five-insights-christianity-brings-to-politics/
Five Insights Christianity Brings to Politics [5/29/19].
On Christianity and marriage, another impact not generally appreciated is the Church's rules on consanguinity and how that destroyed the role and rule of kin (clan, tribe) in European society, further increasing our foci on the individual and related social and political features: http://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/whatever-happened-to-european-tribes/
Whatever happened to European tribes? 04/04/2011
The cultural effect of this is a major disconnect compared to Muslim and some Asian societies. We need to recognize and understand this, and act accordingly.
The Church's ban on cousin marriage was absolutely massive, agreed. We take that so much for granted that we don't even realize it came out of the Church in the first place.
and as far as I know, there was no theological driver for this policy, simply the greed of the church leadership to be the beneficiaries of a wealthy widow's will, inheriting the property that her husband's family may have had for generations.
When you’ve had to explain why the plants prefer to drink toilet water, you’ll see the beautiful simplicity in saying that it’s bad to kill people because magic sky daddy says so.
With a world IQ of 84 or so, and IQ 97 people still barely able to tie their shoelaces, it’s highly doubtful how much philosophy you’ll succeed in drumming into people’s heads. That’s why as soon as one god is killed, another one supplants it. At the moment the children are being literally sacrificed on the alter of gender equality under the gaze of magic state daddy…
The average IQ of a philosophy major is like 130 or so, right? Maybe you can convert Mensa to your way of thinking.
IQ 97 is not "barely able to tie their shoelaces". 97 is just barely below average. I am not necessarily arguing for drumming philosophy into the average joe, but that we need a position where the leaders can go and the others can follow. Being followers of Christianity is not any longer that position; we have to find a position that preserves the west rather than the insanity of tearing it down.
I agree with you in principle and think that yours is a noble endeavor. I just think you will get further, faster, by setting up a new "god" than by trying to replace it with nothing. People are already aching to be told that it's okay to disobey the people abusing them, they just want someone else to take responsibility for their actions.
Those "scientists" did set out to "disprove" Christianity. There are things more important than elections. Truth for example. Defeating Luciferianism and NWO bullshit for further examples. Be worthy of winning or it doesn't even really matter if you do win.
Fossil evidence doesn’t prove Darwin’s Theory.
>>This is the only way to solve the paradox that strikes at the heart of the Right: the votes of Christians are necessary to win elections, but reality has to be faced. Christianity is not literally true, and it is an electoral loser. Only by attacking that paradox can we ever defend Westernesse.
I seem to have missed a step here. How do you expect to get the votes of Christians? Do you think saying, "Oh, we have preserved your core philosophical tenents" will do the trick? Even tho it is patently false?
> Pardon me for saying so, but buildings and hymns aren’t going to stem the tide of radical Islam. Buildings and hymns aren’t going to stop transgender activists from mutilating children.
Didn't you just inform us that all religions are now dead? If that is so, how could Islam possibly still be a threat?
And about transgenderism, why is it that your vaulted "logical atheism" can't even stand up to people asserting patent nonsense about men becoming women?
Because radical Islam comes from societies where "Default Islam" still exists. As for transgenderism, my answer to THAT is in my previous article, but the short version is the decline of Christianity isn't actually to do with atheism at all, and the statistics show it. The end of "Default Christianity" is to blame, and the sexual mores are the driving factor behind that. https://theflammifer.substack.com/p/examining-the-decline-of-christianity
> As for transgenderism, my answer to THAT is in my previous article, but the short version is the decline of Christianity isn't actually to do with atheism at all, and the statistics show it.
And yet you insist that atheistic materialism implies God is dead.
If society doesn't believe in god, "god is dead" is a true statement. It doesn't matter if that's because they actually reasoned it out from scientific evidence or because they want to have sex before they get married and threw the Bible out because it was in the way.
So the fossils don't actually have anything to do with it.
The fossils (and other scientific evidence) are why you're not going to be able to bring Christianity back as a religious belief system in the West. I admit I didn't lay that out very directly. I was trying to avoid completely rehashing the evidence against the "truth" of Christianity and other religions, because that wasn't really the point I was trying to make in this article.
Christianity is far more coherent than transgenderism and the latter has no trouble making in-roads.
Typical atheism formula:
I don't like God, or what he said.
I do however like all the cool stuff we get when we "generally" did what he said.
I now propose we keep all the stuff I like, and destroy the foundation.
*society collapses*
SEE, freaking religion is terrible...
"I now propose we keep all the stuff I like, and destroy the foundation." - I would argue the woke left didn't even try to "keep all the stuff they like". They decreed the entire thing to be racisthomophobiccolonialistbigoted and threw it all out at once.
Sorta. They kept (or tired to keep) the liberty/freedom, benefits of moral law (they hate laws, but still cry when they get robbed or raped), etc.
But yeah, they are trying to nuke it all and it’s sad to watch. Fortunately they also hate kids so we should only have to wait a generation or so before we rebuild since when you reject God you get death.
There is a fascinating lack of logic in the beginning of this post. The logic seems to go like this:
1- If Christianity is true, I would expect the fossil record to look like X
2- The fossil record looks like Y
Ergo
Christianity is not true.
But surely there is another possibility. Surely the problem could come, not with Christianity, but with your expectations.
And we see this clearly when the subject is evolution:
1- Evolutionists make predictions about the fossil record (and other issues)
2- Their predictions are proven false
Ergo (they say) we were wrong to predict that.
In order to say, "If Christianity were true, the fossil record would look like X", one would have to do a good deal of theology, and do it correctly. You would have to get into the mind of the Almighty God, and predict exactly what kind of world He would have created, and all of the various aspects of that world right down until you dug up that fossil. And have predicted it correctly.
I, myself, doubt your ability to do that.
Bluntly, the point of this is not to completely rehash the argument against religion (in general) or Christianity (in particular). I'm taking it as an established fact at this point that the claims religions make about the history of the universe are false - as I say, there's not really much point in repeatedly flogging the dead horse. The question is "where do we go from here?"
Which was the point of my other comment. What do you see that you get if you extract from Christianity the parts that you think are false? What do you see as being left in the end? And do you see that Christian would have any attraction to it at all?
I don't see active Christians having attraction to it in the "you're right I'm going to stop going to Church" sense, but rather in the sense that there's a mutual respect and an understanding, because it would mean an atheist right that isn't spending its time trying to actively tear down Christianity. That's also the reason I merely made reference to the evidence against religion existing rather than trying to bang the drum about it. I'm not interested in trying to persuade you to ditch your religion. I'm trying to persuade atheists to stop being the type of atheists who beat Christians over the head with the Skeptic's Annotated Bible. Instead, they should be atheists who recognize the place of Christianity in the West.
Well, but what would be the political program that you’re putting together that you think Christian would be willing to sign on to if it begins with even a implied rejection of the truth of the Christian faith?
Westernesse! "We can cut immigration, deport illegals, reduce taxes, preserve the right to bear arms, defend free speech, and fight woke nonsense - all without dragging religion into the picture." Preserving Western civilization is the priority. We need a coalition that can do that. You aren't going to get that coalition by trying to make Christianity the dominant force in America again the way the Christian traditionalists seem to think you can. The numbers aren't there (and they're getting worse every year). You need a separate program. My argument is a focus, not on Christianity in-and-of-itself, but on Western civilization as a whole, can make it happen. The program is not to "begin" by rejecting Christianity. The program is to "begin" by declaring that saving our civilization is more important than that argument is!
Hard disagree.
"The numbers aren't there"
The country of Israel has solid control over the entirety of the US government despite their incredibly small numbers. That is, in light of recent events, unquestionable. There are more Christians in the US than there are ethnic Jews, religious Jews and Israeli citizens. The function of control over a nation thus is not completely explainable by numbers.
If your model cannot explain the capture of the modern US government even in retrospect then it cannot be applied in the present or potential future.
https://forbiddentexts.substack.com/p/the-james-lindsay-debate-club-theory
https://forbiddentexts.substack.com/p/religion-as-a-non-factor-in-the-fate
The series of essays by Academic Agent describe why secular humanism and the religious approach to political problems is going to be a non-starter. I am not in full agreement but it's a far sight closer to how things are than declaring Christendom is dead and so atheism needs to set up shop in the stinking corpse it helped create.
A relevant quote he posts from Arthur de Gobineau: "[Christianity] leaves all men as it finds them — the Chinese in his robes, the Eskimo in his furs, the first eating rice, and the second eating whale-blubber. It does not require them to change their way of life. If their state can be improved as a direct consequence of their conversion, then Christianity will certainly do its best to bring such an improvement about; but it will not try to alter a single custom, and certainly will not force any advance from one civilization to another, for it has not yet adopted one itself.
[...]
Of what importance is the shape of a Christian’s house, the cut and material of his clothes, his system of government, the measure of tyranny or liberty of his public institutions? He may be a fisherman, a hunter, a ploughman, a sailor, a soldier — whatever you like. In all these different employments is there anything to prevent a man — to whatever nation he belong, English, Turkish, Siberian, American, Hottentot — from receiving the light of the Christian faith? Absolutely nothing; and when this result is attained, the rest counts for very little. The savage Galla can remain a Galla, and yet become as staunch a believer, as pure a ‘vessel of election,’ as the holiest prelate in Europe. …"
And from Academic Agent himself: "The third most populous Christian nation in the world is the dreaded Mexico, filled with people that many would-be supporters of Christian nationalism would presumably wish to keep out of the USA. Why has Christianity failed to produce the 1950s USA, so nostalgically remembered by Buchanan and co, in Mexico or the Philippines?
[...]
Christianity cannot be reduced to mere utility — it is more than whatever worldly ends we may have today and must finally resolve always in affirming salvation in the name of Jesus Christ — but insomuch as it has a narrow purpose for our struggle, it may provide many men and women with the ‘steel’ required in the spiritual battle against modernity. However, as I have argued, for the political struggle, it is and will always be neutral. The famous phrase from the Bible is ‘Render unto Caesar’: thus, when in Rome, the Christians lived as Romans – in fact that phrase ‘when in Rome’ was Christian in origin: St Ambrose’s advice to St Augustine
[...]
When the new based order comes, so too will the church become ‘based’ as it was under Mussolini or Franco. As de Gobineau argues, this adaptability is Christianity’s ‘greatest innovation’. But what survives the process is Christianity itself while civilizations can come and go like so many seasons"
Well… but Christians aren’t into ‘Westerneesse’ per se. I mean, we begun in the east, eh? We are into ‘Christoness’, as it were. We would only think that we should cut immigration if it went against Christian values, ditto taxes, arms, speech.
And as for ‘woke nonsense’, many of us believe that it has atheism at its root… or at least a denial of God’s sovereignty. So you might believe in combatting transgenderism, and ‘gay marriage’, and Sodomy, and support marriage and children… but from what grounds? When we both argue for it, will we use completely different arguments?
It will be fascinating to see what you see as the philosophy of Christianity extracted from Christianity; because the core of Christianity is the very part you deny.
I am also fascinated to see what parts of Roman and Greek culture you wish to extract and/or continue. Their absolute patriarchy? Their extreme class distinctions? You might well get a much stronger culture out of those things. But they, too, come with religious underpinnings. Can you have the Roman paterfamilias without Zeus? Can you reproduce their fertility without Herra?
It seems to me that the woke project is precisely trying to extract Christ from Christianity, to replace the God of creation with the God of the omnipotent self.
In all honesty, If you want Christianity that simply the philosophy extracted from it. Then look no further than leftism/liberalism. All the various secular leftists ideological forms, since the “enlightenment” is just Christianity striped of it’s cosmology, and metaphysics (or just stripped down to the bare ontological assumptions), and maintains the core ethical presuppositions. I definitely agree that a secular right is required. Christianity is just culturally Norwood, and they will have to accept that they are no longer the big dog of this rotting civilization.
No, I disagree. Leftism or modern liberalism is operating from the principle of actively trying to tear down Christianity and Westernesse. That's their starting point. I'm arguing for the opposite. The religion is not "true", but we don't have to tear it down.
I would disagree that it maintains the core ethical pressupositions. They may, at first, maintain the veneer of some of them...
Darn it!! now there is another Substack I will probably have to explore: context and history of the Bible, and re-valuation of values that both Tom Holland and Nietzsche said that Christianity brought.
The immanence of self is the original lie.
Self exists as does creation. Immanence is the problem. Who’s in charge, God or my self?
God is not present in all things. That is panentheism, not taught in the bible. And God is only in those who are born again by His Spirit.
The Man in the sky is just that - transcendent, as well as immanent as in omnipresent.
The immanence of self is also why some men feel entitled to declare themselves women.