No demography without biology; or, you can't validly predict human reproduction on the basis of maths and stats alone

I keep seeing people online making invalid but would-be reassuring demographic predictions concerning the future of human populations on the basis of purely mathematical criteria. 

I mean optimistic predictions that despite (for instance...) massive sub-fertility, strongly dysgenic reproductive patterns, and a tremendous weakening of natural selection against spontaneous mutations that cumulatively erode functionality (especially behavioural functionality); the world human (or especially Christian", "Western" or "Developed nations") populations will rapidly be able to recover from the ongoing and multi-decade demographic collapse. 

And recover without suffering dysfunctional consequences - is the hopeful assertion. 

The reason for non-validity of predictions is nearly-always the same: trying to explain and predict human reproduction without taking into account human biology; implicitly as if humans were abstract, self-multiplying entities. 

But humans are animals, and subject to biological constraints; and so reproductive explanations and predictions are certain to be wrong when some of the most important and relevant biological factors are unknown, unappreciated - and omitted. 

I am certainly not claiming to have known all of the biologically relevant aspects; but compared to most would-be "things will work-out fine" demographers the range and depth of my knowledge of human biology is truly titanic! And the errors-by-omission that they are making are blazingly obvious. 

But human beings are not just biology, and we are ultimately spiritual in our natures - so even the most ideally-informed human biologist would not be able to understand human reproductive behaviour without taking spiritual and divine aspects into consideration. 

However; when spiritual and divine aspects are included, these then become subject to critique. 

If the reassuring,"don't worry", demographers seriously posit an optimistic future on the basis that "God will save us" (in some fashion or another) then this is an explicit model of divine intervention that itself requires critical examination. 

Such an assumption that God would need, or even want, to step-in and save "us" (whichever "us" is meant) from demographic decline or extinction by some miracle, is certainly not obvious to me!

Indeed, the opposite seems at least equally plausible:

I mean the assumption that the most purposively-evil civilization in human history may deserve, or perhaps need, to be functionally-eliminated; if creation is to continue with good hopes of maximizing human salvation. 

My aversion to the RIP (Rest in Peace) trope - more on its anti-Christian implications

I have mentioned before my personal aversion to the RIP "Rest in Peace" trope; or, more exactly, that I think the wished desire for "peace" is revelatory of the alienated perspective of a modernity of consciousness. 

It is striking how much a desire for "peace" is expressed in The Book of Common Prayer (in origin a product of the 1500s modified in the 1600s, mainly). 

And - while this old usage of the peace word is much broader than the modern one (and while it may also reflect a rather temporally and culturally specific yearning to end the many generations of bitter intra-Christian religious conflict in England) - I nonetheless regard the oft-repeated yearning for peace to be an early indicator of a shift away from the desire for resurrection into post-mortal Heaven, toward the modern desire for post-mortal annihilation. 

Of course, peace is - in context - a Good Thing, and the idea of "resting" in peace is desirable and valuable; yet in a Christian context, peace is not a goal in itself, but essentially a means to an end. 

And while the opposites of peace - such as war, conflict, hassle - are mostly undesirable, especially post-mortally; even this may not be wholly true to human nature. 

For instance; the broad "Valhalla" idea of a warrior paradise of daily fighting and slaying, followed by a diurnal restoration of health is expressive of a desire for something very different from "peace". And if Paradise includes pleasurable sexual activity, this desire likewise opposes a wish for peace.  

Peace is analogous to sleep: where the phase of deep and dreamless sleep is restorative, essential, and culturally undervalued; nonetheless if unconsciousness were to become the core aspiration in mortal life, this aspiration negates any positive reason for mortal life. 

If the nature of our life was that we mostly wanted to escape it and rest in peace; then why bother with living at all?

If it is best to be un-conscious, then why develop and mature towards adulthood? Why even be born? We might as well short-circuit to death; and thereby skip the whole messy and often miserable business of being-alive. 

For the modern consciousness; the notion of Resting in Peace is a covert suicide wish; in which suicide is assumed to lead to a post-mortal destruction of everything that is our-self. 

For the modern mind, peace and death are an escape from life. 

By contrast; what Jesus made possible and offered us is More life and a better life...

A post-mortal state in which we remain-ourselves, but immortal, and living-on in a world (Heaven) based-on love between its inhabitants...

A world that is negatively without evil, decay, and death - but therefore positively a world where love and creation are permanent; where memories, relationships and growth are cumulative.

There is surely a place for "peace" in Heaven, but peace is not the point of Heaven. And when peace becomes the major aspiration, we implicitly reject the offer of Jesus and instead aspire either to lose our-self - either by some kind of dissolution back into the divine one-ness; or else in mainstream culture when people reject continued-living and prefer annihilation.  

Who wins, who loses, the game of Idolatry (and AI-dolatry)?

Real relationships are between Beings; and Beings are eternally existent. 

Beings are described in terms of attributes such as life, consciousness, purposiveness, agency etc. But ultimately Beings aren't inferred from observations; but must be known directly, known by intuition; known "by assumption".

(We are born with such innate, "instinctive", intuitions: necessarily so.) 

Therefore there is potential for error, for delusion, for false assumptions; as when a person treats a not-Being as a real Being: and this is called Idolatry. 

Classically; a situation of idolatry might concern something like a carved wooden idol that not a Being but is related-to (by at least some people) as if it were A Being.  

We can imagine how such a situation might arise and work. There are those who know that the idol is not a Being - evil priests, perhaps; and there are those deluded persons who relate to the idol, believe the idol is an agent, and believe the idol is a god. 

These idolators then believe that what "the idol" tells them is true, and will obey what "the idol" tells them they must do. 

Meanwhile, of course, it is the evil priests who are manipulating the situation in order to create and sustain the delusion that the idol is A Being (and a god). 

The evil priests might arrange for the idol apparently to move, speak, eat... That the evil will emit messages that are received and interpreted by the priests. They might even arrange that the idol would seem to kill, or order killings.   

And the evil priests who create and sustain the delusional idolatry might self-consciously and (more or less) sincerely regard themselves as unselfish, and operating the system "for the benefit" of the deluded idolators - at least insofar as the priests themselves judge "benefit". 

In other words; the evil priests may regard themselves as good priests.  

 

In reality, the nature of this situation is that the idol is a tool of those who know that the idol is not a Being. 

The population is divided into "those who know", and "those who are deluded". 

Those idolators who delusionally believe the idol is a Being are controlled by those manipulators who know that the idol is not a Being.

The mass of idolators are at best unwitting, unconscious, objects of manipulation - perhaps manipulated for their own benefit? Or perhaps for their own exploitation and harm. 

But while they remain deluded; idolators are in no position to evaluate benefits or harms. 

*

An idol might be almost anything. 

It might be as simple as a doll, a statue, or a picture; or the idol might be a more complicated device such as a clock-work, an animated simulacrum.

An idol might be something something imperceptible; including something abstract; like a church, ideology, values. 

The idol might be a computer, a robot, or a software programme: as with our currently prevalent AI-dolatry. 

Whatever the idol might be, the basic situation remains identical: Those who know the idol is not a Being are - indirectly, via the idol- in-control-of those who have a delusional-relationship with the idol.

The deluded idolators are controlled; both physically in terms of their actions, and spiritually in terms of their assumptions, convictions, motivations, beliefs, and faith.

In a state of idolatry; the winners are those who know the idol is not a real Being; the losers are those who regard the idol as an agent. 

And those who regard the idol as an agent are losers - even when they believe they are winners! 

Because idolators are incapable of knowing benefits from harms.  

The only way out from this situation; is for the deluded idolators to become aware that their idol is not a Being, not alive/ conscious/ purposive/ intelligent: that the idol is not an agent.

Note: The concept of Idolatry is a core subject of Owen Barfield's profound study Saving the Appearances. 

Magical self-journaling

I have written before of my practice of "journaling", which goes back more than forty years. For a long time now, this has consisted of the (almost) daily, early morning (before 11.00 am) practice of writing in a notebook for an hour or more. 

But this is not at all like writing a normal journal or diary - it is not-at-all meant to form a record of my doings, nor even a record of my thoughts (such as a "commonplace book") - because the notes are ephemeral. 

I do not look at my writings again after they are written, except during the actual process, and sometimes to jog my memory to write a blog post on the themes that arise. 

Indeed, I invariably destroy everything I have written during this process! 

Evidently; my writing of this kind is not for other-people, nor is it for my future self. 

So what is my "journaling" for? 

I have realized that my journaling can be conceptualized as a magical process - directed at what Dion Fortune called (in a much and variously quoted definition) the purposive activity of using techniques of changing human consciousness in accordance with will...

The way I do journaling is self-directed and consumed by itself; it forms a synergy between the processes of writing and thinking: in general terms it is a means to an end. 

The intent is to discover, induce, and sustain; a particular and focused frame of mind directed towards my current concerns.

In specific terms, this magical-self-journaling can have many purposes related to changed consciousness. 

At the most general, it could relate to changing my own emotional state. This could be therapeutic - to improve how I feel when I am in an aversive frame of mind. Or it could be to enhance a mundane habit of thinking into an enchanted mood. 

Or magical self-journaling could be directed at fairly specific problem solving, relating to some dominating concern; such as when I am doing theoretical science, philosophy, or theology. 

Or, it could be about actually finding and clarifying some vague or nagging problem about which I am unclear. 

It could also be about developing an inner "contact"; a direct relationship, with some other person or Being. 

In principle (but I do not do this) this might at one extreme be "automatic writing" when the writer passively channels further writing. 

Or (and I don't do this either) it might be to try and develop some kind of alliance with a contacted Being, to attain some this-worldly goal. 

In my case; this could be to make an inner contact with some (usually deceased) person or Being for friendship's sake, getting to know another; ultimately from a motivation of love.   

In a nutshell; I think of this magical self-journaling is a fairly stereotyped activity that can be directed at many possible ends. 

In principle the aims might be passive and contemplative - a matter of dreamlike attunement to reality, the stimulation of inner imaginings; or might be almost the opposite: active and purposive, including creative. 

And, as with all magic, the method is not intrinsically Good, because magical self-journaling can be directed at either good aims - i.e. in-alignment-with God and creation ("White magic"); or evil ends such as selfish self-gratification working against the divine (that is to say Black magic). 

Which, of these; and whether an episode of magical self-journaling serves the broad intentions of Christian faith, or else opposes this; is a product of my choice, my freedom. 

Recreational light entertainment, and when it is worth consuming

Ideal light entertainment - but excellence is always rare

It is a pleasant thing to spend an hour or two in consuming TV mass media with relations and friends; and obviously this is best when the quality of the movie or television is high. 

For example; lastnight I re-re-watched with the family, that really excellent movie from 2023: Dungeons and dragons: honour among thieves. This is close to perfect light entertainment: continuously-engaging, funny, clever, and moving; based on a masterful script and editing. 

But that is not always possible, because there just are not many high quality things; and the mood has to be right as well! 

Sometimes it is "light entertainment" that is wanted - and even "3 star quality" will suffice; which means three stars out of a possible five, which translates to "worth watching, but only once". 

We therefore end-up by mostly-watching mostly-OK things, where compromises are required; and I enjoy some aspects, but not others. 

With three star movies and TV I need to feel that the makers were doing their best, from their perspective - which I very seldom share, to try and make something good: to put-on a Good Show. 

A Good Show is always difficult to produce, therefore those engaged must be trying their best; quality does not happen as a by-product of some other agenda. Those engaged must be doing their best to serve the needs of the medium.  

This is why I don't bother even trying anything that has an obvious and evil (IMO) agenda as its main priority; because these are invariably of low quality as programmes or films. 

An author or production team who are prepared to interrupt the action, pervert character, or damage the structure and pacing; in order to deliver a politically correct lecture - will not make even an acceptable product.   

Acceptable light entertainment, despite reservations

So I often watch things like the TV series Foyle's War (or, at least, the first five series); which overall has much to enjoy as light entertainment; I think because its (main) author Anthony Horowitz is a skilful writer, who here seems to have been doing his best to write good television drama.

There is much to appreciate in the acting of the main protagonists, the characters, the settings, clever plotting. And this mostly offsets the author's biases concerning what the war was "about", who it was fought-for (from the British people's perspective) and why - Horowitz, unsurprizingly, sharing the usual mainstream official/ mass-media false persepctive that has been typical of WWII movies since the 1970s. 

In other words; in what I regard as ranking as a 3 star product, the false-to-history agenda needs generally to be subordinated to dramatic needs; which means the agenda can be noticed, recognized and filtered; and without spoiling the overall effect.  

Given the pervasiveness of Leftist and/or alien agendas in the arts, literature and media generally; this is the only way that one can enjoy light entertainment nowadays. But it is noticeable that most of the works that fall into this category come from fifteen-plus years ago, so the supply is drying-up!

 

James Herriot - and the increasingly important matter of "the man behind the books"

Another huge Herriot success, indeed his best-selling book; which led to scores of copycat volumes of 

Fill in the celebrity name's someplace-or-another. 

James Herriot was an extremely popular author of the 1970s. He was a vet who wrote humourous books about his life ministering to farm animals and pets in Yorkshire. 

The books were known by everybody, from age about ten years onwards, and led to a tremendous growth in the demand for vet qualifications (to the point that now vets are paid less than school teachers), and a significant expansion in tourism in the Yorkshire Dales, where the fictional tales were set. 

The books were also adapted (and quite faithfully!) into two movies, and a Sunday evening TV series "All Creatures Great and Small" which was probably the most popular and beloved British family drama of all time.  

As well as their many laughs, skillful writing, and fascinating subject matter; one of the pleasures of reading James Herriot is the likeability and goodness of the actual man behind the books - whose name was Alf Wight.

As well as the evidence of the books themselves; my evaluation of JH's character came from the biography by his son, and a visit to the The World of James Herriot - museum in Thirsk, built in the real-life practice (actually serving the North York Moors, much more than the Yorkshire Dales).  

I have found that, as I get older, my inference as to the ultimate personal quality of an author has become ever more important an element in my reading. 

When I believe that an author is "a good chap" (or "chapess") then I am much more likely to enjoy and re-read; and when I beleive the opposite, I am increasingly unwilling to read, and likely to discard the volume into the rubbish bin.  

In other words, I am less and less inclined to try and separate the author and the work - at the ultimate level. 

This does not mean I expect a "good" author to have only what I regard as "good" opinions and behaviours; but it does mean that I choose to read those who I regard as deep down and primarily "on the right side". 

And that I am less and less inclined to enjoy and seek wisdom from those who are, at bottom, against God, Divine Creation, The Good etc - even when such people may have considerable skill and surface appeal. 

This has led to a good deal of re-evaluation and rejection, and a greater concentration upon relatively fewer individual writers.

It's not that I avoid Bad authors entirely - after all I continue to explore...

But once it has become clear that the character and intent behind the work is malign, I tend to quit swiftly; and move-onto something else more wholesome! 

Note added: I suppose it should be clarified that the most important aspect of "the man behind the books" is the author's "state of mind" at the time of writing - because this may change subsequently, for better or for worse. For example JK Rowling seems to have been a different and better person at the time she wrote the Harry Potter series, than she has been subsequently. Another possibility, which I will do no more than mention, is that an author subsequently died; and (intuitively) post-mortally seems to have become a resurrected Heavenly denizen - and that some kind of contact with the author's current self happens via the process of reading.

Since most of the world is literally insane - why aren't things a lot worse?

This is something that puzzles me: By my best understanding, I regard almost-everybody as literally insane, delusional, psychotic; with respect to (typically) several criteria.(!) And more and more people seem to be entering this category every year. 

As I have often said here; among those who kept their sanity through the events of the Birdemic and Peck, almost all seem to have succumbed to one or another of the species of AI-dolatry.

While plenty of others (who pride themselves on their critical acumen) are on-board with one or more of the several warmanias that - apparently without concern or comment - fill the mainstream- (and alternative-) media, and are the subject of major corporate and financial leader's statements - as well as being prominent among the pronouncements of the governmental and supra-governmental leadership class. 

Then there are spite-filled Schadenfreude-addicts; who genuinely regard negatively-motivated destruction of people and organizations they personally hate or resent, as evidence of civilizational progress!  

Such matters cannot be argued, and I have no intention of arguing them further here! 

But, given the pervasiveness of self-celebrating evil and lunacy; the question arises as to why things are not a great deal worse than they already-are. 

Of course; sooner or later, "things" will be, because they must be, qualitatively and undeniably worse, with a general collapse into chaos - yet this has been deferred for much longer than I would have thought possible. 

I am sure that overall-human-goodness cannot happen except from good persons with good motivations - yet where are these people? 

I can't see them, at least not among the living; therefore my best guess is that the well-motivated good persons must be among the dead (specifically the resurrected dead in Heaven) - and perhaps too among the non-human denizens of this earthly reality. 

I think we owe these "invisible" entities heartfelt gratitude for "things" being as good as they are, instead of a lot worse.  

And maybe such gratitude could be the basis of our-selves repenting, and allying-with these positive influences among these deceased persons and not-people. That way (and Not by the usual political strategy of making forming alliances with slightly-less-than-average evil entities); we might genuinely help the world to become a better-place than otherwise.   

Give Heaven a chance! (Heaven versus progressive reincarnation)

From the overwhelmingly-dominant atheist-materialism of our time and place; it is perhaps natural that people who feel the alienation of living in an (officially) purposeless, accidental, dead universe; will find themselves seeking relief from alienation and a snese of despairing futility. And will therefore find themselves trying to recreate the spontaneous paganism of the remote past, and (if remembered) of their early childhood. 

Such is the basis of that Neo-Paganism that has been a significant sub-theme of The West ever since the 1950s, and currently under the vast umbrella of New Age. 

I was in this phase myself around the early and middle 2000s; so I know that it has partial value of a psychologically therapeutic type - it does help somewhat with the aspects of alienation and meaninglessness. 

However, Neo-Paganism falls down when it comes to purpose in life; and without purpose, meaning tends to become just an emotion, and therefore ephemeral.

To summarize; the spiritual quest has two main aspects: participation and hope. 

Participation is the sense of being part of reality, of having a relationship with The World here-and-now. 

Hope is about purpose, it is to do with an ultimate "happy ending".   

The Neo-Pagan perspective finds hope in reincarnation; because people correctly realize that there Must be a continuation of our lives after death if there is to be objective meaning and purpose to our mortal life. 

And for reincarnation to be hopeful it must be progressive and positive: I mean that successive reincarnations must be believed to build cumulatively towards a qualitatively better life and world. 

If reincarnation is just an endless cycles of more-of-the-same, this is not hopeful; therefore to be hopeful the scheme of reincarnation must assume that reincarnation is a type of learning that stretches across many lifespans, and is aiming-at a kind of paradisal state of being. 

However, although progressive reincarnation is indeed hopeful; that hope is deferred a long way (in some case, such as that of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy, a very long way) into the future. 

So our hope must be located beyond many, many reincarnations; since a large number of reincarnations are required before paradise can plausibly be established...

It being pretty obvious that spiritual-progress is not rapid; because spiritual progression can be observed - if at all - only by generalization of many persons across considerable sweeps of human history.

By contrast; (properly understood!) Christian hope is located much closer to now; much nearer than multi-resurrections. 

Because resurrection into Heaven happens after our mortal death - which may be soon, but is never further than some decades hence.  

Therefore, I am perhaps surprised that Neo-Pagans very seldom give Heaven a chance! Since, if heaven is true, it is a much more hopeful prospect than progressive reincarnation.

To my way of thinking; the only serious questions are related to what Heaven is really like, and whether it really is a possibility. Because if Heaven is like I believe it to be, and is indeed possible for anyone what really desires it - then:

Heaven beats reincarnation hands-down! 

Sea Monkeys! (And Primary Creation)

Like many boys of my generation, I came across Sea Monkeys in the classified ads section of American comics - in my case, superhero comics - with extraordinary illustrations and bizzare claims such as that above. I found the whole thing highly suspicious but fascinating; and wondered for years what Sea Monkeys really were. 

When my kids were small, I discovered for myself; because we raised and kept Sea Monkeys for more than a year; before handing the colony and equipment on to a neighbour.

What the Sea Monkeys actually are is a remarkly inexpensive (starting at only ten pounds) kit to grow and maintain a colony of multiple small creatures rather like shrimps; using various dessicated components that are reconstituted with water; and some special powdered food administered once a week.  

They grow very quickly, so this keeps the attention of kids rather well. But most of the Sea Monkeys experience is a game of imagination - as indicated by the illustrations! To enjoy Sea Monkeys you need to enter into the spirit of the thing. 

As always happened in our house, the kids wanted the pets, but fairly soon lost interest; and it was me who looked after the pets - mostly grumbling, but secretly I liked doing so (except for cleaning-out the tropical fish tank in later years - that was a real chore). 

To stimulate a further wave of interest, and for my own satisfaction, I expanded our Sea Monkey venture with a bigger and illuminated tank containing a pirate ship and treasure...

A later venture was with another kit growing a Trilobite-looking creature called a Triops. 

This was very interesting, albeit gruesome; because the Triops kit includes various other creatures that are intended prey for the carniverous Triops to devour, plus several Triops only one of which survives as the ultimate winner. 

The great advantage of the Triops is that is looks great, and grows Very fast (shedding its skin) to about two inches long; whereas the Sea Monkeys max-out at only about half an inch or usually less. 

The dis-advantage is that the Triops has a very short life cycle of about three weeks, I think - terminated by a horrible death when it turned inside-out. 

Luckily I saw this first, and therefore the kids didn't!

I was reminded of all this by my daughter, who is a high school science teacher, telling me that she has started a Sea Monkey colony in her tutorial group classroom, and some of her eleven-twelve year old kids are really enjoying the experience. 

A plus for Sea Monkeys is that the colony can be kept going for a long time - years; so apparently they live "forever". 

What is actually happening is that Sea Monkeys are dying; but reproducing and being replaced by the next generations - enabled by proper care and fuelled by food (and perhaps light).  

It strikes me that this is an analogy for what I term Primary Creation: the creation we inhabit as mortal beings here on earth. 

To the outsider view, if we regard humans as interchangeable and replaceable, then the continuous and inevitable changes and losses from entropy (degenerations and death) the System or colony can be balanced or exceeded indefinitely by continuing "creation".

In other words; so long as divine creation continues, so long as God's energies are being added to the System; then Life-as-a-whole remains despite death (and despite evil). 

While, at the same time, every individual part of that System (every specific Sea Monkey) is always undergoing entropic decline in function and death. 

What Jesus did by the Second Creation, by making resurrection into Heaven a possibility; can be imagined by assuming that what appears to be the case when looking at the overall colony, really is true: that each individual Sea Monkey is immortal. 

Each Sea Monkey is everlastingly sustained as an incarnate being, by its own innate source of divine creative energy. 

And there is no need ever to add food or clean the tank! 

Just a few more weeks of blogging?

I have been informed by the host of this blog that, from December 16, almost everything I have ever written will be forbidden by the new content policy. 

This is the relevant section. 

Misleading Content 

Do not distribute content that deceives, misleads, or confuses users. This includes:

Misleading content related to civic and democratic processes: content that is demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in civic or democratic processes. This includes information about public voting procedures, political candidate eligibility based on age / birthplace, election results, or census participation that contradicts official government records. It also includes incorrect claims that a political figure or government official has died, been involved in an accident, or is suffering from a sudden serious illness.

Misleading content related to harmful conspiracy theories: content that promotes or lends credibility to beliefs that individuals or groups are systematically committing acts that cause widespread harm. This content is contradicted by substantial evidence and has resulted in or incites violence. Misleading content related to harmful health practices: misleading health or medical content that promotes or encourages others to engage in practices that may lead to serious physical or emotional harm to individuals, or serious public health harm.

Manipulated media: media that has been technically manipulated or doctored in a way that misleads users and may pose a serious risk of egregious harm. Misleading content may be allowed in an educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context, but please be mindful to provide enough information to help people understand this context. In some cases, no amount of context will allow this content to remain on our platforms.

As can readily be appreciated, if enforced this outlaws (by the mainstream socio-political standards that will surely be applied) not only most of what I have written, but almost everything of any value I have ever read online. 

Well, 16 years of daily blogging is not a bad run! And I cannot say I am surprised; since this is part of a top-down long-term and ongoing global project of omni-surveillance and micro-control; and I already inhabit the most censored polity in the developed world. 

But I suggest that those readers who value any particular aspects of this blog might be wise to make personal copies quite soon; because it is not likely to be around for much longer. 

Personal understanding is a spiritual virtue; when we work things out, think things through for ourselves

Our task in this mortal life includes that of understanding; meaning that we understand by working things out and think things through For Ourselves. 

If we look at the way the world is, life is not clear and easy, it is not straightforward, there are many external obstacles and we ourselves are usually poorly constituted to do that which ought to be done. 

We don't clearly know what ought to be done, and insofar as we decide what ought to be done we are not made such that doing what ought to be is easy. Quite the contrary! The world is confusing and we are confused; our will is easily misled, vacillating, and pretty feeble!

If we assume that this is not an accident but instead part of the basic design; then we may infer that the way that things have been set-up by God in this divine creation. 

We are not good at doing what ought to be done and really needs to be done, even when we are able to discover what that is. 

I therefore assume that the first-line, the main and preferred method by which we are supposed to navigate through life; is for people to work out for themselves what they ought to do, and how to do it. 

And insofar as we can do this appointed task of understanding in any domain of existence; I think the experience improves us as people - improves both temporarily in a mortal context, and potentially in an eternally resurrected future. 

That, at least, has been my experience. I spent a great deal of my childhood and early adult life learning what other people said and wrote about academic matters, science, medicine; but I did not do what I was supposed to do and really think for myself, really understand, until my early 30s. 

I was a lecturer in epidemiology when one of the first things I worked-out was what is happening when we randomize and take an average; as happens in a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT).  

Lots of people were saying that an RCT was the best form of evidence for effectiveness of a medical intervention, and the larger the RCT the better. But in all my reading and questioning, it became evident that nobody (literally nobody I could find, and I looked hard) had actually thought out what randomization was doing in this context, why large numbers were supposed to be better, and what happened whne results were averaged and the averages applied to the treatment of individual patients. 

I had to work this out for myself, from my experience as a scientist and doctor, and by thinking hard about things. 

Once I had understood, for myself, it soon became obvious that nearly-everybody had misunderstood what was going on in RCTs, did not grasp the intrinsic and unavoidable problems of averaging, and the effect of striving for ever larger numbers in trials. 

Most of what people "know" about most things is merely obedient parroting of authorities, and there is zero understanding. 

High intelligence and encylopaedic knowledge do not help at all, of themselves - because without genuinely personal understanding rooted in an individual act of working-out; expertise merely leads to more convincing wrongness, elaborate pseudo-justifications, and armour-plated error. 

Of course, this was only a tiny but of understanding I developed; but even so, it was enough to change me fundamentally. 

I would say that (when I have done this, which is only a few times) it has been one of the few life-experiences that I am sure were fundamentally Good For Me. 

It was enough to let me see the difference between real understanding and parroting.

It was a generally applicable skill of discernment; that revealed that nearly-all of "expert" discourse is nothing more than mosaic work; the assembling of secondhand assertions. 

I could not recommend highly enough the long-term spiritual value of thinking things through for yourself, to attain a personal understanding of whatever is most important to you. 

What is interesting and motivating - eternally? Answer: Qualitative addition to divine creation. (More about Heaven)

In considering Heaven, we need to consider what Heaven is, and whether we personally want it. 

I have written before that I believe Heaven is the Second Creation in which all inhabiting Beings have been resurrected such that they live only and entirely from Love; and what this means, in practice, is that Heavenly life is essentially a matter of "Creating" - by which term is meant each Being as an individual adding to divine creation, in harmony with God's intentions and methods. 

"Adding" to creation should be understood in a qualitative sense - with each Being adding a new kind of thing; not just adding more and more of the same kind of thing that already exists. 

Quantitative addition, adding more and more of the same kind of thing, soon gets boring; even here on earth and over a mortal timescale. 

This is why consumerism is addictive: people "need" more and more "stuff", always seeking novelty - feel bad if they don't get more; but get less and less satisfaction from each unit of consumption.  

But it does not add-up, people are never lastingly gratified - we get used to consumption and "more stuff" loses its effect, so that we have to increase the dose to get the same effect. 

Exactly the same applies to sex; as is evident from the behaviour of those who focus their lives on getting ever-more sex with ever-more desirbale persons and succeed. Gratification fades inevitably, desire declines; and the need for novelty always escalates into "experiments", boundary transgressions, and perversity. 

Quantitative addition is therefore a negative-motivation: we need to continue doing something so as not to feel worse; but getting it does not accumulate to feeling overall better.  

Heaven, by contrast, is a positive-motivation. More and more of that which is qualitatively added to creation builds to greater and greater joy. 

An analogy is deeply-loving relationships with family and friends; we cannot have "too much" of these, and more is cumulatively better.  

In Heaven; our valuation of love and of creating does not fade; it remains continually rewarding and motivating, and as love and creating develops. 

In contrast; here in mortal life on earth this ability to love and create inevitably and always is eroded, sooner or later; eroded by entropy - by degenerative change in ourselves leading towards death of every mortally-incarnate Being.

(In mortal life; we ourselves inevitably eventually become incapable; and we are only sometimes capable, and seldom fully capable.) 

Love and creation are also and always tainted by evil; because we are not wholly-aligned with divine creation; and our strivings are inevitably corrupted to some extent (sometimes very fully) by pursuing selfish, manipulative, exploitative gaols. 

(This, I believe, is pretty much what Jesus meant by stating that All Men are "sinners" - No Man is fully and always completely-aligned with God's motivations and with the nature of divine creation.) 

(Indeed; sustained life in mortal conditions actually depends upon parasitic exploitation of other Beings - Life is competitive, Life lives-on death. Evil is unavoidable in this First creation. Mortal life - without Second Creation - is tragic in a classic sense: its flaws are intrinsic, and lead to the unhappy-ending of death.)

 

Such is the nature of First Creation of God - and the desirability of the Second Creation of Heaven via Jesus Christ, when in Heaven there is no entropy and no evil. 

Heaven solves the problems of entropy and evil; and enables life to become rooted in love and creation - because our-selves have been transformed by resurrection. 

In Heaven; qualitative creation happens spontaneously, because each Being is unique and wholly-aligned with God and creation; such that our personal creation is therefore necessarily in harmony with God and other Heavenly Beings; and our creation is the manifestation ("expression") of that "something unique" we we all are and always have been. 

I regard it as a fact that we each are, and always were, unique Beings - so there is no need to strive for "originality"; because insofar as we are true to our-selves, we will be original. This is how and why all creation in Heaven is qualitative. 

"The Problem" - solved by Jesus - was not originality, but to make it such that our native originality is harmonized with that of other Beings and of God. 

So what is lastingly interesting and motivating in Heaven, as on earth, is Loving Creation; but in Heaven this is "pure" and uncontaminated by entropy and evil; such that eternity is eternally added-to by qualitatively-new, unique, individual activity. 

Conspiracy Theories - either true but partially, or else inversions of reality

I've often written positively about the category of explanations known by the PSYOP-manipulated slur-term of Conspiracy Theories (CTs). 

My understanding of CTs is quite simple: (As of here and now, and for some decades) All official and promoted narratives are false because deliberately misleading (because always intended to manipulate and control, never to inform).

(Even though all deliberately misleading CTs contain some truth, these correct facts or valid interpretations are deployed to manipulate; such that the net-message is always untrue.) 

We may sometimes know in broad terms what is instead true; but we can almost never know exactly and in detail how official narratives are false...

We cannot know the specifics of what is true; both because we personally do not have access to detailed accurate information and do not solidly-know honest individuals who do have such access, and/or because no accurate and valid information exists. 

(Because everybody at a high level in officialdom is untruthful, all the time, indeed compulsorily so and thus is The System constituted; so all information is lethally compromized at source. Only in those rare situations when nearly-everybody is seeking and speaking truth, can we trust "information"; only then is "information" of positive value for understanding the world.) 

So how are individual and specific conspiracy theories to be regarded, in broad terms? 

Well; each of the many Conspiracy Theories is either true but only partially true. "Partially" exactly because there are so many CTs with some validity...

Or they they are deliberate inversions of what officialdom regards as reality - such CTs are merely a part of mainstream official manipulation.  

For example, all the CTs that explain "who is really in charge" are either true-but-partially-true - because there are several, and variously overlapping, groups of people constituting the actual leadership class. 

In that sense "all" genuine CTs are "true"; but none are The Truth. 

(Not even my own favourite CT of Normans cannot be regarded as The Truth about the UK leadership class. There are several, indeed many other such groupings; and many more individuals and groups have been co-opted to the Norman-approved agenda.) 

Or else they are official manipulations that amount to factual inversions (as with the imagined power of "Far Right" or "white nationalist" groups) or themselves intel-PSYOPS (such as "Flat Earth"). 

Another PSYOP is when a true-but-partial CT is promoted by officialdom as a totally-true CT, exactly because this is so easy to discredit. This accounts for the preponderance of subsidized and promoted monomaniacs in the mass/ social media!   

In broad terms we know that the individuals and groups officially in-charge are (to varying degrees) on the side against God, Jesus, and Divine Creation (whether or not they are actual members of Team-Satan, they function as allies of that negative-agenda!). 

And ultimately; this which we can know, is all that we really need to know.  

 

Could Chapters 15,16,17 of the Fourth Gospel be interpolated?

I have for some years been fascinated by The Fourth Gospel (called The Gospel of John) - and re-reading it again I was struck by the sense that three chapters in between Jesus's last meal with his disciples and leaving to the garden of Gesthemene, had the quality of an interpolation. 

The first clue is that Chapter 14 ends with "Arise, let us go hence"; and Chapter 18 begins with "When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples." On the face of it, it seems as if 14 should lead straight onto 18. 

I also notice that substantively Chapters 15 and 16 do not add anything core to the teaching; but function more like a commentary - an elaboration and re-explanation on what went before. 

And similarly Chapter 17 (which takes the form of an extended prayer) mostly has Jesus asking for what he has (apparently) already promised.

So I would mildly conclude that Chapters 15-17 are likely not based on writings by Lazarus: author of the now lost but original and contemporary eye-witness account that was "Fourth Gospel". 

Does this kind of "analysis" matter? Well, it might, for some people, at some points. 

The most important aspect of reading the Fourth Gospel (or Scripture, more generally) is that we get from it the most important, vital, knowledge of Jesus and the main "things" he did and taught. 

By my understanding this is only very seldom achieved because people fail to focus on IV Gospel and get their core guidance from other parts of the Bible - this means that "Christianity" has-been and is serious misinterpreted. 

Secondly, any attentive, active, positive personal engagement with Scripture is almost bound to become something of a living (and, we hope, direct) interaction - including discernments and evaluations of many kinds. 

But, exactly because it is alive and present, what is significantly valuable for me/ here/ now might well (and unavoidably) be a matter of indifference - or negative - for other people, in other circumstances...

Such is the nature of all communication, because of its intrinsically indirect and symbolic nature. 

Note: Of course, as usual with the Fourth Gospel, there are beautiful and lumious sentences even among those parts that are apparently later additions, and some inauthentic parts perhaps helpfully emphasize the core teaching such as Chapters 15-17. And there are lovely, poetic, aspects to the words; even when sections contradict the essence of the message! 

The Heat Death of the Universe?

Even as a kid I heard about the Heat Death of the Universe, and I later learned more during my studies of physics up to A-Level. 

The cap was put upon Heat Death by the general adoption of the Big Bang theory of the origins of the universe - not just in professional physics, but also as a Western cultural dogma.  

But really, the idea is not derived from physics, but it arose as a consequence entailed by our society's fundamental operating assumptions; our whole way of reasoning in public discourse.

The basic idea as I grasped it in childhood was that the end point of everything would be when every-thing that existed had cooled down to reach the same degree of (extreme) coldness...

Or that there was a finite amount of hot material in an infinite empty-cold universe, and therefore that all the warmth would be diluted-out... 

Or that energy came from heat differences, and these differences would diminish until no more energy transfer was possible to keep things moving. 

Another way of thinking about Heat Death is that it is the inevitable outcome in reality as it is described by Science (ie: with a capital letter, the discourse and mode of thinking that is "science") - because Science regards "entropy" as the fundamental and ultimate source of all energy, heat, and life. 

In other words, for Science everything is fuelled by "entropy" in a parasitic fashion. The universe began with a source of heat and energy; and ever since, that is being used-up.

Or; for Science there is just so-much "Life", and life necessarily feeds on life - so that at some point all life shall be consumed. 

When I was a kid this all seemed compelling, but I was troubled by the thought that in a universe that was eternal going backwards, a universe that had always existed; then the Heat Death could not be true (or, at least, not inevitable), or else it would already have happened. 

Nowadays, I regard the Heat Death idea as a reductio ad absurdum of the assumptions of Science; in other words, I think Heat Death is a correct inference from the basic and bottom-line way that Science as a mode of discourse was set-up in the 17th century. 

To refute Heat Death entails revising the basic assumption of Science; which is that in Science God, and especially divine creation, are excluded from permissible explanations. 

In other words; a valid refutation of the Heat Death idea entails assuming the reality of Divine Creation. 

Divine Creation might be assumed explicitly, or implicitly; it might posit a personal God or posit an abstract deity - but one way or another a purpose and genuinely creative creation must be introduced; and that creation must also be assumed to constitute an inexhaustible, eternally-self-renewing source of "energy". 

This, for example, is assumed by the last rival to the Big Bang theory, the Steady State theory (of Hoyle, Bondi, and Gold) - which posited an everlasting "creation" of the expanding-universe in the centre, that compensated for the everlasting "dilution" of that universe at the edges. 

The Steady State theory was (whether probably consciously, as with Hoyle, or apparently unconsciously as with Gold and Bondi)  "smuggling" deism back into Science, which was why it had a bad reputation among the mainstream scientists even when it was performing very well as a predictive model.  

My conclusion is that if Science is regarded as a true and complete description of reality, then the Heat Death is indeed inevitable. 

But in reality Heat Death is not inevitable; and the reason is that the basic assumptions of Science leave-out divine creation. 

Since divine creation is real, then Heat Death need not happen. 

Lancet windows and the Early English gothic style

Relatively tall, thin, pointed "lancet" windows are characteristic of the Early English style of gothic church architecture, built roughly in the 1200s. 

Here are examples from Holy Cross church in Haltwhistle, Northumberland. 

It can be seen that this earliest gothic (pointed-arch) style emphasizes height, and saves on glass; but does not allow very much light into the church. 

Then again many of the earliest churches were modelled on caves - and it was only later in the gothic era that church architects decided that light was godly, and exploited advances in building techniques and cheaper glass to make walls that were mostly window (relying upon buttresses to support the weight of the roof). 

In Northumberland, Early English is well represented; and was also often emulated by Victorian church restorers and new church/ chapel builders (sometimes with a round, instead of pointed, arches).

Although Norman-style architecture is closest to my heart (round arches, massive pillars, zig-zag decorated - Durham Cathedral is my favourite-ever building); I am very fond of the austere and simple EE style. 

I find EE induces a distinctive mood of spiritual yearning that feels somewhat "holier" than the effect of being stunned and overwhelmed by the more in-your-face and obvious charms of the later gothic styles.  

Early English was indeed that last major pre-Victorian period of church building, or at least church survival, around here. 

Because after Edward I ("Hammer of the Scots") there were frequent wars with Scotland that triggered the breakdown of large scale society, and the rise of the violent Border Reiver clans occupying a broad swathe of disputed territory. 

The ensuing poverty and disorder meant that from approximately 1300-1600 (England and Scotland were "united" under James I in 1603) few Northumbrian churches were built. 

So we have only a few examples of the later Decorated (1300s), and Perpendicular (1400s) styles of medieval church architecture.  

After the dissolution of the monasteries and Reformation (mid 1500s) there was a surplus of eccestiastical buildings, so there was relatively not much church building nationally, until after the Industrial Revolution and ensuing population growth of the 1800s. 

So around here (and with notable exceptions) "the old stuff" is Norman (mostly 1100s) and Early English - then we jump into Victorian. 

 

Agatha Christie

Hugh Fraser as the loyal and intrepid Hastings, David Suchet as Poirot in the TV adaptations

I was almost completely uninterested in "whodunnit" mysteries until just a few years ago. 

Apart from devouring Sherlock Holmes as a teenager, I think I had only read a volume of Simenon's Inspector Maigret, and a few of Dorothy L Sayers's Peter Wimsey novels (of which The Nine Tailors is much my favourite).

Then, as a family, we watched all of the Agatha Christie Poirot TV series starring David Suchet, and also the Miss Marple series starring Joan Hickman. These are both superb light entertainment, and I began to become curious as to the books themselves. 

Lately I have read (or listened as audiobooks*) quite a few (albeit less than half) of the Christie volumes featuring Poirot and Marple; and some of the one-off books such as The Pale Horse, The Seven Dials, and Ordeal by Innocence. 

Despite remembering from the TV adaptations who was the killer in most of these novels, I found them to be extremely enjoyable for their deft, varied and clearly-differentiated characterizations; and for the insight, wisdom, and goodness that lies behind them - and therefore apparently emanates from the author herself: Agatha Christie. 

This goodness deserves comment, because few authors are able to depict good, interesting, and likeable characters - presumably because not many authors have enough such traits, or else they are too feeble!

My only significant criticism is understandable and indeed unavoidable; which is that many of the murders are unbelievably (to me) complicated. 

This, I presume, arises because the simple plots with straightforward methods of killing were rapidly used-up by earlier Murder Mystery writers. 

But while the methods are sometimes convoluted, the plots have a very sastifying economy and progression. 

In a book like Ordeal by Innocence (and there are many others) Christie rapidly sets-up a "closed" situation with a finite number of characters; the implications of which then get unfolded step-by-step; exploring (what feels like) all possible personal permutations of the characters in terms of their interactions. 

With the denouement, the intricate structure locks into place with a very satisfying sense of completeness.

Since Christie was so prolific, and kept a generally high standard of quality throughout, I anticipate a good deal of enjoyment yet to come. 

 

*Hugh Fraser, as in the above picture; is a superb, indeed exemplary, audiobook reader of Christie.

Magical thinking under the veil of materialist mechanisms

One of the theses I have harped-upon here is that metaphysics is primary, and all "evidence" and reasoning happens within metaphysical assumptions (despite that these assumptions may be unconscious, or even denied). 

An example come from my earlier life, especially in my late twenties and thirties - during which I developed strong interests in all kinds of transcendental, religious, and Christian matters... But I remained metaphysically a materialist-atheist. 

For example; I believed that the thinking and aspirations of individuals and small groups could have a large and positive social influence, even when these were operating in obscurity. 

That intense study or conversations on a particular theme, or themed formal and ritual activity, might nonetheless affect "the world" in a very general way. Even when these conversations and rituals took place privately, in an unworldly or cut-off context. 

On the face of it, this was a magical way of regarding the world; in that it acknowledged that individuals, groups, symbols, ritual activities and the like had power that extended beyond their particular situation.

Yet when it came to the question of how such activities exerted their power; I would have resisted strongly any explanation of a spiritual kind. 

Instead my explanations were all of a material nature. 

In other words; I would explain all general effects in terms of observable communications, and their effect on psychology. 

For instance; a man thinking would, as a consequence of his thinking, communicate with other people by word, sounds, images - and these images would conceivably be registered and interpreted by at least one other person. 

And from there the communication might, potentially, be spread by other such channels of communication; maybe resonate with other people such that one person informs two others, in a geometric increase. 2,4,8, 16, 32 people would thus be informed - and soon enough there would be thousands, then millions who had been affected! 

Or perhaps inter-personal communications would be taken-up and even more rapidly amplified by mass media interacting with human wishes and motivations.

Plus the communications could be stored - perhaps in a magazine of book, or on an audio or video medium - and much later experienced and "activated" to start the above kind of geometric increase to exert general power. 

The point I would emphasize is that by such explanations, all past, present and possible spiritual phenomena could be and were explained on a material basis. 

And this will always be the case; because the metaphysical assumptions - in this case that there was no God, and no spiritual reality - will always be able to explain everything that happens and is real and needs explaining. 

Metaphysics can explain everything that happens that matters; because metaphysical assumptions are about the fundamental nature of reality: and thereby metaphysics dictates what counts as an observation, a fact, a valid mechanism, a conceivable or possible explanation. 

I think this way of materialistic thinking is very common - indeed almost universal, since we are all socialized into the metaphysics of aspiritual-atheist-materialism; and these are the assumptions that lie behind all public discourse of a significant, socially-functional, broadly-acceptable type. 

So we absorb this - mostly unconsciously - through childhood, and it is daily sustained and reinforced by the bureaucratic "System" the world of institutions such as government, law, media, corporations, education, medicine, science, police, military etc - and most of what churches actually do for nearly all of the time.  

And I repeat that this metaphysics cannot be refuted by any observation, by anything that happens. 

The only way we can break free from it is to have different metaphysical assumptions. 

In my case, this required that I become aware of my own assumptions, and aware that they were indeed assumptions - they were Not "facts of life".

They were prior assumptions; not inferences derived-from my knowledge and experience; nor derived-from the knowledge and experience of my society or institutions.   

This is why evidence or logical proofs of the existence of God, or of the validity of a particular religion or church, are ineffectual. 

This is why not even the LEGO Minas Tirith can compel an atheist materialist to acknowledge a personal deity and a providential universe! 

Bounded consumerism and the 1970s ideal of Voluntary Simplicity

In my late teens and twenties, I was an advocate and practitioner of what could be termed Voluntary Simplicity (VS) - with "simplicity" interpreted in a relative but not total sense. 

The idealistic and extreme advocates of VS were proposing a return to an essentially medieval feudal agrarian system; but medieval minus the Lord of the Manor and the Catholic church. In other words; pretty much the kind of society of many small farmers and craftsmen that was envisaged by William Morris in News From Nowhere. 

However, my less radical idea was to (more or less) stop overall economic growth, except for benefits due to improvements in (simple) technology* and methods - on the basis that by 1975 we had "enough" stuff; and indeed we should reduce our material needs in order to allow more discretionary time ad space for individual freedom. 

Thus; consumerism would not altogether be abolished, but would be "bounded". 

This also applied at the level of individual persons; whereby paid work was understood in terms of a "deal" whereby so much in the way of resources was traded for so much time and effort in labour; and the individual could - and I would have said should - reduce his wants in order to allow more time for discretionary activities. 

This is, of course, the attitude advocated by HD Thoreau in the Economy chapter of Walden. 

The activities to be pursued during the time and with the energies liberated by restricting material-wants were high-minded: things such as contemplating the natural world, reading and writing, doing arts and crafts, communal social participation in music and dancing - and the like. 

In short; a somewhat "Merrie England" sort of existence! 

When I eventually became a paid worker, this was exactly what I did in my own life. I had qualified as a doctor, and therefore could command a much higher-than-average pay-per-hour; but I chose not to maximize income by doing the full allocation of medical hours; but instead to trade-off about half the potential salary in order to get about double the free time. 

Such an attitude was actually fairly mainstream, or at least not unusual and fairly influential, in leftish (as I was) Britain of the 1970s - and (I later discovered) had a fairly well-known international advocate in the French economist Andre Gorz. 

It went with a tendency to eschew fashion, and the accumpulation of possessions; and expenditure on things like lavish cars and holidays.  

But through the middle 1980s, there was instead an almost society-wide return of aggressive consumerism; with a desire and expectation for participation in frequent rounds of fashion, technological novelties, and complexification of life - all of which was linked to higher social status. 

This has continued up to the present; and has transformed what is now called the "Green" movement from one based on "back to the land" deliberately simple agrarianism; to the current state-/multinational-/ multibillionnaire-/ bureaucratic-managerial-dominated compulsory-subsidized waves of techno-fashion. 

These technologies are by intent anti-nature, anti-farming; and in-practice focused entirely on pseudo-scientific and officially-mandated concepts such as CO2 climate, or the levels of other chemicals - the individual person is regarded as unable to make such evaluations; and is supposed to accept and obey these diktats without questioning.  

In terms of individual aspirations; the social ideal is very far from Morrisite, Thoreauvian, Voluntary Simplicity; but instead success is to work long hours for an ever-increasing salary to sustain ever-increasing and publicly-advertised consumption. 

"Leisure" is focused on the purchase and display of ever-changing fashions; and expensive pastimes such as owning high status cars and boats; participating in expensive sports; and travel to exotic locations. 

Even gardening has become ever more fashion-driven, expensive, and technological! 

And farming is aggressively demonized rather than idealized.

The whole area of food-production and consumption has been shaped by top-down media, NGO and government campaigns emanating from mega-corporations and using PSYOPS. 

So that farm animals are painted as an evil and destructive indulgence; meat-eating is wicked and to be abolished (for the masses) in favour of factory-made protein matter; and veganism is prescribed as spiritually virtuous - and has been orientated towards eating ever-more artificial and imported substances.  

A very far cry from the hopes and dreams of the neo-medievalists of the 1970s!

Such have been, over the past half-century, the dominant trend of choices and decisions made by Western Society and by most of the individual persons in these societies. 

While there was much that was unfounded and incoherent about the ideals of Voluntary Simplicity - and the whole notion lacked a basis in the strong motivations that only an active and spiritual religion can provide; what has replaced the seventies idealisations of nature and society has been a good deal worse! 

*My ideas of simple technology were influenced by EF Schumacher's "Intermediate Technology" as described in his book Small is Beautiful. 

Note: Some readers will notice that in my descriptions of neo-medievalism I did not mention Distributism, or the names of Hilaire Belloc and GK Chesterton. This is because I was not significantly aware of this 1920-30s movement during the 1970s, mostly because my perspective was coming out from atheism and the Left. However, I had read of Distributism in EF Schumacher's A Guide for the Perplexed, which I read on publication in 1977. Nonetheless; I had apparently more-or-less filtered-out this information, as being of little interest to me at the time - although I became very keen on it later when I had developed a more positive attitude to Christianity. 

Dying and agency: What happens to our "self" in the transition from mortal life to death?

Based on an understanding of the benefits of incarnation (embodiment) in this mortal life; it is possible to discern what happens during the transitional process of dying, and the situation of post-mortal existence (i.e. death).  

In dying we begin to lose consciousness, lose the ability to concentrate at the command of our will - we are losing our capacity to exercise freedom: losing agency. 

Dying can be understood as a process by which we are losing some of that agency we have (probably) gained in developing from a foetus and baby, through childhood and adolescence, to mature adulthood.

A young child is "in" the world of his experience; "diffusely aware" in contrast to the more detached and focused/ concentrated awareness of a (normal) mature adult. 

In dying and losing the effect of our functional body; we become more passive and reactive, more immersed in our spiritual environment, more accepting, more "childlike". 

It is because we are more passively a part-of things, more inclined to float-along responding to external influences, that we have less capacity to exercise agency. 

  

Dying can also be understood as a going-to-sleep into a world of dreaming; and also into a bewildering world of "psychosis" - through which we wander in a partial delirium. 

This harmonizes with the similar Ancient Greek and Ancient Hebrew conceptualizations of the state of the dead as (more-or-less) witless, will-less, demented ghosts; inhabiting Hades/ Sheol. 

Again the picture is one of the post-mortal self passively reacting-to the situation, rather than exerting agency and making choices. 

What does this change mean for salvation? In particular; how do these changes affect our capacity to choose Jesus Christ's offer of resurrected eternal life in Heaven?

It seems certain that dying - the dissolution of our body, and the loss of that enhanced agency which comes with incarnation - does have an effect on changing, and reducing, our agency...

If we further assume that dying is a process rather than an instantaneous event, then we can suppose that this decline of agency is a progressive dwindling.   

In the end our agency is reduced but not eliminated; since we know that the insane, children, and dreamers do have some independent capacity to evaluate, to choose.

If we recall the extreme Protestant idea that "the tree lies as it falls" - i.e. that salvation is completely determined by the state of the soul at the "moment" of death, and by our choice at that "moment" - we could perceive that there is some truth in the notion - insofar as our dwindling agency during dying will reduce agency and thereby affect our capacity positively to choose salvation... 

However; the above scheme also clarifies that after death is completed; our agency is diminished but not eliminated. 

This fits with the Catholic understanding that the fate of the soul after death (i.e. when the process of dying is completed) can be affected - and that the dead soul can in principle benefit from spiritual assistance, such as the prayers of the saved-and-resurrected dead and the prayers of still-living mortal s such as ourselves. 

Indeed, the greater sensitivity of the discarnate dead soul to "externals" - as seen in early childhood, or in the dreaming self, or in some states of psychosis/ delirium/ dementia - would mean that the dead soul may be especially able to benefit from the love of others - assuming that the dead soul is capable of love, and values love. 

On the other hand; a dead soul without capacity for love, or one who gives love a low priority, or who is dominated by non-loving motivations - would probably be more susceptible to evil temptations than during mortal life. 

This implies that it is a significant benefit to have chosen salvation - i.e. have made a commitment to follow Jesus to Heaven - during our mortal life. 

Choosing salvation during mortal life will enable us to make the choice in favour of resurrection while we retain the maximum agency, before the process of dying is complete, and before our consciousness and freedom have been reduced to the level of a fully discarnate post-mortal soul. 

What is the advantage for an essentially spiritual being, of temporary incarnation into this world, followed by the permanent incarnation of resurrection?

For those of us to who regard spirit as primary, as having existed first, with material incarnation as secondary and later and derivative - and especially if we believe there is a continued existence after mortal death - there is a need to explain why we are temporarily incarnated as mortal beings, here on earth. 

I suppose the "why?" comes from our belief that God the Creator is Good and loves us each individually; so that the answer must include that this mortal incarnation fits God's plans for creation and is also good for each of us an individuals. 

The problem is made even more difficult to answer by the uniqueness and varieties of individual persons, and the unique situation into which each individual is born. It is difficult to come up with both a true, and also a particular, general explanation. 

Yet the common feature is incarnation: although ultimately spiritual beings, we ourselves and this world have large material/ physical elements - despite the obvious limitations of this. 

So the question boils down to: what are the positive advantages of being material/ physically incarnated beings - living in a world with many other such beings? Including that this advantage is temporary, in the sense that we shall die, and our materialness with undergo dissolution. 

Further; for Christians, we need to explain why Jesus emphasised that after death (if we follow Jesus) we shall be resurrected...

Each individual person shall stay himself, and shall be reborn, yet not as a spirit, but instead as a "solid" physical/ material being - but this time an eternal and everlasting being that does not age, decay, or die.  

I think we must assume that it is better for us to remain an incarnate after death, that there are therefore significant advantages in being incarnated as compared with being and remaining a spirit. 

However, this matter is very poorly understood; and those who believe in the reality of spirits find it difficult to comprehend why it is better to be bounded and solid and to have a single perspective, than to be everywhere equally as a "pure" spirit presumably is. 

These may seem like strange reflections! Yet I think Christians need clear and comprehensible answers if we are to defend and explain our preference for and choice of resurrection post-mortally; over the alternatives such as becoming pure spirits, or having serial reincarnations. 

For myself, I assume that incarnation is the spiritual mechanism by which increased consciousness and freedom are manifested as the purpose and direction of divine creation. 

That the two go-together: that it is by incarnation that we become more free, more self-aware, more ourselves. 

Further; that these are also attributes of God the Creator, and of Divine Creation - such that Creation is directional - away from pure spirit and towards incarnation; and that this is the intention of God.

I assume that at first there can only be the kind of temporary and mortal incarnation which we experience here-and-now; but that the ultimate goal of God via divine creation is the eternal incarnation of resurrection - which was and is possible by the work and gift of Jesus Christ. 

Thus the answer to "what is the advantage" of mortal incarnation; is that it is a necessary step towards Gods purpose of a creation characterized by increasing consciousness and freedom.