Why think of the Holy Ghost as Jesus?

Don Camillo seeks guidance from "the Holy Ghost" (i.e. Jesus Christ)

I have suggested that the Fourth Gospel tells us that the Holy Ghost is the ascended Jesus Christ; so whenever we talk about the Holy Ghost we are actually talking about Jesus. 

Is this helpful? very, very much so - I would say. Instead of a nebulous (because bodiless, unpersonal) spirit-being; we are offered guidance and consolation from the actual person of Jesus - which fits with John 16:7 "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you."

Why would it be expedient for the disciples (and everyone else, presumably) if Jesus goes away (that is dies, resurrects, ascends to Heaven) if the person of Jesus - someone we might love as one individual loves another - was replaced by a nebulous ghost spirit for whom love can only be an abstraction?  

As an example, we might consider the comic but Christian character of Don Camillo; a fictional Italian priest who has two-way conversations with Jesus on a crucifix in his Church - and this Jesus is a very distinct, humorous, character (and an exemplar of tough-love).

In these stories, it seems to me that Jesus is replacing, fusing-with, and thereby rendering unnecessary, the Holy Ghost as some kind of separate aspect of deity.  

Of course any such conversation as Camillo's with Christ is not a literal communion with Jesus, since it is subject to all our limitations of understanding and motivation, as well as the inevitable ambiguities of language. 

Nonetheless, insofar as it is underpinned by direct communion; then this is exactly how Jesus can be or become a real-reality in the lives of Christians: the apprehension of a real personage with who we have present contact.   

There is always something to do on the farm (of Life)

When I was writing my doctoral thesis, I came across the saying that "there is always something to do on the farm" - which turns out to apply to life in its most fundamental basis, as well as extended personal projects. 

The saying refers to the idea that - no matter what the season or weather - there are many jobs that could be done and which contribute positively to the running of a farm. 

If the farmer cannot always be ploughing, harrowing, planting, harvesting; then there are animals to feed and clean, building and fences that require maintenance, buying and selling, paperwork, learning and teaching relevant crafts... 

Some things on the farm are more important or urgent than the others, and the times and circumstances for their completion are more restricted. The Big Jobs ought to be attempted when the situation is optimal. One must make hay when the sun shines, else the animals will have nothing to eat in the winter. 

The application to my thesis was that there were days and times when I could not compose the text and organize the structure, times when I could not even edit and improve what I had done. But there was always something to do... There were diagrams and tables to make; information to comprehend; references to find, read and compile... In short, there was always something I could be doing towards getting the thesis.

But it strikes me that this general principle applies metaphorically to our personal lives, understood at the most fundamental level. We are here to learn; but what and how we learn is unique and also there are many and various possibilities. 

Our personal situation is unique, and there are a limitless number of things that "need" doing - but probably there are some spiritual things we ought to be doing that are more urgent and important; and these ought to be tackled when we are in the optimal state to tackle them. 

Negatively there are "repairs" than need doing, things broken are defective in us that are a threat to salvation or limit our spiritual learning. 

There are also positive potentials; such as creative and loving aptitudes, interests, vocations... which are ought to be developed. And these are best done - they should be done - whenever we are at our best, and whenever we can contrive or seize suitable situations. 

(Because if they aren't done then, they will not be done at all.) 

But most of the time we are not at our best and/or circumstances are adverse; and then it would be pointless or counter-productive to be aiming at the Big Stuff (...it is futile to harvest the corn before it is ripe, or during a thunderstorm).

And there are better or worse "farmers". 

Some worse farmers probably don't get further than the small stuff; they spend their whole lives making and mending fences but never get around to stocking the fields with cattle. These are the people who expend their entire efforts on non-urgent or peripheral things that ought to be fitted-in during some "rainy day" - they fail to do what is most needful. 

Others are lazy and do little; others work hard but spread themselves too thinly across too many tasks and do none of them well.  

Better farmers tackle those things that are most needful; and maybe they learn and develop some talent to a high level - are which there are no end of possibilities: ploughing, animal care or breeding, dry stone walling, cheese-making... 

But even these best farmers are not always, perhaps only seldom, at their best - and there are days when the weather is bad, or they themselves feel under the weather, and then they turn willingly to the innumerable small-but-useful jobs around the farm - tidying and cleaning a shed, perhaps.

Every farm is different, yet there is always something useful to do; as well as (not instead of) those biggest, most vital and crucial, jobs - the ones that we ought to be attempting whenever possible.   

If a strategy or policy is net-evil - like AI - then we should not be distracted by its partial (and personal) advantages

The world has been corrupted, over the past several/ many generations , by embracing policies, strategies, technologies, social arrangements that are decisively and predictably net-evil over the long term; because they offer upfront personal and specific advantages - or even just conveniences and fashionability.

Examples would include pretty much everything that has happened over the past few decades, from the internet to so-called AI. 

The bureaucratic and ideological changes that (in my experience) demolished science, education and medicine are all of this kind - but the generalization applies to global (especially Western) culture as a whole. 

I am not arguing this from a traditionalist perspective - that it would have been better for things not have have changed; because I know that people have changed and therefore culture and society will change. 

I am saying instead that the actual changes have made things worse and worse - until now we are so degraded (including in our own estimation) that there seems no basis for resisting anything. 

The reason that we invariably choose the wrong changes, the ones that destroy and demoralize, is that we have abandoned "religion" - and without religion our motivations are pathological and perverse. 

(The "morality" of mainstream young people is a prime instance: they almost invariably are "passionate" about one or several of the evil-motivated Litmus Test issues - climate "emergencies", some remote and never experienced foreign people, something about sex or sexuality, something about abstractions like inclusion and equity - or whatever crisis or scandal is fed them by the media.  

Such concerns are not just stupid and futile- but actively harmful overall and by strategic design. 

The only substitute is religion (and serious religions converge upon Romantic Christianity). 

This need for religion is not simple, because for known history religion has meant churches, and (because of the underlying changes in Men) the churches do not suffice and cannot be made to suffice - they are part of the problem in what they actually do, and the ways of thinking they encourage. 

This, in turn, means that there cannot be organized resistance to wrong changes, which means that resistance at the material level will be feeble. 

We must therefore do what we ought to do anyway, which is aim at spiritual reform of the world by spiritual reform in our-selves; which must be (by default, as well as because desirable) an individual activity. 

My observation is that hardly anybody puts any effort into this at all - certainly not compared with the vast effort they put into other (and net/ long-term destructive attitudes and activities. 

Neither can I see any way of persuading people to do this. Good cannot be done to those who do not desire Good. 

The best motivation is faith in the power of genuine spiritual endeavour, on the basis that God (who is creator) can (in mostly unknowable ways) amplify whatever individuals can do. Our job is simply to do what we can do. 

NOTE ADDED: I think this strategy of individual spiritual endeavour is an example of Gandalf's strategy in The Lord of the Rings, of sending Hobbits into Mordor to destroy the One Ring - as contrasted with the more short-term-expedient Boromir Strategy that cannot possibly succeed.  

Explore Tolkien's posthumously-published History of Middle Earth free online

Information is at my Notion Club Papers blog...

 

The importance of our-selves, as individual persons, for The World - is a plain fact

Modern metaphysical assumptions have made us very unsure about the value (even validity) of the individual person. 

All our explanations and schemes of value (including morality) are about people in general. There is intense interest in politics, nations, society, and group categories such the The Poor, Women, (some) Races, The Environment; or about abstractions such as Health, Equity, Sustainability...

This creates an insoluble problem about the individual person - according to our explanatory schemes, his value seems negligible, he seems to be valid only as a group member, or insofar as he contributes to some abstract goal.

When the individual takes an individual stance, regards himself as significant on a cosmic scale of things; this seems to be selfishness, pride, greed, or a pathological paranoia... 

We are culturally only comfortable when people assert and live-by their own insignificance. 

Yet Of Course the individual personal is significant - and all other significance is derivative of the importance of individual Beings and their relations.

Our difficulties with this are artefactual, self-created by false ideas: the difficulties are due to wrong and evil assumptions. 

Of Course the individual is significant in the Big Picture, indeed at the level of the Cosmos. 

To say this is not insane arrogance but plain Christianity!

If each individual person were not significant, then God would not have created individual persons.

The salvation of one person is clearly of the greatest importance to Jesus.  

To believe in the insignificance of the individual is not modesty, it is not humility; but it is instead an abandonment of responsibility. 

    

We are born-into this world (as babies, as young children) knowing that we are significant. That confidence is innate because God-given.

It is therefore a demonic snare to deny our significance to The World; just as it is another demonic snare to strive to impose our-selves upon The World. 

Our personal importance for The World is a fact that does not require any action to make real - what matters is what we do about the fact. 

The Legend of Lucifer

The legend has it that Lucifer* was the "brightest" of angels, and/yet the first to "fall"... What does this mean?

It might mean that - of the pre-mortal spiritual Beings - Lucifer was the "highest". But highest in what? I would say consciousness. And higher meaning most God-like, most like The Creator. 

The legend would then mean that the Being with most God-like consciousness (i.e. Lucifer) was the first Being to oppose God's creative plans. 

Consciousness, awareness, agency, freedom... These are divine attributes; but do not bring with them a commitment to Good - Good being a commitment to Love, to divine creation based upon love. 

Men of the modern world are on the one hand higher in consciousness than Men of the past - capable of greater agency and freedom; on the other hand Men are more evil Now than they were. 

An analogy is children and adults - adults are (on average) higher in consciousness than children, and also adults are (on average) more evil than children.  

Goodness is a choice, and those Beings higher in consciousness must choose evil - but the point is that they must choose; which is why they so often choose wrong. Children, on the other hand, are born with considerable innate goodness (spiritual connections, realism, common sense) and this makes them more spontaneously, passively, unconsciously good. 

So perhaps Lucifer was the first angel who was capable of conscious and active choice, and needed to decide whether to commit to love and join-with the divine plan of salvation - but as a matter of fact chose to reject and oppose it.  

Modern Men are similar to this primal situation in that (probably due to our pre-mortal natures) we seem to have been incarnated wit the tendency to attain higher (literally more God-lie) consciousness than Men of the past; and/but this brings with it the necessity of conscious, active and personal choice with respect to fundamental matters that less-conscious Men of the past simply accepted without awareness. 

The majority of Modern men seem to have replicated the basic choice of Lucifer; but they could have done otherwise, just as Lucifer could have done otherwise. 

Our world is full of Men who are "higher" in terms of awareness, agency, freedom and other divine attributes; yet choose to use these divine attributes to reject God's creative project. 

Higher consciousness is intrinsically Good - it is growing-up, it is God-like - it is a direction God desires than Men should move. 

We are more adult, grown-up in terms of consciousness; but like most adults this does not make us "better" morally (and in terms of values generally) than the less-conscious children we once were. 

Our situation is that (in essence) we need consciously and freely to choose what (less conscious, less free) young children are born with innately and "automatically". 

The adult is potentially better (i.e. more God-like) than a child, exactly because he is able to choose, indeed must choose - and is more responsible. 

This could be expressed that God wants "colleagues" in divine creation, co-creators, or grown-up brothers and sisters - because thus may creation best be expanded and enriched. And creation "works" by Love - it is Love that harmonizes creation, and Love that ensures the direction of creation is Good. 

So there is consciousness and there is Love - and the challenge (which seems most to have been failed) is for Men (as many Men as possible) to choose Love as the fundamental principle, to choose divine creation, to choose to ally with God. 

+++

*"Lucifer" was probably the original Devil, the first leader of the anti-God faction; but I suspect he no longer holds that position. That "job" is perpetually contested, and has perhaps had several or many occupants. 

War is graft, government aid for war victims is graft... All government expenditure is graft (considered at one level)

War is graft, government aid for war victims is graft, all government expenditure is graft.

Celebrity charities are graft - all charities are graft (from the top, by motivation).

Celebrity (and political) autobiographies, lectures, and public appearances are bribes.

Honours and prizes and awards are bribes. 

...These are some of the more-or-less legal ways that the demonically-controlled, destructively evil Beings control the bureaucratic, managerial and intellectual classes. 

Totalitarian control of attitudes, thinking and behaviour are mostly done by such positive incentives; because they work. 

Fear of negative sanctions such as destruction of status, sacking, fining, prison, violence, torment, and murder - are real and necessary, but are a back-stop. 

    

 

Western civilization swinging from the rafters - while lashing-out at its neighbours

Some thirteen years ago I wrote (in Thought Prison): 

"Take your eye off Western Civilization for just a moment and it will be swinging from the rafters with its own belt around its neck..."

But West Civ has now become much worse than "merely" killing itself. 

Going back - The West started from the later 1960s by "Not even trying" to sustain itself - it was profligate, neglectful, careless - addicted to conveniences, novelties, luxuries and distractions.

Then actively suicidal strategies emerged that spread throughout the entire bureaucracy, media and social institutions; until they are nowadays a universal propaganda sustained by many laws and many more regulations supported by significant societal pressure. 

Since the early new millennium - evident with the policy of funding chaos and facilitating genocide in the Middle East with the subversive violence of the self-styled "Arab Spring" - the dying West has become more and more gratuitously aggressive. 

The suicidal hanging man of Western Civilization is lashing-out in its death throes - trying to harm as many people as possible before it finally expires. 

The objects of Western aggression have spread from at first attacking old national enemies (seeding disorder, funding the ideologies of own more-rapid suicide). 

Then to through attacking national "allies" (by forcing them to adopt suicidal policies, sabotaging their economies and societies; and lately engineering them to fight to the death with old enemy nations). 

And just in the past days we have seen (with the recent Hurricane response in the US) Western nations beginning actively to destroy its own citizens. 

Thus: It began with it being dangerous to be an enemy of West Civ; developed into being more dangerous to be a friend of the West; and we are now entering the stage where it will be most dangerous actually to be the West.

(At this rate, the mass of Western people might actually begin to notice what is going-on!)

So, Western Civilization is now the prime enemy of The West. And, as with so many tyrannies of the past - the most dangerous situation of all will soon be to be a member of the Western ruling class. 

The higher the position someone has attained in the Western System (the closer to the centre of power), the more likely he will be singled-out for an early and nasty end. 

Because when The System is possessed by spiteful and destructive evil - "paranoia" is rational. 

In a society where "dog eats dog", everybody is playing the same destructive game: spitefulness is regarded as pre-emptive necessity.

The main personal threat to leadership class members comes from those nearest and with most power. 

Do unto others what they would otherwise do unto you - so make sure you do it first... 

 

I said dog eat dog; but the reality (at the level of Western leadership) is becoming more and more like a pack of mad dogs biting and tearing each other. Each dog feels fully justified, because - after all - each dog is in the middle of a pack of mad dogs!

The situation would be hopeless if the world really was as the mad dogs believe it. 

But, very fortunately, it is not; and there is a whole other unrecognized realm of reality...

Access to that world is not via any of the societal institutions that are complicit in Mad Dog World; but the entrance (which is not secret) may be found in the heart of every Man. 

***

NOTE: I have hidden comments and suspended commenting for the time being, since commenting has largely dried-up. They may return later. 

"I shall believe it when..."

Supposing somebody was thinking about what he should believe - rather than conforming to what he perceived to be his aspirant peer group - except when it was expedient (i.e. when it breaking the rules benefit him, and he thought could get away with it).  

Suppose such a person was thinking about what he should believe, and there was a genuine possibility that he would afterward believe what he had concluded as a result of thinking.

I think he has two basic options. 

The first and usual option is that he will believe a thing he has concluded when, and only when, he has been able to convince "other people" of it. 

He will try to convince someone else, and then he will believe it. 

By "other people" I mean, whoever he regards it as vital to convince. For a scientist, it might be the other scientists in his field, for a bureaucrat or priest it might be some sufficient number of other priests, or perhaps one or more who have authority over him. 

In other words, a thinking person's conclusions are, and can only ever be, tentative; and contingent upon the acceptance of his conclusions. 

His own belief is therefore fundamentally dependent upon the beliefs of others - in a way that is ultimately and essentially the same as the beliefs of someone who accepts his beliefs passively (often unconsciously) from his particular social milieu. 

And this is the great bulk of public discourse about fundamental matters - even of the better sort. It is conducted among people who are all trying to convince each other, and who are each waiting upon the outcome before making their own commitment. 

The alternative is to be someone who will believe a thing when he has convinced himself; even when nobody else in the world believes it.

Of course, it is usual that such a person can find someone else (somewhere, at some time and place) who also believes what he has convinced himself is true - or maybe he will be able to convince one of his peers or contemporaries. 

And this is reassuring, and encouraging for him - but the point is that the agreement of "other people" is not essential. "Other people" do not matter ultimately to what he believes. . 

This autonomy of belief covers a multitude of possibilities, because different people are differentially convinced by different kinds of thinking.

Some people are psychotically-delusional in their thinking - and their convictions arise from reasoning that is unique because pathological - some kind of delirium or dementia, perhaps; when the stream of thinking is dislocated. 

Others are very easily self-convinced, and very difficult to dislodge from conviction by subsequent experience - or, more exactly, such persons adhere unthinkingly and unswervingly to the conclusions reached in any brief moments during which they actually were thinking for themselves. 

But autonomy of belief is also the characteristic of genius; and indeed autonomy of belief is a necessary component of genius. 

And when the times and circumstances are so corrupted and so evil that all Men are called upon be a genius of their own most fundamental convictions - on pain of otherwise becoming assimilated to the general state of corruption and evil...

Well then it behoves all Men to ensure that the procedure by which they become personally convinced of some belief, is such as to satisfy his own best possible understanding of truth, beauty and virtue. 

(He must do this for himself, and from himself; because otherwise he is merely accepting somebody else's standards.  Even if he does accept somebody else's standards as fundamental for himself, then this needs to be done on exactly the same basis.) 

Bad life advice (and if not, then what?)

Social and mass media seem to consist largely of bad advice on how to think, behave, live... And the appetite for such advice seems insatiable.

Yet we must live! And negative advice (about what Not to do) is useless unless embedded in a positive stance.

It strikes me as facile, because true, to strike down any positive agenda. On the other hand; unconscious, unthinking, spontaneity is also impossible - and would-be mystics of that kind are essentially fraudulent.

Also... Any words (or images - or perceptions) that purport to be helpful, must be understood and interpreted - meaning they don't tell us anything specific.

Yet we Must live; and if Not, then What?

It seems, therefore, that we are compelled to seek Good life advice on what we can know directly (without perceptions or concepts) and for ourselves.

There is nowhere else to turn - if we are explicitly honest with ourselves.

For Christians this is not, or should not be, a problem.

The deceptiveness of common sense, intelligent amelioration

Perhaps the commonest form of argument about morality and values generally, is to address some problem (real or made up) on the basis of practical, common sense "realism" - with the aim of ameliorating the problem: improving, albeit not eliminating the problem.

From this perspective, there is always work to be done, because the world is full of problems, and these are always urgent.

Yet when we think of fundamental realities, these problems are insoluble, being ultimately due to entropy or evil.

No matter how much amelioration of bad health is accomplished, this is an antropic world so there will be disease, disability, degeneration and death. These may be delayed or improved, but that's all. The problem will remain.

The same applies to evil (so long as the nature of evil is genuinely understood). Sin (unalignment with divine creation) is everywhere, in all Beings, most of the time and ineradicable.

And pseudo-solutions abound and confuse, because any real answer must include ourselves, our selves. 

Replacing Men with Supermen, or robots, or computer programmes - not only fails to address entropy and evil, but doesn't even ameliorate; because to replace one Being with another doesn't solve the first Being's problem.

Such considerations fill me with awe and gratitude for the gifts of Jesus Christ. His offer of resurrected eternal Heavenly life is, apparently, the one and only answer to the fundamental problems.

How is the metaphysical incoherence of atheism maintained?

Atheism is so upfront and in-your-face incoherent, and it incoherence is so fundamental (at the metaphysical level, with basic assumptions concerning  reality, in contradiction) that it is surprising that atheism can be maintained for a lifetime, and even across generations.

But I understand how it works, because I was myself an atheist for over 30 years, and I remember how the contradictions were dealt with.

The basic problem comes out with values; with truth, beauty and virtue (by whatever definition) - and in explaining why values are significant. 

Life is all about one thing being better than another, or at least preferable to another; and atheism can give no reason - indeed asserts there is no reason. Except that Every atheist, Especially the most outspoken atheists (i.e. the kind who argue it is Better to be an atheist - and who assume that reasoned argument is better than blank assertion or blind faith!) asserts values, and that his own preferences are significant.

How can this be tolerable? Why don't peoples, heads explode?

Probably because metaphysical incoherence is so normal as to be universal- in all religions and ideologies. Humans are structured to live among self contradictions, even when these are noticed - which is not often.

So people - including atheists - firstly don't notice their incoherence; because they get distracted easily - especially by focusing on the immediate and changing situation of interpersonal interactions. These seem overwhelming, and urgent - so urgent and vital that anything else ought to be postponed, indefinitely... 

And then there is negative stuff. People focus on what is negative in others' beliefs; and easily ignore the insanity of getting morally outraged from the basis of an explicit insistence that the universe, human life and their own lives have no purpose or meaning.

Life proceeds at a level where unconscious and spontaneous biological vitality is shaped and directed by social circumstances. From that situation, social assurance and expectations that there Are meanings and life Does have purpose, are sufficient here-and-now. 

The details are set aside as something that "must be" okay, because otherwise "people" would not act as if they were OK.

The whole thing is taken On Trust, because people do not trust themselves; and they don't trust themselves for good reasons - whereas (as social beings in a society) they automatically and by default trust vague notions of other people's judgement and motivations.

This is just how people are.

And for much of human history it did not seem to matter much, but now it does matter.

Now we live in a society and world where ultimate assumptions of no-purpose and no-meaning are built into social explanations and functioning; and where the consequent endemic state of demotivation and perplexed confusion have rendered almost-everybody helpless in the face of evil manipulation.

Whole nations/ races/ religions (and other groupings such as age, sex and sexuality) of many millions of people have been set up to fear, resent and annihilate each other. 

And because of actual-atheism rooted in ultimate deference to societal assumptions (and which renders modern religious identifications irrelevant because ineffectual), they have zero basis for noticing or understanding - let alone resisting - what is being done to them.

We now need to change the terms of evaluation from trust to responsibility.

The proper question is whether we take personal responsibility for our fundamental assumptions and convictions; or else refuse to do this in favour of entrusting our lives, our souls, our own mortal situation in this world - to some external "authority".

Conscious will versus intuition?

It seems generally accepted that we change by conscious will; and indeed I would regard this as the distinctive destiny of Men of this "modern" age.

Yet it is from our intuition, from primary- or heart-thinking, that we experience divine guidance - from our inner nature as children of God and from the Holy Ghost.

This means that even our best intentioned schemes and plans (eg for moral reform, or to forward some intellectual or creative project); can be wrong for us personally, here and now. Wrong because not the thing needful.

Therefore will is essential and the agent of positive change, yet will must (to be truly good) be subordinate to intuition - both today and tomorrow.

We cannot live by formula (if we want to live by divine destiny) - and we cannot (also should not) live passively by unconscious and spontaneous instinct.

What we are supposed to do is live by Conscious Instinct - but its not easy, because disrupted by error, ignorance and sin.

Hence life as trial and experiment, repentance and renewal.

Worming out of a deal with Satan?

An aphorism by Laeth that I linked a few days ago, talked of the possibility that some pre-mortal spirits could make a deal with Satan, before incarnation*.

Thus, some Beings, some humans, might be born with commitment to an evil agenda.

This could be understood as someone born strategically evil.

Such a person would also be prone to "normal" evil, which is selfish short-termism - which is, itself found with widely varying degrees - but perhaps never wholly absent". (I mean - we are all prone to impulses of self-gratification.)

This combination of a deal to serve the general, "global" plans of Satan (with hope of some later and desired reward) is in conflict with "doing what I want - Now".

I think this is seen in most people who have a leadership, strategic role in implementing Satan's agenda of evil - they try to worm out of doing their job towards fulfilling the long term deal, and instead will grab what they want, now.

This is one reason why it it a mistake to try and infer a strategy for evil. Even when there is an agenda, it will continually be contradicted and undermined by "petty" and personal corruption.

From a Christian perspective it is important Not to misunderstand such conflict between personal and Satanic evil, between evil strategies and immediate self-gratification.

When the focus is on strategic evil - such as the global totalitarian plans - this is continually being sabotaged by the minions of Satan trying to worm out of their deals - including deals made pre-mortally.

But this is Not a turn towards good.

The totalitarian order ("clown world") may be, probably is, collapsing into infighting among selfish, self-gratifying sub-groups and individuals.

But welshing on a deal with Satan in order to seek immediate corruption, is not virtue.

*It might be asked Why any spirit being would make such a deal? There might be a total incapacity for love; or a feebleness of loving impulse such that the being rejects the core divine principle of creation  (ie. God is love), and therefore joins Satan in opposition to God's creation - on the best terms he can negotiate, given that being's capabilities.

From euthanasia to assisted suicide... Not so much a slippery-slope as jumping off a cliff

I have been observing the suicidal-turn of Western culture for considerably more than a decade. Its beginnings lie back many decades ago, while I was still a medical student. 

At that time, the issue was called euthanasia, and was focused upon people whose suffering was regarded as severe and intractable, and who were incapable of killing themselves - and their Right to have somebody-else kill them. 

More recently, there was a focus on dying "with dignity" - which meant without suffering; so that the debate expanded to include people who could kill themselves - but apparently only in ways that would cause them pain or suffering. The Right being requested was for somebody-else to kill such people pain-lessly, instead of them killing-themselves pain-fully. 

Now, we call it "assisted suicide"; and have reached the point where there is no question of "need", but instead the Right demanded is to be killed pleasantly by somebody-else. With the picture painted of a happy death by drowsing off into permanent sleep while outdoors in some beauty spot - such as a National Park. 

When the question of creating a bureaucratic system for legally allowing some people deliberately to kill other people; there were warnings that this was morally a slippery-slope. 

Well, if we examine the rationale behind such proposals, and the speed with which the Right to be killed has expanded from a handful of people per nation to... everybody; the issue has turned-out to be more like jumping off a cliff from strict-morality and unfortunate necessity, plummeting down into pure amoral (i.e. immoral) convenience and consumer choice. 

The reason for allowing legalized murder has gone from being a last-ditch and desperate remedy for those terminally ill or agonizingly suffering, to a lifestyle preference.    

This is one of those (many) situations in which a top-down strategy meets mass acceptance; because in our Godless materialistic society, the bottom-line for values, for morals, for laws is simply utilitarian human psychology - that is, what people want, what makes people happy, what makes them feel less miserable... 

And this is a matter of inference, unsupportable assertion, and subjective opinion. A situation in which the apparatus of propaganda and ideology has the greatest scope; and where the prevalent sins of this age - fear, cowardice, demotivation, resentment, dishonesty and (most of all) despair - can operate freely and without trammel. 

Unless the trends reverse (and encouraged by deliberately engineered war, civil violence, disease and starvation); we will surely soon be seeing suicide become a publicly explicit and media-favoured lifestyle strategy; with the Western bureaucracies providing whatever necessary facilities. 

In the spiritual war of this world; to have mass suicides of people for such reasons as loss of all hope, fear of the future, refusal to tolerate the possibility of pain, and despair at the present - is a Big Win for the powers of evil. 

Because these would be deaths happening in a state of self-chosen damnation: that is, dying while decisively rejecting the reality of God and the promises of Jesus Christ.

There is, I believe, the maximum possible scope given us for post-mortal repentance (however we die). Death is not the end...

Yet our decisions in mortal life make a permanent difference; and to leave this life in such a spiritual state as (apparently) those who express a desire to be killed pleasantly while contemplating a beautiful view...

Well, this is very far from a fertile seedbed for repentance.   

Analysis by cause and effect acting on categories of things is Not Ultimately True; because relationships between Beings are primary

The analysis by causes and effects, using abstract categories of entities, developed in the classical and medieval periods when there was still a great deal of spontaneous, unconscious "participation" of human consciousness. 

In other words, when these abstractions cause/ effect/ category were devised; even "things" were regarded - quite naturally, and by experience - as personifications, with the kind of innate nature and desires of a living being. 

But for the modern (especially adult) consciousness participation has dwindled almost to nothing; and even living beings, even human beings, are regarded as if non-living "things". 

Therefore, to seek understanding of people, the abstractions of category, cause and effects are deployed as if these are the primary and bottom line realities - more real and important than the relationships between people...

Indeed; relationships between people are themselves subordinated to categorical, cause & effect analysis. 

The mainstream Christian churches have largely apostatized into modern consciousness, but even the  most traditionalist of church Christians have continued to use the classical and medieval versions of abstract analyses - but nowadays, because modern consciousness is so different, these abstractions are not-participated, they are alienated and alienating. 

This is why, for instance, Scholastic or Calvinist theologies are so cold and material-mechanical to the modern mind: because we cannot help but take them literally, while when they originated the rigorous philosophy was experienced (quite spontaneously) in what we might regard as a poetic, mystical, animistic way.  

And would-be spiritual explanations for group prayer, ritual, sacredness are often explained (or, at least, asserted) in a kind of pseudo-scientific fashion: as if constituting a laboratory procedure, or a computer program: If you do this, then this, in such a fashion - then these will be the objective outcomes...

But if, as I believe, the ultimate (metaphysical) reality is that of beings in relationships; then we ought to be trying to understand in these personal and interpersonal terms.

After all, within a good and loving family; the members are Not understood in terms of categories, and their relationships are not conducted as if cause and effect recipes for producing desired results. 

Instead; we realize that we cannot, and should not, treat each other in this mechanistic way; and that our influences on each other are not of a cause and effect nature. 

To read many "Trad" Christians; one would think that getting married, raising a family and living in a family ought to be a matter of slotting members into the proper categories, then following the correct (and God-approved) procedures for implementing the desired changes and outcomes! 

But this is to reduce the family to a bureaucracy; and bureaucracy is intrinsically evil. 

And it matters not whether the particular bureaucracy is secular- or church-derived; or if purports to be conducted according to laws and regulations from some interpretation of the Bible, Church authority, tradition, theology, or whatnot.

The de-humanization, the reduction of Beings to things, is just the same. 

We have all been ingrained with bad habits, actively-evil habits, of depersonalization; of mechanizing humans and other beings - and regarding such mechanizing as not just valid but superior - as (supposedly) validated by our understanding of ancient law and practice.  

Yet such behaviour leads us away from salvation - and by a very direct route; by making salvation impersonal, actually non-personal; reduced to a business of the abstract operations of cause and effect on things. 

Fortunately, it is quick and easy to repent such habits - once we have noticed them, and understood their nature and tendency. 

We all have built-into us - innately, from childhood - the instinct and tendency to understand other people and the world by means of relationships between living, purposive, conscious beings. 

All we require is to know, to be clear about, to decide; is that this is indeed the right and good way of understanding and acting. 

Our inevitably many lapses can then be repented - which is (mercifully!) all that is absolutely required of us. 

**

The Example of Prayer:

An an instance of the above, we may consider the influence of prayer on other people, as explained by Christians. 

In the medieval past, the individual conscious was less differentiated-from, more immersed-in, group consciousness. 

Therefore a prayer did not come entirely from any individual, and did not express the personal wants of any individual; but all valid prayer was significantly from the group-consciousness, it actually arose from the group. 

Its effect was because of this - from the group, to the group. 

The medievals may have interpreted prayer in a cause and effect way if asked to explain it: e.g. I pray for this to happen to him and it happens. But in reality, when prayer was effectual, it was because prayer operated in an unconscious and implicit group context. 

The modern person has become detached (almost wholly) from the group-consciousness. This is our freedom and agency, it is part of our development (and growing-up in consciousness towards the divine) - but it also means that our prayers have a different origin. 

Our prayers may come from our selves alone - and without connection with other consciousnesses. There is no obvious reason why a prayer from our self will affect other selves - especially when those other selves are understood as (like our selves) free agents. 

If our prayers "caused" effects in others, then the others would not be truly free - and vice versa.  

Or our prayers (especially group prayers) may derive from second-hand and external sources, from perceived stimuli interpreted by learned-concepts. 

(Such as prayers aimed at changing phenomena, knowledge of which has been derived-from political propaganda and the mass media, or from social media. This accounts for many prayers in church concerning official-media accounts of wars, famines, diseases - as well as those prayers directed at enhancing the agendas of evil such as antiracism, anthropogenic climate emergency, supposed or actual atrocities.)  

In sum: Modern people lack a plausible or real basis to explain (to themselves, as well as others) the effect of prayers. Mainstream people probably regard prayers as operating on the consciousness of the pray-er, with a secondary "group-psychological" effect, derived from the (psychological) experience of praying as a group. 

Modern traditionalists regard prayer (and indeed the church) rather as if it were an engineering project: a matter of assembling appropriate personnel, performing particular words in a particular ritual and symbolic context - leading leading to particular effects...

Albeit and importantly by the Grace of God, and not effectual from purely human and material causes. 

Yet despite the necessity of God; there is a very considerable quasi-objective "positivism" (materialism, reductionism, scientism) about the way that prayer, ritual, sacraments - even miracles - are understood by modern traditionalists (who have, innately and like-it-or-not, the modern alienated consciousness). 

For Trads; our business as mortal men is to regard Christian realities as objectively-real categories with necessary cause and effect interactions -- yet this is, in practice and intrinsically, to reduce humans to things, whatever protestations otherwise.  

What I am suggesting is that we ought not to think of prayer in a cause and effect fashion, operating between our-selves and other people or other things. 

We should instead regard prayer in the context of those entities with whom we ourselves are bound by relationships of love - as we and they were of a family. 

Where there is not this inter-personal (inter-being) love, then there will be no real prayer - but with love, all prayer will be significant, will make-a-difference. 

Where there is love, then prayer does not work by cause and effect, but works on "the relationships". 

And by this, I means prayer works on the real and ultimate spiritual relationships, relationships that transcend and encompass physical relationships, and potentially extend to post mortal life, and potentially eternally. 

In everyday life, our beneficial relationships are those which are loving, and which regard the other persona as an unique person, our relationship as unique. 

Actual benefits in relationships are seldom planned, and seldom contrived; but are consequent on living our loving relationships. 

We live in accordance with Christian love - and what actually happens always benefits from that, in some way - but not in a cause and effect way, and not leading to predictable outcomes -- because we are relating to real people who are free agents. 

And that is how our prayers work also. 

More bits of Laeth - a demonic theme

Another selection from Laeth's aphorism garden: 

if you can make deals with the devil while you're here, you certainly can make them before you come here. a lot can be explained with this insight. 

the illusion of humanity will be destroyed because the devil always overplays his hand 

the first satan wanted to save everyone. the second wanted to damn everyone. the third wants to destroy the very idea of salvation. 

satan has armies, God has heroes

**

Note: These comments on the Devil/ Satan have particular resonance for me. 

I had never considered that pre-mortal souls might incarnate having (covertly) made a "deal with the devil" - but it would explain a lot. 

And why not? After all, even such a deal does not rule-out the possibility of salvation; so it need not be something that God would prohibit - even if God knew or inferred it had happened. 

The comment on Satan's attitudes to salvation is a compression and elucidation of what I understand about the progression of Luciferic/ Ahrimanic/ Sorathic evil; and clarifies that - when it comes to leadership of that party who oppose God and divine creation - there has probably been more than one.   

On reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre

Alec Guinness (illegitimate half-Norman!) as George Smiley in the superb 1974 BBC adaptation of TTSS 

I have just listened to a two-part audio recording of John Le Carre's famous novel of 1974: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; superbly read by Michael Jayston (who played Guillam in the BBC TV adaptation). 

As a novel, it has many excellent aspects; although the ending is disappointingly anti-climatic (the TV adaptation did this better). 

But then, there could hardly be any other kind of ending, given JLC's world-view. 

TTSS confirmed my earlier impressions of the profound human limitations - or, more exactly, deficiencies - of Le Carre himself, and the world he depicted. 

Not one of the TTSS characters is likeable or capable of love; and this applies even to George Smiley where Le Carre seems to have gone all-out to portray goodness in a man. 

A great deal of weight is put upon Smiley's long-term "love" for his promiscuous and cruel wife Anne; but Anne is portrayed as incredibly beautiful, popular, aristocratic and well-connected so the impression is that George is obsessed-with and dependent on her, rather than anything recognizable as genuine love.

All the other characters relationships are based on exploitation, manipulation, illusion, social cachet, and a kind of mindless status-seeking - or some kind of helpless, addictive and obsessive compulsion.  

Le Carre could not portray goodness for the simple and obvious reason that he was not himself good: he could only simulate goodness - but not convincingly.

Despite all these defects, and the claustrophobic - almost suffocating atmosphere - Tinker, Tailor is a very clever and well-structured "whodunnit" that gives the impression of an honest and accurate insight into the nature of life among the alien denizens of the Norman ruling class - what motivates and gratifies them: what makes "Them" tick...   

Think Ahead - Look Back. The spiritual perspective and The Problem of "Pain"

There is a spiritual problem with "pain" - especially if "pain" is understood to refer to the whole gamut of aversive emotions, and all kinds of sufferings. And this problem is that it is not then possible to think about complex matters, or follow a chain of reasoning. Instead the "pain" tends to monopolize attention and overwhelm efforts at other purposive activities - including spiritual. 

This may mean that our usual, and ideal, spiritual practices cannot (or at any rate do not) happen - and we may become habitually focused upon the material - on palliating or escaping the "pain". 

What is needed, in a spiritual sense, must be extremely simple - because otherwise it won't happen. 

A "mantra" is one traditional tactic - an over-and-over-repeated word or short phrase: for Christians, this has often been The Jesus Prayer, or (even shorter) the Name of Jesus. 

But these were devised during the "medieval" era when Man's consciousness was such that (to a significant extent) the word was that which was represented: "the word was the thing". Then; to speak the name of Jesus was itself to become aligned with Jesus. 

For modern Men this may not happen. Instead of the name of Jesus having a positive spiritual effect, it may be that the name of Jesus just loses all meaning and spiritual connotations when too often repeated. 

...It just become automatic, a habit, like humming an "ear worm" tune. 

Here is another possibility, that sometimes works... The aim is to get-out from the materiality of here-and-now, and to restore a spiritual perspective on the current situation. 

The tactic is:

Think Ahead - Look Back 

This simply means to Think Ahead in order to imagine being in resurrected eternal life in Heaven; then to Look Back from imagined salvation onto your present situation. 

If it works, this will - for at least a moment - put your current "pain" into an eternal and Heavenly perspective. 

It des not make the "pain" go away, or even diminish it; but it is a reminder that it cannot go on forever, and will come to an end: a Good end, that is a beginning.

Since Earth is "a school" and the eternal role of mortal life is as a time and place of learning; Looking Back is a proper attitude to enable this learning, during times that would otherwise be wholly negative. 

Think Ahead, Look Back is more difficult and complex than The Jesus Prayer; but if the prayer isn't working, it might be worth a try. 

"What have you got against AI?"

"AI" (Artificial Intelligence) has done a lot of harm by making it seem "necessary" for us to defend not interacting personally with AI entities and AI products! 

We need to notice and think about this. It reveals that an open-ended acceptance of "AI" into human society is already the default. 

We got here step-by-step over many decades, and centuries; and indeed all online communities (such as you, reading this) are already many steps along the way -- but general, consensus, default AI-acceptance brings us all the way. 

We Have Arrived.

What this means is that there is here-and-now a consensus (which may itself be mostly artificial) that it already is (and indeed should be) fine and normal for individual human beings to interact (inevitably personally) indiscriminately with some unknown and unknowable mixture of other-humans and AI entities and products. 

The key concept is "interact". 

From my perspective; this implicitly amounts to a denial of the ultimate reality and existential significance of this mortal life. 

Which is, of course, a great victory for the powers of purposive evil. 

And such a situation is not some future possible dystopian bogeyman state that may happen "if we are not careful" - for many, many people this is how things already are. 

For some of these people (and I suspect this has always been the case), I think there never has been any genuine inner distinction between interacting with other real beings, and with simulated-Beings (with projections, for instance) - because such people are ultimately solipsistic: they only really "believe in" themselves. 

But there seem to be more and more such people; because they are numerous and strong enough to demand that anyone who does not want to become one of them, must justify "why not".

When you are in a situation of trying to convince others "why not?" go along with their plans for you - you have already and decisively lost the rhetorical war; the battle of Public Relations. 

...At which point you either give-up and join the downslide to damnation; or else effectively fight-back: maybe materially, certainly spiritually.

  

Ultimate Outsiders - willingly so

In the sixty years since Colin Wilson published The Outsider - describing the state of sociological, psychological and spiritual alienation characteristic of the past couple of centuries - the situation has changed.

In 1956 it was possible to regard the Outsider as being rescued from his predicament by external change - but now he can only rescue himself. 

The current Outsider has only one place to look for help: within himself.

Thus - in politics and sociology there are no utopias, and all large institutions are thoroughly corrupted including the main churches. The intellectual elites are dishonest and incompetent. Science in 1956 was overwhelmingly successful - but has become a careerist bureaucracy. The universities seemed like a haven of privilege and leisure; but they are now the habitus of petty officials, dishonest spinners and box tickers.

We have no leaders - only middle managers and psychopaths - therefore, we must rely on ourselves. 

There is nobody else to turn-to. We must find what we need in our-selves - because it will not be supplied by any person or institution.

We, here and now, are the ultimate Outsiders because we have nowhere to turn - indeed, there are very few other people even to talk with about such matters. We are fortunate indeed if we have a marriage and family to sustain us - because these too have been destroyed over the past 60 years.

We we cannot trust anybody, we must trust ourselves. We are forced either to seek oblivion in distraction and intoxication or suicide - to escape alienation by escaping consciousness; or else to look within. 

But looking within is the answer! It always was - if only the Outsider allows himself to acknowledge the reality of God!

When we look within, and begin to dismantle the false selves and automatic thinking, we find God.

The old Outsiders such as Nietzsche regarded the God-within (the Self) as an alternative to God; but we know that the God within is God. 

Since we are God's children we ourselves are divine (Christians know this - or should), which means we have 'inherited' divinity. God is within us as well as without - the external God is denied us but God within is undeniable.

We can, should and will find Christianity within us - we can find Christianity despite being denied true and valid scriptures, tradition, legitimate religious teaching, rituals... we can find Christianity within us with total confidence because we know our loving God who created and sustains reality would not leave us unprovided for.

If within is the only place left to us; then within will suffice - we will find there everything we need.

We will find faith, courage, and motivation; we will find love.

We are in a situation where - if we honestly seek to answer the condition of alienation, nihilism and despair - there is no alternative to doing what we should anyway be doing: looking within - to find not only our true selves, but God and all the necessities that only God can provide.

We have the possibility of a degree of spiritual agency, freedom and autonomy seldom seen in the history of the world. And everything is channelling us towards exactly that.

We are fated to be the Ultimate Outsiders - like it or not. 

But we can solve the problem of alienation by willingly becoming the Ultimate Outsiders... By embracing, rather than avoiding, reality - we can become free, true and live from our divinity (albeit partially, with frequent errors and sins - but that is enough).

We cannot be made to make the right choice - we might instead continue to choose oblivion and the destruction of consciousness... drugs, social media, transgressive sex - even the destruction of our own persons by transhumanist technologies.

However, that choice is becoming clearer and clearer, more and more conscious - to the point of being unavoidable.

Yes indeed, things have 'come to a point'...


Note: The crux of my point is that God (as Christians understand God: creator, loving, and a personal God - concerned by every individual) would not leave anybody, at any time or in any place, bereft of spiritual necessities. The world, as we actually experience it, from our own point of view, is adequate. Indeed, since life is not a random accident; in some vital sense you and I personally (and everybody else) have been placed into mortal life in a time and at a place at-least-adequately suited to our individual needs for experiencing and learning.

Edited from a post of 18/7/17 - H/T Laeth for the reminder.