According to the modern rational-egoist, to begin with, the purpose of morality is the Self-preservation of Man qua Man. In other words, we need a code of morality for the preservation of a life which is proper to man, which expresses the deepest truth of man. Being rationalists, their definition of Man is that man is a RATIONAL animal. Hence, self-preservation of man qua man means self-preservation of Man the Rational animal.
But the ultimate purpose of a rationalist's LIFE itself is not clear, because he tailors his philosophy to serve "LIFE": which would mean: his philosophy is constructed to ensure life, i.e., the maintenance of life. But he never quite defines life itself except as a physical existence, a process of self-maintenance. He never quite explicates WHY should life be maintained, except that we happen to exist (in the rationalistic-atheistic view, by sheer accident).
The purpose of a man's life, in the rationalist view, is happiness. In broad abstract terms, this is true. (At this stage, I'm referring only to the individual, & not to any individual-vs-collective conflict.)
Hence, the purpose of philosophy maybe said to be the attainment of happiness.
But they define happiness itself as the emotional result of the proper maintenance of life. If I have maintained my life successfully, I am - or I ought to be - happy.
Which would mean, the purpose of life ('life' being the maintenance of life) is ... the successful maintenance of life.
This is like saying that the objective of the process of cooking food is to perpetuate & ensure the process of cooking food - or at best, as a pause in a long series of cooking sessions - the joy of having made the food successfully (whereas the point actually is the food, and not cooking the food, or the joy of having cooked some food).
And this is what's called CIRCULAR ARGUMENTATION.
If Life is a process of maintaining life, then the purpose of maintaning life is not to maintain life, or to stop & smile that you have maintained it successfully, but to ACHIEVE THAT which makes the maintenance worthwhile, which in turn has to be outside the process of maintenance itself.
And it is THAT, and not merely the maintenance of life, which defines the purpose of life, and of philosophy, or morality.
This "THAT" is never clarified by the rationalist, and remains something as nebulous (if not incorrect, in broad abstract terms) as "achievement of the best within oneself" - the "best" again being that which enables the maintenance of life.
Circular argumentation over circular argumentation!
The whole purpose is to find the "THAT" which is at the very essence of all endeavor, of all striving, & aspiration: "THAT" - the Ultimate Purpose - the Purpose of all purposes.
The greatest, absurdest error of the rationalist is the total denial of "non-objective", non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable means of "knowledge".
They NEVER give any REASON why such means of knowledge should be rejected, except spewing bucketfuls of abuse on the people who uphold them.
The reason of such a denial is very simple: though certainly many of them are great, benevolent, worshipful souls, in the main, RATIONALISM & ATHEISM (in their several manifestations) ARE CONSCIOUS CONSTRUCTIONS BY A CERTAIN SET OF MEN TO DESTROY MAN'S SOUL, TO PREVENT HIM FROM SEEING THE TOTAL TRUTH OF HIS BEING, AND FINALLY DIVIDE MEN, KEEP THEM IN A STATE OF CONFLICT, & CONTROL THEM.
Mystics know much better than rationalists how the acceptance of "non-objective", non-sensory, "non-rational", non-definable means of knowledge has been misutilized for millennia by power-lusting people to terrorize mankind, stupefy their minds, to destroy reason, to cripple their powers of self-realization, to control & rule the masses. This has been done for ages, as far as man can remember. Men like Tolstoy, Hugo, Dostoevsky - passionate Christian mystics - were the most powerful & dangerous fighters against the Roman Catholic Church for precisely this reason. And THIS is neither a contradiction, nor a fraud on their part (a part of the typical rationalist's insidious propaganda).
This is no reason, however, to reject these means of knowledge. It is like rejecting food because whenever food has been offered, it has been poisoned. This is the same as accepting many mystics' solution that private property & sex should be rejected because they are fundamentally animalistic, 'selfish', & used to keep people divided, in eternal conflict.
The solution is not in the rejection of food - because that too shall lead to death, or disease - but to change the person who serves the food, one who shall not poison it.
The problem is that the person who serves the food poisons it, not the food itself.
The rationalist has no way to refute these means of knowledge except the open admission that he himself hasn't grasped them (the solution being that he must attempt to grasp them) - or a smear-campaign that Jesus, Socrates, Yagyavalkya, Veda Vyasa, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Krishna, John the Baptist, Paul, John of Patmos, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Swedenborg, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, Victor Hugo, Kaspar Hauser, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Blavatsky, Jiddu Krishnamurthy, Aurobindo, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, & Tagore were all power-lusting frauds, liars of the worst order, looters, parasites, seeking to destroy men's minds, driven by an irrepressible hatred for human life, seeking to enslave mankind, who groveled in filth of self-loathing, lived in constant terror of the supernatural, etc etc etc ad infinitum.
Please don't fall for their rationalizations that these men made innocent (though sometimes costly) errors, or that they were "fundamentally" rational & benevolent etc etc. THIS misinterpretation comes from the rationalist's ignorance & miscomprehension, & discomfort to admit facts that ruin the basis of his philosophy: there was no contradiction in THOSE peoples' thinking. They knew exactly what they affirmed, and why they did so, and were the greatest stars of human benevolence & intellectual power.
Rationalism prides itself on "focusing" on "objective" reality. But an extensive scrutiny has PROVED to me, that the so-called rationalists are the most appalling betrayers of reality. The absolue incongruity between lives of the greatest benefactors of mankind, and the allegations made against mystics, is perhaps the most glaring example of the untenability of the rationalist's views.
Their whole philosophy rests on ignorance of the deeper laws of nature, of the more profound & subtle truths of man, of the complicated workings of the man's consciousness, & above all, of HISTORY. Their conception of how civilization progressed - what made development possible - and what development itself IS - is so flawed, that to demolish their structure isn't as difficult as they think it is. Take for instance, the simple idea that RATIONALITY, or rather, LOGIC, found its first systematic formulation in Aristotle. They seem totally oblivious to the existence of the NYAYA school of philosophy of India - one of the 6 major schools of Indian philosophy - which, even going by false modern dating - was developed in 7th century BCE - & evolved all the crucial laws of logic in philosophy. There is no reason - except the prejudice of the rationalist (prejudice is irrationality) - that he was not acquainted with the texts of the renowned "Brachmanes" of India. This is an extensive topic in itself - I'm just giving a small indication of the gargantuan dimensions of the errors made by typical modern rationalist-egoists.
Rejection of "non-rational" & non-intellectual means of knowledge is itself non-rational & non-intellectual. They rest on a LACK of self-examination, & REFUSAL to introspect. A wilful decision not to delve into the depths of one's own consciousness, & to study evidence of other realities in the external world: in other words, of total irrationality. Because, all these realities, & aspects of existence & consciousness - exist objectively - independent of our whims, convictions, desires, & caprices - but are 'known' or experienced or apprehended, by the individual alone, within himself, i.e. subjectively.
These means of knowledge do not militate against, or destroy, rationality itself - nor does the development of one's spiritual perception demand the destruction of the mind. That is another lie perpetrated by the rationalists. (In the best cases, such an idea is a result of their ignorance, or a misunderstanding.)
The greatest mystics were men of incomparable, almost superhuman erudition, thunderingly articulate, and had the most developed minds. They never asked men to be unlettered, not to observe nature, not to grasp her laws. Infact, rational knowledge is always the basis of all mystic knowledge. A man who has not learned language, may have a sort of apprehension of the Oneness of the universe, but it is so incoherent, incomprehensible, wild, & chaotic so as to be totally meaningless.
But it is true that a perfect scientific & mathematical understanding of the laws of nature is neither necessary, nor important, to the spiritual development of a human being, and in this sense, NOT RATIONALITY, but certain specific elements of knowledge obtained through rationality, are superfluous to spiritual development.
(Obviously, to be continued...)
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