Is there are permanent and complete cure for this mortal life on earth?
Or are there just temporary and partial alleviations of the problems of living? Are there merely palliations that leave the essential problems untouched - of which the primary problems can be summarized as evil and "entropy" (aka death).
Most of modern discourse on values and policies proceeds under the lie (whether explicit, or more often by implication) that partial and temporary would-be improvements will solve The Problem under discussion.
This is, indeed, the basis of the entirety of this-worldly, materialistic "leftism" as it emerged in the late 1700s, displaced and co-opted religion, and now exerts totalitarian control over much of the world.
The lie is that leftist reforms make a fundamental difference, that their "answers" will fundamentally transform the nature of human life - but they never do, and cannot.
Generations of waxing and enforced pacifism, socialism, feminism, antiracism, environmentalism etc. have led to a world in which all of the problems these ideologies are supposed to address, are instead perceived - by those who are most leftist - to be in a state of crisis, or indeed emergency.
e.g. Feminist rhetoric and discourse perceives the condition of women here-and-now, to be as essentially unjust and oppressed as they did in 1800, or 1900, or 2000. Nine generations of incremental feminist reform, the transformation of society, the inversion of legislation; and yet, for feminists, the fundamental problem is untouched. Two centuries of what Feminists regard as quantitative palliation and alleviation - yet the qualitative problem remains as-ever.
Biologically speaking; many diseases have become curable; infant and child mortality has been reduced from about 60% to about 1%; and the average lifespan in The West has been extended about thirty years - yet the existential problems of disease, ageing and death are the same as ever. There are many new and effective means of medical palliation - yet "the problem of pain", of human suffering, is still present as always.
In economics; prosperity/ comfort/ convenience has rocketed in The West since the Industrial Revolution, and "Biblical poverty" has been abolished; yet the profound civilizational problem of the rich versus poor remains - and is rapidly increasing.
The nature of this mortal life is such that nothing material can be done from within to cure its core problems; and anything short of cure leaves the problems qualitatively untouched. No amount of justice eradicates our perception of injustice, no amount of egalitarianism dents our perception of inequality here-and-now, no amount of delaying mortality leads to a solution to disease, ageing, and death.
It is a case of cure or nothing.
Alleviation or palliation don't make a fundamental difference. Either evil and entropy are eradicated permanently, or things will be essentially the same.
That is the problem of which Heaven is the solution.
Resurrection to eternal life in Heaven is an everlasting answer to entropy and evil.
Do You want it? Is it truly possible?
These are (ahem) important questions - or, so it seems to me.
So do not You be distracted by claims of what can only be partial and temporary palliations of this mortal life; that leave fundamental matters essentially unchanged...
Seek first The Answer.
3 comments:
Thanks for the Biblical poverty link. I have been bothered for a long time about “tithing” and “charity” efforts and refuse to participate. I try to provide work for people who want it, but those people seem quite rare! In any event, it’s long been on my heart to “do more” or at least “do something else”. I like your idea for “something else!”
"Most of modern discourse on values and policies proceeds under the lie (whether explicit, or more often by implication) that partial and temporary would-be improvements will solve The Problem under discussion."
That's true.
One thing that makes these ideologies so tricky is that the future never comes. When would-be reformers fail to deliver on a permanent cure or even a proposed improvement, they can always just defer it to some later date. For instance, we're in the future compared to the 1990's and early 2000's and the hype about what the Internet would lead to not only never materialized, but the opposite happened.
That should make people wonder what went wrong and maybe cast doubt on the broader idea of a technological solution to all our problems. But people don't want to talk about the future of the past, they want to talk about the future of the future. But that's just changing the subject because we'll never get there.
@Mia - Thanks - that post seemed to me to make quite an important point.
BTYW - I still fail completely to practice what I preach wrt visiting the lonely.
@NLR - I think it is to do with the fundamental dishonesty and lack of seriousness of these ideologies - that they never check their predictions against reality; never learn from their decisions; never see whether their policies are doing good or harm.
This suggests that Almost the whole thing is to do with PR and self-esteem; almost nothing to do with the realities these ideologies purport to address.
This works at the macro and micro levels both. Socialism (macro economics) was supposed to alleviate poverty (Biblical type poverty) whereas not-socialism ("capitalism") was supposed to increase poverty to starvation level. It was perfectly easy to check that these predictions both failed.
Nowadays, perhaps environmentalism is the best example, and provides some micro examples in which energy-sustainable-environmentally friendly interventions such as electric cars and wind turbines, very obviously increase energy usage and environmental destruction.
I suppose a deep reason for all this, is that increasingly over the decades, these secular ideologies have been co-opted into the strategies of demonic evil - and that in giving primary allegiance to any one of these ideologies, one is actually joining the side of evil, with corrupting effects of many kinds on human discernment and the ability to learn and repent.
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