The Sorathic is the most 'advanced" form of evil - an evil of negation, of destruction; motivated by a mastering spite that over-rides even the self-interest of the evil-doer.
How does Sorathic evil play-out in the world today? What is The Plan?
Quite simply... It is to induce such fear, fatigue, misery, confusion and despair - that the response is a desire for Escape.
Escape into - by escalating stages - distraction, travel or migration, sensory stimulation, intoxication...
Eventually... escape into "death"; specifically a death where the desired death is rest, peace, dreamless sleep, without awareness, without sense of self... ultimately, escape from "being".
A death of utter annihilation.
(No exaggeration here: modern people openly, explicitly express desire for just such annihilation.)
In essence; the Sorathic strategy is to induce people to desire escape from a negative mortal-life into a greater-negative state beyond.
At first; the desired escape into negation may be temporary - a holiday, break, rest...
Later; the desire for a permanent solution to "life", awareness, consciousness; an eternal and irrevocable escape from all possible suffering...
Thus, broadly, the Sorathic plan for damnation is by means of infliction of maximum destruction of... whatever is good, whatever is of-God, whatever is divinely-created...
To create maximum suffering...
To induce mass nihilism and the mass desire for eternal self-destruction.
Escape into - by escalating stages - distraction, travel or migration,...
ReplyDeleteA few months back I was reading about yet another hard-luck drowning death of migrants in the Mediterranean. The journalists tracked down one particular story about a young Afghan woman who was on the rust-bucket that predictably sank. She apparently had some engineering skills and told her family she was going to get to Europe, then to America, and work for NASA! She was obviously a person of some means in Afghanistan but chose to join the migrant troop (80% of whom are fighting age-men; I doubt her journey was pleasant) and lost her life chasing this ludicrous fantasy.
How does this even happen? How does an Afghan in a traditional setting get caught up in such absurdity? And the answer seems to be there are cultures in the Middle East, Asian Sub-Continent, the Global South actually further along the road to Sorathic damnation than the modernist, decadent West. To me this seems counter-intuitive since in my life experience harsher living conditions focus the mind and spirit on the truly essential.
But instead the migrants join the lemming-like throng, financed by corrupt NGOs (all those large rubber dinghies - there's no market for them beyond Mediterranean migrant-smuggling) and end up in Paris and London where they become even more dysfunctional and miserable. The Developing and Third Worlds just seem really adrift and spiritually ill to me, even more so than the atheist West. I can't quite figure it out.
I can contrast this lemming-attitude with personal examples of Syrians who remain in Syria, doing what they can to secure some measure of thriving and peace for their families and trying within their means to make it a better place (versus the rootless "seeking a better life").
@A-G I agree that mass migration to The West is a double-edged sword of damnation; since the new immigrants are trained (by multi-pronged propaganda and incentives from the government and all major institutions and media) into an attitude of insatiably greedy resentment directed against their hosts - which is already sufficient for mass self-damnation (unless repented).
ReplyDeleteIf evil's intent is that of destruction, and that this destruction be chosen and self-inflicted (damnnation) by Beings, then the major effort would seem to be in convincing souls that something that is not in harmony with God's creation or intent is something absolutely critical for their happiness ... it doesn't necessarily matter what this thing is, just so long as it is not in harmony, ultimately, with God.
ReplyDeleteIf evil can achieve that, everything else should take care of itself. God will come to be viewed as a threat to happiness, and will be fought against rather than embraced in acts of self-preservation and an effort to keep the false illusions alive.
After it becomes apparent that God's reality cannot be defeated and that to fight against it is vain, then I think this opens the door to despair and desire for annihilation of self and others if one remains committed to these false beliefs and desires. One would have come to the point of viewing happiness as literally impossible.
So it would seem the remedy from the side of Good be would fairly straightforward, but also exceedingly difficult - disabuse people of their false notions of what is Good.
@WW - Your first two paras state my own beliefs.
ReplyDelete"God's reality cannot be defeated and that to fight against it is vain" - I would say that this is true n the sense that Heaven cannot be defeated, but people can and do reject Heaven, and successfully defy God with respect to themselves. So, from the POV of defy-er, it is not exactly 'in vain' - indeed, it may be intoxicating to defy the creator of the universe.
As for happiness... it is slippery. Consider a heroin addict who does not want to get off the drug. His 'happiness' is to take the drug, it is what he wants more than any alternative. Yes, he will be unhappy in a comparative sense, yet he will insist on taking the drug, and resist any attempt to stop.
Instead of true and false, I think it is more accurate to frame it as in accordance with, or against, divine creation. After all, many people seem to make their own realities, nowadays; and this could (in principle) become permanent.
It's not about proving, or eve persuading, that someone's reality is 'false'- that can't be done when metaphysical assumptions are not shared. Probably the best that can be done is to explore the implications...