Yesss. Almost the inverse of the rule that every people/nation/society gets the goverment it deserves. Many out there are getting exactly what they want, they would not change a thing.
Not to improperly deify prior political, cultural or religious leaders, but in the recent past (say, 30 years), there has been a dearth of great men (or women). I’m not looking for a hero, but I would welcome an exemplar of greatness. They are all so narcissistic and petty now.
So we can’t have the morals formed by religious doctrine? It is programmed then,.......is that right?
Then why when we are kids do we feel bad when we hurt others? Most “Christians” don’t even know the Ten Commandments, yet feel guilty when they lie.
I have been taken very far back in my memories of many lifetimes. The body makes us more ‘materialistic’. Our parents teach us one could be not as good as a sibling, so jealousy is learned. Psychologists for years have been proving we are a product of our upbringing,......this is key.
We are basically good. The closest thing to describe us is the highest emotion of serenity and a kind of pure love.
I would surmise that when the Annunaki created religions or false god slavery, they wanted to appease our inate nature so rules of conduct, morals of membership and uuug 🙄dogma to make it stick.
But they didn’t stick around, and somebodies taking advantage of the programmed.
But knowing what personal ethics is and making agreements on morals for our societies would achieve much. The family unit, (non-mafia type) is what is more important than religions about false gods.
Really, we do know this. That’s why they are attacking the family unit, and we are letting them. That is the problem.
One aspect of the post-60s 'revolution' that gets little attention is that it saw a retreat from the Christian conception of the individual as an intrinsically flawed being – prone to sin and prone to error. Now maximal 'self esteem' is valorised. People drunk on their own self esteem will have inflated expectations that they deserve never to be made 'unhappy' by anything so annoying as 'reality'.
perhaps worse, when they are made uphappy or when others thrive and they do not, they do not look to themselves but rather to others. it must be "someone's fault." someone must have done this to them. this is the dire peril of all the aggrievement theater that has been masquerading as social justice of late: it not only dissuades people from taking responsibility for themselves and adopting the habits and mindsets conducive to success, but it also violates the idea of "golden rule" by erecting imagined trespasses that are used to justify trespassing in return.
it unpicks the very fabric of which one would weave a functional social contract.
Yes all true. I made some similar observations in an essay a while back in American Mind: "The general public is now by definition irreproachable. What Christopher Lasch famously called a Culture of Narcissism has become so hard-wired into the Western psyche that it is now barely noticed. The significance of this cultural change is hard to overstate but modern conservatism generally has no more to say about it than Progressives do. A culture that acknowledges that most people are ineluctably less than perfect will be less susceptible to the sanctification of particular sub-sets as ‘victims’. And those designated as such would be less likely to feel it as a reason for abrogating any personal responsibility for the condition of their lives." https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-will-to-kneel/
"For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred."
2 Timothy 3:2 New Living Translation
Excellent points, Graham and Gato. Your comments reminded me of this snippet of scripture.
Yep, and you see with those in power too. Instead of looking at the actual policies or practices or ideas being rejected, they blame the messaging, intelligence of those doing the rejecting, or supposed mal/mis/disinformation.
Reminds me of a German friend and former colleague here in Germany. Anna studied for a semester, maybe a year, at a college in the Midwest. So not a 2 week USA tourist experience but long enough for immersion in the culture. Wasn't very happy there, didn't hate it. Watching German television one evening with Anna and her husband. A "social documentary" about a slice of life in the States. A black woman in some American ghetto tells the interviewer that her life has been a train wreck, like forever. Multiple arrests, kids taken from her, drug habit the whole gamut. She looks into the camera and says "But nobody made me do all those things. I did it because I wanted to. No one but myself to blame." I glance over at Anna. She has a strange kind of half-smile, not amused, not disturbed, different. It was admiration. She says "No German would ever say something like that. No matter what kind of problem they have, large or small, no matter if financially comfortable or strapped ... it is ALWAYS the fault of some German government agency, bureaucratic decision-makers. NEVER will they take responsibility for their problems or misfortune." What else to expect in a country where turbo-socialism has run wild?
I like Jordan Peterson’s elucidation of “sinful” as “missing the mark.” Our intrinsic flaws are the *reason* we are capable of good, because we must *choose* it.
Many do not understand the concept of sin as a Greek word meaning to "miss the mark" as in archery. Further, they do not understand the Holy absolute perfectness of God. We as humans "missed" God's perfectness of how he created us "in His Image" (He walked with us in the garden). This is "original sin"; i.e., we are NOT perfect in God's eyes, and consequently cannot even BEGIN to approach HIm - He cannot be in the presence of imperfectness, (sin) i.e., our presence - thus the need for Jesus to do what He did to become our intercessor so that we are able to approach the perfect Creator of the Universe.
I know people who were raised in Christian churches where the concept of Original Sin was really abused to indoctrinate them into a belief that they were broken, rather than imperfect, and thus when they left those churches, which were cults, they were so disgusted with the whole thing that the mere idea repels them.
Church and state - the judeo-christian union has held the globe in a strangle-hold since 1100, merchants hidden like the wizard behind the curtain. There is one social idea that can stamp out cults because it doesn't worship the middleman god of competition and war, but people are still beholden to historic illusion, kept alive by those who can continue to profit - no cohencidence profit is phonetically identical to prophet.
The Enlightenment was a necessary sleight of hand to get industrial technology up and running. A "modern world consistent with prosperity and liberty" is based on church and state, also known as lies and blood which has built the world as we know it today. Covid was to slap people awake to it because it's time to change the way the world is run.
I’m into prosperity and liberty and I don’t conflate the errors of the church as institution with the distortions of state-manipulated economic activity. Cat is saying the world should not be “run,” but should function organically. When it does that on an ethical foundation, we see prosperity and liberty.
Yes I understand but the world must be run in to the ground until we wake up - the last several decades/centuries have been illusions. That 'the church should burn in hell' is irony; hell is simply external materialism without a transcendent principle; the church has been a merchant business since its inception. (Esoteric religion isn't but that is why it must be hidden/buried.)
The church and state can't BE separated. The merchant caste is worshipped in 'prosperous' United States and rules the state of DC and Israel. They are united. States.
Which part is judeo-christian church, which part is state? These are 'spells', or tricks in the words, which is a priestly art.
This is a spiritual operation. Things are reversed, inverted and upside down. The only prosperity and liberty we have in this world is riches in our minds/hearts, our soul's interface.
The Garden was a test for Adam and Eve and what was not learned was that we must live responsibly before God(Bonhoeffer) ; human hubris and willful disobedience ,without responsibility, plagues us to this day!
Parenthetically, concerning the test aspect of The Garden: What do you suppose Satan appeared as when he tempted Eve? The angel of light must've been a pretty normal occurrence for her - didn't scare her or anything. What do you suppose he appears as today?
He appears in the guise of all those nefarious actors who want us to believe that they are working to save mankind from death and disease; in reality they see themselves as the "new gods" who will now rule the world and see humanity as expendable; hence , a major goal is to destroy all religions, personal identity and the very concept of sovereignty; they are pro-death and anti-life and anti-nature and are totally devoid of any respect for a Creator who has given us the gift of life; " Satanism is not a 'belief in Satan' but the false pursuit to self-deify oneself." (Taylor Marshall) " I am now giving you the choice between life and death, between God's blessing and God's curse, and I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Choose life." (Deuteronomy 30:19) So there you have free will or choice, but knowing the perversity of human nature in making bad choices, guidance is given in the exhortation: "CHOOSE LIFE!"
Jordan Peterson also espouses the truth in stories. That the reason these stories or maybe religions have endured is they have tapped into the truth. I happen to believe the closer to truth the closer to God.
We are not "intrinsically flawed." We are human beings and our nature is natural. Every civilization prior to Christianity understood the need for laws to contain the excesses of human nature. Original sin is a remarkably vile concept.
Here you misunderstand the concept. If we cannot allow ourselves to view past actions as mistakes of an imperfect person, then we cannot judge those actions appropriately, ask for forgiveness (to others or to God), and move on. To use an example: there are people who think they are the wrong sex and who have surgically removed their genitalia; this is not in any way "natural". Rather, as Graham so aptly puts it, it is an intrinsic flaw of humans to be prone to these types of errors (or sins, using the religious perspective).
I agree that other cultures have succeeded in accomplishing this narrative framework to greater or lesser extents, though I believe your dismissal of Christianity as a positive force is exactly what Gato is discussing here.
I know exactly what the concept is and Christianity as the formalized religion has little to do with Jesus the radical Jew. Just as Christians took the worst of the Old Testament and ran with it, the books of the New Testament outside of the story of the Gospels form a handbook any Communist could admire--and did, of course. The roadmap for crushing the soul into guilt-ridden compliance.
Your idea of Christianity as “crushing the soul into guilt—ridden compliance” is so completely void of understanding as to be laughable if not so heartbreaking. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” Forgiveness in and through Jesus Christ is the only way we escape the guilt of our wrongs. So much time and effort spent on trying to explain away our Creator, His great love for His creation and His rescue and redemption of it.
Again, you miss the point. That Jesus was a radical Jew is almost immaterial* to the truth (in Gato's second sense). And where does one imagine that communism is an offshoot of Christianity? Jesus encouraged spiritualism over materialism, whereas communists are uber-materialists.
*Almost immaterial, because clearly he was killed by his Jewish brethren for being a radical Jew (in an echo of the Cain & Abel story).
Like Tu Tasty says, you have misunderstood the concept. I wasn't talking about 'original sin'. I was talking about the normal mentality of most Western people up to the 60s. People had more humility then. Ask yourself this SCA...are you a perfect human being? Do you have no faults?
We found ourselves sharing the same cabin at sleepaway camp and it was so much fun at the beginning but turned out we'd been mismatched from the start. Nobody's fault but still it left a painful feeling.
And now you're stuck on a really long bus ride back from Connecticut and Joey Fatmann stank up the one bathroom beyond repair and there's yellowjackets but no one can figure out where they're coming from.
Growing up Catholic kept that in check. One of the things made very clear early and often growing up was that I was a sinner, so much so that we had to separate sins into different degrees of severity. I was sure from an early age that my lay-over in purgatory was to be a long one.
There is one destination indescribably worse than purgatory. But take heart, you will not be lonely in purgatory ... nor in the other destination, for that matter :)
Gato makes a big step in the right direction by acknowledging that Christianity is true in the "second sense" of being a true meme / story. But the WHOLE POINT of that story is that Christianity is true in the first sense. "If Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless." It is a matter of literal, historical fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The Golden Rule and all the rest of Christianity's social benefits derive directly from that fact. No Resurrection, no Christianity, no (eternal) life!
consider the possibility that this mindset is what is preventing many christians from finding the natural alliance with other "golden rule believers" with whom they might join to reshape society.
there is not nor can there be any proof of such literal truth in the first sense and it does not need to be true to share a set of precepts with people who do not share deistic faith.
perfectly good and wise and appropriate societal fabrics may be woven from that which is not literally true. insistence upon it seems like a way to alienate those who mostly share your morals.
Have you seen the United Church (of Canada for instance). It is a diluted swill of social justice stand for nothingness fall for everythingness. Alliances with other 'golden rule believers'? I think not.
The problem with your latter statement is it rejects the Christian concept of being indwelt by the Holy Spirit as a fact, a truth if you will (see Acts). This is who changes people's hearts to want to share morals and bear fruit of the Christian life, through society, culture. That's why without a faith in Christ that allows indwelling of the Holy Spirit, man's heart will NEVER be humble enough to corroborate in a good "societal fabric". To wit:
Romans 3:9-18
9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10 as it is written,
“There is none righteous, not even one;
11 There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;
12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless;
There is none who does good,
There is not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave,
With their tongues they keep deceiving,”
“The poison of asps is under their lips”;
14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”;
Have you ever considered that what you call Christian’s’ “insistence” is actually loving others and wanting their best? It’s standing against those very things that are tearing down our society as well as our humanity. Would you think me good and kind to let my child play in the road because it makes him happy and “it doesn’t hurt others?” We’re the ones picking up the pieces of those who have reaped the consequences of that thinking.
It’s exactly that ‘I know best for you. And I will make sure you do what’s best for you, because I am so good and have so much love for you.’ Kind of thinking that got us into this mess. Respect for others is love, humility is virtue.
Reshaping society is not nor should it be the primary goal of Christians. That is not the Great Commission nor a divine mandate.
“19 [a]Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you [b]always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20. This is the Great Commission and the divine mandate.
Fulfilling the great commission will by default reshape society but that is a side effect and not the goal. Christians can work toward other goals, but not if it means compromising the gospel. You are asking Christians to compromise the gospel in the name of reshaping society, that is a deal that no Christian mature in their faith can ever make. Our nations are important, our societies are important, but the Kingdom is more important.
We are well aware this mindset prevents such alliances and it’s a price we are willing to pay to stand firm upon the gospel.
This reminds me of something Bishop Athanasius Schneider said recently with regard to the present Vatican seeming almost to want to turn the Church into an NGO, to fight climate change etc. Bishop Schneider said it is not the role of the Holy and Apostolic Church to devote its resources to, or even focus on, things like climate change (formerly known as "weather") or pandemics, real or otherwise ... no, the work of the Church as Jesus instructed his apostles is to save souls and focus on what is eternal, not the temporal.
This idea...that we don’t have to believe the literal to hold on to the good... is the thread that binds us all in a unit. Christians who insist that I and all go back to believing the literal only cause disconnect. Find the good in all and connect to that.
And I would say that the enlightenment is proof that Christ is the first truth. It is a fact that as Christianity spread through the world, life improved. Now that He has been removed, we’re descending into darkness.
One of the things that has struck me over the years is how much Christianity adopted from Roman/Greek philosophy. For example, if you read Stoic thought you find it very congruent with Christian philosophy. The Founders admired Cato, a Stoic who defended the Roman Republic from Caesar. He lost and lost his life, but was celebrated for his sense of honor and integrity. Many of the Founders attempted to deliberately emulate Cato in their conduct. There was a play that was popular during the time of the founding about Cato. It formed a 2nd Truth for them. Just like the Iliad and the Odyssey formed a 2nd Truth for the Classical Greeks
God chose the Greco-Roman civilization as the cradle of Christianity for a reason. It was "created" to be uniquely receptive to the Gospel in the early centuries of the Church.
Well, the Disciples may have a different take on how receptive the Roman Civilization was. There were many years of oppression until Emperor Constantine established tolerance of Christianity in the edict of Milan in 313. (Yeah I had to look that up too.)
The persecutions were fundamental to Christianity's growth. We approach God most often through suffering ("take up your cross and follow Me"). This is a truth that not many people want to really embrace, me included! But it's also one reason why traditional Christianity is making a comeback right now. Still numerically insignificant, but to put on my demography nerd hat for a minute, that may not be the case in a few generations' time, as faith is really the only thing left that actively encourages people to have babies.
I think it’s more coherent to explain the same point by denying the disjunction between the two truths. To say “science is about brute facts” whereas “religion is about stories” plays on a dichotomy that is persuasive but ultimately factitious.
In fact, this very dichotomy is part of the mythological origin story that science has rehearsed for itself over and over since its beginnings in the 17th century. Again, it’s persuasive, especially to us who have grown up under the shadow of its crown, but when you drill down it doesn’t hold up. Ideological, theoretical, and narrative framings are present from the very outset of any scientific endeavor and they remain active throughout the entire process to its conclusion: you have to know what you are looking for to recognize evidence for it when you encounter it. The notion that it’s possible to merely stumble upon evidence and build up scientific theories and worldviews through pure induction and empiricism is nonsense.
Science is basically “the story of how the world came to be and evolves in abstraction from anything that cannot be directly quantified or measured.” We should ask ourselves not whether science is a story, but whether it is a good one.
Well said. True things are true both factually and "storyishly." False things, such as The Science, are false both factually and on their narrative (lack of) merits. Fortunately, exposure to the true story of Christianity can help people to recognize falsehood when they see it.
Correct; the dichotomy is wrong and, equally importantly and related, human brains in fact (truth) are limited -- exactly! This to me was the bad cat's "so close" moment:
"to claim that only one of these kinds of truth is true or even that they stand in opposition rather than function in conjunction seems to me the sign of a limited mind."
Factual story is reality is truth - some of which humans can grasp and much beyond our understanding, some apparent on this plane and a great deal more truth-reality not discernible while yet we live. Humans make true stories with the facts we can grasp. Our biggest baskets of facts and most epic stories have a lot of missing pieces, and some of those pieces are literally beyond us. The story of Christ is beyond the facts we can grasp (or glimpse) or subject fully to storification. 2,000 years of Christian study and each person must still wrestle with unknowable mysteries literally beyond our ken.
CS Lewis provides a lot of insight throughout Mere Christianity, e.g., "[T]he death of Christ is just that point in history at which something absolutely unimaginable from outside shows through into our own world. [...] Indeed, if we found that we could fully understand it, that very fact would show it was not what it professes to be—the inconceivable, the uncreated, the thing from beyond nature, striking down into nature like lightning."
And "even if we could understand who did what, I do not think human language could properly express it."
The bad cat is close, but no cigar. Ironically, the closer he inches towards the truth on his current vector, the more distant it becomes.
He is trying to play an egoic game where he maintains his sense of materialistic superiority over the those who can see further, and who grasp that his partition between "first" and "second" truths is an illusion. A man can only see or believe one Truth (and often not even that). No matter his contortions afterward, or how he tries to purrrloin the utilities of the "second truth", he does not see or believe it to be True, only potentially useful in Euclidean spacetime. Spirutual Truth (to him, a noble lie) as a tool, a shield, a weapon. Bad kitty.
"you have to know what you are looking for to recognize evidence for it when you encounter it."
Exactly so. Or, as I like to put it, the secret of puzzles is that you need to know what kind of picture you're trying to construct in advance. The same epistemic mistake is often made in attempts to reconstruct history as well. The belief that "empiricism" is distinct from (and maybe even the opposite of) storytelling is essentially a first order delusion. They spin bad yarns and doggerel while pretending to be Spock, and apply the jigsaws of their minds to force unmatched pieces to fit the ugly, abstract picture they believe will grant them the most power.
Participation in this hubristic delusion -- bad storytellers who pretend to be true detectives -- has led to much mischief disguised as "progress" over the years, but now many people are coming to grips with the fact that the poisoned tree can only yield poisoned fruit.
I'm glad you brought this up because it is illustrative. The best way to get at this is probably Socratic because I already tried to make the point propositionally above.
So, where do you imagine all of the "good data" from, and what is your criterion for "good" and where does that come from?
You are absolutely correct about Christianity being the first type of truth. That leads to a variety of problems with the compromise the cat is proposing. For one he is redefining sin in a way that is neither consistent with Christian scripture nor tradition. It is most assuredly a sin to lack faith or belief not in an almighty but in the Almighty. How a consenting adult spends their Sundays and who they love can also be a sin. Certain people have dominion over our lives and that is good and right and not a sin. It is God who defines sin, and his definition does not change for political expediency.
Peace, braveness, kindness, health, and happiness are not per se Christian virtues in and of themselves. My peace is in God, but that will sometimes make peace among men unattainable, I am to cling to Christ even if it breaks the peace. Bravery can be exercised in the pursuit of sin and evil just as easily as it can be exercised for God’s glory and sometimes it is only through our own fear and cowardice that we can be convinced to turn toward God. The right thing is not always the kind thing, especially when it comes to sin. If I could choose between myself or my children living happy healthy lives as agnostics or dying of a preventable disease doing God’s work as believers in Christ I would choose suffering in Christ over health and happiness every time. It’s not even a question worth pondering.
Perhaps Gato accidentally hit the nail on the head. This compromise probably works for those who style themselves Christians. But anyone who has picked up their cross and given their lives to Jesus cannot accept such a compromise.
And no meaning in this life, unless a futile, desperate attempt to become satiated with every manner of material pleasure or comfort, appetites that will always, sooner or later, leave a bad aftertaste in the knowledge that the day of the last sex act, delicious meal, financial prosperity etc etc ... all have an expiration date ... and they will come to a screeching halt. And we know this, so suppressing that knowledge is necessary to prevent people from just collapsing into despair.
During Lockdown most American Christians showed that they really didn't believe what they said they did. Not really.
They said they believed Jesus had conquered the grave, but at the prospect of a bad case of the flu with a one in 500 chance of dying, they panicked and prayed to Caesar for life and refused to assemble to worship our Lord as commanded in the Bible. They showed that they loved the praise of man on SM and TV far more than the praise of God.
It’s interesting you mention this as that came to mind as I read this article, but in the opposite way. I was religious as a child/teen and left Christianity when my parents divorced and my brother died from cancer at 27.
I found myself coming back during Covid as I witnessed so many of the churches around me (one in particular) fighting against the madness and opening its doors to love and Christ. I still haven’t made it back to Christianity completely (and may never) but my mind and heart were opened during this time.
(I should add I moved to Iowa during this time. We have some pretty awesome churches and people around here.)
Yes. My own church stayed open after the first fear ended. This kind of shake up was inevitable. Sorting the wheat from the chaff. Western church goers have become too complacent.
Enough churches in my state refused to obey lockdown that our governor signed it into our state constitution that emergency shutdowns cannot be enforced on religious groups. AKA churches. Indiana was the first state in the US to do that. I credit the citizens more than Holcomb. That's a big reason why we've had fewer protests.
Unlike in Chicago where then Mayor Lightfoot threatened churchgoers that if they saw your car in a church parking lot you would be arrested. Never understood how covid affected the 1st Amendment right to freedom of religion but not of assembly when people were allowed to gather to protest George Floyd and celebrate Biden's win.
There was a massive split down the middle of the evangelical church. We had to leave two churches during that time because of CovidFear, Jesus+ beliefs, and ChurchOfWoke. So many of my friends became mask hall monitors and VaxBaptists. “It’s the kind thing to do” became a cult amongst parishioners and an excuse for all forms of State worship.
In the end I am glad. Now we know.
Look, I don’t have it all figured out and I am sure of one thing: I am wrong. About something at least.
But the Evangelicals failures during the Scamdemic revealed the cracks in the church.
Any church that closed deserves criticism. And for those that stayed open, especially in lockdown mandate areas, I want to GO to that church.
Jesus+ is a good way to characterize what so many churches led by products of leftist seminaries were slowly evolving into, and COVID/other events of 2020 gave them the opportunity to be openly Leftist first and Christians second. I, too, had to leave one of those churches. But it led me to true and unapologetic Christianity of the Roman Catholic Church. At least in my diocese.
Churches are social collectives run by socially oriented people. From my observation, when the hysteria began, many seemed eager to join the fight. "We're all in it together" resonated with them. They didn't seem motivated by fear of the virus, but a desire to protect others and do their part, along with a naive trust in public health authorities. They also felt abliged to honor human authorities even if they didn't agree. Churches are collectives first and foremost, but I'll take those collectivists over their secular counterparts any day of the week.
Yep. We left our church during that time. I was texting truth to my millennial pastor but he didn’t listen. All good, as we found a better church & Christian community. God’s plan
This is in fact what's made it difficult for me to take religion especially seriously. The flagrant contradictions practiced by its adherents. Like the gangsters with crosses on their necks, swinging in the breeze as they dish out executions.
When the novelist Graham Greene announced that he was converting to Catholicism, his friends regaled him with countless tales of Catholic barbarism throughout the centuries, in the hopes of making him reconsider. Greene answered that the faith is separate from those who practice it. True.
How so? Christianity was absolutely central to Western Civilization. It IS Western Civilization. I would also add that Christianity is the foundation for the idea of human rights.
WEF atheist "philosopher" Noah Harrari was absolutely correct in mocking the notion of human rights in a recent video. The idea is nonsensical if not tethered to Christianity.
Billions of christians on Earth. You think a few thousands or tens of thousands sociopaths aren’t floating around even if they are just Christian in name only?
That’s the wrong standard. Look to the best, not the worst -- remember the bell curve. Fealty to high ideals is difficult, but the value is in the attempt. You might be invigorated by the effort to do better. Don’t reject high ideals simply because some fail to live up to them. Doing that seems to me to be an excuse born of fear of failure.
This is in fact what's made it difficult for me to take internet prognosticators especially seriously. Obvious logical fallacies such as guilt by association, where he neglects to mention some of the biggest mass-murderers were atheistic. The first step to redemption here is realizing all religions (and I throw atheism into this bunch) are both flawed and have flawed followers. But that's not the point, otherwise we would call them cults.
Huh? They were FORBIDDEN from going to church, by the DEI folks. Are you willing to state, here and now, that the DEI people had no right to do that, and that we should all have been free to go about our business during COVID? You can't have it both ways. Pick one.
I lived through the polio epidemic. There were images of little kids in iron lungs. Everyone was frightened. Yet they didn't shut down, schools, churches or the economy. They tried every possible cure. And even though they were desperate for vaccines, they tested them for safety. No one was fired for refusing to get vaccinated.
I'm that old, also. I remember the panic over polio, yet we all just kept living our lives. Polio victims weren't isolated from the rest of the population.
Surely you saw at least one of the many videos of the rich and famous partying up a storm during covid, indoors, or tens and hundreds of thousands of George Floyd protestors, many maskless, marching shoulder to shoulder. But that was accepted as just fine, no problem, not a danger to public health. Covid offered many opportunities to our rulers, and jumping at the chance to stop people from worshiping God was just too good for them to pass up.
One such hypocrite was Rahm Emanuel, who said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." It's actually been said many times, but every time as an excuse to steal more freedom from us.
The one thing that Christianity (Religion) taught us was NOT to steal or covet our neighbors "stuff"... There are other components of the Golden Rule and/or the Ten Commandments of course but this turns out to be a REALLY big one in modern times... Now, not so much...
I am fine if people want to opt-out of religion... But I need to be free enough to opt-out of the world they create when they steal from each other with impunity and especially when they use government to do so...
The truth of the matter is that if there is to be peace we have to accept that some will not acknowledge Jesus or Buddha or Muhamed and we HAVE TO FIND a set of rules that will work IN SPITE of this or accept that there will be no end to war.
You think that civilizations before the rise of Christianity had no concept of property? Of the rights of people within their society? These things have been spelled out from the time writing was invented.
And most of these contracts failed because the governed look to the government to supply these rights. Many of these societies have or are careening towards socialism/Marxism. That is why founders of US took the path they took to ascribe those rights as God/Creator given and intrinsic. The transformation that is part of the root of our ills in US is the movement away from God. Majority of the population now looks to the government to provide rights and socialism and Marxism are more and more accepted. Atheism and evolutionary mindset lead down the same path every time.
The Founders were not fools and they understood the use of metaphor and they did not define the concept of God.
Our ills in America are the same as in every advanced culture when life becomes too comfortable and young people have leisure and means to study idiot subjects that do not lead to practical application.
What's your definition of God and morality? Do you feel comfortable letting other people define those concepts for themselves while being citizens of a secular civil society?
Free will. I don’t believe in compulsory religion but there are not many communists and socialists who share that sentiment. Your characterization of the founder’s concept of God/Creator is pretty broad and don’t think that was there intent based on personal writings of many of the founders. Money can be your God if you chose. Considering yourself God is the tendency our current society is heading towards with no objective truth or moral belief. But again I’m not taking about forcing beliefs on anyone, but evangelism and sharing the gospel as a Christian is my duty.
The Founders had the wit to separate their personal beliefs from the crafting of a secular republic within which people of any belief system could live safely. Of course we know from our earliest history that religious sects have done their best to harass and/or exterminate those of different beliefs.
Evangelism certainly qualifies as pestering though you are free to pester at will.
If the first truth is Empiricism and the second truth is Story maybe the third truth is Faith--in the evolution of truths, or, in a Divine Shaper of truths.
It takes just as much faith for one to believe the stories “evolved” from man from God than it does for one to believe that there was no providence behind the reason for the stories.
Sadly, I think what is past is prologue and the Story will live on in a minority, a remnant. The Story will survive the hells of tyranny. But only because of their faith in the Divine.
Jefferson and Adams, in their epic letter writing campaign to each other toward the end of their lives (they both died on the same day--July 4th 1826, mind you) predicted that the Republic would last only as long as the People had virtue. They looked at Rome. Rome fell because the people and culture became a godless mess of self indulgence.
When America falls, and the West with it, it will be because the dwindling remnant, with their Faith in the Divine, is too small to sustain the Stories that support the Empiricism.
But some of the remnant will survive the hell that will follow. God never promised us a life without pain. And He never needed the Golden Age or America or The West to be God or to be the Reason behind the Stories.
What a massive bummer that we could screw this up.
Jesus told his followers that they were to be "the salt of the earth." Salt adds flavor and, more importantly, preserves food from spoiling. It is no coincidence that as Christianity fades, the rot in the world spreads.
I left Christianity as an adolescent because when I ask simple questions, there were no answers (other than the stock, "We don't know of all of God's reasons or plans...").
The one question that always flummoxed them was, "When I die and go to Heaven, I will be happy, correct? But how can I be happy if not all of my loved ones are there? And if they are not here, then they must be living in agony forever in the fires of Hell! So how can I possibly be happy in Heaven?"
And another. "If you say man (and myself) are created in the image of God, then how can God allow souls to suffer forever in the pits of Hell? I would not - and I would tell that to God himself."
And there are many more unanswered questions. Hence, I have been led to Deism. My thoughts are that there is indeed a higher, more benevolent force. But one that we cannot understand, though one day, we might. That is my hope at least...
These are great questions, and I honor you for bringing them up. I have the same questions. C.S. Lewis, arguably the 20th century's greatest Christian Apologist, said that these are the most difficult questions to answer.
How can a "loving God" allow suffering. There are not good answers that I have encountered. Not satisfying answers. In order to deal with my own issues which include a low attachment to life and lots of nightmares and flashback from childhood trauma, I've had to embrace that idea that for me, life is supposed to be difficult. I don't know any sane person would would disagree that living ain't easy. That premise is what I hold onto. It is a tenet of faith for me. Once I land there, everything else takes on a different appearance.
There are no answers palatable to contemporary humans in an increasingly post-religious, materialistic society, who look to their time in this world for only comfort, security, pleasure, absence of pain and loss. That is, life in this world is exclusively suffering. Ask anyone who has truly loved another and has suffered the grief of that person's passing, like a crushing weight on your chest in bed late in a sleepless night. How can that be forgotten or made OK? This is our state because Satan is the prince of THIS world, served by his host of demons, and Almighty God gives him permission to put us to the test.
Has allowed us to be tested BECAUSE He endowed us with free will, perhaps the greatest endowment that He blessed our species with. We are not solely dependent on instinct, we can choose ... to live the Golden Rule or to do and say things even when we know they are wrong. I should know :) :)
I wonder if wider acceptance is in offing. I wonder why you think so. I guess the future will reveal this.
Love and Suffering do go together as you said. Sometimes, I think poetry is the best way to understand that which confuses us. Leonard Cohen "I've seen your flag on the marble arch, love is not a victory march, It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah" speaks to me about this.
I was raised in an immigrant Irish Catholic household. My mother was very , very devout, relying on prayer and devotion to hold her family together in the new country with an alcoholic husband tavern owner. When I was very young, maybe four, a stray kitten came to the back porch and my mother allowed me to offer it a saucer of milk. I was completely thrilled to see it respond by feeding, and I immediately fell in love and pleaded to be allowed to keep the kitty. That night, when I was put to bed, I couldn’t get to sleep. I started to contemplate a black void of emptiness and think about the terror involved with the ideas about hell I had been taught. I tried to console myself with the ideas I had been taught about heaven, that if I could just qualify to get there after death, all suffering would be obviated, all the horrible separations of deaths and crippling would be healed— but suddenly I remembered there was a catch. Animals, I had been taught, did not have souls and therefore could not go to heaven! I realized that this Catholic doctrine, which my mother seemed to find so consoling, did not console me at all! It horrified me that my little kitty could not come to heaven with me. I started to cry with fear and sorrow, realizing that I could never find this vision as an acceptable consolation like the adults around me.
Animals, I had been taught, did not have “souls” and therefore they were not eligible to come to Heaven. I could not feel at all consoled by this vision. To my horror, all my mentors seemed to find this vision perfectly acceptable, and I realized that I was not like them. I could not accept their “solution.” My heart prevented me from it. I cried. My mother heard me, came in to my bedside, and brought me out to the sofa, and made me some hot chocolate. I fell asleep! So much for the great questions that night!
"Man and animal -- both formed on the same day from the earth, both sensate, living beings with souls, both capable of pleasure and suffering. Man and animal, of the same genus -- but of different species. What is it that separates us? According to St. Thomas Aquinas, it is (as he explains) in his Summa Theologica.
I was recounting a story from childhood, when I was being “informed” by what “adults” around me were telling me to “believe.” I have long ago stopped listening to secondary “sources” and made my own direct investigations into these matters. No interest in your “appeals to authority” because I don’t buy into the dogma games.
If all shall be saved, I will have to start looking for a different final destination than the one I hope to reach, because there are creatures I do not want to be near. Search this page and read about an Australian man named Peter Scully: https://www.fisheaters.com/praeternaturalworld4.html But do take the warning in red font seriously. You might be better off to surf elsewhere. I have lived in this world for quite a long time, and it is the most horrifying thing I have ever heard about. Wish I did not know of it and cannot unknow it. And if you don't trust the website of the devout Catholic woman who runs it, and think she made it up to frighten people into going to church :) :), just google Peter Scully.
I certainly find nothing that is wrong, cruel or contrary to Christ's message if that man suffers for all of eternity. Only a human being fully owned by Satan could do what he did. People who seem to think Jesus is all puppies and fuzzy "everyone and EVERYTHING" is forgiven ... they might want to crack open the Holy Bible.
But in fact, some believe eternal damnation in hell is not unpleasant for people like Scully, that they may receive something like a paradoxical gift ... because they are in their element and in the company of others just like them. Right where they belong and feel at home. I personally prefer not to occupy myself with such musings, because I have unshakeable faith that God has everything well under control.
Pope Francis seems to think "everyone, everyone, everyone" should go to heaven ... but many are coming to the conclusion that he is not even a believer, like a number of popes down through the centuries, who might be waiting for Peter Scully in his final home.
I think the decline began among the Christians. I was raised in the church and was a fervent believer but kept finding that pastors and other leaders were manipulating people for selfish gain, many were sexual predators, others on power trips, still others enjoyed cushy living off the people. The outlandish lifestyles of televangelists reveals a fundamental lack of integrity, honesty. and morality among the Christians. I am a much better person after walking away then I was as a Christian.
Indeed, Christians have failed Christ. The Old Testament offers a choice between God or Mammon. In 21st century America, most have circled Mammon on that test, including many church leaders.
Debbie, the faith is separate from the people professing to practice it. Don't let our failings hinder you from embracing the Christian faith.
I found all of that disappointing as well. Too many Christians in my life trying to use their interpretation of these things to make me do what they wanted me to do. I found my own relationship with god that supercedes all the humans who think they know god's mind as far as it correlates with their predjudices.
My disillusionment with the church, coupled with my ceasing to conveniently ignore the horrendous atrocities commanded by God in the OT were the wakeup call for me.
In some ways, I sometimes wonder if the first truth is story, the second is faith and the third is Empiricism. In this day of mis/dis-information, I wonder if the story and the faith in that story are needed to evaluate the empirical. I can't tell you the number of times I seen something stated as fact that without any other underlying information has given me pause. And down the road, my "gut" reaction, which is written against whatever is operating for me as "the story," is right. May would argue that the story is derived from what is observed to be true and then for the story.
Whatever the order of precedence, there is a three part interplay between these items. In AA's 12-Steps, we see this operation in play. "God as you understand God" is enough. What is important is that you agree that "humans have a slot in their brain that says 'put something larger than me here.' something is going to fill it." and it can't be me, or Alcohol, or drugs, or gambling or sex or any other compulsive behavior. I have seen countless people turn their lives around based on a "God as understood." For society to work, we must FIGHT against this idea that each of us belong in the slot for ourselves. Something/someone transcendent must fill that role.
I have long loved that insightful observation. I would take it to the next level and assert that the greatest people attempt, relentlessly and in the face of disappointment and failure, to live up to their ideals.
One of Jesus’ less popular commands was to love your enemy. He taught us to follow him warning that this would involve persecution as he was persecuted. Letting go of hate and letting go of self is terrifying because it feels like dying. Love always involves suffering and this is possibly the opposite of identity politics.
I'm reading The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. Her forgiveness for the Nazis who practiced great cruelty on her, and her family goes against the grain of "Woke" thought.
I had this same premise come to me a few years back when arguing with my militantly atheist cousin who like Bill Maher, thinks religion is a major source of the world's significant problems. What spurred the argument was a bunch of players on the football field kneeling in prayer after the game. After some back and forth I asked him whether those players and coaches were more likely or less likely to kill another human, something a fair amount of their fellow athletes who were blessed with immense ability but not much else in their youth, seemed to do quite often.
Humanity moves forward when the masses follow a "moral" credo. Christianity instills that credo.
I’m glad you brought up the golden rule as emblematic of western civilization. When reading a biography of Mao a couple of years ago I was struck that he explicitly scorned the West’s golden rule and said in effect “of course I’m going to do to others all the things I don’t want them to do to me.“
As I grow older, I have come to believe that there are spiritual laws of nature every bit as much as there are physical. And foremost among them is that sins can and will come home to roost.
I love you and you are a genius, but you are still scared of the actual truth- that there is a real, true actual God. People don’t want to think about THAT because if you believe it, it upends your whole life. I think that’s part of why most intelligent minds eventually melt down- they have to keep denying the (très) uncomfortable truth. But if you are truly wise you realize that intentional ignorance is only temporary bliss. The truth will come out to bite you— reality figuratively bites. I hate this saying: “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Such a lie. That’s why I applied what mental powers I had towards figuring out if the God of the Bible is real. Because if He is, and you “diss” Him and miss Him- you are screwed for an eternity.
Definitely more painful, but more inevitable? I think the pain is the main reason why it becomes less likely to turn to reality the longer you invest your life in the fantasy.
Which is why they want to get them as children.
Of course, the pain of dissonance and consequences will lead some to reality- God bless and help ‘em!
But aside from pain, the largest motivator is still peer pressure. Most people, maybe all people, are more concerned about what other people think than what God thinks. However, I guess rejection and bullying are painful, so the actual motivation is still fear of pain.
I think western civilisation can survive the loss of Christianity, but not the loss of a conceptual connection to a higher level system intelligence than our own.
Christianity was rejected by many for good reason: the corruption of the priesthood and it’s power plays; the very idea of the necessity for a ‘gatekeeper’ class; the notion of a jealous God; the doctrine of original sin … and it comes with a lot of very suspect baggage attached to it, not least the virtue-signalling do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do behaviour of all too many who describe themselves as Christians.
My own experiences with being in-formed by an intelligence I couldn’t in any way ‘own’ as ‘mine’ led me to question deeply. Like you, Jung and Campbell were big signposts along the way, as was the worldview of cultures still maintaining a profound connection to the living systems of which they’re part.
As a biologist/ecologist, the observation of ‘hive mind’ operating in many species led me to question its existence in humans. Systems theory pointed a way forward to conceptualise Life intelligence as operating at multiple levels of organisation, not least considering that our own bodies are more of an ecosystem - a holobiont - than specifically ‘human’. Understanding that a primary mechanism of maintaining life in physical form in the face of the forces of entropy is the necessity of continual renewal driven by Life continually consuming and reformatting itself in all its forms, all of which MUST be intelligent for intelligence to reside in any part of it added weight.
This path led me to the perception of a planetary-level intelligence, guiding the constant changes taking place as species evolve, interact and develop. Doubtless there are higher levels of intelligence and organisation beyond the mere planetary.
Crucially, this led to the perception that the present ‘interesting’ set of circumstances we find ourselves in still serves the Earth intelligence. Humans in their perceptual disconnection from the rest of life on the planet have become too destructive of Life. Not through ‘climate change’ but through ecosystem destruction and degradation because it’s Life that creates the conditions conducive to Life. How to bring us back to the fold?
In archetypal terms, the ‘elites’ represent the ultimate trajectory of our culture. They stand as a mirror; an extreme expression of ourselves. In their complete anti-life focus (= evil), they show us the true horror of what we’ve become. And now - somewhat ironically but also poetically - they are acting as the very agent to precipitate the necessary changes in our worldview to bring us back to the Oneness of all of Life. They are fragmenting and deconstructing everything we ‘know’ to be ‘true’ in the hopes of imposing their Great Reset. This is truly humanity’s Tower of Babel moment.
It’s an inflection point. While floundering in disarray and confusion, each of us is being given the opportunity to reflect on our own conceptual framework, the real truths. That process of reflection is the path back to Life. Absent it, we will fall for the full evil of the transhumanist agenda and perish in the process.
Is there such a thing as perfect? And if there is, how do you define it?
If perfect means living according to Nature’s laws, as indigenous people have done for thousands of years, maybe that is what could be thought of as ‘perfect’? Because to be perfectly aligned with your local ecosystem, to live in harmony and equilibrium with it, is how life is sustained. And becomes effectively immortal.
This leaves cultural notions about perfection as some unattainable paragon of virtue at the door. Nature is perfectly imperfect. What more do we need?
Brilliant, as per usual! A few points: 1. I believe Christianity is actually true & the success of its ideas is further evidence thereof. 2. I've long argued that Christianity was best even if it weren't true & I've never seen any evidence or serious argument to the contrary (atheists say the world would be better w/o religion, but all atheist societies are hellholes), and 3 - and this is my biggest point - I don't think it's the golden rule (or primarily the golden rule) that matters: it's the idea that all of us will be judged.
Once you drop god or you make your gods supermen (the Greek gods didn't judge, they were easily bought off & they acted so arbitrarily & capriciously that it was more about outsmarting them or avoiding their attention than judgment), then - by definition - I should do whatever I can get away with. All other moral systems don't have an answer for what you should do when you have the opportunity to commit the perfect crime - crime's only "bad" if I can be caught & punished; otherwise, it's just silly not to steal what won't be noticed etc.
When you live in a society where everyone should do whatever they can get away with, you pretty quickly lose all faith in your peers & your society degenerates into a hellhole.
But when there's God who's going to judge you, then there are no perfect crimes - everybody answers to Him, so everybody is always going to get caught; that really changes their approach & yours (everybody knows they'll get justice, eventually).
Now the counterargument here is Islam which also has the judgment concept - if I'm right about judgment, why are they such hellholes? Well, that's where you need to understand Islamic theology - it's not really a judgment. Pay your fee (jihad etc) and you get paid (maybe, Allah's pretty arbitrary capricious like Greek gods).
I'm no fan of Islam whatsoever, but I came to that conclusion from an informed position, and this is a gross misrepresentation of Islam's conception of sin in what looks like an attempt to more clearly differentiate it from Christianity as your example of The Only Faith That Ever Builds Successful Societies.
Islam's concept of sin is nearly identical. There are culturally distinct differences in dogma. The cosmology is the same.
Maybe - just MAYBE - the “slot” was created. By a Creator who designed us to have relationship with Him. Not religion with hierarchies populated by sinful people, but a relationship with a Creator who loves us.
I think religion is between God and myself. The moment groups of people start to turn to a generalization, things go often wrong. I know people who can recite the bible by heart (just like most muslims can recite the Qran by heart) but have no idea of the meaning of the parables and stories. Part of the bible is rather history (like the king books). Everyone might want to read the holy books of other religions just to see, how they run together. And then read Jung indeed. Always loved the man.
memorizing doctrine is no more "morality" than learning a shape is rotating it.
"religions" are often quite at odds with "the religious" or even the teachings they claim to adhere to. many a pope or lama or priest was a villain and the rules of capture and corruption around large, powerful organizations apply to religions just as they do to governments.
indeed. I remember very well how I told some about my belief to my late husband, who was an ordained pastor. He had never heard of anyone who had first hand experience. So how did he think inspired works were written? He had not even thought about that! Learning a book by heart and sitting in a church, mosquee or temple does not make you a religious person
Most Muslims can not recite the entire Quran, if that is what you mean. People who can are very special, such a Muslim is called a "Hafiz" (Arabic for "safekeeper" or someone who preserves something). Any truly devout Muslim will know by heart lengthy parts of the Quran, to be sure. The devout pray a great deal, every day, and as far as I recall, the prayers are all excerpts from the Quran, or variations thereof. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are, of course, interconnected ... the "Abrahamic" religions. There is, for example, a "Surah" (chapter) of the Quran titled Maryam (Arabic for Mary, mother of Jesus). Mary is venerated highly in Islam, as is Jesus (Isa) who Muslims consider a great prophet but not their savior (obviously).
“ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” ~ Hebrews 11: 1
“ Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” ~ John Adams
I, too, thought of this Adams quote while reading this.
t.co/AeadUbId3e
Our politicians need to be of a different stripe. We cannot thrive without moral leadership!
Maybe it’s the immorality of the people that leads to the immorality of the politicians. Perhaps politicians are only following incentives.
"Politics is downstream of culture." - Andrew Breitbart
Yes. They’re symptoms of the disease.
You get the leaders you deserve.
This is right on the nose from my perspective. All this must work from the ground up.
Yesss. Almost the inverse of the rule that every people/nation/society gets the goverment it deserves. Many out there are getting exactly what they want, they would not change a thing.
Not to improperly deify prior political, cultural or religious leaders, but in the recent past (say, 30 years), there has been a dearth of great men (or women). I’m not looking for a hero, but I would welcome an exemplar of greatness. They are all so narcissistic and petty now.
When Bill Clinton was running for President there was a mantra from his supporters that character didn't matter.
It does.
Character is destiny.
I thought Obama, was that guy. I was wrong.
Moral leadership from politicians?
The few politicians that show moral leadership are derided by the rest. I think of Ron Paul as an example. Look for the most hated by their own party.
It certainly is not popular to point out waste, overreach, corruption, and where government can be cut and dismantled.
Politicians read the AI-generated consensus which manipulates the Hive.
https://wrenchinthegears.com/2024/01/27/human-weather-why-for-now-outrage-isnt-my-tool-of-choice/
Wouldn’t the founding fathers be ashamed of us.
So we can’t have the morals formed by religious doctrine? It is programmed then,.......is that right?
Then why when we are kids do we feel bad when we hurt others? Most “Christians” don’t even know the Ten Commandments, yet feel guilty when they lie.
I have been taken very far back in my memories of many lifetimes. The body makes us more ‘materialistic’. Our parents teach us one could be not as good as a sibling, so jealousy is learned. Psychologists for years have been proving we are a product of our upbringing,......this is key.
We are basically good. The closest thing to describe us is the highest emotion of serenity and a kind of pure love.
I would surmise that when the Annunaki created religions or false god slavery, they wanted to appease our inate nature so rules of conduct, morals of membership and uuug 🙄dogma to make it stick.
But they didn’t stick around, and somebodies taking advantage of the programmed.
But knowing what personal ethics is and making agreements on morals for our societies would achieve much. The family unit, (non-mafia type) is what is more important than religions about false gods.
Really, we do know this. That’s why they are attacking the family unit, and we are letting them. That is the problem.
I came here to write this quote by John Adams as well.
I knew someone would share that quote. The verse on faith is an excellent tie in as well.
One aspect of the post-60s 'revolution' that gets little attention is that it saw a retreat from the Christian conception of the individual as an intrinsically flawed being – prone to sin and prone to error. Now maximal 'self esteem' is valorised. People drunk on their own self esteem will have inflated expectations that they deserve never to be made 'unhappy' by anything so annoying as 'reality'.
perhaps worse, when they are made uphappy or when others thrive and they do not, they do not look to themselves but rather to others. it must be "someone's fault." someone must have done this to them. this is the dire peril of all the aggrievement theater that has been masquerading as social justice of late: it not only dissuades people from taking responsibility for themselves and adopting the habits and mindsets conducive to success, but it also violates the idea of "golden rule" by erecting imagined trespasses that are used to justify trespassing in return.
it unpicks the very fabric of which one would weave a functional social contract.
Yes all true. I made some similar observations in an essay a while back in American Mind: "The general public is now by definition irreproachable. What Christopher Lasch famously called a Culture of Narcissism has become so hard-wired into the Western psyche that it is now barely noticed. The significance of this cultural change is hard to overstate but modern conservatism generally has no more to say about it than Progressives do. A culture that acknowledges that most people are ineluctably less than perfect will be less susceptible to the sanctification of particular sub-sets as ‘victims’. And those designated as such would be less likely to feel it as a reason for abrogating any personal responsibility for the condition of their lives." https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-will-to-kneel/
"For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred."
2 Timothy 3:2 New Living Translation
Excellent points, Graham and Gato. Your comments reminded me of this snippet of scripture.
Yep, and you see with those in power too. Instead of looking at the actual policies or practices or ideas being rejected, they blame the messaging, intelligence of those doing the rejecting, or supposed mal/mis/disinformation.
Reminds me of a German friend and former colleague here in Germany. Anna studied for a semester, maybe a year, at a college in the Midwest. So not a 2 week USA tourist experience but long enough for immersion in the culture. Wasn't very happy there, didn't hate it. Watching German television one evening with Anna and her husband. A "social documentary" about a slice of life in the States. A black woman in some American ghetto tells the interviewer that her life has been a train wreck, like forever. Multiple arrests, kids taken from her, drug habit the whole gamut. She looks into the camera and says "But nobody made me do all those things. I did it because I wanted to. No one but myself to blame." I glance over at Anna. She has a strange kind of half-smile, not amused, not disturbed, different. It was admiration. She says "No German would ever say something like that. No matter what kind of problem they have, large or small, no matter if financially comfortable or strapped ... it is ALWAYS the fault of some German government agency, bureaucratic decision-makers. NEVER will they take responsibility for their problems or misfortune." What else to expect in a country where turbo-socialism has run wild?
And the ironic thing is that these 'self-esteem' junkies are some of the most dysfunctional people on the planet.
All you have to do is scour Instagram for less than a minute to know this is true.
I like Jordan Peterson’s elucidation of “sinful” as “missing the mark.” Our intrinsic flaws are the *reason* we are capable of good, because we must *choose* it.
Many do not understand the concept of sin as a Greek word meaning to "miss the mark" as in archery. Further, they do not understand the Holy absolute perfectness of God. We as humans "missed" God's perfectness of how he created us "in His Image" (He walked with us in the garden). This is "original sin"; i.e., we are NOT perfect in God's eyes, and consequently cannot even BEGIN to approach HIm - He cannot be in the presence of imperfectness, (sin) i.e., our presence - thus the need for Jesus to do what He did to become our intercessor so that we are able to approach the perfect Creator of the Universe.
I know people who were raised in Christian churches where the concept of Original Sin was really abused to indoctrinate them into a belief that they were broken, rather than imperfect, and thus when they left those churches, which were cults, they were so disgusted with the whole thing that the mere idea repels them.
Abolutely; lots of false teachers. Jesus warned there would be many, and that the spirit of the antichrist was alive even in his days on earth.
I was one of those. The church system is fuct. To God, I want to go back, but the church can burn in hell.
The economy is a religious ideation made external, like the church itself, which is supposed to be the temple of ones own head. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_(religion)
Church and state - the judeo-christian union has held the globe in a strangle-hold since 1100, merchants hidden like the wizard behind the curtain. There is one social idea that can stamp out cults because it doesn't worship the middleman god of competition and war, but people are still beholden to historic illusion, kept alive by those who can continue to profit - no cohencidence profit is phonetically identical to prophet.
The Enlightenment was a necessary sleight of hand to get industrial technology up and running. A "modern world consistent with prosperity and liberty" is based on church and state, also known as lies and blood which has built the world as we know it today. Covid was to slap people awake to it because it's time to change the way the world is run.
I’m into prosperity and liberty and I don’t conflate the errors of the church as institution with the distortions of state-manipulated economic activity. Cat is saying the world should not be “run,” but should function organically. When it does that on an ethical foundation, we see prosperity and liberty.
Yes I understand but the world must be run in to the ground until we wake up - the last several decades/centuries have been illusions. That 'the church should burn in hell' is irony; hell is simply external materialism without a transcendent principle; the church has been a merchant business since its inception. (Esoteric religion isn't but that is why it must be hidden/buried.)
The church and state can't BE separated. The merchant caste is worshipped in 'prosperous' United States and rules the state of DC and Israel. They are united. States.
Which part is judeo-christian church, which part is state? These are 'spells', or tricks in the words, which is a priestly art.
This is a spiritual operation. Things are reversed, inverted and upside down. The only prosperity and liberty we have in this world is riches in our minds/hearts, our soul's interface.
The Garden was a test for Adam and Eve and what was not learned was that we must live responsibly before God(Bonhoeffer) ; human hubris and willful disobedience ,without responsibility, plagues us to this day!
Parenthetically, concerning the test aspect of The Garden: What do you suppose Satan appeared as when he tempted Eve? The angel of light must've been a pretty normal occurrence for her - didn't scare her or anything. What do you suppose he appears as today?
He appears in the guise of all those nefarious actors who want us to believe that they are working to save mankind from death and disease; in reality they see themselves as the "new gods" who will now rule the world and see humanity as expendable; hence , a major goal is to destroy all religions, personal identity and the very concept of sovereignty; they are pro-death and anti-life and anti-nature and are totally devoid of any respect for a Creator who has given us the gift of life; " Satanism is not a 'belief in Satan' but the false pursuit to self-deify oneself." (Taylor Marshall) " I am now giving you the choice between life and death, between God's blessing and God's curse, and I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Choose life." (Deuteronomy 30:19) So there you have free will or choice, but knowing the perversity of human nature in making bad choices, guidance is given in the exhortation: "CHOOSE LIFE!"
Celebrities and "influencers"
Jordan Peterson also espouses the truth in stories. That the reason these stories or maybe religions have endured is they have tapped into the truth. I happen to believe the closer to truth the closer to God.
Indeed. The arrogance of obviously unimpressive people these days is stunning
We are not "intrinsically flawed." We are human beings and our nature is natural. Every civilization prior to Christianity understood the need for laws to contain the excesses of human nature. Original sin is a remarkably vile concept.
Here you misunderstand the concept. If we cannot allow ourselves to view past actions as mistakes of an imperfect person, then we cannot judge those actions appropriately, ask for forgiveness (to others or to God), and move on. To use an example: there are people who think they are the wrong sex and who have surgically removed their genitalia; this is not in any way "natural". Rather, as Graham so aptly puts it, it is an intrinsic flaw of humans to be prone to these types of errors (or sins, using the religious perspective).
I agree that other cultures have succeeded in accomplishing this narrative framework to greater or lesser extents, though I believe your dismissal of Christianity as a positive force is exactly what Gato is discussing here.
I know exactly what the concept is and Christianity as the formalized religion has little to do with Jesus the radical Jew. Just as Christians took the worst of the Old Testament and ran with it, the books of the New Testament outside of the story of the Gospels form a handbook any Communist could admire--and did, of course. The roadmap for crushing the soul into guilt-ridden compliance.
Your idea of Christianity as “crushing the soul into guilt—ridden compliance” is so completely void of understanding as to be laughable if not so heartbreaking. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” Forgiveness in and through Jesus Christ is the only way we escape the guilt of our wrongs. So much time and effort spent on trying to explain away our Creator, His great love for His creation and His rescue and redemption of it.
Nonsense. It is a brutal chain on the spirit.
Funny, my spirit is free!
Again, you miss the point. That Jesus was a radical Jew is almost immaterial* to the truth (in Gato's second sense). And where does one imagine that communism is an offshoot of Christianity? Jesus encouraged spiritualism over materialism, whereas communists are uber-materialists.
*Almost immaterial, because clearly he was killed by his Jewish brethren for being a radical Jew (in an echo of the Cain & Abel story).
Try to read with understanding.
And the evangelizing to the Hellenic world transformed the ministry of Jesus into a cult marketable to everyone.
Is missing the point your favorite pasttime?
Suggest you do the same: read with understanding, or an open heart.
Like Tu Tasty says, you have misunderstood the concept. I wasn't talking about 'original sin'. I was talking about the normal mentality of most Western people up to the 60s. People had more humility then. Ask yourself this SCA...are you a perfect human being? Do you have no faults?
"People had more humility."
Seriously, Graham.
Strange bedfellows once again, eh?
We found ourselves sharing the same cabin at sleepaway camp and it was so much fun at the beginning but turned out we'd been mismatched from the start. Nobody's fault but still it left a painful feeling.
And now you're stuck on a really long bus ride back from Connecticut and Joey Fatmann stank up the one bathroom beyond repair and there's yellowjackets but no one can figure out where they're coming from.
Hey lady.
Growing up Catholic kept that in check. One of the things made very clear early and often growing up was that I was a sinner, so much so that we had to separate sins into different degrees of severity. I was sure from an early age that my lay-over in purgatory was to be a long one.
There is one destination indescribably worse than purgatory. But take heart, you will not be lonely in purgatory ... nor in the other destination, for that matter :)
https://wrenchinthegears.com/2024/01/27/human-weather-why-for-now-outrage-isnt-my-tool-of-choice/
Gato makes a big step in the right direction by acknowledging that Christianity is true in the "second sense" of being a true meme / story. But the WHOLE POINT of that story is that Christianity is true in the first sense. "If Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless." It is a matter of literal, historical fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The Golden Rule and all the rest of Christianity's social benefits derive directly from that fact. No Resurrection, no Christianity, no (eternal) life!
consider the possibility that this mindset is what is preventing many christians from finding the natural alliance with other "golden rule believers" with whom they might join to reshape society.
there is not nor can there be any proof of such literal truth in the first sense and it does not need to be true to share a set of precepts with people who do not share deistic faith.
perfectly good and wise and appropriate societal fabrics may be woven from that which is not literally true. insistence upon it seems like a way to alienate those who mostly share your morals.
Have you seen the United Church (of Canada for instance). It is a diluted swill of social justice stand for nothingness fall for everythingness. Alliances with other 'golden rule believers'? I think not.
The problem with your latter statement is it rejects the Christian concept of being indwelt by the Holy Spirit as a fact, a truth if you will (see Acts). This is who changes people's hearts to want to share morals and bear fruit of the Christian life, through society, culture. That's why without a faith in Christ that allows indwelling of the Holy Spirit, man's heart will NEVER be humble enough to corroborate in a good "societal fabric". To wit:
Romans 3:9-18
9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10 as it is written,
“There is none righteous, not even one;
11 There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;
12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless;
There is none who does good,
There is not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave,
With their tongues they keep deceiving,”
“The poison of asps is under their lips”;
14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”;
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood,
16 Destruction and misery are in their paths,
17 And the path of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Have you ever considered that what you call Christian’s’ “insistence” is actually loving others and wanting their best? It’s standing against those very things that are tearing down our society as well as our humanity. Would you think me good and kind to let my child play in the road because it makes him happy and “it doesn’t hurt others?” We’re the ones picking up the pieces of those who have reaped the consequences of that thinking.
It’s exactly that ‘I know best for you. And I will make sure you do what’s best for you, because I am so good and have so much love for you.’ Kind of thinking that got us into this mess. Respect for others is love, humility is virtue.
Please do not "love me" without my consent.
Reshaping society is not nor should it be the primary goal of Christians. That is not the Great Commission nor a divine mandate.
“19 [a]Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you [b]always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20. This is the Great Commission and the divine mandate.
Fulfilling the great commission will by default reshape society but that is a side effect and not the goal. Christians can work toward other goals, but not if it means compromising the gospel. You are asking Christians to compromise the gospel in the name of reshaping society, that is a deal that no Christian mature in their faith can ever make. Our nations are important, our societies are important, but the Kingdom is more important.
We are well aware this mindset prevents such alliances and it’s a price we are willing to pay to stand firm upon the gospel.
This reminds me of something Bishop Athanasius Schneider said recently with regard to the present Vatican seeming almost to want to turn the Church into an NGO, to fight climate change etc. Bishop Schneider said it is not the role of the Holy and Apostolic Church to devote its resources to, or even focus on, things like climate change (formerly known as "weather") or pandemics, real or otherwise ... no, the work of the Church as Jesus instructed his apostles is to save souls and focus on what is eternal, not the temporal.
This idea...that we don’t have to believe the literal to hold on to the good... is the thread that binds us all in a unit. Christians who insist that I and all go back to believing the literal only cause disconnect. Find the good in all and connect to that.
Considered. Maybe without it the "natural alliance" people would have not conceived the golden rule.
"and it does not need to be true to share a set of precepts with people who do not share deistic faith."
This is the, dare I say, "true" root of Western Civilization.
Andrew Klavan addresses this question brilliantly in this City Journal article, well worth a read: https://www.city-journal.org/article/can-we-believe
And I would say that the enlightenment is proof that Christ is the first truth. It is a fact that as Christianity spread through the world, life improved. Now that He has been removed, we’re descending into darkness.
One of the things that has struck me over the years is how much Christianity adopted from Roman/Greek philosophy. For example, if you read Stoic thought you find it very congruent with Christian philosophy. The Founders admired Cato, a Stoic who defended the Roman Republic from Caesar. He lost and lost his life, but was celebrated for his sense of honor and integrity. Many of the Founders attempted to deliberately emulate Cato in their conduct. There was a play that was popular during the time of the founding about Cato. It formed a 2nd Truth for them. Just like the Iliad and the Odyssey formed a 2nd Truth for the Classical Greeks
God chose the Greco-Roman civilization as the cradle of Christianity for a reason. It was "created" to be uniquely receptive to the Gospel in the early centuries of the Church.
Well, the Disciples may have a different take on how receptive the Roman Civilization was. There were many years of oppression until Emperor Constantine established tolerance of Christianity in the edict of Milan in 313. (Yeah I had to look that up too.)
The persecutions were fundamental to Christianity's growth. We approach God most often through suffering ("take up your cross and follow Me"). This is a truth that not many people want to really embrace, me included! But it's also one reason why traditional Christianity is making a comeback right now. Still numerically insignificant, but to put on my demography nerd hat for a minute, that may not be the case in a few generations' time, as faith is really the only thing left that actively encourages people to have babies.
I think it’s more coherent to explain the same point by denying the disjunction between the two truths. To say “science is about brute facts” whereas “religion is about stories” plays on a dichotomy that is persuasive but ultimately factitious.
In fact, this very dichotomy is part of the mythological origin story that science has rehearsed for itself over and over since its beginnings in the 17th century. Again, it’s persuasive, especially to us who have grown up under the shadow of its crown, but when you drill down it doesn’t hold up. Ideological, theoretical, and narrative framings are present from the very outset of any scientific endeavor and they remain active throughout the entire process to its conclusion: you have to know what you are looking for to recognize evidence for it when you encounter it. The notion that it’s possible to merely stumble upon evidence and build up scientific theories and worldviews through pure induction and empiricism is nonsense.
Science is basically “the story of how the world came to be and evolves in abstraction from anything that cannot be directly quantified or measured.” We should ask ourselves not whether science is a story, but whether it is a good one.
Well said. True things are true both factually and "storyishly." False things, such as The Science, are false both factually and on their narrative (lack of) merits. Fortunately, exposure to the true story of Christianity can help people to recognize falsehood when they see it.
Correct; the dichotomy is wrong and, equally importantly and related, human brains in fact (truth) are limited -- exactly! This to me was the bad cat's "so close" moment:
"to claim that only one of these kinds of truth is true or even that they stand in opposition rather than function in conjunction seems to me the sign of a limited mind."
Factual story is reality is truth - some of which humans can grasp and much beyond our understanding, some apparent on this plane and a great deal more truth-reality not discernible while yet we live. Humans make true stories with the facts we can grasp. Our biggest baskets of facts and most epic stories have a lot of missing pieces, and some of those pieces are literally beyond us. The story of Christ is beyond the facts we can grasp (or glimpse) or subject fully to storification. 2,000 years of Christian study and each person must still wrestle with unknowable mysteries literally beyond our ken.
CS Lewis provides a lot of insight throughout Mere Christianity, e.g., "[T]he death of Christ is just that point in history at which something absolutely unimaginable from outside shows through into our own world. [...] Indeed, if we found that we could fully understand it, that very fact would show it was not what it professes to be—the inconceivable, the uncreated, the thing from beyond nature, striking down into nature like lightning."
And "even if we could understand who did what, I do not think human language could properly express it."
The bad cat is close, but no cigar. Ironically, the closer he inches towards the truth on his current vector, the more distant it becomes.
He is trying to play an egoic game where he maintains his sense of materialistic superiority over the those who can see further, and who grasp that his partition between "first" and "second" truths is an illusion. A man can only see or believe one Truth (and often not even that). No matter his contortions afterward, or how he tries to purrrloin the utilities of the "second truth", he does not see or believe it to be True, only potentially useful in Euclidean spacetime. Spirutual Truth (to him, a noble lie) as a tool, a shield, a weapon. Bad kitty.
"you have to know what you are looking for to recognize evidence for it when you encounter it."
Exactly so. Or, as I like to put it, the secret of puzzles is that you need to know what kind of picture you're trying to construct in advance. The same epistemic mistake is often made in attempts to reconstruct history as well. The belief that "empiricism" is distinct from (and maybe even the opposite of) storytelling is essentially a first order delusion. They spin bad yarns and doggerel while pretending to be Spock, and apply the jigsaws of their minds to force unmatched pieces to fit the ugly, abstract picture they believe will grant them the most power.
Participation in this hubristic delusion -- bad storytellers who pretend to be true detectives -- has led to much mischief disguised as "progress" over the years, but now many people are coming to grips with the fact that the poisoned tree can only yield poisoned fruit.
Well, except for all the good data that supports Truth of the 1st Kind.
I'm glad you brought this up because it is illustrative. The best way to get at this is probably Socratic because I already tried to make the point propositionally above.
So, where do you imagine all of the "good data" from, and what is your criterion for "good" and where does that come from?
Good data reflects reality. It comes from observing the world, writing it down, sharing it with others for validation.
yes, I understand your view about this but you won't understand mine and others unless you oblige me in answering those questions
I answered both:
(1) Good Data comes from observation, careful measurements. It doesn't really "come from" anything, though. I'm not sure I get your meaning.
(2) Good Data reflects reality. For example, I if record the current temperature at my location to be 4°C, I am faithfully reflecting reality.
You are absolutely correct about Christianity being the first type of truth. That leads to a variety of problems with the compromise the cat is proposing. For one he is redefining sin in a way that is neither consistent with Christian scripture nor tradition. It is most assuredly a sin to lack faith or belief not in an almighty but in the Almighty. How a consenting adult spends their Sundays and who they love can also be a sin. Certain people have dominion over our lives and that is good and right and not a sin. It is God who defines sin, and his definition does not change for political expediency.
Peace, braveness, kindness, health, and happiness are not per se Christian virtues in and of themselves. My peace is in God, but that will sometimes make peace among men unattainable, I am to cling to Christ even if it breaks the peace. Bravery can be exercised in the pursuit of sin and evil just as easily as it can be exercised for God’s glory and sometimes it is only through our own fear and cowardice that we can be convinced to turn toward God. The right thing is not always the kind thing, especially when it comes to sin. If I could choose between myself or my children living happy healthy lives as agnostics or dying of a preventable disease doing God’s work as believers in Christ I would choose suffering in Christ over health and happiness every time. It’s not even a question worth pondering.
Perhaps Gato accidentally hit the nail on the head. This compromise probably works for those who style themselves Christians. But anyone who has picked up their cross and given their lives to Jesus cannot accept such a compromise.
May Our Lord bless you and yours, Dr. Slatton!
If someone proved to you that you won't live forever, even if God existed, would you lose your marbles and moral compass?
And no meaning in this life, unless a futile, desperate attempt to become satiated with every manner of material pleasure or comfort, appetites that will always, sooner or later, leave a bad aftertaste in the knowledge that the day of the last sex act, delicious meal, financial prosperity etc etc ... all have an expiration date ... and they will come to a screeching halt. And we know this, so suppressing that knowledge is necessary to prevent people from just collapsing into despair.
During Lockdown most American Christians showed that they really didn't believe what they said they did. Not really.
They said they believed Jesus had conquered the grave, but at the prospect of a bad case of the flu with a one in 500 chance of dying, they panicked and prayed to Caesar for life and refused to assemble to worship our Lord as commanded in the Bible. They showed that they loved the praise of man on SM and TV far more than the praise of God.
It’s interesting you mention this as that came to mind as I read this article, but in the opposite way. I was religious as a child/teen and left Christianity when my parents divorced and my brother died from cancer at 27.
I found myself coming back during Covid as I witnessed so many of the churches around me (one in particular) fighting against the madness and opening its doors to love and Christ. I still haven’t made it back to Christianity completely (and may never) but my mind and heart were opened during this time.
(I should add I moved to Iowa during this time. We have some pretty awesome churches and people around here.)
Yes. My own church stayed open after the first fear ended. This kind of shake up was inevitable. Sorting the wheat from the chaff. Western church goers have become too complacent.
Enough churches in my state refused to obey lockdown that our governor signed it into our state constitution that emergency shutdowns cannot be enforced on religious groups. AKA churches. Indiana was the first state in the US to do that. I credit the citizens more than Holcomb. That's a big reason why we've had fewer protests.
Unlike in Chicago where then Mayor Lightfoot threatened churchgoers that if they saw your car in a church parking lot you would be arrested. Never understood how covid affected the 1st Amendment right to freedom of religion but not of assembly when people were allowed to gather to protest George Floyd and celebrate Biden's win.
Who/whom. The old commie principle.
That’s so wonderful to read as I had not heard that yet!!
There was a massive split down the middle of the evangelical church. We had to leave two churches during that time because of CovidFear, Jesus+ beliefs, and ChurchOfWoke. So many of my friends became mask hall monitors and VaxBaptists. “It’s the kind thing to do” became a cult amongst parishioners and an excuse for all forms of State worship.
In the end I am glad. Now we know.
Look, I don’t have it all figured out and I am sure of one thing: I am wrong. About something at least.
But the Evangelicals failures during the Scamdemic revealed the cracks in the church.
Any church that closed deserves criticism. And for those that stayed open, especially in lockdown mandate areas, I want to GO to that church.
Jesus+ is a good way to characterize what so many churches led by products of leftist seminaries were slowly evolving into, and COVID/other events of 2020 gave them the opportunity to be openly Leftist first and Christians second. I, too, had to leave one of those churches. But it led me to true and unapologetic Christianity of the Roman Catholic Church. At least in my diocese.
Churches are social collectives run by socially oriented people. From my observation, when the hysteria began, many seemed eager to join the fight. "We're all in it together" resonated with them. They didn't seem motivated by fear of the virus, but a desire to protect others and do their part, along with a naive trust in public health authorities. They also felt abliged to honor human authorities even if they didn't agree. Churches are collectives first and foremost, but I'll take those collectivists over their secular counterparts any day of the week.
Catholic as bad or worse Covidians, fyi. A Commie spy sitting in the back pew every single Sunday.
People are people.
A young former student and I showed up maskless one week.
Something of a ruckus broke out after mass.
The next week many more faces unmasked. Within a month, 30%, two months 60%.
There is still some intelligence and courage in the Church.
Some of the LM congregations never masked.
Yep. We left our church during that time. I was texting truth to my millennial pastor but he didn’t listen. All good, as we found a better church & Christian community. God’s plan
This is in fact what's made it difficult for me to take religion especially seriously. The flagrant contradictions practiced by its adherents. Like the gangsters with crosses on their necks, swinging in the breeze as they dish out executions.
When the novelist Graham Greene announced that he was converting to Catholicism, his friends regaled him with countless tales of Catholic barbarism throughout the centuries, in the hopes of making him reconsider. Greene answered that the faith is separate from those who practice it. True.
... Which completely negates the thesis that Christianity deserves credit for the rise of Western Civilization.
How so? Christianity was absolutely central to Western Civilization. It IS Western Civilization. I would also add that Christianity is the foundation for the idea of human rights.
WEF atheist "philosopher" Noah Harrari was absolutely correct in mocking the notion of human rights in a recent video. The idea is nonsensical if not tethered to Christianity.
Billions of christians on Earth. You think a few thousands or tens of thousands sociopaths aren’t floating around even if they are just Christian in name only?
That’s the wrong standard. Look to the best, not the worst -- remember the bell curve. Fealty to high ideals is difficult, but the value is in the attempt. You might be invigorated by the effort to do better. Don’t reject high ideals simply because some fail to live up to them. Doing that seems to me to be an excuse born of fear of failure.
This is in fact what's made it difficult for me to take internet prognosticators especially seriously. Obvious logical fallacies such as guilt by association, where he neglects to mention some of the biggest mass-murderers were atheistic. The first step to redemption here is realizing all religions (and I throw atheism into this bunch) are both flawed and have flawed followers. But that's not the point, otherwise we would call them cults.
Look inward and not outward!
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
They forgot “Be not afraid”.
Huh? They were FORBIDDEN from going to church, by the DEI folks. Are you willing to state, here and now, that the DEI people had no right to do that, and that we should all have been free to go about our business during COVID? You can't have it both ways. Pick one.
Yes. They had no right to do it. We should all have been free to go about our lives without government interference.
I lived through the polio epidemic. There were images of little kids in iron lungs. Everyone was frightened. Yet they didn't shut down, schools, churches or the economy. They tried every possible cure. And even though they were desperate for vaccines, they tested them for safety. No one was fired for refusing to get vaccinated.
I'm that old, also. I remember the panic over polio, yet we all just kept living our lives. Polio victims weren't isolated from the rest of the population.
Surely you saw at least one of the many videos of the rich and famous partying up a storm during covid, indoors, or tens and hundreds of thousands of George Floyd protestors, many maskless, marching shoulder to shoulder. But that was accepted as just fine, no problem, not a danger to public health. Covid offered many opportunities to our rulers, and jumping at the chance to stop people from worshiping God was just too good for them to pass up.
One such hypocrite was Rahm Emanuel, who said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste." It's actually been said many times, but every time as an excuse to steal more freedom from us.
The one thing that Christianity (Religion) taught us was NOT to steal or covet our neighbors "stuff"... There are other components of the Golden Rule and/or the Ten Commandments of course but this turns out to be a REALLY big one in modern times... Now, not so much...
I am fine if people want to opt-out of religion... But I need to be free enough to opt-out of the world they create when they steal from each other with impunity and especially when they use government to do so...
Ironic how this attitude will lead to them "owning nothing."
The truth of the matter is that if there is to be peace we have to accept that some will not acknowledge Jesus or Buddha or Muhamed and we HAVE TO FIND a set of rules that will work IN SPITE of this or accept that there will be no end to war.
The fundamental right is the key.
"Offer others the same luxury we demand."
You think that civilizations before the rise of Christianity had no concept of property? Of the rights of people within their society? These things have been spelled out from the time writing was invented.
I swear I read the exact wording of the Golden Rule in something about ancient Babylon in social studies.
And most of these contracts failed because the governed look to the government to supply these rights. Many of these societies have or are careening towards socialism/Marxism. That is why founders of US took the path they took to ascribe those rights as God/Creator given and intrinsic. The transformation that is part of the root of our ills in US is the movement away from God. Majority of the population now looks to the government to provide rights and socialism and Marxism are more and more accepted. Atheism and evolutionary mindset lead down the same path every time.
Communism is a religion like any other.
The Founders were not fools and they understood the use of metaphor and they did not define the concept of God.
Our ills in America are the same as in every advanced culture when life becomes too comfortable and young people have leisure and means to study idiot subjects that do not lead to practical application.
What's your definition of God and morality? Do you feel comfortable letting other people define those concepts for themselves while being citizens of a secular civil society?
Free will. I don’t believe in compulsory religion but there are not many communists and socialists who share that sentiment. Your characterization of the founder’s concept of God/Creator is pretty broad and don’t think that was there intent based on personal writings of many of the founders. Money can be your God if you chose. Considering yourself God is the tendency our current society is heading towards with no objective truth or moral belief. But again I’m not taking about forcing beliefs on anyone, but evangelism and sharing the gospel as a Christian is my duty.
The Founders had the wit to separate their personal beliefs from the crafting of a secular republic within which people of any belief system could live safely. Of course we know from our earliest history that religious sects have done their best to harass and/or exterminate those of different beliefs.
Evangelism certainly qualifies as pestering though you are free to pester at will.
If the first truth is Empiricism and the second truth is Story maybe the third truth is Faith--in the evolution of truths, or, in a Divine Shaper of truths.
It takes just as much faith for one to believe the stories “evolved” from man from God than it does for one to believe that there was no providence behind the reason for the stories.
Sadly, I think what is past is prologue and the Story will live on in a minority, a remnant. The Story will survive the hells of tyranny. But only because of their faith in the Divine.
Jefferson and Adams, in their epic letter writing campaign to each other toward the end of their lives (they both died on the same day--July 4th 1826, mind you) predicted that the Republic would last only as long as the People had virtue. They looked at Rome. Rome fell because the people and culture became a godless mess of self indulgence.
When America falls, and the West with it, it will be because the dwindling remnant, with their Faith in the Divine, is too small to sustain the Stories that support the Empiricism.
But some of the remnant will survive the hell that will follow. God never promised us a life without pain. And He never needed the Golden Age or America or The West to be God or to be the Reason behind the Stories.
What a massive bummer that we could screw this up.
Great comment.
Jesus told his followers that they were to be "the salt of the earth." Salt adds flavor and, more importantly, preserves food from spoiling. It is no coincidence that as Christianity fades, the rot in the world spreads.
I left Christianity as an adolescent because when I ask simple questions, there were no answers (other than the stock, "We don't know of all of God's reasons or plans...").
The one question that always flummoxed them was, "When I die and go to Heaven, I will be happy, correct? But how can I be happy if not all of my loved ones are there? And if they are not here, then they must be living in agony forever in the fires of Hell! So how can I possibly be happy in Heaven?"
And another. "If you say man (and myself) are created in the image of God, then how can God allow souls to suffer forever in the pits of Hell? I would not - and I would tell that to God himself."
And there are many more unanswered questions. Hence, I have been led to Deism. My thoughts are that there is indeed a higher, more benevolent force. But one that we cannot understand, though one day, we might. That is my hope at least...
These are great questions, and I honor you for bringing them up. I have the same questions. C.S. Lewis, arguably the 20th century's greatest Christian Apologist, said that these are the most difficult questions to answer.
How can a "loving God" allow suffering. There are not good answers that I have encountered. Not satisfying answers. In order to deal with my own issues which include a low attachment to life and lots of nightmares and flashback from childhood trauma, I've had to embrace that idea that for me, life is supposed to be difficult. I don't know any sane person would would disagree that living ain't easy. That premise is what I hold onto. It is a tenet of faith for me. Once I land there, everything else takes on a different appearance.
There are no answers palatable to contemporary humans in an increasingly post-religious, materialistic society, who look to their time in this world for only comfort, security, pleasure, absence of pain and loss. That is, life in this world is exclusively suffering. Ask anyone who has truly loved another and has suffered the grief of that person's passing, like a crushing weight on your chest in bed late in a sleepless night. How can that be forgotten or made OK? This is our state because Satan is the prince of THIS world, served by his host of demons, and Almighty God gives him permission to put us to the test.
Has allowed us to be tested BECAUSE He endowed us with free will, perhaps the greatest endowment that He blessed our species with. We are not solely dependent on instinct, we can choose ... to live the Golden Rule or to do and say things even when we know they are wrong. I should know :) :)
Not exactly an answer currently in vogue, I understand :) But it is going to become more widely accepted soon.
I wonder if wider acceptance is in offing. I wonder why you think so. I guess the future will reveal this.
Love and Suffering do go together as you said. Sometimes, I think poetry is the best way to understand that which confuses us. Leonard Cohen "I've seen your flag on the marble arch, love is not a victory march, It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah" speaks to me about this.
I was raised in an immigrant Irish Catholic household. My mother was very , very devout, relying on prayer and devotion to hold her family together in the new country with an alcoholic husband tavern owner. When I was very young, maybe four, a stray kitten came to the back porch and my mother allowed me to offer it a saucer of milk. I was completely thrilled to see it respond by feeding, and I immediately fell in love and pleaded to be allowed to keep the kitty. That night, when I was put to bed, I couldn’t get to sleep. I started to contemplate a black void of emptiness and think about the terror involved with the ideas about hell I had been taught. I tried to console myself with the ideas I had been taught about heaven, that if I could just qualify to get there after death, all suffering would be obviated, all the horrible separations of deaths and crippling would be healed— but suddenly I remembered there was a catch. Animals, I had been taught, did not have souls and therefore could not go to heaven! I realized that this Catholic doctrine, which my mother seemed to find so consoling, did not console me at all! It horrified me that my little kitty could not come to heaven with me. I started to cry with fear and sorrow, realizing that I could never find this vision as an acceptable consolation like the adults around me.
Continued:
Animals, I had been taught, did not have “souls” and therefore they were not eligible to come to Heaven. I could not feel at all consoled by this vision. To my horror, all my mentors seemed to find this vision perfectly acceptable, and I realized that I was not like them. I could not accept their “solution.” My heart prevented me from it. I cried. My mother heard me, came in to my bedside, and brought me out to the sofa, and made me some hot chocolate. I fell asleep! So much for the great questions that night!
You might want to dig deeper into what you were taught about animals and their souls, Mr. Kennedy. https://www.fisheaters.com/animals.html
"Man and animal -- both formed on the same day from the earth, both sensate, living beings with souls, both capable of pleasure and suffering. Man and animal, of the same genus -- but of different species. What is it that separates us? According to St. Thomas Aquinas, it is (as he explains) in his Summa Theologica.
I was recounting a story from childhood, when I was being “informed” by what “adults” around me were telling me to “believe.” I have long ago stopped listening to secondary “sources” and made my own direct investigations into these matters. No interest in your “appeals to authority” because I don’t buy into the dogma games.
We cannot with our small minds understand everything, or comprehend God’s massive love or divine justice.
Those in heaven have made a choice to be open to love and be loved. They are satisfied with God’s justice.
Imagine being in the union of God and man (heaven). You’d want to be sinless, spotless as God is perfect.
Now imagine being in the state of refusing love, being mired in pettiness and evil. That is contradictory to heaven and God.
Imagine being at a wedding covered in filth. Justice is being allowed to flee from that humiliation.
Hell is a mercy for those who reject (the brightness and intensity of ) God’s love.
Christianity 101: God's ways are not our ways. If they were, this world would not be decaying like a rotting corpse.
The Book of Job
Good questions and the first one forms part of the argument against eternal hell in the book That All Shall be Saved by David Bentley Hart
If all shall be saved, I will have to start looking for a different final destination than the one I hope to reach, because there are creatures I do not want to be near. Search this page and read about an Australian man named Peter Scully: https://www.fisheaters.com/praeternaturalworld4.html But do take the warning in red font seriously. You might be better off to surf elsewhere. I have lived in this world for quite a long time, and it is the most horrifying thing I have ever heard about. Wish I did not know of it and cannot unknow it. And if you don't trust the website of the devout Catholic woman who runs it, and think she made it up to frighten people into going to church :) :), just google Peter Scully.
I certainly find nothing that is wrong, cruel or contrary to Christ's message if that man suffers for all of eternity. Only a human being fully owned by Satan could do what he did. People who seem to think Jesus is all puppies and fuzzy "everyone and EVERYTHING" is forgiven ... they might want to crack open the Holy Bible.
But in fact, some believe eternal damnation in hell is not unpleasant for people like Scully, that they may receive something like a paradoxical gift ... because they are in their element and in the company of others just like them. Right where they belong and feel at home. I personally prefer not to occupy myself with such musings, because I have unshakeable faith that God has everything well under control.
Pope Francis seems to think "everyone, everyone, everyone" should go to heaven ... but many are coming to the conclusion that he is not even a believer, like a number of popes down through the centuries, who might be waiting for Peter Scully in his final home.
I think the decline began among the Christians. I was raised in the church and was a fervent believer but kept finding that pastors and other leaders were manipulating people for selfish gain, many were sexual predators, others on power trips, still others enjoyed cushy living off the people. The outlandish lifestyles of televangelists reveals a fundamental lack of integrity, honesty. and morality among the Christians. I am a much better person after walking away then I was as a Christian.
Indeed, Christians have failed Christ. The Old Testament offers a choice between God or Mammon. In 21st century America, most have circled Mammon on that test, including many church leaders.
Debbie, the faith is separate from the people professing to practice it. Don't let our failings hinder you from embracing the Christian faith.
Judas betrayed Christ for a small bribe despite seeing so many miracles, then despaired and hunt himself.
The others stayed with Christ.
Why deny yourself because of the Judases infecting the Church?
I’m not denying myself. I’m a happier person now. Much more open to new ideas and less distrustful of others.
I found all of that disappointing as well. Too many Christians in my life trying to use their interpretation of these things to make me do what they wanted me to do. I found my own relationship with god that supercedes all the humans who think they know god's mind as far as it correlates with their predjudices.
My disillusionment with the church, coupled with my ceasing to conveniently ignore the horrendous atrocities commanded by God in the OT were the wakeup call for me.
"Faith is not a warm electric blanket, it's a cross."--Flannery O'Connor
This really made my Sunday. Thanks Doc!
Thank you, Prodigal. God bless you. Hang in there.
In some ways, I sometimes wonder if the first truth is story, the second is faith and the third is Empiricism. In this day of mis/dis-information, I wonder if the story and the faith in that story are needed to evaluate the empirical. I can't tell you the number of times I seen something stated as fact that without any other underlying information has given me pause. And down the road, my "gut" reaction, which is written against whatever is operating for me as "the story," is right. May would argue that the story is derived from what is observed to be true and then for the story.
Whatever the order of precedence, there is a three part interplay between these items. In AA's 12-Steps, we see this operation in play. "God as you understand God" is enough. What is important is that you agree that "humans have a slot in their brain that says 'put something larger than me here.' something is going to fill it." and it can't be me, or Alcohol, or drugs, or gambling or sex or any other compulsive behavior. I have seen countless people turn their lives around based on a "God as understood." For society to work, we must FIGHT against this idea that each of us belong in the slot for ourselves. Something/someone transcendent must fill that role.
John C. Maxwell once said that "Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about themselves, and small people talk about others”.
Thank you for being one of the "Greats".
I have long loved that insightful observation. I would take it to the next level and assert that the greatest people attempt, relentlessly and in the face of disappointment and failure, to live up to their ideals.
One of Jesus’ less popular commands was to love your enemy. He taught us to follow him warning that this would involve persecution as he was persecuted. Letting go of hate and letting go of self is terrifying because it feels like dying. Love always involves suffering and this is possibly the opposite of identity politics.
I'm reading The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. Her forgiveness for the Nazis who practiced great cruelty on her, and her family goes against the grain of "Woke" thought.
I'm reading that, too. Amazing book.
I had this same premise come to me a few years back when arguing with my militantly atheist cousin who like Bill Maher, thinks religion is a major source of the world's significant problems. What spurred the argument was a bunch of players on the football field kneeling in prayer after the game. After some back and forth I asked him whether those players and coaches were more likely or less likely to kill another human, something a fair amount of their fellow athletes who were blessed with immense ability but not much else in their youth, seemed to do quite often.
Humanity moves forward when the masses follow a "moral" credo. Christianity instills that credo.
Lifelong member of the guild of Catholic guilt.
I’m glad you brought up the golden rule as emblematic of western civilization. When reading a biography of Mao a couple of years ago I was struck that he explicitly scorned the West’s golden rule and said in effect “of course I’m going to do to others all the things I don’t want them to do to me.“
Keep in mind this is emblematic of communism, not eastern religions in general. Confucius, for example, taught a version of the golden rule.
As I grow older, I have come to believe that there are spiritual laws of nature every bit as much as there are physical. And foremost among them is that sins can and will come home to roost.
Same. And once you see it, you wonder why it wasn’t obvious all along.
I love you and you are a genius, but you are still scared of the actual truth- that there is a real, true actual God. People don’t want to think about THAT because if you believe it, it upends your whole life. I think that’s part of why most intelligent minds eventually melt down- they have to keep denying the (très) uncomfortable truth. But if you are truly wise you realize that intentional ignorance is only temporary bliss. The truth will come out to bite you— reality figuratively bites. I hate this saying: “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Such a lie. That’s why I applied what mental powers I had towards figuring out if the God of the Bible is real. Because if He is, and you “diss” Him and miss Him- you are screwed for an eternity.
The snap back to reality becomes more painful yet more inevitable the farther one deviates from it.
Definitely more painful, but more inevitable? I think the pain is the main reason why it becomes less likely to turn to reality the longer you invest your life in the fantasy.
Which is why they want to get them as children.
Of course, the pain of dissonance and consequences will lead some to reality- God bless and help ‘em!
But aside from pain, the largest motivator is still peer pressure. Most people, maybe all people, are more concerned about what other people think than what God thinks. However, I guess rejection and bullying are painful, so the actual motivation is still fear of pain.
I think western civilisation can survive the loss of Christianity, but not the loss of a conceptual connection to a higher level system intelligence than our own.
Christianity was rejected by many for good reason: the corruption of the priesthood and it’s power plays; the very idea of the necessity for a ‘gatekeeper’ class; the notion of a jealous God; the doctrine of original sin … and it comes with a lot of very suspect baggage attached to it, not least the virtue-signalling do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do behaviour of all too many who describe themselves as Christians.
My own experiences with being in-formed by an intelligence I couldn’t in any way ‘own’ as ‘mine’ led me to question deeply. Like you, Jung and Campbell were big signposts along the way, as was the worldview of cultures still maintaining a profound connection to the living systems of which they’re part.
As a biologist/ecologist, the observation of ‘hive mind’ operating in many species led me to question its existence in humans. Systems theory pointed a way forward to conceptualise Life intelligence as operating at multiple levels of organisation, not least considering that our own bodies are more of an ecosystem - a holobiont - than specifically ‘human’. Understanding that a primary mechanism of maintaining life in physical form in the face of the forces of entropy is the necessity of continual renewal driven by Life continually consuming and reformatting itself in all its forms, all of which MUST be intelligent for intelligence to reside in any part of it added weight.
This path led me to the perception of a planetary-level intelligence, guiding the constant changes taking place as species evolve, interact and develop. Doubtless there are higher levels of intelligence and organisation beyond the mere planetary.
Crucially, this led to the perception that the present ‘interesting’ set of circumstances we find ourselves in still serves the Earth intelligence. Humans in their perceptual disconnection from the rest of life on the planet have become too destructive of Life. Not through ‘climate change’ but through ecosystem destruction and degradation because it’s Life that creates the conditions conducive to Life. How to bring us back to the fold?
In archetypal terms, the ‘elites’ represent the ultimate trajectory of our culture. They stand as a mirror; an extreme expression of ourselves. In their complete anti-life focus (= evil), they show us the true horror of what we’ve become. And now - somewhat ironically but also poetically - they are acting as the very agent to precipitate the necessary changes in our worldview to bring us back to the Oneness of all of Life. They are fragmenting and deconstructing everything we ‘know’ to be ‘true’ in the hopes of imposing their Great Reset. This is truly humanity’s Tower of Babel moment.
It’s an inflection point. While floundering in disarray and confusion, each of us is being given the opportunity to reflect on our own conceptual framework, the real truths. That process of reflection is the path back to Life. Absent it, we will fall for the full evil of the transhumanist agenda and perish in the process.
Lately, I think about the Tower of Babel frequently
There’s a good book That Hideous Strength by C S Lewis
You can’t perfect humanity so there will always be evil but you can try!
Is there such a thing as perfect? And if there is, how do you define it?
If perfect means living according to Nature’s laws, as indigenous people have done for thousands of years, maybe that is what could be thought of as ‘perfect’? Because to be perfectly aligned with your local ecosystem, to live in harmony and equilibrium with it, is how life is sustained. And becomes effectively immortal.
This leaves cultural notions about perfection as some unattainable paragon of virtue at the door. Nature is perfectly imperfect. What more do we need?
Brilliant, as per usual! A few points: 1. I believe Christianity is actually true & the success of its ideas is further evidence thereof. 2. I've long argued that Christianity was best even if it weren't true & I've never seen any evidence or serious argument to the contrary (atheists say the world would be better w/o religion, but all atheist societies are hellholes), and 3 - and this is my biggest point - I don't think it's the golden rule (or primarily the golden rule) that matters: it's the idea that all of us will be judged.
Once you drop god or you make your gods supermen (the Greek gods didn't judge, they were easily bought off & they acted so arbitrarily & capriciously that it was more about outsmarting them or avoiding their attention than judgment), then - by definition - I should do whatever I can get away with. All other moral systems don't have an answer for what you should do when you have the opportunity to commit the perfect crime - crime's only "bad" if I can be caught & punished; otherwise, it's just silly not to steal what won't be noticed etc.
When you live in a society where everyone should do whatever they can get away with, you pretty quickly lose all faith in your peers & your society degenerates into a hellhole.
But when there's God who's going to judge you, then there are no perfect crimes - everybody answers to Him, so everybody is always going to get caught; that really changes their approach & yours (everybody knows they'll get justice, eventually).
Now the counterargument here is Islam which also has the judgment concept - if I'm right about judgment, why are they such hellholes? Well, that's where you need to understand Islamic theology - it's not really a judgment. Pay your fee (jihad etc) and you get paid (maybe, Allah's pretty arbitrary capricious like Greek gods).
Christian ideas matter & are unique.
I'm no fan of Islam whatsoever, but I came to that conclusion from an informed position, and this is a gross misrepresentation of Islam's conception of sin in what looks like an attempt to more clearly differentiate it from Christianity as your example of The Only Faith That Ever Builds Successful Societies.
Islam's concept of sin is nearly identical. There are culturally distinct differences in dogma. The cosmology is the same.
Maybe - just MAYBE - the “slot” was created. By a Creator who designed us to have relationship with Him. Not religion with hierarchies populated by sinful people, but a relationship with a Creator who loves us.
I think religion is between God and myself. The moment groups of people start to turn to a generalization, things go often wrong. I know people who can recite the bible by heart (just like most muslims can recite the Qran by heart) but have no idea of the meaning of the parables and stories. Part of the bible is rather history (like the king books). Everyone might want to read the holy books of other religions just to see, how they run together. And then read Jung indeed. Always loved the man.
these are important points.
memorizing doctrine is no more "morality" than learning a shape is rotating it.
"religions" are often quite at odds with "the religious" or even the teachings they claim to adhere to. many a pope or lama or priest was a villain and the rules of capture and corruption around large, powerful organizations apply to religions just as they do to governments.
indeed. I remember very well how I told some about my belief to my late husband, who was an ordained pastor. He had never heard of anyone who had first hand experience. So how did he think inspired works were written? He had not even thought about that! Learning a book by heart and sitting in a church, mosquee or temple does not make you a religious person
Amen
Most Muslims can not recite the entire Quran, if that is what you mean. People who can are very special, such a Muslim is called a "Hafiz" (Arabic for "safekeeper" or someone who preserves something). Any truly devout Muslim will know by heart lengthy parts of the Quran, to be sure. The devout pray a great deal, every day, and as far as I recall, the prayers are all excerpts from the Quran, or variations thereof. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are, of course, interconnected ... the "Abrahamic" religions. There is, for example, a "Surah" (chapter) of the Quran titled Maryam (Arabic for Mary, mother of Jesus). Mary is venerated highly in Islam, as is Jesus (Isa) who Muslims consider a great prophet but not their savior (obviously).