"They" can rationally subvert all concepts: except individual Beings - the "AI"/ transhumanist agenda is about the illegitimate subversion of Beings

It has become a standard trope of the last couple of centuries plus; for radicals and The Establishment (i.e. the affiliates of evil, as we may now recognize them) to subvert all those concepts that were at one time responsible for societal cohesion, purpose and meaning.

All kinds of law, for example, have been subverted: whether legal system laws, scientific laws or the laws of religion. Most people have long since been persuaded that - at the very bottom line and ultimately - these and other "laws" are Man-made, contingent, labile, and expedient. 

They cannot be a fundamental basis for life - because they are not fundamental.   

Such subversion has been possible because it is true - so that even when the motives for subversion are evil, and the motives for retaining the "reality" of laws are good - this does not matter over time and in the end; because the laws just aren't really real. 

What then, is really-real? 

The answer is what I call Beings*. Those entities of which we are an example, and so is God, Jesus Christ, every person, animal, plant and mineral... All are either A Being in their own right, or else a component part of a Being. (As a strand of molecules may be a component of a plant or animal Being.) 

By my understanding, Beings are the irreducible entities of reality. 

As irreducible and fundamental, Beings cannot be defined; although we can list some of their attributes - such as aliveness, consciousness, the capacity for growth/ development/ self-reproduction, purposiveness. 

So although "They" might legitimately (logically, rationally, truly) be able to subvert most things and reveal them to be contingent - They cannot legitimately subvert Beings. 

Beings are the primary reality, hence indestructible. 

But of course They are trying illegitimately to subvert Beings! i.e. By falsehoods to persuade people that Beings are not the irreducible components of reality - but that Beings are really just "things" that can be manufactured, programmed, replaced or destroyed. 

That's what the long-term and strategic AI/Transhumanism strategy is ultimately about - all those fictions and philosophical "thought experiments" and bureaucratic assumptions - that robots can be like people - including empathic and loving; those movies that show computers can be intelligent, make judgments, have purposes; that minds can be downloaded; that Men are optional elements of a society (which might be a simulation) - and so on. 

But because Beings really are the bottom line reality - all of this agenda is false. It is based on exclusionary definitions, on calculated reductionism - and on sheer lies! 

It is designed to persuade, to brainwash actually, people into regarding themselves as not-Beings; into behaving as not-Beings; into treating each-other as not-Beings - ultimately, into thinking and experiencing as not-Beings. 

This is a huge business in the world here-and-now: not merely the process of dehumanizing, but actually to convince people that all Beings are contingent and replaceable. 

Furthermore; a fair bit of religion and spirituality is part of this projects! 

Of course we all know otherwise. We have innate knowledge otherwise. God can reveal to us otherwise The Holy Ghost will guide us otherwise. 

Yet many/ most people ignore all this. 

Such people have decided that they actively want their own not-Being. 

Their strategy of subverting Beingness can only succeed if we actively invite it into our hearts. 

Unless we do Their work for them - they cannot convince us we are not-Beings. 

But They will keep on trying, 24/7, attacking from all sides simultaneously! 

Because for Them:- to induce people really to believe we are contingent abstractions and so are those whom we love, is the ultimate triumph of evil. 

**

*Note Added: It may be worth clarifying (for newcomers?) that all Beings are primarily spiritual; only secondarily (and only sometimes) material. The material is always spiritual; but the spiritual is not always material. 

Samuel West is "The Voice of Tolkien"...

Samuel West is "The Voice of Tolkien", according to my review of the audiobook version of The Letters of JRR Tolkien, over at the Notion Club Papers blog.

  

Francis Berger on True Freedom, and its centrality to Christianity

Francis Berger has, for some time, been writing on that vital but neglected (and discredited) subject of freedom; in particular how this is absolutely foundational to Christianity. I recommend exploring his blog on this matter - maybe starting here. 

Freedom is vital to Christians because it is an opt-in religion, and one cannot meaningfully choose without freedom. This fact has often been suppressed and distorted through Christian history (e.g. by concepts of divine omniscience, and predestination) - which is why it is so important to get clear. 

Yet the nature of freedom, what freedom is; is itself something that has been badly (and wilfully) misrepresented; such that the entire debate is typically framed in such a way as to exclude real and true answers. I mean that discussions of freedom often include built-in assumptions that exclude the possibility of freedom. 

Unless we do some serious and deep thinking for ourselves, it is unlikely that we will escape these endemic and chronic confusions. And even then it will probably take a good bit of time and effort to escape the toils of misconceptions. (It certainly did in my case!)

A proper understanding of freedom opens many doors. For example, I never could understand creativity - or indeed divine creation - until after I had understood freedom. 

Even more crucially; I never could understand God, or our relationship with God, until I had grasped freedom. 

There is no more important subject. 

How long before "Trad" Christians realize that they have picked the wrong religion?

I have observed that among traditionalist or Trad Christians online, there seems to be a constant apostasy, a leaving of the faith - whether explicitly, or implicit (i.e. by a relentless focus on this-worldly and socio-political issues - including, currently, elections). 

This saddens but does not surprise me. 

As I read Trad Christians, I constantly find the question recurring: How long can it be before they realize they have picked the wrong religion? 

For some it is the monotheistic Omni-God who created everything from nothing; and who demands submission and obedience above anything else. 

Such Christians can only find an essential and defining place for the work of Jesus Christ, by regarding him as a Trinitarian aspect of the One God: so that Jesus is asserted both to be, and not to be, simultaneously a unity with the Creator and a person separate. 

But (for Trads) God's indivisible one-ness is always regarded as primary and foundational. 

How much clearer, simpler - and more honest! - simply to assert the single, oneness of God!

(And regard Jesus Christ as ultimately-inessential.)  

For other Trads; their most viscerally compelling wish is for a particular, hierarchical and patriarchal, relationship between men and women; here-and-now - in this mortal life and world. 

This is a thing that some Trad Christians apparently desire more than anything else in the world (considering that they Never Stop writing about it). 

Yet it is a situation that has never been implemented by Christianity as strongly or as thoroughly as by an already-existing and expanding other religion.

How long will it be before before the Trads abandon Christianity altogether; and join the existing major and growing world religion that already and unambiguously provides almost-exactly what they really most-want?

High-, Intermediate-, and Low-level Evil in this world

Low-level evil is the ordinary, everyday, evil exemplified by politicians, managers, journalists, doctors, professors, lawyers etc in the modern West - and by most of the passive, irresponsible, non-thinking and manipulated masses. 

Low-level evil is atheist, materialistic (disbelieving in the realms of soul and spirit), this-worldly exclusively; and devolves towards hedonistic selfishness. 

This means that the bottom-line "morality" for Low-level evil is how "I" (currently) feel about things; and how I can feel good about myself/ people/ things, and avoid suffering - whether physical, social or psychological.

In this sense; for Low-level evil "myself" is God - or takes the place of God as the bottom-line reality, because there is nothing higher or other than how I currently perceive the situation from "my" perspective.

As I implied: this morality of self-gratification is currently the normal state of values for most people in The West; and characterizes almost-all people who have some kind of leadership role, wealth, power, and high status . 

  

A level above this in the evil-hierarchy of this world are those who exemplify Intermediate-level evil. These are a kind-of "elite" of power and wealth (or control of resources, including military and police power) - although it seems that only some of them are famous or even known about at the lower levels. 

The Intermediate level are the Satan-worshippers, the demonic practitioners. 

Satan is their god - or, at least, the patron to whom they look for protection and favours. 

Intermediate-level evil beings may or may not believe in God as the Creator - but they do believe in the spirit realm; and they believe that this world is ruled and controlled by the devil and the demons - the powers of purposive evil. 

Consequently they are focused on appeasing and pleasing Satan* - by whatever means they regard as effective. 

High-level evil is the evil of Satan and "senior" demons. 

These at the High-level know that God is real, and they know God created this reality. They are therefore theists. 

Approaching the Highest-level of evil, therefore, the goal is partly positive: to retain creation but to take-over creation and remake it in accordance with Satan's wishes: to make Satan explicitly the sole god of this-world. 

At the very Highest-level, however; the goal is to subvert, corrupt, and eventually destroy all of creation - because God is hated, and all God's work is hated. 

So; at the Low-, Medium- and High-levels of evil; we have 

1. Self-worshippers 

2. Satan-worshippers

3. God-haters  

*My best guess is that there is only one Satan at a time, at the top-of the hierarchy of evil and providing its cohesion and direction. But that there may have been more-than-one Satan through history. Indeed, I think this is likely, and that the role of Satan has probably more than once been usurped  (and the first and perhaps other Satan's deposed) - given the nature of demons.  

The futility of missionary work: The main thing in avoiding damnation is Not conversion to Christianity, but that people Want the right things

As of 2024 (in The West); I am finding that whether or not a person self-identifies as A Christian (or a Christian of any particular church or denomination) is not of any practical value in establishing which side that person has taken, in the spiritual war of this world. 

Most "Christians" are nowadays (it seems to me) on the side of the powers of purposive evil, and some of those who do not call themselves Christian seem likely to be open to salvation. 

Therefore the old ideal of "conversion" has come to seem almost irrelevant - and traditional (church-membership-focused, mortal lifestyle focused) missionary, conversion and apologetic activities have become worthless, or harmful.

(Although I am sure that apologetics, missionary and conversion work was effective and valuable in the past when Men were different, and the situation was different - including the fairly recent past of a few decades ago.) 

What I look for, and most hope for, among those I love; is that they ultimately would want resurrected eternal life in Heaven - if they knew that this was a real possibility. 

And this seems to be mainly a matter of whether that person is capable of, and values above all, inter-personal love in a "creative" sense: that is, love between people (or indeed beings - e.g. potentially love of a particular animal/s, such as a pet dog, cat, horse) which is alive, dynamic, and develops - forever. 

If love is their highest value (for which other goals are willingly sacrificed), then I think such people will choose salvation when it is offered to them (after mortal death) as true, real, possible. 

In other words: Is a person's ideal to live forever in a world in which love is the ruling value?

When people call themselves Christian, and lead a devout life etc; but don't want this above all else - then I usually assume that they would not choose salvation (when it comes to the crunch) but something else. 

  

Note: Of course this all hinges on what is understood by "love" - and what is regarded as the model for the highest love. I think this is quite simple and everybody capable of love already knows it. By my understanding; the proper Christian model is the inter-personal love between members of a family (i.e. of the best imaginable family, which everyone (i.e. everyone who is capable of love) knows innately; even when he has not personally experienced it in mortal life. This is the proper model for the love of God and by God, and the love taught and modelled by Jesus Christ.  

Recommending Michael Gambon as Simenon's Maigret, 1992-3, Granada TV (And a comment on how a bad man could create a good fictional character.)

I've recently watched the two series of adaptations from Georges Simenon's Maigret stories; released in 1992-3 by the British ITV company Granada; and starring Michael Gambon as the eponymous detective.

I found these extremely enjoyable. They are excellently constructed TV plays, with good teams of actors; and Maigret as depicted by Gambon was a very decent, likeable, and impressive detective - which is (for me) a vital aspect in the enjoyment of any such series. 

The setting of 1950s Paris was strikingly convincing (although it wasn't actually Paris!); and (being made more than thirty years ago - unlike these woke-preachy times!) the characters also fit their appropriate time-and-place in terms of motives and behaviour; so that I got the feeling of being transported to another world. 

**

Somewhat aside; I found it interesting that Simenon was able convincingly to create such a basically good man as Maigret - given that he was not himself such a person: at least not overall.

(...This negative evaluation of Simenon is from what I have gathered, and indeed it seems to be a general belief - I leave it to readers to explore this issue for themselves. By contrast; the goodness of Miss Marple is easily understood as exemplifying Agatha Christie's fine personality*.)

How is it that a mostly-bad man (as I think Simenon was) can write an essentially-good man like Maigret? 

One answer is presumably that Simenon was, like everyone, a mixture of good and bad motivations; and he wrote Maigret from that which was good in himself - from the better part of himself. 

Another aspect is that Maigret mysteries are light literature, in a minor genre - and do not attempt to tackle the greatest or deepest matters such as the conflict of spiritual good and evil, or the nature and implications of death.

It would - I think - be impossible for Simenon to write great literature. To attain greatness an author must draw upon his deepest nature, and for his vision of reality to be essentially good, would entail that he himself was personally committed to goodness.

In other words: the work cannot be greater than the man.  

(The greatness of The Lord of the Rings is necessarily a product of Tolkien's greatness as a man; etc.) 

But a man who was fundamentally petty, greedy, dishonest, unprincipled, selfish or the like - and one who was affiliated to such values - cannot produce genuinely great work - try as he might. 

**

Note: Of course, an author or other creative artist may be good when producing a masterpiece of greatness; yet may change, may become corrupted, later - and I suggest he would then become incapable of greatness. 

Something of this kind has, I think, been the case for JK Rowling - whose Harry Potter series I regard as great (although at a lower level than Lord of the Rings). 

The Potter books (especially "Deathly Hallows") were written when she was committed to Christian metaphysics and values. 

But Rowling later rejected her former ultimately spiritual perspective; instead embracing and advocating this-worldly secular leftist values. Her post-Potter work is consequently (it seems to me) at a very much lower level. 

*This difference between Simenon and Christie - deriving from their authors - could be encapsulated by saying that Maigret is a good policeman; while Miss Marple is a good person. 

The strategy of evil - and how (in principle) it can be "defeated"

Evil is strategic, it has long-term plans - and these are long-term because behind evil are demons, they spirit beings, who are not mortal, and who don't need sleep. Therefore; behind evil are wills that are active 24/7 and across a timespan greater than human lives. In other words, evil can be unrelenting - when it wants to be; in a way that is impossible for humans. 

Modern Western people are materialist hence cannot understand evil, and don't believe that demons are real or possible. This is a disadvantage when it comes to understanding life, and therefore living one's life as it should be lived.   

Humans don't behave strategically, or only seldom and partially. Most people, most of the time, simply adjust to (take for granted) whatever strategy is governing their lives. They look to be successful, happy or whatever within... whatever context is given. 

For instance; nearly all modern Western people are unaware of, indifferent to, or lazily misinterpret their leaders' recent and current activity of long-term, step-by-step, purposively engineering a global and maximally-annihilative war to include their own nations. People may be very concerned by micro-issues (such as the "climate-destroying" usage of a plastic covering to laminate paper notices) - but unconcerned or disbelieving that the contextual, ongoing, strategic intent is to unleash mass destruction in their direction ASAP. 

Modern people have been systematically degraded on multiple fronts - by alienation; passivity of expectations; PSYOPS confusions, contradictory ideology and statements; by praising and encouraging negative, destructive and sinful motivations; and maximizing addiction to mass and social media - and many other things. We are unhealthy; damaged, disordered, distorted, disorientated... all to an unprecedented degree. 

The means operate in support of the ultimate end of corruption; which is at the deepest level of false and destructive metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality, themselves, and the relationship - the purpose and meaning of life.  

All this (and more could be said) seems to make evil so powerful that our situation is hopeless... 

Yet Christians know that - in principle, from first assumptions - this cannot be true; because God is the Creator, and we are each a beloved child of God. 

So, we can be sure that our life will have potential for ultimate salvation, and potential for positive learning - for as long as we are sustained alive.  

But how can this work - given the vast and sleepless strategies of evil? 

It seems hopeless only in terms of the double-negative life purpose of resisting evil.  

My current best answer is therefore to frame the question in positive terns: asking what is the basis within each of us, from-which we can each pursue good?

And we can then assume that we each have within us a core self, untouchable and uncorrupted, with sufficient innate divine nature (being God's children), and sufficient capacity for receiving divine guidance (from the Holy Ghost - who is Jesus Christ). 

We cope with evil by comparing and evaluating whatever The World throws at us, with the ongoing transcendent purposes of this core self. 

When the core is (overall) orientated towards good; then the quantity, strength and variety of evil is a nuisance, maybe a horror; but cannot drive us off-course for long, or in the end. 

So long as we locate our aspirations within this self, and no matter our many and inevitable sins, errors and lapses; and because God is creating from love of us -- when we have chosen to be on God's side then nothing can touch us - not even the world-dominating power of sleepless strategic evil. 

Evil is a preference: a choice - and so is Good (contra- or pro-creation)

Many Christians have for many centuries wanted to be able to argue that evil was an insane unjustifiable irrationality. That it made no sense. That the only thing which did make sense was to live in obedience, and conform to the single reality that is God's creation - in the strongest possible sense that there is nothing else but God's creation. So, to be evil is to reject the only reality. 

One important half-truth behind the "relativistic" ideology of the dominant West-Globalist secular Leftism, relates to its rejection of this traditional "objective" Western Christian conceptualization of good and evil as reality versus anti-reality. 

For traditional Christianity - as (I understand) for Judaism and Islam - Good was theologically conceptualized as bound-up with God as the sole source of creation (God created everything from nothing); therefore Evil was conceptualized as objectively irrational, because it is against everything. 

Good was therefore conceptualized primarily in terms of conformity to God. 

With this scheme, there was no positive role for Man's freedom and agency except to submit to the divine order; because there is nothing except the divine order. 

There is only one coherent choice for each Man, for each Beings, in such a scheme - which is to choose allegiance to God - thus all evil is necessarily incoherent and insane*. 

Against this the false-half-truth ideology of secular Leftism proposes some version of "relativism", of the non-objectivity of values -- which is calibrated against the bottom line "hedonic" assumption that mortal life is the only life, and that the values of mortal life are therefore (merely) means towards the end of maximizing happiness and/or minimizing suffering. 

In other words, by this account, truth is whatever happens to make me most happy (or those I care about) over some timescale that I prefer - whether immediate happiness, or some kind of predictive happiness ranged over some future span. 

The more recent conceptualization that swaps happiness for the double negative-freedom-from-suffering , works the same way. Truth is just expediency with respect to minimizing suffering on a timescale from now, to some variably longer span. 

But relativism is itself incoherent for many reasons, as has been known since antiquity. It has no basis for asserting its own validity. 

And, after all, why is it assumed to be better to experience happiness and avoid suffering? Supposing I, or somebody else, says the opposite - then that is as true or untrue; and the choice between inverses depends on some utilitarian prediction of the consequences. In practice it is facile to argue that suffering now leads to happiness later - or the opposite; and the wrangling never stops unless coercively imposed!

If there are no objective values and all opinions are equally valid; then this assumption, and all other values, can be inverted - for any reason, or for no reason.

Yet relativism - in a soft and short-termist sense - clearly has some kind of powerful and lasting appeal when measured (as it is) against the "traditional Christian" version of values as objective, impersonal, and therefore a matter of submissive obedience to what is asserted to be the nature of reality. 

I think the element of truth in relativism is embedded in an individual intuition that a moral system which utterly downgrades "my" individual conscious human to (near-) irrelevance, cannot be right. 

When morality is made utterly objective, nothing to do with me - it becomes simple tyranny. 

Surely real, spiritually-compelling, mortality must be something that is in each of us, from each of us - and not just a thing "out there"? 

Surely we must be able to choose our values, or else they aren't values? 

And surely our choice depends on what each of us is by nature and wants most; on what each of us regards as good - and surely this is the primary moral act? 

We are confronted by reality - and (on the basis of our specific personal nature) we must and shall choose what will be our overall attitude to that reality?  

From this perspective, good does not feel like a wholly external reality, and evil does not feel irrational or incoherent; but both and either a choice rooted in what we personally most want among various possibilities. 

Then; whether we want it here-and-now, or want it in the long-term (a long-term that potentially might extend to eternity).  

So - In mainstream culture, we are apparently confronted with two incoherent and therefore false alternatives: the "Christian" supposedly being an objective and impersonal morality in which individual discernment has no positive function. 

Or there is a nihilistic fatalism where there are no values, but only an unbounded choices between arbitrary individual preferences - presumably based on the fluctuations of current feelings and emotions. In practice, the choice between-relativistic moralities seems to hinge on relative differences in the power to coerce and deceive, desire to belong to particular groups, and the like.    

My conclusion is that both alternatives should be rejected because incoherent hence false; and the truth needs to be sought in some other scheme of things. 

The truth embedded in relativism is that it is possible, rational and coherent that some people (and other beings) can and would choose to reject God and divine creation; would choose Not to affiliate to God's hopes and plans. 

And that rejection is the essence of evil. 

This rejection is a choice rooted in the fact that although we all are created Beings, are indeed Children of God; we are not entirely so - and we each and all "contain" aspects of that primordial self from-which we were created - and these primordial selves are each unique. 

Some primordial selves are less able (or perhaps unable) to love, or maybe the love is present but very weak and a low priority compared with other desires. 

Therefore, when confronted by God's creation which is rooted in love and aims at a reality of love; there are some beings who reject that vision - and who are therefore evil.

(So, I am defining good and evil by either affiliation to God's creative will and plans - rooted in love - or else the active rejection of that, for any reason. 

(There is also, I believe, a theoretical possibility of a wholly passive and personal declining to join the work of creation - a simple opting-out; without any attack on creation or any attempt to persuade others to reject God. Just a cosmic "no thanks" and a reversion to unconscious unawareness in isolation. If this happened, we would not know anything about it except that a being would "disappear" from creation.) 

As I said, some Christians (and others) want to be able to state that this rejection is incoherent, irrational, illogical - and that evil is objectively-impersonally wrong. 

They want to say that evil is: Just wrong without reference to any consciousness of any Being. 

But I would say that the objectivity of the wrongness of evil derives from the fact that by rejecting actual divine creation rooted in love, an evil Being ultimately places itself against creation as such. 

To be against creation is not relativistic; it is an objective fact about a Being's relationship with God and divine creation. 

Thus values are not subjective, nor are they objective - values are about a relationship. 

Evil is not a "mistake" of itself; but is a choice. There may be a mistake in terms of an evil Being wrongly predicting the consequences of rejecting God, rejecting love, rejecting creation...

But the error is not a logical one. Its more a matter of getting what you asked for, but not liking it when you've got it. 

*(Why it is possible for Men, or anything, to reject the divine order? If the theology says that such a choice is incomprehensibly insane, then where could this desire comes from in the first place except from God Himself?  This logical incoherence has never been clearly explained; and indeed it cannot be made coherent. Because because if God created absolutely everything that exists, then the desire to resist God must ultimately have been created by God Himself - as must all evil. Saying that God gave men Free Will does not answer this - because agency can only operate using the materials provided by God, which must mean that God made the evil in the first place, for evil to be choose-able. Yet for Christians, specifically, God is known and said to be wholly Good - so how (for a Christian) could a wholly good God provide evil for free will to be choose-able? My answer (in brief) is that God is wholly Good, and did not make evil - because God did Not make everything from nothing; but instead created using pre-existent Beings; some/most/ all of whom were capable of evil by their primordial nature. Thus evil has always been present in reality - and God is creatively working towards Goodness.) 

Do Not reject the enemy's ideology wholesale: Seek the truth behind totalitarian-Leftist distortions

A trap devised by the powers of purposive evil is for Christians (and others) to reject the core agenda of evil, the Litmus Tests, outright and in total - and then to develop a counter-ideology on the basis of that rejection. 

(Reject? Yes: but the alternative must derive from a positive agenda - hence the rejection cannot be total, since all powerful Left agenda have some basis in good.)

This is obvious across the board, and began with economic socialism (the basis of old-style communism and Fabianism) being opposed by "libertarianism" - which turned out, in practice, to be to tool for Big Finance and Mega-Corps totalitarianism. 

Another example is when feminism is opposed by supposedly-traditional demands for the socio-political subordination of women as being qualitatively inferior beings; or an analogous counter-ideology to antiracism. 

This kind of thing is a trap because all effective Leftism contains some truth - else it would have zero traction and could not motivate support. Therefore if any effective Left agenda is wholesale rejected, then some aspect of motivated and inspiring truth will also be rejected - and the consequence must be that the counter-ideology is a significant distortion of Good: that is - significantly evil. 

This makes the anti-Left counter-ideology itself significantly false and evil; which reality is evident to any honest person, and is responsible for a sense of intuitive revulsion among sincere and honest Christians when it comes to so much that purports to be reactionary and traditionalist. 

The problem is that such distorted and dishonest outright rejection and reaction with respect to Leftist strategies, is pretty much forced-upon public resistance to Leftism; forced by the demands of rhetoric and the attempt to shape group opinion and action in the actual public realm. 

One the one hand, it is true that there is no nuance in effective politics: when politics is not simple, then it does not work... Therefore, unless counter-Leftism is a simple and total rejection, then it cannot work in the actual public realm. 

The trap is that in politics nuanced resistance is ineffectual; but simple rejection is false, hence evil. 

So much the worse for politics!

It is vital to grasp that The Left here-and-now owns and dominates the public realm; has leadership of all major social institutions of all kinds in The West (and, apparently, most of the rest of the world too). 

The Left therefore structures public discourse and group action on a large scale. To fight Leftism on those battle-grounds, is to to be located exactly where They want You to be. 

When any person or group rejects any Leftist strategy outright in the public realm, be sure that the rejecters are either being herded into a cauldron to be annihilated; or else groomed into developing a different kind of evil - in service to the demonic agenda. 

This is why the attempt to meet and defeat the globally hegemonic Leftist Totalitarianism on its own ground is both pragmatically-ineffective and (when believed) spiritually-corrupting.  

If we are to pursue a genuinely Good agenda in opposition to the ruling-evil; we need to be able to set-aside the practicalities of propaganda and public persuasion, and group organization and action; and get things clear in our own minds, as tested against the discernment of our own hearts.

Clarify our understanding, make our own commitment to God and divine creation; and discern the implications for our own actual life, and what we can do via our own life.  

This seems to require a very pure and strong faith in God's creative power: a faith that any insight of truth, any goodness, that we may learn and which God recognizes to be valid and helpful; can and will be amplified by The Creator to affect "the public" for the better - insofar as the public can positively be affected; this being done through the developments of ongoing creation. 

 It is not a problem for God, as creator, to amplify and spread any Good arrived at by any of His children. 

We need not worry about that! 

Our core concern ought to be to embody what God regards as Good.

Our job mine and yours) is to provide God with the means, the "material", for achieving his ends. 

That's all God needs. He can, and will, do the rest. 

 

Historical parallels are Not a reliable guide to action, because the present is fundamentally un-like the past

I've done it myself often enough; but nonetheless I am dismayed by the many people who currently seek guidance for present action and strategy from historical parallels. 

Including in the case of our Christian religion. 

When Ecclesiastes said "there is nothing new under the sun", he may have been right for his time and place, but he is dead wrong about here-and-now. Cherry picked, distorted and partial historical parallels are misleading. 

There has never been anything like the world now - this eight billion industrialized globalized totalitarian world - with its strategically evil, demon-affiliated multi-national rulers and their fingertip-ready capacity for military, economic, financial, legal, religious, environmental and other destructions - and their command of a colossal and coordinated mass media to which the masses are willingly addicted and from which they derive ideological and everyday guidance. 

The world is different, and people are different. 

There have never been such human beings as there are now. Anyone who knows history should be able to see that people have desires and exhibit behaviours, respond (and fail to respond) in ways that even four generations ago would have been regarded as alien and insane. 

But argument is futile. If you don't see such huge differences between here-and-now and anywhere-else at any time, then nothing I can say will persuade you. 

This difference is why - no matter how genuinely well-meaning you are (by which I mean how genuinely Christian are your aspirations); to sift through the past for traditional guidance of what to do from where we are, is doomed to failure - and likely to do harm. 

Before we can do anything good, we must first understand who we are and where we stand. 

That is possible to attain - at least in a broad sense; but not if we are determined to discover our understanding in the past, in some other civilization. 

There is no realistic alternative but to make the effort to understand things as they actually are. Perspectives derived from study of the past and other places may be helpful, may contain clues... but The Answer is not there to be found. 

We cannot get the recipe for a Good Future from what has-been. At best we may get some ingredients needed for a good answer - but it's just as likely vital ingredients may be found elsewhere (e.g. in literature, art, real-science, and from our enemies), and almost certainly some key ingredient will be new, unprecedented.   

The Answer we hope for is something that must be created - not discovered. 

I can't even hate-watch Amazon Rings of Power, second season

I perversely enjoyed watching the epochal incompetence that was Amazon's Rings of Power, Season One - mostly because it was constantly surprising and amazing me by its ludicrous ineptitude; and because it was interesting to try and understand how such a thing had come to be, and what were the global implications... 

I was, in a mean-spirited sort of way, actually looking forward to the second season. 

But I have to report I could only stomach fifteen minutes of the first episode, and shall not be returning. 

Why? Simply: to watch series two is to enter such an angry, miserable, sordid, sadistic and hate-filled world; that it makes me simultaneously bored and depressed. Just horrible. 

I am not a masochist, nor am I looking for reasons to embrace nihilistic despair as my philosophy of life; so naturally I shall not be subjecting myself to any more such stuff. 

Sorry! - if you want to know any more about the most expensive train wreck in the history of television; you will need to watch it for yourselves, this time. 

Christianity - crushed and tormented by centuries of theology

There are certain (often commonly used) Christian terms that I always have found deeply confusing, un-understandable. One is "redemption".

People have (for centuries) talked confidently about Jesus Christ redeeming mankind, of the world's need for redemption etc. They talk as if "redemption" was a clear and precise technical term, an obious thing; and as if it was axiomatic that redemption (above all!) was what Jesus did - the main thing Jesus accomplished. 

So again I read into the subject a bit, looked at the explanations of redemption suggested by various historical theologians, and at some of the various denominations, and considered what they meant by redemption; and yet again I felt as if I was being pressed down and crushed by swarms of crazed and biting insects! 

I wonder how many others have felt like this? 

On the one hand, it would seem that what Jesus did must have been simple and easy to grasp - given the broad historical facts and context. On the other hand, it seems that almost immediately after Jesus's ascension, all kinds of things were being ascribed to him that were either incomprehensibly abstract and paradoxical - or else wildly at variance with what Jesus said and did.

A word for this effect is stultifying: the effect is demoralizing. 

And it went on, and on, and on - until so much mass and inertial momentum had been accumulated, that it seems (for many/ most Christians) that there is (literally no alternative but to submit.  

The idea of redemption itself seems to have arisen as some kind of error, perhaps for different and almost opposite reasons, or from different agendas... It is as if the idea that "what Jesus did" was to redeem Mankind, and The World, was swiftly accepted as a solid and mandatory assumption, without any agreement about what redeem actually meant or implied, or how it had worked (even in the broadest terms)!   

The sense I make from this is that here, as in so many other ways, Jesus was inserted-into pre-existing philosophical and theological schemes - whether Jewish, Christian, or other. 

My conviction is that most of the people who wrote about Jesus in the early years after his ascension, made sense of Jesus in terms of what they already believed before Jesus's ministry - and these were the people who set the agenda for the various churches for centuries to come; until the quantity of commentary and contradiction has become unopposable* and appalling. 

*(i.e. It cannot be opposed, only ignored.) 

In this, as so many ways; Christianity painted itself into a corner. Only those who were able to live with a permanent state of imprecision and contradiction were able to participate in the discourse. Anyone who seriously tried to make sense of things and get at the truth - was excluded. 

It's hard for me to express (because it apparently invisible to most people!) my horror at the way Jesus Christ and what he did has been enmeshed in vast webs of other stuff. 

A new Christian may begin with a wonderful sense of simplicity and clarity; but is almost immediately confronted by enmeshing menaces wherever he turns. And the new Christian will find that such-and-such is regarded as absolutely necessary to being-a-Christian - that "being-a-Christian" is something which takes place only within these assumptions - that there is asserted to be no real way of being-a-Christian except within such assumptions...  

What's worse is that the simple and obvious truth and reality which led to becoming a Christian, somehow gets reversed, in all sorts of ways. The whole thing gets smothered by an endlessly regressing external weight of mandatory demands; which cannot be grasped and must just be accepted and obeyed. 

"Myself", as an individual, is implicitly (sometimes explicitly) regarded as utterly trivial, insignificant, of no consequence to the vast mechanism of Christianity - except in disobedience! By such an account; to be a Good Christian is to acknowledge and act as a tiny and inessential cog in a vast machine; and if the cog fails to accept this role, then he will be spat-out into the consuming void beyond the machine.

Because life in service to the machine is so utterly miserable and hope-less - the only consolation is that our reward is that we will (at some point) become so utterly changed as to find it wholly blissful. 

This is nebulous, and un-consoling - because such a transformation would be to convert me into somebody-else (or some-thing else); so in practice the main incentive is always negative...

"You may find this unsatisfying, but if you dissent then you will be actively tortured forever - so shut-up and get-on-with-it!"

(Of course, this kind of threat doesn't happen much nowadays - not for good reasons but because faith is so utterly feeble that almost nobody really believes their church - as was evident in 2020 and by lack of repentance since. But for much of history and in many places; the negative incentives of Christianity were much more strongly asserted than the positive: fear rather than hope was the major drive.)

I am trying to express here something of vital import: which is the false and evil idea that in becoming a Christian one should be subordinating oneself to a vast social and intellectual structure - one to which the proper attitude is submission (although such fear-full obedience is often praised as "humility").

My counter-assertion is that the freedom, agency, and chosen personal commitment by which somebody becomes a Christian; these are attributes that ought to be carried through into the life of faith. 

We should not just begin in freedom, but stay in freedom...

Stay in a Christian freedom dedicated to a personal quest of love, truth, virtue, beauty and other Christian values.     

A freedom that is rooted in the personal and not the abstract...

Rooted in our relations with the persons of God and Jesus Christ - certainly not defined by our obedience and service to organizations, or bodies of texts and commentaries, nor to traditions of teaching. 

To be a Christian ought not to be intimidated, crushed and suffocated by "the past" - but a joyous (because hope-full) engagement in the present quest of life - and in context of an eternal resurrected future. 

That can be so - but only when we as individuals "make it so"?

And in the face of a great mass of would-be suffocating opposition. 

War in this Planet of the Apes

A great performance by Andy Serkis (plus CGI) as Caesar

I've only watched it once, but the recentish movie War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) keeps coming to mind as I contemplate the global situation. 

In particular, the way that the film demonstrates that it can - in practice - be impossible to prevent war over the long-haul; when even just one powerful grouping on one of the sides is really determined to cause a war. 

In the movie, with its secular perspective, this outcome is unalloyed tragedy; but in this mortal life... not necessarily so. 

I believe that this the situation at present - when one powerful grouping on the "Western" side is determined to provoke escalatory wars in many places, simultaneously - and ultimately everywhere. 

It seems very likely that They will succeed in causing world war - from somewhere or another, sooner or later - because that is just the nature of people and things in this mortal world. 

And by "war"; I mean a war that however it began soon develops into an unjust war, a war of evil-aligned against evil-aligned (at best, of greater and lesser evils): 

A war with no possible winners. 

So - if futile global war is in practice and eventually unstoppable - what then? 

What difference can you, or I, or anyone make?

And the answer is that we can make all the difference. 

Since this world is essentially in a state of spiritual war; then it is the attitudes, understanding and motives of individual persons that matter essentially. 

In war as in peace; there is all the difference in the world - which is actually all the difference in creation and eternity - in any war, according to the minds of individuals who participate or contemplate that war. 

When those individuals understand the spiritual reality of that war, and align with God rather than with one or another of the "sides" - that makes a difference. 

When individuals do not despair but repent their own fear, resentment, hopelessness as it (inevitably) arises - that makes a difference.

(For Christians, sin (i.e. evil and death) are inevitable. What matters is repentance. 

(And repentance, properly understood, is a positive inner act of affirmation and allegiance.)  

When individuals look beyond the war, beyond the tragedy of mortal life - to eternal resurrected life in Heaven - that makes all the difference. 

Spiritually to learn-from experience, is what this life's about. 

There are many, many bad things that happen in this mortal life and that cannot be prevented. 

That is inevitable. 

The big question we need to settle for our-selves is - what then?

 

Resentment at creation (more on "thrownness")

At a very deep level, it seems that people (and indeed beings of all kinds) react differently to awareness of "thrownness" - react differently from finding oneself "thrown into" God's creation, and where the only possible positive purpose and meaning is to participate in (or, at least, contemplatively enjoy) this ongoing creation. 

I think that some beings react to this experience of thrownness with an attitude of existential resentment. They respond to this situation by resenting the fact that they are in "somebody else's" project.

In other words, we recognize (usually implicitly, but sometimes explicitly - as with the "I never asked to be born" feeling and complaint) that reality is something other than our-selves.  

The Being also finds that he himself is, to a significant extent, the product of creation - and may resent that also. After all, he "did not ask to be created - which is a more fundamental complaint than birth. 

It seems a fact that each Being was (to a degree) created without his consent; and finds himself in a world created without his consent, and heading towards some goal that he himself had not agreed to... 

The question is how he reacts to this situation - negatively, or positively? Is he delighted and grateful to be and inhabit a creation of meaning purpose - and love? 

Or not? 

Good, or evil.  

Our choice in response to thrownness thereby determines our alignment to one or the other side, in the spiritual war of this world.

 

Be careful what you (and me!) complain of!

The major and over-riding complaint is (or should be) that the leadership class of the Western world and multi-national organizations are evil-affiliated and evil-motivated, and all its major social institutions likewise - including politics, big corporations, mass media, law, military, police, medicine, education, science and the arts. 

But/And they - and the nations they control - are also declining... 

Declining in population, military and economic power, intellectual achievement, effectiveness, wealth, confidence, self-respect... declining in all-round competence.  

It is therefore commonplace and accurate to complain both that The West is evil, and that Nothing Works Anymore. 

However! 

If The West and its nations is indeed evil by nature and intent (which it is); then surely we ought not to complain that it is also weaker (which it is)?

After all - do we really want the Empire of Evil to be more powerful? 

Do we really want Britain (or America) to be Great again? Given what these places actually Are, Do, and Want-to-do? 

We Shouldn't! 

So, let's all of us try to be a bit more coherent about our complaining - and try to avoid bemoaning the fact that we cannot pursue our evil plans with greater effectiveness. 

Note: In practice the decline is effectiveness is a symptom of the underlying evil. So we cannot (from where we are now) have greater effectiveness without first becoming more-Good. However, that is in practice, and I am here referencing spiritual matters. To want Western nations to become more effective without first requiring them to become spiritually honest and Good - is to want an evil thing. 

The doubled-edged quality of sacred symbolism: from means to the sacred, to blocking the sacred

By "sacred symbolism" I intend all the intermediary forms that are between a Man and the divine: so this includes all intended-means towards the desired-end: contact with the sacred. 

"Sacred symbols" include religious symbols (the cross, the crucifix, the ICHTHYS fish) and Icons; ritual and ceremony; prayer and meditation; sacred places such as churches, cathedrals, places of pilgrimage; and "the church" itself*. 

None of these are "the thing itself" but are intermediary - intended to function as means to that end.

(For my present purposes; this also applies to the Eucharist/ Divine Liturgy/ Mass/ Holy Communion - since, even when there is believed to be the real presence of Christ as a consequence of the ceremony; the ceremony is understood as intermediary - a means towards that transformative end. )

From our Modern perspective that is rooted in a non-sacred, materialist world-view, we usually tend to regard sacred symbolism in a positive sense: the sense of symbols generating "sacredness" from a context of the mundane. 

Those serious about their religion therefore tend to emphasise, and try to strengthen, the power of symbolism. 

But sacred symbolism is double-edged. 

It is intended to bridge between the mundane and the sacred; but symbolism also (and necessarily) stands between the mundane and the sacred. 

I believe that historically (and in our own development from young childhood) symbolism became a part of religion as a response to the waning, declining, sacredness of life-as-a-whole.

Originally, I think that humans lived in and experienced a sacred world. That seems to be the situation of the nomadic hunter gatherers. Symbolism ("totemism") emerged as a later development. 

Likewise in the transition between young and older childhood - initially all the world is experienced as "spiritual" (or "enchanted" - which includes negatively such), but later much of life retreats to the mundane - and the sacred becomes discrete and increasingly separated.   

Symbolism therefore has both the positive and intended effect of making a bridge to the sacred; and also a negative and inevitable consequence of relatively down-grading the rest-of-life (the "not-specifically-sacred" images, actions, places etc.) to a lower and mundane level.   

Therefore... If or when symbolism loses its power to form a bridge to the sacred; then symbolism in practice will have a negative spiritual consequence. 

By focusing attention and hopes upon intermediaries that actually fail to generate the sacred; symbolism stands-between the individual and the sacred. 

Symbolism will then block our access to the sacred: will block our potential capacity to experience the sacred. 

In other words; the pre-existing systems of symbolism may claim to be the necessary and only means of accessing the sacred; yet in practice they fail to provide access to the sacred - and thus the consequence is for sacred symbolism to prevent access to the sacred. 

Then we need to realize that...

The above is not just a hypothetical; but actually has happened: is our present situation. 

*I regard my general point about symbolism to be of primary importance for Christians; but it naturally applies to other religions, to New Age spirituality, and to occult "techniques" intended to engage with the spiritual realm - such as astrology, Tarot, numerology, ritual magic; and many types of intermediary method relating to meditative or group work. 

True measures - Temperature

John Michell summarized the case against the metre (and, by extension, other metric and "SI" measurements) as: it doesn't measure anything. 

This is why metres - their decimal divisions and multiplications - are almost useless to think with; whereas many of the Imperial measures are very well suited to inner work: each being a measure of some thing relevant - whether inches, feet, furlongs... or leagues. 

[The league ought to be revived, as being the distance an average person walks in an hour. Of course, you need some artificial device for measuring hours - which have no natural correspondence!] 

For examples: Understanding the height of everyday objects in feet and inches, or weight in stones and pounds... These are far superior to the metric substitutes. 

(Although I don't understand why Americans have abandoned stones - so that peoples' weights are stated given in very large numbers of pounds! This goes absolutely against the common-sense spirit of Imperial measures.)

My favourite instance is the acre as (roughly) defined as how much land could be ploughed in a day - thus an acre in areas with light sandy soil might be several times larger in area than an acre in heavy clay soil; and this difference broadly reflected the agricultural value of the land. 

It strikes me that metric measures have only replaced Imperial to the extent that people have stopped being aware of their environment, and ceased thinking about things for themselves. 

And have instead handed-over their thinking to machines and computers - devices that just tell us stuff in arbitrary, abstract and incomprehensible terms... 

And we are intended uncomprehendingly to submit and obey (and, nowadays, people nearly always do...).

The one bad non-SI measure - which has, significantly, spontaneously (by popular lack-of-demand) been abandoned almost everywhere - is Fahrenheit, which (significantly) is not Old English in origin. 

The Fahrenheit doesn't measure anything (in ordinary experience) whereas its more successful rival, the metric (but not SI) measure of Centigrade is rooted in the freezing and boiling of water. 

Yet a Centigrade is - as typical of such abstract decimalizations - the wrong size for everyday usage: been too big, too coarse, a measure; so that in practice half degrees Celsius (or less) must be used. 

The practical men who devised Imperial measures would have subdivided the difference between freezing and boiling into a larger number of degrees (maybe twenty-four?); and probably in accordance with what was most useful for the usual everyday purposes of measuring temperature - which occur in the lower half of the range.  

Note added: By my understanding, however, all mathematics, arithmetic, geometry, number-systems &c are abstractions that remove us from direct (i.e. relational) participation with reality. Just that the Imperial measures are less abstract, more rooted in human experience... It is a matter of degree, not a qualitative distinction. But there will be no Measures in Heaven!

Writing about music : The road not taken

For about a decade from the early 1970s, I was very powerfully engaged with music: both classical music - baroque, classical and opera; and also folk music - mainly English and especially Northumbrian, but also Scots and Irish, and especially "electric folk". 

I was almost constantly listening to, thinking about, learning about, performing, discussing or practising music of some sort or another.  

When I look back on those years, I am struck by the fact that I regarded music almost as a kind of salvation. Firstly for myself, where I though that music might be an answer to problems of purpose and meaning in life. 

And also, when it came to for folk music, that it would be part of a better future for England... 

I strongly felt that folk music could - and if given the chance would - deepen the national spirit, and become part of a re-engagement with the land and with each other.

I was also - and more generally - looking for a more active creative life. I was singing and acting, playing the accordion (but not particularly well) and a few other instruments in folk clubs and the like; and was involved in comedy performances including writing/ plagiarizing material. 

But I wanted something more originative than performance and adaptations; and was always experimenting with "creative writing" such a poems, plays and short-stories. 

As it turned-out, I had no talent for creative writing; but took quite rapidly (when I tried it) to "non-fiction" essayistic and journalistic writing; yet this avenue did not get-going until I was in my late twenties. 

What I now regard as a "road not taken" during those "lost creative years" was writing about music at that time when music was most important to me in the 1973-83 period*. 

Of course, I might not have been able to do it well - or even (more importantly) to my own creative satisfaction; but this can't now be known. 

It might be supposed that my lack of advanced ability at any instrument, my deficiencies in musical training, would have been a fatal deficit. But I didn't think so, and several serious musicians I knew well, regarded me as naturally insightful on the subject. 

But I did not even try; although there were opportunities, if I had asked for them - which I never did. 

Mostly this was not diffidence, but a kind of superstitious sense that if it was meant to happen, then it would happen - but if I tried to make it happen, then it wouldn't. 

This sounds a bit lame - but on the whole this has been the case through my life. Whenever I pushed myself towards some-thing by a conscious exercise of will-power: that invariably turned out to be wrong for me. 

Quite probably; me writing about music would have been, in some way a bad idea - which is why it did not happen. 

   

*[Actually, my very first published article was about music (a review of Rameau transcribed for synthesizers, done for a small specialist magazine) - but this was rather too late, didn't lead to anything else, and I had no chance to learn from it and develop.]

God will not put anyone in an impossible situation

For a Christian, God is The Creator, and also Good; and also Loves each of us at least as much as good parents love their children in the best imaginable family.  

This means that God will never place anyone in an impossible situation, and God will never allow any situation to remain impossible...

As soon as a situation has become impossible, God (because The Creator) will remake it such that there a good way-out from it - a way we are intended to discover and take. 

Experienced reality mirrors this so far as I am aware; but ultimately this assumption is faith-based - rooted in my experienced understanding of the nature of God... 

Part of which is to ensure that individual people will be able (from their own resources, and taking into account their own capacity) to navigate the needful discernment

So that any exception is only apparent, in not-real - and it is up to each person "caught" in what he supposes to be an impossible situation - to recognize this as fact. 

But all the above applies only when the purpose of this mortal life is recognized as being orientated towards eternal resurrected life in Heaven - and therefore when our perspective is not bounded by the contingencies of this temporary mortal life. 

We cannot always (and never wholly) escape from the inevitability of entropy (disease, ageing, death) nor from the activities of evil. So that kind of escape (i.e from "sin") is not (not necessarily) what God intends for us. 

Yet we can always learn from such experiences, and God always intends and hopes that we will do so; learn, that is, lessons that are extremely significant and beneficial to our resurrected life to come - even when the lesson is not (as often it is) beneficial to our remaining mortal life. 

The current hedonism

The raw hedonism of the Western populations is very striking - I mean the way in which people are self-blinded to depth; and explicitly dedicate their lives to having (what is generally accepted to be) fun and doing (what the cool people think is) cool stuff - then telling other people about it (humbly bragging). 

This is not something really new - but has become not just public (via social media, and the 24/7 connectivity to mass media) but the basis of life, for great masses of people of all ages and classes. 

What makes it so stark is that in the 2020s there are no remotely plausible social channels for people to practice virtue while gaining life-satisfaction. 

Half a century ago there were many niches - jobs, social institutions, churches, the arts and crafts - which were generally believed to be Good. And within-which there was (apparently) opportunity to build a viable life.  

This meant that many people could do these things, join these groupings, practice these activities - and feel that they were doing something that was worthwhile in some large albeit vague sense - while still (implicitly, covertly) being hedonic. 

It seems that people don't believe this now - except maybe briefly, in adolescence. 

And even if they do believe that some thing (such as "climate activism" say) is intrinsically worthwhile; they will very soon either be disillusioned; or else must consent to enter the web of lies and self-deceptions that characterises public discourse in our era. 

Such is the consequence of living under totalitarianism - there is allowed no autonomy of social institutions: all is brought under centralized surveillance and control - civil society is co-opted, regulated, emptied of agency, and squeezed towards extinction. 

In secular terms, and in the mainstream of life; the available choice is between honest disillusionment, nihilism, and isolated alienation on the one hand -- or immersion in The Matrix... with an attitude of quasi-compensatory pseudo-rebellion in the form of seeking the hedonic option. 

In other words; the dedication to hedonism is self-perceived as a stance of rebellion and dissent against the totalitarian system.

It isn't rebellion or dissent, of course - and there are, of course, other options...

There are other options... 

But only via developing explicit awareness of having been trapped by one's own metaphysical assumptions; by examining, critiquing, and revising the prevalent assumptions. 

And that development is something which can only happen by the active decision of each individual; by an inner quest that the great mass of Westerners absolutely refuse even to consider embarking upon.