Values Consumerism is evil

Tools of Satan? 

The point at which I recognized "the beginning of the end" for genuine and nature-rooted "environmentalism" was when "Green Consumerism" emerged in the later 1980s - a concept that now dominates the Green Movement almost to the point of monopoly. 

The idea was that Green values would be promoted by properly-directed expenditure of Green consumers, by their buying choices. 

This replaced the earlier idea that those who aimed to preserve the natural world should reduce their consumption...

Half a century ago an archetypal environmentalist tried to be self sufficient by living as a modern peasant on "three acres and a cow"; nowadays he works as a sustainability bureaucrat - and inhabits a solar-panelled mansion with a hybrid and a electric car for each member of the family. 

Since the late 80s there has been a vast proliferation of "consumer guides", further shaped by totalitarian regulations; that advise and direct people on how to spend their money such as to support sustainability, diversity, feminism, or whatever totalitarian Leftist agenda item most takes your fancy... 

And these are mirrored - in a much smaller way- among those who purport to oppose Leftism (on the "Right"), and even among those who purport to support Christian values.  

The current world (including the blogosphere!) is therefore replete with advice and instructions about which companies and products we "ought" to choose, and which we ought to avoid.

This is very popular because, apparently, nearly everybody seems to enjoy moralistically advising other people what they should and shouldn't do with respect to their own particular hobby horse. 

...Especially while pretending that this is all morally highly-significant, and that the adviser's own lifestyle preferences are objective evidence of moral superiority. 

So public discourse is full of stuff about the need either to-buy, or to-boycott, this - or that.

In the UK, we have seen the ultimate reductio ad absurdum of training young children in schools to regard the issue of plastic drinking straw usage as a major issue of values; and to celebrate the "banning" of such instruments-of-the-devil as a triumph of environmental protection.    

This consumerist moral perspective is grossly inadequate as a life-goal; because it necessarily supports the existing system in a deep and qualitative way; while pretending to influence it by living in accordance with superficial, quantitative differences: supposed distinctions that are often too small, too temporary, and too uncertain to have even the potential to make a significant positive difference. 

Indeed; this perspective is worse than inadequate, worse than useless: it is a profoundly harmful way of living - because it is strategically stupid and deliberately dishonest.

And not by accident. 

The fact that Values Consumerism emerged when it did, and that it is supported by the globalist totalitarians (Western and International politics, Big Media, Big Finance, Big Corporations etc.); demonstrates that it is Values Consumerism which is literally and without exaggeration a tool of Satan, an instrument of the Devil... 

UPDATE on crumbed chicken breast stuffed with melted garlic butter...

I was trying to purchase a pack of what used to be called Chicken Kiev, and was recently renamed Chicken Kyiv (due to corporate Britain's obedient hatred of the Fire Nation). But I could not even find the imposter - and was instead directed to the following:

As you can see, the delicacy is now termed GARLIC & PARSLEY with (in smaller writing, even relatively smaller on the side of the box - which is displayed) CHICKEN KYIVS. 

What does this signify - on top of the anti-Fire Nation motivated change from Kiev to Kyiv?

Is it that nobody knows what a Chicken Kyiv actually is, and so there needs to be a description?

Or that support of the war against the Fire Nation is waning (among even the Wokest of UK corporations), as there begins to be an inkling among the ruling class that (thanks to their previous political position and propaganda) the Sorathic demons are now in charge of our national policy, and things hereabouts might be just about to get nasty? 

(Real) Diversity is a Good Thing: The variety of human consciousness around the world and through history

Because I believe that all Beings, each Being (including each human being) is unique in terms of its origin as an eternal spirit; the variety of people (and other beings) is not something that needs to be explained or justified. This variety is assumed to be a fact of reality; and, as such, something that God must "deal with". 

So, God doesn't "make" us different, we just-are different - and always have-been (from eternity). 

But that was originally a situation of separate and indifferent difference... What God is "working on" (through the span of creation) is how to create a reality in which all these different Beings work together by love. 

This is why "the family" is the best metaphor or model for reality - not just for human reality, but for divine creation as a whole.

In a good family (an ideal family, the best we can imagine) we neither expect nor seek for uniformity. The ideal family is one in which each member's differences from each other are harmonized and made good by their mutual love and shared "aims". 

I think this understanding is also applicable to the wide variety of types of Men, in the world now and through history. 

It is not so much that "diversity" is good, as that it is a fact. Indeed, the concept diversity - as used now - is an abstract summary of certain kind of group-difference, and either ignores love or else assumes love to be a thing that can be induced, ordered and legislated as required (as when religious leaders instruct their adherents to "love" such-and-such - insofar as they mean anything at all, it is not real love as understood by Christians, by Jesus). 

From God's point of view, there are a wide range of spirits that may benefit from incarnation; and the wide range of types of society that exist around the world, and across what is known of human history, can be seen as ways of grouping types of human beings to provided what (on average, because that is all any society can provide) conditions conductive to salvation of that-kind-of-soul. 

I think this is probably the reason for both the variety of individuals at any one time; and the variety of races, places and nations in God's creation; and the directional changes in human consciousness through history. For instance, the development of consciousness from that of hunter gatherers, through agrarians in larger and larger societies, to the modern consciousness which has emerged preceding and since the industrial revolution. 

God was (I think) trying to provide a wide range of environments for the wide range of human spirits that may benefit from incarnation. 

Different types of men were therefore (on the whole) born into different historical eras, and different places and races of the world...

The process was, of course, primarily individually tailored to the needs of specific individual persons - yet in practice this entailed a variety of societies both "vertically" (through history) and "horizontally" (in any given point in history).  

Of course, working against this ideal are the powers of purposive evil, the demons; and the aspects of evil in every Man. 

These are aimed at wrecking God's best efforts at providing certain broad types of individuals with broadly helpful environments. 

Nowadays, the main efforts are homogenizing - and are directed at destroying these diverse environments; and trying to impose a world where everybody (and eventually every "thing") is regarded as the same, and treated as the same. 

The strategy of evil is that men and women, children and adults, those of different race and nation, the actual environment in which people live, the rules and media under which they live... All of these are to be pressed into the direction of actual global homogeneity, by vast programmes of indoctrination, population movement and coercion.

(This homogenizing - totalitarian - programme is breaking-down rather rapidly; but still in operation; and still used to "justify" the emerging actuality of deliberately chaotic destructive evil, which is superseding it.)

Evil is effective only insofar as it contains some partial good ("good intentions" are so dangerous!) - which is why evil is always untruthful, and disguises its destructive (anti-divine-creation) aims by apparent good. 

So that the global program of reducing the world to a single and uniform environment for all people and peoples, is dishonestly - albeit superficially - disguised as its opposite! As supporting "individuality! As supporting "freedom"!

This kind of inversion of values, supported by subversion then inversion of terms and concepts; is nowadays a pervasive reality of everyday life - especially in The West from which the strategy of evil is administered. 

But I think we need to beware of reacting against that which is truly good, and in accordance with God's intentions; simply because the terminology and concepts have been captured and reversed. 

For instance, the reality of love (the core truth of Christianity) does not itself become evil, when the word has been captured and almost-reversed to mean in practice lust, self-gratification, or suicidal altruism. 

Likewise, diversity in the sense of the uniqueness of every human being, is a reality and part of God's creative endeavour.

Thus is is a serious error to respond to the evil-motivated modern "diversity" by advocating its opposite, by insisting upon the suppression of individual uniqueness by coercion: that is falling into a trap set by The Enemy - it is aiding The Enemy*. 

My understanding is that in Heaven there is great diversity (more than on earth) because every soul is unique (and always has-been) and this is positively valued. I think Heaven works as an ideal family - or rather, many ideal families; lovingly related into something like clans, tribes and a nation; each bound to each by eternal commitment to mutual love - but with that love stronger because more individual and personalized in the smaller dyads and groupings. 

In such a situation, the more differences between individuals, and the more these are developed (in the spirit of love, and so long as the differences derive from real nature) - the better; because the greater will be the potential scope of the whole. 

Every single new soul who enters Heaven then adds to the scope and possibilities. 

The "many mansions" of Heaven mentioned in the Bible, may be taken to refer to the probable situation of Heaven being a perfection of what we can glimpse on earth: large differences in consciousness, and environment; analogous to the differences through history, of races and nations, and between families. 

*Note: An example is the apparently very strong desire to arrange people by categories of personality and type - then for these categories to bleed across into the spiritual realm. I was (professionally) an intelligence and personality psychologist; and so I am aware of the pragmatic value of categories. It is, indeed trivially easy to invent categories that have statistical predictive value. For instance, young children can be divided into two categories by their response to a wide range of one-off and brief psychological tests - and these categories will (even decades later) have measurably different behavioural outcomes. Yet, I am also aware of the pitfalls and limitations of these tests at the level of individuals. And the exceptions may be important - as seen by the biologically-maladaptive (and/or socially negative) personalities of most geniuses. Yet such categorization is/was mainly a feature of an historical era of human consciousness: the medieval mind - with its "humours" linked to elements, its astrology, its castes and guilds - all of which had some level of validity, yet which have become less and less relevant as human consciousness has developed towards individual agency and self-awareness. More importantly, I am sure that what God wants from us - starting from here, and from now - is very different. We need to grasp firmly and with clarity that in an ultimate way (aside from the pragmatic social management (mostly related to efficiency, surveillance and control; which knowledge is now primarily used for evil ends, anyway) we are dealing with very diverse individual Beings; and these ought to be known essentially in terms of Christian values. It is not our Christian duty to assist with the effective administration of a society dedicated (top-dwn and pervasively throughout) towards evil ends. 

"Rave On" by Buddy Holly... I mean Steeleye Span

For those of you who like Steeleye Span but not folk music (!) - here is an encore piece from their early years - with Martin Carthy singing lead in an a cappella version of Buddy Holly's Rave On.  

Note: This is my son's favourite Steeleye track - which is rather a back-handed compliment I would think! 

Further note: Blogger will not let me embed YouTube videos at present, presumably due to some kind of update/ improvement. These things generally get sorted out - eventually...

Steeleye Span's greatest version of Thomas the Rhymer

The view up the Eildon Hills from near where Thomas probably met the Queen of Elfland

Steeleye Span's first and best 6:44 minute version of their interpretation of my favourite Border Ballad.

It comes from what is probably my favourite album of theirs - Now We Are Six from 1974 - favourite, not because of its being consistently good, but because of its unmatched ability - in several places - to capture a quality of uncanny and deeply-appealing magic that I seek from the very best of folk music.  

In Thomas the Rhymer, the rock section is balanced by a superb, quiet, close-miked section with acoustic guitar and flute and violin obliggato - repeated with quietly pulsing electric guitar and bass. 

This richly rewards intensive listening on stereo headphones - notable the section on the choice of three road (to Heaven, Hell, or Elfland). As a kid we didn't have headphones, so my friend Gareth and I would take turns to lie on the floor, with head sandwiched between the stereo speakers...  

Epic electric folk at its supreme best...

***

True Thomas sat on Huntly bank 

And he beheld a lady gay 

A lady that was brisk and bold 

Come riding o’er the ferny brae 

Her skirt was of the grass green silk, 

Her mantle of the velvet fine 

At every lock of her horse’s mane 

Hung fifty silver bells and nine 

True Thomas, he pulled off his cap 

And bowed him low down to his knee 

“All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven 

Your like on earth I ne’er did see.” 

(Transition to quiet section)

“No, no, Thomas,” she said, 

“That name does not belong to me 

I am the queen of fair Elfland 

And I have come to visit thee.” 

“You must go with me, Thomas,” she said, 

“True Thomas, you must go with me 

And must serve me seven years 

Through well or woe, as chance may be.” 

Chorus X 4: (Again rock style)

Hark and carp, 

come along with me, 

Thomas the Rhymer 

She turned about her milk white steed 

And took Thomas up behind 

And aye whenever her bridle rang 

Her steed flew swifter than the wind 

For forty days and forty nights 

They rode through red blood to the knee 

And they saw neither sun nor moon 

But heard the roaring of the sea 

And they rode on and further on 

Further and swifter than the wind 

Until they came to a desert wide 

And living land was left behind 

(Quiet section again - muted electric guitar and bass - the best bit of all!)

“Don’t you see yon narrow, narrow road 

So thick beset with thorns and briars? 

That is the road to righteousness 

Though after it but few enquire.” 

 

“Don’t you see yon broad, broad road

That lies across the lily leaven? 

That is the road to wickedness 

Though some call it the road to heaven.” 

 

“Don’t you see yon bonny, bonny road 

That lies across the ferny brae? 

That is the road to fair Elfland 

Where you and I this night must go.”

Chorus (repeat to fade): 

Hark and carp, 

come along with me, 

Thomas the Rhymer 

The cusp of a New Era? (but Not The Age of Aquarius)

It is very interesting to me that many people could foresee, before it had actually become evident, that the millennium would be the end of one age of the world, and the beginning of another. 

But it is not surprising that everybody who tried to describe what the new era would look like, got it very wrong. Indeed, it was usual to regard the post-millennium world with a diffuse (because dewy-eyed) optimism, as the dawning of an Age of Aquarius - peace and free-love, free drugs, constant rock music, and a great deal of singing and dancing. 

Well... Not exactly. Indeed, sixties style "freedom" is nowadays regarded as evil in the mainstream, and as for dancing... People dance less often (and less joyfully) now than at any time in history (including during the decade of Puritan Commonwealth!) - and far, far less than during the pre-millennial decades.   

Dancing aside; it is evident that we are now deeply, and it seems irrevocably, into the end of the present era of world civilization - and the end, too, of an age of the world. 

I say "irrevocably" because it is primarily an act of self-destruction - a willed destruction. 

Although most of those who will their own civilizational and (almost certainly) personal destruction would strenuously deny it; and will shrilly justify every single destructive policy and action of the vast and interlocking strategy of self-annihilation, by (what seems to them) reasons of values and necessity -- that this is mere shallow feel-good nonsense is almost instantly revealed when any honest attempt at understanding is embarked-upon.  

The leadership class live in a bureaucratic world of untruth, dual-dedicated to careerism while feeling good about themselves. Which combination is why they must be so pervasively dishonest... One can only feel good about deliberately planning and escalating gratuitous wars, by lying to oneself and everybody else - All The Time.

Meanwhile, the masses have chosen deliberately not to understand what is happening; which means not-even-trying to understand - and squashing one's own personal capacity to think and learn from experience; by self-drugging with mass media, addictive socializing, and assorted intoxications - these being perceived as the only alternative to becoming crushed by fear and despair.

The combination of an utterly corrupt leadership class with an utterly self-neutered mind-numbed population has led to the truly astonishing spectacle of a world that is today literally on the threshold of escalating mega-death from international war; with economic and trade collapse and famine - with far less public reaction or response than to a sporting event or celebrity scandal. 

There is, indeed, in England (who is currently closer to experiencing war than any other Western nation) no perceptible social awareness. 

We may hope for someone, somewhere in The West to have the basic common sense and capacity for consecutive thinking to step back and reverse the ongoing trends. But there are a complete absence of any such persons in public life - or indeed anywhere At All.  

Trends that have been advocated and celebrated for decades, driven by unified leadership and all major social institutions, would be very difficult to stop if there was a powerful and cohesive will to stop them - but there is not. 

By my judgment; nobody has any coherent or plausible idea of what is coming after this era; probably because the roots of the coming collapse are so deep and extensive, that it is almost unimaginable what might grow once these root have destroyed themselves. (Which destruction is currently ongoing, and soon will be all-too-obvious.)  

This is why we hear so many cyclical theories of civilizations - people simply can't imagine anything except a return to some previous situation. 

Of course, what this inability to imagine a plausible and coherent future may amount to, is that this could be the end of civilization. 

After all, in this entropic and increasingly-evil world, everything will have an end sooner or later, at some point - maybe this is what it is like to inhabit an end without prospect of a new beginning? 

And this is all covered by the words and actions of Jesus, whose kingdom is Not of this-world, and whose work specifically enables all those who follow him to transcend the end of this world - when (not if) it comes.  

So far as I can tell, this is the only antidote to becoming paralysed by fear and despair. 

We each (I think) need to be able to envisage the end of everything (and I mean every thing) in this mortal world; and yet realize that even this need not be the end for us (unless we choose to make it so) - but a transformation and beginning of something far, far better - and eternal. 

It is on this basis (from this basis) that we should live and "fight": not to save civilization, not even to save "the world" - because these cannot be saved (and our civilization as-it-is either wants nor deserves to be saved). 

But we should live and fight in this world in ways that contribute to everlasting life beyond this mortal life, Heavenly society we may enter after this corrupt civilization, and the for eternal divine creation rather than this world: which derives-from and sustains good, but mixes-in so much of evil and entropy. 

Morning café "meditation" uncut

Partly from idleness, and partly because it might interest regular readers*, I am putting down the notes I made during this early-morning's café meditation of some three quarters of an hour, which followed a half hour amble to reach the café. 

The "procedure" involves slowly drinking the largest available extra-hot cappuccino (no chocolate topping) while reading something, thinking, and making notes. This morning's book was On Quality by Robert M Pirsig - a posthumous collection of essays and aphorisms. 

It is from such musings and notes that I often generate blog posts - although usually these are done at home (by a similar procedure, early in the morning) rather than in a café. 

Editing is restricted to a omissions of personal data (...), additional spacing between thematic paragraphs, clarification [indicated thus], and some expansion of ungrammatical notes into sentences. 

Notes from Friday 13th September 2024

  ...What is ultimate right and wrong? It is objective - but still, always, "a matter of opinion". Because anyone might feel that love was evil, virtue was evil - that selfish hedonistic now was the highest value - even in a world that is objectively the creation of a God motivated primarily by love. [Such a person] might claim that he intends to build another creation, based on other principles that are not love. Or he might not value creation but hate it, and enjoy destroying it - and to be indifferent to the future, or else may not care if the outcome was to destroy his own world. 

The point is that the first creation was/is threatened by evil - even as by the continual erosion of entropy. A second creation was needed, in order that those who did value love above all, can love free from entropy and evil. 

Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality (explicit in Lila, implicit in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) is true enough - but just floats unsupported as an assertion - it can't explain 1. how we could know it truly 2. why we ought to value it. 

Why should we value values? - and one value over others? 

"Religious mystic" - falsely associated with Eastern, deistic, oneness. Whereas Christian mystics should know that deity is God who is ultimately A Man. 

- The problem with Pirsig is that Quality points at creation - a creator - and we could only know this is God loves us. 

The problem of [Christianity's greatest monotheistic rival] is - How do you know? If God is as they say, then nobody would know anything about God. 

For Christians it is - Why should I believe you, and do what you say? God is my "Father" as much as yours, and loves me.  

If all is one, then everything is one, there are no values, no truth, no anything. Death is life, pain = pleasure, action = inaction. 

But people use bits of religion 1. as palliative 2. to justify control - both by dishonesty and sleight of hand. 

Purpose is a problem for many religions. Why do this not that, anything rather than nothing?

To attain salvation? Yes, but why does it need to be attained? Choices? Yes, but why are there choices? And all this is passive.

Love, Yes, but then what? A further factor is needed - consciousness, creation, development - And our unique individual primordial self.  

That has a purpose, a teleology - inbuilt, as well as chosen. 

Unless "values", purpose etc are inbuilt innate, then life is passive.  

If life is passive, it is futile - it is not really-real. 

If self is unique, it includes purpose, as well as consciousness. 

The Material, boundedness, are "appearances" for what is real and physically unbounded. 

Yet the spirit seems to be affected by proximity. 

 If The Physical is concentrated spirit, this is explicable. 

When we incarnate, our spirit becomes concentrated. This increases consciousness. 

Maybe that's a rule?

Consciousness is enhanced by concentration of A Being. 

 

But perhaps also with concentrated/material Beings? 

Which is why/ how we are alienated. Why we are split, why self-consciousness reduces automatic awareness of other Beings as conscious etc. 

A physical Being's consciousness may seem absent - e.g. between liver and lungs, white and red blood cells, or molecules and atoms. This is because consciousness is more concentrated in modern Men. 

Until [eventually] consciousness is aware only of itself! Consciousness Soul [Steiner's term] - Good name for it. 

Metaphysics of Quality is true, and good - but unmoored and unjustified - dismissable as one man's intellectual construct. Needs God, creation, a loving God to provide purpose and value for MoQ etc. 

Pirsig was inexorably prejudiced against Christianity, against God - could not distinguish church from reality. 

Atoms are peripheral to physical/material Being, away from the concentrated consciousness. 

Dynamic Quality^ = Direct Knowing, or heart-thinking/ intuition.

^[A term of Pirsig's] 

+++

*And, no doubt, the experiment derived partly from a make-believe conceitedness on my part that - like Pascal, Thoreau, or Wittgenstein - a few people might actually be interested by my unstructured stream of consciousness. Cringe - but some truth to it... However, having done this experiment, and found that the business of transcription has taken much more time and effort than I hoped and expected, and that "the good stuff" (as it seems to me) is buried among the relative dross - today's practice may not be repeated.  

A Harry Potter Retrospective

Although the unprecedented "Pottermania" that gripped the Western world until approximately a decade ago has now receded; the opinion I formed of the Harry Potter series some 15 years ago as being a work of genius has by now survived multiple (six?) complete re-readings - plus further dippings-in. 

I find my appetite for the Harry Potter books undiminished, and get more from every time I encounter them. 

I was late to the series, having sampled and discarded a few of the "Philosopher''s Stone" and a couple of earlier books. 

I kept falling at the fence of The Dursleys - especially in the first book, where this part of the plot takes up many slow and tedious chapters before Harry eventually enters the Wizarding World. 

It therefore does not surprise me that this book was rejected so often before finding a publisher - if the editors were anything like me, they will not have got through the early section to reach the good stuff later.  

Those parts of the books featuring the Dursley family continue to strike me as mostly unsuccessful, and written at a much lower level than the rest. 

The Dursley characters are cartoonishly unbelievable, when they are not figures of oppressively heavy-handed juvenile satire. 

Furthermore, the way that Harry (who is believable, and with whom we empathize) is physically and psychologically tormented by the Dursleys in the first and other early books; is so appalling that it is either viscerally horrific and overwhelms the other elements of the story, or else we are compelled to adopt a superficial and appropriately cartoonish level of engagement in our reading (which is what most people seem to be doing). 

Thus it was not until 2009 that I actually read the Potter books; although I had watched the movies as they came out, with no great depth of appreciation - except for "The Prisoner of Askeban"; which is (in retrospect) unsurprising, since the movies had been almost completely filleted of profundity. 

Then in 2009 I read the second-to-last book "The Half-Blood Prince" before launching into the crowning glory and triumphant vindication that is "Deathly Hallows". 

After which I went back and read all the earlier five books, albeit probably not in order of publication.

And "I was hooked".  

Harry Potter has since, over a span of fifteen years proved to be robustly enjoyable across a wide range; from its large cast of memorable (indeed archetypal) characterizations; its abundant and delightful humour (surely this is an under-rated facet - these books are very funny in parts); the richness of invention, excitement, and adventure; the very impressive plotting (mastery of the full range of techniques of an expert murder mystery writer was evident); and most importantly these books spiritual depth and edification across the series. 

The accomplishment of such a long coming-of-age time-frame, for several major child characters as well as Harry, makes these books unique in my experience.   

While I have no idea how the Harry Potter book-series will fare in future; in terms of mass marketing and cultural significance; for me they have easily passed the test of repaying repeated engagements over a long time span.

The marvellous originality and profundity of the Mormon theology of eternal marriage

I have given-up on trying to persuade others of the wonders of Mormon theology! Instead, I will here merely vent some of my enthusiasm. 

Even Mormons regard their theology as very-much subordinate to specifics of this world practice in the CJCLDS. 

And hardly anybody else outside the CJCLDS (although, a few!) is sufficiently interested even to engage with the subject - often because of ineradicable ignorant hostile prejudice. 

But for me, I don't know that I have come across any richer source of metaphysical originality and genius across the span of Christendom, as in Mormon theology*. 

One of the greatest insights of Mormon theology was that God (The Creator) is the eternal and loving marriage of Father in Heaven and Mother in Heaven; in other words God is a dyad, not one. 

Properly understood and explored; this can be an astonishingly rich insight into the fundamental nature of reality - transcending centuries, indeed millennia, of false antitheses between monotheism and polytheism. 

The Mormon concept of God can be the basis of a positive metaphysical concept in its own right (not some combination or compromise of pre-existing concepts); as such, it needs to be understood in its own right. 

The Mormon church (the CJCLDS) has confused and distorted matters - in this as in several other ways - by claiming that such eternal "sealed" marriage is possible among mortal men and women, here on earth; and restricted to the administration and approval of the CJCLDS. 

This is understandable, perhaps it is and was inevitable - yet we must distinguish the reality and truth of things, as separable from the compromises and practicalities of organizing and maintaining A Church, in this world. 

But this is not merely something that demonstrably fails in practice (since many sealed marriages have ended in divorce); but is clearly impossible in theory, due to the basic nature of human beings and our life in this entropic and evil world. 

The basic nature of this mortal life cannot be transcended by mortal Men - and the fact of Men organizing into churches. 

Making claims of the church's transcendent power, or that church rules for living are mapped onto post-mortal and heavenly realities, are simply false - because they contradict the nature of this-world; and contradict too the whole rationale of Christianity as entailing death and resurrection. 

We cannot make Heaven on earth - else there would be no need for Heaven.

(And Jesus Christ insisted that there was need for Heaven, and by his work showed why and how.) 

We cannot replicate the eternal realities of Heaven with our mortal minds and bodies - and claiming that we can, acts against the core realities of what Jesus did and why. 

Churches - and their rules and rituals - do not control our access to Heaven; and indeed, the behaviours of church members (since 2020, especially) demonstrates that nobody really believes that they do. 

(They are merely too concerned at the implications of acknowledging they don't believe - which double-negative is not the same as - and much weaker than - positive belief. )

So, to understand the profound truth of the Mormon theology of God, requires that Mormons (as well as other Christians) set-aside the confusions related to how such spiritual realities are crystallized into material and mortal terms here in our lives on earth. 

Yet, our aspirations can and should be heavenly and spiritual - even as we acknowledge that their practice is mortal and corruptible (not just corruptible, but actually inevitably corrupt-ed - to some degree, sooner or later - by entropy and death - even when not by evil). 

(Thus the desire and aspiration towards eternal marriage in the Mormon sense is a new (as of 1830) beautiful and life-enhancing one - and a vital corrective to the destructive (indeed nihilistic) "mainstream" Christian doctrine that marriage is necessarily a temporary expedient that is dissolved by death, combined with the assertion that "there is no marrying in Heaven".) 

This aspiration is true and good; although eternal marriage cannot be actually attained until after we are resurrected and have become wholly and eternally committed to live by love. 

It requires resurrection to be able to make eternal commitments; for the reason that resurrection is itself the foundational eternal commitment - i.e. to live wholly by live (and leave-behind sin). 

Earthly marriage, and the innate desires and motivations we have in relation to it - even when we may be unable to find it during this mortal existence, provide the basis for understanding the reality of Heavenly marriage; and of the original, originative, creative nature of God (originating, that is, in love - with creation, including but not restricted to procreation, understood as a manifestation of love.)

When Joseph Smith had his vision of the dyadic nature of God, he was both a prophet and a philosopher of genius; but when he tried to make this vision a concrete reality among the members of the new Mormon church, he was merely a gifted and able leader, a kind of "king and judge" perhaps. 

Furthermore, the nature of God as from a Heavenly marriage need not be, and I think is not, a template for every man and woman - past, present and future. 

Christianity is for individual persons, and entails that each individual person affiliates to divine creation; I don't see that this entails that everybody ultimately wants the same thing - indeed that would seem vanishingly unlikely. Since each is unique - surely there will "always" be genuine exceptions? 

(As well as those making excuses to justify special treatment!) 

And what we be the point of a creation consisting of everybody doing the same thing! Multiplicity would then have no function or reason!

Another of Joseph Smith's great prophetic insights was that Heaven was A Family, in a literal as well as metaphorical sense. And a loving family - even here on earth - can and often does incorporate many kinds of life-motivations and self-chosen roles, among its loving members. 

Resurrected and eternal individual men and women will develop what is distinctive in their original and innate nature - and this may or may not lead them into eternal marriage of a kind analogous to that of God, our Heavenly Parents and the Primary Creators, and thence to procreating spiritual children - in the way that Joseph Smith seemed to regard as the proper goal of all people. 

I include this, not because I am necessarily correct in contradicting this particular aspect of Joseph Smith's revelations - but as example fo how we ought to engage with them, as realities.

Realities we may know-about now, and experience temporarily and partially in mortal life; but realities that are only do-able in resurrected post-mortal life    

 

*For all its essential insights (at least, they have been essential for me) there are significant deficiencies in Mormon theology. Two of the most important are an incoherent and double-negative understanding of Jesus's real vital importance and the true nature of his work, which error was (apparently) inherited from mainstream Protestant theology. Another mistake - I believe - is also inherited; which is to regard the Holy Ghost as a separate personage from Jesus Christ - which (as with mainstream Christianity) makes the HG into a nebulous abstract entity with no clear provenance or role. 

Two kinds of Christian belief in the nature of God's provision of the requisites for salvation

Because God is the Creator and loves us each as His children; therefore, either:

1. Even if all trace of Christianity had been utterly forgotten, or was eradicated from the world; if the Bible was destroyed or corrupted; all Christian Churches annihilated; all Christian teaching and theology inverted to evil; or if somebody had never heard anything about Jesus Christ...

Then God would ensure there was a personal and effective path to salvation for every human being on earth.  

Or:

2. God would ensure that Christianity would never be forgotten; and would not be eradiated from the world. 

For instance: 

A: God would ensure that The Bible was written, collected and edited truthfully, preserved through all history, and made available to all those who could benefit from it - for as long as there are souls to be saved. 

And/or

B: God would ensure that the true Christian Church would survive spiritually intact and salvifically effectual no matter what - for as long as there are souls to be saved. 

What I am articulating is that all Christians would probably agree that God would ensure that - no matter what, and so long a Man continues on this earth - because He is The Creator and Loves us each as his child - God will be able to provide whatever is needful for every Man's resurrection and eternal life in Heaven. 

But there is a qualitative difference between, on the one hand, those who believe that this would and must be done by the preservation of the generically-available means to salvation (e.g. Bible, True Church)...

And, on the other hand, those who believe that God does not need any worldly means of salvation, and could and would provide the knowledge and guidance required for salvation directly* to each and every human being.

A distinction between the essential provision of the requisites for salvation being either by generic, group means; or direct and individual knowing. 

*Note: "Directly" meaning by some combination of the innate and naturally-known, acting within each individual; with external spiritual guidance apprehended by the soul.

Further Note: The two kinds of Christian belief can also be understood as between those believing that God works for the salvation of Men considered as groups (tribes, nations, church members, of civilizations) and with God primarily working at the group-level; and those who believe God works for the salvation of Men as individuals, one at a time: ultimately with each person an unique salvific "project". 

Instant nostalgia, and Camberwick Green

As a young kid the only children's television was very old re-runs on lunchtime BBC - entitled "Watch with Mother" - which was immediately followed by "Listen with Mother" on BBC Radio: The Home Service. 

(Our small, monochrome, blurry TV also had a radio receiver built-in - as modern digital TVs also do.)

TV comprised Andy Pandy, The Woodentops, Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men, and a handful of others. These had only a few episodes each and continually re-cycled - which repetition is, of course, perfectly congenial to the young child.  

Then when I was about seven years old, some new Children's TV programmes were made, including Camberwick Green. These were apparently filmed in colour, although initially broadcast in Black & White - which was all that most people possessed in the UK in the middle 1960s.

(Initially, from the later sixties, there was only one of the three TV channels in colour  - namely BBC2, with limited distribution and few people possessing the needful equipment; and it only broadcast briefly during the evenings.)

I could see these new kids lunchtime programmes only in the school holidays, and already felt a bit "alienated" from them (i.e. an observer, not an immersed participant) as I sensed they were pitched at kids younger than myself - not that that stopped me enjoying them, then or now. 

Maybe it was partly that sense of having grown-up, and the new-fangled business of making fresh TV; but I watched the first broadcast of Camberwick Green with some, brief, suspicion; before being won-over. 

And I recall that the title sequence and theme tunes seemed instantly sad and sweet, and loaded with nostalgia - even from the very first time I experienced them. 

It was instant nostalgia; and perhaps only at seven years old did it become possible for me, as a child, to feel such a thing. 

Later on, this emotion (or, more than an emotion) became a familiar accompaniment to many of the happiest and deepest fulfilments of life: a sense of inevitable loss, and the preciousness of the present moment. 

The title sequence of Camberwick Green - especially the theme music composed and performed by Freddie Philips - is exceptionally good. 

First a silent, earnest, clown winding the titles; and accompanied by a little arpeggiated glockenspeil tune-let (with one sour note, just like the instruments at school)... 

Then this-week's main character rising from an old wooden music box (music boxes are a sure-fire way to evoke nostalgia in me); with its gorgeous aspiring melody, apparently played on two mandolins.

No wonder I still remember it.

How did Jesus accomplish the Second Creation (Resurrection and Heaven)?

Jesus Christ's work came naturally to him - he was not acting upon instructions. 

When he awoke to his divine creativity, Jesus knew what needed to be done - because he was a Man (as well as perfectly aligned-with God's creation); and he spontaneously realized that what Men needed to live wholly by, for and from Love; was eternal Heavenly life - that is, to be saved from evil, entropy and death. 

Jesus knew this for himself, and from himself. But partial notions of the idea were also (apparently, according to some historians) implicit in some of the ideas of his time and place; found in places such as the Hebrew, Greek and Roman religions. These may have been confirmation or a clarification, but were not the origin. 

All humans who grow up into the dawn of consciousness know implicitly what is needed for the purity and completion of our mortal lives; and so did Jesus - but Jesus knew it explicitly. 

And because Jesus was wholly-aligned with divine creation (this happened at the time of his Baptism by John), and motivated solely by love of God and fellow Men; what Jesus knew and willed, was thereby created. 

That is how divine creation works - without intermediary. 

(Indeed all true creation works that way. Once created it is directly - intuitively - available to all of good will, aside from communication.)

For Jesus; to know what is good, is to desire and make it possible.

Jesus began to teach that eternal resurrected life was now possible for Men who chose it, but to attain the perfection of Love eternally, they must die and be "born again". 

(And they must want to live by love, above all else.) 

However, it was not necessary that Men be told of resurrection in order for them to choose it. 

The soul after death had always moved to various states of Being after leaving behind the dead body (destinations such as reincarnations, or underworlds, or demonic affiliations), as hinted by the various recorded ancient religions. 

The Second Creation by Jesus now became available to the soul after death, including those who had previously died; as a new possibility - as a possible choice. 

(A choice never previously available until the work of Jesus; impossible to God the primary creator, and only possible to a mortal Man who attained complete alignment with God's Primary Creation.)

    

Resurrection to eternal Heavenly life thereby "immediately" became possible after its creative conception (without need for Jesus himself to die and be resurrected); as was shown by the resurrection of his "beloved disciple" Lazarus. 

Jesus then demonstrated how things could be, by his own resurrection and his temporary return to work among his disciples, and many other people. 

But the Second Creation was made for all the Beings of the First Creation who desired and chose it, post-mortally - not just those Beings who had heard about it, and not just human beings.  

We all were born with an innate "archetype" of the real nature of God the Creator

Because God is the Creator, and our loving parents, God has ensured that we innately have everything we need in terms of understanding God and our proper relationship with God. 

(If this was not innate, then it could not be depended-upon; and obviously God wants to Make Sure that every one of their children will come into this world equipped with everything required for attaining salvation and theosis.) 

Therefore; we have innately the true "archetype" of God; and that archetype is "good parents". 

We already-know (and not from experience, but from-within, because it is built-in) what is the ideal of Good Parents - and that this is the nature of God.

This naturally and spontaneously leads to a relationship with God that is based upon Love and Trust. 

But many children develop and mature and will choose their beliefs about God (or that God is not real) and the relationship with God. And many children grow in social situations that actively encourage (and incentivize) children and adolescents to change, and often invert, their innate knowledge. 

Thus our innate understanding of the Creator God as Good Parents is usurped by one, or several, other archetype/s: Such as God the King, God the Judge, God the Totalitarian Tyrant, and/or God the Deity of philosophical abstractions. 

These other kinds of not-parental God do not lead to a relationship of Love and Trust; but to very different attitudes. If God is King then we feel like subjects. If God is Judge we feel like defendants. If God is a Totalitarian Tyrant our attitude is one of superstitious and fear-based propitiation. 

And if God is an abstract deity known philosophically; then God Just Is, Creation Just Is, and our life Just Is, and the attitude is one of fatalism. 

When we move away from our innate and archetypal understanding, we lose the ability to experience a relationship with God. 

The non-parental Gods are not personally, individually, knowable nor understandable; therefore they all open a path for human exploitation; for instance by individuals or groups claiming special expertise to know what God demands from each us. 

Furthermore, in moving away from what is spontaneous and intuitive, the alternatives feel arbitrary and incoherent; therefore belief often becomes a mixture of mutual contradictions - as when people strive to combined God and Judge or King with God as Heavenly Father; or when they strive to comprehend how God the Totalitarian Tyrant can also "love" us. 

Such contradictions lead to abstract solutions that conceal their own incoherence behind incomprehension. 

So that the proper way to "love" an incomprehensible God; necessarily becomes a special, abstract and incomprehensible kind of "love" - that is then stated to be superior to the interpersonal love of parents that we all innately do understand.   

We are born into this world with an understanding of the nature of God the Creator, and our properly loving and trusting relationship with Heavenly Parents. 

We find ourselves very far away from this reality - far away in several possible directions, and perhaps confusingly alternating between them. 

Our task is - by conscious choice - to return to that original knowledge. 

  

The AI ("Artificial Intelligence") agenda: Evil works mainly by doing things to people's *minds* - not their bodies

An AI-generated image of "nice AI versus evil AI" - 

naturally, necessarily, both AI images are clearly (and seductively) evil

I am not saying, because it is not true - that our bodies and the physical material world are irrelevant to the workings of evil. 

On the contrary; the material is always spiritual (but not vice-versa). However the workings of evil are primarily on the mind, not the body - because evil is primarily engaged in a spiritual war on God and creation. 

It is one of the many deceptions of evil to induce people to take the common attitude of focusing on the physical and material aims and consequences of evil - rationalizing this by emphasizing that it is the most urgent thing that is needed to fix...

The excuse being that after people are "safe" from such-and-such a threat (war, mass immigration, economic destruction, poisoning of food and environment etc), then will be the proper time to transfer our attention and efforts towards the spirit. 

Yet this is wrong and fatally mistaken. Not just because the time of safety will, in practice, never come - and we will instead struggle from one engineered existential material threat to the next, and the next...

But also because the material threats cannot, and will not, be dealt with until after the endemic spiritual disease of Western Civilization has been identified, acknowledged, and self-treated.

Spirit must come first, or else the desired material changes will not come at-all. 

As many people have often noted; it is not usually (in principle) difficult to deal with the physical threats of evil - it is known how to do this; and the problem is that we do not actually do what would work. 

However; how this situation arose and prevails (i.e the situation that we do not, in practice, solve soluble-problems) is regarded as a superficial and trivial matter (to be dealt with after the potentially-lethal problems have, somehow, been dealt-with)  - when in reality it is the pointer towards the very essence of our civilizational malaise. 

Consequently we see such insane absurdities as the vast, colossal, genuinely titanic levels of analysis, discussion, prediction, guidance... with respect to campaigning and voting in the US Presidential election, including among people who purport (and suppose themselves) to be first-and-foremost spiritually motivated!

Likewise, when it comes to commentary on the Establishment drive towards implementing AI (artificial Intelligence) in ever more domains of everyday life and socio-economic functioning; the focus is entirely on evaluating the validity of claims, and the material consequences in terms of unemployment and effective administration. 

Yet, behind the Establishment puppets and dupes who do all this implementing, and who devise the oceanic AI-related propaganda in novels, movies, plays, computer games etc; are demonic spirits for whom this agenda is primarily spiritual - not physical, not material, not civilizational. 

We need to focus on the strategy behind (or below) all the huge, persisting, multi-pronged tsunami of AI... The soft-sell of awareness-raising, arts and media depictions, the profit-luring, and the hard managerial compulsion - beneath this lies a whole underworld of demonic scheming that intends to corrupt human Minds - not just control or destroy human bodies. 

Unless this evil purpose of mental shaping with respect to AI is acknowledged and identified - then human beings are just mind-putty for the agenda of evil. 

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

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

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

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

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

What then, is really-real? 

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

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

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

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

Beings are the primary reality, hence indestructible. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet many/ most people ignore all this. 

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

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

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

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

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

**

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

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

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

  

Francis Berger on True Freedom, and its centrality to Christianity

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no more important subject. 

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

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

This saddens but does not surprise me. 

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

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

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

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

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

(And regard Jesus Christ as ultimately-inessential.)  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Self-worshippers 

2. Satan-worshippers

3. God-haters  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

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

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

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

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

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

**

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that rejection is the essence of evil. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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